Lights, Camera, Action

  There are sequels we never wanted, sequels we didn't ask for, but aren't mad they exist, and then there are sequels that we never saw coming.  Aaron Sorkin's upcoming quasi-sequel to 2010's,  The Social Network ,   flutters somewhere between the final two, centering on Fraces Haugen, the Facebook engineer turned whistleblower responsible for the document leak that revealed the company was fully aware of the negative impacts that the platform was having on teenagers and how the contribution of Facebook activity and the site's flagrant circulation of misinformation were linked to violence, most specifically the events of the January 6th insurrection.  David Fincher did not return to the director's seat for this film, but that's okay; Sorkin has proven he's quite capable at calling shots from behind the camera, and his direction of his actors has been able to coax out some pretty remarkable performances.  And speaking of actors, this one also has quite th...

  •It may not be the kind of sequel that the world needed to get made, but seeing as how the material already exists (the script is based on "The Book of Magic," the fourth installment in Alice Hoffman’s series of books and a direct sequel to "Practical Magic"), and since the original cast members (Kidman, Bullock, Channing, and Wiest) have all returned, this is definitely not a sequel I’m upset about.  The original film from 1998 is a cult classic/guilty pleasure I revisit almost every Halloween season, and I’m excited to see what the Owens sisters are up to at this stage of the 21st century.  Susanne Bier has a solid track record behind the camera (I still think her best work was on the original first season of BBC’s, "The Night Manager," with Tom Hiddleston), and even though I’m not the biggest fan of Akiva Goldsman, his work on the first film is still one of his better scripts.  Joey King ("The Kissing Booth"), Maisie Williams ("Game of ...