A new Venom movie still isn’t sure what to do with Spider-Man’s creepy foe

A stand-alone movie starring extreme Spider-Man opponent Venom looks, from a distance, like a beacon of ’90s nostalgia, addressing that era’s tendencies to go big and fan-baiting in its comics yet weirdly small and chintzy in its comics-based movies. (At least those that don’t feature Batman.) But as it turns out, Venom, the solo vehicle…

Is ‘Fantastic Beasts 2’ racist?

By Mili Mitra on Oct 1 Twenty years after the first Harry Potter book was released in the United States, the franchise still has the power to amaze — and offend. To this day, J.K. Rowling’s series is still banned in some schools and libraries for promoting “witchcraft.” But with the release last week of…