Rob Arthur

Nov 26, 2024 | theringer.com | Ben Lindbergh |Rob Arthur

Getty/Ringer illustration As his scene-stealing—no, film-stealing—performance in Gladiator II has reminded millions of viewers, Denzel Washington has long been a franchise unto himself. For the first 40 years of his career, though, Denzel didn’t do franchise films. Not until his 2014 thriller, The Equalizer, received a sequel, 2018’s The Equalizer 2, could Denzel officially be said to have starred in a big-screen series.

Oct 23, 2024 | theringer.com | Justin Sayles |Rob Arthur

The great directors tend to have their great muses: Scorsese has the mob, Leone had the American West, De Palma has Hitchcock. For Sean Baker, his greatest artistic muse is the world’s oldest profession. Or, perhaps more accurately: sex work in all its many forms. This isn’t an entirely new observation, nor is it meant to be reductive. Baker’s work—which includes Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket—is dripping with empathy for its characters.

Oct 22, 2024 | theguardian.com | Rob Arthur

Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 to usher in a historic moment for civil rights, yet Black representation in Major League Baseball stands at the lowest level since the 1950s. MLB initiatives have increased the number of Black players taken with top draft picks since 2010 – but those draftees haven’t made their way up from the minors often enough to stop the decline in the number of Black players in the majors.

Jul 3, 2024 | theringer.com | Ben Lindbergh |Rob Arthur

Ringer illustration Is the box office busted, or back? It depends on which week you ask. As the movie theater industry reels from the double body blows of the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s writers and actors strikes, forecasts for the future of cinema fluctuate wildly with each weekend’s gross.

Feb 19, 2024 | theringer.com | Ben Lindbergh |Rob Arthur

Getty Images/Ringer illustration In the finale of True Detective: Night Country, Beatrice, a former cleaning woman at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station, makes a quasi-confession to detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro. “It’s always the same story with the same ending,” she says. “Nothin’ ever happens. So we told ourselves a different story, with a different ending.”Night Country told a different story, with a different ending, than the three True Detective seasons that preceded it.