The first reactions for ‘IT Chapter Two’ are in- and everyone’s obsessed with Bill Hader

Get your therapist on speed dial, because IT Chapter Two is nearly here to retraumatise you with everything from a scary clown to how harrowing growing up is — and the first reactions are in as critics and fans stream out of the first screenings.

The overall mood is: IT Chapter One, but more. If you found yourself picking holes in the first movie, you’ll probably be frustrated again; if you loved the personal stakes and the characters, there’s that in spades here, with performances from the adult Losers to rival any “serious” drama; and the ending might make you cry.

And if it made you lose sleep, you can look forward to more of that too. (mashable)

How did that jaw-dropping ‘Barry’ episode come together?

“Ronny/lily,” the Emmy-nominated episode (writing and directing) of HBO’s “Barry” is, in a word, bonkers.

In it, star — as well as co-creator, co-writer and director — Bill Hader as reluctant hitman Barry is being blackmailed into killing Ronny, whose only crime is dating a jealous cop’s wife. Insane complications ensue (who knew Ronny was a martial-arts master, for instance?), but mainly from Ronny’s weirdly dangerous and otherworldly young daughter Lily, who walks in on the violence and proceeds to leap, climb and spider-crawl around like something from a horror film.

When a seriously injured Barry tries to flee the madness, his handler/mentor Monroe Fuches (Emmy-nominated Stephen Root) pushes him to finish the job, including killing the child (12-year-old Jessie Giacomazzi).

How did that all come together? As director, Hader employs cinematic tools to lead Barry toward a key realization that will change the series’ trajectory. (via LA Times)