Matt Barone

Editor/Pop Culture Writer with 12 Years Experience

twitter.com/mbarone

With extensive experience in both print and digital media, I've professionally written as well as edited stories about pop culture for the last 12 years. Specializing in film and TV, I've spent the last five years working at Complex and Tribeca Film, through which I've covered various film festivals (such as TIFF, SXSW, and Fantastic Fest). I've also written for Grantland, Rolling Stone, The Dissolve, and Shock Till You Drop, among other outlets. Follow me on Twitter at @MBarone.

Matt Barone

Editor/Pop Culture Writer with 12 Years Experience

twitter.com/mbarone

Alicia Keys Honors Prince's Legacy and Debuts New Music at Tribeca 2016
Special guests were blessed with an intimate performance from the R&B superstar and an exclusive look at her latest cinematically minded project. Last night, inside Lower Manhattan's Highline Ballroom, Alicia Keys debuted some of her first new music in four years, since the release of her fifth studio album, 2012's Girl on Fire.
TribecaFilm.com
One Scare Too Many: ‘Sinister 2,’ ‘Paranormal Activity,’ and the Impossibility of Horror Sequels
Has Bughuul haunted you? Introduced in the 2012 movie Sinister, the heavy metal headbanger-resembling demon is perhaps the closest thing the mainstream has had to a new millennial horror icon. As conceived by Sinister cowriters Scott Derrickson and Ain’t It Cool News blogger turned screenwriter and author C.
Grantland
Then & Now: How STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Connects N.W.A.’s Struggles to the Present Day
Although it's set in the late '80s and early '90s, STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON doesn't look or sound all that much different from our current reality. If anyone needs to see the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, it's Meek Mill, the Philly-bred rapper who's been trounced by Drake in a widely publicized and laughably one-sided beef that Mill started when he tweeted about how Drake (supposedly) uses a ghostwriter.
TribecaFilm.com
Teen movies have finally grown up again
Our Exposition columns offer informed, compelling takes on issues around the movies, from opinions about the topics driving films today to reconsiderations of the movies of yesteryear. In Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, Greg (Thomas Mann) isn’t close to anyone in his Pittsburgh high school except his “co-worker” Earl (RJ Cyler), with whom he makes low-rent Super-8 knockoffs of classic movies, giving them silly titles like “Eyes Wide Butts” and “A Box Of Lips, Wow!”.
The Dissolve
35 years after Friday The 13th, slasher movies may have a future again
Our Exposition columns offer informed, compelling takes on issues around the movies, from opinions about the topics driving films today to reconsiderations of the movies of yesteryear. The original Friday The 13th, now celebrating its 35th anniversary, is no less fascinating a phenomenon today than it was in 1980.
The Dissolve
Horror-movie music is coming back from the dead
Our Exposition columns offer informed, compelling takes on issues around the movies, from opinions about the topics driving films today to reconsiderations of the movies of yesteryear. Much like the titular “it” in the film’s title, the musical score in David Robert Mitchell’s beautiful, downright-terrifying new horror film It Follows never lets up: It stalks audiences’ ears, constantly reminding them they’re watching a dread-soaked waking nightmare.
Shock Value: John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon and How USC is Responsible for Halloween
In early 2010, the New York Times writer was hard at work on Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror, his meticulously reported examination into how Wes Craven, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, and Brian De Palma permanently changed the horror landscape in the late 1960s and early 70s.
ComingSoon.net
Meet The Woman Who Turned Adam Sandler, Chris Rock And Dave Chappelle Into Movie Stars
Today, Tamra Davis is celebrating the anniversary of her now twenty-year-old baby, Billy Madison. Last year, however, Tamra Davis didn’t know if she’d ever get to make movie audiences laugh again. Taking a thirteen-year break from making movies will do that to you. Back in the 1990s, Davis, now 53, was a steadily working and in-demand Hollywood filmmaker, the director whom producers would call upon to break in actors ready for their first big projects as headliners.
BirthMoviesDeath
Horror’s scariest trend is the nonexistent black filmmaker
Our Exposition columns offer informed, compelling takes on issues around the movies, from opinions about the topics driving films today to reconsiderations of the movies of yesteryear. Great horror movies require more than just scares to leave a mark. At its best, the genre lets filmmakers and viewers confront real-world nightmares through fiction.
The Dissolve
Under the Skin: How "The Walking Dead" Continues Zombies' Support of Racial Equality
It's only taken four years and 50-plus episodes, but, finally, The Walking Dead has earned widespread respect. AMC's apocalyptic zombie drama series hasn't exactly been ignored, of course—the show, based on Robert Kirkman's ongoing comic book series, regularly breaks ratings records. Yet before The Walking Dead's current season began early last month, TV critics were calling for the inconsistent series to end.
Complex Magazine
"Dear White People" Director Justin Simien Wants to Change the Way We Talk About Movies
Justin Simien is hours away from the craziest moment of his life. Since the Sundance Film Festival world premiere of his debut film, Dear White People, in January, Simien has been on a whirlwind tour throughout the country, doing Q&As for the satirical comedy’s numerous festival screenings, as well as pop-up events at college campuses.
Complex Magazine

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Matt Barone