Michael Heimbaugh

It’s safe to say that no American filmmaker working today is quite as polarizing as Zack Snyder. Detractors renounce the Watchmen, 300, Man of Steel et al. director as the hack creator of one dour,…

(CW: rape/abuse) Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were on a white-hot streak in 1995. Each had two critically acclaimed, wildly successful features under his belt (for Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction; for Rodriguez, El…

Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg have been inseparable since first teaming up for 2013’s Lone Survivor. In the years since, they’ve become Hollywood’s leading providers of robust, forgettable action thrillers with weirdly conservative politics. They’re…

Much like Cameron Crowe, Francis Ford Coppola, and M. Night Shyamalan, John Carpenter all too frequently falls into the category of the “wayward auteur.” The public sees the horror maestro, in other words, as a…

In hindsight, Netflix’s Between Two Ferns: The Movie was probably inevitable. Writer-director Scott Aukerman has basically cornered the market on the Fake Talk Show (apologies to Eric Andre). He co-created the hit Zach Galifianakis-hosted web…

From its roots in the “pantomime dame” craze of the late 19th century to the modern-day antics of RuPaul’s Drag Race, drag has served as a way of subverting audiences’ expectations about gender. By performing…

On January 29th, 1956, CBS aired an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled “Shopping for Death,” based on a story by Ray Bradbury. In the episode, a pair of retired insurance salesmen trail a longshoreman’s…

Sam Raimi should stick to franchise work. It pains me to say that about a filmmaker as imaginative and influential as Raimi. But the truth is that the director’s best work — indeed, his most…

The past few months have seen the release of two high-profile biopics about the rock groups Queen and Mötley Crüe. While both Bohemian Rhapsody and The Dirt have experienced massive success, viewers have pointed out…

From the Illuminati to backmasked satanic messages on Led Zep albums, the world has always loved a good conspiracy theory. And (no) thanks to the success of pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones, we’re…

John Waters’ films are all about transgression. Like his contemporary David Lynch, the underground cinema icon seeks to expose the rot at the heart of the idyllic world of post-World War II America. But where…

The film world rightly regards Joel and Ethan Coen as among the most innovative filmmakers of their generation. A large part of the brothers’ popularity is their uncanny ability to work within various genres while…

Movies about sad white dudes trying to find themselves are this planet’s most powerful renewable resource. They’re ubiquitous to the point where they occur in nature, and new ones keep springing up seemingly by the…

Being in your mid-twenties is rough. You’re supposedly young enough to remain attached to the recklessness of youth, yet too old not to have your completely figured out. You subsist on canned and frozen food.…

Movies about pro sports can often be a mixed bag. Most of them either go the “glory of the game” route (which often leads to mawkish sentimentality) or take the “inner workings” approach (which, to…

Last week, Walter Hill’s street-fighting gang adventure The Warriors celebrated its 40th anniversary. Hill’s film, while initially poorly received by critics, has in the decades since its release garnered a massive cult following. But the big…

The ‘90s were wild. Time was, you could assemble a gaggle of fresh-faced young actors, give them relatively little to do except be incredibly attractive, add in a rad soundtrack, maybe some celeb cameos — and…

Some of the most effective horror films ever made deal in the corruption, subversion and perversion of the happy family unit. The Shining, Poltergeist, Get Out — movies such as these take the sacred image of family,…

Witnessing Netflix’s transformation from humble video-rental to gigantic streaming behemoth (bestreamoth?) has been disorienting at best. Whereas the release of a new Netflix original movie was once a momentous occasion, the platform nowadays churns out an…

Darren Aronofsky is one of the great trickster gods of the modern cinema world. His modus operandi as a filmmaker is to shock, to provoke thought, to search the human psyche, to obliterate his audience’s expectations…