Chris van Dijk

There once was a day when Beavis and Butt-Head, this innocuous and delightfully stupid cartoon, was highly controversial. For the moral crusaders in the early nineties, the popularity of this MTV-produced show (back in ancient…

There is something quintessential American about the story of Jerry and Marge Selbee, two retirees who exploited a loophole in the lottery system and made themselves rich. A story like this can only become truly…

Most musical biopics are forgettable, generic fare. They rarely resemble nothing more than a fond tribute to the artists, but as historical films or character studies, they are extremely lacking. They usually take a simplified…

Star-studded erotic thrillers have long been out of fashion. Perhaps this is due to the viewer being more desensitized to sexual content. The stuff you see on your regular HBO show is often far more…

Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is trapped in the mundane loop of online dating. Any modern woman knows the procedure, the hours that are wasted on a guy who misrepresents himself and the occasional creep. The inane…

Don’t let its title fool you, 2022’s No Exit is not a modern adaptation of Sartre’s misanthropic play with the same name. It might open with a direct reference to the Myth of Sysiphus, but…

I’ve been a loyal apologist to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. I’ve even been compelled to write several retrospectives on the franchise, sharing my peculiar affection for the murderous on-screen antics of the Sawyer clan.…

I had a choice between writing a retrospective on David Lynch’s haunting Lost Highway, or this embarrassing 1992 comedy starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty. Every reasonable cineaste would naturally choose the former. One movie…

I’m probably writing this article prematurely. On my reading list, I have somewhere — beneath hundreds of other books I promised myself I would read one day — Kevin Farley’s supposedly touching memoir about his…

Ray Donovan was another product of the third revolution of television, a prime example of the “difficult man” trope. Its titular character was an unfaithful husband, a muscle for hire for either gangsters or corrupt…

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is not a conventional documentary, though that was the original intention. Its inception started nearly forty years ago, in 1982. Robert B. Weide had just finished a well-received PBS documentary…

Adding Bruce Campbell to your cast will automatically attract any genre enthusiast. The man is a legend, possibly one of the most charismatic men on the planet. A man so charismatic, I’m seriously considering watching…

If you want to see how far a movie franchise can change in tone, watch the original Rocky and then its third sequel, Rocky IV. You can see the evolution (or devolution, if you prefer)…

Red Notice is an action-comedy starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot — three people whose movies I generally avoid. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson might have definite star power but he has a track…

Thirty years ago we were treated to Wes Craven’s deliriously entertaining socially-conscious horror roller coaster, The People Under the Stairs. When we talk about Craven’s oeuvre, the usual suspects are mentioned: the exploitation classic, The…

To state the obvious, we never needed a sequel to the 1978 original Halloween. The essence of Michael Myers’ frightening presence, the murderous void that guides him and makes him known as The Shape, had…

Here it is. After so many delays, James Bond has finally returned to the big screen. This was going to be Daniel Craig’s swan song for the character, the man who once famously said he…

Due to the pandemic, a lot of people have ventured into the streaming abyss, picking up on shows they’ve never finished or starting shows that have been on their radar for quite some time. One…

Two and a Half Men is an abominable sitcom and I’m ashamed to admit that in my younger, and far more vulnerable years, I did watch an episode or two. If there was one good…

Can the literary art form still survive in this hyperactive, Twitter-operating, modern age? Bookworms venturing through desolated libraries and soon-to-be bankrupt bookstores may find themselves out of time, yearning for a time where a 400-page…

The production background of Cry Macho spans nearly five decades. The screenplay had been kicking around in the early seventies. After numerous studio rejections, screenwriter N. Richard Nash revamped the script into novel form. The…

I’ll be honest, I only watched this film to see the underutilized Shea Whigham in a lead role. I’ve been a big fan of him ever since his supporting turn in the glorious HBO crime…

Horror cinema has frequently been misunderstood and dismissed by haughty cineastes. From the multitude of slasher clones and their countless cheaply made sequels, the genre has always been an easy mark for pretentious snobbery. If…

A common complaint regarding movies based on plays is that they feel like exactly that: a play made into a movie. Detractors often cite the transition from stage to screen as being too noticeable, remarking…

The slang term ‘Karen’ represents the racist, entitled white women of suburbia. A creature from the lagoon of (usually) far-right misinformation. Stereotypically, you can see a ‘Karen’ donning a bob cut with blonde highlights. As…

The Night House opens with Beth (Rebecca Hall) returning home after her husband’s funeral. She lives inside a luxurious lake house, itself designed by her late husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Owen’s death was self-inflicted. It…

Stop me if you’ve seen this one before: a highly-skilled assassin working for a shadowy organization gets betrayed by their employers and is hunted down; said assassin, though merciless if need be, becomes emotionally attached…

When it comes to the Hollywood satire, the gold standard will forever be Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, followed by Robert Altman’s The Player. Other underappreciated jewels to this genre are The Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink,…

Ben Wheatley seems like one of the few directors who seems to be doing whatever he wants. From the occult thriller, Kill List; to an estranged couple who rekindle their spark through serial killing in…

1988’s Coming to America is possibly the last ‘classic’ Eddie Murphy film. After that, most of his films either missed the mark critically or commercially, oftentimes both. Personally, I do think some of his later…