Rankings

In December 2021, I was made aware of a film challenge on Letterboxd, a social media platform for films. The challenge, simply titled Japanuary Challenge 2022, presented a series of prompts aimed at introducing users…

The Conjuring Universe’s success continues to confound me. Generally, its films range from unwatchable to well-crafted, but obvious homages to better horror films from past decades. And yet, they continue to kill at the box office.…

Christopher Nolan is consistently able to confuse me. He fascinates me as a director. His movies are so complex and yet so beloved by the masses. Yet, half the time I don’t even know what’s…

The Streaming Wars have caused a second casualty. First FilmStruck, and now Quibi. Quibi, which launched in April of 2020, lasted all of seven months before announcing its shut down. Its premise was simple: a…

Is this article completely irrelevant and outdated? Absolutely. Am I writing it anyway? Of course. What is Home Movie: The Princess Bride? Remember fifteen-ish years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, when all those…

Saw 3D (also known as Saw VII or Saw: The Final Chapter) turns ten this Halloween, so what better time than now to look back at the franchise as a whole. Saw 3D was supposedly the final installment in the Saw series. Of…

I felt a strange pull to rewatch the Hunger Games films these past few weeks. Whether it’s the stress of 2020 or just boredom, it ended up being a rewarding experience. To truly dive into the franchise…

I’d never actually seen Requiem for a Dream before and I realized that there was a good reason for that after I watched it: it scared the living daylights out of me. Of course, the subject matter…

If I had to put money on which director would take the big leap in the next decade, most (if not all) of it would be on Jeremy Saulnier. You could say I have a lot of…

Much has changed since the beginning of the DCEU. Gone is Zack Snyder’s dour aesthetic for something very different, something that varies from movie to movie. As such, the DCEU now has a colorful, all-over-the-place…

When I think of a Mark Wahlberg-Peter Berg joint, a few things come to mind: guns, harrowing action, Mark Wahlberg’s blank stare, conservative politics, and more manliness than one person could handle. None of these…

The 2010s were a crazily chaotic and rewarding decade in film. While Disney is the clear winner with its launch of the largest franchise of all time among its other tentpoles, it is not the…

There’s no denying that Star Wars has become one of the most popular franchises in film history, if not the most popular. George Lucas changed the cinematic landscape back in 1977, and we’ve felt it ever since. …

Many of the most high-profile movies of August — Hobbs and Shaw, Good Boys, The Angry Birds 2, and even Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark — were mired in mediocrity, doing a few…

After Hobbs and Shaw — the cinematic equivalent of an eight-year-old boy smashing toxically buff action figures together for two hours — opened in theaters, the rest of August was full of intriguing projects, many…

Since Al Jolson first came on the screen nearly ten decades ago with the words “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” film has been a major part of our culture.…

Praise the heavens! July was actually a solid month for film. With Quentin Tarantino debuting a new work and plenty of smaller releases which resulted in a wave of support from Film Twitter, one really…

These best/worst of the month articles are always an opportunity to express my exaggerated concerns with the industry as a whole. However, July was actually a bright spot of the summer movie season, balancing nicely…

The Fast and Furious franchise may not be everyone’s favorite, but there’s no debating that it still has a massive built-in fan base and has continued to gross stupid amounts of money at the box…

Quentin Tarantino is one of Hollywood’s most recognizable auteurs, busting onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs back in 1992 and capturing our attention ever since with his signature blend of exploitation homage and incredibly cool-sounding…

I think it’s safe to say that June had the most unnecessary, high-profile movies of the year so far, and it might even keep that distinction for the entire year. Seriously. We have a new…

June was…rough. We saw a slew of high-profile blockbusters flop hard; most notably, Dark Phoenix will lose Fox (Disney) around $100 million. Other films like The Secret Life of Pets 2 and Shaft also cratered,…

We all have Marvel to thank for every major studio rushing to make an extended cinematic universe around their owned properties. Since 2008 with the release of Iron Man, Marvel has owned the superhero landscape on…

When it comes to villains, most superheros have just one or two iconic enemies. However, there are two heroes who have a plethora of baddies almost as iconic as they are. I’m talking, of course,…

The Muppet Movie is celebrating 40 fantastic years of making us smile, laugh and sing. Every song is unforgettable thanks to the top-tier work of Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams. These tunes capture the Muppet…

I’m a man of some taste, depending on who you ask. (You never know; I have a lot of enemies out there.) I like simple things, like John Wick having a samurai sword fight on…

Sorry, but UglyDolls will not be making an appearance on this list of the best movies of May 2019. Let’s all take a moment of silence for this tragic loss… … … … …Okay, that’s…

Many in the industry (including yours truly) have consistently noted the power of Netflix in a continuously changing marketplace. Their platform has allowed for some wonderful projects to reach a wide audience, including my favorite…

I find it fitting that while we find ourselves in the middle of the most unprecedented box office occurrence of the millennium, I settled on three smaller movies for the top spots in April’s best…

Okay, we’ve avoided this subject long enough, but we can’t beat around the bush any longer: who is the best Spider-Man? Could it be Tobey Maguire, the classic Spider-Man? Maybe Andrew Garfield, the short-lived Spider-Man…