Reviews

On January 23rd, a time that already feels like many, many lifetimes ago, Wuhan, China went under lockdown as the Coronavirus ravaged the region. Healthcare workers were left to play a deadly game of catch-up,…

America has always been a fertile ground for new movements and splinter groups. Heck, the Pilgrims were basically a church looking to — in the words of Bender Bending Rodriguez — start their own colony,…

When I noticed the name Clancy Brown in The Mortuary Collection‘s description, it was all the motivation I needed. He is one of my favorite character actors. In fact, he’s so good, he even makes…

The teenage experience is often depicted on screen as either excruciatingly idealized, where every 16-year-old is preened to perfection, or a never-ending slog without any light moments or laughter. Rocks is a joyful swerve away…

The original Tales from the Hood from 1995 was an enjoyable mixture of horror schlock and social commentary, emulating the spirit of the classic HBO TV series, Tales from the Crypt, with its whimsical attitude…

Oh look, that new Woody Allen film is finally coming out in the States, the one with Timothée Chalamet and Selena Gomez. Huh. Guess it’d be interesting to review that, to see if it’s any…

Much as its title would suggest, Supernova is a burst of emotions, a catastrophically gradual decline towards poignant devastation. Harry Macqueen’s film, which premiered at this year’s San Sebastián International Film Festival, tells the intimate,…

You’d think that after Portrait of a Lady on Fire, we wouldn’t need romances, or even narrative films, anymore. I mean, Céline Sciamma has kinda been there and conquered that. Be that as it may,…

Diverting from the bubbly, fun theatrics of the stage musical-turned-film Mamma Mia! and the engaging, nuanced study of one of Great Britain’s most polarizing prime ministers, in the form of a Margaret Thatcher biopic, The…

“Cronenbergian” pertains to the twisted works of filmmaker David Cronenberg, specifically his graphic depictions of bodily mutations. A film scholar might take offense at this simplification, referencing his common themes of sexuality, the morphing of…

People love to write movies about big, important events. I get it. World War II was important, we have a lot of World War II movies. Queen was important, so we got Bohemian Rhapsody. The…

It’s not easy being a horror buff in 2020. By now, a lot of intriguing horror films should have already come out: from Spiral, the new Saw movie starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson;…

Culture meets profession, as modernity collides with tradition in Bassam Tariq’s sophomore feature that premiered at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. Mogul Mowgli is a film about a British-Pakistani rapper, Zed,…

With all that 2020 has thrown our way, I don’t blame anyone for seeking soothing, uplifting entertainment. We need every excuse to inject a little happiness in our lives! With that in mind, Dean Kapsalis’…

Writer’s note: This review briefly discusses a plot point involving stalking, if you need resources on stalking and domestic violence, please visit https://www.thehotline.org/. The personal is political and art is political. I’ve learned this in…

Upon finishing Antebellum, I needed about half an hour to gather my thoughts. I then needed another two hours when I saw the overall critics and audience consensus on Antebellum was definitively disappointed. Did I…

In Spiral, we follow Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) as he moves to a small town with his partner Aaron (Ari Cohen) and Aaron’s sixteen-year-old daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte). They instantly notice the town is not accustomed to…

At this point, we should pay attention anytime Shudder picks up a horror movie out of a festival. Or, when they pick up a film in general, for that matter. The service’s original programming is…

Right off the bat, Minor Premise has one of the better science fiction premises you’ll see. Ethan (Sathya Sridharan), a reclusive doctor hoping to continue and surpass his father’s legacy, is making an update to…

I’ve learned something about myself over the last few years: I have a serious soft spot for grimy, street-level New York City movies. (“It’s almost another character in the movie!”) Anyone who frequents this website…

The world has changed a lot since the characters of Bill and Ted first hit the big screen. Bill and Ted, if you don’t know, are two loveable Californian simpletons who were prophesied to one…

Horror-comedy is an absolutely fascinating genre. It’s an excellent means of psychological and social commentary, while also being light and often so outlandish that one has to laugh between the jump scares. In my experience,…

If there’s one kind of movie that bores me the most, it’s the by-the-numbers biopic, which often plays like creatives formed the script by glancing at a Wikipedia page. You can forget most biopics about…

As the uncertainty of 2020 continues, there is one thing that we can be certain of, and that’s that we have another Christopher Nolan hit on our hands. A film that has seemingly united the…

If you’re as obsessed with true crime stories as I am, you know the frightening concept of regular people suddenly turning homicidal. In some cases, we could have seen it coming. A past riddled with…

A renowned philosopher and swordsman of the early Edo period, the life of Miyamoto Musashi has been told onscreen countless times since the late 1920s. Most notably in Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, where the legendary…

The most ingenious line from Wes Craven’s Scream (among many other great soundbites from a continually prescient movie) is Billy Loomis noting, “movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative.” Jay Baruchel’s Random Acts…

Back in 2005, American cartoonist Matt Furie created the popular webcomic, Boy’s Club. A re-creation of his halcyon days with his college roommates, Boy’s Club was composed of deadpan comic vignettes of 4 anthropomorphic humanoid…

If you name your movie, “The Travelling Cat Chronicles”, you immediately have my attention. Just think of all the possibilities for a movie with that title! (Also, cats!!!) Although, the actual material isn’t as zany…

Host was filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic (so quite recently…) and completely via Zoom. It’s based on director Rob Savage pranking his friends on the software, which went viral. (For all the fun, you can find…