When the term “graphic novel” is tossed around, most immediately turn toward stories that capture grand adventures of heroes, like Superman, Batman, the Avengers, who display their superhuman strength or intellect while defeating similarly striking villains bent on world, or… Read More ›
Appearances can be deceiving. Always be the smartest person in the room. There’s no such thing as coincidence. These may be rote clichés, yet the failure to adhere to them will get you killed in Vaughn Stein’s feature debut, Terminal…. Read More ›
For years now, zombie-related stories have been the rage on screens big and small. Whether telling the on-going story of a group of survivors (AMC’s The Walking Dead) or a one-shot of a father protecting his daughter (Train to Busan),… Read More ›
The less audiences know about Deadpool 2 going in, the better, so everything that follows will refrain from the kind of details that would spoil the experience. So what should you expect? Violence, profanity, a surprising amount of genuine heart,… Read More ›
Writing partners Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson are likely not names you’d know though you’re likely familiar with their work. Nyman’s an actor who’s worked on The League of Gentlemen, The Brothers Bloom, and Despicable Me 3, whereas Dyson’s spent… Read More ›
In May 2008, a small, newly-formed, independent studio laid everything they had on a director whose greatest success was 2003’s Elf and an actor who was considered a washed-up has-been and was looking to make a comeback to tell the… Read More ›
Black Flag. Sex Pistols. The Clash. The Ramones. The Stooges. The Vandals. R. Buckminster Fuller? Something doesn’t quite fit here, right? At first glance, the inclusion of Fuller in a row of punk rock elite seems utterly ridiculous until you… Read More ›
Adapting video games for film tends to underwhelm at the box office. It either takes a straight-forward premise and mucks it up (poor besmirched Super Mario Bros) or largely misunderstands what made the game fun (this includes you Street Fighter)…. Read More ›
It really is a glorious time to be a horror fan. Once relegated to midnight broadcasts on cable channels and the whole of October at your local Cineplex, now it’s a whole new ballgame. In 2017 alone audiences had Get… Read More ›
There’s a common misconception that if a movie premieres on Netflix it’s somehow not worthy of a theater run; as though only films shown in a cinema house are somehow the only ones worthy of an audience. If films like… Read More ›
A well-executed documentary works on multiple levels. There’s the central story the director explores, but then there’s some other aspect that finds its way on in, often by surprise. Sometimes these elements overshadow the central story, others they enhance –… Read More ›
There’s something about watching a monster fight that really packs people into the theater. Whether it’s classic creatures like King Kong and Godzilla or newer fare like those seen in 2006’s The Host or any glimpsed in the Cloverfield series,… Read More ›
There’s been a wonderful resurgence in the teen dramedy subgenre in the last few years that’s given audiences films like The Edge of Seventeen and Saturday Church. Films that take an honest look at teens in a period of crisis… Read More ›
Imagine yourself in a confined space. There are two ways in, yet it feels like there’s no way out. You’re surrounded by life-long friends who adore you, until they don’t and then all bets are off. As French philosopher Jean-Paul… Read More ›
Describing Flower, the second feature film by Max Winkler as idiosyncratic would be the tip of the iceberg. The trailer centers on sexually promiscuous 17-year-old Erica (played by the versatile Zoey Deutch), a teen who spends her free time scouting… Read More ›
Documentarian James Demo picked a heck of a subject for his first full-feature subject: Padraig O’Malley. O’Malley is a brilliant man who has written several books on his experiences working with various world leaders, who gathered together a group of… Read More ›
With only one other directorial credit under his belt, writer/director Philip Gelatt helms the full feature adaptation of Laird Barron’s Lovecraftian short story —30– under the name They Remain. Tracking the complex relationship between two scientists working in a remote encampment,… Read More ›
Everyone knows that one super-competitive person. The one who will bury your nose in their victory or flip over the table in defeat. Yet we love them because they’re family and it’s usually only during game night that their inner… Read More ›
Writer/director Duncan Jones broke onto the scene with the 2009 underground hit Moon, which tracked lunar engineer Sam Bell’s (Sam Rockwell) last days of his three-year mission as his solitary life finally begins to take its toll. Unfortunately, Jones’s follow-ups… Read More ›
The Fifty Shades book series by E.L. James never personally struck a chord despite its global appeal. So when I got the opportunity to review Fifty Shades Freed, the climactic chapter of the noteworthy series, I did my due-diligence and… Read More ›