M. Night Shyamalan‘s biggest strength as a director is his ability to orchestrate and sustain tension. It’s what makes The Sixth Sense so extraordinary – not the famous twist, but the subtle, inexorable power and pull the movie has. The film is also helped by two very strong performances, and Shyamalan wisely anchors the film…
Summer, 1975. I am 5 years old. I can remember images, feelings, and memories of memories. My father, on a Saturday, says that we’re going to a movie. It’s a fishing movie. My father loves fishing. My entire family does, although I have to say it never quite grabbed me, not as a child, and…
The Beatles’ “Glass Onion” from The White Album is a self-referential piece, lyrically calling back to past Beatles songs, and at times deliberately obtuse. But it’s also a song that suggests that the listener shouldn’t overthink it too much and just enjoy the melody. If you’re looking for a deeper meaning, examine “Glass Onion” as…
Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light is impressively shot by Roger Deakins, full of strong performances, a sweeping score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (one of two great scores this year, the other being Bones and All), and feels very evocative of its time and place. So why does it seem that the film is…
Black Adam is cotton candy – it’s cloyingly sweet, disappears after a few seconds, and nothing that is full of sugar and chemicals can be good for you in the long run if you eat it constantly. This is another entry in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU, MCU, who can keep up these days), and…
James Gray‘s coming-of-age film, Armageddon Time, is set in 1980. Most audiences would likely anticipate a nostalgic trip back in time, full of musical pop culture needle drops, lots of magic hour horizon shots, and big emotional Oscar bait moments with actors like Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Strong, or Anne Hathaway giving heartfelt soliloquies as the…
No one questions the bonafide of Kevin Williamson when it comes to pop culture horror. He created the Scream franchise, after all, beloved by millions and now discovered by a new generation of horror fans with this year’s sequel. But outside of the Scream franchise, can Williamson still hold his own in the genre? If…
The Hellraiser franchise has always been a bit of a dichotomy – the profane and the beautiful, the elegant and the crass, the sexuality and the agony all go hand in bloody hand. Some entries are better than others, but this has always been a series where the point is the extreme nature of it….
Bones and All, the new film by director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name), wastes no time in establishing itself. Young Maren (Taylor Russell), at a sleepover, suddenly attacks her host, nearly biting off her finger and escaping in the night. Maren feels a compulsion to consume human flesh. Whether this is a physical…
One of my favorite aspects of Marvel Studios’ output so far is that it feels like it’s starting to compartmentalize a bit. Want cosmic adventure? Here’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Want street-level action? Try some Daredevil. Espionage and intrigue? The Winter Soldier or Black Widow awaits you. Much like the comic books, there are tracks…
While Smile is a horror film that plays for a crowd and gives us jumps and intense moments, it’s also a story about trauma and how our past can torment and haunt us just as much as any movie monster. At Fantastic Fest, I was fortunate to speak with director Parker Finn and star Sosie…
Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges is a distinct kind of hitman movie, one with a lot on its mind, moral clarity in a world of nefarious criminals, and terrific performances by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. All three return for The Banshees of Inisherin, but while many of the components are the same, Banshees has a…
It should come as no surprise to learn, once audiences see the movie, that The Menu was produced by Adam McKay and directed by Mark Mylod. The Menu could easily take place in some back corner of the Succession universe – I imagine that Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) would probably move heaven and earth to…
There’s a trend going on in horror cinema that’s been happening for several years now – the exploration of past traumas and how they inform the present, often done metaphorically. That movie monster or thing that creeps in the shadows of the room isn’t just a monster – it’s something horrific from the past that…
Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) is happily married to Jack Chambers (Harry Styles). Every day, she wakes up, sends Jack to work at the enigmatic Victory Project, cleans house, cooks Jack dinner, welcomes him home with a glass of liquor and a loving embrace, goes to bed, often after making passionate love, wakes up the next…
As a Generation X’er, Kevin Smith and I have something of a tempestuous relationship. I saw Clerks at a special early screening when no one knew who this guy from New Jersey was, and I sat down to it, having no idea what the movie was about. When it was over, it felt like I…
Perhaps a better title for Beast would be Prey, but that one’s already taken this year. When a group of African poachers kills off a lion’s pride for their pelts, the one remaining survivor goes after the rest of the humans in the area. When a doctor, his two children, and the local game warden…
Prey is the best Predator movie since… well, Predator. It deepens and enriches the mythology of the franchise but is also unique and stands on its own as a movie. You can enjoy the callbacks, or you can appreciate a ripping good adventure yarn well told without all the baggage. This will probably be in…
Jordan Peele’s third film, Nope, is another intense thriller, full of context, theme, and flourish. Comparisons to Steven Spielberg or John Carpenter are accurate; Peele uses similar tricks and skills to entertain, frighten, and captivate audiences. He also has a need to tell stories full of metaphor and social awareness, but he also doesn’t want…
Thor: Love and Thunder, unlike Taika Waititi‘s previous entry, Thor: Ragnarok, suffers from familiarity. Ragnarok was refreshingly comedic – at that point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it felt like we had seen everything the character of Thor had to offer. But then audiences saw that Chris Hemsworth, if given the opportunity, could be quite…