After releasing notorious flop/secret success Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, director John Boorman turned to an attempt at producing a Lord of the Rings film. When that failed to coalesce — sadly, as it was allegedly floated that the Beatles would play the…
Godzilla vs. Kong isn’t a perfect film, but it features franchise-best VFX and links to Toho-era entries in its commitment to visual spectacle over narrative. The character of Godzilla, as originated in Ishirō Honda’s 1954 masterpiece, may have begun as a galvanic exercise in…
Nobody is an absolute blast of genre filmmaking and T-fueled ass-kicking glee. By now, it’s not really a stretch to assume that Bob Odenkirk isn’t just a terrific comedian, but also a gifted dramatic actor (see The Post, or, duh, Better Call Saul). That reality…
Timeliness is one of the great current curses of small-budget genre filmmaking. The impulse to tie a film’s premise to current events or ideology certainly isn’t a new trend, and, of course, there’s a rich tradition of horror or sci-fi films tackling issues like…
In 2012, writer and film programmer Kier-La Janisse published House of Psychotic Women, a tremendous and essential text, part autobiography, part confessional, part film-guide roadmap to decades of cinematic depictions of female trauma, desire, and death. It’s one of the great movie books of…
Lee Haven Jones’ The Feast is rather a perfect companion to fellow SXSW title Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, touching on all of the folk horror pet themes the documentary associates with the subgenre. Filmed entirely in Welsh, it’s a simple — even quaint…
The “Zack Snyder cut” isn’t the holy grail of superhero cinema, but it’s at least a singular vision and a distinct improvement on the studio-bungled original. In case you hadn’t heard, director Zack Snyder struggled mightily against Warner Bros to get his vision for…
Cosmic Sin is an affront to shoestring filmmaking, delivering a final product entirely bereft of imagination and lazy in execution. Does Bruce Willis even watch the movies he appears in these days? Rumors about his paydays — including a ridiculous million-per-day price floated in recent…
Coming 2 America is a lifeless detour without any of the humor or incisive critique of the original. John Landis’ 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming to America is, frankly, justly beloved. Although it’s full of now-dated stereotypes and off-color humor, it’s also — much like…
Cherry is a cartoonish failure of imagination, technique, and performance. Joe and Anthony Russo, the producer/directors who found themselves at the helm of the biggest studio franchise in Hollywood history, probably thought it would satisfy their creative impulses and prove their filmmaking bona fides to…
