What sets Eli Roth apart from other contemporary American horror directors is his unique braiding of current issues with high genre literacy. This holds true…
According to certain cinephilic thinking — specifically arguments that come from those who worship at the altars of Michael Mann and Tony Scott — director…
Gone are the days of Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon, BloodRayne, Max Payne, and even Warcraft. Video game adaptations used to promise a Faustian bargain where…
In a movie landscape dense with stodgy prequels, unremarkable sequels, and remakes that nobody asked for, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is that rare thing: a…
Love Again sounds like a title where novelty goes to die, and the resulting film certainly does nothing to deviate from such lowered expectations, even…
Director Julius Avery’s The Pope’s Exorcist announces its particular tenor right from the opening scene, as Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe) arrives by moped to…
One of the most accomplished actors of his generation, equally adept at conveying volcanic rage and soft-spoken humility, Adam Driver’s greatest gift arguably is that…
Existing since the early 2000s, the Screenlife genre finally found box office success in 2014 with the release of horror flick Unfriended, in which a…
When Kasi Lemmons made her directorial debut with the 1997 Southern Gothic masterpiece Eve’s Bayou, it likely wouldn’t have occurred to people that she would…
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is an undeniably gonzo experience, but it’s ultimately not much more than an oddball visual accompaniment to the film’s sure-to-boom soundtrack. Josh Gordon…
The Woman King flattens its feminist appeal into Disney-fied girlboss energy and executes what’s left of its vision in both conventional and calculated ways. What’s one…
In the 2010s, something strange happened to Robert Zemeckis: he almost became respectable again. After his trilogy of mo-cap extravaganzas, he suddenly returned to, if…
The Invitation perhaps could have actually been surprising if marketing hadn’t spoiled its game, but there’s unfortunately not much else for viewers to have fun…
Where the Crawdads Sing is a soggy, laughably self-serious mess that isn’t able to calibrate its particular wavelength of melodrama. Based on the wildly popular 2018…
Uncharted is a bland, National Treasure-esque mess of CGI and hackneyed globe-trotter tropes. Uncharted is the umpteenth attempt by Hollywood to turn a globally popular…
No Way Home offers some genuinely playful noodling with Spider-Man’s cinematic legacy, even as it often stumbles in execution and suggests a muddled future for the MCU.…
Welcome to Raccoon City is a deeply faithful Resident Evil adaptation, and a deeply bad one at that. If there’s a guiding principle to Resident Evil: Welcome to…
Afterlife is more rehash than reinvention of the Ghostbusters brand, cloying and desperate in its mode of pure nostalgia. Ghostbusters: Afterlife is an almost purely nostalgic experience, but it…
Venom: Let There Be Carnage successfully course-corrects from the original, delivering a deeply funny and deeply human film that ranks among the best recent comic…
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions rides the same strengths of the original, resulting in a film that is a bit spare but still a feat of…
Peter Rabbit 2 wishes it were a Paddington film. It isn’t. It’s fair to say Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit 2 wants a piece of the Paddington pie.…