A movie called The Mosquito Bowl makes a promise with its title alone. It’s named after a real football game, played in the Pacific by Marines who had been college stars just a couple of years earlier, so you’d assume that game sits at the center of the story. Hold …
A pile of brutal reviews was waiting for Klara and the Sun before I could get to it, and I’d be lying if I said they didn’t lower my expectations. What worried me more was the man behind the camera. I’ve loved Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) when everything clicks, but …
Up to this point, the new DCU has a perfect record with me. I’ve liked or loved every film and every show it has released so far, so Clayface had a streak to protect before I even sat down. The noise around its release didn’t make things calmer, though. A …
Every opinion I came across about The Only Living Pickpocket in New York before seeing it was positive. I didn’t see a single negative take, and with nothing else to go on, that consensus was carrying all of my expectations. I’m unfamiliar with Noah Segan as a director, as I …
My bar for Street Fighter was “fine,” and I don’t mean that as an insult. I went in expecting a perfectly okay video game adaptation with thin characters, story, and overall writing, and I was at peace with that. All I needed was action good enough and pacing fast enough …
Back in 2023, Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You) turned a nearly wordless Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), a lonely house, and some of the best sound design of that year into one of my favorite surprises, and his name has been on my radar ever since. Before that, he co-wrote …
At this point, I don’t need much more than Margaret Qualley (The Substance) on a poster. I’ve followed her since The Leftovers, still one of the best shows of the century, and it’s been a pleasure watching everyone else catch up. Between Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Poor Things, …
The first thing I liked about this movie was its title. The 1953 ascent of Everest has often been told as Edmund Hillary’s story, with the Sherpa who reached the summit beside him mentioned as the other guy in the photo. This film is called Tenzing. Not “Everest,” not “The …
The action will be great, and I’ll forgive the story. That’s been the deal with Sam Hargrave (Extraction) since his directing debut. Back in 2020, I stopped the first Extraction mid-viewing just to go back and watch its oner again. The 21-minute oner in Extraction 2 is still something I’d …
I almost skipped this one. The press screening for The Social Reckoning was early in the morning, I was exhausted, and a follow-up to The Social Network without David Fincher (Se7en) directing or Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain) playing Mark Zuckerberg didn’t sound urgent enough to drag myself out of …
How much are you actually supposed to care about a family being hunted by dinosaurs? Normally the answer is simple: just enough to root for them, not so much that a stray death throws the whole experience off balance. David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) spends most of The End of …
I confess I went into The Last House with a strange kind of curiosity that had nothing to do with horror and everything to do with career pivots. Louis Leterrier has spent the better part of two decades making things go fast and loud — muscle cars, magic tricks, superhero …
I’ll admit I walked into this one with my guard up. Every trailer drop for Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and I avoided them like the plague, though there’s only so much a person can dodge — kept adding another name to an already overstuffed-looking roster: Bruce Banner / Hulk …
Whenever the names of 87North Productions or 87Eleven Entertainment are linked to a new project, my interest immediately spikes. After all, we’re talking about the teams that redefined modern action cinema with the John Wick franchise and continued to leave their mark on films like Nobody, Violent Night, or The …
Like a large portion of the audience, I walked into the theater without any familiarity with the literary work by Andy Weir that the film attempts to adapt — yes, the majority of viewers have never read, played, or known the source material on the vast majority of these occasions. …
I went into the screening of Reminders of Him with a very specific curiosity: how would an actress like Maika Monroe (Longlegs), who has such a solid career in genre cinema — specifically horror — behave in a role of exposed vulnerability, typically molded to pull at the heartstrings of …
Whenever a filmmaker with the pedigree of Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) ventures into the realm of live-action, my attention levels are immediately raised. Stanton is one of the foundational architects of Pixar, a master at finding the soul in inanimate objects. Approaching In the Blink of an Eye, my expectations …
Writing about the Scream saga is, personally, a nostalgic task that involves a constant reassessment of what horror represents in popular culture. After Scream (2022), one of the best sequels in the franchise, positioning itself right behind the original for me, and Scream VI that, despite some flaws, still managed …
I’ll admit that before sitting down to watch Crime 101, the name of Bart Layton (American Animals) wasn’t immediately familiar to me. However, in the world of cinema, there are certain combinations of factors that act as an irresistible magnet for any cinephile, and this project had them all. A …
Whenever a new project from Sony Pictures Animation hits theaters, I’ll admit my heart rate picks up just a bit. Whether it’s the visual revolution started by the Spider-Verse franchise or the emotionally resonant storytelling in The Mitchells vs. the Machines, my expectations for any animation from this studio have …