For Your (Re)Consideration

“Another year, another Academy Awards ceremony. Funny, isn’t it, how every three hundred and sixty five days we go through the same ritualized process of spurning the Oscars and then gluing ourselves to the television the day they air; we like to pretend that we’re above all the pomp and circumstance, but for better or … Continue reading →

Review: What We Do in the Shadows, 2015, dir. Taika Waitit & Jemaine Clement

“After suffering from post-Twilight defanging since 2008, vampires are on the mend. Last year’s one-two punch of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Only Lovers Left Alive, along with films like Neil Jordan’s underappreciated 2013 joint Byzantium, helped creatures of the night reclaim their teeth on the big screen bit by bit; these … Continue reading →

Review: Queen and Country, 2015, dir. John Boorman

“You don’t need to watch John Boorman’s 1987 comedy drama Hope and Glory to vibe with its sequel, the decades-in-the-making Queen and Country. That’s probably the greatest feat Boorman pulls off with this follow-up to his unassuming Oscar nominee: walk into the film blind, and short of feeling like you’re up the Thames without a … Continue reading →

Review: Wyrmwood, 2015, dir. Kiah Roache-Turner

“Here’s some sound advice for when the zombie apocalypse arrives: surround yourself with Australians. Assuming you’re not one of the first to turn in the world-ending plague of undeath, being in the company of folks from the land Down Under is a surefire way to ensure your safety once your friends’ and neighbors’ shambling corpses … Continue reading →

TV Review: Agent Carter, 1.07, “Snafu”

“Funny, isn’t it, that Agent Carter focuses so much on the quest to retrieve Howard Stark’s bad babies, yet we know so little about them; we don’t know what they are, and with a couple of outside exceptions (a’la Stark’s nitramene formula) we don’t know what they do. In “Snafu,”e though, the babies almost become … Continue reading →

TV Review: Agent Carter, 1.06, “A Sin to Err”

“Agent Carter has been building to “A Sin to Err” all season long; it’s the moment where the walls have Peggy corralled. She’s pretty much on her own and without a single person, other than Jarvis, to call “friend,” though that more or less sums up her dynamic over the course of the show. But … Continue reading →

Review: Seventh Son, 2015, dir. Sergei Bodrov

“This close. You were this close, Sergei Bodrov, this close to finding the right ratio of badness to goodness—this close to churning out a ham and cheese sandwich to rival the likes of Beastmaster, Willow and Hawk the Slayer. Bodrov’s Seventh Son is cut from the same cloth, an ’80s schlockfest made in the wrong … Continue reading →