“It” Proves That Children Are The Perfect Heroes Of Horror

Another day, another piece about It, and also, by pure, happiest of coincidences, another piece for Polygon. This time, I’m on about the child heroes of It, arguing that children make the best heroes in all of horror cinema. (They do! The reasons are few but, if you ask me, they’re pretty persuasive. Then again, I wrote … Continue reading →

Hollywood Has Reached Peak ’80s Nostalgia

If you know me, you know that unchecked and irrational nostalgia for the 1980s, whether in real life or in film or in television or literally frigging anything, makes me want to hurl. So imagine my delight to find that It doesn’t indulge in nostalgia; it just reroots the King story in the 1980s, with only … Continue reading →

TV Review: Top of the Lake: China Girl

Oh, Top of the Lake: China Girl; I wish I liked you better.  The first season of Jane Campion’s SundanceTV series is phenomenal, make no mistake; also make no mistake that she should have left it at one season, assuming that her plan for following it up was always, well, this. Top of the Lake: China Girl … Continue reading →

Review: 1%, 2017, dir. Stephen McCallum

I suspect most will find 1% entertaining enough that my remote TIFF review of the film (so called because I reviewed the film in Boston and not on-location at TIFF) will strike some as maybe a little bit unfair or even a bit pretentious. Well…you’re wrong! It’s neither of these things. If anything, I’m just being … Continue reading →

Best of Criterion’s New Releases, August 2017

Forgive me, lord (and also my readers): I spaced out and totally, utterly, sadly forgot to share the link for Paste Magazine’s Criterion Collection round-up for August. I am the worst. So I’ll keep this short and thus give you less to read from me, the better for getting around to reading from the Paste Criterion … Continue reading →

Why Didn’t ‘Cabin in the Woods’ Change the Horror Genre?

Lookit me, all posting more horror-centric things at The Hollywood Reporter again! Any excuse to write about The Cabin in the Woods is a good excuse, and since the film got a 4K Blu-ray re-release today, “Tuesday,” I believe it’s called, I figured I’d write about how well the “game changer” claims have panned out in … Continue reading →

Review: I Do…Until I Don’t, 2017, dir. Lake Bell

I rather liked Lake Bell’s first go behind the camera, In a World…, so maybe I put higher expectations on her second, I Do…Until I Don’t than I ought to have. I didn’t hate it; I didn’t even dislike it. But it’s a step back, in a sense, from In a World…, less polished, less successful as a narrative, … Continue reading →

WBUR’s Fall TV Preview Guide-o-matic

I put together a big ol’ list piece for The ARTery about what’s coming to television this Fall season. There’s a lot! Some of it even looks good! (Some of it, by contrast, looks like hot garbage, but I didn’t write about any of that stuff. I just wrote about stuff that I think looks … Continue reading →

Interview: Janicza Bravo & Brett Gelman, Lemon

Sick of hearing me talk about Lemon? Tough noogies: Here’s more of me talking about Lemon, this time in conversation with Janicza Bravo and Brett Gelman. Bravo directed the thing; Gelman starred in the thing; they both wrote the thing together. It’s a good thing! (The movie, I mean. The interview is a good thing, too, though, … Continue reading →

Review: The Villainess, 2017, dir. Jung Byung-gil

I think I know a thing or two about South Korean revenge movies, and I think I know a thing or two about South Korean action movies, which means I’m uniquely positioned to write about The Villainess, a South Korean revenge-action movie. It’s pretty solid, if lacking in fight scenes; the quality is there, but the … Continue reading →

Review: Bushwick, 2017, dir. Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion

As a rule, I’m okay with bad things happening to characters in movies, whether they’re supporting types or leads. I’m not really okay with bad things happening to characters in movies for no other reason than to wound the audience, and that’s more or less how Bushwick approaches the delicate matter of sorting out character arcs. It’s … Continue reading →

The 50 Best Samurai Films of All Time

Samurai! So many samurai! Samurai all day long in this list of samurai films, I’m telling you. They’re even categorized based on the era of Japanese history in which they take place. That’s badass. Like a samurai. My name appears a bunch of times in this piece, and it’s such a well-researched, well-curated piece that I’ll … Continue reading →

Review: Beach Rats, 2017, dir. Eliza Hittman

There’s a component of familiarity in Beach Rats, a movie about a young man performing heteronormative masculinity, but the familiarity is muffled by Eliza Hittman’s directing style; she’s one of a kind, and so is her movie, the first she’s made in the last few years after debuting with the superb It Felt Like Love.  Beach Rats … Continue reading →

Review: Marjorie Prime, 2017, dir. Michael Almereyda

If you could have a perfect holographic image of your late lover, whether your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, or some undefinable fling, stored on a hard drive, and if you could talk to that image whenever you please, and if that image could learn about the person it reflects and become more and more like … Continue reading →

The Defenders Proves That We Need Fewer Superhero Teamups

Maybe I’m the wrong person to write about superhero stuff in 2017. Guys, really: I just can’t watch superhero things without finding big philosophical flaws in their makeup and intent. I’m afraid to sit through the second season of Jessica Jones when it airs next year, even, though then again, Jessica is the best thing about The Defenders, … Continue reading →

Review: Lemon, 2017, dir. Janicza Bravo

Here it is, at long last (that is, if you think six months qualifies as “long”): My review of Janicza Bravo’s excellent debut feature film, Lemon, a chronicle of defective but self-aggrandizing whiteness, starring Bravo’s husband Brett Gelman (also serving here as co-writer; they’re a real team).  There are reasons and then some why I like … Continue reading →

TV Review: Get Shorty

There’s an internal debate raging in the pop culture center of my brain as to whether Epix’s new show, Get Shorty, is actually as good as I think it is, based on its existence as the second adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1990 novel (the first being, of course, 1995’s Get Shorty); I’m still mulling over whether it’s … Continue reading →