“Is ‘It’ a New Kind of Horror Franchise?”

Writing this piece reminded me how hard it is to write about a film titled “It,” because, funny enough, “it” is a pretty commonly used word and that just makes everything confusing. Continue reading →

Review: The Huntsman: Winter’s War, 2016, dir. Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

The big question hanging over The Huntsman: Winter’s War is broadly simple: “Who the hell is this ding dang movie for, anyway?” The only entity who theoretically should know, Universal Pictures, doesn’t, at least as evidenced by the way they chosen to package and sell the movie to whoever they’re hoping to sell it to: If … Continue reading →

Review: Crimson Peak, 2015, dir. Guillermo del Toro

“Don’t buy a ticket to Crimson Peak expecting a horror movie. Buy a ticket expecting a Guillermo del Toro movie. Your mileage with the film will improve exponentially, sort of like if you traded in your Bentley for a Tesla. With del Toro, “horror” is a misleading label applied mostly by critics and film geeks. … Continue reading →

Review: Interstellar, 2014, dir. Christopher Nolan

“Whether he’s making superhero movies or blockbuster puzzle boxes, Christopher Nolan doesn’t bandy with emotion. He’s an intellectual clinician concerned more with the whiz-bang side of filmmaking than in messy, icky sentimentality. We buy tickets to his movies in the pursuit of wonder because that’s his trade, much like we visit a mechanic to replace … Continue reading →

Review: Take Shelter, 2011, dir. Jeff Nichols

Part of me wants to classify Jeff Nichols’ sophomore effort at least partially as horror. Not in the exploitative slashing sense, of course, but more in the vein of Polanski or Friedkin. The aptly dubbed Take Shelter blends highbrow artistic filmmaking and storytelling with moments of utterly numbing terror– apocalyptic visions revolving around monstrous storms … Continue reading →

Golden Statues and Outrage: The Oscar Nominations

This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveiled the entries for each of their twenty four categories in anticipation of this year’s 84th Academy Awards show. As is always the case, response among critics and film writers has been mixed, characterized by raised eyebrows, occasional high praise and pleasant surprise, and most … Continue reading →

Review: The Tree of Life, 2011, dir. Terrence Malick

“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”— Roger Ebert I can’t think of a single contemporary film* I’ve seen that’s quite like The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick’s sprawling, time-spanning, grand opus of spirituality, creation, and human existence. Mercurially free form, the film rejects many traditional notions of narrative … Continue reading →