“Chino Moya’s Intriguing Debut ‘Undergods’ Feels Underbaked”

Indivisible, with liberty and first-draft movies for all. Continue reading →

“‘Chaos Walking’ Stumbles, Trips, Faceplants”

Just gonna pat myself on the back for this headline, what a stroke of genius. Continue reading →

“Scott Adkins’ ‘Max Cloud’ Features Some Of 2020’s Sharpest Gaming Criticism”

A strong contender for “best video game movie ever,” bless Scott Adkins. Continue reading →

“Hitch a Slimy, Slithering Ride with ‘Sputnik'”

Insert “in Soviet Russia” joke here. Continue reading →

“Little Joe Could Use Pruning, But Chills Anyway”

Warning: Lots of gardening and botany puns ahead. Continue reading →

“‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ Bears Abiding Fondness For A Sci-Fi Legend”

And now, we go back in time to an era of peak crime and the year of Three Mile Island, Voyager I and Jupiter’s rings, space shuttle orbiter Columbia, and the Iran hostage crisis; also the year of “Alien.” Coincidence? Probably. Continue reading →

“The Surprising Moments of ‘Happy Death Day 2U'”

How do you make a sequel to a slasher-fied “Groundhog Day”? Watch “Happy Death Day 2U” to find out. How do you make a sequel to THAT? Well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Continue reading →

“The Trouble With ‘Ready Player One’ and Its Easter Eggs”

Any of my readers out there who call themselves bettin’ types, you’re probably about to rake in a ton of cash: I didn’t care for Ready Player One. Shocker. A movie warped around 80s nostalgia – and around 90s nostalgia, and also random references to cool things from the last ten years – rubbed me the … Continue reading →

“‘Pacific Rim’ in the Shadow of Clint Eastwood”

Let me be upfront: I didn’t start writing this piece about Pacific Rim: Uprising expecting that it would basically turn into a whole thing about celebrity, iconography, and how those two things can weigh down on the spawn of famous actors who decide to follow in their parents’ footsteps. I guess that means I found Scott … Continue reading →

“How ‘Wrinkle in Time’ Refuses to Conform”

Recently, I took it upon myself as a journalist, a critic, and a writer to re-read A Wrinkle in Time, the ol’ Madeleine L’Engle book, in preparation for A Wrinkle in Time, the new Ava DuVernay adaptation. (I actually covered the story years back, when Disney hired Jennifer Lee to write it, so I’ve been procrastinating on … Continue reading →

Review: Mute, 2018, dir. Duncan Jones

King bummer: Mute, the new film from Duncan Jones, sort of kind of really, really, reeeeeally sucks. I’m a fan of Jones dating back to his debut, Moon, which, hey, good news – that movie is still super great. (Additionally, Source Code, his follow-up to Moon, remains solid, too, though a much lesser effort than Moon.) But the more movies Jones … Continue reading →

Review: Before We Vanish, 2018, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

There’s no reason I should be giving a new Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie a sub-positive review score. Wait, hang on, let me start over: There shouldn’t be a reason for me to give a new Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie a sub-positive review score, but hey, Kurosawa gave me about three or four, so here we are. After reviewing Creepy … Continue reading →

Review: The Discovery, 2017, dir. Charlie McDowell

I really liked Charlie McDowell’s The One I Love, so imagine my disappointment when I watched The Discovery and found that it’s a pile of reluctant, hedging, self-doubting faux-spiritual feel-good nonsense. (“Feel-good” might be a stretch, but boy, the movie bends over backwards to get in as many cheap hugs as possible.) I didn’t hate it, but … Continue reading →

The 25 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix

It’s been a minute since I did any list-related work, so naturally when the chance arose for me to pitch in on Paste Magazine’s “25 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix” feature, I jumped on it like a Republican jumps on civil liberties. (Zing!) Fair warning: “Best” is a relative term when your scope is narrowed … Continue reading →

Review: Tron Legacy, 2010, dir. Joseph Kosinski

There’s really no way around the blatant awfulness and stupidity of Tron Legacy. Apologists may fashion an array of defenses to shield it from criticism, which is fine and all except that this kind of picture is indefensible. From all angles, it’s a mess; it’s bloated but explains far too little, it’s an action spectacle … Continue reading →