“D.I.Y. Sci-Fi: A Talk With Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead”

A talk, as in, 30 minutes of talk plus some other minutes, all cut down to about 1000 words. Continue reading →

“50 Years Ago, Andrei Tarkovsky Made The Most Disturbing Sci-Fi Movie Ever”

Depending on who you ask and how they interpret the ending, I guess! Continue reading →

“‘Foundation’ Brings Isaac Asimov’s Unfilmable Vision To Apple TV+ With Overwhelming Purpose”

A show so jam-packed with show, I could hardly absorb it all at once. Continue reading →

“‘Snowpiercer’ TV Adaptation Confuses Its Class Warfare Ideas With A Murder Mystery”

In today’s edition of “TV shows aren’t movies and movies aren’t TV shows”: TNT’s ‘Snowpiercer.’ Continue reading →

“‘Westworld’ Season 3 Finally Lets Us In On What It All Means”

If it’s HBO and I’m writing about it, it’s probably “Westworld.” Continue reading →

“Little Joe Could Use Pruning, But Chills Anyway”

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

“Can Anyone Really Escape Westworld?”

…but really, can anyone escape Westworld? No. Not in the least. Even if you do not watch Westworld, it’s everywhere in your feeds and in your grill, so basically you’re stuck with it until it goes off the air (and even then, people still talk about it). But that’s okay! Westworld is great in the way that all dark prestige … Continue reading →

“The Mesh Network Subconsciously Connecting ‘Westworld’s Hosts, Explained”

It’s Westworld time, ladies and gents: The new season is up and running, with more robot-on-human murdering, and even more techno talk, which I wrote a short breakdown about for Thrillist. Like, really short, because all I’m doing is talking about mesh networking as related to “Journey into Night,” the season opener. I plan on doing more … Continue reading →

Altered Carbon Review

It’s been a week since my last blog post, and I bet you’re all jonesing for another update. Good news! I have one. Bad news! I sort of wiggled my way out of dealing with a contentious subject in my review of Altered Carbon. Good news! I’m thinking up a long form piece about the subject … 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 →

Review: Kill Switch, 2017, dir. Tim Smit

I’m a man with an iron stomach, but even I came close to blowing chunks during stretches of Hardcore Henry, so the idea of taking on another film shot through a first-person perspective might make me sound amnesic. But Kill Switch isn’t Hardcore Henry, not simply for lack of gratuitous violence (and gratuitous Sharlto Copley performances) but for … 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: High-Rise, 2016, dir. Ben Wheatley

I had a hard time with Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise if only because it is not at all what I expected it to be. That isn’t to say I didn’t like it – I did! – but I had to watch it twice to put my finger on the things I liked and disliked about it, though … Continue reading →

Review: Midnight Special, 2016, dir. Jeff Nichols

Is there a director whose work you just can’t get into, while everyone you know loves and admires them? That’s my experience with Jeff Nichols, who you might know best for his 2011 drama Take Shelter, which is mostly good before it crawls up its own keister in its final scene. With his new film, Midnight Special, … Continue reading →

Interview: Benjamin Dickinson, “Creative Control”

I don’t know if you all are going to see a review of Creative Control from me – I’ve got a feature essay brewing for Movie Mezzanine, and so I may not have the energy to commit more ink to the film beyond that and beyond this here interview I did with Benjamin Dickinson, the film’s … Continue reading →

Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane, 2016, dir. Dan Trachtenberg

Challenge mode: talk about 10 Cloverfield Lane without talking about what it is versus what it isn’t, all while avoiding the pitfalls of spoilers (with the term “spoilers” being loosely and variably defined by everyone who happens to click on this article). That’s a daunting task made necessary only by J.J. Abrams and his insatiable appetite … Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review & Essay: Looper, 2012, dir. Rian Johnson

Today, I finally get around to publishing a belated link-post for everything Looper-related that I’ve disseminated across the Internet– from my full review, in which I award the film a perfect score, to the essay I published just yesterday. Continue reading →

Review: The Hunger Games, 2012, dir. Gary Ross

There’s so much surrounding The Hunger Games— socially, artistically, politically– that it’s hard to know where to start in writing a review about the latest pop-cultural literary and cinematic phenomenon. It feels somewhat gauche to begin by comparing Gary Ross’ adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ award-winning young adult novel to  Twilight, to which it owes something of a … Continue reading →

All Hail the Giant Buddah Head: Prometheus Reactions

Take a second and think about this: Ridley Scott has only made two science fiction movies in his career. Two. Not only that, but they’re two of the most influential contemporary sci-fi pictures– so his batting record in the field is pretty impressive, to say the least. Scott’s so celebrated for his work in the … Continue reading →

Review: Source Code, 2011, dir. Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones is quickly making a reputation for himself as a director whose films don’t easily lend themselves to open and casual discussion. Between 2009’s Moon, one of the most impressive debut features of the last decade, and Jones’ latest offering, Source Code, a writer is hard-pressed to perform even a cursory review of the … Continue reading →