Virtually everyone knows of the tumultuous hurdles Coyote vs. Acme has jumped across to get to this point. A timeline of being a straight-to-HBO Max release, to a tax write-off to save money by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, to possibly being saved through purchase by another studio thanks to online outcry, to being in limbo again. Then the film
Read MoreA scholar of the Cannon Group, French genre auteur Jean-François Richet is no stranger to big, goofy actioners. His last movie, Plane, was mocked for its title but lauded as an effective and downright nasty vehicle that would’ve made a killing if it had been released in the 1980s and starred Chuck Norris instead of Gerard Butler. Richet has now reached
Read MoreColony sees the Train to Busan filmmaker Yeon Sang-Ho return to the zombie genre after the subpar follow-up Peninsula. With his new film, he pivots back to his familiar strengths, taking a group of survivors in a single-location setting and throwing as many flesh-eating zombies at them as humanly possible. But Colony adds new concepts to the zombie mayhem. Colony has
Read MoreIt Ends is another entry in the liminal horror craze, focusing on souls getting lost in never-ending familiar voids. Directed by Alex Ullom, the film takes those ideas but removes them from enclosed spaces. Instead, It Ends is on an endless road with no meaning or purpose. Others trapped in the same space either feel overly panicked and volatile or have
Read MoreAs unnecessary as spinoffs can get, Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi might present itself as a series devoid of interest. I mean, the spinoff of two short films presented in the first and third seasons of Star Wars’ anime compendium Visions seems like one hell of a stretch to do an entire eight-episode series over. That said, The Ninth
Read MoreTwenty One Pilots is the most important band in my life alongside Linkin Park. I’ve been listening to them for way more than a decade. As a band, they’ve spent a lot of time building a world and an entire lore around their music. Their concerts have become extensions of that world. They are complete with recurring symbols, visual storytelling, audience
Read MoreThe first forty-five minutes or so of Jacob Chase’s Insidious: Out of the Further are excellent. In that section, there are two incredible setpieces that genuinely had me on the edge of my seat. One is a Backrooms-inspired liminal horror that sees its protagonist, Gemma (Amelia Eve), trapped in a never-ending, claustrophobic hallway with creepy-looking creatures that do little more than
Read MoreThe Samurai and the Prisoner shares a unique commonality with Rian Johnson‘s recent work. Like Knives Out, it shares themes with the overall story. The film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) sees the prolific filmmaker lean into the charm of a detective mystery like an Agatha Christie novel, only here it’s through the lens of a period war drama set
Read MoreAfter many years of false starts, constantly changing plans, and not-so-positive results in the form of a Green Lantern movie 15 years ago, DC’s Green Space Cops finally return to our screens. The Lanterns season 1 premiere is a much more confident approach that treats Hal Jordan and John Stewart as detectives first, superheroes second, and damaged people (each in their
Read MoreThe perfect organism. Spoken by Ash in 1979’s Alien, the Xenomorph is perhaps one of the best-designed creatures in horror. The creativity of authors, artists, and other visionaries have guided this franchise beyond just the films. Aside from the nine Alien films, nothing has been more immersive than the games based on this series for more than 40 years. That is
Read MoreThe prison film has been done to death. It’s no surprise why. For those who have avoided brushes with the law to the extent of incarceration, there’s a certain morbid curiosity about the lives of those in lock-up. From Oz to The Shawshank Redemption and everything in between, stories from behind bars have been wrung dry for all their worth. Or
Read MoreAfter only eight weeks, House of the Dragon season 3 has officially ended. Sunday night’s brutal episode capped off a season that, at times, felt like being hit by a freight train. The weight of the crown was put on full display this season, providing the audience with a consistently riveting pace and devastating impact. The third season features shocking betrayals,
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