Movie Reviews

Cosmic Circus has been covering movies and TV/streaming series for over five years now. Please take some time to read through some of our movie reviews below to find out what the writers think of past and new films.

Refer to the Stellar Picks archive to find some of our top-rated movies, shows, books, games, and more!


 

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‘The Wedding Banquet’ Review: A Rom-Com with a Big Heart

The Wedding Banquet, as a remake, reintroduces a classic narrative rarely offered by Hollywood lately. The film has a catchy plot where the main leads hatch a scheme, and the more the scheme unfolds, the less it works. Romantic comedies used to do it all the time. For example, How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days permitted Kate Hudson to

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‘Sinners’ Movie Review: A Crowning Achievement for Horror

Sinners as a title may discourage the evangelical audience from seeing the film. Yet, Ryan Coogler has more to say about spiritual warfare than most faith-based movies. His first breakthrough into horror touches on the deeply rooted religious backdrop of the 1930s Mississippi South, where people of color survived a racist landscape through resilience, grit, and the hope of an answered

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‘A Minecraft Movie’: Big Stupid Fun with Possible Side Effects

Jared Hess is one of those filmmakers where the audience will always split down the middle. He thrives on killing the brain cells of the general public. His films push the boundaries of idiocy, and they do so with intentional earnestness. In A Minecraft Movie, characters break out into musical numbers for no reason, Jason Momoa and Jack Black defy the

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‘A Nice Indian Boy’ Combines Heart, Humor, and Hope

A Nice Indian Boy is a beautiful and hilarious new movie from director Roshan Sethi. The script is written by Eric Randall, based on a play of the same name by Madhuri Shekar. Sethi’s movie adaptation stars Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff as an unconventional Indian couple dealing with the family pressures of a traditional South Asian family. Lead actor Karan

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‘Warfare’ is a Nightmarishly Immersive War Movie That Transcends

Warfare is not a traditional military film. For most of the movies in the genre, jingoism echoes at the forefront, almost as if they aim to serve as recruitment videos more than pieces of art. Xenophobia is usually a tool to create a villain for the American heroes of the film. For example, American Sniper manufactured a Muslim threat for Bradley

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‘The Penguin Lessons’ is a Wholesome Yet Conventional Story About a Man and His Penguin

People love animals, and the charms and cuteness of animals have acted as the driving force behind heartfelt and wholesome stories for decades. The Penguin Lessons follows in the footsteps of movies like Beethoven, with a curmudgeonly middle-aged man who reluctantly takes in a pet, only to form a bond with the animal that changes his outlook on life. It all feels very

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‘Death of a Unicorn’: A Slapstick Monster Fest for Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega

Death of a Unicorn is a comically unhinged concept. The foundation has all the flavors of an SNL Digital Short or a Robot Chicken segment. The movie finds an existence on one unique question: What if we made a Jurassic Park movie but used unicorns instead of dinosaurs? To increase the insanity, take a wholesome comedic star like Paul Rudd and

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‘Time Travel is Dangerous!’ is British Comedy at its Finest

British comedy is some of the best in the world, whether it’s the slapstick comedy that made the Carry On films so famous or the more subtle, sarcastic, and dry comedy that can be found in many of our best, more recent shows and films. Time Travel is Dangerous! is a new British comedy film written and directed by Chris Reading

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‘Nora’ Movie Review: Anna Campbell’s Musical About Motherhood

Nora is the exciting debut feature film from Anna Campbell. Campbell is a multi-hyphenate with acting appearances on shows like NCIS, Mad Men, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. She has now written and directed Nora, an emotional and entertaining film about the disasters of motherhood. The film stars Campell in the titular role, along with Nick Fink and Sophie Baaden. The audio and

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‘The Electric State’ Sees The Russo Brothers Reach a New Low

$320 million. Three hundred and twenty million dollars. That is the budget of Anthony and Joe Russo’s latest post-Avengers: Endgame blockbuster, The Electric State, an adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name. $320 million for a direct-to-streaming piece of “content” that will never see the light of day in a cinema beyond promotional screenings, nor will it ever

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‘Opus’ Movie Review: John Malkovich Has The Kool-Aid

The new A24 film Opus spurs reflections about the recently deceased Gene Hackman. The late actor rarely found a genre he could not improve in some form. Hackman made it a point to flourish in movies like The Birdcage, where the role required him to tackle progressive topics with sincere comedic timing. Similarly, he could navigate a darker role, much like

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B-Sides: ‘Aggro Dr1ft’, ‘Presence’, ‘Succession’ & ‘Daredevil: Born Again’

Vin and John discuss some miscellaneous films and shows they’re watching, new and old. This includes a couple of films which utilize some unique forms of storytelling (Aggro Dr1ft and Presence), as well as a discussion about the HBO series Succession, and newer series Common Side Effects and Daredevil: Born Again. Join The Cosmic Circus on Patreon to watch! Timestamps 01:00

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