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!
I know, another Toy Story sequel? Are they ever going to stop making these? This is a valid question, given how many agree that Toy Story 3 ended the franchise perfectly and offered thoughtful conclusions for the toys many of us grew up repeatedly watching on VHS until the tape wore out. Toy Story 4, while enjoyable, existed only to print money, and many
Read MoreThe Death of Robin Hood is a difficult pill to swallow. For most of us, the idea of Robin Hood evokes spectacle and adventure. He is the archery equivalent of King Arthur, supplying action, adventure, and a sense of nobleism. With a filmmaker like Michael Sarnoski, the director of Pig, one of the most sincere films about empathy, one might expect
Read MoreLeviticus resides in a fascinating place when viewing it from its genre roots. It’s able to weave both a compelling queer story and progressively brutal horror while changing enough elements to remain just distinctive enough from its inspirations. You’ll hear many comparisons to genre flicks like It Follows and Smile, but director Adrian Chiarella clearly understands that within his feature debut.
Read MoreI Am Frankelda is a brand new dark fantasy musical, and Mexico’s very first stopmotion feature film. Directed and written by brothers Arturo & Roy Ambriz, the movie is the ideal introduction to their growing Frankelda universe of dark fantasy stories. The project originally began as a YouTube pilot in 2019. That short grew into Frankelda’s Book of Spooks (2021), a
Read MoreBack in the early 2000s, Roger Ebert dubbed Minority Report a “triumph” during a time, as he called it, “when movies think they have to choose between action and ideas.” And this was during a creative era for Spielberg, when the iconic director felt emboldened to explore new territory. UFOs may not be fresh material for the E.T. filmmaker, but Disclosure Day feels very
Read MoreFor some reason, modern audiences are having nostalgia for the Scary Movie franchise. The once-shepherded-by-the-Wayans-Brothers spoof series that parodied contemporary horror cinema had a cult following in the years after its successful release, but none of them were any good. The only ones that were watchable, Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, had David Zucker’s involvement, one of the masters of
Read MoreThe path from documentarian to fiction filmmaker isn’t as smooth as one thinks (see, as a recent example, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Nyad), but Daniel Roher makes it look easy with the incredibly controlled Tuner. From winning an Academy Award in 2023 for his portrait of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny to making a documentary that attempts to
Read MoreMasters of the Universe is an adaptation that could only be made in 2026. In a different Hollywood system, the movie would be ripe for marketing towards the “meathead” action-based market. The first attempt with Dolph Lundgren, for example, was clearly a product of the old thinking. That somehow, macho, masculine behavior, and fantasy are box office-winning formulas. Filmmaker Travis Knight’s
Read MoreCarolina Caroline is a good example of the type of film that knows the influences it’s built on and uses them to full advantage. Crime thrillers, both old and new, in one way or another, have deep roots in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde, which revolutionized how we view the intertwining of sharply impactful thrills and biting commentary in American cinema. In
Read MoreBackrooms is about to have a massive opening weekend. The YouTube short by Kane Parsons has a successful following. One might say his take on the creepypasta has the same demo as the Five Nights at Freddy’s crowd. There’s no other way to say it. I’m not sure how audiences will receive this film. For a movie popular with today’s youth,
Read MoreJohn Carney can’t necessarily be described as “one-trick pony,” even if he makes virtually the same film over and over again. The Irish filmmaker has carved a niche in music-driven dramedies ever since 2007’s Once. That niche became mainstream following his best film, Sing Street, which is widely regarded as one of 2016’s best. If you think he’s run out of
Read MoreColleen Hoover has been on an upward trajectory in the realm of cinema. With It Ends With Us, Regretting You, and now Reminders of Him, the author turned screenwriter has shown a strong presence in theaters for three years straight. Reminders of Him is the first film adaptation to feature Hoover as a writer adapting her own work, and the film benefits from it,
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