Although we mainly focus on reviews of movies and TV or streaming series, we have a wide array of reviews here at Cosmic Circus. This includes concerts, tech and other products, travel, games, books, and comics.
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I’m getting to that age where I look at the opportunities teenagers have today and think old person thoughts about what I missed out on as a kid simply because it didn’t exist yet. There’s an entire film program at a local high school where I live that invited me to be a guest judge for their annual film festival last
Read MoreRemember when, in the depths of COVID lockdowns and isolation, we all became obsessed with a new Groundhog Day-style time loop movie called Palm Springs? It might seem like it happened two decades ago, but the movie, starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, appeared on Hulu in the summer of 2020, and we were all instantly talking about it. Omni Loop,
Read MoreWriter and director Julio Torres also stars as Alejandro in Problemista. The film from A24 is Torres’ feature debut, after a career spent writing comedy at Saturday Night Live and the show Les Espookys, of which Torres is the writer and creator. Problemista is equally funny, heartbreaking, and absurd; at its heart, it is a character story about trying to cope and navigate an increasingly hostile life. The story of Problemista A child
Read MorePhase 3 of the High Republic is now in full swing, with the first wave of books now released and the comics a few issues into their phenomenal runs. Things have never looked more dire for the Jedi and the rest of the galaxy as the threat of the Nihil deepens and intensifies. Star Wars: The High Republic: Defy The Storm
Read MoreThere’s something about dogs in major motion pictures that sucker-punches me in the gut the older I get. The first film I saw that predominantly featured a canine that wasn’t a children’s comedy was Marley and Me. Those who have seen that film know how emotionally charged that film is, which left me in a puddle of tears. Since that infamously
Read MoreTwelve years ago, twelve girls disappeared from Fodla. They were stolen by the Folk in an effort to end a war between Humans and the Fair Folk. In their place were left sticks, bees, and other things. But when the princess of Fodla was taken, something different was left. A young girl who looked almost exactly like her, but wasn’t quite
Read MoreThere’s a good short film hiding somewhere inside Matthew Arnold and Freddie Wong’s grief-tinged sci-fi feature film debut, We’re All Gonna Die. A story that could have been told beautifully in about 45 minutes, maybe even leaving you wanting a little more, is instead stretched to beyond its limits in the feature version, dragging on for almost two full hours. [Warning:
Read More“The unknown journey will continue.” This was the promise made at the end of the first installment of the Final Fantasy VII: Remake trilogy. When the game came out in April 2020, Square Enix and Director Tetsuya Nomura embarked on the daunting task of reimagining one of gaming’s most iconic RPGs. Remake (and the later enhanced Remake Intergrade) received high praise from Final Fantasy fans, becoming one of the
Read MoreIf anyone ever complains to you that there’s nothing new under the sun in the world of cinema, please kindly point them to the documentary Grand Theft Hamlet. This experiment from British co-directors (and romantic partners) Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane covers the gamut of human emotion, from triumph to tragedy, in its 89 minutes of infectious fun. The story behind
Read MoreDenis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is here, and we here at The Cosmic Circus are ready to accept Timothée Chalamet (and Zendaya’s!) ascendancy. It’s been a long road to the second half of this newest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel from 1965, and there have been a few bumps along the way. From teases to whether or not “Part Two” of Dune would actually happen to dual strikes in
Read MoreBill and the Doctor have a debate to settle in The Eaters of Light by Rona Munro. What happened to the “lost” Ninth Legion of the Roman Army? Stationed in Britain in the second century A.D., the Ninth Legion suddenly disappeared without a trace. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. But of course, the Doctor knows, or
Read More“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That quote, coined in the late 19th century by English historian and politician Lord Acton, would serve as a perfect tagline for the upcoming three-part HBO docuseries Ren Faire by director Lance Oppenheim. The first hour of the limited series, what Oppenheim describes as a “docu-fantasia,” premiered at SXSW 2024 and will turn up on
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