METROID DREAD: A Nintendo Switch Review
Samus Aran is back with a vengeance as the long-in-development METROID DREAD has finally come out. Can it live up to decades of expectation?
Don’t Judge THE LAST DUEL on its Looks
Let’s just state it plainly: The Last Duel looks awful. There’s the hair, to start with the superficial – Matt Damon sports a horrendous medieval mullet, while Ben Affleck’s tresses are bleached to oblivion and shaped into a childish bowl cut. It’s not the kind of thing you’d normally comment on, except these haircuts are so supremely and distractingly awful even the cast wondered if director Ridley Scott knew what he was doing with them.
LAMB is a fable that will haunt you
A half human, half lamb hybrid from A24? Sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but the reality is a little more complex than that.
The 15 Best Metroidvanias of All Time
The forefather of all metroidvanias is coming back this week in Metroid Dread. If you’re interested in learning more about the genre, start here.
NO TIME TO DIE aims high and falls just short
With his final 007 outing, Daniel Craig attempts to go out on a high note, and comes so tantalizingly close.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is in on the joke this time around
You can’t really talk about Venom: Let There Be Carnage without talking about what started it all: Venom. When Venom came out in 2018, I didn’t know what to make of it. It felt like it was a random, mad-libs-generated version of a film powered by a strange combination of earnestness and chaos.
How to review a movie like MALIGNANT?
Malignant is a classy, pricey take on the Troma-esque exploitation film. Unexpectedly, it absolutely delivers on that promise.
DOOM PATROL Season 3 continues its reign as the best superhero show
The most forward thinking show of the genre kicks it up a notch in its third season
WEREWOLVES WITHIN is a delight
Calling Werewolves Within the best video game movie ever made is damning it with faint praise. This is a genuinely charming character-driven horror-comedy with a phenomenal cast.
TIFF 2021: Terrorizers
This new Terrorizers has a large, but not overwhelming, ensemble cast, focusing on six teenagers in Taipei. It unfolds in chapters, each focusing on a specific character’s point of view, in turn recontextualizing our understanding of events. It’s a fascinating bit of audience immersion in that our expectations are consistently upended the further down the rabbit hole we go and the more characters we’re introduced to. In all, a riveting experience and the best film I’ve seen at TIFF so far.
TIFF 2021: Violet
A few years ago, I was shocked to learn for the first time that not everyone has an inner monologue narrating their life causally running in the background of their minds. You know (or maybe you don’t) – that voice that chimes in to dole out advice, snark, fear, and whatever else we’re thinking but can’t always vocalize. I’ve had one all my life and assumed it was a basic function of living, like hearing and smell. But estimates are that about half of us do, and half of us do not.
Violet is a movie crafted for that half of the movie that knows what the voice sounds like. Or for anyone else curious about how the other half lives.
TIFF 2021: Aloners
A strong first feature debut for writer and director Hong Sung-Eun, Aloners is the perfect ode to the universal feeling of loneliness and isolation that was so deeply intensified during the pandemic.
TIFF 2021: Petite Maman
Clocking in at around 70 minutes, this follow up from Celine Sciamma, the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, was my most eagerly anticipated film of TIFF. Petite Maman explores family relationships, grief, and other emotional arcs through a more playful lens of a child.
THE CARD COUNTER proves mid-tier Schrader is still a high bar
More Light Sleeper than Mishima, but Paul Schrader’s latest remains worth seeing
HOLLER is achingly sincere
HOLLER, Nicole Riegel’s debut feature film, is a sharp drama about fighting for life on the fringes of society, one that hearkens back to classics like WINTER’S BONE.