I keep waiting to become more cynical about movies as a film critic. Every week I read one think piece after the next about how cinema is dying and no good movies are made anymore, but 2025 was packed to the rafters with One Masterpiece After Another. In a year with movies like “Train Dreams,” […]
Film
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Spectacle Fatigue
Avatar: Fire and Ash is more of the same (for good and bad)
I don’t think I’m in love with the “Avatar” films as much as I should be and that might be directly correlated to the number of movies that I’ve seen across the years of my life. I’m fully aware that James Cameron and his team of technical geniuses have, with Pandora, built a world that […]
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A Year of Excellence
The best (and some worst) films and shows of 2025
Every year, when it’s time to make my end-of-the-year list, I realize there are still too many new releases that I’ve yet to see, which is somewhat ridiculous since I actually managed to catch around 150 releases from 2025. That’s plenty. Feels like plenty. Along with all the new shows I tried to catch, I […]
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Bill, Killed
Tarantino, Film Bros and the Whole Bloody Affair
I have a complicated relationship with Quentin Tarantino. I rented “Reservoir Dogs” on VHS when I was 12 years old and it was the first movie that ever made me really understand the importance of dialogue in filmmaking. The way QT balanced tough guy dialogue with flawless needle drops and character-driven ultra violence felt like […]
Posted inTelevision
Atomized Canon: The Folly of Hollywood’s Fallout TV Show
What could have been incredible is instead incompatible
To filmmakers, screenwriters, and showrunners, being allowed to work on an established, deeply fleshed-out fictional universe must feel like a god-sent gift. Rather than constructing a tale from scratch and hoping it charms audiences enough to pay it mind and dollar, using the setting of an existing intellectual property lets creatives skip a hard step […]
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Claw and Order
Zootopia 2 sacrifices depth, gains puns
It’s been a LONG nine years since Disney’s “Zootopia” was released to near universal praise and over a billion dollars at the box office. In my review of the film, I said, “‘Zootopia’ is an important movie for parents, kids and anyone who appreciates animated films. Asking people to be less prejudiced and more open-minded […]
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Complying with Gravity
Wicked: For Not That Good
My obsession with musical theater switched off one day before I was able to join the “Wicked” fanbase. The music from “Les Mis,” “Hedwig,” “Spring Awakening,” “Rent,” “Once,” “Rocky Horror,” “Phantom” and a few more still spin round in my head some weeks, but shows like “Cats,” “Rock of Ages” and “Frozen” feel lukewarm and […]
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Two Mothers
A remarkable double feature
It’s rare that two movies are both released around the same time and have profoundly interesting things to say about similar subjects. Yeah, you’ll get Twin Films like in 1997 when we were lucky enough to get “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak” in the same calendar year, or even better, in 1998 when Hollywood bestowed upon […]
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It’s Alive!
Guillermo del Toro and the art of the misunderstood monster
Guillermo del Toro loves his monsters. He’s built an Oscar-winning and critically lauded career on telling stories about the darkness at the center of the world and the creatures born from it. Because there’s no one that del Toro empathizes with more than the underdog, the misunderstood beast at the end of the book that […]
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The Thanksgiving Canon
What movies are you thankful for?
I don’t think Thanksgiving movies get the credit they deserve. We get a ton of Christmas, Halloween, and holiday movies canonized as classics and added to the yearly rotation, but Thanksgiving has always remained the day when people slowly food-coma themselves into oblivion in front of football or a parade. Still, I think it’s time to spotlight a few pretty great Thanksgiving […]