Newly released, The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is like Narc meets Reservoir Dogs with the mood and pacing of Alien. It’s a lean and mean, down and dirty mystery/thriller that languidly unfolds with increasing (and unrelenting) suspense, then erupts with a dizzying climax that is as concerned with connecting its pieces into a thematic hole […]

Assassination Nation Something of a mixture of Heathers and Spring Breakers, this boldly in-your-face satire is about a group of girls (Odessa Young, Abra, Suki Waterhouse, and Hari Nef) who are brutally slut shamed by their community after their (and everyone else’s) dirty little secrets are exposed by an online hacker. Assassination Nation is a […]

Replicas is one of many recent entries in the science fiction genre that attempts to examine the ethics behind cloning, artificial intelligence, and blind ambition towards scientific progress in general. Not that there’s anything wrong with that–it’s all fascinating subject matter and they are increasingly relevant topics. If it has nothing else going for it, […]

2018 saw a steady stream of original, daring, and adult-oriented movies released onto the marketplace. Many of its most touted releases turned out to be relative disappointments and many of its masterpieces were quiet surprises with short theatrical runs or straight-to-online-streaming releases—but, hey, what else is new these days?    Time always tells what the masterworks […]

Clocking in at just eleven minutes, Dylan is the kind of short film about which the less is said, the better. The viewer’s enjoyment of the film hinges upon director Cory Miller’s carefully calculated and skillful unraveling of costar Rob Belushi’s cleverly dark and shocking screenplay. Simply put, a lot happens in Dylan’s miniature runtime, […]

Screenwriter/director James Gunn’s first and, to date, only novel should have had the effect of a modern-day The Catcher in the Rye for twentysomethings at the beginning of the 21st century. It’s that poetically and politically incorrect, that unflinchingly honest, and that painfully and brutally funny. It’s also that good. Though the book has been […]

Part 9: All Roads Lead to Katie With a blockbuster hit and his Gone paycheck under his belt, Allison Burnett could afford to return to works of a more personal nature, however risky the prospect of financial reward would be. Like his recently and quietly released novel, The Escape of Malcolm Poe, his next directorial […]

This is the third cinematic interpretation (and the second English-language one) of the Lisbeth Salander/Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Swedish thriller book series that was created by the late Stieg Larsson. Based on the first book in the series written by David Lagercrantz instead of Larsson, The Girl in the Spider’s Web faces the uphill […]

Part Eight: Gone is Malcolm Poe Gone was Burnett’s first-produced spec screenplay in over a decade. On paper, it seemed to be an amalgam of all the strengths his work exhibited to date: great characterizations, a strong female lead, sparse and true-to-life dialogue. Perhaps even more appealing, it was all neatly and cleverly wrapped up […]

Silver Screen Fiend is Patton Oswalt’s answer to Permanent Midnight. It’s a cautionary tale for film buffs– or anyone geeked out on anything outside of real life. While it may not feature stories of Oswalt sleeping under park benches, it certainly provokes self-examination for anyone who starts losing sight of reality when they confuse it […]