FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

When Æon Flux hit theaters in 2005, it was already burdened by expectation and misunderstanding. Fans of Peter Chung’s surreal MTV animated series expected a cerebral, avant-garde vision of dystopia. Mainstream audiences, lured by the marketing promise of a sleek sci-fi action film starring Charlize Theron, expected kinetic gunfights and a clear narrative. What arrived was something in between, a film simultaneously too strange and too conventional, too cerebral for popcorn audiences yet too compromised for the cult crowd. Still, two decades later, Æon Flux remains an oddly fascinating artifact of early-2000s science fiction cinema, a film whose stylized visual design, though very much of its time, continues to hold up because of its craft and conviction. Directed by Karyn Kusama, then fresh off her indie breakthrough Girlfight, and written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, Æon Flux is set in the 25th century, four centuries after a virus wiped out most of humanity. The survivors live in ...

Mission: Impossible The Final Reckoning feels like both an ending and a reflection, a farewell built on adrenaline, guilt, loyalty, and legacy. It’s a film that constantly looks back while trying to propel itself forward at full speed, as if Ethan Hunt and the movie itself are racing against time, history, and perhaps exhaustion. Christopher McQuarrie returns to direct what is being framed as the culmination of Tom Cruise’s nearly thirty-year journey as Hunt. While it delivers the spectacle fans expect, it also stumbles under the weight of its own finality. The story picks up where Dead Reckoning Part One left off. The rogue artificial intelligence known as “the Entity” is still at large, manipulating global systems and sowing chaos through information warfare. Hunt and his IMF team, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and Grace (Hayley Atwell), must locate the device that can control or destroy it before it falls into the wrong hands. Standing in their way is Gabriel (Esai Moral...

When Spawn hit theaters in August 1997, it was billed as something different from the comic book adaptations of its day. Hollywood was dabbling in pulp heroes (The Phantom, The Shadow) and neon-soaked camp (Batman Forever, Batman & Robin), but few films had attempted to translate the darker, more extreme energy of the 1990s comics boom. Todd McFarlane’s Spawn seemed like the perfect candidate: a grim, gothic antihero with a cult following, steeped in hellfire, betrayal, and supernatural spectacle. The theatrical cut of Spawn that audiences saw was a strange beast. At just over 90 minutes, it told the story of Al Simmons (Michael Jai White), a government assassin betrayed by his employer Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen), murdered, and resurrected as Spawn, a reluctant soldier in Hell’s army. The premise is brimming with tragic weight: a man torn between vengeance and redemption, cursed with grotesque powers, and manipulated by the demonic clown Violator (John Leguizamo). Unfortunately, the...

South Korean cinema has earned its reputation for daring storytelling and stylish reinvention, and Kim Jee-woon’s The Good, the Bad, the Weird might be one of the most vibrant examples. Released in 2008, the film is often described as a homage to Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but it is far more than imitation. Kim takes the skeleton of the spaghetti western and relocates it to 1930s Manchuria, giving the genre a new cultural and historical foundation while retaining the reckless energy of Leone’s classics. The result is a film that feels at once familiar and completely unpredictable. The decision to set the story in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation is as inspired as it is meaningful. This was a turbulent place where colonial powers, outlaws, and opportunists intersected in a landscape that resembled the lawless frontiers of the American West. It gives the film both a mythic and political dimension: deserts and train tracks may echo western iconography, but the...

When Creepshow came out in 1982, it felt like a splash of lurid color ripped straight from the pages of EC horror comics. George A. Romero directed with style, Stephen King supplied pulpy stories, and the result was a mix of camp and menace that captured the spirit of twisted morality tales. Five stories, bound together by a sharp comic-book aesthetic, gave it both variety and energy. A sequel seemed inevitable, and in 1987, Creepshow 2 arrived with Romero stepping back into the role of screenwriter while his longtime cinematographer Michael Gornick took the director’s chair. Right away, the difference is clear: the sequel is leaner, offering just three stories instead of five. There’s plenty of gore, gallows humor, and supernatural justice, but it never reaches the same heights as the original. It feels smaller, less ambitious, and sometimes clumsier, though still worth a look for horror anthology fans. The film keeps the comic-inspired wraparound, this time featuring a character call...

  If you’ve ever waited for a train in one of London’s older Underground stations, you know how creepy those tunnels can feel late at night. Now imagine something lurking down there, something that isn’t just a drunk commuter. That’s the basic setup of Raw Meat (known as Death Line in the U.K.), a 1972 horror film directed by Gary Sherman. It’s a strange, scrappy little movie that mixes urban decay, cannibalism, and dry British humor. And yes, Christopher Lee shows up, but not in the way you might expect. The film kicks off when a rich civil servant mysteriously vanishes in Russell Square station. Donald Pleasence plays Inspector Calhoun, the cranky cop assigned to figure out what happened. His investigation leads him to rumors about missing people in the Underground. The truth is straight out of a nightmare: decades earlier, workers were trapped in a tunnel collapse. Cut off from the world, they survived by eating the dead, and their descendants have been living down there ever si...

Jurassic World: Rebirth arrives as both a return to roots and a bold step forward, reigniting the thrill of seeing dinosaurs on the big screen. Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp, the film leans into everything audiences come to these stories for—spectacle, suspense, and the awe of prehistoric life—while tightening the focus to a survival adventure that feels intimate and grand at the same time. From its very first images, the movie reestablishes the island as a place of mystery and danger. Edwards fills the screen with sweeping vistas of mist-shrouded cliffs, vast jungles, and ancient valleys where the dinosaurs roam. The scale is breathtaking, and the creatures themselves are rendered with astonishing realism. One early sequence shows a herd of titanosaurids moving through a riverbed, their immense bodies mirrored in the water, creating a moment of pure wonder. Later, the reappearance of the mosasaur rising from the depths of the ocean blends terror with majesty, a...

When Lost in Space landed in theaters in 1998, it was meant to be the start of something big. New Line Cinema invested heavily in reviving Irwin Allen’s 1960s TV series, hoping to create a sleek, modern franchise that could stand alongside the likes of Star Wars or Independence Day. Instead, the movie opened to mixed reviews and quickly became a box office curiosity. Yet, looking back today, the film feels far more interesting than its reputation suggests. It’s a flawed but ambitious piece of late-90s science fiction that combines family drama, spectacle, and a dash of camp in ways that make it a fascinating and surprisingly enjoyable watch. The story is set in the near future, with Earth in decline from environmental collapse. The Robinson family is chosen to lead a colonization mission to a distant planet, traveling aboard the Jupiter 2 to ensure humanity’s survival. But thanks to sabotage by the scheming Dr. Zachary Smith, the mission goes wrong, and the Robinsons find themselves st...

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, released in 1950, remains one of the most haunting explorations of Hollywood ever put on film. Both a biting satire and a gothic tragedy, it examines fame, ambition, and the corrosive effects of illusion with a sharpness that has not dulled in the decades since. The movie is as much about the culture of the dream factory as it is about the particular characters caught in its snare, and that dual focus gives it a timeless quality. While it is anchored in its own era of silent stars fading from memory, the themes of disillusionment and the cost of chasing celebrity are as relevant now as they were in mid-century Los Angeles. The story is told through the weary eyes of Joe Gillis, played with cynical charm by William Holden. Joe is a struggling screenwriter in Hollywood, drowning in debt and desperate for work. The film opens with his death, floating face-down in a swimming pool, while his own sardonic voiceover begins to narrate the events that led him th...

Savage Steve Holland’s Better Off Dead is one of those rare teen comedies from the 1980s that stands out not because it strictly follows the John Hughes mold, but because it leans into absurdism, surreal humor, and cartoonish exaggeration while still telling a surprisingly sweet story about heartbreak, self-worth, and second chances. Released in 1985 and starring John Cusack in one of his earliest leading roles, the film has since become a cult classic, loved for its offbeat tone, quotable lines, and unforgettable side characters. At its core, the film follows Lane Myer (Cusack), a high school student in a snowy California suburb whose life falls apart when his girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss) dumps him for the smug and ridiculously vain ski team captain Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier). Lane, convinced he has nothing left to live for, makes a series of comically botched suicide attempts. These dark gags are played entirely for slapstick, and while the subject matter might sound grim, the execut...

Few films embody the strange, glittery spirit of 1980 quite like Xanadu. Directed by Robert Greenwald and starring Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck, and screen legend Gene Kelly in his final film role, Xanadu is an oddball hybrid: part musical, part roller-disco fantasy, part mythological romance. On release, it was dismissed by critics and struggled at the box office, but in the years since it has transformed into something of a cult phenomenon. It’s both a dazzling relic of its time and a strangely sincere love letter to imagination, art, and the dream of reinvention. The story is almost childlike in its simplicity. Sonny Malone (Michael Beck) is a frustrated commercial artist in Los Angeles, stuck replicating album covers when what he really wants is to create something original. His life is upended when he encounters Kira (Olivia Newton-John), a radiant young woman on roller skates who appears seemingly out of nowhere. What Sonny doesn’t know is that Kira is actually Terpsichore, o...

When Dean DeBlois announced he’d be directing a live-action remake of his own animated classic, there was a collective buzz among fans. It’s rare for a remake to be guided by the same creative hand that brought the original to life, and that gave this project a built-in authenticity from the start. Fifteen years after the animated film’s debut, we return to Berk to find the same story, the same emotional beats, and the same charm—this time wrapped in a tactile, photo-real world that feels both fresh and familiar. The narrative remains a timeless one: Hiccup, the awkward but curious son of Viking chief Stoick the Vast, lives in a world where dragons are feared and hunted. When he injures a rare Night Fury and discovers it’s not the monster he was taught to believe, he forms a friendship that will alter the course of his village forever. That relationship, between a boy and his dragon, is still the film’s heart, and it beats as strongly in live action as it did in animation. Berk itself ...