FOLLOWING FILMS

The other day I was asked what it is I like about horror, so I put this together. At first, it seemed like a simple question — I could’ve said I like being scared, or that horror is fun, or that I enjoy a good ghost story on a rainy night. And while all of that is true, the real reasons go much deeper. Horror is more than just monsters, gore, and jump scares. It’s my favorite genre because it gives voice to the outsider, welcomes new creators with open (often blood-soaked) arms, and celebrates the strange, the uncanny, and the overlooked. One of the most powerful things about horror is how it speaks for — and to — outsiders. More than any other genre, horror is where the people who don’t quite fit can tell their stories. Its monsters are often metaphors: a vampire as a symbol of queerness, a haunted house representing generational trauma, a zombie outbreak reflecting societal collapse. Horror sees the weird and wounded parts of life that other genres try to clean up or ignore. It say...

Star Wars is impossible to escape. Even the most casual film fans have an opinion on what entries in the series stand out among the best. So, with that in mind, we've decided to rank the current 9 releases including a speculative look at the upcoming Solo. 10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  (2016) I in no way think this is a bad film, but it is the least vital in the series. It tells the backstory of how the rebels got the plans that would eventually lead to the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars. It suffers from the same problem that all prequels have, inevitability, we have a good idea of exactly where this film is headed from the first frame. But the bigger problem here is with the characters. Unfortunately, the most dynamic and engaging personality in Rogue One is an android voiced (brilliantly) by Alan Tudyk. 9. Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999) I have a soft spot for this mess of a film. It's overly bloated and Jar Jar doesn't ...

If you do a Google search for “Justice League” right now the first thing that will populate are the show times, then after that, you will see the IMDB page, Twitter, and Rotten Tomatoes page. That’s the same for pretty much every new release film. It’s what you find a few entries deeper that I find annoying. The countless articles and stories about how the #1 film in the world is a box office failure. I’m not here to support or tear down that assertion because I think it’s pointless. Playing armchair studio executive was once a game relegated to the financial pages and CNBC but now it’s not just Forbes analyzing the red and black, it’s Esquire, GQ, EW, every movie blogger, Twitter fanboy, and “movie nerd” deep diving into the commerce side of the business called show. We’ve reduced film criticism to an analytic that creates a misleading narrative by valuing the output from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, and CinemaScore. Different viewers can dislike or like films for a whole bevy ...