By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Like all writers, a young Anthony Bourdain is doing literally everything else but actually writing. In fact, he’s mostly just kind of drifting, confident in his own bullshit to the point where he’s convinced he’ll get a writing fellowship by simply existing and that will get him the girl of…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation One of the most famous scenes in horror movie history is also, maybe, it’s trashiest. The opening scene of Friday of 13th, which follows two camp counselors sneaking off for a fun time away from prying eyes only to meet their violent ends at the hands of an unknown assailant,…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Oak Street is on the verge of destruction. Or at least, the Platt family home is, who is currently in the midst of a parental squabble that is about to boil over into resentment that’s affecting everyone else around them. It only takes about 15 minutes in movie time however…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation Is Spider-Man ever allowed a chance at happiness? While this is eternal question of most great Spidey stories, the fantastic – and surprisingly thoughtful – Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the first take on the character in some time that actively frames that as it’s main thematic question. After the…
By Matthew Moorcroft No mainstream director is as cyclical and as repeating as Christopher Nolan. As I mentioned in my prior review of The Odyssey, Nolan has been exploring similar ideas and throughlines in his career to the point where somebody could think that he has one singular thesis and that’s it. While I disagree…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation At what point do we earn forgiveness for the sins we have wraught? This is arguably the question that has permeated the entirety of Christopher Nolan’s career, who has spent two decades examining and reexamining the ways that flawed men try to atone what they perceive to be their greatest…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Pushing boundaries of good taste has always been the modus operandi of the Evil Dead series, one of horror’s most consistently entertaining and well designed machines. Even as far back as the original film, which was labeled as a “video nasty” in the days of the moral panic behind films…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation An awkward and consistently insightful sex comedy about the perils of relationships and marriage, The Invite immediately has an air of tension right as Seth Rogen’s Joe enters the home. With a bad back, a miserable outlook on his job, and a proclivity to mask his own insecurities with humor…
By Matthew Moorcroft Solid Recommendation While their appeal may have diminished overtime, one forgets there was a time when the Minions, the yellow pill shaped creatures that are Illumination’s mascots (and the bane of certain parents’ existence), once actually were somewhat appealing. The original Despicable Me isn’t a perfect movie by any means, in fact…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Seduction and the fear of desire are something that are intrinsically linked in horror and have been for some time. While the reasons are mostly socially – mainly the advent of puritan culture and conservatism in regards to sexuality – it has meant that horror has always that seductive background…
By Matthew Moorcroft Unsure In true DC fashion, Supergirl is a bit of a strange oddity. You would think that years after the fact that DC Studios, having seen first hand the implosion of the original DCEU and the general healthy skepticism towards new superhero fare that general audiences have maintained post-Endgame, would learn from…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation Like all of the nigh-perfect entries in the series that came before it, Toy Story 5 plays as equally if not more to the adults in the audience as it does the children it’s supposedly aimed. In the case of prior films, those extended to it’s existential questions about the…
By Matthew Moorcroft CONTENT WARNING: This editorial discusses themes of suicide and trans dysphoria. In the 1983 body horror classic Videodrome, our lead character Max Renn, the CEO of TV station, continually finds himself being transformed and morphed into a being that is not himself. Starting with the psychological, with him slowly but surely having…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation An apt title for a movie whose main energy is always at a thousand percent, The Furious feels like the second coming of Christ if you are a martial arts flick kind of guy. Ever since the late 90s, Hong Kong action cinema has been around but it has lacked…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Launching you straight into a conspiracy thriller where the ultimate question is less about what the conspiracy and more about the aftershocks, Disclosure Day is Spielberg, in some ways, returning to old ground. This isn’t his first rodeo with aliens, let alone ones where the entire premise is built on…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation When it comes to Boots Riley as a filmmaker, you both know what you are getting yourself into while also have no idea what to expect. The prolific artist who has run the gambit from hip hop to film to political activism has a unique voice that, try as people…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation In a year where horror has proven to be dominated the young, the youngest may have saved the best for last with Backrooms. At only 19 years old, Kane Parsons is a newcomer who has been given the once in a lifetime opportunity to adapt his own work to the…
By Matthew Moorcroft Unsure Smushed between two major horror releases as well as a major blockbuster release, Passenger would feel doomed if it wasn’t for it’s viral (and genuinely impressive) theater only teaser from several months ago that made audiences squirm and jump in their seats. It’s a testament to the power of marketing that…
By Matthew Moorcroft No Recommendation The fact this doesn’t even have the “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” intro card should be red flag number one. It’s impossible for me to be rational with Star Wars. Most other franchises I can keep myself at least at an arm’s distance and be…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation When you have nobody else, it becomes difficult to feel anything else other then rage at the rest of the world. Thus is the life of the twins Racine and Anaia, two women whose bodies are permanently scarred and burned due to an abusive father who set their own mother…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Don’t let it’s poor marketing and Mad Libs style premise fool you – The Sheep Detectives is the kind of family film that one wishes we still got on a regular basis. Mixing the modern whodunnit stylings of Knives Out with the tone and whismy of Babe, and also a…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation Feeling like something of a minor miracle in theaters, Obsession is yet another of the many horror films of the past several years brought to us by online talent turned professional filmmaker. It’s becoming increasingly clear at this point that, with the advent of the digital space, the next big…
By Matthew Moorcroft Weak Recommendation Once again, I am probably being far too kind to this. I don’t think anybody is under the assumption that Mortal Kombat II is going to be some level of high art. It is, after all, a movie where two of it’s major players is a woman whose weapon of…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation As early as five minutes in, Hokum is already going for the jugular. To some, jump scares are an easy tactic, but to somebody like Damian McCarthy it’s clear that it can also be an artform in itself; a sudden release of tension and fright that comes at just the…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Playing into the metaphysical and poetic, Mother Mary is exactly the kind of film that you would expect David Lowery to make. At his core, Lowery is a filmmaker that plays into emotion and vibes first and foremost, with all of his films carrying a level of painterly like ambiguity…
By Matthew Moorcroft Solid Recommendation Almost as nasty as an actual decaying corpse, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, which is indeed the full title, revels in it’s gruesome horror. Less overtly scary and more focused on being as disgusting and gross as you can imagine, it follows in the footsteps of the titular director’s past work…
By Matthew Moorcroft Strong Recommendation Ever hear somebody say something so shocking and unexpected you can just hear a pin drop and literally feel the air being sucked out of the room? That’s the entire impetus of The Drama, which finds the marriage between Emma and Charlie threatened just days before it’s supposed to happen.…
By Matthew Moorcroft Unsure Seemingly designed from the ground up to be as frenetic and as fast moving as possible to keep the attention of even the smallest of hyperactive children (or hyperactive, chronically online adults), The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is only barely just that. A barrage of loud noise, colors, and action sequences,…
By Matthew Moorcroft Highest Recommendation The Earth is dying. Something is dimming the sun, and we only have 30 years to really prevent it or things are going to get bad really fast. Project Hail Mary, as a film, isn’t about climate change but it certainly feels like it in some ways; a film about…
By Matthew Moorcroft Unsure Bursting onto the frame with a loud, overwhelming jolt to the senses not unsimiliar to the very lightning bolt that brought Frankenstein’s monster to life years and years ago, The Bride! is almost as unwieldy and impossible to quantify as said monster as well. It’s the stitched together, falling apart at…
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