Tomorrowland is a rare futuristic film that is overwhelmingly optimistic. As a character in the film itself points out, stories set in the future these days tend to be pretty dark and depressing, and we eat all that up. Films like The Hunger Games practically revel in the misery of these characters, telling us that everything is terrible and…
After five films, the thesis of the Final Destination series is that literally anything can kill you at any time. Death can be totally pointless and random. Some people will die peacefully in their sleep, and others will be hit by a bus out of nowhere, or fall down an elevator shaft, or die in some sort…
Every generation of horror is dominated by some new gimmick. In the last decade, that gimmick has been found footage. It’s a concept that can be well utilized, but too often is it just be a shameless way of keeping the budget as tiny as possible. After all, as these films are meant to look like they’re…
Rick and Morty is a show that completely transcends its genre to become one of the most brilliant pieces of television I’ve ever seen. That brilliance has never been more clear than in the show’s eighth episode, “Rixty Minutes,” among the best half hours of a comedy series in the past decade.
After putting it on pause for a bit, we’re back to the Jake and Amy relationship. In this episode, the two are paired together to work on a case, and right from the beginning we can pretty much see exactly what’s going to happen here. Jake still likes Amy. He wants to ask her out.…
I’m a passionate horror apologist, but the genre has always treated women poorly. For decades now, female horror characters have essentially been variants on the ditsy slut who dies in the first act or the innocent virgin who is endlessly tortured, as parodied in Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods. The fact that these stories are frequently led…
[This article will contain spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron] A lot has been said about the problematic treatment of women in superhero movies these days, with just about major blockbuster being pretty male dominated. A lot of times the only major female characters we get are the love interests for the heroes, and that’s really a…
Avengers: Age of Ultron feels like the movie Marvel has been building towards for years. Not in terms of plot, really – that would probably be the original Avengers, the moment that all these standalone solo movies finally came together into one. But that film still felt like it was putting the pieces into place, getting this team together…
We saw a new Avengers movie you guys. I can’t believe I get to type that sentence. We’re still kind of processing our thoughts on the movie, because there’s a whole lot to unpack in there, but here’s some very early, very raw, very tired, very spoilery thoughts on the film after our midnight premiere.
BY BRENDAN MORROW 