Reviews
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Choose your fighter! Director Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat II (2026) delivers an unapologetic spectacle. It leans heavily into the pop culture absurdity of the late ’80s and ’90s that birthed this now 30-something-year-old franchise. For emphasis, McQuoid puts Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage front and center to test the aging franchise’s might (c’mon, I had to).…
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A man discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price. Obsession (2026) is one of the most unsettling thrillers in modern horror!
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As I sit in an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, waiting for One Spoon of Chocolate to start, the previews roll. Coming soon: Is God Is (2026). Wait—what? Black women, doing Black women shit—written and directed by a Black woman. Duly noted. I’m there. Then The RZA’s ode to grindhouse cinema plays. Later, I finally catch Is…
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Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, a 22-year-old native New Yorker, moved to the Midwest. Moving from Staten Island to Steubenville, Ohio, can be a major cultural shock. If you watch the movie 8 Mile closely, you’ll see that there are these sorts of frightening norms, a rigid Rust Belt blue-collar born social system at play that doesn’t…
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Hollywood musical biopics rarely capture the full complexity of their subjects. The truth is, these films aren’t demanded for the hope of an accurate depiction. They exist to satisfy the public’s appetite for a critical autopsy of an artist’s rise and fall. Their sometimes interpretive—and if need be, unauthorized—exposé. If we were to dissect an…
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Can a Classic Monster Be Reimagined for Modern Audiences? America’s first mummy movie was The Mummy, released in 1932 by Universal Pictures. Directed by Karl Freund, the film features Boris Karloff as Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest who is accidentally brought back to life when archaeologists open his tomb. Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) takes…
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Despite Lionsgate distributing it, The Gates (2026) is an indie film. I like indies. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, we millennials discovered them late at night on HBO, Showtime, or Cinemax. Harmony Korine’s Kids and its follow-up, Gummo, stood out. The late Roger Ebert said that the 25-year-old director Korine’s indies belonged in conversations…
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Darryl Potter’s definitive Project Hail Mary film review breaks down the stunning visual effects, Ryan Gosling’s performance and more.
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It is a supernatural horror set in the 1930s Mississippi Delta. Twin brothers return home, trying to leave their troubled Chicago past behind them. The plan was to open a jukejoint with stolen booze and money from Al Capone and other Chicago gang outfits. A place for social gathering. Nights full of dancing, drinking, gambling,…