‘The Sparks Brothers’ is an Engrossing Celebration of Unsung Music Icons

“Sparks are a part of the ecosystem of music,” says a fan, who happens to be Beck, on the lasting influence of a band that’s been sowing seeds across the music industry since the late 1960s. Other famous fans of Sparks, including Jason Schwartzman,  Fred...

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‘Superior’ is Beautiful and Bland

A film’s style is crucial in establishing its tone and atmosphere, informing the viewer about what to expect, at least aesthetically. It can be a feast for the eyes and can transport the viewer into the film’s world. But unfortunately relying solely on style cannot...

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‘How It Ends’ is a Warm, if Overly Cutesy, Apocalypse Comedy

What if we knew when the world was going to end? How would we spend our last day? These questions are nothing new in terms of hypotheticals, but they’re two of the questions asked in Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein‘s affable How It Ends, an existential, apocalypse...

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The Ending of ‘The Little Things’ Explained

Ending Explained is a recurring series in which we explore the finales, secrets, and themes of interesting movies and shows, both new and old. This time, we travel back to 1990s Los Angeles to investigate the ending of The Little Things. Many reviews of John...

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‘Knocking’ Offers a Tense Ride Towards Uncertainty

Gaslighting may not be exclusively directed towards women, but history and society continue to do their part in making them the most likely target. They’re too often not believed in matters both big and small, and while some people point out “truths” with good...

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‘John and the Hole’ Marks a Tense, Vacant Feature Debut

Never has a movie been so forthcoming as to what it is about without ever revealing what it is actually about. It is, of course, about John and the Hole. John (Charlie Shotwell) is a spindly boy in late-middle/early-high school with a staple white suburban swoosh...

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Confident Debut ‘On the Count of Three’ is a Flawed, Bittersweet Bromance

Jerrod Carmichael (co-creator of the semi-autobiographical sitcom The Carmichael Show) flexes his directing skills in On the Count of Three, a black comedy debut about death that showcases his promise as a compelling new filmmaker. But the digressive script...

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Science Collides With Folk Horror in Ben Wheatley’s ‘In the Earth’

Ben Wheatley has had quite the rollercoaster of a career, oscillating between unique horror films and action-packed crime thrillers. He began with Sightseers and The Kill List, two very different genre films that showcase his versatility with different versions...

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How Animators Created the Elaborate “Ave Maria” Sequence for ‘Fantasia’

Welcome to How’d They Do That? — a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off. This entry explains why the “Ave Maria” sequence in Disney’s Fantasia was one of the most challenging filmmaking...

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‘Censor’ is Unafraid to Ask Difficult Questions

The “video nasty” era in Britain peaked after the Video Recording Act of 1984. This new legislation required that all cinematic and at-home releases be screened and censored. Many people feared that the low-budget horror movies that showed copious amounts of blood...

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Denzel Washington’s Latest Is Missing More Than Just ‘The Little Things’

The vast majority of film scripts written throughout history make it nowhere near the screen, let alone into the hands of filmmakers intent on filming them. That said, quite a few screenplays actually achieve the latter but still don’t ever get made. John Lee...

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Dash Shaw’s Sophomore Effort Fascinates on the Surface

From 2016 to 2020 in Richmond, Virginia, writer-director-animator Dash Shaw and animation director Jane Samborski hand drew Cryptozoo with a small team of artists. On the surface, so what? The age-old tradition of meticulously hand-drawn animation isn’t a modern-day...

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‘WandaVision’ Episode 4 Positions Wanda as the Villain of Her Story

WandaVision Explained is our ongoing series that keeps tabs on Marvel Studios’ sitcom saga about TV’s happiest tragic couple. In this entry, we turn our channel to WandaVision Episode 4 and contemplate the tragedy that links Wanda’s fantasy to the MCU’s reality....

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How Quentin Tarantino Shoots a Car Scene

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay about how Quentin Tarantino shoots car scenes. There’s nothing more common in movies than two people sitting down and having...

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