Terminator Genisys

The very definition of lean and mean. 🖤

I finally got around to seeing all the Child’s Play / Chucky movies, and pound for pound, this is probably the most tolerable deep dive of a long-running horror franchise I’ve ever done. A few notes:

• The decision to continue with animatronics and puppetry for the duration of the series is absolutely crucial to its success. CGI would have made these movies unwatchable.
• I like how the series is kind of made up of rhyming… See more →

I’m always grateful for an opportunity to see artful indie animated shorts on a big screen within biking distance from my home, and in recent years the Philadelphia Film Festival’s program has been reliably good. This year’s, though it included some strong entries, was unfortunately sorely lacking in thematic variety: Six of the eight films were about parenting or marriage. I won’t say they didn’t honor those experiences, but few felt especially insightful. Unlike their… See more →

I initially decided against Dr. Giggles tonight in favor of watching Dark Night of the Scarecrow, but when the doctor himself, Larry Drake, showed up in the very first scene in Scarecrow, I took it as an omen and made it a double feature. I got slightly more than I expected from Giggles (his demented giggling is truly infectious!), a video store staple I never got around to seeing in its early-90s heyday. I wonder… See more →

I always assumed Lady Terminator was trying to piggyback on the success of James Cameron’s iconic film without bearing any real resemblance to it, so imagine my surprise when I witnessed a big chunk of its runtime explicitly copying scenes from The Terminator. But don’t worry, it’s a totally different movie because the Terminator is a lady this time, and she trades in the cyborg part for some Indonesian folklore involving vagina dentata.

I’ve wanted… See more →

Yes! Fumbling through the dark; ears twitching at every unidentified sound; scanning the environment for weapons, ammo, keys, exits, and most importantly, threats; hoping upon hope you’re prepared to face whatever misbegotten grotesquerie comes next in this spiraling nightmare. This movie gets it, making little reference to specific Resident Evil lore but still feeling very much like a Resident Evil game, without forgetting to be cinema in the process. And its quest-oriented plot is an… See more →

Indy the dog is indeed a very good boy. But everything else about the movie is pretty meh.

The many hours I spent with the first two Resident Evil games didn’t do my college GPA any favors, but the sweet spot they found between the immersive dread of a good zombie movie and the adrenaline rush of a good action/adventure game was a revelation. Two great tastes that taste great together, and they even threw in some fun puzzles while they were at it.

The series lost me when it veered into convoluted… See more →

In my dream, MAGA went manga in a new season of House of Cards. New administration officials’ hairdos looked like something out of a sloppified, live-action Dragon Ball Z. One guy grew out and gelled his nose hair.

My long overdue first visit to Lightbox Film Center’s new location in the Bok building after UArts’s untimely demise two years ago. I’m glad Bok’s massive old high school auditorium is available to them, and if they decide someday to do less esoteric programming, the room can hold a lot of people. Hopefully those people will be prepared for some discomfort, because the uncushioned wooden seats are not great! By now it seems like a… See more →