How Christopher Nolan Uses Crosscutting to Build Momentum

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video that explores a staple of director Christopher Nolan: the crosscut. Christopher Nolan wants to have it all. And by “all” I mean crosscut plot threads. One urgent, nail-biting sequence just isn’t enough. The man loves to...

36m

‘I Care a Lot’ Exposes the Damning Reality of American Crime

Crime films are among the most thrilling and dramatic. However, between drug traffickers inciting high stakes shootouts and mobsters planting horse heads in beds, the victims and perpetrators seen in the genre are usually rather niche, and their practices fall beyond clearly defined bounds of legality. So, which grand criminal operation should we, realistically,...

5h

‘Search for the Gods’ Taps Into the UFO-Mania of the ’70s

Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Rob Hunter and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s. This week’s movie is Search for the Gods. In 1968, Erich von Däniken published a book called Chariots of the Gods? In the book, the author proposes that...

15h

‘Lovers Rock’ Immerses Us in an Energetic Reggae House Party

With his series Small Axe, Steve McQueen builds an epic anthology of five films depicting London’s West Indian community from the 1960s to the 1980s. Lovers Rock, the first installment to be released, paints a thriving picture of the city’s reggae scene during that era. The film is primarily set during a single night in 1980, at a party that draws lovers...

20h

‘Dark Was the Night’ is a Nifty Little Creature Feature

Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a weekly column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we think they’re...

1d

‘The Devil All the Time’ Sees Only Wolves and Sheep Among Us

The world can be a bleak and cruel place, but it’s also prone to bouts of beauty and compassion. It often comes down to luck as to which aspect of life a person experiences, but choices made play a major role. Antonio Campos’ new adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s novel sees only the misery and pain, though, while laying the blame at the feet of fate....

1d

‘X-Men: The Animated Series’ Succeeded Where the Films Often Fumbled

Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, our weekly column where we continue the animated boob tube ritual of yesteryear. Our lives may no longer be scheduled around small screen programming, but that doesn’t mean we should forget the necessary sanctuary of Saturday ‘toons. In this entry, we return to the era before the MCU, when pickings were slim, and...

2d

The Ending of ‘Antebellum’ 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 look at the ending of Antebellum. You have clicked on this article because you have either watched Antebellum already (my sympathies) or because you have not but you want to hear all about its...

2d

What Critics Said About ‘Batman Forever’

They Said What?! is a biweekly column in which we explore the highs and lows of film criticism through history. How did critics feel about it at the time, and do we see it differently now? In this entry, Chris Coffel explores the critical reception of Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. In the mid-’90s the landscape of big-budget Hollywood adaptations...

2d

Every James Bond Opening Title Sequence, Ranked

The name’s Bond. Bondathon. With 24 official James Bond films to conquer before No Time To Die hits theaters (someday!), Bond fan Anna Swanson and Bond newbie Meg Shields are diving deep on 007. With shaken martinis and beluga caviar in hand, the Double Take duo is making their way through the Bond corpus by era, so hang up your hats and pay attention....

3d