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Movie Fantasy League Week 15: Moana and the Celebrity Burn Pass
“Obsession” continued its impressive run, passing “Sinners” to become the highest-grossing original live-action movie of the century. Continue reading
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The 10 Best Films of 2026, So Far: A Midyear Report
For once, a future where peaceful coexistence between franchise fare and fresh stories doesn’t feel quite as much of a fantasy. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: John Ford
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 9: Win the Backrooms Ballad, Liminally
“Obsession” is now the first non-Christmas release to grow in both its second and third weekends since 1982, when Steven Spielberg released a little ditty called “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.” Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 8: I Love the Mandalorian Passenger
While the highest grosser of the weekend was “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” the big winner was “Obsession,” which jumped up a spot in the domestic box office, added 40 theaters to its roster, and made 40% more than its opening… Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 7: Obsessed with the Draft
“Michael” won the box office again in its fourth week, a strong showing after dropping down to #3 last weekend. Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 6: Sheep Kombat
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” continues to slay in the top spot, with new releases “Mortal Kombat II,” “The Sheep Detectives,” and Billie Eilish’s tour/concert doc “Hit Me Hard and Soft” trailing close behind. Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 5: The Devil Wears Dollars
“The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “Michael” are both formidable opponents and major successes for their respective studios. Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 4: A Thriller Weekend
The domestic box office was up over sixty percent this week, and that is almost entirely thanks to “Michael,” the problematic musical biopic that moonwalked to almost $100 million in its first few days alone. Continue reading
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Scary Spring Has Sprung (May’s Monthly Horror Recs)
Welcome to the ninth edition of May’s Monthly Horror Recs, where it’s always the time of year for scary movies! Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 3: Lee Cronin’s Mummy Mary
This weekend, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” continued its rampage across North American theaters, remaining at Number One, though its lead is not quite what it used to be. Continue reading
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Movie Fantasy League Week 2: Faces of Tuscany Death
This is the first week in which we are taking into account the critical scores, including from aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, Letterboxd, and IMDb. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Clint Eastwood
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Anime
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Love and Death (May’s Monthly Horror Recs)
Welcome to the seventh edition of May’s Monthly Horror Recs, where it’s always the time of year for scary movies! Continue reading
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Our Most Anticipated Movies of 2026
Bring on the new year! Iconic filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve, Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, Danny Boyle, Sam Raimi, Gore Verbinski, and many other icons will be gracing our screens with epic new offerings, and though it looks to… Continue reading
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The 10 Best Films of 2025
Whether it’s the triumphant return of an iconic filmmaker with an indelible masterpiece or the start of a new cinematic movement, 2025 brought us a variety of entertaining features that we’ll be talking about for a long time. Continue reading
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Start the New Year with a Scream (May’s Monthly Horror Recs)
Welcome to the sixth edition of May’s Monthly Horror Recs, where it’s always the time of year for scary movies! Continue reading
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The Underseen Gems of 2025
Knock on Wood presents: our favorite under-appreciated masterpieces from 2025. Continue reading
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Our Favorite Performances of 2025
The films of 2025 have been delightful and disappointing in their own right…today, we spotlight our favorite acting performances across the board. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Steven Spielberg
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Early Animation
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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November Blues (May’s Monthly Horror Recs)
Welcome to the fourth edition of May’s Monthly Horror Recs, where it’s always the time of year for scary movies! Continue reading
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“Wake Up Dead Man” Keeps the Knives Sharp (Review)
I would be perfectly excited if Rian Johnson made a new “Knives Out” movie every few years for as long as he wants to. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Close-Ups
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” Flips the Script (Review)
He’s a filmmaker of many flavors, who obsesses over a number of central concepts in nearly every one of his works – chiefly, desire and passion, including their effects and consequences. “After the Hunt” is no different. Continue reading
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Paul Thomas Anderson’s Latest is One Banger After Another (Review)
It’s rare to sit down for a movie and realize in real time that you’re watching a masterpiece. You can see the future, and that what you’re witnessing is going to be cherished and discussed for many decades to come.… Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Akira Kurosawa
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Non-Linear Storytelling
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Five Underseen Horror Films to Watch This July (May’s Monthly Recs)
Welcome to the second edition of May’s Monthly Horror Recs, where it’s always the time of year for scary movies! Continue reading
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“Eddington” is Something Different for Ari Aster (Review)
Alienation is inevitable in the works of Mr. Aster, whose polarizing subjects are, this time, holding an uncomfortable mirror up to an audience that is undoubtedly unsure of what to expect from his latest venture. Continue reading
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The 10 Best Films of 2025, So Far: A Midyear Report
Today marks the midway point of both an unusually painful year and the most tumultuous decade in recent memory. Today, we will be examining ten films released this year that our contributors connected with, and have so far taken their… Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Christopher Nolan
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Weird Westerns
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Flashbacks
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Every Best Picture Winner Ranked (Part One)
The Academy Award for Best Picture has been awarded for almost a century to the film deemed to represent not necessarily the most popular, but the most culturally relevant in that year’s cinematic lineup. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: John Carpenter
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Neo-Westerns
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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“Love Hurts,” But It Doesn’t Sting (Review)
“Love Hurts” has a unique earnestness to it, and a confidence that can be off-putting to those not expecting an unapologetically silly movie. Continue reading
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Remembering David Lynch
David Lynch, one of the most iconic and stylistically recognizable filmmakers of all time, passed away recently at the age of 78. Continue reading
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Our Most Anticipated Movies of 2025
There are plenty of films, whether they be original, adaptations, or sequels, that we’re looking forward to this year. Continue reading
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The 10 Best Films of 2024
Though it may not have reached the heights of years previous, 2024 has proven to be a fascinating year for cinema. Continue reading
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The Underseen Gems of 2024
Knock on Wood presents: our favorite under-appreciated masterpieces from 2024. Continue reading
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Lessons from the Wasteland: Montage
Welcome to class! Each film on this curated watchlist will highlight either a filmmaker, sub-genre, filmmaking technique, or significant topic in order to broaden your cinematic horizons. Continue reading
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The 25 Best Movie Musicals of the Last 25 Years
Musicals have certainly had their ups and downs over the years, but it’s quite clear that musicals are experiencing a high water mark in entertainment spectacle and audience engagement. Continue reading
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Too Many Movies, Too Little Time: A Summary of the 2024 Fall Movie Season (Part Two)
To commemorate the conclusion of the season, we have reviewed every new release (that I have seen) that has not been previously covered on our site. Continue reading
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Wallace & Gromit Return with a “Vengeance Most Fowl” (Review)
This new film is the confluence of the best ideas and imagery this series has offered in its 35 years of history, and to bring back one of their most iconic baddies is just icing on the cake. Continue reading
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“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is a Titanic Achievement (Review)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” doesn’t exist because the director willed it into being, it exists because it demands to. There is no world in which it doesn’t. Continue reading
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Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” is Failed by the System it Celebrates (Review)
There’s a certain quality to “Juror #2” that I will forever find endearing, and that is its willingness to embrace the inherent excitement of its premise. Continue reading
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The Most Exciting Film Festival Premieres of 2024
Film festivals happen throughout the year, but the premieres ramp up from the end of the summer through the beginning of fall. Continue reading
