“..anyone can be big behind a gun, I prefer to know my own strength..” Love Lies Bleeding is a palpable gritty 80’s neo-noir, and one of the more arresting revelations of 2024: It’s Natural Born […]
Author: Mike Apps
Unlocking the Paradox: Experiencing Tenet Beyond Logic
People keep asking me: why THIS movie with nonstop exposition, ciphers for characters, inaudibly abrasive sound mixing, a frustrating plot……and my answer remains the same: I stopped trying to understand Tenet and just felt it. […]
Being John Malkovich: The Weird Masterpiece That Predicted Our Era of Vicarious Fame
Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “Talent is hitting a target nobody can hit. Genius is hitting a target nobody can see.” Being John Malkovich is the kind of genius you might see as a joke, but […]
Hotel Rwanda: The Danger of Simplifying Atrocities for Hollywood’s Hero Narrative
The 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda is one of the more unfortunate cases of taking Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List approach to recount a genocide. This is not an issue limited to this movie alone. Hollywood typically […]
Why Crawl (2019) Is the Gator-Filled Thrill Ride Elevated Horror Fans Need to Stop Dismissing
Since 2014’s The Babadook, I have noticed this growing idea of “Elevated Horror” among snobbish cinephiles. These “horror fans” will have you believe that the genre has undergone a renaissance for the past 7 years. […]
May December Explained: Navigating the Terrain of Melodrama, Camp, and Emotional Complexity
“……in contrast to tragedy which is based on some misrecognition or ignorance, melodrama always involves some unexpected and excessive knowledge possessed not by the hero, but by his/her other, the knowledge imparted to the hero……” […]
From Toy Story to Tepid: Dissecting Pixar’s Fall from Creative Greatness
Everyone has their own bracket for what they consider Pixar’s Golden Age. For me, Pixar’s run from 1995 to 2010, was the studio at its prime. I’m old enough to remember a 10 year stretch […]
Top Movies that use the high school setting as film noir
A buddy of mine recently asked me what genre do I not see much off these days in need of a comeback. I used to think Westerns, but lately I’m thinking we need a proper […]
Why Do We Always Compare Every Fresh Superhero Movie To ‘The Dark Knight’?
There’s so much talk of how we are in a Golden Age of superhero movies, and yet it’s as if pop culture has not moved past 2008. For whatever reason, we appear to come back […]
Why is The Waldo Moment the Most Misunderstood Episode of Black Mirror?
Black Mirror is a show that has a slew of great episodes that showcase how technology has messed up humans in the worst way possible. Some of the most popular episodes of this dark science […]