Category: Movies and Television
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Baby Driver: The Perfect Score for the Perfect Score
Baby Driver squealed into theaters last week, debuting as the first great action movie of the summer. Sporting a top-shelf ensemble cast, inventive chase scenes—both on road and on foot—and one of the coolest soundtracks since Guardians of the Galaxy, the newest offering from director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is pleasing…
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Submitted For the Approval of the Midnight Society: The Rise and Decline of Horror Anthologies on TV
The history of television is marked throughout by horror anthologies: shows that presented standalone terrors night after night. In spite of a healthy birth and a productive span of decades, the form has–sadly–witnessed a sad decline. That television as a medium is currently booming makes this decline all the more puzzling. The heyday for televised…
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Our Work Come Back to Haunt Us: Westworld and the Shadow of Michael Crichton
“No cause for alarm, Bernard. Simply our old work come back to haunt us.” –Dr. Ford By now it’s become cliché to note the remarkable number of reboots and re-imaginings Hollywood has doled out—to varying levels of success—in recent years. Riding the nostalgic remix wave, HBO has served up the visually stunning and thought-provoking…
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Stranger Things: 4 Lessons for Screenwriters
The excitement surrounding the release and immediate success of Netflix’ paranormal stunner Stranger Things is well-deserved. Few shows (or movies) in recent years have executed such a fine balance between wonder, horror, humor, and nostalgia. In the wake of the show’s release a veritable flood of reviews, blogs, lists and videos flowed across the internet.…
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The King of Television: Stephen King on the Small Screen
In a co-appearance event in 2012 the novelist Tom Perrotta said that Stephen King was the one author in America that everyone–readers and non-readers alike–had heard of. Regardless of how you felt about King or his work, you knew his name and you knew his works. Few critics anymore dismiss King’s output, which has been…
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Oh the Horror! 10 Cloverfield Lane, It Follows and The Resurgence of Horror Film
Is horror finally making a comeback? Horror film has always had a bit of a spotty record. Known more for cheap slasher flicks that appeal to a narrow but aggressively devoted audience, the genre has struggled to produce outright masterpieces. Earlier eras saw ebbs and flows, giving us the consistently brilliant John Carpenter and the…
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Backstabbing, Shagging and Petty Hate: The Casual Vacancy on HBO
Watching the HBO adaptation of JK Rowlings fabulous novel The Casual Vacancy is a very particular kind of pleasure. There is a wincing kind of beauty in the attempt to accurately and honestly portray the most odious and despicable of human behaviors. You want to look away, but only because the arrow lands too close to home.…
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Wolfman’s Got Nards! The Decline of Boy Movies
“I never had any friends later on like I did when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” — The Body, by Stephen King When I was a boy, there existed a particular breed of movie within the genre of coming of age stories. For lack of a better term, I’ll call it the Boy Movie,…
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The Man in the High Castle and Alternate Histories
In the 20th (and now the 21st) century, alternate history stories were a big hit. If considered a genre in its own right, there is actually a good deal of diversity within the field. But the most popular subsection of this peculiar fiction is surely the What If Germany Won World War II scenario. This…
The Black Cat Moan 