Walking out of the fifth iteration of the Scream series, now in theaters, my gut had an “uh-oh” feeling. No, it wasn’t the scares that upset my stomach. It certainly wasn’t the characters either. I can’t blame the popcorn because I didn’t have any, nor the fact that I actively avoided the genre until...

Writer-director Asghar Farhadi came to my attention a few years ago with his intense dramas, The Salesman and Everybody Knows. A fascination developed with the director's eye toward the respective film's subjects and their environments. In his latest film, A Hero, Farhadi’s lens expertly captures anxious chaos in historic Shiraz, Iran, and in his...

At the end of the last year there was a meme that went around it was pointed that "2021" was pronounced "twenty-twenty won." As this year ends, it's worth reflecting on whether that is true, at least in terms of cinema as 2020 was a terrible year for the medium and some might say...

Adam McKay started out in the field of comedy, beginning as a writer for Saturday Night Live, then making a series of successful slapstick comedy feature films, including the two “Anchorman” films and “Step Brothers.” Then, as oftentimes happens with comedy directors, McKay ventured into the genre of drama and made more topical films...

Matthew Vaughn's "Kingsman: The Secret Service" (2014) was the perfect mix of action, silliness, and comedy.  It gleefully played with 007 tropes while still serving up some remarkable fight scenes.  Vaughn's 2017 follow-up, "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" took everything that made the first one great and amplified it.  As a perfect example of "too...