On September 22, 2017, Kingsman: The Golden Circle will be released in theaters, marking the 8th theatrical live-action film based on a Mark Millar comic. Mark Millar, to those who aren't comics fans, is a Scottish writer who has been working in mainstream comics since the 1990s, and has written for titles including Swamp Thing, X-Men, Superman, and Judge Dredd. Despite Millar's work on big name titles like these, he is possibly more famous for his incredible success in getting his independently created comics adapted into films. Given the recent news that Millarworld, the author's comic book publishing house, was purchased by media streaming giant Netflix, it doesn't appear that Millar's co

The way in which Hollywood often depicts professors, instructors, and teachers is often vastly removed from the reality that many of us live in. Unsurprisingly, films that focus on instructors tend to be much more serious in tone and genre than films that focus on students. In creating this listicle, I tried to move away from many of the utterly empty portrayals of the profession, choosing to focus, instead, on films that emphasize instructors as people who have lives and demands that extend beyond the classroom. But hey, we'll always have Summer School (1987). The Class (2008) A French film written by and starring François Bégaudeau (and titled after his book of the same name). The Class is

Title: Perfect Strangers (2016) Genre: Comedy, Drama Director: Paolo Genovese Stars: Giuseppe Battiston, Anna Foglietta, Marco Giallini, Edoardo Leo, Valerio Mastandrea, Alba Rohrwacher, and Kasia Smutniak. Bias: Initially, I thought it might be Coherence (2013), but with fewer colliding alternate realities. Grade: B- In a Nutshell: On the night of an eclipse, plastic surgeon Rocco (Marco Giallini) and his therapist wife Eva (Kasia Smutniak) invite their five close friends to a dinner at their apartment. The first guests to arrive are Carlotta (Anna Foglietta) and Lele (Valerio Mastandrea), a weary couple who have been together for years. Then come Bianca (Alba Rohrwacher) and Cosimo (Edoard

In honor of the upcoming release of It (9/08), our Weekend Watchlist for this week will be focused on horror film adaptations. For the purposes of this list, we are considering "adaptations" to include films based on books, comics, video games, and so on, as well as reboots, remakes, and revivals. Editor's Note: A big thank you is owed to DeShawn Dillard, who helped us brainstorm the films featured in this week's watchlist! Shelby Cadwell It (1990) - This television miniseries managed to do what few Stephen King adaptations before and since it have: the absolute terror and loneliness of childhood, which is a common theme across King's prolific career. Although it is hard to imagine a more te

Title: The Big Sick (2017) Genre: Comedy, Romance Director: Michael Showalter Stars (Primary Actors): Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter Bias: I am not the hugest fan of romantic comedies, but the amount of hype I heard around the film made me come in with extremely high expectations. After hearing almost no bad things about this, the cynic in me almost wanted to dislike it, to stand out from the pack. But after seeing it twice and listening to countless interviews with the couple the film is based on, I couldn’t help but love it. Grade: A+ In a Nutshell: This is the true story of how Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon met and fell in love. It begins with them just having a l

Lacey Skorepa Fear INC. (2016) Horror is, without a doubt, my favorite film genre, and Fear INC., surprisingly, surpassed any of the expectations I had for it. Fear INC. capitalizes on the recent trend of immersive and extreme horror experiences (McKamey Manor, The Victim Experience at Freakling Bros., Blackout, etc.), resulting in a film that is both comedic and terrifying while offering up a substantial helping of meta-commentary on the horror genre and its constructions. Similar in tone to Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), The Final Girls (2015), and Cabin in the Woods (2011), Fear INC. is definitely worth checking out. Thelma & Louise (1991) Thelma & Louise is a classic road movie that has

In 2017, Netflix launched the last of the four solo Marvel series leading to the upcoming Defenders, bringing the characters together as a team. After the positive acclaim for Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, expectations were, unsurprisingly, high. For Iron Fist, those expectations became baggage very early on. Jessica Jones tackled issues of gender and sexual assault and Luke Cage engaged with issues of race (though not without some problems) – two areas that comics have historically mishandled - so there was some expectation that this newest series would also engage with its own issues with race, representation, and cultural appropriation. Perhaps even more disappointing than the

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) – While much of the focus on this thriller by Alfred Hitchcock is on the small town Americana setting (and rightfully so), the truly subversive element is the situating of the horror within the family itself. From a fairly young age, we’re often told “don’t talk to strangers!” with the assumption being that our trust should lie with family. In constructing a growing cat-and-mouse relationship between the younger Charlie (Teresa Wright) – who begins to suspect that the visiting uncle (Joseph Cotton) who is her namesake – might be a sociopathic killer, Hitchcock recognizes and illustrates that it’s often those closest to us who can do the most harm. Halloween (1978) –

Title: Atomic Blonde (2017) Genre: Spy/Action/Thriller Director: David Leitch Stars (primary actors): Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, John Goodman, Toby Jones Bias: I’m a huge fan of John Wick and John Wick 2, and Leitch was the uncredited co-director of the first film. Grade: C In A Nutshell: It’s the twilight of the Cold War, and a British secret agent, in possession of a list of agents, is murdered. Lorraine Broughten (Theron) is sent to meet up with the British chief of the Berlin Bureau (played by McAvoy) in order to track down the list before it falls into enemy hands, while also working to discover the identity of a double agent. The Critique: This is such a frustrating

Matt Linton Gone Baby Gone (2007) – Ben Affleck made his feature directorial debut with this adaptation of the novel by acclaimed mystery writer Dennis Lehane. The novel is the fourth in a series focusing on a pair of detectives, Boston friends Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genarro (played in the film by Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan). What begins as a simple missing child case quickly becomes far more complex. Affleck shows a facility for not only building the necessary tension of the mystery, but capturing the blue-collar neighborhood in Boston that Lehane details in his novels. Payback (1999) – Based on the 1962 novel The Hunter by Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark), the film cen

In an already crowded field of superhero adaptations, Luke Cage stands out for its embrace and embodiment of blackness and black culture. This is especially notable when contrasted with Marvel’s problems with diversity. The series features a predominately black cast, including stars Mike Colter, Simone Missick, Erik LaRay Harvey, Karen Pittman, Emmy-winner Alfre Woodard, and Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali. Beyond representation, the decision by showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker (Southland) to set the series in Harlem, centering much of the action on the nightclub owned by Ali’s Cornell ‘Cottonmouth’ Stokes (with musical performances by Faith Evans, Raphael Saadiq, and others), and include intertextu

Animal House (1978) Animal House is THE college movie; anything that came after it is merely a footnote. Animal House changed the landscape of the comedy genre; and the talent present in the film and filmmaking is staggering (John Belushi’s performance evokes notes of the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, etc.). Check out the “Five Ways Animal House Changed the World.” Back to School (1986) I think I watched this movie on loop one summer--although it’s entirely possible that a particular cable channel just played it on loop one summer. Either way, this rich old man goes to college comedy has a number of things going for it, like the writing of Harold Ramis (who was also a writer for Animal House

Title: The Beguiled (2017) Genre: Drama, Thriller Director: Sofia Coppola Stars (Primary Actors): Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning Bias: Although there are many Sofia Coppola films I really dislike (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides, that random Bill Murray Christmas Special), I couldn’t help but be extremely excited for this film. Maybe it was the allure of Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning together in one film, or maybe it was just the hype surrounding Coppola as a respected director, but I was counting down the days until I could see this. I hate westerns, I don’t care about the south, and I knew it was problematic going in, but something deep

Matt Linton 1. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later – Back in May of this year I recommended the film that precedes this series. This picks up (as the title states) ten years after the end of that movie, and follows the prequel series from 2015. This time the action moves from the early 80s to the early 90s, and follows the gang as they return to Camp Firewood. I have no time to watch anything, and yet I know I’ll watch this before the end of the weekend. 2. Castlevania – I’ve never been a hardcore gamer, but Castlevania is one of a handful of video games I dove into back in the day. I remember nothing much about it beyond it being a side-scroller where you whip vampires to death. The re

Much has been written (and deservedly so) about the care and skill with which Jessica Jones, the second of Marvel’s Netflix series, examines gender roles, questions of toxic masculinity, and Jessica’s (Krysten Ritter) recovery from both metaphorical and literal sexual assault. Although the assault by Kilgrave (David Tennant), a sociopath who can essentially control minds, occurs years prior to the start of the series, its effects are evident in Jessica’s downward spiral. She’s an alcoholic, obsessively stalking and spying on Luke Cage (Michael Colter), and alienating anyone who tries to get close to her. While the assault was certainly what finally tipped Jessica over the edge, as the series

The term “New French Extremity” refers to a collection of French art-house and horror movies that were made in the late 1990s and 2000s. More of a trend than a self-conscious movement, these movies featured graphic sex, violence, and transgressive themes. In the words of the critic who coined the term, James Quandt, it was a “cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo.” Filmmakers associated with New French Extremism deliberately tried to be shocking to elicit strong emotions from viewers. A few of these movies were well-made and offered interesting social and political points. Others, however, had no artistic merit or tried way too hard to be sensational. Looking back a decade after th