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Film

'Captain Marvel' Sends a Powerful Message to Audiences and Filmmakers

The first female-centric film in the MCU, Captain Marvel, bakes the female experience into every aspect, making a potentially familiar story fresh and exciting.

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Music

Novelty and Identity: An Interview With Colin Stetson

Colin Stetson discusses his process for scoring film and artistic satisfaction it gives him. "I get to invent a new array of solutions with novelty and identity. I hope the music has not existed in the particular guise and aesthetic before that."

Film

The Action in 'Avengers: Infinity War' Is Relentless

The focus on Thanos single-handedly saves Avengers: Infinity War from becoming the overstuffed mess many feared and lends the film a relentless action pace more akin to Mad Max: Fury Road than a superhero blockbuster.

Television

From the Enterprise to the Discovery: The Decline and Fall of Utopian Technology and the Liberal Dream

The technology and liberalism of recent series such as Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and the latest Doctor Who series have more in common with Harry Potter's childish wand-waving than Gene Roddenberry's original techno-utopian dream.

Film

'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Has the Most Relatable Peter Parker

The teen-focused, John Hughes-inspired approach not only makes Spider-Man: Homecoming feel fresh in the realm of Spider-Man films, but in superhero films in general.

Books

The New World Will Be Built by Refugees: On Two New Japanese Novellas

The latest two Red Circle Minis, by Takuji Ichikawak and Kanji Hanawa, deal in archetypes; one set in the distant past, the other in the all too near future.

Film

James Mangold's ​'Logan​' Depicts Wolverine's Worst Nightmare

In Mangold's Logan, an elderly, sick surrogate father and a young, estranged, emotionally-scarred "daughter" come to rely entirely on the aged Wolverine who is now but a haunted, battered, suicidal husk. It's nothing like superhero films that came before.

Film

8 Low-Budget Films That Delivered Big

Money isn't everything, although in filmmaking it counts for a lot. These eight films defied their minuscule budgets.

Books

Encountering 'Futures': A Science Fiction Series

Let each story from Radix Media's Futures: A Science Fiction Series Box Set make its world an enduring part of your own.

Film

'X-Men: Apocalypse': The Apocalypse of Comic Book Films

The filmmakers' attempt to mask X-Men: Apocalypse's lack of purpose and thematic unity with a stunning density of characters, plot lines, and fan service. But we see behind the mask.

Film

Debut Sci-Fi / Fantasy Film, 'The Vast of Night' Revels in Mystery

Andrew Patterson's debut film, The Vast of Night, compels its audience to listen to a radio conversation and watch a mysterious play. Interview with director Andrew Patterson and actors Jake Horowitz and Sierra McCormick.

Film

First As Warning, Then As Threnody: On Cuarón's 'Children of Men'

With his prescient film, Children of Men, director Alfonso Cuarón hasn't flipped Hegel onto his head, as Marx and Engels were accused of doing -- he's knocked him off his feet.

Film

Godard's Sci-fi/Noir Alphaville' Is Witty and Subversive

Alphaville's pulpy sci-fi plot acts as a warm coat of familiarity as Godard slyly subverts one genre trope after another.

Film

'Captain America: Civil War' Mirrors Another Kind of American Civil War

In the Russo Brothers' Captain America: Civil War, friend turns on friend, and no easy resolution is reached. It's rather like the toxic online fan culture that followed the film's release.

Film

'Prospect': A Coming of Age Character Arc in Realistic Sci-Fi

In a sci-fi setting with Wild West overtones, Sophie Thatcher's Cee is discovering how far she will go to get what she wants in Prospect.

Books

Sci-Fi Collection 'Palestine + 100' Looks to the Future, Teaches the Present

While several of the stories in Palestine + 100 are dystopian, others offer hope, emphasizing the urgency of peace and reconciliation not just for Palestinians, but for Israelis as well.

Film

'Quatermass and the Pit' Peers into the Dark Nature of Human Evolution

Nigel Kneale's book and screenplay, which Hammer Films made into Quatermass and the Pit, raises many provocative questions regarding the nature of human evolution and the conception of the devil itself.

Film

Unbecoming Woman: 'Dark Phoenix' and the Dethronement of the Wealthy White Male Hero

Dark Phoenix makes it clear that the X-Men, as socio-political commentary, must take their own metaphor more seriously and evolve, already.

Film

Brilliant Moral Science - and Dinosaurs -- from the Yeaworth-Harris Trilogy!

From the makers of The Blob, Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr .and Jack H. Harris, 4D Man and Dinosaurus! (restored by Kino Lorber) give film fans a can't-look-away sci-fi gaze into the victims of progress.

Film

Insular Musician; Collaborative Filmmaker: Director A.T. White on 'Starfish'

Director A.T. White reflects on his deliberately obtuse debut feature, Starfish, and letting go of a character, a version of himself to the film's actress, Virginia Gardner.

Film

'Spider-Man: Far From Home' Is a Perfect Date Movie

Spider-Man: Far From Home is arguably the cutest, funniest, most entertaining comic book superhero movie of the year.

Books

It All Goes Sideways in Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore's 'BTTM FDRS'

Graphic fiction BTTM FDRS drags up our culture's biggest, ugliest globs of unconscious sewage and spreads it across a white page for us to see and acknowledge.

Television

'Black Mirror' Season 5 Should Be Its Last

It makes perfect sense that 2019 — the last year of the decade — should also be the last year for one of the 2010s' best shows. To continue would be a disservice to viewers.

Film

'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' Is More Whimper Than Roar

Calling the plot of Godzilla: King of the Monsters stale would be an insult to the fossilized potato chips hiding between your sofa cushions.

Books

A Man, a Woman, a Brooding Replicant and Readership: On Ian McEwan's 'Machines Like Me'

Purists who see Ian McEwan's comments about science fiction and his novel, Machines Like Me, as a slight against their beloved literary genre are missing the point.

Film

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' Restored the Series to Its Former Glory

More than any previous X-Men film, Days of Future Past engages in deeply geeky, comic book-inspired elements resulting in the best cinematic representation of X-Men comics to-date.

Books

Ted Chiang's 'Exhalation' Calmly Stares Oblivion in the Face

With his second collection of short stories, Exhalation, master of existential science fiction Ted Chiang explores AI, time travel, and alternate realities with the studious eye of an anthropologist.

Film

Faster than Fassbinder! An Interview with Filmmaker Michael Fredianelli

The prolific independent filmmaker Michael Fredianelli doesn't let the microbudget scale of his productions limit his imagination -- or his creations.

Film

'The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot' Will, Like 'Donnie Darko', Surprise

The title suggests that this would be a schlocky B movie with a '70s-style grindhouse aesthetic, but The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot is, in fact, a finely crafted and emotionally charged drama about ageing, loneliness, and lost love.

Books

Of Botany, Hacking, Biosurveillance, and Boredom; Or, Pola Oloixarac's 'Dark Constellations'

Pola Oloixarac's Dark Constellations is what the late Michael Crichton might have written if he had grown up in Argentina and fancied himself a high postmodernist.

Television

The 'Twilight Zone' Reboot Is an Uneven Anthology of Schlocky Horror

The first five episodes of The Twilight Zone (2019-) developed by Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez, vary wildly in quality, but even the best of the bunch lack nuance and bite.

Film

Intimacy in World Building: Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl on their Indie Sci-fi Film, 'Prospect'

Directors Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl reflect on a lack of wisdom for their practical film school with their debut feature, Prospect, and an aspiration to evade the trappings of sci-fi filmmaking.

Film

Claire Denis's Splendid 'High Life' Engages and Repulses

In existential nightmare, High Life, Claire Denis explores the darkest intersection between outer space and the human psyche.

Film

'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' Amplifies What Happens to Us When We Experience Narrative Without Form

Without a set form, there can be no water-cooler talk about Bandersnatch, no collective reflection and analysis, because each viewer watched a different movie.

Books

'Ancestral Night' Is a Sweeping Space Saga for Intelligent Readers

Mystery and discovery in Hugo Award-winning novelist Elizabeth Bear's latest work, Ancestral Night, initially hooks but it's the speculative and complex world she constructs that's most rewarding.

Film

'Captain Marvel' Sees the MCU Through a Woman Character's Eyes

Captain Marvel is a solid start for a strong, compelling character that will grace the big screen for years to come.

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