“Shortland brings her keen feature filmmaking chops to ‘Black Widow’ as a welcome addition to the talented pool of storytellers who can match the Kevin Feige house style without any significant artistic compromise.”
“‘A Quiet Place Part II’ depicts quietness as a strength, and the film’s release shows that the quietness of the past year can be resolved through the mutable, powerful sensibilities of cinema.”
“‘Fried Barry’ is busy and overstuffed, but it’s also an incredibly promising and deeply weird reinvention of the body invasion thriller; a strange, disorienting and ultimately rewarding experience.”
“Oxygen’s relevance strikes like lightning in a year when time is measured less by Earth’s tilt and more by first wave, second wave, red phase, yellow phase; not by time passing daily, but by how much danger remains in the room.”
“‘Psycho Goreman’ is delightfully dark, whimsical, charming and frequently laugh-out-loud funny.”
“Stone has the look of a teenager with the earned maturity of someone who’s been through some heavy shit, which lends itself well to her teenage prostitute in ‘Honey Bee’ and works just as brilliantly in ‘Come True.'”
“The most surprising thing about ‘In the Earth’ may be just how much of a return it is to the pitch black humour that characterised Wheatley’s earliest films.”
“Benson and Moorhead’s typically dark, cynical tone is well-suited to the material until a too-neat ending tries to retcon ‘Synchronic’ into something else in the most jarring way possible.”
“There is so much stuff in ‘Possessor’ that you might think you’re at a venerable cinematic feast. But take away the squelching and splatter and there’s barely enough to fill an episode of ‘Black Mirror.”
“‘Lapsis’ offers the intriguing and hopeful possibility that our technologically dependent future may not be so bad after all.”
“‘Sputnik’ is a thoughtful, knotty sci-fi thriller that’s firmly character-driven and also boasts a horrifyingly beautiful creature.”
“In my hatred for the Bond franchise, I feel I may have done a disservice to its star. I have always had a tendency to discount Sean Connery as an exquisitely sculpted statue, capable of filling out a tuxedo very nicely but little else.”
“Perhaps the exaggerated disregard for human life in the name of national pride, entertainment and prosperity in ‘Death Race 2000’ is a timely trigger for reassessing priorities as we await a return to normalcy.”
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
“In Australia, our cinematic art has been trying to shake us from apathy for 50 years.”
“‘Transference’ feels like a 13-and-under science fiction-themed board game. The pieces are clearly labeled, the color design fits the genre premise and the directions are confusing.”
“‘The Wave’ spotlights the proverbial writing on the wall for its most flawed characters, but also makes sure to settle on the base-level humanity of others. The result is an affecting and forward-thinking film that pinpoints what it means to be self-aware.”
“‘Color Out of Space’ is one of the weirdest, most disgusting, thought-provoking and provocative releases of the year…”
“One can’t help but wonder how Waddington might reinvigorate other sci-fi tales with her fairy tale stylings.”
“This is a world where faith, governments, businesses, families and the other institutions humans have built will all crumble, just like human bodies, which will inevitably succumb to their fragility and fall victim to total destruction.”