Folks, I’d like to apologize up front for this review of Venom. To put things into context, we’re going to have to make a deep dive into nerdery. I know! I can hear your eyes rolling from here. We’ll make this quick, I promise. In 1988, The Amazing Spider-Man #300 was published.* That comic book introduced Venom, an enemy of the wall-crawler. Built like a weightlifter and utterly vicious, he’s got the same powers as ya boi Spidey, along with extremely flexible morals. Totally unsurprisingly, the character was an instant hit, beloved by edgelords** before edgelords were a thing. But isn’t... Read More

You already know that making a good movie is hard. The alchemy is peculiar, and it requires combining the skill of a craftsman with the soul of a poet to create something uniquely itself. If you think that’s tough, try adapting a novel into a movie. Sometimes the filmmaker can be faithful, too faithful to the source material, and suck the life out of it. That’s when you get works like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone or Watchmen.* Other times the filmmaker taps into the story and themes with great precision, and you have situations like Jaws or The Godfather, where... Read More