Over time, audiences have been trained to regard franchises a certain way. The understanding is that everything is connected, and a plot point or character that’s introduced will be paid off in a later installment. Look at the MCU. When a person or concept is brought up, those in the know smile and think, “They’re […]

Mainstream American movies aren’t usually designed to take risks. No big surprise there. The last several decades have given us action movies where we’re never too worried about the hero. Dramas where some degree of justice is usually reached.* Comedies that only ever make us uncomfortable due to gross-out jokes. First of all, I’m here […]

“I met him, 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding in even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this…six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and…the blackest eyes — the Devil’s eyes. I spent […]