Review: “Blue Beetle”

A bright young man unexpectedly binds with a mutant insect that grants him superhuman abilities and makes him a target of some bad people who would rather weaponize his powers. That sounds like I’m recounting the origins of the seemingly never-ending series of Spider-man movies, but it’s actually the premise of Blue Beetle, the newest […]

Review: “Scrapper”

“It takes a village to raise a child.” This sentence that appears across a black screen disappears within an instant, scratched out by yellow, crayon-like markings, a new sentence scrawled beneath it in clumsy handwriting: “I can raise myself thanks.” This playful intro kicks both the style and tone of Scrapper into motion. Writer and […]

Review: “Haunted Mansion” (2023)

The time: October 2013. The place: Anaheim, California. The people: my roommates and friends who were, like me at the time, Disneyland cast members, whose appointed backstage tour of one of the theme park’s most storied attractions, the Haunted Mansion, was delayed due to a necessitated clean-up of a loved one’s ashes a family thought […]

Review: “Brother”

“Think on every step before you take it. Put it to memory, remember that the whole way up. And if you can’t use your memory right, you lose.” Francis (Aaron Pierre) utters those words to his younger brother Michael (Lamar Johnson) as they stand staring up at a transmission tower in their Scarborough, Toronto neighborhood. […]