In Train Dreams, director Clint Bentley delivers a striking adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella, crafting a meditation on fate and grief, and how the passage of…
Author: Brent Hankins
Brent Hankins
Brent Hankins has been blogging and writing film reviews online since 2011. He joined the Phoenix Film Critics Society in 2013, and was a founding member of the Phoenix Critics Circle the following year, where he currently serves as President. Brent also hosted the weekly Drinks and Discourse podcast for nearly 5 years, and is currently the editor-in-chief at The Lamplight Review. He resides in Tempe, AZ with his wife and son.
Writer-director James Sweeney’s Twinless begins with an off-screen car accident and an abrupt cut to a funeral — a tonal whiplash moment that immediately sets the…
Laura Casabé’s The Virgin of the Quarry Lake, premiering in the World Cinema Dramatic category at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, fuses gothic horror with the…
Sierra Falconer’s debut feature, Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), unfolds like a series of postcards from a small-town summer: vivid, fleeting, and quietly profound.…
Leigh Whannell seemed like the perfect filmmaker to breathe new life into Universal’s Wolf Man. Not only was he the creative voice behind Saw and Insidious…
Grand Theft Hamlet sounds like the setup for a joke: a group of actors trying to perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet inside the chaotic, violence-filled world of Grand…
The Prosecutor finds martial arts legend Donnie Yen stepping into dual roles as both leading man and director, delivering a film that combines the intensity of…
Japan’s occupation of Korea during the early 20th century resulted in a bloody, decades-long struggle for independence, and Woo Min-ho’s visually stunning historical thriller Harbin seeks…
The original Moana holds a very special place in my heart. It was the first movie I was invited to screen on the Disney studio lot…
After a record breaking weekend at the global box office, Universal Pictures’ Wicked has now become the most nominated film by the HCA in the organization’s…
In Gladiator II, Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated sequel to his thrilling 2000 epic, sixteen years have passed since Maximus Decimus Meridius gave his life for a better…
Venom: The Last Dance is a film that seems to be in conflict with its own identity, trying to deliver the chaotic fun and irreverence that…
Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice is a story not just about the making of a man, but about the forging of a certain type of power –…
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele have been close friends for decades, since the pair first met on the set of Saturday Night Live, where Steele would…
This week, a cinematic pairing the likes of which has long been on the wishlists of comic fans across the globe will finally be realized as…
Legacy sequels have become a staple of modern Hollywood fare, with studio executives seemingly hellbent on dragging every semi-recognizable IP out of mothballs and thrusting it…
First-time filmmaker Delaney Buffett boldly steps into the spotlight with Adult Best Friends, a film she wrote, directed, and stars in — a tall order for…
The rebooted Planet of the Apes series — particularly the latter two films directed by Matt Reeves — is one of my favorite film trilogies of…
Films about filmmaking are often at their best when championing the process while simultaneously poking fun at the inherent absurdity of the Hollywood machine. Case in…
Adam Sandler is best known for his goofy comedic persona, but his most compelling work as an actor often emerges when he plays against type and…
Italian director Piero Messina crafts a somber sci-fi narrative about love, loss and the ethical quandaries of advanced technology with Another End, premiering in competition at…
Based on Claire Keegan’s novella, Small Things Like These — premiering as the opening night selection at the 74th Berlinale — casts a long and haunting…
Your MonsterDirected by Caroline Lindy When aspiring stage actress Laura (Melissa Barrera) is dumped — via text, no less — by her playwright boyfriend Jacob (Edmund…
Rose Glass already showcased her genre bonafides with her debut feature, Saint Maud, about an obsessive nurse walking a razor-thin line between faith and fanaticism. But…
After cutting their teeth on decidedly indie fare like Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind, directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden graduated to the MCU, helming 2019’s…
Documentary filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine wowed audiences in 2020 with their film Boys State, following a group of high school-aged young men from across…
Before we begin, it’s important that I acknowledge a few things: first, I think the original Mean Girls is a stone cold classic, a razor sharp…
Once upon a time, Zack Snyder pitched Lucasfilm on a new entry into the Star Wars franchise that he described as “Seven Samurai in space,” a…
Few can match director Ridley Scott when it comes to crafting the spectacle and chaos of large-scale historic battles. The 85-year-old auteur’s latest effort, Napoleon, certainly…
If you’ve seen the Hunger Games films and found yourself wondering how Donald Sutherland’s deliciously evil President Snow became such a heartless vision of cold and…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, once considered an unstoppable juggernaut thanks to an unprecedented series of commercial and critical success stories, has struggled to find its footing…
Documentary filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi proved themselves adept at depicting incredible feats with their captivating (and sometimes terrifying) film Free Solo, which took…
Full disclosure: I’ve never played any of the entries in the Five Nights at Freddy’s video game series, despite being an avid gamer with a particular…
Nearly a decade after the third installment in the franchise, one might have assumed The Expendables had gone the way of the dinosaur, which would’ve been…