The height of summer blockbuster season may not seem like prime release territory for an epic drama set against the backdrop of the Civil War, but in…
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.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a painfully naive young woman from a small town somewhere in the midwest arrives in Los Angeles with stars…
[Editor’s Note: With Swiss Army Man opening in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, we’re running our original Sundance review again]
During the last pep rally of the school year, student body president and star athlete Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) is in the midst of his final address when…
The Conjuring was one of the best horror films in recent memory, a fresh and inspired twist on haunted houses and demonic possessions that raked in $318…
Disney’s Zootopia was a box-office sensation, raking in more than $1 billion worldwide and becoming the second highest-grossing original film of all time behind James Cameron’s…
After a series of hilarious music videos on Saturday Night Live, Andy Samberg and his pals from The Lonely Island bring their irreverent, foul-mouthed and undeniably catchy melodies…
I reviewed The Finest Hours for its theatrical release back in January, but my affinity for the charms of Chris Pine prompted me to give the…
Back in 2005, I was living in a four-bedroom townhouse on the west side of Indianapolis with three of my closest friends – one of whom…
Shane Black may have run afoul of comic book fans by making some creative changes to an iconic Marvel Comics villain in Iron Man 3, but…
It’s been two years since the events of Neighbors, which saw young married couple Mac and Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) wage war against…
After crossing over characters from the original X-Men films with the younger generation in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past and resetting the narrative timeline so future…
Jeremy Saulnier’s mesmerizing revenge drama Blue Ruin may not have turned the director into a household name, but it garnered enough critical praise to open the door for his…
Shortly after 6:30am on the morning of December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley sauntered up to the White House entrance gate with a handwritten letter requesting an audience…
It’s been a long journey to the box office for The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the follow-up to 2012’s Snow White and The Huntsman. Despite grossing a…
Disney’s ongoing quest to recycle their classic animated properties and turn them into live-action blockbusters is currently in full swing, and while the results have been…
Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused hit theaters more than two decades ago, and has become one of the most iconic films in the director’s repertoire. Last…
It’s hard to believe that Star Wars: The Force Awakens opened in theaters more than three months ago. It feels like only yesterday when we first met…
I distinctly remember the moment I saw the first promotional photo from I Saw the Light, this week’s biopic about country music legend Hank Williams. I…
AMC’s zombie-themed spinoff Fear the Walking Dead already made its way to home video back in December, but the network is double-dipping with a Special Edition…
John Carchietta’s high school love story Teenage Cocktail was one of our favorite selections at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival, a small-town romance with a thriller element and…
The 2016 SXSW Film Festival boasted an incredibly strong lineup of narrative features, but one of the true standouts this year was Miss Stevens. Written and…
One of our most anticipated screenings of the 2016 SXSW Film Festival was the world premiere of Preacher, the upcoming AMC television series based on the…
With only a few short weeks until HBO’s fantasy epic Game of Thrones returns to the airwaves, series fans who find themselves jonesing for a fix can…
The year is 1968, and first-time inventor Foster Kalt (Mike Brune) has traveled to a toy convention hoping to sell his creation. A night of drinking…
Midnight Special begins in the middle of the night, with Roy Tomlin (Michael Shannon) peers nervously out the window, surveying the parking lot for any signs of…
The idea behind collective:unconscious sounds fascinating: five indie directors coming together to create short films based on each other’s dreams. But just because an idea looks good on…
In 1983, the Jules Rimet Trophy – awarded to the winner of the FIFA World Cup – was stolen from its display case at the Brazilian…
When Seth (Dominic Monaghan) recognizes former classmate Holly (Ksenia Solo) on a city bus, he tries to strike up a conversation. She doesn’t remember him, and the…
Moving to a new high school in the middle of small town America is bad enough, but an altercation with a fellow student finds Annie (Nichole Bloom)…
Director Fede Alvarez is certainly no stranger to the SXSW Film Festival – his ultraviolent remake of Sam Raimi’s horror classic Evil Dead played to a…
More than two decades after Richard Linklater perfectly captured the feeling of being a mid-1970s high school student in his breakout film, Dazed and Confused, the…
The 2016 SXSW Film Festival gets underway in just a few days, and once again we’ll be in Austin, Texas to cover the opening weekend of…
One wouldn’t think that predators and prey would be able to peacefully co-exist, but Disney’s Zootopia posits a world where animals have evolved past their primal…