One year after his Oscar-winning portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne turns in the best performance of his career in The Danish…
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.
The original Star Wars films are some of the most iconic and beloved in the history of cinema, a bona fide phenomenon whose popularity has never waned…
On December 15th, 2015, the Phoenix Critics Circle gathered to announce their winners. Below you’ll find their list of winners for the best films and performances of…
The Phoenix Critics Circle proudly announces nominees for its annual awards. Members have narrowed the films from 2015 to the top nominees in each category. Voting is…
Pixar wowed audiences earlier this year with the beautiful and emotional Inside Out, a critical and commercial success that also happened to be one of the studio’s…
It’s been nearly 40 years since we first met Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), the working-class boxer from Philadelphia who held his own against the world heavyweight…
Shortly after the events of September 11th, 2001, a young woman is found murdered and stuffed in a dumpster, all traces of DNA having been bleached from her body. But…
A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas proved that stoners could celebrate the holidays too, and The Night Before seeks to capture some of that same yuletide…
Thanks to a long-running comic strip and a series of classic animated features such as It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Christmas,…
Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s gripping 2010 novel, Room is the story of Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a 5-year-old boy who lives with his mother in a sparse…
In the middle of the night, a virginal young bride wanders the hallways of a sprawling mansion in the English countryside, clutching a candelabra and calling out her…
The first season of Fargo was not only one of the best offerings yet from cable network FX, it was one of the best shows to…
More than twenty years after the release of Disney’s Aladdin, I can still remember sitting there in the theater with my step-siblings, waiting to be transported…
One of our favorite films from the SXSW Film Festival was The Final Girls, director Todd Strauss-Schulson’s horror comedy about a teenage girl and her friends…
One of Disney’s most beloved films – and arguably, one of its best – finally gets the HD treatment this month with the release of Aladdin…
After spending last season under the big top, FX’s hit anthology series American Horror Story returns to the airwaves for another outing called Hotel. This time, creators Ryan…
The relationship between Jimmy (Chris Geere) and Gretchen (Aya Cash) might be the centerpiece of FXX’s critically acclaimed romantic comedy You’re the Worst, but most fans of…
After spending the bulk of the past decade portraying an assortment of freaks, weirdos and goofballs – with a few notable exceptions – Johnny Depp is finally…
The zombie genre has certainly exploded over the last few years, so it might seem like there aren’t many different ideas left to explore, but that didn’t stop Lionsgate’s Cooties…
Kurt Sutter’s Sons of Anarchy was the most successful series in the history of cable network FX, so it’s no surprise that all eyes are on…
FX’s hit vampire drama The Strain is careening toward its final three episodes of the season, and Kevin Durand’s portrayal of former city exterminator Vasiliy Fet continues…
After premiering on FX last year and garnering numerous accolades from television critics – including the moniker “the perfect love story of our time” – You’re the…
Films with a post-apocalyptic setting tend to be cut from the same mold, but Z for Zachariah is the second film I’ve viewed this week that…
With more than 200 TV and film credits to his name, veteran actor Michael Ironside has one of the most recognizable faces – and voices – in…
I can still vividly remember walking the few blocks from my childhood home to the local mom-and-pop video store, a crappy little concrete building where the…
From the opening moments, where Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart exhale huge clouds of pot smoke that were obviously added in post-production by a budget-friendly VFX…
Based on the classic 1874 novel by Thomas Hardy, director Thomas Vinterberg’s Far From the Madding Crowd is a stunningly realized adaptation full of sweeping landscapes and gorgeous costumes -…
Before Corey Stoll was trading jabs – both physical and verbal – with Paul Rudd in this summer’s Ant-Man, he was trying to warn the citizens…
As a nerdy white kid growing up in small-town Indiana, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of rap music – basically, if an artists wasn’t featured…
FX’s hit vampire drama The Strain continues to bring plenty of thrills and chills to the small screen on Sunday nights, and star Miguel Gomez is…
One of 2014’s best cinematic offerings was Gone Girl, an engrossing mystery with a stellar cast, helmed by one of my favorite directors. The film was…
The first family of the Marvel Universe is taking another crack at big screen stardom with the new Fantastic Four reboot, from the visionary director of Chronicle, Josh…
The 2015 Phoenix Film Festival was a huge success, boasting submissions from a wide variety of talented filmmakers, as well as special screenings of some of…
The second season of FX’s hit vampire series The Strain is underway, and in addition to bringing back old favorites we’ve also been introduced to Justine Feraldo,…