The sprawling fantasy world of The Witcher is probably best known from its critically acclaimed videogame adaptations, but Geralt of Rivia was first introduced in a…
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.
2019 has been marked by several major cinematic events, including the release of Avengers: Endgame, which capped off nearly a decade of Marvel storytelling with an…
Two years removed from Rian Johnson’s divisive The Last Jedi, director J.J. Abrams returns to the franchise to cap off this latest trilogy with Star Wars:…
One of the most celebrated films of the year finally comes to home video with the Blu-ray release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in…
The Phoenix Critics Circle hosted its annual awards party on December 13th at the Phoenix Film Foundation office. After leading the way with nominations, Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite picked…
Franchise reboots are something of a risky proposition, with many beloved properties failing to connect with audiences in the same way as their original counterparts (see…
We’re just over a month away from the 2020 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, scheduled to take place in Park City, UT from January 23rd…
After cutting his teeth on 2006’s Brick, a brilliant throwback to Dashiell Hammett detective noir set in a suburban high school, writer-director Rian Johnson is back…
Over the past few weeks, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese should have been making the press rounds and discussing his monumental new film, The Irishman, about a…
For an in-depth look at the life and legacy of Fred Rogers, the beloved host of long-running children’s show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, you can’t do much…
It’s a sunny November afternoon in Phoenix, and Frozen II supervising animator Justin Sklar is seated in a massive downtown conference room. “I feel like the…
Walt Disney Animation Studios boasts something of a shaky record when it comes to sequels: we’re not terribly far removed from the mostly dreadful straight-to-video releases…
After shaking up the superhero status quo with 2017’s violent and visceral neo-Western Logan, director James Mangold is back with something a bit more by the…
“It’s been very consuming,” says Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) in the opening moments of The Report. He’s just been asked about his work leading a Senate…
Scott Z. Burns is no stranger to crafting riveting, edge-of-your-seat cinematic fare — his writing credits include The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant, Contagion and Side Effects…
As if the streaming wars weren’t combative enough, a new player is entering the fray this week as the Walt Disney Company throws open the curtains…
Film critics, connoisseurs and historians may disagree on many fronts, but one universally accepted truth is that Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film The Shining is a…
After multiple disappointing entries over the past couple of decades, you wouldn’t expect the latest installment of the Terminator franchise to warrant much excitement. But unlike…
Taika Waititi’s latest effort, the World War II comedy Jojo Rabbit, follows a young Nazi devotee who discovers that his mother has been hiding a teenage…
It’s been two decades since Eddie Murphy headlined an R-rated comedy (the last was 1999’s Life, with Martin Lawrence), but lest there be any fear the…
A frantic fog-enveloped fever dream about isolation, paranoia and madness, The Lighthouse is director Robert Eggers’ follow-up to his acclaimed feature debut, The Witch. Set in…
With a worldwide gross of $1.6 billion, Disney’s remake of The Lion King –which eschewed hand-drawn animation in favor of the same digital rendering technology used…
After a commercially and critically successful foray into big-time Hollywood filmmaking with Thor: Ragnarok, director Taika Waititi is back with Jojo Rabbit, a film that hews…
Comedy sequels — particularly those arriving more than a decade after the original film — can be something of a risky proposition, often landing with a…
After Maleficent grossed $758 million worldwide — building the foundation for the seemingly endless parade of remakes, revisions and reimaginings of the studio’s animated catalog –…
Much of the buzz surrounding Ang Lee’s Gemini Man has focused on the revolutionary new technology that allows for Will Smith to face off against a…
Todd Phillips’ Joker has been courting controversy since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it took home the prestigious Golden Lion award. But while…
Since the age of seven, Payton Hobart (Ben Platt) has been fixated on becoming the President of the United States. As an Ivy League dean notes…
Mickey (Bill Skarsgard) and Jules (Maika Monroe) aren’t so different from other young couples in their mid-twenties: crazy in love and overflowing with libido, with heads…
After grossing more than $1 billion at the global box office, Disney’s live-action update of beloved animated classic Aladdin heads to home video this week, with…
Hustlers, the latest from writer-director Lorene Scafaria (Seeking a Friend of the End of the World), is one of those rare “inspired by a true story”…
Two years after director Andy Muschietti’s acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King’s IT, which narrowed the massive scope of the novel to focus solely on the first…
If you think beloved children’s cartoon Dora the Explorer seems like an odd choice for the big-screen live-action treatment, you’re not alone. The series was always…
The Fast and Furious franchise has always enjoyed a somewhat tenuous relationship with the laws of physics, and that relationship has grown more strained with each…