Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

“Could I ask you something? Are you together?” That seemingly innocuous question—asked with what seems to be genuine, non-judgmental curiosity—sets off a heartbreaking conflagration in Close, the second feature co-written (with Angelo Tijssens) and directed by Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont. The scene is a school cafeteria at lunchtime, and the question is posed by a […]

There’s always something fascinating and strange about when an established film property is given new life as a stage musical and that musical eventually wends its way back to the screen. We’re here to talk Matilda the Musical (with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and book by Dennis Kelly, also on screenwriting duty) so obviously […]

Not Okay, the Hulu-based sophomore effort from actress-writer-director Quinn Shephard, opens with a much-discussed “content warning” that the film we are about to experience contains “flashing lights, themes of trauma, and an unlikable female protagonist.” It’s a tweak of the viewer’s nose intended to set a cheeky tone and make some kind of statement about […]

A review requested by Jack, with thanks to supporting Alternate Ending as a donor through Patreon. Do you have a movie you’d like to see reviewed? This and other perks can be found on our Patreon page! The NeverEnding Story comes attached to a very important fun fact: it was, at the time of its […]

The promotional subtitle of First They Killed My Father (as well as the subtitle of the 2000 memoir from which it has been adapted) is A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, and it’s that last word, “remembers”, that ends up being the key to the whole film. With a screenplay adapted by Loung Ung and director […]

The two-part TV miniseries Salem’s Lot, the second film ever adapted from the writings of Stephen King, premiered on CBS in November, 1979, and other than a scant handful of anthology series episodes, that was it for King on television for eleven years. The two-part TV miniseries It premiered on ABC in November, 1990, and […]

A Monster Calls will make you cry. I suppose I ought to qualify that in some way – it will make some of you cry based on certain life experiences you might have had, etc. etc. – but that barely seems correct. A Monster Calls will make you cry the same that that way that […]

Every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. This week: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is, like, the eightieth frigging superhero movie to come out since I first started this […]

Every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. This week: at the time of this writing, Premium Rush has already spectacularly failed to be a blockbuster or even a […]

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial premiered in North America on 11 June, 1982, and was initially meant to be a smallish personal project (for a big-budget sci-fi picture) that would give director Steven Spielberg a chance to recuperate from the hectic production of the previous year’s Raiders of the Last Ark. It ended up devouring the Zeitgeist […]

The blog has been on a bit of an ’80s kick lately, and Adam Bertocci did his part to keep things going when he donated to the Carry On Campaign and requested today’s review. Three cheers for the decade of Reagan, leg warmers,and hair metal! Even for a decade in which the high-concept comedy reached […]

The second-highest grossing film of 1994, and at the time the record-holder for most successful animated feature ever released, The Lion King occupies a very special place in my development into the angry contrarian that I am today, for it was the first time that the twelve-year-old me had ever felt something that I’ve come […]