The following essay contains spoilers for The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Everything’s falling apart, and it’s for no good reason. Over the past two years, simmering intolerance and hatred have boiled over. Fires have burned and windows have been shattered amidst wars of ideology. People have lain on blood-soaked pavement…

Contains spoilers for The Power of the Dog (2021) “Phil always did the castrating,” Thomas Savage wrote as an introduction to his 1967 novel, The Power of the Dog. The “Phil” he speaks of is Phil Burbank, a cruel rancher who takes pride in his brutality and flaunts it like…

The following analysis contains spoilers for the first three seasons of Succession: As Kendall Roy sloshes through the marshes outside of the English castle that serves as his sister’s wedding venue, the weight of his guilt forms a fierce collaboration with the mud around his feet in an effort to…

The following article contains spoilers for The Departed (2006). The Departed is nothing if not tragic. The film follows William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), who infiltrates the local mob as an undercover police officer, and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), who infiltrates the police department for that same mob. The two race…

The following analysis contains spoilers for Alien. Alien is a movie about humans. In the 1970s, the world got its fair share of sci-fi phenomena through Star Wars and Star Trek. These large-scale, fantastical adventures were awe-inspiring and depicted space as something full of mystical little discoveries waiting to be…

The following article contains spoilers for the entirety of The Wire: Baltimore is The Wire’s main character, and it is a depressing one. The foundation of a good character is complexity. A character needs highs and lows. They need flaws and virtues. Nothing in The Wire embraces this idea more…

The following article contains spoilers for Prisoners, Blade Runner: 2049, and Sicario. The nature of all things is cyclical. Everything must be created, serve its purpose, and then cease to exist. Within that exists a number of smaller cycles that lead us to our inevitable end. However, a cycle of…

The following article contains spoilers for Interstellar, The Prestige, and Memento: A goal is what drives every film. Every character wants something. The lengths to which a character will go to achieve that goal is what makes us relate to them or pity them. Christopher Nolan’s films are full of…

The following article contains spoilers for True Detective season 1: It says a lot that realism has become synonymous with pessimism. The world of True Detective is a dark one. It is filled to the brim with gruesome murders, unhinged psychopaths, and grim philosophies. As Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and…