Review: No fun to be had in 'Morbius'

By Ben Miller 

Too silly to take seriously, but too serious to be any fun, Daniel Espinosa's Morbius suffers from a lack of vision and commitment from its stars and filmmakers. Jared Leto stars as Dr. Michael Morbius, a brilliant scientist suffering from a rare blood disease that has been wrecking his body since childhood. Dr. Morbius is supported by his colleague Dr. Martin Bancroft (Adria Arjona) and his best friend Milo (Matt Smith), who also suffers from the same blood disease.

Morbius attempts to cure himself by using the genetic mapping of vampire bats to compliment his own DNA. You can guess that the experiments go array giving Morbius a form of vampirism...

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Review: The Girl From Plainville (Hulu)

By Christopher James

Elle Fanning tackles the role of Michelle Carter, the teen who convinced her boyfriend to take his own life, in "The Girl From Plainville."The trend of documentaries getting turned into narrative miniseries continues with The Girl from Plainview on Hulu. The case of The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter has been widely reported on through documentary and deep dive articles. The story touches on so many hot button items: teenage suicide, social media, bullying in relationships and whether one can prosecute someone over texts. 

So does the new Hulu series have more to say on the topic that has already been said?

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Linker by the Dozen

• NYT Governors Awards. Kyle Buchanan reports on the Honorary Oscars Friday night. Such a pity these aren't televised
• /Film Paramount+ has its highest watched premiere for the new series Halo
• AV Club Lin-Manuel Miranda has to skip the Oscars this year. His wife has tested positive for COVID
• Vulture Joe Reid ranks every Oscar nominee. This is lots of fun and a quick read given the 53 films

More after the jump including Parker Posey, snarky Oscar commentary, animated short, Everything Everywhere All At Once and recent reviews...

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Top Five Reasons to see "Mothering Sunday"

by Cláudio Alves

Adapted by Alice Birch from Graham Swift's novel, Mothering Sunday depicts a day in the life of a young maid in 1920s England. She's been having an affair with a rich boy before he leaves to be married off, plans are made for an afternoon of farewell sex. Throughout, the trauma of World War I haunts the nation, ghosts looming over the living who try to conceal their brokenness through social pageantry. It's all told as remembrance, a writer looking back at her youth, trying to articulate a momentous episode on the page. Cut to non-linear smithereens, the film's prone to disrupt stately historical drama with wet carnality. Flashes of lustful memory often barge their way into unrelated scenes, like rainwater flooding a basement's every nook and cranny...

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Review: the relatable, surreal 'Turning Red'

by Lynn Lee

All images in this post are from Turning Red © Disney/Pixar

Here are some things I never thought I’d see in a Disney animated movie:

-unleashed adolescent female desire, front and center (here metaphorically represented by a red panda)

-matter-of-fact references to menstruation (even though it’s also metaphorically represented, or rather superseded, by the red panda)

-a boy band and Tamagotchis (remember those?) as major plot drivers...

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