Non-Fiction

Intergalactic, Planetary: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | Locus Online | The usual suspects assemble for another adventure…

I Want to Feel You from the Inside: A Review of Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future | Seize the Press Issue #7 | David Cronenberg’s 2022 Crimes of the Future shares no story connection with his 1970 film of the same title but, in the larger meta project that all Cronenberg movies seem to be puzzle pieces of, this one extracts and recombines DNA from almost the entirety of his body of previous work.

Putting the “Romance” Back in “Necromance”: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Locus Online | Sword-and-sorcery fantasy is on an upswing.

RoboMom: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Jung_E | Locus Online | Jung_E frontloads a pile of fairly unnecessary background worldbuilding, but the important bits are that they’ve developed the means to put human brains into robots…

Digital Girl in an Analog World: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss M3GAN | Locus Online | Plenty of other killer robot and creepy doll movies to make comparisons to—take your pick—and from the trailer you can pretty much predict the arc of the plot. But there’s something about M3GAN.

Power to the People and the Beats: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Neptune Frost | Locus Online | Actor, poet, activist, and musician Saul Williams writes and co-directs (with Rwandan filmmaker Anisia Uzeyman) Neptune Frost.

Look! Up In the Sky! Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | Locus Online | Wakanda Forever follows the events of the original Black Panther as well as some of the other Marvel titles, but importantly, it also follows the real-life event of Chadwick Boseman’s death.

The Sanitation Worker is a Hero in Your Neighborhood: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Samaritan | Locus Online | Today’s major-brand superheroes have an onscreen lineage going back at least to the ’40s, including iconic serials starring Superman, Batman, and Captain America.

Thunder and Love: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Alienoid | Locus Online | This South Korean movie blends magic, time travel, robots, aliens, alien robots, spaceships, and shapeshifting cats all into 140 minutes of action, comedy, horror, and even a lil bit o’ luv.

Hunter Hunted: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Prey | Locus Online | Josh: I hyped up the previous Predator movie because it was so over-the-top and ridiculous, just straight out campy fun. Prey is a completely different pace, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more.

Don’t Look Up: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Nope | Locus Online | When was the last time we had a properly decent UFO movie?

Good God, Y’all: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Thor: Love and Thunder | Locus Online | Picking up after Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame, the fourth Thor standalone film reunites the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) with his scientist ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), his rock-alien-monster friend Korg (director Taika Waititi), and the fresh king of New Asgard, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson).

Lift Up the Receiver, I’ll Make You a Believer: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss The Black Phone | Locus Online | Finney and Gwen (Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw) are siblings in 1978 Colorado.

Men: Written and Directed by Alex Garland, Reviewed by Josh Pearce | The BSFA Review #18 (Summer 2022) | Men is Alex Garland’s third film as director, following two well-regarded science fiction forays (Annihilation and Ex Machina), and he has also written several other SF gems (28 Days Later…, Sunshine, and Dredd).

Witchcraft & Wizardry: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | Locus Online | It’s the third major movie this year premised on a fundamental misinterpretation* of quantum theory!

What If…? Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Everything Everywhere All at Once | Locus Online | When a rupture threatens the multiverse, ordinary mother and laundromat owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is recruited by a shadowy organization.

American Gothic: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Batman | Locus Online | Batman was first introduced in Detective Comics #27 in 1939, and this year’s The Batman tries to bring him back to that super-sleuth tradition: showing up at crime scenes, looking for clues, outwitting criminals and police alike.

Into the Metaverse: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Spider-Man: No Way Home | Locus Online | There are always a number of film reviewers who plaster their reviews with quotable hyperbole, regardless of the quality of the film itself.

All We Ever Were, Just Zeroes and Ones: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Matrix Resurrections | Locus Online | And… we’re back! Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are still stuck in the Matrix.

The Conqueror Worm: Josh Pearce Reviews Dune: Part One | Future-SF Digest #13 | Alejandro Jodorowsky in the ’70s, David Lynch in 1984, the Sci Fi channel in 2000 (and again in 2003)…

Do I Make You Horny, Baby? Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Antlers | Locus Online | Josh: Here’s one that I think deserves a little more attention than it got.

Bad Robots: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Eternals | Locus Online | Thousands of years ago, the godlike Celestial Arishem (voiced by David Kaye) sent a squad of immortal, humanoid Eternals to Earth to hunt down alien monsters called Deviants…

My Tapeworm Tells Me What to Do: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Venom: Let There Be Carnage | Locus Online | Reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is washed up. Worse, he and his alien symbiote, Venom (also Tom Hardy), aren’t getting along too well.

Star-crossed Heroes: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Suicide Squad | Locus Online | A motley crew of costumed characters with highly questionable morals is compelled – upon pain of death – to undertake a covert military mission in the “island nation of Corto Maltese.”

“And My Axe!”: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss The Green Knight | Locus Online | It’s not often one sees the theatrical release of a 700-year-old poem, and just as rarely is there a modern adaptation of an Arthurian myth that does not involve either the Sword in the Stone or the Holy Grail.

Nothing Is Stronger Than Family: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Black Widow and The Tomorrow War | Locus Online | Two blockbuster-scope films dropped within a week of each other, with similar budgets and big-name casts. They could have been the summer’s perfect popcorn movies, yet were overall disappointments — so we’ll just do brief discussions of both in one review.

The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It | Locus Online | Arley: I don’t know if it was a callback, or if it’s just one of those images that’s becoming a copy-paste in these kinds of movies, but there was a shot that was right out of The Exorcist. Josh: That was a direct reference, for sure.

How to Train Your Tuk Tuk: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Raya and the Last Dragon | Locus Online | Five hundred years before the start of Raya and the Last Dragon, the vibrant land of Kumandra is attacked by the Druun, monsters that turn their victims into stone.

Clash of the Titans: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Godzilla vs. Kong | Locus Online | In our review of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, we said, “The weakness of this movie was the humans and the strengths were the monsters, and there were not enough monster moments.” Well. The movie studios listened.

Whatcha Gonna Do With All That Junk? Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Space Sweepers | Locus Online | Down on their luck and drowning in debt, the crew of the spaceship Victory work as “space sweepers,” salvaging broken satellites and other orbital garbage.

My Whole Existence Is Flawed, You Get Me Closer to God: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Soul | Locus Online | Disney/Pixar returns to the afterlife in Soul, the story of middle school teacher and jazz musician Joe Gardner (voiced by Jaime Foxx) who winds up in a coma after his body and spirit are separated in an accident.

Ghostride the Whip: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Wonder Woman 1984 | Locus Online | Some 70 years or so after the events of Wonder Woman, 1984 finds the titular hero (Gal Gadot) whiling away her time curating artifacts and impressing mortals with her beauty and charm.

Through a Mirror, Darkly: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Parallel | Locus Online | Four friends living together and working to develop an app discover a hidden room in their house and, in it, a magic mirror that can portal them to different, but nearly indistinguishable, parallel universes.

The Name’s Protagonist… Anonymous Protagonist: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Tenet | Locus Online | After a high-stakes operation at an opera house in Ukraine, a CIA agent (John David Washington) is recruited into a mysterious organization, given the codeword “Tenet” as a key to establishing contact with other members. 

You Gotta Kill the Person You Were Born to Be: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss LX 2048 with Bonus Film The Speed of Time | Locus Online | In this installment, Locus will be taking a look at two indie films that found their way into our inbox: full-length LX 2048 and short film The Speed of Time….

Sometimes You Get the Bear: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The New Mutants | Locus Online | A fresh batch of young mutants has arrived, but don’t call them X-Men just yet, and don’t call them superheroes, either.

Traveling Companion through Monster Country: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Sputnik | Locus Online | Originally pitched as “a Russian Alien,” this low-budget SF horror film opens on a promising scene: it’s 1983, and two cosmonauts orbit the Earth in a Soyuz capsule.

Konami Vice: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Project Power | Locus Online | In the tradition of classics Dirty Harry and Death Wish, Jaime Foxx is Art, an ex-soldier tracking down the people who kidnapped his daughter, using extreme force along the way.

Grand Wizardry: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Lovecraft Country Episodes 1 & 2 | Locus Online | Avid science fiction reader and down-low nerd Atticus Freeman AKA “Tic” (Jonathan Majors) returns to Chicago from the Korean War and a stint in Florida to find that his father has gone missing.

Die, Repeat, Live: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Palm Springs | Locus Online | What’s this? Locus reviews a rom-com? Well, how does an infinite time loop and random dinosaurs grab you?

Live, Die, Repeat: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss The Old Guard | Locus Online | Charlize Theron, as Andy, anchors a squad of immortal mercenaries in The Old Guard, a movie based on Greg Rucka’s graphic novels of the same name.

Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Review The Dead Lands and Tales from the Loop | Locus Online | Theaters remain closed.

Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Review Upload and Motherland: Fort Salem | Locus Online | Josh: Well, theaters are still closed, and most of the movies we were scheduled to review have been pushed back to the end of the year or 2021.

Brotherhood and Magitech: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Onward | Locus OnlineIn a high-fantasy-inspired world, elven brothers Ian (voiced by Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt) undertake a quest; they’re looking for the Phoenix gem, which will bring back their dead father for one last day.

Sufficiently Advanced Tech Bros Are Indistinguishable from Dark Magicians: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Bloodshot | Locus Online | Based on the Valiant comic book series of the same name, Bloodshot is about a US Marine, Ray Garrison (Vin Diesel), who is brought back from the dead through the application of nanotechnology, which endows him with superhuman abilities.

Visible Only by Gaslight: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Invisible Man | Locus Online | Josh: This is “Gaslight: The Movie”. Arley: The first thing he does when he’s invisible is turn up the gas on the stove. Metaphor?!

Homicide Squad: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn | Locus Online | Infamous DC Comics character Harley Quinn (née Harleen Frances Quinzel) changes out of her manic pixie dream girl role for Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

“VIOLET, YOU’RE TURNING VIOLET, VIOLET!” Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Color Out of Space | Locus Online | This adaptation of the 1927 H.P. Lovecraft short story stars Nicolas Cage as Nathan Gardner, who lives in a secluded area of New England with his wife…

“There’s Always a Bigger Fish”: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Underwater | Locus OnlineArley: THEY KILLED THE BLACK GUY!

Robots and Nonsense: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker | Locus Online | Tim Pratt, via Twitter: Two things they got a lot of in Star Wars is droids and shit that don’t make no sense.

Another Future Rolls off the Assembly Line: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Terminator: Dark Fate | Locus Online | This review doesn’t need to lead with much of a recap, because you’ve seen it all before: evil AI sends a killer robot back in time to assassinate the future savior of humankind.

Great Clown Pagliacci Is in Town Tonight: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Joker | Locus Online | Simply put, Joker is the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) and his transition from sadsack to supervillain.

Look Out! Here Comes the Spider-Clown: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss It Chapter Two | Locus Online | Chapter two of Stephen King’s epic horror story opens 27 years after the members of the Losers Club defeated Pennywise the Clown in 2017’s It.

Teenagers Scare the Living Hell Out of Me: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Review Brightburn | Locus Online | Although it’s easiest to describe Brightburn as “Superman, but evil,” it’s a mistake to think of it as a superhero movie.

Spidey International: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Spider-Man: Far From Home | Locus Online | The continuing adventures of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man! 

Everything Will Be Explained If You’ll Just Look Right Here: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Men in Black: International | Locus Online | It’s been 22(!) years since the release of Men in Black, a stretch of time that encapsulates three sequel movies and an animated TV show, and throughout it all the original film has held up as the strongest installment of the franchise.

Hail Hydra! Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Godzilla: King of the Monsters | Locus Online | Godzilla: King of the Monsters has a lot of things in it that will please Godzilla fans, and plenty that will piss them off.

Necromancing the Stones: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Avengers: Endgame | Locus Online | Previously, on the Avengers: Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Gauntlet to murder half of all living creatures in the universe.

Hey, Mr. Wizard! Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Shazam! | Locus Online | With a single magic word, troubled youth Billy Batson (Asher Angel) gains the ability to transform into a superhero adult (Zachary Levi) and back again.

Rabbit, Run: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Us | Locus Online | From Jordan Peele, writer and director of Get Out, comes Us — a new horror film…

With Great Power Comes Great Fun: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Captain Marvel | Locus Online | It is the distant future: 1995.

Not All Who Wander: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Wandering Earth | Locus Online | Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death’s End) established him to audiences as a writer of Big Idea stories, eliciting comparisons to Arthur C. Clarke.

Back to the ’80s: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Bumblebee | Locus Online | For anyone dreading another Michael Bay explosion-fest, don’t worry.

Caught in a Web of Wonder: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse | Locus Online | Arley: This movie is so good that even though you know the basic plot-points of a Spider-Man story (and everyone knows the basic Spider-Man plot) it’s still massively entertaining.

“That’s Something You Can’t Unsee”: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Bird Box | Locus Online | Josh: When we reviewed A Quiet Place earlier this year, I said that it reminded me of Josh Malerman’s book Bird Box. What do you think? Fair comparison?

A Burden to Watch: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald | Locus Online | We usually start these reviews with a summary, trying to give a sense of what the movie is about without spoiling any important moments. Spoiler: the storyline is too boring to be relayed.

Eddie Brock Presents the Brock Show Starring Eddie Brock: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Venom | Locus Online | Brock is infected by the symbiote named Venom (voiced by Hardy), which [battles him for control of his own body] [gives him a serious case of alien limb syndrome]. 

More Victims, More Mutilations: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss The Predator | Locus Online | Somewhere in the Central American jungle, Army Ranger sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) encounters a crashed Predator escape pod.

Unevolved: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss The Meg | Locus Online | Josh: So, about the title of this review. What do you think of, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” or is that too easy?

Because “Quantum!”: Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Ant-Man and the Wasp | Locus Online | If Scott Lang is a stand-in for the viewer, then he seems to constantly be thinking, What are we doing? And,why are we doing this? Good questions. What are we watching? And, why are we watching this?

Take a Bao: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Incredibles 2 | Locus Online | Before we can talk about Incredibles 2 we have to talk about Bao.

Is An Unkillable Hero Worth Watching? Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss Deadpool 2 | Locus Online | Deadpool 2 continues the zany adventures of a smart-ass, smart-mouth mutant mercenary (Ryan Reynolds) whose powers are superhuman regeneration, looking melted, and being meta.

Flow, My Tears: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Avengers: Infinity War | Locus Online | So. Avengers.

SHH! Arley Sorg and Josh Pearce Discuss A Quiet Place | Locus Online | In this post-apocalyptic film, a couple raises their family while being stalked by blind monsters that hunt entirely by sound. Silence is the only defense, and any noise is fatal.

Wakanda Forever: Josh Pearce and Arley Sorg Discuss Black Panther | Locus Online | Wakanda! A land of secrets.

Pizza Night | Lip Service West, Chapter 14 | So here we are, you and I, sitting on the side of the Interstate just outside of Phoenix, trying to hitchhike to Tucson—one desert shithole to another.

6 Modern Technologies Animals Invented Millions of Years Ago | Cracked.com | Our species takes a lot of pride in technology, to the point that it’s pretty much the one thing we lord over all the others. But maybe we’re too quick to pat ourselves on the back…

6 Things That Shouldn’t Explode (But Did Anyway) | Cracked.com | Michael Bay is right: Somewhere, right now, something is exploding.