The PHiXThis Weekend in Movies: Twisty Domestic Suspense in ‘The Housemaid’ and Maximalist Sci-Fi Spectacle in ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
M.V. MoorheadDecember 19, 2025
The PHiXThis Week in Movies: Singing Vampires in ‘Sinners’ and Talking Trainers in ‘Sneaks’
M.V. MoorheadApril 21, 2025
Opened over the weekend: Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s tale of twin brothers Smoke and Stack, back from Capone’s Chicago and trying to start up a juke joint in rural Mississippi in the early ’30s. They have the building, and they have the talent for the grand opening, a blues guitar and vocal prodigy named Sammie. They have the booze, the catfish, everything. But they haven’t counted on the party being crashed by singing vampires. Both of...
The eephus is an extreme specimen of an off-speed pitch, very slow and very high, designed to throw off the batter’s timing. It’s a fine title for the movie Eephus. Like many elements of young Carson Lund’s disarming, deceptively unhurried baseball comedy, it seems to carry an allegorical resonance. The movie throws off our expectations; it takes its time, and it sails surprisingly high. It’s about a game played one beautiful early fall afternoon in the 1990s...
The PHiXMovie Review: ‘Heart Eyes’ is a Romcom Send-Up with a Bloody Twist
M.V. MoorheadFebruary 7, 2025
Valentine’s Day has had a long and fruitful collaboration with movie horror. Back in 1931, for instance, the Bela Lugosi version of Dracula, arguably the original American horror movie, was nationally released on February 14, as “the story of the strangest passion the world has ever known!” Later came the 1981 slasher movie My Bloody Valentine and its 2009 remake, and the 1982 X-Ray with Barbie Benton (originally titled Be My Valentine, or Else), the 2000 Lover’s Lane and Valentine in 2001. All of these exercises...