Tron: Legacy's lasting reputation is mostly that of a flashy action blockbuster, with plenty to show and little to say. But the film's unique visual aesthetic elevates it a level beyond similar films of its kind.
PositionStaff Writer
JoinedMay 28, 2017
Articles27
Sarah Welch-Larson writes about feminist theology, sad men in space, and stories about creation and agency. She is a member of Chicago Indie Critics, the cohost of Seeing and Believing podcast, and the author of Becoming Alien: The Beginning and End of Evil in Science Fiction's Most Idiosyncratic Franchise, now available from Cascade Books. She lives in Chicago with her husband, their dog, and about three dozen houseplants.
Only Lovers Left Alive is about marriage, and about weathering long dark nights of the soul just long enough to see the light again, taking each wave as it comes and then bracing for the next one.
The Return of the King is an object lesson in satisfying endings. Each one is necessary, a coda for an important story thread; each one folds in on the others like the pages of a book.
This scream is a scream of defiance.
In Howl’s Moving Castle, food is more than just a necessity—it sustains life, in every sense of the phrase: helping a body hold skin and sinew together, while acting as an expression of love and care.
More than any other Alien movie, David Fincher's Alien 3 is aware of Ripley’s existence as a woman, and the unique and universal horrors that come with the territory of inhabiting a woman’s body.
On 2001, Interstellar, and Love.
Andrei Tarkovsky and Steven Soderbergh each adapted Stanislaw Lem's source novel into fascinating films, full of expressionistic color choices.
Alien: Covenant is a greatest-hits compilation, remastered in high definition and dripping in menace, with nods to all the previous films in the franchise.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, unlike most films, is not an escape.
Serenity, for me, is a warm quilt on a sick day, my first choice when I’m feeling tired or discouraged or can’t stand the thought of watching any other movie.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is not, perhaps, Miyazaki’s best movie, but it is his most earnest and original; a declaration of ideals that his later movies will refine.
