Bad Times At The El Royale (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: A priest (Jeff Bridges), a singer (Cynthia Erivo), a salesman (Jon Hamm) and a hippie (Dakota Johnson) all show up at the El Royale, a hotel that rests on the middle of the state border between California and Nevada. As they make themselves at home, under the attentive eye of concierge Miles (Lewis Pullman), the secrets and lies that brought them to this establishment begin to surface, and despite outward appearances, it seems like no one's hands are clean.

The Martian (2015) - Movie Review

To paraphrase one of the more boisterous names in space exploration: “Space: the final frontier”. However, something that is becoming clearer and clearer with every day since that phrase was first uttered is that space will always be the final frontier. Unlike our home planet, there is an infinite amount of, well, space outside of our atmosphere and it is expanding every second. The distance between points of interest (stars, planets, space fog, etc.) is occupied by a vacuum that seems to exist at the exact opposite of our ideal living conditions, and that’s if we even have a vessel that can stay in one piece during all that travel.

Is it any wonder, with all this in mind, that space travel and exploration is frequently used as the setting for dramas and thrillers? Sure, space combat will always be enticing, but the thought of how claustrophobic, hazardous and ultimately liberating leaving Earth for greener pastures can be has produced some truly amazing works of art, particularly in the realm of cinema. So, when director Ridley Scott decided to return to the cold void that yielded him a bona fide sci-fi classic with Alien (and a modest success with Prometheus), how did it turn out considering his last cinematic venture?