About Luke Hickman
From a young age, Luke has been obsessed with film. He studied film at Utah Valley University from 2005-08 and he reviewed movies for the weekly student publication "The College Times"/"UVU Review." Luke critiques films for "The Stubbs Show" on 101.5FM KEGA and on The Reel Place, a website that he co-created with fellow High-Def Digest writer Aaron Peck.
As the influence of nerd culture continues to spread throughout the entertainment industry, I’ve started to become bitter toward it. I like my entertainment to stand on its own. I don’t want to see it milk the nostalgi...
After five strong weeks atop the box office charts, the record-setting run of ‘Black Panther’ has finally been brought down. The panned ‘Pacific Rim’ sequel punched its way to the top with a so-so debut, wh...
The original ‘Pacific Rim’ had no right to be any good, but in the hands of a strong filmmaker (who now has an Oscar to back him up), it ended up being a very satisfying and all-around entertaining blockbuster. With tr...
Although five new movies open in wide release this weekend, it’s hard to get excited for any of them. One is an unnecessary sequel to a bad kids’ movie. Another is an awful-looking sequel to an awfully fun blockbuster....
It’s puzzling to me that studios have recently invested so much into reboots of existing properties that weren’t all that great to begin with. (See: ‘Death Wish’). The execs can’t be so far removed th...
At the start of the year, we did a Roundtable dedicated to the movies we were looking forward to this year. As I put together my picks, I looked at this weekend’s releases and glazed right over them for a reason: nothing loo...
Disney was its own worst enemy this weekend. The studio’s latest family adventure movie failed to reach the top of the box office, losing to another Disney film that’s been around for a month already.
Aussie cinema has been ramping up over the last dozen years, but the country’s films haven’t quite broken into the American mainstream yet. While Nash Edgerton’s gritty dark comedy ‘Gringo’ doesn̵...
The only serious competition for the four-week-old ‘Black Panther’ this week is one of Disney’s own movies. However, the critically panned kids’ flick is unlikely to dethrone it. Three other wide releases a...
When Disney isn’t making billion-dollar ‘Star Wars’, Marvel, and animated movies, the studio does less well with over-ambitious, tone-deaf fluff like 2015’s ‘Tomorrowland’. Unfortunately, Ava Du...
Marvel’s latest standalone superhero adventure continued to dominate the box office over Oscar weekend. At the same time, Jennifer Lawrence’s spy thriller and Bruce Willis’ action reboot saw decent, but unimpress...
What should have been a great weekend is wasted with two schizophrenic genre movies. Both of them have enough potential that they could have been amazing if only they’d been placed in the hands of filmmakers with a clear vis...