Author Archives
Founder: Elements of Madness | Past Bylines at CLTure, Pretty Vacant One, FilmFed, & Mountain Xpress | NC Film Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics Association, & Critics Choice Association member | Rotten Tomatoes approved individual critic
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“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” arrives on home video, bringing the sum of all choices to a quiet conclusion.
For nearly 30 years, Tom Cruise portrayed Impossible Mission Force member Ethan Hunt on the big screen, choosing over and over to accept each new adventure to the delight of audiences around the globe. Even as the series hit some… Read More ›
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“The Bad Guys 2” delivers the goods in family entertainment and significant ponderings on legal system reform.
There’s a strange dearth of family programming hitting theaters. There are plenty of films for older teens, young adults, and older, but titles that you can take younger kids to are oddly absent. Even worse, the ones that do get… Read More ›
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Don Lee’s 2018 dramatic thriller “The Villagers” comes available on digital via Well Go USA.
Since 2004, actor Don Lee (also known as Ma Dong-seok) has worked his way up from small supporting player (The Good, The Bad, The Weird) to scene-stealing supporting player (Train to Busan) to MCU hero (Eternals) to monster cop (Crime… Read More ›
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Bruno Martín’s crime thriller “Luger” is a lean mean machine with bone-crushing action. [Fantastic Fest]
Nothing is valuable until someone says it is. This may seem obvious, but entire systems are built around what society (locally or globally) deems as worthy of monetary value. It’s why everything from the obvious (gold and jewels) to the… Read More ›
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Sean Cisterna’s “Silver Screamers” is a charming, warm-hug of a film that highlights how we all have something to give back to our community. [Fantastic Fest]
There’s a school of thought that implies a person’s value only exists if they are a productive member of society. This, of course, correlates one’s existence to what they can produce versus what they can contribute, which are two drastically… Read More ›
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Make plans for a “Future Date.”
Depending on who you ask, the answer to the question “what is best in life?” will range from inner peace to financial prosperity to crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of the women. The last one is more for… Read More ›
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Life is little more than “One Battle After Another.”
Too often these days it seems like we’re living on the dumbest timeline. Regardless of one’s politics, when hypocrisy is high, there is no other way to process it than believing our lawns crave Gatorade for the electrolytes. The government… Read More ›
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Gareth Edwards’s “Jurassic World Rebirth” is open for exploration via home video.
The release of director Gareth Edwards’s Jurassic World Rebirth during the summer of 2025, brings the total number of films that make up the somewhat cohesive Jurassic Park franchise under its new designation Jurassic World to seven. Each film applies… Read More ›
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Kimchi western “The Good, the Bad, the Weird” gets a first-time 4K UHD release via Arrow Video.
The western is primarily an American genre with its focus on remote areas with unfriendly individuals, typically involving conflict between those enforcing and those outside the law. Though rooted in the period of expansion west in the United States and… Read More ›
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Stop-motion gothic romance “Corpse Bride” will have you saying “I do” to its first-time 4K UHD edition.
Filmmaker Tim Burton means different things to different people thanks to his varied career in live-action and stop-motion (sometimes in the same picture) spanning more than four decades. From his first feature, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), to producing Henry Selick’s… Read More ›
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Bring the Kikimora home as “Ballerina” arrives on physical and digital formats.
As has been written many times, the phenomenon that is the John Wick series almost didn’t happen. The film was originally slated as a direct-to-video release, it was helmed by two first-time feature directors (Chad Stahelski and David Leitch), had… Read More ›
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“Materialists” Blu-ray Giveaway
Writer/director Celine Song broke our hearts in 2023 with Past Lives and returned to theaters this year with another romantic drama, Materialists, possibly to do the same. If watching Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal in a love triangle sounds like… Read More ›
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“Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires (Batman Azteca: Choque de imperios)” clings so tightly to its DC roots that it stifles the flair when it embraces its Mexican influence.
In 1991, DC Comics published Batman: Holy Terror, a tale featuring an alternate history for the United States in which it remained a Commonwealth of the United Kingdom. It shifts the origin story we know of Bruce Wayne into Batman… Read More ›
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Linus O’Brien takes us on a “Strange Journey” in exploring the enduring legacy of his father’s “Rocky Horror Show.”
“So, come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab. I see you shiver with antici …” There are moments in our lives that we can recognize as (“…pation.”) life-changing; that we can see as the creation of… Read More ›
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Glenn McQuaid’s “The Restoration at Grayson Manor” is an alchemical mixture of melodrama and body horror which asserts some rehabs are best treated with napalm. [Fantastic Fest]
Names mean something. They hold power. Names withheld can create mystery and names known can open doors. They are the things that can be passed down from generation to generation — be it a surname, a given name, a middle… Read More ›
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Martial arts dramedy “Ghost Killer,” Kensuke Sonomura’s third film, is ready to join up with your home collection.
Those keeping track of modern martial arts action know the name Kensuke Sonomura between his work as a stunt director and as a director. If it hits hard, looks badass, and helps move the narrative forward, you can almost guarantee… Read More ›
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Make it weird, make it big, make it bloody – make it “Deathstalker.” [Fantastic Fest]
Photosensitivity Warning: There is a brief flashback sequence near the start of the film and a longer sequence during the climax wherein lights flash quite frequently. There’s no strobing and it’s somewhat predictable, but may still be triggering for photosensitive… Read More ›
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Surviving horror comedy “Coyotes” is simple: stay with your pack. [Fantastic Fest]
“Il meglio è l’inimico del bene. (Perfect is the enemy of good.)” – Attributed to Voltaire in 1770. If we spend our time pursuing perfect, we’ll miss out on a great deal. What ideal we set up for ourselves —… Read More ›
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Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low” gets a 4K UHD added to its formats released by The Criterion Collection.
Everyone says that they want original stories to watch at the movies, but what they really mean is that they want good stories, engaging stories, stories that they can’t stop talking about or thinking about when they leave the theater…. Read More ›
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Filmmaker Ken’ichi Ugana’s onryō tale “The Curse (咒死你)” blends cultural customs with modern conveniences in order to craft maximum carnage. [Fantastic Fest]
It’s not an uncommon practice for a filmmaker to release two films in a year. John Huston released The Treasure of the Sierra Madre the same year as Key Largo (1948), Akira Kurosawa released Scandal in the same year as… Read More ›