Author Archives
Founder: Elements of Madness | Contributing Senior Film Critic: CLTure | Freelance Film Critic: Mountain XPress | Bylines at Pretty Vacant One and FilmFed | The Cine-Men podcast co-host | NC Film Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics Association, & Critics Choice Association member | Rotten Tomatoes approved individual critic
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“Frozen II”: Bigger, Bolder, Colder.
In 2013, you couldn’t turn on a radio without hearing Idina Menzel belting “Let It Go” and, by 2014, Halloween looked like an army of Elsas and Annas coming to pillage your candy. As much of a pop culture phenomenon… Read More ›
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Memoir adaptation “Blinded by the Light” puts a Springsteen soundtrack to a journey of self-identity.
When people talk about something being “timeless,” what do they mean? Are they referring to the aesthetic? To the sound? What about the structure? It’s all of these things and none of these things as timelessness refers to the innate… Read More ›
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By blending traditional art styles with modern animation, the Chinese folktale “Legend of the White Snake” takes on a new life in the GKIDS release “White Snake.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the “Legend of the White Snake,” it’s an ancient Chinese folktale dating back centuries. Rooted in oral history, the tale has been translated into song, print, television, and film many times over. In it, a human… Read More ›
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Experience Victor Kossakovsky’s meditation on water “Aquarela”, on home video now.
Rated PG; however, be advised that, as a nature documentary, various harrowing elements are presented. Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary Aquarela is unlike anything you’ve seen before within the section of nature-focused films. Not only is it shot at 96 frames-per-second, a… Read More ›
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What you see is what you get in quirky dramedy “Love Is Blind”.
There’s nothing more frustrating as a cinephile than a film with great ideas that don’t seem to coalesce in execution, where you can see all the pieces of a clever, engaging, thoughtful story, yet, for some reason, in completion, the… Read More ›
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Amid all the holiday rom-com trimmings, “Last Christmas” possesses unexpected layers.
The moment the clock hits midnight on the last day of October, the speed with which Halloween is tossed in the bin and Christmas pops up is enough to disorient. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the first major studio Christmas… Read More ›
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Now available on home video, Andrea Berloff’s adaptation of DC Vertigo limited series “The Kitchen”.
In November 2014, the first issue of DC Vertigo’s The Kitchen ran. Created by Ollie Masters and drawn by Ming Doyle, the story followed three women trying to survive in 1970’s mobland New York. With the desire for stories from… Read More ›
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William Fichtner’s directorial debut “Cold Brook” plays like cinematic comfort food.
William Fichtner’s been working in television and film since 1989. He’s played a variety of characters in myriad of genres, but rarely does he get the kind of recognition that other actors working as hard as he and as talented… Read More ›
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Despite the trappings of a thoughtful noir, Edward Norton’s “Motherless Brooklyn” adaptation doesn’t seem to coalesce.
The cinematic adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s book Motherless Brooklyn by Edward Norton (Keeping the Faith) possesses all the hallmarks of a great noir: mystery, a dame in trouble, and a gumshoe in over his head. When you add in a… Read More ›
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Coming To Theaters: November 2019
The ghosts and goblins may be out to play, but not everything hitting theaters is out to spook you. In fact, as we switch over to November, the films hitting theaters are a little more contemplative and character-driven, rather than… Read More ›