Author Archives
Founder: Elements of Madness | Contributing Senior Film Critic: CLTure | Past Bylines at Pretty Vacant One, FilmFed, & Mountain Xpress | The Cine-Men podcast co-host | NC Film Critics Association, Southeastern Film Critics Association, & Critics Choice Association member | Rotten Tomatoes approved individual critic
-
“The Loneliest Boy in the World” Blu-ray Giveaway
At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt a little alone. In director Martin Owen’s horror comedy The Loneliest Boy in the World, the notion of creating acceptance and company gets explored with gut-splitting effects. If you missed the… Read More ›
-
Anita Rocha da Silveira’s “Medusa” ensnares you with an exploration of potent ideas and themes in a rich home release.
The story of Medusa the Gorgon is fairly well known. She was one of three sisters and her tale ends with a slash of the hero Perseus’s sword across her neck. He was sent to slay her and was rewarded… Read More ›
-
“Halloween Ends” Blu-ray Giveaway
Writer/director David Gordon Green got to do something cinema fans of all kinds often dream of but rarely get the chance to do: continue a storyline from a film they love. For Green, this meant crafting his own trilogy to… Read More ›
-
Shout! Factory and LAIKA Studios invite audiences to return to Blithe Hollow in a first-time 4K UHD edition of “ParaNorman.”
In February of 2021, it was announced that LAIKA Studios and boutique home media distributor Shout! Factory made a deal to bring LAIKA’s incredible stop-motion films to U.S. audiences’ homes. Toward the end of 2021, Shout! Factory released Blu-ray/DVD combo… Read More ›
-
The Cine-Men, Episode 77: Most Anticipated Winter 2022/2023 Films
With the holiday season underway, it seems like a great time to identify and explore the upcoming Winter 2022/2023 cinematic slate and the films that we can’t wait to see. Also, the Cine-Men Challenge returns as Darryl discusses DC League of… Read More ›
-
Shout! Factory and LAIKA Studios re-release “Coraline” for the first-time in a stunning 4K UHD edition.
In February of 2021, it was announced that LAIKA Studios and boutique home media distributor Shout! Factory made a deal to bring LAIKA’s incredible stop-motion films to U.S. audiences’ homes. Toward the end of 2021, Shout! Factory released Blu-ray/DVD combo… Read More ›
-
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” may not have you wishing upon a star, but it’s exploration of identity and love will resonate nonetheless.
Since its publication in 1883, Italian author Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio has been adapted on paper and for stage and screen many times. The most well-known, of course, being the 1940 Walt Disney animated adaptation. It’s a story… Read More ›
-
“The Ambush” Blu-ray Giveaway
From Pierre Morel, the action director behind District B13 (2004), Taken (2008), and Peppermint (2018), comes a brand-new film, The Ambush. The based-on-a-true-story action drama follows three United Arab Emirates soldiers fighting for their lives and is coming home courtesy of Well… Read More ›
-
Mixed-media documentary “Eternal Spring (长春)” offers a unique perspective on what the persecution of people of faith really looks like.
In March 2002, in order to combat the persistent and often violent persecution practitioners of Falun Gong endured in China, several members decided to break into the evening news to project one of their DVDs. The idea being that if… Read More ›
-
Paramount Pictures’s 4K UHD release of “Pulp Fiction” may just be the $5 milkshake you’re craving.
When one speaks of writer/actor/director Quentin Tarantino, the film in which they first meet his cinematic universe often colors how they view him and his work. If it’s his first film, Reservoir Dogs (1991), they likely speak with reverence as… Read More ›
-
Before “Part Two” releases in 2023, catch up with Choi Dong-hoon’s sci-fi action fantasy “Alienoid” on home video.
If there’s one complaint that American audiences are prone to have, it’s that there’s never anything original hitting theaters. It’s all superhero stories, remakes, reboots, or some kind of sequel. It’s incredibly risky for studios to make original stories, so… Read More ›
-
In the face of tragedy, the home release of “Clerks III” assures you that the Quick Stop is open.
“We’re not supposed to be here today.” – Randall Graves, Clerks III With one line, writer/actor/director Kevin Smith sent me into another fit of sobs. If anyone followed the production on his latest film, Clerks III (2022), there was already… Read More ›
-
If nothing else can be said for “Amsterdam,” the cast is a collection of some of the best to do it.
We live in a period where the truest stories may be too hard to believe. It’s not just that conspiracy theories have received mainstream credibility, it’s that the decisions to voice and behave in the worst possible manner in public… Read More ›
-
Late stage rom-com “Food and Romance” is cinematic comfort food with a few well-prepared surprises.
Just because you’ve been with someone a long time doesn’t mean that it’s either a good fit or meant to last forever. Good relationships are ones in which each participant invests in both themselves and their partner. Bad ones result… Read More ›
-
Documentary short film “Ukrainians in Exile” puts the people in frame.
For as long as someone thought themselves superior to another, for as long as someone believed themselves owed what belongs to another, there has been colonization. The roots likely go deeper than we know for sure, but, starting in February… Read More ›
-
“Alienoid” Blu-ray Giveaway
There have been few first-part-of-a-series films released in 2022 that have made me want to dive straight into the follow-up as much as writer/director Choi Dong-hoon’s genre-hybrid Alienoid. This complex comedic fantasy actioner does a lot of wild things in Part… Read More ›
-
Suspense thriller “The Inevitable Death of the Crab (La Inevitable Muerte del Cangrejo)” is a strong first full-length outing by Ahcitz Azcona.
An observation about American cinema is made early into writer/actor/director Ahcitz Azcona’s The Inevitable Death of the Crab (La Inevitable Muerte del Cangrejo) that’s incredibly obvious yet startling once considered: whomever the latest “bad guy” is to the U.S., they… Read More ›
-
Johannes Grenzfurthner’s experimental supernatural horror “Razzennest” is a disquieting sensory experience that’ll leave you stunned.
Satire is a sticky wicket requiring expert balance to nail. Films like Paul Verhoven’s RoboCop (1987) and Starship Troopers (1997) are as frequently misunderstood for their analysis of corporate greed and nationalism as Fight Club is (film (1999) or novel)… Read More ›
-
Meet Me at the Movies: Episode 481
On this episode of Meet Me at the Movies, I join hosts Noel T. Manning and Thomas Manning to briefly discuss director Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway, now streaming on Apple TV+ and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry. This beautiful character-driven… Read More ›
-
The Cine-Men, Episode 76: Animated Universes We Want No Parts Of
The Cine-Men co-host Darryl Mansel and myself continue our trend of weirdness. In this episode we discuss the various animated worlds in cinema that exist and identify the one’s we’d like to (or not) live in. (Mostly not.) Join us… Read More ›