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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From “The First Slam Dunk” to the last, this manga adaptation will have you on the edge of your seat. [Fantasia International Film Festival]
Born first as a manga series that ran from 1990 – 1996 under the title Slam Dunk, the creation of Takehiko Inoue has been adapted for television, film, and video games since its debut. The series ran in Shueisha’s Weekly… Read More ›
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Give John Wick a seat at your table with “Chapter 4” available on home release.
2014: Keanu Reeves appears as the black suit-wearing assassin in mourning, John Wick, in the Derek Kolstad-written, Chad Stahelski/David Leitch-co-directed John Wick. A film which, originally, was headed for direct-to-video release and has now spawned a franchise with a television… Read More ›
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Larry Fessenden’s “Blackout” seeks to eviscerate more than tender flesh. [Fantasia International Film Festival]
Monster stories, creature features, if you will, generally are tales of outsiders. Dracula is but a lone survivor of a people trying to rekindle his species, Frankenstein’s creation is but a homemade newborn trying to find a place in a… Read More ›
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Cauldron Films offers a 2K restoration of Mario Caiano’s “Shanghai Joe.”
“Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie. If people are looking at your hair, we’re all in big trouble.” – Harrison Ford to Mark Hamill on the set of Star Wars (1977), as recalled by Hamill Released in 1973,… Read More ›
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Cult Epics’s 2K restoration of Marleen Gorris’s 1982 dramatic thriller “A Question of Silence” is still horrifically on-target with its exploration of gender equity.
There are far too many people today who think misogyny is a manufactured concept. That, somehow, the way things used to be is somehow better than they are now, what with women having voting rights, the ability to own property,… Read More ›
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“Stooge-O-Rama” Blu-ray Giveaway
What began with Ted Healy and Moe Howard as an American vaudeville troupe transformed over the years, with members changing in and out, into The Three Stooges. As a collective, they performed from the 1920s into the 1970s, releasing a… Read More ›
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The third film in the Hideaki Anno “Shin” series arrives on VOD and home video in July with director Shinji Higuchi’s “Shin Ultraman” via Cleopatra Entertainment.
Trigger Warning: Shin Ultraman features multiple sequences featuring flashing lights that might impact those with photosensitivity. In 2016, Shin Godzilla hit theaters and rocked audiences with a version of the kaiju story that hadn’t been presented in such a way…. Read More ›
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“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” Digital Code Giveaway
Today, July 7th, the final chapter of writer/director James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy releases on digital. In a weird twist of fate, I just-so-happened to have recently picked up the Disney Movie Club edition of prior MCU release Ant-Man and… Read More ›
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25 films to check out during the Fantasia International Film Festival 2023.
For the fourth year in a row, Elements of Madness will officially be covering the Fantasia International Film Festival and we thought we’d offer up our recommendations of what to check out during the fest or what to keep an… Read More ›
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“McBain” Blu-ray Giveaway
On July 11th, Synapse Films releases a Blu-ray edition of the James Glickenhaus-directed action/drama McBain, starring Christopher Walken (Seven Psychopaths) and Maria Conchita Alonso (Predator 2). Ahead of its release, MVD Entertainment Group has generously given us one (1) Blu-ray… Read More ›
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20th Century Studios re-releases the 2009 hit “Avatar” in a first-time 4K UHD with HDR presentation.
It’s 2009 and outside of some television and oceanic-centric films, writer/director James Cameron hasn’t had a film in theaters since 1997’s Titanic. His new project, Avatar, promises to take audiences on an incredible ride to a new planet, invaded by… Read More ›
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Paramount Pictures honors the 25th anniversary of “The Truman Show” with a 4K UHD remaster.
Despite what one may think of reality tv programming, it’s neither extraordinarily new nor a fad. Is it a way to get around the writers’ strike happening right now? Only a little bit as, one may be surprised to learn,… Read More ›
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“Day Zero” Blu-ray Giveaway
Director Joey De Guzman’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2022 selection Day Zero was released on digital back in May and now comes home in physical format on July 11th. If you’re interested in checking out recently retired MMA fighter Brandon… Read More ›
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The Cine-Men, Episode 87: Physical Media Favorites
Especially as streaming services are starting to remove their films and television programs without warning, enjoying one’s favorites often comes down to whether or not you have a physical back-up. You know, something that can’t be deleted for a tax… Read More ›
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Enjoy Stephen William’s dramatic biographical adaptation “Chevalier” at home now.
We may never know the stories we don’t know. That seems like an obvious statement, a philosophical quandary with a seemingly apparent answer. Except, it’s far more complicated than that because, as is often the case, what we don’t know… Read More ›
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Frank Marhsall’s documentary “Rather” reports on the man who covered history then and now. [Tribeca Film Festival]
As a Communications Major at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (Go Bulldogs!), there were two specific newscasters that came up in conversation: Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Coincidentally, both were born roughly a decade apart, worked for… Read More ›
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“The Tank” Blu-ray Giveaway
Creature features possess no season. They can as easily be enjoyed during Spooky Season as well as during the height of summer. One such film is releasing from Well Go USA, director Scott Walker’s The Tank, which, after a theatrical… Read More ›
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In a period of uncertain times, “Nimona” celebrates the rejects.
“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.” – German proverb. In the stories we tell, if there’s a hero, there’s a villain, someone for the bold and courageous to conquer; otherwise, how are they to be bold and courageous?… Read More ›
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Music doc “Anthem” is frequently sobering, but lacks temerity. [Tribeca Film Festival]
It’s a strange thing to be a person of a country. You can’t just identify as yourself in the singular as too many things require you to announce in the binary if you’re in support of or against where you… Read More ›
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The Criterion Collection’s new release of “Time Bandits” on 4K is former released materials with a new format.
In part of what writer/director Terry Gilliam calls his “Trilogy of Imagination,” Time Bandits represents the adolescent perspective: a period of wonder, amazement, magic, and disappointment. It’s an adventure tale in which a child journeys through holes in the universe… Read More ›