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
-
88 Films releases “Police Story 3: Super Cop” in 4K UHD the first-time in North America to the delight of fans fresh and weathered.
When people talk about the career of martial artist and actor Jackie Chan, there’s one film that almost everyone mentions because of the incredible stunt work in the climactic battle: Police Story (1985). That film would go on to start… Read More ›
-
“Sisu” is a ferocious mindset turned into a blood-splattered actionfest that’ll delight on almost every possible level.
Let’s begin with a brief historical recap: at the end of World War I, Germany was not in a good place (financially or spiritually) leaving them open to the ideas of a charismatic failed painter vegan coward who used the… Read More ›
-
Arrow Video presents a HD home release of Basil Dearden’s action comedy “The Assassination Bureau.”
“ZEPPELINS. BOMBS. BORDELLOS. BURIALS. RIGG. REED.” This is one of several taglines attached to the marketing for the Basil Dearden-directed (Dead of Night) action comedy The Assassination Bureau, a film adapted from a Jack London (The Call of the Wild)… Read More ›
-
Stephen Williams’s “Chevalier” may just incite curiosity about all the other stories we don’t know.
It should come as little shock these days how diminutive our knowledge of the world and our place in it really is, not in a celestial sense, but in the very real, tangible historical terrestrial way. Especially in the United… Read More ›
-
Donnie Yen’s “Śakra” delivers the martial arts wuxia action you want.
In Buddhism, the word Śakra refers to a specific individual, a ruler of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven who analyzes issues of morality with Buddha. Considering the depiction of the character Qiao Feng (Donnie Yen) in the Yen and Kam Ka Wai-directed… Read More ›
-
“New Gods: Yang Jian,” the fourth film in Light Chaser Animation’s Investiture of the Gods Universe, comes home via Shout! Factory and GKids Films.
The New Gods series from Light Chaser is a refreshing approach to cultural stories. Each one of their films, even if not listed with the New Gods label (White Snake and Green Snake) allows the audience to engage with the… Read More ›
-
Radiance Films adds director Luigi Comencini’s murder mystery comedy “The Sunday Woman (La donna della domenica)” to their burgeoning collection of restorations.
Comedy is tragedy plus time. – Author Mark Twain Though Edgar Allen Poe’s 1841 story The Murders in the Rue Morgue is widely considered the first detective story, there’s a long standing relationship between murder and storytelling. Whether in dramatics… Read More ›
-
The Cine-Men, Episode 83: Video Game Adaptations
With the release of Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Cine-Men thought it would be fun to dig into a few of their favorite video game adaptations. Does Darryl Mansel play fast-and-loose with the rules? Sure does. But it ends… Read More ›
-
Nicholas Ray’s “Rebel Without a Cause” misses the mark on its first 4K UHD restoration.
Though some suggest that elder Millennials are breaking the trauma cycles of past generations, there’s always going to be a bit of a struggle between generations as each individual struggles to figure out who they are in the world separate… Read More ›
-
Terry Gilliam’s fantastical dramedy “The Fisher King” joins The Criterion Collection in multiple formats, including 4K UHD.
Over the course of writer/director Terry Gilliam’s career, whether it’s been Monty Python-related or not, each of his films have shared a fairly standard commonality: he’s written or adapted them. In the beginning of his career, his intention was to… Read More ›
-
Don’t worry, smile: 88 Films’s 2K restoration is “Gorgeous.”
Martial artist. Stuntman. Action director. Comedic Actor. Romantic lead? The first four absolutely describe world-renowned physical performer Jackie Chan, but the last? Certainly during his time making films with studio/distributor Golden Harvest, that’s not something the actor dared pursue as… Read More ›
-
“Suzume” is another breathtaking tale of grief, love, and healing from writer/director Makoto Shinkai.
Writer/director Makoto Shinkai’s been telling stories since the late-1990s, but didn’t become as widely well-known in the United States until his 2016 release Your Name. (君の名は。) which combined science fiction/fantasy elements through a natural disaster with young love, creating one… Read More ›
-
“You’re Killing Me” Digital Code Giveaway
Getting out of high school and into college shouldn’t cost your life, but it’s a fertile ground for horror stories. Directed by Beth Hanna, the latest tale to turn angst over the future bloody is You’re Killing Me, starring McKaley Miller,… Read More ›
-
Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will have gaming audiences shouting “Wahooo!” on their way out of the theater.
Let me paint you a picture: It’s May 1993 and Walt Disney, via distributor Buena Vista Pictures, is about to release a film co-written by Ed Solomon (Men in Black/Bill & Ted franchise), starring Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?),… Read More ›
-
Drama “Cool Hand Luke” receives a first-time 4K UHD release from Warner Bros. Pictures worthy of the classic cinematic adaptation.
Before Donn Pearce published his 1965 novel Cool Hand Luke, he’d reportedly spent six years drafting it as he pieced together a dramatic tale crafted from his imagination, his experience in a prison camp working on a chain gang, and… Read More ›
-
Behold the mighty weirdness of director Gakuryu Ishii’s “Punk Samurai” outside Japan for the first-time thanks to Third Window Films.
The concept of “punk” is a rebellion against the mainstream. As it relates to music, the term was used to describe rock bands of the late-‘60s to early ‘70s that played rock tunes fast, hard, and, often, in brief. For… Read More ›
-
Warner Bros. Pictures’s presents a first-time 4K UHD restoration of John Huston’s classic noir “The Maltese Falcon.”
Beginning as a character in a serial, Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled detective Sam Spade has appeared in the original 1930 tale The Maltese Falcon, two films of the same name, several short stories, and several short films. Of the characterizations, the… Read More ›
-
There are riches to be found in the Emerald Triangle if you can survive “Trim Season.” [The Overlook Film Festival]
Horror stories are as much tales to titillate as they are to teach lessons. The fairytales of today — Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel — are far gentler than when they arose to popularity as… Read More ›
-
Alexis Jacknow’s “Clock” interrogates society’s preoccupation with procreation. [The Overlook Film Festival]
An off-shoot of 20th Century Studios, 20th Digital Studio works with Hulu to produce a series of horror-centric shorts for October that they call “Bite Size Halloween.” With submissions ranging in a variety of topics from several creators, only a… Read More ›
-
The Cine-Men, Episode 82: Movies Over 3-hours
A film should be as long as the filmmaker deems necessary in order to tell their story. Sometimes less than a feature does the trick, while others need a significantly prolonged runtime to dig into the themes and ideas they… Read More ›