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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“The Morrigan” Digital Code Giveaway
Anytime is a good time to get your scare on. Out now is writer/director Colum Eastwood’s sophomore feature, the horror tale The Morrigan, on digital and VOD via Cineverse. In support of the release, Cineverse has given EoM one (1) digital… Read More ›
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13 Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2026 films I’d like to cover.
After taking a year off, EoM returns to cover Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2026 edition! This festival features a number of world and U.S. premieres, several of whom have ended up on my year-end favorites list. Time will tell… Read More ›
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“Misdirection” Digital Code Giveaway
Action thriller Misdirection, directed by Willy’s Wonderland (2021) and Pig Hill (2025) director Kevin Lewis and starring Frank Grillo (Superman) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace), comes available on digital February 10th. Courtesy of Cineverse, EoM is giving away one (1) Apple… Read More ›
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Gore Verbinski’s darkly comic sci-fi actioner “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is a hilarious harbinger for our digital times.
Photosensitivity Warning: The climax of the film includes an extended sequence of flashing that may prove triggering for photosensitive individuals. Take precautions. “Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social.” – Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation from… Read More ›
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Jason Statham-led action thriller “Shelter” is a simple tale that’ll satisfy your January cinematic doldrum needs.
A figure living a controlled life is interrupted, ripped even, from his organized lifestyle when the unexpected happens and the man is forced into action. This is the general premise that applies to countless action titles and thrillers (even with… Read More ›
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Reginald Hudlin’s feature film directorial debut and seminal teen comedy “House Party” receives a 4K UHD edition via The Criterion Collection.
“All my memories are movies.” – George Clooney as Jay Kelly in Jay Kelly (2025). As a child born on the cusp of 1981, I reside firmly on line between Gen X and Millennial, meaning that I can remember a… Read More ›
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Gordan Chan’s folktale adaptation “King of Beggars” receives a 2K restoration from Eureka Entertainment.
Cinema borrowing from folktales is a natural fit given that folktales often elevate figures or events and cinema does this innately through projection. Who wouldn’t want to see the figures or events of lore cast upon a 40-foot screen or… Read More ›
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Actor Jason Biggs adds ‘Filmmaker’ to his resume with darkly comic “Untitled Home Invasion Romance.”
Whom among us hasn’t thought that it’s the effort that matters in a relationship — that if you work hard enough, want it bad enough, everything will be ok? This line of thinking often discounts the hard reality that “wanting”… Read More ›
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In examining the past, documentary “Who Killed Alex Odeh?” illuminates aspects of the present we’d rather not acknowledge. [Sundance]
It didn’t used to feel complicated to be Jewish before October 7th, 2023, and the Israeli-Gaza Conflict began. Having grown up in a Reform Jewish household, I believed in the existence of and even the right of a Jewish state… Read More ›
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Documentary “Cookie Queens” heralds the trials and tribulations of your local Girl Scouts during Cookie Season. [Sundance]
The official Girl Scouts of America website identifies Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low as the individual responsible for creating the organization in 1912 in Savannah, Georgia, and to whom all the troops worldwide are connected. While all the efforts of the… Read More ›
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“Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant” will have you laughing and crying while being arm-deep in goop, gore, and gunk. [Sundance]
Photosensitivity Warning: Several sequences in Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant feature flashing or sudden bursts of light. This may prove triggering for photosensitive individuals. Children are parasites. Yes, you read that correctly. After the sperm and egg connect and a zygote… Read More ›
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Maxime Giroux’s crime thriller “In Cold Light” challenges its audience through dissociative storytelling and a distant protagonist.
There’s a common misconception that stories, by nature of being broadcast or shown in a theater, condone behavior, justifying choices, always, simply because they are the behaviors and choices of the main character. This is an egregious failure of media… Read More ›
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“The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” Digital Code Giveaway
Before 2025 ended, it gifted audiences with a brand-new theatrical adventure starring everyone’s favorite sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea: SpongeBob SquarePants! This time, a swashbuckling tale involving The Flying Dutchman with voicework from Mark Hamill (Batman:… Read More ›
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Get a peek behind the creative intention of one of Bruce Springsteen’s most notable albums in director Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.”
Adaptations are the bread and butter of entertainment, whether it’s “ripped from the headlines” episodes of some Law & Order spin-off to capture the zeitgeist or the story of an established celebrity. Going further are the adaptations of books which… Read More ›
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“Fackham Hall” Blu-ray Giveaway
It’s frustrating how true the adage “laughter is the best medicine” is, but it’s true. The best way to break through doldrums, through frustration, through discontent, is laughter. It’s even more important when it seems like there’s very little to… Read More ›
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Jim Jarmusch’s acid western “Dead Man” re-enters The Criterion Collection with a brand-new 4K UHD edition.
Filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has built an indie career leaning into his eccentricities and mixing his artistic sensibilities. It’s how we get the zombie apocalypse comedy The Dead Don’t Die (2019), the melancholic vampiric love story Only Lovers Left Alive (2013),… Read More ›
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Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting’s crime thriller “On the Run” gets a Region A release by 88 Films.
The only feeling better for a cinephile in learning that a film you dig or never got the chance to see is getting a physical release is learning that said film that’s out of print or region locked is getting… Read More ›
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Steven Grayhm’s sophomore effort, family drama “Sheepdog,” battles itself as it seeks to implore audiences to reconsider our social responsibility to our veterans.
The Latin phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (roughly translates to “who guards the guardsmen?”) is attributed to Roman poet Juvenal and was made prominent by the philosopher Plato in their work Republic. The phrase has come to be interpreted as… Read More ›
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Horror thriller “Night Patrol” shines a floodlight on goings on under the cover of night.
To ignore history is to imprison yourself in repetitive cycles. Even worse, to make presumptions based solely on what you’re told is to doom yourself to being a keystone cause of those cycles continuing. This is a key component in… Read More ›
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“Sinners” CD Soundtrack Giveaway
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is considered one of the best films of 2025 by general and critical audiences alike for its layered storytelling conveyed through thematic material in the narrative, creation of the world through production design and art direction, stirring performances… Read More ›