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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Paranoia seeps through every frame of surrealist, absurdist sci-fi thriller “Friend of the World.”
These are wild times we’re living in. We’ve got wars for land in Ukraine and Israel bordering on genocide, racial strife and religion tied too closely with politics in the U.S. and U.K., a cult of personality seizing the good… Read More ›
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Delightfully shocking and surprisingly gruesome, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is decidedly a Sam Raimi MCU movie.
After 27 films, there exists roughly three factions of people: those who are stupid excited for any new Marvel project, those who are exhausted, and those who don’t particularly care. Some of the malaise stems from the fact that, like… Read More ›
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Let the gales of song guide you to director Mamoru Hosoda’s “BELLE,” coming to home video from Shout! Factory and GKids Films.
One can never really predict what we’ll discover with art — what emotions, what memories, what reactions will be triggered through an artist’s work. When I first learned of writer/director Mamoru Hosoda’s BELLE, I presumed, like most, that it would… Read More ›
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Be transported back to the bittersweet moments of adolescence in Sophia Silver’s “Over/Under.” [SFFILM Festival]
Summer 1996 — I was 15 and spent several days with a childhood friend, Glen, his sister and her friend, and his father at a beach house on the Outer Banks. To this day, I remember the days we spent… Read More ›
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Creating a near-first person perspective places audiences in the experiences of director Reid Davenport in “I Didn’t See You There.” [SFFILM Festival]
After directing a series of shorts, filmmaker Reid Davenport jumps to features with documentary I Didn’t See You There, an experimental film exploring identity, visibility, and the continued consequences of the circus freak show from his perspective as an individual… Read More ›
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“Pushing Hands” Blu-ray Giveaway
Director Ang Lee’s filmography includes such greats as Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Brokeback Mountain (2005). Coming to home video from Film Movement on May 10th is a 2K restoration of Lee’s feature-length directorial… Read More ›
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Available on home video, you can ride or die with “Turning Red” never leaving your side.
After landing on Disney+ in March to a largely positive bang, director Domee Shi’s feature-length debut Turning Red is headed home for purchase. Much like the Oscar-winning Encanto from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Shi’s Pixar film explores generational trauma through… Read More ›
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Sarah Jones’s docu-drama “Sell/Buy/Date” effectively blends the stage with the screen to create a challenging exploration of sex work. [SFFILM Festival]
Tony Award-winning playwright Sarah Jones (Bridge & Tunnel) has developed and performed in several one-person shows over her career. They’ve explored immigrants, prejudice, community, feminism, sex work, and more, tackling complex topics with humor without losing insight. Inspired by people… Read More ›
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“Clean” Blu-ray Giveaway
Released in January, Adrien Brody starred in the dramatic thriller Clean, which he co-wrote with director Paul Solet. If you missed this redemption story when it dropped or are just prefer to own the cinematic stories you watch, Clean will hit… Read More ›
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Animated comedy “Pompo: The Cinéphile” is powered by the magic of celluloid and freshly made popcorn.
If there’s one thing that all cinephiles share, it’s that excited feeling when the house lights turn down low, the screen lights up, and the possibilities are endless for the adventure to come. It doesn’t really matter if you’re in… Read More ›
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The Cine-Men, Episode 64: Favorite Sequels.
After so much seriousness, The Cine-Men decided to take a step back and explore something more fun: sequels. These stories may seek to replicate prior adventures, build off of them to create something new, or blow it all up in… Read More ›
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Animated action caper “The Bad Guys” asks what makes a good being a good being.
July 15th, 2015, saw the release of Aaron Blabey’s kids book “The Bad Guys: Episode 1.” It introduced the world to Mr. Wolf, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Snake, and Mr. Shark and their quest to shift how the world sees them… Read More ›
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Your one way ticket to midnight is worth a double feature in this “Heavy Metal/Heavy Metal 2000” limited-edition steelbook release.
Thanks to the way that art tends to feed itself, throughout history, the written word has often inspired songs, paintings, dance, and vice versa with much more. For metalheads, the combination of fantasy and science fiction with music and art… Read More ›
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Kate Tsang weaves magic and grief throughout “Marvelous and the Black Hole.”
**Trigger Warning: Brief scenes of self-harm.** When loss occurs, there is no single right way to grieve. There’s no time limit on how long, no requirement beyond what your community expects. For Jews, for instance, there’s a tradition of sitting… Read More ›
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Director Vittorio De Sica’s fantastical dramedy “Miracle in Milan (Miracolo a Milano)” is the latest release to join the Criterion Collection.
“You have to keep me in shoes.” Of all the stories my late grandmother Naomi Pearl Russin Royal told, the one involving my late grandfather’s proposal and her response always amused me. As she told it, she had larger feet… Read More ›
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Before the multiverse explodes into madness, journey though the final entry in the “Homecoming” Trilogy with “Spider-Man: No Way Home” on home video.
“When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.” – Peter Parker, Captain America: Civil War (2016) Since 2016, actor Tom Holland as had the unenviable… Read More ›
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When the mystery remains, Korean action drama “Spiritwalker” crackles with energy and intrigue.
There can be just as much enjoyment in going on a journey you do know as in venturing on one marked by unfamiliar terrain. The predictability of something brings comfort, while something peculiar offers its own enticements. Writer/director Yoon Jae-keun… Read More ›
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Say “Yes!” over and over with “Marry Me” on home video now.
Trigger Warning: Marry Me contains several scenes involving lights flashings, predominantly from cameras. Be advised in case you have any kind of light sensitivity. Sometimes, when it comes to picking a movie, we want something easy. Not to say it… Read More ›
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A heavy-handed atmosphere hampers “The Long Night.”
For many, the search for self is the hardest journey one can engage in. Maybe you don’t feel like you belong with your blood relations, maybe you don’t feel like you belong among the general public, heck, maybe you don’t… Read More ›
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“Death on the Nile” and in your home, thanks to the home release.
Continuing their reimaging of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot detective stories, Oscar-winning actor/director Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) and screenwriter Michael Green (Murder on the Orient Express) re-team for Death on the Nile. This star-studded crime drama not only offers thrills, chills, and… Read More ›