A war photographer, a stewardess, and a chance meeting set the stage for an 87-minute technicolor adventure of crime, mystery, and romance in director Yasuharu Hasebe’s (Retaliation) 1966 caper Black Tight Killers (俺にさわると危ないぜ). The first of several collaborations with lead… Read More ›
If you’ve never heard of the Italian Napoleonic drama Allonsanfàn before today, don’t worry, almost no one has. I had not heard of it until Radiance Films announced this Blu-ray release, and one of Vulture’s film critics Bilge Ebiri quote… Read More ›
Dwayne Johnson (Southland Tales) has become one of the biggest celebrities of our time. Johnson revitalized what it meant to be a modern-day action star. Before a career breakthrough in 2011’s Fast Five, he took on varying B-movie-esque roles. While… Read More ›
In the world of animation, there are well-known names like Walt Disney (Steamboat Willie) and Matt Groening (The Simpsons; Futurama), niche names like Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), and then there are names so large that they crafted entire houses around… Read More ›
Before he took audiences on an adventure through the Multiverse of Madness (2022), or swinging through the streets of New York several times with Spider-Man (2002, 2004, 2007), or battling the Army of Darkness (1992) in the medieval period, filmmaker… Read More ›
You gotta love ‘70s Kung-Fu cinema. Within the first 15 minutes of Huang Feng’s The Shaolin Plot, a man is killed with a chicken leg, an assassination attempt is flawlessly averted, and a disobedient guest’s head is cut off by… Read More ›
How do you bounce back from making the highest grossing film of all time? How do you follow up to such a film with a sequel? Do you double down or do you subvert expectations and sweep the floor out… Read More ›
One man, an uncharted world, romance, war, destiny. You could apply these five things to any big-budget adventure films that have been released over time. For this review, we’re discussing James Cameron’s 2009 sci-fi adventure epic Avatar. The rundown: set… Read More ›
Earlier this winter I embarked on a project of finishing all of the excessively thorough special features on my David Fincher movies, The Social Network (2010), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Gone Girl (2014), etc.. Hearing artists of… Read More ›
If you’re a child of the ‘80s, there are some songs that are deeply tied to your adolescence and almost all of them come from musician Kenny Loggins. “Danger Zone” from Top Gun (1986), “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack (1980), “Meet… Read More ›
During the debut year for physical media boutique Radiance Films, a distributor interested in lesser-available/known international cinema, they released a wonderful three-film collection of director Damiano Damiani’s film dubbed “Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in three Mafia Tales by Damiano Damiani.”… Read More ›
If you’re not familiar with Japanese theatrical troupe Europe Kikaku, they are the talent behind 2021’s lo-fi sci-fi comedy Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and 2023’s lo-fi sci-fi rom-com River. Both directed by Junta Yamaguchi and written by Makoto Ueda,… Read More ›
There are few actors who can seamlessly blend into any genre so that when they pop up in a movie, there’s no disruption the flow of the film. Comedy, action, drama, horror, satire — he appears and your first thought… Read More ›
Higher. Further. Faster. Together. This is the name of the game for Marvel Studios’s 33rd release, the Nia DaCosta-directed sci-fi actioner The Marvels, as it sees Brie Larson reprise her role as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel and being joined by WandaVision’s… Read More ›
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer 56 years ago, the writer of Bullitt, Alan Trustman, and the director of In the Heat of the Night, Norman Jewison, released their sexy crime thriller The… Read More ›
It’s 1985 and author Toshio Shimao releases “The Sting of Death” and Other Stories, a collection of works, the primary one being described as autobiographical. Five years later, writer/director Kōhei Oguri (Muddy River) would adapt that central tale into his… Read More ›
“Sugar. Butter. Flour.” These are the first words we hear in Waitress, The Musical, the Diane Paulus-directed (Cirque du Soleil: Amaluna) stage production that adapts the 2007 Adrienne Shelly-written/directed/starred romantic comedy non-musical Waitress. These three words signify the start of… Read More ›
Two years after Conan the Barbarian was released on the world, there was a change in guard on the creative side and director Richard Fleischer (Soylent Green) took over the director’s chair, returning with lead actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator;… Read More ›
If you were a kid in the ‘90s, you likely watched MTV and remember some of its original programming like Beavis and Butt-head (1993-1998), Total Request Live (1998-2008), and The Real World (1992-2008). Those are merely three of the *many*… Read More ›
The year is 1982 and the most impressively-formed human being finally gets his big Hollywood break — Arnold Schwarzenegger in John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian. While watching the movie today in 2024, it is evident that Conan is certainly a… Read More ›