Writer/director Park Hoon-jung’s The Witch: Subversion is a remarkable sci-fi thriller, taking the coming-of-age tropes we know and blending them together with supernatural-like covert forces, culminating in an adventure that feels familiar and wholly unique. Just before the film ends,… Read More ›
There are some films, some stories, which continue to find new audiences, year after year, generation after generation. They’re passed down, some as traditions, some as markers for reaching a certain age. Looking backward, there’s a notion that there’s nary… Read More ›
It would be silly to think that in the year 2022 life wouldn’t somehow become an imitation of that childhood trauma (or, for the very few, memory) of playing Monopoly and realizing you never were the one with the gazillion… Read More ›
There are movies that tend to give away entirely too much in either art, title, or even trailers. Then there are movies that do all of this all against the director’s wishes, making it hard for the audience to avoid… Read More ›
A protagonist who doesn’t know who he really is. A mysterious individual who promises answers. Antagonists lurking the shadows, dressing in black, and reshaping reality as they see fit. A world whose reality is masked in a collection of eras…. Read More ›
As more and more legacy sequels release due to studios mining their IPs for anything they think will resonate with audiences off the name alone, a follow-up to director Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986) seemed all the more inevitable each… Read More ›
One of the greater mysteries in life is whether or not there’s something after the living world. It’s a question that’s been explored through faith, philosophy, and art. Depending on the community or culture you come up within, the afterlife… Read More ›
If you’re an individual of a certain age and someone offers you Reese’s Pieces, you may possess a Pavlovian response to reply “el-e-ot” and stiffen your pointer finger in that person’s direction. If this describes you, then you likely grew… Read More ›
Realism is overrated. We experience it every day: the fear, the frustration, the constantly moving goal posts. Sometimes, it’s really nice to experience something so off the rails, so unrealistic, that all you can do is hold on and go… Read More ›
By 1978, writer/director Just Jaeckin was known for his erotic films Emmanuelle (1974), The Story of O (1975), and Madame Claude (1977). Seeking a break from this, Jaeckin developed romantic comedy Le dernier amant romantique (The Last Romantic Lover) with… Read More ›
Isolated creature features are far from rare or being particularly hard to produce, but when done well, they can be a paragon of simple, effective filmmaking delivering concentrated thrills. The past few years have provided moviegoers with quite a few… Read More ›
Originally titled Blazing Samurai, the Paramount Animation family film Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank released in theaters July of 2022, an anthropomorphic take on the Mel Brooks-directed comedy classic Blazing Saddles (1974). Loaded top to bottom with star… Read More ›
Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit characters first appeared in 1989’s A Grand Day Out and have gone on to spawn and spin-off other productions. One such character, Shaun the Sheep, was a central part of 1995’s A Close Shave and… Read More ›
If you talk to horror film buffs or people who are generally interested in the timeline and history of film, there is always an argument about what the first ever found footage movie was. For someone who is less knowledgeable… Read More ›
Boutique physical media distributor The Criterion Collection began offering 4K UHD editions of their monthly releases starting in November 2021 with Citizen Kane (1941) and Mulholland Dr. (2001). Since then, each month, a new 4K UHD edition has been released,… Read More ›
In its history, horror has covered a wide range of styles, formats, and tones. It was only a matter of time before the genre would turn inward to look at itself, which it did with aplomb in 1996’s Wes Craven-directed… Read More ›
There’s an old adage that man’s best friend is his dog. It should be no surprise, then, that in March of 1955, writer Otto Binder and artist Curt Swan introduced Krypto in Adventure Comics #210, a story featuring Superboy. Over… Read More ›
Now, I am all for practical effects, especially when it comes to creature movies, but if practical effects are going to be the difference maker between having a creature movie with a creature and not, then I would much prefer… Read More ›
Murder, mayhem, sorrow, grief, pain, redemption: these are universal aspects of storytelling that transcend time and place. For stories that combine these to the point where pulpy isn’t just a way to describe the story but the viscera that remains… Read More ›
Of the many things that occurred as a result of COVID-19 in 2020, as it related to the film industry, was that movies were either pushed over and over, rescheduled to a later date entirely, or sold to streamers. Films… Read More ›