As a writer/director, Spike Lee is not one to be described as subtle. His works, whether exploring racial tensions in Do The Right Thing (1989), modern day minstrel shows and cultural appropriation in Bamboozled (2000), tackling the cycle of violence… Read More ›
Reviews
Don’t let the delays fool you, “Artemis Fowl” is an adventure worth taking.
First slated for August 2019, the adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s young adult novel series Artemis Foul seemed bound for trouble when it was delayed into 2020. Then pushed again. Then COVID-19 hit and all bets were off. Making matters worse,… Read More ›
Surprise hit of 2017, “One Cut of the Dead,” now out on physical release.
In the middle of shooting a zombie film, the cast and crew find themselves fighting off an actual zombie attack. This is the premise for the 2017 release One Cut of the Dead from director Shin’ichirô Ueda adapted from the… Read More ›
You won’t go wrong betting on “Lucky Grandma.”
There’s a reason the phrase “The Greatest Generation” gets tossed around when describing the grandparents of millennials. They’ve seen things we can’t imagine. For some, it begins around the First World War, and continues into Women’s Suffrage, The Great Depression,… Read More ›
Director Dorthy Arzner’s 1940 feminist subversive comedy “Dance, Girl, Dance” is the latest to join The Criteron Collection.
Director Dorthy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance is joining the ranks of other Criterion Collection releases in May 2020 alongside The Great Escape (1963), a collection of five of Martin Scorsese’s short films titled Scorsese Shorts, Wildelife (2018), Husbands (1970), and… Read More ›
Documentary “You Don’t Nomi” perfectly captures the self-aware, but unionic love audiences possess for “Showgirls.”
Love to hate it, hate to love it, or just plain hate it, Showgirls is a movie that to those who have seen it, will never fade from memory. The tale of Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 NC-17 fame epic has gone… Read More ›
To make heaven a place on Earth, “We Must Summon the Darkness.”
Released on VOD and digital April 2020, horror-comedy We Summon the Darkness is making its way to home video and is coming straight for your living rooms. Directed by Marc Meyers (My Friend Dahmer) from a script by Alan Trezza… Read More ›
“Dreamland” is a super stylish and entertaining noir.
Bruce McDonald isn’t a director that a lot of people are going to be familiar with. Sure, he has credits to his name, but nothing that the average filmgoer will be able to recognize. However, the most famous movie in… Read More ›
“Becky” breaks the rules of the home invasion story while still providing a bloody good time.
Still healing from the death of her mother, Becky (Lulu Wilson), an unusually sullen teenager, prepares to spend a weekend at the family lake house with her father Jeff (Joel McHale) and two dogs, Diego and Dora. Jeff has plans… Read More ›
Mirrah Foulkes’s “Judy & Punch” is a brilliant dark meta-comedy exploring the accepted horrors of the patriarchy.
In recent memory, there are few films that have made me quite as angry as Mirrah Foulkes’s feature-length directorial debut Judy & Punch. Debuting at Sundance in 2019 before a long theatrical release, the film itself is a brilliant dark… Read More ›
Deceptively cutting and mesmerizingly mad, director Josephine Decker loses no momentum in her second feature “Shirley.”
Director Josephine Decker’s feature debut Madeline’s Madeline (2018), a tale centered on a young woman whose grip with reality slowly weakens as she finds her imagination being made real, continues to entrap my mind. The film itself is an experimental… Read More ›
When these “Debt Collectors” come ‘round, pay fast or get knocked down quick.
There are certain director-actor pairings that just excite audiences when they hear about them. Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell. Jesse V. Johnson and Scott Adkins. Johnson and Adkins first… Read More ›
Nuclear Age meta-drama homage “The Vast of Night” answers questions with more questions.
Just because you’re going to tell a story people have heard, doesn’t mean you need to tell it the way people know. That seems to be the M.O. for director Andrew Patterson in his debut picture The Vast of Night…. Read More ›
Musical dramedy hits “The High Note.”
In times of great stress like these, it’s important to remember what gets us through: art. Art, of course, can be anything from clothes, food, movies, projects, music, and more. They are the things which bring us joy and help… Read More ›
Surprise, Leigh Whannell’s “The Invisible Man” is a masterwork of tension.
When the words “remake” or “reboot” get thrown out, the reaction online is often filled with a great deal of righteous indignation. Along these cries of “you’re destroying my childhood!” often comes a strange forgetfulness that a new version doesn’t… Read More ›
Like a traditional fairytale, “Tigers Are Not Afraid” will lift you up and cut you down.
The 2017 supernatural-horror-drama Tigers Are Not Afraid (Vuelven) from writer/director Issa López (Casi divas) is truly an extraordinary cinematic experience. It pulls you in, charms you, enthralls you, rips you to shreds, and mends back the pieces. Thanks in part… Read More ›
Great performances fail to breathe life into color-by-numbers dramedy “Military Wives.”
When it comes to films that are “inspired by” or “based on” an actual story, there’s a persistent battle between reviewing the film in front of me and the truth. It’s something which Darryl Mansel, The Cine-Men co-host, and I… Read More ›
Breezy comedy “The Lovebirds” takes a light approach to a dark premise.
Despite things being as they are in 2020, actors Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae are having a really solid year. Rae’s The Photograph is an engrossing story focused on a mature love, while her HBO program, Insecure, is all over… Read More ›
ASMR short “Tingle Monsters” is a chilling slice of internet horror with an important message.
For those who enjoy the soft whispering, feather-like brushing, and light tapping of ASMR videos, the idea of “ASMR horror” may be especially unsettling. Horror works extremely well when it invades our safe spaces, and directors often succeed by setting… Read More ›
You’re not going to want to write home about latest home video release “The Postcard Killings.”
Newly married daughter and her husband murdered. No prints, no evidence of any sort. An NYC detective left with nothing but his wits as he tries to track down the murderer. This is the basic premise of thriller The Postcard… Read More ›