City Lights. Metropolis. Hundreds of Beavers. From 1894 to 1931, the earliest period of moving periods is known as the Silent Era. These films, made with celluloid and glass (to help simulate color), make up a significant portion of our… Read More ›
Reviews
Kino Lorber re-issues the 50th anniversary 4K Blu-ray restoration of Norman Jewison’s crime caper “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
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 ›
Radiance Films adds Kōhei Oguri’s “The Sting of Death” to their collection with a first-time Blu-ray limited edition.
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 ›
“The End We Start From” stumbles on its own finish line.
The End We Start From is the rare conventional “we’ve seen this before” genre film that edges ahead of its competition by way of its unconventional dedication to reality. It also squanders that edge in the name of reaching some… Read More ›
First-time documentarian Ryan Jacobi explores the man behind the improv character in “I’m ‘George Lucas’: A Connor Ratliff Story.” [Slamdance Film Festival]
Before there was The Mandalorian (2019-??), Andor (2022), The Book of Boba Fett (2021), or Ashoka (2023), before there was either a Prequel or Sequel Trilogy, there was only Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of… Read More ›
What’s inside DECAL Releasing’s home release edition of “Waitress, the Musical – Live on Broadway!” is very little, yet still deeply satisfying to those seeking another slice of pie.
“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 ›
Be not afraid and journey out into the shadows with fantasy adventure “Orion and the Dark.”
“Being brave doesn’t mean not being afraid. It’s being afraid and doing it anyway.” In our house, we don’t tell people not to be afraid of things. We talk about how it’s natural and that humanity has survived for generations… Read More ›
Animated action fantasy “The Tiger’s Apprentice” rushes in all the areas it shouldn’t to make the action mean something.
Author Laurence Yep has written many books over his career, focusing on the area of children’s literature, even having won the Newbery twice, once in 1976 and again in 1994. Yep’s work is a mixture of historical fiction like the… Read More ›
“Scrambled” captures the complexities of finding out your egg timer is going off.
Writer and first-time feature director Leah McKendrick (Pamela & Ivy) taps into the millennial’s primal fear of being alone in her debut feature, Scrambled. When 30-something Nellie (Leah McKendrick) is sick of being an eternal bridesmaid, she goes on an… Read More ›
Matthew Vaughn’s spy actioner “Argylle” is a fun and zany spy adventure that delivers entertainingly mixed results.
Director Matthew Vaughn revitalized the spy-genre with the Kingsman franchise. Those films offered a different take on the typical James Bond-esque espionage story. The films were more brutal and bloody, reinvigorating the genre for audiences. After three Kingsman films, Vaughn… Read More ›
Filmmaker Juan Pablo Reinoso explores the notion of movie memorabilia as modern art in his new documentary “Mad Props.”
Movies are magic. They take visions of the imagination and breathe life into them, projecting them high onto a silver screen in a large auditorium so that the gathered audience can share in the illusion together. Doesn’t matter if the… Read More ›
Don’t miss out on Rasheed Stephens’s best day of his life in the mixed-format dramedy “All I’ve Got & Then Some.” [Slamdance Film Festival]
“Best Day of My Life!” When asked how he’s doing by friends, colleagues in the comedy realm, passengers in his latest pick-up, and everyone in between, Rasheed Stephens (himself) replies with the same answer: “Best day of my life.” It’s… Read More ›
It’s the beginning of the end of the TomorrowVerse with “Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One,” available on home video now.
In 2020, DC Entertainment kicked off what’s become known as the TomorrowVerse via Superman: The Man of Tomorrow, introducing a new animated universe centered on the introduction of the biggest hero of DC Comics, Superman. After, six more films would… Read More ›
Dig your claws into the Third Window Films release of Reiki Tsuno’s “Mad Cats.”
After its world premiere during Slamdance 2023, the feature-length debut from writer/director Reiki Tsuno (Crying Bitch), Mad Cats, traveled the globe jumping from one film festival to another. At each stop, audiences were invited to enter a world in which… Read More ›
Filmmaker Rafael Toledo is set to make an explosive impression with his short film “Blockbuster.” [Slamdance Film Festival]
In an era where it seems like most major studio releases are one giant computer-generated sequence after another, there’s something desirable about watching a film with practical effects. Realism is overrated when there’s something tangible before us, even if it… Read More ›
Bathe in ‘90s pop nostalgia via the special feature-loaded home release edition of “Trolls Band Together.”
Nostalgia is all the rage these days. Perhaps it was less noticeable when I was younger as the only things being sold to me where the “hip” and “popular” things as I was in the range of folks with disposable… Read More ›
“The Goldfinger” adapts real events into a compelling cinematic crime drama.
When it comes to movie-making, which is superior: truth or manipulated fiction? To some, the facts don’t matter as long as the essence of a thing is captured (Bohemian Rhapsody); whereas, to others, if the presentation of facts is constructed… Read More ›
Filmmaker Pete Ohs’s satirical comedy “Love and Work” utilizes laughter as a gateway for much-needed introspection. [Slamdance Film Festival]
Exacerbated by a variety of global conditions due to COVID-19, the United States is now a society in which working is the prime directive. Not creating art, not engaging with cultures or communities beyond ourselves, just working in order to… Read More ›
On home video now, Daniel Brown’s crime thriller “Your Lucky Day” delivers a gut-punch in its accurate commentary of the American Dream.
“Based on the American Dream.” These are the words that greet audiences before anything else when pressing “play” on Daniel Brown’s feature-length version of his story Your Lucky Day. The words shouldn’t be ominous, yet things in the country have,… Read More ›
Filmmaker Choi Dong-hoon’s hotly anticipated “Alienoid” sequel “Return to the Future” arrives with bigger action and bigger laughs to navigate world-ending stakes.
August 2022, U.S. audiences were introduced to co-writer/director Choi Dong-hoon’s brand-new sci-fi action comedy Alienoid (외계+인 1부), a world in which an order of intergalactic peacekeepers house alien prisoners within the bodies of humans in order to keep them docile…. Read More ›