In the ‘80s, there was a trend of films that built up their own cliché — the rag tag group of kids going up against the big city conglomerate, usually to save a community center. Do keep in mind that,… Read More ›
Reviews
“Wanted Man” delivers on B-movie action.
If you were from the ‘80s, a big bulking dude who made a career of questionable quality action films, and then decided to write and direct equally questionable content, then audiences should know exactly what they’re getting themselves in to…. Read More ›
Gareth Evans’s crime actioner “The Raid: Redemption” receives a 4K UHD remaster inside a limited edition steelbook.
Before Expend4bles (2023) set him up to take on aged action stars, before Warrior (2019-2023) made him a villain, before audiences worldwide connected with the violent thrill of Indonesian martial arts in cinema, actors Iko Uwasis and Joe Taslim starred… Read More ›
“Freud’s Last Session” is a thorny bore and a great idea.
Freud’s Last Session may not have been with C.S. Lewis, Christian Apologist and author of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to be, but what this film presupposes is: maybe it was? Set on the day Hitler’s Nazi Germany… Read More ›
“Which Brings Me to You” breathes some fresh air into rom-coms.
There are so many romantic comedies that come out every year, and so many of them follow the same formula that they become exhaustingly repetitive, just uninspired, and, regardless from how attractive the leads, nothing can save these movies from… Read More ›
Dynamic ensemble shines as director Guiseppe Fiorello sets a romantic mood in LGBTQ+ drama “Fireworks.”
Italian actor, writer, and producer Giuseppe Fiorello (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Terraferma) makes his feature directorial debut with Fireworks (Stranizza d’amuri), an aspirational LGBTQ+ romance that successfully imitates its predecessors in mood and visual style. Set in Sicily in the… Read More ›
Enter the world of Park Hoon-jung’s “The Childe” on home video and prepare yourself to make a friend for life…however long or short that may be.
Writer/director Park Hoon-jung is not one to shy away from the darkness that exists within humanity (I Saw the Devil) or a hidden world within it (the Witch series). Whether in the bright of day or the shadows of night,… Read More ›
“Aliens” never looked better than in 4K!
Multigrain, harvest grain, 12 grain, whole grain, there’s a whole lot of grain for everyone. Now, if this irritates you to your core, then you’re probably happy about the reports that the James Cameron restorations look like Madame Tussauds, however,… Read More ›
Zachary Quinto and Jacob Elordi fail to find chemistry in the frustrating, incoherent road film “He Went That Way”.
The Road Movie. A film where a character, or group of characters, sets sail on an adventure, goes to visit an old friend, do a deed or just…go searching. Revelations are made, things are discovered, events in favor to the… Read More ›
“Mean Girls” transitions from Millennial to Gen Z cliques with some growing pains in this cinematic adaptation of the musical production.
Contrary to the millennial pitchforks you will find unsheathed in the TikTok comment section of any ad for this film, Mean Girls is not a straight remake of the 2004 teen classic also titled Mean Girls, but rather an adaptation… Read More ›
The first two entries in “The Long Arm of the Law Saga” join the Asia Collection of 88 Films via a collector’s edition.
Restorations are a great way to not only preserve cinema history, they are also a way for films that may have been lost, forgotten, or otherwise kept to a region or country to find new audiences. For 88 Films, specifically… Read More ›
“Destroy All Neighbors” is a most excellent adventure into bogus territory.
“Perfection is the enemy of progress.” – Winston Churchill “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” – Confucius Toward the end/beginning of each release year, various publications and writers release their “Worst” lists, proclaiming which films they… Read More ›
“The Book of Clarence” is an entertaining and modernized homage to biblical epics.
Biblical epics are harder to find in cinemas nowadays. Classics like Ben-Hur (1959) and The Ten Commandments (1956) are theatrical landmarks. Hollywood has avoided these kinds of stories in recent years, until now. The Book of Clarence tells a different… Read More ›
Criterion brings French cinema to the children with “The Red Balloon and Other Stories: Five Films by Albert Lamorisse” collector’s set.
Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956) is a contender for the greatest short film of all time. Lamorisse is often overlooked in discussions of the French New Wave, including by his peers, and his other, sparse works, Bim, the Little… Read More ›
You may not want this life, but you’re going to want this 4K UHD 25th anniversary edition of sports dramedy “Varsity Blues.”
January 15th, 1999 — Joey (Katie Holmes) and Dawson (James Van Der Beek) were still an item, Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) was not yet fast nor furious, and, though we knew not to trust Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), the world… Read More ›
“Night Swim” can’t tread water to save its life
January has long since been the dumping ground for studio films that executives and test audiences have deemed to be the low points of their upcoming slates, whether it be cheap action films, cheesy horror films, unfunny comedies, or cliché… Read More ›
The mysteries of “The Abyss” surface digitally in the new 4K UHD edition.
The last article I wrote for Elements of Madness, rather ironically, was a 4K home media review of another James Cameron film, Titanic, which hit 4K Blu-ray last month. Now, as if churning out the rest of his catalog and… Read More ›
Director Xavier Gens’s revenge actioner “Mayhem!” brings all of that and plenty of carnage with it.
After premiering in France in June 2023 and screening at a variety of genre film festivals like Fantasia International Film Festival, Slash Film Festival, and FrightFest under the name Farang (a Thai term meaning “foreigner”), IFC Films snagged director Xavier… Read More ›
“The Inspector Wears Skirts” joins the ranks of the 88 Asia Collection in 2K.
First hitting Hong Kong theaters with 1986’s action comedy Naughty Boys (扭計雜牌軍), filmmaker Wellson Chin Sing-Wai’s follow up is that of the female-led The Inspector Wears Skirts (霸王花), released as Top Squad in the U.S., has Sibelle Hu (The Seventh… Read More ›
Yūzō Kawashima’s grifter dramedy “Elegant Beast” receives the restoration treatment from Radiance Films.
There have always been stories about grifters, liars, and thieves for about as long as there have been heroes and heroines. Sometimes they’re lovable arbiters of chaos, sometimes always in it for themselves. Each time, though, they are often thought… Read More ›