“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” This phrase is commonly attributed to Phineas T. Barnum, the circus owner and renowned asshole. Despite what you’d believe from the wondrous and heartfelt The Greatest Showman, Barnum was more likely to take… Read More ›
Reviews
Etheria Film Festival 2020 Shorts Program streaming on Shudder for a limited time.
In the art of filmmaking, short films aren’t the films you make for widespread acclaim and global distribution, but rather for the cinephiles and short-form entertainment enthusiasts that might just have the pull to get your foot in the door… Read More ›
“Mr. Jones” wonderfully captures a journalist’s perspective pre-WWII.
World War II movies are Hollywood’s chance to tell something bold, but to also provide a history lesson that audiences might not have been aware of when they were in history class. There’s been a great list of World War… Read More ›
Unabashedly forthcoming, documentary “Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo” contains a story of destruction and perpetual self-healing.
Boxer. Prisoner. Chulo. Geronimo. Navajas. Gilbert. Johnny-23. Razor Eddie. Slim. Luis. Machete. These are just a few of the names of the characters actor Danny Trejo took over his 37-year career as an actor. He’s played everything from a stereotypical… Read More ›
Get down with an old school, kid-friendly whodunnit with “Hidden Orchard Mysteries: The Case of the Air B&B Robbery.”
When most think of indie films, they think of something like The Peanut Butter Falcon, Room, or Overcomer. They think of One Cut of the Dead or Tigers Are Not Afraid. They think of It Follows or Swiss Army Man…. Read More ›
Explore silent film era superstar Buster Keaton’s world in the new Criterion release of “The Cameraman.”
Within the comedy section of the Silent Film Era of the 1900s-1920s, there are a few names which standout, escaping from not just the conversations of the educated or cinephile circles but within the zeitgeist. Actors like Charlie Chaplin, Harold… Read More ›
Sadly, it may be best to heed the title on “Warning: Do Not Play.”
Since its commodification, Asia has capitalized on the horror genre perhaps more fiercely than any other continent. From early Japanese tales of feudal terrors like Ugetsu (雨月物語), Kwaidan (怪談), and Kuroneko (藪の中の黒猫), to more modern tales of turmoil like Ringu… Read More ›
Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” beckons audiences to look deeper.
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 ›
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 ›