“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 ›
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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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Action thriller “Til Death Do Us Part” sells on hunter-prey action and delivers existential drama instead.
There are some films whose concept is so engaging on paper that it must feel like a slam dunk before production even starts. In the case of director Timothy Woodward Jr.’s (Hickok) action thriller Til Death Do Us Part, the… Read More ›
James Cameron’s action spycraft rom-com “True Lies” finally receives the high-definition treatment it deserves.
For a certain type of film fan, there’s been a question swirling around in their minds for decades now and it’s centered on writer/director James Cameron. No, it’s not about when the next Avatar entry in the expected five-film series… Read More ›
Novel adaptation “Rumble Through The Dark” may follow a rote narrative path, but delivers enough surprises to satisfy.
Are we the family we’ve come from or the family we create? This is the major question at the center of the Graham and Parker Phillips-helmed Rumble Through The Dark, a drama adapted from the Michael Farris Smith March 2018… Read More ›
Jump into a viewer-friendly historical financial escapade immersed in humor with the home release of “Dumb Money.”
Movies about finance can be difficult to translate to the big screen. The complicated terminology and history can feel overwhelming to those unfamiliar with that world. The GameStop stock short-squeeze is a prime example of this very thing. It’s a… Read More ›
Second serving of “Chicken Run” misses some of the magic of the first.
There is something inherently interesting about movies that decide to make a come back after a significantly long break between entries. Sometimes this is because the story needs the time to breath, or the characters need the break to grow… Read More ›