Marketing can be the best tool and the worst for selling movies. We’re not talking about deliberate misleads (like the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War (2018) that contained differently edited scenes compared to the final film) or the accidental kind… Read More ›
It would be difficult to find an American adult who hasn’t heard of Playboy. Since the magazine was first printed in the 1950s, Hugh Hefner’s infamous publication has become an American cultural staple and a generalized symbol for a young… Read More ›
Shoni Imamura’s final film, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (2001) has finally come to Blu-ray. The last work of this Japanese New-Wave master, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge finds office worker Yosuke Sasano, played by Koji Yakusho (Cure,… Read More ›
It says a lot about a film when it’s not even close to over and you’re already excited about the *idea* of a sequel, about what new story the characters could go on in this strange and exciting-yet-familiar world. As… Read More ›
I generally try to keep politics and state of affairs out of my reviews because the review should focus on the sole product itself and not how the industry around it is changing and effecting the content or the distribution… Read More ›
Photosensitivity warning: The climatic fight involves a great deal of lightning which may trigger issues within viewers who suffer from migraines or other ocular issues. One of the bigger surprises of 2019 was director David F. Sandberg’s Shazam!. After so… Read More ›
We should all be so lucky as to work with our friends. It makes the hard days easier and the light days more fun. Doesn’t matter what the gig is, doing it with people that you trust just improves the… Read More ›
“Gah, everyone’s in their own fucking cage” – Owen Cambell as Andrew. There’s a fine line between a bad performance and a surreal one, and Giving Birth to a Butterfly runs that tightrope effortlessly. Wearing its Lynchian influences on its… Read More ›
There’s something about a good confidence film. They’re not always A-List-led romps like Ocean’s Eleven (2001) or explorations of morality like Rififi (1955). Sometimes, they’re a mixture of both, keeping the audience on their toes the entire time like Confidence… Read More ›
Wabbit season, duck season, James Bond casting season. In 2004, Daniel Craig proved he could sex it up and shoot it up in Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake (2004), leading to his 14-year run as James Bond. In 2023, the assassin… Read More ›
Crime stories get a lot of play in storytelling. Could be as classic as Othello or as modern as The Legend of Jack and Diane (2023); stories in which someone either gets in too deep, trusts the wrong person, or… Read More ›
Biography pictures come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they take a more chronological approach (Malcolm X), sometimes they’re more focused on a specific moment in time (Chevalier), and, for others, it’s more interpretive (Rocketman). This doesn’t just apply to… Read More ›
You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly. – Superman: The Movie tagline Everyone has their heroes. Athletes, actors, activists, first-responders — individuals that represent the kind of ideal you want to become. Me, I wanted to be Superman. Not because he… Read More ›
Myths, legends, and the stories that form the basis of regional culture are often the basis for artistic interpretation in music, books, and cinema. In America, there’s Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play Hamilton, reimagining the founding fathers as potentially far more honorable… Read More ›
In Buddhism, the word Śakra refers to a specific individual, a ruler of the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven who analyzes issues of morality with Buddha. Considering the depiction of the character Qiao Feng (Donnie Yen) in the Yen and Kam Ka Wai-directed… Read More ›
Though some suggest that elder Millennials are breaking the trauma cycles of past generations, there’s always going to be a bit of a struggle between generations as each individual struggles to figure out who they are in the world separate… Read More ›
There is something special about anthology movies that often get overlooked. They’re essentially a curated collection of shorts that, when brought together, tell an overarching story. Several movies have done this before, like the V/H/S franchise, The ABCs of Death,… Read More ›
There was a viral tweet going around recently of a meme account getting roasted for implying that high school in 2002 was “so chill,” leading millennials of that age to share their horror stories of attending high school in a… Read More ›
There is something special about movies that feel like time capsules that in no way, shape, or form stand the true test of time. While the love and admiration of them is certainly questioned with a modern lens, they are… Read More ›
No less than 13 years after James Cameron introduced the world to the land of Pandora in Avatar (2009), the long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water finally saw a theatrical release in December 2022. Now, on the heels of… Read More ›