Elements of Madness

Recent Posts - page 34

• 10 films to find in 2025.

  By Douglas Davidson on January 1, 2025 • ( 1 )

  

  One of the great things about covering film festivals throughout the year is the opportunity to see films before they go wide to the general public. This affords reviewers, such as myself, the chance to champion storytellers who we believe… Read More ›

• Arrow Video brings “The Last Video Store” and a bucket full of bonus materials to Blu-ray.

  By justin waldman on December 31, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  There is a lot to love about movies that just hit the right notes and usually it is a difficult task for a feature-length directorial debut, but its not totally unheard of. Tim and Cody’s The Last Video Store is… Read More ›

• 19 films from 2024 to help you ring in 2025 from home.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 30, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Before I unveil the 2024 Sticky List, here’s a list of 19 favorite films from this year that you can stream right now as you ring in the new year. A mix of home release editions and streaming options, you’ll… Read More ›

• Entering stage right, Tony Olmos’s horror satire “Hemet, or the Landlady Don’t Drink Tea.”

  By Douglas Davidson on December 27, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Over the last few years, reality has pushed the bounds of what anyone every presumed acceptable so greatly that satire struggles to maintain its edge in the execution. For instance, if someone were to tell you that you’d be required… Read More ›

• Johannes Grezfurthner’s latest body horror “Solvent” dissolves its cast and audience on several levels.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 26, 2024 • ( 3 )

  

  When it comes to horror, most modern audiences jump to places like Blumhouse with Paranormal Activity (2009) and Happy Death Day (2017), A24 with It Comes at Night (2017) and Talk to Me (2023), or even Lionsgate with Frailty (2001)… Read More ›

• Parental thriller “Endless Summer Syndrome” seeks deep philosophical examination yet undercuts itself with a telegraphed conclusion.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 23, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Wherever we are in our lives, all of it — our successes, our failures — begins at home. Someone born into a home with extensive resources can achieve absolutely nothing of their own while someone with scant resources can achieve… Read More ›

• Q-Bits: Open Dialogue with “The Order” actors Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult.

  By Thomas Manning on December 21, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  On this episode of Meet Me at the Movies, Thomas Manning gets to pitch a question to actors Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult to discuss their new film, The Order, based on a gripping true story. Manning explores how the… Read More ›

• “Scrap” takes a look at failings that are systemic and those that are personally inflicted.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 20, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.” – Jean Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, Episode 21 “Peak Performance.” Everyone is one bad day away from… Read More ›

• “The Beast” appears … on shelves thanks to Janus Contemporaries.

  By Andrew J. Eisenman on December 18, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Janus Contemporaries’s newest unnumbered entry into the Criterion Collection is priced just right at $20.99. The Beast, the latest film from Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance; Saint Laurent), is a surreal tale starring two of the best actors working today,… Read More ›

• Filmmaker Sean Whalen brings his vision to light with crowd-funding and friends via “Crust.”

  By Joel Winstead on December 17, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  In our new world where big budget blockbusters dominate the theatrical landscape, Crust, the 2024 indie horror-comedy written and directed by Sean Whalen (Twister), stands out as a delightful anomaly. Featuring a cast of relatively unknown actors and a limited… Read More ›

• “Joker: Folie à Deux” steps out with a vibrant 4K home release.

  By justin waldman on December 16, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  2024 has been a banner year for movies (despite what social media and some people may have you think) and a strange one for Warner Brothers. Before diving into the home release of Joker: Folie à Deux, I want to… Read More ›

• The betrayal and revenge of “The Count of Monte Cristo” gets the Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière treatment.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 16, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  “He who seeks revenge digs two graves.” – Confucius In December 2023, director Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers – Part I: D’Artagnan released into U.S. theaters, kicking off a brand-new adaptation of author Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel. It currently remains… Read More ›

• Sammo Hung’s wartime actioner “Eastern Condors” receives an impressive 2K restoration from The Criterion Collection.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 15, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  It’s very common for members of Hong Kong (HK) cinema to take on multiple career paths through their lifetime. Many start as stunt people, working their way up to actor and then, often, to the position of writing and/or directing,… Read More ›

• Have the touch and the power with “Transformers One” on 4K UHD home video.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 14, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  August 8th, 1986, is a big day for Transformers fans. It’s the date that the fully-animated The Transformers: The Movie would release in theaters, beckoning its many young fans to come see its Autobot hero Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter… Read More ›

• Criterion puts out a lucky 4K with “No Country for Old Men.”

  By justin waldman on December 13, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  People always say “if at first you do not like something, you should give it another chance,” and that general principal is typically a good one, the exception being that if you have deep vitriol for something, your mind is… Read More ›

• Aardman’s signature duo Wallace and Gromit return in family comedy “Vengeance Most Fowl.”

  By Douglas Davidson on December 12, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  In the world of animation, most know names like Walt Disney, DreamWorks, Illumination, and Studio Ghibli. Either in hand-drawn or CG animation, they have created stories that move audiences by stirring their emotion. But there’re also studios like LAIKA and… Read More ›

• Edward Berger’s captivating and politically relevant thriller, “Conclave,” arrives on digital.

  By Mallory Moore on December 11, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) and based on a 2016 novel of the same name, Conclave is a tense drama that pits progress, ethics, coexistence, and empathy against corruption and abuses of power, a battle… Read More ›

• “A Complete Unknown” fails to define the undefinable.

  By Andrew J. Eisenman on December 10, 2024 • ( 1 )

  

  Director James Mangold does not make bad movies. He makes good movies (The Wolverine; Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) and great movies (Ford V. Ferrari; Copland; Logan). He’s a class-act craftsman but he’s no revolutionary, and neither is… Read More ›

• Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s techo-drama “Time of EVE: The Movie” receives a proper home release via AnimEigo.

  By Douglas Davidson on December 10, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  Some things feel like inevitability due to hindsight. The human fascination with the unknown tends to spark real-world exploration, which is why the science-fiction adventure tale Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne (published 1870), were it written… Read More ›

• “Pulp Fiction” gets a sleek 30th anniversary 4K release fit for a briefcase.

  By justin waldman on December 9, 2024 • ( 0 )

  

  There is nothing and I mean *nothing* more annoying that a hotly anticipated 4K release being gatekept behind the identity of a collectors/anniversary/limited edition multipack for it to be singularly released a few months later. Now I am not saying… Read More ›

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