It’s been stated before, but it bears reminding: expectations can ruin an experience. This is equally true when the hype ahead of something implies one thing when the truth is something very different. In the real world, it can look… Read More ›
adaptation
Let the “Mean Girls” movie musical be “A Cautionary Tale:” classics don’t need remakes.
The original Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday), Rachel McAdams (Game Night), Amanda Seyfried (Jennifer’s Body), and Lacey Chabert (Not Another Teen Movie), was released almost exactly 20 years ago on April 30, 2004. Inspired by Queen Bees and… Read More ›
Jazz and animation flow in animated powerhouse “BLUE GIANT” on home video via Shout! Studios.
Adaptations are growing in number more and more these days in entertainment. If there’s not a cinematic version of a book, show, or comic, there’s a television one. Often times, these tales involve beings of incredible strength or speed, of… Read More ›
Very loosely based on a real story, “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” provides the typical Ritchie mid-level romp.
Guy Ritchie has become something of a young Ridley Scott lately, not in any stylistic choices he’s making as a filmmaker, not at all, but merely in the sheer quantity of his output. In the past five years alone, Ritchie… Read More ›
Open Dialogue with “Scoop” actors Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper.
Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper join Noel T. Manning II today on Open Dialogue to chat about their roles in the Netflix film Scoop. Scoop follows the true story of BBC producer Samantha McAlister’s journey into landing the legendary 2019… Read More ›
Based-on-a-true-story dramedy “Wicked Little Letters” entraps with humor and mystery.
“This is more true than you’d think.” Truth, it’s said, is often stranger than fiction. It’s why so many stories are inspired by or adapted from real incidents. Such is the case here with the new project from director Thea… Read More ›
Director Raymond St-Jean tackles the story of Canadian hitman Donald Lavoie in “Dusk for a Hitman (Crépuscule pour un tueur).”
Real life is often fodder for storytelling. Typically, one will take an experience or emotion and transcribe that into something unique. However, fiction isn’t always as compelling as reality, which is why we get stories like Dumb Money (2023) detailing… Read More ›
The play’s the thing when it comes to comedic documentary “Grand Theft Hamlet.” [SXSW]
The pandemic did a lot of things to the citizens of the world in the early years, the least of which was take thousands of lives. Those who remained in those initial months and years dealt with physical isolation, financial… Read More ›
Arrow Video releases Japanese horror “Dark Water” in 4K with special features.
Sometimes there are movies that just entirely escape your radar. Then you realize a boutique label is giving the film the treatment it arguably deserves and you decide to take the plunge and watch it for the first time. Before… Read More ›
The home release of “Eileen” is skin and bones, unlike its lead performances.
Certain films slipped through the cracks in the heat of the 2023 awards season. Everything released at that time was not going for the gold. Those smaller films attempt to achieve other successes. Outside of the awards season rush, some… Read More ›
Blitz Bazawule’s bold, beautiful reimagining of “The Color Purple” comes home in 4K with lean features and an average presentation.
How could one describe the timeless story of The Color Purple? A story about struggles, adversities, power, love and, ultimately, forgiveness? A story about a marginalized and abused woman gaining her voice and learning to enjoy life? Three women sharing… Read More ›
Open Dialogue with “Ordinary Angels” actors Hilary Swank and Alan Ritchson.
Thomas Manning offers an Open Dialogue interview with Oscar-winner Hillary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher) about the Lionsgate/Kingdom Story Company release Ordinary Angels. Swank and Ritchson chat about small towns, family, friends and the ordinary angels that have… Read More ›
Adapted from the documentary of the same name, Taika Waititi’s sports dramedy “Next Goal Wins” is available to own now.
Sports films come in a variety of competitive forms including boxing, hockey, football, bobsled racing, and chess. With each one, the goal is the same: winning. But some of the great tales of competition don’t have winners, they have people… Read More ›
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releases a first-time 4K UHD edition of Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika” worthy of the film’s reputation.
In the world of animation, there are well-known names like Walt Disney (Steamboat Willie) and Matt Groening (The Simpsons; Futurama), niche names like Rebecca Sugar (Steven Universe), and then there are names so large that they crafted entire houses around… Read More ›
“Ordinary Angels” embodies a heartfelt story through powerful performances and a nuanced script.
The purpose of a movie trailer is to get an audience intrigued in seeing the movie, however, when the trailer paints the movie as something it absolutely is not, it does a disservice to the movie itself and sets up… Read More ›
Crunchyroll teases the upcoming fourth season of action fantasy anime “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” with cinematic event “To the Hashira Training.”
Running from February 2016 until March 2020, the shonen manga Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba by Koyoharu Gotouge was adapted into an animated series by Studio ufotable in April 2019 and is set to release its latest story arc soon…. Read More ›
Arrow Video elevates the look and sound of “The Shaolin Plot,” now in 2K.
You gotta love ‘70s Kung-Fu cinema. Within the first 15 minutes of Huang Feng’s The Shaolin Plot, a man is killed with a chicken leg, an assassination attempt is flawlessly averted, and a disobedient guest’s head is cut off by… Read More ›
Radiance Films welcome a new Damiano Damiani-directed film to their collection, the spy thriller “Goodbye & Amen.”
During the debut year for physical media boutique Radiance Films, a distributor interested in lesser-available/known international cinema, they released a wonderful three-film collection of director Damiano Damiani’s film dubbed “Cosa Nostra: Franco Nero in three Mafia Tales by Damiano Damiani.”… Read More ›
Radiance Films adds Kōhei Oguri’s “The Sting of Death” to their collection with a first-time Blu-ray limited edition.
It’s 1985 and author Toshio Shimao releases “The Sting of Death” and Other Stories, a collection of works, the primary one being described as autobiographical. Five years later, writer/director Kōhei Oguri (Muddy River) would adapt that central tale into his… Read More ›
“The End We Start From” stumbles on its own finish line.
The End We Start From is the rare conventional “we’ve seen this before” genre film that edges ahead of its competition by way of its unconventional dedication to reality. It also squanders that edge in the name of reaching some… Read More ›