Longing for something you can never have is perhaps one of the cruelest forms of emotional torture a person can put themselves through, and it’s an experience all too familiar within queer communities. Every queer person has had the one… Read More ›
adaptation
Even as a DVD re-release, William Friedkin’s “The Boys in the Band” remains a must-see film.
In 1968, Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band premiered Off-Broadway and shocked audiences with its candid portrayal of homosexual men. The story of getting the play written and on stage is lengthy, including Mart (Fade-In) being hired as actor… Read More ›
Director Park Jin-pyo’s “Brave Citizen” delivers satisfying vigilante justice in this web comic adaptation. [Fantasia International Film Festival]
“If you do nothing, nothing will happen.” This quote is spoken by the character So Si-Min, portrayed by Shin Hye-sun (See You in My 19th Life), as part of a class on ethics. It’s one of several concepts that particular… Read More ›
“Deadpool and Wolverine” brought the buddy cop mantra but left everything else in the cab.
There will be no spoilers in this review as there are plenty of surprises that will be used to great effect for those who care. Basic plot points will be covered, but nothing that wasn’t in the trailers. When the… Read More ›
David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy” has bonus features that were made for loving you.
In filmmaking, there are original stories and there’re adaptations. While audiences clamor for original stories, the system *needs* adaptations to help fund the originals. Sure, it’s getting hard for some audiences to get excited for Super Cape 58 (not me,… Read More ›
Dramatic thriller “Captain Phillips” gets a limited edition 4K UHD steelbook release from Sony Pictures.
Films based on true events often have a way of dramatizing or exaggerating things for the sake of cinema. It’s a different stage, cinema, with different rules from real life, so storytellers will often utilize this fact for audiences to… Read More ›
“The Fall Guy” 4K UHD Digital Code Giveaway
After an explosive premiere at SXSW 2024 and then dropping into theaters in May, filmmaker David Leitch‘s (Bullet Train) romantic action comedy The Fall Guy, a cinematic adaptation of the 1980s television show, is now out on digital formats. In… Read More ›
Bring home Cord Jefferson’s satire “American Fiction” on Blu-ray thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures.
Amidst the insanity of 2023’s awards season, there were a lot of flicks that stood out ahead of the pack. From thoughtful dramedies about an American toy icon to the typical Oscar fair, there were clearly a lot of movies… Read More ›
Utilizing the style and action of its source material, “BLUE LOCK THE MOVIE -EPISODE NAGI-” offers a cinematic perspective that may delight fans while leaving new audiences a touch cold.
Since August 2018, the Japanese manga series BLUE LOCK, also stylized as BLUELOCK, has published in Kodansha’s Weekly Shōnen Magazine — publisher of such tales as Go! Go! Loser Ranger! and Girlfriend, Girlfriend. Written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by… Read More ›
“The Vourdalak” sets a new standard for the genre with Adrien Beau’s fresh take on vampire movies.
If you watched The Vourdalak with no background information, you might think you’d discovered a lost made-for-TV gem from 1980-something. With its grainy appearance, humble sets, and Jim-Henson-esque puppet villain, how could this dark yet charming vampire fantasy not be… Read More ›
Shout! Studios and GKIDS Films release a HD home edition of Takehiko Inoue’s “The First Slam Dunk” that’ll have you out of your seat until the shot clock stops.
Sports films are often used as a metaphor for something else. The grit, the determination required to succeed either as a team or an individual being a symbol for some other kind of battle. In the feature film directorial debut… Read More ›
Romantic mystery “Darkest Miriam” may leave stones unturned but captivates with Britt Lower’s performance. [Tribeca Film Festival]
The first thing that I learned about Naomi Jaye’s (The Pin) newest feature, Darkest Miriam, was that it was executive produced by Charlie Kaufman (I’m thinking of ending things), and that automatically adds a level of intrigue and suspense to… Read More ›
Writer/Director Ran Huang asks “What Remains” in the darker grey areas of ethics and morality.
What Remains is a film that presents itself as a detective procedural with a possible serial killer being interviewed by his psychiatrist and a detective trying to piece together the killer’s muddled and confused confessions of murder and rape. What… Read More ›
Buy a ticket and take the ride as The Criterion Collection brings the polarizing cult classic “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” home in stunning 4K.
Two guys, a trunk full of drugs, and the open road leading to the place of sin itself. Not Hell … but close enough. Las Vegas. Add in some counterculture themes such as the Vietnam War and its relation to… Read More ›
“McVeigh” takes audiences inside the events that lead to the event that seared this name into U.S. history. [Tribeca Film Festival]
Slow burn movies have a time and place in the world, and when they focus on absolute tragedy and devastation, they have to be handled with class and taste. Thankfully, Mike Ott (California Dreams) and co-writer Alex Gioulakis (Unemployable) handle… Read More ›
“Handling the Undead” fumbles its selected genres of arthouse drama and zombie horror.
From a modern-day perspective, zombies come in one of two flavors: they’re either creatures of chaos or walkers fueled by wacky circumstances. Yet, in the new film Handling the Undead (based on the book of the same name by Let… Read More ›
Filmmaker Tom Nesher beckons audiences to lean in in her semi-autobiographical dramedy “Come Closer.” [Tribeca Film Festival]
**Photosensitivity Warning: A club sequence includes a prolonged sequence of flashing lights that may prove triggering for sensitive viewers.** Shared joy is double joy; Shared sorrow is half a sorrow. – Swedish proverb Just about everywhere one looks, there’s a… Read More ›
Writer/director Savi Gabizon remakes his own adult drama for American audiences with the Richard Gere-led “Longing.”
There are many reasons films get adapted. Sometimes it’s because a film wasn’t received well or, confusingly, because a film was received extraordinarily well. Adaptations aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Because someone sought director Roger Corman’s 1960 Little Shop of… Read More ›
The special features on the home release of “Kingdom of Storms” will hold you over until the second part of the “Creation of the Gods” trilogy releases into theaters
16th century Chinese novel Fengshen Yanyi (Investiture of the Gods) is the inspiration for a number of adaptions in Chinese entertainment. Adaptations in written forms, television programs, and, of course, cinema. Sometimes it’s in individual portions, such as with studio… Read More ›
The destined battle plays out fair and square in the theatrical adaptation of “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle.”
Mangas, like all other kinds of storytelling, come in a variety of types. Americans are familiar with the isekai (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime), shonen (Jujutsu Kaisen), and parody (One-Punch Man), with several breaking through into mainstream… Read More ›