Back in April, at the beginning of a particularly sleepy 12-hour shift manning the box office of the downtown Durham theatre in which I work, I opened A.M. Shine’s The Watchers on my Kindle, having impulsively downloaded it via the… Read More ›
based on a book
Lee Cipolla’s adaptation of “Rally Caps” will have you donning your own.
Truth is a matter of perspective. We know this, but we tend to forget it during the daily moments of our lives. What we see, what we hear, and how we react is all sifted through our experience, so, often,… Read More ›
When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain, the 4K UHD remaster of “The Last Unicorn” from Shout! Studios will have you believing.
Originally published in 1968, author Peter S. Beagle’s adventure fantasy The Last Unicorn would be tapped by The Hobbit (1977) co-directors Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. for adaptation. Their theatrical release of the same name, The Last Unicorn (1982),… 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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
“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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
Be not afraid and journey out into the shadows with fantasy adventure “Orion and the Dark.”
“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 ›
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 ›
“Freud’s Last Session” is a thorny bore and a great idea.
Freud’s Last Session may not have been with C.S. Lewis, Christian Apologist and author of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to be, but what this film presupposes is: maybe it was? Set on the day Hitler’s Nazi Germany… Read More ›