There are movies that focus on courtroom procedurals and the drama that comes from the hearing itself that either are so effective they’re traumatizing or so dull they entirely lose the audience. Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms (Les chambres rouges) thankfully… Read More ›
crime
The on-disc bonus features may be bare, but the action in “Baby Assassins 2” is anything but.
The slacker comedy comes in many shapes and varieties. You’ve got rom-com Mallrats (1995), straight comedy Friday (1995), dramedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), and comedic thriller The Big Lebowski (1998). Each one uses the slackers at their center to… 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 ›
“Cold Wallet” is a home invasion thriller that lacks any strength in the teeth it tries to bare. [SXSW]
Capitalism is great when you’re rich and the worst when you’re poor. Or, in the case of current economic insecurities in the U.S., middle class. Capitalism functions off the premise that trade and industry are better off when private owners… Read More ›
“Baby Assassins 2” Blu-ray Giveaway
2021 crime comedy Baby Assassins introduced audiences to assassin/slacker team Mahiro (Saori Izawa) and Chisato (Akari Takaishi) when they stumbled into a face-off with members of the yakuza. Now, they return with a brand-new adventure that finds them on the outs… 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 ›
No matter snow, rain, heat, or gloom, “Dead Mail” delivers. [SXSW]
There’re directors who go things alone and then there’re directors who operate with someone else as a team. You’ve got the Coen brothers (Miller’s Crossing), the Wachowskis (The Matrix trilogy), the Russo brothers (several MCU films), the Farrelly brothers (Dumb… Read More ›
Mixed-genre adventure “Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman” is a strong start for the next big franchise you’ll hope for.
Back in October 2023, Well Go USA released director/co-writer Kim Seong-sik’s action/adventure fantasy thriller Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman (천박사 퇴마 연구소: 설경의 비밀) into theaters. Given the influx of theatrical and streaming releases in October, it’s fair to… Read More ›
Radiance Films releases director Yasuharu Hasebe’s debut film, the spy spoof “Black Tight Killers,” in resplendent HD.
A war photographer, a stewardess, and a chance meeting set the stage for an 87-minute technicolor adventure of crime, mystery, and romance in director Yasuharu Hasebe’s (Retaliation) 1966 caper Black Tight Killers (俺にさわると危ないぜ). The first of several collaborations with lead… Read More ›
Despite a loaded action cast, “Lights Out” fails to find its fit.
Inside Lights Out are two wolves: one is a post-war drama involving a solider struggling with PTSD and lost meaning from time in the service, while the other is a thriller involving cops on the take and the money they’re… Read More ›
Kino Lorber re-issues the 50th anniversary 4K Blu-ray restoration of Norman Jewison’s crime caper “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. – Arthur Schopenhauer 56 years ago, the writer of Bullitt, Alan Trustman, and the director of In the Heat of the Night, Norman Jewison, released their sexy crime thriller The… Read More ›
Matthew Vaughn’s spy actioner “Argylle” is a fun and zany spy adventure that delivers entertainingly mixed results.
Director Matthew Vaughn revitalized the spy-genre with the Kingsman franchise. Those films offered a different take on the typical James Bond-esque espionage story. The films were more brutal and bloody, reinvigorating the genre for audiences. After three Kingsman films, Vaughn… Read More ›
“The Goldfinger” adapts real events into a compelling cinematic crime drama.
When it comes to movie-making, which is superior: truth or manipulated fiction? To some, the facts don’t matter as long as the essence of a thing is captured (Bohemian Rhapsody); whereas, to others, if the presentation of facts is constructed… Read More ›
On home video now, Daniel Brown’s crime thriller “Your Lucky Day” delivers a gut-punch in its accurate commentary of the American Dream.
“Based on the American Dream.” These are the words that greet audiences before anything else when pressing “play” on Daniel Brown’s feature-length version of his story Your Lucky Day. The words shouldn’t be ominous, yet things in the country have,… Read More ›
Gareth Evans’s crime actioner “The Raid: Redemption” receives a 4K UHD remaster inside a limited edition steelbook.
Before Expend4bles (2023) set him up to take on aged action stars, before Warrior (2019-2023) made him a villain, before audiences worldwide connected with the violent thrill of Indonesian martial arts in cinema, actors Iko Uwasis and Joe Taslim starred… Read More ›
Zachary Quinto and Jacob Elordi fail to find chemistry in the frustrating, incoherent road film “He Went That Way”.
The Road Movie. A film where a character, or group of characters, sets sail on an adventure, goes to visit an old friend, do a deed or just…go searching. Revelations are made, things are discovered, events in favor to the… Read More ›
The first two entries in “The Long Arm of the Law Saga” join the Asia Collection of 88 Films via a collector’s edition.
Restorations are a great way to not only preserve cinema history, they are also a way for films that may have been lost, forgotten, or otherwise kept to a region or country to find new audiences. For 88 Films, specifically… Read More ›
Director Xavier Gens’s revenge actioner “Mayhem!” brings all of that and plenty of carnage with it.
After premiering in France in June 2023 and screening at a variety of genre film festivals like Fantasia International Film Festival, Slash Film Festival, and FrightFest under the name Farang (a Thai term meaning “foreigner”), IFC Films snagged director Xavier… Read More ›
Get even more Masaaki Yuasa bang for your buck with this five-film box set release from Shout! Studios and GKIDS Films.
Whimsical, musical, juvenile, comedic, romantic, adult, absurd — each of these singular words could easily describe the work of filmmaker/artist Masaaki Yuasa. Whether telling a “one crazy night” story or a rom-com or a time-traveling serial killer rock show, each… Read More ›
Shout! Studio’s 4K UHD edition of “Clue” is no red herring.
In today’s theatrical market, making a movie off an established intellectual property (IP) is standard practice. Successful book? Make it a movie. Successful television series? Make it a movie. Successful video game? Keep attempting to make it a movie. Successful… Read More ›