At the 2022 Fantastic Fest, actor/stunt choreographer/director Kensuke Sonomura unveiled his second feature film Bad City, the follow-up to the 2019 release HYDRA. His sophomore crime drama packed in as much intrigue and even more blood-letting, all aided by stellar… Read More ›
Screening one last time at Lincoln Center in NYC on Tuesday, September 12th, at 8:30 p.m. as part of their massive Korean Cinema’s Golden Decade: the 1960’s exhibition is Kim Ki Deok’s The Barefooted Young, a 1964 South Korean film… Read More ›
Inevitably, whenever a new Batman-related project is announced, conversation swirls as to which of the prior actors to portray DC’s Dark Knight, a.k.a. The World’s Greatest Detective, is the best. Due to biases known and unknown, this so often turns… Read More ›
It’s been nearly a year since its screening at Fantastic Fest 2022 and Kensuke Sonomura’s bloody crime drama Bad City is finally releasing on physical formats in the United States in September 2023 after a brief digital-only period which started… Read More ›
For two days in January 1984, Hong Kong experienced its first riot in 17 years. The violence stemmed from outrage over a tax increase which impacted the taxi drivers of the region. According to The New York Times, over 150… Read More ›
For every general genre in storytelling, there’s a subgenre within it that enables a storyteller to narrow their focus, thereby utilizing specific tools to explore their themes. It’s the difference between a chiller or thriller in horror, slapstick or screwball… Read More ›
August 23rd, 2020, writer/actor/producer/director Benny Chan passed away from nasopharyngeal cancer, first diagnosed in 2019 while shooting the film Raging Fire with Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse. Raging Fire did eventually get released in 2021, both in China and internationally,… Read More ›
If, in the year 2022, you didn’t see Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider, then you simply missed one of the best movies to come out of that year. However, it is with fair warning that this movie is an incredibly tough… Read More ›
There are some films whose descriptions pique your interest and under-deliver, some which meet expectations, and some which blow your mind (the diamonds in the rough). The 2021 crime comedy Baby Assassins, written and directed by Yûgo Sakamoto, is the… Read More ›
In its quest for cinema preservation, boutique distributor Radiance Films has released onto Blu-ray such films as Kōsaku Yamashita’s Big Time Gambling Boss (1968), Luigi Comencini’s The Sunday Woman (1975), Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Doll House (1995), and Amy… Read More ›
“Some of this actually happened…” This is the message that greets audiences after a rather tense opening in actor John Slattery’s (Mad Men/Iron Man 2) second feature film, the darkly comic mystery Maggie Moore(s). No matter how weird or wild… Read More ›
Of the stories made in America, none are as prolific worldwide as mafia stories. They’re used to tell immigrant stories, crime stories, family dramas, and even comedies. You’d be hard pressed to find any genre today that doesn’t include some… Read More ›
It has been nearly 32 years since Ridley Scott introduced the world to Thelma and Louise, and having never visited this picture before, I had an idea of what I was getting myself into, but no idea the extent of… Read More ›
From director Brad Watson (Hallows Eve) and actor Daniel Stisen (Last Man Down) comes The Siege, an action/adventure film in which alliances are forged and broken when a group of highly-skilled killers attacks a facility filled with assassins. The Siege lands on… Read More ›
There’s something about a good confidence film. They’re not always A-List-led romps like Ocean’s Eleven (2001) or explorations of morality like Rififi (1955). Sometimes, they’re a mixture of both, keeping the audience on their toes the entire time like Confidence… Read More ›
Photosensitivity Warning: During an interrogation scene late into the film a brief but prolonged flashing sequence occurs. Within crime stories, there is a specific subgenre born from Japan: yakuza films. These stories center on the lives or operations of members… Read More ›
In the world of martial arts action, names like Jimmy Wang Yu (One-Armed Boxer), Gordon Liu (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), Bruce Lee (Fist of Fury), Sammo Hung (Enter the Fat Dragon), Jackie Chan (Drunken Master), and Donnie Yen (Tiger… Read More ›
In this edition of Meet Me at the Movies: Open Dialogue, Thomas Manning chats with writer, director, producer, and editor Bruce Bellocchi about his directorial debut The Legend of Jack and Diane. Bellocchi speaks about the evolution of his decades-long… Read More ›
My first true introduction to Jackie Chan was in the summer of 1995. 15-year-old me witnessed Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) give an enthusiastic speech about the infectious manner Jackie’s films had in the theater. Before presenting him with his lifetime… Read More ›
In this edition of Meet Me at the Movies: Open Dialogue, Thomas Manning sits down with Edgar Ramírez and Abbey Lee to discuss the new Netflix limited series Florida Man. They discuss their previous personal experiences with the state of… Read More ›