At the end of every year, it seems, the theaters become flooded with awards-centric films, one after the other. It’s at this time that audiences are encouraged to set aside their popcorn fare and engage in something elevated and intellectual…. Read More ›
In 2020, the first feature-length film from the manga-adapted anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Mugen Train, released in Japanese theaters and absolutely dominated to the point where it was the highest-grossing film of the year. After some time, Mugen… Read More ›
There are some films that are so wild that once seen, cannot be forgotten. Such is the case with Sion Sono’s first English-language film, Prisoners of the Ghostland, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It’s a wild mix of… Read More ›
There’s an interesting line in writer/director Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence, which suggests that our past doesn’t haunt us. It’s gone. We, however, through our memories, haunt it by revisiting moments in our mind over and over. There’s psychological proof of this… Read More ›
Somehow, in one way or another, stories transcend times and locations, growing to become global phenomena. We’ve seen it with the characters of DC Comics and Marvel Comics, the Transformers series (based on the run of Hasbro toys), and, of… Read More ›
Two years ago, even during the height of Parasite-mania, there was one film that stole the entirety of Film Fest 919 for me: that being Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire by a country mile. Presenting truly one… Read More ›
Who is ready for a slam jam?! 1996’s Space Jam saw b-baller Michael Jordan come out of retirement in order to help the Looney Tunes from extraterrestrial enslavement. 25 years later, it’s LeBron James who needs help from the Tune… Read More ›
The road to 2018’s Venom was a long one. First introduced as merely an alien costume in The Amazing Spider-Man #252, the symbiote known as Venom wouldn’t appear for about four years later in The Amazing Spider-Man #300 kicking off… Read More ›
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of outcasts finds themselves at the center of a prophecy that holds the fate of the world in its hands. In brief, that’s the summary for Eric McEver’s (A Utopia)… Read More ›
Thanks to the recent release of James Wan’s Malignant (2021), there’s been a lot of talk within certain circles about the desire to see big swings in cinema that create vigorous division over something good but safe. Having not seen… Read More ›
For the last 15 years, LAIKA Studios has amused, entertained, amazed, and, in some cases, downright terrified audiences with their stop-motion animation tales that continually place children at the center, offering a chance for audiences old and young to see… Read More ›
Published in 1962, Anthony Burgess’s dark satire A Clockwork Orange hit the streets of England with a 21-chapter tale of a teenager’s prevalence for extreme violence and antisocial behavior. Written in a Russian-influenced language called “Nasdat,” most of what central… Read More ›
There are many things about cinema that The Cine-Men co-host Darryl Mansel laments, but the one that he laments the most is the lack of swashbuckler films. Disney’s recent Jungle Cruise possesses traits of these films, though mostly due to… Read More ›
Welcome to Fistful of Features, a celebration of film preservation through physical media and the discussion of cinematic treasures to maintain their relevance in the cultural lexicon. Today we’ll be discussing the third feature film from acclaimed stop-motion animation studio… Read More ›
No country’s literature or filmography is short of romance stories. If a writer tells you they’re working on a piece about love, you’ll probably assume they’re talking about romantic love. We live in a culture that prioritizes romance and marriage,… Read More ›
For the last 15 years, LAIKA Studios has amused, entertained, amazed, and, in some cases, downright terrified audiences with their stop-motion animation tales that continually place children at the center, offering a chance for audiences old and young to see… Read More ›
For the last 15 years, LAIKA Studios has amused, entertained, amazed, and, in some cases, downright terrified audiences with their stop-motion animation tales that continually place children at the center, offering a chance for audiences old and young to see… Read More ›
When most people hear the term “coming of age” to describe a film, they might jump to something like The Breakfast Club (1985), Sixteen Candles (1984), Weird Science (1985) or some other John Hughes film. They’re often films of self-exploration… Read More ›
Japan is gonna Japan whether or not you want Japan to Japan, and when it Japans, it Japans hard. That in and of itself could be the singular tagline for Masashi Yamamoto’s Wonderful Paradise (脳天パラダイス), celebrating its North American premiere… Read More ›
After a theatrical run in May 2021, the feature film directorial debut for actor David Oyelowo, The Water Man, is coming home. Evoking such childhood stories such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial or The NeverEnding Story, The Water Man is a tale about a young boy’s… Read More ›