Photosensitivity Warning: Several scenes in Scarlet may prove triggering for photosensitive viewers through the use of stylized lightning. It occurs a handful of times in the film and can often be predicted, enabling a viewer to shield oneself, but it’s… Read More ›
Shota Sometani
Mamoru Hosoda’s 2015 fantastical adventure “The Boy and the Beast” returns to theaters for one-night as part of Crunchyroll’s Anime Nights series.
2025 is a wonderful year to be an animation fan. In addition to various individual titles hitting the festival circuit like All You Need is Kill, ChaO, Space Cadet, and Arco, there’re also full-fledged festivals like Animation is Film and… Read More ›
“Suzume” is another breathtaking tale of grief, love, and healing from writer/director Makoto Shinkai.
Writer/director Makoto Shinkai’s been telling stories since the late-1990s, but didn’t become as widely well-known in the United States until his 2016 release Your Name. (君の名は。) which combined science fiction/fantasy elements through a natural disaster with young love, creating one… Read More ›
Behold the mighty weirdness of director Gakuryu Ishii’s “Punk Samurai” outside Japan for the first-time thanks to Third Window Films.
The concept of “punk” is a rebellion against the mainstream. As it relates to music, the term was used to describe rock bands of the late-‘60s to early ‘70s that played rock tunes fast, hard, and, often, in brief. For… Read More ›
Genre mash-up “Samurai Marathon” gets off to a messy start but comes together mid-stride.
Described as “a lively action flick with a samurai twist,” latest Well Go USA release Samurai Marathon meets that description with a unique vigor. Directed by Bernard Rose (Candyman) and adapted from the novel “The Marathon Samurai: Five Tales of… Read More ›
Nothing marks “First Love” like drugs, gangs, and absolute mayhem.
There’s something about first love that can be hard to quantify, even when looking back on it. The simultaneous excitement of being attracted to someone else, the endless internal questions trying to figure out what it means, the unyielding terror… Read More ›