We live in a world, it seems, where every single thing anyone ever does gets criticized and argued about no matter how absolutely fantastic and incredible things are. No matter what a company or someone does, there’s always going to… Read More ›
streaming
“Apartment 7A” has all the elements of a great horror movie befallen by forcing the connection to Rosemary. [Fantastic Fest]
Over my recent vacation to Mexico (my first one in over half a decade), I spent most of my days with my Kindle reading in the pool as I baked in the Gulf sun. The first work I devoured in… Read More ›
“Coup!” highlights how history tends to rhyme via a pandemic-set class warfare dark comic satire.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – Writer/philosopher George Santayana There’s a presumption that everything that happens to you now, for the first time, is happening now for the first time. This is partially what… Read More ›
Blockbuster Bets: “Fresh Kills” offers a fresh perspective.
When I was a young filmmaker, I sat in a classroom while a poor excuse for a film producer talked to us about making films. At one point, when asked about how to get started in feature filmmaking, he pulled… Read More ›
Sean Wang’s effective and heartwarming film about growing up in the age of peak-internet, “Dìdi (弟弟)” comes home on digital.
At first glance (or first trailer), Sean Wang’s directorial debut Dìdi (弟弟) (Chinese for “younger brother”) may seem like an empty rehash of other contemporary coming-of-age films like mid90s (2018) or Eighth Grade (2018), but to my surprise, there is… Read More ›
“Inside Out 2” arrives on home video to provide an opportunity for audiences of all ages to recognize their best senses of self.
No matter what age you are, there’s never a bad time to pick up a new skill to help you engage with your emotions or guide someone else’s. By learning to regulate, each of us is more capable of dealing… Read More ›
“A League of Their Own” reaffirms that a woman’s place is at home … and first, second, and third in 4K UHD.
For the last 32 years, there’s been one thing that athletes and non-athletes alike understand: there’s no crying in baseball. These five words are uttered by Tom Hanks’s Rockford Peaches manager Jimmy Dugan to Bitty Schram’s Evelyn Gardner, the right… Read More ›
Book-to-film adaptation “The Watchers” stumbles on pacing and dialog in Ishana Night Shyamalan’s feature debut.
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 ›
Is “The Garfield Movie” the Nermal of “Garfield” films? Only one way to find out and that’s on home video.
“I hate Mondays.” As a child of the 1980s, I felt this phrase deep in my bones, which is likely why I owned several of the Jim Davis-created Garfield book collections so that I could revisit the three-to-four panel adventures… Read More ›
Where other mafia films keep their women in silence, filmmaker Jennifer Esposito’s “Fresh Kills” screams to devastating effect.
In the cinematic world of mob films, the go-to filmmaker for U.S. audiences is likely Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas; Casino). With tales exciting and dramatic, he’s told stories that unengaged audiences will see as uplifting the morally grey areas of the… Read More ›
Explore the “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” via the minimal but rich bonus features included on select home editions.
1968: director Franklin J. Schaffner releases his feature-length cinematic adaptation of author Pierre Boulle’s short story, Planet of the Apes. Since then, it’s spawned five canonical films, a television show, and a Tim Burton-directed remake — not to mention countless… Read More ›
Claude Schmitz’s “The Other Laurens (L’autre Laurens)” offers a stunning visual genre mashup, but sacrifices plot for tone and style.
The Other Laurens is a movie that’s all dressed up with everywhere to go. But after it gets one foot out the door, it can’t seem to go any further. With a nostalgic neo-noir/grunge visual style that’s sprinkled with touches… Read More ›
Join the tornado wranglers from the safety of your own space with the “Twisters” digital release.
The world of Twisters swept up cineplexes barely one month ago. The latest disaster epic tells the story of Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), now working as a meteorologist, when a friend from her storm-chasing past named Javi (Anthony Ramos) comes… Read More ›
“A Quiet Place: Day One” Digital Code Giveaway
In 2018, actor/writer/director John Krasinski introduced audiences to a world gone quiet as it continues to try to survive against alien invaders who hunt by sound in A Quiet Place. This year, writer/director Michael Sarnoski (Pig) took audiences to when… Read More ›
Crime drama “The Bikeriders” pulls up with a worthy home release.
The phrase “style over substance” is a common complaint regarding certain films. In these instances, some films can be so aesthetically pleasing that they lose sight of the story. Such films can craft well-drawn characters and a richly detailed sense… Read More ›
“IF” delights friends both real and imaginary with a home release packed with bonus features.
No one really knows when from where inspiration will strike. An innocuous action, a stray thought, a random observation — anything is ripe for seeding a new concept or approach. For writer/director/actor John Krasinski (A Quiet Place), inspiration for his… Read More ›
David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy” has bonus features that were made for loving you.
In filmmaking, there are original stories and there’re adaptations. While audiences clamor for original stories, the system *needs* adaptations to help fund the originals. Sure, it’s getting hard for some audiences to get excited for Super Cape 58 (not me,… Read More ›
Dig into all the horrid details that envelop filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson’s horror prequel “The First Omen” from the safety of your viewing space.
Prequels seem like a good idea on paper as they often seek to answer questions impossible to explore in initial outings. Through prequel stories, we can discover how Han Solo (Harrison Ford) came to own the Millennium Falcon (Solo: A… Read More ›
The whole of “Tarot” is as entertaining as its depiction of the practice is accurate.
I have a friend who is witchy in that they love to imbibe tarot readings and other spiritual practices of the same ilk, and when I sent them the trailer for the new home media release from Sony Pictures, Tarot… Read More ›
Dramatic thriller “Captain Phillips” gets a limited edition 4K UHD steelbook release from Sony Pictures.
Films based on true events often have a way of dramatizing or exaggerating things for the sake of cinema. It’s a different stage, cinema, with different rules from real life, so storytellers will often utilize this fact for audiences to… Read More ›