Month: December 2020

“He’s filming his kills.” Gravitas has released an official trailer for GetAWAY, a meta-slasher horror film from filmmaker Blayne Weaver. This first premiered at the deadCENTER Film Festival earlier this year, and arrives on VOD later this month for those interested in watching. Emma Norville stars as young actress Maddie, who lands a small role…

Luke Greenfield’s “Half Brothers” is a tale of two stories. One track gives the movie its title: two half-brothers who could not be more different meet for the first time when their father is dying. Because this is a comedy, disaster ensues. Their father dies suddenly, and because their old man loved puzzles, he sends…

“The moon is full and we must harness its power.” IFC Films has released a new US trailer for the kooky relationship comedy Blithe Spirit, a big screen adaptation of the classic stage play of the same name. This opens first in the UK this month, then in the US in February. An over-the-top spiritualist…

Until several years ago, I had no idea the extent of The Ventures‘ influence going far beyond their emblematic surf rock. They have more cultural clout than I ever would have given them credit for. The Ventures: Stars on Guitars is yet another opportunity to solidify their well-deserved legacy. It’s also supposedly the first documentary…

Sacha Baron Cohen and Ryan Long once shared a similar comic spirit. Not anymore. Cohen, the rapscallion behind 2007’s “Borat,” now embraces Big Tech Censorship. Even worse? The British comic’s newest release, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” is as politically toothless as your average Stephen Colbert rant. The 30-something Long, in sharp contrast, punishes the boundaries of…

A walk through Pyrgi, an island town with a population around 1,000, is a colorful tour of geometric designs and motifs. As one of the “mastic villages” that once made the picturesque Greek island of Chios renowned and rich—the sap obtained exclusively from its mastic trees to make medicines, foods, liqueurs, and natural chewing gum…

When the pandemic hit, it halted the planned second season of HBO’s Emmy-winning “Euphoria,” resulting in this week’s minimized Christmas episode titled simply “Euphoria Part 1: Rue.” Filmed during the pandemic, the show that’s often so full of characters and settings that one can lose track has been reduced to a two-hander between a girl…

Two contradictory episodes open Steven J. Mihaljevich‘s The Xrossing, the lyrical suburban symphony that will be making its Australian premiere at the Revelation Perth Film Festival’s physical fest this year. Beginning with the discovery of the dead body of the 18-year old teenager Tracey Myers in Perth’s eastern hills, Shane Piggott‘s eclipsing drone footage pivots to…

Until the mid-16th-century, Europe’s minting techniques had not progressed from ancient Greek coinage, which was struck by hand using dies and a hammer. Eventually, this method became ineffective as a large amount of bullion was imported from across the world and the mints had trouble keeping up. To solve this problem, minting machinery was invented…

In the congested traffic along a prominent Decatur thoroughfare, commuters may notice an unusual garden of giant metal sculptures, and a man playfully encouraging them to wake up from their lulled complacency. According the Clark Ashton, the exhibition’s sculptor and designer, the commuters are part of the “mechanical river,” and his garden, towers, and metal…

Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme truly are the Queens of Christmas. From their hit traveling stage tours of holidays past to making a memorable drag cameo in Happiest Season (the year’s hottest Christmas movie), what else could this dynamic duo have up their sequined sleeves? Why, their infallible chemistry and irrepressible talents in the form of…

On a stroll down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile/High Street, visitors can see some of the world’s first skyscrapers. That part of the capital’s Old Town was once encircled with a stone wall, which meant that the only way to increase housing capacity for a growing population was to build up. But this construction occurred at a…

The Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre is located at the Oldbridge House, on a site surrounded by restored Victorian walled gardens. Traveling to this area, allows visitors to appreciate the beautiful Irish countryside. The Oldbridge House is a recently restored 18th-century mansion sitting on the banks of the River Boyne. The center provides an…

★★★★ Directed by #ZeinaDurra Written by #ZeinaDurra Starring #AndreaRiseborough #KarimSelah ,,Film Review by ,,Matt Weiner Faulkner wrote that the past is never dead… it’s not even past. British aid worker Hana (Andrea Riseborough) is hellbent on putting this to the test in Luxor, a slow burn of a spiritual journey from writer/director Zeina Durra that…

For the past six weeks, HBO’s The Undoing kept murder mystery fans, Nicole Kidman devotees, and past Big Little Lies watchers on the edges of their seats. We impatiently awaited the answer of ‘whodunnit?’ as every episode revealed more and more dark secrets, and we at one point suspected every single character. The last episode, though,…

This week, Paramount Home Video releases a Blu-ray of Robert Altman’s “Popeye,” one of the most unusual pictures in a filmography that’s already as far from conventional as Hollywood bodies of work get. For the loose, often acerbic Altman to take on a musical movie focused on an eccentric group of fantasy characters that originated…

“I’m sorry I’m late”, I say when I’m connected through to Karim Saleh. We’re here to discuss his new movie Luxor, in which he – alongside Andrea Riseborough – stars. I had gotten a call the exact moment I was due to call him, and so I was held up. “Ah, we’re here now”, he…

Remember this day. December 3rd, 2020. For today is the beginning of a new era in Hollywood. Warner Bros announced major, game-changing news: ALL of their big releases in 2021 will be available on HBO Max and in movie theaters on the same day. All of them. Every single one – from Dune to Godzilla…

The vaccines are coming! The vaccines are coming! Don’t tell that to Warner Bros. The mega-studio just announced its entire 2021 film slate will bow in theaters AND HBO Max at the very same time. Can’t wait to see the “Dune” remake? The next installment of the “Matrix” franchise? What about “The Suicide Squad?” All you…

“Jazz is dead.” So says The Cry of Jazz. “It cannot grow, it can only repeat itself, and so doing, it is stagnant: and so doing, it dies.” The Cry of Jazz was first shown in 1959. Confined within a lean thirty-four minutes, the film explains in philosophical language why jazz could have only come…

It was an unplanned detour that started the whole thing. On a lazy winter afternoon in January 2019, photographer Hemant Chaturvedi walked over to Allahabad University, an architectural landmark from the 1800s in the northern Indian city, to take a few images. En route, he remembered that there was an old, single-screen movie theater in…

I had run across the trailer for Fatman back in September and said to myself, “Self. You just watched the most bat crap crazy trailer Funny Or Die couldn’t have conceived on a good day. But, hold the phone, this movie has Mel “Hollywood Poison” Gibson as Santa Claus? What, the what?” So, needless to…

Starting in June 1967, Montreux Casino began to host the Montreux Jazz Festival. The annual event and featured legends such as Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, and Ella Fitzgerald. On December 4, 1971, the original Casino building burned down—during a Frank Zappa concert, after a fan set the venue on fire with a flare…

“You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours. All you can hope is to leave the impression of one,” purrs a drunk, dawdling Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) in Mank. The same rings true of David Fincher movies. With the arrival of his eleventh feature comes the delightfully deranged process of diving back into…

The Battle of Verdun was a brutal battle that lasted from February 21 to December 18, 1916. Each foot around the city of Verdun was fought over by hundreds of thousands of French and German soldiers, and more from the farthest reaches of the European empires. That’s 302 days of bloodshed, and historians still argue…

Leather sofa seats, Mod bubble lights, elderly patrons smoking at the bar, and thick slices of pizza toast: These are the elements of a typical Japanese kissaten, or kissa coffee shop. Part bar, part restaurant, and part community center, these humble, Shōwa-era cafés serve tea, coffee, alcohol, and delightfully hybrid dishes such as pizza toast….

The Russian city of Saint Petersburg was named after its founder, Peter I the Great. So it’s no coincidence that several statues featuring Peter can be found throughout the city, although this one may be the most unique.  Designed by Russian sculptor Mikhail Chemiakin in the 1980s and cast in bronze in the United States,…

A family navigates a major adjustment in The Father, the debut of co-writer/director Florian Zeller. Anthony knows he’s gotten up there in years, but he and his daughter disagree on how much time has affected him. He thinks he’s doing fine, but she insists that he needs some help, contending that his mental slips are noticeable…

Visitors to this museum will get an up-close look at 17th-century Pilgrim culture. Exhibits are housed inside a grand Greek Revival building, where architecture and artwork reflect successive periods of patriotic fervor in the United States. Among the artifacts on display are William Bradford’s Bible, a 1651 depiction of Edward Winslow, a cradle from England…

The Mannings were typical of many families living in Holly Springs, Mississippi during the late 19th-century. Van Manning was a lawyer and former Confederate who arrived in Reconstruction Mississippi in the 1860s. His wife Mary was a local Holly Springs girl from a well-to-do family. Van built a successful legal career and later served in…

Streaming might be the future, but physical media is still the present. It’s also awesome, depending on the title, the label, and the release, so each week we take a look at the new Blu-rays and DVDs making their way into the world. Welcome to this week in Home Video for December 1st, 2020! This week’s…

In the summer of 1846, a party of 89 emigrants was making its way westward along the 2,170-mile-long Oregon Trail. Tired, hungry, and trailing behind schedule, they decided at Fort Bridger, Wyoming to travel to their final destination of California by shortcut. The “Hastings Cutoff” they chose was an alternative route that its namesake, Lansford…

Ho, ho, hand grenade. Fatman – longtime passion project from indie family filmmakers the Nelms Brothers – is not your traditional holiday movie. Sure, a lot of the same pieces are there: a puffy man with a long white beard, his warehouse, and his army of efficient elves. But few Christmas movies have had the…

“Rich or poor, nobody can escape. What a tragedy.” MTV Documentary Films has released an official US trailer for 76 Days, a chilling fly-on-the-wall documentary capturing the first 76 days during the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in China. Raw and intimate, this documentary captures the struggles of patients and frontline medical professionals battling the vicious COVID-19…

Crossing the Streams is our monthly look at all the offerings hitting the big streaming services each month, and this time we’re checking out the new Hulu arrivals for December 2020. This month’s titles include Stanley Kubrick’s final film, the latest season of a beloved comedy series, and more! Keep reading to see what’s new…