This essay is part of our series Episodes, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. Some TV shows have just one or two standout episodes. Community has dozens. The whip-smart meta-sitcom about a group of community college students started off normal enough, but early…
Amazon Prime Video is the only streaming service with a cost that also gets you free shipping, and that my friends is a deal. They’re in the original programming game, but their biggest offering remains the ton of films available to watch anytime for Prime members. The complete list of titles hitting Amazon Prime this month…
Movie fans, moviemakers, and movie distributors are doing what they can right now to support the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. In addition to those marching in the streets and donating money, a lot of websites are recommending films to better understand the systemic racism that’s rampant in America while many streaming services are…
This is a roundtable I did last week with the fellows over at Comics Cast. Featured are indie comics publishers, artists, and writers Jim O’Riley, Michael Oden and Nick Garber. We discuss building and finishing indie comics working with artist and writers and generally the challenges behind all things Indie Comics and where that line…
Some people spend their days arguing over the merits of Netflix, but the rest of us are too busy enjoying new movies, engaging series, and fun specials. It’s just one more way to re-watch the movies we already love and find new ones to cherish, and this month sees some of both hitting the service. The…
Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a weekly column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we…
It’s not news to anyone that we’re living in a whole new world these days (and for the immediate future, at least), and it’s forced both people and businesses to adapt at a fairly quick pace. With tightly packed gatherings not currently allowed, film festivals have had to re-think the way they go about presenting…
Michael Mann is the kind of director who holds complete films in his head before he begins making them. He is a rare breed of an auteur who has everything to do with everything. In the scope of his filmography, his producing and screenwriting are no less significant than his directing. He ceaselessly communicates the…
Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Satanico Pandemonium [Mondo Macabro] What is it? A good nun makes some bad choices. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? The nunsploitation genre is filled with pious people engaged in naughty behavior, usually of the naked and violent variety,…
Welcome to Shot by Shot, our ongoing series of breakdowns. We’re constantly scouring movie trailers for perfect shots. In this column, we share our favorites and discuss them. All our hopes and dreams rest with Tenet. Coming. To. Theaters. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWith the pandemic rearranging and shuffling summer movies,…
Welcome to Movie DNA, a column that recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of new movies. Learn some film history, become a more well-rounded viewer, and enjoy likeminded works of the past. The plot of The Lovebirds is inconsequential. This is the sort of movie that merely serves as a vehicle for the romantic…
Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Kieran Fisher and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s. One of the oddly accepted aspects of human existence is the reality that each year sees over one million people…
The unkillable badass movie is one of our favorite subgenres. Whether it’s vampires, highlanders, or mouthy mercs, we’ll devour their adventures of clinical disregard for us feeble, disposable sacks of flesh. Try as hard as they might to make their neverending slog through life look dreary; we just want to take two hours to contemplate…
They’ve been around for less than a decade, but Vinegar Syndrome has quickly become one of the top specialty home video labels. They’re a genre label focusing on exploitation fare like horror, porn, action, and all manner of weirdness, but the one constant is the attention and affection they give to each and every release….
This essay is part of our series Episodes, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. From 1959 to 1964, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone was the boldest, smartest vision of America — what it has been, what it is, and what it someday could…
Welcome to Filmographies, a biweekly column for completists. Every edition brings a working actor’s resumé into focus as we learn about what makes them so compelling. On the big screen, Karen Gillan is fighting until she’s blue in the face. Embracing the mantle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s alien antihero Nebula brought the lanky redheaded…
Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Lonely Are the Brave [KL Studio Classics] What is it? A cowboy struggles to remain free in the modern world. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? This is a terrific film, and it might just feature my favorite Kirk…
This article is part of our ongoing Star Trek Explained series, featuring the insights of our resident Starfleet officer Brad Gullickson. After a bit of a dry spell, we are drowning in Star Trek content. CBS All Access dipped its toes into the franchise with Star Trek: Discovery, and now they’ve waded out into the…
Welcome to Pitch Meeting, a monthly column in which we suggest an IP ripe for adaptation, then assign the cast and crew of our dreams. Funny animal comics are a staple. Everyone loves a good Donald Duck or Bloom County. No matter how wretched Garfield’s behavior accelerates, his adorable whiskers spark forgiveness for his misanthropic…
There are few directors who can match David Fincher‘s perfectionism in their own craft and fewer still who can match him in reputation. More than perhaps any other director since Stanley Kubrick, Fincher is known for his excruciatingly meticulous dedication to filmmaking. From perfecting minute details with digital retouching to pushing actors with fifty or…
Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a weekly column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we…