Darren Lynn Bousman is a director best known for his work within the Saw-franchise, but alongside Saw II, III, and IV, Bousman has left his mark on the horror genre with films like Mother’s Day and St. Agatha as well as the iconic cult-classic Repo! The Genetic Opera. Death Of Me, Bousman’s new film starring…
In the tradition of One Thousand and One Nights, Ivorian filmmaker Philippe Lacôte’s latest narrative feature, Night of the Kings, is an ode to the power of storytelling to transport and transform. Set inside a fictionalized version of a real prison in Abidjan that Lacôte visited as a child when his mother was held there…
In a world where much of the focus is on national and international politics, the specifics of local governments remain a mystery. While we, as citizens, have some say in who takes these primary seats of office, those who keep our cities alive go beyond elected officials. What exactly happens at our local hubs and…
Darren Lynn Bousman is perhaps best known for directing three Saw sequels as well as next year’s eagerly anticipated Spiral: From The Book Of Saw. Before Spiral is unleashed onto the world, Bousman brings us Death Of Me, a mystical, Thailand-set thriller. A Storm Is Coming Starring Maggie Q and Luke Hemsworth, Death Of Me…
In the No Time To Die Countdown, Jake Tropila takes a look back at every Bond film – official and unofficial – in anticipation of the release of the latest entry. Now, this is more like it. In 1974, The Man with the Golden Gun turned out to be a box office disappointment, at least…
Since the shift from cable TV to streaming services, we’ve seen an explosion of complex television shows that require the type of chronological viewing unique to our era. Serial TV shows thrive over their more formulaic, episodic counterparts, and they proliferate over myriad streaming services. With this saturation of affordable on-demand content, TV shows have…
After reaching critical acclaim with works such as A Private War and Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, director Matthew Heineman takes somewhat of a left turn to document the homecoming of Colombia’s biggest reggae superstar, J Balvín. The Boy From Medellín follows the singer as he prepares to play the biggest concert of his life to a…
Amidst the rapturous critical reception that Terrence Malick’s Badlands received upon its 1974 release, one dissenting voice stood out. While Vincent Canby called Malick’s feature debut “a most important and exciting film” in the New York Times, Pauline Kael turned in a scathing review at the New Yorker, breathing fire at everything from the performances…
The names Pedro Almodóvar and Tilda Swinton are individually enough to spark interest in the vast majority of film lovers. (If they don’t, then I honestly question your taste.) But both of those names, together, on the same project? Which happens to be the first-ever English-language film from the renowned Spanish auteur, responsible for such…
Films claimed to be shot in one long, continuous take are often wondrous technical achievements, from Hitchcock’s Rope to Sam Mendes’ war epic 1917. Most of these contain several hidden cuts in order to preserve the illusion and to make it logistically easier to achieve. source: Shout! Studios Rolling a camera for 90 minutes uninterrupted…
Protesting goes before the court in The Trial of the Chicago 7, the latest from writer/director Aaron Sorkin. Much like today, the ’60s was a time when America was showing its warts. The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War had given people plenty of reasons to get out in the streets and protest, and by…
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. This entry recommends movies to watch after Enola Holmes. With adaptations and inspired works going back to the dawn of cinema, Sherlock Holmes…
Page To Screen is a column examining literary adaptations in conversation with their source material. Call up your book club and set out some canapés, we’re talking reading. The Goldfinch, John Crowley’s adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, is many things. It is a morality tale about the value of art and…
When looking back on history, there is a plethora of knowledge and perspectives that have still yet to be tackled. And only by truly seeing the entire picture can we understand the past and move forward with the future. Though, with racism, sexism, and oppression in place, many stories have remained untold and unknown to…
Welcome to Carnage Classified, a monthly column where we break down the historical and social influence of all things horror, then rank the films of each month’s category accordingly. Franchises, movements, filmmakers, subgenres, etc. This entry is about Dario Argento’s giallo films and includes a ranking of his six best from the subgenre! There’s something…
Over the past several weeks and ongoing, there have been many movies made available via streaming that normally would never see the light of day inside a movie theater. I am a strong supporter of the theater experience, but even I have to admit that the creation of widely available virtual cinema screenings of rare…
The balance of power and the legitimacy of violence has been shifting for some time throughout the world and the challenge of defining illegal force has been building, growing into a cry for change. As citizens of a state, country, or republic, we give the power to the institution, yet we have no power to…
In the No Time To Die Countdown, Jake Tropila takes a look back at every Bond film – official and unofficial – in anticipation of the release of the latest entry. I’ll be the first to admit that these Bond revisits have been largely agreeable affairs, bordering on being excessively effusive in praise. Sure, things…
A couple of years ago, I learned that The Karate Kid would be rebooted as a television series. Like others of a certain age that grew up with a particular property, I had my doubts. Rebooting or bringing back a franchise, whatever you want to call it, is a risky move. You have to appeal both to…
At several points, while watching Repossession, the work of co-directors Ming Siu Goh and Scott C. Hillyard, I had to ask myself: “Did that really just happen?” These lapses in the understanding of timeline and plot seem at times intentional – often during unexpected flashback sequences that suggest something is amiss with the outwardly straightforward…
As Abraham Lincoln once famously said, don’t believe everything you read on the internet. You have to be savvy in the Information Age, and the garish katzenjammer of fake news, clickbait and “alternative facts” makes a battle out of separating the wheat from the chaff. I’m skeptical about a lot of things on the world…