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As 2017 comes to a close, Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” remains one of the year’s most talked about films. While Aronofsky remained tight-lipped about the film’s plot prior to release, the film’s star, Jennifer Lawrence, admitted that she went to a dark place for the film and had hyperventilated so much during filming that she dislocated a rib. Upon release, it became easy to see why, as “mother!” pulls no punches, and remains one of 2017’s most shocking and daring pieces of cinema.

On December 19, “mother!” is coming to 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Combo Packs, which includes over 35 minutes of bonus content, which highlight the film’s incredible special effects makeup and feature Aronofsky and cast discussing the film’s production and its shocking finale.

Read More:‘mother!’ Review: Darren Aronofsky’s Audacious and Rich Cinematic Allegory Is His Most Daring Film Yet

To celebrate...

By John M. Whalen

In 1988 Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant (“In the Heat of the Night”, “The Poseidon Adventure”) got fed up with what he called “the eel pit of Hollywood,” and moved to Thailand to start a new life. According to the La Times, he’d grown tired of the power plays, the egos, the hypocrisy and the dictum that homage must be paid to the box office. He left and never came back.

Hollywood has always had its dark side-- just read “Hollywood Babylon.” Silliphant’s “eel pit” was never a more apt description than when, a few years later in 2015, the film industry was rocked by WikiLeaks release of some really nasty Sony emails that gave a glimpse into what powerful producers and studio execs really thought of some of their stars. Scott Rudin called Angelina Jolie a “minimally talented spoiled brat.” Clint Culpepper called Kevin Hart “a whore,...

Transformers films have been known for their bombastic fight sequences between gargantuan robots dubbed Autobots and Decepticons that can morph into all sorts of cool gear: cars, trucks, and other machinery. Transformers: The Last Knight Blu-Ray Review The Last Knight, the fifth movie in the franchise based on Hasbro’s toys that began appearing in the 1980s, brings […]

Source: uInterview

The post ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Blu-Ray Review: More Simple Animatronic Fights In Fifth Installment appeared first on uInterview.

By Hank Reineke

As one might expect from any 1960’s James Bond pastiche, an assortment of cool spy gadgetry is on display in Franklin Adreon’s Dimension 5 (1966): microchips secreted in the rear compartment of a Bulova wristwatch, a poison dart firing pen, an exploding briefcase, and a cool bullet-firing point-and-shoot 35mm camera. If that’s not enough – and with possible exception of the invisible car from Die Another Day (2002) - Dimension 5 offers us one of the more ridiculous and dubious items found in any secret agent arsenal… a “time-convertor” belt.

We’re first introduced to this device during the film’s mildly exciting pre-credits sequence. In the first few minutes we’re treated to what one expects from a nifty ‘60s spy thriller: a bit of a car chase, a surprising punch-to-the mouth of a double-crossing Asian villainess and a swooping helicopter rescue. What we do not...

Review by Matthew Turner

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Earl Boen, Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley | Written by James Cameron, William Wisher Jr. | Directed by James Cameron

Twenty-six years after it blasted onto screens in the summer of 1991, James Cameron’s smash-hit Terminator sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day has been given an immaculate clean-up and 3D conversion treatment for this missed-it-by-a-year anniversary release. Supervised by Cameron himself, the newly tweaked 3D effects are reason enough to see the film again, but does it still hold up after all this time? The short answer is yes. Yes, it does.

The plot, in case you somehow needed reminding, picks up ten years after the events of 1984′s The Terminator, with Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) locked up in an asylum, muttering about an imminent apocalypse, and future resistance leader John Connor (Edward Furlong) still just a snarky ten...

In this digital age of infinite screens and streams is an opportunity for liberation: Specifically, liberation from the families that we did not have the luxury of choosing. In 2017, Netflix and other platforms have been kind when it comes to giving us a glimpse at perhaps preferable family lives. So this Thanksgiving, it’s time we give thanks to the TV families who’ve been there for us no matter what — because, you know, they’re fictional.

The Byers (“Stranger Things”)

Despite the bloodthirsty monsters and suffocating slime, “Stranger Things” is all about the power of family. The writers kept their focus on the relationships between friends and family, and the extent that people endure in order to protect the ones they love. The Byers may not have the best luck in the world, but through every strange twist and turn they never once turned their backs on each other.

Review by Roger Carpenter

Stephen King films can be a mixed bag. For every really good film adaptation (Carrie; The Shining; Misery) there’s a bad one (Maximum Overdrive; Graveyard Shift; The Dark Tower). There are also a whole slew of Stephen King films that fall somewhere in the middle. I think Children of the Corn is one of the films that falls squarely in the middle of the pack.

There are some real strengths in the film. It has some genuine star quality, with soon-to-be action star Linda Hamilton (The Terminator) and TV heartthrob Peter Horton (Thirtysomething) starring as married couple Burt and Vicky, who become stranded in a town filled only with murderous, brainwashed children. The children are led by Isaac (John Franklin), who has a direct connection with an evil entity the children worship called He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and Malachai (Courtney Gains), Isaac’s mean-spirited enforcer.

By Fred Blosser

“Cannon for Cordoba,” a 1970 film produced by Vincent M. Fennelly for the Mirisch Corporation, written by Stephen Kandel, directed by Paul Wendkos, and distributed by United Artists, has been released by Kino Lorber Studio Classics in an attractive new Blu-ray edition. In the movie, U.S. Army Captain Rod Douglas (George Peppard) leads a three-man team across the Mexican Border in 1916. Douglas has been assigned to gather intelligence on a predatory rebel general, Cordoba (Raf Vallone), who has confiscated American-owned property in Mexico. Wealthy U.S. ranchers and politicians are demanding that the Army secure the border with troops (an outcry for a $70 billion wall would have to wait another hundred years). After Douglas’ team enters Mexico, one of the trio, Adam, is captured and tortured to death by Cordoba’s troops. Douglas and the third ranger, Jackson (Don Gordon), escape to warn Gen. Pershing (John Russell...

Review by Roger Carpenter

If you are a horror movie aficionado then no introduction is needed for Blood Feast, nor to the films of Herschel Gordon Lewis in general. But just in case you’ve never heard of this pioneering no-budget epic, here’s a quick synopsis. Blood Feast is the story of an Egyptian caterer, Fuad Ramses, who is into the dark arts and has a need for human body parts. It just so happens a series of gruesome killings of young women around town are occurring. Detective Thornton, along with the help of the beautiful and unwitting Suzette Fremont, try to solve the case before every young co-ed in town disappears. Blood Feast was a sensation when it was first released to the grindhouse/drive-in circuit in 1963. Over the years it became the stuff of legend to horror fans everywhere with Fangoria magazine praising Lewis’ films in its pages,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

It is arguable exactly when the first so-called spaghetti western was filmed (some critics go all the way back to 1943), but there isn’t much argument about when the genre was popularized, and that was with Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, released in 1964 and quickly followed by even more commercial success with 1965’s For a Few Dollars More. Of all the Italian film genres, spaghetti westerns may have been the most popular worldwide, and literally hundreds were produced, spawning subgenres like Zapatas (political films that criticized imperialism), gunslingers (featuring bounty hunters), betrayal stories, tragic heroes, and even comedy westerns.

The height of the spaghetti western craze was 1968, with 1969 seeing a marked decrease in these types of films being produced. Even though the cycle lasted well into the 1970’s—and some of the best of the genre were produced during that time—the genre was...

One of the biggest surprises of 2016 was “Hell or High Water,” an Oscar dark horse which starred Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges. The film was written by Taylor Sheridan, who also penned the script for Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario.” Sheridan stepped behind the camera for “Wind River,” a neo-western murder mystery which stars Jeremy Renner as a veteran wildlife officer who teams up with an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) after the body of an 18-year-old woman turns up on an Indian reservation in Wyoming.

“Wind River” has been one of 2017’s highest grossing indies, and Jeremy Renner continues to earn Oscar buzz for his lead performance. To celebrate the Blu-Ray release of “Wind River,” we’ve giving away five Blu-Ray copies of the film to five lucky winners based in the United States.

Read More:‘Wind River’ Review: Jeremy Renner Is An Ice-Cold Cowboy In Taylor Sheridan...

Review by Roger Carpenter

During the first half of the 60’s Mario Bava created several genuine horror classics that remain high-water marks in the genre over a half century later. Films such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), The Whip and the Body (1963), and Blood and Black Lace (1964) either pushed the boundaries of horror or helped to establish cinematic tropes still used in modern horror. Always saddled with shoestring budgets and bad deals, Bava nevertheless remained optimistic in the face of his cinematic struggles. A case in point is the troubled production of Kill, Baby…Kill! which ran out of money midway through the shoot. The cast and crew were so loyal to Bava they worked for free to finish the film—a film, by the way, which only had a 30-page script with no dialogue when filming commenced. Bava had the actors make up their own lines, preferring to resolve...

By Hank Reineke

From 1963 through 1966 Murray Lerner would make the yearly trek from New York City to the tony seaside town of Newport, Rhode Island. Once there, the documentarian seemingly photographed every major and minor player of the 1960’s folk music craze for his resulting award-winning film Festival (1967). Depending on one’s personal taste in music, the celluloid snippets offered in the film’s final edit – several capturing folk and blues artists performing in the prime of their careers – are either frustratingly truncated or mercifully brief in length.

As a lifelong folk music enthusiast, I would find this film a treasure even if the film’s “star players” (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary) were not featured. Watching snippets of such legends as Son House or Mississippi John Hurt sing the blues, Tex Logan and the Lilly Bros. sing their brand of high, lonesome bluegrass or Minneapolis’ Spider John...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Dawson City, located in the Yukon Territory of Canada, is inextricably linked to the 1896 gold rush. But the area had been an important seasonal fishing and hunting village for indigenous tribes for centuries before gold was discovered. Once the gold ran out, the city nearly ceased to exist before making headlines again in 1978 for a find nearly as extraordinary as the gold nearly a century before. This new discovery was of a cache of over 500 silent films from the earliest era of the movies, which had been buried for decades. Dawson City: Frozen Time is an exploration of the complicated history of the town as told through clips and still shots from the films salvaged from the tundra.

This area had long been a seasonal hunting ground for the Tr’ondek Hwech’in tribe, important because of its location at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers.

In 2006, Al Gore released “An Inconvenient Truth,” which broke down the science behind climate change and made it easily digestible for audiences. The impact was enormous, and climate change became a serious talking point in both politics and popular culture. “An Inconvenient Truth” inspired countless documentaries that have come in its wake, including Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2016 documentary “Before the Flood.”

Although Al Gore gained the nation’s attention in 2006, climate change has continued to spiral out of control, prompting the former Vice President to film a follow up film. As climate change continues to be debated in Congress, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” feels like an even more timely and necessary watch.

Read More:‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power’ Review: Al Gore Drops the Mic (Again) On Climate Change

In honor of the Blu-Ray release of “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” we’ve giving away...

Review by Roger Carpenter

When I first picked up this film I assumed it was a horror film because of the title. Apparently many other viewers made the same assumption. However, The Ghoul isn’t really a horror film as much as it is a character study…or a drama…or a detective thriller. Actually, I’m not quite sure how to categorize the film, which for some viewers will be a problem. It wasn’t a problem for me.

The film opens with a detective investigating a double murder. The crime apparently occurred several weeks before as the house is now clean, with a fresh coat of paint to disguise the blood spatters from multiple gunshots fired during the crime. The detective, Chris, is actually being shown about by the realtor who tells him the weird story of the crime. It seems the criminal had broken into the house...

Stalker Blu-ray Review Stalker (1979) Blu-Ray Review, a movie directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Nikolay Grinko , and Anatolly Solonitsyn Release Date: May, 1979 Plot “A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.” Disc Specifications Run Time: 161 Minutes Format: Blu-Ray Resolution: 1080p Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1 Language: Russian (Lcpm [...]

Continue reading: Blu-ray Review: Stalker (1979): A Metaphysical Journey Through Fear...

Review by Roger Carpenter

While Lucio Fulci made his reputation with a series of graphically violent horror movies like Zombie (Aka Zombi 2), City of the Living Dead (Aka The Gates of Hell), The House by the Cemetery, The Beyond, and The New York Ripper, his early career was a hodgepodge of film genres including comedies, spaghetti westerns, and poliziotteschi. However, many critics argue that his greatest films were his early gialli films like A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin and Don’t Torture a Duckling. Fulci was handicapped by terribly low budgets for most of his career but some of his earlier works were actually well-funded, allowing his cinematic craftsmanship to be on full display. Such was the case with Don’t Torture a Duckling.

As was the case with many gialli of the time period, the film titles were influenced by Argento’s first three gialli, collectively known as the “Animal Trilogy.

By Fred Blosser

The Warner Archive Collection has released John Landis’ “Innocent Blood” (1992) in a new, remastered Blu-ray edition. The Blu-ray incorporates two minutes of footage that appeared in overseas prints but were not included in previous U.S. releases. The film opens with a montage of the Pittsburgh skyline after dark, scored with Jackie Wilson’s lush 1960 ballad, “Night.” French vampire Marie (Anne Parillaud, in a lengthy nude scene) sits alone in her hotel room, deliberating on where to find her next sanguinary meal. She opens a newspaper to an article about a local Mafia crew headed by Sal “The Shark” Macelli and smiles: “I thought -- what about Italian?” She allows herself to be picked up by one of Sal’s henchmen, Tony (Chazz Palminteri), whose CD player is loaded with Sinatra discs. Just as Tony thinks she’s going to have sex with him, she chomps into...

With the movie awards season in full gallop, this week sees the release of a perennial favorite of Academy members: the big screen biography. Now this is a special type of “biopic” in that it doesn’t focus on the entire life (or many years of the life) of the subject, as with films like Ray or The Aviator. Really this new work zeroes in on a year or so of this great person’s career, much as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln concerned the last few months of the ole’ rail-splitter. Actually this may be closer to John Ford’s terrific Young Mr. Lincoln as it concentrates on a very early case, long before his great fame. And, in a way, this could be considered an “origin” story, much like the initial entries of movie hero franchises (or the first issues of comic book heroes). Yes, this man’s a...

Review by Roger Carpenter

My guess is that all true movie lovers have a list of films which remain unavailable on a decent DVD or Blu-Ray release and for which they are waiting for some company to pick up and give it a nice release. This was true for me regarding The Slayer. I first saw the film in the early-to-mid-eighties on a VHS double-bill with Fred Olen Ray’s Scalps. Both films were pretty terrible quality but both were fun in their own way and I duped both and kept them for a long time. Scalps has long since been on DVD (and recently Blu-Ray), and I have long owned a copy of that film which I still pull out from time to time and watch again. But my dupe of The Slayer died decades ago and I hadn’t viewed the film in a long time…...

Una (Rooney Mara) hides a photo of him under a flap of carpet in the corner of her bedroom. The photo is new — it’s been freshly torn from the pages of a trade magazine — but the bedroom is not. It’s the same bedroom that belonged to her when she was a kid, the same bedroom she slept in when she was 13 and one of her dad’s 40-year-old friends started flirting with her at a barbecue in the backyard. It’s the same bedroom she returned home to after that man stole her away on a trip down the coast of England, the morally dubious couple pretending to be father and daughter as they made their ill-fated break for the border. She never moved out, never grew up. Her body matured to adulthood, but the rest of her was frozen in time, the girl fractured like the face of a broken watch.

The Big Bang Theory, to be completely upfront, is a show that didn’t do much for me until at least the fifth season, which means I had to be convinced to watch it again. It always had a few laughs mixed in, but it was goofier than necessary and everything felt very forced. It wasn’t until about the seventh season that the show actually hit its stride, and that was mostly a result of having to adapt the characters, and the ways in which this was accomplished.

The tenth season only adds the show’s best efforts, especially when following the “adulting” of the crew. Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Kuoco) are married, but they run through their marriage again, which sets the stage for a very different dynamic, especially considering that Sheldon (Jim Parsons) has to factor in somewhere. Running through things again includes family, which...

Despite featuring what looks like a ghost straight out of a “Scooby-Doo” cartoon, “A Ghost Story” was one of 2017’s most poignant and beautiful films which ruminated on love, life and death. After dying in a car crash, a musician (Casey Affleck) returns home to his wife (Rooney Mara), as an almost cartoon ghost, draped in a sheet with cutout eyeholes.

The film struck a chord with critics at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and took the top spot in IndieWire’s mid-year ranking of the best indies of 2017. And of course, there’s the much-talked about scene of Rooney Mara eating an entire pie.

Read More:‘A Ghost Story’ Review: Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara Star in David Lowery’s Best Movie

To celebrate the Blu-Ray release of “A Ghost Story,” we’ve giving away five Blu-Ray copies of the film to five lucky winners based in the United States.

By Hank Reineke

Collectors and enthusiasts of the serials produced by Republic Pictures Corporation (1936-1955) have reason to rejoice. Save for the too occasional and often spotty rare film release, proprietary rights to the Republic’s vast back catalog from that studio’s “Golden Age” have mostly languished in the vaults. Then, with little fanfare, Paramount Pictures, Inc. - the company who had obtained the rights through a dizzying history of corporate takeovers and mergers - began to quietly make some of these moribund but treasured troves of rare films digitally available to fans in late 2015. Though streaming through the Youtube channel via the company’s Paramount Vault portal was not the platform that many of us had hoped for, it was a welcome turn of events and certainly better than nothing.

If nothing else it was a long time coming. Devotees of these decidedly nostalgic vintage chapter plays have...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Italian directors have always had a penchant for jumping on the cinematic bandwagon whenever a popular film is released. And we aren’t talking about just a couple of directors and a couple of films, but nearly all directors and, depending upon the genre, sometimes hundreds of films. Thus, we have the pepla of the 1950’s and 1960’s, the poliziotteschi and gialli of the 1970’s, the spaghetti westerns of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Jaws-inspired rip-offs, the Alien-inspired ripoffs, and the zombie and jungle/cannibal epics of the 1980’s. But, with the international sensation of the Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis vehicle entitled The Vikings in 1958, Italians were quick to jump on this particular bandwagon as well, resulting in a seven-year cycle of Viking films. And Mario Bava, best known for his proto-slashers and horror vehicles, was not averse to climbing on the bandwagon occasionally himself.

Review by Roger Carpenter

Sergio Martino was a journeyman Italian director who averaged around three films a year into the early nineties and who worked in many different genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent), spaghetti westerns (A Man Called Blade), poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals), sex comedies (Sex with a Smile), and action films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York). But this blue-collar filmmaker is arguably most famous for his early seventies gialli such as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and Torso. Each of these gialli films are–rightly so–considered genuine classics of the genre and fans of these films each have their favorite Sergio Martino giallo. However, his final giallo of this period (he...

Review by Jake Billingsley

Fire is commonly associated with passion and assertive action in philosophy; Sean Byrne’s latest feature The Devil’S Candy has plenty of the three. In only his second feature film, Byrne paints traditional horror elements through a satanic platform. Some of these elements provide a timeless effect and some have been dragged through the horror landscape for far too long.

The film’s core action takes place in a rural Texas landscape. It is the cliche story of a family moving into a new house that brings strange consequences. Have we traveled across this landscape before? Jesse Hellman, played by Ethan Embry, is the artist within the film; Embry gives a fine performance. Hellman is the type of guy you look at and imagine to be a rockstar, but on the other end his facial composure is comparable to Jesus. He paints butterflies for the...

If only its irony were the most painful thing about “Flatliners,” an artless and agonizingly boring remake of a semi-forgotten movie about the dangers of bringing things back from the dead. Lazily recycling the ’90s schlocky Joel Schumacher thriller of the same name (once a staple of video store shelves everywhere), this lifeless new version hits all the same beats as the original, but does so without a speck of the baroque style that made it such a fun thing to rent on a Friday night. At a time when making a movie — any movie — can feel like experimenting with life after death, there’s really no reason to belabor the point.

The story begins in the present day, nine years after Courtney (Ellen Page) accidentally killed her little sister in a car crash. Now an exhausted med student at a prestigious teaching hospital that seems to accept people based...

The first episode of “Speechless” Season 2 starts with a flurry. Part of the action comes from the plot, as the Dimeo family wakens to the startling revelation that their house has been tented for fumigation. In a panic, Maya (Minnie Driver), Jimmy (John Ross Bowie), and their children, Ray (Mason Cook), Dylan (Kyla Kenedy), and J.J. (Micah Fowler) roll out of bed and go rushing out into the street wearing nothing but their pajamas.

The whirlwind of activity also complements a mad rush of situational, verbal, and physical jokes. Starting inside Ray’s imagination, the cold open unveils our newly dating middle-child is being “incepted” by Dylan, who’s whispering negative thoughts into his ear in order to ruin his dreams (quite literally). When he tells her to go back to sleep, they realize it’s noon; a fact they missed because the tent draped over their house is...

“Seal Team” is a perfectly adequate military drama. Nothing about it will surprise you, and nothing about it will take you out of your comfort zone. Through two episodes, creator Benjamin Cavell’s new CBS series establishes itself as a serviceable entry in the growing canon of troops-on-the-ground TV shows, surpassing NBC’s entry “The Brave” and adding just enough visual flair and human connection to make David Boreanaz fans happy.

There is also a dog.

Named Dita in real-life, the dedicated canine companion plays a militarized man’s best friend. Specifically, Jason Hayes’ (Boreanaz) best friend, and she accompanies the elite group of Navy SEALs on their missions. Dita leads the charge through various homes, bombed out buildings, and underground tunnels, helping to track bad guys and point out dangerous traps facing the team.

Read More:‘This Is Us’ Season 2 Review: NBC Drama Grows Up in a Premiere...

As much as Harley Quinn is still having a moment off the back of Suicide Squad, the animated feature Batman and Harley Quinn is mostly a wasted opportunity.

The story includes some great elements that are delivered exceptionally well, but the positives are fighting an uphill battle against fart jokes and other inanities. How the combination came together is anyone’s guess, but it renders the whole a frustrating mix that can’t get out of its own way.

Poison Ivy and Jason Woodrue (The Floronic Man) have a scheme to save the world from the pollution and general pillaging of humans by mutating everyone into plant hybrids. The theory being that people will then have a more vested interest in keeping the world safe. It isn’t a scheme that makes a lot of sense, but crazy people and druid creatures from other dimensions make their own brand of sense.

One of the surprise hits of this year’s Sundance Film Festival was the Judd Apatow-produced romantic comedy “The Big Sick.” The film details the real-life relationship between “Silicon Valley” star Kumail Nanjani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, and how the couple’s relationship overcame cultural differences and a life-threatening illness. The film has been a box office success since it’s release over the summer, and remains atop the highest grossing indie films of 2017.

Read More:‘The Big Sick’ Review: Kumail Nanjiani’s Real-Life Story Is a Major Crowdpleaser — Sundance 2017

“The Big Sick” stars Nanjani, who plays himself, and Zoe Kazan, who plays his wife, as well as Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. To celebrate the Blu-Ray release of “The Big Sick,” we’ve giving away five Blu-Ray copies of the film to five lucky winners based in the United States.

Now through Friday,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

After experiencing huge critical and commercial success with the five-part film series collectively known as Battles without Honor and Humanity, the Toei Company asked director Kinji Fukasaku to continue the series. The original five films were based upon several magazine articles, themselves based upon the memoirs of an actual member of the Japanese mafia, or yakuza. The films proved to be so successful that Fukasaku essentially created a new subgenre known in Japan as Jitsuroku eiga, “actual record films,” or films based upon true tales of real-life adventures. But having run out of material with the first five films, Fukasaku would have to turn to more fictionalized stories as well as new characters if he wanted to continue the series. This three-film series became known as New Battles without Honor and Humanity and, though there have been other films in the series, these are the last directed by Fukasaku.

David Lynch: The Art Life Hero David Lynch: The Art Life Blu-ray Review David Lynch: The Art Life (2017) Blu-ray Review, a movie directed by Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm, starring David Lynch. Release Date: September 26, 2017. Plot “Artist and filmmaker David Lynch discusses his early life and the events that shaped his outlook on art and the creative process.” Disc Specifications Run Time: 88 min Format: [...]

Continue reading: Blu-Ray Review: David Lynch: The Art Life (2017): A Grainy Look At Lynch’s Own Dreamscape...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Earlier this summer I wrote a review for Arrow’s release of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. I didn’t review the film itself because I assumed the readers who might click on the review already knew the film well and were mostly concerned with whether or not it was worth picking up another copy of the film. I’m going to make the same assumption about Re-Animator, perhaps the only film in the history of cinema to ask the MPAA to surrender its R-rating so it could be released in unrated form (actually, re-released).

The film itself is a horror-comedy classic based on one of H.P. Lovecraft’s lesser known works entitled Herbert West: Re-Animator. At the time of its theatrical release it was considered cutting edge in the area of gore as well as altogether outrageousness. I suspect Lovecraft, who was so adept...

By Todd Garbarini

I’m a sucker for car chases. Not the perfunctory, last-minute “Hey, this movie needs a car chase!” variety, but the kind that comes as a result of a particular plot point wherein someone or some group has to get away from some other group. While most new car chases such as The Fast and the Furious sort are usually accomplished through CGI, I find that this sleight-of-hand fakery virtually abolishes all tension. The best ones that I have seen all did it for real through innovative and unprecedented filming techniques and excellent editing: Grand Prix (1966), Vanishing Point (1967), Bullitt (1968), The Seven-Ups (1973), The Blues Brothers (1980), The Road Warrior (1981), The Terminator (1984), F/X (1986), Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), and The Town (2010) all have action sequences that put the full wonder of film editing on display.

There are two major car chases in the late John Frankenheimer’s Ronin, which opened on Friday,...

By Hank Reineke

Though heavyweights Columbia and Universal produced as many serials as Republic Pictures from 1929-1956, the latter studio is generally best known for its exciting sound-era chapter-plays. Universal and the less widely known Mascot Pictures were in the game the earliest; both studios began releasing their sound serials in 1929. Mascot would only last six years or so. Universal – choosing to concentrate exclusively on the production of feature films – effectively got out of the serial business in 1946. Republic and Columbia hung on to the production of chapter-plays the longest; they released their final serials in 1955 and 1956, respectively.

Republic wasn’t only a serials factory. The studio was in the low budget feature filmmaking business as well, busily churning out a dizzying array of westerns, adventure pictures, and mysteries. They would test the box-office potentials of the horror film market during the 1940s with limited success. As a second-tier “Poverty Row” studio,...

By Todd Garbarini

The plot of Dario Argento’s 1985 thriller Phenomena has long been the subject of ridicule and derision by critics and fans alike since its initial release. The inevitable complaints about the film range from the bad dubbing and stiff performances to the ludicrous notion that insects can be employed as detectives in a homicide investigation (this is true and has actually been done, providing the inspiration for the film). If the film does not sound familiar, that could be attributed to the fact that Phenomena was severely cut by 33 minutes and retitled Creepers when it opened in the States on Friday, August 30, 1985.

Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) is a fourteen year-old student attending an all-girls school in Switzerland while her movie star father is away for the better part of a year shooting a film. Her mother, who left the family when Jennifer was a child, is merely mentioned but never seen.

Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2 Lionsgate / Starz Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo, Lucy Lawless, Lee Majors, Michelle Hurd, Ted Raimi Running Time: 288 min (2 discs) Unrated (violence, gore, language, nudity, sexuality) Available on DVD and Blu-Ray August 22 Ash (Bruce Campbell), Pablo (Ray Santiago), Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), and Ruby (Lucy […]

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“Sorry I can’t give you more.” Ray (Travis Fimmel) doesn’t speak much — it’s hard to talk with a can of beer pressed to your lips — so everything he says in his unplaceable twang carries a kind of double weight. His words might be the only thing in his life that he’s ever chosen carefully. So when he sits on the porch of his rundown Portland house, holds out a wad of cash, and apologizes to his towheaded teenage son that he only has $20 to spare, it’s easy to understand that Ray’s not just talking about the money.

It’s not that he’s a bad guy, necessarily, he’s just weak. A screw-up. He loves Charley (Charlie Plummer), and he’s raised the kid by himself after his ex-wife skipped out on them both, but he can’t hold down on a job to save his life,...

Inconceivable Blu-ray Review Inconceivable (2017) Blu-Ray Review, a movie directed by Jonathan Baker, starring Gina Gershon, Faye Dunaway , Nicky Whelan and Nicolas Cage. Release Date: June 30, 2017 Plot “A mother looks to escape her abusive past by moving to a new town where she befriends another mother, who grows suspicious of her.” Disc Specifications Run Time: [...]

Continue reading: Blu-ray Review: Inconceivable (2017): Nicholas Cage Can’t Save a Film Missing Tension...

The Movie:

In concept, ‘Alien: Covenant‘ is what ‘Prometheus‘ should have been. In many regards, the film is a vast improvement over it’s predecessor. It’s also better than many people are giving it credit for. Instead of focusing more on the philosophical aspects of the story, this film is a straight up Alien movie, and that’s a good thing. Unlike it’s predecessor, ‘Alien: Covenant‘ feels like it’s a return to form for both the franchise itself, as well as director Ridley Scott. Set roughly ten years after the events of ‘Prometheus’, the film is both a sequel to that, as well as a prequel to all of the previous Alien movies. But this is also part of the problem with the film, that it can’t quite juggle all of these aspects while also telling it’s own unique story. Despite a few minor flaws,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Italian director Fernando Di Leo is best known for his violent poliziotteschi, or crime films, like Caliber 9, The Italian Connection, The Boss, and Kidnap Syndicate, to name a few. However, like the majority of working Italian directors in the 70’s and 80’s, he worked in many genres including WWII pictures (Code Name, Red Roses), horror (Slaughter Hotel; Madness), and erotic dramas (Burn, Boy, Burn; A Wrong Way to Love). Seduction falls into this latter category.

Maurice Ronet stars as Giuseppe Lagan, a European playboy come back from Paris to settle his dead father’s affairs. He arrives in Catania, Sicily, and immediately rekindles his old friendship with Alfredo (Pino Caruso), a schoolmate of Giuseppe’s who is now a prominent jeweler in town. As they reminisce about their old flames, Giuseppe asks about Caterina (Lisa Gastoni), an ex-lover he’s never forgotten. It seems Caterina...

By Tim Greaves

The year is 1962. Aggrieved when Algeria is granted independence by President Charles de Gaulle, the militant underground alliance known as the Organisation Armée Secrète botches an attempt to assassinate him. Within months many of the conspirators, including their top man, have been captured and executed. The remaining Oas leaders, bereft of funds, take refuge in Austria and warily decide to contract an outside professional to do the job for them. They settle on a British assassin (Edward Fox), who chooses to be identified as Jackal. The Oas orchestrate several bank robberies to cover his exorbitant fee of half a million dollars whilst the mechanics of the plotting are left entirely to Jackal's discretion. After capturing and interrogating another alliance member, the French authorities learn of Jackal's existence and, suspecting another attempt on de Gaulle's life may be imminent, they set their best man – Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) – on his tail.

An uneven oddity from writer/directors Joshua and Ben Safdie, Good Time never generates the momentum its ‘one crazy night’ premise needs, but its mood is dark, its settings weird, and its characters eccentric enough that I recommend it. This tale of crime and urban living takes place in the streets of the Queens section of NYC. Robert Pattinson stars as Constantine “Connie” Nikas, a wiry scruff who teams up with his mentally-challenged younger brother Nick (Ben Safdie) for a bank robbery that goes all kinds of wrong. The dye packs explode, dousing them both in red. Connie somehow escapes but Nick runs through a glass door and is apprehended. Soon after he’s tossed in jail, Nick picks a fight with another prisoner that doesn’t end well for him and he’s transported to a hospital. Increasingly desperate, Connie spends the rest of the night trying to free his brother from captivity,...

Back when actor Samuel L. Jackson first graced the big screen in the post-credits scene of Iron Man, the then-young Marvel Studios had no idea of it would actually lead anywhere. Now here we are, years and 15 films later. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is stronger than ever, and by the time this current “arc” is done in a couple years, it’ll have 22 movies under its belt.

In the grand scheme of things, things seem to be wrapping up. Iron Man is getting older, Captain America seems destined for an early grave in Avengers 4, and we’re certain to see some solid changes in the Avengers lineup. And we don’t mean the “kinda sorta B-squad” lineup change like we saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron — no, we mean the real stuff. Though while some aspects are drawing to a close, we can’t forget that Marvel Studios hopes to be around for practically ever,...

The upcoming Death Note film is one that’s been plagued with doubt and ridicule from day one. Anime and manga fans aren’t exactly known for keeping their feelings secret, and with the continual declarations of whitewashing overseas properties the casting of Nat Wolff as Light certainly didn’t help a whole lot. But would this be a film that would crash and burn like other similar manga adaptations like Ghost in the Shell and Dragon Ball Evolution?

Lrm had a chance to attend a special screening at last month’s San Diego Comic-Con, and we’re happy to report that no, we do not believe this one will suffer a similar fate. While fans of the manga will likely still poke and prod this adaptation due to its relative unfaithfulness to the manga (it uses the premise as a jumping off point, rather than sticking to each core...

David Hasselhoff is making a come back… sort off. At the very least, the Baywatch and Knight Rider star had a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 -- where he received a new nickname, Zardu Hasselfrau –- and starred in the music video for Guardians’ Inferno, a special feature for the film. If you think Hasselhoff is ready to fade back into obscurity, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, Hasselhoff has the perfect project for himself. If anyone else is interested in making it. Or seeing it…

Hasselhoff had a conversation with CinemaBlend about his role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Hasselhoff couldn’t help but pitch his dream project:

"I have met Robert Rodriguez. He does Dusk til Dawn and Machete. And I said 'You need to do Knight Rider.' Because he was doing a marathon of Knight Riders and he said 'Can we have a selfie!

Review by Roger Carpenter

Director Kinji Fukasaku and writer Kazuo Kasahara, both of the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, team up with Fukasaku’s favorite yakuza star, Bunta Sugawara—also of Battles Without Honor and Humanity fame—to create the kinetic yakuza drama Cops Vs Thugs.

Two rival gangs vie for a lucrative land deal and it’s up to the cops to keep the balance. Detective Kuno (Sugawara) has forged an unlikely relationship with up-and-coming gangster Hirotani (Hiroki Masukata) of the Ohara gang, thus ensuring they have a competitive edge over their rivals, the Kawade gang. But when violence erupts between the two gangs over the land deal, it is up to Lt. Kaida (Tatsuo Umemiya) to settle the score once and for all. Unfortunately, Lt. Kaida is a by-the-book cop, which doesn’t sit well with the thugs as they are used to Detective Kuno’s more relaxed dealings with the gangs.