If the financial failure of Blade Runner in 1982 posed a serious setback for the director, his next feature project, Legend, was the film that broke Ridley Scott. Although his career would recover and he’d go on to be nominated for several Oscars over time (some of dubious merit, if you ask me), the film’s… Read More No Light without Darkness | Legend (1985) Arrow Video Limited Edition Blu-ray
In the decade between its disastrous theatrical failure in 1982 and the more triumphant reception of its 1992 Director’s Cut, Ridley Scott’s science-fiction masterwork Blade Runner endured as a cult item with a small but loyal fandom. The film’s fortunes started to turn around with the accidental discovery of an unfinished workprint version screened as… Read More You Were Made As Well As We Could Make You | Blade Runner: Workprint Cut (1982) Blu-ray
Released on Max streaming over the past month with little fanfare and I’m sure little attention paid, the animated science fiction survival adventure drama Scavengers Reign is one of the most fascinating, creative, at times frustrating, and very often downright baffling new television series to come along in ages. After watching the first few episodes,… Read More This Place, It’s Like a Puzzle | Scavengers Reign Season 1 (2023) on Max
The corporate zeal to turn every piece of remotely valuable I.P. into a shared cinematic universe will eventually have to hit a tipping point where the gambit simply no longer works anymore. I’m not sure that we’ve gotten there yet, but I think we’re close. The latest in the cycle comes with the premiere of… Read More Godzilla without Much Godzilla | Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023) Apple TV+ Series Premiere
Despite inexplicably failing at the box office during its original release in its native Hong Kong, director John Woo’s 1989 action thriller The Killer became a major hit throughout the rest of the world during international distribution, and even decades later is still regarded as one of the greatest action movies ever made. You’d think… Read More A Ballet of Bullets | The Killer (1989) Hong Kong Rescue Blu-ray
Following a brief and frankly uneventful theatrical release a few weeks ago, the latest feature from acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher arrives at what was always intended to be its true home on Netflix. Based on a French graphic novel series from 1998 that the director had been circling for adaptation at least as far back… Read More Stick to the Plan | The Killer (2023) on Netflix
Even among fans who love it, David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune must be acknowledged as a very messy production with a terrible reputation. One of the most expensive movies ever made at the time, the result was met with critical scorn and box office disaster upon its release in late 1984. Four decades later, author… Read More Our Test Is Crisis | A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune (2023) Book Review
Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller novel by author Anthony Doerr, the new four-episode limited series All the Light We Cannot See is a prestige production with all the high-gloss production values a hefty Netflix budget can buy. It’s also completely ridiculous, to a frankly laughable degree. I suppose that’s what you get when you… Read More Hysterical Blindness | All the Light We Cannot See (2023) Netflix Limited Series
Many of the bestselling spy novels by John le Carré have made popular fodder for film and television adaptations over the years, some more successfully than others. Often regarded among the best of them is the 1979 BBC miniseries version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Even four decades later, the show maintains a reputation as… Read More Who Can Spy on the Spies? | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) Blu-ray
The Blumhouse production of Five Nights at Freddy’s turns the favorite horror-themed, point-and-click video game series of ‘tweens everywhere into a live-action fright flick. For that target audience, this may well be the movie event of the year. Everyone else will probably wonder what the fuss is about. Distributor Universal Pictures made an interesting decision… Read More Family-Friendly Fun and Cutting Edge Animatronic Technology | Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)
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