Star Trek: Generations is neither the best nor the worst of the franchise’s many feature films. Looking across the entire range of them, it falls somewhere near the lower middle of the pack. Narrowed down specifically to the four Next Generation cast movies, it would have to land in second place – but to be… Read More It Was… Fun | Star Trek: Generations (1994) 4K Ultra HD
The action-adventure fantasy Megaforce is a legendarily terrible movie that any fan of 1980s cheese ought to find very easy to fall in love with. The film is a very specific product of the early ’80s, a moment when the manufactured patriotism and military-industrial expansion of the Reagan era collided with a pop culture explosion… Read More I Love You, But You’re Hopeless | Megaforce (1982) Blu-ray
The qualities that caused Dragonslayer to fail at the box office in 1981 are very likely the same reasons the film has endured for so long as a cult item with many passionate fans. Released at a time when what passed for movies in the fantasy-adventure genre were typically jokey and juvenile in nature (see… Read More We Shall Live and the Beast Shall Die | Dragonslayer (1981) 4K Ultra HD
First published in 1963, John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was designed as a corrective against the far-fetched espionage fantasy of Ian Fleming’s popular James Bond series. A movie adaption followed two years later, released right at the height of Bond-mania. While perhaps not cultural milestones on quite the same… Read More You Can’t Be Less Wicked Than Your Enemy | The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) Criterion Collection Blu-ray
The title itself is probably the funniest thing in Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part I. After his razor-sharp parodies of Westerns (Blazing Saddles) and classic horror movies (Young Frankenstein), Brooks was practically the king of cinematic comedy. When his next two efforts (Silent Movie and High Anxiety) fizzled a little with audiences, the… Read More It’s Good to Be the King | History of the World Part I (1981)
Predicting the annual Oscar race is more about psychology than artistic merit. The Best Picture winner is rarely the actual best film released in a given year. Guessing which people and movies will take home trophies is a matter of understanding how and why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences members will vote… Read More 2023 Oscar Winners and Associated Nonsense
Before her popular supporting role in the American Pie movies, before the messy public battles with drug addiction that nearly killed her, and long before her career turnaround in Orange Is the New Black, Russian Doll, and Poker Face, a young actress named Natasha Lyonne made her first breakthrough splash starring in the 1998 coming-of-age… Read More We’re Not Regular Poor | Slums of Beverly Hills (1998)
Renowned, Oscar-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley tears across the screen with such ferocity in Sexy Beast that viewers would be forgiven for remembering little else about the film beyond his performance. That was certainly the case for me. The movie is a fairly entertaining little crime thriller, but I’d forgotten almost everything about the story… Read More Do the Job | Sexy Beast (2000)
As a young film student in 1993, I walked out of the theater ecstatic about Tony Scott’s True Romance. I went back to see it a couple more times, but couldn’t convince any of my friends to go with me. From the title, they all assumed it must be a sappy rom-com that would hold… Read More If I’m With You, Then I’m With You | True Romance (1993) 4K Ultra HD
Released in the highly-competitive 1999 fall movie season against dozens of good-to-great films from other major artists, Steven Soderbergh’s modest crime thriller The Limey slipped through the cracks and drew little attention. Although kindly received by critics, it made no money and, even a couple decades later, remains one of the director’s least-seen works. Yet… Read More You Tell ‘im I’m Coming | The Limey (1999) 4K Ultra HD
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