The French Cinéma du look movement of the 1980s and ’90s crashes headfirst into the Hollywood action blockbuster in director Luc Besson’s très cool assassin thriller La Femme Nikita. Criticized at the time for prioritizing style over substance, Besson’s film was nonetheless very popular, has proven quite influential, and remains a thrilling piece of pop… Read More She Has Potential | La Femme Nikita (1990) 4K Ultra HD
In his more than three decades doing it to date, Richard Linklater has had an erratic career directing movies. He’s made a small handful of classics, several other worthy efforts, and a few cult favorites, but also a whole bunch of middle-of-the-road misfires that went nowhere. His latest feature, Hit Man, is a pleasant enough… Read More This Is What Happens When You Hire an Amateur | Hit Man (2024) on Netflix
Released December 22, 1989, the action blockbuster Tango & Cash was (alongside Steven Spielberg’s Always) literally the last movie of the 1980s. Big, loud, dumb, and defiantly unwilling to take itself seriously for even a second, the film could almost be read as commentary on a decade famous for its excess, and a genre that… Read More Good Old American Action | Tango & Cash (1989) Blu-ray
Hollywood has been warning us about the dangers of A.I. for decades. Look to the Terminator franchise for the most famous example of that, of course. However, as A.I. tools work their way into the real-world film production chain, such that a good chunk of Netflix originals often feel like they were probably scripted by… Read More Don’t Be Fooled by the Bot That She’s Got | Atlas (2024) on Netflix
As the world celebrated Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One as if it were the greatest science fiction masterpiece in the entirety of cinema history back in 2021, I was among the rare outliers who didn’t care for the movie. I found it a bore, and yes, I’m one of those weirdoes who prefers the David… Read More May Thy Knife Chip and Shatter | Dune: Part Two (2024) 4K Ultra HD
When trailers for the upcoming remake of The Crow were unveiled earlier this year, fans of the original 1994 film were left appalled. True enough, the old movie already had some pretty lousy cash-in sequels, but most of those went direct-to-video and were easily ignored. Even three decades later, something about the prospect of rebooting… Read More Guy Shows Up Looking Like a Mime from Hell | The Crow (1994) 4K Ultra HD
Of the small wave (apologies for the pun) of deep-sea thrillers that hit movie theater screens in 1989, Leviathan was neither the most nor the least successful of the bunch. The film scored mostly poor reviews and failed to recoup its budget at the box office, but at least did better than Deepstar Six or… Read More Not Down Here for Fun | Leviathan (1989) 4K Ultra HD
As the first original series for the launch of a new free streaming platform with the nondescript name of The Network (or possibly just Network, judging by the company logo) that seemed to come from out of nowhere this week, you could say that The Green Veil has flown under the radar. Amusingly, flying under… Read More Aliens Are Nothing to Worry About | The Green Veil (2024) Series Premiere on The Network
Discounting his debut on the schlocky Piranha II: The Spawning, which the filmmaker himself leaves off his résumé, 1989’s The Abyss remains the only box office failure James Cameron has directed to date. Since emerging with The Terminator in 1984, Cameron has helmed one blockbuster hit after another, including two (Titanic and Avatar) that respectively… Read More Are We Talkin’ Little Space Friends Here? | The Abyss (1989) 4K Ultra HD
Released at the end of 2023, Zack Snyder’s would-be sci-fi epic Rebel Moon: Part One turned out to be such a non-event that I half-expected Netflix to quietly scuttle the sequel without making a fuss or drawing attention to it. Honestly, would anyone have even noticed if it simply never showed up when originally announced?… Read More Cut the Snyder Release | Rebel Moon: Part Two (2024) on Netflix
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