New DVD release

14 Mar

What Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Does Better Than the Book

New DVD release

This Dune article contains spoilers. It remains to be seen if Dune will win Best Picture at the 2022 Oscars. For certain fans of science fiction cinema, it certainly feels like it should. Just like the novel it adapts, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is more than just a good science fiction story, it’s a good movie first and a good science fiction film second. This means that arguably it’s a good Dune adaptation third. Although the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel version of Dune was pretty faithful to the text, it wasn’t a crowd-pleaser. Villeneuve’s goal was to cast a bigger net, to…

Read More

14 Mar

Daredevil vs. Daredevil? Charlie Cox Mocks Ben Affleck’s Suit

New DVD release

This article contains spoilers for Marvel’s Hawkeye If there’s one thing superhero fans love, it’s when a good guy fights a good guy. It’s even better when those good guys are the same guy. Hot off his return to the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Charlie Cox had some unflattering things to say about the 2003 Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck. Cox told fans at the Middle East Film & Comic Con 2022 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates that he never saw Affleck’s superhero movie debut before he was cast as Daredevil. According to People, Cox told the crowd, “I don’t…

Read More

14 Mar

Final Sonic 2 Trailer Misses Out On Referencing A Classic Meme

New DVD release

The final trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is action-packed and filled with new moments. Sonic and Tails flying from a snow covered mountain to a Hawaii wedding. Sonic and Tails fighting against a giant mecha built by Robotnik. More of Idris Elba’s voice as Knuckles! But towards the end of the trailer, Knuckles taunts Sonic. With audio most likely taken from their big climatic battle, Knuckles insults Sonic with some choice words. “You’re unskilled. Untrained. Unworthy!” Sonic won’t take that lying down. He gets to his feet, rubbing the dirt off his face, and responds with,“You forgot one. Unstoppable.”…

Read More

14 Mar

X Review: A24 Horror Finds Sweet Side of a Texas Porn Massacre

New DVD release

Porn. The ‘70s. A Texas summer night massacre. There are so many salacious buzzwords you can apply to Ti West’s horror return that all there appears to be missing is a chainsaw. But for whatever frothy vivaciousness it brings, what’s most striking about the simply titled X is that it’s no frolic. The A24 movie about sex workers and porn stars has a melancholic soul, and, at least for half of its running time, concerns itself with matters above the belt. The film, which just had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, certainly dabbles in exploitation, happily indulging every…

Read More

14 Mar

Apollo 10 1/2 Review: Richard Linklater’s Love Letter to the Space Age

New DVD release

From Los Angeles to Austin, and Mexico to the UK, there appears to be something in the water sipped on by major directors. How else do you explain so many respected auteurs getting nostalgic for their formative years, be it Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma or Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast—Spielberg even has one out later this year. Yet Richard Linklater’s newest entry in the emerging genre, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, might be the most happily youthful of these to date. For here is a reverie that’s less concerned about how things really occurred than it is with capturing the exuberance…

Read More

14 Mar

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Dives into the Past to Prepare for the Future

New DVD release

This Jujutsu Kaisen 0 review contains no spoilers. The anthology magazine Weekly Shonen Jump has published many blockbuster manga throughout its decades-long history. Most have become anime. In recent memory, these titles have included the ninja epic Naruto, the superhero-themed My Hero Academia, and the record-shattering Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. In October 2020, Jujutsu Kaisen joined their ranks with a 24-episode TV anime. Much like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen‘s popularity skyrocketed once the anime began airing. By the time the season concluded in early 2021, fans were clamoring for a second one. The manga is still serializing, after all,…

Read More

12 Mar

How Turning Red Opens the Door for More Asian Representation at Pixar

New DVD release

There has never been a coming-of-age story quite like Pixar’s Turning Red before, and that’s because it comes from a very personal place.  Set in 2002, the movie follows Torontonian teen Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang). She loves her mom, Ming (Sandra Oh), and wants nothing more than to live up to her expectations. But she’s going through a lot of big changes that threaten to throw her off of her life’s course. Namely, a curse that transforms her into a red panda whenever she has an emotional outburst. “I was Mei in the early 2000s Toronto. I was that dorky,…

Read More

12 Mar

The Batman vs. Zack Snyder’s Batman: How Are They Different?

New DVD release

This article contains spoilers of The Batman and the DCEU. It’s been nearly a decade since the release of a solo Batman movie, 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, and as we approach the 10-year anniversary of the much-debated conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy, a new standalone film about the Caped Crusader, Matt Reeves’ The Batman, is now in theaters. But meanwhile, in the interregnum between the end of Nolan’s mostly brilliant triptych and what we hope is the beginning of a new series of Batfilms under Reeves’ watch, a different variation of Gotham’s protector showed up in…

Read More

12 Mar

Everything Everywhere All at Once Is the Best Multiverse Movie Ever

New DVD release

It’s a thought we’ve all had before. Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Did I take a wrong turn somewhere along the way? An entire subgenre of mumblecore indies has blossomed from such universal ennui. At first glance, the Daniels’ deceptively straightforward Everything Everywhere All at Once might be one of them. The film’s protagonist, Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), is a meek middle-aged woman who can barely stand her nerdy husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) or the life they’ve built for the last 30 years running a laundromat. And these days, their only source of excitement is the…

Read More

12 Mar

Viral Batman Returns Review Adds Twist to Superhero Movie Discourse

New DVD release

In a viral clip currently making the rounds on Twitter, young movie critic Danny Slaski offers a frank review of 1992’s Batman Returns: “It was very violent, it was a total attack against kids.” Complaints about media violence are nothing new. But Slaski’s charges may carry greater weight precisely because of who he is. The attack comes not from a religious organization or a parents group looking to protect the innocence of youngsters, but rather from an actual kid. The video circulated by the Found Footage Fest Twitter account finds Slaski sharing his review on the talk show A Closer Look. “Everything that…

Read More

12 Mar

The Batman Comic You Should Read After Seeing the Movie

New DVD release

One of the big questions we’re always asked whenever there’s a new superhero movie is what comics should someone who only knows a character from TV or movies check out. Sometimes this question is easier to answer than other times, but with The Batman, it’s an incredibly easy answer. Batman: The Imposter, which is now available in hardcover from DC Comics, reads like a direct sequel to the new movie. It isn’t one, to be clear, but if all you know about the character and his world is what you just saw on the screen? Then The Imposter is a…

Read More

12 Mar

The Adam Project Ending and Time Travel Explained

New DVD release

This article contains major spoilers for The Adam Project The Adam Project is a super fun new sci-fi movie from Netflix that speeds through its key rules and pretty much asks you not to worry about them, but if you’re the kind of person that worries about the rules, you’re gonna worry about them anyway! Let’s look at how Netflix’s big budget family movie sets out the past, present, and future, and explore the film’s hopeful ending, which wipes the slate clean for a planet on the road to some very, very bad times. Why Did Adam Travel Back in…

Read More

11 Mar

Turning Red and the Double-Edged Sword of Pixar Expectations

New DVD release

For Pixar’s first 15 years as a studio, their output was red hot. It’s almost an unprecedented streak of creativity, with each subsequent film raising the bar set by the last. During this period, Pixar almost singlehandedly changed the critical conversation about animated films as a medium and demanded that the art-form be taken as seriously as any other medium. To state it plainly, Pixar films were events. However, in the 2010s some of that can’t-miss aura started to fade. While the studio was still capable of turning out heart-wrenching, deep and rewarding all-ages content, such as Inside Out and…

Read More

11 Mar

The Lost City: How Sandra Bullock Discovered New Comedy Gold

New DVD release

Before the world was turned upside down by a global pandemic, Sandra Bullock and Liza Chasin were on the hunt for hidden gold. A script that had been sitting on a shelf for seven long years had just come into their possession. And while not perfect, something shiny and vital was glittering under the surface. “We knew there was a reason it was sitting on a shelf,” Bullock says. Then came the lightbulb moment. “Oh my God, I see it! I see it! I know what it should be,” she declares. “Then you get really excited, then you panic because…

Read More

11 Mar

Power Rangers: The Road to Queer Representation

New DVD release

Warning: The article contains references to homophobia and suicide. On Oct. 15, 2021, Power Rangers Dino Fury’s ‘The Matchmaker’ debuted on Netflix and ended like most Power Rangers episodes do. In it, the Dino Fury team saves the world from a giant monster and Javi, the Black Ranger, learns a valuable life lesson in communication after assuming his sister Izzy, the Green Ranger, had a crush on a guy.“She really was acting different though,” Javi tries to reason. “I was sure it was cause she had feelings for someone.”  He turns around he spots Izzy smiling with Fern, another teen…

Read More

10 Mar

John Carpenter Still Open to Making Escape from Earth

New DVD release

Paramount Home Entertainment just released Escape from L.A. (1996) on 4K Ultra HD and its darkness has never been clearer. In it, former marine commando and all-around badass, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), is captured by the New Moral America and dropped into the country’s immoral detention center to steal a doomsday device designed to douse all power on the planet. The film marked John Carpenter’s first sequel, following up on the iconic dystopian satire, Escape from New York  (1981), with even more nihilistic bite, and an ending darker than a fade to black. Directed from a screenplay Carpenter co-wrote with…

Read More

10 Mar

The Adam Project Review: Ryan Reynolds Takes on Time Travel in Netflix’s Latest

New DVD release

He’s a charming devil, that Ryan Reynolds. And even if he is a bit like a subway sandwich – every roll (role) tastes the same – when it’s a flavor that you like, it doesn’t matter. If you’re on board with Reynolds’ gobby, boyish, charisma, coupled with his convincing action chops, The Adam Project is for you. Added bonus: in The Adam Project you kind of get a double helping of Reynolds sauce.  Reuniting with his Free Guy director Shawn Levy, Reynolds plays fighter pilot Adam Reed from 2050, who crash lands back in time to 2022 where runs into…

Read More

10 Mar

Batman Actors Ranked from Worst to Best

New DVD release

Over 80 years of stories have made Batman one of the most enduring characters in pop culture history. In that time, the Dark Knight has also been the subject of more big-screen adaptations than any other superhero to date, starring in 11 live-action movies and counting. The Batman is the latest take on the character, with 2023’s The Flash set to bring back two other Caped Crusaders for a time-shattering adventure through the multiverse that will then lead into HBO Max’s Batgirl, where the Dark Knight will play a supporting role. As much as we love seeing Batman in theaters,…

Read More

09 Mar

How 300 Paved the Way for Zack Snyder’s Justice League

New DVD release

300 may not hold much significance to the teenage set of DCEU fans who were too young to bask in its bloody ballet of high drama when it debuted 15 years ago, but the overall look and tone of the DCEU, established in large part by Zack Snyder, can be traced back to his landmark second feature. The painterly, desaturated colors and tones of 300 laid the foundation for the Snyder-helmed Justice League and their earliest offshoots, which evoke a considerably darker, more adult tone than the brighter, poppier MCU films. And while dark comic book movies are quite common…

Read More

09 Mar

Best Robert Pattinson Movies to Watch After The Batman

New DVD release

Before The Batman, Robert Pattinson was sparkly vampire Edward Cullen. And before that he was Hufflepuff’s star seeker Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. But in between his heartthrob era (Remember Me, Water for Elephants) and none-more-moody Batman times, Pattinson did some really interesting stuff. The actor has traversed genres and styles, flipping from studio films to indies, and some of his most fascinating work has often gone under the radar. If you want more of Pattinson after watching The Batman, here’s a list of some of the actor’s finest turns, from supporting roles and stand out turns in ensemble pieces…

Read More