Did the much-awaited Blood River manage to surpass its predecessor, the surprise new-wuxia hit, The Blood of Youth?

I’ve long wanted to watch the British miniseries, Edward the King (1975) (aka Edward the

I’ve been waiting for this to be unleashed…  and here it is. The 2026 winner of the Best Animation at the National Student Emmys is Love & Gold, written and directed by Connor VanDyke and produced by Jaysen Duckworth.  Representing BYU, it’s the university’s fifth consecutive win in this category and has now been released in full on YouTube.  Watching it in full for the first time today, this animated short certainly does have winner written all over it – from start to finish. Before I take ...

Finally got around to seeing Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. What a film. Magnificent cinematography and color grading. Performances were monumental. Americana for the ages (even through the eyes of a German director). The Criterion 4k remaster is where it’s at.

★★★★★ - A friendly world-dominating AI vs. a surly nun. A tale of our dependence on technology and the lengths people will go to feel appreciated, wrapped in the weirdest take on the Holy Grail I've ever seen. Seriously absurd, and occasionally absurdly serious.

Elfriede Jelinek’s name is synonymous with language. As Austria’s first Nobel laureate, she was so crowned “for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.” And in Ramsau am Dachstein, which made its television debut on May 21, […]

Kid is visiting Dad, who catches fish and lobsters along the coral reef. I chilled out to the movie’s rhythms, and could’ve fallen asleep if not for this excellent egret. The producer is a powerhouse, the director has some little-seen followup films, and you could (and probably should) watch three of ’em together in the […]

Paul Levitz (script) James Sherman (pencils) Bob McLeod (inks) Cory Adams (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Al Milgrom (editor) Once again, the feature story opens with Wildfire being a jerk. Last issue, he was going to let a Science Police officer die because her spaceship wasn’t well-maintained, and this issue, he’s going off on a fascist … Continue reading Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #242

This episode of Drag Race is brought to you by the STOP! THAT! TRAIN!, in theaters this summer. CLÁUDIO ALVES: Well, that was an interesting hour of television. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss would be proud of Mama Ru, because she truly subverted our expectations. Now, let’s wait and see if Drag Race can stick the landing after this shocker or if, like the last season of Game of Thrones, it’ll crash and burn and relinquish all the audience goodwill it accrued so far. Maybe it’s wrong of me to ...

A beautiful, timely film about friendship.

The first recording today starts with the end of Hole in the Wall. What a strange, silly programme this was. There’s a trail for Gavin and Stacey. There’s trails for Young Hairdresser of the Year and a promo for DAB digital radio. Plus a promo for the Strictly Come Dancing website and socials. Then it’s time for another episode of Merlin – Sweet […]

Lovely and delightful, a bunch of the greatest actresses in a color-coordinated single-location murder-mystery musical. I take it Ozon isn’t always good, but I’m thankful to discover that he was ever this good. The ending is a bit cruel (you shouldn’t shoot yourself in front of your kids). Won a cast award at Berlin (you […]

The Fan is rarely anyone’s favorite Otto Preminger film, but it happens to be mine. I admit it is neither the best nor most groundbreaking movie he ever made, yet it is the one I am always the most eager to revisit. There’s something comfortable about it for me. Adapted from Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play … Continue reading Movie of the month: The Fan (dir. Otto Preminger, 1949)

Movies about psychologically damaged people can easily lead to dramatic overkill. Fantasy Life, which stars Amanda Peet as a 50ish actress whose career has evaporated, takes a different approach. Written and directed by Matthew Shear, who also plays a lead role, the movie takes place against a backdrop of ongoing crises that have become the soundtrack for the characters’ lives.  Shear plays Sam, a schlub who, after losing his job as a paralegal, consults with his therapist (Judd Hirsch). Hi...

Just got back from seeing the Super Mario Galaxy movie with the kids. I liked it. Two things that struck me: 1) Just how massive Nintendo’s IP has become over...

Plunged headlong into GOYA – THE HARD PATH TO KNOWLEDGE (1971) without knowing a thing about it save that it was an East German movie about Francisco Goya and the images I could see looked amazing. It involves Russian money too, and if it seems weird that the East Germans and Russians made a film […]

WatchingI started watching Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. The ethics of messing with someone who feels like they are building friendships in a new workplace is extremely questionable, but it is very funny and the characters are likable. Pranking people on such a large scale over such a long

April is always a busy month around these shadowy and satiny parts – in the midst of preparing for my annual trip to the TCM film festival (this year will mark my 12th in-person visit), I also have the Dark Pages film noir newsletter to get to press, along with any other assignments or experiences […]

Good to see this again even if it is an unofficial “remastering” of the original. Visions of Light is a feature-length documentary about the art of cinematography as practiced in (mostly) American cinema. The film was made by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels for the American Film Institute in 1992, and is unique … Continue reading "Visions of Light"

Lemony Snicket has a new set of string walls in A Series of Unfortunate Events s03e01 (Netflix, 2019).

Time to resume my kaiju review series with season 2 of AppleTV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, part of Legendary’s Godzilla/King Kong MonsterVerse. My recap/reviews of season 1 can be found here: The creative staff is essentially the same as in season 1, with Matt Shakman (WandaVision, The Fantastic Four: First Steps as executive producer, Chris […]

A cinema subscription, a favourite movie, and a reminder: your own taste is the only review that actually matters.

Brief thoughts and a sort-of review of John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 (2000).

In today’s installment of this blog, we find out if The Life and Death of

I've learned exclusively today that the next season of The Amazing Race will return to a similar model as season 8, staying inside the United States, thanks to both a mandate and changes at CBS.