Blu-ray Review: ‘Blacula: The Complete Collection’
★★☆☆☆ The Blaxploitation movement was renowned for bringing its own unique cultural spin to many well-trodden genres, and the world of classic horror proved...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★☆☆☆ Maïwenn’s French period drama Jeanne du Barry is the perfect opening salvo for the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.
★★☆☆☆ The Blaxploitation movement was renowned for bringing its own unique cultural spin to many well-trodden genres, and the world of classic horror proved...
★★★★☆ Celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, the classic animated interpretation of Animal Farm (1954) by British studio Halas and Batchelor, captures perfectly the timeless message...
★★★★☆ Rolling off New York’s F line, 21st Street you find yourself in the maltreated bosom of North America’s largest public housing development. Paved...
★★☆☆☆ Shawn Levy, director of Night at the Museum (2006) and Date Night (2010), takes a break from his usual comedy-heavy fare to direct...
★★☆☆☆ Opening with an blurry-eyed, ethereal exposition that treats the audience to a brief taste of the film’s tragic climax, Fredrik Bond’s The Necessary...
★★☆☆☆ Etching another notch on the bedpost of the already crowded will they/won’t they? vein of romantic comedy, Love, Rosie (2014) boasts a fresh-faced...
★★☆☆☆ John Ridley’s Hendrix biopic Jimi: All Is By My Side (2013) is an intriguing shambles of a film. Denied rights by the Hendrix...
★★☆☆☆ Experienced animator Jorge R. Gutierrez teams up with fan-favourite producer Guillermo Del Toro for his directorial debut The Book of Life (2014), a...