Images courtesy of MVD Entertainment Group Music fans Greg Carey and Wade Jackson never made a documentary film before let alone wrote, produced, edited or scored one in a very do-it-yourself fashion.  However when the story of American singer and songwriter Van Duren came about, the former member of the Memphis, Tennessee based band Big Star who broke out on his own to record solo albums and nearly became ‘the next Paul McCartney’ after working with Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham, the duo sprung to action and became part of a chapter of musical history that would ..read more

Images courtesy of Arrow Video Anthony Mann was hitting his stride in the 1950s as a singular auteur of the American western, fresh off of his 1954 Jimmy Stewart starring epic The Far Country involving a nuanced portrait of a complicated antihero and doling out contemporary westerns that seemed to send up expectations of the genre conventions.  Going on to direct two more westerns in 1955 with The Last Frontier and The Man from Laramie, Mann briefly shifted over to a military film with the Paramount Pictures produced VistaVision film Strategic Air Command reuniting the direct ..read more

Images courtesy of PBS Frontline Last week the new A24 film Civil War, Alex Garland’s somber ode to the struggle of the photojournalist pushing towards certain death to document the unfolding events of a military conflict, opened to divided and shocked audiences still processing the filmmaker’s post-apocalyptic fable.  In no uncertain terms does it make clear, whatever side you’re on, the importance of the documentary photographic medium as well as a testament to the bravery of those venturing into dangerous if not deadly situations to capture the truth.  While footage ca ..read more

Images courtesy of Radiance Films Years before the late South Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s Bad Guy and even further before Kinji Fukusaku’s Street Mobster, Shochiku stalwart Noboru Nakamura unveiled his 1964 prostitution drama The Shape of Night which seemed to pave the way for the multicolored romantic longings of epicurean hedonism characterizing Wong Kar-Wai’s kaleidoscopic tales of people falling in and out of love.  A movie signified by its luminous nighttime aesthete of Tokyo neon-fluorescent lighting and moody jazz infused score, the film was decades ahead of American ..read more

Images courtesy of Radiance Films The prolific filmmaking career of Luigi Comencini, perhaps Italy’s best director of child actors since Vittorio De Sica or the French director François Truffaut, remains curiously overlooked outside of Europe.  The father of film directors Cristina and Francesca Comencini who worked with everyone from Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant, Comencini is perhaps best known for Everybody Go Home starring international cast members Martin Balsam, Alex Nicol and Serge Reggiani.  Known for attracting foreign talent ..read more

Images courtesy of Arrow Video Arrow Video and other boutique labels such as 88 Films have made it their mission to license and release through Fortune Star not only the Shaw Brothers back catalog of pulpy martial-arts actioners, but of former Shaw executive turned rival studio founder Raymond Chow and his Orange Sky Golden Harvest production company’s catalog as well.  Founded in 1970 and only two years into the company’s lifespan, Chow also managed to lure over Shaw Brothers kung-fu action talent Jimmy Wang Yu in what became the actor’s third feature as lead actor, writer a ..read more

Images courtesy of Altered Innocence We’ve seen many iterations of Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker over the years. From Cesar Romero’s playful, ultra-campy iteration in the 1960s Batman television series to Heath Ledger’s darkly unhinged portrayal in The Dark Knight, the character has run the gamut of different personas. While many might feel like we’ve seen it all at this point, out comes a bold new contender from left field. Vera Drew’s imaginative film The People’s Joker simultaneously manages to embody all of the renditions of The Joker that came before it while also treading enti ..read more

  Images courtesy of A24 Something that isn’t discussed enough is just how large the land mass is in the United States. To drive from the east coast to the west coast would take about six days of continuous travel. Some states, like Texas, are so large that you can spend an entire day just trying to get out of the state. While there is a baseline “American experience” traveling to a different state can feel like visiting a different country complete with differing attitudes and ideologies.  The premise of Alex Garland’s Civil War is an undefined future where the US has sep ..read more

Images courtesy of MVD Marquee Collection Stephen Vincent Benét’s 1936 short story The Devil and Daniel Webster is one of the most unique slices of American fantasy-horror fiction with elements of realism integrated into the fabric of the narrative.  The story of a New Hampshire farmer down on his luck who makes a pact with the devil to sell his soul for success for a seven-year duration only for a fictionalized version of real-life 19th century American lawyer Daniel Webster to defend the farmer’s soul in the court of law, The Devil and Daniel Webster was an award winning li ..read more

  Note: Derelict was reviewed from a preview screener before its 2024 festival run. On the surface, Derelict (2024) presents itself as a revenge story with all the requisite elements: a wrongful death, a family torn apart, and the failure of the justice system to dole out the appropriate punishment. The film opens with a visual tour of a crime scene that has yet to be discovered, a bound dead man lying facedown in a dirty alley, still fresh enough to look like he has decided to lay down for an impromptu nap. This is a snapshot of a murder, and it is spliced together with happy ho ..read more