Magdalena Lauritsch writes and directs a future-set apocalyptic space drama — In Magdalena Lauritsch’s uneven, sometimes compelling feature-length debut, Rubikon, the world ends not with a nuclear apocalypse, killer cyborgs, or time-travel paradoxes, but with environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, and corporate-run authoritarianism. It’s certainly nothing we haven’t seen before, and with the recent reactionary rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, may…

Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill adapt Joe Hill’s 2004 short story — Near the end of The Twilight Zone’s five-year, 156-episode run, Rod Serling debuted “Night Call,” a bone-chillingly adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story, “Long Distance Call.” What seem initially like a series of crank calls turn…

Sax Rohmer’s singular creation, Dr. Fu Manchu, makes a much belated appearance on Blu-ray — Despite a prolific output starting in the 1910s and ending with his imminent departure from this mortal coil in 1959, Sax Rohmer didn’t exist. He was (and remains) the brainchild, a fictional persona, a pseudonym created by…

Victor Fleming’s 1941 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella gets a freshly scrubbed Blu-ray release — The Archivist — Welcome to the Archive. As home video formats have evolved over the years, a multitude of films have found themselves in danger of being forgotten forever due to their niche appeal. Thankfully, Warner Bros. established the Archive Collection, a Manufacture-On-Demand…

Colin Trevorrow returns to the blockbuster series that turned him into an A-list director. — As we’ve learned time and time again, intellectual property is forever. A series or franchise might end with a literal whimper, but studio executives learned long ago that time was most certainly on their side. Wait ten years, wait fifteen years and audiences, forgetting what they didn’t like and only…

David Cronenberg returns after an eight-year hiatus to the body horror sub-genre he helped to redefine. — Moments into David Cronenberg’s (Cosmopolis, Eastern Promises, A History of Violence) brilliantly realized, viscerally disquieting film—his first after an eight-year hiatus and his 22nd overall — Crimes of the Future, an unnamed woman in an environmentally degraded, underpopulated dystopia commits an unsettlingly transgressive act of maternal violence. Not unexpectedly, that…

Ewan McGregor returns to the role he made his own. — Note: Disney+ made episodes 1–2 available for review. With the sale of Lucasfilm lock, stock, and at least two barrels to Walt Disney Studios, the film division of the Disney Industrial Complex, a decade ago this coming October, Star Wars fans were understandably excited at the prospect of big- and…

Exiled American filmmaker delivers a late-career masterpiece with Mr. Klein. — Joseph Losey’s directing career can be divided, if not outright bisected, into before HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) and after HUAC. The end of World War II also meant the end of the West’s alliance with the Soviet Union and the beginning of the decades-long Cold War. In turn…

Alex Garland’s latest film stars Jessie Buckley as a woman besieged by toxic masculinity — It’s rare for a novelist — no matter how accomplished or feted — to make a successful jump into screenwriting. It’s also rare for a screenwriter — no matter how skillful or talented — to make an equally successful leap into directing. That rarity narrows to a virtual handful when…