Italian space opera Battle of the Worlds arrives on Blu-ray for the first time — Italian science fiction, specifically Italian science fiction of the 1960s, holds a curious, often overlooked place in the genre. For English speakers, language — or more often, poorly dubbed dialogue — has been a barrier to truly appreciating the contributions of Italian filmmakers to the genre. Though that’s one possible…

Gen Z Satire scores on gore, laughs, and more — Nothing ruins a weekend getaway with longtime friends at an isolated, if fully stocked, mansion like a body hitting the floor. It gets even worse when a second and then a third body join the first body on an increasingly crowded floor. That’s the slightly significant problem facing a group…

Dan Trachtenberg directs, Amber Midthunder stars in a worthy prequel to the original — An undisputed masterpiece of late ’80s action filmmaking, the John McTiernan-directed Predator, a box-office hit for both 20th Century Fox and future governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, spawned a seemingly endless series of sequels, beginning with Predator 2 in 1990 and until recently, ending on an underwhelming note with the…

Filmmaker Jordan Peele brightens up the summer season with his third feature-length film — More than 70 years ago, an intrepid, if fictional reporter, warned us in the closing seconds of the Howard Hawks-produced The Thing From Another World to “Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!” In 1951, that somewhat prophetic warning was meant as a thinly veiled call to…

Co-writer/director Jenna Cato Bass’s South African horror tale succeeds on every level — Even though their respective meanings have become blurred over time, a distinct difference remains between a “house” and a “home.” That difference comes immediately into play in co-writer and director Jenna Cato Bass’s (Neighbors, Flatland, High Fantasy) latest film, Good Madam (“Mlungu Wam”). …

Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas co-star in a rote, routine action-thriller — With A-list stars Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and (arguably A-list ) Ana de Armas, the multi-billion dollar grossing duo of Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) sharing directing duties, a $200 million budget—reportedly the highest in Netflix history—and a globe-trotting, city-hopping storyline…

Co-writer, producer, and star Dana Abraham just misses the psychological horror mark — Opening a film with a character dragging a blood-splattered ax around an underlit room qualifies as, if nothing else, attention-grabbing, promising both a mystery and hopefully its answer. Unfortunately, director Rouzbeh Heydari (Cypher, Together Again), working from a script co-written by lead actor Dana Abraham, fails to live to the…

Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain star in an adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel — Ably adapted by filmmaker John Michael McDonagh (Calvary, The Guard, Ned Kelly) from Lawrence Osborne’s 2012 well-received, bestselling novel, The Forgiven, a broad, anti-colonialist satire that echoes the strongest work of Paul Bowles (Up Above the World, The Sheltering Sky) and Evelyn Waugh (A Handful of Dust), wastes little time…

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…