Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed co-star in a middling, late ’60s romp — After a high-profile run on the popular The Avengers TV series across three years (65–68) and 51 episodes, Diana Rigg (aka Mrs. Emma Peel) was understandably ready a change. Eyeing a jump from cathode-ray TV sets to the big screen, Rigg co-starred in two studio-backed productions in 1969, The Assassination…

Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult co-star in a middling horror-action-comedy — Six years ago, Universal’s attempt to resurrect the Universal Monsters brand with the so-called “Dark Universe” (modeled after Marvel’s commercially successful, shared, interconnected universe) with a bloated, effects-heavy entry, The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise in a rare break from the Mission: Impossible franchise. Said entry famously crashed and burned with…

Adam Driver vs. dinosaurs isn’t quite the match-up we expected — Adam Driver might just be one of the most versatile actors working today. He’s certainly one of the most exciting. There’s little he can’t do and, it turns out, little he won’t do. Essaying roles as diverse as his breakout role in Girls a decade ago as an egocentric, unambitious…

Lovingly crafted animation fatally undermined by substance-free storytelling — Beginning with Donkey Kong in 1981 and their own standalone video arcade game, Mario Bros., just two years later, Mario and Luigi, erstwhile plumbers and brothers from the same Italian mother, found their way to video arcades across the world. Video arcades and console games were never the same. Success…

James Dean’s signature film role arrives on 4K/Blu-Ray and not a moment too soon — In his brief, brilliant life, James Dean starred in only three films. Only one, East of Eden, received a theatrical release before he died at the age of 24 in an automobile accident. Of the other two films, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, the former arrived in theaters just…

Mark Jenkin’s latest feature-length film takes a deep dive into psychological fragmentation — By definition, folk horror centers on the conflict between paganism, Christianity, and (super) natural forces. It also involves folklore that either existed before the advent of Christianity or stubbornly developed alongside the monotheistic faith, functioning both as counterpoint and contrast, though Christianity, like most world religions, has been syncretic by…

Proof positive that Laika’s underappreciated third film deserves a second or third look — In Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi’s underappreciated feature-length debut as director and Oregon-based stop-motion animation studio LAIKA’s third, The Boxtrolls, the title characters, blue-hued, yellow-eyed, and pointy-eared, make their home in the labyrinthine tunnels and sewers under the hilltop town of Cheesebridge and the fictional country of Norvenia sometime in…

The latest Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham joint disappoints on every level. — A misfire by any other name is still a misfire, and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, the latest brainchild from writer-director Guy Ritchie (Sherlock Holmes, Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), is nothing if not a misfire. It all starts with a lazily written, unimaginative, pastiche-ridden script Ritchie co-wrote…

Elizabeth Banks directs, Jimmy Warden writes, everyone runs for their lives. — In the mid-1980s, a Ronald Reagan was beginning his second term in the White House, the so-called “War on Drugs,” a favorite of reactionaries in both parties, was on the rise, leading to massive increases in funding for law enforcement, harsh and unjust sentences for low-level, drug-related crimes, and mass…