7 Best Movies To Watch After Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

My favorite moments in Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver come during quick breaths before a plunge. In the first, warriors Tarak (Staz Nair) and Milius (Elise Duffy) come to terms with their likely imminent deaths at the hands of a smoke-spewing tank. Having spent years of his life consumed by survivor's guilt, Tarak thought having a cause to die for would be enough. It isn't. He wants to live, but he probably won't. The next best thing is to die fighting alongside a peer like Milius. In the second, Kora (Sofia Boutella) is in the midst of blasting her way through the fearsome dreadnought King's Gaze. After slaying a warrior wielding a high-tech superheated sword, she takes a moment to catch her breath. With some pilfered cloth, she wraps the blade's hilt so she can use it without burning herself. It's a moment of improvisation, providing Boutella a chance to deliver a quieter piece of physical acting that stands in contrast to brawling with a corridor of goons or swordfighting Ed Skrein's Admiral Noble. Continue Reading →

Denis Villeneuve finishes his epic two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel with sprawling scope and thorny politics. It's really a miracle that the first of Denis Villeneuve's Dune films penetrated the public consciousness as well as it did. It was released amid a worldwide pandemic; it was an IMAX-ready blockbuster that was simultaneously dropped onto people's streaming subscriptions same-day; it's based on a dense, impenetrable sci-fi novel Villeneuve patiently chose not to wholly adapt in one film. The results, blessedly, were commercial and critical success and a host of technical Oscars the following year. That success was enough to secure Dune: Part Two, a chance for Villeneuve to complete his vision of Frank Herbert's seminal work of political science fiction. Where Part One worldbuilds, Part Two barrels down the road of its inevitable conclusion in satisfying style, even as it makes some noted changes from the novel or any previous adaptations -- some for the better, some for the worse. Continue Reading →

A decade's worth of superhero movies goes out with a big, stupid grin on its face. One would hope that a film franchise with as much money poured into it as the DC Cinematic Universe would rage, rage against the dying of the light. Yet here we are, limping towards the end of a slate of superhero flicks marred by terrible reviews (Shazam! 2), controversy (The Flash), or sheer too-little-too-late-ness (Blue Beetle). As the superhero genre continues to flag in a year of duds, DC's set for a reinvention, a clean slate courtesy of former Marvel it-boy James Gunn and co-head Peter Safran. Before they can wipe the board and start all over with the label's slate of classic capes, though, there's a few rounds left in the last guy's chamber to fire off. That's what Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom feels like, easily the least objectionable of the DC films to come out in 2023. Problem is, that's not saying much. A sequel to Aquaman should have been a slam dunk: Director James Wan's 2018 take on the King of Atlantis was a welcome breath of neon-soaked pop art in a franchise studded with Snyderesque dourness, leaning into the innate silliness of an underwater take on Flash Gordon. Jason Momoa is as effortless a casting as you could imagine for DC's hardest-to-pin-down superhero, brimming with giddy frat-boy energy. At its best moments, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom leans into its star's goofiness and even lets it infect some of the rest of the cast. But there's no escaping the feeling of weariness, both for a cast and crew who are just repeating the novel beats of the first and an audience that's just plain starved for something new. Continue Reading →

The first two entries in director/actor Kenneth Branagh’s foray into Agatha Christie adaptation lost the magic of the English writer’s mysteries. With his third attempt, A Haunting in Venice, Branagh decides to make considerable changes to the story. Using the bones of Christie’s Hallowe’en Party, writer Michael Green changes the setting from a small town in the English countryside to a palazzo in Venice. Branagh emphasizes the gothic elements of Christie’s story, leaning on the horror of the location, the manic nature of the children’s Halloween party, and the gruesome moments before and after an unexpected death.  Continue Reading →

KinoKultur is a thematic exploration of the queer, camp, weird, and radical releases Kino Lorber has to offer. Caper films are competitions. Outside of the obvious cops and robbers struggle, they, more importantly, dispute the value of things and who deserves to own them. While classically most capers are individuals vs institutions, there is a subgenre of capers that features an Odd Couple pair of thieves in a competitive mentorship and centers the push and pull between them. Semi-recent entries like Entrapment (1999) and The Score (2001) are examples where the struggle between the thieves is a generational one with the old and new guards having to learn from each other. Couched within the larger struggles of value and property, these interpersonal battles between thieves play out an additional competition over cultural differences and ideas. Continue Reading →

Man, Escape from New York. What a picture. It's one of the standouts of director/co-writer John Carpenter's damn-near-unmatched 1976-1988 run of stupendous filmmaking, a man-on-a-mission film with a driving sense of urgency that still makes time to breathe in its mood and world. Dean Cundey’s widescreen cinematography captures the ruined prison island of New York in deep blacks and dense color and gorgeous widescreen framing. Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s score is cool and moody. The main theme alone is best described as “indelible.”The ensemble is a murderer's row of great actors with fantastic faces: Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, and the one-and-only Harry Dean Stanton. Each does unforgettable work. Continue Reading →

When the Harvesters attacked, they caught humanity flat-footed. We weren’t ready for the sudden arrival of a deep-space armada. Or for a fleet of spaceships armed with mind-mucking lasers. Or for an army of biomechanical Pilots powered by the washed brains of select humans. Continue Reading →