Mario Bava essentially created the genre of baroque horror known as “giallo,” a distinctly Italian twist on stalk and kill horror film. Under his direction, Grand Guignol gore is transformed into lush, visually elegant cinematic spectacle, a waking nightmare with the poetic grace of a musical and a demented edge of sexual perversity. After rising […]
Everyone is familiar with the landmark horror classics. This is one in a series of suggestions for Halloween viewing that may not be so familiar, including titles that teens and tweens (and in some cases adolescents) can watch without breaking the R-rating. There are more supernatural and horror film-related shows than ever on TV, but […]
Jurassic World revives the dinosaurs on the loose franchise started by Steven Spielberg. This one pits Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard against an alarmingly smart and vicious dinosaur hybrid when it (inevitably) escapes and goes after a whole park full of patrons. It’s fast, furious, snappy, and built on characters making the worst decisions […]
iZombie: Season One, developed by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas from the comic book by Mike Allred, is a comic mystery series with an undead heroine playing detective. Rose McIver is Olivia, a medical student in Seattle who awakens after a yacht party gone disastrous and finds out that the reason she has no heartbeat […]
Beasts of No Nation, the harrowing drama of a child soldier in West Africa, is directed by Cary Fukunaga (who helmed the first season of True Detective) and stars Idris Elba as a brutal rebel leader. It earned rave reviews on the film festival circuit earlier this year and was snapped up by Netflix, which […]
About a decade ago, ABC created the first truly successful American take on the telenovela, an otherwise distinctly south of the border phenomenon. Ugly Betty was, at its best, a fun and funny take on soap opera complications in a world that straddled high fashion and working class culture, and it was grounded in an […]
Independent producers and exploitation studios were often more adept at cashing in current events and cultural tides when it came to youth culture movies, if only because the very nature of the business model made them open to hungry young director and writers and other film professionals looking for a break. Often, but by no […]
Paul Schrader spent decades of exploring the scarred psyches of American men who succumb to violence when pain overcomes reason, but nowhere as poignantly and powerfully as in Affliction (1997), his adaptation of Russell Banks’ novel. Affliction stars Nick Nolte as Wade Whitehouse, an unambitious, jocular small town sheriff and odd job man to a […]
Red Oaks: Season 1, an Amazon original series created by Gregory Jacobs (director of Magic Mike XXL and longtime Steven Soderbergh producer) and Joe Gangemi, is a half-hour coming of age comedy set in the eighties as high school buddies have one last summer blow-out before college. Craig Roberts is our lead with a bright future. […]
The Flash is the superhero TV show that a lot of people have been waiting for, a series that remembers that there are other modes of comic book TV beyond the grim Frank Miller / adult graphic novel style. It’s fun and self-aware with slipping into self-parody, bright and colorful, and downright playful, while still […]
