2001 – Stream On Demand

‘Spy Kids’ – pint-sized secret agents on Parmount+

!Featured, Action, adventure, American Independent Cinema, Blu-ray, childhood, Comedy, DVD, family friendly, Kid Stuff, Paramount+, spies and espionage, SVOD 12/25/2021 Sean Axmaker

Robert Rodriguez brings a sense of whimsy to his family adventure of battling siblings (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) who discover their parents are retired international spies.

‘O’ – high school Othello on Paramount+

!Featured, based on a play, Blu-ray, drama, DVD, Have You Seen...?, high school, Paramount+, Shakespeare, socially aware cinema, Streaming Movies, SVOD, young adult 12/02/2021 Sean Axmaker

Mekhi Phifer, Julia Stiles, and Josh Hartnett star in Tim Blake Nelson’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ in an elite private high school.

‘Ocean’s Eleven’ – the art of the modern heist on HBO Max

!Featured, Blu-ray, caper, DVD, HBO Max, heist, Streaming Movies, Summer movie, SVOD, thriller 12/01/2021 Sean Axmaker 2 Comments

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and friends join director Steven Soderbergh for a swinging heist romp.

David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Dr.’ on Criterion Channel

!Featured, Academy Award nominee, Blu-ray, Cannes winner, Criterion, Cult Movies, DVD, film noir, movies about movies, neo-noir, Streaming Movies, suspense, SVOD, thriller 11/29/2021 Sean Axmaker 1 Comment

Lynch transformed the pilot of a TV show into a neo-noir with a weird, mystical logic that, in its unique Lynchian way, makes a twisted emotional sense.

‘Apocalypse Now: Redux’ – Francis Ford Coppola’s trippy war epic on Netflix

!Featured, Academy Award, BAFTA winner, Blu-ray, Cannes winner, Cult Movies, DVD, Essential Viewing, National Film Registry, Netflix, Streaming Movies, SVOD, war 11/04/2021 Sean Axmaker 2 Comments

Coppola turns Vietnam into a war movie as drug-addled theme park ride with real tigers, exploding sets, and Marlon Brando as a mad guru warrior.

Steven Spielberg’s ‘A.I.: Artificial Intelligence’ on Hulu and Paramount+

!Featured, based on a novel, Blu-ray, DVD, Hulu, Paramount+, Science Fiction, Streaming Movies, SVOD 10/07/2021 Sean Axmaker

Steven Spielberg meets Stanley Kubrick in this dark, visionary science fiction fairy tale about a robot boy who wants to be human.

Guillermo del Toro’s ‘The Devil’s Backbone’ on Amazon Prime

!Featured, Amazon Prime Video, Blu-ray, Criterion, DVD, Halloween, historical, horror, International Cinema, SVOD, thriller, war 10/02/2021 Sean Axmaker

Guillermo del Toro directed this haunting ghost story, set in a remote orphanage in Spain, against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War.

‘In the Bedroom’ on Paramount+

Academy Award nominee, based on a novel, drama, Have You Seen...?, Paramount+, Streaming Movies, suspense 05/18/2021 Sean Axmaker 1 Comment

In the Bedroom (2001), a hushed portrait of love, loss, and vengeance in a sleepy New England backwater, is a harrowing drama starring Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson as parents who stop communicating after the violent death of their only son. The directing debut of actor Todd Field (he played the pianist in Stanley Kubrick’s […]

The original 2001 comedy from David Wain and Michael Showalter.

The original ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ on Peacock

!Featured, Blu-ray, Comedy, DVD, Peacock, Streaming Movies, SVOD 04/25/2021 Sean Axmaker

Wet Hot American Summer (2001) has lived longer than anyone would have predicted while watching it in 2001. The self-aware summer camp spoof/nostalgia lampoon spawned a prequel and a sequel series for Netflix that play out in the same cheeky, silly, self-aware manner of adult actors playing at being teenagers. It feels as much an […]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 horror film from Japan is one of his greatest

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s haunting horror film ‘Pulse’ on Amazon Prime

!Featured, Amazon Prime Video, Arrow, Blu-ray, Cult Movies, DVD, horror, International Cinema, supernatural, suspense, SVOD 04/07/2021 Sean Axmaker

“Do you want to meet a ghost?” The meditative and metaphysical horror cinema of Kiyoshi Kurosawa made him one of the masters of Japanese horror during its amazing cycle of surreal and nightmarish horror films of the 1990s and 2000s, but his films never really crossed over to the general audience in the U.S. His […]