[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!] It took me way too long to discover Grosse Pointe Blank. Which...

[WARNING: The following essay contains MAJOR SPOILERS for 13 Assassins, Skyfall, Django Unchained, and Avengers: Endgame.] What defines a...

Ventured out to Metrograph to catch a screening of the gorgeous new 4K restoration of Fruit Chan’s Made in Hong Kong. This stylish,...

1917 is a breathtaking technical achievement. Producing a “single-take” movie (even one as obviously stitched-together as this—not a...

I’ve decided to revisit my House of Bamboo review because I somehow forgot to mention that it features one of the most realistically...

[The following review contains SPOILERS; you have been warned!] If the poetry of violence is a language in and of itself, then Martin...

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” isn't merely a title; it's a mission statement. It immediately evokes a vivid image, promising a celebration and/or...

The original Harakiri (1962) is an uncompromisingly uncomfortable film, a scathing criticism of the fetishization of bushido in general...

As much as I love the “classic” Western, it’s been fascinating to witness how such innovative filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino and the...

A good action scene does not exist for its own sake; rather, it is the culmination of the screenwriter’s meticulously-laid groundwork....

By the end of The Walking Dead’s seventh season premiere, Rick Grimes is a broken man. And it’s his own damn fault. And as I watched the...

From the opening frame to the end credits, a cloud of impending doom hovers over Fruitvale Station—not only because the visual language...

The remake of Red Dawn truly is a war movie for the Call of Duty generation, too preoccupied with the spectacle of bloodshed to...

Man, woman; white, black, Filipino; farmer, college boy–under the leadership of Earth’s “Federation,” all are finally equal....

It ends with a tight close-up on the sweat-drenched face of fencing instructor Araki Mataemon (Toshiro Mifune, a far more versatile...

On the morning of April 20, 1999, teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold armed themselves with semi-automatic handguns and improvised...

In the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of True Grit, corpses litter the (rapidly declining) Old West. They swing from nooses, decay in coffins,...

Ever since Edwin S. Porter had his great train robber fire directly at the camera, the landscape of cinema has been drenched in blood....