Week Ending 10/9/26

Warner Bros. is now "A Skydance Company." Were Yakko, Wakko, and Dot evicted when those workers added the new text to the water tower? I don't see their names amongst the many brands in David Ellison's monopolistic empire ... so, maybe.

Layoffs are on the horizon. The future of in-development titles are in flux. The jokes keep coming, including a walk down memory lane to when Ellison co-starred in the James Franco vehicle Flyboys. And I can't help wondering if/when Megan Ellison enters the chat. Her Annapurna has pivoted heavily to video games rather than films these days, but they also just laid off 15% of their workforce in August. Who knows what's next as Daddy continues to pay down the purchase price debt?

Beyond the inevitable creative issues that may result from one corporation owning two competing studios (it feels like only yesterday that Disney bought Fox), my attention is focused on the decision about Movies Anywhere participation. Will Paramount join the fun retroactively like Lionsgate did earlier this year? Or will WB eventually stop uploading new titles like what happened with Neon and Sony Pictures Classics in the past?

I'm hoping for the former. While I rarely use the platform to watch my movies, I do love the fact that its existence allows me to shop prices knowing an MA title will populate Apple, Prime, and Fandango regardless of who gets my actual money. It's surely why Paramount never joined. Why pay Disney a membership fee to allow customers to buy their films once when you might trick them into buying it three times?

What I Watched

A symptom of schizophrenia, apophenia is defined as "the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns or connections where there are none." You see it with gambling, paranoia, and conspiracy theories. Our brains want to turn a series of coincidences into a coherent plot to make sense of them. So, music video director Chris Marrs Piliero dissects the plot of his feature debut Appofeniacs into one such series of coincidences to mimic the phenomena.

It's an intriguing experiment that works less as an overall example than on a case-by-case basis courtesy of two characters: Chad Addison's James and Paige Searcy's Lazzy. Both fall victim to deepfake videos that cause him to have a psychotic break after "seeing" his girlfriend have sex with their friend and her to manifest the fear that a generative-AI clip purports she already had. One domino falls and the rest follow until there are no bodies left to maim.

Duke (Aaron Holliday) and Cedrick (Jermaine Fowler) are at the center. The former is a vindictive lowlife who owes the latter money and posits that his app can manipulate reality in a way that will pay him back. Everyone else exists in their orbit to be intentionally victimized or unwittingly drawn into the bloody fallout despite none personally knowing either. One impulsive reaction leads to another until the film's non-linear format reveals even more coincidences.

It's a fun ride with some gnarly kills thanks to a cosplay-centric through line revolving around Sean Gunn's Clinto Binto—a top-tier prop manufacturer whose wares prove well worth their exorbitant price points by film's end. The opening "chapter" is more chaotic than anything else while the middle section leans into the humor inherent to a non-racist white woman revealing her inherent racism after a fake video of her being racist goes viral.

The final third takes the dark severity of the first and embellished comedy of the second to deliver a hybridized gore fest with great special effects work. I would have loved some actual commentary about the danger of deepfakes with the wild romp born from the damage they inflict on the concept of reality, but I can't say I wasn't invested in the resulting rabbit hole. I'm also just a sucker for meaningless debates (see Samoas vs. Caramel deLites) where both sides are correct.

When Gavin (Seamus McLean Ross) and Billy (Samuel Bottomley) take the bus from Dundee to London for an open audition, they truly believe they have the goods to make it big. It's not until the two junior executives running the show laugh and cut them off before getting to the second verse that they realize it doesn't matter if they do. They could have the best song ever written and the world would never hear it because Scottish doesn't sell.

Based on the real Silibil N' Brains con that saw Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd getting a record deal en route to an appearance on MTV and a gig opening for D12, James McAvoy's California Schemin' uses the former's memoir (adapted by Archie Thomson and Elaine Gracie) to show the corruptive potential of fame. The duo practiced their American accents and re-recorded their demo to prove a political point about the industry. Then they got lost along the way.

The Milli Vanilli of it all might get you in the door since everyone loves a good con, but it's the human-interest bits from why they felt they needed to lie to how that lie led them to lose themselves that forces you to stay. It's ultimately why McAvoy was drawn to the script to make it his directorial debut. He saw the parallel to his own life as a poor Scottish artist from the projects pushing through industry gatekeepers and knew where to put the focus.

Bain is an executive producer and obviously integrally involved due to writing the source material, so the majority of the film is from his perspective. That doesn't mean he's shone in a better light, though. On the contrary, he pulls no punches insofar as admitting he's the one who took things too far. Because the original idea was sound. Get feted, go on live TV, and expose the record company's hypocrisy. The line between fact and fiction just blurred too much.

Boyd earns a special thanks (along with wife Mary, played by Lucy Halliday) and provides the title track that runs during the end credits. As depicted in the film, he also falls victim to the money, parties, and women. The difference, however, is that he had a life to go back to with Mary. He was able to wake up and remember that the music being real didn't automatically mean the success was. Gavin didn't have that. This ride became his escape. It became everything to him.

It's a pretty tragic story as a result because it ostensibly portrays how Bain created a parasocial relationship with himself. What began as a fantasy soon became his reality in a way that prevented him from acknowledging the strings that made it so. His willingness to keep ahold of that "truth" leads him to wreck everything in potentially irrevocable ways since revealing the ruse themselves was the only road towards legitimacy. Without it, they were just liars.

McAvoy does well to balance the tones of what is a poignantly heart-breaking series of events with the inherent lunacy of the journey. The parallels in comedy and politics to Kneecap are obvious, but the additional layer of deception in California Schemin' demands that it never forgets the human cost paid. Mary not knowing if her boyfriend was ever coming back or their manager Tessa (Rebekah Murrell) betting her career on them without knowing the truth.

But also Gavin and Billy themselves. Ross has the meatier role going from a bullied, shy kid who could barely get through his lyrics to a super confidant MC protected by his American mask to a broken soul unable to wrap his head around what's real anymore. It's a tragic roller coaster of emotions. That said, however, don't sleep on Bottomley's performance. Sometimes clarity makes things even worse because he's forced to helplessly watch it all burn.

It's a unique story (altered on-screen to deliver a more dramatic and intense version of the actual events, if my reading about what really happened is correct) that proves as wildly entertaining an adventure as it does a resonant cautionary tale. Because the biggest victims (beyond Tessa) are the boys. Yes, because of the strain on their friendship, but also because they blew their shot. There's no guarantee they'd have gotten it without lying, but now they'll never know.

I remember hating this film when I was younger. I think I was just confused and angry that it wasn't the Friday the 13th that I had been sold from the franchise's later entries. No giant Jason? No hockey mask? The machete only being used for two kills—one being a snake? How could the most iconic motifs be absent?

Watching it now proves I was too harsh and too preoccupied with what followed rather than appreciative of what it was. I still don't think it's all that great, but there are definitely moments. And I do love the twist murderer and double rug pull as far as finally adding a supernatural element in only to take it away.

So, are all the other movies that follow in Alice's mind? Does what she do ultimately bring the boy back to life to seek revenge like his mother? I guess I need to watch the second and see if there actually is a coherent narrative progression or if they just decided to retroactively turn the series from a Psycho homage into a Halloween ripoff.

Two wild moments I can't shake:

1) The truck driver grabbing two handfuls of Annie's butt to hoist her up after she was already in the cab.

2) Brenda bragging about rolling double sixes in Monopoly despite one die clearly showing a two. What a cheater!

Joko Anwar is having a ton of fun with Ghost in the Cell ... maybe too much since this malignant ghost story has the potential to earn enough eye rolls to give the blood a run for its money. Once you ease into the tone (or once the tone eases into the film since the beginning plays pretty straight), however, it becomes difficult not to laugh at the lunacy inherent to inmates at a maximum-security prison praying and/or dancing to diminish the color of their auras.

Young journalist Dimas (Edny Arfian) should have known better than to go to the forest to document grisly ritualistic murders and not worry about whether he's brings that evil back home with him. The question becomes whether this demonic presence latched on to cause chaos or achieve a goal. Does Dimas end up going to jail because of what it does? Or does it mutilate his boss to ensure that's where he goes? Welcome to present-day Indonesia.

Anwar pulls no punches with the commentary on his country's current state of affairs being rampant corruption. The prisoners are either innocents who were framed, unwitting criminals who simply fought back against the real villains, or those political monsters enjoying more comfort as kings inside than they did as targets outside. It's why his hero Anggoro (Abimana Aryasatya) doesn't demand respect from power. He earns it through kindness.

Add a sadistic prison guard (Bront Palarae's Jefri), a psychopathic wild card (Aming's Tokek), and a shaman's fraudulent son who might not be a fraud at all (Yoga Pratama's Six) and there's as much room for unchecked violence as there is for situational comedy. Don't therefore be surprised when Anwar mixes both for violent situational comedy via multiple knock-down-drag-out fights marked by slapstick and pure absurdity (if you get too angry, just dance).

Anyone whose rage or depression dips too far suffers the spirit's wrath—think the death installations from "Hannibal" but more gruesome since Anwar isn't dealing with TV censors. So, the best way to survive is tabling petty gang grievances and working together to solve why this ghost is here and how they can get rid of it to save themselves. And who knows? Maybe that teamwork can bring them each inner peace too. The worst of them being disemboweled helps.

Two things to look out for:

1) Stay for the credits to see cast and crew shake it in the prison's art room.

2) A brilliant fourth wall break in the prison showers where the camera itself tries to desperately avoid capturing anything more than just the men's butts.

Starting with a montage of quick glimpses at all the main players from the previous film, Julia Loktev's My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile does a nice job ensuring that audiences who haven't see Last Air in Moscow can dive right in. It's two days after the government shutdown of TV Rain and everyone is rushing to pack whatever they can before heading to the airport to travel to wherever they can on such short notice. How will they continue their fight?

The result is a very different beast due to logistics alone. Whereas Loktev was right there in the thick of the chaos as no one knew whose house was being surveilled and if/when their workplace would be raided, a lot of the craziest developments in exile must be documented in the aftermath. Poisonings, death threats, arrests in absentia. We're bouncing around the globe to hear about what already happened, but it's honestly just as compelling.

Because we've invested in these characters. Those who witnessed everything leading up to their escape feel like they know them and those just entering their stories now can't help empathizing with their current arduous plights. Not only because they don't know what's next upon arriving in their hastily chosen but not necessarily safe sanctuaries, but also because of their shared internal struggle to process what occurred. The survivors' guilt is strong.

The imposter syndrome is too considering them facing this life-altering change doesn't negate the fact that they are still alive. Their exodus was ignited by Putin's invasion of Ukraine, after all. A war that still wages on and has taken upwards of two million lives while causing unfathomable destruction. That's not to say these journalists didn't face the possibility of death and the certainty of jail time if they stayed. It's not the same, but it's also not nothing.

Loktev's footage is therefore very concerned with how they grapple with their personal nightmares set within the larger fascist nightmare. It's an extremely tenuous balance between action and perception from both external and internal sources. Yes, it's about needing to operate on Ukraine and Latvia and Europe's terms due to the obvious fears inherent to platforming Russian voices, but it's also about accepting their own unwitting complicity that created those fears.

Alesya Marokhovskaya and Irina Dolinina talk about the reality that seeing the horror wrought by Putin and reporting about it might not have been enough. That they were working a job that afforded them a salary through objectivity. Just because their editorializing condemned what was happening doesn't mean that they didn't do nothing while it was happening. That their in-action—no matter how reductive the point proves—contributed to Putin's impunity.

This candidness is what makes Loktev's project so profoundly important since it means she's capturing unfiltered and impulsive reactions in the here and now. These aren't interviews being set-up in a studio wherein the subjects have days to prepare and coach themselves on what to say and how. No, these are intimate moments between friends operating with heightened emotions. There's no time to self-censor or calm down. Everyone is a raw nerve.

Chapters 1-3 (The Flies, Not Home, and Strangers Everywhere) compel us in this vein because the future is truly unknown. Anna Nemzer (who also earns a co-directing credit this time) heads to Israel with her family because they got passports in 2014 just in case. Ksenia Mironova and others head to Istanbul knowing they can't stay long. Georgia seems promising, albeit not if they keep reporting against Putin. Europe is best, but you need a visa first.

Many tears are shed and awkward conversations had over phones with family back home. Elena Kostyucheko's mother doesn't understand why she can't just come over for her birthday like always. Many parents and grandparents are so lost in the propaganda that they believe their loved ones can just stop reporting "fake news" and be fine. It's a difficult duality to exist in since the work is why they left and their hope to one day return is why they must keep working.

This dynamic leads to tough and sobering epiphanies insofar as privilege, access, and security are concerned. Nemzer can't stay in Israel when her gratitude might interfere with the truth that their regime is just as bad as Putin. Thinking back to how Russian propaganda was so effective causes them to see that it was never pro-Putin as much as pro-"look the other way." And can you blame other nations for worrying you too might be a wolf in sheep's clothing playing a long con?

Things do eventually settle to the point where work can restart with TV Rain even reopening in Latvia with much of the same crew. But nothing is solid enough to stop constantly looking over your shoulder. Even though the FSB isn't in Prague to knock on Irina and Alesya's door, they still feel that possibility. Even though Valeria Ratnikova goes on air to speak to a Russian audience, being in a foreign country with its own rules risks one slip tearing it all back down.

Beyond these logistical struggles, however, are also just unforgettable human moments that better help contextualize why things have gotten here. Yes, it's fun watching Mironova interview Trump supporters in New York City on January 20th, 2025, but it's the harrowing story of her boyfriend's ongoing case and Kostyucheko's girlfriend Yana Kuchina's tales of growing up disabled in Russia that stick to our bones. The lives beneath the careers.

New main characters are introduced in the husband-and-wife duo of Russian Peter Ruzavin and Ukrainian Nataliya Gumenyuk, who go to an unexpected but commendable place as the years progress. Utter chaos erupts when a political mistake on-air causes a firestorm of backlash that risks years of hard-earned allyship. And the reaction to Alexei Navalny's death in 2024 is as much about what he stood for as it is a segue to a new poisoning.

Chapters 4-5 (Our Army and The Normal Not Normal) dig into the complexity of loving Russia while hating Putin and the delicate topics arising from that contrast like the issue of Russian boys being drafted into the war. Can you discuss them as innocents and therefore additional casualties of this regime's oppression? It's tough since doing so could make you seem sympathetic to the aggressor. When is it okay to admit many Russians are victims too?

It all culminates in an extended finale that moves through the last few years to show where everyone ultimately landed (a surprisingly large number in the US to cause them to see how similar our country is to pre-war Russia) and why even those locations can never become "home" since integration means giving up on the country they never wanted to leave. It's why Loktev and the journalists pray to one day make this project a trilogy with a long-awaited Return.

The film opens on an aged and scarred Xu Fu (Teng Shen) during a customs interrogation in the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Bahata. He explains that he was invited, but the officials have questions about an investigation twenty years prior where he was accused of assisting in a terrorist attack while living and working in the country as a chef at Loong Restaurant. Xu was exonerated by the Americans, but Bahata wants to hear the full story for itself.

Muye Wen's Once Upon a Time in the Middle East starts like the comedy you assume it will be from the poster and other marketing materials that had many parents regretting their decision to bring children to the theater. After losing his restaurant in China when a tragic incident left him in debt, Xu stumbles into an opportunity to earn a good salary in Bahata with the hopes of returning in just two years' time with money in the bank and the freedom to start fresh.

There's the melodrama of his daughter "hating" him for leaving and a good laugh from his mother telling him to "cut the drama and go" when he tries to give her a hug goodbye. There's the always smiling and optimistic restaurant manager Ma Junsheng (Qiming Jiang) welcoming him and cautiously serving as translator when Xu decides to stand his ground with the business's formidable owner (and Ba'athist civil servant) Zaid (Sharif Subhi). And an orphanage of rowdy kids.

We don't get to enjoy the light antics of Xu wanting to punt young Seif (Omar Sherif—how can you not want to act with that name?) across the street for causing a ruckus in his kitchen or his declaration that this restaurant will never serve the abomination that is Americanized Chinese cuisine before we begin to clock the talk on the television about threats of an attack. He's barely in town for four months before the bombs begin to fall.

It's the first of many intense scenes that lose a little verisimilitude in the act due to decent yet imperfect special effects but more than make up for it with harrowing emotion in the aftermath. Yes, there will still be some more laughs once Xu and Zaid work out a way to profit off the fact they are one of the only restaurants in operation and can deliver to the American base, but this anti-war film quickly embraces that label and never lets go.

I was absolutely enthralled throughout. Even the best American-produced films about the Iraq War have a tendency to fall into jingoism by default, so witnessing that conflict (although never by name besides one mention of 9/11) from an external source is refreshing. Is China the most objective observer to tell the story? Maybe not. But the end credit text speaking on their initiative to secure children's rights is commendable. And any third-party account holds intrigue.

Don't therefore assume that casting the United States in a poor light means this is going to cast the Iraqi terrorists in a good one. The former are either blood-thirsty Jack Bauer-types relishing the opportunity to torture prisoners or scared kids with guns who just want to go home. The latter are terrorists—blood-thirsty Bin Laden types who want to exploit America's presence in the region to recruit disposable pawns (mostly children) to use as weapons.

This isn't just an anti-war film in name as a result. By focusing on bystanders (whose innocence fluctuates as they sometimes wittingly involve themselves in the bloodshed), Wen and his co-writers Qunli Lang and Wei Zhong can depict this war in all its uncensored brutality. Neither side is depicted as heroic. At best they are misguided, at worst monstrous. So, we aren't investing in their war. We're here to see if Xu, Ma, and Seif can survive it.

As cooks (Seif inevitably goes from Xu's least favorite child to his cherished apprentice), they become pawns on the board too. First, it's to their own benefit by supplying food and alcohol to the troops at exorbitant prices. Then it's as suspected terrorists in an American prison camp and slave labor in a Bahata training "school." Sometimes they are ruled by greed and other times by bad luck. And they always have front seats to the carnage.

Because the Americans are the foreign element here, Wen does well not to vilify every Middle Eastern character as a terrorist. Not only that, but he ensures audiences recognize the complexity of this conflict as more than just two sides implicitly hating each other. Whether a heartbreaking turn for Zaid or the gradual potential of Seif to be radicalized, there's no hiding the fact that it's often America's own actions that turn good people against them.

How Xu and Ma traverse this reality is never without a heightened state of terror as far as whether they'll make it out of the latest predicament. Who will be lost in the process? When will they reach their own breaking point to no longer be able to watch silently from the sidelines? I really like Jiang's slowly hardening Ma still holding onto his empathetic heart. And Shen is fantastic as his ever-endearing Xu eventually realizes he can't talk himself out of every situation.

Yes, the coincidences can make the plotting feel Forrest Gump-like in the way Xu always seems to be in the middle of the action, but the cause-and-effect structure never feels false. A big reason for this is that no character is above a grisly fate beyond our narrator. Someone can be laughing one scene and getting blown up the next. That's the true face of war. The uncertainty of who will suffer from the certainty of its death and destruction.

The other constant? Our human desire for a good meal. Whether the orphans Xu feeds once the restaurant becomes a sanctuary after the first bombs or the militaries on both sides that keep him alive and in shackles long enough to exploit his talents or the child soldiers unaware that the meal he cooked will be their last, Wen never misses an opportunity for someone to praise the chef. If willing, that food grants Xu unprecedented access to cause trouble too.

Did I like Clark Duke's Arkansas? Yes. Should I have liked Clark Duke's Arkansas? Probably not. But taste is a capitalist construct, and you should just own whatever it is you find enjoyment in. So, I smiled when the prospect of watching his follow-up Stranglehold came around. I knew it wasn't going to be a dark horse for my best film of the year, but I also assumed I'd have some fun. Lo and behold I was correct. Because stupid fun is still fun.

Co-written by Duke, his brother Chandler (who plays the much maligned idiot Leon), and Billington Garrett, the story follows a down on her luck stripper named Bailey (Ashley Benson) who's desperately trying to keep her little family together despite her husband's (Jake Lacy's Tim) penchant for drinking, playing video games, and pretending he was a soldier undercutting every chance of doing so. With backs against the wall, it's time for a Hail Mary.

Her douchebag boss (Justin Long's Junior) can't keep his mouth shut and the people he tells can't either, so a secret Christmas Eve party his father (Ron Perlman's Roger) planned for out-of-state mob bosses becomes the drunken stupor answer to their dreams. With Tim's training and Bailey's insider info, they think they can rob the place without hurting anyone. The problem, though, is that their amateurs look like geniuses compared to Junior's posse.

The result isn't as good as Arkansas (which will probably make many of you run for the hills since you didn't think anything could be worse) and its broadly comedic satire on MAGA America spiraling upon realizing they voted against their own best interests sadly ensures all working class Americans catch strays, but Duke mocks himself via a decent Instagram gag to show he's just taking the piss out of the country's collective fiasco more than anything else.

You've got backwoods boys like Leon thinking terrorists came to their town for no reason other than the delusion that jihadists running roughshod over the USA is why they own AK-47s. There's aspiring nurse Dixie (Cody Kennedy) prostituting herself to pay for school. Taylor's (Elle King) wannabe stripper who Junior won't let strip because he doesn't find her attractive. And a slew of other caricatures from the likes of Brian Posehn and David Arquette.

Less about plot than watching how selfish, inconsiderate, and violent people get when they're constantly beaten down instead of offered a helping hand, everything that occurs before the climactic heist is about character development and motivation rather than narrative progression. We were always going to get to a shootout, so why waste time pretending otherwise? Set-up the power dynamics that will be exploited once we get there instead.

Add a breathalyzer car starter and a baby's unchecked screen time teaching her how to blow into it when her parents are ready to pass out and Stranglehold never pretends it's trying to be something it's not. So, I don't necessarily mind the uneven messaging since thinking it will contain nuanced commentary says more about you than it. See an effective "gotcha" about choosing between Netflix and medication. It's about affordability yet feels like it's mocking the poor.

I'd love for Duke to do a few more drafts to make sure he's punching up rather than down. It's a delicate line that the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" crew perfected while so many others miss the mark. We should only be laughing at the characters. If your jokes are constructed for us to laugh with them too, your satire becomes a defense at worst or a "both sides" cop-out at best. Duke succeeds more often than not, but I did wince a few times.

The cast doesn't seem to mind, though. They all play it straight (Benson and Lacy do their best to get their characters' plight across in ways that make us empathize with the former and despise the latter) and let the absurdity of the situation carry the humor. Even Arquette's beleaguered DJ holds an underlying sorrow that renders his actions sad rather than malicious. None of them are perfect, but few survive. It's always easier to stomach when most get their just deserts.

Cinematic F-Bombs

This week saw Youngblood (2026) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Movie Listings

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 10/9/26 -

• 9 to 5 Re-Release at Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Angel and the Badman at Dipson Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Baa Baa Black Sheep at Regal Elmwood
• The Beast at Dipson Capitol; Scene One Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Comrade Kalyan at Regal Elmwood
• Luck for Sale at Regal Galleria
• Matloub Aaeleyan at Regal Elmwood
• Monster Mia at Regal Elmwood, Galleria, Quaker
• Never After Dark at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Once Upon A Time In The Middle East at Regal Transit

Thoughts are above.

• Other Mommy at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker
• Pan's Labyrinth 20th Anniversary at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

My thoughts from 2007 at jaredmobarak.com.

• The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Quaker
• The Social Reckoning at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

Streaming from 10/9/26 -

• Animals (Netflix) – 10/9
• Disclosure Day (Peacock) – 10/9

"Disclosure Day plays like a re-imagining of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind fifty years later rather than a companion piece. [It's] less about the wonder of discovery than the reality that our humanity has been lost." – Quick thoughts at HHYS.

• Matchbox The Movie (Apple TV) – 10/9
• Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger (Disney+/Hulu) – 10/9
• V/H/S/MIXTAPE (Shudder) – 10/9
• Hokum (Hulu) – 10/10
• Clown Panic (Hulu) – 10/12
• Free Leonard Peltier (Netflix) – 10/12
• Love Of Your Life (Prime) – 10/14
• The Storm (Netflix) – 10/15

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• American Summer (10/6)
• Black Zombie (10/6)

"Black Zombie is therefore as much an educational resource to reveal Hollywood’s indoctrination in service of colonial infrastructure as it is an answer utilizing that knowledge to combat it in real time without the need for subterfuge." – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Colony (10/6)

"It’s a nice message delivered with a great cast, a wealth of viscous fungal slime, and some of the most memorable 'zombies' yet courtesy of acrobatic extras climbing atop each other before striking." – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Dolph: Unbreakable (10/6)
• Elijah Peel (10/6)
• Fall 2: Deadpoint (10/6)
• Franz (10/6)

"An audacious entry into the genre that wields artistic license to embody the spirit of its subject. There are countless other resources to dive into the minutiae of facts and assumptions. So, why not use the medium’s strengths to push further?" – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• How to Divorce During the War (10/6)

"It’s a messy situation all around, though. And Blaževičius’ point is less about our impulse to advocate for others in the midst of unspeakable violence than our penchant to always let apathy settle back in." – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Insidious: Out of the Further (10/6)
• Late Fame (10/6)

"Donovan and Lee expertly show the duality of artifice and vulnerability while Dafoe magnificently embodies the war between the safety of contentment and danger of joy." – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Librarians (10/6)
• Onslaught (10/6)
• Parasomnia (10/6)
• The Salt Path (10/6)
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day (10/6)
• Your Attention Please (10/6)
• Don't (10/8)
• Barrio Triste (10/9)
• Roof (10/9)

Press Kit Archive

Pieces from the Showgirls (1995) press kit.