FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

The sleek, matte-black silhouette of the modified Gazelle helicopter cuts through the hazy Los Angeles skyline like a predatory insect, a visual metaphor for the encroaching surveillance state that feels even more pointed today than it did in 1983. John Badham’s Blue Thunder is a remarkable piece of high-octane populist filmmaking, a relic of an era when practical effects and stunt flying carried a weight and physical presence that digital wizardry simply cannot replicate. It is a film of grit, sweat, and kerosene, grounded by a weary, soulful performance from Roy Scheider that elevates what could have been a standard police procedural into a haunting meditation on the erosion of privacy and the terrifying potential of militarized domestic policing. Revisiting the film in an age of drones and ubiquitous data collection reveals a prophetic edge that is genuinely unsettling. The titular aircraft is not just a weapon; it is a mobile panopticon, capable of "looking into a bedroom wind...

It is a strange thing to watch a movie from 1998 and feel like you are looking at a lost artifact from 1984. Paul W.S. Anderson’s Soldier is a film that arrived at the wrong time, perhaps even on the wrong planet, but it carries the DNA of a very specific, very muscular era of science fiction. It feels like a cousin to the grit of The Terminator or the blue-collar exhaustion of Aliens. It lacks the slick, digital sheen that would soon define the turn of the century, opting instead for massive, practical sets, heavy pyrotechnics, and a lead performance that is almost entirely silent. It is a movie built on the back of Kurt Russell’s squint, and in the late nineties, that wasn’t quite enough for a cynical audience. But looking at it today, it feels like a masterpiece of minimalist storytelling tucked inside a maximalist action shell. The connection to 1984 isn’t just about the vibe; it is literal. David Webb Peoples wrote the screenplay, and he is the same man who co-wrote Blade Runner. ...

The release of Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC marks a significant milestone for North American fans of European cult cinema. For decades, the massive popularity of Karl May in Germany was something of a mystery to American audiences, but this collection from the Masters of Cinema series finally provides a definitive look at the lavish, globe-trotting spectacles produced by Artur Brauner. These films represent a bridge between the classic Hollywood adventures of the fifties and the more gritty, violent landscapes of the Spaghetti Western, offering a brand of escapism that is as visually stunning as it is historically fascinating. Karl May was a man who famously wrote about worlds he had never visited, yet his ability to capture the spirit of adventure made him a literary titan. Brauner’s CCC Film took that literary spirit and translated it into a cinematic language that dominated European box offices throughout the sixties. Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of...

When it comes to the golden age of the drive-in, few experiences could match the sheer, unadulterated joy of the double feature. It was a time when narrative logic took a backseat to high-concept monsters and the kind of atmospheric grime that only a low-budget production could provide. VCI Entertainment has tapped directly into that nostalgia with their Creepy Double Feature line, and their latest Blu-ray pairing brings together two titans of 1963 psychotronic cinema: The Crawling Hand and The Slime People. This disc is a celebration of a very specific era in independent filmmaking—a moment where the atomic dread of the fifties began to melt into the weird, pop-infused sensibilities of the early sixties. On one hand, you have the localized, noir-tinged horror of a space-borne limb terrorizing a California boarding house; on the other, a sprawling, fog-drenched vision of a subterranean invasion that turns Los Angeles into a claustrophobic wasteland. While these films were birthed from ...

  Today, we are diving into a project that kicked off this year’s Dallas International Film Festival as the opening night selection. It’s a film that uses the backdrop of competitive youth basketball to explore much larger themes of family, grief, and the weight of expectations. Joining me today is writer and producer Todd M. Friedman to discuss his new film, Last Shot. Starring Jaime Pressly and Michael Rapaport, the story follows a young basketball prodigy navigating life after a significant loss. What makes this project particularly compelling is how it leans into a grounded, realistic drama—a narrative depth that stems from Todd’s own experiences on the sidelines and the unique decision to cast his son, Dylan Friedman, in the lead role. We’re going to talk about the transition from personal experience to the page, the collaborative process of indie filmmaking, and what it’s like to premiere a project of this scale.

The film I Swear is a work of profound empathy that arrives at a moment when cinema feels increasingly preoccupied with spectacle over the intricacies of the human condition. It is a film that refuses to blink, yet its gaze is never intrusive; it is a film that demands we look closer, not at a diagnosis, but at a person. As a father to a neurodivergent child, watching this film wasn’t just a cinematic experience: it was an act of recognition. It felt like someone had finally handed me a mirror that didn’t just reflect the surface of our lives, but the deep, often turbulent, and vibrantly colorful currents that run beneath it. For so long, the stories told about families like mine have felt like they were written by observers looking through a glass partition. They capture the behaviors, the clinical definitions, and the external stressors, but they often miss the soul. I Swear finds that soul and lets it breathe. The brilliance of I Swear lies in its commitment to the small moments. In...

The year 2026 has already seen its fair share of cinematic highs and lows, but few projects carried the weight of expectation quite like Edgar Wright’s reimagining of The Running Man. After decades of the 1987 Schwarzenegger vehicle serving as the definitive, if loosely adapted, version of Stephen King’s Bachman novel, Wright promised a return to the dirt and grit of the source material. What we’ve received is a film that is undeniably Wright, kinetic, sonically meticulous, and visually sharp, yet one that feels caught in a tug-of-war between its grim literary roots and the director's natural instinct for stylized spectacle. The most immediate departure from the 1980s classic is the casting of Glen Powell as Ben Richards. Gone is the invincible, one-liner-spouting tank of a man. In his place is a Richards who looks like a man who hasn't slept in three days because he's too busy worrying about how to pay for his daughter’s medicine. Powell, who has spent the last few years p...

The Pang brothers’ 2002 supernatural horror film The Eye (original title Gin Gwai ) remains a seminal work within the East Asian horror boom of the early millennium. While it is often grouped alongside J-horror classics like Ringu or Ju-On , this Hong Kong and Thai co-production distinguishes itself through a unique blend of visceral body horror and a deeply empathetic character study. It explores the terrifying intersection of sensory perception and identity, asking what happens when the very tools we use to navigate the world become windows into a reality we were never meant to witness. The film is far more than a collection of jump scares; it is a meditation on the burden of sight and the inescapable weight of the past. The narrative follows Mun, a twenty year old classical violinist who has been blind since the age of two. When she undergoes a risky corneal transplant to restore her vision, the initial wonder of light and color quickly curdles into a nightmare. As her sight retur...

Few films in history carry a reputation as volatile as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. The stories of its production have become the stuff of Hollywood legend, monsoons, heart attacks, and a budget spiraling out of control in the Philippine jungle. On May 19, 2026, cinephiles will get a definitive look at that chaos with the release of the Hearts of Darkness: The Art of Eleanor Coppola 4K Collector’s Edition. This exclusive Lionsgate Limited set doesn't just revisit the film; it honors the late Eleanor Coppola, whose fly-on-the-wall perspective captured the raw, unvarnished breakdown of a masterpiece in the making. What makes this release special is its focus on Eleanor’s unique artistic eye. While her husband was grappling with the "madness" of the Vietnam War epic, Eleanor was quietly documenting the collapse of order around them. This new edition presents the acclaimed documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse in stunning 4K UHD, accompanied by a ...