©Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures Teiko’s shuttered hotel is sort of the Japanese equivalent of the Overlook in The Shining. It is isolated and haunted. Fortunately, she hires the perfect medium/exorcist/spiritualist. Airi is also isolated and haunted, emotionally and literally. The ghost of her late sister Miku still accompanies her on all her jobs. In this…
ⓒCourtesy of Hasbro For many kids in the 1980s, the deaths of several fan-favorite Transformers in the franchise’s first animated feature landed just as traumatically as the shooting of “Old Yeller” had for their parents. Eventually, the most notable fallen Transformers “returned” in the two-part finale to season three. However, there is no denying his…
ⓒCourtesy of Neon They are too small to be proper kaiju, but they are too large and weird-looking to be human. Whatever they are, they are Ko Bum-seok’s problem. As the police chief of Hope Harbor, it is his job to serve and protect. However, he is not trained to fight monsters. Fortunately, his town…
ⓒCourtesy of Japan Cuts Tagosaku Suzuki is the most dubious psychic since Uri Geller pretended to bend spoons with his mind. However, Suzuki’s deception involves life and death ramifications, because casualties will surely result from the bombings he pretends to have fuzzy precognitive visions of. The police know he must be an accomplice, but they…
ⓒCourtesy of Japan Cuts In this prequel, the clones will attack. However, you will never mistake Takahide Hori’s latest stop-motion animated feature for that other film. You might even appreciate it more, if you give it half a chance. Science fiction fans will be hard-pressed to find world-building as inventive and immersive, even in tent-poles…
©Courtesy of Japan Cuts Competition was fierce, but the Battle of Okinawa might have been the most brutal 82 days of World War II’s Pacific Theater. The tragedy escalated and compounded when Okinawan civilians were used as human shields. Propaganda misinformation regarding American G.I.’s directly led to horrific mass suicides, including many of the so-called…
©Courtesy of Warner Brothers From a cinematic perspective DC films have been far more interesting than Marvel movies, because they have been willing to go dark, in stylistically interesting ways. Truly, no comic book movies were darker than Todd Phillips’ Joker or Matt Reeves’ The Batman. In contrast, James Gunn’s rebooted Superman was widely considered…
ⒸCourtesy of Lionsgate Action movie heroes hate human traffickers—and rightly so. They are the scum of the earth, whom nobody would defend. Notable examples include, Liam Neeson in Taken, Veronica Ngo in Furie, Jim Caviezel in Sound of Freedom, and Dolph Lundgren in Skin Trade, and in real-life as an advocate for victims. Now, Joe…
©Courtesy of Film Movement Kids always pick up on more than their parents realize. That is especially true of eleven-year-old Fuki Okita. She fully understands that her father Keiji is dying from cancer and that her mother Utako is dealing with it badly. In fact, she often rather awkwardly acknowledges these facts to her increasingly…
Just imagine how today’s media and politicians would have reacted to the Allied Normandy landing. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, American forces suffered 6,000 casualties, out which 2,500 were confirmed fatalities. That was simply to land on and hold the beaches of Normandy. Almost an entire year a fighting still lay ahead, including the…
If you like our contents, please subscribe our news letter!
If you like our contents, please subscribe our news letter!
