celluloid consommé

Matt Vesely’s low budget sci-fi mystery starring Lily Sullivan hits physical media tomorrow. Box and disc art photo courtesy of Well Go USA. Monolith  might be something of an under-the-radar film. It was to me at least, not having heard of filmmaker Matt Vesely prior to this release. But since I had been looking forward to  Evil Dead Rise  and enjoyed that film, having Lily Sullivan as the sole physical performer in  Monolith  was the biggest draw for me, and perhaps that would be the case for most other people. Vesely’s film follows Sullivan as a journalist working on a new investigative podcast. With a looming deadline for the first episode and no clue where to pin her topic she receives a cryptic email telling her to interview a woman who was in the possession of a mysterious black brick. Desperation gives her motivation to follow these instructions, opening somewhat of a gateway into something the interviewer cannot back out of. For fans of speculative scie...

After raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the facts about her pet — and fight for her family’s survival — when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster. Poster courtesy of Well Go USA. Creature features don’t need to do a whole lot to win us over. They could fall short in virtually everything that doesn’t have anything to do with its monster and still triumph in its audience’s hearts. Sometimes plot, pacing or drama comes secondary to us on the page, before the screen, and seated before the screen if the monster promised delivers. Press enter or click to view image in full size Still courtesy of Well Go USA. Sting  knows what its audience wants but has a little trouble splitting that between what  it  wants to do. But what it attempts is admirable, and almost pulls off flawlessly. Which is to say that it wants to be a monster movie featuring a self-contained community like a mash of...

It’s hard to describe what it was really like to be going through adolescence during the first decade of the 2000s. A multitude of cultural journeys in America intricately overlapped during a time that felt simple to those of us too young to parse the reality of the USA’s foretold doom. And to help tell the story of one mixed-up individual deep in issues they understand more than the average adult, we’re thrown into  Rats!  as Raphael (Luke Wilcox) is forced to work with the police against a family member. The 2000s were a wild place, and  Rats!  won’t let anyone forget it. With its warpy, distorted lens fixed on emo America, it reads and understands the voided agency from institutions that pressed its stoic boot into the faces of youth early. Moments of absurdity flit by in between equally spaced charming and gross-out bits, yet the film never lingers too long in one space. It’s farcical and in every moment spinning jokes around the dire situation Raphael finds hims...

Tynan DeLong’s entirely improvised feature  Dad & Step-Dad  brings laughs, head-scratches, and dadly pride. But it also broaches the existential dread we all share but hits dads differently: actually having to  do things.  As the titular dads interact glibly atop a bubbly yet transparent surface of social niceties, their actual familial relationships struggle under the weight of their insistence on paternal politics. As expected with something that has “dad jokes” written in all caps in king-size Sharpie on the side of the box, the cadence of what we’ve come to understand as “dad energy” comes in full swing with a 3-iron at the first stroke at the front half at tee time. We get a dad’s eye view of their intricate politics at work and are thrust nonchalantly into the hamster wheel of their collective psyche as they enter a mental battle with each other to win the most affection. Courtesy of NoBudge Their work is never done, even when on a three-day weekend getaway...

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s latest film gets a US release from Well Go USA. Box and disc art photo courtesy of Well Go USA. Well Go USA adds a genuine masterpiece to its home video collection this month with Kore-Eda’s  Monster . Despite Well Go’s tendencies to align with genre cinema the exception of adding a Kore-Eda drama is a big addition to its repertoire.  Monster  sees director Kore-Eda and writer Yuji Sakamoto collaborating symbiotically on a story told through different perspectives. Though  Rashomon  is the primary inspiration for its structuring, Sakamoto’s character writing focuses on the children’s perspective in Minato (Soya Kurokawa) and Yori’s (Hinata Hiiragi) relationship at school in a small Japanese town. Saori (Sakura Ando) hears from her son Minato that he’s being bullied at school by his teacher Hori (Eita Nagayama) with injuries to show for it. After a meeting at the school raises more questions, Saori’s concern grows heavier until she decides to ...