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Hiroyuki Sanada spends much of ROARING FIRE surrounded by a movie that refuses to behave itself. He's introduced as a Texas-raised rancher, sent to Japan by a family revelation, drawn into a murder mystery, surrounded by criminals, reunited with relatives he never knew existed, and eventually entangled in a scheme involving a massive diamond. Norifumi Suzuki keeps throwing more at him, frequently with little concern for whether the latest addition belongs in the same movie as the previous one. Sanada's ability to move through it all without losing his footing is a large part of why this strange action comedy works.

Some people enter a room knowing exactly where they belong. Isabel usually looks like she's still waiting for someone to tell her where to stand, and ON A STRING gets a remarkable amount of comedy from that uncertainty. Isabel Hagen doesn't exaggerate the discomfort or build every interaction toward an obvious punchline. She lets people talk a little too long, misunderstand each other, cross boundaries without realizing it, and leave Isabel trying to decide what exactly just happened.

There are stretches of GUYVER: DARK HERO where its budget is impossible to ignore, and then somebody puts on one of those creature suits and starts throwing punches. Suddenly, none of that matters nearly as much. Steve Wang understood that the Guyver wouldn't be sold through expensive sets or elaborate visual effects. It needed creatures that could move, performers who could fight inside them, and a camera willing to stay close enough for us to appreciate what they were doing. More than thirty years later, that remains the strongest argument for the film.

The first thing I noticed about FILIPIÑANA was how physically hot it feels. Rafael Manuel lets the sun, the cicadas, the sprinklers, and the long stretches of inactivity settle over the movie until the country club starts to feel almost narcotic. Everyone moves as though the heat has slowed the entire property down, even as workers continue trimming, cleaning, serving, carrying, and maintaining an environment designed for people who barely have to lift a finger. It’s a slow movie, sometimes almost aggressively so, and I can understand why that approach will test some viewers. For me, patience pays off more often than it frustrates, because lethargy is part of what Manuel is examining.

Rima Te Wiata isn’t in HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE for nearly as long as Sam Neill or Julian Dennison, but the entire movie depends on what Bella establishes early on. Ricky Baker arrives at another foster home expecting the same thing he has apparently learned to expect everywhere else. Adults already have an opinion of him; he’ll eventually disappoint them, and whatever temporary arrangement has been made will fall apart. Bella refuses to participate in that cycle. She feeds him, jokes with him, gives him a dog, and doesn’t treat every display of attitude as evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with him. The kindness is so uncomplicated that Ricky doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

The most effective parts of FALL 2: DEADPOINT are the moments when Michael and Peter Spierig simply let the height register, a foot searches for somewhere safe to land. Loose material disappears over an edge. The camera looks down long enough for the distance to stop being an abstraction. You understand exactly where these people are, how little space they have to work with, and what one bad movement would mean. The original FALL figured out that a survival thriller like this doesn’t need much once it convinces you the drop is real. The sequel remembers that lesson.

The new Synapse Films Blu-ray makes T.A.G.: THE ASSASSINATION GAME feel like exactly the kind of 1980s movie that should have developed a much larger cult following. It has a great premise, a cast filled with actors who were still a few years away from becoming much more recognizable, and Nick Castle directing his first feature after already having one of the strangest résumés in Hollywood. There’s also something difficult to categorize about the finished movie. It isn’t really a slasher, doesn’t commit fully to being a comedy, periodically flirts with film noir, and spends a surprising amount of time as a college romance. That combination is both the reason it remains interesting and the reason it never completely comes together.

I think what surprised me the most with this rewatching of STRICTLY BALLROOM is how much of Baz Luhrmann is already there. This was his first feature, made years before ROMEO + JULIET, MOULIN ROUGE!, and ELVIS, the enormous productions that would eventually become synonymous with his name. There’s no mistaking who directed this, though. The colors are vibrant, the performances push beyond realism, the camera moves with the same enthusiasm, and everyone seems to exist in a world where emotions deserve an extraordinary presentation. The difference is scale. Luhrmann had far fewer toys at his disposal, and that limitation may be one reason STRICTLY BALLROOM remains one of his most endearing films. There’s something genuinely scrappy underneath all the sequins, and this 4K makes them all shine!

James Ross II spends some of PARASOMNIA’s best moments watching Riley prepare to sleep. There’s an anxiety to the process because bedtime isn’t an ordinary part of her day. It’s something she has to manage. Jasmine Mathews plays those routines with the weariness of someone who has been dealing with the same problem for years, and the movie understands that something is frightening about needing a strategy for an act the body eventually demands anyway. Riley can postpone sleep, prepare for it, and convince herself that tonight might be different. Eventually, she still has to close her eyes.

The first stretch of DEAR YOU is a lot funnier than what you would expect a tearjerker like this to be. Xiaowei isn’t traveling to Thailand because of some sudden interest in his family history. He’s in debt, desperate, and heard enough about a wealthy grandfather to see the trip as a possible solution to his own problems. Zheng Runqi plays this role without making Xiaowei unbearable, and director Lan Hongchun lets the film's contemporary part begin with enough lightheartedness that the movie initially feels lighter than it ultimately is.

Director John H. Cunningham spends most of OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: THE FIRST CORAL REEFERS letting the people around Jimmy Buffett talk, and that, without a doubt, was the right choice here. Buffett’s story has been told enough that another documentary tracing his entire career from struggling songwriter to the endless Margaritaville empire wouldn’t have offered much. Cunningham instead concentrates on the musicians who helped him figure out what Jimmy Buffett music actually sounded like, particularly during the years when nobody involved could have known how large the whole thing would eventually become.

Rewatching THE A-TEAM now, the cast is easily the reason the movie still works. Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson all become their roles quickly enough that the friendship between Hannibal, Face, Murdock, and B.A. feels established long before the story finishes explaining how they became a team. Director/co-writer Joe Carnahan knew he was making something ridiculous; at the same time, he also understood that two hours of ridiculousness needed people you actually wanted to spend those two hours with.

Jōji “George” Iida’s 1987 directorial debut has an interesting science-fiction premise underlying everything, but the storytelling is rarely easy to follow. Characters show up, medical experiments are discussed, motivations remain fuzzy, and stretches of exposition somehow manage to explain plenty without making the situation clearer. Then the movie reaches its final act and finally shows what all that patience was buying. Flesh gets pulled apart, bodies mutate, fluids start flowing, and an unassuming low-budget production suddenly becomes exactly the sort of practical-effects showcase that earns a cult movie another life almost four decades later. The majority of the film’s runtime may be anything but coherent, but that’s part of the joy in discovering an experience as wild as this.

There was a time when going to the movies was more than just choosing a title and finding the best seat. The person selling the ticket might know you and your family; somebody would inevitably cause trouble during the show (although that seems to have only gotten worse lol); the building probably had something that needed to be fixed; and the theater could function as a neighborhood gathering place as much as a place to watch a film. ONCE UPON A TIME IN A CINEMA understands that experience and the larger idea of cinema of the day, and David Gleeson's affection for those places gives the movie its best moments.

Aysanat Edigeeva spends the majority of BURNING being observed rather than understood. As Asel, a young mother grieving the death of her firstborn, she has the guarded existence of someone living in a place where every motion can be interpreted by somebody else. Neighbors notice her behavior, her mother-in-law’s rituals, her husband’s frustration, and the family’s isolation, then fill the gaps with whatever explanation makes the most sense to them. Director Radik Eshimov lets that casual observation shape the horror. The people watching aren’t short on confidence, even when what they actually know is remarkably limited.

STARSUCKERS is a wonderful dark comedy about celebrity worship, and writer/directors Brett and Jason Butler are smart enough not to put all of the blame on the celebrities. The people doing the worshipping are every bit as important to the joke as the people doing the worshipping. Chuck and Eileen may just be ordinary people lucky enough to spend a weekend with their idols. The film is far more interested in what admiration does to someone's judgment once proximity to fame begins to feel like an opportunity. So I’m intentionally avoiding talking about one of my favorite parts about the film, because I think it adds such a unique bit of flair to the stylization; I want everyone to experience it as is!

L.A. Guns are several decades removed from the Sunset Strip era that made their name, but LIVE FROM THE GUILD THEATRE isn't interested in treating them like nostalgia. Recorded at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park, California, during the band's 2025 run behind LEOPARD SKIN, this performance mixes the songs longtime fans expect with enough newer material to make the concert feel connected to where the band is now. Phil Lewis and Tracii Guns remain the obvious focal points, and both perform with the confidence of musicians who know exactly what an L.A. Guns crowd came to hear.

At nearly two hours, 30 YEARS OF GARBAGE: THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS STORY has considerably more to say about a bunch of gross-out trading cards than anyone really might expect. Joe Simko and Jeff Zapata go all the way back to the original artists and Topps employees who created the Garbage Pail Kids, then follow the property through playground, angry adults, lawsuits, merchandising, an infamous movie, its disappearance, and eventual return. There's a lot of good stuff here. There's also so much of it that the documentary eventually starts to feel like it doesn't know when enough is enough.

FAREYE is at its best when writer/director Hayden Mclean stops explaining things and lets Khalil take in the world around him. The 13-minute short follows a Jamaican boy escaping an abusive home, but Mclean isn't interested in keeping him trapped within that trauma. His attention shifts toward what happens when Khalil encounters a community offering something his home doesn’t. Safety, music, faith, and the possibility that life could be formed by more than fear.

Casper Kelly has a very specific sense of humor, and BUDDY may be the clearest version of it yet. The director behind TOO MANY COOKS and writer of Nicolas Cage’s feature MANDY takes on the forced cheerfulness of a 90s children’s show. It keeps pushing until the smiles, songs, costumes, and lessons about friendship start looking threatening. Then he pushes considerably further to the breaking point and beyond. What could have been another movie trying to turn childhood nostalgia into horror instead becomes a funny, violent, surprisingly thoughtful story about people raised to follow the rules of a world they never chose.

A SCENT is the kind of true story that could easily be overplayed. A nurse discovering that she can detect Parkinson's through smell sounds almost unbelievable, yet Johnny Russell's 18-minute drama treats that less as a medical miracle than as something capable of altering a career, a marriage, and a woman's confidence in what she knows. Keeping the focus there gives the short a foundation that proves considerably more interesting than just celebrating an extraordinary ability.

An attempt at perfection is Alison Mitchell’s first mistake. Thanksgiving hasn’t even begun when THE FAMILY RECIPE starts piling on the responsibilities; there’s a very specific kind of comedy that comes from watching someone cling harder to a plan just because everyone around her is making it impossible. Writer/director Karl Ryan Erikson’s feature debut understands the anxiety behind hosting a family holiday almost as well as it understands the affection behind it all. Nobody has to be flat out “mean” for Thanksgiving to become a disaster. Sometimes it only takes relatives shoved into one house, children being children, a husband making a mistake, and a cherished recipe book disappearing when it’s needed most.

There’s a stark difference between recreating 70s exploitation cinema and recreating the feeling of being trapped inside it. SOUTHERN NIGHTMARE spends quite a bit of its run time trying to do both. Writer/director Charlie Steeds has no interest in washing away the racism, misogyny, sexual degradation, cruelty, or sheer ugliness that defined some of the era’s most vile movies. He wants the discomfort, the sleaze, the grime, and eventually the cathartic pleasure of watching terrible people receive consequences delivered with considerably more force than restraint. That approach makes this a difficult movie to recommend to a general audience and an easy one to understand on its own terms.

Gus and Clark aren’t trying to overthrow the government. They want a mortgage. That ordinary goal makes the nightmare of (0, ∞) hit harder than a story built around revolution ever could. Writer/director Mar Sudac takes eleven minutes, one married couple, and a bureaucratic requirement, then turns this all into one of the most unsettling and unexpectedly hopeful pieces of speculative fiction I’ve seen in some time.

Otis already looks tired; MEETING YOUR MAKER only had to explain why. The weariness is there in his face, his posture, and the way he carries himself as he moves through a television studio, preparing to celebrate the 300th episode of the children’s show that made him a star. He’s a puppet surrounded by bright colors and manufactured happiness, but writer/director Gregory JM Kasunich doesn’t treat that as a joke. The funny part is that Otis is a puppet. The reason the movie works is that his exhaustion feels completely human.