McLean‘s Hometown News Site

VIDEOHEAVEN doesn’t just honor the video rental era, it resurrects it. Alex Ross Perry’s ambitious documentary does not follow the typical nostalgia-doc blueprint. There are no teary-eyed talking heads or fuzzy recreations of childhood memories. Instead, this is a cinematic thesis—structured, argued, and illustrated with methodical intensity, yet pulsing with deeply felt personal conviction. Ironically, the film feels like one of those educational documentaries you would have watched in school, but in the absolute best way possible.

Alicia Silverstone has never been one to back down from a defining role, and in PRETTY THING, she reclaims center stage with all the force and sharpness of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing. What starts as an intoxicating affair between a powerful executive and her younger lover spirals into something far darker—a game neither can control. Director Justin Kelly channels the erotic thrillers of the '80s and '90s but updates the formula with a more self-aware, power-conscious lens.

STOMACH IT certainly doesn’t lack conviction. In just 13 minutes, writer-director Peter Klausner attempts to unpack grief, trauma, and emotional detachment through the lens of psychological and body horror. While the shorts’ atmosphere and concept are commendable, the result doesn’t always hit with the force or clarity it aims for. That said, there’s enough style and sincerity behind the camera to keep it engaging, even when it doesn’t quite land (for me).

If your home could talk, what would it say? In NEUROVENGE, director Mina Soliman's debut feature, the house does more than talk—it listens, manipulates, and eventually…. This sci-fi thriller imagines an AI-powered home system not as a convenience but as a calculated and increasingly sinister presence in the life of a grieving teenager and her fractured family. If you’ve seen 2022’s TRADER and enjoyed it, you’ll likely enjoy the ride here. The film was co-written by the writer/director of that film, and though entirely different, you can feel a similarity there!

There’s nothing shy about VANILLA. It doesn’t ease into its premise or whisper sweet nothings to the audience. This short comedy is loud, crass, proudly inappropriate, and knows exactly what it’s doing. It's the kind of film that looks you straight in the eye while getting undressed and dares you to look away. Self-awareness isn’t a side effect here—it’s baked into the entire experience. VANILLA thrives on confronting the audience with its blend of uncomfortable humor, kink-friendly roleplay, and relentless genre subversion. It’s not just a sex comedy—it’s a meta-kink carnival where the punchline is how far it's willing to go.

Set during the covert operations of the CIA’s secret air transport wing in 1969 Laos, AIR AMERICA blends high-octane action with comedy and more subversive commentary than it’s often credited with. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, the film juggles war satire, buddy comedy antics, and government critique—sometimes with grace, with turbulence—but always anchored by the effortless chemistry between Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr.

MADE IN NEW JERSEY: FILMS FROM FORT LEE isn’t just a collection—it’s a resurrection of sorts. Across two Blu-ray discs, Milestone Films/Kino Lorber curates 14 early short films and two documentaries that collectively remind viewers that the story of American cinema didn’t start in Hollywood—it began in the backlots of Fort Lee, New Jersey. Spanning over a century of history, the set provides a fascinating archival deep dive and a wildly entertaining survey of the earliest moving pictures.

THE PRESIDENT’S WIFE takes real events, real people, and a lot of satirical seasoning and whips up a political comedy that never pretends to be definitive. Directed by Léa Domenach in her feature debut, the film positions itself between affectionate character study and pointed send-up. Catherine Deneuve (one of my all-time favorite actors) anchors the experience as the titular Madame Chirac. The result is stylish and sharp, but it often feels more interested in one-liners than in unpacking the deeper ironies of power, gender, and public life.

In HANDSOME HARRY, a man’s life is interrupted by an unexpected request, and from that moment, the truth—long buried and conveniently distorted—begins to unravel. Directed by Bette Gordon, this deeply personal drama follows a Vietnam veteran reckoning with his past, not in pursuit of forgiveness, but to understand the cost of denying who you are and what you’ve done.

Sometimes the most terrifying threats aren’t lurking in the shadows—they’re waiting in plain sight, hidden in the wind, tremors in rock, and the psychological tension of a place no human was meant to be. That’s the gamble this horror thriller takes, placing the viewer high above the earth on a deadly climb and asking: what happens when the unknown joins you on the ascent?

A stillness to WOLF AND DOG speaks louder than most films with three times the dialogue. With its dreamlike textures and grounded sense of place, Cláudia Varejão’s narrative debut crafts an atmosphere where emotions boil beneath the surface until they shift the entire landscape. Set on the isolated island of São Miguel in the Azores, this queer coming-of-age drama is both tender and raw, full of contradictions that mirror the very forces shaping its characters’ lives.

What starts as a promising exposé of a globally entrenched economic ideology stumbles not because it lacks substance, but because it struggles with how that substance is delivered. THE INVISIBLE DOCTRINE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF NEOLIBERALISM outlines how a complex political and economic belief system took over a century and continues shaping everything from public policy to personal identity. At its core, the film raises critical questions about power, perception, and collective agency. But it’s hard to ignore the nagging contradiction at the heart of its visual presentation—a contradiction that ultimately undercuts its strongest arguments.

It doesn’t take long for GATE OF FLESH to make you feel like you’ve wandered into a world already lost to time, not just postwar Tokyo, but a fever dream where survival is dictated by how much you’re willing to give away. Hideo Gosha’s 1988 adaptation of Taijirō Tamura’s novel doesn’t just revisit the source material—it rips it open, covers it with 1980s grit, and dares you to look away. Forget the glamour of period accuracy. This version trades it for something messier, meaner, and emotionally unfiltered.

Reality television has always flirted with chaos, but this film doesn’t flirt—it leans into it and holds a mirror to our most voyeuristic impulses. What starts as a behind-the-scenes look at the workings of unscripted drama transforms into a character study about what happens when personal boundaries collapse under the pressure of public exposure. It's a film about blurred lines: between entertainment and exploitation, between performance and truth, and between who we think we are and who we become under the spotlight.

There’s a fine line between justice and vengeance, and LAW ABIDING CITIZEN ensures you feel every inch of it. More than a decade after its theatrical debut, this hard-hitting thriller still manages to stir debate—and thanks to Lionsgate’s new 4K Ultra HD Steelbook release, it looks and sounds sharper than ever.

What begins with clinical paperwork and a knock on the door becomes a story about resilience, control, and the strength buried in those who’ve been overlooked. This thriller isn’t about the flash—it’s about the fight that unfolds when the rules are used against the vulnerable, and how that fight doesn’t always come dressed in action tropes or speeches.

There’s something oddly satisfying about a film that knows it’s a little off the rails but moves forward anyway. That’s the curious energy pulsing through STEALING PULP FICTION—a scrappy heist comedy where ambition overshadows logic, and enthusiasm trumps expertise. It’s a knowingly disorganized story about people who adore cinema just enough to make the worst decisions possible. While not every aspect lands, there’s something enjoyable in watching it try.

There are cult films… and then there are the kind of movies that feel like they escaped from a fever dream at a VHS rental store in an alternate timeline. TERMINUS belongs to the latter. Directed by cinematographer-turned-madman Pierre-William Glenn, this 1987 French-American hybrid is getting a high-def debut courtesy of the MVD Rewind Collection, and somehow—somehow—it’s kind of delightful in its B-movie bonkers way.

Faith, trauma, and the shadows we can’t shake—this film drifts through all three with a deliberate unease. It doesn’t race toward revelation or hide behind itself; instead, it moves like its central character: cautiously, searchingly, and often in silence. With its slow-burn structure and emotionally haunted protagonist, this story sidesteps catharsis to examine what’s left behind when belief collapses. Identity needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

If Rube Goldberg had directed HOME ALONE and cast a rodent as the mastermind, you’d land somewhere in the neighborhood of MOUSE HUNT. Gleefully over-the-top and bursting at the seams with slapstick lunacy, this 1997 comedy from first-time director Gore Verbinski doesn’t just flirt with chaos—it buys it dinner, marries it, and moves into a house booby-trapped by fate and a single unstoppable mouse.

With PALINDROMES, Todd Solondz returns to the deeply uncomfortable territory he’s known for, offering a narrative as fragmented as it is fearless. This 2004 film, now restored in 4K and presented in a limited dual-format edition by Radiance Films, pushes boundaries in form and content. It follows a young girl named Aviva who is determined to become a mother, but the path she takes is anything but ordinary, and the lens through which we view her keeps shifting.

There’s a raw, scorched beauty to Hideo Gosha’s GATE OF FLESH—a film that doesn’t romanticize survival, but refuses to ignore the resilience that springs up in even the harshest conditions. Set in postwar Tokyo during the Allied Occupation, this adaptation of Taijiro Tamura’s oft-retold story follows a collective of sex workers who reclaim a building and turn it into their small utopia, Paradise. But in a world littered with trauma, struggles, and lingering violence, nothing stays untouched for long.

There’s no question that DARK CITY sets a mood. From the first frame, the film pulls the viewer into a nightmare dressed in noir, where trench coats and fog go hand in hand, and the sky has forgotten how to turn blue. Directed by Alex Proyas and featuring a cast of genre veterans, the movie doesn’t waste time trying to ease anyone in. Instead, it throws you headfirst into a world of manufactured memories, mysterious strangers, and a city that seems less like a location and more like a trap.

Released in 1970 and now making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Arrow Video, THE INVISIBLE SWORDSMAN is a fantasy-tinged action film with a traditional revenge arc and a dash of the supernatural. While the title may suggest something a little zany or offbeat, what’s here is a far more sincere samurai adventure than you'd expect—more spiritual fable with occasional playful touches.

Ah, the year 2000 was when your biggest concern was whether your frosted tips were even and if someone had accidentally mailed your sex tape across the country (I was graduating high school.) ROAD TRIP was not for prestige cinema; it aimed for that awkward humor, and maybe make you just a little uncomfortable. With this new 4K restoration from Kino Lorber (an odd, but welcome choice), the movie that once lived on worn-out DVD shelves next to AMERICAN PIE and VAN WILDER now gets a glow-up.