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There’s a reason ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS continues to haunt conversations about exploitation and censorship nearly fifty years after its release. It’s not a film that hides behind metaphor or restraint—it’s raw, offensive, and proudly coarse. What makes Kino Lorber’s new 4K UHD restoration noteworthy isn’t that it redeems the film, but that it confronts it. This is one of the most notorious examples of 70s grindhouse excess—filmmaking that dared viewers to recoil and look closer.

FLYING DUO is a delicate, personal, and unmistakably authentic short film that captures the ache of displacement through humor, heart, and subtle artistry. Written by Emma Brunet-Campain and directed by Robyn Faye, this ten-minute exploration of loneliness and friendship becomes a celebration of persistence—both within its story and behind the scenes. It’s the kind of short that makes viewers remember the first time they felt swallowed by a city and found comfort in someone who understood.

Idris Elba’s DUST TO DREAMS is a compact, performance-driven short about inheritance—of places, pain, and the courage it takes to keep a legacy alive. Set in Lagos, the film centers on a shy young woman suddenly responsible for her mother’s struggling nightclub, only to be confronted by a father she barely knows. It’s a simple premise, yet the emotions underneath are anything but: grief, resentment, and a stubborn hope that refuses to leave the stage even as the lights flicker.

Trevor Morris makes a striking directorial debut with BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL, a short film that feels deeply personal yet universally resonant. Morris approaches filmmaking with the same precision he brings to music — layering emotion, rhythm, and structure into something that hums with authenticity.

SOLAR OPPOSITES: SEASON 6 arrives knowing it’s the end, and that shapes everything from the opening jokes to the final note. Stripping the family of its diamond-making machine is the right constraint for a show that’s often delighted in wild gadgetry—by putting the brakes on unlimited sci-fi spending, the season forces Terry, Korvo, Jesse, and Yumyulack to face who they are without instant fixes. It’s a clever narrative throttle: when you can’t buy your way out of a mess, you either adapt or implode. Across ten episodes, the series' final season leans into that mandate with tighter episodes, meaner in the best way, and surprisingly reflective without losing the show’s signature energy.

HANS ZIMMER & FRIENDS: DIAMOND IN THE DESERT plays like a summation of a remarkable career and a statement piece of an icon. Across two and a half hours, the film assembles a setlist of music that marks modern blockbuster memory—DUNE, GLADIATOR, INTERSTELLAR, THE LION KING—then reframes them as living, breathing pieces written for a stage that expects the music to carry everything on its own. This isn’t “clips with an orchestra.” It’s a concert movie that treats the score as the story, letting a hand-picked band and an arena-sized production translate what audiences usually feel under dialogue and picture into a direct, physical experience.

Sequels to revolutionary comedies almost always face impossible expectations, and AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL is no exception. Released in 1982, just two years after the smash hit AIRPLANE!, this follow-up attempted to recapture the lightning in a bottle by sending the disaster parody into outer space. The setup is simple but ripe for gags: the first commercial lunar shuttle malfunctions, its computer system goes haywire, and Ted Striker (Robert Hays) once again must save the day, all while reconciling with Elaine (Julie Hagerty). With a cast stacked with recognizable names like Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, William Shatner, Rip Torn, and Sonny Bono, the film had every opportunity to ride high on the original’s momentum.

THE LITTLES is a short film that proves you don’t need sprawling mythology or elaborate dialogue to leave an impression. (Although I have nothing to confirm this with, I couldn’t stop thinking that this was a horror homage to the 80s animated series THE LITTLES) At only seven minutes long, it takes a deceptively simple event—a child stubbing her toe on a loose floorboard—and transforms it into a portal to a stranger, more unsettling world. With just one spoken line of dialogue, the film demands that atmosphere, visuals, and sound shoulder the full weight of the story. That gamble pays off.

The story is simple, but the execution walks a tightrope: MURDAUGH: DEATH IN THE FAMILY dramatizes a well-documented tragedy without pretending the audience is coming in cold. That changes how suspense functions. Instead of asking what happened, the show keeps asking why and how—how influence hardens into impunity, how denial becomes a survival tactic, how a community can be both complicit and wounded by the same story. Grounding those questions is a character-forward approach that turns headlines into a lived-in world.

EDGAR ALLAN POE’S THE OVAL PORTRAIT has the right ingredients on paper: a cursed painting, three strangers bound by a past they don’t understand, and the perfect setting—a peculiar antique shop—that practically begs for haunts, whispers, and the feeling that every object carries a memory. What it lacks is the connective tissue that makes a Gothic thriller feel alive. The mood is present, the premise is clear, and a handful of shots achieve the eerie stillness the story calls for. But the execution, especially across the ensemble, pulls attention away from the tension the film is trying to build.

Some films capture the pulse of New York; others catch its indescribable core. THE FRENCH ITALIAN exists somewhere in between—an offbeat comedy of errors about artistic delusion, noisy neighbors, and the complicated way self-importance masquerades as creativity. It’s as funny as it is uncomfortable, not because of how it’s written, but because it's not afraid to shine a light on the satirical elements within the production.

Some horror emerges from the shadows, while others are born in plain sight—shimmering under fluorescent lights, smiling through self-help slogans, and whispering promises of self-improvement. THINESTRA lives in that unsettling space between vanity and survival, turning a mirror toward modern body culture and daring the audience to look closer, even when it hurts to do so.

WHERE DID THE ADULTS GO? arrives as a narrative feature from Academy Award nominee Courtney Marsh, a filmmaker already known for blending intimate storytelling with social conscience. The film presents a seemingly simple scenario: three siblings, a family house, and the anniversary of their parents’ death. But it’s through this structure that Marsh builds something richer—a study of grief, inheritance, and identity, anchored by performances that balance vulnerability with tension.

The hook is simple enough to pitch in a sentence: a high-school kid gets dumped, finds out she’s pregnant, and decides keeping the baby might win him back and give her life direction. The film takes that impulse seriously without mocking it, then dismantles the fantasy with clear eyes and a sense of humor that never condescends. IF THAT MOCKINGBIRD DON’T SING is a teen pregnancy dramedy that respects its characters’ naïveté while insisting on accountability; it allows Sydnie’s (Aitana Doyle) hope to be sincere and simultaneously shows why “fixing” your life by having a baby is a fragile plan at best.

Every so often, a filmmaker comes along who embraces the absurdity of a genre without apology. Steven Kostanski has made a career out of that blend. With DEATHSTALKER, he doubles down on his affection for monsters, gory practical effects, and the earnest joy of throwback fantasy. This reimagining of Roger Corman’s sword-and-sorcery staple arrives with all the foam-crafted cave walls, smoke-drenched battlefields, and stop-motion monstrosities you’d expect, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. The result is a noisy return to pulp fantasy, one that knows its audience and rewards them with exactly the kind of spectacle they crave.