FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

The sleek, matte-black silhouette of the modified Gazelle helicopter cuts through the hazy Los Angeles skyline like a predatory insect, a visual metaphor for the encroaching surveillance state that feels even more pointed today than it did in 1983. John Badham’s Blue Thunder is a remarkable piece of high-octane populist filmmaking, a relic of an era when practical effects and stunt flying carried a weight and physical presence that digital wizardry simply cannot replicate. It is a film of grit, sweat, and kerosene, grounded by a weary, soulful performance from Roy Scheider that elevates what could have been a standard police procedural into a haunting meditation on the erosion of privacy and the terrifying potential of militarized domestic policing. Revisiting the film in an age of drones and ubiquitous data collection reveals a prophetic edge that is genuinely unsettling. The titular aircraft is not just a weapon; it is a mobile panopticon, capable of "looking into a bedroom wind...

It is a strange thing to watch a movie from 1998 and feel like you are looking at a lost artifact from 1984. Paul W.S. Anderson’s Soldier is a film that arrived at the wrong time, perhaps even on the wrong planet, but it carries the DNA of a very specific, very muscular era of science fiction. It feels like a cousin to the grit of The Terminator or the blue-collar exhaustion of Aliens. It lacks the slick, digital sheen that would soon define the turn of the century, opting instead for massive, practical sets, heavy pyrotechnics, and a lead performance that is almost entirely silent. It is a movie built on the back of Kurt Russell’s squint, and in the late nineties, that wasn’t quite enough for a cynical audience. But looking at it today, it feels like a masterpiece of minimalist storytelling tucked inside a maximalist action shell. The connection to 1984 isn’t just about the vibe; it is literal. David Webb Peoples wrote the screenplay, and he is the same man who co-wrote Blade Runner. ...

The release of Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC marks a significant milestone for North American fans of European cult cinema. For decades, the massive popularity of Karl May in Germany was something of a mystery to American audiences, but this collection from the Masters of Cinema series finally provides a definitive look at the lavish, globe-trotting spectacles produced by Artur Brauner. These films represent a bridge between the classic Hollywood adventures of the fifties and the more gritty, violent landscapes of the Spaghetti Western, offering a brand of escapism that is as visually stunning as it is historically fascinating. Karl May was a man who famously wrote about worlds he had never visited, yet his ability to capture the spirit of adventure made him a literary titan. Brauner’s CCC Film took that literary spirit and translated it into a cinematic language that dominated European box offices throughout the sixties. Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of...

When it comes to the golden age of the drive-in, few experiences could match the sheer, unadulterated joy of the double feature. It was a time when narrative logic took a backseat to high-concept monsters and the kind of atmospheric grime that only a low-budget production could provide. VCI Entertainment has tapped directly into that nostalgia with their Creepy Double Feature line, and their latest Blu-ray pairing brings together two titans of 1963 psychotronic cinema: The Crawling Hand and The Slime People. This disc is a celebration of a very specific era in independent filmmaking—a moment where the atomic dread of the fifties began to melt into the weird, pop-infused sensibilities of the early sixties. On one hand, you have the localized, noir-tinged horror of a space-borne limb terrorizing a California boarding house; on the other, a sprawling, fog-drenched vision of a subterranean invasion that turns Los Angeles into a claustrophobic wasteland. While these films were birthed from ...

The Pang brothers’ 2002 supernatural horror film The Eye (original title Gin Gwai ) remains a seminal work within the East Asian horror boom of the early millennium. While it is often grouped alongside J-horror classics like Ringu or Ju-On , this Hong Kong and Thai co-production distinguishes itself through a unique blend of visceral body horror and a deeply empathetic character study. It explores the terrifying intersection of sensory perception and identity, asking what happens when the very tools we use to navigate the world become windows into a reality we were never meant to witness. The film is far more than a collection of jump scares; it is a meditation on the burden of sight and the inescapable weight of the past. The narrative follows Mun, a twenty year old classical violinist who has been blind since the age of two. When she undergoes a risky corneal transplant to restore her vision, the initial wonder of light and color quickly curdles into a nightmare. As her sight retur...

Joe Dante is a mad scientist of the suburban variety. He takes the familiar comforts of our living rooms and the mundane routines of our lives, then he injects them with a frantic cartoon energy that feels like it might burst at the seams. Seeing Innerspace for the first time on a grainy VHS tape back when I was eleven or twelve years old felt like discovering a secret transmission from a much cooler, more chaotic dimension. My parents had a top-loading VCR in our basement that made a heavy mechanical clunk when you pushed the tape down, and that sound was the starting bell for a journey into the microscopic. Back then, I didn’t know who Dennis Quaid was and was only familiar with Martin Short as Ed Grimley, but to me, after watching Innerspace, they were the two halves of a perfect comedic brain. The movie starts with a premise that should be terrifying, a miniaturized pilot injected into the body of a hypochondriac grocery clerk, but Dante turns it into a high-speed chase that never ...

If you want to understand the exact moment that high fantasy on the big screen transitioned from campy fairy tales into something visceral, blood-soaked, and operatic, you have to look at John Boorman’s 1981 masterpiece, Excalibur. Long before Peter Jackson brought a literalist grit to Middle-earth, Boorman was out in the Irish countryside capturing a version of the Arthurian legend that feels less like a history lesson and more like a collective fever dream. It is a film that exists in a state of constant, shimmering intensity, where every suit of armor glows with an otherworldly chrome and every forest seems to be breathing. It is easily one of the most beautiful and deeply strange movies ever made, and it remains the definitive cinematic take on the rise and fall of Camelot. The story follows the entire arc of the legend, starting with the brutal, rain-slicked nights of Uther Pendragon and ending with the misty departure to Avalon. What makes Boorman’s approach so unique is that he ...

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if an Italian filmmaker tried to rip off The Omen, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind simultaneously while high on espresso and fever dreams, you’ll find your answer in the 1979 madness that is The Visitor. This isn't just a movie; it’s a psychedelic artifact of a time when the cinematic rulebook was thrown out the window in favor of pure "vibes" and avian-based violence. The film opens in a blinding white void where an intergalactic warrior named Jerzy—played with a magnificent, weary gravitas by the legendary John Huston—meets a cosmic, bald Christ-figure played by Franco Nero. They are surrounded by dozens of bald children in a scene that looks like a high-fashion cult meeting. They are locked in a multi-dimensional war against "Sateen," an ancient evil force whose genetic legacy is currently manifesting on Earth in the form of a foul-mouthed eight-year-old girl named Katy who lives in Atlanta. It...

When Creepshow came out in 1982, it felt like a splash of lurid color ripped straight from the pages of EC horror comics. George A. Romero directed with style, Stephen King supplied pulpy stories, and the result was a mix of camp and menace that captured the spirit of twisted morality tales. Five stories, bound together by a sharp comic-book aesthetic, gave it both variety and energy. A sequel seemed inevitable, and in 1987, Creepshow 2 arrived with Romero stepping back into the role of screenwriter while his longtime cinematographer Michael Gornick took the director’s chair. Right away, the difference is clear: the sequel is leaner, offering just three stories instead of five. There’s plenty of gore, gallows humor, and supernatural justice, but it never reaches the same heights as the original. It feels smaller, less ambitious, and sometimes clumsier, though still worth a look for horror anthology fans. The film keeps the comic-inspired wraparound, this time featuring a character call...

In the pantheon of '80s action films, Cobra stands out not only for its relentless action and bat-shit crazy lead performance but also for its memorable set pieces, distinctive character dynamics, and a pulsating synth-heavy score that perfectly encapsulates the decade’s aesthetic. Directed by George P. Cosmatos and featuring Sylvester Stallone in one of his most iconic roles, this 1986 thriller captures the era's obsession with tough, no-nonsense heroes and over-the-top violence. Interestingly, Stallone was originally cast in Beverly Hills Cop but left the project due to creative differences, seeking a more action-oriented and brutal approach.  Cobra  became  his vehicle for that darker, grittier vision. Stallone stars as Lieutenant Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, an LAPD cop with a rebellious edge and a fiercely independent streak. Tasked with protecting a key witness, played by Brigitte Nielsen, from a psychopathic gang known only as "The New World," Cobra tak...