The Blu Spot

The Film: As writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson quickly approaches 30 years of making theatrical features, it really is quite something to look over what a strange & eccentric filmography he's created along the way, one that has thus far earned him a remarkable 11 Oscar nominations (though curiously no wins). In a career that's included some misses like "Inherent Vice" and "Licorice Pizza," to much stronger work like "There Will Be Blood" and "Magnolia," it's been truly fas

The Film: In 1990, a most remarkable & unlikely pairing occurred when two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro, known for his dramatic roles in films like "The Godfather: Part II" and "Raging Bull," teamed with then two-time Oscar nominee Robin Williams, mostly known for being a master comedian, though he had started to turn to roles in films that included more drama like "Good Morning, Vietnam" and "Dead Poets Society." The result was the rather impressive true-life tale "Awaken

The Films: There are few things that cause a larger burst of nostalgia for my childhood than the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." It was the first phenomenon that I can remember becoming obsessed with as a kid, which had me hooked on the popular cartoon series & collecting action figures, comics, posters, and more. With the incredible success of the show, it was hardly a surprise that a feature film came to fruition within a few years, though it was a bit of a surprise to see

The Film: When Jonathan Larson's "Rent" burst onto Broadway back in 1996, it became an instant hit that not only garnered four Tony Awards (including Best Musical, Book, and Original Score), but also had it going on an incredible 12-year run. During that time, it's hardly a surprise that the idea of a film was brought up pretty quickly, leading to an adaptation being brought to theaters in 2005 from director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Stephen Chbosky that featured six of

The Film: When it comes to documentaries, there are none that I enjoy more than those that involve the creation of art, whether it's the method of recreating a painting in the astounding "Tim's Vermeer," the preparation of a film that never came to be in the fascinating "Jodorowsky's Dune," or the chaos of making a film that has everything go wrong in my favorite documentary of all time, "Lost in La Mancha." This brings us to one of the most famous docs of this kind, Fax Bahr

The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) has announced their winners for 2025, with Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" dominating the awards with a record-setting ten wins, including Best Film, Director, Actor, Original Screenplay, and Ensemble. Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" followed in a very distant second place with three wins for Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. Please see a full list of winners below. Film WINNER: S

The Film: Hot on the heels of "Hard Boiled" and the "A Better Tomorrow" Trilogy, Shout! Studios is continuing their Hong Kong Cinema Classics series with what is very likely world-renowned action director John Woo's most popular & well-known work, 1989's "The Killer." The film is being given an incredible 4K upgrade for a new three-disc set, packed with over two and a half hours of commentaries, featurettes, and more, so now it's time once again to go back and revisit this ac

The Film: "The Conjuring" series has been a somewhat unusual roller coaster ride over the course of its 12-year existence. It started off pretty shaky with a surprisingly dull entry that didn't do much to elicit scares, but came back pretty strong with a sequel that fixed many problems that plagued the original. However, the third film (the poorly-titled "The Devil Made Me Do It") fell back on the same tired cliches & issues that held back the first entry. Now we come to what

The Show: There have been a few shows that have attempted to tell a story set in the world of TV news/journalism, most notably Aaron Sorkin's marvelous "The Newsroom," which had an all-too-short 25-episode run, but there haven't really been any that have tried to focus on something that's usually a lot less serious: Morning Shows, which certainly have their own share of news, but also consist of a wide-variety of segments like cooking, fashion, music, and more. However, just

The Film: Time and time again, we've seen how filmmakers have struggled greatly to do anything new or interesting in the horror genre, but another genre that suffers just as much from this lack of originality is the romantic-comedy. It seems like 99% of the time we'll see the same tired formula over and over again, which has the audience ahead of the film every step of the way, leading right up to its easily predictable conclusion. Try as they might, they find it extremely di