The Blu Spot

The Film: Renowned master of horror John Carpenter has been known for a number of memorable works throughout his incredible career, including "Halloween," "The Thing," and "The Fog," but one of his later works that seemed to slip through the cracks was his 1994 supernatural thriller "In the Mouth of Madness." It was another one of those films that didn't exactly wow critics at the time, and hardly made a dent at the box office, but in the 30 years since its release, there hav

The Film: It's impossible to overstate the important impact of Hammer Films as a major stage in the history of horror cinema. Their numerous classic films, which primarily involved beloved horror stories like "Dracula," "Frankenstein," and "The Mummy," had their own distinct look & feel that created rich atmospheres to go along with their well-known tales, leaving behind an incredible legacy of entertaining & absorbing works that continue to delight audiences to this day. Wit

The Film: Actor Riz Ahmed has had a rather remarkable last few years, not only earning an Oscar nomination for his incredible performance in "Sound of Metal," but also winning one for his short film "The Long Goodbye." While it may seem like he hasn't been around as much lately, the truth is that he remains hard at work in smaller films like "Encounter" and "Fingernails," while also taking on small parts in major films like Wes Anderson's "The Phoenician Scheme." Another one

The Film: Between 2011 and 2017, three different "Smurfs" films were brought to the big screen, attempting to keep alive the spirit of the beloved comics from the '50s, which were most famously turned into a popular cartoon series that ran for nine seasons between 1981 and 1989. Sadly, the recent films were not received very well by critics, but that hardly stopped them from being rather successful at the box office, with the first of them grossing well over half a billion do

The Films: There have already been so many incredible films celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, but out of all of those, one that is truly considered an absolute classic is Robert Zemeckis' "Back to the Future," a film that remains one of the most beloved pieces of cinema to come out of the '80s and continues to resonate with audiences even four decades later. To celebrate this special milestone, Universal Pictures is re-releasing the entire trilogy of films in a ne

The Film: Writer/director David Cronenberg is primarily known for his extensive work in the sub-genre of body horror films, which has included such memorable projects as "The Fly," "Videodrome," "Dead Ringers," and "The Brood." However, in 2005, he delivered what is quite possibly his least Cronenberg-like film, but in this critic's opinion, it's also the very best one he's made thus far in his career. Working from a screenplay by Josh Olson that adapts the 1997 graphic novel

The Film: "Aeon Flux" originally started as an animated sci-fi series consisting of three seasons that aired on MTV from 1991-1995. It was received rather well by critics, who praised its creativity, characters, and themes, making it no surprise that a live-action version was eventually brought to life on the big screen. However, things didn't go quite as well for the film as they had for the series, with critics & audiences being quick to dismiss it, and its box office perfo

The Film: Writer/director Zach Cregger truly rose to prominence just three years ago with his 2022 feature "Barbarian," which had a number of problems plaguing it, including a lack of focus, an irritating structure that had the stories stopping & starting over and over, and an over-reliance on the characters being dumber than usual for a horror film. However, despite all of these issues, many people enjoyed it anyway, leading to great anticipation as to what Cregger was going

The Film: Back in 2021, screenwriter Derek Kolstad attempted to replicate the great success he had achieved with "John Wick" by delivering a rather similar film called "Nobody," which featured Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell, a seemingly-regular man trying to live an ordinary life with his family after retiring from a career of being an assassin for the intelligence community. He tries to make it work, but soon finds himself pulled back in after getting entangled with some dang

The Film: When last we saw Ethan Hunt and his close-knit team of allies in " Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1 ," they were attempting to stop a computer program known as "The Entity" from taking over the world and potentially destroying it, with Ethan eventually getting his hands on the key needed to get at the program's source code and leaving us on quite the cliffhanger. Despite being a little on the verbose side, with it over-explaining its somewhat weaker-than