The Blu Spot

The Film: Writer/director Craig Brewer is another one of those filmmakers who's not exactly a household name, but there's a good chance you've seen or heard of some of his projects, including "Black Snake Moan," "Dolemite is My Name," "and "Coming 2 America." As his filmography shows, music has been quite a large part of his work, leading to projects like "Hustle & Flow," a remake of "Footloose," and the documentary "Katy Perry: Part of Me," which brings us to his latest ende

The Film: In 2024, director Jon M. Chu delivered the first half of what turned out to be a marvelous adaptation of the smash Broadway hit "Wicked," one that earned massive critical acclaim, ten Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), and raked in a stunning $758 million at the box office. Great musicals seem to be more and more rare at the theater nowadays, so getting one that hit all of the right notes was certainly a pleasant & delightful surprise. Now Chu & co. are bac

The Film: Over the last few years, Oscar-nominated director Yorgos Lanthimos has given us quite a fascinating range of films that have also somewhat varied in quality. In 2018, he delivered the marvelous "The Favourite" that told of an intriguing rivalry for a queen's affections. Five years later, this was followed by "Poor Things," a strange tale of a young woman brought back to life who experiences everything anew. The very next year, he sadly dropped off a bit with "Kinds

The Film: When the great Daniel Day-Lewis announced his retirement from acting back in 2017, it was quite a shock to everyone. To think that the man who had given such brilliant performances in films like "Lincoln," "Gangs of New York," "There Will Be Blood," and "My Left Foot, and had earned a remarkable three Oscars for Best Actor, would no longer be gracing the screen with his presence was certainly a disappointing blow. However, hope reignited in the last couple of years

The Film: Just four years ago, Director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill unleashed "The Black Phone" in theaters, adapting Joe Hill's supernatural horror short story into a feature film. The result drew extremely mixed reviews from critics, and indeed the film was something of a mixed bag where the writers certainly could've tried a little harder to do a bit more with its premise, but that hardly stopped it from being an enormous hit at the box office. Indeed,

The Film: Justin Tipping's "Him," a supernatural horror flick released merely two months ago, was a rather bizarre case of a film that built up its hype based solely on the fact that Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele, noted for his own horror films like "Get Out" and "Nope," was one of its producers. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews and failed to drum up any interest at the box office, causing it to disappear from theaters pretty quickly, along with the hype

The Film: After six seasons of the marvelous hit television program and two decent feature films, creator Julian Fellowes is finally bringing the world of "Downton Abbey" to a close with the aptly-titled "Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale." It's been a long road to get to this point, and we've seen quite a lot of ups & downs with this vast ensemble of characters, but now it's time to say goodbye as they head into a new era marked with many personal changes that will take a fair

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: 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: Just three years ago, director Pierre Perifel and screenwriter Etan Cohen gave us "The Bad Guys" (based on the series of...