Lately, with reality increasingly losing its appeal, I’ve had more desire to lose myself in fantastical worlds of animation. Even when those places are horrible in their own right it feels like an escape, because at least they’re made of nice drawings and paintings. NINJA SCROLL transports us to a mystical past of deadly assassins, some with magic powers, others just so skilled that they might as well have ‘em. This is from 1993 and it was legendary in that decade for providing extravagant violence that seemed novel to us Americans when delivered in cartoon form. It still kinda works as that, but more importantly I think it holds up as a pretty entertaining movie.
The writer/director is Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and though I never really made the connection that it was the same guy, I’ve written about several of his works. I talked a little about VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST (2000) in my original BLADE II review, I covered THE ANIMATRIX (2003) when I was revisiting that whole franchise (he did the “Program” segment), I really liked his DTV/OVA HIGHLANDER: THE SEARCH FOR VENGEANCE (2007) when I did my review series Highlanderland. Also he wrote the live action AZUMI 2: DEATH OR LOVE, though unfortunately I was disappointed in that one. I do like his stories on the other stuff, but it’s obviously the drawing and movement that makes them fly (often literally). (read the rest of this shit…)
THE GORGE is a movie with an appealing, simple premise, strong execution, great tone, and a fun mix of elements you don’t usually see together but that feel perfectly natural. It’s a romance within a monster movie, or vice versa, but not in a a jokey way at all (though that worked for 
Hey friends, I don’t usually post on Fridays, but I thought I’d squeeze in one more Oscar nominee review before Sunday’s awards – a double feature of Best Actress nominees. I’m rooting for Demi Moore to win for 
I’m generally a sucker for an international co-production action movie, especially the ones based in Chinese martial arts but with some western stars. For example 
Note: I wanted to review all the best picture nominees this year but I haven’t even reviewed DUNE PART ONE and I’m just not ready to do a good job of PART TWO yet so please accept as a placeholder this review of a different movie with one of the same cast members.
Josh Brolin (whose only previous movie was THE 
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: 
NICKEL BOYS is one of the underdog Best Picture nominees, one of the indies that doesn’t get that much discussion outside of film critic circles, definitely not seen as a frontrunner, but happy to be nominated. I was planning to see it anyway based on the effusive praise I’d seen, but the nomination gave me an extra push to see it on the big screen, so that’s a nice thing about the Oscars.
Have you or a loved one experienced COMMENT BLOCKAGE? You could be entitled to not having that anymore. Sorry everybody, I’ve heard from several people that their comments have been blocked for days or weeks on end. One person fixed it by using a VPN and one by switching to mobile, but neither should be necessary. If you’re getting blocked, Chris asks if you could
