ScreenAnarchy: Reviews

THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE Review: Wholesome Family Adventure Movie Will Make You Look Up From Your Phones and Into the Real World

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy star in Ben Gregor's magical children's film.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

COYOTE VS. ACME Review: Retribution for a Long-delayed Comedy

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:02:01 -0500

What rescues 'Coyote vs. Acme' is the filmmakers' respect and appreciation for the Warners heritage.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

SAFE 4K Review: Making Ourselves Sick

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:02:11 -0500

Directed by Todd Haynes and starring Julianne Moore, it's an extremely good movie I'd like to never watch again.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

MANHUNTER: THE FINAL CUT Review: Michael Mann's Masterpiece Receives a Much Anticipated 4k Upgrade

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 14:02:02 -0500

[For now, at least, a lucky, privileged few can catch Manhunter: The Final Cut, StudioCanal’s 4k restoration of filmmaker Michael Mann’s masterpiece, as it tours arthouses, rep houses, and other assorted houses around the country.] Released in the summer of 1986 to critical disapproval and audience disinterest, filmmaker Michael Mann’s Manhunter, the first — and inarguably best — adaptation of Thomas Harris’s bestselling 1981 novel, “Red Dragon," almost immediately saw a turn in its fortunes. VHS renters discovered and gloried in Manhunter’s hallucinatory mix of frequent Mann collaborator Dante Spinotti’s neon-drenched visuals; The Reds and Michel Rubini's moody, synth-flavored soundtrack; and grimly compelling subject matter: The pursuit of Tom Noonan’s terrifying, if still all-too-human, family killer, Francis Dollarhyde, by a desperate FBI and the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Sylvester Stallone's DAYLIGHT Finally Sees the Light of Day on 4K UHD

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:02:10 -0500

Plus more action releases on 4K from Kino Lorber: 'K2,' 'Enter the Ninja,' 'Revenge of the Ninja,' 'Ninja III: The Domination,' 'Runaway Train.'

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

THE BIRTHDAY PARTY Review: Willem Dafoe Cuts Imposing Figure as Tyrannical Greek Oligarch

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:02:09 -0500

When Patrikios (Christos Stergioglou), onetime/longtime physician to Marcos Timoleon (Willem Dafoe), an Aristotle Onassis-inspired Greek titan of industry and all-around oligarch, casually suggests the latter’s resemblance behavior-wise to Marlon Brando’s title character in The Godfather, Marcos laughs, instead suggesting the voracious, flesh-eating shark in Jaws as a better comparison to how he lives and comports himself on the private island that doubles as Marcos's personal fiefdom. Both, it turns out, aptly describe the autocratic, imperious Marcos and his plans for his family over an all-expenses-paid weekend celebration. There’s no half-man, half-bull Minotaur or an actual labryinth in The Birthday Party, writer-director Miguel Ángel Jiménez's (Window to the Sea) adaptation of Panos Karnezis’s well-regarded 2007 novel, but there is Marcos: a self-made man, a...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING Review: Crime and Comedy Collide in Oklahoma

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:07:12 -0500

Matthew McConaughey stars in the new film by Andrew Patterson ('The Vast of Night'), introducing Angelina LookingGlass and featuring Kurt Russell.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Now Streaming: REACHER Returns

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:17:11 -0500

Alan Ritchson reprises the role of Lee Child's itinerant justice warrior, this time in Philadelphia.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

KUNG FU SOCCER Review: Stephen Chow's Dreadful All-Female Sequel Deserves a Straight Red Card

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 04:07:28 -0500

Twenty five years after scoring a resounding critical and commercial hit with the martial arts sports comedy Shaolin Soccer, Hong Kong film industry legend Stephen Chow unleashes an absolute howler of a sequel that fails to replicate anything that made its predecessor such a success. The most notable difference between the two films is deliberately obscured by its English title, as Kung Fu Soccer - or "Kung Fu Women’s Football" in Chinese - pivots away from Chow's earlier protagonist Fung, and his colourful collection of dextrous dribbling heroes, to focus on a new team of female football players. Much like how Ted Lasso has chosen to champion the women’s game in its latest season, so too does Chow here, but the results warrant an immediate VAR...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

HELLCAT Review: No Direction Home

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Dakota Gorman and Todd Terry star in writer/director Brock Bodell's thriller.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

THE WRONG GIRLS Review: Stoner Caper Hits the Laughs and Love

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0500

Frankie (Kristen Stewart) was once a star engineering student at Stanford, until the pressure made her flunk out. Molly (Alia Shawkat) is an amazing and inventive chef whose personality is not suited to the high-pressure stakes of the contemporary restaurant kitchen. And so these two soul mate besties eek out a living in their quaint California home, mostly earning a living between bouts of weed consumption in any and all forms. But maybe they're getting a little too comfortable and complacent, both with supporting each other and keeping each other only in this tiny comfort zone. So when a case of mistaken identity turns to our heroines taking a ridiculous psychedelic new drug that also makes them telepathic, it means some serious danger is coming their way....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

TRAIN TO BUSAN Review: Plunging Into Zombie Chaos

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, the zombie thriller, remastered and revived, stars Gong Yoo, Jung Yu-mi, Ma Dong-seok, and Kin Su-an.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

THE END OF OAK STREET Review: Suburban Dinosaur Movie Evokes Amblin Sense of Wonder

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 11:00:11 -0500

Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor battle dinosaurs in David Robert Mitchell's sci-fi survival movie.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

WOMEN IN BLUE (LAS AZULES) S2 Review: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 03:00:03 -0500

Barbara Mori, Ximena Sariñana, Natalia Téllez and Amorita Rasgado star as Mexico's first female police officers in the series' sophomore season, debuting on Apple TV.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

FEED Review: Social Media Meets Horror in the Irish Woods

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Marco van Belle's horror thriller stars Grace Collender, Clinton Liberty, and Flynn Gray.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

COUP DE TORCHON Blu-ray Review: Sleepy Policeman, Hidden Malice

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:02:11 -0500

Philippe Noiret and Isabelle Huppert star in Bertrand Tavernier's startling adaptation of Jim Thompson's pulp noir, now available on a Criterion Collection Blu-ray.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: THE GLORIOUS DEAD, When it is The End of The World But You Still Have to Clock in

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 15:00:00 -0500

On a cold, winter day, in rural America, It was supposed to be Sheriff Deb’s day off. But one of her deputies, Mikey, is knocking on her door early in the morning. The power is out. No one else has shown up to work and the town's residents are panicking. Neighbours, loved ones, their pets and entire livestock have vanished without a trace. The only animals to be seen are flocks of crows in the sky. And then there are reports of unnatural creatures being spotted lurking around the woods. Fear and paranoia is taking over the community, and the townspeople turn on each other. Some demand that a quarantine be set up to stop what they think is an outside contagion. They...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Now Streaming: THE SHARDS and STERLING POINT, The Kaia Connection

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:02:09 -0500

Ryan Murphy teams with Brit Easton Ellis for an 80s serial-killer adaptation, while Megan Park refreshes modern YA tropes. It was a warm and sunny day. The Shards The first two episodes are now streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus. Subsequent episodes in the 8-episode series will debut every Wednesday at 23:00 EST. First released as an audiobook in 27 chapters between September 2020 and September 2021, Bret Easton Ellis' The Shards is a fictionalized memoir of the writer's final year of high school, beginning in September 1981. The first episode begins on the morning that young Bret (Igby Rigney) watches a Saturday matinee of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. (Which, by the way, was released in May 1980. Ahem.) At the screening, Bret is mesmerized...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

LATE FAME Review: Bittersweet, Sometimes Painfully Funny Melancholy

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:32:03 -0500

Director Kent Jones' film stars Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, and Edmund Donovan.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

STAR WARS: VISIONS PRESENTS - THE NINTH JEDI Review: Back to its Samurai Roots, Shaking up The Lore, For The Better

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 03:01:00 -0500

Lah Kara, the daughter of lightsaber-smith Lah Zhima, is pursued by dark forces while on a dangerous mission to deliver his newly crafted lightsabers to those she deems worthy to have one - masterless, wandering Force-sensitives. When we first meet her she is on a ship with fellow Force-sensitives Homan, Juro and the android, Gramps. The Ninth Jedi takes place way out in the future of the Star Wars timeline—long after the fall of the First Order and the Skywalker saga. The Jedi and Sith have faded into distant history, and the art of forging a lightsaber is completely lost to the galaxy. Because of that, these newly forged lightsabers don't work like the traditional Star Wars weapons. Instead of having locked-in colors,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

TED LASSO S4 Review: Same Old, Same Old, But Not Quite

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 03:00:03 -0500

Jason Sudeikis returns as an American in England, only this time coaching an all-female football team.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

MONSTERS OF GOD Review: Reptiles, Zoos, Acrimony, Drugs, Guns, and Money

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Eric Goode's fascinating documentary series digs deeply into the reptile trade, legal and otherwise.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: THE SPECIALS, A Crowd-Pleasing Yakuza Subversion

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 21:00:00 -0500

A yakuza member named Kumashiro hires four independent, rival assassins to eliminate Boss Honjō, the powerful leader of the rival Honjō-gumi syndicate. Executing the hit has always been complicated because Honjō frequently uses body doubles, leaving constant doubt regarding his true location. However, Kumashiro discovers a single vulnerability: Honjō will never pass up an opportunity to watch his beloved granddaughter compete in a dance competition. To exploit this rare opening, the team devises a plan to form an amateur dance group, enter the qualifiers, and advance to the national final championship alongside the granddaughter. Although the independent killers are initially reluctant to join such an absurd undercover operation, the lure of a ¥100,000,000 bounty proves impossible to resist. Ultimately, to succeed in their mission,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: RUBBERHEAD: THE LIFE AND MONSTERS OF STEVE JOHNSON A Hilarious and Humbling Portrait of a Chaotic Genius

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:00:30 -0500

There’s something mesmerizing about watching car crashes. We know it is dangerous, often even deadly; we know that for all of the sparks flying around as an out-of-control car meets its fiery fate, there’s usually someone inside who is in for a world of hurt, and yet we can’t help but look. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we get to see those crashes replayed over and over again to witness the exact moment that things have gone wrong, and to examine the trajectory of the detritus as what was once a beautiful, miraculous machine turns into a heap of smoking metal. Anyway, at this year’s Fantasia director Nick Taylor held the world premiere of his feature documentary debut, Rubberhead: The Life and Monsters of Steve Johnson....

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: TOKYO BURST: CRIME CITY, Trades in Solo Grit For Buddy-Cop Chaos in a Worthy Expansion of THE ROUNDUP Universe

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:30:00 -0500

Welcome to Kabuki-cho, an entertainment district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Called the "Sleepless Town", it is home to a sprawl of host and hostess clubs, love hotels, nightclubs and yakuza hangouts. Shiro Aiba, the Shinjuku Central Police Station’s newest, most volatile detective, walks these neon-soaked streets with swagger. Aiba didn't just study this legendary criminal underworld—he was born here, raised here, and was once the boss of a local bosozoku biker gang. He fights with raw, brute force, mostly using his head before he thinks with it. When a dangerous criminal element with international ties stomps into his turf, Tokyo is forced to play nice with Seoul. Enter Choi Si-woo, a razor-sharp, by-the-book agent from the Korean National Police Agency. In town, with...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

THE SAMURAI AND THE PRISONER Review: Historical Murder-Mystery, Full of Modern-Day Questions

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:47:04 -0500

A new film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: RECLUSE, Screenwriter Henry Chaisson Conquers Visual And Sonic Terror in Neo-Gothic Horror

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:00:00 -0500

Joan is dragged back to her childhood home. There has been an accident and she has received an ominous call from her ailing, disfigured father. She is a sound engineer by trade, he is a famous artist and long rumored to have dabbled in the occult. His art, from paintings to metallic structures, lines the walls, the hallways, and the landscape of their family home, making it easier for things to hide among the shadows they cast-shadows made by candlelight or what comes through the windows. Amidst the dishevelled estate inhabited by a caretaker and her son, Joan must face her traumatic past and the sins of her father. She wanders the hallways and the estate grounds, a portable digital recording device in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

LIONESS S3 Review: The Roar Comes Home

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:00:10 -0500

Taylor Sheridan's series stars Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira, Genesis Rodriguez, Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, LaMonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Hannah Love Lanier, Thad Luckinbill, Ian Bohen, Michael Kelly, with Morgan Freeman and Nicole Kidman.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

PINOCCHIO: UNSTRUNG Review: Poohniverse Unfortunately Continues to Live Up to Its Name

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:32:06 -0500

Impressive puppetry and the grace of famous horror faces still aren't enough to save the Twisted Childhood Universe from its own darkness.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Home Video: Kino Classics and Kino Cult Roundup

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Kino has been aggressively going through their catalog and upgrading their older releases to 4K for awhile now. For that I am grateful. They’ve also been producing new extras for their discs, which is most welcome indeed for collectors out there being forced to double dip. It got me thinking about double-dipping as a collector strategy. At its worst, double dipping is when a company re-releases the same disc over and over again, making only marginal improvements on the product, like new packaging or adding some rinky-dink, thrown-together special features. It can also be the case that the company in question releases multiple versions across various retail partners that have separate special features, forcing purist collectors to choose between them or treat them like Pokemon...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Home Video: Severin Films Home Entertainment Roundup

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 13:02:01 -0500

I've been overdue for some Severin release coverage. Part of it involves finding all the time I need to sift through their extras-laden releases and the number of first-time watches involved. This batch was all first-time watches and all movies I was excited to see. First up was their fantastic box set, Antonio Margheriti & The Jungles of Doom: His ‘80s Adventure Films. I’m a sucker for a good knockoff and Severin is the king when it comes to making them available. Recently they’ve tackled Italian Jaws films, and the Bruce Le exploitation cycle in lavish box sets. They even have a box of Italian disco-ploitation on the way. While you’re waiting for that, this hugely entertaining group of three Indiana Jones knockoffs comes highly...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY Review: MCU's Superhero Shines in Fourth Essential Entry

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Marvel and DC’s declining box-office fortunes provide ample, if indirect, evidence that superhero fatigue is real and here to stay, the not unexpected result of market saturation. But for every rule or sweeping generalization, there’s an exception: On the DC side, it’s Batman or, to a lesser extent, Superman. On the Marvel side, it’s generally not one superhero, but superhero team-ups (the Avengers). Even exceptions have exceptions of their own, though, and in the MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) case, it’s Spider-Man. Since writer and publisher Stan Lee (Fantastic Four, The X-Men) and artist Steve Ditko (Doctor Strange, The Question) introduced Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy No. 15 (1962), he’s been a perennial favorite, a Silver Age exemplar and trope-setter. Spider-Man was, is, and will...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: CHERRY AND VIRGIN, A Nervous and Experimental Work of Genius

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:02:11 -0500

I was 18 years old when an adult friend I met at a summer factory job recommended that I see Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. I could not make heads or tails of the movie, in Italian, in black and white, the story set in sophisticated arthouse celebrity space. I liked the images, but the whole thing was both boring and baffling. I revisited the film in my mid-20s during a film class in university, while pursuing a chemistry degree. At that time, I could appreciate some of the filmmaking, and yet the ideas and emotions of the film were well beyond my ken. Revisiting it once again in my late 30s, it was like I was watching a completely different film. Many of...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: CAPTURED! Of Ghosts And Growing Up

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:00:00 -0500

Misaki is a bright high-school senior who has the grades to get into a good university. Misaki’s reservation is that she lives alone with her mother, who works a night shift to make ends meet. She is more or less convinced that she must work instead of going to university. After telling her best friend Satsuki her decision, Satsuki suggests that she start vlogging to earn money on the side. Satsuki does it, not with much success, and not enough to earn her parents’ praise, but Misaki should give it a go. On her first day, she films a couple of videos during the day, but another otherwise mundane video she films on her way home from her afternoon job gets special attention. Over...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: VILLAGE OF EIGHT GRAVESTONES, Takashi Shimizu Proves Traditional Murder Mysteries Are Better With Ghosts

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:15:00 -0500

When Tatsuya’s estranged mom suddenly passes away, he is forced to head out to her old, isolated village and meet the family he has never known, the Tajimi Family. On the way there, he bumps into private detective Kosuke Kindaichi, who reveals he was actually hired by the mysterious family to track Tatsuya down. But it is definitely not a warm welcome. Once he arrives, Tatsuya finds out he is the unexpected heir to the Tajimi family line. Turns out, his grandfather once carried out a massive, brutal massacre in the town, leaving the locals permanently traumatized. Because of that cursed family history, the hostile villagers immediately treat Tatsuya like public enemy number one. Things get crazy pretty fast when everyone with a stake...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Now Streaming: THOUGH I AM AN INEPT VILLAINESS, The Other Side of Revenge

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 16:02:04 -0500

Plus: 'A Lady Livid's Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires' takes a more conventional approach to revenge.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Now Streaming: FURIOUS Becomes Steadily More Gripping As It Goes

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, and Scoot McNairy star in the mystery thriller series, created by Elizabeth Meriwether.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

I WANT YOUR SEX Review: Close Encounters of the Sexual Kind

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Gregg Araki's new film stars Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: THE LAST HORROR, Myanmar's First Found-Footage Film Forced to be Too Safe With The Scares

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:30:00 -0500

The Last Footage starts with a collection of videos from life loggers, users recording daily experiences using wearable tech. We see the Burmese peoples out jogging along lakefronts, playing concerts with their bands, riding the backseat of a motorcycle which has its own set of circumstances. Then we have Aung Khant, a young man who has just bought his own pair of 4K smart glasses with the intention of documenting his own life for everyone to see. While at dinner with his girlfriend, Linn, friends Wa Na and Mya, and another couple, Thu Ya and Daisy, the group are planning their next big adventurous outing. Thu Ya announces that he has inherited a rubber plantation in the Wingabar Forest from a recently passed family...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

FIGHTLAND Review: Strap On for a Wild Ride

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Howard Charles, Nicholas Pinnock, and Deborah Ayorinde star in the dynamic crime drama series from executive producer Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, debuting on Starz.

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: CORPUS, Languid Queer Thriller Delivers a Killer Horror Payoff

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 21:35:00 -0500

Sayo photographs New York’s nightlife, dealing drugs to partygoers at clubs and generally stays out of trouble with the owners of those clubs with free samples. Life takes a spin when he learns that Vince, an old friend whose star is on the rise in Hollywood, is back in town. Sayo also happens to have a massive crush on Vince. Time moves slowly with each picture Sayo takes and it almost grinds to a halt when Vince shows up at the club that night. Old passions are rekindled; Sayo does not know if he is coming or going. He tries to keep distance between Vince and himself despite past desires igniting once again. Vince invites Sayo and their friend Ross to a party upstate,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: OUR EFFED UP WORLD, Alice Maio Mackay's Hang Out Movie... With Aliens!

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:20:54 -0500

Australian wunderkind Alice Maio Mackay returns to the director’s chair for her eighth feature film, Our Effed Up World, celebrating its Canadian premiere at this year’s Fantasia. A science-fiction story about a group of young adults fighting off an alien invasion in the midst of life changing events that have already knocked them all off balance, Mackay has created an adrenaline spiked hang out movie that perhaps works better when it shifts its focus away from the danger. There was no one more important in Sherri’s (Sara Thompson) life than her grandmother, Grace (Kerry Armstrong), so when cancer claimed her hero, Sherri’s life suddenly turned grey. She spends her days making sure her workaholic scientist father, Hank (Scott Major), remembers to eat, having banal, unsatisfying...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY, It's Nazi Killin' Time Again

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:05:11 -0500

One of genre cinema’s most unexpected franchises expands beyond its humble roots in Jenn Wexler’s The Last Temptation of Becky. The titular teen with a serious attitude problem is off to Poland this time, when a Nazi scion with dreams of global domination comes across her radar. The action is just as bloody, but definitely a little sillier than its predecessors’ in this raucous revenge thriller. At the end of 2023’s The Wrath of Becky, our heroine (Lulu Wilson) was approached by CIA agent Kate Montana (Kate Siegel) to become the agency’s youngest specialist, an offer she accepted. We now find her several years later as the CIA’s most notorious problem child, barreling through intricately planned espionage missions with the grace of a bull in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: BEASTS CLUTCHING AT STRAWS, A Sack Of Cash Causes Problems In This Black Comedy Thriller

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:45:40 -0500

A desperately unpopular streamer with a dementia-stricken mother, a crooked cop, a duplicitous femme fatale, and a sack full of money collide in director Jojo Hideo's Beasts Clutching at Straws, an adaptation of the Sone Keisuke novel previously filmed by Korean filmmaker Kim Yong-hoon in 2020. Kanji (Ouji Suzuka) works the reception desk at an internet cafe, but his real passion is streaming fresh content for a following of over a dozen local college students. While cleaning up a private booth after a mysterious patron skips the bill, he stumbles onto a sack full of cash, one hundred million yen to be exact. Being a dutiful employee, he puts it with the other items in the lost and found, but it isn't too long before...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: INSECTASY, Are You Into Bugs?

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:09:24 -0500

Sadie is horny. Really horny. She has let real life, either working at the walk-in-clinic as a receptionist, or hanging out with her friends, fade into the background like radio-static, only half awares and mostly filtered out. She only thinks about sex and bugs. Sex reinforced via the whisper sultry podcast she always has in her ear, and insects through the brightly lit macro-cinematography, extreme close ups of creepy crawlies peppered through the film. She can only get herself off by having crickets walking on her bare skin at the penultimate second, or three, before orgasm. (It is notable that the word bug can also mean mania.) She has presumably worked out the details on self pleasure, her kink, by containing the insects in...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: LEVITATING, Get Swept Up In This Ecstatic Vision Of Folk Cinema

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 11:30:15 -0500

The drums pound, the guitar drones, the flute splashes a chaotic layer of color over it all as the guru chants, the spirit addicts undulate, enraptured by their ecstatic trance, directed by the spirits of the Indonesian jungle. This vision of chaos that opens Wregas Bhanuteja’s magical realist folk fable, Levitating, sets the scene for what is one of Fantasia’s most eye-opening surprises of the year. A coming-of-age story about a young man following his dreams and the battle he fights to achieve them against all odds. A truly unique gem that utilizes familiar film tropes in a search for meaning against the pressures of modernization. Bayu (Angga Yunanda) is a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. His rural town...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: FERINE, A Stunning Feature Debut From Andrea Corsini

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:30:18 -0500

Motherhood is a beast in first time feature filmmaker Andrea Corsini’s lush Italian psychological horror stunner, Ferine, celebrating its international premiere at this year’s Fantasia. Bolstered by a captivating lead performance from Oddity’s Carolyn Bracken and an unforgettable score from the fresh out of retirement Pino Donaggio, Ferine is set to make waves on the festival circuit with its fearsome look at what it takes to be a mother. Art collector Irene (Bracken) is finally ready to leave the fast pace of the art world behind and settle into life as a mother. Unable to conceive on her own, she reaches out to Rosa (Paola Lavini) to arrange a private adoption at her secretive maternity clinic. The process doesn’t turn out exactly as Irene planned,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: NIGHTBORN, A Mother's Dream Turned Folk Horror Nightmare

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:45:05 -0500

Saga’s (Seidi Haarla) blissful fantasies of motherhood are upended when her and her husband Jon’s (Rupert Grint) son turns out to be a bit more difficult than they were expecting in Hanna Bergholm’s sophomore feature, Nightborn. Following up on her 2022 Sundance selection, Hatching, Bergholm establishes herself as one of Europe’s most talented up and coming filmmakers with this duo about the unseen challenges of parenthood and the chaos they can bring. The baby crazy couple have decided to put their lives in the city behind them to move out to Saga’s grandmother’s cottage in the Finnish woods. Even in its current state, overtaken by the surrounding forest and barely held together by rotting wood, Saga is enamored. She sees the home she remembers from...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: NIKO, All Night Pretentious Delight

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:02:09 -0500

Cyber-punk adjacent, arthouse romance, pop-philosophical musing Niko debuts K-pop Girls' Generation member, Tiffany Young in the titular role as a woman who runs a business hiring herself out to comfort and talk to people who have locked themselves out of their apartment. The city is in some sort ongoing, but very loosely enforced, government curfew. The locksmiths are busy helping get people off the streets. Niko’s niche business is fine, but hardly booming, and she cannot continue to pay her bar tab or her rent. Even supplementing her income with a day job as a street vendor selling candy floss to passers by is not enough. In the moments between, she spends time drinking with her sad, but very hot and very French...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]

Fantasia 2026 Review: YOU ARE THE FILM, A Meta-Cinema Romance That Tears a Hole in the Universe

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:02:09 -0500

As someone who typically goes to the movies on a Sunday night for the 10:30pm show, and typically to go watch the stranger side of cinema, I am often given a ‘private screening’ from the local Cineplex chain. Because, seriously, who else living in the suburbs would go see Terrence Malick's The New World, Paul Cox's Innocence, Renny Harlin's Deep Blue Sea, or Bruce McDonald's Pontypool at that odd hour? In short, I love being in a movie auditorium alone and having the place all to myself for just about any film. Clearly, I am not at all alone in this aspect, as Ueda Makoto, the writer of charming and inventive time loop films, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River, sets his directorial debut...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]