Only Recommended Films (Rated 8-10)

[8] See review of the Nightbreed theatrical cut here. Clive Barker’s Nightbreed was originally released in 1990, dumped onto a handful of screens by the studio and barely marketed. It was a financial failure, and for the director it was also a creative one. Barker was forced by the studio to compromise his original vision, dropping key plot elements, shooting new scenes and an alternate …

[8] Nightbreed, directed by Clive Barker and based on his book Cabal, wants to be a sprawling horror-fantasy epic for the ages. But the multifaceted story is told so quickly and haphazardly in the studio’s cut of the film, the end result is something between whiplash and total discombobulation. As messy as the end result is, I still really admire the sheer ambition behind the …

[8] George Romero directs an anthology from Stephen King in this homage to colorful horror comics of the 1950s. All five tales are pretty good. In Father’s Day, a deceased patriarch comes back to life to torment his heirs. Then Stephen King steps in front of the camera, playing a goofy hillbilly who discovers a deadly meteor in The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill. Leslie …

[8] This British independent flick is a far better gay ‘coming out’ movie than most. Glen Berry plays Jamie, a teenager who skips school to avoid harassment during gym class, and Scott Neal plays Ste, Jamie’s next door neighbor. When Ste’s father and brother get particularly abusive, he asks to stay over night with Jamie — and you can probably guess what happens from there. …

[8] James Gunn (Slither) co-writes and directs one of the best Marvel movies ever. The plot is simple, nothing new or groundbreaking. Good guys gotta stop bad guys from literally destroying the world. Been there, done that, right? And like most Marvel movies, the bad guys are pretty generic and forgettable. And there are, like, what? Three or four bad guys here? Anyway, it doesn’t …

[9] South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Mother, The Host) directs this tale of class warfare set in an ice-age Armageddon wherein the last few living humans reside aboard a technologically advanced train that constantly circumnavigates the globe. Chris Evans (Captain America himself) stars as the working class hero who rises up against the train’s cold-hearted aristocracy, leading a revolt from the train’s back end slave …

[9] In this sequel from director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Let Me In), the virus introduced in the previous film has obliterated more than 99% of the human population worldwide. In San Francisco, there is a small colony of humans focused on repairing a hydroelectric dam in the Red Woods so they can have electricity and possibly reconnect with other survivors. But its in the Red …

[8] “For me, movies are an art. More than an industry. As essential to the human soul as painting, as literature, as poetry… Movies are that for me…” Like Lost in La Mancha, a chronicle of Terry Gilliam’s ill-fated attempt to bring Don Quixote to the screen, so does Jodorowsky’s Dune showcase the preparation of a film that never got made. In this documentary from …

[8] X-Men: Days of Future Past brings back most of the cast from the Bryan Singer films (X-Men and X2) and merges them with the cast of Matthew Vaughn’s First Class for a storyline involving time-travel and the mutants’ desperate attempt to correct an error in 1973 that would, fifty years later, lead to annihilation for both mutants and humans alike. Simon Kinberg’s screenplay puts …

[8] I’m honestly pretty sick of superhero movies, but I still have a soft spot for the X-Men. Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) reinvigorates things with First Class after a couple of less-than-stellar entries in franchise. The plot moves at a ridiculous pace and the connections between points A, B, and C can be a little convenient, but Vaughn succeeds in giving the movie …

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