Star Wars has lost faith in the Force. A franchise built on myths - Wagner, Kurosawa, Ford, has been reduced to cheap jokes, bad CGI, lazy scripts and ugly sets. 

This is the worst Star Wars film by some measure, because it’s the first one you could tell had zero effort or love infused into the production. Even interesting failures like The Last Jedi and the Phantom Menace have moments of true wonder and awe amidst elements that do not work.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is barely a movie. It lacks any character development or story arc. Literally nothing happens — unless you count the emotional growth of Jabba the Hutt’s son. The video game Fallen Order, has a more dynamic script and better motion capture. And that’s a 5 year old PS5 game!

Everything Disney produces should be suspect. They are clearly in an era where they are trying anything - anything at all to keep the shareholders happy. They will take no risks. They will fund nothing creative. They will cut every corner.

It’s Mandalorian and Grogu and Deadpool and Wolverine and Moana 2 / Toy Story 5 /  all the way down. Look out below.

*1/2 star for Ludwig, who’s own half assed effort is still pretty great.

Human stories of revenge, friendship, betrayal, and striving to overcome all odds are as old as antiquity - but clearly belong to us all. As in the best of the Yakuza and Mafia films (both Italian and American) there are no heroes in Black Caesar. These are violent tales of people who have lost faith in love and decency before we even meet them.

And yet. As they let their evil inclinations run rampant -- we can clearly see the deep oceans of loyalty, love and familial feelings that run just below the surface. The light lives within each of these murderers, corrupt lawyers and failed singers. It overtakes the "fake" religious man, who ultimately is overcome by the spirit.

But those who chose to live their lives only for material reasons, will die in degradation. It's a testament to the craft and performances in this film that it leaves with us with such conflicted feelings. I've never seen a better chase scene in midtown. New York in the 1970's looks glorious and destroyed all at the same time. James Brown wrote the score and “Down and Out in New York City” for this film.

Epic and brilliant. "Exploitative" only if you consider genre and its trappings lesser than other forms of drama.

How is this not the plot of the next Star Wars film?

A lone Jedi - cast out by his order for a crime he did not commit - hunted by a Sith clan, the Galactic government and his former master and Padawan - must find balance in the Force and justice in the Galaxy.

A 1 vs 1000 lightsaber duel. A new less pendantic path to the Force emerges.

This movie rules on a million different levels - but it is a pure feed of core samurai mythos that made the original trilogy so special.

If only Disney could remember too!

Pam Grier is a super hero and a righteous angel of vengeance. People must’ve lost their minds when they first saw this! Is this exploitable and violent and transgressive and “problematic”? Hell yeah!  

But most of all it is a tour de force performance by Pam Grier, who is backed up by Roy Ayers equally remarkable score.

Coffy is a fascinating study in “exploitation” cinema that features characters with more agency and integrity than more “modern” depictions.

You can draw a straight line between Coffy and Perfidia Beverly Hills - but Coffy is given more righteous motivations - and ultimately has more power.

A prototype-Dogme film about the pre-war desperate urbane dwellers of Poland? Liked it, but didn’t love it.

Obsession will mess you up thoroughly, as a film that transcends "horror". As an American parable of loneliness and cowardice. The film is particularly harsh on a generation of American men -- who despite their youth and vitality are too "anxious" to go out and face the world to achieve their goals.

Obsession explores the moral bankruptcy of wallowing in cowardice and relying on fantasies and magical thinking to achieve material ends. It’s a familiar trope that wish fulfillment of easy riches, and women treated like property inevitably begins in guilty decadence and ends in death and despair.

But Obsession makes this physical and visceral (oh boy does it). It demonstrates the very modern nature of violence wrought by this cowardice.

There are no "evil" characters in this most thrilling of horror films. Just a banal young man, and his embrace of fear and doubt.

Terrifying.

Bravo!!!!

Procedurals and Columbo style mysteries aren't usually my thing, but they also don't usually star Claudia Cardinale. This was a really nice looking, sometimes interesting, sometimes very plodding mystery. Italians sure love a twisted, bloody dead girl to obsess over huh? Kind of a proto giallo - in its fascinations and sometimes more explicit content.

Not bad, but probably won't be returning anytime soon.

Thematically and visually predicts WKW's "In the Mood for Love" - but 10x more badass. Fukusaku knows to bring the action, while always humanizing his cast of beaten down cops, Yakuza and disgraced women.

The shaky, hand held camera gives this color saturated and ultra violent film a total sense of immersion into this foreign, yet wholly familiar world of honor (or lack thereof) among thieves.

A tremendous achievement in the gangster epic. Fukusaku is a master. One of the first and best Radiance restoration and releases.

In my time, I had some bad dates and some really random nights out - but never a Christmas Eve like this! Great tension and mystery and a truly bonkers twist.  

Marthe is definitely alluring enough to keep returning to the scene of the crime.

Tres bon!

Ohhhhhh, I get the title now! 

A fun and demented French noir, where every character is kinda awful and selfish. Jeanne Moreau is the best thing going here by a mile. Really mean and twisty, but maybe 10 mins too long.

Radiance Films out of the UK, has quietly become the boutique blu-ray label I trust most. Heavy on Japanese crime/Samurai tales, Italian neorealism, French noir, and many blind buys that had no business being this good.

As and his “high council of Physical media” noted over and over again on their recent episode - Radiance routinely discovers the lost classics you simply have to see.

I’ve been keeping a running log and ranking of their releases (almost at 90)— which I'll update regularly as I watch more of their releases. These are the current top 10.

Many of these films can be rented from our partners at the Hewlett Woodmere Public Library, which keeps an extensive library of Radiance releases on hand for members.

But we encourage you to check out these amazing films - wherever you can find them.

1. Near Orouët - ★★★★★

   

   Near Orouët blows in through the jasmine of my mind. The most perfect film about summer and young friendship I've ever seen — summer weekends with girls you only kind of knew, where relationships stayed indefinable and blurred with ocean water and music and sun and wine. Rozier captures a feeling so completely you cannot help but feel your own memories intertwining with his characters. An all-time masterpiece.

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2. Il Sorpasso - ★★★★★

   

   So much love and humanity — for people, for family, for the open road, for Italy. I kept thinking of Wild Strawberries, but with less obvious pathos and more "ciao bella." Made me snort with laughter. A classic that deserves to be mentioned alongside Fellini, Visconti, and Rossellini.

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3. The Ghost of Yotsuya - ★★★★½

   

   The last 30 minutes are absolutely insane. Creepy, atmospheric, body horror — you can see how this scared the pants off a generation of Japanese. Scary mostly because the fears are so grounded in real emotions. Jealousy, avarice, and evil at their most elemental.

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4. Misunderstood - ★★★★½

   

   The saddest movie I think I've ever seen.

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5. Big Time Gambling Boss - ★★★★½

   

   A lot more intimate than I was expecting. A good reminder that there is never any honor or code or brotherhood among thieves and murderers. No wonder the Yakuza got a reputation for being cold-blooded.

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6. Sympathy for the Underdog - ★★★★½

   

   The deepest and most badass gangster film I've seen in some time. Cool, ultra-violent, amazing set pieces — but also deep oceans of humanity. Rare that a brutal gang fight leaves you both elated and grief-stricken. A masterpiece of the genre.

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7. The Case Is Closed, Forget It - ★★★★½

   

   It's rare we see cowardice and its fundamental appeal placed at the center of a film. Venzi feints at morality. Presenti is destroyed for his standards — Venzi gets to go off on a yacht. In these times, that's absolutely terrifying.

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8. The Working Class Goes to Heaven - ★★★★½

   

   Who are the masters and who are the slaves? Does it really matter? In an age when we freely give value to our tech overlords, who profits from our attention — who do we really work for? Lulu's eyes light up when he hears he's "the first to be rehired." That's all you need to know. One of the most French Italian movies ever made.

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9. The Bride Wore Black - ★★★★½

   

   Ice-cold revenge about which Klingons would write epic poems. Tarantino's Bride had samurai swords and machine guns and years of ninja training — she still couldn't lay a finger on the OG. Just so badass. Truffaut!

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10. Thieves Like Us - ★★★★½

    

    The platonic ideal of an American realist film. My favorite Shelley Duvall performance of all time. Consumerism, media, the drive for money and fame — so core to the American experience. I will never think of having a Coke and a smile in the same way again.

...plus 77 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Les Fellas Bon! Or not? It drags a bit in the middle, but there’s no denying Jean Gabon’s French variation of Bogey or the truly intense (especially for the 1950’s) gun battles.

Really good start to Radiance’s World Noir 4 box set.

Picture it - Sicily, 1948 - family of sailors tries to better themselves under capitalism in a Visconti film. You can draw your own conclusions!

Visconti always draws Lenin with his lush, loping visuals that sit with our characters and draws out their inferiority through settings. It’s a great trick that works in lush films like the Leopard and Senso, and the more neo-realist films like this.

Still after a bit this felt somewhat tortured for me and Antonio. It’s good to know that in the planned but never shot sequels, he gets his redemption.

Or he could just move to America, where his entrepreneurial spirit and hustle would be rewarded. Especially in ‘48.

Goes as hard as a Japanese women’s prison revenge film from the 1970’s can go. And then some. Damn.

A spiritual heir to the first half of “A Clockwork Orange”. There’s a ton of the ole’ Ultraviolence here, but with Hitchcockian set pieces (Bank Robberies! Trains!) that keep the suspense levels high.

This is a twitchy, beautifully composed, truly dark work of pathos.

I loved it!

A color-saturated tone poem that shows the power and danger of nationalism. One of the most beautiful films of the 21st century period, I can’t help but feel sadness at its ending.

The nameless Hero’s sacrifice for “Our Land” is admirable - but its tale is tragedy from start to finish. Watching this back-to-back with In the Mood for Love and 2046, you get the sense that these are all lost souls destined to circle each other in mythic circumstances both large and small.

Not feeling more comfortable about geopolitics after immersing myself in this and Red Cliff

Dreams upon dreams upon fantasies of the future and the past on Christmas Eve. Dickens ghosts are strong throughout this one. Impeccable vibes. I too dream in vibrant colors and reflections.

One moment of real human connection can change everything - and put the degradation and beauty of the real world in relief. Incredibly sad film, but given the subject matter - how could it be anything else?

Got more action like my man John Woo!

There’s Hard Boiled, Terminator 2, and Die Hard (in that order), a deep chasm and then all other action films.

Cops and robbers as improvised jazz. The action masterpiece that sets the standard for all others. Still the greatest of all time.

Visceral and brutal retelling of retribution and revenge from a discarded and abused wife. These post-War Japanese films have a lot of pathos encoded - from atomic body horror, to the emasculation of defeat and guilt over inflicted horrors. It’s a heady brew that gave us genre classics like Godzilla and humanist masterpieces like Tokyo Story.

This film is much more judgmental towards Japanese society and its “respectable” lords and rich merchant class. Oiwa’s tale becomes one of power and oppression - which is why the righteousness of her abuser’s end feels so satisfying.

Not for the squeamish, but very rewarding for those with a strong stomach for a grim and bloody moral tale.