By John Larkin One of my favorite aspects of great filmmaking has always been the choice of music that closes out a film. The right song becomes the final statement of the story. It is the emotional conclusion and the last feeling an audience carries with them after the screen fades to black. When used well, a song that bridges the final scene into the end credits can leave a powerful and lasting impression. It shapes how the ending is remembered and gives the film a sense of

Review by John Larkin MARTY SUPREME is a reminder that the work of a great director is not merely technical. They do not simply assemble strong production design, confident cinematography, or skilled performances. At their highest level, they transmit something less tangible, an energy, a frequency, directly through the screen. When it works, the audience does not simply observe the film; they absorb it. Josh Safdie understands this instinctively. With UNCUT GEMS, the Safdie

Purchase by clicking the image above or HERE AWAKENINGS captures the spirit of early 1990’s New York filmmaking in a way few films of that moment did. Even though the story takes place in 1969 and 1970, the production feels steeped in the atmosphere of the city in which it was made: the outer boroughs, the institutional buildings, the scuffed linoleum floors, the light falling through aging hospital windows. Penny Marshall shot in real locations throughout Brooklyn and the Br

The Americas: Complete Limited Series 4K UHD can be purchased HERE Review by John Larkin After years spent behind a camera and staring at timelines, scopes, and screens, I didn’t realize how much distance I’d put between myself and the living world those images are meant to reflect. THE AMERICAS, narrated by Tom Hanks, reconnects me to something essential. Watching it in 4K feels less like consuming content and more like being reminded of the Earth’s scale, patience, and quie

Blu-Ray Review by John Larkin Purchase by clicking the image above This year I have been immersed in nature in a way I never expected. After spending so many years with my head down in books, movies, and laptop screens, I finally started lifting my eyes toward the natural world again. That shift has changed me. It has refreshed me and helped me process many of the daily stressors that were piling up. In that spirit, the release of OVER MAINE: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION drew me i

By Jay Glennie – Insight Editions, 2025 Review by John Larkin Purchase on Amazon by clicking the image above! It’s no secret that we’re very pro Tarantino here at Films in Review. In turn, it’s no secret that Tarantino’s been very pro Films in Review himself. He’s spoken often about how much the original magazine meant to him, how he devoured it growing up, and how it shaped the way he thought about film criticism and movie history. On the Video Archives Podcast, he’s mention

Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in NO COUNTY FOR OLD MEN (2007) by John Larkin Every Halloween, the conversation turns to the familiar faces of terror: the monsters, slashers, and masked killers who have come to define the genre. But this feature takes a different path. These are performances that unsettle on a deeper level, where fear does not stem from prosthetics, reputation, or myth, but from the raw presence of the human being on screen. It is the way an actor inhabits a

Purchase by clicking the image above or HERE Review by John Larkin I first encountered THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN one crisp autumn night many years ago on Turner Classic Movies. I was struck by how refined it felt for a horror film. The lush production design, candlelit sets, and painterly compositions immediately pulled me in. It wasn’t just an old monster movie; it was something elegant and hypnotic. Over the years it has become inseparable from the Halloween season for me,

Purchase by clicking the image above or HERE Blu-Ray review by John Larkin Much the way THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE are comfort food for me during Halloween and Christmas, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is my go-to comfort whenever I need to laugh. CURB and SEINFELD are my two favorite comedy shows, not by coincidence, since they both come from the same creative mind. Larry David’s world is built on neuroticism, misanthropy, and awkward honesty, mixed with a kin

Review by John Larkin Purchase by clicking the image above or HERE It is great to see Warner Archive putting out multi-film collections like this. For collectors, these sets make it much easier to fill in the gaps of a shelf all at once rather than chasing down individual titles. This particular lineup, subtitled Classic Tales of Mad Passions and Madder Deeds , is a strong one. If there is a small wish, it would have been wonderful to see Michael Curtiz’s MYSTERY OF THE WAX M

Review by John Larkin I went into the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER with expectations kept low, since the...

Review by John Larkin Purchase by clicking the image above or HERE Growing up, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE hovered around the edges of my childhood like a piece of family furniture that had always been there, sturdy and dependable, always present but easy to overlook. It was one of the first TV shows I can ever remember being aware of, a title that seemed to echo through the house whenever my mom tuned in. She had watched it in the 1970s during its first run and embraced it a

GET CARTER can be purchased by clicking the image above. Warner Archive is now clearly on a roll with their 4K releases, with this being the third release from the label. Thankfully, the results are just as great as the previous titles of THE SEARCHERS and HIGH SOCIETY. What’s exciting about this current slate is that Warner Archive seems to be curating their 4K upgrades with both historical significance and collector appeal in mind. THE SEARCHERS was a benchmark western, HIG

Review by John Larkin Available on all major digital platforms There is something undeniably powerful about anniversaries. They often...

Available to purchase at MovieZyng.com by clicking the image above Review by John Larkin As someone who admittedly isn't deeply steeped in the golden age of Hollywood musicals, and with only a passing familiarity with the individual works of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, I have to confess that HIGH SOCIETY wasn't a film that was on my radar. Yet, the online buzz surrounding its 4K Ultra HD release from Warner Archive was simply too infectious to ignore. And what a release i

Review by John Larkin James Gunn's interpretation of the classic comic book character and story is wildly entertaining and delightfully...

Can be purchased at MovieZyng.com by clicking the image above Review by John Larkin Bakshi’s bold, weird, and strangely beautiful animated epic finally gets the re-release it deserves. Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation of THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1978) has finally been re-released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros., which is great news, since the original release has been out of print and used copies have been selling for unnecessarily exorbitant prices on eBay for years. I only watc

by John Larkin I had the immense pleasure of attending a truly special evening at The Bedford Playhouse in Bedford, NY, for a screening...

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Review by John Larkin This release was originally scheduled for January but mysteriously disappeared from the Warner Archive Collection slate without explanation. Thankfully, it resurfaced unexpectedly in early April and is now officially part of the Warner Archive Collection lineup. For years, I scoffed at the DVD cover of JUST FRIENDS—a title I frequently made eye contact with during my time working at the now-defunct Borders Books. The film came out

Click here to purchase! Review by John Larkin I've always had a special admiration for Steven Soderbergh—a filmmaker who continues to work prolifically while continually pushing technical boundaries, often on a modest budget. Whether it's experimenting with digital cinematography, shooting on iPhones, or stripping down his crew to the bare essentials, Soderbergh embodies a kind of guerrilla filmmaking spirit that’s both inspiring and rare in Hollywood. I was lucky enough to m

Blu-Ray review by John Larkin THE END can be purchased on blu-ray at MovieZyng.com by clicking the image above. It wasn’t Burt Reynolds, but Dom DeLuise who served as my gateway to discovering this film. My family and I have long cherished the 1980 comedy FATSO, in which DeLuise stars as an overweight 40-year-old man coming to terms with his lifelong battle of the bulge. FATSO was the only feature film ever directed by actress Anne Bancroft, working under her husband’s BROOK

4K UHD review by John Larkin GLADIATOR II 4K UHD + Blu-Ray + Digital can purchased at retailers everywhere and by clicking the image...

Blu-Ray review by John Larkin SEPTEMBER 5 is available at retailers everywhere starting February 18th and can be purchased on Amazon by...

Review by John Larkin FILMWORKER can be purchased on Blu-Ray by clicking the image above. As actor Leon Vitali recounts in the...