Movie Madness

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy go from the comically violent travails of adoptive parents Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells (I Don’t Understand You) to yet another exorcism film with Al Pacino and Dan Stevens (The Ritual). The creature that once stalked Schwarzenegger now gets animated (Predator: Killer of Killers) and a shark-loving serial killer leads to a cat-and-mouse battle on a boat (Dangerou...

Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski guide you through another week of physical media. This week you can include masterworks from Paul Schrader, Terry Gilliam and Jonathan Demme on your shelves. There are also underrated works from George Romero and Mel Brooks as well as career work from Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue. They talk about the oddness that ranges from Linda Blair on skates to Dennis Qu...

Six films are on the slate this week for Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy. They include a pair of documentaries about the making of The Day After (Television Event) and the frontman for U2 in a filmed version of his stage show (Bono: Stories of Surrender). A puppeteer must transition to samurai in the Old West (Tornado) while a group of billionaires struggle with the dangerous implications of one...

It’s a funny week for physical media. In that there are some tremendously funny movies in the mix but also some landmarks to put in your library. Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski guide you through the work of Charles Burnett and the singular film by Kerry Conran. They take you through the multiple versions of a Ridley Scott epic, perhaps the best of the Musketeers films and the weird backstory...

Memorial Day weekend offers a variety of options, some of them even good both in theaters and at home. Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy are here to talk you through nine of them. They include Cate Blanchett as a nun who may have discovered the second coming (The New Boy) and another film about resurrecting the dead (The Surrender). A musician you may have missed gets the documentary treatment (Swa...

Memorial Day weekend offers a variety of options, some of them even good both in theaters and at home. Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy are here to talk you through nine of them. They include Cate Blanchett as a nun who may have discovered the second coming (The New Boy) and another film about resurrecting the dead (The Surrender). A musician you may have missed gets the documentary treatment (Swa...

This week in physical media may be appealing to the cults out there. Whichever you belong to, Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski are here to guide you towards your particular following. Perhaps you are in the Richard E. Grant & Bruce Robinson cult. Or stay on that side of the pond with an Oscar-winning musical and a film that was the Bridgerton of its time in the way it uses music. Maybe you’re i...

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy return to the review beat after a couple weeks off at the Chicago Critics Film Festival. Erik looks at a bunch of influencers terrorized by feral dogs (A Breed Apart) and the story that inspired a cult body horror film (The Darkside of Society). Steve looks at an influential moment for the hearing impaired (Deaf President Now) and The Weeknd’s self-indulgent vanity...

After a week off for The Chicago Critics Film Festival, Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski return to get you up to date on the latest in physical media world. They include one of the great musicals and a landmark in 60s cinema. Disney upgrades one of their animated hits before its live-action counterpart hits theater. See the film Robert Zemeckis made in-between shooting Cast Away. There is plent...

Marvel is hoping for both a critical and financial reboot with their latest summer opener and Erik Childress is joined once again by comic book expert, Erik Laws, to discuss. Laws delves into the history of the Thunderbolts and various incarnations in the comics. They talk about what they enjoyed about the film as well as elements that fell flat. A lot of credit goes to a pair of key performances...

After weeks of light lineups in the physical media world, the end of April explores with a variety of titles that Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski are here to guide you through. They include Sean Baker bookends from Criterion, blaxploitation and films from Russ Meyer. You got journeys to the Bermuda triangle and the gates of hell not to mention bullets and betrayal. Bill Murray enters the army...

Before taking off for the upcoming Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 2-8) which they program, Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy review nine movies this week. They include the latest from Francois Ozon (When Fall Is Coming) and a Jim Henson-like fantasy from A24 (The Legend of Ochi). Jack Quaid and Jeffrey Dean Morgan make for unique investigators of a kidnapping (Neighborhood Watch) and a new vide...

Another light week for physical media but a fun one – especially for those nostalgic for the early ‘90s. Peter Sobczynski joins Erik Childress to talk about Criterion’s upgrade of a multi-part French masterpiece from the ‘80s. They share thoughts on The Most Dangerous Game riff that got snakebit by real-world tragedies and Covid. Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase try to prevent the assassination of the...

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy have eight movie reviews this week including revisiting one of their favorites from Sundance, a twisted alternate version of Cinderella (The Ugly Stepsister). Steve looks at another cabin-in-the-woods-horror (Call of the Void), a documentary about drummers (Count Me In) and Catherine Deneuve as Beradette Chirac (The President’s Wife). Erik looks at Severance’s Brit...

It’s been a little light out there for titles in physical media world but this week has no shortage of interesting ones and Peter Sobczynski joins Erik Childress to talk you through them. They include one of Wong-Kar Wai’s most remembered films and John Sayles’ foray into studio filmmaking in the ‘80s. John Wayne goes to war and then later goofs off with John Ford. There are new 4K editions of two...

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy have seven movies to talk about this week. They range from a documentary about one of the music world’s most talked about relationships (One to One: John & Yoko) and an animated story of Jesus told through the mouth of Dickens (The King of Kings). The Michaels – Cera & Angarano – go on a road trip (Sacramento) and Stephen Dorff tries to go legit in the Old West (Gu...

Another light week for physical media but Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski have you covered with one of the greatest comedies of all time and one of Peter Sellers’ overlooked gems. There is film noir, a sorority massacre and a pair of films covered on The Friendship Dilemma podcast. They include Ryan Reynolds in the friend zone with Amy Smart and Shane Black getting paid to make Geena Davis and...

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy have reviews of eight new movies this week. They revisit one of the best films they saw at Sundance this year (The Ballad of Wallis Island) while Erik handles this week’s latest video game adaptation (A Minecraft Movie). Public domain puts Steamboat Willie into horror (Screamboat) and how do they like dem apple on dat head (William Tell). Michael Shannon directs th...

If you missed a number of recent films in theaters then this is really the Blu-ray week for you. Beyond those, Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski still have some titles for you to consider if you can’t get enough of Nicholas Hoult in vampire films or you really like those new digital shorts on SNL. There’s also the tale of graverobbers that took their work a little too far, an obscure relationshi...

Blu-rays, 4Ks, physical media galore this week as Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski guide you through another week. They include upgrades of a great Gene Hackman film and another from Alan Rudolph by Criterion. There’s early work from Rudolph Valentino and the late George Armitage. Horror goes from brain-inhabiting slugs to a black mamba, child murders, cannibalism and eating the rich. There’s a...

Erik Childress & Steve Prokopy have nine movies for you this week. It all starts by hitting the way back machine for their 2023 review of a Sundance film delayed by the controversy over its star (Magazine Dreams). There is also an apocalyptic musical fantasy (O’Dessa) and Bill Skarsgard is trapped in Anthony Hopkins’ fancy car (Locked). Sci-fi goes two ways with the bloody aftermath of an astronau...

Erik Childress has been traveling to Austin for over 20 years for the annual South by Southwest Film Festival. He is back to tell you all about 19 films that he saw this year. Among the films you can see soon are the return of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively to the world of simple favor. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega trying to survive the revenge of a unicorn and Nicolas Cage battles some territorial...

Peter Sobczynski joins Erik Childress again to get you caught up on a couple weeks of new physical media. They include drama from Charlie Chaplin and Michael Mann’s feature debut. Godzilla returns as does the creepy Roger Corman sci-fi of the early ‘80s. Renny Harlin brings the sharks, Skippy from Family Ties battles a heavy metal killer and Peter reminds us of another piece of ‘80s horror that so...

Movie reviews continue on the show with seven new releases this week. Steve Prokopy looks at the chaos of a young woman and her Zambian family (On Becoming a Guinea Fowl) while Samara Weaving plays a pop star dealing with a stalker (Borderline). John Malkovich is another pop star whom Ayo Edebiri discovers may be part of a cult (Opus). Daffy Duck and Porky Pig try to save the world from zombies an...

Physical media never takes a week off but sometimes they sleep in a little. Such as this light week that has Peter Sobczynski and Erik Childress starting off with a stone-cold classic thriller from Criterion upgraded to 4K. Kino has more film noir, a double feature with Agatha Christie AND Bert I. Gordon plus the terrifying presence of Klaus Kinski as a Nazi. There’s an animated cat who gives mass...