by Sebastian Kluth
White Boy Rick might be based upon a true story but it should be mentioned that it is largely based upon subjective claims that cannot be fully verified. The movie tells a story that might or might not be fully or partially true about a teenage boy from...
Ladies and gentlemen! On the twenty-first day of my trip through Atlantic Canada, I took the ferry from Channel-Port aux Basques, Newfoundland to North Sydney, Nova Scotia and stayed in Sydney for the night. Highlights: Walking through Sydney in the early...
Despite obvious grammar mistakes in the lyrics, Metalwings' debut EP Fallen Angel in the Hell was a promising release thanks to grounded, natural and unique vocals and the use of viola sounds and Irish flutes in an epic symphonic metal context. The first...
A or B is a dramatic Chinese thriller that comes around with numerous surprises, twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. This breathless, clever and dynamic movie convinces with a truly amazing script, great...
Brotherhood of Blades is a very entertaining wu xia movie. It combines dynamic martial arts and sword fights with historical costumes and settings and a dramatic dose of suspense in form of complex conspiracies. The greatest thing about the movie is that...
Three years after the pitiless Cavalo de Tróia, Brazilian crossover thrash metal quartet Ação Libertária is back with another thought-provoking full length effort consisting of twelve tracks and a running time of thirty-five minutes entitled Cidadão de...
When the infamous Iraq War started one and a half decades ago, I was still in high school but I remember many students of my age demonstrating against said war and the American President George W. Bush. I recall a classmate of mine who brought a poster...
When you purchase an Anvil record, you know exactly what to expect: tight old school heavy metal with occasional hard rock and doom metal influences shining through. This is also the case for the band's seventeenth album in forty years. What makes this...
Cypecore is band that mixes groove metal, industrial metal and melodic death metal. The vocals are mostly performed in a harsh melodic death metal style with a few isolated shouts and clean vocal passages. Distorted vocal effects also shine through here...
Omnium Gatherum is a quite complicated case. The Finnish melodic death metal band is absolutely captivating in concert but rarely transmits this certain type of magic onto its regular studio albums. This is particularly obvious on Grey Heavens. The band...
I have always been a supporter of kawaii metal as it has revolutionized the metal genre. Revolutionary bands have always taken risks, expanded horizons and been controversially discussed. This was the case when doom metal created a whole new genre of...
*** This review may contain spoilers *** The Villainess could have been one of this year's greatest movies. The first-person action choreography is absolutely stunning, the characters are interesting to profound and the story is filled with numerous twists...
The Tale of Zatoichi is the first in a long series of samurai movies centered around the blind gambler and masseur turned lowly yakuza who has a strong moral compass and makes us feel empathic not because he is blind and underestimated but because he...
Going into this movie, I didn't expect anything. I went to a movie night at my local cinema on a Tuesday night and simply needed to find a second film to complete my double feature. It turns out that I got much more than I would have expected from this...
Ring of Fire is a progressive power metal all-star band supported by the Italian label Frontiers Records. There are three elements that got me interested in the group's first release in ten years. First and foremost, the title Battle of Leningrad evokes...
*** This review may contain spoilers *** Let's get one thing straight. This movie isn't historically accurate. It is much more a movie about the relationship between a grandmaster and his respected opponent's daughter than a biography of Ip Man. That...
I have rarely listened to an album whose title is as appropriate as Masterpiece of Bitterness. It really describes the sound Solstafir explores here as this album showcases courageous and epic song writing with a depressing and gloomy atmosphere. If compared...
There Is No Place for Fear might be the strongest release thus far by Russian heavy metal quartet Phaeton. If compared to the debut EP which was already slightly above average, many things have improved on the first full length effort. The production...
A Cure of Wellness is one of the best Western movies in recent memory and it's a mystery to me why this film didn't get the attention it deserved. Many people claim that it bombed at the box office. That's not surprising because I was actively trying...
Jackie Chan is an incredibly skilled actor but he has often chosen rather uninteresting roles that limit him to slapstick comedy and a few fight scenes in exchangeable family movies like Kung Fu Yoga and Chinese Zodiac. His last entirely interesting movie...
Wind River is the blockbuster you didn't know you had to watch this summer or autumn. The movie is a gloomy mixture of a sinister drama with a set of authentic, flawed and haunted characters and a quite gruesome, mysterious and tense thriller. The fact...
Brazilian power metal Armored Dawn sextet surely knows a lot about music business and how to promote its material. The band's first promotional EP was released with numerous rock and metal magazines from all around the world. Pretty much any metal fan...
Snarveien, better known as Detour, is a classic Norwegian horror movie. The story is quickly told. A young couple that illegally smuggles alcohol has to take a detour because of an accident and gets stranded on an abandoned road in the woods. Soon, strange...
La Isla Minima, also known as Marshland, is a Spanish thriller that has won ten Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. For once, this film truly deserves the praise it got. The story revolves around the mysterious disappearance of...
Angels of Mercy: Live in Germany is Primal Fear's first live record in seven years which is available as a set consisting of a CD and a DVD or alternatively as a set consisting of a CD and a Blu-ray. Despite a promising set list and an overall solid performance,...
