When The Kill Room Meets Art Criticism, Who Says Murder Isn’t Art?

Making money is hard these days, and just what can one art dealer do to make ends meet? Apparently, it’s to make some dirty dealings with the Miami underground in The Kill Room.

The Kill Room Movie Poster

Shout! Studios
Playing at select theatres beginning today

From selling fake artwork from celebrated modern masters to more crazy installation type pieces, The Kill Room is a fantastic black comedy which stars Uma Thurman–who doesn’t look like she’s aged by much since her Kill Bill days. With Samuel L. Jackson as a mentor on how she should deal with managing an art studio that’s having a lot of problems, what goes from a simple scam to scheme could go awry!

But when Patrice (Thurman) discovers a new talent in Reggie (Joe Manganiello), she doesn’t really get just what he truly does for a living. There are hints about what he does in Nicol Paone‘s direction, but nobody seems to care. He’s a natural-born killer, and somehow what he uses as a calling card are considered works of art!

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Shine On, Gattaca, You Crazy Diamond! (in a Rough)

Is this 4K edition worth the upgrade? If you don’t have the 2008 release and want the extras, buying the steel book edition (from after owning just the DVD) is a must for any science-fiction movie fan’s library.

Gattaca
Available to preorder on Amazon USA

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Sony Entertainment

Release Date:
March 23, 2021

Andrew Nicol’s thought-provoking Gattaca is looking very shiny in its 4K upgrade. Fans of this film will find the Sony’s investment into smoothing out this classic movie–where perfection and subterfuge are central to the plot–a fitting call to the concept of cleaning up the flaws in the film stock.

This movie stands the test of time. It’s a gorgeous film which looks visually sharp on a 4K screen. The science of looking at original film negatives on a computer and the mathematical process involved to make this sleek and deadly thriller look pristine requires both machine logic and humans mutually agreeing which is better. Only the human eye can tell.

This film was shot in 35mm photochemical film stock. Any noticeable grain on the original or intentional use of soft imagery through the lens was light when looking back at my DVD. Also, it doesn’t help when my 4K television does its own upscaling to give a simulated higher resolution on the screener version I examined; a 2160p version wasn’t available at the time. Kudos must still be given to the team behind the colour grading fixes, though.

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