Items filtered by date: February 2017

In the fall of 2015, Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation debuted at the Venice International Film Festival where it was acquired for distribution by Netflix for a whopping $12 million. The film went on to rack up an impressive list of awards and nominations, many singling out Idris Elba’s powerful supporting performance as the Commandant of a battalion of child soldiers. It appeared on several critics’ year-end top ten lists, including, among others, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune, Drew McWeeny (then at HitFix), and Erin Whitney of ScreenCrush. It is “certified fresh” by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes with an enviable 91% standing on Ye Olde TomatoMeter. It also made less than a million dollars at the box office, received zero Academy Award nominations, and, as of spring 2017, is not available on Blu-ray or DVD. You probably haven’t thought of it at all in at least a year. [Read on here...]