Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Friday, January 30th, 2026
KNEECAP (2024) is a feel good Irish comedy, it’s rowdy and rebellious but in a totally lovable way. It’s not that far from what we used to call a “this year’s THE FULL MONTY!,” I don’t think, except there’s lots of casual cocaine and MDMA use without consequences. But it’s pretty great. It’s just such a winning subject, it’s hard not to have a great time.
I admit I never heard of them before I heard about the movie, but Kneecap are an Irish rap trio. Since the movie they’ve gotten into trouble for supporting Palestine. They condemned the genocide on stage at Coachella, so various pro-Israel groups and politicians went after them, accused them of supporting terrorism, one member even got charged (later dropped by missing a filing deadline). In a rock ’n roll biopic there’s always the part where the most uptight losers imaginable are trying to ratfuck our hero over some ridiculous moral scare bullshit they concocted, and it’s always a period piece so we look back and think wow, it’s crazy that people used to be like that back then, jesus christ. Just ‘cause he wiggled his hips? Here you get to see it in real time. Instant rock ’n roll cred for Kneecap there.
That’s all I really knew, but the KNEECAP movie is a fun fictionalized telling of the group’s origins and rise to fame, kinda like STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON for N.W.A, but with a very different tone and scope fitting the setting of late 2010s West Belfast. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: hip hop, Ireland, Jessica Reynolds, Michael Fassbender, music biopic, Rich Peppiatt, Simone Kirby
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Music | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 29th, 2026
I swear I almost watched KPOP DEMON HUNTERS before it was a big deal. Some of the guys in the Action For Everyone circle were talking it up when it first hit Netflix last summer. During the time I put it off it became a cult phenomenon, then just a mainstream hugely popular thing that all children know about and that honestly I’m sick of hearing about. I’m very aware of how uncool it is for me to watch and/or review it at this late date, but I’m the type that is so cool that it doesn’t faze me to be uncool. So I will admit that my mother-in-law watched it before I did. That’s how cool I am.
I’m sure most of you know this, but in case you don’t, this was a movie made by Sony Pictures Animation (makers of the SPIDER-VERSE and HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA series), but I guess they got cold feet about releasing it and just sold it to Netflix, where luckily it somehow became the rare streaming movie to actually make a mark. It got so popular by word-of-mouth that two months later they did theatrical screenings of a sing-along version and it was the #1 movie for the week. The soundtrack is certified platinum and nominated for five Grammies, and I think the movie is basically guaranteed to win the best animated feature and best original song Oscars, even with SINNERS competing for the latter.
I don’t really get why it’s that big of a deal, but I liked it. A couple minutes into the prologue I was definitely sold on the premise: the human world has always been at war with the demon world, who steal our souls to empower their king Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun, I SAW THE DEVIL). But every generation there is a trio of warriors “born with voices that could drive back the darkness.” They’re not only trained to fight, but to use the power of singing to create a protective barrier called the Honmoon. Their music “ignites the soul and brings the world together,” generating powerful magic, with the ultimate goal of creating an impenetrable “Golden Honmoon” that would block out demons forever. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ahn Hyo-seop, Arden Cho, Chris Appelhans, Demi Adejuyigbe, Elsie Fisher, Eva Victor, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Jack Corbett, Janeane Garofalo, Ji-young Yoo, Lee Byung-hun, Maggie Kang, May Hong, Miya Folick, Yunjin Kim
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2026
F1 (advertised as F1® THE MOVIE) is a slick, well made, big budget car racing/Brad Pitt movie. Nothing more or less, really. It’s from Joseph Kosinski, director of TOP GUN: MAVERICK, and continues in the exploration of a stubborn, aging hot shot butting heads with, teaching, and then passing the torch to a younger generation, and it shoots race cars similar to how that movie shot fighter jets. You’re clearly looking at the actors inside actual fast moving cars, not just green screen, and that goes a long way. Of course, flying was more exciting.
Brad Pitt (CUTTING CLASS) plays Sonny Hayes, legendary bad boy racer who had a terrible crash in the ‘90s (when he had long blond hair) followed by a stint as a professional gambler and cab driver before his surprising comeback. In the opening scene he helps his old buddy Chip (Shea Whigham, NON-STOP) and his team win in Daytona, then leaves without taking the trophy. I think he’s living in a van when another old friend, Rubén Cervantes (Javier Bardem, PERDITA DURANGO) tracks him down at the laundromat and asks for help with his racing team.
Rubén used to race against Sonny, now he wears incredible suits and owns the APXGP Formula One team, who are in last place and in danger of being sold by the board if they don’t win a Grand Prix. Of course Sonny refuses the call, then changes his mind and struts onto the track looking like the coolest dude anybody there ever saw. But they’re mostly not impressed. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: best picture nominees, Brad Pitt, car racing, Damson Idris, Ehren Kruger, Hans Zimmer, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon, Samson Kayo, Sarah Niles, Shea Whigham
Posted in Reviews, Drama, Sport | 12 Comments »
Monday, January 26th, 2026
TRAIN DREAMS is the chillest and maybe artiest of this year’s best picture nominees. It was also nominated for best adapted screenplay (from the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson), best cinematography (Adolpho Veloso) and best original song (Nick Cave). If you never heard of it, it’s because it’s only on Netflix, and because it’s a peaceful, contemplative movie about the unremarkable life of a logger in Idaho. There’s a bit of THE TREE OF LIFE in it, but it’s not as slow or humorless as that might sound. I liked it in more than a “pretty good for homework” type of way.
It tells the story of Robert Grainier (the Master Gardener himself Joel Edgerton), who grows up an orphan in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and doesn’t have much passion for anything until he meets Gladys (Felicity Jones, THE TEMPEST). They get married, buy an acre of land next to a river, build a cabin, have a daughter. He gets some work helping build a bridge for the Spokane International Railway but has a bad experience, then spends most of his life doing seasonal logging work, away from where he wants to be, and worrying he’s cursed. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfred Hsing, best picture nominees, Brandon Lindsay, Cliff Bentley, Clifton Collins Jr., Denis Johnson, Felicity Jones, Greg Kwedar, Joel Edgerton, Kerry Condon, Nathaniel Arcand, Paul Schneider, Will Patton, William H. Macy
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 9 Comments »
Thursday, January 22nd, 2026
THE RIP is Netflix’s new Gritty Cop Thriller (G.C.T.) written and directed by Joe Carnahan (THE A-TEAM, THE GREY, BOSS LEVEL), sharing story credit with Michael McGrale (additional literary material, THE EXPENDABLES 4). It’s a pretty good movie if you enjoy Carnahan’s more serious minded work and/or if you’re interested in the gimmick of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reuniting as best buddies but in a movie where they’re Gritty Cops so they’re each afraid the other is corrupt and is gonna stab them in the back. There is friendship but also yelling, guns, etc.
It all starts with the prologue death of Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco, LONDON) of the Miami-Dade PD. She seems to be Onto Something Big when she gets ambushed by masked men. It’s a good shoot out scene, of the post-HEAT loud and quasi-realistic variety. I like the detail that she’s having trouble calling for help because she got some of her blood on her phone screen. This is the incident that sends FBI agents played by Scott Adkins (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) and Daisuke Tsuji (Ghost of Tsushima video game) in to question the members of Jackie’s elite Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT), suggesting they might have been involved. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ben Affleck, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Daisuke Tsuji, Joe Carnahan, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Kyle Chandler, Lina Esco, Matt Damon, Sasha Calle, Scott Adkins, siege, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, January 21st, 2026
I liked 28 DAYS LATER when it came out in 2003 and I liked 28 WEEKS LATER when it came out in 2007, but I still have never revisited them. So I’m honestly very surprised how invested I am in this followup trilogy that started last year with Danny Boyle’s 28 YEARS LATER and now continues with Nia DaCosta’s 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE.
It was such a surprising choice: Boyle and writer Alex Garland finally made their long anticipated third film, but also prepared a script for the director of LITTLE WOODS and CANDYMAN 2021 to shoot back-to-back with it. Boyle’s movie set up the new characters, and now DaCosta continues their story, but other than a few homages during zombie attacks she doesn’t mimic Boyle’s style at all. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, WIDOWS, THE RHYTHM SECTION), editor Jake Roberts (HELL OR HIGH WATER, MEN) and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (JOKER, TÁR) all go in very different directions from the distinct ones Boyle’s team chose, giving us a calmer and more traditional (not shot on iPhones) but still very effective look at this world of a zombie infection pandemic and its survivors. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Garland, Alfie Williams, Chi Lewis-Parry, Danny Boyle, Emma Laird, Erin Kellyman, Hildur Guonadottir, Jack O'Connell, Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Nia DaCosta, Ralph Fiennes, Sean Bobbit
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, January 20th, 2026
MARSHMALLOW (2025) is a well made summer camp horror movie that manages the impressive feat of not really seeming like a riff on FRIDAY THE 13TH, SLEEPAWAY CAMP or THE BURNING (or for that matter CHEERLEADER CAMP, MADMAN, STAGE FRIGHT, CUB, or HELL OF A SUMMER). It does this in part by taking the kids, the parents and (to a lesser extent) the counselors seriously as characters and giving them relatable emotions before most of the horror movie stuff kicks in.
Morgan (Kue Lawrence, DEATHCEMBER, SKETCH) is a shy kid cursed with a horrendous bowl cut. In the opening scene he timidly approaches some taller kids who are aggressively passing a basketball around and asks if he can join them. They pretty much tell him to eat shit and run away while laughing at him. Morgan doesn’t notice this, but his grandpa (Corbin Bernsen, THE DENTIST) is sitting across the street witnessing the whole thing. So we feel both the pain of the kid and of the adult who’s gotta be torn up about what he’s seeing but can’t really intervene without humiliating the kid further. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alysia Reiner, Andy Greskoviak, Corbin Bernsen, Daniel DelPurgatorio, Giorgia Whigham, Kue Lawrence, Marcia King, Max Malas, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Paul Soter, Pierson Fode, Robert Kurtzman, Samantha Neyland-Trumbo, summer camps, Sutton Johnston
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 19th, 2026
BUGONIA is the 2025 movie from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who just did POOR THINGS in 2023 and then KINDS OF KINDNESS in 2024. I can’t even keep up with the guy! This one’s a little different because it’s a remake of the 2003 South Korean film SAVE THE GREEN PLANET!. By all accounts it’s great, but I still haven’t seen it, so calculate that in if you’re trying to figure out how much you’ll like this.
I assumed it was a situation like Spike Lee’s OLDBOY where producers were trying to do the English language version for some reason and found an auteur to do it, but it turns out this would’ve been original director Jang Joon-hwan remaking his own movie if he hadn’t gotten sick and handed the reins (and the script by Will Tracy [THE MENU, former editor in chief of The Onion]) over to Lanthimos. Jang is still an executive producer, along with Ari Aster and others.
Nevertheless it feels very Lanthimos, and reunites him with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, plus his team of cinematographer Robbie Ryan, editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, composer Jerskin Fendrix and production designer James Price. I wouldn’t consider it a work-for-hire. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aidan Delbis, Alicia Silverstone, Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Stavros Halkias, Yorgos Lanthimos
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | 5 Comments »
Thursday, January 15th, 2026
Last month I got interested in the indie writer/director Todd Rohal, and reviewed three of his movies: THE GUATEMALAN HANDSHAKE, THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM, and of course his latest, FUCK MY SON!. Now I watched another one.
Of the Rohal joints I’ve seen so far, NATURE CALLS (2012) is the closest to a normal, mainstream comedy. It stars well known comedians/funny actors, it’s full of many broad, silly jokes, its third act shift into craziness overdrive is tame compared to Rohal’s other films. But not in a bad way. It’s a very funny movie with plenty of the director’s personality evident, which is kind of a relief because jesus christ man look at this DVD cover:
I don’t think Rohal is trying to be subversive with this one, but it kinda does the trick just by looking like disposable crap but having some bluntly accurate social satire and a strange tone that’s pretty much a family movie but with death and boobs and cursing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Darrell Hammond, Eddie Rouse, Ivan Dimitrov, Jill de Jong, Johnny Knoxville, Maura Tierney, Patrice O'Neal, Patton Oswalt, Rob Riggle, Robert Longstreet, Todd Rohal
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, January 14th, 2026
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT is last year’s Palme d’Or winning film by Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi (THE WHITE BALLOON, OFFSIDE). It’s a wrenching drama about ordinary people who were once political prisoners and suddenly stumble across a chance for some payback.
It does start with an accident, when a man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving with his wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and kid (Delnaz Najafi) at night hits one of the many stray dogs that roam the streets, damaging his car. He stops at a garage where one of the mechanics, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri, NO BEARS), perks up at the sound of his squeaking prosthetic leg. He clearly recognizes him.
The next day Vahid follows the guy. Watches him. It’s very tense. He’s circling around in his car. He has a shovel. He hits him with it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Iran, Jafar Panahi, Palme d'Or winner, revenge, Vahid Mobasseri
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 2 Comments »
