BETTER MAN is a musical biopic of Robbie Williams that came out last week, but according to Slash Film it’s already “the first big box office bomb of 2025,” “a certifiable, massive flop” and “at serious risk of becoming one of the biggest bombs of all time.” There are some theories that it could be because people in North America don’t know who Robbie Williams is, but I would argue that also maybe they don’t know why he’s portrayed in the movie by a realistic CG chimp. Or at least that’s one thing I wonder, and I’ve seen the movie (at a preview screening with friends who are fans and said it might be because he has a song called “Me and My Monkey”?)
I was vaguely aware of the human version of Williams – he’s a British pop singer who in 2000 did the song “Rock DJ,” which I think is a good, catchy song even though I don’t approve of the rapping part, if that’s what it’s supposed to be. I had forgotten this but it had a really good video where he’s performing in a club, and slowly strips off all his clothes, then rips off his skin, then muscle, until he’s a skeleton. He’s throwing bloody chunks of himself-meat into the crowd and women are pretty excited about it. Now that I’ve seen the movie I know he was a guy from a boy band, so I can put together that that must’ve been the point when he goes solo and does something provocative to make us see him in a different light, like when Justin Timberlake did that Francis-Lawrence-directed “Cry Me a River” video where he’s a creeper. (read the rest of this shit…)
The original 2022 Danish film 
THE THICKET is a new western that played a few theaters last year and now is on Tubi (who have their name on the credits). I was aware of it because it’s based on a book by Joe R. Lansdale – I don’t know the book, but his name will usually draw my attention. That said, I’m always wary of an indie western in this day and age. Maybe I’m generalizing, but most of them I’ve come across just don’t cut it. I put this one on, though, and I immediately thought oh shit, this is a real movie.
ROBOT DREAMS is a lovely and lyrical 2023 animated film from Spain. It has no dialogue, but English signage because it’s set in New York City. It’s some time in the ‘80s and there are no humans, only animals living like humans (in apartments, wearing clothes, having jobs). Nothing too deep, just a cartooning conceit we can easily accept, with the occasional joke like when the main character Dog is reading Pet Sematary and we have to wonder what the hell that book is in this world. The animals seem to have achieved all the same things as human civilization: the Twin Towers, pizza delivery, ALF, “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire, you name it.
After seeing 
If Stephen Norrington had only ever been a special effects guy he still would’ve made a mark. He worked under Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Jim Henson. He did the Grand High Witch makeup in THE WITCHES, and designed creatures for Jim Henson’s The Storyteller. He played the Gump in 
THE WILD ROBOT is this year’s feature from DreamWorks Animation, and I’m not sure I would’ve guessed that without the logo. It’s a funny movie but not a smart alecky one, not a child of SHREK. Based on a 2016 young readers book by Peter Brown (first in a trilogy), it’s a simple, sweet tale with an elegant premise: a shipment of mass-manufactured helper robots crashes in the wilderness, one of them survives, accidentally imprints on an orphaned gosling runt and, since her programming requires her to complete all tasks, she becomes convinced that she must teach the goose to swim and fly before migration time in the winter. So there’s a goal to work toward and an inevitable sadness if it’s ever achieved. Good drama. 
Unless I’m forgetting something, Clint Eastwood only has two movies that could be classified as spy movies, and both involve a mission to a mountain in the Alps. One is 
102 years after F.W. Murnau’s illegal copyright violation classic, here’s writer/director Robert Eggers following up 
I’m not fully acquainted with the filmography of John Sayles, but I’m pretty sure THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET is an outlier. It was 1984, so Sayles had already had his Roger Corman/exploitation beginnings (writing PIRANHA, 
