"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Blue Moon

BLUE MOON is one of Richard Linklater’s two 2025 joints, the one that’s in English and that he didn’t sell to Netflix and that was nominated for two Oscars (actor and original screenplay). At a glance it doesn’t sound like the most typical Linklater picture, because it’s about the songwriter Lorenz Hart when his partner Richard Rodgers has just started a successful new team with Oscar Hammerstein II. But when you see it it turns out it’s very Linklater, because it’s basically a one location play starring Ethan Hawke (like TAPE) and because it’s all about listening to a weirdo carry on and show off blabbing about all the random shit he’s obsessed with (like SLACKER or WAKING LIFE).

It’s basically a bittersweet hangout movie, spending a couple hours at a bar with Hart (Ethan Hawke, 24 HOURS TO LIVE) on March 31, 1943, opening night of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!. He ruminates on his past, his current failure, his dreams of how to continue, what’s going on with this war in Europe, and many of his opinions about many different things. Also he’s really excited because he thinks he’s in love with a Yale art student he’s been corresponding with who’s going to meet him here. But mostly he just tries to hold court and receive the attention he desires before Rodgers and friends show up to celebrate their triumph without him. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 10th, 2026 | 9 Comments »

The Mastermind

Kelly Reichardt’s THE MASTERMIND is in a niche that really appeals to me: the unglamorous crime tale. It’s about an art heist, but there are zero Hollywood-style thrills involved, no witty dialogue, no gun fights, not much in the way of car chases. They seem like regular people, the plan isn’t complicated at all, lots of attention is paid to the slow, mundane details of the process. It’s a period piece, set in 1970 – that’s pretty cool. But it’s not, like… ’70s New York or anything. It’s Framingham, Massachusetts. The one very smart concession to cinematic fantasy is an excellent avant-garde jazz score by Rob Mazurek of Chicago Underground. He plays cornet and I think there’s some piano but sometimes it’s just drums, and it does make everything seem pretty cool.

Josh O’Connor (one of the CHALLENGERS) plays JB, our titular ringleader. The opening scene is a really good introduction to what the movie’s gonna be like, because it’s him in an art museum during regular hours, pretending to look at the art while scoping out how things are secured, how sleepy the security guard is, etc. There’s a mom with two kids there, and one of the kids is going on and on about a code breaking puzzle involving an alien language and how to translate some of the alien words by asking questions with yes or no answers. It’s great because it’s clear this is a kid really trying to explain this idea in his own words, and getting genuinely nerdy about it. A level of kid authenticity not common film. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 9th, 2026 | 3 Comments »

Knights of the City

KNIGHTS OF THE CITY is an incredible ‘80s b-movie fever dream that’s still only on VHS, and so up my dark, garbage strewn alley that it’s amazing I never knew about it before. Gives me hope for what else could still be out there.

It involves gangs, breakdancing, and a battle of the bands. It was released in 1986, but filmed in 1984, starring and written by Leon Isaac Kennedy, between PENITENTIARYs II and III. He plays Troy, leader of a street gang and also lead singer of a band. I never caught the name of the gang, and they wait until the final act to reveal that the band is called The Royal Rockers. They’re violent tough guys who collect protection money from area businesses, and participate in gang rumbles using canes, bats, chains and switchblades. Their band rehearses in a trashed, graffiti and mannequin filled punk apartment, but their music is danceable synth-based R&B love songs.

The unspecified Florida city’s street culture is like a collision of BREAKIN’ and DEATH WISH 3, so we see endless varieties of sleeveless shirts, headbands, leather jackets, fingerless gloves, sunglasses, studded belts, raised collars, mesh tank tops, berets, wristbands, armbands, camouflage, marching band jackets, New Wave blazers, and many types of mohawks. The villain Carlos (Jeff Moldovan, BLOODSPORT: THE DARK KUMITE), leader of the Mechanics, is introduced wearing a red vest over a red Hawaiian shirt tied up Daisy Duke style. His trademarks are a fedora and a cheap fake mustache cut in two with each half glued to the side of his mouth. When he takes off the fedora it reveals that he too has a mohawk. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 5th, 2026 | 5 Comments »

Queen of the Damned

I always kinda wanted to see QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and I think we can all be proud of me that I managed to get it in before it turned 25. Pretty much still a new release! If you’ve forgotten though, it’s basically a new cast, new filmmakers sequel to INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, with Tom Cruise’s vampire character Lestat now played by Stuart Townsend (SIMON MAGUS). He also narrates the movie and man does it make for a funny opening. He explains how he got sick of immortality “So I went to sleep, hoping that the sounds of the passing eras would fade out, and a sort of death might happen.” He’s Dracula-ing inside a coffin in a crypt with a cool skeleton sculpture on the lid.

“But as I lay there, the world didn’t sound like the place I had left, but something… different. Better.”


Cut to a series of close ups: a kick drum, guitars, tattoos, nipple rings, etc., as rocking out occurs. A band is jamming in his old mansion and the sound wakes him up. He slips into their jam session and appoints himself lead vocalist. You gotta just assert yourself, right? Fake it ’til you make it. When they ask him “Who the hell are you, man?” he says “I am the vampire Lestat.” They laugh and then realize he’s serious and then he turns them.

“From that moment on they were my friends, my children, my band. Giving the world a new god. Me.” (read the rest of this shit…)

February 4th, 2026 | 8 Comments »

The Wrecking Crew (2026)

THE WRECKING CREW is, in some ways, what the world needs: a buddy action movie starring Dave Bautista (WRONG SIDE OF TOWN) and Jason Momoa (BULLET TO THE HEAD). Bautista sort of publicly wished it into existence, and the public agreed it should exist. The catch is that it went straight to the Evil Shipping Conglomerate Prime streaming service, so it’s arguable whether it really does exist unless it starts playing on cable (which is possible, since it’s already happened with their ROAD HOUSE remake).

It’s directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (CHARM CITY KINGS, BLUE BEETLE) and written by Jonathan Tropper (co-creator of Banshee and Warrior, showrunner of See, also with Momoa and Bautista). Also Matt Reeves (THE BATMAN, UNDER SIEGE 2) is one of the producers? That’s odd. Anyway it’s nothing substantial, but I liked it. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 3rd, 2026 | 21 Comments »

Send Help

Sam Raimi is back! With a new movie. Not one of his best, but hey – we got a new Sam Raimi movie. SEND HELP was brought to him by screenwriters Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (FREDDY VS. JASON, FRIDAY THE 13TH 2009), but it follows part of the DRAG ME TO HELL template in that it’s about a timid woman who doesn’t fit in and gets overlooked and mistreated by the sexist assholes at her corporate job, then finds her inner viciousness to be able to compete with them. A difference is that in the earlier film the horror scenario comes as punishment for the shitty thing she does to get ahead. This one is about how getting stranded on an island with her asshole boss becomes her opportunity to unleash her mean side.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams, PASSION) has worked for seven years as a corporate strategist, though her new boss thinks she’s an accountant. The previous CEO promised her a promotion to vice president, but then he died and his son Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien, AMERICAN ASSASSIN) took over. To Linda’s shock he gives the promotion to Donovan (Xavier Samuel, THE LOVED ONES, Bernard Rose’s FRANKENSTEIN), an idiotic Patrick Bateman type who’s pretty new there, steals credit for her work and happens to have been Bradley’s frat brother. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 2nd, 2026 | 23 Comments »

Kneecap

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…)

January 30th, 2026 | 3 Comments »

KPop Demon Hunters + Boys Go to Jupiter

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…)

January 29th, 2026 | 22 Comments »

F1

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…)

January 27th, 2026 | 13 Comments »

Train Dreams

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…)

January 26th, 2026 | 11 Comments »

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