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Babylon December 16, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen With dashes of Singin’ in the Rain, Boogie Nights, The Wolf of Wall Street, Uncut Gems , and Mulholland Drive , Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is a true auteurist epic in every sense of the word. It’s a 188-minute deconstruction of Old Hollywood mythology, complete with cocaine, fast cars, projectile vomit, glitzy actors, underground sex dungeons, and buckets of style. There isn’t anything like it this year, or any year for that matter. Things kick off with a bang in 1926 at a house party in Bel-Air. Inside is a who’s who of Hollywood royalty and up-and-comers. Busting down the door and attracting all the eyes is Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a Jack Nicholson-esque star who only seems to exude charm. Literally crashing through the gate is Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), barely clothed and ready to get people’s attention. “You don’t become a star, you either are one or you aren’t, and I am,” she says as she struts to the dance floor where dozens of naked men and women perform acts of debauchery on par with Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom . Returning from his elephant (yes, the one you would find in the jungle or the zoo) delivery is Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a dreamer wanting to be part of something bigger, something that lasts. Providing the musical entertainment for the evening is Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) on the trumpet and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) with her sexually charged ballads. From this night on, these five characters will have their stories cross paths on several occasions. They’ll star be featured in some of the biggest moments of the Silent Era, and also find themselves hurtling during its downfall. The rise of talkies will bring about a new style of filmmaking, one that’ll benefit some, and destroy others. But through it all, they’ll find a way to create a legacy that lives beyond their mortal lives. This house party, with all its moral depravity and excessiveness, is only the tip of the iceberg of the messed up stuff Chazelle has jam-packed within his rapid-fire screenplay. After the goodness of La La Land and the conventionalism of First Man (and I mean both of those in the best way possible), this film feels as if Chazelle has reached the teenage portion of his career, where curse words and sexual promiscuity flow as if he’s just discovered fire. Thankfully, Chazelle shows no signs of immaturity as a director. As a way to remind all of us why he became the youngest person to be awarded the Best Director Oscar, he adopts a wildly infectious form of controlled chaos, with simultaneous scenes crashing into each other to the beat of Justin Hurwitz’s blaring jazz score. It’s incredibly showy work, but something that perfectly fits within the unhinged glory often found in this period. The train does come off the rails from time to time, particularly in the closing five minutes where Chazelle’s thesis statement becomes a bit too heavy-handed. And some characters get lost in the shuffle for extended periods, begging the question of if some material was left on the cutting room floor. But I love messy films that aren’t afraid to swing for grand slams when there’s only one out, rather than go for the practical approach of a sacrifice fly ball. Chazelle has more than earned himself this exercise in self-indulgence and outrageousness, and we’re all better for witnessing it. And it also doesn’t hurt to have career-best performances from Pitt and Robbie, starring in their third movie together and finally being allowed to share scenes. Calva doesn’t get blinded by the star power around him as he acts as our guide through this deranged world. He eventually carves a spot for himself, influencing film history on a more profound level than he could ever imagine. Also along for the ride are supporting/cameo performances by Jean Smart, Olivia Wilde, Katherine Waterston, Max Minghella, Spike Jonze, and Tobey Maguire as a weasel-like sociopath. My biggest fear is that Chazelle may have inadvertently made his generation’s Heaven’s Gate : An overly ambitious auteur epic that proves to be too much for audiences and critics, leading to a decline in filmmaker power within the Hollywood studio system. Of course, I don’t believe this film will lead to something that dramatic, but I also can’t imagine casual moviegoers John and Jane Doe coming out of this film with their heads still on straight, nor Paramount recouping the $100+ million they've spent. So, if my worst fears become a reality, I only have one thing to say. To paraphrase Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs : If Babylon causes the downfall of auteurs in Hollywood, it will have been well worth it for those that watched the movie (and survived). More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm November 5, 2020 By: Button Hunter Friesen Back in 2006, Sacha Baron Cohen shocked the world with his hilarious mockumentary called Borat . Playing the titular fake news reporter from Kazakhstan, Cohen toured America interviewing people from all walks of life. Through the character of Borat, Cohen showed Americans what they truly look like to the outside world: a bunch of overconfident and arrogant snobs that are too dumb to know how dumb they are. The film was an enormous success critically and commercially, which fueled rumors of a sequel for over a decade. Now in 2020, Cohen is back as Borat Sagdiyev. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm or if you want to go by the official title Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan , picks up where the last one left off. Borat has just been released from the Kazakh gulags and is being sent back to America. Once there, he will deliver a special gift (it’s best I don’t tell you what it is) to Michael Pence to regain America’s trust and loyalty towards Kazakhstan. What I just described to you is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the weirdness within this “moviefilm”. Borat’s mission is also just a shameless excuse for the character to return to America to do what he does best. But instead of being joined by his producer Azamat like in the first film, Borat is accompanied by his daughter Tutar, who knows next to nothing of the world outside her village and is accustomed to being told that women are not smart enough to read, have a job, or drive a car. This is all played for laughs, but it also does mock the seemingly backward gender norms found in parts of the world. Similar to Borat in the first movie, Tutar’s visit to the home of the brave will be quite the culture shock. Once there, Borat is quickly recognized by everyday citizens. Knowing that being an instantly recognizable star will jeopardize his mission, he must don an assortment of disguises as he makes his way across the states. He makes stops at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an anti masker rally, and even catches Rudy Guliani doing some questionable acts, for which he has had to defend in the previous weeks. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is a lot like the leftovers you take home after a good restaurant meal. It’s still good, but it’s not as good as it was before and the only thing you can think about while eating it is how much you enjoyed the first meal. Most of the “pranks” that Cohen pulls off as Borat seem to be much more scripted in this go around. Much of the fun of the first film came from the loose and improvised feel. This sequel is much more calculated in what it is trying to say and how it goes about doing it. This feeling of been-there-done-that isn’t completely Cohen’s fault. Unlike back in 2006, Americans have finally started to come around to the idea that we aren’t so special after all. Maybe it’s because of who we have (or had, depending on when this review is published in relation to the election) in the oval office or the idiotic way we are handling the pandemic. 2020 Americans don’t need another reminder that this country kind of sucks. We see it in our news feeds every day as we try to navigate the broken social ladder. Despite being unneeded on a story level, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is a needed reminder of just how talented Sacha Baron Cohen is as he does what he was put on this world to do. This is his brand of comedy that no one comes close to competing in. Whether he’s dressed as Borat, a southern trucker, an extremely antisemitic portrayal of a Jew, or Donald Trump himself, Cohen seamlessly slips into character and has you fooled instantaneously. However, the MVP of this movie is not Cohen, but Maria Bakalova, who plays Tutar. Bakalova follows the same trajectory as Cohen did in the first movie as she expertly pulls off the naivety of a sheltered girl in a lawless land. She also carries the emotional arc of the story as her relationship with her father flourishes with each subsequent hijink. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is a perverse and vulgar film that holds a mirror up to America. While the original was fresh and inventive, this follow-up is just more of the same with less luster. But, far worse movies have gotten far worse sequels, so we should count ourselves lucky that this sequel is redeemed by the comic genius of Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Decoding the Fall Festival Lineups July 26, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen With both the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and Venice International Film Festival announcing their slates this week, the fall festival rush has officially begun. And with the premiere status designations supplied by TIFF, we’ve got a pretty good idea of the films that will be bowing in the mountains of Telluride right between the two other festivals. The puzzle still isn't fully clear when it comes to the overall Oscar race, but we’re a lot closer to realizing which pieces the studios are prioritizing. Similarly to last year (although that could be chalked up to the dual SAG-WGA strike), it looks like no film will be making the trip to all three festivals. Telluride famously doesn’t reveal their lineup until the day before their festival begins on August 29, but Venice director Alberto Barbera hinted that Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer will be making their world premieres on the Lido during the back half of the festival, meaning they won’t be eligible for Telluride. Other Venice titles such as Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here , Justin Kurzel’s The Order , and Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest were all announced as North American premieres in TIFF’s Gala/Special Presentation announcement, so Pablo Larraín’s Maria might be the only Oscar-buzzed Venice title to pop up at Telluride. But fear not Telluride attendees, as the mountain-based festival will also have its crop of world premieres as hinted by the TIFF announcement; including Better Man , Conclave , The Friend , The End , The Piano Lesson , and Piece By Piece . Netflix’s total absence from Venice comes as quite a surprise considering their relative dominance over the past decade, but the presence of The Piano Lesson at both Telluride and TIFF shows that they won’t be out of the awards race altogether. They’ll also be reintroducing Emilia Perez after it won the Jury Prize and Best Actress prize (for its ensemble) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Other Cannes titles that are confirmed to be playing at both Telluride and Toronto include the Palme d’Or winning Anora , Grand Prize winning All We Imagine as Light , and Andrea Arnold’s Bird . TIFF won’t be announcing its Centerpiece program until August, which usually contains a few more films that had their premieres at the spring and summer festivals (Sundance, Berlin, Cannes). TIFF will also host world premieres for films from several high-profile directors such as Ron Howard ( Eden ), Mike Leigh ( Hard Truths ), and Marielle Heller ( Nightbitch ). Leigh has been overdue for an Oscar for decades now. However, the combination of the rumor that his film was rejected by both Cannes and Venice and the delayed release to mid-January by Bleecker Street does give pause to those aspirations. Ironically, the TIFF title with the highest Oscar potential at the moment is Sing Sing , which debuted at the festival last year and is currently in theaters. Skipping the fall festival trifecta altogether is Steve McQueen’s Blitz , which will be opening the London Film Festival on October 9th, and then closing the New York Film Festival the following day. Both festivals haven’t been the best breeding ground for Oscar success over the years, but the decision to start there makes sense considering the London setting for the film and McQueen’s unwavering loyalty to NYFF throughout his career. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy by Apple as they could avoid the usual fall festival glut and have space all to themselves, or come out too late and fail to find space in the race. Searchlight Pictures will likely be in the same position with their Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown . The last-second nature of the announcement for its unspecified December release could be interpreted as a small act of surrender for Nightbitch and A Real Pain, both of which never seemed poised to repeat the same level of success that the distributor is known for. Depending on how the premiere of Nightbitch goes at TIFF, look for them to accelerate a Gala premiere for James Mangold's film at AFI Fest in late October. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen

April April 25, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen ! Widget Didn’t Load Check your internet and refresh this page. If that doesn’t work, contact us. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Crazy Rich Asians September 6, 2018 By: Button Hunter Friesen Rachel Chu and Nick Young have been together for over a year now and couldn’t be happier. Both of them are professors at NYU, which is how they first met. One day, Nick asks Rachel to come with him to Singapore for his best friend’s wedding, with the added bonus of meeting his family. Thinking she knows everything about Nick, Rachel agrees to go on the trip. Except there’s one thing she doesn’t know: Nick’s family is rich, “crazy rich” in fact. Caught off guard by this, Rachel is unknowingly thrust into a new world of luxury and spectacle, one that is a far cry from her modest upbringing. Despite the challenge, she’s determined to be at Nick’s side and to make a good first impression on his family. Directed by Hollywood journeyman Jon M. Chu, the film’s biggest problems mostly all stem from his lackluster directing. Chu doesn’t bring any originality to the finished project and mainly just uses every rom-com cliché in the book, such as the tough parental figure, comedic sidekick, wacky relatives, and will-they-or-won’t-they plotline between the two leads. Chu also struggles to provide a sense of balance in terms of pacing and plots. The pacing is inconsistent throughout. The beginning of the film quickly shifts from scene to scene as we set up the story and characters. After that things slow way down and we tediously crawl to the end. Apart from the main plot, there is also a subplot featuring Nick’s cousin, Astrid. While she’s a good character overall, her story is very unnecessary and continually gets dropped and picked back up at odd times. On a bright note, Chu does impeccable work during the wedding sequence. It’s easily the most heart-tugging part of the film as the two main characters share a loving connection. Writers Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim do a fair job of adapting from the original bestselling novel. They do a great job at making the lead character very likable and relatable. Rachel isn’t your average rom-com woman whose life is in shambles until she meets a guy. It’s refreshing to see a lead female character have her life together and not have to rely on some guy in order to be happy. The screenplay also fits in a good amount of quality jokes, a lot of which come from Awkwafina’s character. Unfortunately, just like the directing, the biggest problem is the overabundance of clichés. It’s a shame for a screenplay to have such a great lead character and then repeatedly bury her with the same old tropes we’ve seen time and time again. Because of the large cast of characters, the film boasts both good and bad performances. Constance Wu does a great job as Rachel Chu. She makes herself relatable and confidently holds her own throughout. She also shares electric chemistry with both Golding and Awkwafina. Opposite Wu is Henry Golding as Nick Young. Golding does very well, especially when considering that this is his acting debut. He’s at his best when with his on-screen partner and adds a lot of charm to his role. Having already done great work in this year’s Ocean’s Eight , Awkwafina gives another hilarious supporting performance here. Playing Rachel’s roommate from college, she constantly delivers the best jokes, with most of them coming off as improvised. Some minor supporting actors suffer from Chu’s poor directing and have to resort to overacting in order for us to like them. The biggest losers from this are Ken Jeong and Jimmy O. Yang. Their characters are way too over the top and are annoying as soon as we meet them. Crazy Rich Asians is a film that mostly suffers from poor directing and a formulaic story that lacks any sort of originality. Still, it's better than most modern romantic comedies and the reliable trio of Wu, Golding, and Awkwafina make this film a moderately enjoyable ride. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Fountain of Youth May 22, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Guy Ritchie is a very busy man. Since 2020, the British writer/director has released five feature films ( The Gentlemen , Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre , The Covenant , and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ) and directed multiple episodes of The Gentlemen and MobLand for Netflix and Paramount+, respectively. He's also got two more feature films already in the can ( In the Grey , Wife and Dog ), and recently signed on to direct the sequel to the Jake Gyllenhaal starring Road House reboot and a Sherlock Holmes origin story television series for Amazon Prime. The only stone left to acquire in his streaming service Infinity Gauntlet is Apple TV+, which is where his newest film, Fountain of Youth , comes into play. And just like the Avengers had to suffer for Thanos to get his final stone in Infinity War , so do we across the 125-minute lifespan of this ultra-bland adventure film. I'm a fan of Ritchie, with his swaggering, self-assured brand of filmmaking being effortlessly entertaining. There's a slickness to everything he does, usually just a cut above what a standard director would produce. Based on his blitz of output over the last half-decade, I could almost forgive him for coasting a little bit here. Everyone needs a break, or has an off day where they just didn't have their head in the game. Except I don't think Ritchie had his head within the vicinity of the stadium for this project, let alone near the court. Take, for instance, the cookie-cutter opening chase scene set within the alleyways of Bangkok. We're meant to feel like we've been dropped right in the middle of a chaotic situation, except there isn't an ounce of energy to pull us in. The overcooked editing seems to be a symptom of the need to hide the stunt performers, their presence being quite obvious anytime the camera catches their face. The motivation for this chase stems from Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) having stolen a piece of artwork from a notorious gangster. Except he didn't take it for the money, just the clue hidden on its backside. Once he finds the other five paintings and puts together the pieces of the puzzle, he'll unlock the location of the mythical Fountain of Youth and possess all the treasures it promises. But just like he doesn't care about the value of the artwork he has to steal, Luke also doesn't prioritize the pot of gold at the end of the journey. The journey is a big enough reward by itself, and there's never been a bigger and more thrilling one than this. His sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman), on the other hand, finds herself on a journey towards divorce. She left her high-flying life with Luke a decade ago to raise a family, although everyone knows she hasn't been nearly as happy since. Almost like destiny, her job as the curator of an art museum housing one of the paintings Luke needs brings the siblings together again. Krasinski and Portman are both good actors, but they're ill-suited for this type of film. For Krasinski, he's going way overboard with his Indiana Jones audition/impression. Harrison Ford was effortlessly charming, and Krasinski seems to never stop trying here. And the more you try to make something happen, the less it will. Portman has always been a performer who loses her edge once the budgets for the projects creep into eight figures. She's someone who thrives on making big, risky choices for assured directors like Todd Haynes ( May December ) and Pablo Larraín ( Jackie ). Ritchie doesn't possess that skill, leaving Portman lost at sea. To the actor's defense, there isn't much within James Vanderbilt's script to lift them out of the depths. Everything feels designed to be viewed through the prism of a streaming service. New locations and set pieces are introduced every fifteen minutes, and characters speak only in plotlines. Luke and his team even have a fancy PowerPoint presentation pre-made for Charlotte, themselves taking turns explaining the history and importance of their mission. It's the bare minimum to keep you from turning it off, but never enough to keep you interested in what's happening next. That mantra might as well be extended to the whole project, although I'd recommend not even bothering to begin with. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Great Musical War of 2021 December 28, 2021 By: Hunter Friesen Besides the expected superhero films, the genre that seemed to be all the rage in 2021 was the movie musical. With Broadway shut down for a majority of the year due to the ongoing pandemic, the movies had to pick up the slack when it came to delivering the musical joy that audiences crave. 2021 saw several different variations of the movie musical, featuring original concepts ( Annette ), musical interpretations of classic tales ( Cinderella ), Broadway adaptations ( In the Heights , Tick, Tick… Boom! & Dear Evan Hansen ), and new adaptations of Broadway shows (Steven Spielberg's West Side Story ). Like Darwin's law of natural selection, some came and went with a whisper, and some were enjoyed and may become classics of the genre in the future. In this article, we'll look at why so many musicals were released this year and how each one fared in both a critical and commercial sense. Why were there so many musicals in 2021? When analyzing a trend, the first question that needs to be asked is why it happened in the first place. It's not like musicals are some newfound genre, like found footage movies. Musicals used to have the same market dominance that the superhero genre holds today. In 1930 alone, Hollywood released 100 musicals, most of them offering escapism from the doldrums of the Great Depression. There was even an Academy Award for Best Dance Direction from 1935 to 1937. As time went on, the number of musicals grew thinner, while their quality grew much bigger. Lavish and extravagant productions of well-known properties were made to compete with the growing popularity of television, with West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins , and The Sound of Music being some of the highest-grossing films of their respective year. Eventually, the market turned away from escapism and more towards realism. The big-budget hits of the past were now becoming hugely expensive bombs, as Doctor Doolittle, Hello, Dolly! , and Paint Your Wagon all lost millions within the span of a few years. Apart from Disney animation and a few hits here and there ( Grease ), the musical genre took a backseat role for a few decades. That is, until the 2010s when studios were chasing pre-branded hits. Mamma Mia! grossed over half a billion dollars in 2008, and its 2018 sequel grossed nearly $400 million. These impressive results encouraged studios to mine for Broadway intellectual property and bring it to the big screen. Tom Hooper's (whose Cats adaptation was interestingly the last musical to be released before the pandemic) Les Misérables nabbed several Oscar nominations (including a Best Supporting Actress win for Anne Hathaway) along with $438 million worldwide. Into the Woods made half of that and gave Meryl Streep another acting nomination to add to her record tally. But it wasn't just Broadway adaptations that were becoming hits. Original titles, such as La La Land and The Greatest Showman , made millions mainly because of their soundtracks. With the rise of music streaming, a hit song could make cultural waves even before the movie came out. The soundtrack for La La Land reached number 2 on the US Billboard 200, and the album for The Greatest Showman was the best-selling album of 2018. Along with the market's driving forces, the other reason why there are so many musicals this year is a more obvious one: the pandemic. By the time everything went to hell in March 2020, nearly every studio had at least one, if not multiple, musicals somewhere along the pipeline. Plans were thrown into chaos, and many movies, like West Side Story and In the Heights , could not recoup their costs solely through streaming. They had to play the most boring game imaginable, which was the waiting game. And so, many other musicals followed suit, condensing the steady stream of releases into a cascading waterfall. Musicals were no longer competing with other genres; they were now competing with themselves. This in-fighting bred a more fierce competition style, making 2021 a war for the finite amount of consumer time and money. Now that the dust has finally settled, let's take a look at how each of the 2021 releases fared... In the Heights Before there was Hamilton , there was In the Heights . Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Broadway musical about Hispanic and Latino characters living in the neighborhood of Washington Heights won the Tony Award for Best Musical and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Universal Studios was initially set to adapt the musical back in 2008 but had to wait another decade for things to come together finally. A victim of the pandemic, the film was originally set to debut in the summer of 2020. It eventually was seen by audiences with a simultaneous HBO Max release in June of this year. The critical acclaim was through the roof, especially for Jon M. Chu's direction and Olga Merediz's supporting performance. Unfortunately, the film was a box office bomb, grossing a meager $43 million on a $55 million budget. That tepid response seems to have cratered the film's awards chances, with a Golden Globe nomination for Anthony Ramos seemingly being the best the film will net over the season. Annette Coming from the mind of Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks, and director Leos Carax of Holy Motors fame, Annette is a truly unique vision. Starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as parents of a child with a unique gift, the film is more of a psychological drama than an escapist fantasy. It's a wild ride that divided critics and audiences, with the Cannes Film Festival awarding Carax the Best Director prize. While Amazon (who financed and released the film) will be a bit disappointed with the awards results, those familiar with Carax's filmography won't be shocked to see that the awards trajectory of Annette has (and will be) mostly relegated to critics' circles. The idiosyncratic Cahiers du Cinéma named the film the second-best of 2021 (behind First Cow ), and the Golden Globes gave a surprise nomination to Cotillard. Time will tell if this becomes a cult classic down the road. Come From Away Of all the historical events one could do a musical about, the 9/11 terrorist attacks would be one of the last to come to mind. But that hurdle didn't stop Irene Sankoff and David Hein from writing this musical about the true story of 7,000 passengers who become stranded in a small town in Newfoundland. Similar to Disney's Hamilton , Apple TV+ released this as a stage recording on September 10th. Critics immensely enjoyed the material, heaping praise for its ability to find joy and compassion in such a tragic time. Everybody's Talking About Jamie Going under the radar for the majority of audiences worldwide, this adaptation of the British stage musical (itself an adaptation of a BBC documentary) received positive reviews from both critics and audiences alike. Much of Everybody's Talking About Jamie's quiet release had to do with the pandemic, as its original date of October 2020 was scuttled due to the effects of COVID-19. Disney eventually sold it off to Amazon, who unceremoniously dumped it in early September. Following the true story of a 16-year-old boy fulfilling his dream of becoming a drag queen, the film has an infectiously giddy spirit as it sends a heartwarming message of inclusion for LGBTQ audiences and anyone who has had to deal with stigmatization. The British Independent Film Awards nominated Max Harwood for Best Breakthrough Performance for his titular role, along with the film's costumes and make-up. Cinderella It's a tale as old as time and one that has been told several times before in a much better fashion, according to both critics and audiences. Despite offering a few updates to the classic material, such as Billy Porter as the nonbinary fairy godmother, Kay Cannon's ( Blockers ) adaptation of Cinderella was flatlined by poor performances and character development. This was another Amazon disappointment, even though it was the most-streamed musical of the year as of its Labor Day weekend release. By the time the next rendition of this princess is released, this one will surely be forgotten. Dear Evan Hansen This adaptation of the multiple Tony Award-winning musical was mired with controversy since its inception through the casting of 27-year-old Ben Platt to reprise the role of the titular 17-year-old. There was also the problem of Stephen Chbosky's Dear Evan Hansen being unfaithful to the material and the lackluster handling of the touchy subject matters of suicide, depression, and self-discovery. The film had its world premiere as the Opening Night Gala Presentation for the Toronto International Film Festival, a decision that festival director Cameron Bailey may regret. Upon release, it was savagely ridiculed by critics and fans, grossing only $18 million worldwide, a far cry from the lofty expectation Universal had. Even the Golden Globes, who have come through for misbegotten films in the past, stayed far away from this disaster, refusing to give it a single nomination. " You Will Be Found" may be one of the most acclaimed songs from the soundtrack, but the only place this movie will be found is on several critics' worst-of-the-year lists. Diana Despite The Crown and Spencer taking up most of the oxygen about the life of Diana Spencer, Netflix felt that there was still room for a musical rendition about the life of the Princess of Wales. Their hunch proved to be incorrect, as this stage recording of the short-lived Broadway production was met with harsh criticism from critics, some of which went so far as to claim it was so bad, it's good. Other critics felt it was extremely immoral and disrespectful to Diana's life, and as a result, audiences stayed far, far away. Tick, Tick... Boom! The world got not one but two Lin-Manuel Miranda projects this year as the Hamilton and In the Heights creator made his feature film directorial debut with this semi-autobiographical telling of the life of Jonathan Larson, who wrote the famed production of Rent . Andrew Garfield received some of the best reviews of his career for his portrayal of Larson, bringing panicked energy as he attempted to jump-start his career with a show that consumed most of his life in 1990s New York City. By depicting the turbulent creative process, Miranda has made a love letter to all those who have poured their hearts and souls into their work. And unlike the fates of so many other musicals this year, this one has serious awards prospects. Garfield is firmly in the Best Actor race, and so is Steven Levenson's script and the film's editing. With a locked ten nominees for Best Picture starting this year, Tick, Tick… Boom! may find itself in good company come nomination morning. West Side Story Another pandemic victim that sat on the shelf for nearly a year, Steven Spielberg's first foray into the musical genre has been touted as one of the year's best films. Despite adapting one of the most beloved stage musicals (which was turned into a Best Picture-winning film in 1961), Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner found a new way to harmonize the past and the present, giving the original material fresh life. West Side Story also made stars out of new and exciting talents such as Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Mike Faist, and David Alvarez. Alongside Belfast and The Power of the Dog , Spielberg's film is a serious contender to win Best Picture and will more than likely be the nomination leader come Oscar nomination morning. Cyrano Unlike the majority of the films that were delayed due to the pandemic, this adaptation of the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac did not commence production until October 2020, when the pandemic was in full swing. Famed literary director Joe Wright ( Atonement ) helmed the musical, with multiple Emmy winner Peter Dinklage portraying the titular wordsmith. Reviews from the film's festival run have been quite positive for Dinklage, who garnered some of the best reviews of his career, and the craftsmanship from Wright despite having to operate under such restricting circumstances. United Artists Releasing holds domestic distribution and is playing a high-risk, high-reward game by giving the film a qualifying release, followed by a limited national release in mid-January. So far, the strategy seems to be working as both the film and Dinklage have picked up several critics group nominations, including Best Actor nominations from both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice. In a year with so many movie musicals, Cyrano 's late-release strategy is helping it to stand out and carry the movie musical genre's momentum into 2022, where hopefully we'll continue to see a trend of more of these films continue to get released. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore April 18, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen The Fantastic Beasts series has hardly lived up to its description. The first entry assured us that the franchise wouldn’t be fantastic. The Crimes of Grindelwald assured us that the franchise would be cluttered. And now, The Secrets of Dumbledore has assured us of the thing we feared most, which is that this franchise is uninteresting. It’s been over ten years since the Harry Potter series concluded with the spectacular Deathly Hallows Part 2 . With so many franchises failing to stick the landing, or even get off the ground, it seems like a minor miracle that all eight Harry Potter films were able to stand alone while also serving as pieces to a grand puzzle. Those days are now a distant memory, with the only thing left for Potterheads to do is endlessly tinker with the online sorting hat so that they can get into their favorite house. But why has this once-promising franchise run itself into the ground so quickly? In case you forgot, there are supposed to be two more films. The thought of that no longer fills me with wonder, only dread. There are multiple reasons why things have fallen apart, from J.K. Rowling’s increased transphobia to Johnny Depp’s public image tarnishment. But while those things are important, my prognosis for this ailment is that it's good old-fashioned staleness. We’re now at the eleventh entry in the Wizarding World series with the same story seemingly being told over and over again. Much worse, it’s being told by the same people in the same manner. In the early days of Harry Potter, the director’s chair was constantly being shuffled around and filled with unique talents. Each film, while having intensive connective tissue, had flourishes of a signature style by those leading them. Home Alone director Chris Columbus shepherded Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets . Alfonso Cuarón was able to ease into the darker themes with Prisoner of Azkaban , and Mike Newell was able to layer up the human drama in Goblet of Fire . All that stopped once David Yates was appointed to Order of the Phoenix , and has subsequently directed every entry since. It’s not that Yates is a bad director, far from that actually as he has made some of the strongest entries in the original series. It’s more that his time has been up for a while now. The same goes for screenwriter Steve Kloves, who’s written the majority of the films. It feels like Warner Brothers are testing the definition of insanity as they keep hiring the same people to do the same thing, and somehow expect different results. There’s a reason I just spent half this review talking about everything surrounding this movie instead of what’s inside the actual movie. That’s because there isn’t much of anything inside this movie. And if there was anything in there, it evaporated from my memory the second it entered. There’s magic MacGuffins, the debate between how the wizarding world and muggle world can interact, and fan service moments to make you remember better days. It’s just gears churning a money machine now, which, based on the box office forecasts, will likely start to grind to a halt. The central characters of Newt Scamander and co. have failed to be interesting, a sentiment that the filmmakers feel as the franchise has steadily shifted away from them. The franchise is in full prequel mode as Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s blood feud has taken center stage. Their fleeting romance has as well unless you live in China or any other anti-gay country, where Warner Brothers have cut most of the content relating to that. You can’t be a multi-billion dollar company without bowing to the smell of money, even if it goes against everything you claim to stand for. The Wizarding World franchise has slowly sunken down to the masses after being on the hilltop for so long. It may not be as tainted as fellow bottom dwellers Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers , but there’s no sense of passion or excitement left. It’s going to take a whole lot of magic to get this beast to be fantastic again. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

El Conde September 6, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Whether it’s Jackie Kennedy regaining her composure and building her husband’s legacy after his assassination, Diana Spencer trying to survive a haunted house and its demonic inhabitants over a holiday weekend, or Pablo Neruda being hunted down like a dog, Chilean director Pablo Larraín has repeatedly brought his own unique vision to the biopic genre. His protagonists are not 100% mimicries of their real-life counterparts (that’s not to discredit the outstanding performances of Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart), instead, they’re distillations of their spirit and persona, allowing room for interpretation and speculation. It’s what makes them feel so real, as they’re not tied to the track of traditional biopic storytelling. El Conde (translating to “The Count”) is Larraín’s most radical form of interpretation as it theorizes that the person with the darkest heart in all of Chilean history, dictator Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell), actually was a creature of the night. More accurately: a vampire. He was born to unknown parents during the French Revolution, witnessing the beheading of Marie Antoinette and even stealing her disconnected head and keeping it as a trophy all these centuries later. Over time he traveled around the world and rose through the ranks, landing in Chile (“a country without a king” says the mysteriously contemptuous narrator) and enacting a coup d’état. He was eventually thrown out of power, forcing him to fake his death, which sees just as many people salute his casket as those who spit on it. Now he’s a literal walking corpse living in a rickety old compound, one where the wind is always howling and his only company is his idiotic children, bored wife, and loyal butler, all of whom wait impatiently for him to die and bequeath them their inheritance. Larraín takes the metaphorical violence within Jackie and Spencer and turns it into literal violence in El Conde . As all vampires must do, Pinochet feeds on the living, following a regiment that involves slicing victims’ throats, ripping open their ribcages, and plucking out their still-beating hearts. And then he places those hearts in a blender and drinks every last drop. Still keeping a modicum of a metaphor, these victims are usually the working-class people of Chile, those unlucky enough to be in the path of the charging bull of history. These acts of brutality have an unsubtle and morbid humor to them, with the joke eventually running just as thin as the premise. Beating that dead horse is the introduction of an outsider to the family, a nun (Paula Luchsinger, sporting a haircut and eyes that make her a dead ringer for Maria Falconetti from The Passion of Joan of Arc ) who intends to be a catalyst for the familial backstabbing and drive a literal stake through the heart of the beast. She talks to each of the adult children as if they were toddlers, speaking down to the audience as she recounts the horrible acts the family has committed, including nothing short of murder and corruption. It borderlines on pandering like Adam McKay on his worst day, and becomes quickly redundant as Pinochet literally sucks the blood out of the country. Cinematographer Edward Lachman, a frequent collaborator with Todd Haynes, breathes the necessary life into the film by draining it of its color. The monochrome black-and-white cast big shadows, with the blood of the innocent painting around those dark corners. A baroque score ties the final knot in the film’s impressive gothic details. This could be considered Larraín’s most impressive production. El Conde doesn’t have as much bite as its fangs might suggest, but Larraín packs just enough passion and wit into his material to make it pop. He’s just announced his biopic trilogy capper, Maria , starring Angelina Jolie as the famed opera singer Maria Callas. I look forward to seeing the possibility of the heightened nature of this satire melding with his previous work. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Top 10 Steven Spielberg Films November 23, 2022 By: Hunter Friesen Like The Mad Titan Thanos, Steven Spielberg has seemingly made it his mission to collect the stones of nearly every genre known to cinema. Throughout his nearly fifty-year feature film career, he’s already conquered monster movies ( Jaws ), science-fiction ( E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ), adventure ( Indiana Jones ), war ( Saving Private Ryan ), musical ( West Side Story ), and biopics ( Schindler’s List & Lincoln ). He’s also been dubbed The King of Entertainment and remains the highest-grossing director of all time with a cumulative global box office gross of $10.62 billion. In honor of the nationwide release of his newest film, The Fabelmans , here’s a look at my ten favorite Spielberg films, all of which hold a special place in my heart and mind. 10. Raiders of the Lost Ark Honestly, I'm pretty sure this movie was just a series of bets between Spielberg and George Lucas to see if they could film a certain set piece, and I don't think they lost a single one. Taking inspiration from the Saturday morning matinees of his youth, Spielberg captures the youthful spirit of adventure and danger through ingenious practical action sequences that still tower over anything crafted today. Ranked #2 behind Atticus Finch in the AFI’s list of Top 100 Heroes, Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is a modern-day swashbuckling pirate who finds himself in over his head but is just iron-willed enough to live for another adventure. 9. The Fabelmans The Fabelmans is a collection of Spielberg's greatest hits, all delivered to their greatest effect Just as he’s done with nearly every genre, Spielberg conquers the recent trend of directors making autobiographies and how they fell in love with cinema. There’s laughter, tears, and wonder as Spielberg recounts his early days growing up in Arizona with his artistic mother and scientific father. Newcomer Gabriel LaBelle acts as the Spielberg stand-in, with his great performance likely being the first of many. Full Review 8. West Side Story Spielberg emerged as the predictable winner of The Great Musical War of 2021. Perfectly melding the work of Bernstein and Sondheim with the newfound talents of DeBose, Faist, and Zegler, the new West Side Story makes the case for why some remakes should be allowed to happen. Because sometimes, they can meet or surpass the original, such as how this one does by bringing classic cinema into the modern world. Full Review 7. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade A sequel ranked over the original? Blasphemy! There is one clear reason why I am ranking The Last Crusade over Raiders of the Lost Ark (and obviously above Temple of Doom ): Sean Connery. The addition of the original James Bond provides a nice familial fold against the usual ruggedness of the Indiana Jones character. We only hear the voice of the old man in the film’s magnificent opening sequence, just enough to get us excited for his later introduction. The film also gets the slight edge because of its ability to scare the hell out of me as a child, with the “He chose…poorly” scene having a rent-free space in my head for eternity. 6. Catch Me If You Can As the latter in a double-bill with Minority Report in 2002, Spielberg’s caper is an infectiously entertaining time that sneakily lays claim as one of the best Christmas movies. A central theme throughout Spielberg’s filmography is the strained relationship between fathers and sons, and no film has that more in the foreground than Catch Me If You Can . Christopher Walken’s Oscar-nominated performance is one of the finest Spielberg ever directed, with DiCaprio providing the necessary emotional arc of a kid finding his way in the world. It also helps to have a top-notch Tom Hanks, complete with the best knock-knock joke known to man . 5. The Post Effortlessly entertaining and ever-timely, The Post is another showcase on each level of directing, writing, and acting. At the helm of this self-important tale is Spielberg with his endlessly maneuvering handheld camera. Like his nimble work at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan , Spielberg careens around corners and peers into meetings, placing us as a fly on the wall within The Washington Post. It may be the best of the partnership of Spielberg-Hanks-Kaminski-Williams-Kahn. It's perfect as a history lesson and a modern-day allegory, invigorating the message that democracy dies in darkness. 4. Saving Private Ryan The firm ideals of bravery and good ol' American patriotism are not traditionally found within Saving Private Ryan . Instead, Steven Spielberg, along with screenwriter Robert Rodat, offers something not usually found within a war film: humanity. While still an action film at its heart, the mind of the film is centered on philosophy, as opposed to pure entertainment. The titular mission of extracting Pvt. James Ryan isn't an honorable one. It doesn't take a genius to see the flawed math of risking the lives of eight men to save one. Spielberg and Rodat don't dance around that thought, and also find time to analyze the themes of doing your duty and the futility of war. Within the film, there are no individual heroes, only real men fighting to keep themselves alive for just another moment. The opening set piece is one of the greatest ever produced, with chaotic camerawork, editing, and sound design. It's no wonder no film has attempted to portray D-day since, as Spielberg has set the bar at an unassailable height. 3. Schindler's List Like The Father and Requiem for a Dream , Spielberg’s often regarded magnum opus is a film that will only ever want to watch once. Its morally serious story of the Holocaust is one of the most upsetting cinematic experiences ever created. But it is so incredibly well done and engrossing that it demands to be seen. And with the seemingly recent rapid rise of antisemitism, it now demands to be reseen by all. 2. Lincoln Just as Martin Scorsese did with Casino , Lincoln is part biopic, part history lesson on what it takes to pass anything in Congress, especially one of the most important amendments in our nation's history. Screenwriter Tony Kushner pushes past our preconceptions of the nobility that is involved in lawmaking. DP Janusz Kaminski and Production Designer Rick Carter take that rat's nest saying and apply it to their visual style. Instead of grand marble and strong architecture, the White House and House of Representatives are dingy, dimly lit, and a mute brown swamp full of colorful characters. At the top of the pedestal is Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. Day-Lewis doesn't play Abraham Lincoln, he is Abraham Lincoln. Even for one of the most recognizable actors in cinema, it's nearly impossible to see Day-Lewis in the role. There isn't a moment that you're not in complete awe of what you're seeing on the screen. 1. Munich Dare I say that this is Spielberg's best movie? Yes, I shall dare. For 165 minutes, Spielberg has both our hearts and minds engulfed in this story of vengeance. Or is it justice? The thrills come from the multiple assassinations as Spielberg and co. show off their master craftsmanship. Even though it's a thriller at its core, Munich carries much more than just bullets and bombs. The script by Kushner and Roth is filled with moral ambiguity and ethical conundrums that can be savored for the entire runtime, and then some. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Godzilla vs. Kong April 5, 2021 By: Button Hunter Friesen It’s a debate that has dominated lunchrooms and sleepovers for generations. Who would win in a gladiator death match: Godzilla or King Kong? In one corner stands a prehistoric sea monster covered in impenetrable scales and the ability of atomic breath. In the other corner is a 337-foot-tall gorilla that has battled dinosaurs and other monsters on his home of Skull Island. This battle is a part of the MonserVerse Cinematic Universe and has three films in the making with 2014’s Godzilla kicking things off. After that came Kong’s introduction in 2017 with Kong: Skull Island . And then in 2019, it was time for Godzilla to show off once again in Godzilla: King of the Monsters . But why are King Kong and Godzilla fighting each other? The answer lies in the hands of an evil tech billionaire (it always does). Walter Simmons, president of the ironically named Apex Cybernetics, is hunting for the glory of being the man who protected the world from these titans. Like Lex Luthor’s plan in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Simmons wants to pit the two titans against each other, and hopefully have one kill the other in the process. A few other side plots and revelations come up to the surface (literally), but I’ll avoid that for the sake of spoilers. Director Adam Wingard has heard your complaints about the previous two Godzilla movies. Unlike Godzilla being kept away from the spotlight like in 2014, he’s in full daylight wreaking havoc for all to see. The visual effects and sound work are quite gorgeous as we are awestruck by the might of this god-like creature. The experience can only get better as the screen gets bigger. Composer Tom Holkenborg, incorporating the world’s largest bass drum, provides another epic score just as he did a few weeks ago in Zack Snyder’s Justice League . And instead of the human characters getting the large majority of the screen time like in 2019, their storylines have been drastically reduced to allow for a more condensed runtime that favors fists over words. Wingard does give those fists some dramatic weight as he takes a page out of Peter Jackson’s playbook that was used in the 2005 King Kong film. Kong is the most developed character here as he is given a new way to express himself through sign language. Wingard also gives us several close-up shots of Kong’s face, which looks incredible. Despite being as tall as a skyscraper, Kong isn’t so different from you or me. He just wants to return to his home and figure out if there are any other super monkeys like him. The trimming of the humans does come with a price as no character is given enough development to become memorable, and some just become unbearable. The humans merely only exist to dump exposition and reveal enough information to keep the plot moving at a reasonable clip. But this problem is the lesser of two evils as I (and I’m assuming you) didn’t go into this movie expecting Ingmar Bergman-level human drama. I came into this movie to see a giant ape punch a giant lizard in the face, and the movie more than delivers on that promise. For all you betting fans, there is a clear winner in this matchup. Obviously, I can’t tell you who wins, even though the outcome will already be public knowledge by the time this review comes out. The camera whips and pans around as we are given front-row seats to this matchup. It reminds me of the Rocky movies as our prizefighters duke it out with uppercuts, haymakers, and a flurry of combos. It’s gloriously over-the-top as Hong Kong acts as the boxing ring. The previous Godzilla movies tried to push the idea of the collateral damage caused by these titans, similar to how Superman was treated after beating Zod in Man of Steel . Wingard throws that idea out the window as he has his monsters push each other through buildings and use the environment to their advantage. The casualty rate for this fight has to be in the millions, but that thought never comes across in the movie or in your head. Godzilla vs. Kong is ludicrously stupid and silly in just the right way. The humans may be boring and forgettable, but that’s to be expected in a movie where the main attraction is an ape fighting a lizard. Find the biggest screen you possibly can, as it deserves the full attention of all your senses . More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Greta March 7, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen Frances McCullen is a recent graduate trying to make ends meet in New York City. She shares an apartment with her best friend Erica and works as a waitress at an upscale restaurant. One day while riding the subway, Frances spots a handbag that had been mistakenly left behind. Knowing it would be the right thing to do, Frances returns it to the owner, Greta Hideg, a lonely elderly French woman. The two quickly hit it off and a mutual friendship sparks between them. However, after some time goes by, the relationship begins to get strange. Frances discovers an unsettling secret about Greta and decides to cut ties with her. Greta doesn’t take the news well and becomes deranged, stalking Frances day and night. Stuck in a hard place with little help from the authorities, Frances must take her life into her own hands as she becomes prey to a ferocious predator. Directed by Neil Jordan, Greta is a film that suffers from the condition of not knowing what it is. The loudest thought that was going through my head while watching was what exactly Jordan was going for. The film feels like a cheap B-movie that somewhat pays homage to the stalker genre made popular in the 80s and 90s. But that nostalgic factor doesn’t feel intentional. Many of the storytelling elements are haphazardly put together, making the film fall apart quickly and stumble all the way to the finish. If the feeling I got was intentional by Jordan, then he did a below-average job at making a cheesy thriller to kill some time. If it wasn’t intentional and this was supposed to be a straight story, he failed quite miserably. Either way, it doesn’t turn out good. Jordan does employ a combination of camera tricks and loud string music to build and release tension, mainly through the medium of jump scares. The techniques are a small grade above what you would usually see in a typical horror film, but it’s also nothing worthy of merit. Jordan partnered with Ray Wright to pen the script, which can best be described as “dumb horror characters make really dumb decisions.” Many times I found myself in disbelief over the actions a character had just taken. A prime example of this would be *spoilers* near the end of the film when a character is being held hostage in a house and an opportunity arises for them to escape. Instead of breaking down the front door and running away, they end up going down into the basement and are immediately trapped again. Just like the tonally amateur feel, these dumb decisions come from Jordan’s unknown and seemingly nonexistent sense of direction. Are these dumb choices supposed to mock the horror genre and be laughed at, or are the characters just ridiculously stupid? I could never find a clear answer, and something tells me neither did Jordan. If the character choices don’t evoke enough groans, the insufferably fake dialogue will more than makeup for it. Teenage characters talk like what an elderly person thinks they talk like, and elderly characters sound like their lines were written by a teenager in high school English class. Maybe the only real reason to watch this film is for Isabelle Huppert as she thanklessly dives into the titular role. I feel that she must have realized how poorly this film would turn out and decided to have some fun with it. It’s still not a great performance, but it’s nice to watch someone having the time of their life. After maturing with roles in The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Suspiria , Chloë Grace Moretz falls back into the old shtick of playing the innocent cute girl. Similar to Huppert, Moretz seems to know that she’s above this kind of low-level work. But unlike Huppert, she deals with this fact by just not caring and mentally checking out, which makes her character look half awake most of the time. Maika Monroe shows up in a supporting role as Erica, the usual voice of reason that mainly acts as a vessel for the audience. Monroe is fine throughout but tends to overplay the stereotype of the party girl caught in a horror film. The world may never know what Neil Jordan was going for with Greta , but either way, the final product turned out pretty bad. More likely to put you to sleep than bring you out of your seat, this so-called thriller lacks the essential quality that even the most outright terrible movies have, a sense that someone actually cared. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen