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Kneecap July 30, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen If there’s any lesson that’s been beaten over our heads in the hundreds of music biopics that Hollywood has churned out, it’s that nothing good happens after the protagonist is introduced to sex and drugs. The once-promising star quickly goes off the rails, resulting in their friends and family telling them that they’ve changed and the producers to turn off the money faucets. But what if the sex and drugs had been there from the beginning and served as the main catalyst for their work? Would that person spiral out of control before they even got started, or would that rambunctious free spiritism catapult them into stardom with the younger generation? In the case of Kneecap , the outcome to that question seems to align closer to that of the latter portion. Formed in 2017, the titular hip-hop trio continues to sell out stadiums and other high-profile gigs, a far cry from the lowly pubs they originated from. Their lyrics, often filled to the brim with drug references and cursing, resonate with the youth of their native Belfast, a city that’s seen its fair share of political and social troubles. Although the aspect of drugs helps this fictionalized origin story from falling into the same traps of every other music biopic, it doesn’t fully exonerate the film from often striking all the other same notes. As a playful and endearing middle finger to Kenneth Branagh’s Osar-winning Belfast , we open with a record-scratch piece of narration where we’re told that this isn’t going to be the story of Belfast that Hollywood loves. Car bombings and IRA shootouts are reserved only for archival footage, although the ramifications of the violence are still present decades later. Arlo (Michael Fassbender) was one of those freedom fighters, and he teaches his son Naoise Irish Gaelic as “every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.” That kind of rough patriotism sticks within the boy as he grows up, eventually merging with his love of rap/hip-hop. Taking the stage name Móglaí Bap, he partners with his best friend Liam Óg to come up with the lyrics, while school music teacher JJ mixes the beats. The mixture of Gaelic and English lyrics represents the clashing of identities within Belfast. Despite being the native language of the land and its people, Gaelic is endangered and nearing extinction. While others are forming campaigns teaching classes, Kneecap is bringing the language to the youth in a way they can understand, and in a manner that matches the brutality the Brits have enacted. The relevancy and immediacy of this story bring authenticity, which writer/director Rich Peppiatt and the group increase by having the members play themselves and the majority of the dialogue being in Gaelic. Just as you wouldn’t be able to tell that the boys are gifted rappers just by looking at them, the same goes for their acting chops. That swagger from their music is always present in their demeanor. Their underdog story of defying the establishment is a bit cliché, especially with the demeaning authority figures and Fassbender’s uneven appearances that only serve to hammer home the political repercussions of the group’s actions. Still, it’s infinitely better than any studio-funded, estate-approved biopic, something that the market is oversaturated with. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Mother, Couch July 3, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen “It was all very simple, they were looking for a dresser. Blood wouldn’t spill till later.” These words scrawl across an almost Toy Story -esque cloudy background before the camera pans down to your typical furniture store. It’s a foreboding string of words, one that prompts several questions. What’s the significance of the dresser? Why is blood going to be spilled at a furniture store? Who’s blood is it going to be? Writer/director Niclas Larsson wants you to hang on to these questions for dear life throughout his oddball feature debut, one that packs quite a sizable cast consisting of Ewan McGregor, Rhys Ifans, Taylor Russell, Lara Flynn Boyle, F. Murray Abraham, and Ellen Burstyn. Instead of doing as Larsson says, we’re often left scratching our heads and asking “What’s going on?” and “Who cares?” But it is not all lies that Larsson peddles, as there is truth in his first introductory sentence. Things did start very simply, with David (McGregor) and Gruffudd (Ifans) helping their mother (Burstyn) shop for a specific dresser in a now-closing furniture store. David is on the clock as he’s supposed to be helping set up his daughter’s birthday party. And yet this dresser can’t be found, and neither can his mother in this maze of a store. He wants to cut his losses and just leave, but she says she’s not getting up from the couch she’s plopping herself down on. After a few seconds of silence, David starts to realize that she’s deadly serious. Minutes of coaxing turn into hours, in which each passing moment becomes increasingly unhinged. While hidden from the internet and any of the press materials, an exclamation point is added to the title when it flashes on the screen after the opening credits. In addition to being part of the confusion about the punctuation surrounding the title (I’ve seen a clean split between Mother Couch and Mother, Couch ), that extra element at the end creates an undeniable link to Darren Aronofky’s Mother! . Both films hid their true meanings behind metaphors and stand-ins, only for all to be revealed through an extended sequence of batshit insanity. Aronofsky’s work may have been extremely on-the-nose and pointed towards an easy target, but it did always contain a certain level of excitement on both a literal and figurative level. No such thrills exist in Larsson’s film, with endless visual teasing and dialogue exchanges that dance around the central mystery quickly overstaying their welcome. Everyone other than David seems to have a grasp on what’s truly going on, almost as if this is all some elaborate social experiment. The physical space certainly makes it feel that way; the confoundingly laid-out hallways and storage rooms create a maze for these helpless mice to traverse through. If the cast were just as unsure about the material as we are, they hide it well behind their solid performances. McGregor gets to let loose like he has over the past few years on television ( Fargo , Halston ), keeping hold of his Scottish accent and running around like a chicken with its head cut off as Christopher Bear’s Punch-Drunk Love -styled score ratchets up the tension. Taylor Russell’s character seems to only speak in double entendre, and F. Murray Abraham is diabolical plays the twin store owners. All of it’s interesting on paper, with only a very small amount of it translating to the screen. Larsson may have had a lot of confidence in what he was doing, but I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who will get anything out of this. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Maria November 25, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Maria concludes Pablo Larraín’s unofficial melancholic trilogy of iconic women of the 20th century. Jackie started it all in 2016, with Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy forced to witness the end of her Camelot after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Then came Spencer in 2021, a portrayal of a hellish long weekend Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) had to endure over the Christmas Holiday with the Royal Family. But while Jackie and Diana only found themselves at the end of an era, Maria sees its titular subject, opera singer Maria Callas, at the end of her life. Bolstering that sense of finality even further is veteran screenwriter Steven Knight’s (also the writer of Spencer ) decision to start this story at the very end. Callas’ body is found by her loyal butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and maid (Alba Rohrwacher) on the floor of her Parisian apartment. She was only 53 at the time, although her frail physician condition from years of seclusion would lead anyone to guess she was much older. She ran away from the stage years ago, although she can’t escape it in her mind. It’s the only thing she’s ever known, a former blessing that’s become a curse due to her strained vocal cords. Larraín separates the tone of this story from his other two biopics, substituting the frenzied claustrophobia with something more hauntingly elegiac. Maria's apartment is just as luxuriously furnished as the White House or the holiday estate of the Royal Family, but there's a stillness in the air. For Maria, that silence is deafening, and the absence of music forces her mind to wander between the past and present. Production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas has recreated the opera houses of Europe with exquisite craftsmanship, each captured beautifully by legendary cinematographer Ed Lachmann, who reunites with Larraín after their impeccable work on last year's El Conde . It doesn't matter if the frame is filled with the golden hues of autumnal Paris or the stark black-and-white of the mid-20th century, the result is always mesmerizingly gorgeous. Larraín and Lachmann have each set a high bar for themselves over their careers, but this might be their respective magnum opuses on a technical level. The likes of Mica Levi or Jonny Greenwood aren't around this time to supply the music. That role has expectedly been handed over to Callas herself. In a pre-recorded segment, Larraín introduced the film explaining that for centuries opera was an art for the common person, only for the wealthy class to subsume it. Maria serves as his act to give the music back to the people, complete with all the extra heft that cinema allows. Subtitles are not included for any of the performances, as the emotion in the words and on Angelina Jolie's face tells us all that we need to know. Callas described each of her performances as miracles, an opinion that grows more accurate the longer she stands upon that stage. Similar to Demi Moore in The Substance , the casting of Jolie brings an additional layer of context to the role. Here's a performer who was at the top of her profession for two decades, relatively vanishing from her stage over the past few years. Calling this a "comeback" for Jolie would be a disservice to everything she's done during her acting sabbatical (charity work, directing, family, etc.). It's more of a reminder of her immense screen presence and poise as a performer. We hang on every word as she describes her past to a noisy television reporter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and share in her sorrow as she unsuccessfully tries to mount a comeback. Sure, she doesn't fully sing the words of Callas, opting for lip-syncing. But the passion is there, and that's what really sells it. As the biopic genre has continued to stay relatively tame over the last decade, let's give thanks to Larraín for steering it in a new daring direction not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions. He saved the best for last with Maria , defying his own specific genre trappings. I very much look forward to what he does next, although I wouldn't complain if he reversed that decision and stayed in this mode forever. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F July 2, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen With Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F , Eddie Murphy has joined Adam Sandler and Millie Bobby Brown in Netflix’s flock of golden geese. This marks his third film with the streamer in the last five years, the previous two being career-revitalizer Dolemite Is My Name and the worst film of last year, You People . Also mixed in are two Prime Video exclusives ( Coming 2 America and Candy Cane Lane ), with another one titled The Pickup currently in post-production. If you take a gander at Murphy’s IMDb page, you can see that he hasn’t been in a theatrically released film since 2016’s Mr. Church , which almost doesn’t count since it never got above a couple hundred theaters. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with starring in streaming movies, especially when someone like Netflix is seemingly the only one willing to greenlight Dolemite Is My Name after years of development hell and throw $150 million at a Beverly Hills Cop film after a thirty-year break. But for how smart they are as business decisions in this modern film industry, the creative output that comes from them is sorely lacking. “Good enough” feels like the mantra, something I mentioned in last week’s review of Netflix’s A Family Affair . It seems that Netflix and others have taken the lower barrier of entry for audiences as an excuse not to try as hard. How much would you really care about the experience of watching a film if it didn’t make you leave the couch? Certainly less than if you had to drive to the theater and fork over $10. Everything and everyone just feels like they’re just going through the motions in Axel F . Axel once again has to leave Detroit, a place he destroys more than the criminals he chases, and go to Beverly Hills. This time he’s flying west to save his estranged daughter (Taylour Paige) after she defends a wrongfully convicted cop killer and is threatened by those actually responsible for the murder. Also returning are old costars Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, and Bronson Pinchot; each of them inadvertently being an advertisement for whatever products Murphy uses to defy aging (seriously, he looks phenomenal for 62). Joining the mix is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a fellow cop and Kevin Bacon as the chief of a new shady task force. “The world has changed” and “in today’s climate” are phrases used a couple of times to try and push the theme of Axel being lost in time just as much as he is often lost in his surroundings. The attempts are heavy-handed, yet never effective as Axel hardly seems to change as a person throughout the film. His relationship with his daughter stems wholly from everything that happened offscreen between Beverly Hills Cop III and now. There’s also the theme of mortality in the line of duty, something that’s already been done in the other Jerry Bruckheimer-produced cop-based sequels, Bad Boys For Life and Bad Boys: Ride or Die . Being that this is a Bruckheimer production, the action is bombastic. First-time director Mark Molloy is often hampered by bad special effects and drab photography. The extended opening chase scene involving a snow plow in Detroit is quite fun, but a later one with a helicopter is garish. Murphy is always having fun with the material, throwing out the same level of one-liners and energy he’s had for decades. There’s never a movie where his presence isn’t welcome, it’s just that most of them (this one included) don’t have any other reasons to care. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Armageddon Time May 26, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen Armageddon Time had its World Premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features will release it in theaters on October 28. In the words of Mugatu from Zoolander : “Directors making their own autobiographies, it’s so hot right now.” Of course, a regarded filmmaker telling their life story isn’t exactly a brand new concept. François Truffaut did it with The 400 Blows , and so did Federico Fellini with Amarcord . But just like skinny ties and baggy beanies, the fad went away for a while. That was until 2018, when Alfonso Cuarón made it cool again with Roma , which earned him a trio of Oscar statuettes, including Best Director. Now it’s become a genre itself, with directors churning out cine memoirs at a pace that rivals the MCU. There’s been Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast , Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2 , Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God , Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo (I’m not going to spell out the whole title, it hasn’t earned that gesture yet), Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir films, and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans . And now, after venturing out into the Amazon jungle for The Lost of Z and deep space for Ad Astra , writer/director James Gray returns home to Queens, New York for Armageddon Time . Apart from being a homecoming to the location that housed his first five films, Armageddon Time also serves as Gray’s return to the Croisette after almost a decade away. It’s his fifth time competing for the Palme d’Or, and, based on the quality of this film, I’d say it’s his best chance yet. Banks Repeta (in his first major role after appearances as younger versions of characters in The Devil All the Time and Uncle Frank ) is our stand-in for Gray as Paul Graff, a sixth-grader at PS-173 in 1980 Queens. He’s a gifted student, but not a very motivated one, which often leads him into trouble with his strict teacher Mr. Turkeltaub. One of his regular prankster cohorts is Johnny, the only black student in the class. Despite both of them often getting caught for the same thing, Johnny’s punishment always seems to be worse than Paul’s. It’s a fact that resonates with Paul, even if the concept of racism hasn’t fully formed within his head. But his parents don’t see the innocence in the situation and move him to an elite private school across town. It’s not hard to imagine Gray writing this story during the Trump presidency, especially since Donald’s father and sister, Fred, and Maryanne, play small roles in shaping Paul’s increasingly pessimistic worldview during his time at the seemingly all-white prep school. Gray’s bluntness is apparent as he traces how the casually elitist and racist children of the Reagan era grew up to embrace the 45th president, and how their children will likely do the same in a few decades. It sometimes comes as lecturing, but there’s a sweetly honest feel to it that makes it go down smoothly. Also lending to the emotional pull of the film is the grownup trio of Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins. Hathaway is given the shorter end of the stick as Paul’s affectionate mother, but the actress makes up for her limited time with some moments of pathos. Strong, playing the more emotionally distant father that doesn’t hesitate to teach with his belt, also makes a strong impression, even if it sometimes feels as if he’s trying to do his best Ray Romano impression. It’s Hopkins who steals the show as the grandfather who fled Europe to escape Jewish persecution and find a better life in America. He’s always got a nugget of wisdom to spare, and a heart warm enough to start a fire in winter. The scenes between grandpa and grandson are a clear standout, especially one set in the park where the elder shares a touching monologue, which will surely be used as Hopkin’s Oscar clip come next year’s ceremony. You won’t walk away from Armageddon Time feeling as if you’ve been enlightened or seen something out of the ordinary, but you may find yourself moved at times and closely connected to your familial past. And at the end of the day, we could all use a little more of that. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

No Time to Die October 11, 2021 By: Button Hunter Friesen Since his first cinematic appearance in 1962, James Bond has done a lot of things. He’s been reincarnated five times, traveled around the globe (including space), and saved the world more times than it deserves. But the one thing that James Bond has never done is venture inward. For one of the first times in the franchise, the emotional beats are what pump the blood within the film’s heart. The theme of finality rings loudly, as No Time to Die marks the twenty-fifth entry in the long-running series, as well as the fifth and final part of the Daniel Craig era. In a move that has become routine by now, Bond has left active service. This time it wasn’t because of being presumed dead (even though that is true here), but because of his love of Madeleine Swann, a daughter of SPECTRE. Their attempt at a normal life goes about as expected, with bad guys ruining their Italian honeymoon. This, along with a deadly theft of a weaponized virus in the heart of London, brings James back into the fold for one last mission. Not one for nostalgia, MI6 moved on from Bond and promoted a new 007 named Nomi, who embodies the new school of espionage. Along with M, Q, Moneypenny, and Tanner, it’s time once again for the forces of good to vanquish evil. The Craig era marked the MCU-ification (a term that shouldn’t be taken as derogatory) of the Bond franchise, as it turned against the standalone nature of the previous entries and started to treat subsequent films as true sequels. The events of Casino Royale fed directly into Quantum of Solace . And when that movie failed, Skyfall acted as a soft reboot, later filtering into Spectre . No Time to Die pulls double duties by playing as a direct sequel to Spectre , but also the final bow on the whole modern Bond era. Despite the interconnectedness, long-time writers Neil Purvis and Robert Wade don’t want to be restricted by franchise ties. There has never been a need to see a previous movie to comprehend the next one, with only tried and true franchise elements such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE providing an integral throughline. The duo always seems to be stuck in the past with their scripts, mining the same bits, such as shaken not stirred martinis, Aston Martin cars, and megalomaniac villains hellbent on world domination. The blame for the forgettable plot – borderline incoherent at times – should rest on their shoulders. Lacking the personal connection of Christoph Walz’s Blofeld and Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva, Rami Malek’s Lyutsifer Safin is a second-rate Bond villain. The casting choice itself is a no-brainer, as Malek has a heavy natural supply of VE (Villain Energy). Safin seems to be a character lifted from a Shakespearean play, as he often poetically monologues into the middle-distance. There’s unintentional ironic humor to Safin’s plan of decimating the world’s population through a virus, as it requires much more effort than what COVID-19 has been able to do. It’s co-writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga (first American Bond director) and Fleabag scribe Phoebe Waller-Bridge that want to take the franchise in a newer direction. There’s an element of fun introduced that has been missing from the Craig films. Doing well to supply that is Ana de Armas, who does too well with too little screen time in a Knives Out reunion. There’s also the pairing of Bond with Nomi, played terrifically by Lashana Lynch, and who is much more than the alleged SJW-takeover that some want you to believe. With their record-breaking budgets, the Bond films have always had nice toys to play with. They just needed the right person to harness their potential. Fukunaga breaks the stoic shackles set by Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes, returning Craig back to the kinetic destruction wonderfully employed in Casino Royale . There’s a particular long-take stairwell scene, similar to the one Fukunaga used in True Detective , that perfectly illustrates Bond’s otherworldly combat skills. And there’s the shoutout in Cuba, which plays more like a dance as Bond and Nomi attempt to retrieve a precious item. It’s a testament to Craig that he’s been able to keep up with the physical requirements of the role, especially with the battle scars he’s accumulated over the years. But he also reaches new heights emotionally, with his Bond being the most vulnerable, both literally and metaphorically. He shares more than an animalistic sexual relationship with his Bond girls. There’s something palpable under the surface, keeping you invested beyond just the setpieces. With a lot of time (163 minutes in fact) to end, No Time to Die says goodbye to the actor who ushered in a new era for James Bond. Thankfully, it does it with a sly wink and a nod to what could be in store for this long-weathered franchise. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Shazam: Fury of the Gods March 19, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen With all the recent news about the future potential for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new and revitalized DCU, it almost seems pointless to spend time, money, and energy on a grandfathered-in property from the old guard like Shazam: Fury of the Gods . It is an increasingly bad product of the modern studio landscape that giant blockbusters such as this can be rendered irrelevant by politics even before they’ve come out. We don’t have to look that much deeper within Warner Bros. to find the indefinitely-shelved Batgirl as a much harsher example. But then again, it’s hard for me to feel sympathy for Fury of the Gods (and the entire old DCU regime) when it doesn’t provide any compelling reasons for its own existence. It’s an ultra-corporate tentpole telling a been-there-done-that story, with the only thing it excels at doing is being annoying. Where the first Shazam was lighter on its feet and told a pretty straightforward story, Fury of the Gods muddies the waters as we dig deeper into the mediocre lore of the titular character. The three sisters of Atlas: Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and Anthea (Rachel Zegler) have come to our mortal realm to claim their father’s staff, which can give and take the god-like powers from any person. Shazam (who doesn’t go by that name for “hilarious” reasons) and his superhuman foster family are their natural obstacles, although they have in-house troubles of their own as each member wants something a little different. Shazam doesn’t really know his place as a superhero, with Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) being overconfident with his abilities. The rest of the family fulfills their single character trait, so 75% of their interactions go exactly as expected. Shazam’s identity crisis extends to the movie at large, as the edges of personality from the first film have been sanded off in favor of much more generic plotting and action. The stakes are again centered around the world being destroyed, with a MacGuffin about an item with limitless power. It even creates a sky beam (sort of), something we definitely haven’t gotten tired of! There’s also still the problem of Zachary Levi and Asher Angel being the same character, despite the former having too much personality and the latter not enough. Director David F. Sandberg and writers Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan seemed to have sided with Levi, with Angel reduced to a much smaller supporting role. Grazer is grating as well as he overdoes everything. But there is talent evident within him, which he showed tremendously with Luca Gudagnino’s We Are Who We Are , so I still look forward to what he can do outside of franchises. It’s hilarious that Dwayne Johnson didn’t want anything to do with Shazam when he was building his Black Adam movie, despite the two characters having a decades-long relationship in the comics. Now with both Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods being beacons of generic studio fodder, it seems only right for the two of them to finally get together and make something that finally kills the DCU. I wouldn’t mind if their power were also strong enough to suspend the MCU for a while, because the slope toward the gutter is getting increasingly slippier with each new entry. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Kung Fu Panda 4 March 10, 2024 By: Button Tyler Banark As time has proved, it’s a risky choice for a franchise to leap beyond a trilogy and into a fourth entry. For every John Wick: Chapter 4 , Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol , and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ; there is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cyrstal Skull, The Bourne Ultimatum , and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides . DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 4 falls more into the latter bucket by providing the expected stunning visuals, yet also displaying an overfamiliar story that signals a franchise running out of steam and bound to implode. Kung Fu Panda 4 ’s biggest flaw is its script; penned by recurring writers Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, and newcomer Darren Lemke. While the three previous entries mixed plenty of laughs and memorable moments, there wasn’t a single laugh-out-loud moment here, not even for the younger members of the audience. It didn’t help that most of these attempted jokes are featured in a senseless plot. Po has taken the next step in his journey by fulfilling the position of spiritual leader for the Valley of Peace. Because of this, he must step down as The Dragon Warrior and look to find a successor. As he does this, yet another power-hungry villain in The Chameleon (Viola Davis) threatens China by harnessing the powers of all of Po’s past villains. Tai Lung, Lord Shen, and General Kai all return, with Tai Lung being the only one in the spotlight since Ian McShane was the only original voice actor of the trio to come back. Also missing are Furious Five, with their absence being attributed to “other duties.” Of course, Jack Black returns as Po, a character he never seems to take for granted. He’s up to his usual antics, which is enough since seeing Black do his thing is enough of an enjoyable time. Viola Davis’ inclusion in the franchise is great on paper, but it’s not as great in execution considering her character’s copied and pasted motivations. Although he’s not given much screentime, Dustin Hoffman still phones it in as Shifu, which also marks his first appearance in a studio film since 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) . Zimmer returns to the maestro’s corner, collaborating again with Steve Mazzaro. Although there are no outstanding pieces, the duo does provide an interestingly Eastern-sounding rendition of “Crazy Train” during a chase sequence. And that’s not the only cover song to be prominently featured, with Black and his band, Tenacious D, covering Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” during the end credits. It’s a better use of Black’s musical talent than “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros Movie . Kung Fu Panda 4 feels like a dishonor to the franchise, with almost every aspect being inferior to the previous entries. Even the DreamWorks opening credit logo lacked the personality it once had. From a franchise that has always been willing to take risks, this fourth outing is safe and forgettable. Audiences were wishing for more skadoosh, but they got more of a whimpering pow instead. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

The Naked Gun July 30, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Suspenseful music plays over the opening studio logos. We emerge from the black void to see criminals running amok in a bank. They've taken hostages, freezing the police in their tracks. This has now become a job for someone with a particular set of skills with a name like Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, or John McClane. Unfortunately, all those heroes were busy, which means it's up to the next available man to save the day. That would be Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson), a cop who doesn't allow anything to stop him from upholding the law. Donning a disguise that makes his seventy-year-old body appear that of an elementary schoolgirl, Drebin Jr. sneaks his way into the bank and defeats all the bad guys. The leader gets away with the P.L.O.T. Device from the vault, which acts as the key to a nefarious scheme by tech billionaire Richard Cane (Danny Huston) to make the world's population go feral and kill each other, leaving the wealthy elite to rule with an iron fist. Accusing the screenwriters of stealing the exact plot of Kingsman: The Secret Service would be an act of futility. The Naked Gun franchise (also known as Police Squad! ) is famous for liberally borrowing well-worn tropes and turning them on their head to reveal the absurdity that we regularly buy into. This reboot/legacy sequel comes with the benefit of time and a shifting media landscape. Theatrically released studio comedies have been a rapidly dying breed, replaced with streaming exclusives, quippy superhero films, and comedies that try to have their cake and eat it too, almost as if they're embarrassed to tell a joke that doesn't add to the plot or have a skewering reference to a piece of pop culture. The Naked Gun does not attempt to be a "smart" comedy, with co-writer/director Akiva Schaffer swinging the pendulum fully back to the days of slapstick, sight gags, and wordplay. In quick succession, we watch as the police captain posts the spring musical cast list on the corkboard, two little girls are brought in for questioning over an illegal lemonade stand, and cold cases are pulled out of the freezer. Frank and his partner Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) are handed a cup of coffee in each scene, always throwing it away after just one sip. One of Crane's henchmen spies on Frank and his femme fatale Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson) through a window, the drawn curtains creating several misconstrued sexual scenarios involving an uncooked turkey and Frank's pet dog. I'm probably the only person who saw the dreadful 2023 film Marlowe on its opening weekend (on Valentine's Day, no less, proving that I don't love myself). That film also starred Neeson and Huston in an identical hero-villain relationship, with the over-serious approach and poor execution inadvertently making the whole thing feel like a parody. Both of those stars get to have much more fun on their own terms this time around, making complete fools of themselves by poking fun at their tough guy images. Frank does more harm than good in his quest for justice, repeatedly running over cyclists and eating too many chili cheese dogs for breakfast. Crane is like all the tech billionaires we wish would just take their money and go away forever. Anderson shows off her long-hidden comedic sensibilities, perfectly matching the goofiness. It's almost back-to-school season, so let's do a quick math equation. We've got a ninety-minute runtime, a joke every thirty seconds, and a sixty-percent hit rate. That math means I laughed about one hundred times throughout the film, and just about as much as I was writing this review. A deal like that sounds too good to be true. But I assure you it's real, and it's much better when shared with everyone at the theater. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

2023 Winners January 4, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen The end of the year is upon us and it’s time to see who’s left standing now that the dust has settled. Even compared to most years, 2023 didn’t leave many people with their legs still under them (two historic strikes and a neverending drought at the box office tend to do that). But there were a select few that were not only able to survive but thrive in these tough conditions. Take a look below at who came out on top this year. Ayo Edebiri Everywhere you looked in 2023, Ayo Edebiri was there. The burgeoning comedy star appeared in no less than five feature films ( Theater Camp , Bottoms, The Sweet East, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem ), two hit television series ( The Bear, Abbott Elementary ), and received the “Breakout Star” STARmeter Award from IMDb. She shows no signs of slowing down, joining the MCU with the upcoming Thunderbolts and being cast in the new James L. Brooks film. Horror Movies (Again) Another year, another reminder that horror movies reign supreme when it comes to raking in the dough. No wonder Jason Blum owns multiple multi-million dollar properties. His Five Nights at Freddy’s has accumulated almost $300 million worldwide on a $20 million budget. Not far behind was Scream VI, M3GAN, The Nun II , and Insidious: The Red Door , which quietly became the highest-grossing entry in the series. Corporate PR Just like Mr. Burns every corporate conglomerate could use a slick Hollywood picture to gloss over their evil rise to power. 2023 saw no shortage of them, almost all of them faring better than A Burns For All Seasons . Ben Affleck created an underdog narrative surrounding the richest sports brand and athlete in Air , Tetris showed the power of American optimism (and capitalism), and Flamin’ Hot didn’t let the truth get in the way of a feel-good story. They’re all propaganda, but at least they were entertaining pieces of propaganda. Movie Theaters (But only during Barbenheimer) It was a year of one bomb after another, with any movie with a price tag of over $200 million playing to crowds rivaling the size of a high school theater production. But then a shining light came midway through the year, one that had been foretold through memes and fanboyism (and fangirlism). Luckily, Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig delivered the goods with Oppenheimer and Barbie , respectively, and everyone and their mother got out of the hot summer sun and enjoyed themselves for a few hours. Re-Releases With so many movies flopping like a fish, theaters were happy to welcome back stuff that had already proven successful. The 25th anniversary of Titanic grossed $70 million worldwide this past Valentine’s Day, Return of the Jedi brought in a respectable $7 million, and Oldboy outgrossed its original domestic release with $2 million during its limited remaster. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Concert Films Ruling over the billboard charts and closing down cities with their concerts wasn’t enough for these pop stars. They wanted it all, and who could blame them when considering just how much people were dying to see their acts in the theater? Taylor Swift proved to be a bigger draw than Indiana Jones, Ethan Hunt, and Optimus Prime at the box office, and Beyoncé’s Renaissance topped its respective opening weekend. It wasn’t just the teenagers who got their fill as Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense grossed an impressive $5 million during its limited run. Sandra Hüller The German actress broke onto the scene at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival with Toni Erdmann . It was poetic when she was the talk of this year’s fest with her performances in the Palme d’Or and Grand Prize winner Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest , respectively. She portrayed intense characters in both films, just on opposite sides of the specific of good and evil. An Oscar nomination is highly likely, as well as a slew of offers for juicy parts in every major director’s next film. Jacob Elordi The Kissing Booth and Euphoria may have made him a sex symbol (not that he needed much help with that), but 2023 was the year that the Australian became an actor . He was able to use his appeal in Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla , both netting him positive reviews. He’s already lined up a starring role in Paul Schrader’s upcoming Oh Canada . Video Game Adaptations Going from the controller to the projector used to be a death sentence for any video game property. Now it’s like printing your money, with Nintendo scoring $1.3 billion with The Super Mario Bros. Movie . And look, there’s Five Nights at Freddy’s again swimming in $300 million worth of cash. And then there was HBO’s The Last of Us , which scored record viewership and a bevy of Emmy nominations. Don’t be surprised to see Mario vs. Sonic as the top-grossing film of 2028. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark 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 One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

TIFF24 Recap September 21, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen They said it couldn’t be done. Of the 278 films screened over the 10 days at the 49th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), I was able to see 37 of them. Never mind that my eyesight has probably gotten much worse, my skin is even paler than before, and that someone broke the world record for most movies watched at a film festival by eclipsing 80 films within the same timeframe. This year’s edition of TIFF was a rousing success for both myself and the festival as a whole. I maintained a perfect schedule throughout, seeing everything I wanted to, ranging from glitzy world premieres in the biggest venues to independent international films in the back of the Scotiabank Theatre. The best came first on Friday (well, technically third since I saw Presence and William Tell on Thursday) in the form of The Brutalist , which met the sky-high hopes I had placed upon it through its placement on my Most Anticipated of 2024 list. Although I had to reluctantly accept a 35mm presentation of the film instead of the 70mm print that was being shown at the public screenings, there’s no denying that this is one of the most beautiful films of the year. It’s a new American epic that I will certainly catch again later this year whenever A24 decides to start their rollout, which I assume will emulate the molasses pace of classic Hollywood roadshows. This needs to be treated as a cinematic event on the same level as Oppenheimer . See it on the biggest screen possible, and plan a dinner afterward to reward both your body and mind. While the feasibility for The Brutalist to win the coveted People’s Choice Award was slim, both in terms of logistics regarding the runtime and mass appeal, I did end up seeing the actual top dog a few hours later at its world premiere. Unfortunately, I didn’t share the same enthusiasm for The Life of Chuc k compared to everyone else, with Flanagan’s approach to the material being a little too disjointed and schmaltzy for my liking. However, being in the same as the cast and crew, as well as the raucous audience, was more than worth it. John Crowley’s charming two-hander We Live in Time provided a nice break in the disappointment streak, which would continue the next morning with The Room Next Door and Hard Truths . In a bubble, both are fine movies with exceptional qualities to them. But when you factor in the talent involved, it’s impossible not to view them as less than they should have been. It was extremely shocking to walk out of The Room Next Door to the news that it had won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a prize that seemed destined for The Brutalist . Ron Howard’s Eden , still without distribution as of this print date, served as my only Gala premiere within Roy Thomson Hall. After he showed humanity at its best with his previous film ( Thirteen Lives ), Howard drags us down to its most vile state. The pulpy tone and starry cast are what sell the experience. Overall it’s nothing special, which is why it’ll likely get punted to streaming, where it’ll probably be a big hit. Sunday was a double Ralph Fiennes day. Edward Berger’s Conclave is a soap opera with as much page-turning substance as it has a prestige-like style, while The Return , Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey , was a snooze-fest. Bookending The Return was two fun thrillers: Justin Kurzel’s The Order and A24’s Heretic . The former contains some exceptional action setpieces and moments of chilling true-crime violence, while the latter has a devilishly delicious Hugh Grant performance. Things started slowing down a bit as the weekdays rolled around. David Mackenzie’s Relay was a smoky cool way to start a Monday morning, while Luca Guadagnino’s abstract adaptation of Queer was a puzzling way to end the night. Thankfully I had some sleep between that film and Tuesday morning’s Better Man , the CGI-monkey starring biopic on Robbie Williams. Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and Malcolm Washington’s The Piano Lesson provided glimpses into fractured families reckoning with their past and future. Halina Reijn took that familial structure and burned it to the ground with Babygirl , a perverse tale of sex and power featuring knock-out performances from Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson. I saw two slow cinema titles carrying over from Venice on Wednesday: Harvest and April . While the former spun its wheels a few too many times, the latter mixed abstract visuals with real-life horrors to excellent results. Capping off the night was The End , Joshua Oppenheimer’s narrative feature debut after years of success as a documentarian. I was by far the biggest fan of this somber musical about the last surviving family, with the audience within the Princess of Wales growing more restless as the 148-minute feature went on. To be fair, TIFF didn’t do its audience many favors this year as they scheduled several long and challenging films for the 9:30 pm slot, which always starts at least twenty minutes late. The final Thursday-Sunday was reserved for catching up on several titles I had a passing interest in. The Fire Inside and Millers in Marriage turned out to be the only two that I came out with a positive reaction, while stuff like Without Blood , On Swift Horses , and The Cut ranged from disappointing to downright terrible. Somewhere in the middle was Bring Them Down , The Deb , and The Friend . Despite my eyelids carrying the same weight as dumbbells, I decided to cap the festival with the Midnight Madness screening of The Shadow Strays , the new film from Indonesian action aficionado Timo Tjahjanto. It was one of my most anticipated of the festival, and the energy from the crowd and the film was more than enough to sustain me throughout the 140-minute runtime. One could debate the pros and cons of watching so many movies in such a short amount of time. But there’s nothing like having a cinematic buffet such as this, and the experience of gorging is unbeatable. Now I’ll take an extended break, as the mere thought of watching a movie gives me a headache. FULL RANKING 1. The Brutalist 2. Conclave 3. The End 4. Saturday Night 5. The Order 6. April 7. I’m Still Here 8. Relay 9. We Live in Time 10. Heretic 11. The Shadow Strays 12. Presence 13. Harbin 14. The Piano Lesson 15. Babygirl 16. Queer 17. Eden 18. The Fire Inside 19. Millers in Marriage 20. The Room Next Door 21. Hard Truths 22. William Tell 23. Harvest 24. The Life of Chuck 25. Better Man 26. The Friend 27. Shell 28. Bring Them Down 29. The Deb 30. The Assessment 31. Nightbitch 32. The Return 33. On Swift Horses 34. Without Blood 35. The Last Showgirl 36. Hold Your Breath 37. The Cut More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen