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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

The Book of Clarence January 8, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Writer/director Jeymes Samuel is more interested in making The Book of Clarence into a good time than a good film, which makes it just good enough to be a good use of your time and money (this sentence was brought to you by the word “good”). The British multi-hyphenate’s sophomore feature contains much of the same DNA as his Netflix-backed debut, The Harder They Fall , featuring an all-black cast in a genre that has largely ignored that demographic. This time the setting has shifted from the American West to Jerusalem circa AD33. Things open with a drag race on sandy streets, a chariot race to be exact. The titular character (LaKeith Stanfield) and his friend Elijah (RJ Cyler) have wagered a lot of money and horses against Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor). We’re only two minutes in and Samuel has made two references to Ben-Hur , the first being the Roman font title credits and sweeping music. But these references aren’t just plucked for their 1:1 value, they’re used to produce a remix of a classic tale that has repeatedly been told in a similar fashion for nearly a century. The camera whips and zooms around during the race, sometimes opting for POV shots as the local Gypsies sabotage the event by throwing rocks and spears. The race is lost, which puts Clarence and Elijah in a pay-up-or-be-crucified situation with Jedidiah (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), who lent them the funds to wager. Clarence is a lot like Howard Ratner from Uncut Gems : someone who thinks of himself as smarter than those chasing him, yet he always seems destined to be caught. It doesn’t help that he has a more upstanding twin brother named Thomas (also Stanfield) who has recently become one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. To Clarence, the allure of religion isn’t the purity of faith or promise of something larger than yourself, it’s the status it grants you. People flock to Jesus and his apostles like their movie stars, requesting miracles and attention. To pay off his debt, Clarence decides to recreate Jesus’ “tricks,” such as healing the blind, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel. He becomes the first “religion for profit” pastor, beating Kenneth Copeland at his own game two thousand years earlier. While taking shots at uber-wealthy people of faith, Samuel also instills a dash of rogue politicians, with Clarence making “Knowledge is stronger than belief!” his campaign slogan. But it’s not just Clarence that deserves scorn, it’s the people who eat up his words and acts despite them being obviously hollow. A little more time spent on this aspect would have been appreciated, as well as the mixture of comedy and drama. This is a case of style over substance, and the MCU disease where every dramatic situation needs to be undercut by a whacky joke. In the case of Samuel, the style is just as much the substance as the actual substance. He pulls out every trick in his directorial arsenal to make this the “wickedly dope time” he wants you to have. Split screens, a bevy of iris shots, augmented colors, and a Jay-Z soundtrack keep things flowing at a decent pace throughout the nearly 140-minute runtime. There’s also the enormously entertaining cast featuring so many people who would have never been given a chance to star in a film like this despite the cultural makeup of that time and place. Cyler, David Oyelowo, and Omar Sy supply the laughs, with cameos by Alfre Woodard and Benedict Cumberbatch being the film’s most laugh-out-loud moments. With January primarily being a time when studios dump their slop and serious awards titles slowly expand in hopes of Oscar gold, it’s nice to see a film like The Book of Clarence offer a decent alternative. Its messiness is more of a feature than a bug, and there’s more than enough on its mind and on the screen to keep it from falling victim to the cinematic hell that is this month. 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

Blue Beetle August 18, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Blue Beetle is the best DCEU film in years. But that’s not much of a statement, as it would take a monumental amount of skill to make something lesser than Black Adam , Shazam: Fury of the Gods , or The Flash . It's like a student got three straight F's on their exams and then got a C-, or Shaquille O’Neal finally making a free throw. The act itself isn’t noteworthy, but the context makes it a landmark moment. There’s also not much fun to be had with Blue Beetle ’s competence, as every story element and character decision is pulled directly from the “How to Make a Superhero Origin Story For Dummies” textbook. Take a shot each time a sentence in the subsequent paragraph reminds you of another superhero film. Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) is just a kid from Palmera City who’s the pride and joy of his immigrant family. He’s returning home after obtaining his college degree, but family hardships prevent him from unlocking his true destiny. He and his wise-cracking sister (Belissa Escobedo) take jobs as part of a mansion cleaning staff. There he crosses paths with Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), the niece of tech billionaire Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). Jenny asks him to hide something called The Scarab, which quickly decides to attach itself to Jaime, making him a world-killing supersoldier (he’s DC’s Iron Man, to put it bluntly). He didn’t choose to have these powers, but he’ll need to learn to put them to good use as people like Victoria want to use them to take over the world. Blue Beetle wears its heart on its sleeve when it comes to the family dynamic within the cast. For the most part, it greatly succeeds in establishing that special bond. Jaime’s uncle Rudy (George Lopez, doing a pretty good job spinning gold out of the lead he’s given) is the “Mexican Doc Brown,” and he always fears that the government is tracking them. But it’s not like the Reyes family would just lie down and take it, as Nana (Adriana Barraza) has a secret revolutionary past, a joke that tries to go on longer than its shelf life. This is a tight-knit group, providing both the most emotional and entertaining moments of the film. Unfortunately, writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer put all his skill points in that area. Besides the family, there’s not much of any reason to care about what’s going on. There’s very little introduction or explanation into what The Scarab actually is, why it chose Jaime, and what Victoria’s evil plan is supposed to accomplish. Although I’m sure the answers to these questions would have been just as clichéd as everything else, I still would have appreciated the courtesy of having them addressed. Director Ángel Manuel Soto doesn’t do much to make up for those problems with the action. It’s the usual “overpowered hero takes out tons of goons before fighting the final boss, who has the same powers they have” that we’ve come to expect (again, the comparisons to Iron Man are uncanny). At least Tony Stark felt like a person in a suit, unlike the poorly rendered CGI creation that Maridueña just ADRs over. The Cobra Kai has the charm and looks to be a superhero, but those seem to be his only assets. It’s hard to nail down where Blue Beetle lands in this whole DC shakeup, not only because of the wishy-washy answers from head honcho James Gunn but also because it feels so much like a product of the old regime. If it’s meant to cap off this decade-long run that started with Man of Steel , I guess we could have gone out with something worse. If this is the start of something new, then there’s not much to get excited about. Same shit, different day. 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

A Brief History of Presidents' in Film February 15, 2022 By: Hunter Friesen February 15 marks President’s Day in the United States. Originally a holiday to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, the day was eventually changed to honor the service of all our nation’s leaders. In celebration of this national holiday, it’s time to look back at Hollywood’s history with the presidents and see which ones have been most prominently featured on the silver screen. Some of these men are portrayed by actors and some are merely a background figure in the movie. No matter the situation, their presence was felt both in front and behind the camera. Below are four presidents who, for better or worse, have had a major impact on cinematic history. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) Regularly ranked among scholars as our nation’s greatest leader, it’s no surprise that Abraham Lincoln holds the record for the most portrayals in film at an astounding 130 times, nearly double George Washington’s second-place tally of 70. Honest Abe was the focus of one of Hollywood’s earliest biopics with director John Ford and leading man Henry Fonda telling the story of Lincoln before office in Young Mr. Lincoln . While the events in the film are fictional, the story of Lincoln early in his law career gets the spirit of him right. It was a little over seventy years later when Lincoln got the biopic treatment again with Steven Spielberg’s aptly named Lincoln . Centralizing the time frame in the months before the end of the Civil War as Lincoln struggles to pass the much needed thirteenth amendment, Lincoln boasts a mesmerizing turn by Londoner Daniel Day-Lewis as the titular character, which won him his third Oscar as part of the film’s twelve total nominations. Even with the pacifistic stoicism that he’s known for, Hollywood still couldn’t help themselves as they tried to turn the sixteenth president into an action star with the historically incorrect Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter . The less said about that movie, the better. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) The youngest president ever elected, John F. Kennedy was the first television president as he used the newfound technology to win appeal from the masses. Because of his popularity, Kennedy has made all sorts of appearances in film. He had the conventional biopic detailing his navy heroics during World War II with PT 109 . Cliff Robertson plays young Kennedy who leads his crew on treacherous resume missions in the Pacific. Bruce Greenwood portrays the president in 2000 as he navigates the Cuban Missile Crisis in Thirteen Days . Unfortunately for Kennedy, his most famous moment was his assassination on November 22, 1963. That date is also the focus of several movies such as Oliver Stone’s inaugural presidential movie JFK , which peeks behind the curtain and tries to expose the conspiracies that cloud over what actually happened that fateful day. While most of the facts within JFK have been debunked, there’s no denying the power of Stone’s direction and the stacked ensemble led by Kevin Costner. 2013’s Parkland is set entirely within the day that Kennedy was assassinated, weaving together the perspectives of several people who were thrust into an extraordinary situation. A few years later, director Pablo Larraín and star Natalie Portman view the assassination through First Lady Jackie Kennedy’s eyes in Jackie . Richard Nixon (1969-1974) Much like in real life, Hollywood’s relationship with the thirty-seventh president is rocky, to say the least. As the only president to resign from office, the story of Nixon has been tackled several times by prominent filmmakers. Keeping him in the background, Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men and Steven Spielberg’s The Post frame his presidency around the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandal. Peter Morgan and Ron Howard approach Watergate from a different angle with Frost/Nixon , as a post-presidency Nixon (played by Frank Langella) conducts a series of interviews with David Frost. Only a few years after making JFK , Oliver Stone gave Nixon the full cradle-to-grave epic biopic with Nixon . Surprisingly not as damning as one would think, Stone’s movie plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy as our “hero” rises to the highest mountain, only to be eventually brought down to the lowest valley. George W. Bush (2001-2009) The 43rd president, George Bush has never been portrayed as the smartest person to occupy the Oval Office. Adam McKay’s Vice , which takes a lot of influence from Oliver Stone, makes Bush a dimwitted supporting character with daddy issues that is puppeteered by his vice president Dick Cheney. Complete with a fake nose and hairpiece, Sam Rockwell received an Oscar nomination for his performance. Ten years earlier, Stone was able to complete his presidential trilogy with W. , a surprisingly tame biopic with Josh Brolin as the title character. Again, Stone paints Bush as simply stupid who didn’t understand the full consequences of an Iraq invasion. While Stone partially acquitted Bush of Iraq, equally brash filmmaker Michael Moore eviscerated Bush with his Palme d’Or winning documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 . Moore attacks the Bush administration for using fear and paranoia to justify a war in Iraq rather than going after those truly responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. Moore produced and released the film with the sole intention of preventing Bush from being reelected in 2004, which proved unsuccessful. 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

Passages August 4, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Passages opens with Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a German filmmaker living in Paris, working on the set of his next film. It’s immediately apparent that he’s a control freak… and an asshole. He’s critical of everything that’s going on, from the position of his actor’s arms as he walks down the stairs to the amount of wine in an extra’s glass. He probably thinks of himself as Stanley Kubrick, except there isn’t enough brilliance to make up for the callousness. That attitude on the set doesn’t take a break once he goes home to his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw). The couple go to the film’s wrap party at a dance club. Being the more introverted one, Martin goes home early, leaving Tomas to his own devices. He crosses paths with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) on the dance floor, and the two eventually go home together to have sex. Rebuking the natural secrecy of an affair in an effort to quench his desire for control, Tomas tells Martin all about it the next morning. Tomas wants the best of both worlds: to be in a steady marriage with Martin and to have an exciting new fling with a woman. These three characters are now intertwined, yet it’s obvious only one of them is pulling the strings. Similar to his 2014 film Love is Strange , writer/director Ira Sachs (co-writing with his regular partner Mauricio Zacharias) delves into the thorniness of longstanding relationships, and how there isn’t a clear-cut way to get through it. Tomas thinks he can get what he wants, yet it seems he actually doesn’t know what he wants in the first place. He says “I love you” and engages in sex when it works for him, and never seems to have the ability or desire to understand the other party in that transaction. One of the main problems of the film is that it spends too much time spinning its wheels around this toxic trio. It eventually gets tiring to watch Tomas act selfishly and be begrudgingly forgiven by Martin or Agathe. Sure, that cycle may be a portal to connect with the victims, but it’s also not something wholly original. It’s not a coincidence that the best scene of the film is near the end where Martin and Agathe finally break the circle and sit down to talk directly. Whishaw and Exarchopoulos are both calm and collected throughout much of the film. They each are trying to convince themselves that this new reality can work, but it’s clear no one is coming out better than they used to be. And even in his cruelty, Rogowski is captivating, showing just enough promise to illustrate why he would be accepted into someone else’s life. Filled with as much as explicit sex (although striking it with an NC-17 rating was a displeasing illustration of how the MPAA views homosexuality) as it has insight into complicated relationships, Passages is another worthwhile effort from the dependable Ira Sachs. It’s a ménage à trois for the modern age, mixing confrontation and carnality to perceptive results. 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

Road House March 20, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Remaking Road House for modern times doesn't sound like a good idea on paper, with immediate expectations slotting it next to the other misplaced-in-time remakes of Ghost in the Shell and Baywatch . There wasn’t exactly a compelling story to the 1989 original, just Patrick Swayze delivering cans of whoop ass on greasy goons with his black belt in karate. And for a film that made less money than you would think, its cultural footprint has persevered throughout the decades thanks to the funny title, cheesy concept, and, for kids closer to my generation, the frequent Family Guy parodies . Even with the setting being transplanted to the modern day, Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) is still a man stuck in the past. He has no phone, a clunker of a car, and simply drifts from town to town scraping by through low-end cage fights. For him, it’s harder to fight the rage inside than any opponent. He’s calm and composed, but there’s always a twinge of insanity ready to let loose. “You don’t want to know me” and “I’m not afraid of him, I’m afraid of what I’ll do,” he says a few times, with brief snapshots of his UFC past (all shot at an actual UFC event) explaining how he fell so far. Like the idea of remaking the film itself, the casting of Gyllenhaal to take over from Swayze is an odd choice. He’s an actor not exactly known for being relaxed, as evidenced by his previous work in Okja , Nightcrawler , and Velvet Buzzsaw . It’s perhaps a case of the chicken or the egg, with Gyllenhaal being a great piece of casting for this newer take on the character, or his involvement changing the tone. Either way, it works out, with Gyllenhaal’s grounded approach never taking away from the fun. Plus, he’s already had fighting experience with Southpaw , so the producers probably saved a nice chunk of change on training costs. Dalton is hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams) to be the bouncer/enforcer of her family bar called The Road House, just one of several hit-or-miss attempts at some tongue-in-cheek humor by writers Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. It’s located on a beautiful beach in Florida, with the only problem being the infestation of bikers and roid ragers. It’s nothing Dalton can’t handle, with his laissez-faire attitude towards kicking the crap out of someone almost making it more disrespectful. None of these guys were worth his time, which leads him up the food chain toward the head of the richest crime family in the area, Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen). He’s got some dastardly plan and needs the bar taken out of commission by any means necessary, including kidnapping, murder, and explosions. The further the plot progresses, the less fun Road House becomes. It’s a bit of a bummer that the first fight where Dalton dismantles five bikers singlehandedly is by far the film’s best-set piece. Even if they are cartoonishly punchable, there is plenty of guilty pleasure in seeing some hooligans get their comeuppance. However, you can’t exactly fill a two-hour movie with your hero facing no resistance, so former UFC champion Conor McGregor has to be introduced as a bruising wildcard. McGregor won’t find himself with a lucrative acting career like former fighters Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista, but he fills his wildcard role enough here to be entertaining. Helming this bare-knuckle brawler is director Doug Liman, who helped revolutionize the action genre in the 2000s with The Bourne Identity and gave Tom Cruise another action vehicle outside of his usual Mission: Impossible films with Edge of Tomorrow . All that prowess quickly goes out the window the longer the fight scenes drag on, with questionable visual effects and camera movements overselling the brutality and undercutting the choreography. Once gasoline explosions and boat jousting get involved, things quickly go all the way overboard. Still, for as much as its faults are glaringly apparent, there’s nothing offensive about Road House . I guess that’s what you get when you do a remake of a movie that wasn’t that good to begin with and have it released exclusively on Prime Video. 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

Top 10 Films of 2020 February 18, 2021 By: Hunter Friesen For the past two years, I’ve led this article by saying how crummy the year has been. Well, 2020 doesn’t even deserve to be joked about as it was such a terrible year that I’m glad has passed, even though I don’t have much hope for 2021. Even with the pandemic shutting down theatres and several tentpole films being delayed indefinitely, there were still quite a few movies worth celebrating. In an effort to give praise to those that deserve it, here is my list of the ten best films of 2020. Honorable Mentions Possessor Tenet The Truth On the Rocks Let Them All Talk 10. Ammonite What can be considered dull to some is romantic to others. Set in 1840s England, writer/director Francis Lee tells the story of a forbidden lesbian romance between a lonely fossil hunter and a young woman burdened by a loveless marriage. Ammonite has all the tropes of the romantic drama genre, but none of its clichés. Lee avoids these traps by trusting his leads in Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, who are a winning combination as they give amazing performances with little dialogue. Everything comes from just a look or a glance, enough to describe a whole scene and carry a film. 9. One Night in Miami After many successful years in front of the camera, Regina King proves she’s just as skilled in the director’s chair. What could have been an overly stagey experience is turned into a fiery character drama featuring some of the most influential figures in history in Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. Screenwriter Kemp Powers takes these four larger-than-life figures and brings them down to Earth and connects their lives to the present-day African-American experience. Special praise goes to the performances by British-born Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X and Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr. as Cooke, as well as his contribution to the song “Speak Up." 8. The Prom The cinematic equivalent of a sugar rush, director Ryan Murphy assembled an all-star cast for his Netflix adaptation of the hit Broadway musical. The story of a lesbian teen who is denied the ability to tale her girlfriend to her conservative town’s prom is told exuberantly through flashy song & dance numbers. While it does have its cake and eat it too, the guilty pleasure that this film brings is in the wonderfully campy performances from its main troupe and its earworm-inducing tunes. 7. Wolfwalkers Hailing from Ireland, this fantasy adventure beat Pixar’s Soul to be the best-animated film of the year. Aspiring adventurer Robyn stars as our hero as she befriends a free-spirited “wolf walker” named Mebh, who has the power to become a wolf at night and defends the ever-shrinking forest. Beautifully animated in various styles and boasting a great lyrical soundtrack, Wolfwalkers also touches our minds with its authentic philosophical message about deforestation and the bridging of cultural differences. 6. The Nest Similar to the calculated and observational style of Stanley Kubrick and Yorgos Lanthimos, Sean Durkin’s newest feature is a drama/horror tale about the dangers of greed and ambition. Jude Law and Carrie Coon each give career-best performances as a couple that is forced to come to terms with their increasingly meaningless lives. With the gap between the haves and the have-nots becoming wider every day, this social critique is timely in the present and I suspect it will continue to be in the future. 5. First Cow First Cow is the most gentle “bro movie” out there. Writer/director Kelly Reichardt calmly guides us through this frontier-set story of friendship and opportunity. As unpredictable as it is gorgeous, Reichardt balances various genres as the film eventually spins itself into a heist film with high tension and stakes. Even with all these changing elements, Reichardt never loses the emotional connection with her characters. I’m still hoping Evie the Cow can get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. 4. The Trial of the Chicago 7 The words “the whole world is watching!” still ring in my head even after six months since seeing Aaron Sorkin’s newest Netflix film. The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a nostalgic old-school courtroom drama bolstered by strong modern filmmaking and terrific performances from its cast. The timeliness and importance of its message make it a must-see as our nation faces a turbulent path of healing after a disastrous year. Full Review 3. Nomadland With Nomadland , writer/director/editor Chloé Zhao has crafted something special, something that pulls you in and never lets you go. Many times you catch yourself just basking in the imagery. The plains, the mountains, the natural landscapes. It doesn't feel like a movie, but a feeling that just carries you all the way through. With a lead terrific performance from the legendary Frances McDormand and a supporting turn from the reliable David Strathairn, Zhao combines so many complex things to create a true piece of art. 2. The Vast of Night Amazon’s The Vast of Night is a director's showcase for Andrew Patterson. With long takes and tracking shots that are near Cuarón level, Patterson fully immerses us in this 1950s-set small-town alien invasion mystery. Spookier than any conventional horror movie and brimming with an abundance of talent from its cast and crew, The Vast of Night is a startlingly well-made debut that will surely lead to fruitful careers for all those involved. 1. Never Rarely Sometimes Always Written and directed by indie-darling Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is an authentic and upsetting coming-of-age story. Taking place over a trip to New York City to abort an unwanted pregnancy, Hittman did an impeccable job of exuding sympathy and connecting me to a process I am biologically unable to relate to. The title of the film comes full circle near the end in a scene that left me with no dry eyes. Newcomer Sydney Flanigan is a star in the making with her lead performance. Her career will be one to watch. 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

In a Violent Nature May 28, 2024 By: Button Tyler Banark For the second time this year, Shudder has unleashed a horror film that is making waves and igniting discussions among moviegoers. Two months ago, it was Late Night with the Devil , a film that injected a fresh twist into the found footage subgenre. Now they’re bringing In a Violent Nature , a horror film not for the faint-hearted. It's a thrilling ride, uniquely told from the killer's perspective. Meditative is a word I would not normally use to describe a horror movie, but In a Violent Nature has a meditative quality. Director Chris Nash penned a script that reflects this method, instilling a tragic backstory to a killer who knows nothing but death. Supposedly named Johnny, he fell victim to a terrible accident, leaving him stranded beneath the ground with only a makeshift breathing tube to sustain him. When a locket is stolen from the tower he’s buried under, Johnny emerges from the ground and goes on a rampage to get it back. As the plot unfolds, the movie gets to the gritty kills as Nash and DP Pierce Derks heavily use long-tracking shots to set up the scene. They usually consist of Johnny slowly creeping up to his next victim(s) as they talk about his urban legend in some form or another. It’s a decent way to build suspense and have audiences guessing where’s Johnny (no pun intended). Many of the faces of the victims remain obscured, an initially odd choice that over time illustrates itself as a way to communicate Johnny’s dehumanization of these people. The kills make this into one of the bloodiest splatter fests I have seen in a while, almost to the point where some viewers may regret having an appetite during or after watching. Outside of the cinematography, In a Violent Nature ’s methodical aura is also felt in its pacing, which is no surprise. Although the movie clocks in at 94 minutes, it’s in no rush to have the plot go from point A to point B. In one instance, we see a group of campers sharing stories around a campfire. As one of them shares a story correlating to Johnny, it’s all told in an uninterrupted take with a circling shot of the group sitting around the fire. While it’s an auteurist approach (Nash says Terrence Malick is an influence), the film does get carried away in the act and intermittently tests patience. In a Violent Nature is brutal in its scares and pacing, both of which prove to be its best and worst elements. Time will tell if this is able to break out into the culture, or remain an underground feature for the horror-centric service. Hopefully, there will be further conversation and attempts at brutal stories told from the perspective of evil. How will that all pan out, you may ask? Who knows, but heads may roll nevertheless. You can follow Tyler and hear more of his thoughts on Twitter , Instagram , and Letterboxd . 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

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice September 4, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen If you listen carefully, you can hear the collective sigh of relief of millions of Tim Burton and Beetlejuice fans from around the world the moment the opening credits of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice joyously commenced. Danny Elfman delivers a signature score as the camera weaves through the signature diorama of Winter River. This introduction is a microcosm of the subsequent one-hundred minutes: an unashamed retreading of everything that worked over thirty-five years ago and has become a part of popular culture lexicon ever since, done with enough respect and creative flair to be some of the most fun of the year. Ghostbusters II serves as the template for the opening sections, with a “where are they now” carousel setting the stage for how the famed characters have fared in the decades since. The once supernatural ally Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) now peddles the same ghostly schlock that Zach Baggins has cornered on cable television. How and why she got to this place is a mystery, as well as what her goal is to host a show that delegitimizes the supernatural. She’s got a buffoonish simp in her producer Rory (Justin Theroux), which is about the only somewhat good thing she has going for her. Her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) doesn’t want anything to do with her, another instance in a long line of reminders that your childhood heroes turn out to be terrible parents. On top of that, her father was just killed in a freak shark attack, forcing the entire group, Delia included, to venture back to the signature haunted house on the top of the hill. Of course, all of this plot in the human world is just there to serve what’s going on in the underworld. The titular Mr. Juice is still heartbroken over Lydia, and now must hide from his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci). The complicated and ever-shifting rules and circumstances of the afterlife bring these two stories together, with Lydia and Beetlejuice needing to rescue Astrid from being sent to the Great Beyond. Plot is not what you came to this movie for, and neither is it an important aspect in writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s gameplan, which contains quite the animosity towards anything to do with PC culture. Burton also has a ball with pushing your preconceptions of what can be included in a PG-13 movie, with this one featuring an assortment of gore, cursing, and overall grossness. The effects are mostly practical, a challenge that Burton and his production team welcomed with open arms and flourished with. An animated sequence similar to The Corpse Bride and a silent horror recreation of the romantic origins between Beetlejuice and Delores’ are some of the standout moments that hit the nostalgia buttons so perfectly The cast is all having so much fun as well. Theroux and Willem Dafoe as a dead Tom Cruise-esque actor turned underworld cop who takes his job a little too seriously are the two standouts within the new additions. Their foolishness is matched only by their zeal for the zaniness surrounding them. Ryder and Keaton haven’t missed a beat in the time since, with the latter yet again being the outright champion despite having less screen time than you’d think. Bellucci is… there. She’s a symptom of the film’s disregard for plot and stakes, appearing out of nowhere and leaving without much of an afterthought. We can’t get everything we want, so it’s best to forgive those glaring gaps in depth since it created an opportunity for one of our most creative filmmakers to make something for himself and the people he cares about instead of just another executive who just wants to harness his aesthetic. We as the audience can only be as passionate about a film as the creatives behind it, with this one being so easy to love and laugh along 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

Top 10 Films of 2018 January 24, 2019 By: Hunter Friesen With political and social upheaval, natural disasters, and the overall feeling of optimism fading away, 2018 was a rocky year that really never seemed to end. Fortunately for moviegoers, the year did offer a way of escape through some great films, ranging from record-setting blockbusters to genre-defying indies. Now that the year is finally over and all the films have been released, I can finally release my list of what I thought were the ten best films of 2018. Honorable Mentions They Shall Not Grow Old The Sisters Brothers Mission: Impossible - Fallout Thoroughbreds Wildlife 10. Private Life Coming out of Sundance, this film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins illustrates the challenges a forty-something couple goes through in order to start a family. Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti star as the couple as they go through treatments, adoption, and every method to have a child. The gripping performances from the leads along with Jenkin’s touching screenplay gave this film a ton of comedy and tragedy that led to one of the most emotional films of the year. 9. Vox Lux Dubbed by many as the anti- A Star Is Born , this film tracks the unsettling career of Celeste as she becomes famous through tragedy and chooses to live in that dark moment. Raffey Cassidy and Natalie Portman play Celeste as a teenager and adult, respectively. They each do an incredible job of creating a conflicted character that holds a mirror up to a society that worships celebrities. With a soundtrack by Sia, this pop tale has some great music to go along with its disturbing subject matter. 8. First Man Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling follow up La La Land with another equally great film. Trading in his piano for a rocket ship, Gosling stars as Neil Armstrong and gives us an accurate look into the turbulent life of one of America’s most famous figures. Chazelle's impeccable directing made for some of the most terrifying sequences of the year and allow us to bear witness to the immense danger that many brave men experienced in the name of exploring the unknown. Full Review 7. Roma Probably one of the best directors working today, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is his most personal and epic film to date. The sweeping story is centered around a housemaid named Cleo. Through her eyes, we watch the domestic struggle a large family must go through in 1970s Mexico City. Along with directing, writing, and editing, Cuarón also manned the camera and gave us some of the most awe-inspiring cinematography of the century. Available on Netflix, this film is the most accessible must-see of 2018. 6. First Reformed One of the most influential writers of American cinema, Paul Schrader both writes and directs this film about a tortured priest and the inner turmoil he struggles with as he examines the world we currently live in. Boasting some of the best dialogue of the year along with a career-best performance by Ethan Hawke, this dark and metaphorical film challenges its audience to see the effects humans have had on this planet and how we cope with our misdoings. 5. BlacKkKlansman Spike Lee returns to form with a true story of black cop Ron Stallworth infiltrating the KKK in 1970s Colorado Springs. Both John David Washington and Adam Driver deliver great performances, and Lee’s powerful editing near the end of this comedy/drama serves as both a history lesson and a modern commentary on how our society really hasn’t changed as much as we think it has. Full Review 4. Leave No Trace Also out of Sundance, This small film also is a quiet character study of a father and daughter that have chosen to live in the woods rather than within the confines of civilization. Sporting spectacular performances from breakout star Thomasin McKenzie and Ben Foster, the film expertly explores the idea of how we identify with home and how society reacts to the life choices we have made. 3. Avengers: Infinity War The more you think about it, Infinity War had no right to even work, let alone be great. Credit should go to directors Joe and Anthony Russo who were able to take a project that culminated eighteen films rostering twenty-five characters and make it into a high-stakes thriller that never felt overstuffed. It also delivered the MCU’s best villain and was able to leave a permanent mark on pop culture with just one snap. Hopefully, Endgame will be just as good. 2. A Star Is Born More of a 1B than a clear #2 , Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut more than lived up to its lofty expectations. The pairing of him and Lady Gaga in the lead roles was a match made in heaven as their chemistry lit up the screen both on and off the stage. With one of the best songs of the year in “Shallow”, this pitch-perfect retelling of a classic story left no dry eyes after its endearing tribute ending. Full Review 1. The Favourite My favorite film of the year (pun intended), this 18th-century piece can best be described as Barry Lyndon meets Mean Girls . The plot follows a spiteful struggle between two women, Abigail (Emma Stone) and Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz), as they battle for the affection of the unhinged Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Combining three excellent actresses, a whip-smart script, and the uniquely awkward style of director Yorgos Lanthimos, this dark comedy was by far the most enjoyable and unforgettable film of 2018. 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

Queer September 10, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Queer had its North American Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. A24 will release it in theaters on November 27. Desperation and desire go hand-in-hand within Luca Guadagnino’s Queer , an adaptation of the legendary William S. Burroughs’ early short novel. These are qualities that the famed workaholic Italian director has found a knack for expressing, doing so in opposing fashions this year with the stylishly Hollywood-y Challengers and this magnetically opaque hedonistic journey. Everything is presented in its most sensual form through Guadagnino’s eyes and ears, with the destination this time being Mexico in the 1950s. World War II is over and those returning from Europe and the Pacific are looking for a little rest and relaxation. The American public still (and will continue to for decades) looks upon homosexuality as a disease, forcibly creating the neighboring southern country as a haven filled with life’s great pleasures. The streetlights cast beams of heaven down upon the men and women of the night, the bars are always open, and everyone’s thirst is perpetually unquenchable. But Guadagnino and production designer Stefano Baisi don’t stop there, replacing establishing shots with dreamy illustrations filled with miniatures and backdrops that seem much larger and more expressive than they ever could have been. This version of Mexico isn’t being viewed through an objective lens, it’s someone’s reconstruction of a long memory. That memory belongs to William Lee (Daniel Craig), one of those GIs who left America once he got off his Navy boat and never looked back. Donning a sharp outfit and an even sharper tongue, his days consist of bar trips, flirtations with the boys passing through, and consuming what drugs and alcohol he can get his hands on. It’s a fast and cheap lifestyle, one that comes to a halt once he lays eyes on fellow American Gene (Drew Starkey). The youngster arrives on the scene in slow motion and is engulfed by the blaring words of Nirvana’s Come As You Are . You can feel the temperature rising in the room rising just as much as it is within William’s loins, with this introduction being just the first of many moments where the anachronistic soundtrack and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s camera concoct some of the most potently erotic sequences put to celluloid. That dichotomy between the audio and the visuals translates to William and Gene’s relationship, with the former trying to play younger and the latter containing much more maturity than his fresh face lets on. They have a unique honesty with each other, which Guadagnino transfers to the bedroom with as much raw authenticity as he had with Call Me by Your Name and last year’s All of Us Strangers . Craig is at his most appealingly charming here, mixing the sexual power of James Bond and the eccentricities of Benoit Blanc. He sees what he is through the mirror that is Starkey’s performance, the enigmaticness of Gene being his most appealing and perplexing quality. Burroughs’ novel was published in its unfinished form, something that Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes emulate within their project, even down to the literal runtime, which has been the subject of much scrutiny as it kept getting whittled down since its announcement. A question came to Guadagino during the North American premiere screening at the Toronto International Film Festival asking if the initial three-hour cut would ever see the light of day. The director shyly laughed and said that this was the film that he made, the hesitation in his voice almost signaling that he has as much desire to share his undiluted version as much as audiences want to consume it. The current 135-minute version is a shaggy mini-beast, hypnotically blending reality and dreams as it traverses from the urban hustle to the isolated jungles. Comparisons to Bardo may be appropriate in terms of trying to understand the imagery and intention behind each scene. There are moments when everything is frustratingly translucent, just escaping your grasp no matter how hard you try to grab ahold of it. But even in its haziness, there’s an alluring power that prevents your ignorance from clouding the enjoyment. 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