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Anora June 7, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Love him or hate him (I’m curious if there’s anyone out there who hates him), you’ve got to admit that Sean Baker knows how to open a movie. The catchy rhythms of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” jolt Red Rocket ’s Mikey Saber awake on his long-haul bus trip from LA to the middle of nowhere in Texas. The lyrics of “You’re probably going to start a fight / I know this can’t be right / Hey baby, come on.” reverberate throughout Mikey’s subsequent actions. But as much as you despise what he’s doing - just like the song - you can’t help but tap along with him. Baker’s newest work, Anora , takes an almost identical strategy. The high-energy beat of Take That’s “ Greatest Day (Remix) ” blasts from the theater speakers as Baker’s signature red-colored cursive opening studio logos bleed across the black screen. The words “Today this could be, the greatest day of our lives,” take over as we fade in on a sex worker giving a lap dance to a very enthusiastic customer. The camera glides from right to left, revealing an assembly line of workers and their male patrons. Everyone is living in euphoria at this moment, the world melting away with each strut of their bodies. I’m pretty sure Greta Gerwig’s Cannes jury only needed these initial thirty seconds to declare this their Palme d’Or winner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1HxTmV5i7c For our titular Anora (Mikey Madison), or Ani, as she likes to be called, her night is only just beginning. As the only dancer in her club who can understand Russian on account of her family’s Uzbek background, Ani gets assigned to be the personal escort for a high-rolling Russian fuckboy looking to blow his oligarch father’s money on as many girls and drugs as he can. His name is Ivan/Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), and he speaks in respectably broken English, dons a haircut and skinny frame akin to Timothée Chalamet, and is obviously a rich kid who’s been handed everything on a silver platter all his life. But he pays handsomely and treats Ani with respect, so how can she say no? Things escalate from there, including a New Year’s Eve party at Vanya’s luxurious beachfront mansion and a week-long escapade at the swankiest spots in Las Vegas. Baker’s documentarian aesthetics keep this Pretty Woman- esque tale of young love grounded within reality. The club Ani works at is dingy and run by a pretty scummy group of older guys. And Vanya is no Richard Gere, acting more like a bratty child than the respectable man he’s been sent to America to become. But like any night of ecstasy, the sobering reality of the morning sun eventually sets in. A hasty marriage between Ani and Vanya at one of those seedy Las Vegas chapels brings out the wrath of Vanya’s neglectful parents, who sic their hired goons/caretakers to have the couple’s marriage annulled. They say you truly get to know someone during a moment of weakness, and Ani learns a lot about Vanya once the music stops. A series of misadventures ensues over several hours, more than enough to fill the 139-minute runtime, but not enough to make it wholly justifiable. It’s hard for a comedy, even a truly laugh-out-loud one such as this, to be great when 25% of its runtime could have been trimmed. Madison is always in her element as she follows Baker’s on-the-ground improvisational rhetoric. She delivers a true movie star performance, a quality Baker always seems to find in his often unknown (or underseen) stars. That level of showmanship goes a long way to carry the zaniness. The entire product reminded me of Triangle of Sadness , another Palme d’Or winner that often overstayed its welcome. But both that film and Anora always stand out from the rest of the pack and send you on a high note, which can never go unappreciated. This review was originally published from the world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release Anora in select theaters on October 18th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Oppenheimer July 19, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Last week, in preparation for Oppenheimer , I ranked all of the films within Christopher Nolan’s filmography . As per usual, The Dark Knight reigned supreme, followed by The Prestige and Dunkirk . Now, after watching Oppenheimer , I feel that I prematurely released that list, as now the best entry of his entire career has been left off it. I admit, I am still a bit overstimulated as I type this out a mere hour after the credits “written for the screen and directed by Christopher Nolan” flashed upon the screen. But with each passing second since then, I have become more and more convinced that I’ve seen something extraordinary. Quantum mechanics is full of paradoxes and puzzles that continue to elude the best and brightest of mankind. It’s one of the main reasons it beckoned to J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), a man who never met a challenge he couldn’t overcome with his mind. The boundlessness of theoretical physics was where he made his name, his brain wandering into the stars and unlocking the secrets of the universe. The paradoxical nature of his work also bled into his personality. He was precise and exacting within the lab, but a naive socializer and an unhealthy womanizer. “Brilliance makes up for a lot of that” is his excuse for why he continues to climb within the scientific community and was recruited to head the Manhattan Project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK6ldnjE3Y0 Nolan cited Oliver Stone’s 1991 masterpiece JFK as one of his main inspirations when adapting this material. He drops you into the middle of the action from frame one and keeps you there. Separate timelines begin to form, each folding into the others with increasing frequency. There’s the future besmirching of Oppenheimer’s legacy; the prideful past where we see his rise; and the roaring present where he must develop the atomic bomb before the Nazis. Similar to Dunkirk , Nolan, and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema define these periods through the imagery. Whether it’s in bright color or stark black-and-white, what you’re seeing is always a work of beauty. Never has IMAX been used to capture the small moments with as much gravitas as the climactic detonation. And never has Nolan commanded the pacing of his films as much as he does here. Time passes more quickly or slowly depending on when the narrative takes place, with editor Jennifer Lame crafting those drastic differences into an intellectual exercise. It can become quite challenging (to near impossible) to cling to all the details. But this is not like Tenet , which ditched its audience because of its incomprehensibility. This is more like a Wes Anderson film, where there’s just too much going on within the frame and on the page to be fully comprehended in real-time. Kenneth Branagh plays Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who gives a sturdy piece of advice to Oppenheimer early in his career: “It’s not important that you can read music, only that you can hear it.” Even if I couldn’t read all that was being presented right in front of me, I could definitely feel it. Ludwig Göransson’s tremendous score does a lot to convey the spectacle and terror within these moments of history. There are palpable feelings of anxiety and suspense, despite already knowing the outcome. You feel both a sense of patriotism in seeing this American achievement, and also a deep sense of guilt as a weapon without a defense was unleashed upon an untrustworthy world. There are just as many stars in this movie as there are in the sky. Robert Downey Jr. takes the reins in most of the later scenes as Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss. It’s the best work he’s done in years as he engages in a game of palace intrigue within a congressional hearing. There’s also Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Benny Safdie, and Jason Clarke standing out in decently sized supporting roles. And also Casey Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, and Gary Oldman in extended cameos. Of course, the bulk of the praise should go to Cillian Murphy as the titular character, who capitalizes on the opportunity to be at the forefront of a Nolan film rather than on its sidelines, which he’s done honorably on five previous occasions. There’s always a blankly haunted look in his eyes as if he’s both an all-seeing prophet and a blind fool. Oppenheimer is as entertaining as it is enlightening, emboldened by Nolan’s unparalleled vision and craftsmanship. It’s possibly his magnum opus, grabbing hold of history with fiery conviction, never letting you go until you’ve experienced all that cinema has to offer. Universal Pictures will release Oppenheimer in theaters nationwide on July 21st. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Phoenician Scheme May 28, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen For his review of the 2005 Steven Spielberg film, Munich , film critic for The New York Times , A.O. Scott, began with the title: “An Action Film About the Need to Talk.” It’s a succinct way to describe the main theme of Spielberg’s underseen docudrama masterpiece that recounts Israeli operatives hunting down the people responsible for the Black September capture and massacre of their athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Were the retaliation measures justifiable, or were they just blind vengeance? And even if they could be justified, wouldn’t the cycle of violence just be perpetuated by the other side until they each go blind? Although it substitutes slapstick and levity for the blood and bullets of Spielberg’s film, Wes Anderson’s newest work, The Phoenician Scheme , goes about those ideas in a pretty identical manner. And although the lack of dialogue between the warring factions was part of the problem in Munich , too much talking on the part of this film’s main character, Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro), sets everything in motion here. Middle school history students would describe him as a “robber baron” or a “tycoon” on account of his shrewd business practices. Famines? He’s started them. Slavery? He’s indulged in it. Hand grenades? He has enough lying around that he offers them to all guests like cookies. Fiddling with deals and going back on his word is largely why he’s amassed his fortune, and probably why so many attempts have been made on his life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuMnPl2WI4 That’s exactly where we meet Korda in this story: surviving his sixth recorded airplane crash. At some point, the house is going to win, which is why he’s made the precautionary move to have his estranged novitiate daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), returned home so that she can assume possession of his estate should the unthinkable happen. But before he can defy his enemies by retiring, he must tighten the final screws on a massive infrastructure project in the fictional Middle Eastern territory of Phoenicia that will bring him and several future generations enough passive income to stay atop the throne. On this journey, we stop to meet each of the members who comprise this wall-to-wall A-list cast. Many of them have previously featured in Anderson’s films, such as Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston returning from their live-action debut in Asteroid City to play American train tycoon brothers who prefer to settle disputes over a game of H-O-R-S-E. I will jump the gun here and say that the scene where they challenge Zsa-zsa and the prince of Phoenicia (Riz Ahmed) to said game might be the funniest moment Anderson has ever created. There are also multi-film veterans like Mathieu Amalric (coincidentally, also in Munich) , Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Rupert Friend. “The story of a family and a family business” is the plot summary provided. It’s apt, as a full explanation of all the machinations that go on here would require many more paragraphs. I was never quite sure who everyone was, why they were important, and what needed to happen between them for the conflict to be resolved. But I also don’t think Anderson wants us to pay that much attention to the nitty-gritty details. I suppose you could if you really wanted to, as there’s plenty of information doled out through the trademarked sumptuous production. What’s really important here is not the 5 Ws, but the 1 H. Spurred on by a combination of Liesl’s objections to his malpractices and the gradual melting of his cold, Grinch-like heart, Zsa-zsa begins to see the error of his ways. “Let’s communicate,” is a punchline he says in each encounter, all caused by everyone’s instinctual failure to bring their best intentions to the table. In a time when the terms “trade war” and “tariffs” have become shorthand for an outdated and backward way of conducting business, here’s a story that preaches the value of being simultaneously kind and successful. Del Toro is quite excellent, making Zsa-zsa a thornily interesting character. There are a lot of laughs to be had from his line deliveries, and his command of the scenery Anderson places him in. Except for cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman, who’s been discreetly replaced by the equally fantastic Bruno Delbonnel, all the usual craftspeople align the credits. Anderson continues to prove that he has total dominion over a world that only he can create and perfect. So many have tried and failed to replicate, but there can only be one. Anderson is a lot like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At this point, you’re either in or you’re out. I’m so deep in the bag that it might as well be the one from Mary Poppins . I’ve seen a lot of films, and the majority of them all follow the same pattern. Anderson’s films certainly aren’t an exception, but there is always something magical about their sameness. And like Nicole Kidman always says: We come to this place [the cinema] for magic . Focus Features will release The Phoenician Scheme in limited theaters on May 30th, followed by a nationwide expansion on June 6th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Memoria July 15, 2021 By: Button Hunter Friesen The work of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (try saying that five times fast) has never fully been able to register with audiences outside of the festival circuit. He has amassed universal critical acclaim since he graced the Cannes Riviera in 2004 with Tropical Malady . He creates gaps between his feature films by creating several short films, some of which eventually spawned into feature-length films, such as the 2009 short A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, becoming the 2010 Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives . Now in 2021, Weerasethakul is stepping outside of his native Thailand for Memoria (translated from the Latin word “memory”), which prompted another return to Cannes, this time netting him the Jury Prize. The first English-language film for Weerasethakul, Memoria, is set in Colombia, following Tilda Swinton from destination to destination. The film opens with a surprising jumpscare illustrating our main character’s problem, which is that she often hears a loud crashing noise that seems to be confined entirely within her head. This noise confounds her, leading to an investigation into what exactly it is and why it is happening, which puts her in contact with a sound engineering student, a morgue doctor, and a strange fisherman offering profound insights on memory and identity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDU6B93ltds Those familiar with the work of Weerasethakul will know that the plot is not the driving force behind the ultimate narrative. Instead, the visuals and sound work do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Within Memoria , dialogue is seldom found for long stretches at a time, leaving the viewer to look at the screen like one would look at a painting, soaking in as much information as possible. This restriction of information will irritate those looking for answers to the questions the film raises, which Weerasethakul doesn’t have any intention of addressing. The Cannes World Premiere garnered nearly fifty walkouts from disgruntled viewers, and several nodding heads from the slow pacing that were often reawakened by the mysterious crashing noise, which shook the theatre. Swinton acts less like a character and more like a wandering observer. Never shot in closeup and always present in the world around her, she moves from place to place, learning new information about her condition, all without much dialogue from her end. The first half of the film is where Swinton does most of her traveling, which keeps the film moving at a steady, yet still slow, pace. Much of the “action” within these journeys would be considered filler in most mainstream projects, such as Swinton waiting patiently for the sound engineer to finish his work before addressing her, or an unbroken take consisting solely of car alarms going off. The last hour of the film is where some will applaud, and others will boo (just as they did at the world premiere). Swinton’s final journey takes her to a remote village housing a fisherman who claims to remember everything about his life. The two of them engage in an extended conversation that explores the strange connection they share. To an extent, the conversation acts as a vessel for Weerasethakul to talk to his audience about his ideas about cinema and life. It’s a bold move by a director not known for boldness, and it reshapes the way you look at the world at its best, and teeters on self-aggrandizing at its worst. Weerasethakul ties his thesis up in a perfect bow with an ultimate answer that is fittingly incomprehensible and produces several more questions. Memoria is a work for the cinephiles who need an escape from the noise of the modern world. It’s wildly beautiful and imaginative, all while challenging your patience and viewpoints. Go in with an open mind, and you find yourself enlightened. This review was originally published from the world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release Memoria in select theaters on December 26th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Alien: Romulus August 14, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen With each passing year, the meeting scene from The Matrix Resurrections gets more and more prescient. Focus group research, marketing trends, brand imaging, and keyword association are the tools of the trade nowadays, especially when you’re working with a franchise as long in the tooth as Alien . It’s not hard to imagine what was yuppied around the 20th Century corporate office when devising the concept for Romulus , which essentially serves as a grab bag of all the recognizable (and liked) aspects of the previous movies. It had to have a Xenomorph skulking around the pitch-black corridors of a steel-trap spaceship. It had to have a face hugger, which would eventually lead to someone’s chest bursting open. While people weren’t generally fans of Prometheus or Alien: Covenant , they did enjoy Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of a calculating android companion, so that also has to be an element. There also needs to be a woman in a tank top running around with a gun, and a bunch of crew members that become more expendable as the movie goes on. However enthusiastically co-writer/director Fede Álvarez goes about ticking off all these boxes on his studio-mandated to-do list, there is always the feeling that he’s bowling with the bumpers on. It’s hard to truly appreciate a strike (or, in this case, a modest spare) when the risk of rolling a gutter ball was never there to begin with. But after quite a few missteps in the nearly forty years since the original Alien and Aliens , the thought of “playing it safe” should come as no surprise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzY2r2JXsDM There are also no surprises in the methodology Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues employ to move our central characters into the claustrophobic spaceship housing the most terrifying life form in the universe. Five young individuals have been born and raised in a mining colony, none of them ever laying eyes on the sun. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her android brother Andy (David Jonsson) have been continually denied permission to leave the planet on account of corporate greed and malfeasance. When a deserted station is found floating right above their heads by some of her fellow poverty-stricken friends, Rain reluctantly sees it as the escape opportunity she’s always been denied. From there, we discover that this station was not abandoned willingly, but taken over by force by an unknown killing machine. Production designer Naaman Marshall does an excellent job of recreating the cold interior through practical means, complete with enough tech to identify the extraterrestrial foe, but never enough to put it down for good. The leisurely pacing of the initial half instantly ramps up once blood and guts start spilling, with Álvarez leaning on his visceral skills from his 2013 Evil Dead remake to make you squirm in your seat. Bones crunch loudly as limbs become unattached, and creaks and groans occupy every corner of the ship as the aliens lurk around waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The thought of this original being planned for a Hulu release is almost as sickening, as no home could compare to the sensory-deprived fear you get from the cinema. For both good and bad reasons, “for the fans” would be the correct way to define the energy that Álvarez instills within every moment. Homages, callbacks, and blatant winks occupy much of the foreground and background, creating an unavoidable stench of desperation as the studio hopes your Pavlovian responses kick in at the sight of franchise favorites. A certain famous phrase is reintroduced for climactic effect, although the context of the moment instills more groans than cheers. The young cast hold their own against the decades-old trapping they’re up against. Spaeny has become one of the most dependable young actresses working today, with her work in Civil War marking quite the impressive double bill this year. While androids don’t figuratively possess a soul, Jonsson brilliantly finds the compassion necessary for Andy. He is, without a doubt, the highlight of the film, fully living up to the robotic work that Ian Holm and Michael Fassbender previously did within the franchise. Romulus doesn’t have the benefit of being ambitious, which is why it can count itself lucky for executing well on its surface-level objectives. Ridley Scott’s last two ventures into this universe may have been better for its overall health, but this provides the much-needed steroid for it to continue at all. 20th Century Studios will release Alien: Romulus in theaters nationwide on August 16th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Bad Times at the El Royale October 25, 2018 By: Button Hunter Friesen A priest, a singer, a vacuum salesman, and a drifter walk into a hotel. They all have a story and need a room for a specific reason, but only one of them is telling the truth. Each one is untrusting of the other and plans out how to survive the night as a severe storm moves in. Then enters a crazy cult leader who wants to exact revenge on the one who wronged him. With five seedy characters and a suspicious bellhop, a one-night stay at the El Royale may come with a fatal price. Bad Times is directed by Drew Goddard, who previously directed and wrote the comedy/horror The Cabin in the Woods and wrote the screenplay for The Martian. Goddard does well at directing this film. He does make some mistakes from time to time, but they aren’t too severe. The first of his mistakes comes from the pacing and overall length of the film. The 141-minute runtime is weird, as the film felt like it could easily have been cut to two hours or justifiably stretched to three hours. This is due to some areas of the story being dragged on more than needed to be, and some areas not getting as much attention. The first act of the film slowly builds up each separate character with their backstory and motives. Then the second wizzes by, and the third needlessly slows everything back down again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7wzBVARwaU Goddard does do good work with the camera as he gives the film a dark washed overtone to match the 60s era feel. He also uses a wide array of camera techniques to tell the layered story. Some scenes are played out multiple times from different angles to convey each character's viewpoint. There is also a hefty amount of symbolism and thematic imagery within each frame that pushes the narrative along without the use of words. One scene that really stands out is a seven-minute tracking shot where the camera follows one character as they go room by room and spy on the others. It’s a suspenseful sequence that gives a good amount of insight into each character in a short span of time. Along with directing, Goddard also serves as the sole writer for the original story. He divides the film into chapters based on the room a certain character is staying in. The technique works well to distribute time to develop each character. Not everyone gets equal time, but everyone gets enough to make them important to the overall narrative. The intersection of many different characters’ stories leads to the script being filled with lots of fun twists and surprises that continually come out of nowhere. Some of them are predictable once revealed, but many aren’t and keep you on the edge of your seat. There are some plot holes and untidy loose ends that are quite obvious near the end. However, they really don't harm the quality of the story and are more of an afterthought. Bad Times boasts a sizeable and star-studded cast. Most of the actors fare well, with some doing better than others. Jeff Bridges does pretty well as the elderly priest looking for a little vacation. Bridges is able to make his character believably evil as well as have a sympathetic heart. It’s not his best work, but nowhere near his worst. Cynthia Erivo is the best out of the cast as she plays the singer making her way to a gig in Reno. She provides her own voice to the role and confidently takes charge of each scene. Dakota Johnson and Jon Hamm kind of just skate through and don’t provide any real defining moments. They’re not bad, but it feels like anyone could have filled the roles. Lastly, Chris Hemsworth does good work as the Jesus-like cult leader who likes to preach with his shirt open. Hemsworth brings both his comedic and dramatic skills together and creates an uneasy character that keeps the suspense high throughout. Bad Times at the El Royale is a fun thriller that tells a complex story enjoyably. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but minor mistakes aren’t enough to ruin the overall product. In a fall season full of heavy films trying to send a message, it feels good to have a film that only wants its audience to sit down and have a good time. 20th Century Fox will release Bad Times at the El Royale in theaters nationwide on October 12th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Uncharted February 21, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen In terms of adapting a video game to film, Uncharted should have been the easiest one yet. The cinematic sequences are all there, from the plane ejection and sinking cruise ship in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception , to the train sequence in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves . These levels contained some of the most impressive moments in video game history, with the sound and visuals delivering enough excitement to please even the most adventurous of spirits. Even though it seemed like a slam dunk on paper, publisher Sony struggled for years to get a film adaptation off the ground. They tried to get the ball rolling in 2008, only a year after the first game in the series was released. Things stagnated for a while until The Fighter and American Hustle writer/director David O. Russell was announced to be helming the project in 2010. In hindsight, Russell was an odd choice, and both parties were better off going their separate ways. Little did Sony know that Russell would only be the first of six directors to be attached to the project before leaving shortly after. Eventually, in 2017, Tom Holland was announced for the lead role of Nathan Drake, with Mark Wahlberg, the original choice for Nathan back in the Russell days, playing his older partner, Sully. Zombieland and Venom director Ruben Fleischer came aboard, and the film was finally completed after a decade of turmoil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHp3MbsCbMg And yet after all this time, I still would much rather play the Uncharted games a second time than watch the Uncharted movie again. Working as a mix-and-match of different story elements within the game series, Uncharted starts with the street-smart orphan Nathan Drake working at a bar. There, he meets Sully, who offers to make Nathan his partner in a search for lost Spanish pirate gold worth nearly $5 billion. Also on the hunt for the treasure is Santiago Moncada, an heir to the family that funded the pirates’ expedition, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. From there, the two parties bounce off each other in their hunt, which takes them from New York to Barcelona to the Philippines. Except it’s obvious that much of this movie never took place in any of those locations, with dubious green screening utilized as a cheap shortcut. The Uncharted games were often seen as the video game equivalent of the Indiana Jones series, with the bonus that Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End was a great fourth entry, while Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gets worse the more that hindsight allows. Both those series made great use of locations, taking the audience around the world on death-defying journeys. 2022’s Uncharted doesn’t have that authentic feeling of adventure, as everything is kept bottled up. The characters in the film are in disbelief at what’s happening, but we, as the audience, feel none of that. It’s all weightless and formulaic, plodding from one beat to the next. What saves Uncharted from being a total trainwreck is the relative likability of its cast. No one can argue that Tom Holland has been one of, if not the best, portrayals of Spider-Man. But the jury is still out on whether he can carry a film outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s had little success over the years, shedding his boyish looks in streaming titles such as The Devil All the Time or Cherry . Even if that same boyishness makes Holland a bit of a miscast, his charm and banterous chemistry with Wahlberg keep the film light on its toes. As far as video game adaptations go, Uncharted is one of the better ones if the bar it has to jump over is generously low. It makes for a slightly amusing two hours, with nothing exceptional to make it stick once the credits roll. If you have more time to spare, I’d recommend playing the games. But if you only have two hours, you could do worse than seeing this. Sony Pictures Releasing will release Uncharted in theaters nationwide on February 18th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

I Saw the TV Glow May 13, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen I couldn't tell what feelings I was experiencing while watching I Saw the TV Glow , but I can definitely tell you I was feeling something . There was terror, bewilderment, wonder, curiosity, nostalgia, and some sort of feeling of childhood innocence. And yet there was none of those things, at least in the forms I’d expected or had experienced before. I stared at the screen with the same hypnotized energy as the main characters watching their favorite show, The Pink Opaque . Was I liking what I was watching, and did it even make sense? I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know now. But I can’t get it out of my head, and that’s what’s most important. It all started in the late ‘90s, an era where the only things to watch were what was on TV at the time you were flipping through the channels. For seventh-grader Owen (played by Ian Foreman in the younger years, and Justice Smith when he’s older), everything is just a series of unmemorable images and noise. There’s something off about him, and it’s not just some childhood mood phase. He’s on a conveyor belt going through life, never interacting with anything or anyone. That is, until he stumbles upon a show called The Pink Opaque airing on the Young Adult Network (this movie’s version of The CW Network). It’s a Buffy-esque teen drama about two girls with psychic powers fighting a monster-of-the-week, with the big bad guy named Mr. Melancholy looming throughout the seasons. The show speaks to him, yet he doesn’t exactly know what it’s saying. He just knows that he can’t live without hearing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymDzCgPwj0 Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun understands the allure of a fictional piece of art to kids of a certain age. Every adolescent has some inner holes they feel like they need to fill, but don’t know how, and there’s nothing more powerful than plugging them with some special work that’s just your own. I could go into lengths about how much The Walking Dead meant to me as a 12-year-old middle schooler. Of course, millions of other people watched that show at its height, but the fact that I had to secretly watch it under the covers with my Kindle was something that made it mine. For Owen, The Pink Opaque is a show geared towards older kids that airs after his bedtime, meaning he has to sneak out of the house to watch it. There’s a thrill to the danger of being caught, and an indescribable satisfaction to the amount of work that needs to be done to get yourself in the right place at the right time. It’s the hidden price we pay through streaming, as everything feels just a little less special when you can have it whenever you want. Owen’s haven for the show is the home of Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a ninth-grader who’s probably the show’s biggest fan. The show acts as a coping mechanism as they deal with her abusive stepdad and the overall shittiness high schoolers direct toward those who don’t align with their rigid constructs of gender and sexuality. Despite their opposite sexualities, I Saw the TV Glow is a love story for Owen and Maddy, with Smith and Lundy-Paine wonderfully selling the sense of belonging they desire from each other. Those Saturday nights in Maddy’s basement were the only moments they had to be their true selves. Also mixed within this incredibly unique cocktail are some unsettling sequences and imagery. I know it’s a clichéd comparison to make, but there’s a Lynchian quality to all of it. This is not a horror movie, nor are there any scenes with the sole intention to scare you, yet some moments chilled me to the bone. Much of it comes from Schoenbrun’s willingness to keep everything understated and shrouded in mystery, even if the inability to provide clear answers leaves a little much left on the table. But it also comes with excellent production qualities within the film and the fictional show. The ‘90s low-budget aesthetic of The Pink Opaque is authentically recreated, with the creature design warranting the Oscar recognition that these types of films never get. Schoenbrun made their name with the 2021 feature We’re All Going to the World’s Fair , a seminal work on creepypastas and underground internet culture. While its release during the pandemic definitely enhanced its aspects of loneliness, it also caused it to be sucked into the vortex of obscurity like so many other independent projects. Thankfully, I Saw the TV Glow doesn’t have those dire circumstances swirling around it and is being handled by A24, meaning there’s no excuse not to check this out. A24 will release I Saw the TV Glow in select theaters on May 03rd, followed by a nationwide expansion on May 17th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Greta March 7, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen Frances McCullen is a recent graduate trying to make ends meet in New York City. She shares an apartment with her best friend Erica and works as a waitress at an upscale restaurant. One day, while riding the subway, Frances spots a handbag that has 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 has passed, 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAEoJkL_8zU 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 well. 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 they’re 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 make up 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. Focus Features will release Greta in theaters nationwide on March 01st. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Nobody 2 August 13, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen The perennially undervalued Bob Odenkirk finally got the cinematic starring role he deserved with 2021’s Nobody . The slick and entertaining action flick saw Odenkirk take his Saul Goodman charm and channel it towards one of the most fatherly roles since J.K. Simmons in Juno . Only, this time, this dad kicks some serious ass. It likely caused a burst of inspiration for many dads around the country to get a little more fit. Seeing something as bad as Nobody 2 in 2025 made me question why I liked the original so much, especially when the DNA is nearly identical. Was it actually that good, or was I just so starved for movie star action vehicles during the pandemic that I lapped up any crumbs that were offered? Answering that question would require a rewatch, something I’m far less inclined to do now that this would-be franchise has imploded with its second step. As part of the showdown in the first film, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), a self-described nobody, burned the entire cash fortune of the Russian mafia he got violently tangled with. Doing so put Hutch in a seemingly never-ending debt that must be paid off by performing missions for a shadow organization that offered him and his family a new life. Days turned into weeks, which then turned into months. Monotony starts to set in, with each member of the family drifting down their separate paths. As a way to momentarily break this cycle and potentially motivate himself to leave this line of work, Hutch decides to take the family on a vacation to the same water park his dad took him to as a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5X2pt95cIo There’s an inverse relationship between how much you force yourself to have fun on a vacation and the amount you actually have. Just ask Clark Griswold and his perilous journey to Wally World. The same happens here in the Wisconsin town of Plummerville, with the ego-tripping cops and local crime syndicate putting too much of a squeeze on Hutch’s quick trigger of a temper. One thing leads to another, and he has to shoot and stab his way out of another sticky situation. Creatively, there’s nothing here that wasn’t already covered in the first film. Hutch’s wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen), wants him to get out of the game and keep a cooler head. Despite his best efforts, he always makes things worse. Screenwriters Derek Kolstad and Aaron Rabin talk out of both sides of their mouths as they bemoan the cycle of violence, yet revel in the carnage. The slighting of his daughter by a jerk at the arcade gives enough justification for us to cheer as Hutch destroys the building and assaults everyone inside. Kolstad is the brains behind the John Wick franchise, so this hypocrisy comes as no surprise. But as that franchise side-stepped that pitfall with absurdly ornate worldbuilding and interesting characters, the Nobody films can only muster generic scenarios and even more generic villains. Sharon Stone’s performance as crime boss Lendina ranges from bad, so bad it’s good, to embarrassingly bad. We know that she’s unhinged by how she sweet-talks her dog while ordering the slaughter of innocent people, and then later dancing for no discernible reason. If you’re going to take inspiration from The Joker, don’t make it Jared Leto’s version. Director Timo Tjahjanto has helmed some of my favorite modern action films. Titles like Headshot , The Night Comes for Us , and last year’s The Shadow Strays are packed to the brim with extravagantly choreographed carnage delivered by Indonesian talent far more committed and capable than their American counterparts. Odenkirk gives it his all, but his inherent physical limitations force Tjahjanto to hold back on his signature flair, staging set pieces that never eclipse being more than good enough. At least Christopher Lloyd cranking a Gatling gun into hordes of faceless goons is quite a sight. Those isolated moments are few and far between, drowned under an ocean of moments just as basic as the cover versions of the songs that line up the soundtrack. Universal Pictures will release Nobody 2 in theaters nationwide on August 15th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Black Adam October 21, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen What do you get when you take Dwayne Johnson, Hollywood’s most formulaic leading man, and a superhero movie, Hollywood’s most formulaic genre, and mix them? That’s right! You get one of the most formulaic, forgettable, ugly, unnecessary, unfunny, and tiring movies of the year. At this point, I have to give the DC Extended Universe some credit because it takes some true skill to be this consistently bad on such a large scale. Universal Studios at least had the humility to abandon its Dark Universe after the catastrophe that was The Mummy . But Warner Brothers has chugged along with the DCEU, hitting every obstacle on their way to the finish line, which they seem to be pushing further away with each new film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tOpBuYasI Let’s get this over with, shall we? Our story opens in the exposition-filled land of ancient Kahndaq, a fictional Middle Eastern country where everything shines through an oppressive gray filter. The people are enslaved by their tyrannical king, who is hellbent on crafting the MacGuffin known as the Crown of Sabbac, which will give him the powers of the underworld. After a revolt is led against him, the mad ruler kills all that he deems a threat, which includes Teth-Adam (Johnson) and his family. We fast-forward 5,000 years and are introduced to Adrianna, an archaeologist trying to find the lost crown so that it won’t fall into the wrong hands. After her mission is ambushed, she awakens Teth-Adam, whose life was spared by the all-powerful wizards of Shazam! , who also bestowed upon him godlike powers. Disoriented after his slumber, Teth-Adam unleashes his revenge, which attracts the attention of The Justice Society, led by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan). Black Adam is the closest that a superhero movie has come to a Godzilla movie, as nearly 80% of the runtime is all-powerful beings beating the crap out of each other. But unlike Adam Wingard, who was able to bring some ingenuity to the guilty pleasure that was Godzilla vs. Kong , director Jaume Collet-Serra restricts the action to playing out the same way each time. Big hits are landed, and the theater shakes from the sound effects, but nothing is actually felt. And don’t get me started on the “humor.” On second thought, let’s get into it. Outside of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad , the DCEU is not known for having a funny bone. And even with that low bar, Black Adam sinks to the bottom with dozens of lame attempts to lighten the mood. Adrianna’s son, Amon (played by the way too eager Bodhi Sabongui), acts as the John Connor to Black Adam’s T-800, guiding him through this new age of heroes and villains. Two of those new heroes are Atom Smasher and Cyclone, whose personalities get brushed under the rug in favor of bad quips. To be honest, I’ve lost track of who’s in and who’s out, and what is actually going on in the DCEU. It’s just a bunch of noise, eroding my brain two hours at a time. Black Adam seems to have done the most damage because it’s going to take me a long time to recover from this dreck. For the love of god, burn it all down. Warner Bros. Pictures will release Black Adam in theaters nationwide on October 21st. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen 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 for Madeleine Swann, the 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 duty by playing as a direct sequel to Spectre , but also the final bow on the whole modern Bond era. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIhNsAtPbPI 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 who 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, 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 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 wink and a nod to what could be in store for this long-weathered franchise. United Artists Releasing will release No Time to Die in theaters nationwide on October 08th. More Reviews The Super Mario Galaxy Movie March 31, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Drama April 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Project Hail Mary March 10, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice March 25, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen