Search Results

Jojo Rabbit November 14, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen If you’re going to make a movie about the Nazis, you better make sure it’s going to be good. Multiply that rule by infinity if you’re going to make it a comedy. Because of this strict rule, only a select few have been able to take the greatest human atrocity of the modern era and turn it into a joke. Charlie Chaplin did it in 1940 with The Great Dictator (although he wasn’t fully aware of the horrors), followed by Roberto Benigni with Life is Beautiful in 1998. Now in 2019, Taika Waititi has added his name to that illustrious list with his newest film, Jojo Rabbit . Set in the waning months of World War II, this “anti-hate satire” follows the life of Jojo Betzler, a young boy growing up in the Hitler Youth. His patriotism runs so high Adolf Hitler himself acts as his imaginary friend. One day, Jojo discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa in their walls. This bewilders the boy, putting him in a quandary over what to do with his foreign guest. With an enemy in his home, Jojo must confront his nationalistic ideals and learn for himself what truly lies within the people he was born to hate. Apart from a few problems structurally and tonally, Jojo Rabbit is near faultlessly helmed by New Zealand native and Thor: Ragnarok director, Taika Waititi. From the often symmetric shot composition to the sumptuous production design, Jojo Rabbit is the most Wes Anderson-esque film that Wes Anderson didn’t direct. It does feel like Waititi is copying a little too hard from time to time, but the distinct whimsical style he employs effortlessly immerses the audience into the satirical world. Aiding this immersion, Waititi does what he knows best and interweaves comedy with drama as he pokes fun at the Nazis while also using them as a smaller target for his much grander message. That message is of peace and love, which can be authentically found within this story, especially in the interactions between Jojo and Elsa. A negative side effect of Waititi’s fluent directing is that it makes his middling writing stick it like a sore thumb. His risque plot eventually gets boiled down to a slightly over-simplistic message that isn’t able to land its punches as hard as it should. Weirdly, it all feels a little too safe for this kind of setting with these types of characters. The film also starts to lose its way around the middle third as a few of its many ideas and characters get lost in the shuffle. A few reveals are shocking, but only because not enough time was put into them to make us believe they were important enough in the first place. Even with these problems looming throughout the runtime, the script does have its shining individual moments. The slapstick one-liners mostly all land and the heart-tugging dramatic lines do hit close to home. With an assembled all-star cast, Jojo Rabbit is filled with great performances from A-list stars and fresh discoveries. The biggest hidden treasure that has been unearthed is the talent of Roman Griffin Davis. In his first-ever role, Davis perfectly translates his precocious character from the page to the screen. The future will be deservedly bright for him. Young star Thomasin McKenzie also does excellent work as Elsa. She already made a name for herself with last year’s Leave No Trace and her role here further solidifies her strong track record. Scarlett Johansson plays Rosie, Jojo’s sympathetic mother who takes in Elsa for hiding. Away from her usual Marvel role, this may be Johansson’s best work in years as she is both hilarious and endearing. In more purely comedic roles, Taikia Waittiti and Sam Rockwell are a blast as Adolf Hitler and Captain Kenzendorf, respectively. Taking the horrors of humanity and turning it into a comedic moral lesson is no small feat, especially when you target the worst of the worst. So even with his struggles here and there, immense credit should go to Waititi as he has crafted one of the better films of the year and made something that will be timeless in its message and morals. 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

Poitier and Hoffman: The Dueling Kings of 1967 Hollywood February 23, 2023 By: Hunter Friesen In all the years that cinema has been alive, 1967 is undoubtedly one of the most pivotal. After years of jealousy towards the European model of thinking, America finally opened itself up to a new wave of filmmaking, one heralded by auteurs who subscribed to the ideas of new sentimentality. Films such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate spoke to the younger audience of American cinema, offering exploration into forbidden topics such as sex, violence, and social change. Even though these films made their mark both critically and financially, it did not mean the death of old sentimentality in film, quite the contrary. In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner both were nominated for Best Picture that year, with the former taking home the prize. These two films appealed to the older generation through their use of star power and production values. What’s most striking about the dichotomy between these two sets of films is the leading men at the center of them. On one side sits Dustin Hoffman; a short (only standing 5’5”) aloof brown-haired boy. On the other side is Sidney Poitier, who stands tall at 6’2” and is both exceedingly handsome and elegant. Both of these actors represented different generations of cinema and were hugely important in the turning point of 1967. Dustin Hoffman had no screen presence before being cast in The Graduate . He had no major previous roles and did not possess the classic movie star looks such as the blonde hair of Robert Redford and Paul Newman or the towering charisma of Warren Beatty. Hoffman was of Jewish descent, which could be easily discerned from his looks, making him even more of an outsider to his contemporaries. Director Mike Nichols saw something in Hoffman, an opportunity to use Hoffman’s “flaws” to tell a more authentic story to a younger audience growing tired of Hollywood perfectionism. In The Graduate , Benjamin’s detachment from every aspect of life is something that connects with younger viewers. In 1967, the Vietnam War was still raging, and the American optimism that had been so prevalent since World War II had started to wane. Kids didn’t have their entire futures planned out and were starting to see the flaws within American society. Because of Hoffman and The Graduate , no longer does the main character have to have a goal to achieve or a lover to swoon over. Instead, they can be aimless and enter into an adulterous relationship with an older woman. This performance spurred Hoffman’s career further, with equally down & dirty roles in Midnight Cowboy and Straw Dogs just a few years later. Sidney Poitier, on the other hand, was, through his involvement in the projects, a proponent of old sentimentality in Hollywood. Where Hoffman’s popularity was beginning to boom, Poitier’s reached its peak and would soon come crashing down. His roles in both In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner shined a light on race relations within America but did it through the old lens of conventionalism. Of course, a black man leading a Best Picture winner and garnering acclaim for his performance isn’t something to shortchange. But Poitier played by Hollywood’s rules, playing stoic, calm, and poignant men that appealed to a generation that stood for professionalism and the status quo. In the Heat of the Night has Poitier play Virgil Tibbs, who solves a murder case in the deep south and confronts the town’s ideals through his merit as a detective and ability to withstand undeserved ridicule. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , Poitier is John Prentice, seemingly the world’s greatest doctor who rests the solution to his marital problem in the hands of Spencer Tracy, one of the great screen legends of the past. While both these roles allowed Poitier to address social change in intermittent radical ways, such as his retaliatory slap against Endicott and his fiery speech about thinking of himself not as a colored man, but just a man. Both of these movies portrayed the white savior narrative that had grown out of favor among the younger generation. Unlike Hoffman, Poitier’s appeal was, ironically, only to the people that had been holding him back all those years, and not to the people who were looking to create change within the nation and Hollywood system. This is why Poitier never stayed at the same level post-1967, as New Hollywood emerged and the old conventions started to die off, both literally and figuratively. Both Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Poiter were exciting actors for an exciting time in American cinema. Through their physical and personality traits, they appealed to different sets of ideals within the American psyche at a time when both sides came to a crossroads. 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

Gemini Man October 17, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen Henry Brogan (Will Smith) is the most elite assassin the U.S. government has ever had. He has 72 confirmed kills and is even able to hit a target on a moving train from over two kilometers away. Disillusioned and fatigued from years of killing, Henry decides to put it all away for a quiet retirement. Unfortunately for him, the life he’s lived the past few decades doesn’t just go away. After figuring out some dark secrets about his last job, Henry is betrayed by his government and made an enemy of the state. Knowing that Brogan is the best there ever was, the government decides to send their most valuable asset, Gemini; a direct clone of Brogan that “possesses all his strengths without his pain.”Pitted against a seemingly perfect version of himself, Henry must go on the run and fight to clear his name. Directed by two-time Academy Award winner Ang Lee, Gemini Man is both a marvel and a tragedy on a technical level. Repeating the technique he used in his previous feature Billy Lyn’s Long Halftime Walk , Lee uses a frame rate of 120 frames per second, five times more than the traditional 24. This results in a give-and-take situation where the technology grants unparalleled picture quality at the expense of your eyeballs. The glorious images become physically hard to watch and induce headaches, especially when paired with 3D. Another technical innovation that Lee incorporates is the use of de-aging on 51-year-old Will Smith to allow him to play the 23-year-old clone. Just like the frame rate, this technique has its ups and downs. During the early and darker-lit scenes, the effects look great and don’t cause any distraction. Near the end of the film is when things start to slide downhill. Scenes taking place in the daylight show off the imperfections in facial movements. The final scene is the most guilty as the effects are laughably atrocious and make the clone look more like a character from “The Polar Express” than an actual living human. And even with these technical innovations, Lee still isn’t able to make full use of them in the action set pieces. The larger shootouts are handled pretty well as they flow together with steady camerawork and tight blocking. The hand-to-hand combat sequences are when Lee loses focus, leaning heavily on the Jason Bourne style of choppy editing and shaky cam. It becomes hard to tell what’s going on and who’s winning a fight, especially since the two Will Smith characters look and dress exactly alike. With three credited screenwriters and countless that have come and gone over the years, the script for Gemini Man is a mess that feels like it was ripped straight from the 1990s. That feeling is fitting since the screenplay was first written in 1997 and seems to have never been updated. It is heavily laden with cliches and hammy dialogue that are impossible to recover from despite the cast’s best efforts. The plot is pretty simple on paper, but on film, it's a confusing mess. It’s a strain to keep all the facts straight and follow the reasoning for anything to happen. There’s also a lack of humanity and character development. Will Smith does his best in his dual roles, but the writing gives him nothing to work with. By the end, most characters are just shells of a person. As noted before, Will Smith turns in one of his better performances and does a great job in his dueling roles. As Henry, Smith is closed off and mature. When playing the clone, he’s more vulnerable. Even with writing’s severe limitations on what he can do, Smith can sell you on the idea that these are two separate characters. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as Dani, Henry’s sidekick who’s forced to join him on the run. Winstead does a nice job as a companion to Smith. Unfortunately, she also falls prey to the writing and gets saddled with a cliched backstory and overly expository dialogue. Lastly, Clive Owen plays Verris, the leader of the Gemini Project and the supposed villain of the film. I say supposed because the film never really figured out if he is a bad guy or not. Owen does fine, but mostly because it's a role he’s been playing the last decade in subsequently worse films. Gemini Man is neither a good nor a bad film. Mainly it’s a tech demo that may lead to better films using these innovations in the future. It also teaches a valuable filmmaking lesson: all the bells and whistles money can afford are no match for a good story, which is something this film sorely lacks. 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

Wonka December 13, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Have you ever wanted to know the origin story of Willy Wonka? No? Well too bad! The good chaps on the Warner Bros. executive board needed a four-quadrant product to help boost the Q4 2023 earnings report and good ol’ Willy was the character on the board that the dart landed on. It was either him or Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf. But don’t worry too much, as you might actually enjoy this piece of commerce, as writer/director Paul King of the Paddington films brings enough whimsical charm to make it all go down as smoothly as the titular character’s chocolate. Debts, ledgers, profits, margins, fine print, cartels, bribes, and monopolies. These are the words you would be familiar with finding in a film about The Great Recession or about drug trafficking, not a film about Willy Wonka. But the candy on the island where Willy (Timothée Chalamet) sets his sights on making his fortune might as well be drugs, as it rules over the economy and everyday life of its citizens. The decadent Galeries Gourmet is where you go to sell your chocolate. But you need a shop to legally sell it, and the three main chocolatiers/tycoons - Slugworth, Prodnose, and Fickelgruber - have an iron-clad grip on the trade through police influence and price fixing. “The greedy beat the needy” is the motto of the town’s poor, whom Willy joins when he’s swindled into indentured servitude by the mean laundry woman Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman). This all sounds a bit depressing, doesn’t it? There’s a clear Dickensian feel to everything, with King and co-writer Simon Farnaby never shying away from the darkness that often appears in Roald Dahl’s stories. Willy is an orphan just like Noodle (Calah Lane), a young girl Mrs. Scrubbit took in as a baby and forced to be her eternal personal servant. The one thing Willy has that sets him apart is his optimism, which he often lets out through some jovial songs. The marketing department at WB may not have wanted you to know that this was a musical, but King and Chalamet are more than ready to knock your socks off through the power of showmanship. The songs are not all hits as Chalamet acts like a kid on a high school stage, speaking out to the crowd with glee. His version of Willy veers a little closer to Johnny Depp than Gene Wilder, packing enough mystery into his abilities that you sometimes wonder if he’s even human. Paddington alums Sally Hawkins and Hugh Grant followed King over here, with the former playing Wonka’s deceased mother and the latter an Oompa Loompa. It’s hard to look away from Grant as the four-foot-tall green-haired creature on account of his inherent charm and the awkwardness of his face being superimposed on a CG creation. It’s only about two steps better than what Corey Stoll got as MODOK in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania back in February. There’s also a bevy of likable supporting players like Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, and Rowan Atkinson as Father Julius, the leader of a group of corrupt monks who guard the stolen chocolate for the cartel. Paul King’s Wonka is possibly the best version of such a depressingly deep-rooted concept. It’s harmless, regularly fun, and offers a little something for both kids and adults. It doesn’t have the rewatchability of the 1971 original, but it’s got a lot more than Tim Burton’s crazed (and sometimes underappreciated) 2005 remake. 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

Enola Holmes 2 November 1, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen Can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the title of the Enola Holmes sequel is simply Enola Holmes 2 ? In this day and age, studios seem to be allergic to putting numbers in their titles. It happened to the John Wick series, which inexplicably felt the need to tack on the Parabellum subtitle for the third chapter. Based on the quality of the series, the barrage of subtitles makes it damn near impossible to remember all of them or keep them straight. I’ll bet anyone a billion dollars that they can’t sequentially order the Resident Evil films. I’d also place the same bet for someone to properly explain to me why Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't have a colon. Thankfully, the producers of Enola Holmes 2 (which includes star Millie Bobby Brown) felt that it would be better for everyone if they just used a number to denote this newest edition to the franchise. It’s a doubly impressive move considering that each of the books in the Enola Holmes series contains subtitles, so there were ample options to pick from. It’s just a shame the simplicity of the title doesn’t translate to the story within, which falters from a hurried script that tries to do too much at nearly every turn. Leaping right from where its predecessor left off, Enola Holmes 2 finds the titular character opening her own detective agency. Unfortunately, she still lives in the shadow of her famous older brother, who makes the headlines every time he cracks an “unsolvable” case. Just as she’s about to pack up and head back home in failure, a young girl comes knocking at Enola’s door. Her dear friend from the match factory has gone missing, and foul play seems to be involved. After some digging, the clues surrounding Enola’s case have an alarming connection to that of Sherlock’s newest mystery, which, for the first time in his life, is beyond his comprehension. Despite their reluctance to accept help, the siblings agree to pair up, sending them on a deadly game throughout the highs and lows of Industrial Age London. Enola Holmes 2 brings the whole gang back together, which includes stars Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill, as well as director Harry Bradbeer and writer Jack Thorne. Along with her role in Stranger Things , Brown continues to climb as a movie star. She brings excellent energy to the role, including Fleabag -inspired fourth wall breaks and numerous improvised quips. The real mystery is how she hasn’t been gobbled up by the MCU machine at this point. But that’s one I’d like to remain unsolved. Cavill maintains his moniker as the hunkiest Sherlock to date. He’s been promoted from supporting to an almost co-lead, making room for some unnecessary scenes where we learn more about Sherlock’s psyche, which we’ve already covered numerous times across novels, plays, television, and film. That inclusion of more Sherlock is just one of the many symptoms of the sequel-itis that Enola Holmes 2 suffers from. Introductions to more new characters, including one played by David Thewlis in his millionth “creepy British guy” role, and returning old characters make for a crammed cast. Also crammed is the story, which features too many subplots and stops along the way to the final destination. It’s all amusing but can often get quite tiring. Enola Holmes 2 exemplifies the old adage that more is not always better. Thankfully, the overabundance of charm and style makes its nearly 130-minute runtime go by without much bother. For the next one, let’s hope they focus on quality rather than quantity. 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 Fall Guy May 1, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen “A love letter to stunt actors” has been the overused line to promote The Fall Guy , directed by former stuntman David Leitch, who’s now become a Hollywood action staple behind the camera ( Deadpool 2 , Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Bullet Train ). While it’s a true statement in the emotional sense, with Leitch obviously showing great respect and pride for the craft and people that make it happen, the actual events within the film, many of them using stunts in service of lame action set pieces, make it as much a love letter to stunt actors as Madame Web is to paramedics and The Batman is to detectives. There was an opportunity in the beginning for The Fall Guy to keep its sights set on those it so desperately wants to be paraded by, but Drew Pearce’s (writer of Hobbs & Shaw ) script always finds a way to take the road that’s been traveled by every other action blockbuster in this era. Things start with stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) working on the set of another major action vehicle for global superstar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Stuntmen are supposed to be the invisible heroes, but Colt becomes the most famous one in the world after he’s in an accident that breaks his back. He becomes a loner, essentially leaving Jody (Emily Blunt) at the altar just as their relationship was starting to heat up. He eventually gets lured back years later to help save Jody’s blockbuster directorial debut, MetalStorm , which is essentially a cross of Mad Max and Dune if it was directed by Zack Snyder. Ryder is the star of the picture, but he’s gone missing, so Colt is brought in to perform the stunts and see the film get over the hump. That premise alone should have been more than enough to carry this film. You’ve got romance with Gosling and Blunt sizzling up the screen with their will-they, won’t-they chemistry, and you’ve got action in the form of the stunt work, all of which impresses on a technical level. The early scenes of Gosling (or, to be correct, his stunt man) rolling over in simulated car crashes and being lit on fire do make you appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears required by these brave people to create something out of nothing. It’s just a great shame that Pearce and Leitch decide to limit all that reality-based movie magic to the first act, instead focusing the large majority of the bloated runtime on a weak caper plot about what’s happened to Ryder. The producer of the film, Gail (Hannah Waddingham), has Colt look for him, which gets him mixed up with drug dealers and a horde of goons. A murder conspiracy and lots of shootouts and explosions ensue, yet none of it feels impressive as it continually inches closer to implausibility. Sure, it’s all part of the summer blockbuster fun, but it’s also hard to take this movie’s message about the realities of stunt work seriously when our protagonist is an indestructible superhero who surfs a highway on a shovel while dodging bullets, and the big stunt salute is just a poorly choreographed big-team brawl. Also feeding into the feelings of overindulgence is now clichéd meta banter Gosling and Blunt frequently engage in. Both of them are great performers who have clearly shown their comedic chops (Gosling in Barbie , Blunt in The Devil Wears Prada ), but they’re not working with altogether great material here. More times than not a laugh comes from Gosling or Blunt oozing every bit of charisma they have to make it work, which also inversely makes other attempts at comedy feel oversold. The Fall Guy gets points for having its heart in the right place, but it also gets docked quite a few by failing to put its money where its mouth is. There’s a hard, bland outer shell that prevents us from truly tasting the heartfelt inner core that Leitch thinks the movie is always tapping into. Summer movie season truly is back, but it’s unfortunately starting with more a whimper than a bang. 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

Velvet Buzzsaw February 7, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen The art world can be a cutthroat business or in the case of the film Velvet Buzzsaw , the art world is a business that can literally cut your throat. After a reclusive old man suddenly dies in her apartment building, art assistant Josephina unethically stumbles onto the man’s life work: hundreds of eerie paintings depicting acts of unsettling violence. Seeing this as a golden opportunity to rise up the social ladder, Josephina strikes a deal with her boss, Rhodora, to sell the paintings for vast sums of money. Unbeknownst to the buyers and sellers, the old man intended for all his paintings to be destroyed upon his death. With his final wish going unfulfilled, the cursed paintings take a shape of their own and begin to exact revenge on those who wrongfully profit from them. Directed by Dan Gilroy, Velvet Buzzsaw works across multiple genres as it pokes fun at the art world through a mix of satirical comedy and grotesque horror. Even though this has been done before in many other films, Gilroy does it differently as he entertainingly contradicts the expectations that come with each genre. Instead of being laughed out loud, the observational comedy amusingly bewilders, and the scares are delivered through a bright color palette as opposed to the conventional dark low lighting. Blending genres does make for some great fun throughout, but from time to time the film suffers from it. Gilroy overplays his hand at a few points, leading to some head-scratching moments where the film can’t decide if a scene is supposed to be funny or scary. Shot by veteran cinematographer Robert Elswit, the film also employs some neat camera tricks that keep the story on its toes. Information is steadily given frame by frame as it builds up to a big reveal that flips everything on its head. Both equally ambitious and narrow-minded, Gilroy’s script is quite lackluster when compared to his competent directing. Through an ensemble cavalcade of caricatures, the script satirizes the art industry and tries to prove that money and art don’t actually go hand in hand. This vision is respectable, but the clunkiness of the story and Gilroy’s inability to go outside the box holds it down. The clichéd anthem of “art is for everyone and greed is holding it back.” quickly becomes an overused gimmick by the time the characters start to get their comeuppance. The sheer size of the cast also spreads the message too thin across the main narrative and several subplots, many of whom are needless fillers. While this is a sin on a storytelling level, it is admittingly quite satisfying to watch each character receive a Final Destination -like death. The greatest asset the film boasts is its actors that give life to the crazy characters they inhabit. Reteaming with Gilroy after their fruitful work in Nightcrawler , Jake Gyllenhaal goes all in and is at his campy best as Morf Vandewalt, a renowned critic whose reviews can instantly make or break a career. Also in Nightcrawler , Rene Russo does a great job as Rhodora. She controls each character, and scene, with an iron fist and isn’t afraid to get dirty to make a living. Toni Collette and Zawe Ashton are pretty good as Gretchen and Josephina, respectively. They each give credible performances to their extravagantly unlikable characters. Even though they really don’t serve a purpose to the story, both John Malkovich and Daveed Diggs do good work as two contradicting artists that get caught up in the bloody mess. It probably wasn’t his intention, but Dan Gilroy has made a semi-unoriginal film that tries to make fun of the unoriginal world of high art. However, the unoriginality of the story doesn’t diminish from the amusement that it produces. Now available to stream on Netflix, this comedic slasher could be a good way to kill a couple of hours, especially when at the low cost of free. 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

Barbie July 18, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen In a recent article by The New Yorker , Greta Gerwig stated that “her ambition is to be not the biggest woman director but a big studio director. And Barbie is a piece of I.P. that resonated with her.” Sure, the arthouse crowd could cry foul at losing one of their most longstanding patrons, with Gerwig being most known through the mid-2000s to late 2010s as an entrenched member of the mumblecore movement where young adults vented about their first-world problems (that’s the crass way of defining the genre). From Martin Scorsese to Christopher Nolan, plenty of major filmmakers have started small and then jumped aboard the volatile cruise ship that is the studio system. They’re legends to the public because they can seamlessly find the most comfortable middle ground between art and entertainment. The loss within the independent crowd from Gerwig’s departure is a noble sacrifice, as having her at the helm of tentpole productions is of benefit to the greater good of cinema. Barbie may not find that exact sweet spot like the instant classic blockbusters, but it has just as much of a brain as it does have good ol’ fashioned summer movie season fun, solidifying itself as an achievement of this season. Just as she does in our childlike imaginations, Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in a perfect dream world where the sun shines every day and everyone gets along. The Barbies inhabit and govern the land in perfect harmony, with the Kens (Ryan Gosling being Robbie’s "... and Ken" ) always competing for the attention and affection of their female counterparts. Every day is the same day, that is until Robbie’s Barbie, known as Sterotypical Barbie because of her absolute perfection, starts having thoughts about death and existentialism. This rift is due to a downward mood in the girl that owns Stereotypical Barbie in the real world, as the doll reflects the emotions of the person who plays with her. So Barbie must venture out into our imperfect world, towing Ken along with her. The overall uniqueness of Barbie is no small feat, but it’s also not something that should be viewed as that big of a surprise, especially to those who have paid attention to Gerwig’s tenure as a director. Both the lived-in intimacy of Lady Bird and the modern buoyancy of Little Women are evident here. It’s so apparent how a product so steeped in corporate greed like Barbie could have been a cynical cash grab. Gerwig avoids (most of) those pitfalls, infusing this fish-out-of-water story with reflective takes on feminism, gender roles, and self-worth. There’s the million-dollar question surrounding the whole story: Barbie is perfect so that she can inspire little girls to be perfect at any job they want. But is selling perfection only setting kids up for failure, as we all learn that no one is perfect? The answers Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach (also her husband) give are nothing you haven’t heard before. But just as Triangle of Sadness and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery didn’t have the most original things to say about the ultra-rich last year, the obvious things they were saying have never been said more funnily. Gerwig and Baumbach deliver nonstop laughs with their script, dishing up just as hearty spoonfuls of social commentary. Gosling walks away with the most laughs, as his dim-witted charm and good looks make him the personification of a lost puppy. His role is a purely comedic one, with Robbie commandingly doing the tougher task of balancing the humor and central themes of the movie. She walks and talks like a dream doll, but also finds something deep within the core of her plastic shell. The rest of the large ensemble cast is there for support, with some getting better treatment than others (Kate McKinnon often steals the show as Weird Barbie, but Will Ferrell gets little to do as the Mattell CEO). If 2003’s The Cat in the Hat is the worst case for this sort of candy-coated production, then Barbie is one of the best-case scenarios. Gerwig has kept her directorial winning streak intact and further pushes her status as one of this generation’s leading voices. I’ve got some simple free advice for all the studio heads been facing big blockbuster bombs this summer: invest in Greta Gerwig. 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

Anatomy of a Fall May 26, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Anatomy of a Fall had its World Premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release it in theaters on October 13. An 11-year-old boy named Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) decides to take his dog Snoop for a walk while his parent’s marriage is crumbling in real-time. The family is currently living near the top of the French Alps at the insistence of the husband, far away from anything or anyone. Daniel is legally blind but is still able to get by on his acute hearing and memory. At the end of the walk Snoop bolts for something on the ground, and as the ever-loyal companion that he is, barks to signal Daniel over to investigate. As Daniel feels around he begins to process the reality that the object between his hands and the snow is the lifeless body of his father Samuel (Samuel Theis). Blood begins to stain his hands, as his father’s fatal head wound continues to gush. The cause of death is quite apparent, but how it happened is still a mystery. A suicide by jumping out the top window? An accidental death because of the loose railing on the balcony? Or did the only other person in the house, the embittered wife Sandra (Sandra Hüller), murder her husband? A pile of clues, coincidences, and conjectures point to all three options being a possibility. “I’m innocent. You know that, right?” asks Sandra to Daniel as she’s just about to go on trial. Daniel wants to believe his mother, but at this point, there’s just enough evidence to push him beyond a reasonable doubt. Writer/director Justine Triet, proving that sophomore slump can work in reverse after the so-so response to her 2019 Cannes debut Sibyl , puts us in the same boat as Daniel. The whole puzzle is never revealed, nor are the pieces the same size for each character or audience member. Sometimes pieces change because of new information, and sometimes they change because people want them to, such as the lawyer assigned against Sandra who’s goal is to twist everything she has to stay into a conviction. Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari (also her partner) pack an HBO prestige miniseries into 150 minutes. The twists and turns come without the thrills one would usually expect from the procedural genre, and they can sometimes be a bit circular and used for runtime padding, but they still pack the emotional and physical effect that they should. While not as arty as other recent French courtroom dramas like Saint Omer and The Goldman Case (featuring Harari as a lawyer), the balance here between authentic and theatrical is a breath of fresh air when compared to the by-the-numbers conventions within American film and television. Similar to Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave , also birthed at Cannes and featuring an investigation surrounding a woman accused of pushing her husband to her death, Anatomy of a Fall is not just a trial over murder, it’s a trial over a relationship. Between the recordings Samuel had on his laptop of their arguments and the testimony of those who knew them, Sandra and Samuel’s entire history is placed upon the public for all to scrutinize. Sandra knows her truth about their time together, but it seems no one else shares her viewpoint. Hüller is astonishing in her calmness, commanding the English, French, and German language. She’s this year’s Cate Blanchett in Tár or Kristen Stewart in Spencer , a one-woman show that hedges all its bets on its star. Along with her radically different work in Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest , expect Hüller to be the critics’ pick in this year’s Oscar race. Even for all the goods it displays, Anatomy of a Fall still doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi that makes it the top-tier great movie it should be. No matter, as those current indescribable bugs may become features to me at a later date. Just as it does to Sandra, the ultimate truth that’s always been right in front of you may not reveal itself until you’re ready to face it. 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 Boys in the Band October 5, 2020 By: Button Hunter Friesen Back in 1968, playwright Mart Crowley shocked the world by penning a stage production solely comprised of gay men and their repressed feelings. The spiteful language and harsh authentic look at gay life were too much for “polite society” at the time. The production played off-Broadway for a few years before closing in 1970. Right before he directed The French Connection and The Exorcist , William Friedkin gave the play new life by adapting it for the screen the same year it closed. Finally, in 2018, the play was given its proper due with a Broadway revival directed by Joe Mantello and starring an all-out-gay cast, most notably Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory ), Zachary Quinto (Spock from the modern Star Trek franchise), and Matt Bomer. Now in 2020, history has repeated itself as Mantello and co. have regrouped for another screen adaptation, this time for producer Ryan Murphy at Netflix. The Boys in the Band opens in 1968 New York. Seven gay friends are soon to be gathered for the birthday of one of their own. We get to know each of them over the first half-hour as they prepare for the party. The host, Michael, is a so-so writer with a drinking and money problem that he can’t let go of. Michael’s good friend (and old flame) Donald comes into town hot off a session with his analyst that made him confront the shame he feels as a gay man. Larry is the group flirt as he refuses to be wholly committed to one man, which often puts him at odds with his lover Hank, who recently left his wife for Larry. Then there’s Emery, the comedic relief of the group who isn’t afraid to show off who he is. There’s also Bernard, the only black member of the group who’s still wrestling with both his racial and sexual identity. Finally, the birthday boy himself is Harold, a Jew who always arrives late and knows exactly what to say to get under someone’s skin. But wait, there’s one more guest at this little shindig. Michael’s old college roommate, Alan, is in town under mysterious circumstances and must see him right away. Michael isn’t 100% out of the closet to Alan, mostly because Alan is as straight as an arrow and about as open-minded as the rest of 1960s America. The party kicks off great as the friends reminisce on old times. These are the moments when the acting troupe shines, especially Robin de Jesus as Emery and Parsons as Michael. Crowley’s original dialogue is lifted right from the stage to the screen with pure elegance. The one-liners and zingers, which are often playfully vulgar, are still eye-opening fifty years later. It’s both happy and sad to see this material continue to be relevant after so many decades. However, things get icy when Alan shows up. Harold hasn’t arrived and everyone still has their social masks on. Alan doesn’t fully comprehend what he has barged in on as Michael tries to quell the flamboyancy. Director Mantello grinds everything to a halt once Alan walks through the door. Almost as if this was a horror movie, a deep feeling of suspenseful dread fills the atmosphere. Like all good suspense, a needle eventually drops and things quickly get messy. The language turns from sarcastic to hateful as old secrets and dark truths bubble up to the surface after years of being buried. Parsons still takes the cake with his exceptional lead performance. Harold remarks that when Michael drinks “he’s lethal”. Parsons is indeed lethal once things get serious as he ditches his sitcom roots and delivers a much more bullying persona. Quinto is also great as Harold. Usually sitting in the corner with his humongous tinted sunglasses, he delivers line after line with stinging fervor. The Boys in the Band can feel a bit too stagy at times, which is to be expected. Long speeches and heartfelt moments that work well on the stage sometimes come off as schmaltzy on the screen. But Mantello does incredible work despite only directing one other film in 1997. His excellent blocking of the apartment setting is second to none as it allows for swift camera movements that capture every moment. Cinematographer Bill Pope does well to preserve that same stage energy with numerous long takes and great lighting of the wonderful set by production designer Judy Becker. The Boys in the Band is an astounding stage-to-screen adaptation that remains relevant in its messaging and entertaining in its story. The cast is top-notch and Joe Mantello proves he still has the directing chops. Unfortunately, Mart Crowley died from a heart attack in March before the film was finished. Despite being gone from this physical world, he still lives on within this excellent production. 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

Blink Twice August 15, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut is loaded with so many symbols, clues, and hidden messages that the rapid-fire nature of their delivery might make you miss them if you blink (sorry, the joke just wrote itself). It’s the mark of a confident storyteller, someone who can transfer their vision onto the silver screen and trust the audience to go along for the ride even though they never get to play with a deck. To give us some credit, Kravitz’s symbolism and structure heavily mirror recent thrillers such as Get Out and The Royal Hotel , so the mysteries surrounding the plot become much simpler to solve once you identify that this is an equivalent equation, a delicious copycat nonetheless. “Be invisible” is the order Frida (Naomi Ackie) receives every day at her job as a waitress for a catering company. It’s something she’s unfortunately become an expert at, first seen sitting on the toilet of her rundown apartment as her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) asks if she has half of the rent. A coincidence could be her ticket to a better life, as recently #MeToo canceled tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), is the prime benefactor of the charity event she’s catering. It’s all part of his apology tour, with the reason for his cancellation never being revealed, an omission that Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum feel that we can fill with our own doomscrolling mentality. The meet-cute between Frida and Slater is a rousing success, so much so that he invites her to his private island with some of his friends. Phones are strictly prohibited, replaced with endless shots of tequila, lavishly prepared meals by the seemingly brainwashed staff, and a drug that takes you to another world. It’s a perfect vacation… almost too perfect. Days and nights begin to blur together, with Frida and the other women’s memories starting to fade the longer they stay. The casting of Christian Slater, Simon Rex, and Haley Joel Osment as Slater’s entourage immediately rings the alarms that nothing good is ever going to happen on the island. Each of them are “nice guys” on the outside, asking the women if they’re having a good time and constantly snapping photos to prove how much of allies they are. Roberto Bonelli’s production design is eerily perfect as well, the bold red house being the center point where all the lush green grass converges. The visual connections to Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery remain strong as everyone is dressed in their finest whites, with DP Adam Newport-Berra always placing the background just out of focus and filled with unknown entities. The editing by Kathryn J. Schubert may be the most stylized tool in Kravitz’s arsenal, with a mixture of quick cuts matched with startling string scratches and long takes that drip-feed through the villa. It can sometimes be a little too showy for its own good, with Kravitz overplaying her hand and underestimating her audience. It’s propulsive once the cork pops off the wine bottle, with quite a few scenes of brutality to match what’s been lurking underneath. Kravitz’s stature as an actor may have been why she was able to assemble such a stacked ensemble. She directs them all impeccably, with Ackie and Adria Arjona (seen this year in Hit Man ) being the standout leaders. They’ve put themselves into an “adapt or die” situation, and the actors are in lockstep with the material at every turn. Rex, Slater, and Osment don’t do much adapting to the material, which isn’t a bad thing considering their presence already sells their character dynamics. Tatum leads us into the darkness with his charm, his vape pen and holistic views on therapy building up a “crypto bro” aura to mask his true intentions. Kyle MacLachlan and Geena Davis suffer from the number of actors on display, with the pair always feeling relatively insignificant. Even with all the devilish debauchery at play, fun is still the name of the game with Blink Twice . It’s meant to be a thriller that has you gripping the seat and jolting into the arms of the person sitting next to you. Kravitz wants you to be yelling “I knew it!” with each new plot twist, a task that is sometimes a little easier than it should be. There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had in that, and also in seeing a person reach a new rung as an artist. 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

Black Bag March 13, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen A meeting on Friday, a dinner party on Sunday, a murder on Monday, and a movie on Tuesday—this is the cycle of events that the characters in Black Bag face with a cold attitude. All of them work in different departments within British intelligence (probably MI6; it’s never made clear). The actions of a traitor initiate this cycle, and the unflappable George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is tasked with snuffing them out. On his list are the names of five suspects. There’s Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), always confident in his skills despite just being passed over for a promotion by George; Clarissa Dubose (Marisa Abela), the youngest of the bunch who possesses much more skill than she lets on; James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page), the young colonel whose ascendancy at work is only matched by the height of his ego; Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris), the psychoanalysis who probably knows more everyone and everything than she should; and, most importantly of all, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), George’s wife and fellow spy. One of these people stole some sort of device that could destroy a nuclear reactor from the inside, inevitably leading to the radioactive deaths of every man, woman, and child within fifty miles. Honestly, though, the world-ending stakes aren’t that important, especially once a generic Russian terrorist becomes involved later on. What’s important to director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp is what George will do to the traitor once he finds them, and what kind of collateral damage the other four will have to endure before they’re exonerated. Everyone asks Goerge if he’ll be able to pull the trigger if Kathryn turns out to be the culprit, a question that he always leaves unanswered. Making the traditionally important aspects of a story the least interesting thing about them is a common practice for Soderbergh. He took all the basketball out of his NBA movie High Flying Bird , focused on business over dancing in the Magic Mike films, and swapped out horror for familial dysfunction in his haunted house movie Presence . These decisions could, should, and would disappoint those looking to be greeted by the familiar trappings of a genre. But Soderbergh is always one step ahead, using subversion to his and our benefit. Black Bag illustrates that the greatest weapon in a spy’s arsenal is not a gun or some nifty gadget, but the ability to have an open conversation. But when you and everyone you know work in a profession that trades in deceit and lies, the truth becomes ungraspable. The titular phrase is famously used around the agency as an answer to any question that can’t or won’t be divulged. Where were you last night? Black Bag. What did you do today at work? Black bag. How much longer do you think you’ll need to stay at the office tonight? Black bag. George hates liars. His steely presence and precision in deciding whether to speak or remain silent allow every other character’s words to hang in the air just long enough to box themselves into a corner. Between this and The Killer and The Agency , Fassbender has clearly found his knack for playing the highly competent professional who finds himself flung in over his head. He plays the small moments with as much heft as the explosions, the retreatment keeping everything as tight as a piano wire. The supporting cast gets to cut loose a little more, but mostly from the benefit of comparison. Soderbergh always knows how to make the mundane feel smoky cool, something that comes with ease when you have the mega wattage of Cate Blanchett. Just the sight of her walking through an airport in sunglasses is enough to raise the temperature. But except for the opening long take that snakes George through an underground London club, Soderbergh never calls much attention to himself. The camerawork and editing (performed by himself under the famous pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard, respectively) are ripped out of a surveillance system, blocking characters from each other in a playful game of back-and-forth. Koepp and Soderbergh have collaborated twice before on Kimi and Presence . I hope this partnership continues indefinitely, as each product twists our expectations through practical and thematic strategies. Even when you strip away all the fancy artistry and subtextual analysis, you’re still left with something extremely entertaining. 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