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The Idea of You April 30, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Speaking to Vogue in 2020, the author of the 2017 book The Idea of You, Robinne Lee, stated that the protagonist of her novel, Hayes Campbell, was partly inspired by Harry Styles circa his days as part of One Direction. This came as a semi-confirmation to the biggest fan theory about the novel, as the similarities between the character and Styles (British, boy band, tattoos, young age, Coachella, etc.) were too eerie to ignore. It’s a good thing that Lee got ahead of the discourse when she did, as the visual incarnation of Hayes Campbell within director Michael Showalter’s film adaptation of her novel is far too compelling evidence to further ignore. Playing this universe’s version of Harry Styles is Nicholas Galitzine, moving up the book club heartthrob ladder after starring as Prince Henry in last year’s Prime Video release of Red, White & Royal Blue . Here he’s paired up with Anne Hathaway as Solène, a newly single mother nearing forty trying her best to quell the impending mid-life crisis. She has a sixteen-year-old daughter Izzy, a successful small-town art gallery, and a good group of friends. When her ex-husband bails at the last minute on taking Izzy and her friends to Coachella, Solène is the one to pick up the slack. Stuck in the middle of the desert surrounded by people less than half her age, she quickly finds the nearest spot that offers peace and quiet. But what she thinks is a VIP bathroom is actually the private one of Hayes Campbell, lead singer of the worldwide sensation boy band August Moon. This meet-cute ignites some serious sparks, with the pair slowly realizing that they do share some good chemistry. “Is this twenty-four-year-old kid flirting with me?” asks Solène in her head. It’s certainly a change of pace for her, and a bit nice to be on the other end of the stick as the cause for her divorce was that her ex-husband left her for a younger woman. But how will a relationship work between someone who never got to be a free adult, and someone who has only known total freedom? Showalter and co-writer Jennifer Westfeldt (co-writer/star of the early aughts indie sensation Kissing Jessica Stein ) probe the early romantic stages with a charming gracefulness, allowing the actors to work at their highest potential. Hathaway delivers one of her best performances, playing someone who has it all put together while simultaneously jumping off the deep end. She and Galitzine have a witty banter between them, making this romance both somewhat believable and rootable. It also doesn’t hurt that Showalter films the beautiful pair in some gorgeous locations such as Spanish beaches and the rain-swept streets of Paris. The second and third acts are when the film starts to flirt with some of its deeper themes, such as the price of fame and society’s value (or lack thereof) on women’s happiness. Contrary to hundreds of years of oppression, Solène chooses to live a bit vicariously and not have her well-being tied to her obligations. The online discourse around the pair’s romance is startling, to say the least, but there are quite a few stretches in logic in just how much the world at large gets swept up in this relationship. There’s also the predictability that comes with the will-they-won’t-they portion of the story. The more free-flowing style of the earlier portions is swapped for more stodgy conversations circling the question of how others will perceive the two together. There are moments when the material is on the cusp of a breakthrough, but the well-worn trappings of the genre and the need to be a crowd pleaser (even though there will be no in-person crowds to please due to the film’s Prime Video release) keep everything within a tidy box. There are much worse versions of The Idea of You in so many other multiverses, one of which likely has Styles playing Hayes Campbell in a much more winking fashion. We only need to look back on the one-two combo of My Policeman and Don’t Worry Darling to predict the outcome of that. The more adult version that we have in our universe gets the job done, becoming a respectable template of how to successfully do these book club adaptations. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Tron: Ares October 8, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen It’s either brave or foolish of Disney to consider Tron a viable franchise after only offering three entries across its forty-three-year existence. Then again, Top Gun is now one of the most lucrative series despite being comprised of two films with a thirty-six-year gap in between. Disney hoped that the director of Top Gun: Maverick , Joseph Kosinski, would make his return to this franchise after getting his Hollywood career started with Tron: Legacy . But he was busy with F1: The Movie , so the director’s chair was handed over to Joachim Rønning, a familiar face to the studio with a resume that includes Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales , Maleficent: Mistress of Evil , and Young Woman and the Sea . He’s a steady hand who understands the assignment, which is why this is a well-assembled, yet mildly forgettable blockbuster. Humans going into the digital world is old news, with digital creations coming into our world being the new craze. Rival corporations ENCOM and Dillinger Systems are in a race to be the ones to pioneer that technology, with the former promising medical breakthroughs and unlimited resources for humanitarian aid, and the latter selling super soldiers to the highest bidder. And if you still can’t tell who the bad guys are, Dillinger’s headquarters is in a top-secret air hangar perpetually bathed in red lighting. The final piece to this digital puzzle is the permanence code, which fixes the bug that limits the lifespan of any creation to just twenty-nine minutes. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the promise of that power is enough to push Dillinger CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) to print his cyber soldiers and order them to kill ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee). As Blade Runner and A.I. Artificial Intelligence have taught us, it’s that robots have a desire to understand the human condition. Why a perfectly engineered specimen would want to join the plight of humanity at this exact moment is an unanswered question, one of many within Jesse Wigutow’s by-the-numbers script. For Ares (Jared Leto), the feeling of rain (but not tears in rain) and a sense of empathy from Eve are enough to convince him that Julian can’t be trusted. Endless chase scenes ensue as the pair avoids capture from Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), Julian’s other unstoppable digital assassin. If that scenario sounds like a perfect excuse to pump the action full of light cycle greatness, then you’d be absolutely correct. Those beaming bikes are on full display in their shiny metallic glory, speeding along streets and cutting objects like a hot knife through butter. A hacking sequence is visualized like a neon-soaked version of the ending of Zero Dark Thirty , which I’m sure is still more accurate than what they did on NCIS . The whole thing looks and sounds incredible, with DP Jeff Cronenweth (not seen in movies since 2021’s Being the Ricardos ) concocting some dazzlingly sharp images. Speaking of sound, the techno score by Nine Inch Nails frontmen Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross offers the propulsive push this stale story needed. It sits right next to their Challengers score as the best rave music produced in the last few years. I staved off the inevitable question of “am I getting old?” by not being bothered by how ungodly loud the speakers were blasting in the IMAX theater. It’s a shame that Disney was able to hire David Fincher’s cinematographer and composers for this, but not the man himself. Jared Leto is perfectly cast as a robot, both because of his stilted mannerisms and delivery, and his insane ability to look this good at the age of fifty-three. He’s come full circle in the artificial life cycle, first playing the creator in Blade Runner 2049 , and now the created. Good as he is here, one outing with this character is all that I need, especially if it frees Greta Lee to pursue something more worthy of her immense talents. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

White Noise December 12, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen What do Hitler, car crashes, Elvis, the fear of death, airborne toxic events, supermarkets, and the existence of an afterlife all have in common? Well, you’ll have to watch White Noise to fully answer that question. Except, I’ve seen White Noise , and I’m still very unsure of what the connection between all those things was. But in my endless confusion, I was still morbidly interested in what was going on, and how it would all come together. Things start simply (well, as simple as this story can be) with the birth of a new school year at College on the Hill, a smaller-sized intellectual institution for the betterment of its Ohio natives. One of its all-stars is Professor Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), who has pioneered the field of Hitler Studies, all despite him being physically incapable of speaking German. Jack’s lectures are more akin to rock concerts than your typical educational exercises, with his students hanging on to his every precisely choreographed line reading and body movement. While his studies are almost exclusively international, Jack’s family is your typical American one. He and his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) are each other’s fourth spouse, with their kids being a mixture of past and current relationships. The all-knowing Heinrich and inquisitive Steffie come from Jack’s previous marriages, persistent Denise is from Babbette’s past, and the youngest (and seemingly mute) Wilder is Jack and Babbette’s. This blended group hustle and bustle through their days, with maybe an extra ounce of existentialism, illustrated when Jack and Babbette playfully compete for who would be the saddest if the other partner were to die. Act two is when things literally go off the rails as a train full of toxic chemicals collides with a gasoline truck, exploding into a chemically-laced cloud of deadly proportions. The family is forced to evacuate their home, colliding with the rest of the town as they all try to outrun this new mysterious threat. The appearance of masks and quarantining may send shivers down the spines of a few too many audience members not yet over the ordeal of the COVID-19 pandemic, but writer/director Noah Baumbach grazes over much of that with a playful tone. The scenes of pandemonium are some of the director’s most accomplished technical work. His widescreen camera sways back and forth, capturing most of the action in long takes. With a reported budget of $80-100 million, almost more than double the sum of all of Baumbach’s previous films, the scale to which all of this occurs is quite astonishing, especially for a filmmaker who has always made complicated movies with such simple settings. White Noise is by far Baumbach’s most complicated film, as the pseudo-intellectual dialogue from Don DeLillo’s “unfilmable” novel flows like a waterpark on the fourth of July. Multiple conversations overlap each other Robert Altman style, with some moving so fast that you don’t have time to catch up before you’re shuttled off to something else. After a while, you kind of just want to tune it all out and treat it as… white noise. A reasonable explanation for such a large budget may have something to do with the cast. As we all know, Adam Driver's cost has increased considerably with his bevy of critical and commercial success. Even with all the filmmakers he’s explored over the years, including outstanding turns in Leos Carax’s Annette and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel last year, Driver has always found a home with Baumbach. White Noise marks their fifth collaboration and possibly their most humorous, even if they aren’t trying to be that funny. Completing this trio is Gerwig, wife and regular co-writer with Baumbach, who goes for something a little more heightened. There’s a lot to chew on within White Noise , with not much time to savor it. Baumbach has created the least accessible film, all while flexing his filmmaking muscles to their fullest potential. Second and third, and possibly fourth, rewatches will be required to take it all in. Luckily, that’s a task I’m more than game for and will be easy to execute because of the film’s release on Netflix. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Room Next Door September 7, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen The Room Next Door had its North American Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will release it in theaters on December 20. The unmistakably romantically sumptuous music of Albert Iglesias once again draws open the curtains for a film by Almodóvar. Although this is their 14th feature collaboration as composer and director, The Room Next Door marks the first time the strings have been used to reinforce dialogue in the English language. The story, one of the few not to be an original idea by the famed auteur, comes from Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel What Are You Going Through . New York City serves as the backdrop, with it never looking more beautiful as the seasons and towering buildings always casting perfectly symmetrical lines. Even down to the smallest of spaces, such as Martha’s (Tilda Swinton) junk drawer, the colors pop with radiance. Unfortunately, the neverending revolving door of serenity is perpetually tinged with the darkness of reality, as Martha lounges in her perfect surroundings riddled with the cancer that will most likely kill her. Rushing to her aid once she hears the terminal news is Ingrid (Julianne Moore), a longtime friend of Martha, although they haven’t spoken in a few years on account of their busy careers (Ingrid is a famous novelist, while Martha hurries to the next battle as a war correspondent). While time has been no barrier in the rekindling of their relationship, Martha has not been so successful with her daughter. They’ve been estranged nearly all their lives, neither of them being exceptional at fulfilling their parent-child duties. Ingrid now finds herself trying to mend that bridge before it’s too late, a timeline that’s being hastened by Martha’s decision to forgo treatment. The closer people get to death’s door, the more honest they become about the life they’ve lived. Swinton, reunited with Almodóvar for the second time after marking his unofficial English-language debut in 2020 with the short film The Human Voice , is the active member of the actress pair, delivering a cascade of monologues about her past, a few of them supplemented with flashbacks. While Google Translate was clearly not used based on Almodóvar’s consummate professionalism and prowess as a screenwriter, quite a few moments get lost in the translation. Swinton and Moore navigate the pitfalls with relative ease, biting into the high drama with gusto. There are more than a few moments of unintentional hilarity that pivot from us laughing at the movie to laughing with it solely based on the delivery of the lead pair. The younger cast doesn’t fare nearly as well, with their handful of scenes leaving them stranded to exchange lines that could have used a little more proofreading. It's these intermittent eyebrow-raising moments, many of them swept away before their intention can be deciphered, that keep The Room Next Door at a medium temperature. There’s always a feeling that Almodóvar could reach his trademarked boiling point of melodrama, but his confidence in the material just isn’t there. It’s still a remarkable improvement from The Human Voice and his most recent English-language short, Strange Way of Life , so there’s plenty of hope that, if he were to continue working outside his native language on such projects as his abandoned A Manual for Cleaning Women , it would reach the lofty heights we expect of him. That bar also means that a disappointing feature from Almodóvar is still very much worth the investment. There’s still no one who serves actresses better than him, with a nice supporting turn from John Turturro (mostly interested in sex and the hopelessness that climate change has brought) thrown in there for good measure. Here’s hoping he continues to challenge himself, bringing along A-list talent looking to rise to a new level. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Brutalist September 7, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen The Brutalist had its North American Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. A24 will release it in theaters on December 20. The more that The Brutalist progresses along its 215-minute track, the more it becomes evident that co-writer/director Brady Corbet sees himself in his protagonist, László Toth (Adrien Brody), the overlooked genius who seeks to reform modern architecture away from its ugly preconceptions and must put himself through the wringer to prove the doubters. A later scene sees Toth introducing the design for his wildly ambitious project, a sort of shrine to a capitalist’s deceased mother. It’s going to house a worship center, gymnasium, library, auditorium, and several pathways lined with marble and concrete. There’s never been anything like it, which is why, while curious and attracted to the ambition, the investors are trepidatious about its feasibility. One could imagine Corbet employing the persuasiveness of Toth’s design and vision in the pitch meetings for the film as a whole. With a runtime eclipsing that of any American feature in decades, photography in VistaVision that is projected in some combination of 70mm (Note: The projection I saw at the press and industry screening at the Toronto International Film Festival was in 35mm), an overture, an intermission, and an epilogue, nothing about The Brutalist screams commerciality. But like Toth and his monument, every dollar that Corbet’s behemoth sacrifices at the box office will be used to better the art form. The only currency that matters in cinema is the experience you carry with you long after the viewing. Such a grandiose production must also house a grandiose story, with Corbet and his often co-writer and partner Mona Fastvold saddling themselves with nothing less than weaving a rich tapestry of the modern American experience. In a nearly identical vein to what has made Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films filled with eternal beauty, Corbet identifies that the truest Americans were those carried by steamship through Ellis Island. Toth snakes his way through the bowels of the ship, the foreboding score and canted angle of the Statue of Liberty signifying the joys and dangers of what’s to come in his new life. Loneliness is his most potent quality, as his wife (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy) are still trapped in post-WWII Eastern Europe. The American Dream is more about the freedom to assimilate than the freedom to be yourself, which is why Toth’s successful Philadpehian cousin (Alessandro Nivola) has westernized his last name to Miller, married a Catholic girl, and reluctantly talks about their upbringing in the Old World. Toth can’t blend in so easily, with his features (an in-joke is made about Toth’s nose being broken) and accent too recognizable. Collaboration, conflict, and compromise are the tools to his success, each made all the more possible with the financial backing of Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce). It doesn’t matter if his interest in Toth’s work is genuine or just a temporary distraction to amuse himself with. His money is very real , and so are his ambitions for Toth. He parades him around his socialite friends at his swanky gatherings, using Toth’s struggles as conversation starters. With his previous two features, Corbet has trained his sights on the costs of being someone and creating something. While the deal Toth makes is not as literally Faustian as it is in Vox Lux , he does have to tear pieces of himself away for the project. Brody is tremendous, reaching a new dramatic height after years of only gaining notice within the whimsically stacked casts of Wes Anderson. The comparisons to his work in The Pianist , both in terms of what’s on the screen and how it be rewarded, are appropriate. He buries himself within his work, with his creation destined to become his salvation. What Corbet is crafting is just as alluring, with Lol Crawley’s cinematography ranging from hauntingly claustrophobic to sweepingly beautiful. Even in the gloomy Pennsylvania countryside, a place where the frost tinges the corners of the frame, he and production designer Judy Becker make those slabs of steel and concrete pour out with Toth’s soul. With the added time, each scene flows with more freedom and weight, all of them simultaneously epic and intimate as the camera glacially passes through the years. This is a full-course cinema meal, requiring an afternoon to consume and much longer to digest. It’s easy to savor every moment of it in real-time because of its boundless beauty, and just as easy over time thanks to its long lingering themes on the ideals that modern America convinced itself it was built upon. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Top 10 Films of 2024 (So Far) July 1, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen I don’t know if it should be cause for celebration or concern, but we’ve reached the halfway mark of 2024, seemingly faster than any year before. This moment places us at a crossroads, able to equally look back at what’s already happened, and continue to look forward to what’s to come. Before we dive even deeper into the months ahead, I’d like to take a moment and be thankful for the best that cinema has had to offer us in this initial half. According to my Letterboxd list, I’ve seen a whopping 78 new releases, a number that is slightly inflated as many titles were seen at 2023 festivals, while others were seen at festivals this year and have yet to be released. To promote equality among the contenders, I’ll only be ranking the films that have been made available to the public before June 30, which disqualifies great works like The Apprentice and Emilia Perez , both of which have a strong chance of showing up on this list at the end of the year. 10. The Beekeeper It only took until the second week of January for 2024 to get its best bad movie of the year. This Jason Statham-starring revenge flick is what mindless action movies should strive for, although I’m not sure writer Kurt Wimmer and director David Ayer would be able to share how they’ve crafted a movie that is both self-aware and totally oblivious to being so bad it’s good. Full Review 9. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell Vietnamese writer/director Phan Thien An has created a film of extraordinary uniqueness, aligning closely with the extreme slow cinema works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Béla Tarr. Every scene is comprised of a single take, all of them extraordinary feats of production on account of their length and complexity. Time is often at a standstill, with no one ever seeming to be in a rush or wanting to have a direct conversation. Your attitude towards this style will be determined quickly, most likely in your ability to stay awake. But even those who drift off from time to time will have their dreams permeated by images from the film. It’s part of the experience, a little piece of the film that sticks with you, something the large majority of other works fail to do. 8. I Saw the TV Glow 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 enjoying 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. Full Review 7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Furiosa may not surpass Fury Road , but I don’t think that was ever the intention, at least not directly. At the very least, it’ll be regarded as the best pure action film of the year, and be another be another notch for Miller’s claim to be the best to ever do it. It’s too bad the box office wasn’t able to meet the challenge, as Miller deserves to be given carte blanche to venture out into the desert and cook up something just as epically fun as this. Full Review 6. Challengers If there’s one thing that Luca Guadagnino understands about sports, it’s the sex appeal. Muscles are perpetually firm and clenched, sweat hangs on the brow and slips off perfectly chiseled jaws, and outbursts of enthusiasm share the same primal feelings from the bedroom. With his adaptation of William S. Burroughs Queer barreling down the pipeline, 2024 will surely be Guadagnino’s year, and we’re all going to have a fun time basking in it. Full Review 5. Hit Man If you still weren’t convinced about Glen Powell’s movie star charisma after Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You , then Hit Man will certainly be the successful pitch. Richard Linklater's film is a sexy romantic comedy pairing Powell with Adria Arjona to electric results. It’s devilishly fun, packing a smart script (by Linklater & Powell) that matches well with its antics. 4. Kinds of Kindness If The Favourite and Poor Things were one for them, then Kinds of Kindness is one for me. It’s a film that Greek Weird Wave writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos has been working on for a few years now with his usual partner Efthimis Filippou, almost as if he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to unleash it unless he built up enough street cred through those two Oscar-winning period pieces. The result is another work of the macabre, a blending of his nastier Greek projects with the prestige of his star-studded English-language cohorts. Full Review 3. Evil Does Not Exist Drive My Car writer/director and all-around arthouse superstar Ryûsuke Hamaguchi makes his most outspoken work with Evil Does Not Exist. The tranquility of a Japanese village is being threatened by the introduction of a “glamping” (glamorous + camping) site proposed by a talent agency. The site would negatively impact much of the environment around it, with many of the village resident’s livelihoods being forever altered. Despite being clear in his message, Hamaguchi never eviscerates the villains of this story. The extreme slow cinema approach will test the patience of many expecting a return to the relative leanness of Drive My Car . Those who embrace the molasses will find themselves powerfully transported to one of the few places left that hasn’t been bulldozed by capitalism. 2. Dune: Part Two Just as he did with Blade Runner 2049 , Denis Villeneuve has accomplished what has long been thought to be impossible with Dune: Part Two . There’s no doubt that fans of the 2021 film will be overjoyed with what’s served here, and that previous detractors such as myself will be won over by the improved scale and direction of the saga. Fear is the mind-killer to all those on Arrakis. But there is no fear for those of us on Earth, as one of the best films of 2024 and of the science-fiction genre has been bestowed upon us. Full Review 1. The Beast Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast is the pretentious European version of Cloud Atlas, which is a statement that tells you everything you need to know about whether you’ll like it or not. Bonello jumps between 1904, 2014, and 2044, intersplicing the three time periods to tell a story about love conquering time. Léa Seydoux and George MacKay play characters in each period, navigating the unknowable connection they feel for each other. It’s overindulgent and excessive, with Bonello displaying a mastery of tone and vision across the 146 minutes. There’s passion, fear, humor, drama, and everything in between. I’ve seen it twice now, and am already itching for another go around. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Book of Clarence January 8, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Writer/director Jeymes Samuel is more interested in making The Book of Clarence into a good time than a good film, which makes it just good enough to be a good use of your time and money (this sentence was brought to you by the word “good”). The British multi-hyphenate’s sophomore feature contains much of the same DNA as his Netflix-backed debut, The Harder They Fall , featuring an all-black cast in a genre that has largely ignored that demographic. This time the setting has shifted from the American West to Jerusalem circa AD33. Things open with a drag race on sandy streets, a chariot race to be exact. The titular character (LaKeith Stanfield) and his friend Elijah (RJ Cyler) have wagered a lot of money and horses against Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor). We’re only two minutes in and Samuel has made two references to Ben-Hur , the first being the Roman font title credits and sweeping music. But these references aren’t just plucked for their 1:1 value, they’re used to produce a remix of a classic tale that has repeatedly been told in a similar fashion for nearly a century. The camera whips and zooms around during the race, sometimes opting for POV shots as the local Gypsies sabotage the event by throwing rocks and spears. The race is lost, which puts Clarence and Elijah in a pay-up-or-be-crucified situation with Jedidiah (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), who lent them the funds to wager. Clarence is a lot like Howard Ratner from Uncut Gems : someone who thinks of himself as smarter than those chasing him, yet he always seems destined to be caught. It doesn’t help that he has a more upstanding twin brother named Thomas (also Stanfield) who has recently become one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. To Clarence, the allure of religion isn’t the purity of faith or promise of something larger than yourself, it’s the status it grants you. People flock to Jesus and his apostles like their movie stars, requesting miracles and attention. To pay off his debt, Clarence decides to recreate Jesus’ “tricks,” such as healing the blind, raising the dead, and preaching the gospel. He becomes the first “religion for profit” pastor, beating Kenneth Copeland at his own game two thousand years earlier. While taking shots at uber-wealthy people of faith, Samuel also instills a dash of rogue politicians, with Clarence making “Knowledge is stronger than belief!” his campaign slogan. But it’s not just Clarence that deserves scorn, it’s the people who eat up his words and acts despite them being obviously hollow. A little more time spent on this aspect would have been appreciated, as well as the mixture of comedy and drama. This is a case of style over substance, and the MCU disease where every dramatic situation needs to be undercut by a whacky joke. In the case of Samuel, the style is just as much the substance as the actual substance. He pulls out every trick in his directorial arsenal to make this the “wickedly dope time” he wants you to have. Split screens, a bevy of iris shots, augmented colors, and a Jay-Z soundtrack keep things flowing at a decent pace throughout the nearly 140-minute runtime. There’s also the enormously entertaining cast featuring so many people who would have never been given a chance to star in a film like this despite the cultural makeup of that time and place. Cyler, David Oyelowo, and Omar Sy supply the laughs, with cameos by Alfre Woodard and Benedict Cumberbatch being the film’s most laugh-out-loud moments. With January primarily being a time when studios dump their slop and serious awards titles slowly expand in hopes of Oscar gold, it’s nice to see a film like The Book of Clarence offer a decent alternative. Its messiness is more of a feature than a bug, and there’s more than enough on its mind and on the screen to keep it from falling victim to the cinematic hell that is this month. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Empire of Light September 12, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen Empire of Light had its Canadian Premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures will release it in theaters on December 09. With Empire of Light , Sam Mendes further proves that he’s one of the best directors working today. He also proves that he should abandon his newfound lust for writing his own scripts, as that should be left in more capable hands. It’s also hard to judge Mendes’ film on its own terms, as it comes at a time when filmmakers feel overwhelmingly compelled to tell their life stories through film. Just this year we have Steven Spielberg ( The Fabelmans ), Richard Linklater ( Apollo 10 1/2 ), Alejandro G. Iñárritu ( Bardo ), and James Gray ( Armageddon Time ) offering insights into one of, or both of, their child and adult lives. We also can’t forget Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast , Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza , and Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God making dents in last year’s Oscar race. And then there’s Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma , Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird … alright I think you get the idea. With all the direct competition in the past and the present, Empire of Light crumbles under the weight of expectations and comparisons. It’s nowhere near being classified as bad, just underwhelming and forgettable once you also factor in all the talent involved both in front and behind the camera. Whether they know it or not, the workers within the Empire Theater act as a sort of family. Roger Deakins’ lush cinematography (solidifying him and Mendes as the best working director/cinematographer pair) captures all the bells and whistles of this movie palace, which now stands on its last leg as the age of multiplexes rushes in. You can see how this place once was the entertainment capital of the coastal English town it resides in, with its staged screens and elaborate decorations. At the helm is the self-entitled owner, Donald (Colin Firth), who never has much time for the rest of the employees. Hilary (Olivia Colman) is the de facto manager, even though she’s never watched a film during her tenure. A new recruit (Michael Ward) shakes things up a bit, unlocking romantic feelings within Hilary and some unsavory attitudes toward race and class within the community. As with nearly all entries within this specific subgenre, Empire of Light explores the healing power within movies. Except, instead of purely emotional healing, the films playing within this cinema can also cure mental illnesses, which Hilary is afflicted with, and bigotry towards others. The messages within Mendes’ script, his first without a co-writer, are never connected as tightly as they should be, with several topical ideas floating around as loose fragments. If only he could have picked one because there are specific moments for each that are well-executed. But as a whole, they are less than the sum of their parts. The weakness on the page doesn’t serve the actors well, with Colman falling into a bit of overacting for her character’s outbursts. She and Ward lack the necessary chemistry to make their relationship believable, with it mostly feeling like Mendes put them together simply because they’re outsiders. Empire of Light exemplifies both the best and worst parts of cinema, in that it holds unbelievable power in certain moments and unbelievable artificiality in others. If Mendes goes back to solely directing his next feature (or at the very least co-writing with an esteemed partner), then the world will be in for an immense treat. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Venom: Let There Be Carnage October 4, 2021 By: Button Hunter Friesen Venom: Let There Be Carnage is an insult. It’s an insult to the pieces of paper that were mutilated to make the script. It’s an insult to the film stock. It’s an insult to the millions of dollars that could have served an infinitely better purpose. It’s an insult to activists, as it waves gay pride around with an ultra-corporate attitude. It’s an insult to the talents of Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, and Robert Richardson. But most importantly, it was an insult to my time, as it took much more from me than merely ninety minutes. The first Venom was bad for its reasons, as it was tonally inconsistent, with Tom Hardy and director Ruben Fleischer having conflicting ideas on what the movie should be. In the end, Fleischer’s darker take overpowered Hardy’s goofiness. Throw in weak characters and plot, and you got yourself one of the worst movies of 2018. Venom: Let There Be Carnage has addressed one of those problems, as it swings the tonal pendulum entirely in the other direction, resulting in self-parody. The sequel picks up where the last film left off, with Eddie and the alien symbiote, Venom, learning to live together within the same body. The two of them seem to be ripped from a Capra screwball comedy, as they’re sparring in slapstick fashion. Marking his return since the post-credit scene in the 2018 original, the deranged serial killer, Cletus Kasady, is about to be put on death row. But before that fateful day arrives, Cletus and Eddie’s paths cross, resulting in the birth of Carnage, the T-1000 to Venom’s T-800. Cletus and Carnage spark their symbiotic relationship, one that seeks the doom of Eddie, and the rescue of Cletus’s longtime flame, Shriek. Replacing Fleischer, who was busy with Zombieland: Double Tap and currently working on Uncharted , is motion-capture wizard, Andy Serkis. It’s a fitting lateral move, considering he’s worked with visionary directors such as Peter Jackson (as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Matt Reeves (as Caesar in the Planet of the Apes trilogy), two people able to seamlessly blend visual creations within reality. Serkis hasn’t fancied himself much as a director, with Breathe and Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle being so underseen that they may as well not exist. With Venom: Let There Be Carnage , Serkis has landed on strike three, hopefully landing him in director jail. There’s an erratic and jerky quality to the film, one that tries to reflect the inner torment between Eddie and Venom. Locations become interchangeable, and so does logic as character motivations become lost in the struggle. Many of the actors seem lost as well, with Michelle Williams (way too talented to stoop this low for a paycheck) constantly trying to find a reason to exist beyond just being the contractually obligated “love interest that got away.” Things quickly become hard to follow, with Venom acting as Eddie’s inner monologue, butting in at every possible moment with one cringe-inducing line after another. Integral information is doused while the three characters speak at the same time, making the effort needed to keep things straight not worth it. Once Venom and Eddie split up their bromance, you’re relieved as it means a few moments of peace and quiet. There also seems to be an inevitable ugliness to the Venom films, as Matthew Libatique turned in the worst work of his career in 2018, and now the legendary Robert Richardson (a frequent collaborator with Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, and Martin Scorsese) produces his most drab and cheap-looking work. At some point, you have to wonder how many people are involved in this franchise just for the money. Definitely not here for the cash is Tom Hardy, who has deepened his involvement by receiving the first writing credit of his career. Hardy has always delivered 110% for each of his roles, even if it wasn’t in the best interest of the film. With this sequel, Hardy, as well as Harrelson, have dialed things up to a Looney Tunes level of zany. There’s at least some unintentional comedy in their line readings, with a highlight being “I’m a real boy and you’re just an amoeba!” The badness of Venom: Let There Be Carnage made me appreciate other comic-book films even more. Marvel may be getting stale with their formula, but at least it works on a fundamental level. And based on the post-credit scene, we’ll have to see which side of the coin wins out, a battle which I am not looking forward to. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

1967: A Dramatic Shift in American Film March 29, 2023 By: Hunter Friesen The year 1967 can be regarded as one of the most pivotal years in cinema history. It was a transitional year where the conventional and unconventional came crashing together for the first time on such a large scale. Using David Newman and Robert Benton’s article “The New Sentimentality” (1964), we can categorize the conventional and unconventional into two distinct categories: Old Sentimentality (conventional) and New Sentimentality (unconventional). These two categories were not just found in film, they were also found in nearly every aspect of American culture. Each version of sentimentality garnered financial and critical success in 1967. No two movies were more opposed that year in style, viewpoint, and audience than Mike Nichols’ The Graduate and Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner . Also, no two actors better represented their respective sentimentality better than Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Poitier. In this essay, I’ll explain why and how 1967 was such a cinematic turning point that shifted the paradigm of power away from Hollywood conventionalism and towards a new era of auteur cinema. I’ll also look at how both Poitier and Hoffman were shaped by their generation and how their respective careers were forever changed in 1967. To show the difference between Old and New sentimentality, we must define what exactly they are. In simplistic terms, Old Sentimentality represents conventionalism and past values. The values this movement revered were about the good old days of ruggedness, strong moral character, and banding together. These ideas were born out of the nation’s unity and recovery from World War II and were prevalent throughout the next few decades. Figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda embodied this type of thinking, and films such as The Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, and The Best Years of Our Lives were most popular. New Sentimentality began making a presence around the start of the 1960s. It was less about thinking as a group and more about thinking and acting for oneself. New Sentimentality pushed the idea of being self-indulgent, getting carried away, looking inward, and being authentic. John F. Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, and Elvis Presley were the purveyors of this thinking, which could be found in films such as Bonnie and Clyde (screenplay by Newman and Benton) and Easy Rider . In 1967, producer and director Stanley Kramer released Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner . It was an all-star vehicle for him filled with the biggest stars of the past few decades in Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Sidney Poitier was cast as the figure who’s coming to dinner, John Prentice. The plot is fairly straightforward as Prentice and his new fiancé, Christina, intend to get married. John is a respected medical doctor who has accomplished everything under the sun. Their engagement is under a deadline as he must fly to Europe that night. Christina’s parents, played by Tracy and Hepburn, are taken aback at the reality of their daughter marrying a black man, even though they raised her with a liberal mindset. Stanley Kramer was a director known for incorporating social commentary into his films. He previously had great success with The Defiant Ones and Judgement at Nuremberg . Even though his social messaging would make one think that he was a part of the younger outspoken generation, Kramer geared his films toward the older generation of moviegoers, the ones that would better respond to conventionalism and star power. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is part of an era in Hollywood where films about race were becoming more popular but weren’t purely benevolent in the way they handled the topic. Instead of utilizing themes like life under Jim Crow, black activism, or black community culture, a lot of films before the Hollywood New Age illustrated that racism was wrong through a white character's conversion from racial prejudice to tolerance. The prototypical movie of this thinking, In the Heat of the Night (also starring Sidney Poitier), won Best Picture that year. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , the racism obstacle is solved by the white parents' eventual acceptance of John marrying their daughter. In his book "Genre and Hollywood," author Steve Neale (1988) breaks this style down even further by explaining that “dramatic conflict [in racism films] was to be structured around two opposing poles clearly representing good and evil, with a readily identifiable hero and villain”. This idea of opposing forces is seen in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as the prejudiced maid and the nosy Tillie act as the villains for the heroic Draytons to vanquish. Black characters rarely saw themselves as the heroes of their own story. They were either relegated to being the villain or to serve the heroic white characters. This role came to be known as the “noble negro”, a role that Sidney Poitier would play throughout the majority of his career. In her YouTube video Why The Help ?, Isabel Custodio (2020) describes this role as having “its own predictably recurrent tropes. These characters had impossibly noble traits seemingly honed to mollify white audiences. They were slow to anger, had no sexual impulses, and often sacrificed themselves for white co-stars.” Black audiences at the time often found Poitier's characters disingenuous. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , they thought it was ludicrous that Poitier played a world-renowned doctor who acts more holy than Jesus. Why give the parents a pat on the back for accepting a virtually perfect man? Kramer, on the other hand, believed that was the point. By making Prentice so perfect, only his skin color could be the barrier to marriage. Kramer’s viewpoint worked for his audience and the Oscars, as the film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning for Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn) and Best Original Screenplay. 1967 marked the peak of Poitier’s career. His successes in previous films had typecast him as the “noble negro”, a role the younger generation didn’t accept. Now that his career is over, it is ironic to say that Poitier’s appeal was to the generation of 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. As Poitier’s career was about to fall, the career of Dustin Hoffman was about to take off like a rocket. 1967 saw the release of The Graduate , directed by Mike Nichols, who was making his follow up to the critically acclaimed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . That film put Nichols on the map with its groundbreaking vulgarity and sexual innuendos, with the latter carrying forward into his next film. The Graduate centers around Benjamin Braddock, who has just graduated college and doesn’t know what to do with his life. He finds himself in an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner. This sexually charged relationship goes on for quite some time until Benjamin catches feelings for Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. A beacon of New Sentimentality, The Graduate spoke to a generation through its unmatched authenticity. Dustin Hoffman had no screen presence before being cast. 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. Nichols saw something in Hoffman, an opportunity to use his “flaws'' to tell a story to a younger audience growing tired of Hollywood perfectionism. Film critic Roger Ebert (1967) described Hoffman’s performance as “painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments." Hoffman’s awkward and anxious performance is filled with the traits of New Sentimentality. The idea of people having inward problems, sleeping around with others, and being wounded were ideas becoming more and more part of the national psyche, especially to young adults. Newman and Benton stressed that New Sentimentality had to do with you and you alone. “Personal interest is the abiding motivation and... your primary objective is to make your life fit your style.” The idea of personal interest and selfishness comes to its apex at the end when both Elaine and Ben run off together, though they have no idea what they are going to do now that they’re gone. Unlike Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , Nichols (and screenwriters Buck Henry and Calder Willingham) doesn't craft the story around the message. It’s the inverse, as the message comes from the story. Ebert noticed this subversive social messaging in his review, saying, “[the film] is inspired by the free spirit which the young British and French New Wave directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something.” With The Graduate , the audience is the one deciding the message for themselves, instead of it being intentionally swayed towards one side like Kramer did (even if he had good intentions). The Graduate’s methods proved highly successful, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 (beating out second-place Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner ) and garnering seven Academy Award nominations, winning for Nichol’s direction. The film also inspired a generation of filmmakers to craft stories for a new generation of moviegoers. Films such as American Graffiti, Harold and Maude , and the filmography of Woody Allen took a more liberal policy towards sex and personal relationships. Dustin Hoffman’s career exploded following 1967. He continued with down and dirty roles in films such as Midnight Cowboy, Straw Dogs, and Lenny . His imperfections won him a passionate following of fans that saw themselves through him. He reached his peak in 1979 with his Oscar-winning role in Kramer vs. Kramer and stayed at the top of his game for nearly a quarter-century with acclaim in later roles in Death of a Salesman, Rain Man, and Tootsie . 1967 was the transition point of two eras in American cinema. It was the beginning of the end for Hollywood conventionalism and the beginning of the rise of auteur-driven filmmaking. Looking through the lens of Old and New Sentimentality, one can see why and how this specific period marked that shift and how it enforced lasting consequences on how filmmakers see their audience and how audiences see themselves on the screen. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Opus March 14, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Had Opus been released a decade prior, it might have had a chance to be a decent movie. Probably not, as that conversation would have needed the film to have a single redeeming element. But by coming out in 2025 and after the likes of Get Out , Midsommar, Blink Twice , The Menu , and Don’t Worry Darling , the weight of comparison killed Opus right from the start. This is an A24 film in the derogatory sense, tailor-made to have ironic memes generated and tongue-in-cheek merchandise consumed (if it sounds like I’m venting, it’s because I am). It came as no surprise to witness three of the four other audience members at my screening immediately open Letterboxd to log this as soon as the credits started scrolling. Unfortunately for Opus , that kind of crowd has definitely seen the other mentioned movies, leaving not many green stars to be granted here. I guess I was a little harsh when I said that this film didn’t have any redeeming elements to it. That’s not wholly true, as Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich delivered decent enough performances to keep me in my seat. She plays Ariel Ecton, a young journalist for a major music magazine. We first see her in a pitch meeting, the rest of the room eating up her every word as she pitches a new story on some faded singer. Editor Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett) likes the idea but passes Ariel over and hands it off to some other writer. Fate then reaches out and extends its hand in the form of an invite for Stan, and, surprisingly, Ariel, to join the legendary and long-reclusive popstar Alfred Moretti (Malkovich) at his secluded Utah compound for an unveiling of his new studio album. Considering her rookie status, especially when compared to all the other attendees like TV personality Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis) and paparazzo Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), Ariel’s presence immediately stands out. It’s that sense of otherness that keeps Ariel on her toes as the weirdness of Moretti and his assembled cult followers gradually becomes too loud to ignore. The comparisons to Midsommar and The Menu also become too loud to ignore right as Ariel and co. arrive at Moretti’s self-proclaimed slice of heaven. Because every cult member smiles all the time and speaks of having their inner selves finally unlocked, you and I both know this is all bullshit and that something sinister is about to go down. First-time writer/director Mark Anthony Green takes his sweet time getting to the destination, littering his script with lectures on celebrity worship and the integrity of entertainment journalism. Besides already being beaten to the punch, Green never feels willing to make a fine point about any of his talking points, leaving everything in a morally muddled mess. I assume he thought the stylization would be enough, a kind of shorthand that forces us to fill in the logic gaps. Worse than the confusion Opus incites is the fact that it never registers as interesting or sensical. What’s the point of asking questions when you never cared what the answer was to begin with? More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Wake Up Dead Man September 7, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery had its World Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release it in theaters on November 26, followed by its streaming premiere on December 12. Everything comes in threes for the Knives Out films. Three entries, three years between each of them, three central murders to solve, and three identical births on the first Saturday of the Toronto International Film Festival at the Princess of Wales theatre. It’s like clockwork, with writer/director Rian Johnson continually proving his dominance over a genre filled with so many imitators. But Johnson doesn’t think of his work in the shape of a clock. “The film should be a rollercoaster, not a crossword puzzle,” he said during the Q&A for Wake Up Dead Man , the currently announced final film in the series. It’s a strategy he’s only made tougher for himself with each successive film, the audience getting increasingly better trained at sniffing out each twist, striking out the red herrings, and picking up on the tiniest of clues. Every noun has importance, every opinion has a second side, and every innocent act has a much darker meaning lurking underneath. Wake Up Dead Man finds itself embracing the darkness, combining the trademark characteristics of Agatha Christie with the work of Edgar Allan Poe. After a COVID-19-imposed detour to a private Greek island in Glass Onion , the series returns to America, specifically upstate New York. “Young, dumb, and full of Christ,” preacher Jud Duplentis (Josh O’Connor) has been shipped there to revitalize a flailing parish under the dogmatic eye of Msgr. Jefferson Micks (Josh Brolin). Years of messages full of fire and brimstone, along with general antagonistic behavior, have transformed his ornate house of worship into a hollow Gothic tomb. The only members left in the congregation are those who are ceaselessly devoted to Wicks and his teachings: administrator Martha (Glenn Close), groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Haden Church), town doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), redpilled author Lee (Andrew Scott), the sickly former cellist Simone (Cailee Spaeny), lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), and her forcibly adopted son Cy (Daryl McCormack). As you assumed, one of these characters is murdered, and the fingers are all pointing at Jud, thanks to his differing views on the role of the church and his violent past, which includes killing one of his opponents in the boxing ring. And as you also assumed, the Kentucky Fried Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is here to uncover the real culprit and explain this seemingly impossible mystery. O’Connor is ostensibly the film’s lead, taking an ever larger role as the audience’s guide than Ana de Armas and Janelle Monáe did in their respective films. He’s sad, funny, and conflicted, wanting to put down his fists and open up his arms to the world. But the world we currently live in is not equipped for such compassion, trading in gossip and rumor rather than a heart-to-heart conversation. This could be lightly defined as Johnson’s version of Eddington , taking down both sides of the aisle with the groan-worthy buzzwords (MAGA, DOGE, etc.) and the kind of fanaticism that only breeds hatred for anything that seems unfamiliar. But while Ari Aster specializes in pushing our faces closer to the ugly mirror, Johnson prefers that everything be kept light and fun. The snappy editing, coupled with the long zoom-ins and heightened images by regular DP Steve Yedlin, keeps the intrigue chugging along on this slightly elongated 144-minute track. The surrounding forest is besieged by fog, and the moon is blood red, and the eyes of the gargoyles are piercing down on each of the suspects. Craig falls deeper into his Foghorn Leghorn routine, upping his comedic prowess as the proudly rational detective must come face-to-face with the realization that all the clues point to this murder being a miracle. With so much time devoted to O’Connor, the rest of the herd of cats run loose a little more than before. I’d like to say who gets better served than others, but that would get us flirting with spoiler territory. While Johnson would prefer we don’t think of these films as a puzzle, it’s still endlessly entertaining to see him lay out all the pieces and then rearrange them. His delicate sleight of hand will have you exclaiming that you knew a certain thing would happen all along, or that you never would have guessed that in a million years. Either way, the game is afoot for (supposedly) one last time, and the board is full of saints and sinners. More Reviews 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple January 13, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Rip January 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Dead Man's Wire January 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen The Chronology of Water January 9, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen