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Cannes 2024 Predictions - Part 3: The Loyalists April 9, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen With Oscar season firmly behind us (although it never really ends), it’s time to set our sights on the next white whale barreling toward us: festival season! Sundance and SXSW have provided the appetizer with their concentration of indies and spring studio releases, opening the doors for Cannes to take center stage with glitzy red carpets and world-class talent. Last year’s edition proved to be one of its best, with Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall and Grand Prize winner The Zone of Interest being two of the most acclaimed and rewarded films of the year. Also featured were About Dry Grasses , Fallen Leaves , La Chimera , May December , and The Taste of Things . Last year’s SAG and WGA strikes will likely put a damper on the presence of Hollywood on the Croisette (and potentially at the later fall festivals), but it shouldn’t prevent Delegate General Thierry Fremaux and his team from assembling some of the best that world cinema has to offer. The festival will announce its full lineup on April 11. Until then, I’ll take a closer look at some of the films that are generating buzz and predict which ones are likely to make it up the coveted steps this year. This final part will cover films from directors who are just as much stars as the actors that feature in their films. These are filmmakers that have either debuted several high-profile films at the festival and/or won an award such as the Palme d’Or. Cannes is a festival built upon relationships, and these auteurs have been steady as a rock for so many years. Kinds of Kindness It was only a few weeks ago that Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone were triumphing at the Oscars with Poor Things , and now there’s potential that they’re going to do it all over again. Lanthimos’ unique arthouse sensibilities have matched well with Cannes in the past, with Dogtooth, The Lobster , and The Killing of a Sacred Deer , all winning various prizes. He partnered with Searchlight on his two previous films, both of them premiering at Venice and garnering a combined 21 Oscar nominations. The June 21 release date immediately squashes that possibility, all but confirming the Greek auteur's return to Cannes. Emilia Perez A previous winner for Dheepan in 2015, Jacques Audiard returns with a Mexican-set opera musical featuring Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Édgar Ramírez. Karla Sofía Gascón will play the titular role as her character helps “an escaped Mexican cartel leader undergo sex reassignment surgery to both evade the authorities and affirm her gender.” The Shrouds Cannes has been the birthplace for six of David Cronenberg’s films, with Crash wreaking havoc with vehicular-related sex 25 years before Titane . The Canadian icon has been outspoken in the past about his desire to debut his films on the Croisette, and his newest should be no exception. A festival-favorite cast composed of Vincent Cassell, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce headline this story of a widower building a device to speak to the dead. Bird Andrea Arnold doesn't make movies often, but she goes to Cannes every time she does. Her latest one lured Barry Keoghan away from Gladiator 2 , and has him paired up with rising star Franz Rogowski. A24 will be handling distribution, with a Palme d’Or certainly being in their sights. Hard Truths Mike Leigh is one of the most revered British directors of all time; competing for the Palme d’Or on four occasions, winning it in 1996 for Secrets & Lies . The last few years haven’t been kind to him, with Cannes rejecting Peterloo in 2018 and new financial backing not being easy to come by. The money eventually came in for his new story about a black British family grappling with life after the pandemic. Will he come back to Cannes after being shunned, or stick with the more welcoming fall festivals? Anora Sean Baker is in the company of Jerry Lewis and James Gray as American directors who are more greatly respected in France than at home. The Florida Project made its premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight, with Red Rocket netting Baker a promotion to the Official Competition. Neon has backed his latest feature, which tells the story of a sex worker between New York and Las Vegas. Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie / The Disappearance Cannes has shown loyalty to Russian auteur Kirill Serebrennikov during its multi-year banishment of his country’s government. His next film will continue the biopic streak from Tchaikovsky’s Wife , this time in the English language and focusing on the life of Soviet poet Eduard Limonov. Serebrennikov co-wrote the screenplay with Cold War director Paweł Pawlikowski and Ben Hopkins, and Ben Whishaw will play the titular character. And if that’s not enough, Serebrennikov has also shot a feature about notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele during his fugitive years in South America. I’d put money down on the former premiering this year, and the latter holding out for next year, or the fall festivals. Spectateurs! Although Arnaud Desplechin has competed for the Palme d’Or on seven occasions (plus a few times in the sidebar), his last few films have been disappointments. Still, there’s no indication he'll be rejected for his new film, especially with its cast featuring Anatomy of a Fall star Milo Machado Graner and Mathieu Amalric. Megalopolis Sure, Francis Ford Coppola hasn’t made a decent movie in over 25 years. But when you’re the director of The Godfather trilogy and a two-time Palme d’Or winner for The Conversation and Apocalypse Now , you get a free pass for life. The famed director revealed recently that his long-gestating film would be getting a large IMAX push in the fall, which keeps the door open for a long overdue return to the Croisette. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Road House March 20, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Remaking Road House for modern times doesn't sound like a good idea on paper, with immediate expectations slotting it next to the other misplaced-in-time remakes of Ghost in the Shell and Baywatch . There wasn’t exactly a compelling story to the 1989 original, just Patrick Swayze delivering cans of whoop ass on greasy goons with his black belt in karate. And for a film that made less money than you would think, its cultural footprint has persevered throughout the decades thanks to the funny title, cheesy concept, and, for kids closer to my generation, the frequent Family Guy parodies . Even with the setting being transplanted to the modern day, Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) is still a man stuck in the past. He has no phone, a clunker of a car, and simply drifts from town to town scraping by through low-end cage fights. For him, it’s harder to fight the rage inside than any opponent. He’s calm and composed, but there’s always a twinge of insanity ready to let loose. “You don’t want to know me” and “I’m not afraid of him, I’m afraid of what I’ll do,” he says a few times, with brief snapshots of his UFC past (all shot at an actual UFC event) explaining how he fell so far. Like the idea of remaking the film itself, the casting of Gyllenhaal to take over from Swayze is an odd choice. He’s an actor not exactly known for being relaxed, as evidenced by his previous work in Okja , Nightcrawler , and Velvet Buzzsaw . It’s perhaps a case of the chicken or the egg, with Gyllenhaal being a great piece of casting for this newer take on the character, or his involvement changing the tone. Either way, it works out, with Gyllenhaal’s grounded approach never taking away from the fun. Plus, he’s already had fighting experience with Southpaw , so the producers probably saved a nice chunk of change on training costs. Dalton is hired by Frankie (Jessica Williams) to be the bouncer/enforcer of her family bar called The Road House, just one of several hit-or-miss attempts at some tongue-in-cheek humor by writers Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry. It’s located on a beautiful beach in Florida, with the only problem being the infestation of bikers and roid ragers. It’s nothing Dalton can’t handle, with his laissez-faire attitude towards kicking the crap out of someone almost making it more disrespectful. None of these guys were worth his time, which leads him up the food chain toward the head of the richest crime family in the area, Ben Brandt (Billy Magnussen). He’s got some dastardly plan and needs the bar taken out of commission by any means necessary, including kidnapping, murder, and explosions. The further the plot progresses, the less fun Road House becomes. It’s a bit of a bummer that the first fight where Dalton dismantles five bikers singlehandedly is by far the film’s best-set piece. Even if they are cartoonishly punchable, there is plenty of guilty pleasure in seeing some hooligans get their comeuppance. However, you can’t exactly fill a two-hour movie with your hero facing no resistance, so former UFC champion Conor McGregor has to be introduced as a bruising wildcard. McGregor won’t find himself with a lucrative acting career like former fighters Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista, but he fills his wildcard role enough here to be entertaining. Helming this bare-knuckle brawler is director Doug Liman, who helped revolutionize the action genre in the 2000s with The Bourne Identity and gave Tom Cruise another action vehicle outside of his usual Mission: Impossible films with Edge of Tomorrow . All that prowess quickly goes out the window the longer the fight scenes drag on, with questionable visual effects and camera movements overselling the brutality and undercutting the choreography. Once gasoline explosions and boat jousting get involved, things quickly go all the way overboard. Still, for as much as its faults are glaringly apparent, there’s nothing offensive about Road House . I guess that’s what you get when you do a remake of a movie that wasn’t that good to begin with and have it released exclusively on Prime Video. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Relay August 18, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen ! Widget Didn’t Load Check your internet and refresh this page. If that doesn’t work, contact us. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Twin Cities Film Fest 2024 Preview October 11, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen With the conclusion of the fall festival trio of the Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival, it’s time for the regional festivals to step up to the plate. Throughout the next four to six weeks, festivals all over the country will bring together a collection of the best that world cinema has to offer this year. Many of these festivals are nearly as famous and prestigious as the ones that birth those films, with two examples being the New York Film Festival and AFI Fest Now celebrating its 15th year, the Twin Cities Film Fest (TCFF) provides that central space of celebration for cinephiles within the state of Minnesota. The festival recently announced its full lineup , which featured its usual mixture of awards season contenders from large studios, smaller films that have made a name for themselves throughout the festival circuit, and productions that shine a spotlight on local artists. Opening the festival is Conclave , Focus Features’ papal thriller from Edward Berger, director of the recent Netflix adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front . Ralph Fiennes leads an all-star cast comprised of Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. I was able to see the film at TIFF and greatly admired it, so I hope that my positivity spreads to the Minnesota crowd. Searchlight Pictures will be pulling double duty at the festival with Nightbitch and A Real Pain . The former premiered at TIFF, while the latter debuted at Sundance all the way back in January. Amazon MGM studios won’t be outdone as they also bring two notable titles from their catalog. Premiering on the first weekend is Unstoppable , the true underdog story of one-legged wrestler Anthony Robles starring Jharrel Jerome, Jennifer Lopez, and Don Cheadle. RaMell Ross’s avant-garde adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel Nickel Boys will be seen on the final day of the festival. Screening immediately after that and rounding out the big studio features will be Steve McQueen’s World War II film Blitz , which premieres at the BFI London Film Festival in a few days. Stopping here as part of its regional tour since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival is La Cocina , which tells the story of the lives of the employees working at a New York restaurant. Winner of the Best Director prize in the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is On Becoming a Guinea Fowl , which A24 will show midway through the festival ahead of its December release. The Centerpiece film of this year’s edition will be Magpie , a thriller about a married couple whose relationship begins to fracture when a glamorous movie star enters their lives. Writer Tom Bateman and star Daisy Ridley will be in attendance to introduce the film and receive the TCFF Indie Vision Awards. Also awarded will be Josh Duhamel, who will receive the NorthStar Award and headline an “In Conversation” event. The top prize at the festival is the Best Feature Film Award. Previous winners over the years have been Marriage Story , Women Talking , American Fiction , Green Book , and Moonlight . Officially closing the festival will be a sneak preview of the Minnesota-connected feature Days When the Rain Came . Writer and actress Marisa Coughlan will be present for a post-film discussion alongside actors Beau Bridges and Eliza Coupe. A new prize this year is the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA) Critics Prize, of which I will be heading the selection process. Myself and a few other critics from the organization will glean through the lineup and award a standout film with the special prize. Films that will be a part of this process are: Boundary Waters, Schiroka: In Lies We Trust, We Strangers, Luther: Never Too Much, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Bob Trevino Likes It, All We Carry, Camp Ricstar, Band on the Run , and Queen of the Ring . It’s an eclectic mix of films, including several from local filmmakers. I look forward to seeing what all these works have in store, and giving a boost to one that stood out from the crowd. More than 140 films will be screened during the ten-day event, with almost half of them simultaneously streaming via the TCFF Streams platform. Details for the lineup and other events can be found at the festival website ( twincitiesfilmfest.org ). Expect full reviews for several of the studio titles listed above, and a recap article at the conclusion of the festival. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Love Hurts February 6, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Ostensibly, Love Hurts is an original movie. It’s neither a remake nor a reboot, or based on some existing source material. For that fact alone, it deserves some credit, as does Universal Studios for backing and distributing a film that gives the fifty-three-year-old Ke Huy Quan his first chance to be at the top of the call sheet in his forty-year career. But that’s where the positive remarks end for Love Hurts . All of its “original” ideas have been seen time and time again, all of its well-marketed stunts have been executed better by other action properties, and all of its holiday-related sentimentality is so undercooked that it might as well be served to the vultures. Love does hurt, but so does having to sit through a movie that you know won’t do anything more than be a void for your precious time. Love Hurts is still at least inoffensively entertaining, mostly from the effortless charm that Ke Huy Quan had kept from the world for nearly two decades before he returned in Everything Everywhere All at Once . He campaigned nonstop for almost twelve months between the film’s world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival and the 2023 Academy Awards, culminating in his victory in the category of Best Supporting Actor. Every single one of the hundreds of interviews and speeches he conducted felt genuine, a rare feat in the increasingly politicized and performative game that is awards season. Quan’s enthusiasm for having a leading role is completely infectious, giving his character an immediately rootable spirit. He plays Marvin Gable, a Milwaukee realtor who always sees the bright side and greets every day with a smile. But while there is authenticity behind his demeanor, it's also a coping mechanism to cover his shady past as an assassin for his crime-lord brother. It’s a life he’s left behind, although it doesn’t seem like he tried very hard as he still lives in the same town and took a very public job that has his face plastered on every bus station bench. I guess Clark Kent’s strategy of simply putting on glasses to hide his identity is more scientific than I thought. But even if Marvin’s brother is egregiously oblivious, his former “lover” Rose (Ariana DeBose) isn’t. She’s supposed to be dead, at least in the legal sense after Marvin betrayed his brother’s orders and let her flee instead of being executed. Now she’s back to get revenge on Marvin’s brother’s syndicate and break Marvin out of the dull existence that she thinks is a lie. I use “lover” in quotes because Quan and DeBose have zero romantic chemistry together. The twenty-year age difference doesn’t help, nor the fact that Marvin’s constant annoyance at Rose’s chaotic nature never once hints at a past infatuation. It’s never a good sign when a climactic kiss makes an audience wince instead of swoon. The film marks the directorial debut of Jonathan Eusebio, a veteran fight and stunt coordinator with a long list of credits that include a smattering of MCU titles, the John Wick franchise, and The Matrix Resurrections. The choreography is expectedly up to par, with 87North Productions and John Wick head honcho David Leitch serving as producer. But Eusebio’s camerawork and editing don’t reach the heights of his boss, the punches and kicks never landing with enough force to garner a physical reaction. Even with a runtime of a mere 83 minutes, much of Love Hurts still feels like weightless padding to justify the feature-length treatment. If they stripped this down to its essentials, then maybe it could have been a half-decent short film, or, heaven forbid, Quibi original. I still doubt it, but at least everyone would have saved themselves the few precious dollars we need to save in order to buy eggs. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Good Nurse September 11, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen The Good Nurse had its World Premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release it on its streaming platform on October 26. In this age of the true crime boom, it’s refreshing to watch something that doesn’t contain the usual fetishization of the criminal in an attempt to “get inside their head and understand them.” Or there’s the worse route, which is to make the show/movie capture the cultural zeitgeist by pandering to the TikTok crowd (I’m looking at you Dahmer , which has spawned the horrible “Jeffrey Dahmer Challenge”). Instead of doing any of those things, Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse wisely steers away from the crimes themselves and centers on the damaging causes and effects. The titular good nurse is Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), a single mom who constantly struggles to balance the financial, physical, and emotional needs of herself and her two daughters. Despite having a heart condition that could easily kill her if she stresses herself too much, Amy works the graveyard shift at a New Jersey hospital, caring for the sick all throughout the night. After her shift, she goes home to see her daughters off to school and hopefully get a few hours of sleep before starting the cycle over again. One day, an angel appears in the form of Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne), a soft-spoken and caring new nurse who offers to help Amy. He lightens her workload, helps her take her meds, and is able to look after the kids at a moment's notice. For Amy, this almost seems too good to be true. As it turned out, it was. Cullen would be convicted of killing 29 patients across the dozens of hospitals he worked at, with almost all of the victims coming in with minor injuries and leaving for the morgue under mysterious circumstances. The Good Nurse never seems interested in answering the question “why did this monster kill all those people?” Rather, it takes the more interesting and socially relevant route of answering “how was this allowed to happen for so long?” Centering much of that discussion are two weary detectives (Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha) brought in to investigate after the first questionable death at Amy’s hospital. Slowly, they begin pulling on threads, uncovering an extensive history of medical cover-ups prioritizing dollars over lives. There is nothing uplifting in its message, but it is constantly enlightening. But that enlightenment doesn’t come easy, with director Tobias Lindholm ( The Hunt ) bringing much of his Mindhunter skills into play. The tension is razor sharp, terrifyingly crescendoing across the deliberately paced material. DP Jody Lee Lipes shoots everything in drab gray wide shots, keeping the action unfrayed from excessive style. It’s the simplicity of the filmmaking that makes it all the more unsettling as you're reminded this happened for years in plain sight without anyone noticing, or caring. As Cullen, Redmayne finally gets the villain role we’ve all been waiting for (let's pretend Jupiter Ascending never happened). His charming awkwardness is used to great effect to mask the darkness underneath, making it easily believable why so many would doubt his culpability. To be fair, the wheels do come off the wagon once he’s erroneously pushed toward more dramatic moments, such as a semi-cringe outburst near the end. On the other hand, Chastain can do the heavy lifting. She gives Amy an empathetic intensity, making even the most mundane moments feel important. The Good Nurse is a tension-filled and infuriating true-crime examination of a broken system and the twisted individual who saw the opportunity it gave him. It’s an elevation of the genre that has repeatedly found itself wallowing in exploitation, with two Oscar-caliber performances leading the charge. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Superman July 8, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Art never exists within a vacuum. Whether intentional or not, art is always in conversation with what has come before and what may come after. “Art imitates life” is the old adage, with the reverse being equally true. Within the world of comic-book films, specifically those based on DC Comics publications, there has been a perpetual push-pull in terms of the tone for their classic characters. The overcommercialization of Batman & Robin led to the more adult-oriented Batman Begins . Doubling down on that approach with The Dark Knight , in conjunction with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s strategy of being more family-friendly, gave DC the confidence to hand the keys to their cinematic kingdom to Zack Snyder, who likened the characters to tormented deities rather than everyday heroes. Grimmer than the fairy tales from the famous German brothers, these stories were the opposite of “summer fun,” and required real-time course corrections (the theatrical cut of Justice League vs. Zack Snyder’s Justice League ) , muddying the overall picture. Bursting onto the scene as the ultimate course correction is James Gunn’s boldly titled Superman . It’s not a coincidence that the opening studio logos feature a bright background, a cheerful animated version of Superman, and a tinge of John Williams’ iconic score. As his Kryptonian parents state in their farewell video message, he’s been put on Earth because it’s the place where he can do the most good. And boy, were they right. This Earth also has its own Eastern European crisis, with Superman (David Corenswet) intervening when one side invades the other. He did so in the name of saving lives, and potentially stopped an impending war. By doing so, he violated several international laws and established himself as judge, jury, and executioner to those who can spin the truth. Similar to Captain America: Civil War and Zack Snyder’s approach in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Gunn investigates the naivety of simply doing good in a modern world that perpetually proves that it can play devil’s advocate. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) is their Devil, pulling the strings on a multi-pronged hit on Superman’s public image. What good is a beacon of hope when people stop believing in it? This central idea on the symbolism of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s classic character is the film’s greatest asset, especially with Gunn opting to go straight for the heart of the matter by placing this story slightly later in the origin story timeline. Superman is the people's champion, with street vendors rushing to pick him up when he crashes into the ground, and kids waving his symbol as a means to ward off evil. But he's now stuck between a rock and a hard place, with every decision taking two steps forward, three steps back. What’s disappointing is watching that kernel get drowned by an onslaught of extra characters, side plots, and bloated set pieces. It’s all in the name of fun, but too much fun can be a bad thing. Just outside the main troupe of characters is the Justice Gang (sounds like an opportunity for a future name change) trio of Guy Gardener, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific (with his terrific tennis balls), Metamorpho, the Luthor henchman of Ultraman and The Engineer, and all the staff at The Daily Planet. Their jobs are to deliver the copious amounts of exposition required to keep this flying locomotive on the tracks, explaining what just happened and what will happen. There's also Krypto the Superdog lending comedic relief at every turn. Your mileage on his antics will be in direct correlation to how much you like dogs (hint: I'm more of a cat person). All of this culminates in a final stretch that attempts to serve everything and everyone mentioned, along with nuggets for what's to come next in this new era of the DC Universe. Gunn mostly succeeds in juggling all these haphazardly thrown balls, but he doesn't excel enough to make me crave more. If it could have focused on one ball, then it would have been a slam dunk. You miss every shot you don't take, but there comes a point where you're just chucking at the wall. Corenswet is quite the discovery as our titular hero, exuding a boyish charm and optimism that skipped over Henry Cavill. He wears the big red logo proudly, which Gunn prominently shows off every time he leaps through the sky. The visual effects that encapsulate him during those high-flying effects are well done, carrying a goofy off-beat energy from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Luthor's brain is often stronger than Superman's brawn, with Hoult capturing the megalomania required to take on such a formidable adversary. He's punchable as he throws tantrums, consumes himself with envy, and belittles everyone around him. Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane is underserved by the sped-through nature of her relationship with Clark Kent/Superman, but she still manages to make a good impression. So, here we are, back to square one. A decade's worth of previous DC films have been thrown in the trash (good riddance, I mostly say). In his overeagerness to be liked and do everything, everywhere, all at once, Gunn may have placed the cart before the horse, but he also swings the door wide open to a universe with endless possibilities. Now we just have to wait and see if the juice will be worth the squeeze. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

TIFF23 Dispatch - Part 1 September 17, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen All of the films were screened at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Click here for additional full reviews and dispatches. Select films below will receive separate full-length reviews at a later date, most likely in connection to their public releases. Dream Scenario Nicolas Cage has never been funnier (at least in an unironic way) than he is in Kristoffer Borgli’s English-language debut. The famed madman actor plays a dorky professor who inexplicably appears in everyone’s dreams, making him the most famous person on the planet. The fame quickly gets to his head, but it also brings unintended consequences once the dreams start taking darker turns. Borgli's examination of cancel culture isn’t all that skillful, with most of the insights being surface-level. Cage is what sells this whole premise and covers any of the minor problems. While he’s still appearing in VOD garage more often than he should, there have been just enough auteur-driven projects to keep him an icon to the Letterboxd generation. Being that this specific film is an A24 production, be prepared for the ensuing meme frenzy come November. (3.5/5) The Critic While writer Patrick Marber and star Ian McKellen are having a delightfully catty time with The Critic , director Anand Tucker takes the material too seriously, making it uneven, yet still enjoyable. McKellen plays the internet's stereotypical version of a critic: mean, smearing, and always out to make himself the star of the show. Times are changing in London as the newspapers are merging, threatening McKellen’s job, and the fascists are becoming more radicalized. Marber’s script is a little too scattershot, never developing its numerous plotlines and characters outside of the central McKellen story. The glossy production values make this a decent package as a whole. A perfect piece of entertainment to get a spring theatrical release as counterprogramming to a superhero blockbuster. (3/5) Memory Two people with memory issues come together in writer/director Michel Franco’s newest film, which doesn’t wallow in mystery as his past filmography would suggest. Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) is a mother who can’t seem to forget her past drug and alcohol struggles, while Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) has dementia and can’t seem to remember much of his past life. These two troubled souls are attracted to each other, even if the forces of the world, notably their families, would like them to stay apart. The script places all its priorities on these two performances, both of which reach near perfection. There’s sadness and pain in their stories, but they unlock small linings of hope when they appear in each other’s lives. Franco doesn’t offer much in terms of answers, not that anyone should expect struggles of this magnitude to be so easily solved. (3.5/5) One Life No modern movie has had a more significant fourth-quarter comeback than One Life . The first 90 minutes of James Hawes’ feature directorial debut has the same dry cracker texture as many other British WWII period pieces you’ve seen over the years. An immediate 180° is made in the climactic scene (you'll know it when you see it), leaving me and the rest of the audience in tears. Anthony Hopkins stars as the older Nicholas Winton, with Johnny Flynn playing the younger version that made it his mission to rescue children out of the Holocaust ghettos of Eastern Europe. It’s Hopkins’ segments in the 1980s that give the film the spurts of life it needs. Recently minted Oscar-winner Volker Bertelmann provides a sweeping score, accenting the epic work done by this humble humanitarian. (3.5/5) Quiz Lady By far the broadest film TIFF programmed this year, Quiz Lady is your typical streamer comedy. The generic story follows Anne (Awkwafina) and her rowdy older sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) as they go on Anne’s favorite game show to win the $80,000 needed to pay off their mom’s gambling debts. Will Ferrell, Tony Hale, and Jason Schwartzman fill out the supporting cast. Director Jessica Yu has helmed episodes of prestige television as well as both feature and short documentaries (winning an Oscar for Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien ), yet you’d never be able to tell based on what she delivers here. Everything is filmed with basic competence, with the actors filling much of the empty space with hit-or-miss jokes. It’s fun to see Oh cut loose, and Ferrell’s wholesome game show host turns out to be his best role in years. You can have some decent fun with this on a Friday night, forgetting all about it when you wake up the next morning. (3/5) More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

It Was Just an Accident October 28, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen Rashid (Ebrahim Azizi) drives home late at night with his wife and young daughter. Due to the open landscape of Iran and the dark conditions, he hits a wild dog. This causes his car to break down a few miles later. Luckily, there’s a mechanic not far down the road who’s still open at this time of night and agrees to fix his car. Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is one of the mechanics, and, in the void of darkness and silence, hears the limping squeak of Rashid’s prosthetic leg. It’s a sound that sends a shiver down his spine, as it exactly replicates what he heard as he was being tortured by the infamous guard known as Peg Leg over the months he was detained for protesting. Despite its title and initial set of circumstances being born out of coincidence, the creation of It Was Just an Accident is purely intentional. Writer/director Jafar Panahi has been a fervently political filmmaker for over thirty years. Despite securing a historic bevy of awards at the Cannes Film Festival for The White Balloon , he was forbidden from promoting the film in the United States on government orders. It would mark the only film of his career to screen in his home country, the rest all being banned on the grounds of anti-government propaganda. He was arrested in 2010 on that charge, imprisoned in confinement for months until he was released on house arrest. A string of docufiction hybrids was born out of this restriction, including the aptly titled This Is Not a Film , which had to be smuggled out of the country on a USB stick hidden in a cake. Panahi was arrested again in 2022, the third director to be detained in a week, along with Mohammad Rasoulof ( The Seed of the Sacred Fig ) and Mostafa Aleahmad. His eventual release was spurred several months later by a hunger strike. Like his previous decade of output, It Was Just an Accident was shot in secret without any permits from the government. But unlike those other films, this is a work of scorching anger, with its unwavering sights set directly on his former captors. This is a thriller in the purest sense of the word, where the suspense of the story stretches far beyond the borders of the silver screen. Determining that a moment like this will never come again, Vahid kidnaps Rashid and locks him in a crate in the back of his van. Rashid denies all claims over his identity, which creates just enough doubt for Vashid to seek out second opinions from his fellow inmates. They are Shiva, a wedding photographer; Goli, the bride at one of Shiva’s shoots; and Hamid, a chaos agent with the most vivid memory of his torturer. Like a jury, all of them must come together to verify the identity beyond a reasonable doubt. Panahi lets these events unfold in a natural progression, never overtly telling us what’s going on or why it’s happening. It’s a slow build-up of tension, with the weight of the filmmaking and performances illustrating all that we need to know about the importance of this moment. Of course, there’s a thick layer of irony in the fact that this review, along with all other press coverage of the movie, eliminates much of those feelings by revealing the synopsis. But Panahi is always one step ahead, imbuing the proceedings with a healthy slice of Coen-esque dark comedy. Vahid is not a trained soldier who can simply kidnap a person, so he just runs Rashid over with his car and stuffs him in the crate, all in broad daylight. Two police officers who notice the group are happy to look the other way once someone taps their debit card on the payment terminal. And no one besides Hamid is fully convinced of the perpetrator’s identity, especially when considering the fact that his wife is about to go to the hospital to give birth. Do they have the heart to kill someone so close to their child’s birth? Like Heath Ledger’s Joker, they’re dogs chasing cars, not knowing what to do once they finally catch it. The seriousness of this very real situation is never lost sight of, as many of the practical and ethical questions largely remain unanswered. An absolutely gripping long take near the end solidifies the rage that is not only felt by the characters but also by the millions of people who are entombed within this system of oppression. At the conclusion of the standing ovation to the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the coveted Palme d’Or, Panahi expressed the guilt that he felt for being so lucky to receive acclaim and joy, all while many of his contemporaries are still under persecution. It takes faith to move mountains, and It Was Just an Accident might be the biggest piece of evidence for why we should still hold on to faith, believing that better times are on the horizon. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Causeway September 11, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen ! Widget Didn’t Load Check your internet and refresh this page. If that doesn’t work, contact us. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Pale Blue Eye December 22, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen There's no good way to say it, so I better avoid dancing around the subject and just come out with it: Christian Bale has not had a good year. Between the financial and critical disaster that was Amsterdam and the so-so quality of Thor: Love and Thunder , the payoffs have not matched the effort put in. To be fair, it’s not precisely Bale’s fault that those two movies did not meet expectations, as one actor can only do so much to affect the films they appear in. But I also can’t fully absolve him, or any other cast member within Amsterdam , of choosing to work with David O. Russell considering all that’s been revealed about him. So, in comes The Pale Blue Eye during the waning days of 2022, hoping to salvage what remains of the year through its murder mystery story. But unlike the other Netflix murder mystery of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery , this case doesn’t contain a single smile, least of all a laugh. That is unless you’re the kind of sadistic person who thinks that people being murdered and having their hearts carved out is some kind of sick joke. The commanders at the United States Military Academy certainly don’t believe it to be a laughing matter that their cadets are being picked off one by one. The country is still in its infancy period at this moment in 1830, and appearances are vital to becoming a legitimate world power, so having your finest soldiers in perpetual fear of being horribly mutilated isn’t such a good scenario. Hired to solve this problem is Detective Augustus Landor (Bale), who’s been around the block more times than he can count. But the clues to this case don’t line up too well for an outsider like Landor, so he recruits a young cadet and future world-famous poet, Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling), to be his inside man. Writer/director Scott Cooper doesn’t waste any time plunging us into this cold and desolate environment. The opening shot of a hanged victim, with the thick fog shrouding him in mystery, is a primer for the savagery found within this time period and specific location. The sun never seems to shine during the winter months, with the only light being from the candles inside dingy taverns and cottages. The gothic exteriors of the military academy don’t present a very cozy feeling for its recruits, who are much more in line with posh gentlemen than stereotypical hardened marines. Poe seems to be the brightest of all his brothers, displaying genius levels of intellect through his frequent writing and readings of poetry. Melling overindulges on the character’s eccentricities, speaking in an accent similar to Benoit Blanc’s and with such rapid pace. Landor is the John Watson to Poe’s Sherlock Holmes, only this time the power dynamic has been reversed. Bale, who might as well be reprising his character from Cooper’s Hostiles based on his appearance and demeanor, displays a weariness within his character brought by his haunted past. It is a bit of a shame that some of the other members of this all-star cast, specifically Robert Duvall and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are wasted in nothing roles. Ranging from music dramas to mob biopics to westerns, Cooper has always been a chameleon director, molding his style to whatever the story requires. While he’s never done exemplary work, he does bring adequate professionalism, with some flashes of brilliance. The Pale Blue Eye unfortunately doesn’t contain any out-of-this-world moments as Cooper keeps the thread that ties all the clues together close to his chest, not revealing much until the final moments. But by that point, the answers come across a bit like cheating, as everything seems to be connected because of convenience rather than reality. But even with the central mystery within The Pale Blue Eye not entirely living up to the pedigree of its cast or the quality of its gothic production qualities, there are still enough intriguing elements within this world of the macabre. Chances are you’ll be surrounded by snow and frigid temperatures when this drops on Netflix, so you might as well settle in for a slow-burn mystery because I doubt the rest of the cinematic offerings in January will be much better. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Shazam: Fury of the Gods March 19, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen With all the recent news about the future potential for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new and revitalized DCU, it almost seems pointless to spend time, money, and energy on a grandfathered-in property from the old guard like Shazam: Fury of the Gods . It is an increasingly bad product of the modern studio landscape that giant blockbusters such as this can be rendered irrelevant by politics even before they’ve come out. We don’t have to look that much deeper within Warner Bros. to find the indefinitely-shelved Batgirl as a much harsher example. But then again, it’s hard for me to feel sympathy for Fury of the Gods (and the entire old DCU regime) when it doesn’t provide any compelling reasons for its own existence. It’s an ultra-corporate tentpole telling a been-there-done-that story, with the only thing it excels at doing is being annoying. Where the first Shazam was lighter on its feet and told a pretty straightforward story, Fury of the Gods muddies the waters as we dig deeper into the mediocre lore of the titular character. The three sisters of Atlas: Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and Anthea (Rachel Zegler) have come to our mortal realm to claim their father’s staff, which can give and take the god-like powers from any person. Shazam (who doesn’t go by that name for “hilarious” reasons) and his superhuman foster family are their natural obstacles, although they have in-house troubles of their own as each member wants something a little different. Shazam doesn’t really know his place as a superhero, with Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) being overconfident with his abilities. The rest of the family fulfills their single character trait, so 75% of their interactions go exactly as expected. Shazam’s identity crisis extends to the movie at large, as the edges of personality from the first film have been sanded off in favor of much more generic plotting and action. The stakes are again centered around the world being destroyed, with a MacGuffin about an item with limitless power. It even creates a sky beam (sort of), something we definitely haven’t gotten tired of! There’s also still the problem of Zachary Levi and Asher Angel being the same character, despite the former having too much personality and the latter not enough. Director David F. Sandberg and writers Henry Gayden and Chris Morgan seemed to have sided with Levi, with Angel reduced to a much smaller supporting role. Grazer is grating as well as he overdoes everything. But there is talent evident within him, which he showed tremendously with Luca Gudagnino’s We Are Who We Are , so I still look forward to what he can do outside of franchises. It’s hilarious that Dwayne Johnson didn’t want anything to do with Shazam when he was building his Black Adam movie, despite the two characters having a decades-long relationship in the comics. Now with both Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods being beacons of generic studio fodder, it seems only right for the two of them to finally get together and make something that finally kills the DCU. I wouldn’t mind if their power were also strong enough to suspend the MCU for a while, because the slope toward the gutter is getting increasingly slippier with each new entry. More Reviews Wicked: For Good November 19, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Rental Family September 7, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Jay Kelly November 20, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Train Dreams November 21, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen