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Nyad October 20, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Nyad had its International Premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release it in theaters on October 20, followed by its streaming premiere on November 03. It’s not hard to see why documentary directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin found themselves attracted to the story of Diana Nyad. With their Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo , the duo introduced (at least to the public at large) the character of Alex Honnold. He’s reckless, charismatic, and someone polite people would call a “free spirit.” Having that much of a personality dangling on the side of a rock hundreds of feet in the air is a combination made for the cinema. It was a film you had to see on the big screen, with the stunning imagery and stakes making it a thrill ride to rival even the most high-octane blockbuster. Diana Nyad seemed to cut off the same cloth as Honnold. She came to prominence in the 1970s, setting several world swim records such as the fastest time ever in the 22-mile Gulf of Naples race and swimming the 28 miles around the island of Manhattan in just under 8 hours. She’s someone who doesn't understand the word “no,” which does make her quite the asshole to her friends and trainers as they often beg her to see the consequences of her illogical actions. For all her trophies and achievements, one thing has always alluded her: The 101-mile swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. She wasn’t able to do it in her 20s, she’ll be damned if she can’t get it done in her 60s. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence that four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening plays Nyad, who finally accomplished her treacherous swim after four failed attempts. There’s no denying, or shame in admitting, that this is a role tailor-made to get Bening her overdue trophy. It’s an extremely challenging role, both physically and emotionally. She’s not that nice of a person, being bossy and always pushing everyone around. But Bening never lets you outright hate her as you’re always aware that she can do something no one else can, and the only way to accomplish it is to break a few eggs. Much of the film is set in the water during Nyad’s various attempts. The problem is that swimming is a bit like running in that it’s not the most cinematically engaging sport to watch. I’m oversimplifying things quite a bit (like all movies), but there’s not much of a visual difference between Nyad’s failures and success. You see her in the water pushing herself to the extreme, yet you don’t feel it deep down like you should. Much of that has to do with the flatly competent direction by Vasarhelyi and Chin, who are making their feature narrative debut here. Outside of the somewhat jarringly stitched-together sizzle reels that feel lifted right from their documentaries, the pair never can bring this story out of the water, which is quite the shame considering the talents of Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi, Top Gun: Maverick ) were at their disposal. There’s a hollowness to the story and characters. Writer Julia Cox can’t find more within the character of Diana Nyad that Bening doesn’t do herself. It’s impressive to see Nyad make these attempts but at some point, we all ask ourselves why she’s doing it, and the answers are both unclear and unsatisfactory. Helping carry Bening’s baggage is an excellent Jodie Foster as her best friend and trainer, Bonnie. It may be because she’s always sharing scenes with a person who seems like a fish out of water, but Foster/Bonnie is the unexpected heart and soul of the film. Nyad is stuck in an awkward middle ground. It doesn’t possess enough cinematic spectacle to be a Netflix original that deserves to be seen in the theater. It also doesn’t have enough energy or interesting characters to hold people’s attention as they watch it on the couch. There will be some that get a lot out of this, but for most, me included, this feels like an untapped opportunity for almost everyone involved. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Nickel Boys December 24, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Every once in a while, there comes a film that breaks your preconceptions on how a story can be told. The Jazz Singer, Jaws, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, The Blair Witch Project, The Avengers , and The Zone of Interest are such films, leaving you with the impression that you've seen much more than just a single piece of work. It might not happen right away, but RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys is destined to join those ranks. It's one of the most important films of the year, both in terms of the substance it carries over from the pages of its source material and in how it elicits your emotional response to it. Imagery is Ross's weapon of choice, with much of the words within Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel being either reduced or omitted altogether. But he doesn't stop there, opting to fully dismantle the debate of objective vs. subjective within storytelling and literally placing us within the eyes of the two leads: Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson). While video games and virtual reality have brought the first-person perspective to televisions for years, it's still a relative stranger to the silver screen, especially once you consider the added challenge of the audience not being able to control where and when they look. Ross and co-writer Joslyn Barnes' adaptation goes even further once the layers of time start to fold on top of each other, trapping us in a series of undefinable dreams and nightmares, each one crashing into the other without warning. The central timeline places itself within 1962 Tallahassee. We see and hear the world through Elwood's eyes and ears: A television playing Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech, his reflection in a steaming iron, a white officer giving him a dirty look, and his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) raining tinsel upon him as he lays under the Christmas tree. These sequences play out through the prism of memory, all of them fragmented and extremely brief. They create the dots that we connect through our history and understanding of the time period. We only remember bits and pieces of our past, but the experiences are carried with us to the end of time. Elwood's experience worsens when he accepts a ride from a kindly stranger. The car turns out to be stolen, a fact that the aggressive officer probably used to pull over any African American he could that day. Elwood's punishment is a trip to the Nickel Academy reform school, a place where the term "school" is nothing more than window dressing. The White and Black kids are segregated into different buildings, the latter group mostly all here for some bullshit reason or another, their ages ranging from preschool to high school. What could a preschooler have done to deserve this level of punishment? Turner is the Red to Elwood's Andy Dufresne, quickly offering the sobering tips of what life is like here. The system is rigged, and a few boys disappearing every once in a while is not something out of the ordinary. This place is a microcosm of America itself, pushing down its most disenfranchised citizens while simultaneously scolding them for not being able to climb the barbed ladder. Cinematographer Jomo Fray's camera stays locked within the eyes of the two boys, freely moving between them. This deprivation of the traditional cinematic gaze makes them blank slates, especially Elwood, who we don't get a good look at until over an hour in. There's a newfound sense of discovery as we witness the good and the bad through them, everything real enough that you can't excuse it as just a piece of entertainment. Whitehead's novel was based on the Dozier School for Boys, a place where bodies are still being uncovered. Ellis-Taylor often provides those small semblances of warmth as the kindly matriarch. Her beaming eyes and smile nestle into your heart when they're fixed directly at you. A smattering of scenes with Daveed Diggs recontextualizes the events of the past, with the camera now fixed on his back as if he were in a film by the Dardenne brothers. In one of those later scenes, two of the men reopen their past at school. They talk as if they went to war together and came back with PTSD, with reintegration into society being a constant struggle. A more Hollywood-ized version of this story would make this moment feel a little hokey, but Ross' vision makes it authentic. They, and, by extension, us, have been on a tumultuous journey in a way that we've never seen before. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Top 10 Oliver Stone Films September 15, 2022 By: Hunter Friesen As one of the most controversial figures in American filmmaking, Oliver Stone has never been shy about wearing his politics on his sleeve, which were shaped by his experiences in the Vietnam War, and the American cultural turmoil of the 1960s. Films such as Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July , and JFK gave way to his meteoric rise as an outspoken voice against a country he loves so much. But even with all that success early on, Stone hasn’t been able to find a footing in the 21st Century, turning in subpar work that doesn’t contain the epic anger he once had. In honor of his 76th birthday today, here’s a look at Stone’s ten best films as a director, many of which remain American classics. 10. Salvador This biographical war drama went largely unnoticed in 1986 due to the fact it was released the same year as Platoon . In fact, Stone competed against himself at the 1987 Oscars as both Salvador and Platoon were nominated for Best Original Screenplay (both would lose to Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters ). Salvador falls right in line with Stone’s career ambitions as he critiques America’s involvement in Central American politics during the Reagan administration, which had been embroiled in controversy over the Iran-Contra Affairs. James Woods, who was Oscar-nominated for his leading role, doggedly carries the film as a burnt-out journalist who slowly begins to see the horrible truth the further he goes down the rabbit hole. 9. Talk Radio With Talk Radio , Stone had finally met his match with a protagonist that was as angry as he was. Eric Bogosian reprises his stage role from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play he created, delivering a grotesquely unlikeable character that you dare not look away from. In a similar vein to Paddy Chayefsky’s Network , Stone’s film is a scathing critique of our mass media culture, a subject he would tackle again with Natural Born Killers . With Robert Richardson’s dizzying circular camerawork and Bogosian’s never-ending tirade of insults towards his listeners, Talk Radio is in-your-face entertainment from beginning to end and has only gotten more and more relevant in our age of clickbait media. 8. The Doors Similar to the fate of Salvador , The Doors has often been pushed under the rug due to it being released a mere nine months before JFK . Following the larger-than-icon of Jim Morrison and the formation of the titular band, Stone’s film was the perfect combination of the psychedelic style of the creators and the period. Critiqued for its historical inaccuracies (which Stone is no stranger to), the film is best remembered for Val Kilmer’s stunning performance as the central figure. Kilmer was reportedly mistaken several times for the real Jim Morrison and did his own singing in each of the film’s concert sequences (take that Rami Malek). 7. Wall Street Only a year removed from Platoon , Stone switched his sights from American foreign policy to the domestic financial industry with Wall Street. Most famous for coining the multi-meaning quote “Greed is good,” and giving finance bros a figure they (wrongly) looked up to, Wall Street is overly naïve and mostly just two hours of Stone yelling about how capitalism is broken. But that doesn’t mean his simple statements aren’t correct, nor does it make the film any less entertaining with its flashes of excess that would later become popular in films such as Boiler Room and The Wolf of Wall Street . It’s a shame the 2011 sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps wasn’t able to match the heights of its predecessor, especially considering the ripe material Stone was given with coming out of the Great Recession in 2008. 6. Any Given Sunday With enough light and noise to give even the audience a concussion, Stone makes Any Given Sunday into a war picture. He never lets you forget that football is not played on just a simple field, but a battlefield. The score is everywhere, the blood is spilling, and everybody is playing for their survival. Stone's direction is ambitious and loud, which is the sort of thing that works perfectly for this type of sports movie. Everything is heightened to the highest degree, both emotions and physicality. It's no wonder the NFL didn't approve of this movie as no viewer can come out of this and be motivated to watch football, let alone play it. 5. Born on the Fourth of July With a great Tom Cruise performance at its center, Born on the Fourth of July is an endearing, yet conventional, biopic. Centering on the loss of innocence and the façade of the American dream for the Vietnam-era youth, Stone returned to his Platoon roots. He crafts several ingenious individual scenes with his might behind the camera, which earned him his second Oscar for Best Director. The scenes at the prom, Vietnam, and the Syracuse protest are just some of the great moments. John Williams’ score perfectly supplements the sweeping nature of the story, as it contains trumpet swells that recall youthful patriotism and a string orchestra that signals the haunting moment reality has crushed those once bright dreams. 4. Nixon A few years after making JFK , Stone gave Kennedy’s 1960 election opponent the full cradle-to-grave epic biopic with Nixon . Surprisingly not as damning as one would think and turning out to be a box office bomb by grossing only $13 million against its $44 million budget, Stone’s film plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy as our “hero” rises to the highest mountain, only to be eventually brought down to the lowest valley. The Welsh Anthony Hopkins, who, unlike Val Kilmer, doesn’t share many resemblances to his counterpart, gives a great performance, complete with a foul mouth and overwhelming thirst for alcohol. Hopkins was Oscar-nominated for his portrayal, as was Joan Allen as First Lady Pat Nixon. 3. Platoon As the film that quickly raised Stone’s status as an American auteur, Platoon is a dizzying autobiographical masterpiece. There's no order to anything that happens, from the battle scenes to the doldrums of downtime. Along with your confusion, you feel despair and a loss of purpose. What's the point of any of this? Soldiers are sent to die, or they survive and wish they were dead. The film was an enormous box office hit, grossing nearly $150 million on only a $6 million budget. It would conquer the 1987 Academy Awards with a haul of four awards, including Best Director for Stone and Best Picture. It would also launch the careers of several of its stars, many of which would work with Stone again (Charlie Sheen in Wall Street and Willem Dafoe in Born on the Fourth of July ). 2. Natural Born Killers Making each of his previous films look tame in comparison, Natural Born Killers creates a hellscape within the mind of the viewer as Stone savagely takes down the true-crime obsession of the American public. Matching the bewildering chaos on-camera was a bevy of troubled stars behind-the-scenes, such as the drug-addicted Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Sizemore, and Juliette Lewis beginning to practice Scientology. You also had Quentin Tarantino - who had just won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Pulp Fiction - lambasting the film for its reworking of his original script. All that drama fueled public anticipation for the film as it became a box office success while being banned in several countries and demonized by politicians for its unflinching violence and gonzo style. With the 2010s seeing a boom in true-crime podcasts, scripted television, and reality shows, the film has only gotten more relevant as time went on, with several critics praising the film for its messaging during its 25th anniversary in 2019. 1. JFK Accurately described as a “mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma,” Stone’s magnum opus is his quest for truth and justice against the military-industrial complex that stole his innocence. It’s a masterwork of cinematography by Robert Richardson and editing by Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia, both of which won Academy Awards in their respective categories. Richardson employed 7 cameras and 14 film stocks during the production, ranging from 16mm to 35mm, as well as color and black and white. Despite some of the film’s claims being later debunked, the “counter-myth” Stone proposes is nonetheless enticing at the moment and makes you wonder what else could be lurking in the shadows. The meeting between Jim Garrison (wonderfully played by Kevin Costner) and Mr. X remains one of the most effective conspiracy scenes in cinematic history. While it was trounced by The Silence of the Lambs in each of the above-the-line categories it was nominated for at the 1992 Academy Awards, JFK remains one of the quintessential films of its time and genre. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Ranking the Films of Bong Joon-ho March 6, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Bong Joon-Ho may have finally reached international acclaim with his Palme D’Or and Best Picture-winning masterpiece Parasite , but he’s been a maestro behind the camera for nearly a quarter century. Starting as a small-time indie filmmaker from his native South Korea, he quickly climbed to national stardom with 2003’s Memories of Murder . His work became noticed in the US, leading him to make the sci-fi action thriller Snowpiercer , and from there…the rest is history. With his much-anticipated and long-gestating follow-up, Mickey 17 , finally coming to theatres this weekend, there’s no better time than the present to look back at all of the movies that have got him to today. 7. Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) Bong Joon-ho’s directorial debut is a dark comedy that offers glimpses of the style and themes he would later perfect. The film follows a struggling academic who takes drastic action against a barking dog in his apartment complex, leading to a chain of bizarre and darkly humorous events. While the film has wit and social satire moments, it lacks the finesse and depth of his later works. The pacing is uneven, and the protagonist is hard to root for, making it more of a curiosity for Bong completists rather than a must-watch. Still, it’s an intriguing early look at a filmmaker who would go on to redefine modern cinema. 6. Okja (2017) A visually ambitious and emotionally charged tale, Okja blends adventure, satire, and dystopian sci-fi to deliver a sharp critique of corporate greed and animal cruelty. The film follows a young girl’s journey to rescue her genetically modified super-pig from the clutches of a ruthless multinational corporation. While the emotional core is strong, and Bong’s world-building is compelling, the film suffers from jarring tonal shifts—swinging from heartfelt drama to absurdist comedy in a way that doesn’t always mesh. Jake Gyllenhaal’s over-the-top performance is particularly polarizing. 5. Mother (2009) A haunting psychological thriller, Mother is a deeply unsettling film that explores the lengths a mother will go to protect her son. When a simple-minded young man is accused of murder, his fiercely devoted mother embarks on a relentless quest to prove his innocence. As the story unfolds, the film morphs into a chilling meditation on obsession, morality, and the destructive power of love. Kim Hye-ja delivers one of the finest performances in Bong’s filmography, portraying a mother whose desperation leads her to make increasingly disturbing choices. The film’s slow-burn tension and tragic ending cement it as one of Bong’s most emotionally complex works. 4. The Host (2006) Bong’s take on the monster movie genre, The Host is a thrilling blend of horror, comedy, and political satire. The story revolves around a dysfunctional family trying to rescue their daughter after she is abducted by a mutated creature that emerges from the Han River. Unlike typical monster films, The Host focuses less on the creature itself and more on the government’s incompetence, media manipulation, and the struggles of ordinary people caught in the chaos. With thrilling action, a surprising amount of humor, and intense emotional beats, The Host is one of the most unique and entertaining creature features to come from South Korea. 3. Memories of Murder (2003) Widely regarded as one of the best crime thrillers ever, Memories of Murder is a deeply haunting and masterfully crafted film based on South Korea’s first serial murder case. The film follows two detectives—one a brash, small-town cop and the other a more methodical investigator from Seoul—as they try to solve a series of brutal killings. Bong expertly balances dark humor, procedural realism, and devastating human tragedy, highlighting the incompetence of the police and the frustration of chasing a seemingly unsolvable case. The film’s ambiguous ending lingers long after the credits roll, making it one of Bong’s most haunting works, with the final shot being one of the most creative choices he’s ever made as a filmmaker. 2. Snowpiercer (2013) Bong’s English-language debut is a high-concept, visually stunning sci-fi thriller that serves as a powerful allegory for class warfare. Set on a perpetually moving train that houses the remnants of humanity after a climate catastrophe, Snowpiercer follows a brutal revolution as the oppressed lower-class passengers fight their way to the front. The film’s world-building is meticulous, with each train car representing a different societal stratum. Chris Evans delivers a surprisingly raw performance, but Tilda Swinton’s grotesque, bureaucratic villain steals the show. 1. Parasite (2019) A flawless blend of social satire, black comedy, and psychological thriller, Parasite is Bong Joon-ho’s magnum opus. The film follows a poor family that cons its way into working for a wealthy household, only to uncover dark secrets lurking beneath the surface. With masterful pacing, sharp class commentary, and shocking twists, Parasite seamlessly shifts between genres, keeping audiences on edge until its devastating climax. Every frame is meticulously crafted, and every performance is pitch-perfect, especially Song Kang-ho and Choi Woo-shik as the desperate yet charismatic patriarch and son, respectively. Winning the Palme d’Or and four Academy Awards—including Best Picture— Parasite solidified Bong’s status as one of the best filmmakers working today. You can follow Tyler and hear more of his thoughts on Twitter , Instagram , and Letterboxd . More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

The Exorcist: Believer October 4, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Urination, the c-word, “help me” etched on skin, spitting blood, demonic voices. These are the trademarks of William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist , adapted to the screen by The French Connection director William Friedkin just two years later. The reader’s worst fears from the pages of the novel were turned into ungodly imagery, many of these moments even more terrifying now than they were fifty years ago. David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer has all those same beats, many of them shot-for-shot. But just like how a joke is never as funny the second time, those images seem tamely pedestrian this go around. It’s the curse of the legacy sequel, or “requel,” where the iconic moments of the original material are treated like scripture. They have to be “honored” by being trotted out the exact same way you’ve seen them before as if doing anything different would cause hell on Earth. But things become less iconic the more you see them, especially when they’re cheaply remade without heart and soul, lessening what made the whole thing special, to begin with. It’s a creatively bankrupt process, but very few franchises that have done so are literally bankrupt. The Jurassic World trilogy may have never come within a mile of the playful virtuosity of Spielberg’s original, but they made just as much money. There’s also the Halloween (also revived by David Gordon Green) and Scream franchises both churning out more dough than they know what to do with. There’s no doubt The Exorcist: Believer will follow suit moneywise, but I seriously question whether anyone will have any connection to this movie even a day after they’ve seen it. Unsurprisingly, the story opens in a foreign land outside of America, this time being Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his extremely pregnant wife quickly find themselves caught in the middle of the infamous 2010 earthquake. A fatal injury to the mother means only the unborn baby can survive. Thirteen years later Victor is an overprotective single dad to his daughter Angela. One day he lets his guard down and allows Angela to hang out after school with her friend Katherine. Instead of doing homework like they told their parents, the pair go into the deep dark woods and perform a seance. It’s all done with childlike curiosity, but the results are sinister as the girls stay missing for three days, mysteriously reappearing with no memory and different personalities. The central mystery of the middle act is all about finding out what happened to the girls and what needs to be done about it. Except it’s not a mystery as we all knew how this story would go before we even sat down, making those middle 40 minutes a tedious bore. Things only get moderately interesting once series original Ellen Burstyn comes back into the picture as Chris MacNeil. She delivers an “I’m just here for the money” performance, which can’t be blamed considering Green and co-writers Peter Sattler, Danny McBride, and Scott Teems can’t find much of any reason for her to be here besides replicating exactly (it’s literally the same demon) what she did a half-century ago. The child performances from Lidya Jewett and Olivia O'Neill are quite incredible. They have a handle on the range needed, delivering both innocence and perversity. Odom Jr. is a capable lead and Ann Dowd might as well be playing her character from Ari Aster’s Hereditary . The rest of the supporting characters are blandly drawn and forgettable. For all the scares he tries to conjure up on the screen, the most frightening thing Green does here is take another beloved horror franchise and turn it into a lesser version of itself. I’m not sure where they’re going to go with the two planned sequels. That would be cause for excitement most of the time, but I’ve lost all faith considering the lazy path they took here when total freedom was available. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Top 10 Martin Scorsese Films October 16, 2023 By: Hunter Friesen In the realm of American cinema, few names resonate as powerfully as Martin Scorsese. With a career spanning over five decades, he has crafted a body of work that is as diverse as it is profound. He’s bigger than the gangster films he’s mainly known for, adapting himself to deliver quintessential entries within the sports, noir, biopic, and kids subgenres. It was an extreme challenge to narrow this list down to only ten movies, as a director of his stature has so many masterpieces that even the great ones don’t make the cut. A ranking of the 11-20 entries would still tower over 99% of other filmmakers. Honorable mentions that just missed inclusion were Raging Bull , Hugo , and New York, New York . 10. Gangs of New York Gangs of New York is an epic about the battle for American democracy, often paralleling some of the modern struggles within our government. It features some of Scorsese’s best world-building as he weaves us in and around the catacombs and rickety tinderbox buildings of 1860s New York. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance may not rank as the highest in his filmography, but it doesn’t matter when Daniel Day-Lewis is chewing every scene as the violently charismatic Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting. 9. Taxi Driver Taxi Driver sees New York as it truly was in the 1970s: a cesspool of crime and villainy that no decent person should visit, let alone live in. Scorsese bridges the gap between our thirst for the unseen on screen and how it plays out in reality. There’s a smoky focus on the physical and mental damage done, and how the media can twist evil into a morbid story of vigilante justice. 8. Silence Faith-based movies are often met with skepticism, but the power of Scorsese’s filmmaking is always able to appeal to both sides of the coin. He transports us the 17th-century Japan, a place of clashing cultures that becomes the backdrop for the soul-searching journey of Father Rodrigues. Andrew Garfield painfully captures the inner turmoil of a man battling his faith and the system that surrounds him. 7. The Departed Not many directors can claim that their seventh-best film was the one that netted them both the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. Scorsese blends a taut and intricate plot with stellar performances from its ensemble cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, and Martin Sheen. It was, and still is, one of his most straightforward films, offering escapist thrills through a refined lens. 6. The Irishman At 209 minutes, The Irishman is a true-crime epic. Telling the story of mob hitman Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, the long-gestating project is packed with an all-star cast of Robert De Niro as the titular character as well as Joe Pesci and Al Pacino in career-defining roles. Instead of rehashing his usual gangster formula, Scorsese flips the script and fully exposes the audience to the doom and gloom that a life of crime brings to someone. 5. Goodfellas Goodfellas is the shining testament to Scorsese’s unparalleled brilliance at bringing the world of organized crime to life on the silver screen. It showcases an unapologetic and unflinching portrayal of the mafia lifestyle. We are in the same position as Lorrain Bracco’s Karen Hill, always weary of what’s going on and what’s around the corner, but too blinded by lights to do anything about it. And even when we spin out of control, there’s still a piece of us that wants to do it all over again. 4. The Wolf of Wall Street The exuberance and moral decay of 1980s Wall Street never felt more alluring than it does in The Wolf of Wall Street . But that excitement is also a powerful teacher, showcasing that greed isn’t good. It’s a car crash that you can’t look away from, filmed so kinetically that almost want to be in the driver’s seat. It also took extreme talent from Scorsese and his whole team to set a Guinness World Record for the most instances of swearing in a film, with the word “fuck” said 506 times. 3. Casino Like the story itself, Casino is as excessive as possible. It was the most Scorsese-like movie Scorsese had made up to that point, featuring all the hallmarks: Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, the rise and fall of the mob, smooth camera movements, an absolute fuckton of swearing, and a roaring soundtrack. It’s compelling and thrilling to watch from minute one to minute one-hundred and seventy-nine. 2. The Aviator This biographical masterpiece flawlessly captures the tumultuous life of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes. Leonardo DiCaprio is perfectly cast here as he was miscast Gangs of New York , brilliantly showcasing Hughes's genius, eccentricity, and inner demons. Scorsese’s meticulous attention to detail recreates Classical Hollywood as we witness the rise and fall of one of cinema’s first titans. 1. The Age of Innocence The costume drama is not a genre one would normally associate with Martin Scorsese. But Scorsese is not a director confined to certain genres. Tender, yet brutal, The Age of Innocence burns with fiery passion while also being extinguished by icy repression. It's a battle of yin and yang that Scorsese perfectly balances with his sumptuous staging and set design. But what always separates Scorsese from the pack is the performances he can bring out. He always seems to find a new level for even the very best such as Daniel Day-Lewis. Winona Ryder radiates and Michelle Pfeiffer incites yearning with her performance. Never has such a naked performance been given under so many layers of clothes. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

The Flash June 5, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen One of the first things you’ll notice about The Flash is how much of a lighter affair it is compared to Zack Snyder’s vision. I mean that on both a metaphorical and literal level, as director Andy Muschietti opens his film with the titular hero in such a ludicrously stupid situation, it almost has to be interpreted as a middle finger to Snyder’s doom and gloom. Carrying over from that dark place is Ben Affleck’s Batman, who looks a little ridiculous in the full daylight (almost as if his entire aesthetic was created with a different visual style in mind…) and still doesn’t have the time to put up with Flash’s personality (you and me both). But even if the tone and colors have been lifted from the shadows, the stakes are still as high as ever. Zack Snyder’s Justice League gave us a glimpse of Flash’s ability to enter the Speed Force and reverse the flow of time, which he did to save the entire world from Darkseid’s Mother Boxes. Being a jittery and perpetually inquisitive person, Barry extends that logic into the implication that he could go back far enough in time to save his mother from being murdered, for which his father was falsely blamed. It’s an extremely dangerous gamble, as even the slightest alteration could have unforeseen consequences on not just his own timeline, but innumerable timelines spread across the space-time continuum (the new industry-approved term is “multiverse,” which I’m sure you're very familiar with by now). To Barry, the risk is worth the reward. But instead of going back in time to make a paradise, he makes a new hell on earth. Because of his actions, the world has been rendered without metahumans, meaning no Superman, Wonder Woman, or Aquaman. But it does have a General Zod, who now stands unopposed in his destruction of Earth. Thankfully, the exclusion of metahumans doesn’t apply to Batman, who’s now in the form of Michael Keaton. Every comic-book franchise, whether live-action or animated, has dabbled in the multiverse at this point. There are some that haven’t gone far enough with it ( Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ), and some that have done it just right ( Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ). The Flash takes its concept and gives way to its worst impulses. The opportunity for endless possibilities is mostly spent on jingling car keys in front of your face in the form of cameos, line readings, and music stings that you recognize, many of which dramatically undercut the physical and emotional stakes of the situation. This is The Rise of Skywalker all over again, so desperate in its attempt for you to like it by flashing as many pleasure-inducing sights as possible that you don’t have time to think about what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s not like what’s on the surface hiding that rotten core isn’t good either. Ezra Miller continues to be the kid in high school who tried way too hard to be the class clown, devolving every “humorous” moment into an eye-rolling groan fest. I understand how it’s nearly impossible to look at them and not think about his heinous off-screen persona, but it’s also nearly impossible to like them on-screen. What’s their appeal? Being annoying? And now there are two of them! It also can’t be understated how undercooked several visual-effect-heavy sequences look. Characters move around weightlessly, CGI doubles look as natural as the actors from Tom Hooper’s Cats , and some “unbroken takes” might as well qualify for the Best Animated Short Film category at the Oscars (although I would harshly refrain from using the term “best”). Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania still takes the cake for the worst-looking blockbuster in recent memory, but this gives it a run for its money. To give Muschietti a smidge of credit, he does come up with some inventive ways to show off Flash’s powers without just ripping off the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies. The distortions of time and physics may put physicists in a coma, but it’s mildly interesting to see how bad guys can be dispatched within the blink of an eye. The Flash is the straw (a heavy one nonetheless) that breaks the camel’s back when it comes to multiverses in blockbuster franchises. Instead of using its unlimited potential to deliver something unique, it sinks to the lowest form of pandering by just waving around what you already know. What’s the point of boasting about the oceanfront view if you’re only ever going to swim in the kiddie pool? More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Christy September 8, 2025 By: Button Tyler Banark Christy had its World Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Black Bear Pictures will release it in theaters on November 07. Sydney Sweeney takes a big swing in Christy , David Michôd’s latest drama. And while the film doesn’t always hit its mark, her performance ensures it never completely falls flat. This is one of those moody, brooding character studies that promises a gritty boxing movie but ultimately feels more like a rough read-through of Christy Martin’s Wikipedia page. Martin has a rollercoaster of a story from the highs of her boxing career to the lows of her off-the-tape personal life. Still, it’s an engaging enough ride for two hours, even if it won’t linger long after the credits roll. Sweeney plays Christy, a young woman stuck in a small, suffocating town with big dreams of being a big-time boxer. She’s restless, defiant, and often her own worst enemy, chasing opportunities with one hand while sabotaging herself with the other. It’s a juicy, messy role, and Sweeney throws herself into it. She doesn’t try to sand down Christy’s rough edges or make her likable—she plays her raw, complicated, and sometimes infuriating. That commitment alone makes the film worth watching. Sweeney also gives 110% to the role, as she takes on the physical challenges of playing a boxer like Christy Martin, a pioneer for female boxing who endured hardship outside the ring from her abusive trainer/partner, Jim Martin (Ben Foster). Foster seems to have become accustomed to playing dislikable characters. While he does it well, it’s starting to look more like a typecast than anything. Michôd, best known for the intense Animal Kingdom and the Netflix historical epic The King , scales things down here. Instead of sprawling crime families or royal power struggles, Christy zooms in on one woman’s personal battles. But his filmmaking instincts haven’t changed much: the tone is heavy, the atmosphere tense, the visuals steeped in a gray, bruised palette. It doesn’t feel like a Michôd movie until halfway through, but when it turns into one, it’s undeniable. The world Christy inhabits is shot gloriously, as it captures the essence of the boxing world and the peaks and valleys she’s facing to achieve what she wants. It’s not subtle, but it sets the mood. The problem is that the story doesn’t quite keep up. The screenplay, co-written by Michôd with Mirrah Foulkes, tends to meander and grace Martin’s story from the late 80s to 2010. Christy bounces from one fight to another, tangling with Jim, struggling with strained family ties, and never giving up on her dream, but the narrative often feels reluctant to tug at heartstrings. The supporting cast does what it can, though they mostly serve as satellites orbiting around Sweeney. A few of them are fleshed out enough to stand on their own. Characters like Foster’s Jim or even Merrit Wever’s conservative mother feel more like familiar types than living, breathing people. It’s a shame, because a stronger ensemble might have elevated Christy’s world and made her downward spiral more resonant. Still, it’s hard to walk away unimpressed with Sweeney. Coming off a run of higher-profile, glossier projects, she clearly wanted to sink her teeth into something darker and riskier, and she delivers. I applaud Sweeney for pursuing projects where she truly challenges herself, rather than settling for a pretty face. Between this, Eden , Immaculate , and Americana , she’s making a name for herself and trying different things. Even with the recent politics surrounding her, Sweeney hasn’t backed down or shied away from the drama. She captures both Christy’s allure and her flaws—the way she can light up a room one moment and push everyone away the next. Christy isn’t a bad film—it has atmosphere, ambition, and a strong lead performance—but it’s also not a great one. It sits squarely in the middle: watchable, sometimes compelling, but ultimately uneven. For Sydney Sweeney fans, it’s worth the trip. For everyone else, it may feel like an intriguing misfire from a director still searching for the balance between mood and story. In other words, it’s a win but no knockout! You can follow Tyler and hear more of his thoughts on Twitter , Instagram , and Letterboxd . More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

The Accountant 2 April 23, 2025 By: Button Hunter Friesen As a real-life accountant, there’s a guilty sense of pleasure I get seeing someone with my job title kick ass and take names. It must be what every police officer feels when they watch Die Hard , or a doctor whenever reruns of ER and Grey’s Anatomy appear on television, or archaeologists with the Indiana Jones franchise. Then again, all those films could be considered some of the least realistic depictions of said jobs, becoming a burden on the real professionals who have to endure countless questions about the practicality of what the on-screen protagonists do. Luckily for me, nobody went into the 2016 film The Accountant thinking it was going to be an honest reenactment of the day-to-day lives of your friendly bean counters. Never mind all the guns and talk about drug cartels, I can already tell you that the total absence of Microsoft Excel is an immediate red flag for believability. In a move that made me quite displeased but is admittedly the wiser business decision, The Accountant 2 (titled The Accountant² within the film for no logical reason) features just about the bare minimum of actual financial work. Mentions of 1040 tax returns, fraudulent claims of depreciation, and EBITDA are the only buzzwords handed out here. The moniker of “The Accountant” has as much to do with bookkeeping for our returning protagonist of Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) as real bats have to do with Batman, or wolverines with The Wolverine. Considering Affleck’s previous stint as The Caped Crusader within Zack Snyder’s DC films, there’s a comfortable familiarity to seeing him again don superhuman abilities within the shell of a mortal man. Previously depicted as a sort of antihero, returning screenwriter Bill Dubuque and director Gavin O’Connor have morphed Christian into a full-blown crime fighter. Mentions of his criminal past are kept to a vague minimum, and the mystery he sets out to solve here is of the murder of Ray King (J.K. Simmons, who, at seventy years old, finally gets the action setpiece that his exceptional physicality deserves), the federal treasury agent who was once on Christian’s tail. Ray’s death unveils a spider’s web of drug cartel dealings, human trafficking, and several illegal activities surrounding our southern national border. The plot is borderline incoherent for much of the runtime. Worse, it’s horribly uninteresting once everything starts clicking into place. The stakes eventually become so high that they become instantaneously weightless, the villains' threats so heinous that there’s no way they would ever be executed in a studio blockbuster. Dubuque doesn’t seem to care all that much about that, instead dedicating more time to Christian’s antics away from the criminal underworld, such as rigging a speed dating system (complete with comedic slideshow transitions!) and reconnecting with his equally violent brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal). Leaning on the chemistry of Affleck and Bernthal is this film’s saving grace on several occasions. Their comedic banter is reliable, and even a few touching moments of reconciliation are put in for good measure. O’Connor struggles to merge the clashing tones, creating a hilarious whiplash effect between a scene where Christian gets a girl's number at a line dancing bar, only for the next scene to mention human trafficking of children and that a person’s attempted murder is why they have superhuman cognitive abilities. There’s also a team of similarly skilled autistic children who provide intelligence to Christian from afar, which makes them fully complicit for each of the dozens of corpses that are stacked up. The ludicrousness of this plot point still has me questioning if I should take offense to it or not. Despite its ho-hum competence, the original The Accountant packed a semi-interesting exploration of a morally grey protagonist who hides behind a black-and-white profession. In the act of making the sequel as fun as possible, those edges have been severely sanded down. Sure, there’s more personality than before, but not a sense of a unique identity. In an effort to please everyone, the creators have blocked all potential for someone to find something special here. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Avatar: The Way of Water December 14, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen You know how video games have tried to be more cinematic these past few generations? Works from Rockstar Games with Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto , or Naughty Dog with the Uncharted and The Last of Us series, have pushed the envelope in terms of making video games into playable movies. Now, James Cameron has taken that path in reverse with Avatar: The Way of Water , making it one of the first movies that truly feels like a video game. Of course, if The Way of Water was a video game, it would be the most polished and best-looking game in history. Thirteen years of waiting was well worth it from a technical standpoint, as Cameron has once again taken special effects to a new level, just as he did with 1989’s The Abyss … and again with T2: Judgment Day … and again with Titanic … and again with Avatar . I’m starting to sense a pattern here. You owe it to yourself and your senses to see this in the highest setting you can, whether it’s IMAX, 3D, 3D IMAX, 4DX, or if you’re really lucky, 4K HFR. Regular 2D will not do this movie justice. You are not just paying to see a movie, you’re paying for a theatrical experience. That statement may be overused at that point since the reopening of theaters from the pandemic, but nothing has symbolized it more than The Way of Water . Saying all that, the experience of watching the original Avatar is more of what people remember than the actual story and characters. The same thing can be said for The Way of Water , as Jake Sully and his Na’vi family of Neytiri and four kids are now living fully within the world of Pandora. Death is not the end of the road for some of the original characters, as Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Augustine and Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch have returned, just in different physical forms. Both have been cloned as Na’vi avatars, with Augustine being Jake and Neytiri’s adopted teenage daughter (yes, the 73-year-old Weaver plays a character 60 years younger than her), and the Colonel being the leader of a new paramilitary force tasked with hunting down Jake. From here, the story pretty much repeats itself from the original, with Jake once again learning how to interact with this magical planet. There is the caveat, which the title alludes to, that the majority of the action takes place not in the forest, but in the coral reefs, which are inhabited by the Metkayina, a more fish-like species of Na’vi. Even with bringing in Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the screenwriting pair behind the most recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, Cameron still has never been able to crack the code for writing just as he has for directing. It’s easy to forget that despite a combined 23 Oscar nominations for Titanic and Avatar , neither of them received nods for Cameron’s scripts. A few tin-eared lines come up now and again, mostly from the children, who are the main narrative focus for much of the runtime. Luckily, the performances are not inhibited by what’s on the page, with the cast of new and returning principal actors being more than up to the challenge of motion capture performing. The life-like facial animations capture every movement, with real heart and emotion pouring from moments that you normally would find hokey coming from a ten-foot-tall talking alien. But if there’s anything Cameron has been known for, it’s beating the odds of what has always been deemed impossible. At a reported cost of $350 million, the scale to which The Way of Water plays is unmatched, making many past and future blockbusters look quaint in comparison. Just as it was with Titanic , the final hour of this 192-minute behemoth plays out during a ship-sinking, with tons of crystal clear action and tense moments. It’s a real shame that Cameron’s regular composer James Horner died in 2015 because the work here by Simon Franglen can’t quite match the epicness of what’s on the screen. I wonder if James Wan and Warner Bros are shaking in their boots about Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom because I don't know how they’ll be able to beat what Cameron has done here for water-themed special effects. The two movies were originally supposed to share a release date, but that all changed once the DCEU film was pushed back another year. That move won’t save it from endless comparisons, as it’ll now be sandwiched between The Way of Water and Avatar 3 in 2024, which I’m now anticipating infinitely more than Arthur Curry’s next imitation. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

The Devil All the Time September 24, 2020 By: Button Hunter Friesen What do you get when you combine two orphans by parental suicide, a serial-killing couple, a pedophile preacher, a corrupt sheriff, and a town full of zealots? You get the darkest and most disturbing movie of the year. The newest Netflix movie, The Devil All the Time , is a sprawling tale of faith and violence that spans multiple generations within the Appalachian heartland of America. The story opens in 1945 as Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård) returns home to West Virginia from the Japanese front. He’s seen and done unspeakable things that he can only share with God. Willard has a young son named Arvin, whom Willard teaches that you must answer violence with violence. When the matriarch falls ill with cancer, Willard goes to extreme measures to test his faith in God and beg for her healing. These crazed acts by Willard leave a large impact on Arvin that resonates long after. After this brief segment, we jump years later and are introduced to the rest of the lowlifes and degenerates. A now teenage Arvin (played by Tom Holland) lives with his grandparents and Lenorrah, his pseudo-half-sister. Lenorrah’s mom died at the hands of her crazed preacher father when she was just a baby. Almost like a spiteful trick by the universe, a new young preacher comes into town with his eyes set on Lenorrah, even though she’s only fifteen years old. Stalking the country roads is the serial killing couple of Carl and Sandy, who like to take pictures of their victims before they cut them up. And then there’s Sandy’s sheriff brother, Lee, who isn’t afraid to bend the laws to enact his ideas of justice. There sure is a lot of movie within this movie... Director and co-writer Antonio Campos takes all his separate characters and places them at different corners within the Bible-belt setting. Similar to how Quentin Tarantino constructs his stories, Campos gives each character their own slice of the story and over time begins to intertwine them. But even at 140 minutes The Devil All the Time is too short to fit in all that it wants to deliver. The sheer amount of content it tries to cover forces the pacing to be rushed and the emotional payoffs to be underwhelming. Arvin is the only real character that we get enough time to make a connection with. The rest of the cast fill supporting roles, with some getting some standout scenes and others falling by the wayside. What also may or may not turn off viewers is the incredibly high amount of weight and ferocity put into the material. Campos doesn’t allow for a single moment of levity and only answers misery with more misery. The amount of physical and emotional torture inflicted upon these characters becomes too much at times, almost like Campos is testing his viewers to see how much they can take. But there still is a lot of good work here that deserves praise. Campos imbues each scene with a piercing atmosphere of terror and menace. Much of the sweat-infused imagery - shot in beautiful 35mm - instills feelings of dread that last beyond the credits. The scratching string-filled score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans also does a lot to darken the mood. There’s also a slew of strong performances throughout the all-star ensemble. Tom Holland plays against his Spider-Man type and turns in a surprisingly dark and heartfelt performance. Gone is his boyish charm as he gets his hands dirty on more than one occasion. Robert Pattinson - the next Batman - plays our lustful preacher. With his bright blue ruffled outfit and twangy Southern accent, Pattinson is a scene-stealer that you just can’t get enough of. Bill Skarsgård does a lot with his opening segment as he explores PTSD, faith, and fatherhood with his grounded performance. While somewhat underutilized, Eliza Scanlen as Lenorrah and Riley Keough as Sandy are great. Each brings emotional weight to their conflicted characters. The Devil All the Time is a mean and nasty film that bites off a lot more than it can chew. It might not work all the time, but the directional skill by Campos and the sheer talent of the cast keeps this ultra-depressing story from falling completely off the tracks. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen

Cassavetes & Newman: Hollywood Stars, Art Cinema Auteurs March 11, 2023 By: Hunter Friesen As actors, John Cassavetes and Paul Newman worked within the Hollywood studio system. Cassavetes starred mostly in miliary movies, while Newman was one of the biggest stars in the world with hits such as Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid . While both of them were prevalent on the multiplex screens, they were much different behind the camera. As directors, they veered into unfamiliar territory, creating films more in line with the auteur theory that wasn't present in the movies they starred in. Through the films Faces and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds , both Cassavetes and Newman created films one would consider part of the arthouse crowd. In his essay “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice," David Bordwell writes that arthouse films are “a distinct mode of film practice, possessing a definite historical existence, a set of formal conventions, and implicit viewing procedures.” Hearing the word “convention” when describing arthouse cinema sounds like an oxymoron as everything within this specific industry is meant to be in contrast to the usual conventions within Hollywood. But every movement and genre has to have rules, whether written or unwritten. These rules can be seen in both Cassavettes’ and Newman’s films. Bordwell writes that the narratives within art cinema pride themselves on two things: realism and authorial expressivity. Life is to be shown as realistically as possible, with real locations and problems. In Faces , shot in grainy 16mm, Cassavetes makes it seem as if the viewer is a fly-on-the-wall as we watch a marriage decay. There is no gloss and the music doesn’t swell our emotions, instead, we are bombarded with closeups and technical inconsistencies. It’s the cinéma vérité style commonly found within Europe at the time. Cassavetes’ camera doesn’t glamorize American life, it shines a light on the reality of middle-class suburban life. Richard and Maria fight about their sexual desires and their discontent for one another. Instead of finding solace in each other, they find it in the bottle and strangers. It’s highly unconventional for the time and way ahead of anything that was coming shortly. Like Faces , Marigolds is filled with imperfect characters stuck in a realistically depressing situation. Beatrice has aspirations, but she doesn’t have the means to accomplish them. She’s also an embarrassment to her daughters and is an alcoholic. But the story isn’t about her, it’s actually about Matilda coming to terms with her downtrodden life. She and her mother are determined to push past their social convention offenses. Newman doesn’t treat the situation as misery porn, he simply follows the story. He’s connecting his audience, who most likely share the same circumstances, with the characters. Like Cassavetes, Newman’s visual style is pulled back, never reveling in the situation and the performances are also more reflective of the characters you would see on your street block. With both Faces and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds , John Cassavetes and Paul Newman pushed back against the Hollywood system they had inhabited for many years. Through technical and thematic intrusiveness, they were able to tell real stories for real people, something the big machine out in California simply didn’t want to do. More Reviews One Battle After Another September 24, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen A Christmas Party September 23, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Him September 18, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Swiped September 19, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Hunter Friesen