I have moved this site over to Ghost with a dedicated URL.

So, for those looking for more weekly newsletters of my thoughts on film, please visit: heyhaveyouseen.com.

Thanks for reading!

—Jared

It seemed like a no-brainer. They didn’t really have a staff of writers yet to necessitate a library of unique content, so it would have just been a system to quickly check scores, follow critics, and discover what’s new without opening a browser. And yet it did not exist.

2010 was the year Flixster bought it (before Warner Bros. bought them)—a purchase and stream platform with a social media component for movies that competed directly with Vudu as the place to go for consumers jumping onto the Ultraviolet digital train. One would think that might make developing an app even more of a no-brainer, but integrating RT scores onto Flixster also meant Flixster could become a sort of de facto RT app on its own.

Flixster then sold to Fandango in 2016 (bringing RT scores directly to the ticket purchasing app under the Comcast umbrella—with the continued promise not to position their Universal titles above the other studio releases). Ultraviolet finally shut down in 2019 thanks to Disney Movies Anywhere pivoting their superior product into Movies Anywhere (a hub that collected all your purchases of participating studios from Flixster, Vudu, Prime, iTunes, etc. together without allowing you to purchase directly from it). And, in 2020, Vudu also sold to … Fandango: the one to rule them all.

So, at this point, having a Fandango app to purchase tickets alongside RT scores and a FandangoNow app to purchase digital films alongside RT scores kind of made creating a third app just for RT scores a bit overkill. Until now.

The new Rotten Tomatoes app is a bit janky (the launch email called it a “soft launch” without much fanfare while they work out bugs and solicit comments from critics for improvements) and our critic profiles aren’t yet integrated (but should be soon), so I’ve been roaming around with a fan account to see what’s what. The one feature I’m enjoying most is the “following” tab because I can use it as a feed of GWNY Film Critics when looking for links to add to our website. Otherwise, it’s pretty much exactly what you would have expected back in 2010 … besides the addition of an AI assistant named “aRTi.”

One shouldn’t be surprised about this last point because every tech company is jumping on the AI bandwagon and RT’s business plan was always about replacing the act of reading critical thoughts with an aggregate score (of which some people still can’t comprehend the meaning). They replaced our words with a number and now they’re using our words to give that number a voice.

And it only costs us our lives as the insane water footprint necessary to keep the AI industry alive grows larger yet again.

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What I Watched:

FOUND FOOTAGE: THE MAKING OF THE PATTERSON PROJECT

(limited theaters; VOD on 6/24)

First-time feature filmmaker Chase (Brennan Keel Cook) is in pre-production when a documentary crew led by Rochelle (Marie Paquim) asks if they can film his progress. She's been capturing the indie scene for ten years now and sees this ultra micro-budget horror project as a perfect fit for her series. It's one man's vision assisted by his girlfriend as first-AD (Erika Vetter's Natalie), the star of his short films as associate producer (Chen Tang's Mitchell), and his best filmmaking client as chief financier (Dean Cameron's furniture store owner Frank who uses Chase to direct all his commercials). Since each of them is a novice, completing The Patterson Project at all would prove an immense victory.

Director Max Tzannes and co-writer David San Miguel present Found Footage: The Making of The Patterson Project as what we can assume to be Rochelle's documentary. The opening credits focus on in-film names and institutions, so we're placed into this fictional world from the first frame as a fatigued Chase provides an on-set testimonial setting the stage with a promise to himself that this movie won't turn into a regret. From there we rewind two months and see a completely different man with an excitable smile and bottomless wealth of optimism. Nothing anyone could say would ruin Chase's high then. Not Natalie's worry about their location. Not even Frank's unorthodox means of securing an angel investor (Suzanne Ford's Betsy).

The film within the film is a creature feature with Bigfoot as the villain. Except, as Chase explains without a drop of irony, it's really humanity that's exposed as the true monster. So, don't be surprised when he exudes obvious film bro levels of pedantic arrogance to portray his script as the equivalent of "heightened horror" without using that nonsense phrase himself. His worst nightmare is for his masterpiece to be pigeon-holed as one genre when it's "so much more than that." More than enough to secure a big-name actor (maybe). Enough to enlist the talents of a costumer and make-up duo who create a Sasquatch that literally fools passersby into thinking it's real. Even enough to open the gates of Hell.

Well, let's not give Chase's artistic genius credit for that last one. Yes, he technically is the person who unleashes a demon by dragging a supply chest through an intricately drawn sigil on the basement floor, but the chaos that ensues would have occurred regardless of his reason for being there. The question for us is therefore whether the noises and issues that arise are actually a result of this act or just a coincidence. Because films like The Patterson Project never go off without a hitch. Being able to overcome the inevitability of all his plans going awry is what Chase will need to prove he's a real filmmaker. And, for the most part, he does find a way. Perhaps to a fault.

I say this because Chase's pretentiousness about "Bigfoot" is ultimately true in the sense that he is this documentary's monster. That doesn't mean Tzannes hasn't also created a real monster to terrorize cast and crew in his mockumentary. It's just that the metaphor of a film set's unpredictability being akin to a cabin in the woods suffering under the weight of demonic possession allows Chase to show his collaborators his true colors. Because he will always put the art first once tensions rise. He'll even use the art to solve certain problems, carving his way out of impossible real-world scenarios by rewriting and adding to the existing fiction. And while this mode of thinking should get the work across the finish line, it may also ensure he crosses it alone.

Therein lies the multi-layered fun built into Found Footage's DNA. This idea that The Patterson Project will test creative and interpersonal limits just as the unexplained supernatural phenomena they combat tests the limits of their sanity. A lot of comedy is born from the convergence of these two—characters laughing off extremely serious events because they must to continue moving forward. It doesn't matter if they're pushing the flexibility of their morality to its breaking point in the process. As long as nobody sues or messes with the footage (which proves a struggle in itself considering the lead actor, played by J.R. Gomez, acts as though a camcorder is an alien object despite his role demanding that he also be the camera operator), Chase won't need to jump off the nearest bridge.

For the first two-thirds, we're generally watching as the production begins to fall apart. Chase is entrenched in mental gymnastics to Band-Aid insane issues, Frank is becoming more hands-on (and problematic) as the shoot progresses, and Natalie is quickly realizing she'll always be an afterthought to her boyfriend while Mitchell leans further into a martyr complex that makes him highly susceptible to being victimized by the entity potentially wreaking havoc around them. Their increasing stress levels guarantee an escalation in our enjoyment of their pain as voyeurs like Rochelle enjoying the ride without an ability to smack them in the face to wake-up and see what's right in front of them (people and demons alike).

That's the meat and potatoes as far as messaging goes, but it's the final third that leaves a mark because Tzannes isn't actually messing around where it concerns the horror aspect. It's easy to believe he might since the budgetary constraints of The Patterson Project lull us into thinking Found Footage suffers from the same, so you might be surprised with how effective the "real" terror facing Chase and company proves by comparison. The special effects gore work is great and the Blair Witch Project-esque look of the post-shit-hitting-the-fan footage is even better. All the fake screams and intentionally amateur acting pays off too when this lot comes face-to-face with their mortality. Not only does Tzannes get the joke, he knows how to exploit it so his parody can also become the real thing.

- 7/10

OUTRAGEOUS: Season One

(streaming on BritBox – first two episodes are available now)

Narrated by Nancy Mitford (Bessie Carter), the eldest of "Favre" (James Purefoy's David Freeman-Mitford) and "Muv's" (Anna Chancellor's Sydney Bowles Mitford) seven children, our introduction to the family comes with the scintillating tease that one of the six sisters will turn out to be the most hated woman in Britain. It's a bold declaration that holds great intrigue—even if my guess for the reason why centered on the presumption that these were simply debutantes getting into tabloid troubles. After all, a woman daring to ask for a divorce to be with the man she loves would technically be a big enough scandal for infamy back then.

As Sarah Williams soon fleshes out during the first season of "Outrageous" (based on Mary S. Lovell's book The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family), however, there's a lot more to this brood's story than money. In fact, there's hardly any money considering the market crash following World War I has left finances in such dire straits that the Mitfords are forced to lease out their estate during the summer months while staying in their "damp" London flat instead. Diana (Joanna Vanderham) mustn't worry as she married rich and both Tom (Toby Regbo) and Pam (Isobel Jesper Jones) have jobs, but the others rely on the status of Favre's lordship to stay on solid ground.

Yes, even Nancy, despite her blossoming career as a writer, since her status being "unmarried" (because her beau refuses to propose) allows her to stay at home while using her income for luxury. The other three girls (Shannon Watson's Unity, Zoe Brough's Jessica, and Orla Hill's Deborah) are still teens, each varying years away from hitting public life themselves for the chase to capture a husband's affections. So, we get a bit of everything as far as maturity, generational divide, rebelliousness, and contrarianism go. Nancy's relationship is a comedy of errors (everyone wondering if her boyfriend might prefer men), Diana's love life is a dramatic powder keg, and the rest do their best to survive the tumultuous era.

That's where things get interesting. Because the man Diana loves isn't just any old homewrecker. No, Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse) is the leader of the British Union of Fascists. It might not mean much to the characters in the first episode, but Williams' timeline quickly begins to push towards the inevitable outbreak of World War II. So, we know the danger of his politics and wince as Diana listens, absorbs, and ultimately parrots his rhetoric. We also begin to realize "most hated woman in Britain" is probably not just going to be the result of a "scarlet letter." Because the more she falls in love, the more his ideas become her own. And the country must soon start to fear Hitler's influence crossing the Channel.

So too must the Mitfords as the fascist allure captivates one of the teens (with Diana's help) while another becomes infatuated with a cousin-by-marriage's (also a relation of Winston Churchill who is an infrequent attendee of the same circles on-screen) commitment to communism. Politics are therefore tearing this sisterhood apart just as it threatens to tear Europe apart. Diana and Unity on one side. Nancy and Jessica on the other. The others desperately trying to play peacekeeper since all that chaos is happening in Germany and thus "none of our concern." Except, of course, that it is very much their concern. The world will soon discover it should have been humanity's greatest concern.

It's why certain events possess a chilling effect in their parallels to current events. Because it's one thing for a character to praise how welcoming Germans are right before the camera finds a "Juden Verboten" sign hanging behind her. It's another to witness a dinner scene with family members attempting to discredit the only person speaking truth because her facts were "refuted" or "unsubstantiated" in the press. I saw my own family in them since my Fox News-pilled parents also laugh off atrocities that "aren't happening" because their propagandized media source refuses to report them. See the aftermath of the Battle of Cable Street recalling last week's militarized occupation of Los Angeles under fabricated pretense.

These similarities are surely why the publicity outreach hit me (I've never received a screener pitch for a BritBox production before) and why the messaging has preemptively called it "major" and a "summer hit." It's the sort of mirror people need to recognize how easy it is to look the other way when horrors are occurring miles away or to forgive a loved one's hate to alleviate awkwardness at holidays. We've been through this before. That helpless feeling many have has precedent. You aren't alone. The scary thing, though, is that you can almost understand how it happened then with slower communication lines. Today proves scarier because the tools that made communication faster have also been weaponized to dismantle the line separating editorial from truth.

I did get worried during the season finale, though, since dialogue and actions began leaning towards the absolute wrong message of accepting fascism as a "difference of opinion." Thankfully, this is merely a narrative ploy to help drive home the pressing need to remind viewers that certain topics do demand a hardline stance of resistance no matter how much you want to believe the person you knew hasn't become a monster. It was a relief because I didn't want it to ruin what was an otherwise engrossing experience. Williams and company hooked me fast and made it so I curbed my impulse to simply go on Wikipedia to see what happened next because I wanted to watch it all unfold on-screen instead.

So, I'll wait to see if "Outrageous" earns another season before correcting my ignorance about the Mitfords since not knowing anything about them only added to the potency of their intrigue. Because their lives are tabloid fodder on the surface with the inevitable circus ensuring they entertain on an over-the-top melodramatic level regardless of message. The backdrop being what it is, however, also guarantees the stakes remain high enough to see why these actors are so committed to portraying these roles as complex figures at odds between hearts and minds. But, as Muv admits by the end: the world is changing. At a certain point, one must choose a side and know the fight is much bigger than family.

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Angus (1995), Cousins (1989), Gran Turismo (2023), In the Mix (2005), Krampus (2015), Last Breath (2025), Loosies (2012), Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), The Seven-Ups (1973), State of Play (2009), Stories We Tell (2013), and U2: Rattle and Hum (1988) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

James Hong dropping an f-bomb in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 6/20/25 -

• 8 Vasanthalu at Regal Elmwood

• 28 Years Later at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Bride Hard at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Elio at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Kuberaa at Regal Elmwood, Transit

• The Life of Chuck at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst; Regal Galleria, Quaker

• Sitaare Zameen Par at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria

• Utshob at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 6/20/25 -

• Ash – Shudder on 6/20

• K-Pop Demon Hunters – Netflix on 6/20

• A Minecraft Movie – Max on 6/20

• Semi-Soeter – Netflix on 6/20

• Enigma – Max on 6/24

• Trainwreck: Poop Cruise – Netflix on 6/24

• A Working Man – MGM+ on 6/26

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Fight or Flight (6/17)

  “Chandran and Sackhoff are good as the two actors with enough screen-time to not be relegated into bit parts like everyone else. So, it's up to Hartnett to carry Fight of Flight on his shoulders and the tone is right in his wheelhouse to ensure he does.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Final Destination: Bloodlines (6/17)

• Friendship (6/17)

• Alma & The Wolf (6/20)

• Don't Tell Larry (6/20)

• Found Footage (6/20)

  Thoughts are above.

• Inside (6/20)

• The Rock Prophet: The Story of Link Wray (6/20)

• An Unfinished Film (6/20)

The difference is that the Oilers looked shell shocked out the gate in 2024. They started this series so well that they were an overtime goal away from going up 2-0 heading to Sunrise. Now? The wheels are falling off.

Stuart “Mr. Game 4” Skinner (coined last night by Henrik Lundqvist) was pulled after a great period despite letting in three goals. And Jeff “Healthy Scratch” Skinner drawing in for his third game of the playoffs (on a two-game scoring streak no less) to shake things up hasn’t done enough.

We’ll see if the heroics repeat themselves to force another Game 7 next Friday, but a champion looks to be crowned this weekend.

At least, that’s what I thought and wrote after an abysmal twenty minutes.

Then: Signs of life.

Four straight goals for a miraculous comeback countered only by a game-tying score with twenty seconds left. From blowout to yet another overtime.

Then the inevitable: Leon with his fourth OT winner. Pickard with his seventh win.

I said it still wasn’t over when I thought it was and now it’s a series once more.

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What I Watched:

ANDOR: Season Two

(streaming on Disney+)

If "Andor" Season One was the birth of a rebel via Cassian Andor's (Diego Luna) gradual awakening, Season Two reveals the birth of the rebellion. Sure, said rebellion was already underway. It needed to be in order for someone to choose to be amongst its ranks. But there's a difference between isolated moments of insurrection with Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) operating as puppet master and a full-fledged enterprise consisting of regiments and chain of command. The missions he set Cass, Vel (Faye Marsay), and Wilmon (Muhannad Ben Amor) on were seeds being planted across the galaxy. The words of Karis Nemik (Alex Lawther) became a manifesto inspiring others to seek freedom. And now, Tony Gilroy and company have put it all together.

The show probably would have gone five seasons if it had begun production around the time of Rogue One (the story upon whose back it serves as a prequel). Between the COVID shutdown, industry strikes, and a bursting streaming bubble, however, we should be grateful we even received two. Gilroy makes it work by devoting this latest run of twelve episodes into four equal chapters spanning a truncated period of real-ish-time events labeled by their year in relation to A New Hope: BBY 4 (Before the Battle of Yavin) through BBY 1.

First come the effects of the previous season via a three-pronged narrative showing Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) sending her daughter into marriage, Cass trying to survive the end of a mission to steal an Imperial spacecraft, and Bix (Adria Arjona) hoping to evade an Empire audit in the fields where she, Wil, and Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) work as undocumented laborers. Next are the consequences of an expanding rebellion causing there to be too many plates spinning at once for both Luthan and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), their inevitable collision course coming into greater focus while Cass questions his desire to keep pressing his luck by sacrificing his life for the cause.

BBY 2 is the coup de grâce culminating in two of the best episodes of television this century courtesy of "Who Are You?" and "Welcome to the Rebellion". The former is named after a line channeling the "Mad Men" meme exchange between Don Draper and Michael Ginsberg with all the withering heat of "I don't think about you at all" as well as the revelation that, despite his many attempts at the contrary, Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) is nothing more than a cog in the machine. Its epic faux "first strike" turning into massacre (the parallels to Stephen Miller fabricating a reason to put federal law enforcement on the ground in Los Angeles right now are uncanny) leads to a powerful, galvanizing moment for the rebellion that can only be rivaled by Mon and Senator Organa's (now played by Benjamin Bratt) sacrifices within a tense exfiltration during the latter episode.

And the final block serves as the connective tissue to Rogue One—a beautifully orchestrated last hurrah for those who don't make it into that film and a rousing ramp up to the drama ahead for those who do. Yes, even K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). I'll admit to being worried that it didn't seem like there would be enough time to do it justice considering all that occurred during BBY 2, but the cast and crew get it done with elegant precision and high-octane suspense courtesy of both Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) and Cass knowing what is at stake once they realize they might have finally compressed the information gap separating their efforts from those of Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).

Their ability to advance so much plot in so little time with these densely packed trios only works by giving audiences the respect they deserve as far as knowing we understand the connections without needing them spelled out (sorry, Netflix, not everyone wants "second screen" content with dialogue meant to keep us informed so we don't actually need to watch anything). It's a testament to their love for these characters and their handle on the politics of both sides of a civil conflict caused by fascistic oppression (heck, we do too considering all that's happening on American soil and beyond today). That they do so while also finding time to focus on smaller representations of that scenario (namely Kathryn Hunter's unforgettable, totalitarian mother) is our gain on an entertainment and educational level considering sympathizers must never be let off the hook.

Beyond the easy heroes and villains, however, "Andor" also gets to the heart of a person like Syril—someone who might prove most intriguing due to his delusion about his place in the dichotomy. Because there's a difference between him and ISB members like Dedra and Partagaz (Anton Lesser). He might be on the side of evil, but he exists there as an idealist earnestly pursuing a warped ideal fed to him since youth. They operate on ego and ambition, willingly trading their souls for a piece of the pie. Syril operates on righteousness, presuming his pursuit of justice is pure because he hasn't awoken to the fact that his justice is actually a means to bolster his superiors' injustice. It's why Dedra and Partagaz's ends feel satisfying in their anguish and Syril's feels heartbreaking by contrast. Sadly, too many refuse to open their eyes until it's already too late.

- 9/10

ECHO VALLEY

(streaming on AppleTV+)

It's easy to vilify a parent for giving up on their child because blah, blah, blah. But sometimes people truly don't deserve a second chance. Or a third. Or a tenth. Richard Garretson (Kyle MacLachlan) sees that. Sure, he's obviously a bastard and thus warrants our instant hate for everything he says and does (including giving his ex-wife the money he swore he wouldn't right after chastising her for doing the same with their daughter over and over again), but those things mustn't be mutually exclusive. He can be a jerk. Kate (Julianne Moore) can be a pushover. And Claire (Sydney Sweeney) can be troubled beyond help. Maybe their combined volatility created that truth. Maybe that truth created the volatility.

Whichever the reason, director Michael Pearce and writer Brad Ingelsby rely on our prejudices (and their exploitation of them) to quickly empathize with Kate's plight. Because Echo Valley isn't just about her roller coaster of emotions where it comes to her daughter's drug habit and instability. It's also about the grief of having lost her wife nine months prior. Kate has been taking care of their farm by herself all that time—wishing she could stay in bed, but knowing she must feed the horses. In a perfect world, Claire would be there to help. To support her mother in her time of need. But she's instead become a drain on Kate's savings for rehab stints she never even finishes.

So, it's difficult to sympathize with Claire. No matter how much we understand Kate's instincts to love her unconditionally, we, as outsiders, can only grant so much room for authentic change before wishing this widowed mother would cut her loose. Ending the story early can become a better outcome than enduring the constant examples of why she should have done so before it ever got to this point. Add an extremely violent altercation between Kate and Claire early on and we receive front row seats to the evidence that proves it. Thankfully that incident does finally break the blind maternal hold. Kate tries to move on knowing her daughter will probably end up dead and we accept it's probably for the best.

That's when the plot kicks in. Right when we assume Claire and her boyfriend Ryan (Edmund Donovan) will turn up as cadavers in the morgue courtesy of psychopath Jackie Lawson (Domhnall Gleeson), she turns up on Kate's doorstep with blood-soaked clothes and a body in her car. It's a wild scenario, but one that can be excused due to the circumstances set forth. Claire is an addict and thus highly erratic. Kate is an open heart who always chooses the people she loves above herself when forced to make a quick decision. Yes, it's funny that Claire decides wrapping the person she accidentally killed in a sheet and duct tape was smarter than calling the police and feigning self-defense, but she hasn't done anything for us to believe smarts would ever trump impulse.

So, the narrative shifts away from a mother coping with loss and attempting to stay strong enough for another. Now it's a quasi-suspense thriller surrounding a crime Kate has implicated herself in to save Claire. We know there's no way it won't backfire because Claire is destined to screw it up and we still have an hour-plus of runtime to go, but how it backfires might surprise you. I applaud Pearce and Ingelsby for the twist because everything was going rather straightforwardly until that rug pull—even if it proves obvious in hindsight. From there it's an uncomplicated journey towards watching Kate try to save herself. There's something empowering in it because the only way to succeed is by finally letting herself leave her wife and daughter behind.

It's why I didn't necessary love the ending (I'd have given the film an extra star if it finished with a door slam instead of a more ambiguous cut to black that all but ensures the door stays open). It's one thing to forgive, but it's another to move on. While Kate might still do the latter, nothing we've seen prevents us from assuming the former was a foregone conclusion regardless of whether she'd have the self-control to not provide it as freely as in the past. Echo Valley seems so intent on exposing the complexity of this mother-daughter relationship that a more cynical end game seemed the point. Chickening out doesn't undercut the action, but it does render it somewhat anticlimactic.

So too does the inevitable rewind to show us what "really happened" despite the result already explaining it without further handholding. As soon as the police officer (Albert Jones) explains details we didn't know would be found by his investigation, everything clicks into place. And the why is always more important than the how. Give us a glimpse of horses running free and another Fiona Shaw wink and we'll put two and two together. We don't need a lengthy runback to prove what we already know. For a film that took pains to be more show than tell, this moment does undercut the potency of what occurred because it shows the filmmakers didn't quite trust their own work.

The film is still worth watching, though. Moore and Shaw are great. Sweeney is intentionally annoying with a nice ability to garner sympathy even as we know Claire holds all the blame. And Gleeson is having fun chewing scenery with a huge grin. It doesn't reach the heights of Pearce's debut Beast, but it is a step-up from his previous work, Encounter. He's an intriguing filmmaker who's always bolstered by great casts, but it's hard not to wonder if there's a reason Amazon and Apple have been his last two homes. That's not to say they don't or haven't bankrolled quality art. It's just that they also often bankroll scripts other studios wouldn't for content purposes alone. Echo Valley has its moments, but I mostly kept thinking about The Deep End and God's Creatures instead.

- 6/10

SINNERS

(VOD/Digital HD)

World War I veterans Smoke and Stack Moore (Michael B. Jordan) left Mississippi behind to find greener pastures up north in Chicago. It worked for a while, but, despite leaving Jim Crow, they still weren't free. So, as they soon explain, the twins chose the "devil they knew" and returned home with stolen money and liquor to open a juke joint at the old sawmill down by the plantations where they grew up. This would be their tiny patch of land to live their dream of being beholden to no one but themselves. A haven for the Black community surrounding them to escape the fields and the danger of trying to exist amongst white people who are one lie away from destroying their lives.

That question of freedom remains, however. The brothers understand the tenuous nature of their entrepreneurship. They even threaten the racist landowner selling them the land that none of his Klan brethren better step one toe over the property line lest they get a bullet in the head. They take the chance, though, because they have each other's backs. And they have a slew of friends ready to help and share in the profits of what could be their sanctuary from having to constantly look over their shoulders before every sip of their drink. Because this can be their church of the soul away from the oppressive nature of God and the twisted temptations of the Devil. Away from the false safety of laws and faith so they might simply exist solely for themselves.

Premised on the idea that evil seeks out genius as a means to possess it, Ryan Coogler's Sinners introduces a proverbial pig to the slaughter via young Sammie (Miles Caton), Smoke and Stack's cousin. Spending every free second he has on playing the guitar when not working the fields or assisting his pastor father (Saul Williams), music has become his God. It's what he worships and proselytizes—a fact that has he dad worrying about the Devil taking his boy's soul (because everything that isn't what he preaches as salvation must therefore be corrupt). But Sammie doesn't care. It's his passion and his cousins are giving him his big break that night to christen their new club. So, he'll play his heart out. He'll inspire and move all in attendance. And he'll inevitably bring that evil to their door.

Beyond the metaphor of art (the music played by Sammie and Delroy Lindo's Slim and sung by Jayme Lawson's Pearline) and love (whether Wunmi Mosaku's Annie as the mother of Smoke's lost child or Hailee Steinfeld's Mary as the woman Stack wants to protect by pushing her away) as freedom, is also the allure of power. That's what Smoke and Stack crave and see money as an avenue towards achieving it. Because, while all the people they recruit are friends (rounded out by Chinese grocers Bo and Grace Chow, played by Yao and Li Jun Li, and their bouncer in Omar Benson Miller's Cornbread), it's the cash that gets them all to push aside their current means of compensation. Money has sway. It allows them to collect those necessary to make dream into reality.

But there's also the power of privilege. Mary passing as white while still being family with this Black community. The Klan putting on smiles during the day to put their would-be victims in place for slaughter at night. The twins' gangster reputation keeping strangers in line. And, off-screen, the mostly rich and white executive suite types bankrolling musicians and athletes as property to the point where their songs and stats are no longer their own. This very country was built on stolen land upon the backs of the people most persecuted by its justice system even as the number of so-called minorities living here almost equal the number of white citizens who somehow believe "equality" means maintaining the same exclusive "ol' boys" club ... just without the hoods. Even those offering a helping hand demand a pound of flesh for the trouble.

Therein lies the beauty of Remmick (Jack O'Connell). Here is an Irish immigrant vampire who has lived long enough to have seen the cycle of prejudice and hate revolve. He was its victim at one point too. He's seen how the world refuses to change as much as move the compass point elsewhere for a spell in order to grant reprieves that last just as long as is necessary before spinning back around. What he offers isn't money, but time. Time to see the chains passed onto another because the idea that they can actually be broken is futile. Remmick is temptation, but also yet another figure seeking control. Because he doesn't give everyone a choice. And, while his memories will be transferred to those he turns, it's their memories that matter most to him. He doesn't want their bodies. He wants the beauty within. A Generative AI looking to consume humanity whole.

Is it better that he was a victim too? Should Smoke, Stack, and the others embrace what he's offering because it might grant them the longevity to see their would-be assailants burn? It might be to some ... if they were allowed the room to consider it rather than merely get seduced into volunteering their vulnerability for the promise of a distraction they're helpless to combat. Not Slim, though. Not Pearline. They understand their worth (even if the world doesn't and they've suffered as a result). The music sings within them and they will not give that away freely. Slim talks about surviving demons before—not supernatural ones like Remmick either, so the sentiment hits deep. Sammie is a different story. He's still young. Impressionable. Lorded over by his father and Smoke—men who believe they know better. The fear might still win out to let his guitar go.

That's the central fight here. Not an exciting and emotional last stand via a microcosmic civil war pitting undead friends and family against the living. Not the resonant allusions to emancipation and civil rights. Not even God versus muse. Those things all play their role, but they're different examples of the battlefields that pit free will against nihilism. And it's about choosing how you die just as much as choosing how you live too. Look no further than Smoke and Annie to witness devotion to a truth they might not always be brave enough to speak aloud, but one they've held onto ever since they buried their child. Because it's the specter of death that often provides us the meaning we need to survive. Not as something to reject, but something to embrace.

Isn't that a form of immortality too? To believe in an afterlife? Of course it is. So too is legacy—leaving this world with the evidence of your life through your art. Coogler gives them all an equal piece to this puzzle as a means to portray that there isn't just one way to life. You can turn your pain into a creative outlet. You can turn it into purpose through love. And you can do the same through hate. The shepherd, the flock, and the monster: we must all choose which we're to become and, chances are, we still will be at the mercy of someone else anyway. But as Stack and Sammie reminisce, there will be a moment upon each path that makes it all worth the struggle. An eternity for those who've died too soon. A brief few hours for those who cannot die. Or a, simply put, life well lived.

So, do yourself a favor and stay through the credits for an epilogue that truly hits on the ideas Coogler puts on-screen via the excellent gore-filled genre trappings of a vampire horror. Stay until the very end for a nice little musical sendoff too. Because no matter how good Sinners is on the surface (the marriage of music with Ludwig Göransson's score, visuals with Autumn Durald Arkapaw's cinematography, and performance with an impressive cast expressing themselves through movement as much as words), its power lies deeper. Not as a means to manipulate through cinematic tricks or soap-box declarations, but to inspire and grant us permission to set ourselves free from society, expectations, and doubts. After all, the only person who should control your life is you.

- 10/10

TATAMI

(limited theaters)

It only seems right that an Israeli and Iranian would collaborate on a film about the political violence wrought by both countries upon their citizens in relation to the other. Director and co-writer (with Elham Erfani) Guy Nattiv originally approached Zar Amir Ebrahimi about acting in his latest film Tatami. Soon, however, she found herself giving more to the production as both a casting director and producer helping to lend the script another authentic Iranian voice (alongside Erfani). The more she and Nattiv discovered their shared cinematic sensibilities, he asked if she would be interested in co-directing. And so, the Israeli living in America and the Iranian exile in France joined forces to lift the veil on the heroism of artists and athletes who dare oppose an oppressive regime.

The story centers on Iran's judoka champion Leila Hosseini (Arienne Mandi) as she continues her quest for a World Championship gold medal in Tbilisi, Georgia. Everyone is excited for the opportunity—her family, her coach (Ebrahimi's Maryam Ghanbari), and her home government considering they've allowed her the ability to travel to the tournament under their flag. Leila feels good. Determined. Maryam is giving her all too to steward her best competitor towards an honor she never achieved herself due to a career-ending injury. And with two quick and decisive victories in the early rounds, this Cinderella tale is poised to play out just as they've imagined. That's when the phone begins to ring to remind both women how little autonomy they actually possess.

Because winning isn't the Islamic Republic of Iran's goal. Sure, it would be a nice bragging-rights-feather in their cap, but their participation is nothing if not a strategic cog in their propaganda machine. It's meant to soften their image as far as the baked in misogyny of their laws (Leila's husband, Ash Goldeh's Nader, must sign her passport granting his permission for her to leave). To show the world that they let women out of the house to pursue their dreams ... as long as those dreams service the nation's reputation. And while one might assume this message is targeting the international community, it is in fact reflecting back upon the Iranian people as a false sense of hope and possibility. As such, Leila's experience in Georgia must fully adhere to the Supreme Leader's indoctrination.

Therein lies the issue. It's one thing for Leila to win the tournament. It's another to wittingly acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel's Zionist regime in the process. If Shani Lavi (Lir Katz) had lost early, there wouldn't have been a problem. Since she is cutting through her opponents at a similar speed as Leila, however, the potential of them meeting on the mat becomes too realistic a chance to take. You can't have her withdraw right before this possible match either as that would look suspicious. So, it would be better for all involved if she were to get "injured" now and fight another (hopefully Israeli-less) day. It falls on Maryam to relay the message as an extension of their government. The longer it takes to convince Leila, the more brazenly violent Iran will become to scare her into submission.

What begins as a sports drama rapidly turns into a tense thriller as a result. Because it's not just about the judo matches anymore (which provide riveting suspense themselves in Leila's underdog pursuit of a championship). Now it's about survival as Iranian police start targeting families back home with phone calls providing blackmail proof. "Diplomats" begin to make their way behind the scenes of the tournament to turn the screws right under the noses of the WJC representatives tasked to ensure the event is fair and safe for all its athletes (Jaime Ray Newman's Stacey Travis and Nadine Marshall's Jean Claire Abriel). And that institution must commence its own protocols to ready for a potential defection should they be approached to provide one.

Unlike the real-life story of Alexander Mogilny's defection from the Soviet Union—something a Buffalo native like me knows well as a Sabres fan—Nattiv and Ebrahimi are ratcheting up our apprehension by confining everything to a single locale. There's no opportunity to play a shell game with cars or to utilize embassies as safe havens. And with the advent of telephones and internet, there's nowhere that someone with nefarious plans cannot go to get at their target. So, there arrives a lot of confusion as these women are forced to make impossible decisions in very little time while plainly visible to their oppressors. It's one thing for Maryam to slow walk telling Leila in the hopes Lavi loses, but another to risk her own safety by lending support once the cat is out of the bag.

The same goes for Leila. Giving Iran the middle finger when you're on a hot streak becomes a much more difficult decision when you're calling your husband to flee the country and receiving proof-of-life videos of your parents begging you to withdraw. And what power does Stacey and Jean Claire truly hold in the grand scheme of things? Iran doesn't care about threats of being banned from international competitions (it's done nothing to stop Russia from continuing its invasion of Ukraine and no one has been moral enough to even threaten Israel with the same while their ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people continues unchecked). They can tell Leila that they'll protect her, but only she knows what Iran is capable of if it turns out they can't.

Nattiv and Erfani's script handles this rock and hard place conundrum effectively if for no other reason than their conscious effort to keep things rooted in authenticity. This isn't Leila against the world without reservations. It isn't Maryam taking a stand to protect her competitor when no one else will. Those things might eventually happen, but giving them an unwavering, steely resolve to pretend the stakes aren't life or death would ultimately undercut the potency of them standing up. Don't expect the grand contrivance of Iran being pitted against Israel for gold to be exploited as an easy dramatic out either. We learn very early on that winning on the mat is meaningless compared to surviving the political and physical violence of daring to get on the mat at all.

Mandi and Ebrahimi are fantastic in their portrayals with every decision holding a betrayal in one hand and possible execution in the other. Add the grittiness of its full frame black and white putting us into the action with tons of close-ups alongside the voyeur paranoia of spies staring down from the bleachers and Nattiv returns to the intensity of his feature debut Skin (the one starring Jamie Bell, not the divisive Oscar-winning short film of the same name) after his more recent, generic effort with Golda. It really does feel like anything can happen on-screen here. That the danger could be stronger if the filmmakers allow it to defeat their characters rather than be defeated by them. Tatami's message is one that's always better absorbed when the stakes never go away.

- 8/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Barely Lethal (2015), Boys State (2020), The Circle (2017), Life as We Know It (2010), More American Graffiti (1979), Nothing But Trouble (1991), O'Dessa (2025), Radio Flyer (1992), The Soloist (2009), and The Tomorrow War (2021) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Christopher Nathan Miller dropping a shocked f-bomb in Barely Lethal.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 6/13/25 -

• Dakuaan Da Munda 3 at Regal Elmwood

• How to Train Your Dragon at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Materialists at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Pind Peya Sara Jombieland Baneya at Regal Elmwood

• The Unholy Trinity at Regal Transit, Quaker

Streaming from 6/13/25 -

• Absolution – Hulu on 6/13

• Best Wishes to All – Shudder on 6/13

• Cleaner – Max on 6/13

  “The filmmakers might as well have just delivered their Die Hard retread without jumping through hoops they so readily erase whenever finding themselves flirting with taking an actual stand.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Echo Valley – AppleTV+ on 6/13

  Thoughts are above.

• Love Me – Paramount+ on 6/16

• Sally – Disney+/Hulu on 6/17

• Surviving Ohio State – Max on 6/17

• Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem – Netflix on 6/17

• The Quiet Ones – Hulu on 6/19

  “I give August's script a ton of credit because a lot needs to be made known during preparations for what occurs to make sense. The fact none of it feels forced is no small feat. It helps that Hviid shoots the heist with urgency.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• 11 Rebels (6/10)

• The Amateur (6/10)

• Clown in a Cornfield (6/10)

  “[There's] a disingenuous undercurrent of older allies playacting today's youth's authentic rage. I'm sure Craig and Blanchard mean well, but this property needed filmmakers in their twenties or thirties behind the wheel rather than fifties and above.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Franklin (6/10)

• G20 (6/10)

• Lily (6/10)

• Misericordia (6/10)

• When Fall is Coming (6/10)

• Bonjour Tristesse (6/13)

• Diablo (6/13)

• Killing Mary Sue (6/13)

• Savoring Paris (6/13)

• Sew Torn (6/13)

• Words of War (6/13)

Eventually Spotify made hard copies of music obsolete. Twitter quickly rotted my attention span from being able to read an actual book anymore. And many local libraries eventually ended up closing. So, libraries ceased to exist in my consciousness (besides as a venue for Jordan and me to screen films for Cultivate Cinema Circle).

Well, I just got a new card in the mail this week (ten years too late considering I live across the street from one). Since I still use Spotify and still can’t read two pages of a novel without falling asleep or, worse, realizing I retained none of the words, the current purpose for signing up is easy: movies.

Not to watch, though. I have too many streaming subscriptions for that. No, it’s the silliest of reasons: continuing my cinematicfbombs.com research. As I’ve been scouring the IMDb database’s PG and PG-13 rated entries, I’ve discovered an insane number of titles I’ve never even heard about. Unsurprisingly, they also aren’t available to stream or buy digitally. So, before I start searching eBay for old DVDs to purchase, I thought I’d investigate the Buffalo & Erie County Library system first.

Sure, only five of my first thirty-six queries actually came up as being available, but that’s five fewer titles I need to worry about acquiring. Now I wait to see how long before those holds make their way to my branch.

Subscribe now

What I Watched:

BARRON’S COVE

(limited theaters & VOD)

The easy comparison point—if also a lofty one—for Evan Ari Kelman's directorial debut Barron's Cove is Mystic River. You can see it in Garrett Hedlund's performance as Caleb upon learning about the brutal death of his young son Barron. He's screaming so loudly at the scene of the crime that multiple cops prove necessary to hold him back, just like Sean Penn in Clint Eastwood's modern classic. And we assume things might play out similarly too since Caleb is a bruiser working for his criminal uncle Benji (Stephen Lang), a man with the connections and reach to find out what happened so he can unleash righteous vengeance.

Where Kelman takes things in a different direction, however, is that Caleb isn't entirely a "bad man." Yes, he does bad things. Yes, he's defined by the trauma and abuse that has cultivated a violent anger in his soul. Yes, he's let his ex-wife (Brittany Snow's Jackie) down and wasn't there to save their boy. But he was a good father. He loved his son and would do anything for him—even suffer through the dark cloud of his life to protect Barron from the painful childhood he endured. That boy was everything to Caleb and you can believe it when he says he has nothing left to lose. He'll bring Hell to earth to discover the truth and do what's necessary to make it right. And, unlike Penn's Jimmy, Caleb can still come out the hero.

That shouldn't excuse his actions, though. Credit Kelman for staying true to the flawed characters he's brought to life because "good" people who do bad things don't get to just escape the damage left in their wake. Caleb is therefore more antihero than hero. He's the film's protagonist, but he's still driven by reactionary impulses that more often than not lead towards inexcusable deeds. So, the real dramatic arc isn't about the inevitable reveal of what happened (we already mostly know courtesy of the opening scene), but whether Caleb will do what he sets out to do or realize the truth is more complicated than his rage demands. Because if anybody knows what it's like to lose one's innocence without fully grasping what's been lost, it's him.

In many regards, despite centering around a child's death, Barron's Cove is about survival. Caleb's survival through brutality and his desire to wall the resulting darkness away from his son. Prospective State Senator Lyle Chambers' (Hamish Linklater) survival beneath generations of tradition leading him to be unable to hold that darkness at bay from spilling onto those around him. Young Ethan's (Christian Convery) survival pushing him to unwittingly project his pain onto others without fully grasping the consequences until it's too late. Each of these men tell lies to each other ... and themselves, rewriting history to service a narrative that means nothing upon realizing they can no longer protect what they're fighting for: Caleb's son, Lyle's career, and Ethan's humanity.

So, they scramble. Caleb kidnaps Ethan to find out how his son died. Ethan tells him what he wants to hear to hold his malice at bay. And Lyle works behind the scenes to figure out how to save his poll numbers, using everything at his disposal to manufacture a truth that's willing to embrace dark, unconscionable contingencies that might still curry favor through sympathy. Kelman orchestrates multiple hunts as result. The police and Lyle hunting Caleb. Caleb hunting Ethan and Lyle. The audience hunting threads of truth beneath lies that might hold more truth than you'd expect. Add Raúl Castillo's Detective Navarro, an outsider untouched by the town's corruption, as the sole objective observer willing to unravel the obviously manipulated threads, and the suspense is never lacking.

It says something too that Tramell Tillman's small role as a throwaway plot device delivers necessary pathos to help us understand Caleb as more than what the police paint him. The same with Lang in a similarly small role meant to add grit and danger while also providing a mirror to remind us of what Caleb should have become but didn't. Both are a testament to the performers, but also to a script that finds the capacity to provide its pawns a level of depth needed to feel lived-in and meaningful to the whole. Those two characters are especially crucial considering their contrast with each other: two military archetypes split by a chasm of compassion. Benji thinks his power made Caleb loyal, but it was really the unintended kindness from reaching out his hand to do so that made it stick.

The other relationships throughout the film build off that fact. The big one is Ethan's fear of Lyle mimicking the rage Caleb had for this father that drove him to Benji, but there's also Caleb's fear of being helpless to stop his anger if Barron ever became its target. It's why Hedlund and Convery's dynamic is so compelling. Yes, there's the manipulated sense of mutually assured salvation, but also proof of why Ethan resented Barron so much. And while Kelman could have simply let us know it, he goes above and beyond to ensure Caleb does it too via a final shot that may sound schmaltzy on paper, but is executed to perfection on-screen.

Those sentiments are true for the entirety of Barron's Cove. It may often look like just another generic thriller with dark subject matter, but it always surprises by putting character and emotion above a desire to deliver hollow clichés for mainstream appeal. It's their ability to overcome their violent natures and do the right thing that makes these men interesting, so they must remain violent for it to work. That means Kelman can't water down the resulting impact by redeeming them to the world. His cowards remain cowards, and his criminals accept that the blood they spilled will inevitably catch up to them in the end. Some, however, might still find redemption for themselves to be at peace when it does.

- 8/10

DANGEROUS ANIMALS

(in theaters)

Bruce Tucker (Jai Courtney) is a miracle. The boy who survived a shark attack with all his limbs intact. So, it's not far-fetched that he'd grow into a devotee of the cartilaginous fish that spared his life. Or that he would view these creatures as Gods as a result. Tucker worships them so much that he's dedicated his life to changing the narrative via a cage experience tourists can use to witness their splendor. He'll toss facts about mosquitoes being more deadly to humans and monologue about our gut instinct allowing fear to wrongly position the shark as our predator. The "Tucker Experience" is akin to exposure therapy. He's a disciple converting his new flock.

Except, as Dangerous Animals screenwriter Nick Lepard and director Sean Byrne soon reveal, Tucker isn't some eccentric marine preacher. No, he's a serial killer who fancies himself a land shark due to the beasts letting him go that day. He does give paying customers a good show and proselytizes his "faith," but it's all a front to acquire new victims. They aren't just for him, though—despite his delight in the process and collection of VHS trophies to rewatch over dinner. They are also for his God. Sacrifices upon an altar of water. Gifts for a species that lets the world go round through its job as sea policemen ensuring the weak won't run amok. Tucker is a man with a higher purpose than mere murder. He's a prophet.

It's a fascinating bit of backstory for a character Courtney sinks his own teeth into en route to captivating audiences with a comically smarmy good time. His corny nature when selling customers on the ride (and calming them down with humorous distractions) helps us buy his otherwise steely-eyed determination to hunt prey as though recruiting talent for this very horror film we've chosen to watch. There's no fourth wall breaking, but Tucker definitely fancies himself an artist capturing a Barnum & Bailey type show regardless of its ability to only entertain himself. He revels in the chase. Goads his Gods into making the kill as bloody as possible. And encourages the fight some of the women he kidnaps put up to increase his own excitement.

Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is one such fighter—a woman Tucker sees himself in despite never pivoting to turn her into an acolyte. A solitary soul in Australia to escape her past and catch some waves, she's the perfect mark because no one would miss her enough to come looking if she disappeared. Tucker surely sees that as a sign. That she was brought by providence to serve her purpose within his warped circle of life. And everything would have gone as usual if not for Lepard and Byrne needing an external force to help even the narrative scales. You see, timing is everything. If Tucker snatched Zephyr up a day earlier, she never would have met Moses (Josh Heuston) and ensnared his heart. She may be a loner, but she's no longer alone.

Add another potential victim (Ella Newton's Heather) to prolong the inevitable moment when Zephyr finally gets her chance at the end of Tucker's hook and Dangerous Animals proves ready to deliver all the pieces that make up a solid horror thriller. Graphic deaths. Unforgettable villain. Headstrong hero. And the power of love to wake said hero up to the reality that having something (or someone) to fight for makes you push further than you ever could for yourself. What helps the film stand apart, though, is that the same sentiments are true for the villain. If Tucker were simply killing for pleasure, he might be more careful. But he's doing this for the sharks. It's ritualistic. Knowing they "need" him to follow through drives him to risk his own safety for their satisfaction.

So, while the film doesn't deliver much that other captivity horror hasn't already supplied, the characters possess the goods to make us forget each new plot progression is a familiar check stop upon a well-worn trope. The prologue will have a body count. The hero will try and escape the emotional connection she needs to survive. The killer will get too comfortable hearing himself talk and ultimately provide the cracks in the façade that provide her a slim chance of escape. And the surefire mode of death will have a single (albeit unlikely without some luck) flaw exposed to keep the game moving longer than the premise probably deserves. But Courtney and Harrison are too much fun to care.

At one point I even thought the filmmakers found the guts to subvert expectations and let more blood flow by slamming shut the doors so many of its ilk open for the precise purpose of saving the day, but Lepard and Byrne simply enjoy toying with us as much as the characters. It does eventually render the tension moot (our own bloodlust stops caring about who lives because we just want to see someone die) while also leaving a ton of loose salvation threads never to be pulled, but the entertainment value remains. It leans too hard into its rote Hollywood finale as a result of leaving those darker and more interesting possibilities solely in my head, but that's today's industry. We can have our derangement, but not enough to ruin any love conquers all mandates.

- 6/10

THE RITUAL

(in theaters)

If David Midell's cinematic rendition of the famed American exorcism of forty-six-year-old "Anna Ecklund" in 1928 teaches us anything, it's that exorcisms are inherently uninteresting. Boring even. Because each day is the same. Passages from the Bible are read aloud, the possessed victim writhes in pain while a demonic presence speaks in foreign languages, and the participants are forced to question their faith. When things go too far, someone shuts it down either because the session has completed or they are too afraid to continue. It's not therefore about the "patient" at all, but the priests and nuns desperately searching for answers at a time when their understanding of God is its weakest.

That is what The Ritual delivers. Multiple days. Multiple setbacks. Multiple injuries. And the moment that will cement Father Joseph Steiger's (Dan Stevens) faith by finally heeding the call to act rather than question. It makes sense since we're told Midell used his notes (published as a pamphlet entitled "Begone Satan!" in Nazi Germany, before being translated in English, that allowed this event to be considered the most documented exorcism in American history) to piece together the month of sessions performed on-screen. I say "told" because Steiger isn't given credit beyond mention via interstitial. No, Midell and Enrico Natale earn the story credit instead, causing us to wonder how much we're watching is actually true beyond the names.

There's also a prevailing notion that Father Steiger had a choice about allowing the exorcism to be performed in his church. The Abbess (Patricia Heaton) blames him for letting evil into their sanctuary and questions his leadership despite a scene showing he tried to decline. Bishop Edwards (Patrick Fabian) all but demands Steiger play host because the powers that be already decided for him (although factual accounts say Steiger did suggested the location, so maybe the confusion is a result of playing fast and loose with details). He would take notes while two sisters assisted in German-American Capuchin friar and Roman Catholic priest Father Theophilus Riesinger's (Al Pacino) ceremony. They would rid young Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen, not forty-six-years-old)—the real name of "Anna Ecklund"—of whatever inhabited her.

I believe the ritual is supposed to be boring in its routine repetition because we're supposed to worry less about Emma's wellbeing than that of Father Steiger. He is the one being tested as a result of Riesinger's theatrics. Will he allow the nuns in his care (including Ashley Greene) to keep getting hurt? Will he allow the Reverend Mother to collect enough evidence to send him packing to a different congregation? Will he be able to grieve the sudden death of his brother with the care necessary for healing while also dealing with a supposed demon throwing it in his face? Will he find the strength and conviction to stay on his path as a man of God when this uncertain chaos tempts him to give up?

Unfortunately, Father Steiger isn't presented as someone worthy of our intrigue. Not when everyone else is much more compelling despite having far less to do. Riesinger and Emma are the draw and yet they become window dressing for Steiger's epiphany. Even Greene's Sister Rose supplies more dramatic weight as she too wrestles with her faith before being relegated to the fringes as another point of seduction for the demon and Steiger to latch onto despite her doing nothing to warrant it. Steiger is just a guy in mourning who's susceptible to the darkness of the situation as well as the coincidental signs of God that might ultimately renew his dedication to the cloth. He gets to choose.

As such, we receive all the usual clichés of better exorcism titles populating a psychological study of a priest that wants to be a horror film so bad it relies on loud music cues to jolt us awake during jump scares the filmmakers obviously didn't think were effective on their own. The Ritual does look good with some truly gruesome moments of bloody, fleshy vomit and wire work once Emma is off-leash (Cowen is giving her all in a physically demanding role), so it's easy to be frustrated that Midell didn't just pivot to B-movie carnage. His straddling of the line between all-out genre gore and introspective crisis of purpose leaves the whole feeling at war with itself because the drama never compels us to forget we're still watching in the hope for more chaos.

Pacino's accent isn't as distracting as some have said (it just sounded like he was channeling his Shylock from Merchant of Venice). I had more trouble figuring out if Heaton was doing one herself or merely supplying some wild line readings. The real oddity for me was the faux shaky-cam aesthetic that seemed to amplify during those jump scares to comedic effect despite there not being one intentionally humorous bone in the entirety of the work. I dismissed the first instance as the price of doing business, but subsequent ones had me chuckling as I recalled the camerawork in The 'Burbs when Tom Hanks and Rick Ducommun realize they're holding a human femur. I knew things had become too self-serious when all I wanted to do was pretend the film's goal was for me to laugh.

- 5/10

SUNLIGHT

(limited theaters)

Roy's (Shenoah Allen) plan was suicide. He went to the Sunlight Motel (coincidentally, the same name as the radio station he works for, Sunlight Radio) with rope, strung it around the ceiling fan, and put it around his neck. So, the fact that catching a glimpse of a person wearing a human-sized monkey costume looking in through his window was the reason he ultimately kicked out the chair from beneath him shouldn't transfer any blame or guilt. Sure, he might have had second thoughts, but him being far enough into the plan that an unexpected surprise could make it reality is no one's fault but his own. That said, Jane (Nina Conti) couldn't live with herself if she didn't save his life.

This is our unforgettable entry into the aptly titled Sunlight, direct by Conti and co-written by Allen. That quick shot of "Monkey" (Jane's defense mechanism and alter ego—reimagined from Conti's ventriloquist act) followed by Roy's descent before the cut to black reopens within the latter's Airstream as it drives down a desert road. We are therefore waking up right alongside Roy in the passenger seat, completely disoriented as to how he got there and where he's going. Seeing "Monkey" behind the wheel only makes things more unsettling with her explanation about "borrowing" the vehicle to drive herself to Colorado providing zero help. Because A) she's a monkey and B) he's supposed to be dead. These aren't normal circumstances.

That said, "normal" is precisely what both these characters hope to avoid. It's why Roy tired of existence and Jane hides beneath the skin of an alternate persona. "Normal" has never been enough. "Normal" has only ever felt abnormal. Some of the reason is trauma. Some of it is insecurity. Roy has begun to consider his job meaningless—hack work getting paid to be an obsequious host to interviewees with nothing important to say. Jane has begun to acknowledge that her self-destructive patterns have placed her on a road towards isolation—a slave to her worst impulses for no other reason than to feel something regardless of whether it makes her life worse in the process.

Joining forces is thus as much about guilt-laden coincidence as kismet since they are both unhinged enough to deal with the other sans judgement. She needs to go to a lake in Colorado to at least fulfill the beginning of her dream to own a pontoon boat business regardless of having no money or plans to do so once she arrives. He needs to reconcile the fact that he's still alive with the reality that he's spent the past few months assuming the opposite—meaning he must call his boss (Rachel Kylian) and mother (Melissa Chambers) to course correct. And it's through this imperative that he discovers an answer for both of their woes: a twenty-thousand-dollar watch buried six feet deep with his father's body.

This road trip's destination becomes secondary to the journey as a result. Yes, that money can make Jane's dream real while its procurement can help Roy exorcize whatever demons his father's memory still conjures, but these are Band-Aid fixes born from the same faulty impulses as her poor choices in sexual partners and his decision to kill himself. Once the initial joy of the distraction is over, both would inevitably fall back into their usual pattern of self-loathing. So, the idea is that the other's company might change or reveal something that refocuses their motivations to provide an off-ramp from their constant ability to get in their own way. Maybe their respective troubles can allow them to be the other's inspiration towards healing.

It's that potential that makes Sunlight a profoundly compassionate and heartfelt drama despite its overtly insane premise and specific brand of darkly sardonic hilarity. Credit Conti and Allen for never allowing their script to forget that purpose too since the comedy could have succeeded on its own. They could have pivoted this complex, tender love story into a Hollywood rom-com by centering generic tropes that don't care about the reasons Roy and Jane are here. Instead, they stay true to the characters' fallibilities. They allow the duo's worst impulses to continue sabotaging their best laid plans so that the other can step back with understanding and honestly express that it'll be okay. That the goal isn't to exploit the other like everyone else in their lives. They get it.

They know what it's like to feel less than. To be smothered, ridiculed, and controlled (pair Bill Wise's Wade with Chambers' Gail to serve as two very different sides of the same "we know what's best for you" coin of "love"). If Jane needs to be "Monkey" to survive, Roy won't seek to shatter the façade and let her down too. If Roy needs to dig up his father's grave for catharsis, Jane won't tell him he's being dumb. And neither act must be "healthy" to be necessary. They simply need the room to see their respective adventures through so they can know what it looks like on the other side. Having someone to look out for them while doing it frees them from their own self-doubt. For the first time, someone accepts them on their terms. Loves them on their terms.

The humor would still work without this authentic strain of empathetic humanity holding it together, but the fact our laughter isn't in service of hollow cliché ensures it won't also prove disposable. Conti excels at portraying the consequences her characters face by never undercutting the danger inherent to the absurdity (this journey cannot work without jail time) and always finding the joke in the drama (a scene flirting with romantic undertones is expertly subverted by the monkey suit's mechanics). So, no matter how wild things get, Sunlight doesn't relinquish its grasp on its core emotional reality. And all the while Conti and Allen refuse to turn Jane and Roy's pain into the punch line. Every joke is instead born from the humanity their torment has yet to fully defeat.

- 9/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw The Butler (2013), Eagle Eye (2008), Green Book (2018), The Heavenly Kid (1985), A Home of Our Own (1993), K-PAX (2001), Meteor (1979), Necessary Roughness (1991), Pretty in Pink (1986), and Wild Rovers (1971) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Robert Loggia dropping a locker room speech f-bomb in Necessary Roughness.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 6/6/25 -

• Aabhyanthara Kuttavaali at Regal Elmwood

• Ballerina at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• DAN DA DAN: Evil Eye at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Dangerous Animals at at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• I Don't Understand You at Regal Galleria, Quaker

• Housefull 5 A at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria

• Pavements at Regal Transit

• The Phoenician Scheme at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Ritual at Dipson Capitol; Regal Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Thug Life at Regal Elmwood, Transit

Streaming from 6/6/25 -

• The Alto Knights – Max on 6/6

• The Ballad of Wallis Island – Peacock on 6/6

• K.O. – Netflix on 6/6

• Magic Farm – MUBI on 6/6

• Neighborhood Watch – AMC+ on 6/6

• Parthenope – Max on 6/6

• Predator: Killer of Killers – Hulu on 6/6

• Straw – Netflix on 6/6

• Becoming Led Zeppelin – Netflix on 6/7

• Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy – Netflix on 6/10

• Misericordia – Criterion Channel on 6/10

• Our Times – Netflix on 6/11

• Snow White – Disney+ on 6/11

• Titan: The OceanGate Disaster – Netflix on 6/11

• Deep Cover – Prime on 6/12

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Holy Cow (6/3)

• Minted (6/3)

• Sinners (6/3)

• Smoking Tigers (6/3)

• We Were Dangerous (6/3)

  “We revel in [the leads'] spirit and autonomy; their awareness of just how messed up the situation is. By never shying away from those horrors, watching this trio consistently rebel only amplifies the potency of their inspirational battle cry.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Barron’s Cove (6/6)

  Thoughts are above.

• Emmanuelle (6/6)

• Hurry Up Tomorrow (6/6)

• Julie Keeps Quiet (6/6)

• Magic Farm (6/6)

• Marshmallow (6/6)

• Resurrection Road (6/6)

• The Surfer (6/6)

  “The Surfer is about torturing Nic Cage until all pretense evaporates to leave his purely primal instincts in charge. Sell [his] soul for the dreams society indoctrinated him to achieve or realize no "reward" is worth relinquishing his humanity.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Vulcanizadora (6/6)

One follower comments incessantly about missing titles on the website and YouTube. I’m a proponent of this because it’s a great way to find out about films I’ve missed through my own research. The issue, however, is that I thank them for the suggestion, they acknowledge that reply, and then proceed to keep suggesting it again multiple more times on different pages.

I know this is a person who probably can’t cease this practice (it happens), but I’ve added some links and verbiage to the site, YouTube, and Letterboxd in hopes of mitigating this behavior by catching others before they can fall into the same pattern. It pretty much boils down to transferring my queues to public places so fans know which titles are already on my radar before reaching out.

These include:

• Index (~970) – Contains links to individual “live” pages and “unlinked” placeholders for titles I have verified and clipped (but haven’t had time to officially add yet).

• Watchlist (~250) – Contains those titles I have either been told include an f-bomb or have subtitle files suggesting one that haven’t yet been verified or clipped.

So, if anyone has any suggestions not included on those two links, please feel free to reach out here. Thanks in advance!

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What I Watched:

BLACK BAG

(streaming on Peacock)

George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) doesn't like liars. Just ask his father—a man he exposed and ultimately drove to suicide as a result. So, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård) knows the delicate nature of what he asks him to do upon turning over a list of names with the top five suspects of having stolen a sensitive government weapon with the capability of killing thousands. Why is it so delicate? Because George's wife Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) is amongst those names. She had the clearance, motive, and capacity to commit the crime. And he has the steely resolve to prove it if she did. Would he, though?

That's the question at the core of David Koepp's script for Black Bag. Not who did the deed or even whether its potential carnage comes true. No, the real intrigue is whether George will turn her in if she's guilty or become the exact sort of liar he abhors to save her. What makes Steven Soderbergh's direction of the film so entertaining, however, is that we never actually need to ask the question. Not because we know he'd kill for Kathryn or because we can assume she'd do the same for him, but because their love and trust in one another means they'd never put the other in a position where they'd need to consider the choice. The fun is therefore in the knowledge that everyone else knows this too.

Because it is their biggest weakness as covert operatives for British intelligence. They are each other's pressure point—the one person they'd willingly compromise themselves to save. But they are also each other's greatest asset due to that certainty. People can play their loyalty against the other for their own gain, but George and Kathryn are smart enough and confident enough to suss it out and use it to their advantage once their roads converge to reveal both of their strings have been pulled. And that doesn't mean she's innocent. Maybe she did steal the device. Maybe she did it to save George while he's put on her trail to close the loop so the real perpetrator escapes scot-free. Their weakness being their strength can be their weakness yet again.

So, we have no choice but to be on high alert when considering everyone else's role in this game. Freddie (Tom Burke) and Clarissa (Marisa Abela)—dating. Col. Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and Dr. Vaughan (Naomie Harris)—also dating. They all know this couple well enough to set this intricately devised chaos in motion and each other to maintain alibis and, perhaps, enlist accomplices. And since they all believe themselves the smartest person in the room, they possess the hubris to think playing George and Kathryn against each other might distract them long enough to get away with it. That their love could be clouded by suspicion rather than prove so ironclad that any move to out the other becomes a move to protect them and thus a tell for the fact they were the one being played the whole time.

Add Pierce Brosnan's perpetually grumpy office leader Stieglitz and you truly cannot tell when a maneuver is meant to subvert an operation or ensure its success. Why? Because none of these people can be trusted. As Clarissa frustratingly admits at one point, someone who literally lies for a living can never be relied upon to tell the truth. So, they can't date a civilian (it would never be real) and they can't succeed in dating another operative (because the transactional nature of the relationship would always be undercut by the ability to hide beneath mutually accepted confidentiality). One could say it's precisely why George and Kathryn became the perfect marks. The rest are jealous that they've not only made it work, but somehow made it look easy.

Therein lies the real fun for us, but especially for them. Because that relentless love means there is no line they wouldn't cross for or with the other. To give them the room to join together and ferret out their puppet master? That's foreplay for them. That gets them more excited than any of the tasks they are assigned because it lets them off-leash. They are no boundaries here. No bureaucratic red tape. The question of whether they would keep country above marriage becomes moot because neither would ever willingly do anything to sacrifice the former. In fact, the latter inevitably becomes the one thing they can use to save the former. And they'll mow through anyone standing in their way.

Brosnan and Skarsgård are cameos at best, but the other six principal actors are all an absolute delight. Page and Harris are duplicitous to a fault for some great, no-holds-barred interactions in private and at George and Kathryn's dinner table. Fassbender and Blanchett are so coldly calculating that the sexual tension of their romance can't help screaming out whenever they're alone (not to mention his moments of fear upon realizing he's been used and her bloodlust for revenge upon realizing the same). My favorites, though, are Burke and Abela. They're the messy couple. The emotional ones. They're as unpredictable as potential villains as they are obvious leverage points. Stick each to a polygraph and enjoy the ride.

- 8/10

BONO: STORIES OF SURRENDER

(streaming on AppleTV+)

Bono is one helluva showman ... I say as if the world didn't already know. I knew nothing about Andrew Dominik's film based upon the U2 frontman's one-man stage show "Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…" (written by Bill Flanagan and directed by Willie Williams), nor the memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story it was in turn based upon for the purposes of self-promotion. I won't say I had any interest in watching it once I found out about those things either. But, man, if it didn't end up being an enthralling piece of performance art.

I wouldn't say I'm a U2 fan insofar as following their music, but I do absolutely love many of their radio singles and will sometimes take their greatest hits cd for a spin. It was therefore Dominik's name that actually piqued my interest—as well as Bono: Stories of Surrender releasing straight to AppleTV+ considering the fiasco that was Songs of Innocence suddenly appearing in every iTunes account free of charge on September 9th, 2014. I figured I would enjoy the music if nothing else and hoped the event would at least look pretty on-screen in the process. I didn't expect the finished work to become a separate entity all its own.

Because this isn't a concert film. Yes, most of it frames Bono on a bare stage (save for some tables and chairs to use with spotlights implying characters within his stories while a giant LED screen flashes programmed patterns and shapes behind) as he performs (complete with flubs and ad-libbed responses to audience reactions), but there's also overlaid text, juxtaposed alternate dialogue (presumably taken from a confessional revealed in the third act), and gorgeously constructed compositions by Oscar-winner Erik Messerschmidt that I wouldn't be surprised to learn were done without an audience and simply spliced in. Dominik also fades moments in and out to excise the dead air of applause and prop set-ups, even speeding one section up for extra flair. That's why it's "based on" the show rather than simply being "the show."

It's at once a beautiful, kinetic picture book of black and white rockstar prowess and a stripped down, self-deprecating and vulnerable account of a life. Every snippet of songs played reverberates around the theater to mimic the arena bombast they're used to while these new arrangements (by Jacknife Lee, with Kate Ellis and Gemma Doherty's accompaniment) render their emotive essence wholly unique to the space of NYC's Beacon Theatre. And the anecdotes are perfectly measured for dramatic impact as each one builds to either a laugh-out-loud punch line or sobering gut-punch of a revelation to leave us in silence.

There's just enough to show why the show was a good way to market the book (the implicit "buy it to find out more" schtick) and why a filmed version proved a worthwhile endeavor to stand on its own. The insight into the band is fun. Bono's fight for justice and world peace is presented with transparency both in its capacity to inspire and its proliferation being born out of the privilege to afford it. And the tales pitting him against his "da" Bob Hewson are the unequivocal highlight—turning Bono's monologues into a conversation with himself to reconcile who he is against who his father was.

So, while I wouldn't begrudge you for dismissing Stories of Surrender as a vanity project, doing so will inevitably prove you never allowed yourself to fully engage with what the show was doing despite that veneer. Because whatever its origins or optics, the resulting emotional resonance hits hard.

- 7/10

CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD

(streaming on Disney+)

Man, it'll be great if Marvel ever decides to plan an arc again rather than just tying things together slapdash because they need content to sell subscriptions and tickets. Because you can say the whole Jonathan Majors assault fallout threw a wrench in their plans all you want, but there wasn't really a "plan" to destroy. Sure, Kang was being set-up to be the next big bad via "Loki" and Quantumania, but neither of those properties truly delivered something worthwhile to the bigger picture than that villain. "Loki" for all intents and purposes was a two-part, self-contained miniseries (beyond its multiverse infrastructure) and everyone—Kevin Feige included—seems to want to believe Quantumania never happened.

The post-Endgame doldrums didn't start there, though. No, it began with the desire to give every superhero in the world a property so they'd be in the arsenal for later. Shang-Chi. Ms. Marvel. Kate Bishop. Moon Knight. She-Hulk. Daredevil and The Punisher back from the dead. Black Widow resurrected for a prequel as if a feature film was Scarlett Johansson's consolation prize for a decade of being the sidekick (and to introduce Yelena Belova). Feige was simply restocking the cabinets after rightfully letting a handful of original heroes die. But what was there to show for it beyond a rudderless trajectory towards an as yet unknown Thunderbolts* led by the enigmatic Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus filling Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury's shoes—despite him not being one of those dead heroes)?

They spread themselves too thin. They made their new releases expendable, disposable, and, inevitably, inconsequential. The only exciting thing to happen during this time was the potential of bringing X-Men and Fantastic Four into the fold after Disney bought Fox. (I'd argue Eternals was an exciting change of pace too while most of the world would argue it was No Way Home—we'll have to agree to disagree.) If anything, the deletion of Kang from the "plan" might have woken Feige to the reality that something had to change. Unfortunately, that wake-up call necessitates a phase of "bridge" episodes to get things back on-track and move forward. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 said goodbye to James Gunn. Deadpool & Wolverine said goodnight to Fox. And Captain America: Brave New World says hello to the new destination.

It's no surprise then that the latter has five credited screenwriters. Or that the latest controversial pivot away from letting Israeli Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas) fully reveal herself as Sabra while the character's (and actor's) country continues their genocide of the Palestinian people made her inclusion in the film seem wholly unnecessary. (Why is a foreign national leading US security if she's just a human without a larger purpose?) I feel bad for Julius Onah (director of the fantastic Luce) because there was no real path to success here as a result. I think he did the best he could to deliver an entertaining actioner, but I'd still love to see what he can do with a script that allows him to also deliver a great story.

Built as a sequel to "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" as far as Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) taking up the mantle of Captain America, Brave New World is also a nexus point for connective tissue back to The Incredible Hulk (see Harrison Ford, replacing William Hurt, as Thaddeus Ross and Tim Blake Nelson reprising his role as Samuel Sterns) and Eternals (see Celestial Island) as well as forward towards whatever Earth-616 iteration of the X-Men arises. On a small scale it's about Sam shaking his imposter syndrome to become his own Captain America (again) and Ross shedding his tempestuous, fascist past to reform his legacy as President of the United States. On a large scale it's about revealing adamantium and planting the seed for a new team of Avengers to protect the world from what's coming.

Old characters return in Carl Lumbly's Isaiah Bradley and Danny Ramirez's Joaquin Torres—albeit as pawns to be used, sidelined, and remembered again only when it's time for goodbyes. New characters are born in Haas' Ruth and Giancarlo Esposito's Sidewinder—albeit as one-dimensional friends and foes respectively to also serve a purpose and little more. Thankfully, Tim Blake Nelson is as good as he is so we're able to pretend he isn't also just a cog in the machine who's always being relegated to the shadows as a catalyst instead of a fighter. Sure, he pops up only to progress a plot that all but excludes him, but he's so much fun that we applaud every single appearance.

I'll give Ford credit for providing Ross more pathos than the page probably deserved, but even he's just one arm of many meant to push and pull Sam in as many directions as possible. The film wants Wilson to teach him, stop Sterns, protect Torres, exonerate Bradley, and somehow accept the complexities of his position as the Black savior of a nation that might never see him as anything but inferior to the white one he replaced. So, it's pretty much the same plot lines as "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier", but tweaked for variety (and never truly mined deep enough). This is his personal gauntlet to become the leader he must and the MCU's reminder that bona fide human heroes still exist despite most other properties showcasing unadulterated power (the Eternals, Captain Marvel, Adam Warlock) or flawed, villain-adjacent antiheroes (the Thunderbolts* collective) instead.

Is it a chapter I'd be excited to return to removed from the bigger picture like The Winter Soldier, Guardians Vol.1, or Black Panther? No. But it was refreshing to not be forced into starting fresh with someone new (like so many of the television shows now being orphaned courtesy of Marvel's latest mandate to separate mediums as far as film characters appearing on the small screen moving forward). Brave New World might just be bridging the gap with disposable entertainment, but it at least feels moored to this world. It holds onto the history of what came before it and the promise of what might be if Secret Wars lives up to the (perhaps unearned) hype. The MCU still isn't must-see appointment viewing for me anymore, but it's finally starting to seem like it could get there again.

- 6/10

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

(streaming on Disney+)

Zero percent. That's how important Ryan Reynolds is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "sacred timeline." It's why he was allowed to do whatever he wanted besides snort cocaine on-screen.

Wade Wilson (Reynolds) used Cable's time-travel device in Deadpool 2 to save the lives of everyone he loved while also flippantly deleting Origins-era Deadpool (Reynolds) and Green Lantern's lead actor (Reynolds) without any consequences whatsoever. The TVA couldn't have cared less about these shenanigans because each one proves an inconsequential speck of money-printing dust in canon (heck, one isn't even a Marvel property). Wolverine, though? Hugh Jackman? The moment James Mangold earned an Oscar nomination killing him in Logan was the moment Fox Marvel died (sorry, Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants).

This is fact. It's known. And now it's become the paper-thin metaphor holding Deadpool & Wolverine together. Because this is a nothingburger of a film in the sense of independent narrative weight or MCU lore. It's a fun, irreverent lark—a gift from Kevin Feige to both Reynolds (to finally fight alongside Wolverine while in possession of a mouth) and Jackman (to finally act in an MCU film) for filling Marvel's coffers for so long as the bastard stepchild that wouldn't play ball when Sony did. (Perhaps that's the real reason Disney purchased 20th Century Fox?) It's a eulogy for a bygone institution given heartfelt tribute during a mid-credits behind-the-scenes montage of Fox's many X-Men and Fantastic Four iterations.

How is this movie over two hours then? Because Reynolds and new BFF Shawn Levy love a cameo-heavy, nonsensical actioner that puts fan service above everything. I can imagine the script breaking and pitch to Marvel was pretty much: let Wade stumble backwards into becoming a bona fide hero while also bringing Logan back to life both to introduce mutants into the MCU (since Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were never allowed to use that term and thus were believed, by way of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", to be Inhumans instead) and keep Jackman as a viable entity for future films. Everything else is loose filler and explosive set-pieces connecting the dots.

It does work, though. Reynolds and Jackman know their characters and their audience too well for it to simply fail. Sure, critics lambasted the finished product because it is objectively a bad movie, but no one involved in its creation sought to make the opposite. They merely sought to entertain a rabid (yet frustrated) fanbase with a joke that simultaneously rewarded those of us who understand the callbacks spanning multiple studios and decades of work (including Furiosa because someone thought the Void looking like Mad Max was funny) and didn't punish those who couldn't since none of it matters to the bigger MCU picture beyond the folding-in of estranged IP anyway.

It's therefore impossible to really comment on the script since it's all action figures on a shelf being taken down to be used on the floor for the current conflict before getting tossed aside until their specific powers can be exploited again. The TVA? An easy explainer for the dissolution of Fox Marvel as a "pruned timeline." Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen)? A one-off bureaucratic self-insert for Feige that expands on the self-deprecating robotic AI joke set forth in "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" that makes him into a vindictive villain looking to cannibalize ultimate Marvel power. Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin)? A badass antagonist who wields the power of Xavier and malice of Magneto without needing to pay Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen.

Do those three entities matter beyond helping Wade and Logan advance along their roller coaster tracks towards infamy? No. They're each as briefly rendered, subversively wrought, and purposefully expendable as the litany of famous faces (Chris Evans, Wesley Snipes, Dafne Keen, Jennifer Garner, Channing Tatum, and Aaron Stanford—amongst others) who grace the screen. They push, pull, and die so Deadpool and Wolverine can work out their much-needed trauma through the ultra-violent therapy of R-rated fantasy juxtaposed against classic jukebox pop tunes. It's not a coincidence either that Reynolds breaks the fourth wall to mention how long fans have waited for every subsequent action sequence. This is moviemaking by Reddit thread at its core.

So, it's also the perfect last/next chapters within its dueling enterprises. For the trilogy: Deadpool had a story with purpose that was augmented by its humor. Deadpool 2 had humor failing to hide the reality that there was neither a story nor a purpose. Deadpool & Wolverine gives us purpose augmented by humor despite not having a story. For Fox/Disney: it's an effective metatextual conclusion for a studio that doubles as a multi-million-dollar intermission gag of dancing concessions seeking to reinvigorate an audience grown tired of a middling post-Endgame phase of executives publicly throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. New fans won't be made from watching it, but existing ones might just get their second wind.

- 6/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw The Banker (2020), Black Girl (1972), Captain America: Brave New World (2025), Fly Me to the Moon (2024), Incarnate (2016), The Life List (2025), Meet the Spartans (2008), Noises Off… (1992), RED (2010), Runaway (1984), and Swing Vote (2008) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Samuel L. Jackson with a comical f-bomb in The Banker.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 5/30/25 -

• Bhairavam at Regal Elmwood

• Bring Her Back at Dipson Amherst, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Desert of Namibia at North Park Theatre (late show)

• Detective Kien: The Headless Horror at Regal Galleria

• Fluxx at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Quaker

• Karate Kid: Legends at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Khaleja (2010 Re-Release) at Regal Elmwood

• Saunkan Saunkanay 2 at Regal Elmwood

• Tornado at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

Streaming from 5/30/25 -

• Bono: Stories of Surrender – AppleTV+ on 5/30

  Thoughts are above.

• Dog Man – Peacock on 5/30

• The Heart Knows – Netflix on 5/30

• Lost in Starlight – Netflix on 5/30

• Vampire Hunter D (40th Anniversary) –Shudder on 5/30

• Viaje de fin de curso: Mallorca – Prime on 5/30

• A Widow’s Game – Netflix on 5/30

• Mountainhead – Max on 5/31

• Presence – Hulu on 6/3

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• A Desert (5/27)

• Juliet & Romeo (5/27)

• The Prosecutor (5/27)

• Stand Your Ground (5/27)

• The Teacher (5/27)

  “There's no vagueness here to the fact that a clandestine war is being waged by rebels as opposed to terrorists. That's not to say it condones their actions either. It merely contextualizes them.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Youth (Hard Times) (5/27)

• Youth (Homecoming) (5/27)

• Shadow Force (5/30)

Firing up Max to catch the latest Warner Bros. title? Well, you better make sure you have the correct app because it’s HBO Max (again) now. And if they made you download a completely different app when they dropped the “HBO,” you can presume they’ll do the same to add it back.

What is happening in this industry? Are these companies trying to make it impossible for consumers to find them? It’s one thing to wrongly erase the legacy portion of your brand only to realize the mistake. It’s another to transform your recognizable name into the generic description of your product. IFC had the wherewithal to go from Independent Film Channel Films to IFC Films for brevity upon expanding to distribution, but now they’re blowing it back up to three words that literally describe their competition? AI search nonsense will only make matters worse once HAL feeds back lists of every independent film company but THE Independent Film Company.

SEO is dead. Brand recognition is dead. Cable died to birth streaming only for streaming to become cable. Wall Street is just grinding Hollywood into Soylent without a care in the world as long as shareholder portfolios grow.

Yay.

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What I Watched:

BAD SHABBOS

(limited theaters)

David's (Jon Bass) family still gets together every Friday night for Shabbat dinner regardless of the arguments and shouting matches that ultimately ensue. They're all still in New York and it's an excuse to be with family, uphold tradition, and enjoy the often-explosive entertainment as long as they aren't the one embroiled in that evening's squabble. But this weekend is different and demands a modicum of restraint since David's fiancé Meg's (Meghan Leathers) Catholic parents are coming all the way from Wisconsin to join them. So, they're each a bit on-edge imagining just how bad things might get.

Rather than simply engage with the odd couple antics of entitled Christians (John Bedford Lloyd's John and Catherine Curtin's Beth) crashing a volatile yet loving table of Jews, however, Bad Shabbos director Daniel Robbins and co-writer Zack Weiner introduce a more pressing event to the fold by way of the appearance of a dead body. And, due to the circumstances surrounding this death implicating a member of David's family in manslaughter, they must decide what to do. Call the police and risk one of them going to prison? Or attempt moving the body so it can be found days later as just another proverbial "New York death" and risk everyone going to jail?

David votes police. His younger brother Adam (Theo Taplitz) implores him to reconsider. Their sister Abby (Milana Vayntrub) is justifiably enraged while Dad (David Paymer's Richard) desperately looks to his latest fad of "nonviolent conversation" to guide him through the chaos as Mom (Kyra Sedgwick's Ellen) prays for the whole ordeal to be over. They don't have much time to argue through it, though, since they're up against two ticking clocks. One is the impending arrival of Meg's parents and the other is the start of the night doorman's (Alok Tewari's Cano) shift. Because the only way to make not calling the police work is with help from their daytime doorman friend Jordan (Cliff "Method Man" Smith).

What follows is a fast-paced, irreverent romp as they run around trying to get themselves out of this impossible situation. Everyone's quirks become both a means towards pushing the plan forward and an inevitable hiccup ensuring things get worse before they can get better. It takes almost twenty minutes just for everyone to learn about the body due to only one character being trusted with that information at a time. The hope is that the next will have the correct answer, but this scenario not having a correct answer means another candidate must be brought up to speed. And all bets are off once John and Beth enter the room.

The premise for everyone coming together being religious allows for a nice mix of jokes at Judaism's expense and sweet moments of a family's love seen through its traditions (and in spite of them). Because beyond the corpse is a story about inclusion and the many ways in which we exploit religion as a means to bolster inherent prejudices. Yes, we see this in a broad way via John's inability to do the bare minimum as a guest in a Jewish home. But it's also seen with impactful nuance via Ellen's inherent mistrust in her son marrying a non-Jew—despite Meg literally converting to Judaism to ease that worry. We're so quick to judge and lord our superiority that we can refuse to accept what our eyes see.

This is very much an actor's film as a result because the tone and subject matter could quickly turn towards bigotry if not for how each performance delivers its dialogue born from knee-jerk impulse. Lloyd and Curtin toe the line perfectly to stay on the side of ignorance rather than hate. Paymer and Bass expertly glide between clichéd neuroses and situational panic to never fall into stereotype. Vayntrub and Taplitz provide opposite spectrums of support via her need for convenience causing her reverence to wane and his search for identity driving him to overcompensate. And Method Man unsurprisingly steals the show as the outsider holding as much potential for salvation as ruin once he lets his Judaism fanboy out.

It's a fun ride through a familiar comedic premise using specific cultural touchstones to foster a uniquely singular sensibility. Credit the filmmakers too for never holding piety above the absurdity of the premise. The goal is to show how much this family loves each other, but that shouldn't erase the fact they can still also be bad people. Sure, the dead body belongs to someone Robbins and Weiner go out of their way to ensure we know is no great loss, but we're still talking about a person. Their job isn't to redeem their characters, though. It's to set them on a path that entertains while supplying enough growth to invest in their success. I like when a script isn't afraid to break an egg for its omelet without worrying about needing to retroactively save that egg too.

- 7/10

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

(streaming on AppleTV+)

"What if Dan Brown, but with a sense of humor?" That's the pitch James Vanderbilt would go with in an honest world, although I have a feeling his actual pitch was more along the lines of, "What if Indiana Jones, but the lead is a pair of squabbling siblings?" The truth, however, is that Vanderbilt's Fountain of Youth (as directed by Guy Ritchie) is more, "What if Hollywood still thought green-lighting the National Treasure movies would prove profitable in 2025, but let’s drop it on streaming instead of in theaters so we'll never really know?"

It starts with some fun flavor as Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) is seen driving through a busy Thai street on a scooter, constantly hitting ignore on his phone until the man calling him (Steve Tran's Kasem) pulls up in a car to scream "Answer your phone!" out the window. Luke puts on his best Jim Halpert smile, tells this heavy who's demanding he hand over the priceless painting strapped on his back what he wants to hear, and then makes a run for it. The ensuing chase is energetic, funny, and destructive, culminating in our hero's escape proving short-lived when accosted by Eiza González's Esme. Luke has enemies everywhere.

Well, he makes another of his estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) by using his appearance in London as a ruse to commit a crime to which she will inevitably be labeled an accomplice. That's when we meet Interpol's Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed)—one more foe for Luke—and discover he was actually trying to steal two things: a Rembrandt and her. Because these siblings used to go on "archeological" adventures with their father before he passed. Luke wants to rekindle that camaraderie and save Charlotte from the "boring" life this script really wants us to believe she thinks it is too. The band's back together.

It's a lengthy bit of expository action to simply get the Purdues back on the same page, but also a necessary runtime considering all the peripheral characters we must meet for the plot to finally get going. Besides those aforementioned foes are also Luke's allies in Murph (Laz Alonso), Deb (Carmen Ejogo), and their financial backer Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson). The latter is the catalyst for the mayhem: a dying billionaire who cajoled Luke into helping him find the fountain of youth to cure his cancer. It's a quest that will earn the Purdue name a reverent luster if they prove successful. And if Abbas doesn't arrest him first. And if Esme doesn't kill him along the way.

Throw in Charlotte's musical prodigy son Thomas (Benjamin Chivers) and the gang is set with uniquely particular skills at the ready that will prove crucial to solving at least one subsequent brick wall each. There's a heist aboard the sunken Lusitania. Another within a German library's secret collection room. And even the desecration of the Pyramids at Giza. None of these incidents are that compelling on their own, but Vanderbilt and Ritchie do well distracting from this fact by supplying something else to look at. Carver's secretive nature. Thomas' inexplicable presence amongst international criminals still using their real names despite Interpol's chase. Luke and Esme's will-they-won't-they chemistry that works for entertainment value if nothing else.

Don't therefore think too hard about what's happening. Fans of Dan Brown and the National Treasure series shouldn't have any trouble with that. Heck, I didn't really have any trouble with it either until the group arrived in Egypt and the filmmakers showed they could actually do something more interesting than generic fast-speed car drifts and automatic weaponry fights that inexplicably never seem to be able to hit a top billed actor. That's when I started to realize it had all been empty calories prolonging a mostly uninspired journey collecting obtuse clues that the Purdues just happen to have the knowledge necessary to connect, throw away, and move on to the next.

It's also around then that I finally put my finger on why Krasinski felt so woefully miscast. Don't get me wrong, Portman does too—but she's good enough to push past that fact and deliver a solid performance anyway. I like Krasinski, but Jim Halpert: Tomb Raider is a huge stretch since he's at his best when used as support (no, I haven't watched "Jack Ryan"). The quips with González? Fantastic. Driving the bus? He gives off such "little brother" energy that the play at being "big brother" falls flat except when talking to Thomas. But that's also when I realized he talked to everyone else like he talked to the boy: still wholesome and endearing, but also patronizing when opposite an adult.

This might be intentional, though, because Luke must be naive enough to not see what's happening. (Vanderbilt really thinks keeping a character one-dimensional is the same as pretending he is something he isn't when he so obviously is.) So, make him into an expendable rube. An idealistic puppy we know has a kick coming his way with no way to stop it. Make him ... have visions directly inferring upon the plot in ways that are both tedious in their literalism and superfluous in their "you talk in your sleep" allusions that never payoff? Fountain of Youth is full of these details that seem interesting if there was a season of television to expand upon them but prove completely useless in a ninety-minute movie bloated beyond two-hours.

It's only perfect then that the climactic action sequence that borders on being captivating with its supernatural potential (the pyramid set design and puzzle chambers are admittedly gorgeous) winds down from sixty to zero on a dime with an Oasis "Live Forever" needle drop ushering us towards the credits with record-scratching "Thanks for coming!" whiplash just when we finally felt some adrenaline. We spend two-hours working up to this big set-piece and its abrupt cover-it-in-cement-and-forget-it ending becomes the film's abrupt ending too. Foreplay for days and zero aftercare. Whatever fun I thought I had suddenly felt hollow because it truly led nowhere.

- 4/10

JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE

[Jane Austen a gâché ma vie]

(in theaters)

Agathe Robinson's (Camille Rutherford) womanizing best friend Félix (Pablo Pauly) jokes that she's single because she hasn't found her "Darcy" ... but he's not entirely wrong. A hopeless romantic, she writes the sort of love stories that make her creative writing teacher scoff about her needing to drag herself into the twenty-first century. She dreams of finding that spark that she knows she won't via dating apps (if Félix's one-night stands are any indication) and has all but closed herself off from it happening by disengaging from the more pragmatic real world. It's to the point where she requests her server at the Chinese restaurant change her cup to the one with the naked man on the bottom.

Intriguingly enough, that request is exactly what Agathe needs to be inspired. Writer/director Laura Piani shows her feverishly writing a new story onto her placement in the aftermath—one that proves so captivating that Félix can't help but ask for more upon reading it without her permission (albeit "permission" is hardly a word in their relationship's vocabulary considering he's often found sleeping on her and her sister's couch when not meeting his next lady caller). Sadly, like with most of her stories, Agathe doesn't know where to take it next. So, without her permission again, Félix sends this auspicious start to the Jane Austen Residency knowing she'd never do so herself. They also love it and invite her for a two-week stay to foster an epiphany.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life officially begins when Félix drives Agathe to England and kisses her goodbye. There are tragic circumstances behind why she has closed herself off to live in the fantasy of literature's happily ever afters and it therefore makes sense that the one person who would understand her and push her to break free is her best friend. But is he her "Darcy"? Will this kiss arouse something inside her to finish the story? Or will its potential be blown out of proportion (or ruined by his tendency to ghost or "breadcrumb" women) once she's left stewing on it alone miles away? We know the answer as soon as she meets her English driver Oliver (Charlie Anson) because he seems like everything she abhors in real life while inevitably proving to be everything she wants in fantasy.

There's a lot more going on here than you might expect considering the crux of the film is ultimately whether Agathe chooses Félix or Oliver. We have her necessary confrontation with the past to restart her life ten years removed from the tragedy that paused everything. There's the relationship between the kindly senile old man and his wife who run the residency with passion, lineage, and love for literature (with some Wordsworth to provide their guest much-needed clarity). And the imposter syndrome of Agathe being at a place meant for "real writers" despite being an amateur who wonders if this latest bit of writer's block is the final nail in the coffin of her dream to get published. The thing is, however, that all those aspects play into her central decision.

In grand Jane Austen fashion is this unexpected odd-couple romance between two very like-minded souls lost beneath the baggage they've let burden their shoulders just when easier and expected answers arise to force them both into actually rolling the dice and pursuing what they want rather than what they have. Agathe gets sarcasm and a healthy push from everyone around her whether Félix, her sister Mona (Alice Butaud), or even her nephew Tom (Roman Angel) when he climbs into her bed because a man is in his mother's and "she never has one in hers." So, it only makes sense that the rapport she grows with Oliver follows suit—their blossoming affection born on the back of snide smiles and lengthy TMI dumps blurted out to assuage each other's internalized shame.

And just when Agathe thinks she's found love in one direction, the other arrives to grab her attention. And when the latter starts to win out, the former returns to muddy the waters yet again. Because love, like writing, isn't easy. At a certain point, she must exit her comfort zone (or self-imposed exile) to experience the spontaneity of life. Yes, she might have been born a century too late when it comes to her sensibilities, but she's also been too afraid to confront why that is and whether it can be changed. Because "safety" isn't always safe. Sometimes it's an illusion that proves to be yet another prison when all is said and done. It's why she can't finish a love story until she allows herself to live one ... not just accidentally back into it from the fear of being forever alone.

Piani does a wonderful job paying homage to Austen while also mining the author's place in literary and cultural history via this locale, her descendants, and the magic of finding one's voice. The comedy is lively and infectious, especially whenever Rutherford and Anson are together playing coy so as not to let their defenses down. And the supporting cast is wonderful (Liz Crowther and Alan Fairbairn as the residency's stewards are an absolute delight). We easily invest in Agathe's struggle to escape her past and embrace her desire to be a writer and in love while witnessing the enjoyably rocky path taken towards that goal. As the age-old saying goes, one must first understand oneself before they can truly be vulnerable enough to let someone else know them too.

- 7/10

THE NEW BOY

(limited theaters now; VOD on May 30)

We meet Warwick Thornton's nine-year-old aboriginal protagonist (newcomer Aswan Reid) at the start of The New Boy as he's putting a grown man in a chokehold. Alone and roaming the Australian desert, we can presume many things. Maybe this white man saw the boy stealing something and made chase to punish him. Maybe he was out searching for orphan natives to kidnap and send to assimilation camps run by the Catholic church. Maybe the boy attacked him first. Either way, what happens next falls under the government's bid to "breed out the black." Capture him, send him away, and don't let him back into "civilized" society until he resembles a "good" Christian man.

Born from a script almost twenty years old, Thornton draws from his own experiences as a rambunctious child sent off to a Catholic boarding school to calm down. He admits that it worked and that he embraced the religion—in large part because of the similarities to his own native spirituality. Thornton makes an interesting point in his director's statement, however, that this commonalty only ever truly works in one direction since Catholicism demands power and control. Aboriginal people are quick to adopt the Church's lessons because the familiarity adds to what they already believe. But it isn't taught with addition in mind. The Church wants to indoctrinate via subtraction. To accept Jesus is to forsake all else.

To portray this dynamic, he sends Reid (known only as "New Boy" until the very end) to an orphanage run by a "renegade" nun named Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett). It's never fully explained, but she writes to the government agencies financing her establishment and sending new wards as Dom Peter, a priest. Was he actually in charge only to die with her adopting his position to keep things running? Did he ever exist? She knows what she's doing is a sin as far as repenting during confessional with herself (apologizing for baptizing the boys under her care despite not having the authority), but also that it's a necessity to maintain her mission. They need her guidance, and she loves them in return.

This is why it can be difficult to see where things are going at first. Sister Eileen isn't a taskmaster. She lets "New Boy" go at his own speed so he can learn their routines by observing the rules the other boys follow. She creates a safe place for him to join the others and allows Sister Mum (Deborah Mailman) and their handyman-of-sorts George (Wayne Blair) as much responsibility and independence as she provides herself. They all do their chores, listen to music, and enjoy each other's company while questioning the wartime orders from her superiors to risk cutting the orphans' studies short so they can work towards the cause. It's only when a new statue of Jesus on the cross arrives that Thornton's dramatic motivations become clearer.

That early moment where "New Boy" rubs his fingers and conjures a floating spark of light to laugh with isn't a flight of fancy solely housed in his own imagination. No, it does happen and, if he wasn't under his bed while doing it, the other boys would see that spark too. The question then is whether this magic is good or bad. We inherently know it's the former, but that never stops an entity like the Catholic Church from saying the opposite with enough force to make its faithful agree regardless of what they actually believe. This is even true if that magic performs a miracle, which this one does during a potential tragedy. Because what does that miracle mean to its observers? That God has taken this boy as His vessel to prove their work converting aboriginal children is a success.

One false step, though, and that sense of wish fulfillment—that bona fide proof of Sister Eileen's faith—can turn to blasphemy. If that boy does something "wrong" purely out of innocent ignorance considering he has no clue who Jesus is or what he stands for beyond idolatry without the words to learn, the reverence she had for him sours into fear. That spark becomes a test for her rather than the salvation of the boy it saved. It's a trick meant to steer her from her path and thus a reminder that these boys need "cleansing." Because, as Thornton said, Catholicism, despite all its beautiful ideas, will always be ruled by its desire to conquer. An unbaptized aboriginal boy with a lost soul doesn't know the one true God yet, so anything "good" he does must be in service of "evil" until being "saved."

How Thornton portrays this truth is a sobering treatise on just how damaging something as powerful as belief can be when used in service of alienation rather than empathetic unification. You see it in Sister Mum and George—aboriginal themselves—looking upon Reid with terror even if, in the case of George, it's less about faith and more about not wanting to lose the comfortable life he's found. You see it in Sister Eileen's self-flagellation in response to letting herself be distracted by what she wanted to see rather than what her duty to the Church demands. And, most traumatically, you see it in "New Boy" when his inability to understand what's happening risks severing the connection to his magic.

It's quite the dual threat of metaphor via fantastical realism and the cultural violence inherent to colonialism by an artist who lived it. And it means more that Thornton admits Catholicism helped him because the film doesn't become a hit piece as much as a level-headed, compassionate view of how close we are as a species to realizing how alike we are if we were willing to open our hearts to those similarities and stop seeking out the differences instead. That's the crucial bit about intolerance that the intolerant refuse to see because of their innate fragility. You must listen and learn to become better people. You must be willing to adapt. Because if your plan for "peace" is to simply call yourself better and force everyone to conform, you truly have nothing to offer but hate.

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw 5 Flights Up (2015), Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Convoy (1978), For Richer or Poorer (1997), Joy (2015), Love, Simon (2018), Once Bitten (1985), Sully (2016), and Veronica Mars (2014) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Karen Kopins dropping an f-bomb in defense of a very young Jim Carrey in Once Bitten.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 5/23/25 -

• Friendship at Dipson Amherst; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Jane Austen Wrecked My Life at North Park Theatre

  Thoughts are above.

• The Last Rodeo at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Lilo & Stitch at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Narivetta at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 5/23/25 -

• Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds – Netflix on 5/23

• Fear Street: Prom Queen – Netflix on 5/23

• Fountain of Youth – AppleTV+ on 5/23

  Thoughts are above.

• Mickey 17 – Max on 5/23

• Off Track 2 – Netflix on 5/23

• The Last Showgirl – Hulu on 5/23

  “[Anderson taps] into our preconceptions of her celebrity as well as her own regrets born from its hold on her to deliver a beautifully confident, soul-searching, and cathartic masterclass of authenticity.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Surrender – Shudder on 5/23

• Flight Risk – Starz on 5/24

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Hulu on 5/27

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Captain America: Brave New World – Disney+ on 5/28

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Diane Warren: Relentless (5/20)

• The Legend of Ochi (5/20)

• Rosario (5/20)

• The Trouble with Jessica (5/20)

  “This is why the black comedy proves so successful. These are all reprehensible people in the vein that we are all reprehensible people. [They] know the difference between right and wrong, but none are above moving that line when it suits them.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Wolfs (5/20)

  “Wolfs won't be winning any Oscars, but it's an entertaining lark with two game actors playing to their age despite their pedigree … not instead of it.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Cheech & Chong's Last Movie (5/23)

• Restless (5/23)

• Shakey Grounds (5/23)

That the origins of the mystery didn’t rear its head until the tail-end of season one, however, had me wondering what the point of the show was at all. It’s stated right away that they were gone nineteen months before being rescued, so it wasn’t a crazy amount of time. And the present is set twenty-five years later, so the survivors have all led lives outside trauma’s shadow. Was the whole thing going to be about their obvious cannibalism secret (revealed in the opener)? Would that be used to mine their interior lives?

Part of me wants to say I wish that was what the show would become because the fifteen episodes I’ve watched so far do very little mining outside of what the writers need to progress to the next mystery-focused morsel. The other part is glad to have the specter of evil via the trees, eyeless man, and “the bad one” because there’s comfort in the empty entertainment of watching for the next salacious detail in these girls’ and women’s lives.

After all, the true draw is the cast. I get that a lot of the young actors weren’t necessarily stars when the show began, but many are now (partly due to its success). To then add stalwarts like Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, and Tawny Cypress before expanding the roster to include Simone Kessell and Lauren Ambrose only ups the ante budget-wise going forward. Once Elijah Wood showed up, I had to question whether they can afford to finish the story.

Am I invested in what happens? No. But I do like the parallel lines of the kids discovering a presence in the woods just as the adults start to wonder if it followed them out, lying dormant until being woken it up. Ricci and Wood are a blast. Lynskey, Lewis, and Cypress are each unpredictable enough to keep things interesting. And I do want to see if Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson have a destination. Because the plot propulsion is just slow enough to feasibly be both a byproduct of writing things as they go or purposefully milking an endgame for job security.

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What I Watched:

BLACK MIRROR: BANDERSNATCH

(deleted from Netflix on 5/12/25)

In typical "me" fashion, I forgot about the "Black Mirror" choose your own adventure episode Bandersnatch. My whole concept of subscribing to Netflix—at least in its pre-COVID era—was paying for the ability to watch their original productions whenever I wanted. And, often, I used that sense of permanence to just never watch any of them.

Well, if Disney and Warner Bros. hadn't already broken that illusion by pulling and/or shelving their own titles post-2020, Netflix is now also proving me wrong by officially shuttering its interactive arm in order to focus their platform's resources on gaming. So, why not just make Bandersnatch available as a point-and-click game within that tab? What a perfect evolution for its meta game narrative. Who knows? Maybe they still will.

Regardless, I had fun with this and believe it deserves to be saved in some capacity. The first half is a bit rudimentary with small choices that seemingly do little besides selecting the soundtrack or triggering a cereal commercial later on, but the idea that we as the viewers don't really have control is a purposeful one. The plot demands we do it over and do it "right." Because we aren't creating the story. We're simply bouncing between its multiversal timelines.

Our goal: to earn Stefan Butler's (Fionn Whitehead) debut video game adaptation a perfect score from its 1984 television critic (Paul Michael Bradley). The saner choices you make, the greater the opportunity of never finishing the code and either being prompted to go back and try again or simply witness a bastardized version get trashed. The more insane choices you make, the greater chance your fate will follow that of the in-movie Bandersnatch's author Jerome F. Davies. One of dark, murderous horrors that inevitably channel Stefan's creative genius.

All those visual cues (like Craig Parkinson's Dad always locking his bedroom door) get payoff somewhere in the skip logic if you're willing to find them. Will Poulter's Colin Ritman (Stefan's idol) seems to know more of what's going on than he should for a reason (both drug and physics related). And you should definitely take a spin down the "Netflix" logo option when it arrives to finally understand why they cast Alice Lowe as an otherwise straightforward psychiatrist. I only wish writer Charlie Brooker and director David Slade took more big swings like that (I say having only watched about 120 minutes of the full 312).

Well, I guess I shouldn't tell you to do anything since you no longer can. At least not on our current "shareholders don't care about financing art since art is just the monetized content they produce to earn enough profit for a yacht" timeline. Maybe Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos will take some LSD and jump off a balcony a la Brooker's characters to reset our existence onto another reality where its Emmy-winning phenomenon becomes available once again.

- 7/10

THE DAMNED

(limited theaters)

Documentarian Roberto Minervini steps into the fictional narrative sector with Civil War drama The Damned by pretty much setting up an historical reenactment and shooting it like a documentary.

It's winter, 1862 and a contingent of Union volunteers have been dispatched to patrol the uncharted western United States in case any Confederate soldiers were making their way north to set-up camps or move east for an attack. Led by their sergeant (Tim Carlson), these men search the ridges and talk about their guns to pass the time. They hope to be ready once shots are fired.

Jeremiah Knupp's scout proves the de facto lead. He only joined the war six months prior, but knows his way around the plains and a rifle. He engages with crack shot Cuyler Ballenger and the reliable René W. Solomon as tensions escalate into a firefight about forty minutes in. From there, these four (and one of the sergeant's sons, played by Noah Carlson) head out to carve a path to higher ground and extend their line. More conversations are had. More existential crises are confronted.

And that's the film. The drama hinges on the uncertainty of whether Confederate soldiers will arrive. The narrative balances upon a collection of intriguing debates about God's place in war, boys becoming men, family versus country, and survival first. We never really get to know who these men are beyond their archetypes or see where they're going (unless one tragically dies on-screen), but we begin to learn about the psychology of soldiers through them.

These are Civil War dudes doing Civil War things without any real grasp on why they're fighting beyond admittedly hollow ideals of duty or bravery. It's mankind's fear amidst the beauty of nature with mortality hanging by a thread. Some will be bored to tears. Others will embrace the philosophical undertones born from their realization that participation all but ensures their demise. Maybe not physically on the battlefield, but emotionally in their souls.

- 6/10

THE OLD WOMAN WITH THE KNIFE

(limited theaters)

We first meet Hornclaw (Shin Si-ah) half frozen and covered in snow on the side of the road in 1975. If not for Ryu (Kim Mu-yeol) stopping to save her, she'd be dead at sixteen. But that's what he does, taking her to the restaurant he and his wife own to thaw her out and offer a job. They can't afford to pay a salary, but they can give her a place to stay and food to eat. And, eventually, a vocation unlike any she could have imagined.

Fast-forward to present-day and Hornclaw (Lee Hye-yeong) is now in her sixties—an aging assassin revered as "Godmother" by her peers. The respect they've held for her, however, has recently begun to wane. Not because she hasn't remained a formidable force despite her declining health, but because she still holds true to the code of rules Ryu instilled all those years ago. Whereas the new guard sees their occupation as a means for profit, she maintains the ethos that they kill "insects" to save the world. They laugh because she still refuses to let emotions cloud her judgement. She scoffs because they always let politics cloud theirs.

Kyu-dong Min's The Old Woman with the Knife (co-adapted with Kim Dong-wan from author Gu Byeong-mo's novel) isn't your usual origin tale. Yes, we meet her as a teenager and witness her first kill before going back every now and then for added context, but that origin takes a backseat to the rebirth that this film actual depicts. Those flashbacks are but a means to show us why Hornclaw became who she became and why she's yet to retire. It's her current actions that reveal whether she'll accept that the job has finally passed her by or teach her co-workers that they've gone too far astray for her not to intervene.

It's also the origin story of the character that ultimately pushes Hornclaw to make this decision: Kim Sung-cheol's Bullfight. Because he's not just the new psychopath on the beat holding a mirror up to what he believes is her own hypocrisy once she chooses to protect a potential witness (Yeon Woo-jin's Dr. Kang) instead of dispatching him like her own rules demand. He's also a figure from her past looking to balance a scale he believes has been tipped against him. Bullfight's actions are thus very personal and, as a result, playfully cruel since it's not solely a matter of payback. He needs her to remember what she did.

It seems like way too much for one feature-length script coming in at just above two hours, but Min and Kim do well to distill it down and ensure everything folds into each other. We must know Hornclaw's past with Ryu to understand her tenuous place in the present. We must know her emotional connection to Kang to understand Bullfight's rage. And we must learn Bullfight's past to understand how these two killers are the same except for the fact that Ryu still had enough heart to save her when they met while Hornclaw's had already died before meeting him.

The underlying message is therefore one that asks us to question the sustainability and success of being a cold-blooded killer. Yes, it allows Hornclaw the ability to charge into suicide-level situations with the confidence to finish the job and ensure no evidence ties her to the crime, but it also runs counter to Ryu's mission of killing for "good." If you aren't willing to open yourself up to protecting an innocent person who's guilty of nothing but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, how do you stop yourself from becoming the exact sort of "insect" you've prided yourself on exterminating?

That's the conundrum that makes The Old Woman with the Knife so compelling. It's not about whether Hornclaw lives to fight (or not fight) another day. It's about whether she'll find the strength to refocus the mission. It's about discovering whether Bullfight's unforgiving plan to destroy her will push her further away or shake her awake to stop the slide apathy introduced. Real-life people who are good at a job so often get promoted to managerial positions they're ill-equipped to handle that it's refreshing when someone like Hornclaw is actually perfectly suited to guide a team precisely because of her job experience. Here's someone who doesn't want to lead but must to protect their objective.

Beyond a full-blown one-woman-against-a-team-of-mercenaries climactic encounter leading to the inevitable showdown between Hornclaw and Bullfight, the action is mostly quiet and covert. These are operatives hired to do a job who are smart enough to do so without getting caught ... unless their guilt gets in the way. So, it's mainly cat-and-mouse chases, precise hits, and close shaves—either intentional via a conscious desire to not choose violence or unintentional via elaborate games meant to turn the pursuer into the pursued. It's new blood (Bullfight and young Hornclaw) plowing through and old blood (old Hornclaw) holding on despite the punishment from being a step too slow.

Lee Hye-yeong plays the latter perfectly with her smarts just barely proving enough to overcome her newfound physical liabilities. She's a bad ass struggling with the fact her desire to reclaim purpose comes into conflict with the legend that's kept her in power. Outsiders see it as weakness (much like she and Ryu did after an unspeakable tragedy), but it's really her greatest strength. That indelible part of her that allows someone like Kang to know in his heart that she's a "good person" regardless of his correct assumptions about her occupation. It's also why Kim Sung-cheol's Bullfight is so interesting. This supposed "lapse" is what supplies him his opening, but it's also what he wished for from her decades ago.

Those intricate connections are what makes Min's film great. It's not action loosely tied together by a generic plot. It's a captivating narrative augmented by its action. That's the difference between telling a story about killers and one about people who just so happen to be killers. Their humanity (or lack thereof) is what drives them and the act of not killing becomes just as important as the act of killing in process. Not because Hornclaw's salvation is tied to getting out of the life, but because it's tied to remembering why she got into it in the first place.

- 8/10

SISTER MIDNIGHT

(limited theaters)

First-time feature film director Karan Kandhari's Sister Midnight is all over the place—both intentionally so and to its benefit. Because the start is like any other newlywed drama of uncertainty. Two people in an arranged marriage who knew each other as kids, but not really. They sit in silence on the train ride home before, upon arriving at their new shared home, she welcomes his touch only for him to curl in bed so as not to touch her. So, when Uma (Radhika Apte) wakes the next morning to find Gopal (Ashok Pathak) gone (leaving her without food or money), she's frustrated. When he doesn't return home until after dark only to pass out on the floor, she's enraged.

This is the point where we start to get a feel for Kandhari's comic sensibilities. Things are still pretty much by the book as far as miscommunications, awkwardness, and mistakes (Uma wonders aloud if her husband is dumb or just selfish), but the dead-pan tone of the whole's mix of silent film-esque facial and body expressions with Wes Anderson-esque reaction shots and pans begin to inject a uniquely off-kilter sensibility. That's when Uma decides to reject her presumed role of domesticity and accept a paid role of domesticity at a job that takes a four-hour walk to attend. Anything to avoid being in that house with the deafening silence and uncertainty marriage has wrought.

Kandhari isn't done there, though. Yes, him giving Uma the room to let her take-no-prisoners personality out gives us something to sink our teeth into after the oppressive repetition of Gopal letting her down and Chhaya Kadam's Sheetal (their neighbor) constantly revealing how things won't get better as much as they just become routine. But we still need something akin to a purpose or an endgame for the narrative. Rather than turn their evolving (or devolving) union into that linchpin like most relationship dramedies, Kandhari instead focuses on Uma and Gopal's inability to conform. Because if they have anything in common, it's that. If he ever found the courage to engage with her, they might even fall in love.

How that non-conformity evolves skirts with horror tropes that I'll merely allude to with the facts that Uma becomes sickly white to the point women on the street want to know her "whitening" regimen and goats and birds start to chase her (often via what looks to be stop motion animation) despite winding up dead (and undead) for their trouble. Regardless of what's going on, hers and Gopal's status as pariahs rapidly crescendos to mob levels of fear and hate. They don't necessarily help their cause by continuing to act oddly and, at times, aggressively, but is it their responsibility to satisfy the community's desires or the community's responsibility to mind its own business?

The back half of Sister Midnight unfolds at a fast pace—perhaps even too fast to fully keep up with everything happening. I think that's kind of the point as Kandhari is all about idiosyncratic juxtapositions with his soundtrack choices, use of animation without any desire of hiding the technique, and dry humor in traditionally dark, dramatic scenarios. Uma is desperately trying to find her footing as her very identity shifts in rejection of society's demands. She cannot adjust to being a homemaking or the noise and chaos of the day or the malaise of being married to a stranger who doesn't know how to not be alone. So, she gets a job, exists in the quiet of night, and leaves Gopal to his own devices ... until she's ready to share her new self with him.

Will it be a successful coming out party that leads to a happily ever after? Or is the "curse" afflicting her destined to keep taking and taking until Uma agrees to cut ties with every last vestige of her former self? The answer is a little bit of both since success doesn't automatically erase the potential for destruction's arrival anyway. And Apte entertainingly embraces the challenge with a headstrong attitude that delights in both her refusal of subservience and uncertainty to fully give into what's happening. Whereas an American coming-of-age-through-horror tale would occur during college, a traditional lens through Indian culture puts it around the same age via marriage.

From being stuck in her parents' shadow to that of her husband, Uma simply wants to find herself. It's a strange, chaotic journey to clarity with as many people wanting to help her find that path as those attempting to block it (you might be surprised where Gopal falls). And while those in the latter camp are always operating out of fear, there's as many who believe her to be a witch as those who wonder if she's a God. It's that sort of all or nothing attitude that seeks to erase those of us who merely seek to exist in the middle—to be happy on our own terms. Not miserable and alone or miserable amongst friends, but empowered and unbeholden to anyone. It's a reinvention that's worth the mess.

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Bart Got a Room (2009), Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986), Ground Control (1999), The Guardian (2006), Let It Be (1970), New Year's Eve (2011), Ride Along (2014), Ride Along 2 (2016), Scavenger Hunt (1979), and Sing Street (2016) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Jack Reynor dropping an impassioned f-bomb in Sing Street.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 5/16/25 -

• 23 - Iravai Moodu at Regal Elmwood

• DD Next Level at Regal Elmwood

• Final Destination Bloodlines at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Hurry Up Tomorrow at AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Maaman at Regal Elmwood

• The Ruse at Regal Elmwood, Quaker

• Shaunki Sardar at Regal Elmwood

• #Single at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 5/16/25 -

• Armand – AMC+ on 5/16

  “Armand is distilling mankind’s penchant for baseless attacks and fear-mongering down into the interaction of three distinct entities in a familiarly simple scenario.” – Full thoughts on HHYS.

• Deaf President Now! – AppleTV+ on 5/16

• The Brutalist – Max on 5/16

  “Above the script's elucidations, Corbet's assured direction, and the impressive production design, though, are too of the year's finest performances courtesy of Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• The Quilters – Netflix on 5/16

• I’m Still Here – Netflix on 5/17

  “And it all hinges on Torres being able to pull off the internal emotional struggle to keep moving forward no matter what she discovers. Eunice is a woman who cannot afford to break.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Untold: The Fall of Favre – Netflix on 5/20

• Vermiglio – Criterion Channel on 5/20

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (5/13)

• The Darkside of Society (5/13)

• The Featherweight (5/13)

• A Minecraft Movie (5/13)

• Snow White (5/13)

• The Wedding Banquet (5/13)

  “The true highlights are Youn and Chen. Comedic timing, poignant pathos, and an authentic understanding in how they learn and grow to be what Min and Angela need ... even if it took them longer than it should.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• A Breed Apart (5/16)

• Desert Dawn (5/16)

Currently available to watch via your browser, Roku, or Android devices (with iOS, AppleTV, and Fire coming soon), the platform houses the company’s own films (with new releases The Teacher and The Encampments already included) as well as a wider catalog of Palestinian and Arab titles aligned with the studio’s central mission of sharing “liberatory cinema that celebrates diversity and challenges power.”

There’s some great stuff up now including Annemarie Jacir’s When I Saw You, Naji Abu Nowar’s Oscar-nominated Theeb, Darin J. Sallam’s Farha, The Teacher director Farah Nabulsi’s Oscar-nominated short The Present, David Osit’s Mayor, and, from earlier this year, the anthology piece From Ground Zero.

The current price point is $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year (a 10% off code is being offered on the website to save more). Check it out.

Subscribe now

What I Watched:

ABSOLUTE DOMINION

(limited release & Digital HD)

An influencer's flippant joke has ushered in close to twenty years of peace at the start of Lexi Alexander's 2063-set Absolute Dominion, despite an all-out apocalyptic assault ravaging the planet to its breaking point. Rather than that unyielding destruction being a result of nations seeking land, however, this World War was born out of a new era of religious crusades. And why not? Expansion via death like America's own "Manifest Destiny" has always been steeped in the belief that the aggressor's God granted permission through some unspoken mandate.

It's happening today courtesy of Israel's theft by way of genocide of Palestine under the belief that their God meant for it to be theirs. It's an undercurrent of Russia's invasion into Ukraine. And, at the rate republicans are rewiring our own government here in the United States to become a Christofascist state while demanding to buy and annex Greenland and Canada respectively, the science fiction behind Alexander's film proves highly plausible insofar as its expository history. YouTuber Fix Huntley's (Patton Oswalt's) idea of a Mortal Kombat-esque battle royale to declare the winner? Not so much.

Just as Alexander is an expert on the oppressive violence ethnostates (made more dangerous when conflating ethnicity with religion as Israel does and MAGA is attempting to do) can inflict upon their targets being a Palestinian herself, she is also an expert in martial arts. So, why not distill this political and social unrest into a winner-take-all tournament wherein every religion chooses a fighter to be its proxy on the mat? With a decade of planning to ensure the sanctity of the event and another decade to continue training while also beginning the preliminary rounds necessary to field a Top 50 list of contenders, the championship is finally upon this planet reborn in Huntley's unlikely image.

To think about fifty-plus religions is to consider a world where the infinite number of micro-genres currently used by pretentious music lovers to set their favorite band apart from the rest of the pop, rock, and indie world as the blueprint for spirituality's myriad forks. So, don't expect to see Christianity versus Judaism versus Islam here. Yes, one fighter prays to Allah on-screen and others surely commune with Buddha, Vishnu, Christ, Yahweh, etc., but it's often the differences within one's own faith in the same God (see Baptist versus Catholic versus Protestant) that causes some of the worst conflicts. And if only one can win—ostensibly erasing all other religions from existence—those differences matter.

Absolute Dominion isn't simply a B-level popcorn actioner taking us through the ranks to declare a winner, though. No, I don't think it's a spoiler to say Alexander ends things before the championship round can even begin let alone crown a victor. No, her purpose here is to lift the veil on our collective fear and hate for the "other." The notion that freedom of religion has become a concept to dismantle rather than champion in large part due to a rise in Islamophobia stemming from 9/11 and the Gulf Wars. It's ironic to me considering the only religion I've ever encountered as being totalitarian in nature is that of the Born-Again Christians considering one once told my Indian friend that his Hindu parents were going to Hell unless they let Jesus "save" them.

As such, the lead of this film doesn't ascribe to any religion. Sagan Bruno (Désiré Mia) is conversely the chosen fighter of the Institute of Humanism and Science. Simply put, he's an atheist. And since there's nothing that scares a religious zealot more than someone who doesn't believe any God exists, you know they must be shaking at the prospect of an atheist winning a mutually agreed upon competition that would give him the power to outlaw the very idea of God. Well, they will once Bruno's unknown entity begins to prove himself during the final wild card round. Because it's one thing to let the atheists enter a fighter. It's another beast entirely to discover he might stand a chance.

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say there's another factor to Bruno's story that risks upending everything people like Commander Zimmer (Julie Ann Emery) hold dear. Something big enough to land him in the crosshairs of a military-backed assassination plot that inevitably only amplifies his position as a disruptor capable of uniting all of humanity. Huntley says it best when considering the fact that our species has all but driven itself to the brink of extinction in a multitude of Gods' names. Why wouldn't they all (or the one true God, if such a being exists) back the guy who's not looking to hide behind dogma? That doesn't mean power wouldn't still get to Bruno's and the IHS's heads. We simply know that it has historically gotten to everyone else's already.

It's a fun bit of drama both externally (Zimmer is bloodthirsty) and internally (Sagan's parents, Alex Winter's Dr. Jehuda Bruno and Olunike Adeliyi's Professor Sitara Bruno, genetically altered him to be the most athletic and intelligent fighter imaginable) where Bruno's motivation and potential lie. Things can skew a bit comical via Hunger Games homage when you consider the tournament's flamboyant host Ceylon (Alok Vaid-Menon), but the dystopian nature of these things generally create thematic overlap since the post-capitalist economic divide is an impossible reality to ignore. Bruno's coach (Mario D'Leon's Anton) and security detail (Andy Allo's Naya Olinga) fulfill their own clichéd narrative roles too. The goal is to allow these archetypes the authenticity to transcend familiarity.

I think they do. Add Fabiano Viett and Junes Zahdi as opponents and the cast has the earnest charm to lean into the genre's inherent cheesiness and not subvert the message Alexander has instilled as the film's backbone. The same goes for the obvious budgetary constraints. You can either dismiss the whole on looks alone or you can appreciate that the real meat here is in the fight choreography and dialogue. It's the hope in Naya's explanation for backing the IHS and the cynicism in Zimmer declaring that a bona fide "Messiah" is a liability rather than the literal goal of this entire contest simply because it wouldn't be her Messiah that earns our attention regardless of any unpolished CGI.

In the end, Alexander has manufactured a New New Testament in an age of technological advancement wherein the entire world is able to simultaneously witness a single God-like figure. Whereas we've spent millennia separating ourselves because of literal carbon-copied deities due to our inability to embrace peace and equality when greed and vanity prove too attractive to ignore, we're living during a time now where indisputable proof of a creator should unite even the most hardened zealots. Unfortunately, the reason Alexander surely stopped short of providing that fantasy as more than a possibility is because too many of us still deny reality to maintain a status quo of control through ungodly malice.

- 6/10

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD

(in theaters)

I really wish Eli Craig's Clown in a Cornfield adaptation stuck to just being a goofy bloodbath because then I wouldn't be forced to look deeper and watch it fall apart. I don't know whether that's his fault or novelist Adam Cesare's since I never read the books, but I must wonder why a Millennial's story so dead set on chastising Gen X and Boomers that it turns its climax into an overwrought and politicized exposition dump was directed by a Gen Xer and co-written by someone even older (screenwriter Carter Blanchard directed a short film in 1989, presumably while in college). Because this thing devolves quickly from low-stakes slasher to feeling like the "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?" meme.

It starts off well. The 1991-set prologue dials up the horror clichés for laughs courtesy of hyperbolic stoners, sex-crazed coeds, and the line "What ****ing size shoe do you have?" coming out of a teen boy’s mouth after stepping into a clown-sized footprint in the mud while chasing after his half-naked girlfriend in a cornfield. The murderous clown honking with each step taken only adds to the silliness by setting the stage for a totally unserious ride into farce once we are smash cut into the present. The tone never quite spills over as far as I hoped, but cute gags like Quinn (Katie Douglas) telling her father (Aaron Abrams' Dr. Maybrook) to stop playing 80s rap because that decade is as old to her as the 40s were to him in high school kept me going.

Then comes the selling point: Gen Zers going viral online with their own meta slashers that turn their sleepy, archaic town's mascot Frendo the Clown into the killer we already know him to be three decades prior. Not only does this revelation make us pause when considering what it was we watched during the prologue, but it introduces a major culture clash of fun wherein the usual victims of these films are set-up to become impervious to the horror. Maybe Cole (Carson MacCormac), Janet (Cassandra Potenza), and the others heard tales of what happened in the past and sought to repurpose the stigma—to reclaim Frendo as their own. There's potential for one of them to be the killer. Or for a survivor mad at their appropriation of their trauma to be the killer. Or for a brand-new killer to get inspired by them rather than the original Frendo.

I admittedly got excited. And that excitement only grew when the first kid falls pretty early on so more can follow in quick succession via some gnarly kills. While Craig (and presumably Cesare) realizes those possibilities exist and points us towards many before pulling the rug and heading a different direction, the actual endgame ultimately proves to be the most obvious and generic choice they could have made by comparison. Despite having all the tools to deliver something fresh and unique, Clown in a Cornfield supplies us the same "greater good" fascistic conspiracy shenanigans we've seen countless times before. I probably wouldn't have minded as much if they leaned into the goofy a la Hot Fuzz when Edgar Wright did it, but the desire to remain "serious" sabotages the fun.

To lead into a mostly out-of-nowhere verbal blowout wherein Gen Z characters lay out everything their elders have done to ruin their future by digging in and refusing to overcome shortcomings out of fear of obsolescence once the world passed them by seems worthwhile on paper, but boy is the execution off. Maybe it's the script's "answer" dump rendering it clunky or the tone projecting a sarcastic air onto the message, but the whole's unsettling nature that I couldn't put my finger on finally came into focus and revealed itself to be a disingenuous undercurrent of older allies playacting today's youth's authentic rage. I'm sure Craig and Blanchard mean well, but this property needed filmmakers in their twenties or thirties behind the wheel rather than fifties and above.

And don't tell me to simply ignore it. The film demands that I don't. It wants to be more than just dumb fun, so I can't ignore such a gross mismanagement of the dynamic between intent and execution. I wish I could because the film is enjoyable when you're gliding along the surface. I wanted more from the choice of having the victims create content starring their soon-to-be murderer's visage, but the gag we do get (not believing the real bloodshed is real at first) does hit its mark. Most of the best parts come via similarly brief record-scratch moments of realization or subversion, but they are frankly too few and far between since the film really thinks it has something pithy to say and hamstrings the comedy to maintain an unearned sense of gritty political commentary.

Kevin Durand as the resident descendant of the town's founder and Will Sasso's Sheriff add some nice duplicitous hick flavor while still having room to go over-the-top when necessary. Abrams is a great representation of that "older ally" balancing his duties as a parent and his understanding that the world is vastly different than from his childhood and he must adapt accordingly. Potenza, Verity Marks, Ayo Solankem, and Alexandre Martin Deakin are entertaining as caricatured stereotypes of everything their parents fear is "ruining society" and Douglas, MacCormac, and Vincent Muller provide the cooler heads needed as leads to cut through the chaos and propel the narrative forward. So, the pieces are there and the message is worthwhile. The voice used to put it all together is simply trying way too hard.

- 5/10

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

(in theaters)

When Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) and Hunter (Julian Kostov) receive their first actionable intel on the elusive "Ghost" (courtesy of whipping boy Simmons, played with great comic timing by Willem van der Vegt), they realize none of their people are in the area. Agents were there, but "Ghost" killed them all. So, now Brunt must call the one person she swore she wouldn't out of a mix of guilt for her role in exiling him and shock that he's even still alive after two years being hunted. That man is Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett) and she's lucky he even answered his phone—even if only to deliver a stream of profanities before getting accosted by a gang of thugs completely unrelated to the task at-hand.

This is our introduction into the world of visual effects supervisor James Madigan's directorial debut Fight or Flight. Screenwriters Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona will soon explain who that gang was, but not before allowing Brunt to extend her olive branch to Reyes with the promise of giving him his life back. All he must do is get on the plane "Ghost" is taking to San Francisco (if she's able to remove him from the no-fly list in time), find out who "Ghost" is with nothing more to work off than a potential gunshot wound, and bring the criminal back alive. There's just one more tiny wrinkle, though. Beacuse of a brief leak of "Ghost's" itinerary, that plane is now full of assassins looking for them too.

The result is a high-octane, joke-filled actioner that looks to capitalize on the appeal of films like The Raid (with cinematographer Matt Flannery in tow) and Bullet Train (where a poster mention of John Wick probably guarantees some connection there too). And since Reyes is all by himself save for three flight attendants outside their depth in Isha (Charithra Chandran), Royce (Danny Ashok), and Garrett (Hughie O'Donnell), you can guess how battered he'll end up by the end. As long as the body count of baddies increases, though, his pain is an enjoyable means to an end. Because his only chance at survival is to keep downing mini alcohol bottles and taking a chance on a vial of adrenaline that may or may not turn out to be psychedelic toad venom.

It's exactly what you expect with the main dramatic thrust being why Reyes was burned and how that answer might influence his decision to fulfill this mission. This is a man with morals, after all. If he discovers "Ghost" is actually the good guy (which, let's face it, international terrorists these days are often just a head tilt away from being altruistic rebels), Reyes might realize that helping their mission is more important than getting his life back. He's survived this long. What's another couple decades before his liver gives out or an opponent (probably an assassin looking to kill him) finally gets lucky? Sure, it won't necessarily add to the drama on the plane since he must keep "Ghost" alive either way, but it will give Brunt and Hunter fits on the ground.

The comedy helps us look past the often silly bent limbs and blood sprays, but the action is mostly played straight insofar as the choreography and brutality goes. Things get really fun when Reyes's hallucinations play with his interpretation of the current scene and the sheer chaos throughout keeps us awake and invested either way. There's an over-arching sentimentality that actually skews things closer to last year's Kill than the more ultra-serious The Raid, but the lack of the need to fridge a love interest lets that emotion enhance the comedy via its often tongue-in-cheek delivery. We know Reyes is going to live long enough to give Brunt what she wants or to screw her over, so sit back and revel in the carnage.

Chandran and Sackhoff are good as the two actors with enough screen-time to not be relegated into bit parts like everyone else (Ashok, Marko Zaror, and many others make their mark, but they're all mostly here to die or disappear once their utility is up). So, it's up to Hartnett to carry Fight of Flight on his shoulders and the tone is right in his wheelhouse to ensure he does. Whether combatting sedatives, pushing through bad trips, or dealing with excruciating pain, he is game for anything. Sometimes its dislocating a person's brain stem with a punch to the back of the neck. Sometimes it's misjudging an attack and almost knocking himself out on a toilet. Either way, it's always a good time.

- 7/10

HENRY JOHNSON

(limited theaters and available to rent)

“[Mamet] has weaponized our collective cynicism to create a character who is so willing to think the best of people that he’ll continue doing so even as that trust sinks him deeper and deeper into despair.”

– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

SUMMER OF 69

(streaming on Hulu)

Max (Matt Cornett) is finally single. Yes, he's a seventeen-year-old high school senior, but the "finally" remains apt since he's been dating Mercedes ever since the day Abby (Sam Morelos) met him in elementary school. So, after many long years of pining over her crush, the opportunity to swoop in has arrived. The only problem, though, is that the pining has made it so Abby never dated anyone. Add a complete lack of friends, a budding career as a video game streamer, and the best guess to "What's a rim job?" being far enough off to wonder why she even tried guessing and she inevitably realizes she's going to need a lot of help.

Enter Santa Monica (Chloe Fineman), a twenty-eight-year-old stripper with zero confidence problems on-stage yet almost as many as Abby in her personal life. She also doesn't have any friends—at least none outside of her work at Diamond Dolls. And soon, due to Betty's (Paula Pell) ineptitude with finances, she won't even have that. How could she ever show her face at her ten-year reunion if she finds herself standing opposite class president Robin (Natalie Morales) as an unemployed stripper? Impossible to even fathom. So, when Abby proposes hiring her as a "sex coach" for the exact amount needed to save the club, Monica has no choice but to agree.

The meaning of the title to Jillian Bell's directorial debut Summer of 69 is therefore two-fold (sadly, neither concerns Bryan Adams' song). One: Abby's belief (after hearing through the grapevine that is her high school's mascot, played by Fernando Carsa) that Max's favorite sex act is 69ing. Two: the symbiotic quid pro quo of Abby and Monica's arrangement. If all goes according to plan, the former will have the self-confidence to do more than just awkwardly fantasize about talking to Max and the latter will have the cash to save Diamond Dolls and become its new owner. Abby gets to lose her virginity with the boy she loves and Monica gets to enter that reunion as an entrepreneur.

While its parallel roads towards self-actualization and the honest discovery that both women need a friend lean into its wholesome center, this is still a raunchy R-rated comedy. So, don't expect the journey to be a conventional one even if the trajectory proves familiar. With a millennial at the helm and another as co-lead opposite a zoomer, we're getting the best of both worlds. What does someone Monica's age think a good sex comedy needs (her holy grail is Risky Business, which is admittedly more apt for Fineman and Morales's real ages than the characters they’re playing since I'm pretty sure the phrase "ten-year reunion" is used) and what can someone Abby's age relate to? How do you bridge the gap? The answer is, of course, simpler than you may think.

Most of the film occurs inside Abby's outlandish fantasies and Monica's tragic realities, so the time they spend together is less about the activity than the camaraderie. There's a reason Bell shoots the Risky Business scene from the television's perspective. It's their joyful smiles and authentic pleasure in the other's company that matters. Because our lives' indelible moments aren't usually defined by place or event. They're defined by the people we shared them with, and both these women have been desperate to find that connection. It remains true with the delusions too since Monica isn't actually screaming besides Abby during her sex shop nightmare. But rather than land the laugh and move on, Bell ensures Monica stays present by asking where Abby "went."

Theirs is an odd couple pairing in persona and age, but their emotional insecurities are aligned. It's why we believe how close they grow in so little time despite starting so far apart (Monica couldn't get away faster those first couple days). The more vulnerable they become and the more personal details they allow themselves to share, however, the more they recognize their kinship as ambitious loners searching for someone else to acknowledge their greatness due to an inability to acknowledge it in themselves first. Yes, we still get the house party blow-out, smarmy villain (Charlie Day's Rick Richards looking to steal the club), and overbearing parents (with a fantastic Lily Rose payoff courtesy of Guinevere Govea), but the overall heart wins out.

You can thank Fineman and Morelos for that. In many ways they are the only two grounded characters in this film (besides their respective straight mans in Morales' Robin and Cornett's Max). We get to see into their souls by how they interact with the crazies surrounding them. How Abby really wants a friend more than sex and how Monica really needs pride more than money even if the opposite proves to be an easy avenue for attacking the other when feelings get hurt. We know the truth through them, though, so we also know they'll ultimately come around to remembering why they opened up in the first place. And while that imminent happy ending is again familiar in its construction, the execution maintains an unconventional air of wild fun.

- 7/10

WE WERE DANGEROUS

(limited release)

“We revel in [the leads'] spirit and autonomy; their awareness of just how messed up the situation is. By never shying away from those horrors, watching this trio consistently rebel only amplifies the potency of their inspirational battle cry.”

– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Brooklyn (2015), Central Intelligence (2016), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Far North (1988), Harlan County U.S.A. (1977), The Invention of Lying (2009), Larry Crowne (2011), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), The Losers (2010), The Lost City of Z (2017), The Man with Two Brains (1983), The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio (2005), Scarface (1932), Unstoppable (2024), and Vertical Limit (2000) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Julia Roberts dropping an f-bomb in Larry Crowne.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 5/9/25 -

• #Single at Regal Elmwood

• The Ancestral Home (Nha Gia Tien) at Regal Galleria

• Bhool Chuk Maaf at Regal Elmwood

• Clown in a Cornfield at Dipson Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Exhibition on Screen: Dawn of Impressionism: Paris, 1874 at North Park Theatre (select times)

• Fight or Flight at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Juliet & Romeo at Dipson Flix, Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Prince and Family at Regal Elmwood

• Shadow Force at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Shrouds at North Park Theatre (select times)

• Subham at Regal Elmwood

• Tourist Family at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 5/9/25 -

• Bad Influence – Netflix on 5/9

• A Deadly American Marriage – Netflix on 5/9

• Love Hurts – Peacock on 5/9

• Nonnas – Netflix on 5/9

• Summer of 69 – Hulu on 5/9

  Thoughts are above.

• The Damned – Hulu on 5/9

• The Ugly Stepsister – Shudder on 5/9

  “Blichfeldt lays [the] patriarchal misogyny [of fairy tales] bare. Because that's the true motivation behind such storybook romance: the desire to satisfy a man for survival in hopes he might satisfy you too.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Hard Truths – Paramount+ on 5/12

  “But it's Jean-Baptiste who shines brightest by showcasing her talent to maintain humanity through despicable behavior. For all the bile [Pansy] spews, the person who ends up hurt most by it is her.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Lee Soo Man: King of K-Pop – Prime on 5/13

• Novocaine – Paramount+ on 5/13

• Untold: The Liver King – Netflix on 5/13

• Paddington in Peru – Netflix on 5/15

• Vini Jr. – Netflix on 5/15

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• 825 Forest Road (5/6)

• The Ballad of Wallis Island (5/6)

• Bob Trevino Likes It (5/6)

• Broke (5/6)

• The Empire (5/6)

• The Luckiest Man in America (5/6)

  “The era-specific production design, expert pacing, and captivating twists once the truth is uncovered provide the scaffolding so the actors can turn it into gold.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• A Nice Indian Boy (5/6)

• Sneaks (5/6)

• Union (5/6)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Warfare (5/6)

• Absolute Dominion (5/9)

  Thoughts are above.

• Kryptic (5/9)

• The Moogai (5/9)

• One to One: John & Yoko (5/9)

• Queen of the Ring (5/9)

  “Queen of the Ring plays well to its audience. It’s obviously a little fish in a big pond despite its wide national rollout, but whatever it lacks in production quality is surely gained in heart.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Sharp Corner (5/9)

  “So, as long as you can get onboard with this family drama pivoting into a very narrow study of one man's quest for purpose, you should find the experience worthwhile. Just don't expect it to be anything more.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Ugly Stepsister (5/9)

  Link is above under streaming releases.

• Unit 234 (5/9)

• Wick is Pain (5/9)

The beauty of that initial vacation is the rich characters are completely oblivious to their abuse. This is not the case in season two and appears to not be the case in season three either. One factor is that the “poor” people get one up on the “rich” people and the latter must therefore acknowledge their mistakes with either guilt or regret. Another factor is that Mike White seems to have lost the satire and now simply writes for entertainment value alone.

I also think it was a mistake to carry Tanya and Greg through all three chapters. Her entire purpose in the first season is to provide Belinda’s narrative its emotional weight. So, why is she now the backbone of everything (via presence and absence)? It truly seems like a case of a writer seeing the buzz about a fan favorite and letting that guaranteed mainstream appeal dictate his future decisions.

As I said last week, the commentary and themes of season one weren’t perfectly executed, but they were present and effective. The way things have gone since, however, makes me wonder if that success was actually an unintentional happy accident. The show is still fun, but it’s all just empty calories now.

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What I Watched:

HOLY NIGHT: DEMON HUNTERS

[Georokhan: Demun Heonteoseu]

(limited release)

What if Don Lee/Ma Dong-seok's "Beast Cop" was an orphan imbued with supernatural super strength powers who grew up to use them to fight for the innocent souls of Earth in a war against demons? This is the question I imagine Lee asked himself before hatching the story that writer/director Lim Dae-hee fashioned into Holy Night: Demon Hunters. Teamed with an equally powerful lieutenant (Seohyun's Sharon) who holds similar abilities (expelling demons from their human captives' bodies) as the man he once called his "brother" until he turned to the dark side and a trusted sidekick documenting their dangerous work (David Lee's Kim-kun), Ba Woo's (Lee) trio is single-handedly holding Hell at bay.

Sounds fun. They think so too. That's why the whole enterprise feels like a proof of concept for another franchise to run parallel with Lee's more grounded Roundup series. It starts with the team showing us what they can do in the field to take down Beelzebub while also providing a step-by-step education on the terminology they use to do so. We learn most of their business is funneled through a friend on the force who knows regular cops stand zero chance against this kind of evil and that Ba Woo has a strained history with the priest who raised him—so strained that he's willing to turn away a potential client in desperate need (Kyung Soo-Jin's Jung-Won) solely because she used his name as a reference.

But it's through the possession of her sister Eun-Seo (Jung Ji-So) that Ba Woo must put aside his personal feelings to live up to the promises he made after a tragedy he still partially blames himself for happening. Yes, it's his job, but this particular case also seems uniquely connected to his past in ways that allow Lim's script to supply exposition that also foreshadows the bigger war we can presume is coming on the horizon via sequels (mainly a search for Lucifer that's teased further during a mid-credit stinger). This is the moment Ba has been waiting for—a reminder that he can still try and make things right. It's also the tipping point for Sharon to confirm her allegiance to the side of "light" and Kim-kun to prove his mettle despite having no powers.

The structure is pretty by-the-numbers with an introduction to the characters, another for the case, a sprinkling of contextually relevant flashbacks, and the thirty-minute climactic exorcism that will either save Eun-Seo or destroy the fabric of reality as we know it. Full of superimposed text to help hold our hand through the demonic kingdom's hierarchy and the step-by-step phases of an exorcism, there's little room for spontaneity—especially since Lee is the star and must make good on his production company's name (Big Punch). That action is mostly tacked on via a throwaway line about sycophants always coming out of the woodwork to serve their master since these nameless (and mostly masked) foot soldiers are literally only on-screen to get knocked unconscious.

In many respects, Seohyun is the real lead as a result. While Kim-kun assists the work (and the comedy as a prop to Don Lee's goofy antics) and Ba acts as protector clearing the way of fiery "bishops" while reliably being at the right place and time to lift something heavy or punch through doors, it's Sharon who does the crucial labor. She's making the plans and coming face-to-face with their enemies. She's the one risking her very existence by using powers that threaten to consume her much like they did Ba's "brother." She's the bad ass the plot hinges upon while Ba provides the ancillary excitement most audience members sought when buying a ticket. Holy Night: Demon Hunters is a supernatural thriller first, expansive IP foundation pour second, and actioner third.

And, to those ends, it works. The story itself is hardly groundbreaking, but the leading trio have a fun rapport that I wouldn't mind watching again. There's enough to their backstories to make room for growth and the overall mythology (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Keanu Reeves' Constantine) possesses an infinite well of serialized possibilities. The special effects work is good, Jung Ji-So delivers a memorable "possessed" performance, and Lim Dae-hee nicely balances the dark horror with a lighter sense of comic entertainment. It's only real knock preventing its popcorn fare's advancement from "familiar" to "exciting" is that it inherently feels incomplete. It's one thing to spawn a franchise on the back of success, but it's another to plan one before you've proven anything.

- 6/10

THE PASTOR’S DAUGHTER

(Atlanta Film Festival)

“Hall is really making certain that we understand how fabricated this community of God-fearing souls is considering it’s been built upon an abusive charlatan's back.”

– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

SALVABLE

(limited release)

Sal (Toby Kebbell) is trying. He's been trying for a while. To stay afloat financially by working as a senior caretaker. To stay connected to his roots by boxing as a journeyman for younger fighters to beat. To be a better father for his teenage daughter Molly (Kíla Lord Cassidy). It's all a little too late in the sense that it feels like he's just banging his head against the wall, but you must admire the fact that he keeps trying anyway. Because he owns his mistakes. He's not asking for forgiveness as much as a second chance to prove he's changed. Still changing. The thing he's never learned, however, is that patience trumps impulse.

At least, that's what I think he's never learned. For all its poignant beats and resonant drama, Björn Franklin (who also writes) & Johnny Marchetta's Salvable throws us into Sal's life so abruptly that we never really know what's going on beyond the surface emotions. That's not to say they aren't enough to invest in the character and his journey. Just that everything around him becomes an obstacle to overcome or a goal to achieve. Can he get out of his own way to be the man he needs to be so Molly stays in his life? Is his old running mate just out of prison (Shia LaBeouf's Vince) the answer or a curse? Are they all just excuses for him to continue pissing everything away?

It's a collision course destined for tragedy because the hard work Sal has put in to finally be exactly what Molly needs is happening right when the allure of a quick fix to his financial straits arrives. Father figure and coach Welly (James Cosmo) desperately seeks to keep him on course via tough love, but it's impossible to deny the promise of fun and reward Vince is selling. There's a bit of an unspoken quid pro quo too—as if Sal might have been on the road to prison too if not for Vince taking the heat instead, but I'm not sure. What happens at the end kind of refutes this notion by proving Vince truly loves Sal like a brother, but I won't deny the film plays it like he's using him up until that point.

I chalk it up to the superficiality of the script that I mentioned above. The plot and exposition are so thin that I ultimately needed to create my own backstory from the few exchanges we see on-screen. Because the only flashback we get is of the two as young teens readying for the Olympics. The crimes they committed and the reason for Vince's incarceration are never explained, so I filled in the blanks. And I did the same for Sal's relationship with Molly and his ex (Elaine Cassidy, Kíla Lord's real-life mother). We get more detail about this trio at least. Enough to understand the strain and buy the two heartfelt exchanges between father and daughter that show a thaw remains possible.

Those two scenes are very good. Molly witnessing Sal in a moment of vulnerability at his work that allows her to let her defenses down and Sal realizing at her school how the life that prevented him from being a good dad prepared him to understand how to tell Molly everything is going to be okay. Salvable is always at its best when Kebbell and the younger Cassidy are together. It's always its most authentic and meaningful. Because their relationship is the one that still has a future. Welly, Vince, and Elaine are figures of his past—good, bad, and ugly. Sal must forgive himself, put them all behind him, and realize he has time to be there for Molly. Not as a role model, but maybe a cautionary tale.

As such, the decision to take things where they go feels intentionally traumatic. And because the script's final day starts with only fifteen or so minutes left, I knew Sal's plans must inevitably go wrong. I braced myself for it. But there just isn't enough time. We receive a rushed, artificially tense montage of a climax where the love for Sal by everyone else pours out in each character's own way en route to a conclusion that still cannot penetrate its surface emotions for true stakes beyond the music cues. The bones are there for us to fill in the blanks again, and it is an enjoyable ride (Kebbell is great), but we never find that deeper connection. It's a story ripe for abstract lyricism told via linear literalism. Exciting potential undercut by familiar execution.

- 6/10

THE SURFER

(in theaters)

The first three-quarters of director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Thomas Martin's The Surfer plays like two ships crossing in the night. What we must ask ourselves while watching is whether they are reality and nightmare or fantasy and reality.

To take things literally is to presume the former. The unnamed "Surfer" (Nicolas Cage) is a successful American-raised Australian returning home to buy his childhood house and make good on a promise he made before his life imploded in divorce. This is the dream he's clung to for decades. The one he believes will make all his pain and sacrifice worth it. Just as he's about to cross the finish line, however, it all begins to fall apart. The locals tell him he can't surf on the beach. His real estate agent says another offer on the house has beaten his. And his broker doesn't think the bank will increase their loan.

So, "Surfer" is at his wit's end. He's desperate. Stubborn. He remains at the beach partly to be close when his broker calls back about the money and partly to assuage his ego and pride that he belongs. That it's his birthright. That these bullies have no authority over what he's allowed to do. But this confidence is hollow. A façade he's cultivated within a world dictated by suits and money. A world unlike the one he's thrust himself into, one full of physically aggressive toxic men led by Scally (Julian McMahon). Here "Surfer" is powerless. So much so that he inevitably lets them erase his identity under the blazing sun.

Take things figuratively, however, and everything we've been told might not be real. Maybe "Surfer" never was a success. Never had the money to buy that house. Never brought his son for a surf. Maybe that sun has driven him so far off the deep end that we've been watching from the vantage point of his delusion and Scally's rambunctious horde are actually stripping away the fantasy to remind him who he really is. The nightmare "Surfer's" life has devolved into is therefore made into the reality he's been trying to forget. He believes Scally is his enemy, but he's the one causing trouble by refusing to accept the truth.

Finnegan weaves these two possibilities together in ways that allow both to be legitimate interpretations depending on your level of optimism versus pessimism and where he and Martin eventually decide to take us. The collision builds the paranoia and danger to a fever pitch until nothing we see can be taken on faith. Because either way you slice it, the entirety of "Surfer's" journey is false. It's either one giant hallucination blurring the lines between him and the bum he's beginning to transform into (Nicholas Cassim) or one giant elaborate conspiracy orchestrated by Scally to break his mind and spirit.

That duality leads to the third act's question of why "Surfer" cares so much. Scally's is hardly a group of men you should aspire to join. These are unleashed animals who talk about deprogramming each other from society's political correctness in order to rebuild their apparently stunted masculinity. It's about "blowing off steam." It's about, as one character puts it, getting their violence out on the beach so they don't go home and "beat the Botox out of their wives." Is that who "Surfer" wants to be? Is this whole thing a metaphor for his emasculation? Is it actually condoning the localism and, by extension, the tribal nativism that has given rise to a rebirth of white supremacy across the world?

I won't lie and say I wasn't worried that Finnegan and Martin had taken a very wrong turn with their messaging once answers begin to come into focus. They sprinkle a lot of clues as to what's happening via their conflation of "surfer" and "suffer," so the end result is hardly surprising in its appearance. But it is surprising that it's so readily embraced. Well, maybe not that surprising considering Cage's character has gone through the wringer and is allowed a reprieve when embracing violence means saving yourself from being a victim of that violence. The surprise is that, when presented with the choice, he chooses the violence. These bullies hold his dream in their hands, after all.

That's the real message. Not that we willingly accept evil, but that evil oftentimes wields so much power and control that we don't realize we've accepted it. That's when this tiny beach becomes a microcosm of America (at least to this American) if not the world and its current, rapid decline into oligarchical authoritarianism. Because that's what I see in Scally and his men: Nazis. Gatekeepers willing to maim and kill any outsider who dares to set foot on "their" land. I use quotes, of course, since these are white men on a continent of indigenous people their ancestors stole it from. It doesn't matter that they also turn away other white men like "Surfer." That's part of the process of weeding out the "bad ones" to ensure full-fledged loyalty to the cause.

Because it's all a test. The Surfer is about torturing Nic Cage until all pretense and sanity evaporates to leave his purely primal instincts in charge. That's when we see who he really is and what he's truly capable of doing. That's when he can finally make his choice. Become an animal willing to sell its soul for the dreams that society indoctrinated him to achieve or realize no "reward" is worth relinquishing his humanity. Live large and at the top through cruelty or fight back so everyone can live as equals.

- 8/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Bad Company (2002), Days of Thunder (1990), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Life Stinks (1991), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), School's Out! (1992), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Sneakers (1992), Vantage Point (2008), The Wages of Fear (1953), and World Trade Center (2006) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Randy Quaid dropping an f-bomb in Days of Thunder.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 5/2/25 -

• Bonjour Tristesse at Dipson Amherst; Regal Quaker

• HIT: The Third Case at Regal Elmwood, Galleria, Transit

• Raid 2 at Regal Elmwood, Galleria, Transit

• Retro at Regal Elmwood, Transit

• Rosario at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Galleria, Transit, Quaker

• The Surfer at Regal Galleria, Transit, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Thunderbolts* at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Galleria, Transit, Quaker

Streaming from 5/2/25 -

• Adult Best Friends – Max on 5/2

• Black Bag – Peacock on 5/2

• Inheritance – AMC+ on 5/2

• La Cocina – MUBI on 5/2

• Britain and the Blitz – Netflix on 5/5

• Untold: Shooting Guards – Netflix on 5/6

• Last Bullet (aka Lost Bullet 3) – Netflix on 5/7

• Heart Eyes – Netflix on 5/8

• Karol G: Tomorrow Was Beautiful – Netflix on 5/8

• Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story – Kino on 5/8

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Star Trek: Section 31 (4/28)

• Audrey’s Children (4/29)

• Being Maria (4/29)

• Day of Reckoning (4/29)

• Death of a Unicorn (4/29)

• Drop (4/29)

• Egghead & Twinkie (4/29)

• The Friend (4/29)

  “The psychological possibilities are endless. Regardless, the messaging is sweet. The depiction of human/canine love and affection is pure. And Watts is given a wonderful part to excel in.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Homestead (4/29)

• The Penguin Lessons (4/29)

  “It’s an inspiring story on all fronts. [But] considering what’s happening in our world—specifically America with its own broad and illegal renditions—it proves performatively quaint. That’s the mission, though. Say something, but not too much.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Sacramento (4/29)

• Electra (5/2)

• I’m Beginning to See the Light (5/2)

• Off the Record (5/2)

• Rust (5/2)

• Salvable (5/2)

  Thoughts are above.

I love Mike White, but I just didn’t see the appeal of watching yet another rich white satire. So, I skipped it assuming it was a one-off anyway. But then came season two.

I stayed away again—this time because I feel like I didn’t really hear as much about it. Which sounds dumb since it was definitely at the forefront of social media meme culture. It just wasn’t on my feeds. But then came season three.

So, I caved. It doesn’t look like the property is going anywhere, so I resigned myself to taking the plunge to see if the hype was legit. With season one under my belt, it’s looking like it might be.

White’s miniseries isn’t perfect and some of its thematic messaging becomes exploited rather than informative, but it truly is a lot of fun. Jennifer Coolidge is a treasure. Steve Zahn steals most of his scenes. And I think this was Alexandra Daddario’s best work. The real MVP, though? Murray Bartlett.

I’m intrigued to see if season two keeps that ball rolling. Farting Grandpa gives me pause, but the first episode has enough good exposition to hold promise.

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What I Watched:

APRIL

(limited release)

There's a deluge of rain showers and multiple vignettes of flowers along the Georgian countryside, but this month of April ultimately delivers mud, violence, and futility. Dea Kulumbegashvili's film doesn't simply pile such things solely onto the head of her lead Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), though. No, every woman on-screen suffers from them. Even some men who dare allow themselves the progressive thought that science and humanity should come before apathy and control. While the latter can still turn their head and pretend to ignore what's happening, the former cannot. Neither the abuse they fall victim to nor the reality that striving to help feels less fulfilling than it does hopeless.

We meet Nina sitting in her boss's (Merab Ninidze) office to explain what happened during a delivery gone wrong. Also at the table are her OB/GYN colleague David (Kakha Kintsurashvili) and the husband (Sandro Kalandadze) of the patient. He's there under the pretense of wanting to know why his son died five minutes after being born, but he really wants the other men in the room to blame Nina. Not because it was or might be, but because she is a woman and rumored to be conducting illegal abortions down in the nearby village. She's not only "unqualified" to bring life into this world (despite a long career of doing exactly that), but he believes her to also be a murderer. Nothing she says would assuage that fact. Nothing the men say would either.

This is Nina's life: a disrespected caretaker surrounded by toxic men who literally see women as property. She's delivered most of their children and yet she's been marked as the devil by cleaning up their messes while seeking to educate the often very young brides who aren't ready to be mothers on how to postpone conception. And it all must be done in secret. No one can know about the contraception because women are supposed to provide their men as many children as "God sees fit." No one can know about the abortions or most of the pregnancies themselves. It begs the question why the unfortunate mother at the start never registered her condition to receive the support needed to keep her baby safe. Did she even want it?

What intrigues beyond her career are the ways that those who sympathize with what Nina does also try telling her its unnecessary. Some implore her to have her own child as though children are the sole purpose in life. Her independence is seen as a threat; her duty to keep oppressed and raped women alive is less important than keeping her job and freedom. Nina is constantly asked why she's alone because her allies remain indoctrinated regardless of their progressive tendencies. Yes, they are open-minded to the reality that she provides a necessary service, but they are still bogged down by the conservative gender norms driving their traditional values. And the random men she solicits for companionship—since she knows no man would willingly stand-by her choices—are a coin toss on whether they hurt her instead.

It's no wonder Kulumbegashvili splices in nightmarish glimpses of a deformed Nina, naked and devoid of facial features. I was reminded of Alberto Giacometti's sculptures of stretched and rough figures struggling to maintain their humanity under the weight of existential dread. This is how Nina sees herself—a nondescript entity moving through the world as a pariah some of the women she helps even loathe if for no other reason than that her existence reminds them of their pain. She's not allowed a life of her own because it would get in the way of her mission. As she tells David early on, "Besides this job, I have nothing to lose." It's true. The village, however, has everything to lose without her. Tragically, they refuse to admit it aloud.

Shot as a series of static set-ups in full-frame, April proves a masterclass of blocking so each sequence maintains a sense of drama without camera movements. A couple moments include a pan and others (mostly exposition shots) allow motion via handheld, first-person perspective, but the majority of the film dares us to not look away by holding us frozen on uncomfortable conversations (the moment Nina's boss leaves her in the office alone with that grieving husband, we know it won't end well), real-life birthing scenes, and an entire abortion procedure focused only on the bare midriff of the patient with the back of her concerned mother filling the left side and her bent legs going off-screen on the right. Kulumbegashvili ensures we understand the gravity and potential for violence via silent stares of barely concealed trepidation.

While the main through line is discovering whether Nina will lose her job due to the malpractice claim, that danger is the least of our concern once we begin to follow her day-to-day. Maybe an attempt at companionship will leave her bloodied in a ditch. Maybe one of her teenage patients will get caught with birth control pills or an abortion will go wrong and she'll be forced to confirm the rumors—both leading to jail time. And what of the young woman she's been sent for to help by Mzia (Ana Nikolava)? This ordeal both epitomizes why Nina's work is crucial to the survival of her patients and why she's always one mistake away from perhaps getting killed herself. Because we know the answers to the questions Mzia keeps dancing around and that there's zero chance it ends well.

And through it all lies an impressive performance from Sukhitashvili. Between the demand of the long takes and the constant state of fight or flight uncertainty, we find ourselves mesmerized by every movement and expression. Her Nina is risking everything with each act she takes—her job leading to tragedy is enough to put her in the crosshairs of a community desperate to ruin her because she has the gall to be an unmarried, childless, career woman who cares about the wives, sisters, and daughters being fed to the wolves for simply existing. You cannot dismiss its politics as just exposing how rural Georgia treats its women either, not when there are anti-abortion laws being passed in America now too. Anyone still pretending this is a cautionary tale is either delusional or complicit.

- 8/10

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN – Season One

(streaming on Disney+)

The creation of Disney+ ultimately killed Netflix's "Defenders." There was no way an MCU offshoot (which made mention of events and characters from the film without ever overtly stating details or names) could co-exist with whatever Marvel Studios had planned on their own platform. So, they shut it down before a fourth season of "Daredevil" could advance past the planning stage (cast members were under the impression they would see its five-season arc to fruition). The studio focused on shows featuring their cinematic superheroes instead while waiting the contractually obligated two years before reinserting Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock and Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk to the fold.

Fan excitement at seeing them back was palpable, so Kevin Feige knew the potential to give them more than just cameos a la "Hawkeye" and "She-Hulk" was real. Matt Corman and Chris Ord were soon enlisted to steward this new direction via a planned eighteen-episode season that saw Matt retired from the mask and focusing on his new law practice with Kirsten Mcduffie (Nikki M. James). Mention of previous seasons was minimal, the tone was softened, and all involved sought to move forward as though the Netflix iteration didn't exist on Earth-616 after all. Well, despite shooting six episodes, Cox and D'Onofrio approached Feige to admit it wasn't working. He agreed.

So, if the first season of "Daredevil: Born Again" feels weird, it's because its creation was anything but smooth. Corman and Ord were let go (although they rightfully retain creator credit—think Frank Darabont with "The Walking Dead") and replaced by "The Punisher" writer Dario Scardapane. The choice to bring back Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), and Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal apparently was asked to rejoin earlier, but felt the direction they wanted to go with the character did a disservice to his previous work) was made. And "Moon Knight" and "Loki" directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson came aboard to direct a new pilot, penultimate episode, and finale. New footage was also filmed to provide cohesion throughout those original six chapters and this Big Apple-set Frankenstein's monster was born.

I'll say it up front: those new Benson and Moorhead episodes are a completely different beast than the rest. Yes, that's the whole point, but being able to tell puts a damper on things since we're truly just wondering when we'll get back to those stakes again. It's night and day. Daredevil and Matt Murdock. He may don the suit now and then, but he's desperately trying to hold the darkness at bay while doing what he can with suit and tie. It works in isolation (I loved the lighter bottle episode opposite Mohan Kapur's Yusuf Khan entitled "With Interest") and when it helps infer upon his internal struggle (representing the late Kamar de los Reyes' Hector Ayala on a case that hits close to home), but the rest is, for lack of a better term, pedestrian.

Muse (Hunter Doohan) never feels like more than a means to an end as a villain injected by brute force rather than sprinkled in with nuance. Neither does Dr. Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) as a love interest who's truly just a pawn to keep Matt and Fisk tangentially connected while their actual plot progressions are miles apart. I like the mirror of those two adversaries fighting to shake off their masks (Daredevil and Kingpin pushing through the façade of lawyer and mayor, respectively) on paper, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired since we know it's a false battle. Matt will always be Daredevil. He must to survive. And, despite what occurs at the end of "Echo" between Fisk and Maya (Alaqua Cox)—left unexplained and forgotten (at worst) or used to prove monsters are byproducts of nature rather than nurture (at best), Wilson is a gangster.

We're ultimately spinning wheels until Wilson Bethel's Bullseye returns to the screen. He's who Scardapane uses to connect us to the past and add intrigue for the present. He becomes the reason Matt puts the mask away and why Daredevil can no longer sit idly by as Wilson and Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) remake the city's governmental infrastructure in their corrupt image. We tread water through six episodes of exposition that's wholly unnecessary to anyone who watched the original series as far as explaining Matt's Catholic guilt, and hope the payoff is worth the wait. Kapur and de los Reyes are great and both James and Levieva serve their purpose as a two-pronged Foggy and Karen stand-in (for all the talk about "bringing them back," Woll and Henson receive about twenty minutes of screen-time total), but it's Clark Johnson's PI Cherry who stood out most.

Arty Froushan's Buck Cashman, a budget-James Wesley, proves yet again how integral Toby Leonard Moore was to that first "Daredevil" season. Genneya Walton is an interesting addition as Ben Urich's niece BB, serving in much the same role. And Michael Gandolfini is fun as the new youngster for Fisk to take under his political wing while Zabryna Guevara and Michael Gaston look on in horror. Think J.D. Vance as lapdog to Trump while the Liz Cheneys and Charles Schumers of the world still pretend like the actual rule of law exists rather than the my-way-or-the-highway "rule of law" that has replaced it. I don't think the allusions Scardapane makes in the final two episodes of Fisk doing to New York City what Trump has done to America will be lost on anyone.

As for the payoff: I won't deny that those last two chapters deliver more of what I hoped the show would. Is it enough to save what comes before it? Not in any real sense. We can only cross our fingers that it will be enough to save what comes next since the planned eight-episode season two arrives with a blank canvas. Scardapane and, presumably, Moorhead and Benson have the reins now to build off what they turned season one into instead of being hamstrung to work with what was already shot and too expensive to scrap altogether. If they can give us something to truly invest in, it will all have been worth the trouble. Because I love seeing Cox, D'Onofrio, and Bernthal back in costume. It would just be so much better if they had something interesting and unique to do.

Tidbits:

• Letting the cracked stones have sound effects that overpower the score during the opening credits is a distracting move that undermines what should be a powerfully dramatic sensory experience.

• The logotype looks like the show is going to be a sitcom in the vein of "Frasier"—an insane choice, but perhaps more aligned with what the original vision would have been.

• As someone who lived through the 80s and is on home movies singing Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City" with his sister as children, the choice of using that song as a gag in 2025 like it's relevant was wild. Unless it became a meme recently and I didn't know.

• Great to see Lou Taylor Pucci, albeit in a very small role. The fact that he was the star in Moorhead and Benson's masterpiece Spring makes me believe his part was added by Scardapane to connect Vanessa to their new episodes.

- 5/10

EMERGENT CITY

(limited release)

Everything you need to know about the Trump Administration today comes down to what Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball says towards the end of Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg's Emergent City when the approval of his company's rezoning plans start to look less and less likely. Of the many reasons for their eventual decision, the one he singled out to local news channels was the "current political environment." If we interpret that statement as being made in good faith, we simply chalk it up as the face of a billion-dollar private equity conglomerate blaming a democratic state (New York) for hamstringing capitalist progress. What some of us knew then (circa 2020) and most are realizing now, however, entities like Kimball and Industry City only deal in bad faith.

Because "current political environment" isn't actually about republican versus democrat. Not when you're operating from their financial level with the power wielded from it. No, those three words are a euphemism for "democracy." You see it early when Kimball explains how their property is uniquely positioned as a private venture to give the people what they want without bureaucratic red tape, failing to admit (although he knows it all too well) that removing said tape also removes those people from the equation. His hope is to dupe politicians into giving him what he needs to make his shareholders an astronomical windfall without any regard for collateral damage or keeping promises he never guaranteed in writing. If only those politicians didn't rely upon the people to keep their jobs, he might have succeeded.

Enter Elon Musk and DOGE—an unelected hatchet man and his unsanctioned department shingle removing anyone who would dare put the public's interest in front of corporate gains. It's why they want to privatize the post office and defund public institutions like NPR and PBS. It's why they gift governmental positions to compromised individuals that aren't just "yes men," but the very people benefiting financially from decisions in opposition to public consensus (just wait until you see where Kimball ends up). The MAGA sect brainwash their constituents into believing the same government programs that help them are actually corruptively helping "the other" more and therefore must be dismantled. And then, as their home is taken from medical debt, they continue to admire those "businessmen" for exploiting another loophole, refusing to acknowledge that loophole was them.

Everything is about money. That's what private equity is. Status quo and stable profit are never enough. They need more. They need growth. And they will burn down the country to get it and simply move on to the next when the well runs dry. The people know this. The community leaders at the back of Brooklyn's city council vote to let a company already earning close to 100 million dollars in profit a year to make billions instead know this. So, they fight to be heard. They fight to convince Council Member Carlos Menchaca that saying "No" might not get them what they want, but it still leaves the door open for negotiations later. Saying "Yes" only provides a façade of progress at the expense of real change. Because all those jobs that will be created will ultimately go to Manhattan transplants rather than Brooklyn locals. A "Yes" vote isn't for community advancement. It's for gentrification.

It's a complex battle that ultimately comes down to a branding issue. Companies like Industry City (backed by an entity whose name becomes synonymous with Jared Kushner throughout Emergent City's runtime) understand this and use it to their advantage by selling consumers exactly what they wish for today without also explaining how they won't be able to afford its benefits tomorrow. The big problem is educating the public about that disparity—opening their eyes to the propaganda that has taken over their entire existence via media outlets on television and the internet. We are in an era where our very lives are "pay to play" and we're voluntarily pricing ourselves out because too many of us have chosen hate ("I'd rather no one play than let them have a turn") over equality ("Let's all play together").

The access Anderson and Sterrenberg received for ten years is astounding because they get a little of everything. Kimball's smug smile. Antoinette Martinez's hand-shaking anger at organizations positioning themselves as public proxies despite ignoring the public. Menchaca's genuine (naïve) desire to have a dialogue with Industry City and negotiate a compromise. And Industry City's attorney's bald-faced entitlement in the belief these "peasants" can't do anything to stop the machine (knowing that, if they do somehow stop him, he's another Trump presidency away from removing every last accountability check stop from his path). I'd argue this little microcosm of a political debate perfectly illustrates what's happened to America during the twenty-first century. And even in its democratic victory comes the dawning realization that oligarchy already won.

You cannot deny that the informative and compelling footage the filmmakers have compiled is the main driving force here, but I must make note of the expert editing and structural organization of the whole with just the right amount of contextual exposition via newspaper headlines, archival broadcasts, and now-and-then superimpositions of the area in the 1930s, 60s, 00s, and today. Add the realization of what the people do want via one of the remaining state-owned waterfront areas and we even receive a bit of hope that all might not be lost yet. It takes films like this finding an audience and changing minds to keep that hope alive. And, if nothing else, that glimmer gave me a nice reprieve from the freight train that is America's current constitutional crisis.

- 8/10

ON SWIFT HORSES

(in theaters)

Lee (Will Poulter) knows exactly what he wants: Everything he didn't have growing up. A quaint little home full of love and family. To give his own children what he always yearned to experience himself. It's the dream he's strived to achieve since before leaving for the Korean War. One he hatched alongside his younger brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) despite knowing his participation was more poetic than guaranteed. It was simply nice to think about and to keep that hope alive. So, when Lee meets Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), he thinks the fantasy might finally become real. Get married, move to San Diego, and gaze upon a future filtered through glasses tinted by a nostalgia he never truly knew.

Daniel Minahan's film, and, presumably Shannon Pufahl's novel (adapted by Bryce Kass) isn't about Lee, though. No, On Swift Horses instead focuses on the two wilder souls he has hitched his dream upon. Muriel is a Kansas girl at heart, but an adventurous risk-taker in spirit. Julius is a charismatic spirit with a romantic heart. She joins in Lee's quest in the belief that Julius will be by their side to instill a bit of excitement. He pretends to still be on-board so he doesn't disappoint them. But neither really wants to put down roots behind the cage of a picket fence. Lee's dream is one steeped in security while their minds wander towards much higher stakes.

Superficially, those stakes come from gambling. Muriel secretly begins playing the horses via eavesdropped tips at the diner where she works. Julius brashly hits the card tables to grift and cheat his way into as many windfalls as beat downs. It's an outlet from their otherwise slow attempts at living the capitalist American dream, but also a placeholder for the risk they're desperate to take in love too. She thinks her gamble is with Julius, but he's less her literal target than its expressionistic mold. It's Gail (Kat Cunning) and Sandra (Sasha Calle) who catch her eye. Just as it's Henry (Diego Calva) who catches his. The question is therefore whether their longing is real or another means of rolling the dice. Because, as Gail soon admits, they're all a hair's breadth away from losing everything.

I enjoyed this complex romantic drama in large part because it didn't rely on Lee for its theatrics. Lesser works would have him try and beat sense into his brother or seek vengeance upon his wife. Here, however, he's the most empathetic and clear-headed character on-screen. Sure, he is hurt by what eventually transpires, but he would never begrudge another human being from the happiness they need to survive. Lee never uses the word "gay" or "homosexual" when speaking about his brother, but we know he knows. We know he loves Julius anyway and merely hopes his brother stays in touch. Because Lee does truly want to cultivate that familial connection he missed. To know his brother will always be there no matter what.

There's compassion and maturity in this reaction even if the era and moment still prevent him from openly accepting Julius as a person rather than a symbol. It's why we worry about Lee's feelings more than his actions when Muriel's extramarital affair escalates. He is the rock and, perhaps, the victim. The one destined to be abandoned because his idealism is too pure to concede that his dream neglects the nuances of a modern world. And it's through his consistency that Edgar-Jones and Elordi are really able to bring the mess and emotionality to characters that are too quick to let themselves down by conforming to the society Lee holds so dear. Because making him happy means sacrificing their own joy. And making themselves happy means risking their freedom.

In the end, all three ultimately choose themselves. It might seem convenient that this decision brings with it understanding and a genuine desire for the others to find what they're looking for even if they can no longer come along for the journey, but I'd argue this outcome is the surprising outlier. Rather than rely on the fireworks of self-pity or lashing out (both Muriel and Julius have their fair share of torment from their secret lives to not need extra from their public ones), Pufahl and Minahan deliver an impressively adult look at our collective struggle to find our place and identity in an ever-changing world. On Swift Horses is in many senses a coming-of-age film for the late-twenty sect in an era where one is supposed to already know who they are.

I won't deny that it moves quickly in some regards, but you must only believe in the love shared to get past the lack of foreplay, per se. I think it speaks to the vulnerability and confusion driving Muriel and Julius that they're able to fall so hard and so fast for others. That sense of home and peace that Lee finds in buying a plot of land to start a family is what those two see in each other and in Sandra and Henry respectively. They're the dream Muriel and Julius aren't sure will come true. Lee is the solid, safe figure in the rearview mirror they've been able to rely upon and, to some extent, use as a crutch to not pursue their own destiny. These are three inextricably bonded souls approaching the realization that their way forward demands they sever that bond first.

- 7/10

THE TROUBLE WITH JESSICA

(limited release)

Tom (Alan Tudyk) is readying the meal and Sarah (Shirley Henderson) is preparing to host when the phone rings. Richard (Rufus Sewell) and Beth (Olivia Williams) are still on schedule, but they're bringing an extra guest: Jessica (Indira Varma). It shouldn't be a problem because they are all friends—and have been since college. But it is a problem because there's history behind her place as their fifth wheel. Jessica wanted Richard, but he chose Beth. She'd been with Tom (and still flirts with him), but he chose Sarah. The reason is the same thing that makes her so alluring. While an unpredictability and wild nature is something for them to covet and be jealous about, it isn't conducive to sustaining a life.

What this quartet don't realize, however, is that this truth is something Jessica feels too. Whereas they could escape her whirlwind by embracing each other, she is stuck wondering if it was all worth it since the chaos and fun ultimately made way for loneliness and depression. So, in many respects, Jessica envies their comfort and stability too. She doesn't want to always be the screw-up amongst her friends—the ones they look down upon and make faces that she knows means "there she goes again." Suddenly becoming the talk of the town with a best-selling memoir may have helped even the playing field insofar as having something to hang her hat on, but it still isn't enough to satisfy her soul.

Matt Winn's The Trouble with Jessica (co-written by James Handel) is a collision course years in the making, yet still full of secrets and petty rivalries. It's difficult for Sarah to congratulate Jessica on her success when she resents her for always undermining her relationship with Tom. It's impossible for Jessica to pass up an opportunity to call out the hypocrisy of her friends even if it means telling a joke in poorer taste than the one she's commenting on. And, just as her star starts to rise, these two couples are crashing down to Earth. Tom has overextended his finances to the point where selling their home is the only lifeline he has left. And Richard and Sarah are treading water emotionally thanks to their immoral lives becoming a necessity to maintain materialistic pleasures.

Sarah and Beth tell each other everything. Tom and Richard do the same. So, Jessica becomes the odd person out—a burdensome distraction they refuse to either drop from their lives or honestly engage with a desire to truly be her friend. It should therefore come as no surprise that she does what she does nor that she does is in full view of them, knowing they're too self-absorbed to notice. The intent is not to implode their lives in the aftermath because Jessica truly believes they're on solid enough ground to endure her selfish pursuit of not being alone. One would be correct to say she's as much to blame for their strained friendships by not knowing the pain they were all in too (not to mention her role in creating it). The point being: she's not a victim. None of them are.

This is why the black comedy proves so successful. These are all reprehensible people in the vein that we are all reprehensible people. They aren't the ultra-rich (Amber Rose Revah's Ellen and Sylvester Groth's Klaus eventually enter to ensure this fact), but they are wealthy enough to live with a certain privilege that makes them feel invincible until the rug gets pulled from beneath their feet. That means Beth can lambast her husband for defending rapists in court even though she needs him to keep doing it to afford her wigs. Sarah can act like she is righteous when compared to Jessica and then turn around to coldly calculate the ways in which to exploit and manipulate a horrible tragedy to her advantage. These people all know the difference between right and wrong, but none are above moving that line when it suits them.

I don't want to spoil what that tragedy is (I went in blind solely based on the impressive cast without watching a trailer, so it might not be a spoiler at all considering how crucial it is to the narrative), so I'll merely say that Tom, Sarah, Richard, and Beth are thrust into a moral debate about survival. What are they willing to do for their friends? What are they willing to risk for themselves? Are the people in our lives truly indelible pieces or familiar objects to be moved around and discarded when a situation arises that renders them expendable? And how powerful a motivating force is fear in the face of inevitable consequences? Because even those dead set against following Sarah's admittedly callous plan find themselves volunteering their fealty once the moment arises.

Winn and Handel do their best to push each character's hand by parading a revolving door of new "guests" into the equation at the most inopportune moments. First, it's a busybody neighbor (Anne Reid). Then it's a genial pair of policemen (Jonathan Livingstone and David Schaal are a delight when confronted with the ever-present "clafoutis in the room"). Add Revah and Groth for the largest stakes considering what they stand for as both a way out for our leads and a mirror for their misdeeds and there's never a breath in the action. It's arguments, appalled dismay, boiled over frustration, and deer-in-the-headlights silence, rinse and repeat. Will they do what they must or what they should? Will they be able to live with the guilt attached to both options?

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw 10 Years (2012), Big Eyes (2014), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), The Founder (2017), Hot Shots! (1991), Juror #2 (2024), Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), Parkland (2013), Sign ‘o’ the Times (1987), and Wyatt Earp (1994) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

David Harbour dropping an f-bomb in Parkland.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 4/25/25 -

• The Accountant 2 at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Borbaad at Regal Elmwood

• Cheech and Chong's Last Movie at Dipson Amherst; Regal Transit, Quaker

• Jongli at Regal Elmwood, Transit

• The Legend of Ochi at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• On Swift Horses at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Sarangapani Jathakam at Regal Elmwood, Galleria

• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (20th Anniversary) at AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Thudarum at Regal Elmwood

• Until Dawn at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

Streaming from 4/25/25 -

• Babygirl – Max on 4/25

  “There's an honesty to the sex positive nature of the whole, but also the empathy inherent in the love for another and the love for oneself. [Kidman delivers] an emotionally daring performance.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Fréwaka – Shudder on 4/25

• Havoc – Netflix on 4/25

• Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins – Netflix on 4/25

• Last Breath – Peacock on 4/25

• Ernest Cole: Lost and Found – Hulu on 4/29

• The End – Hulu on 4/29

  “Shannon and Swinton are the ones doing the heavy emotional lifting by letting the twenty-year-old masks they've forgotten were glued to their faces slip.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Exterritorial – Netflix on 4/30

• Another Simple Favor – Prime on 5/1

• The Biggest Fan – Netflix on 5/1

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Ash (4/22)

• Hell of a Summer (4/22)

• Locked (4/22)

  “To the correct audience, however, Locked is a pretty accurate depiction of where we are right now. A populace beholden to the whims of an oligarchy setting obvious traps to justify its own violence.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Freaky Tales (4/25)

  “Oakland’s own Too $hort [narrates] the “facts” while also sprinkling in what he’s “heard” to cut through the speculation and breathe life into Fleck and Boden’s wildly violent homage to an era and area close to their hearts.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Mob Cops (4/25)

• Neighborhood Watch (4/25)

• William Tell (4/25)

• Winter Spring Summer or Fall (4/25)

My faves right now:

• “Mount Analogue” by SPELLLING

• “Pulse Drips Quiet” by Sleigh Bells

• “I’ll Be Gone” by SASAMI

• “Undecided” by SAINt JHN

• “More Than Life” by The Horrors

• “Lie 95” by Bartees Strange

• “POMPEII STATUES” by Benjamin Booker

• “What You’ve Lost” by The Old Mervs

• “Happy People” by Nao

• “The Iron Rose” by The Mars Volta

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What I Watched:

QUEENS OF DRAMA

(limited release)

It's been fifty years since Mimi Madamour (Louiza Aura) and Billie Kohler (Gio Ventura) met backstage during auditions for the televised singing competition "Starlet Factory". No one knew then that they'd end up with a stranglehold on the music-loving public for a decade. No one knew that they were in love either. Because that fateful afternoon put them on diverging paths despite their blossoming romance. One would prove victorious on the show en route to making all her stardom dreams come true while the other would be thrown off the lot and left to wonder if she'd also be forgotten by the person who said they'd be together forever.

Rather than tell this story from their perspectives, Queens of Drama director Alexis Langlois (who co-writes with Carlotta Coco and Thomas Colineau) introduces a third character by way of SteevyShady (Bilal Hassani). Forgotten by the public who knew him for his controversial YouTuber antics—much like those aforementioned idols—he decides to log-on and commemorate this auspicious occasion by telling the world (us) the real story of Mimi and Billie. Their affair. Their falling out. Their successes and failures. Everything SteevyShady loved so much that he leveraged his stalker behavior into becoming a rabid fan/critic and everything he abhorred enough to do his part to ruin their lives.

This choice revels in celebrity's fabrication. The artists, financiers, publicists, and fandom are all manufactured arms of the same capitalistic image machine, desperate to jack into the current zeitgeist long enough to make a few millions before it inevitably disappears. Mimi and Billie launch themselves on the ideal set before them by the previous generation (Asia Argento's Magalie Charmer and Mona Soyoc's Elie Moore) in the hopes of mirroring their highs and avoiding their lows. Parasites like Guy Brilland (Thomas Poitevin) seek to control them by ingratiating themselves on their brand before jumping to the next "hot thing." And SteevyShady's parasocial relationship to it all lets him go along for the ride until discovering hate sells quicker than adoration.

Is this an apology? Not really. It may seem like one at first considering SteevyShady admits his part in the circus, but he's also telling Mimi and Billie's story on his terms. He's once again using their notoriety to augment his own. First it was via the fictional "friendship" he formed with Mimi (complete with great Chris Crocker homage). Then it was the weaponized vitriol of taking her and Billie down in the most attention-seeking way. And now it's through the nostalgia of a milestone regardless of whether the world even remembers who they are ... let alone him. Langlois could have achieved a similar satirical glimpse into the "fifteen-minutes" machine by having Mimi and Billie start a podcast to set the record straight too. There are infinite ways to profit off success (and its loss) whether yours or someone else's.

Beyond the obvious industry commentary, however, is also the unfortunate realization that audiences (not critics) ultimately gate keep what art is allowed to be "great." Because this should simply be a love story between two artists who come together to make their lives and careers better. Instead, it's about mainstream appeal and the changing status quo. It's about Mimi only being able to hit it big if she projects a Cishet aura that sticks to the popular consensus that female vocalists must be lusted after by men and envied by women to be worthy of a consumer's time. So, she can't declare her love for Billie. She can't cheat on her forced gender identity or music genre. Not if she wants to rule the world.

This type of consensus is fickle, though. The masses tire of what worked in the past and seek a newer, flasher toy for the future. So, when Mimi's star unavoidably begins to wane, it's only logical that Billie's punk-infused counterculture mystique (dialed to eleven once her heart gets broken) would fill the void. The people are rejecting the "good girl" trend and jumping on the bandwagon of "bad girl" danger. Lock your doors. Hide your daughters. The fake glam of sanitized pop buckles under the grungy allure of rebellion. Parents want their kids to aspire towards Mimi, so the kids choose to rebuke their parents and idolize their worst nightmare instead.

Yet it's all still a lie. Because the moment the truth arrives, whatever good will either starlet received is erased in an instant. It's no longer about what parents or children want. Now it's about the tastemakers and influencers. You don't need to actually like it. You must only say that you do so you aren't left on the curb. Mimi is really a drug-loving wild child? Billie's transgressive aesthetic is based in plastic pop motif? They've been lying to us?! How dare they! We must revolt. We must prove that we are the most important part of this equation. Not the artists. Not the art. No, it's our narrative. But, as SteevyShady learns, not even that survives.

The messaging is sound with a package dripping in gender queer excess. That the music is catchy and fun almost becomes an afterthought since the lyrics and style are more a tool for the themes than the plot. You must only watch a drag show remix of three songs (two by Mimi and one by Billie) to realize how intent can be twisted to serve another's needs. Because even if Langlois delivers what we want (for Mimi and Billie to block out the noise and be their true selves together), it was never what the people wanted. At least, not in the way they should have wanted it. First it would have been "too gay." Now it's too "sentimental." So, if they must have it, they will rejoice in the mess with hare. They'll make it about themselves ... as they always do.

- 7/10

THE UGLY STEPSISTER

[Den stygge stesøsteren]

(in theaters)

I built up in my head that Emilie Blichfeldt's The Ugly Stepsister was a "Cobra Kai" variation on Cinderella. I'm not exactly certain why that is, but things did start to play out that way on-screen for a bit. Elvira (Lea Myren) is just a young girl trying to fit into a new world after her mother (Ane Dahl Torp's Rebekka) remarries. And when her new husband dies, the child hopes to still cultivate a bond with stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss). Unfortunately, the latter doesn't feel the same. Because while she may no longer be rich, Anges always lived like she was. She never wanted a new mother and siblings. She merely went along with it because her father was broke. It simply turns out that Rebekka was too.

So, when Elvira seeks to comfort Agnes in her grief only to receive bile in return, I prepared myself for this fairy tale's twist to render the usual heroine into the villain and the villain into the heroine. It wasn't long, however, before I realized that wasn't Blichfeldt's intent. No, things ultimately progress exactly as we know them to whether via Disney or Brothers Grimm. The difference, beyond spotlighting Elvira as our main perspective, is the light in which that progression is shone. Rather than present it as a fantasy come true for young girls to dream of becoming the trophy on a royal's arm, Blichfeldt lays that patriarchal misogyny bare. Because that's the true motivation behind such storybook romance: the desire to satisfy a man for survival in hopes he might satisfy you too.

This notion runs through the entirety of the film from top to bottom. It's why Rebekka moves her "hopeless daughters" (Elvira and her hasn't-hit-puberty-sister Alma, played by Flo Fagerli) so far away. It's why Prince Julian's (Isac Calmroth) decree for his ball demands "noble virgins" and not simply "eligible nobles." It's why Agnes resigns herself to pursuing the prince's hand in marriage despite already being in love with the stable boy (Malte Gårdinger's Isak). Why Rebekka weaponizes Elvira's dream of being a princess to let her mutilate her body in pursuit of the sort of beauty necessary to earn matrimonial revenue. And even why the local finishing school's headmistresses choose to beat autonomy and individualism out of their students so each becomes a docile plaything instead.

Therein lies the nightmare of what transpires. The malicious punishment of Agnes for daring to love someone on her own terms that labels her a "whore"—the age-old double standard wherein Julian's friends want to have sex with everyone that moves while treating everyone who complies like trash for "allowing" it regardless of consent. The body horror Elvira endures at an esthetician's chisel and by her own hand when deciding to go on a tapeworm diet. Rebekka's self-prostitution to "pay" for all the classes, surgeries, and clothes she prays will make her eldest daughter palatable enough to recoup everything once she moves into the royal castle. And, the most genuinely entertaining piece of this cesspool, the monstrousness of men drooling with hedonism as animal instincts reign.

So, well it's not quite what I was expecting, The Ugly Stepsister remains an intriguing re-telling via its shift in packaging. It also does the whole "what makes a villain a villain" thing that's ruining Hollywood correctly by presenting how society creates its monsters. That doesn't mean we must empathize with Elvira's actions since they are still objectively cruel. We're merely able to show her pity alongside our hate. And, similarly, we are able question Agnes' motives when she proves cruel herself without forgetting that it doesn't negate her own victimhood. Every woman on-screen is a victim regardless of their predatory, opportunistic, and petty ways. Because they are being forced into these roles by the deplorable men who refuse to accept them as equals. It's Feminism 101.

And this look behind the fairy tale curtain is driven by an extremely dedicated performance from Myren. The physical comedy and horror she provides is unforgettable as she must constantly turn on a dime from innocent wallflower to empowered mean girl depending on how the world around her accepts her ongoing transformation today. And the gruesome finale is nothing without her crippling desperation. All that work and pain she's endured to find herself needing to slide face-first down two flights of stairs says everything. Because it was never about doing what she wanted. Everything, even the poetic indoctrination of her favorite book (supposedly written by Julian himself) promising happiness, was about what he wanted. Elvira never stood a chance.

- 7/10

THE WEDDING BANQUET

(in theaters)

“The true highlights are Youn and Chen. Comedic timing, poignant pathos, and an authentic understanding in how they learn and grow to be what Min and Angela need even if it took them longer than it should.”

– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016), Clear and Present Danger (1994), Fast X (2023), Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Transformers (2007), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023), and Venom: The Last Dance (2024) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

James Cromwell dropping an f-bomb in The Sum of All Fears.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 4/18/25 -

• Arjun S/O Vyjayanthi at Regal Elmwood

• Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh at Regal Elmwood

• Sinners at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Sneaks at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• That They May Face the Rising Sun at North Park Theatre (select times)

• The Ugly Stepsister at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• The Wedding Banquet at Dipson Amhert, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

Streaming from 4/18/25 -

• Companion – Max on 4/18

• Dead Mail – Shudder on 4/18

• Grand Tour – MUBI on 4/18

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• iHostage – Netflix on 4/18

• Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror – Netflix on 4/18

• The Order – Hulu on 4/18

  “Their story unfolds linearly and without much flourish, but that's to its drama's benefit by keeping things lean while still ramping up the stakes. I was invested from the opening prologue of backwoods murder straight through to its fiery finale.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Wolf Man – Peacock on 4/18

• The Room Next Door – Netflix 4/19

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey – Netflix on 4/21

• The Return – Paramount+ on 4/21

• Bullet Train Explosion – Netflix on 4/23

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Captain America: Brave New World (4/15)

• Darkest Miriam (4/15)

  “I'm left wondering how much more of Darkest Miriam on-screen would make sense if I read Baillie's words. Or maybe the film just wasn't for me.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Day the Earth Blew Up (4/15)

  “While the over-arching narrative design hews close to the threat inherent to [1950s sci-fi], however, this remains a Looney Tunes property and thus needs a joke premise behind it. Queue the introduction of the Goodie Gum bubblegum factory.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Eephus (4/15)

  “The result is a low key affair with small town guys being dudes. They're mostly all attempting to tell each other how much they appreciate this time together without actually saying the words.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Woman in the Yard (4/15)

• A Working Man (4/15)

• Grand Tour (4/18)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Grassland (4/18)

• It Feeds (4/18)

At least Detroit still can’t get their Yzer-plan to work. So, our two fan bases can lament our consistency struggles together.

Besides the hockey (which was good with five straight wins against good teams before losing last night to Columbus), I also caught up on “Invincible” and re-watched “Hawkeye”.

I’m really enjoying Mark Grayson’s blood-soaked adventures and am fascinated to see how the whole Omni-Man and Allen the Alien team-up shakes out. The entire series has been interesting in its construction too by never truly having one story per season. It’s a lot of teasing and postponing while new or returning foes steal the limelight. You never quite know what’s coming and it keeps the action and stakes fresh.

As for Clint and Kate Bishop’s six-episode pairing goes: I still think it might be my favorite of all the MCU television shows. Concise. Connected to the movies. Funny. Just a real solid good time.

Now I only need to re-watch “She-Hulk” and “Echo” before finally diving into “Daredevil: Reborn”. I finished my Defenders marathon too soon, so why not revisit all the Kingpin/Matt Murdock appearances in the MCU during the weeks leading up to that reboot’s finale?

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What I Watched:

DARKEST MIRIAM

(limited release; VOD on 4/15)

Whenever a cinematic adaptation of a novel doesn't click for me, I assume it's because said adaptation comes from a place that demands familiarity with the novel. I feel this very deeply with Naomi Jaye's variation on Martha Baillie's Darkest Miriam because there does seem to be something here. I simply cannot penetrate the laborious pacing or obfuscating structure. I know it's supposed to be about Miriam (Britt Lower) coming to grips with her father's death, but it's almost impossible to reconcile that with what must occur to achieve that goal. The most integral piece to the puzzle—a romance with Janko (Tom Mercier)—is itself a manufactured mirror too fabricated for its charm to win out.

Chapter One is about introducing Miriam before eventually leading her to a moment of clarity about her loneliness. It's an odd little adventure through the eccentrics she must deal with as a public librarian that's made sinister once threatening notes apparently left for her (although their connection via Verdi's opera Rigoletto is one only she and her father would know) attempt to cloud the quirk with suspense. Rather than pursue this angle further than our quizzical hypothesis that she's leaving them for herself, however, we shift gears from goings on inside the library to goings on outside courtesy of a near injurious accident on her bicycle.

Chapter Two commences (Did my waning attention make me miss the Chapter Three interstitial or are there just two?) to portray the result of a doctor's visit wherein the attendant's intake questions force Miriam to realize she has no one else in her life. This is the impetus that gets her introvert to walk across the park during lunch and strike up a conversation with Janko. Yes, her interest in him predates the moment, but it's tough to truly understand her feelings beyond this pragmatic impulse without some internalization (presumably available in the text). We go along with the courtship and try to mine deeper alongside Janko (he tells her everything about himself while she remains closed off and silent when asked to "tell her story"), but never get anywhere.

So, when tragedy inevitably strikes to bring things full circle, I couldn't really feel anything. I became as seemingly apathetic about it all as the main character despite her tears revealing a crack in the armor. And with little left of the runtime, I hoped for some sense of closure despite fearing that none would come. Because we still don't know who wrote the letters (so I'll keep presuming she did). We still don't learn more about her father (beyond his addiction to books and dementia). We still don't even really know how she feels about what's happened. Jaye alludes to an awakening of sorts wherein Miriam allows herself an outlet through the poeticism of her "incident reports," but that's confusing too since her father was already an amateur poet.

My most interesting read of the whole is therefore that we haven't experience reality at all. Everything has been a projection of Miriam's desire to keep her father alive. She imagines him in another poet (Peter Millard's John B.). She digs out Rigoletto to fill the air. And Janko's avid reader and aspiring artist becomes an embodiment of everything she misses. We're seeing Miriam's memories of her dad through the triggers that remind her of him. Everything that happens is therefore less important than its impact upon her. Our interest in the supporting cast is only insofar as how they connect to him rather than how they exist themselves. Unfortunately, I didn't care enough about Miriam for this to fly.

So, I'm left wondering how much more of Darkest Miriam on-screen would make sense if I read Baillie's words. How much of what Jaye injects into her script with implicit visual language is the product of her knowing what each moment explicitly means, forgetting that an audience coming in cold (like me) won't be able to follow along? Or maybe the film just wasn't for me. Maybe I just didn't get it. Which is too bad because there's still a lot to like. Lower is good. Mercier is super charming. And the library's menagerie of patrons and employees supply the perfect off-kilter, straight-faced comedic energy I adore. The pieces are simply better than the whole.

- 5/10

HELEN AND THE BEAR

(screening online via the Cleveland International Film Festival)

The obvious entry point into the lives of her aunt and uncle was always going to be through him. Pete McCloskey was a revered congressman from San Mateo County, California whose experiences as a Marine during the Korean War led him onto an anti-war path despite representing the Republican party. He was a renegade and activist who would eventually switch party affiliation later in life to work alongside his wife Helen helping to register minority voters towards the goal of saving democracy from the collapse we're ultimately witnessing today.

That was Alix Blair's original intent when starting the project upon moving to California and getting to know the couple better after having only seen them half a day each year as a child. Once she began digging deeper into his career arc and their relationship, however, she realized her aunt was the more interesting subject. Twenty-six years younger than Pete, she was everything his first wife (with whom he had four children) wasn't. Helen worked as his aide. She understood the politics and the job. She knew the importance of his work and was willing to stand by his side in its pursuit because she also craved the independence his absence would afford.

This fact is key to Helen and the Bear because their love isn't conventional. Not in the sense of romance or the drama that results. Helen wasn't a homewrecker as one might presume from a superficial reading of their coupling. Pete's career is what ended his marriage. And their longevity despite the age gap and living on a farm isn't the product of perfection as many would like to assume happily-ever-afters are built upon. No, they've endured an open relationship of sorts. They've leaned on friendship, mutual respect, and a nontraditional sense of loyalty uninterested in monogamy. They weathered the storm of personal tumult and public decorum to come out stronger than ever before.

What I found captivating is the luck involved to get there. Not on behalf of who Helen and Pete are/were, but that they met when they did. Because the more you hear about her adolescence self-identifying as a boy yet not feeling as though she was gay and his early career as a Republican, the two would surely have despised each other had their meeting occurred today. She would have had a better understanding of being non-binary and/or bisexual. His being a member of the Republican party would have demanded a rejection of what she stood for. So, meeting in the seventies was fate. Pete's party hadn't yet fallen so far into fearmongering that he wasn't allowed the nuance to evolve and she was still mired in notion that the private life she craved must remain separate from the public life his career demanded.

As such, we see how her sexuality might have changed his politics (if the horrors of war weren't going to be able to do so on their own). We learn about the reality that marriage as an institution mustn't strictly adhere to patriarchal gender norms to survive. That there needs to be a balance and compromise between who you are together and who you are alone—and how one shouldn't be sacrificed for the other. Helen could accept his devotion to the job and extramarital affairs because that space allowed her to focus on her own form of both. And his love for her despite those things proved to him what love was—something his own children couldn't (his daughter admits that they respected the heck out of what he stood for, but knew they'd always be a footnote in his life).

Their bond only grew as a result, reaching this inevitable moment where her sixties meant he wasn't long for this world. Rather than let that reality change who they are, though, it merely reinforces who they've always been. They still do the work signing up voters. They still get high on mushrooms together and travel in their RV with their dogs. Yes, Helen thinks about what life without him will afford her on the independence scale, but that doesn't negate the feelings of loneliness she knows will arrive once he's gone. Because no matter what they did on their own during their marriage, they still had each other to lean on and come home to. Their love was strong enough to endure the other stuff. That other stuff was never strong enough to replace their love.

You must admire the candidness that comes from these types of documentaries due to a family member holding the camera. Blair's relationship to her subjects affords access, but it's her curiosity to truly understand them that delivers what we need to invest in learning about them too. The ever-present crosscuts between identical moments captured in the past via home movie and Blair's footage in the present-day say everything about how important and consistent Helen and Pete are to each other. And the use of her diaries to serve as captions and context for new revelations and admissions adds to their shared humanity on-screen. The film exposes a truth about America through the truth of two people who shouldn't work under our current tribalistic and fractured political psyche. It proves the labels and fear being weaponized to keep us apart are just a smokescreen manufactured by hate and greed.

- 7/10

PSYCHO THERAPY

[The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer]

(limited release & VOD)

Despite adding the words Psycho Therapy and a colon to the title, the combination never appears during the runtime of Tolga Karaçelik's The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer. Used to give audiences (and surely the studio's marketing) a shorter label to describe the piece, it does prove to be a concise way to forge expectations. Because "therapy" is involved once you consider that Keane (John Magaro) and Suzie (Britt Lower) are talking about divorce. A "psycho" is too considering the person they hire to be their marriage counselor is really a retired serial killer (Steve Buscemi's Kollmick). There's just a lot of additional context necessary to bridge those words together.

It's no surprise this marriage is on the rocks. We see it via an opening dinner party wherein two couples lead Keane on with morbid curiosity more than interest as far as learning what his new book is about. He doesn't catch on and genuinely seeks to clarify the details of his 40,000BC-set Slovenian romance while Suzie looks on with stone-faced indifference and fatigue. Keane innocently seeks approval while she lays bare her frustration with his naïveté. It's not just about this long-gestating novel idea that's going nowhere, though. She's become sick of the reality that everything he does goes nowhere. So much so that she feels more mother than wife. Always making their decisions. Always paying their bills. Always keeping him alive.

And by airing this belief in order to put herself in the headspace needed to finally move on, you can't blame Suzie for reading too far into what occurs in the aftermath. She's pretty much told Keane he's an albatross and that his gravy train is leaving the station, so finding books with the titles "Toxicology" and "How to Get Away with Murder" do force her to wonder if he's planning his revenge via murder. We know this isn't the case, though, because Keane was given those books by Kollmick as research into the topic of this eccentric's former career. As a fan of the author's first novel, he felt the desire to give him the first chance at writing about the exact sort of "sexy" topic audiences crave. He'll run Keane through his entire process: stalking, killing, disposal, and survival.

Karaçelik understands the absurdity of this scenario (similar to "Based on a True Story" in many respects) and decides to really amp up that farcical nature as he pulls his characters through. First: he creates a misreading of who Kollmick is so that Keane can artificially bring him into his familial fold without raising any red flags as a "marriage counselor." Second: he fosters a misreading of Keane's true interest in murder so Suzie's paranoia can coax her into the men's "professional" relationship. Third: he lets the inevitable collision course of these misreadings to play out as off-kilter as possible. Where that leads won't astound you considering how Keane and Suzie have been presented, but it's nice to see that Kollmick's presence is a salve for both.

If nothing else, Keane agreeing to let Kollmick be the Don Quixote to his Sancho allows him the space to get out of the pedantic circles his pretentiousness has trapped him within. Is he in way over his head? Sure. That's what makes it fun for us. Magaro excels at being a raw nerve of empathy and it serves this role well opposite the equally pragmatic Suzie and Kollmick. He spirals out of control emotionally so Lower and Buscemi can calmly tell him everything is okay as long as they don't lose focus. The best moments of the film are when Suzie and Kollmick become stuck in a cycle of literalism while Keane tries to snap them out of it just as they do for him when he's overcome with crippling fear.

It culminates into an entertaining third act that wraps up the myriad plot threads from the first two. Yes, it can be a bit trying to get through the latter en route to that payoff, but I do think the former is worth your patience. Because Karaçelik must set everything up and his hands are kind of tied when dealing with Suzie and Kollmick's monotonal existences. That robotic sense of propulsion allows Keane's eventual untethering to prove fun, but it does ultimately render a good portion of the film to become monotone itself. Thankfully the ends justify the means once Karaçelik goes full speed into the metaphor that marriage is similar to murder. Or, more specifically, that the adrenaline rush of one just might be the jumpstart necessary to reinvigorate the other.

- 6/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw House of D (2005), Limitless (2011), Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), She's Having a Baby (1988), Sorcerer (1977), and Waiting for Guffman (1997) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Aubrey Plaza dropping a series of diegetically censored f-bombs in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 4/11/25 -

• Akaal: The Unconquered at Regal Elmwood

• The Amateur at Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Ballad of Wallis Island at Dipson Amherst

• Drop at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Eephus at North Park Theatre (select times)

  “The result is a low key affair with small town guys being dudes. They're mostly all attempting to tell each other how much they appreciate this time together without actually saying the words.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Good Bad Ugly at Regal Elmwood

• Holy Cow at North Park Theatre (select times)

• Jaat at Regal Elmwood

• Jack at Regal Elmwood

• The King of Kings at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• I Know Catherine, The Log Lady at North Park Theatre (select times)

• One to One: John & Yoko at Regal Transit

• Warfare at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Transit, Galleria, Quaker

Streaming from 4/11/25 -

• Magpie – Hulu on 4/11

  “Ridley and Latif play their parts in this pulpy thriller's machinations to perfection, so don't be embarrassed if you end up standing to cheer the satisfying result.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Meet the Khumalos – Netflix on 4/11

• Pets – Disney+ on 4/11

• Shadow of God – Shudder on 4/11

• Ohio Confidential – Max on 4/15

• Small Things Like These – Hulu on 4/15

• Wealth of the Wicked – Max on 4/15

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• The Assessment (4/8)

  “Regardless of whether THE ASSESSMENT bit off more than it could chew, I did still enjoy it. The themes are sound, if also somewhat overt. The production design is amazing. And the acting keeps us engaged throughout.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• In the Lost Lands (4/8)

• Magazine Dreams (4/8)

  “Elijah Bynum's MAGAZINE DREAMS is a case where there are so many great things happening that are ultimately let down by execution.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Mickey 17 (4/8)

• Novocaine (4/8)

• On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (4/8)

• Seven Veils (4/8)

  “Jeanine is exorcising her demons by confronting her past through her art—wielding this opportunity as a weapon to ensure some culpability on [her former teacher's] part is added to the myth surrounding his acclaim with this specific opera.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• There’s Still Tomorrow (4/8)

• Universal Language (4/8)

  “Rankin and company are providing us a glimpse at the beauty of our shared human experience removed from labels and geography. The true "color blindness" of society isn't achieved through homogeneity. We get there through acceptance.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• The World Will Tremble (4/8)

  “The quick pace and fluid passing of time is the [film's] best feature because this escape becomes less about the characters than the act itself. Everything they sacrifice proves [their eye-witness account] will always be more important than their lives.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Eric LaRue (4/11)

  “The thing about Eric LaRue is that it doesn't mine these complexities to search for answers or empathy. No, it seems more interested in stoking the hate instead. It craves provocation.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Mogwai: If the Stars Had a Sound (4/11)

• Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (4/11)

  Thoughts are above.

• Relative Control (4/11)

This is a guy who still drinks Coca-Cola on the bench. A guy who has never changed his eating routines despite being just five months from turning 40. You might forget too that he lost his true rookie season to a lockout. This all probably should have happened in 2024. But he keeps ripping shots through goaltenders and averaging over seventeen minutes a game (twenty of late to push things since the Capitals already clinched a playoff berth). Are the commentators right that he’s barely moving out there? Sure. He’s still scoring over a point a game and is +17 doing it, though.

It’s crazy to think that fans my age and older have lived through this twice. I was twelve when Wayne Gretzky overtook Gordie Howe and here we are thirty years later watching history repeat itself (in almost the same amount of games with Wayne playing 1,487 and Ovi currently sitting at 1485). I just dug out my jumbo mail-in contest card commemorating the event. It’s historical stuff.

As far as the Russian/Ukraine conversation goes: I get both sides. Yes, Ovi still has a photo with Putin on social media. Yes, it would be great if he spoke out against the war. But he and his family live in Russia. Safety is a concern. Saying nothing might be akin to complicity, but not everyone can be Nikita Zadorov. Good on Dominik Hašek for using his platform to call out Ovi’s place in this moment, but I think we can separate the achievement from the war. It should serve as an asterisk to Ovi’s legacy, but maybe not to the record itself.

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What I Watched:

DROWNING DRY

(New Directors/New Films; Lithuania’s 2025 International Oscar submission)

It's a phenomenon wherein someone who survives a near-drowning incident faces complications because the body doesn't know the danger has ceased. Your vocal cords spasm and close to prevent water from entering the lungs, but the absence of that water forces the event to also stop air from entering. So, you ostensibly drown despite your lungs being dry.

While there's a depiction of this condition within Laurynas Bareisa's Drowning Dry, it's merely a catalyst for the drama that follows. Inspired by a similar real-life occurrence that forced the filmmaker to resuscitate his two-year-old son, the film mainly deals with the traumatic impact such scenarios cause for those involved. Bareisa ultimately found himself revisiting the almost-tragedy, repeating what happened in his mind only to find subtle shifts in perception or details within his memory. He uses this emotional response to infer upon the formal structure of his script so that the audience experiences the helpless panic that results.

A family summer vacation unfolds linearly for the first almost forty minutes. Since Lukas (Paulius Markevicius) wins an MMA tournament the same weekend as Tomas' (Giedrius Kiela) birthday, their wives (sisters in Gelmine Glemzaite's Ernesta and Agne Kaktaite's Juste) plan a trip to their parents' country home to celebrate. Unspoken rivalries ensue whether it's Lukas trying to keep up with Tomas' reckless driving (to almost tragic ends), Tomas proving he can fight (he can't), or the women leaving their husbands to fend for themselves with the kids: Lukas and Ernesta's Kristafus (Herkus Sarapas) and Tomas and Juste's Urte (Olivija Eva Viliüné). Ernesta copes with the risk in Lukas' career. Tomas copes with middle-aged insecurities. They all seek balance in an uncertain world.

Culminating with a catastrophic morning at the lake, we suddenly fast-forward an unknown number of days to witness an aftermath we assume was born from one truth only to discover a different one. It's upon this revelation that Bareisa takes us back to the unfinished drama to complete the scene and show us where our terror went awry. Rather than simply pick-up where he originally cut to black, however, Bareisa rewinds a bit further to repeat a song and dance number the women performed before heading to the water. Everything occurs much like we remember except for the song selection. It's a jarring moment because we become unsure whether we're about to see what happened after what we already saw or an alternative reality entirely.

The final forty-plus minutes therefore unfold non-linearly as we learn a bit more of what happened only to skip forward yet again. The result is less like my initial assumption of Bareisa being an unreliable narrator and more like we're being exposed to the truth through Ernesta's PTSD. We are to treat that initial cut to black as the point of no return. That's when the adrenaline spike of fear began and it never let’s go. What's more, however, is that everything we've missed and are about to understand (either visually or through dialogue) has already been seen before. Bareisa is very meticulous in ensuring the unseen horror is itself a mirror image of something we've already experienced. Maybe you cheat death once, but your luck runs out.

It's a fascinating way to tell what is an otherwise familiar tale of fateful tragedy and the inevitable implosion of its survivors’ lives. I'll admit that the first rewind had me dismissing Bareisa's choice as a gimmick seeking to breathe new life into an otherwise generic narrative, but the second and third skips bring everything into focus as a necessary means to an emotional end. Reading about why he constructed it this way after the fact only renders the result a bigger success because it's not about coincidence or manipulation. He sought to portray his own trauma and the myriad ways in which it manifests (panic attacks, invincibility, overcompensation, etc.) through each of his characters.

So, while I'm being conscious to not give anything away as far as who suffers from what, just know that it's okay to give yourself to the film's odd rhythm because that sense of confusion you feel is purposeful. The awkward silence of Lukas and Tomas eating outside and the weird comment Ernesta makes about a friend fostering seven kids is too. These are fallible people dealing with internal doubts while striving to stay afloat. Some of that pushes them to perhaps be careless and thus responsible for what follows. Some of it exacerbates their inability to deal with the fallout. And some even helps them find the strength to carry through. Our brains are fickle and our emotions are impulsive. Life is rarely ever perfect.

- 7/10

ERIC LARUE

(limited release)

Adapted by Brett Neveu from his own stage play—which debuted in 2002 at the A Red Orchid Theatre, of which he is an ensemble member and Michael Shannon a co-founder—the latter's directorial debut Eric LaRue proves to be a very off-putting film. I don't say that because of the subject matter, though. I'd use "difficult" to describe its narrative centered upon the complex aftermath of a school shooting. No, I call Neveu's story "off-putting" because it fully leans into the awkwardness of tragedy. We laugh when we're uncomfortable and every single character on-screen epitomizes this fact. I applaud the attempt to breathe life into this phenomenon, but I can't say it does the topic justice.

That's not to say it doesn't work in certain aspects, though. I absolutely love the commentary on religion and how a church—no matter how well meaning its pastors might believe themselves to be—exploits these sorts of horrors to close ranks, recruit parishioners, and solidify its authority on "healing." First there are the Presbyterians and Steve Calhan (Paul Sparks) desperately trying to be the savior Janice LaRue (Judy Greer) needs to move forward with what her son did (murdering three classmates in cold blood before returning home like nothing happened). Then there are the Redeemers and Bill Verne (Tracy Letts, whose "Bug" also premiered at Red Orchid) evangelizing grief in a way that strips Ron LaRue (Alexander Skarsgård) of agency as a means of relief.

After having recently attended a family's member's funeral wherein the denial born from a spiritual lobotomy was in full effect, the theatricality of the Redeemers service on-screen and the obvious trauma Laura (Jennifer Engstrom) is working through as one of the mothers whose son was murdered is spot-on. I'm not here to say what they're doing is unhealthy since whatever gets you through the pain to approach understanding is valid, but Neveu and Shannon pull no punches in their depiction of Ron's gradual indoctrination. He embraces the idea that Jesus will carry his burden. He yearns for such a simple and quick solution to the feelings his awkward introvert feels. They show how invasive this route is and how aggressive he becomes in trying to erase his suffering.

Janice rejects that. She needs to keep feeling it because she can't shake the mix of guilt and confusion roiling within. It's why she looks past Calhan's overt enthusiasm to attempt the dialogue he promises he can facilitate with the other victims' mothers in his congregation (Annie Parisse's Stephanie and Kate Arrington's Jill). Janice doesn't want to forget. She wants to understand. And she hopes sitting with them might move her in that direction despite the very real chance that they both blame her for what happened. It doesn't matter that she and Ron didn't supply the guns or that they didn't peddle militia rhetoric. They raised a murderer and should be punished right along with him. It's the sort of complexity that Fran Kranz's Mass and Grayson Moore and Aidan Shipley's Cardinals handle so well.

The thing about Eric LaRue is that it doesn't mine these complexities to search for answers or empathy. No, it seems more interested in stoking the hate instead. It craves provocation. Ron and Janice pulling further apart as their journeys towards healing diverge with animosity and apathy towards each other. Janice seeking causes for an unjustifiable effect that pushes the other mothers to start questioning her culpability more. Even the final scene pitting Janice against her son Eric (Nation Sage Henrikson) in prison—her first time visiting him—proves combative against the audience. It presents Eric with neurodivergent tendencies as though it could be construed as an excuse before ultimately having his admission of remorse rebuked by a mother demanding purpose.

I think this type of controversial incitement is probably what made the play an attractive piece to produce, but I don't believe it's constructive. It focuses on the nihilistic aspect of the whole and our eagerness to choose avoidance rather than education. Because it is easier to believe your son's heinous crime was committed out of necessity rather than whim. It is easier to believe your dead son got to smile by Jesus's side in Heaven early rather than think he left this world too soon. It is easier to hate the parents of the actual criminal rather than acknowledge they've lost their son too. Yes, he's still alive. But he's not there. In many respects he's no longer human (in a moral or legal sense). It's not about forgiveness. It’s about finding a sense of clarity.

By deciding to highlight mankind's worst aspects, Neveu and Shannon undercut the drama. It's an intentional choice—the undercurrent of cringe humor proves as much—so, kudos to them for executing it well, but it's hardly worthwhile insofar as saying anything of true merit. And that's why it's so off-putting. Greer, Skarsgård (who is channeling Shannon himself here), Parisse, and Arrington are absolutely fantastic, but it's tough to simply watch them all become some form of monster (except Arrington since Jill is the one piece with a hope for nuance) in response to Eric's monstrousness. The narrative complexity becomes a superficial coating atop the moral complexity, exploiting it to trigger emotions that inevitably aggravate more than instruct.

- 5/10

FREAKY TALES

(in theaters)

On May 10, 1987, Eric "Sleepy" Floyd put the Golden State Warriors on his back and scored a record twenty-nine points in the fourth quarter to cap a fifty-one-point performance that helped stave off a Los Angeles Lakers sweep. His team would ultimately lose the next game and the series, but the legend of that night still lives on. So much so that filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden decided to make a film about it. Rather than go the straightforward Sugar route, however, the duo decided to follow-up their big-budget MCU foray Captain Marvel with a timely grindhouse anthology romp pitting the underdogs of the Bay Area against a band of Nazis itching to have their heads exploded Scanners-style.

The result is the extremely entertaining Freaky Tales narrated by Oakland's own Too $hort. Think of the rapper as a repository of urban myths surrounding that specific NBA playoff run. He gives us the "facts" while also sprinkling in what he's "heard" to cut through the speculation and breathe life into Fleck and Boden's wildly violent homage to an era and area close to their hearts (Fleck used his memories growing up in Oakland as a road map). Because it isn't just Too $hort (DeMario "Symba" Driver) and Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) who show up. There's also Danger Zone rappers Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne). Settings like punk venue 924 Gilman, multiplex Grand Lake Theater, and ice cream parlor Loards. And a literal list of name-checked Warriors players.

Chapter One takes us to the Gilman and centers on friends Tina (Ji-young Yoo) and Lucid (Jack Champion) as their love of counterculture and hate for Nazis gradually allows love to blossom. Chapter Two follows Entice and Barbie as they deal with racist cops like Ben Mendelsohn and hope to land their big break via a rap battle versus $hort. Chapter Three centers mob heavy Clint (Pedro Pascal) on his last tragic day on the job now that his own debt is finally paid off. And Chapter Four finally lets Floyd shine both on the court and off it as an Asian art aficionado with a distinct focus on weaponry. Each is connected in minimal ways (with some characters seen in multiple parts) to maintain a narrative through-line that complements the thematic use of green energy harnessed by Psytopics.

What is Psytopics? It doesn't really matter. More a catch-all name to explain some of the insane stuff that happens than a fleshed-out self-help, infomercial-esque program crucial to the plot, it's almost just a brand name for the vibe of 1980s Oakland. Characters talk about signing up for a class, but only Floyd actually makes mention of having taken one (his own mind-over-matter faux seminar is apparently sponsored by the company). So, when Entice's microphone glows green, it's not because she's wielding the power of something she was taught. It's more innate. She finds her inner strength and it simply manifests with that Psytopic glow for the audience. Same with the green lightning. It's like Oakland is being supercharged to battle evil.

There's a lot of evil to combat when you have a gang of white supremacists trolling for minorities to torture. Can the Gilman crew band together and take the war to their abusers? Can Entice allow herself to believe someone might truly be trying to help when it seems like the entire world is out to get her? What about Clint desperately looking to shed the fact that he's killed people for his employer? Can he turn the page and escape a fate he used to dole out? They're all looking to tap into what Sleepy Floyd has already harnessed, but basketball heroics are no match for real-world heartache. Can he channel his rage into a climactic and cathartic slaughter of his enemies?

The "kids'" would-be disenfranchised victims rising up are a great entry point before being entrenched in the more tragic underpinnings of adult life. It's fun to see a bunch of punks lay waste to skinheads and empowering to watch Danger Zone turn an audience who paid to watch Too $hort over to their side (while earning his respect). Fleck and Boden build us up with excitement so we can sustain that energy through Clint's more sobering affair (complete with its own comic jumpstart via a cameo you can guess coming considering how often he's mentioned without being mentioned). And then they release that dread with one last bloody release wherein Ellis' goofy grin pairs with a steely resolve to ensure we head home smiling.

Pascal is the straight man as a result. He harbors no illusions as far as what he's dealing with and how much leeway he has to exit the other side. While his Clint has a job and the determination to complete it, however, he still has the humor to let everyone around him finish their shtick. Seeing him get invested in a topic we know he couldn't care less about only makes the joke better. It's the complete opposite with Mendelsohn. He's chewing up every second of scenery and having an absolute blast. From the smarmy racism to the sarcastic impatience (mostly targeting a deadpan Angus Cloud, whose death in 2023 shows how long Freaky Tales has taken to get released), his caricature of evil shows the inherent confidence of unearned privilege. His comeuppance is an absolute delight.

Oh. And the cameo wasn't wrong. Breaking Away is pretty great.

- 7/10

THE FRIEND

(in theaters)

I joked to myself that Scott McGehee and David Siegel's adaptation of Sigrid Nunez's The Friend was the cinematic equivalent to the bumper sticker "Who Saved Who," not knowing that it actually kind of is. It was funny in my head because Iris (Naomi Watts) is as need in of Apollo the Great Dane as he is of her. And Walter (Bill Murray) knew that would be the case. He saw her struggling with writing and teaching and asked her to edit a book of his correspondences (to his ex-wives, plural, mistresses, and friends) as a means of working off the block. So, it makes sense he'd also unofficially bequeath Apollo to her upon his death knowing his absence would prove as debilitating to Iris as to the dog.

But then we see her watching It's a Wonderful Life and waxing poetic on the idea of the selfishness of suicide and the notion that an angel could choose to save someone from doing it for the wrong reasons. These words come out during an emotionally cathartic moment wherein Iris imagines a conversation with her deceased best friend to work through her anger at what he did. She accuses Walter of not thinking about anyone but himself when he took his life—least of all the dog left helpless on the other side of the door. And while Iris might not overtly come to the same epiphany, we realize that the opposite might be true. Because Walter didn't just find Apollo a home, he found Iris a friend.

It's a simple yet profound sort of sentiment that truly does epitomize that annoyingly cloying sticker so many rescue owners place on the trunk of their cars. Considering we get a scene with Iris telling the psychiatrist (Tom McCarthy) from whom she's attempting to receive a "service dog" certificate that she feels like Apollo's "service human," it's a literal representation of it too. Dog lovers won't be able to resist the symbiotic relationship that blossoms between these two characters as Iris works through her grief. It's probably why Nunez's novel was a bestseller and why this film has resonated so much since its Telluride debut last year. Yes, it may seem superficially cliché enough for Walter to admit as much himself (through Iris' imagination), but it still remains honest.

Learning that the book was exactly how Iris explains she would write it—the only character with a name would be the dog—you must applaud McGehee and Siegel's ability to turn what amounted to a speculative fiction unfolding in the mind of a narrator reconciling her emotions into a fully realized dramedy that takes place in the real world. All the other characters surrounding their lead become mirrors and sounding boards. You have Val (Sarah Pidgeon) presenting the same conflict as far as what to do with Apollo once an eviction notice shows up at Iris' rent-controlled apartment door. Barbara's (Noma Dumezweni) forceful "he's not my problem anymore" white lies to get him out of her hands. Tuesday's (Constance Wu) materialistic, wannabe savior believing that caring for Apollo would be easy.

I love the constant barrage of condolences spun through the existence of the dog too. There's one instance of someone saying "sorry for your loss" as a drive-by in a school hallway, but we know every subsequent "oh, you're the one with the dog" feels just as infuriating because her being in possession of said animal is a direct result of her loss. Iris' use of the word "intervention" is correct because everyone thinks they know what's right for her. But they really only know what would be right for them. They wouldn't want to lose that small yet affordable apartment, so, of course, Apollo must go. Iris agrees with them too ... mostly. At first. Because she has become mired in the writer's block, routine, and complacency. Only Walter truly acted in her best interests—well, he at least thought of her when acting in his own.

Because the thing she really needed was someone to love. Walter gave her that. It wasn't perfect or romantic, but it was true. She was literally the only woman he was ever able to have a lasting relationship with since all the others were seen as sex objects first. He was willing to break those bridges for the physical intimacy. He conversely stopped the physical intimacy to maintain a kinship with Iris. I don't necessarily like how the film ultimately puts her happiness into his hands both when alive (ending the romance) and dead (foisting Apollo onto her), but you can look past it because it takes two to tango. She stayed close with him despite the red flags elsewhere too. Add the "Daddy issues" notion, however, and the film's depiction of agency leaves something to be desired.

But, like with the It's a Wonderful Life metaphor, Walter is more Clarence than George in the analogy. The interesting thing is that he plays the role for both the dog and Iris. Because he does kill himself. As such, it was he who saved Apollo from a life of isolation roaming NYC—not the opposite. And then it was his death that strove to save Iris from a dearth of creativity. That's the messed-up part. You could read The Friend as Walter killing himself to save her. As though he realized his presence was keeping her tethered just like her sick father needed her to care for him. Iris was always too quick to turn her existence into a tool to assist his genius. And now to protect Apollo. The psychological possibilities are endless. Regardless, the messaging is sweet. The depiction of human/canine love and affection is pure. And Watts is given a wonderful part to excel in.

- 7/10

THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA

(in theaters)

It's an insane true story. Michael Larson flies from Ohio to California to audition and earn a spot on the game show "Press Your Luck" before winning an unthinkable $110,237. Could someone truly be that lucky? Could he be smart enough to somehow beat a presumably random series of lights and prize panels? Could he be reckless enough to challenge the game's built-in risk without fear of losing everything? These were the questions CBS posed in the production booth because they were desperate to find some evidence that would allow them to refuse payment. In the end, however, they mailed the check, changed the game's infrastructure to prevent a repeat, and banned Larson from returning.

As Samir Oliveros' cinematic version of Larson's (Paul Walter Hauser) victory The Luckiest Man in America states before the studio logos even grace the screen: names and facts have been changed and combined. While this is a reality in the business to streamline the narrative and make it as compelling as possible, Oliveros and co-writer Maggie Briggs were very liberal with their creative license to really augment their lead's back story. Yes, he drove an ice cream truck, but he didn't drive it all the way to Television City. Yes, he had a daughter with his wife (Haley Bennett) who was celebrating a birthday, but he also had two other children from two other women. So, you smooth out the edges and embellish the everyman mythos to make Larson an underdog worth our endearment.

The other way to do that is by creating a villain: Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn). A co-creator of the show and de facto "man in charge," the film opens with him hand-picking Larson precisely because he seemed schlubby enough for audience investment and helpless enough to guarantee a loss. Here was a Whammie fanatic with a personal connection via his family tradition of watching the show during breakfast with his daughter. How could you not want him on that stage for the crowd to love him like a sweet little puppy? Larson appeared to be the perfect mark to go along with a Baptist minister (Brian Geraghty's Ed) and dental assistant (Patti Harrison's Janie). Three soft-spoken balls of nerves to either slip up or play it safe so the show could continue normally.

Bill's right-hand man Chuck (Shamier Anderson) is less enthusiastic. He smells con man from the jump, but he has no real power and can only shoot his boss an "I told you so" face once things begin going off the rails. I wouldn't go so far as to categorize the movie as a thriller like IMDb, but Chuck does inject a bit of suspense once he's enlisted to figure out how Larson is doing it ... if he's doing anything at all. The middle section plays like a stationary chase as Michael keeps pressing that button and Chuck keeps rummaging through the contents of the ice cream truck parked in the lot. Can they stop him? Can they prove he's cheating? Can they spin his luck into a victory for the channel too?

There's a lot of moving pieces. This is a character-driven dramedy through and through with some really nice human moments (Ed comforting and consoling Michael when things get crazy) and entertainingly heated exchanges behind the scenes (Walton Goggins' host, James Wolk's tech, Maisie Williams' PA, and others are trying to do their jobs to keep the show running without accidentally putting their own heads on the chopping block for what's happening). And all the while Larson is trying to call home to tell his birthday girl the good news despite the walls closing in. Because tensions are rising higher and higher. Maybe they don't know what he's doing, but Michael knows they understand it's something.

I enjoyed the direction Oliveros and company go as far as turning Larson's ex-con grifter into a folk hero. The film ostensibly does to his actual story what CBS hopes to do in this onscreen reenactment: ride the coattails of public sentiment to the bank. So, you let Michael stumble into a talk show taping (hosted by Johnny Knoxville). You let him finally make that call and realize he truly is doing this for his daughter. You let the host lean into the roller coaster ride and egg Larson on rather than try and trip him up. Ed even becomes his biggest cheerleader despite not being able to play the game since Micheal keeps hitting extra spins. We are the crowd forming around the craps table when a hot hand is working its magic. As one character says, "It's the American Dream."

Hauser has made a career out of this sort of role. Always hapless, I do prefer hapless with a heart of gold (see this and Richard Jewell) over hapless opportunist (see I, Tonya and "Cobra Kai")—although the latter is a ton of fun too. His ability to pivot from confident to ashamed on a dime is unparalleled. We feel his anxiety and ride the rush of excitement because Hauser wears every emotion on his sleeve. So, it's the perfect contrast to have Strathairn feeling the heat so his own anxiety proves prevalent for the opposite reason. Add Anderson's coolly vindictive path towards self-preservation and the game is on. The era-specific production design, expert pacing, and captivating twists once the truth is uncovered provide the scaffolding so the actors can turn it into gold.

- 7/10

SEVERANCE: Season Two

(streaming on AppleTV+)

My initial thought upon completing Dan Erickson's "Severance" Season One was that he and executive producer/director Ben Stiller were going to have a difficult time living up to the promise. Because this isn't "The Bear". Yes, it's character driven with a great mix of comedy and drama like Christopher Storer's show, but the simple fact that it doesn't exist in the real world brings with it myriad questions. This is a puzzle box the likes of which we haven't truly seen since "Lost" and we all know how unwieldy and meandering that became as the creators sought a way out. Would "Severance" suffer the same fate? Or did Erickson have the answers from the jump?

After listening to an interview recently, I'm not quite sure he did. He credits Stiller with grounding the story and removing unexplainable bits of color that skewed even more surreal than the final product. That's not to say Erickson didn't still have an endgame planned. Maybe he merely went overboard on the sky's-the-limit reality of playing in a completely fictional sandbox. The question would therefore be whether he and Stiller could implement the guardrails necessary to maintain that same level of mystery while also giving each seemingly weird detail purpose. Talk of behind-the-scenes turmoil towards that goal scared me. A three-year wait for Season Two (union strikes or not) scared me more.

The good news: I think they do have a destination. One could say Season Two is all about putting the loose ends from its predecessor onto the rails that will get us there. The identity of Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). The cult-like, oligarchical hold the Eagan family has on this world. Harmony Cobel's (Patricia Arquette) past. The goats. All these things that made us hypothesize meaning become a bit clearer once the one-two punch of "Hello, Ms. Cobel" and "Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig" finish. Because we do need to witness the consequences of Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving's (John Turturro) unsanctioned Overtime Contingency Protocol. That first episode shows it from the "innie" perspective. The second from the "outie" perspective.

It is a lot to process, however. And Erickson and company are forced to travel at lightning speed to get it all in. They don't have the luxury of keeping worlds separate anymore. Mark S and Mark Scout each have their own specific quest to travel now that he (and we) can no longer pretend they are the same person. That's the real point of the show, after all. That creating a new consciousness creates a new person regardless of whatever legal loopholes someone's lawyers can write-up to the contrary. Helena Eagan was wrong when she told Helly R she wasn't human. So wrong, in fact, that stating those words ultimately ignited the first battle of this revolution in "The We We Are". Nothing emboldens someone to want to fight their oppressor more than constant dehumanization.

The main "outie" plot is obvious: Mark must weigh reintegration to figure out how to rescue his wife. The others—Dylan dealing with the fallout of his "innie" discovering he has children, Irving sleuthing out why he was at Burt's (Christopher Walken) doorstep, and Helena closing ranks to ensure her "innie" doesn't become her own company's downfall—are contingent on what happens on the severed floor. Add that Cobel's dismissal and Mr. Milchick's (Tramell Tillman) promotion bring with them a need to pour water on the fire via a new "friendlier" work environment and the deception grows tenfold. Because the more you cater to the "innie", the greater the risk of trouble for the "outie". Autonomy demands freedom. Freedom demands sacrifice.

Since the season does move fast (it's ten episodes long, but devoting one to Irving, one to Cobel, and one to Gemma means there are only seven to truly advance everyone together), the big deception is easy to guess. Not that the show is trying to hide it. The only motivation a character has to lie is exactly what we soon discover. The trick then is still making it an interesting reveal. Tying it to an internal epiphany and, subsequently, the most heartbreaking moment yet is a job well done. Coupling its damaging effect on the victim with an equally horrific violation upon another only ups the ante to prove that Erickson isn't messing around. If he's going to give the "innies" life, he must also give them emotions ("tempers"). And just like Mark's loss of love drives him to Lumon, the threat of lost love for the "innies" drives them to desperation.

I enjoyed what that means both for its impact on the plot (we finally learn what the numbers are) and the acting showcase it provides the entire main cast. Turturro and Cherry are next level because their arcs are purely emotional. Scott and Lower are great too, but they are so intertwined with the narrative propulsion that we do lose a bit of complexity (although Mark S and Helly R's choice to be pawns is voluntary as a means to giving the finale's opportunity to be selfish greater impact). It's great to see Lachman finally get a chance to shine too. She is effortlessly shifting personas to fantastic effect with the sadness of her "real" self shining through the pain of her "job." Arquette doesn't get much screentime, but she's excellent as always when present.

The real highlight is Tillman. What an absolute gift. I didn't think his Milchick could get better than the middle management façade of being pals with and disciplinarian for his severed employees. But the moment he settles into his new role as floor supervisor is the moment he realizes he might have it the worst. Because the Eagans (especially their fixer Mr. Drummond, played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) treat him like he treats Macro Data Refinement. Since he isn't severed, however, he must endure their slights and tone-deaf bigotry knowing full well what's happening. He tries to take it in stride. He tries to point his rage at his new assistant Miss Huang (Sarah Bock's intriguing arrival whose presence is more for Cobel's past and Milchick's anger than her own present). Eventually, he's just as incensed as MDR.

Despite the unavoidable shakiness of trying to smooth out the mysterious edges that made the enigmatic Season One such a singular masterpiece while still advancing character development (and supporting a revolving door of stunt cast bit parts from John Noble to Merritt Wever and Gwendoline Christie to James Le Gros and Sandra Bernhard to Bob Balaban and Alia Shawkat to Jane Alexander), Season Two is still an impressive ride that I do believe lives up to the promise of the first while also laying a foundation to ensure better pacing for the third. We might not have fewer questions despite the answers provided, but those queries are much more focused now. The world has been enlarged geographically and philosophically as the work spills into reality and the "innies" become fully aware that their existence isn't a game. Bring on the war.

- 8/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw The Beaver (2011), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Gung Ho (1986), National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985), Tank (1984), and Winner (2024) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

James Garner dropping an f-bomb in Tank.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 4/4/25 -

• Freaky Tales at Regal Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• The Friend at Dipson Amherst, Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Hell of a Summer at AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Luckiest Man in America at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• The Martial Artist at Regal Elmwood

• A Minecraft Movie at Dipson Capitol, Flix; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Princess Mononoke 4K at North Park (select times); Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Sikandar at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 4/4/25 -

• 825 Forest Road – Shudder on 4/4

• Test – Netflix on 4/4

• Y2K – Max on 4/4

• The World According to Allee Willis – Hulu on 4/5

• 2073 – Max on 4/7

• Not Just a Goof – Disney+ on 4/7

• Lake George – Hulu on 4/8

• The Dad Quest – Netflix on 4/9

• Frozen Hot Boys – Netflix on 4/10

• G20 – Prime on 4/10

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• The Actor (4/1)

• Audrey (4/1)

• Black Bag (4/1)

• The Colors Within (4/1)

  “Totsu, Kimi, and Rui are able to reconcile the two halves of themselves together and see a way forward via compromise for both. Maybe bending the rules will actually get them closer to God than if they blindly followed each to the letter.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Green and Gold (4/1)

• Harbin (4/1)

• Paddington in Peru (4/1)

• Opus (4/1)

• Shiver Me Timbers (4/1)

• You’re Cordially Invited (4/1)

• Fog of War (4/4)

• The Monkey (4/4)

• Night of the Zoopocalypse (4/4)

• No Address (4/4)

• The Unbreakable Boy (4/4)

Here’s the wrinkle: wasn’t it destroyed? Everything I heard about it and Batgirl was that the tax break for never releasing them meant they could never be released. Talk of “wake-like” screenings before pressing delete seemed to corroborate this too. Is that therefore why WB re-engaged with a potential sale now? Is next month’s Tax Day the deadline to purge the title forever? (I don’t know how corporate tax works.)

Either way, the fact that a studio can simply disappear a film it has already drummed up interest for is wild. Sure, if it’s a clunker that just can’t find a good edit (and the creators agree, like with Michel Gondry and Pharrell Williams’ Golden). But Coyote vs. Acme tested great. The cast loves it (Will Forte takes every chance he gets to bad-mouth WB for refusing to let it see the light of day). It will recoup its budget.

I hope Ketchup secures the rights and we get to see the final product. I’d love to add the scene with Wile E. Coyote holding up the “*&%*@” sign to cinematicfbombs.com. And then this guy can finally go home.

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What I Watched:

GRAND TOUR

(limited theaters, streaming on MUBI soon)

It's an hour into Edward's (Gonçalo Waddington) journey that we finally learn the plot to Miguel Gomes' latest Grand Tour. Not that it's a necessary thing to know. His tale of leaving Rangoon the moment his fiancé (Crista Alfaiate's Molly) arrived from London is less a purposeful discovery to understanding the film than a reason for its existence. Gomes could have just taken us on this tour of Asia without these characters as guides—especially since half the film shows each country and culture's present-day while narrators tell us what Edward and Molly are doing back in 1918. I can't say if that would have been better.

I can, however, say Grand Tour was not for me. It's obviously well-made with some insightful commentary on humanity, colonialism, and post-colonialism, but I found it near impossible to stay alert enough to try parsing any of it. This was true about the superficial romance used as its scaffolding too considering its admittedly humorous premise (a man sailing across Asia to avoid getting married keeps being thrown out because it's easier for them to believe he's a western spy than a massive coward) carries little payoff beyond that gag.

Only when he realizes he hasn't heard from her (Molly is hot on his trail, warning him with telegrams that ultimately ensure she'll never catch-up) do we rewind to follow her path. That's when the contrast between man and woman arises with Edward wanting to stay in these beautiful countries only to be pushed out due to mistrust while everyone wants Molly to stay only for her to ruthlessly exploit them for her pursuit. She goes from endearing jokester who laughs by blowing raspberries to opportunistic murderess very quickly.

I probably should feel something by the end either via this tragic love story or the over-arching cultural epic of a continent that survived its European infestation, but it was tough to latch onto the fiction or the documentary. That said, this will definitely hit those who do catch Gomes' wave and ride its sluggish pacing and thematic cross-cut allusions with relish. I'm glad to have watched it, but I was also relieved upon its end.

- 6/10

LOCKED

(in theaters)

While David Yarovesky's Locked might be based on an Argentinian film (Michael Arlen Ross adapts Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat's 4x4), it's also very much a metaphor for today's America. The car is our country. Expensive, luxurious, and seemingly open to welcome in those who wish to turn their lives around and prosper. As soon as someone enters it, however, they watch as the roads paved in gold dissolve to reveal a cruel and vindictive system of torture porn-level bureaucratic "tests" that are rigged to cause you pain while the tester laughs and revels in their self-satisfied sadism.

William (Anthony Hopkins), the rich, self-pitying doctor who fancies himself a "self-made" man who's had to watch the rabble destroy his "great nation" while stoking his anger with fear rather than quelling it with charity (think Ebenezer Scrooge if the producers making that weird horror universe of public domain children's IP added Charles Dickens to the catalog), is our government. Old, white, male, and entitled. He's so far removed from what it means to be a person struggling to succeed in a system built to fail them that he keeps living on spite to punish them more by reinforcing that system to become even crueler. All to protect his gilded cage. To protect his sense of superiority.

Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård) is us. Yes, he's a deadbeat dad and petty thief too, but the film takes pains to ensure we know he's trying to be better. He's an archetype we're taught to despise as a villain who's given the sort of two-dimensional room for empathy to appreciate how straying from a path of righteousness is often necessary to keep your head above water long enough to build a solid life. And even then you're still probably living paycheck to paycheck with the threat of one bad health scare pulling you back down into poverty. Because even if the mechanic did give Eddie a break and let him take his van back to pay off the debt later, they're all still "working poor."

That's where the difference lies. "Working poor" are battling the system to survive. "Working rich" is an oxymoron. The big action scene at the center of Locked deals with William trying to tell Eddie that he and his ilk (epitomized by two thugs beating up a civilian in an alley) broke the "social contract" first. If they are allowed to abuse, steal, and kill, why shouldn't he? It's the sort of superficial false equivalency that the one-percenters and their republican sycophants love to smirk about despite having no basis in reality. I'm not condoning crime, but there is a difference between someone doing something horrible with their back against the wall and someone who wants for nothing shooting them in the head with a grin. One is attempting to survive. The other is having fun.

Does this film have the ability to truly mine that nuance? No. It's a thriller that leans into the disparity between someone who can afford to build a car with a big enough battery to imprison and torture a victim for days on end and that victim who literally only needs four hundred bucks to stay afloat. Men like William will watch this film and believe he's the good guy. They'll treat his actions like the revenge fantasy their lawyers tell them they don't actually have enough money to commit themselves without consequences. To the wrong audience, Yarovesky has "both sides" the argument because they cannot parse the fact that they are the bad guys. If they just paid taxes, so much of America would be different.

To the correct audience, however, Locked is a pretty accurate depiction of where we are right now. A populace beholden to the whims of an oligarchy setting obvious traps to justify its own violence. The ironic thing is, of course, that the traps they set are always more expensive than the solutions the populace has requested from them. Rather than spend a few million to augment an already working process that combats injustice, billionaires will pay hundreds of millions to erase that process completely and pocket the savings themselves. Why? Because punishment is the point. The Williams of the world don't want justice. They want to be Gods.

Like so many executives who inevitably become too complacent to understand their own evolving industry and product, though, they forget the people they pay to make their prisons are often the ones they're trying to trap within them. William believes his bullet-proof and electrified SUV is an impervious vehicle because it is to someone who knows nothing about how it's made. Sure, the name Dolus (Latin for deception) is a fun nod to it being a Trojan Horse of sorts for Eddie, but I wonder if Achilles would have been more accurate since it possesses a single, very specific weakness. Either way, desperation is always more dangerous than hubris. And if our current government continues to treat us like criminals regardless of guilt, they'll find out.

Making up for its lack of nuance as far as not accidentally fueling the bad guys' sanctimony is a suspenseful narrative that allows Skarsgård to command our attention as the protagonist for once. Hopkins is mostly relegated to voice work as his William lays out his hypocrisy and privilege while subduing his prisoner with loud yodeling and extreme HVAC temperatures. The film gets pretty dark once William reveals his conscience is fully broken and the car's static locale shifts to high-speed horror and remote-controlled brutality. One man strives to be the smartest one in the room while the other gradually chips away at proving intellect is no match for ingenuity.

- 6/10

THE PENGUIN LESSONS

(in theaters)

"The Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day" is all I could think when Tom Michell (Steve Coogan) finally grows a spine and confronts the fascist who disappeared the granddaughter (Alfonsina Carrocio's Sophia) of a janitorial "contractor" at the school in which he worked. This Brit, who'd been teaching English all across South America as a means to avoid the pain in his heart, was hired precisely because he'd become apathetic through tragedy. A coup was brewing to ignite what's been dubbed "The Dirty War" and headmaster "Timbuck" (Jonathan Pryce) wanted to ensure none of his teachers threatened the safety of his wards—children of well-to-do and well-connected parents. Keep your head down, don't bother trying too hard, and survive the semester.

As Peter Cattaneo's The Penguin Lessons (adapted by Jeff Pope from Michell's own memoirs) tells it, this Grinch was fine looking the other way. When his students fooled around and paid little attention to his lesson, he merely soldiered through in a dull monotone to be able to tell himself he did his job if only they cared enough to listen. He slept on a park bench when forced to coach rugby. He took the week-long uncertainty of a nation's transition into a military junta as an excuse to travel to Uruguay and get laid. And when Sophia was taken just seconds after talking to him on the street, he lowered his eyes and pretended he didn't hear her screaming his name to help her.

That's where Juan Salvador comes in. Saved from an oil slick to impress a woman, Tom finds himself unable to shed his new black and white shadow. He tries throwing the penguin into the sea. Tries leaving him in his hotel room to make the staff deal with his removal. He even intentionally allows himself to be detained at customs in the hopes they'll refuse the animal entry into Argentina upon his return. But no one else wants the responsibility either. Whether locals or police, they all act like doting grandparents—spoiling the bird to satisfy their own fascination before forcing Tom to take it away, regardless of legality, and keep its fate out of their own hands.

Well, the penguin becomes Michell's little Cindy-Lou Who. He's a sounding board. A mirror. A reminder of the empathy all humans should let drive them instead of the fear that often takes its place. Tom's not alone in using him in these roles either. Sophia's grandmother talks to Juan Salvador like a therapist. Tom's fellow teacher (Björn Gustafsson) and even, inexplicably, Timbuck do the same. With so much political turmoil and danger looming, having someone to listen without the worry of betrayal becomes a godsend. Juan Salvador also diffuses the animosity brewing in Tom's English class. His presence holds their attention and Michell's gradual thawing to teach about community, compassion, and freedom gets them to shed the indoctrination of their parents.

It's an inspiring story on all fronts. Yes, Tom reclaiming his voice and courage is paramount, but we're also watching distracted students find focus and a cowardly principal rediscover the real power his position affords. I don't necessarily love the exploitative nature of the Sophia subplot allowing us to applaud aristocrats for daring to do the right thing once in their privileged lives (it's very copaganda-adjacent since the fishmonger never returns and the end credit text tells us 30,000 "Disappeared" remain unaccounted for to this day), but I get the need for a "win" to keep the vibes hopeful in what's billed as a feel-good true life tale of bravery. Considering what's happening in our world—specifically America with its own broad and illegal renditions—it proves performatively quaint.

That's the mission, though. Say something, but not too much. It's Michell's progression in a nutshell too. Yes, he stands tall and risks arrest. Yes, his actions snowball into potentially saving a young woman's life. But did he truly cause change? Did those students grow up to reject their parents' politics and return their country to democracy? Doubtful. These types of films generally show how the teacher betters the students' lives, not how the students are ancillary to the teacher remembering that refusing to look away does matter. Sure, it won't solve whatever issue you stood up for in the moment, but it will keep reminding people that fear is the point. The regime will get away with it, but you didn't blindly let them without a fight. This lesson isn't for those kids, though. It's for us.

- 6/10

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

(limited theaters & VOD)

I was only two years old when Andy Kaufman passed, so my exposure to his comedy would always carry hindsight. Re-runs of "Taxi" on Nick At Nite gave me my first taste. Here was a funny actor doing a funny "foreign man" schtick. I didn't know the context or the avant garde nature of his stage act. I assumed Andy was playing a character he would then shed off-camera. So, I was surprised when searching for more work showed "foreign man" was one of many long-running bits built to intentionally blur the line between reality and performance. It's one thing if you watched Kaufman pivot his counter-culture popularity to the mainstream. It's another to learn Latka Gravas wasn't just "some role."

The rabbit hole I would eventually fall into—"Saturday Night Live" gags, Tony Clifton, intergender wrestling, etc.—is pretty much the same one that director Alex Braverman leads us through with Thank You Very Much. It's a lot more comprehensive than my own journey considering the internet of the 1990s wasn't quite what it is now. It's also a lot more personal thanks to the decision to only interview people who knew Andy personally and could speak from first-hand experience (Bob Zmuda, George Shapiro, Lynne Margulies, Marilu Henner, Danny DeVito, and the Iranian college roommate who offered up his speech patterns as a gift to exploit in his act). Unless Kaufman does suddenly appear to say he faked his death, this is about as complete a biography as we'll get.

It's funny that Zmuda prefaces his answer to the question of whether Andy did fake his death by cancer at age thirty-five with the words "I have to be careful what I say" because it shows how committed they all are to a good bit. Why ruin the possibility of the unknown by just flat out saying you watched him take his last breath? It won't make him more dead. So, evade it a bit. Reminisce about the time you two joked about actually faking his death over and over again to ensure no one would ever know if his real death was real. Kaufman's entire career was built off awkward silences and off-putting confrontation to the point where we as an audience needed to believe it was a joke just to not despise him. Why not sustain that same human desire for hope an awe regardless of the truth?

Not that everyone possessed hope or awe once Andy pushed the envelope further and further towards exposing the fact that life itself was an act. People did hate him too. You can't be as good as he was without conjuring just as much vitriol as love when walking that "man behind the curtain" tightrope of persona. It's no coincidence that Braverman pretty much asks every woman in this film what they thought of Kaufman's heel turn wrestling women. They all explain how they understood the joke and might have even laughed, but not one of them shied away from admitting they didn't like it. Because, as one says, this calculated act was just as misogynist as it was feminist. It was just as cruel and exploitative and violent as it was funny. That contrast was key.

Braverman does well to provide history for this truth whether the unfortunate trauma his parents bestowed upon him as a child when his grandpa died, the adoration for professional wrestling and the knowledge that the heel always got the biggest reaction his grandmother instilled, or the intrinsic place contrast plays in Andy's devoted practice of transcendental meditation. He takes us through the angles to show the impetus of the comedian's tonal shifts as well as the yearning to blow everything up. As one interviewee states, Kaufman was a mirror upon humanity and not everyone looking back appreciated what they saw. He forced audiences to judge him. He allowed them the space to hate him. And they were helpless from sitting with the person they became as a result.

While the biographical details, psychological through lines, and anecdotes are a huge part of the film's success, however, the big draw is the footage. Braverman got his hands on everything. Home movies. Behind-the-scenes shots. Reactionary audio recordings. Stand-up performances (including from Carnegie Hall). Wrestling matches. And a plethora of media clips you've never seen (and many you have). It's a time capsule of a man who refused to be anything but himself. A man who doubled down whenever the choice to unflinchingly commit seemed to only make things worse. Andy Kaufman was an icon to laugh at, share in his embarrassment, and abhor—often all at once. He was a singular talent who broke the rules and paved the way for much of what entertainment has become. Thank You Very Much provides the biographical foundation so you can draw the lines.

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Back in Action (2025), A Face in the Crowd (1957), and The Island (2005) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Does anyone know the story behind this line reading in A Face in the Crowd? It might be a silenced f-bomb as presumed by a commenter since the silence feels total, but his mouth never leaves its “fuh” position before finally getting the “Fix” out. So, maybe he just has a stutter? An f-bomb in 1957 is wild (I say after finding one in 1953’s Wages of Fear translation as well).

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/28/25 -

• Audrey's Children at Regal Transit, Quaker

• Day of Reckoning at Regal Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Death of a Unicorn at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Chosen: Last Supper Part 1 at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• L2: Empuraan at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria

• Mad Square at Regal Elmwood

• October 8 at Dipson Capitol

• The Penguin Lessons at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst; Regal Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Robinhood at Regal Elmwood

• The Woman in the Yard at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• A Working Man at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

Streaming from 3/28/25 -

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip – Disney+ on 3/28

• Bring Then Down – MUBI on 3/28

  “It's a truly grim drama with blood and anger dripping off every frame. The cycle [of violence] might finally be over, but the damage has already been done.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Queer – Max on 3/28

• The Life List – Netflix on 3/28

• The Line – Hulu on 3/28

• The Rule of Jenny Pen – Shudder on 3/28

• White Bird – Starz on 3/30

• Promised Hearts – Netflix on 3/31

• The Last Stop in Yuma County – Paramount+ on 4/1

• Banger – Netflix on 4/2

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Dark Match (3/24)

• A Cursed Man (3/25)

• Ex-Husbands (3/25)

• Livestream (3/25)

• Nocturnes (3/25)

• Bring Then Down (3/28)

  “It's a truly grim drama with blood and anger dripping off every frame. The cycle [of violence] might finally be over, but the damage has already been done.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Los Frikis (3/28)

• Renner (3/28)

• The Rule of Jenny Pen (3/28)

• Thank You Very Much (3/28)

  Thoughts are above.

With 150+ titles taking up space on my hard drive, I took the past week to go through them, clip each f-bomb scene, and delete the original files. As a result, my drive is now 200gb lighter (with more to go) and I have 100+ movies ready to add to my database. And since I know for sure these titles have an f-bomb (sometimes I download subtitle files that say one exists only to discover it doesn’t once I finally get my hands on a copy of the film to check), I added them to my index early so people know they’re on the way before reaching out to let me know I missed one of their faves. (Many thanks to those who do reach out with suggestions.)

Some interesting tidbits found while clipping these files:

• William Friedkin’s Sorcerer has two instances despite a PG rating in the 70s—probably should be an R-rated film even without them.

• Jeremiah S. Chechik’s The Avengers added their one f-bomb via ADR because the studio wanted to increase the rating to PG-13 due to fears a PG would keep fans of the original TV show away.

• European Vacation dubbed over Chevy Chase’s f-bomb during a car chase at the end of the movie because they already had another one in a French subtitle gag at the start. Shows how different things are now than in the 80s. Nudity was better than language then. Now you can have as much language and violence in a PG-13 film as you want as long as no one sees a nipple.

• Hackers dubbed over a much better f-bomb while keeping a lesser one instead of fighting to retain both—probably because the first was sexualized and the second wasn’t.

• Swimfan gets five instances because it uses a song in the background of a scene that seems to have one included in every single lyric.

I recommend watching Saveydro’s videos to really get a sense of the history of the word in cinema and the evolving censorship criteria surrounding it because it’s truly wild and often arbitrary. And beyond that specific word, it’s fascinating to see the series of events that led to the PG-13 even being a rating at all.

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What I Watched:

BIRDSONG

(Cinequest Film Festival)

“Amariz is touching on mankind's penchant for allowing itself to be held captive by love, longing, and desire. The result is a quiet and thoughtful enterprise.”

– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

THE HEIRLOOM

(limited theaters)

Allie (Grace Glowicki) watches home movies to better remember the moments from her life that she cherishes the most. Eric (Ben Petrie) lives his life as though it can be perfectly executed as a film he can experience for the first time only after it's complete. You'd like to say their relationship epitomizes the "opposites attract" philosophy, yet you can't help bracing yourself for the wheels to finally come off. Thankfully, rather than test the integrity of their union with a baby, Allie and Eric take the more reasonable approach of adopting a dog. Milly the Whippet still creates the same crisis point of responsibility and commitment, but with greatly reduced stakes.

Written and directed by Petrie (from a story by himself and real-life partner Glowicki), The Heirloom throws us into the deep end with Allie stomping up the stairs to barge into Eric's office just after he hastily buckles his belt to ensure it looks like he's working on his script and not masturbating. Her excitement stems from hearing back from an "ethical" dog breeder that they can get their names on the reservation list of an impending litter. She's been emailing countless shelters with zero response and thus took the leap to secure a puppy before COVID lockdown makes getting any pet impossible. Eric feels blindsided because his one stipulation for agreeing to the dog was that it be a rescue.

Everything seems normal so far. Allie really wants this and cannot contain her emotions en route to perhaps jumping the gun out of a false sense of immediacy. Eric wants her to be happy, but his lack of interest in caring for the dog has him focusing on assuaging any guilt that purchasing one might make him complicit in a system of suffering. Yes, both sides are hyperbolic for the comedy, but we get where they're coming from. And the fact that Petrie skews even further from sanitized fantasies of utopian love to let these characters go through the self-admitted, asinine process of Allie emailing Eric—while in the same room—to "book time" to discuss next steps only endears us to the scenario more.

That's when things start to go off the rails. Eric, needing to be in control and letting his inner director out, gets very into learning everything he can to be the perfect dog owner raising the perfect dog. He tells Allie how to act despite her catalyzing this whole endeavor. She's not only not allowed to show emotion. She must be devoid of it. Because it's not enough to simply look calm (according to his book-on-tape), you must be calm when asserting your "quiet dominance" over the creature. Suddenly this fun new chapter in their lives becomes a regimented to-do list of chores. And since Eric is the one dictating it—not to mention failing at his rules—any mistake ultimately puts the blame upon his shoulders.

It therefore makes sense that his existential crisis, stemming from the knee-jerk necessity to reconcile his father's devotion to work and his mother's devotion to family, threatens to turn an already delicate situation more tenuous. Rather than allow himself to live with the woman he loves and the dog they've adopted while also working towards his career goal of becoming a filmmaker, he decides those two things must merge to receive his full attention. But, as the distinction I laid out in the opening paragraph reveals, the simple act of doing this means they are not equal. Allie sees through the ruse straight away but hopes things will work out. We, however, witness as Eric turns his life into a project so his brain can wrap itself around allowing it to possess meaning.

The result is formally intriguing with Petrie leaning into this duality. He blurs the line between reality and fiction in such a way that we cannot tell which is which. We know Eric is recreating moments to set-up how they acquired Milly—Allie plays along in intentionally over-the-top, silly fashion—but he's also running through multiple takes of new experiences. Does that mean he's pausing authentic reactions to events so he can play with the responses? Or is he merely doing so in his head because he's only currently able to process reality through the practice of filmmaking? Add the fact that the fiction's reality of Eric and Allie is itself a fiction to the reality of Ben and Grace and it shouldn't shock you when a boom operator walks across the screen or a drone shot loses the score so the whir of its engine can dominate.

I enjoyed this aspect of the film a lot (including its commentary on the pandemic's isolation and heightened anxiety) and also invested in the Milly of it all considering her mannerisms are identical to how our Greyhound acted throughout his life, but the big draw is Glowicki's performance during the second act once Eric fully spirals out of control. Allie, thankfully, gets real very quickly. She processes what's happening as we are and harbors no illusions as far as what Eric is becoming (or finally revealing to her). I love the contrast of how level-headed and honest she is while he continues to lie and obfuscate the truth to maintain a semblance of control. Whether they stay together or part ways proves inconsequential to Allie's epiphany that something must change either way.

- 7/10

MCVEIGH

(limited theaters & VOD)

I won't deny that the time for a Timothy McVeigh movie is now. This was an ex-army, white supremacist, 2A-nut who decided to strike back against the American government for what he and his like-minded brethren saw as governmental over-reach during the Branch Davidians siege in Waco, TX. That event—and the Ruby Ridge standoff, another incident involving a search warrant for suspected weapons stockpiling—combine to serve as the basis for the modern-day militia epidemic running rampant across the country (and currently unofficially sanctioned by the Trump administration via dog whistles to deflect culpability). The Oklahoma City bombing was the first strike of a movement that ultimately led to an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

To go back to 1995 is therefore a timely pursuit. Especially if you're drawing lines to where we were and where we are now. We've gone from domestic terrorist attacks to an increase in hate crimes to literal Nazis marching in the streets with police protection to a "more civilized" contingent of "disruptors" weaponizing their political power to strike back against the so-called "Deep State" by infiltrating the very government they accused of over-reach to actually over-reach and dismantle it from the inside. Just as US Senators and cabinet members start to say the quiet part out loud about apartheid and Hitler, I don't think it would be a stretch to poll certain elected officials on whether they view McVeigh as a hero. Hell, my own aunt just posted on Facebook that sending tattooed Venezuelans legally seeking asylum to an El Salvadoran labor camp (without due process) was "six million dollars well-spent."

So, it was nothing short of disappointing to discover director Mike Ott and co-writer Alex Gioulakis decided not to mine deeper than the isolated surface of one man's actions with McVeigh. At worst, they even seem to be trying to absolve those who helped Tim (Alfie Allen) by paying particular care to ensuring it was his idea and his alone. French-Canadian neo-Nazi Frédéric (Anthony Carrigan) is desperate to get in on the game, but McVeigh shuts him out. Nichols (Brett Gelman) is so scared throughout his aiding and abetting that he leaves without warning the morning of the attack. The only person Ott allows to be a firm push towards infamy is Timmy's death row mentor Richard (Tracy Letts) goading him to finish what he himself failed to do a decade prior.

All these external forces (including a potential love interest in Ashley Benson's Cindy, who he shoves away for daring to go into his room and earnestly wonders why she hates him afterwards) prove to just be noise. They simultaneously tether Tim to reality and coax him over the edge to satisfy his extremist desires. We aren't therefore watching a conflicted monster (thank goodness), but a conflicted life that poses no threat to his singular goal. In that respect, Ott is at least pulling no punches as far as not allowing sympathy for McVeigh, but he doesn't supply an alternative target for us to care about and thus invest in the narrative. You can't expect there to be suspense in a true-events film that focuses on the villain doing villainous things. No investigators trying to catch him or even a look at the victims he's about to kill.

File the whole under the nihilism label instead. It's almost daring us to revel in the violence because that's the endgame and there's nothing else to look along the way. That it's all so methodical and minimalist doesn't help matters since the progression becomes rote. Tim needs ammonium nitrate? He only needs to pose as Nichols' nephew to get it. He needs other materials? He can steal them without incident and drop a name to buy more from dangerous people without batting an eye. Maybe that's the real terror? That there were zero roadblocks to what he ultimately accomplished? Yeah, I guess that's a scary thought—especially now that America is disappearing its citizens and threatening to impeach judges for refusing to toe a party line of autocracy.

McVeigh is a well-made piece, but its lack of proving its worth as a version of this story to tell (either as prescient or cautionary) sinks it. Gelman (a slow-witted lackey susceptible to peer pressure), Carrigan (a charismatic evil relishing the knowledge that McVeigh is doing "God's work" from afar and salivating at the chance to help), and Letts (a determined zealot of hate slipped beneath a mask of intellect to falsely justify his actions) are very good in supporting roles and Allen's robotic nature and stoic peacocking when threatened (perfectly contrasted by his little boy insecurities around the opposite sex) really brings the titular character's clichéd psyche profile to life. We just aren't learning anything. McVeigh is an exact replica of so many who came before and after him. We need more than his readily available and presumed process. We watch the news.

- 5/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw The Gorge (2025) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Miles Teller dropping an f-bomb in The Gorge.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/21/25 -

• The Alto Knights at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Ash at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• The Assessment at Regal Galleria, Quaker

  “Regardless of whether THE ASSESSMENT bit off more than it could chew, I did still enjoy it. The themes are sound, if also somewhat overt. The production design is amazing. And the acting keeps us engaged throughout.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Disney’s Snow White at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Locked at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Magazine Dreams at AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Galleria

  “Elijah Bynum's MAGAZINE DREAMS is a case where there are so many great things happening that are ultimately let down by execution.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Pintu Ki Pappi at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 3/21/25 -

• Bloody Axe Wound – Shudder on 3/21

• Little Siberia – Netflix on 3/21

• Revelations – Netflix on 3/21

• Sing Sing – Max on 3/21

  “The film is never better than when [Maclin and Domingo] are together because you really get a sense of how fine the line separating us is. No matter our pasts or actions, a shared humanity remains.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Wicked – Peacock on 3/21

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• The Fire Inside – MGM+ on 3/24

  “In the end, THE FIRE INSIDE is a sports biography with all the trappings you'd expect. It's a solid debut for Morrison and a star-making turn for Destiny with a message for girls and boys to know their worth and never settle.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Mufasa: The Lion King – Disney+ on 3/26

• A Complete Unknown – Hulu on 3/27

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Holland – Prime on 3/27

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Tokyo Cowboy (3/17)

• The Dead Thing (3/18)

  “It's an effective thriller that lets its themes exist beneath the surface so that those uninterested in delving deeper can simply enjoy the ghost story turned quasi-slasher on its own merits.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Devils Stay (3/18)

• Director’s Cut (3/18)

• High Ground (3/18)

• Last Breath (3/18)

• My Dead Friend Zoe (3/18)

• Armand (3/20)

  “Armand is distilling mankind’s penchant for baseless attacks and fear-mongering down into the interaction of three distinct entities in a familiarly simple scenario.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Cleaner (3/20)

  “The filmmakers might as well have just delivered their Die Hard retread without jumping through hoops they so readily erase whenever finding themselves flirting with taking an actual stand.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Hood Witch (3/20)

• McVeigh (3/20)

  Thoughts are above.

• Popeye the Slayer Man (3/20)

• Riff Raff (3/20)

  “It feels like Pollono wanted a full-blown comical farce and Montiel didn't get the joke because everything is way too absurd to be delivered so seriously.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

Well, I didn’t hear anything … until a screening link popped into my inbox one day without warning. Then came the publicist email saying, “A screener of XXX has been sent to you and all thoughts are embargoed until XXX.” I thought to myself, “Cool, I’ll watch it tomorrow.”

And then, about an hour later, I received a second email from the publicist saying the studio advised they “aren’t able to send links.” Sure enough, I checked the screener link and found it no longer active. They rescinded my access.

Which is fine. I get it! But why do publicists keep putting their feet in their mouths with their verbiage? Tell me it was sent in error. Don’t tell me the studio said you “weren’t able” when you obvious were because you did. Tell me I don’t rate—I’m often surprised when I do! I didn’t expect a screener to be available anyway, but sending and then pretending like it never happened is wild.

It really is a crapshoot, though. That title isn’t even getting a wide release, so why not give smaller city critics a look? There are many smaller studios than this one getting wide releases and they still send links (see IFC Films all the time, Seven Veils last week, and The Day the Earth Blew Up this week). It’s to the point where the lack of consistency has me simultaneously wanting to just not bother and spam every single publicist on the off chance their film is inexplicably available.

The worst: When a publicist who always says “No” suddenly emails me asking to review a different title as a favor to them. Sometimes it’s a publicist I can barely earn a response from one week who then spams my inbox the next for something else. I guess the system forcing me to shoot my shot blindly is forcing them to do the same.

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What I Watched:

CONTROL FREAK

(streaming on Hulu)

Val! That’s the wrong hand! The fact I thought this without even considering there was a second step in her extreme yet industrious process to rectify that presumed mistake should tell you how much confidence I had in Control Freak.

I love getting new monsters with a unique cultural spin and the whole metaphorical personification of imposter syndrome and self-loathing as a parasitic demon, but Shal Ngo’s narrative execution behind those things feels never-ending. Scratching. Futile attempt to stop scratching. Alienating loved ones via the frustration from scratching. An escalation of the scratching. Over and over.

Kudos to the gore and effects work in the third act. Gnarly stuff. Some wild real-life developments that seem scientifically impossible eventually undercut it, but maybe my fatigue with the story made me miss context? It’s stuff that we shouldn’t need to suspend our disbelief for when we’re already doing that for the psychological horror.

Despite having watched Miles Robbins act in so many movies, I couldn’t stop seeing him as Dylan from The Quarry throughout this one. The limb removal parallel didn’t help matters. Kelly Marie Tran = innocent. She’s quite good here.

- 4/10

THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP

(in theaters)

Considering what David Zaslav did to Coyote vs. Acme (erasing it from existence for a tax write-off despite very positive reactions), we're lucky that Peter Browngardt's The Day the Earth Blew Up found its way to Ketchup Entertainment to become the first Looney Tunes film not released by Warner Bros. since 1975's United Artists documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar. Why Zaslav decided to shop this one around upon deciding not to release it on Max as originally planned (or why someone was willing to buy it) and not Coyote vs. Acme, is anyone's guess. It's probably just some algorithmic equation Wall Street fed him to ensure another few million dollars entered his own pockets.

Browngardt and original screenwriter Kevin Costello (who are ultimately joined by nine storyboard artists to fill out a whopping eleven-person writing credit) took inspiration from 1950s-era science fiction B-movies to hatch an alien invasion plot that only the unlikely duo of Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (both voiced by Eric Bauza) can thwart. While the over-arching narrative design hews close to the threat inherent to films like The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, however, this remains a Looney Tunes property and thus needs a joke premise behind it. Queue the introduction of the Goodie Gum bubblegum factory and its potential to manufacture a stick that's able to mind control the entire planet with humanity's propensity to chew.

First things first: two prologues. One to introduce The Invader's (Peter MacNicol) arrival at the back of an asteroid and his first victim, an unsuspecting scientist (Fred Tatasciore) who bravely chases a crash landing only to walk right into the villain's trap. A second to introduce Porky and Daffy's origins as infants raised by a matte painting (except, distractingly, in two specific instances despite already establishing his intentionally static nature as a visual gag) known as Farmer Jim (also Tatasciore). Think of this latter bit of exposition as a reminder of canon for the two characters' friendship and just how often Porky's plans for normalcy are upended by Daffy's inability to control his worst impulses. We even get a "Merry Melodies"-esque montage to drive this dynamic home.

Between that short-within-the-feature and another gorgeously rendered retro-futurist sequence depicting our heroes' first day working at Goodie Gum (thanks to the recruitment by Candi Milo's equally awkward and chaotic Petunia Pig) I really hoped for more turns into disparate aesthetics and references that sadly never came. Once that first day moves from success to disaster (Daffy's curiosity leads him to unwittingly figure out The Invaders plans with the perfect amount of hysteria to ensure no one will ever believe him), Browngardt and company settle into a straightforward narrative of action, suspense, and absurdist comedy. Because it's not enough to just save the day. Porky and Daffy are so unfortunate that saving the day from an external foe often means ruining things badly enough to need saving it again ... from themselves.

Besides a penchant for butt jokes, I really enjoyed the sense of humor that runs throughout. Petunia provides a nice foil to the main duo as her position as romantic interest for Porky and fabricator of Daffy's wild ideas makes it so she proves crucial to keeping them together rather than tearing them apart. They do the latter all by themselves once frustrations grow to a fever pitch and force Porky to undermine Daffy's involvement and Daffy to lose confidence in his instincts. You can't blame this result either considering Daffy too often single-handedly destroys any momentum they have earned. It's only natural that Porky would blow-up and that Daffy would feel so ashamed that he won't want to risk enduring a second helping of steam whistle rage.

Anyone who knows Looney Tunes, however, knows Daffy's idiocy as a secret weapon is as important as its ability to create conflict. Because the more he undermines the realistic nonsense solutions hatched, his unrealistic nonsense ultimately becomes the solution. We're dealing with gum-chewing zombies controlled remotely by The Invader through a telekinetic bond with space goo-infused candy. There's also a not-so-hidden worse danger looming in the shadows and a ruthless house inspector (Laraine Newman's Mrs. Grecht) gleefully preparing to wipe Porky and Daffy's dilapidated house off the map. Put all that together and you need a bit of insanity to go with a closet full of novelty teeth, Brian Adams-backed flashbacks, REM-fueled action. Because being too safe (Porky) or too demented (Daffy) never succeeds. You need a bit of both.

- 7/10

LEILA AND THE WOLVES

(limited release)

Looking into a mirror, Leila (Nabila Zeitouni) sees herself as a grandmother far into the future. She sits with her daughters and granddaughters, asking each who they are and whether they've married and/or had children. It's an image of a woman's patriarchal duty to serve men and something Leila rejects upon her return to reality. That's neither the fantasy she wants nor the future she truly sees for herself. No, it's the fantasy Arab men have been projecting upon her from the day she was born.

Heiny Srour's documentary Leila and the Wolves mixes fictionalizations of true-to-life scenarios with archival footage and dream sequences adding context to each vignette. She gives her Leila character the ability to open windows into the past and share with us the untold tales of Palestinian and Lebanese women throughout the twentieth century. It's a journey that stems from a London exhibit of photographs depicting the freedom fighting of these two people and the choice of its curator (Rafik Ali Ahmad) to only select images of men. "Where are the women?" she asks. "They weren't involved in politics then." is the reply.

Knowing this to be a false, revisionist statement, Leila's glimpses backwards in time place Ahmad into the roles of domineering, traitorous, and conservative men standing in the way of or being duped by women leading their rebellious charge. We witness wives and daughters pouring boiling water onto the heads of British colonialists in Palestine during the 1930s. We witness the clandestine operations to resupply mountain rebels with weapons via wedding ceremonies no one would second guess. There's the fight for women to join the military in both Palestine and Lebanon and the feminist desire to escape the oppressive nature of male counterparts demanding their service to the cause while also denigrating their desire to provide it.

The wolves of the title are therefore not just those holding British, Nazi, and Israeli flags. No, the sharp-toothed predators are just as prevalent within these women's doors as they are outside of them. Brothers and husbands demanding warm dinners even as their sisters and wives worked all day filing down bullets to fit into their guns. Fathers limiting the education of their daughters so that they will marry and give birth to new male soldiers rather than be able to learn, lead, and strategize the fight themselves. There's the struggle between enduring the abuse to serve their people and wondering if it would have been easier to simply stay home. The old guard shakes their heads while the new tightens their fists.

Throughout this timeline jumping history lesson are also scenes of women in full burqas sitting on the beach as though they are the ghosts of each story Leila invokes to share these generational touchstones. We see Leila in her white dress walking through scenes of war—some locations burnt out and destroyed while we hear the sounds and voices that one would imagine used to fill the space in happier times of peace. And for every moment of grief or empowerment lies a scene of violence and death with the British and Israeli armies killing and throwing out Palestinians or adding fuel to the Lebanese sectarian civil war. Some are battles. Others are slaughters.

The result is a powerful document of women's crucial impact to the Arab world during this time of cultural and political upheaval. It ensures their voice won't be silenced or pushed to the sidelines as if they weren't there fighting the entire time. Where European and American sentiment looks to erase the entirety of Arab autonomy and ownership throughout the region or Arab men look to pretend they fought to preserve it all themselves, Srour—by way of Leila—helps to set the record straight.

- 8/10

THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE

(limited release)

Written in 1942, the Grojanowski Report became the first eye-witness account of the Holocaust. Smuggled out of Poland to be broadcast in London, the world finally learned that the Nazis were building extermination camps to commit genocide. Grojanowski was the pseudonym of Szlawek Ber Winer who escaped the Chełmno "labor" camp with Michał Podchlebnik and fled to Grabów, not long before its own people would be gassed, in search of a rabbi who was said to have connections with the underground. Already forced to bury their own families, these two prisoners sought to do all they could to ensure the truth might spare the families of others.

Written and directed by Lior Geller, The World Will Tremble tells their story in faux "real-time" from the moment Wolf (Charlie MacGechan) puts his plan in motion until Rabbi Schulman (Anton Lesser) speaks the title's words to trigger a cut to black. Szlawek (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) initially tries to stop Wolf from carrying out his plan of cutting through the canvas side of their transportation truck and running along the riverbank to Grabów. He knows their survival is tenuous and talk of the Russians being on their way is a nice fantasy to cling to so as not to volunteer his head to the chopping block. But as Wolf explains, they're all dead already. So, there's really nothing to lose.

It's a suspense-filled journey that pulls zero punches as far as the abuse endured at the hands of Nazi officers from Szlawek being unable to reclaim his lost shoe before being forced to dig a new grave to Lange (David Kross) donning a smile while assuring his camp's latest batch of Jewish prisoners would "suffer no more" to Nazis giving Szlawek, Michał (Jeremy Neumark Jones), Wolf, and others glass bottles to hold above their heads for target practice. We witness the same lies and torture they do as they keep their heads down to hopefully get through the day and commence their escape that night. We suffer their tragic fates as night turns back to day and their quartet is cut in half. And even when they do flee, it will take a mix of luck, courage, and wits to reach their destination.

I'll be the first to say that Geller is doing a lot of sensory manipulation via Erez Koskas' soaring score and Ivan Vatsov's lingering close-ups, but I wouldn't lie and say it's not effective. Sure, some will reject it and thus the film as a whole, but I think doing so would be a disservice to the narrative structure and performances driving through its clichéd presentation to truly deliver the gut-punch nightmare these characters suffer en route to exposing how the Nazis' deeds were not just your normal "product of war." Jackson-Cohen, Jones, and MacGechan are phenomenal. We sense their love and empathy through each exchange as well as their increasing sense of emboldenment to risk what little time they might have left and attempt changing the course of history.

It's a harrowing experience, like pretty much every film depicting the Holocaust, full of extreme displays of pure evil. The dynamic between Nazis and prisoners is heightened by the unapologetic laughter and cruelty of the former. Kross, Tim Bergmann, and others dig into the psychopathy of their roles to horrific effect, and, as a result, find how their desire to demean and torment their captives can also be used against them. It's a fact that's not lost on Szlawek. He possesses no illusion of superiority or safety, so even those trying to help him and Michał are met with a healthy dose of caution and skepticism. They can't afford to trust anyone until that person proves their worth. One wrong word or expression could mean a bullet to the head.

The quick pace and fluid passing of time is the best feature of The World Will Tremble because this escape becomes less about the characters than the act itself. That's what sets it apart from the more action-centered Defiance or other such tales of escape and survival. Yes, we still care deeply for Szlawek and Michał, but it's through their grief and perseverance rather than our hope for their salvation. That's not their goal. Nor is it the film's goal. The mission here is to tell the world what's happening regardless of whether that's accomplished by them orating the truth or having a written account be found on their corpse. The information is key with Szlawek and Michał serving as its messengers. Everything they sacrifice proves that it will always be more important than their lives.

And I'd once again be remiss not to mention context with current events when talking about a film depicting the Holocaust. Geller's decision to focus on the act of exposing what the world doesn't yet know really helps explain why so many people still refuse to call what Israel is now doing to Palestine as genocide. Hitler operated in secrecy by leading lambs to slaughter in ways that couldn't be combated because no one knew what was happening until it was too late. Israel is conversely decimating Palestinian lives, culture, and land in broad daylight. By conducting their genocide in the open, they allow their victims a means to fight back and be labeled "terrorists" in the process. Witnesses can therefore lie to themselves and accept the propaganda explaining away the death toll as a cost of "war." Someone would stop them if it wasn't, right?

- 8/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw DON’T LOOK BACK (1967), of the earliest cinematic uses of the word (8 instances in a single scene), added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Bob Dylan dropping an f-bomb in Don’t Look Back.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/14/25 -

• The 4 Rascals at Regal Galleria

• Black Bag at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst, Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Court - State Vs. A Nobody at Regal Elmwood

• The Day the Earth Blew Up at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Dilruba at Regal Elmwood, Transit

• The Last Supper at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Transit, Quaker

• Mithde at Regal Elmwood

• Novocaine at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge, Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Opus at Dipson Flix, Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria, Quaker

• Perusu at Regal Elmwood

Streaming from 3/14/25 -

• The Electric State – Netflix on 3/14

• Anora – Hulu on 3/17

  “It's a wild ride through Brooklyn that entertains and thrills in equal measure. Madison is truly a force of nature when it comes to standing her ground—even if her footing simply can't compete with that of those pushing her around.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Exhibiting Forgiveness – Hulu on 3/18

  “That's where the difference between effective and transcendent lies—a filmmaker putting truth ahead of convenience in a way that allows the characters to accept the past without fear or denial. It happened and it mattered, but it's no longer in control.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Outrun – Netflix on 3/18

  “That third act is probably the slowest, but it's also the most emotionally resonant. And you can't go wrong when Ronan is delivering one of her most three-dimensional performances amidst those ebbs and flows.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Twister: Caught in the Storm – Netflix on 3/19

• Den of Thieves 2: Pantera – Netflix on 3/20

• O’dessa – Hulu on 3/20

• Tyler Perry’s Duplicity – Prime on 3/20

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Eat the Night (3/11)

• Every Little Thing (3/11)

• I’m Still Here (3/11)

  “And it all hinges on Torres being able to pull off the internal emotional struggle to keep moving forward no matter what she discovers. Eunice is a woman who cannot afford to break.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (3/11)

• Parthenope (3/11)

• Silent Zone (3/11)

• Borderline (3/14)

• High Rollers (3/14)

I’m getting to the point of the original series where I’m no longer sure if I’ve seen them before. I remember watching “Luke Cage” season two (of which I just finished, and man, how cool would season three have been if Luke really broke bad?) and I think I watched season three of “Jessica Jones” and “Daredevil”, but I couldn’t tell you what happens even with a gun to my head. So, maybe I didn’t?

The same goes for “Iron Fist” season two (I enjoyed my rewatch of the first, but it is still the weakest property of the bunch). I know I never watched “The Punisher” at all when it came out (season one ended up being pretty good), so season two of that will definitely be new.

Doing them altogether in a short period of time has reminded me just how good “Jessica Jones” season one and “Daredevil” season two were. By far the best chapters. “Luke Cage” season one is great too, but can definitely drag at times when Diamondback takes over “big bad” status (same with season two as those middle episodes get drawn out). I wouldn’t shy away from saying they all should have been eight-to-ten episodes rather than twelve to fix this problem, but I also wonder if I just had The Hand fatigue for a while there. Talk about ending that thread with a whimper.

I’ve got one season of “Iron Fist”, “Punisher”, “Daredevil”, and “Jessica Jones” to go before closing the book and moving forward. I should probably squeeze in a “She-Hulk” rewatch too considering Charlie Cox shows up a couple times, but it wasn’t anything to advance the story. I wouldn’t mind throwing “Hawkeye” on again for its Kingpin stuff, though, since that might be my favorite MCU show yet.

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What I Watched:

EEPHUS

(limited release & Digital HD)

It's the last game at Soldier Field. No. Not that Soldier Field. We're talking a tiny public baseball diamond amidst forest and soccer fields in suburban Massachusetts—a recreational league destination for kids and beer drinkers alike. The memories and laughter of decades of locals will soon be paved over by a new school that, apparently, won't need a diamond of its own. So, rather than close the shutters early by driving the extra twenty minutes to an inferior location with a bad septic system or simply retire their teams now, Adler's Paint and the Riverdogs decide to give this hallowed place the send-off it deserves.

Written by director Carson Lund, Michael Basta, and Nate Fisher, Eephus documents this final game that seems to never want to end. Part of that is because of the fact we're dealing with aging blue-collar pricks who can barely run the bases when they're not chirping at each other. The other part is their nostalgic desire to not want to actually say goodbye. And if it was up to the umpire, this game would never have even begun considering the Riverdogs only have eight players at first pitch. But as long as Garrett (Chris Goodwin) arrives before he's needed on the field (either batting or catching), they'll be okay.

The result is a low-key affair with small town guys being dudes. Everyone is ragging on Dilberto (David Torres Jr.) because his diet is making him hangry and it's fun to piss him off even more. Ed (Keith William Richards) and his tough-as-nails demeanor is smack talking the other team and guaranteeing he'll pitch all nine innings despite giving up an early lead seconds after puffing out his chest. Neither team (even his own, especially Ray Hryb's Rich) is showing Graham (Stephen Radochia) any love since he's involved in the demolition. And Troy (David Pridemore) is flapping his arms on the mound like wings, downing a beer every inning in the dugout, and striking everyone out.

Bill (Russell J. Gannon) just wants to make his young kids smile (his is the only family who comes to watch if you're not counting Conner Marx's Cooper, who is on his brother Tim's team despite never getting to play). John (John R. Smith Jnr) seeks the burn in his knees that tells him he won't be able to walk for a week while also confirming he's still alive. And the rest of the line-ups consist of young guys having fun, high school players who didn't make the jump, and men like Bob (Brendan Burt) trying to tell jokes only to be told he's just being mean. They're mostly all attempting to tell each other how much they appreciate this time together without actually saying the words.

The game itself becomes secondary to the vibe for everyone but Franny (Cliff Blake). It's everything to this stalwart. He's been coming as long as they've been playing with his card table and scorebook to follow each pitch and out. Franny is my favorite piece of the whole (and surely Lund's too considering an "in memory of" credit at the end makes it seem the character was based on someone he knew) because he epitomizes the love of the sport regardless of who's playing it. These guys aren't good, but they treat the game with respect. They go hard, refuse to quit (even when it's too dark to see), and understand the nuance enough to scream at each other when a teammate playing third base coach screws up.

That flavor is where Eephus succeeds whether Franny's importance to the moment (eventually being recruited to serve as umpire), Howie's (Lou Basta) tradition of sitting on the bleachers alone and hobbling home to sleep despite a seventh inning tie, and Joe Castiglione's pizza truck owner Mr. Mallinari lamenting his career path. There's even an ex-pro leaguer in Bill "The Spaceman" Lee who shows up to give this motley crew "three good outs" when they find themselves in desperate need of a reliever. Pair his earned confidence with Merritt's (Nate Fisher) unearned talk and you really get a taste of every possible personality you can think of in your own amateur sporting life.

Because, in the end, it's about that odd dynamic we all fall victim to eventually. Those days after college where the built-in infrastructure that sustains friendships and camaraderie disappears and you discover you must do the work to stay in touch and cultivate new relationships. Like Graham, however, most of us love the idea of brotherhood when it occurs on a schedule and realize we might not need it when maintaining those connections demands real effort. Through all the jabs, honest appreciation, and truncated conversations that never finish because they've moved to a different base, the line of dialogue that hits hardest is Graham's reply to a teammate suggesting he organize a winter reunion over drinks even if they never play together again: "I'll think on it."

- 7/10

QUEEN OF THE RING

(in theaters)

Widely regarded as the first million-dollar woman athlete in history, pro wrestling star Mildred Burke's (Emily Bett Rickards) story within that sport has all the dramatic, misogynistic earmarks you can imagine. The abusive husband/manager (Josh Lucas' Billy Wolfe) riding her coattails to the bank until he can cut her loose. The bureaucratic boys club refusing to allow women inside by maintaining bans on woman-on-woman wrestling within their states. The athletes she took under her wing being forced to wonder if their only shot at success is keeping Wolfe happy rather than the audiences they sacrifice they bodies for every night. It's wall-to-wall barrier breaking heroics.

And that's the narrative at the center of Ash Avildsen's Queen of the Ring. Yes, it's billed as a biopic with Mildred as star, but don't assume the script delves deep into who she was beyond her influence to wrestling. Avildsen and Alston Ramsay's adaptation of Jeff Leen's book loves to remind us how Burke did it all as a single mother (with help from her own single mother Bertha, played by Cara Buono), but Joe's presence (eventually played by Gavin Casalegno as a teenager and adult) is more to show the passing of time than anything else. He tethers the story to family, but it's her found family with Mae Young (Francesca Eastwood), Elvira Snodgrass (Marie Avgeropoulos), Gladys Gillem (Deborah Ann Woll), and Babs Wingo (Damaris Lewis) that carries the film.

Mildred's life is the backdrop of pioneering change. Her tenacity and showmanship supply fans and media the intrigue to make her a household name alongside the injustice to overcome being a woman in a man's sport paid for by a man's world. Because the unfortunate reality is that Wolfe holds all the cards. Avildsen can't rewrite truth, so the many times Wolfe flies off the handle (his shifts to remorse growing more obnoxiously false as they go) carry zero consequences. Not only does the industry deem his position more important than hers (that hasn't changed with most leagues treating athletes like property), but society does too. This is the 1940s and 50s, after all. Mildred knows any public display of being "the fool" will damage her quest to empower young girls.

So, as Mildred endures physical, emotional, and economic violence, so too must we. Eventually there will need to be a climactic "face" vs. "heel" match that figuratively pits her against Wolfe, but the journey there is ultimately about the evolution of wrestling from carnival sideshow to televised soap opera. Mildred plays her part in that—a very important one considering her advice to Gorgeous George (Adam Demos) before his aesthetic transformation. But her presence as a three-dimensional character suffers as a result of that performance being solely in service of the bigger picture. The real lesson then is seeing her treatment of her peers and understanding the chasm separating Mildred's business acumen from Wolfe's greed.

As such, the character driven bits can feel very rushed—even with a 140-minute runtime. We're pushing through decades of history from Mildred challenging yokels on the carnival circuit to booking major venues wrestling women they pick up along the way after she inspires them. The potential romance with Wolfe's son G. Bill (Tyler Posey) can never therefore pop as more than another necessary plot point further driving a wedge between Mildred and Billy. The desire to position Joe as a storyteller also falls flat since the scene before he receives his first major kudos from Jack Pfefer (Walton Goggins) ends with Mae Young telling him she has an idea. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the third act fell victim to massive streamlining edits.

That said, Queen of the Ring plays well to its audience. It's obviously a little fish in a big pond despite its wide national rollout, but whatever it lacks in production quality is surely gained in heart. Rickards is great in the lead role, carrying this thing with the perfect blend of swagger and strength to do Mildred proud. Eastwood and Posey are memorable too as the allies in her corner opposite Wolfe—albeit with varying success. And it's nice to see Lucas get a meaty role, even if it proves a bit one-note upon us realizing the actor's genuine looks of horror after each cruel act aren't to be trusted. He may actually give Wolfe too much empathy, leading us to believe an evolutionary metamorphosis is coming when its the full force of his evil that proves most captivating.

Thankfully, while we realize the drama between Mildred and Wolfe is nothing but the superficial repetition of cliché spousal abuse, the drama behind the sport never stalls. The return of June Byers (Kailey Farmer). An inevitably tragic end to one of the athlete's lives. The ability to provide an outlet for women of all colors against the patriarchy showing the importance of sports to political and social change. The Mildred Burke story truly has it all. You would be forgiven then for forgetting that the action is pretty well-orchestrated too. It's not all quick cuts and stunt doubles. These women are going to war and flipping each other around the ring to remind people that the result of these matches being scripted doesn't stop the physicality from being real.

- 6/10

SEVEN VEILS

(in theaters)

It's a Biblical dance at the Feast of Herod given name by Oscar Wilde. King Herod Antipas offers his niece/stepdaughter anything she desires if she'll dance for his guests on his birthday. She agrees as long as her prize is the head of John the Baptist. The notion of lust is projected upon the tale by Gustave Flaubert's "gypsy" acrobatics, Aubrey Beardsley's "belly dance" illustration, and Wilde's "striptease." What had been a public performance becomes a private performance for the king alone. From exploitation to objectification to incest. The so-called Seven Veils looms large above the tale's many incarnations: including Richard Strauss' 1905 opera Salome.

This is true for Jeanine's (Amanda Seyfried) remount within Atom Egoyan's film too. Both because of the character's history with the legend and the director's own history with the opera. His staging of Strauss' work in 1996 put the filmmaker on the opera map and, when asked to lead the latest remount, he decided to make a fictionalized film (with his opera singers, including Ambur Braid and Michael Kupfer-Radecky, playing versions of themselves) about the experience and the politics that surround a controversial piece's parallel evolution to the eras in which it's produced. Egoyan knew he couldn't do the same things he did thirty years prior because the world was too different. He would need to interpret the themes through a new filter and consider how his choices could better suit the material to its audience.

Jeanine must do the same. Wherein Egoyan is thinking abstractly, however, he's able to channel his thinking through her as a literal vessel. Not only because she's a woman staging this sexually-charged story, but also because she's a survivor of the same abuses that story holds at its core. So, despite Jeanine's selection to head-up this remount being the last wish of her former teacher (who led the original production while she was his student and intern), she did not accept simply to be his dancing puppet after death. While that's surely what the theater and his wife/artistic director (Lanette Ware's Beatrice) hoped by reaching out, Jeanine accepted as a means to take back control. To flip the script and behead the misogynistic men who told her to toe their line.

There are many layers to the show as a result. There's Jeanine's rendition of the "seven veils" for her father (Ryan McDonald's Harold) as a child. The theft and grotesquely exaggerated version of that personal history taken by her former mentor to serve as the linchpin of his seminal production. And now her present choice to re-stage the blurred lines between them through her own hindsight and position as their victim. Because it's always been the director leading the charge from the place of Herod that centers Salome's beauty and desire as something to be owned. Now, as the person who watched her father and teacher use her in that same way, she can finally center Salome's pain instead.

From that perspective, Seven Veils is very good. Jeanine is exorcising her demons by confronting her past through her art—wielding this opportunity (rendered crazy by the open secret that her relationship with her teacher was more than professional) as a weapon to ensure some culpability on his part is added to the myth surrounding his acclaim with this specific opera. She's dealing with these themes on-stage as well as off it considering her video calls home are colored by the injustices of men via the looming specter of her father, the continued gaslighting by her mother (Lynne Griffin), and the blatant infidelity of her husband (Mark O'Brien). Add Jeanine's own flirtations with the corruptibility of power courtesy of her former classmate (Douglas Smith) being an understudy on this project, and the slope gets slippery.

I only wish Egoyan stuck to his lead and the internal and external impact she possesses because the inclusion of more drama outside her sight line proves a bit much. Yes, there's a lot of good stuff being mined from the experiences of the show's prop master Clea (Rebecca Liddiard), but it really feels like a completely different movie considering the only overlap is Jeanine asking her to do something over and thus allowing the crucial piece of this subplot to unfold. It's more exploitation and misplaced ideas of believing you can capitulate to misogyny as long as you get something out of the bargain. Because the examples are more overt on Clea's trajectory, though, they can't help suffering when compared against Jeanine's more nuanced grappling.

Where Clea's path does impact the overall story is the end result of what she ultimately decides. Because, while Egoyan is fighting the past as far as how his staging reads to the audience, the present isn't that much different. Even though both Jeanine (Seyfried is very good in this role) and Clea reject the system and this notion that you must compromise, neither they nor other women benefit. Clea tries to spin what happens to her into a win for her girlfriend, but it's another man who gets his chance in the spotlight instead. Jeanine seeks to leave her mark while moving past her trauma, but knows her late teacher will get all the praise anyway. It's two steps forward, one step back since, in the end, Salome's victory still ends in death.

- 7/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw Blade Runner (1982), Free Solo (2018), Holmes & Watson (2018), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Nickel Boys (2024), Superstar (1999), and White Squall (1996) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Glynis Johns dropping an f-bomb in Superstar.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/7/25 -

• The Accidental Getaway Driver at Regal Transit

• In The Lost Lands at Dipson Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Mickey 17 at Dipson Amherst, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Night of the Zoopocalypse at Dipson Flix & Capitol; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Queen of the Ring at AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

  Thoughts are above.

• Rule Breakers at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• The Rule of Jenny Pen at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Seven Veils at Regal Elmwood

  Thoughts are above.

• There's Still Tomorrow at North Park Theatre (select times)

Streaming from 3/7/25 -

• Chaos: The Manson Murders – Netflix on 3/7

• Delicious – Netflix on 3/7

• Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Hulu on 3/7

• Heretic – Max on 3/7

  “Credit the strength of Grant's performance too—a fork-tongued vaudeville act meant to distract us as much as his victims. HERETIC might not be as smart as it thinks, but boy is it fun.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Hitpig! – Peacock on 3/7

• Nadaaniyan – Netflix on 3/7

• Plankton: The Movie – Netflix on 3/7

• Starve Acre – Shudder on 3/7

  “Smith and Clark are so good because they understand this necessity [wherein their characters act not] because they believe in [what's happening] or want it. But because it's what allows everything to make sense.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna – Hulu on 3/11

• Moana 2 – Disney+ on 3/12

• Control Freak – Hulu on 3/13

• The Parenting – Max on 3/13

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Heart Eyes (3/4)

• Vermiglio (3/4)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Bloat (3/7)

• Eephus (3/7)

  Thoughts are above.

• F Marry Kill (3/7)

I’m looking forward to just watching the show again this year. Sure, trolling Bluesky for fun posts during the ceremony would probably bring me back to why I wrote a recap via tweets for so long, but the cynicism and cruelty of Twitter/X really broke me two years ago and 2024 was nice and chill without the distraction. No reason for me to go back now.

The below three reviews put me one film away from 100%-ing the list. I could probably hunt down a publicist to watch The Porcelain War, but it’s not necessarily a title I feel I need to see before Sunday. Not if No Other Land wins Best Doc like it should. For a glimpse of what I thought of all the nominees, this link contains them all (besides the below three and my Shorts round-ups at The Film Stage).

I also started archiving the pre-show prediction pieces I used to do with Chris Schobert and Bill Altreuter at my website only to discover we did it much longer than I remembered. The most recent nine years are up now here (with a handful to go).

As for 2025, I think there could be some surprises. Emilia Pérez had all the momentum before Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón poured water on the fire thanks to unearthed social media posts. Then Anora seemed to take control before Conclave won Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards and added even more ambiguity. Maybe The Brutalist still has a shot of sneaking in. Maybe The Substance shocks the world. Heck, I wouldn’t even put it past a stodgy Academy gifting the crown to A Complete Unknown.

Here are my picks for the big eight awards:

• Best Adapted Screenplay - RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes (Nickel Boys)

• Best Original Screenplay - Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain)

• Best Director - Sean Baker (Anora)

• Best Supporting Actress - Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez)

• Best Supporting Actor - Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)

• Best Lead Actress - Demi Moore (The Substance)

• Best Lead Actor - Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown)

• Best Picture - Anora

I have zero confidence in any of these choices except Kieran Culkin and, maybe, Demi Moore. But since I didn’t have her winning until a couple weeks ago, I guarantee nothing. I still don’t love the category fraud of Saldaña being in supporting rather than lead, but it will help her odds. Nickel Boys in Adapted is my biggest long shot, but the fact it snuck into Best Picture makes me think there will be some love. And I hope I’m wrong about Timmy, but that SAG upset says a lot since actors are the largest Academy branch. I really hope Adrien Brody or Colman Domingo win, though.

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What I Watched:

BETTER MAN

(VOD/Digital HD)

It says more about America than Robbie Williams that the "joke" surrounding Better Man has been some variation of "Who's Robbie Williams?" Has the nation truly forgotten when "Angels" and "Millennium" played on the radio non-stop throughout 1999 and 2000? He was so instantly big that I thought I was purchasing his debut album when picking up The Ego Has Landed at Media Play. It wasn't until later that I discovered he was once a member of UK boy band Take That and that The Ego Has Landed was actually an American compilation of the best tracks from his first two solo albums. But, considering it didn't rank on the US charts and Williams rightfully focused on his global appeal with years of built-in traction, maybe the broader American public wasn't paying attention.

So, it also speaks more to the American view of cinema when most of the press surrounding Michael Gracey's film centers on that myopic sense of irrelevance. As though Robbie Williams doesn't deserve the sort of platform a Hollywood release provides because "they" don't remember his name. Bullocks. Not only is his international mainstream appeal worthy of a biopic, but his infamy ensures the story will be entertaining enough for audiences regardless of their familiarity. Williams was a coked-out alcoholic pop star who grabbed as many spotlights as women to guarantee maximum exposure without caring if he looked good or bad. To catch a glimpse of that circus is to ride the vicarious roller coaster of celebrity few experience themselves. Lesser names have received the same.

What sets Better Man apart is not the so-called gimmick of presenting Williams' life behind the visage of a computer-generated chimpanzee, but its unparalleled honesty. The whole "performing monkey" metaphor may be cute on the surface, but it's a devastating manifestation of crippling imposter syndrome at its core. While that psychological diagnosis would generally be projected upon the subject in your usual external production banking on controversy or outright ignored by your usual internal, self-produced honorific, Williams (who narrates the film) lets Gracey and his co-writers Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole mine the truth in a way that allows the result to become as much a cautionary tale as an inspirational catharsis. Because few people would wish Williams' life on their worst enemies once you peel back the tabloid sheen.

Beyond the self-loathing manifested by Chimp Robbie Williams (played by Jonno Davies) seeing scowling and rage-fueled versions of himself in the crowd also lies depression, abandonment, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. There's nothing more horrific than hearing the line "Light 'em up!" and seeing him push the pain down to reveal a smile meant to hide the truth from fans and media. Admitting that Take That producer Nigel Martin Smith (Damon Herriman) forcing him to soften Robert to Robbie was the best thing he ever did for him isn't some flippant remark to diminish that chapter of his success. No, it allowed Williams to better compartmentalize his personas and further dissociate as a means of coping with the reality that his every dream coming true could never fill the void inside.

You must give Williams a ton of respect for allowing himself to be as vulnerable as needed to ensure this script is as meaningful as it is entertaining. Yes, he's still enjoying the process of taking the piss out of people from his past, the general public, and himself, but he's also providing a window into the toll taken and the trauma endured to become the sort of person who would willingly give up their privacy for adulation. That's not to say his demons are universally held. It's just that his demons are the kind that help foster a trajectory of destructive behavior. There's a reason some kids are quick to play the ham and earn applause. It's often because they feel invisible to those that should never stop seeing them.

I wouldn't have been surprised to find writing credits given to Williams' therapists considering so much of what we witness feels straight out of a session trying to figure out the origins and triggers of his problems. Dad (Steve Pemberton) leaving. Mom (Kate Mulvany) staying. Nan (Alison Steadman) forever cheerleading. His friend Nate (Frazer Hadfield) trying to keep him grounded only to be ignored. His love for Nicole (Raechelle Banno) being born from a sense of kinship and understanding only to dissolve into resentment and jealousy. It means something that none of the drug use on-screen is glorified or rendered as "fun" too. Right from the start, Williams' addictions are shown as damaging, disgusting, and embarrassing. It's not about escape. It's about desperately trying to hide.

Pair that authenticity with the impressive spectacle of show-stopping theatrics and it's difficult not to get fully absorbed in the chaos. The "Rock DJ" faux one-shot is as fantastic as everyone has been saying, but I really loved the juxtaposition of love and heartbreak that comes from the "She's the One" scene. "Angels" is also very affecting considering what transpires beneath it and the constant callbacks to Frank Sinatra's "My Way" never cease to carry all the weight that comes with the baggage of its place within Robbie and his father's dynamic. The success of these musical interludes has finally made me consider that watching Gracey's The Greatest Showman might not be such a bad idea after all. Considering my utter lack of interest upon that film's release, this revelation might be the biggest compliment to Better Man I can pay.

- 8/10

GLADIATOR II

(streaming on Paramount+ and MGM+)

I'm thinking Gladiator II is a product of its time. A product of a sequel/prequel culture wherein nuance and complexity is excised for fan service and happy endings. Why? Because David Scarpa's script, as realized by Ridley Scott, feels like the answer to the question: What if Gladiator, but simpler and less bleak? What if the point wasn't for Maximus to avenge the death of his family and reunite with them in the afterlife, but to use their absence as the reason to become the very thing he never wanted to become?

Yes, a lot of people still die. These aren't bleak deaths, though. They aren't innocent victims of tyranny. They are either tyrants being deposed by more ruthless tyrants or martyrs willingly sacrificing themselves to ensure tyrants can no longer hide behind fear-induced loyalty. Yes, it's still a plot in search of Marcus Aurelius' dream of a "Free Rome," but it takes that idea literally rather than figuratively. It's as though a new generation of viewers couldn't understand that the freedom won in Gladiator existed within the soul, so Scott obliged by force-feeding them a freedom via concrete physical victory instead.

The result is a watered-down reboot more than anything else. A film that holds the concept of "more is more" to its chest and refuses to let go. Let's have two immoral cretins on the throne rather than one! Let's split Maximus in two so his personas of "good general" and "fearless gladiator" can co-exist just long enough to thematically merge via sacrifice anyway! Let's push the cretins to the background as syphilis-riddled idiots so this go-round's gladiator whisperer can become an intelligent usurper pulling strings on both sides of the aisle!

My favorite example of diminishing returns, however, is the fact that the film thinks so little of Hanno (Paul Mescal) that it continuously uses flashbacks to Russell Crowe to remind us of the emotions we're supposed to feel. That this technique also doubles as a foreshadowing hammer bludgeoner insofar as who Hanno is beyond his real name only reinforces how little faith the filmmakers have in their audience to put the pieces together.

While all of this marks Gladiator II as an unequivocal failure as a sequel and remake, it is admittedly still an adequate actioner. I thought Mescal held his own in what's a departure from the introspective dramas I'm used to seeing him in. The action scenes are well-constructed and exciting with zero lulls (a positive for the thrills and a negative for any desire to get into the heads of the characters). And the supporting cast (Denzel Washington is the highlight, Pedro Pascal is the heart, and Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger the jesters Scarpa and Scott hope to shield their blunt sleight of hand connecting the films) is excellent.

Does it provide anything we didn't already receive from the original? No. Does it do anything better than the original? No. It's an unnecessary cash-grab that allowed Ridley Scott to play with familiar toys within a grander spectacle that ultimately strips them of what made them special enough to want to pick them back up. So, press play for the excuse to eat popcorn. Expecting more will only disappoint you at best and fill you with rage (like Hanno) at worst.

- 6/10

THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT

(streaming on Netflix)

Things did not start off well for Tyler Perry's The Six Triple Eight. What should have been a statement scene of war full of explosions and fire is delivered with some of the worst computer effects I've seen in a long time. The smoke and flames are rendered in a way that ensures we know neither are actually there—actors and objects moving freely without any real inkling of physically interacting with those elements. All I could do was cross my fingers in the hope that the rest of this drama would leave the theatrics behind in the knowledge it simply couldn't achieve the authenticity necessary for them to be successful. Thankfully, besides one more detonation, Perry realized his budget needed that reprieve.

I wouldn't go so far as to say the opening scenes post-battle were much better, though. Those abysmal five minutes are followed by fifteen minutes of dreadfully rendered melodrama to set the stage for Lena Derriecott's (Ebony Obsidian) decision to enlist in the army. We get clunky race conflict between her and a fellow classmate of hers and her white Jewish beau Abram (Gregg Sulkin). There's the saccharinely old-fashioned sprouts of romance despite these would-be lovers' obviously augmented economic and social chasm. And, of course, the inevitable tragedy that befalls them to flip Lena's world upside down. It's soap opera-level histrionics, the likes of which has marred most of Perry's work, all to finally get us where the film's real story lies: Europe.

Boot camp pushes us in the right direction despite its constant use of over-the-top fantasy to get Lena through the difficulties of training because we finally get to meet the star of the show in Major Charity Adams (Kerry Washington). To say that Washington and Milauna Jackson's Captain Campbell are on another level compared to the rest of the production is an understatement because it all buckles beneath soaring scores and manipulative tension whenever they're not on-screen. That isn't to say their characters aren't forced to endure similar moments of ham-fisted narrative cliché, only that they have the gravitas to overcome the script's limitations and deliver the grounded emotions necessary to honor this important chapter in American history.

Saying that inherently diminishes Obsidian, Shanice Shantay, Sarah Jeffery, and others' roles, but only by comparison. These young privates do well to carry things when needed and to humanize the struggle they face as women, Black women, and women soldiers during World War II. It's just tough to see them shine when they're constantly berated by a white cast built to abuse, demean, and sabotage them in pursuit of dialing up the messaging to "incendiary" and providing a scene of manufactured "respect" that made me laugh out loud. It's one thing to give us a scene where the white military gives Adams and her girls their flowers upon fully understanding their job's impact. It's another to collect the specific white men who demonized them the most to do it. Perry couldn't have rendered it heavier handed if he tried.

Parading Susan Sarandon and her fake teeth around as Eleanor Roosevelt for a brief subplot that could have been completely replaced with a throwaway line acknowledging that she spearheaded this campaign to deliver the almost seven million pieces of mail locked in air hangers does the film no favors. And getting Oprah Winfrey to play Mary McLeod Bethune in a two-minute cameo solely so Dean Norris' racist General Halt can wear a look of disgust whenever he dares let his eyes fall upon her reads as a power move on Perry's part rather than a desire to add anything. An off-handed mention of writing to Bethune to get into the army by a couple of Lena's new friends does more to honor her.

But that's the silliness we expect from a Tyler Perry film. It comes with the territory and wishing he would tighten things up to turn this two-hour film into a more streamlined ninety-minutes is a fool's errand. We can only approach it as is and understand that, despite its shortcomings, The Six Triple Eight is a crucial piece of history told in an affecting way. Learning about the out-of-the-box thinking needed to fulfill their task, the constant barrage of treachery faced from the men they were helping, and the fearsome integrity and leadership of Adams is worth the mess. Lena's search for closure might even make those first twenty minutes less eye roll-inducing too ... might. Just because it all should be better, though, doesn't mean it's not still enough.

- 6/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw HERE (2024), IT ENDS WITH US (2024), and PASSED AWAY (1992) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Tom Hanks delivering an f-bomb in HERE.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 2/28/25 -

• Laaj Sharanam at Regal; Quaker

• Last Breath at Dipson Capitol & Flix; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Mazaka at Regal Elmwood

• Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- at North Park Theatre (select times); Regal Elmwood & Transit

• My Dead Friend Zoe at AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Quaker

• No Address at Regal Quaker

• The Real Sister “Chi Dau” at Regal Galleria

• Riff Raff at Dipson Capitol & Flix; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker

  “It feels like Pollono wanted a full-blown comical farce and Montiel didn't get the joke because everything is way too absurd to be delivered so seriously.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Sabdham at Regal Elmwood

• A Sloth Story at Dipson Capitol & Flix; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Superboys of Malegaon at Regal Elmwood, Transit & Galleria

  “Kagti does a great job capturing that do-it-yourself aesthetic and energy with an abundance of humor and heart. Gourav and Singh’s performances are paramount, but it's Arora who shines as their selfless heart who never forgets what's really at stake.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Vermiglio at North Park Theatre (select times)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

Streaming from 2/28/25 -

• Dead Money – Hulu on 2/28

  “Andy talks about math via voice-over, but this isn't as much a poker movie as it is a darkly comic drama with poker in it. The suspense isn't therefore built at the table, but by the guns being held to the temples of people off-screen.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Nickel Boys – MGM+ on 2/28

  “The film is a harrowing piece of American history and inspiring tale of mankind's perseverance to overcome overall, but its pieces are just as powerful—in some cases more.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Squad 36 – Netflix on 2/28

• The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim – Max on 2/28

• Strange Darling – Paramount+ on 3/1

  “It's not that Mollner is manipulating his characters to hide the truth. He's manipulating our preconceptions to heighten it.” – Full thought at HHYS.

• Rumours – Paramount+ on 3/3

  “Those paying attention to the degradation of politicians into empty suits in it for the money won't gain new insight, but it is a laugh watching grown adults with nuclear arsenals smiling like children when someone compliments the dumb thing they said.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Gutter – Hulu on 3/4

• Picture This – Prime on 3/6

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• A Complete Unknown (2/25)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Love Hurts (2/25)

• Presence (2/25)

• Adult Best Friends (2/28)

• Cold Wallet (2/28)

• The Golden Voice (2/28)

• Uppercut (2/28)

The only way I can currently see it all packaged together is if you go to one of the titles and scroll down to the “You May Also Like” section below. How do you not keep that main tab alive for at least a week? The streamer loves to feed back into the jokes that no one uses it—something Jimmy Fallon mocked twice on Sunday.

I was a fan of the Homecoming Concert. NBC did a wonderful job paying tribute to old with new while enlisting an inspired roster of talent from the past fifty years. What a fantastic celebration.

I was less a fan of the Anniversary Special. It started promising with what might have proven the best joke of the night right from the get-go as Sabrina Carpenter tells Paul Simon she wasn’t alive in 1976 … and neither were her parents. It was a mixed bag from there with some highs (Lonely Island medley with Lady Gaga, Scarlet Johansson’s Ellen Greene impression, Bill Murray’s Update rankings) and more lows. Maybe “lows” is harsh. Let’s just say forgettable pandering made worse by an audience laughing way too hard (or mic’d way too loud).

It’s still worth watching, though, just to get a sense of the scope of SNL’s reach. I saw someone a week or so ago saying they never understood why people give the show so much pop culture currency and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because regardless of how you feel about SNL the product, no one should ever deny its legitimate impact on comedy, music, television, stardom, etc. SNL was a true trendsetter.

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What I Watched:

BRING THEM DOWN

(limited release; streaming on MUBI soon)

“It's a truly grim drama with blood and anger dripping off every frame. The cycle [of violence] might finally be over, but the damage has already been done.”

– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

CLEANER

(limited release)

If everything that activists across the world do won't make a dent (and, in some cases, gets hijacked in the public consciousness like when the media colors people throwing red paint on glass-protected artwork as domestic terrorists), logic would presume that someone will inevitably fill the void by escalating those actions into an explosion nobody can ignore.

That's the gist of Martin Campbell's latest actioner Cleaner. The script by Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, and Matthew Orton starts like a Die Hard retread insofar as positioning an every-woman (Daisy Ridley's military-trained washout Joey Locke) to take down a group of terrorists bottled within a skyscraper before throwing in a twist by presenting the justifiable case that said terrorists (led by Clive Owen) are actually eco-activists seeking accountability. Then the original conceit is quickly put back on track via the introduction of an actual psychopath who infiltrated the ranks of those determined idealists.

The idea is that we're supposed to nod our heads at the message this hostage situation is built upon while also abhorring the lengths taken to expose it. Yes, the Milton Brothers (Rufus Jones and Lee Boardman) are evil, but can we really allow vigilantes the power to become judge, jury, and executioner? Since the answer is almost always a resounding "No."—something society might need to rethink considering the current American regime is proving the system was never actually fortified in a way to benefit lives over profits—you also cannot let Joey fulfill those three roles when confronting the vigilantes.

So, it's a tightrope walk of having your cake and eating it too. The one-percenters get called out by glorifying someone a majority of people would call a terrorist if a full-blown, devoid of redemption, actual terrorist didn't provide a contrast to exonerate him. Joey gets to run wild killing people because the real villains already killed the "fake" villains, so she only has murderers to take down rather than "radicalized heroes." And, just in case, Joey's autistic hacker brother (Matthew Tuck's Michael) guarantees we can tell the difference since his neurodivergent hard line of championing people who speak truth to power (he loves the Avengers and holds Mjolnir close) means anyone he willingly attacks must be a tyrannical despot.

Michael proves a convenient and borderline exploitative pawn to a puzzle that's desperately trying to grasp hold of meaning beyond its otherwise popcorn-fueled foundation. It's not enough to derail the thrills (Campbell has made a successful career within the genre), but it is enough to stop Cleaner from being more than a rainy-day rental of escapism. Because of this, that relevant message trampled on by Hollywood tropes and but-you-should-still-die-before-going-too-far rhetoric gets rendered moot. The filmmakers might as well have just delivered their Die Hard retread without jumping through hoops they so readily erase whenever finding themselves flirting with taking an actual stand.

Ridley is good, though. She has the physical chops to shoulder the action set-pieces, but also the emotional depth to find the dimensions necessary to care about her motivations and end game. Taz Skylar's Noah and Ruth Gemmell's Superintendent Claire Hume are the other major players on either side of Joey and they do well to take control of their respective troops and demand results. The rest of the cast is expendable to provide comic relief, manipulate drama, and supply fresh bodies when the script needs them. Despite the narrative's desire to always play both sides, though, it is mostly enjoyable. I'm just not sure it's enjoyable enough to hide its hollowness.

- 5/10

MILLERS IN MARRIAGE

(limited release & VOD)

Nick (Campbell Scott) is soldiering through his wife’s (Julianna Margulies’ Maggie) new novel when he tells her it’s good with the caveat that it’s “still rich people and their champagne problems.” She replies with a pointed “I write what I know.” And that fact is inherently the issue considering his remark was itself a pointed response to discovering that the pitiable and despised husband character in the book was obviously based on him.

The whole Miller family suffers from the same woes within Edward Burns’ Millers in Marriage. Maggie resents her husband’s comfortability with monotony and steps out of their marriage to find the spark she no longer sees in him due to a constant desire for Nick to return to the man he was rather than accept the man he’s become. Eve (Gretchen Mol) has finally reached the empty nest stage of her own union and the quiet emptiness has opened her eyes to everything she gave up to support a husband (Patrick Wilson’s Scott) whose numerous flaws no longer have the notion of “stability for the children” to hide behind. And Andy (Burns) is struggling to regain control of his life in the wake of his wife (Morena Baccarin’s Tina) leaving him to start a “new chapter” of her own.

Three couples dealing with different variations on the same theme of artists in ruts with just as many champagne fantasies as problems. Maggie uses infidelity (with Brian d'Arcy James’ serial adulterer Dennis) to ignore everything she’s grown to hate about Nick. Eve’s ex-rocker seeks to use infidelity (with Benjamin Bratt’s charming music critic) to stop from ignoring how Scott will never change. And Andy gets so wrapped up in new happiness (with Minnie Driver’s Renee) that he finds himself caught in the middle of being glad Tina left and intrigued by the prospect that moving on has rekindled her interest. Burns moves between healthy unhealthiness to unhealthy healthiness with each cut forward (and back).

Is the drama compelling? Sure. The dialogue is often verbose and on-the-nose, but the cast is way too good not to give it life anyway. I also enjoyed the use of flashback (sometimes months or years into the past and sometimes mere hours) so we can be left wondering about certain details until the exact facts prove crucial to the current conversation, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessary considering the film is already so talky that the characters could have just explained those moments instead. Burns does enough to keep us engaged through these performances and structure tricks that it doesn’t even matter that he’s not really mining any new territory. It’s just indignation, jealousy, and desire.

The Maggie/Nick dynamic is the least interesting because of how clichéd it unfolds with their two authors using ego and metaphor to cut each other down so blatantly and viciously that they might as well have just spoken their truth without any filter. Eve/Scott is one-dimensional in its implosion, but I loved the effect of that baggage pushing Mol towards Bratt because their scenes are by far the best in terms of chemistry and hope for a happy ending. And, similarly, Andy/Tina is a generic scorner-feeling-scorned fireworks show with the effect of pushing Burns towards Driver—the second-best piece due to their honesty rendering their blossoming romance into a complex and mature exchange of uncompromising self-awareness.

Enjoyment will therefore vary. There’s enough going on that everyone watching should see themselves or a relationship they’ve been in depicted on-screen, so it’s up to you whether that mirror is something you’ll embrace or reject insofar as introspection goes. And those who do find resonance will also need to weigh that emotional jolt against the film’s arguably routine delivery. Yes, it’s Burns making yet another Burns film (like Nick’s backhanded compliment to Maggie), but I think the performances excel enough to overcome any fatigue that truth might conjure in those looking for a reason to watch something else.

- 6/10

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3

(VOD/Digital HD)

It was bound to get too full. You can't keep adding characters without removing others and expect the finished result to feel as cohesive and solid as before. This is especially true when your plot hinges upon one of those new characters so much that he becomes the most interesting piece of the puzzle. That's the trouble screenwriters Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington put director Jeff Fowler into with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, though. The only way to fully utilize Shadow (Keanu Reeves) is by devoting everything to his quest. As a result, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) becomes secondary. But that can't happen in his film. So, the filmmakers must twist the narrative to re-center Sonic within Shadow's story. It was destined to fail.

That said, I do like how Fowler and company shoehorned in the main peripheral humans. Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) become motivation and inspiration—sage advice from the fringes that propel Team Sonic (rounded out by Colleen O'Shaughnessey's Tails and Idris Elba's Knuckles) forward. Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) and Randall (Shemar Moore) become a brief but very entertaining punch line within that usage, and we can more or less forget them all until necessary. Even Stone (Lee Majdoub) is handled well in a similar role to Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey)—except that his help is rebuked rather than embraced to position hero and villain's evolutionary trajectories as mirrors to each other despite achieving the same endgame.

Sadly, the same cannot be said about G.U.N. and Robotnik's doppelganger. While both are given expanded roles to prop up Shadow's inclusion, they cannot overcome the fact they are filler. Director Rockwell (Krysten Ritter) is rendered so inert that I can only assume she was brought in because Tom Butler couldn't handle the physical responsibilities of a gravity battle (his Commander Walters gets two scenes, one sitting down and one standing still). While she's a pawn to logistics used as furniture, however, Gerald Robotnik (played by Carrey in older make-up) is a pawn the filmmakers seem to believe is crucial to whole. It's a mistake. One that turns Ivo into Stone for tired jokes and extended comedic nonsense. They use Gerald's superficiality to distract us from Shadow's one-dimensionality. His presence holds Shadow back.

It's too bad because the character is a great next step for Sonic. Here's a space hedgehog who is ostensibly what an emerald-wielding yellow Sonic would become if all that power was augmented by tragedy rather than love. Shadow had everything ripped away. His life is one of subtraction and thus vengeance becomes his sole motivation—like Knuckles in the second film, but from an emotional place instead of a pragmatic sense of duty. I really enjoyed how the film drives that parallel home by pushing Sonic to his own brink of darkness for the climactic battle. How will projecting the circumstances that made Shadow who he is today onto Sonic affect the latter's judgment? Will he rally the troops and lean on Tails and Knuckles to keep balance or will he lose himself to rage?

If only that lesson wasn't stalled from coming out until the third act, I could see why so many people have been calling this installment the best of the franchise. By waiting so long without any reason beyond a desire to stuff in an unnecessary key chase (considering Sonic has zero use for the key and should simply be worried about stopping Robotnik, not beating him to it), the whole feels hollow. Sure, it's a fun journey and Carrey earns laughs even when his foolishness trumps his effectiveness, but it really seems like the filmmakers had a solid forty minutes of content and decided to fill the rest of the runtime with fluff when a more in-depth character study of Shadow would have proven much better. It's too many spinning plates with no way to prevent the inevitable crash.

Because we end up exactly where we started. Robotnik is presumed dead. Shadow is out of everyone's consciousness. Sonic and family are happily enjoying life. Yes, the Blue Devil has learned love is more powerful than hate ... again, but that compass has been reinforced rather than moved. Knuckles conversely discovers a bit of humility, so I guess that's something. Enough to justify a whole movie? No. Maybe if Shadow comes back you could chalk this excursion up to being an expository prologue for his introduction, but even that's weak considering how little we know about him beyond the origin of this specific anger. That the film must also retrofit details (G.U.N. is how old? Walters did know about Shadow's existence? Aliens no longer need disguises?) for that to be possible makes it worse. And if Shadow doesn't come back? Well, then it's all been a waste of time.

- 5/10

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986) and THE LAST EMPEROR (1987) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

An unknown actor dropping an f-bomb in THE LAST EMPEROR.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 2/21/25 -

• Bromance at Regal Elmwood

• Dragon at Regal Elmwood

• Mere Husband Ki Biwi at Regal Elmwood

• The Monkey at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Parthenope at North Park Theatre

• The Unbreakable Boy at AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Transit & Quaker

Streaming from 2/21/25 -

• The Birthday – Shudder on 2/21

• Elevation – Max on 2/21

• Grand Theft Hamlet – MUBI on 2/21

  “The most memorable moments are, of course, those that are completely unplanned. It's fun to get lost in the spontaneity of jumping without a safety net.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Little Bites – Shudder on 2/21

• Nosferatu – Peacock on 2/21

  “That leveling up of intention, violence, and horror runs throughout Eggers' adaptation. More than just expanding upon the mythology, he's increasing the brutality with a greater sense of visceral potency than mere dread.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Things Will Be Different – Hulu on 2/21

  “Felker has created a hermetically sealed puzzle box to force his characters into confronting the choices and mistakes they've made. And once they voluntarily travel inside, that seal guarantees they reckon with those actions.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards – Netflix on 2/23

• Ghostlight – Hulu on 2/25

  “The line Dan walks is thin and you can feel that O'Sullivan wrote his trajectory through the character's voice to discover which side he'll fall at the same time he does.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• September 5 – MGM+/Paramount+ on 2/25

  “Therein lies the inherent commentary on display despite the film itself running pretty apolitically from start to finish. While mistakes [are made], they did not have the experience necessary to prevent them. [Today's media does, but doesn't care.]” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Venom: The Last Dance – Netflix on 2/25

• A Copenhagen Love Story – Netflix on 2/26

• Miss Italia Mustn’t Die – Netflix on 2/26

• Demon City – Netflix on 2/27

• The Wrong Track – Netflix on 2/27

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• The Brutalist (2/18)

  “Above the script's elucidations, Corbet's assured direction, and the impressive production design, though, are too of the year's finest performances courtesy of Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Companion (2/18)

• Dog Man (2/18)

• The Last Showgirl (2/18)

  “[Anderson taps] into our preconceptions of her celebrity as well as her own regrets born from its hold on her to deliver a beautifully confident, soul-searching, and cathartic masterclass of authenticity.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Love Me (2/18)

• Mufasa: The Lion King (2/18)

• Panda Plan (2/18)

• The Room Next Door (2/18)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2/18)

  Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• Everyone is Going to Die (2/21)

• Millers in Marriage (2/21)

  Thoughts are above.

• Old Guy (2/21)

• The Quiet Ones (2/21)

  “I give August's script a ton of credit because a lot needs to be made known during preparations for what occurs to make sense. The fact none of it feels forced is no small feat. It helps that Hviid shoots the heist with urgency.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.

• Singing in My Sleep (2/21)

• UnBroken (2/21)

The last Word Cup was 2016?! The Sabres have had so many coaches since then—including the guy who made a huge impact at that event, Ralph Krueger—that I would have said it’s been closer to two decades.

Even so, that was so long ago that Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid were on the “North American” team because they were too young and inexperienced to play on Team USA and Canada respectively. This is their first time wearing that crest as an adult. Talk about a lost generation of talent on that stage.

You must give the NHL and NHLPA a lot of credit for organizing the event so all those players can dip their toes in before next year’s Olympics. Get them a taste of sport-centric patriotism before the Big Show so that tournament can be as high quality as possible. It still won’t be the same considering Russia’s absence, but they can always leave Ukraine and acknowledge their sovereignty.

I’m writing this while still watching USA v Finland, but I can safely say the event has been everything you could hope it could be after Wednesday night’s Canada v Sweden tilt. It looked like a blowout waiting to happen with the Maple Leaf riding the adrenaline high of being in Montreal and cheering Mario Lemieux, but the Three Crowns came back strong to force an exciting overtime. It was a fantastic game.

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What I Watched:

2025 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS

(in theaters)

Reviews for all 15 nominees are live at The Film Stage:

Live Action

Documentary

Animated

THE GORGE

(streaming on AppleTV+)

The life of a long-distance snipers freelancing as assassins is a solitary one. No time to start a family when each job demands extensive chunks of your life. No time to escape the nightmares that gradually chip away at your steely resolve. Thankfully for Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), she doesn't have to worry about the latter because her ex-KGB father lets her tell him her secrets so as not have to hold onto them alone. Sadly for Levi (Miles Teller), he doesn't have to worry about the former because the PTSD won't allow him any attachments anyway. So, why not both accept a year-long mission shrouded in mystery?

Written by Zach Dean and directed by Scott Derrickson, The Gorge follows the exploits of these two characters stranded on either side of an unknown chasm by their respective governments. The assumption is that they are to kill someone from an extreme distance to cover their employer's butts like usual. But when Levi arrives to relieve his predecessor (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù's J.D.), the assignment given is a babysitting gig. Sit in a tower, patrol the parameter, radio home every thirty days. Only when J.D. drops a pulse grenade into the mist below are the horrors at-hand revealed. Yes, Levi must simply protect his territory, but not from a potential threat. The monsters beneath his perch are inevitable.

While we catch a glimpse of these "hollow men" to set the stakes, the first hour is hardly action-packed (or tense beyond one effective jump scare). Those sixty-minutes instead portray burgeoning romance on behalf of two lonely souls deciding months of isolation were enough. Written banter seen across the gorge via impossibly crisp zoom binoculars (him on the west side operated by the western world—US and UK—and she on the east side—Russia) evolves into synchronized patrols to flirt and work simultaneously. Eventually, they'll figure out a way to be together. And as is often the case when a moment of bliss interrupts a nightmare, that calm will be very short lived.

It must considering there's another hour to go and still no real excitement beyond shooting fish in a barrel. We need Levi and Drasa to get into that no man's land and see what's really happening. Answer the questions of who Sigourney Weaver works for and what happened to the original battalions of 1940s soldiers who went down and never returned. We'll get a ton of CGI foes looking like Davy Jones' men from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, an impossibly overgrown-by-bone ghost town, and a conspiracy doing its best to render this affair plausible in the scope of World War II destruction and Cold War espionage. Sooner or later too, Levi and Drasa will be forced to choose the mission or each other.

The romance angle works better than the action in my eye, although I wouldn't say either half is especially trendsetting in its ideas or execution. A generic love story against an oddly dark backdrop versus a generic survival chase amidst an intriguing if underused mythology of creatures (their origin really just helped explain their aesthetic and got me wanting to re-watch Annihilation). The effects work is decent—the darkness and fog do a lot to make it look better than it is considering moments of clear vision leave a bit to be desired. The pacing is effective—two hours is definitely too long, but it never dragged. And Teller and Taylor-Joy's performances are the perfect mix of hoo-rah determination and sweet humanity.

My biggest gripe is the ending since so many things occur to make it feel like the tension will finally ratchet up. We're dealing with the fallout of knowing what this place is. The threat of their superiors knowing they know. The uncertainty that Levi and Drasa may be killed by what they saw even if they escape it. And the knowledge that any hope for a future demands running. I actually got excited to see Dean and Derrickson go to town making each of those shoes drop to devastating effect only to ultimately receive ... nothing. It's almost like they ran out of money and decided to simply tie all those loose ends with the same rose-colored saccharine bow. If the rest were better than just "fine," that letdown probably would have hurt more. As is, The Gorge simply remains fine.

- 6/10

ROUNDING

(limited theaters & VOD)

It's difficult to believe your own eyes about what occurs during the prologue of Alex Thompson and co-writer Christopher Thompson's Rounding. Not just because the lead character is an unreliable narrator, but because the film intentionally obfuscates the circumstances surrounding this initial event. We're pretty sure Dr. James Hayman (Namir Smallwood) is euthanizing a patient considering the clandestine way he goes about procuring the medicine he injects into her IV. That plus the pointed "Are you sure this is what you want." all but guarantee it. Where things go awry is her plea for him to save her while flatlining. Did she change her mind? Did he do it without her permission? Was it a mistake?

The latter proves the safest answer since James faints in the hallway and ultimately requests a transfer to a rural hospital to finish his residency with a "fresh start." His new supervisor, Dr. Harrison (Michael Potts), seems ecstatic that he chose their facility and confirms the previous department filled him in on everything that happened. Suddenly those thoughts of suicide gone wrong dissolve because there's no way James would still have a license let alone freedom if that were the case. We must therefore assume it was in his head. Perhaps that whole prologue was a nightmarish recollection of his actions filtered through a malicious lens to better hate himself about the result. James' quick return to insomnia, paranoia, and obsession only helps to confirm it.

This is why I call him an unreliable narrative force in the film. James is our focal point and we see everything through his eyes—including the time skips and confusion that keep him off-balance and five steps behind the rest of the hospital. He's not sleeping, barely eating, and eventually battling a severe ankle injury he refuses to treat all while submerging himself in the implausible case of a nineteen-year-old asthma patient whose chart shows no sign of asthma (Sidney Flanigan's Helen Adso). Does James become infatuated with the mystery of her continued presence in the emergency room because he needs to ensure he doesn't lose someone too soon again? Is it to distract himself from the obvious trauma he's suffered? Or could it be that he's about to get her killed by looking for something that isn't there like before?

Thompson has crafted a visually intriguing film depicting this man's descent into the dark abyss of his own guilt and shame. The lost hours and days are expertly rendered via seamless cuts to him still being where we left him while his surroundings have been repopulated by different people. And that idea of James fending off his perceived sins becomes manifested as twisted religious iconography. First there's a broken cross his mother reminds him to fix. Then weird illustrations of death and monsters hanging on the hospital walls. Finally, there's a hydra with flaming horns seemingly hunting him through the halls. James screams and falls or screams and braces for impact, but everything is normal upon opening his eyes. He's still breathing and Helen is still sick.

A lot ends up being introduced to simultaneously keep us off the scent of what's really going on (although the earmarks are ever-present) and augment that truth via comparison points and metaphor. James wonders if Helen's mother (Rebecca Spence) is the culprit via Munchausen by proxy thanks to some amateur sleuthing and knee-jerk assumptions. He revolts against being mandated to attend a bedside manner training class meant to help him better handle his truth when he's desperately trying to suppress it. And all the while he's chasing made-up ghosts to escape the real ones at his heels. The hope is that it will all connect for a rousing third act of new discoveries and/or answers we haven't already connected the dots on ourselves.

Sadly, that isn't what happens. It's not that Rounding loses potency by being exactly what it is on its surface, but that it misses an opportunity to give meaning to its message by providing a payoff rather than an admission. Things ratchet up so high that we prepare for a roar yet receive a whimper considering the result is other characters knowing what we already did where James is concerned. Yes, there's a payoff to Helen's story and the complexities behind the disparity that arises between action and desire, but it feels more about closing her chapter than adding to the whole. Smallwood is very good at presenting the terror and fatigue driving James into the ground, but the script's choice for him to admit the truth as though he's been actively lying rather than subconsciously hiding undercuts its emotional impact.

- 7/10

TIMESTALKER

(limited theaters & VOD)

Love is often found staring you right in the face. The problem, though, is that it's not always seen. Maybe, as the 1980s version of Katie Dickie's Marion explains, it's because we have a penchant for loving people who hate us precisely because we hate ourselves. Or maybe it's that we seek the impossible as a way of holding onto hope that our lives can be more than what they currently are. For Agnes (Alice Lowe) and her quest to find her beloved Alex (Aneurin Barnard) throughout time, it's a bit of both. Low self-worth. A desire for excitement. You can also mix in an even less healthy option: the thrill of dying.

As Lowe, who also writes and directs, exclaims: "Romance is dead." Literally. Every single time Agnes reunites with Alex, she ends up saving him from his own demise by unwittingly sacrificing herself—almost exclusively via a grisly decapitation. We must therefore ask the question of whether the cycle of destiny at the back of Timestalker is a product of giving Agnes another chance for happiness by Alex's side or another chance to live by finally letting him go. Because he's never looking for her. Even though their first meeting appears to portray a mutual sense of adoration, his words expose how the source is different. She loves him. He merely loves that she does.

So, beyond the subversion of rom-com sensibilities that twist the meet-cute into a trigger for reaping, there's a lot here to say about fan culture and the ever-thinning line between romance and infatuation that parasocial relationships have cultivated. Agnes needs Alex to survive and yet he's never thought of her once. This isn't a tale of star-crossed lovers as much as a masochistic gauntlet of self-destruction. Because she cannot escape the pattern. She doesn't want to escape it. Even though karma works insofar as turning her poor peasant into a queen and then back down to working class, she refuses to learn her lesson. Not like George (Nick Frost). He goes from devoted subservient to violent oppressor.

His is a character you might not think will play as large a role in the over-arching message as Jacob Anderson's Scipio or Tanya Reynolds' Meg, but I'd argue George is the second most vital piece of the whole behind Agnes. Scipio is intriguing in his position as a voyeur puppet master, but he's more of a distraction so Agnes doesn't cut her strings than an agent of change. Meg is that love that stares her in the face. A sweet, kind soul who might put Agnes on too high a pedestal, but remains everything she wishes Alex could be. She's the goal. And the counterpoint. Meg is there to provide an out and thus to be seen as a taunt that keeps pushing Agnes to Alex.

George, conversely, is Agnes. He does to her what she does to Alex, albeit in an overtly cruel way towards her when Agnes is overtly cruel to herself. He stalks her like she stalks Alex—each one makers of their own sociopathic murder boards while deluding themselves into believing them to be shrines. When Agnes can't get what she wants, she sacrifices herself to try again. When George doesn't, he sacrifices her to satisfy his rage. Is one worse than the other? Definitely. That doesn't, however, mean the other is good. Both are damaging and dangerous. Both are selfish. And yet the alternative seems worst of all: to simply exist without the ability to love or be loved. Is that even living?

Lowe packs a ton of messaging into a very tightly wound package from patriarchy to feminism and fate to free will. Because it must move so fast, some things do get left by the wayside. Some from the often broad humor that doesn't quite match the earnestness of the themes and some from the constant back and forth that both advances us through unnecessary centuries and leaves what look like unnecessary centuries shrouded in secrecy until the time is right. Timestalkers can therefore alternately feel too flippant and not flippant enough—the tonal balance between comedic juxtapositions and metaphor proving adversarial instead of complementary. It works more than not, though. Especially its table-turn wink of an ending.

- 6/10

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

[Une langue universelle]

(limited release; Canada’s International Oscar submission)

“Rankin and company are providing us a glimpse at the beauty of our shared human experience removed from labels and geography. The true "color blindness" of society isn't achieved through homogeneity. We get there through acceptance.”

– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

Cinematic F-Bombs:

This week saw IMAGINARY (2024), IN THE LAND OF WOMEN (2007), MASKED AND ANONYMOUS (2003), and XXX: STATE OF THE UNION (2005) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).

Peter Strauss dropping an f-bomb in XXX: STATE OF THE UNION.

New Releases This Week:

(Review links where applicable)

Opening Buffalo-area theaters 2/14/25 -

• Armand at Regal Transit

  “Armand is distilling mankind’s penchant for baseless attacks and fear-mongering down into the interaction of three distinct entities in a familiarly simple scenario.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Becoming Led Zeppelin expanding to North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst & Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Galleria & Quaker

• Captain America: Brave New World at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood Transit, Galleria & Quaker

• Chhaava at Regal Elmwood

• Illti at Regal Elmwood

• Laila at Regal Elmwood

• Ne Zha 2 at Regal Elmwood Transit & Quaker

• Oscar Nominated Shorts - Animated & Live Action at Regal Quaker

  Links to reviews are above.

• Oscar Nominated Shorts - Documentary at Dipson Amherst

  Link to reviews is above.

• Paddington in Peru at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood Transit, Galleria & Quaker

Streaming from 2/14/25 -

• Dhoom Dhaam – Netflix on 2/14

• Flow – Max on 2/14

  “It's a beautifully animated and choreographed film with suspenseful life or death moments and effective action. I don't think Flow is quite as captivating a story as Away, but you cannot deny that Zilbalodis has evolved his craft in all other aspects.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Dead Thing – Shudder on 2/14

  “It's an effective thriller that lets its themes exist beneath the surface so that those uninterested in delving deeper can simply enjoy the ghost story turned quasi-slasher on its own merits.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• The Gorge – AppleTV+ on 2/14

  Thoughts are above.

• Love Forever – Netflix on 2/14

• The Most Beautiful Girl in the World – Netflix on 2/14

• Umjolo: There is No Cure – Netflix on 2/14

• Strange Darling – Prime on 2/17

  “It's not that Mollner is manipulating his characters to hide the truth. He's manipulating our preconceptions to heighten it.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Watchmen: Chapter II – Max on 2/17

• Bad Genius – Hulu on 2/18

Now on VOD/Digital HD -

• Better Man (2/11)

• Black Dog (2/11)

• From Ground Zero (2/11)

  “No matter your opinion on the success of each, however, the whole is an undeniable document of an unspeakable tragedy. As a puppet declares during "Awakening": everything is gone and the world just watched.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.

• Hard Truths (2/11)

  “But it's Jean-Baptiste who shines brightest by showcasing her talent to maintain humanity through despicable behavior. For all the bile [Pansy] spews, the person who ends up hurt most by it is her.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.

• One of Them Days (2/11)

• Flight Risk (2/14)

• Inheritance (2/14)

• Jade (2/14)

• Kid Snow (2/14)

• Rounding (2/14)

  Thoughts are above.

• Something Is About to Happen (2/14)

• Timestalker (2/14)

  Thoughts are above.

• When I’m Ready (2/14)