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Cold War throwback in an Open AI shell!! 

I really need to go back and rewatch the OG Mission Impossible, and movies need to have fun action scenes in submarines again. 

Tom Cruise was really flexing his god complex in this one!!

Hayley Atwell is a really fun addition to the cast. I enjoyed the bright yellow Fiat car chase and, of course, the whole train jumping/derailing sequence. Nothing like hot oil, open flame, and a gas line to build suspense.

Even if the plots are dumb, the American James Bond franchise will always have great setpieces!

P.S. A.I. is totally evil!

Probably the perfect dramedy! Iconic soundtrack, iconic Margot Tenenbaum coat, and the perfect capper to Gene Hackman’s career. (RIP)

This review may contain spoilers.

Great Faustian performance from John Malkovich and a captivating German Expressionist style performance for Willem Dafoe, but the film's visuals pale compared to the source material.

I do love the shot where Schreck/Orlok turns into dust that's juxtaposed with the film reel crackling out. Also, damn, it was really hard to make movies in the 1920s, but thank goodness for morphine and random rich guys.

Terribly edited and dumb, but a decently fun turn your brain off movie. The last car chase is pretty epic. 

I love when Mirror Man freaks out about the snake whilst blasting DMX with Vinnie Jones. 

However, Angelina Jolie’s character wouldn’t the sexy lamp test 😢

Much like the codpiece on the Bat-suit, Batman Forever is the full package: a superhero film that is funny, sexy, wacko, and a little bit dark. (I think this is the first time we see the pearls/Waynes murder flashback in live action.)

Chase Meridian is probably my favorite Batman love interest in the films, and it’s a pity she hasn’t really been utilized in other movies, comics, or animation. 

The one knock on Batman Forever is it started the trend of stuffing superhero films with all kinds of extra villains/allies/subplots. Honestly, Jim Carrey perfect, chaotic Riddler would have been enough, but someone has to traumatize Robin, and it’s a guilty pleasure to see Tommy Lee Jones play against type.

“Surf Wax America” by Weezer, but with Aussies!! 

Really good social commentary about toxic masculinity and the mistreatment of indigenous and unhoused folks sandwiched between Nicolas Cage losing his mind, trippy visuals, and an unhinged score.

When Thunderbolts began with the comic intro instead of the MCU, I knew it would be a solid flick. It’s an ode to the hard cases and the girlies with mental health struggles who just happen to have the powers of Superman or Russian spy martial arts. Director Jake Schreier wisely centers the film on Yelena Belova’s (Florence Pugh) journey, and her gifts for wry comedy and deep emotion are on display.

 I especially love her interactions with Bob (Lewis Pullman) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), who brings the loudest laughs. Instead of focusing on the next film, Thunderbolts welds superpowers and interpersonal struggles to craft an action packed and occasionally heart rending story. Seriously, Yelena’s story is relatable to anyone who feels lonely and left out.

Dark hangout movie from the Big Three of Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, and Nicolas Cage. A worm’s eye view of humanity from the edge-of-crash-out Cage/Dante and his various Virgils (Everyman John Goodman, Lascivious Ving Rhames, Chaotic Tom Sizemore) set to a jukebox of proper bangers.

Bleak and powerful look at working class African American life in Watts in the 70s. I love how Charles Burnett lets scenes breathe into vignettes with documentary style realness

The film also features an amazing soundtrack, especially the Paul Robeson cuts.

Cronenberg brings body horror into the AI age with mixed results. Lots of interesting commentary on humanity’s increasing over reliance on these tools mixed with taboo imagery, but the conspiracy thriller elements seemed tacked on. 

Maybe worth a watch if you like morbid weirdos being played by sexy people.

If Anakin’s frontal lobe would have been developed, he never would have become Darth Vader.

Really fun performance from Joaquin Phoenix as failed punker turned pornographer Max California, but can’t really recommend this one.

8mm has weird editing, bad voiceovers, and a stupefying score. Nicolas Cage has no chemistry with Catherine keener and is in generic good action guy mode for about 85% of the movie.

However, his scenes with on the cusp of stardom James Gandolfini are worth looking up.

Sinners is an exciting vampire thriller meets blues musical that has a lot to say about the conception of race and whiteness in the United States. 

The main juke t sequence is worth the price of ission alone as Ryan Coogler and Miles Caton demonstrate that the history of popular music in the United States is the history of Black music.

Also, Sinners probably has my favorite Ludwig Goransson score and can’t wait to listen to the soundtrack on repeat.

The scenes in the quirky Idaho town>>>any of the scenes in Minecraft world!! They had a sliver of that Jared Hess Napoleon Dynamite magic, but I guess it’s a video game movie so we have to spend more time there 

I would probably shop at Jason Momoa’s game store, but he was really obnoxious. 

There were a few funny moments and the visuals effects weren’t bad, but the screenplay was written by a focus group of iPad kids. (There are eight credited screenwriters so probably not far off.)

Relatable characters, freaky creature effects, and British people underreacting to crazy shit happening around them, it really has it all!

Oh yeah, and a tragic love story worthy of a Joy Division song. (The young guy in the pub by the moors is totally a dead ringer for Ian Curtis.)

One of the most epic fantasy movies with lots to say about how humans destroy the environment. The 4K restoration is gorgeous, and one of my favorite Ghibli scores.

Also, San and her wolf dad would kick the shit out of all the people destroying the environment for their AI “Ghibli art”.

Peak comedy!! I wish Will Ferrell and John C Reilly would squash the beef,  and Adam McKay would  remove the stick from his ass and make movies like this again

Gets a star deduction for the racial stereotypes, but fun to watch Steve Martin, Martin Short, and a surprisingly not annoying Chevy Chase be silly little guys. Singing cowboy movies should come back. 

Elmer Bernstein’s score is the secret straight man of the flick.

A wholesome banter-filled idyll with gorgeous Welsh scenery and spot-on pop folk songs from Tom Basden. Tim Key’s awkward humor and comedic timing is the glue for this friendship is magic musical comedy. 

Also, I know I saw Belle & Sebastian and McGwyer co-headline a gig in the early 00s

I think this would have been more entertaining as a video game. 

It has some fun gore, and Jack Quaid is affable as a nerdy self-insert character, but it loses all urgency/stakes at the first “twist”. 

Also, it took 2 whole directors to make a flick this mid??

David Lynch is in his sleazy Valley Boy German butt rock porno era in this flick with the help of ultra freak Robert Blake, and  Bill Pullman losing his shit.

I love Lynch and Barry Gifford’s deadpan dialogue paired with the increasingly insane events of this film. Also, Angelo Badalamenti is cooking on the score per usual, and my favorite David Lynch soundscapes outside of Eraserhead.

Definitely will have to rewatch with herbal refreshment to *get* it more, but glad I went into this one blind

24 Hour People is both a biopic of TV presenter turned record label founder turned brokie Tony Wilson (Played with fourth wall destroying smarminess by Steve Coogan) and a 3-D Smellovision look at the music scene of Manchester from the late 70s to the early 90s as punk turns into post punk turns into rave music. (N'ary a Smith is to be found in this film because Factory didn't sign them.)

Honestly, this film is at its finest when Wilson shuts the hell up, and we get an inner look at the foibles, flaw, and uncanny instincts of the folks who turned out some of the greatest music of the 20th century out of a bleak, impoverished hellscape. I love Andy Serkis as mad genius Martin Hannett transforming the punks of Warsaw into the timeless sound of Joy Division as well as Sean Harris playing Ian Curtis as a regular, slightly melancholic bloke who becomes a saintly figure only after his untimely suicide.

Also, Christopher Eccleston as Boethius, Coogan playing God in a dual role, Paul Popplewell as Sean Ryder, and Chris Coghill as the lord of the vibes (and maracas), Bez bring a dose of good humor to the proceedings.

The film is structured like a classic LP with Joy Division as the A-side, the Happy Mondays as the B-side, and New Order bridging them together as Factory's most successful band. Visually, Michael Winterbottom captures the music styles of each era, and it'll make you want to do a deep dive into each band's catalog.

ive aggressive spy thriller with minimal gunplay and maximal Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender chemistry. I'm a big fan of the banter too.

A super compelling vision of the decay beneath American suburbia. David Lynch makes the film work as both a mystery and psychosexual character study. 

I think I’ll pair it with a Heineken instead of a PBR next time because Dennis Hopper is evil personified. A great baddie playing off Kyle McLachlan as Archie Andrews and Isabella Rossellini’s tragic femme chanteuse.

Brian DePalma brings the style, Nic Cage brought the grace, and Gary Sinise brings the villainous face. 

Seriously, the cinematography in this film is so fun, and Sinise has a killer monologue! A nice way  to spend an evening.

Mickey 17 is a sci-fi comedy for our era with antagonists ripped from current headlines and a setting that would make RFK Jr. drool and save Jeff Bezos a lot of money. It’s epic in scope and worth seeing on the big screen, but grounded in the compelling humanity of Mickey 17 and Mickey 18, who are given vibrant life and love by Robert Pattinson. Also, its setting might be dystopian, but Mickey 17 is quite a hopeful film too and features characters that are pure catharsis. (Seriously, Nasha for president!)

Read my full review here graphiolicy.com/2025/03/07/film-review-mickey-17-is-a-sci-fi-comedy-for-our-era-with-antagonists-ripped-from-current-headlines

Ewan McGregor is devilish, Kerry Fox is badass, and Christopher Eccleston transforms into a little rat man in Danny Boyle's debut film about how money and murder can topple a friendship.

I love how the film starts as three folks flexing their main character syndrome and auditioning to be in The Friends (UK) and devolves into an utterly primal horror. No needle drops except for the intro sequence, but has a Herrmann-esque score from Simon Boswell and plenty of surreal sequences (The red waterboarding, for example.) to go with the kitchen sink realism.

It's very entertaining to watch the cop characters go to work on the not-so-golden trio.

Dune felt really slow in the beginning and really rushed at the end. And there’s so much exposition and repetition. I understand why the recent Denis Villeneuve films were broken up into two parts.

However, it’s not without its charms like the pure butt rock Toto score, a wide eyed Kyle MacLachlan, Alicia Witt ing the scary child actor hall of fame as Alia Atreides, and its handcrafted practical effects.

 Sandworms will always be cool, and some of David Lynch’s visuals capture the psychedelic undertones of the source material.

Dnd: Honor Among Thieves has quips on quips and setpieces on setpieces. It seems that directors love the property, but don’t take themselves too seriously. Rege Jean Page as the paladin is the standout performance as well as Hugh Grant as Icewind Dale’s answer to the Wizard of Oz.

When something catches on fire, you’re supposed to immediately smother/cover it and/pr finish it off with a fire extinguisher. What you’re not supposed to do is keep throwing stuff into the fire while wearing a nighty and continuing to live stream.

All this to say is that I wasn’t surprised when the credits rolled for Captain America: Brave New World, and there were five credited writers, including director Julius Onah. New chefs kept respawning in the burning kitchen that was the screenplay for this film.

Captain America: Brave New World is simultaneously Sam Wilson’s (Anthony Mackie) first cinematic outing as Captain America, a follow-up to Incredible Hulk and Eternals, and a bit of a prequel to Thunderbolts and anything the Marvel Cinematic Universe wants to do with Wolverine/the Weapon X program.

It succeeds at being none of these things (Although, Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk is a somewhat delightful grump), has muddled visual effects, corny dialogue, and above all else, bad politics.

Read the rest of my review here graphiolicy.com/2025/02/16/film-review-captain-america-brave-new-world-is-a-low-point-for-the-marvel-cinematic-universe-and-is-neither-entertaining-thought-provoking-funny-or-interesting-to-look-at/

Captures being in a relationship and/or polycule with charming, yet exasperating people. The right blend of comedy and tragedy plus stylish filmmaking from Truffaut. 

The perfect day after Valentine commercializing of romance hangover film.

Bad ER/Touched by an Angel crossover with a wasted Nicolas Cage and the filmmaking quality of a 2:30 AM New Age CD compilation ment. It tries to explore some of the important parts of being a human and fumbles the bag every time. (It's funny when Cage gets mugged and has no money, and the robbers just let him go.)

A tense family drama that turns into a resistance against an authoritarian regime (And by extension the patriarchy) in miniature. The film starts as a chronicle of the repression of women and protests in Iran and then turns into a rural Iran haunted house thriller as the protagonist Iman goes from being ively complicit to an active oppressor.

Really layered performance from Soheila Golestani as the wife/mom Najmeh, and Setareh Maleki is a Lilo and Stitch jacket sporting badass as the youngest daughter Sana. 

This film has big “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next energy” and is a powerful record of Iranian women’s resistance against a totalitarian, theocratic government.

What a comionate, beautiful film with so many heart rending moments and just a dash of surrealism. I love how the film shows that John Merrick's creativity and aesthetic sense helped him escape from the persecution of a hollow, hateful society.

I hope that Mr. Merrick and Mr. Lynch are enjoying the theater in Abraham's bosom together.

This review may contain spoilers.

Alt right chuds like Andrew Tate would see the world of Companion as some kind of utopian paradise where men can treat women (and men) like literal on-demand sex and intimacy bots mediated by Smartphone apps and five minutes into the future Bluetooth pairing. (Of course, this film’s protagonist drives a copyright friendly Tesla.) However, to folks who actually have a moral com, this world is terrifying, if fascinating in a window shattering, gore spraying, car crash kind of way, which makes it a compelling backdrop for a film that is a mélange of horror and science fiction in anti-romantic (pitch black) comedy wrapping from writer/director Drew Hancock.

Read the rest of my review here: graphiolicy.com/2025/02/01/film-review-companion-is-a-genre-bending-film-that-is-chock-full-of-truths/

Peak action cinema!! I really enjoyed John Travolta channeling Nicolas Cage, and also vice versa, Cage gets to go into  a dark, vulnerable side of his acting. 

Face/Off really strikes a nice balance between action and characterization, and John Woo makes everything look cool as hell too!!

Not as fun as I ed as a kid, but great ing cast, especially Malkovich, Buscemi, and Swamp Thing 

Cage isn’t crazy enough in it though and hate the accent. 

However, it’s cool as hell when they blow up Vegas.