The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Director: Matt Shakman

Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I remain sort of ambivalent about the Tim Story-directed films of the mid-aughts, so any degree of comparison to this and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) is largely going to miss me.

Did I Like It: With Lora not going with me, I made the somewhat unusual decision to take in the film in 3D. But not only that, I opted for MX4D, one of these immersive experiences meant to up-charge/save theatrical exhibition and would have absolutely delighted William Castle, were he still with us. I’m not sure how I feel about the experience, getting shot with streaks of air having my chair occasionally punch me in the posterior certainly would keep me awake through most films. Scorsese once complained that the glut of superhero movies are less cinema than theme park rides. It’s entirely possible that this might be the way to take in the film.

As far as the film is concerned, I was bracing myself for an Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) or Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantummania (2023) situation, where I would have to sit patiently through a glut of exposition ahead of next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, but the film does a valiant effort of making the film focus on its own story. I would say there are only two shots specifically looking ahead, and one of them appears in one of the post-credit tags.

The retro-futuristic world on display is a delight. Everyone’s a sexy as the cast of Mad Men and nobody’s racist, and we can travel faster than light? Sign me up. I might want more of this feeling, but there are stray moments where the film delightfully feels like it was made in the 60s.

The cast is good, especially Moss-Bachrach, who never lets the illusion of Ben Grimm stand in the way of a charming performance, and Kirby, who is the beating heart of the film and never once content to “just be the girl on the team.”

The one thing I’m left feeling as the film ended, though, is that the whole affair felt slight, almost to the point of being withholding. Maybe word that the film was re-cut recently (and, indeed, lost an entire performance by John Malkovich in the process) sticks in my mind, but I could have used more time in this world and with these characters. We might complain about these cinematic confections being overloaded with plot and bombast, but it may take me a while to grow re-accustomed with a big-budget entertainment that is content to focus on its own story and telling it to us as fast as we’re able to comprehend.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Director: Alex Gibney

Cast: Lawrence Wright, Mark Rathbun, Monique Rathbun, Mike Rinder

Have I Seen it Before: It feels like I may have seen some of it before. Those scenes that dealt with the harassment of ex high-ranking members of Scientology. I may very well have flipped to HBO at some instant and stuck with it for a moment, while it may even be possible that I had seen the whole thing and forgotten it. Is that something that just happens in your 40s? If only there were some kind organized method of making the brain better…

Did I Like It: I kid, I kid. And I do so only partially because I saw that the church went after people who wrote reviews. I imagine a decade on, they’re probably not looking to close at the chatter, but one can never be too careful.

One can’t argue with the form on display here. It’s hard to believe that the church didn’t have a role in preventing it from getting a Best Documentary nomination. But as I’ve often determined, craft is secondary in the field of documentary. An array of stumbling amateurs can mangle the format, but for the skilled, it becomes a question of access and point of view.

The film has the benefit of adapting its perspective from the similarly title book, and therefore has more focus than most.

Access, however, is always going to be the tricky part when Scientology is concerned. The film makes the point that they certainly tried to get the perspective of figures like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and especially David Miscavige, but to naturally not get any cooperation. Given their secretive nature (to put it mildly) that’s not terribly surprising, but it does leave the possibility of the truly great Scientology documentary has yet to be made. Maybe it will take years. Probably most of the people I just mentioned will have either left the church or died. It may even take the end of Scientology for the full, strange picture to be there.

When that documentary is made, one doesn’t have a hard time imagining that filmmaker using piece of this film as a foundation, and probably even a good amount of b-roll.

Superman (2025)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi

Have I Seen it Before: That really is the big question, but no, the film is (mostly; more on that later) brand new.

Did I Like It: The problem with reviewing DC films (whether DCEU, DCU, or Elseworlds) I feel like I have to state my credentials, so that you, dear reader, can decide whether you want to stop reading or not.

I don’t mourn the loss of the DCEU, finding the majority of the films ill-considered, while at the same time, despite some flaws, I kind of liked and still do like Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013). I was so exhausted by Justice League (2017)—and resolutely never want to discuss Mother Boxes ever again—that I let my wife write the site’s review of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). I greatly anticipated The Flash (2023) for obvious reasons, and was largely disappointed by it, again, for obvious—but different—reasons. I ultimately couldn’t care less about the Snyder vs. Gunn debate which I can’t imagine is of any interest to people outside of the chronically online, and feel that the saga of DC films post-2013 has largely been a cautionary tale about the dangers of caring too much about superhero movies.

Now that we have that fact out of the way, what did I think of this film? It’s well acted, often thrilling, frequently funny, and perfectly cast. I’m coming to my review a little late, but I’m feeling increasingly comfortable saying that it is the most purely enjoyable of this summer’s tentpoles, made all the more impressive by the fact that there has yet to be a thoroughly hyped dud released this season.

As superhero films are often at their weakest when they feel the need to bend over backwards to set up future films, this feels like a very soft set up for a new shared universe. Aside from a road sign pointing the way to Gotham City, and the cameo appearance of a new Supergirl (Milly Alcock) that briefly steals the show and serves as a pretty great teaser for her film next year, the film is more concerned with telling its story. Gunn has said that no film in his new effort will go forward without a completed script. Not every one of his films will be a winner, but it’s hard to deny that’s a good sign.

It’s a 90s Superman comic brought to life, right down to Nathan Fillion’s haircut. I mean that in the best way possible. As long as they find a reason for him to enter one of these stories, I may yet live to see a live-action Batcave with a penny, a T-Rex, and a Joker card before I die. For the first time in a very long time, I’m not positively exhausted at the prospect of more DC films coming my way.

My only complaint with the film is the one point under which I have to give Zack Snyder the advantage. Gunn claims he wants a fresh start, but he couldn’t help but lean on the musical themes written by John Williams for Superman (1978). Even that poster up above is absolutely eating Christopher Reeve’s leftovers. It’s a trap that Bryan Singer grabbed onto with both hands, but on which Snyder did indeed break new ground. I can see a studio wanting to go with that idea, but that may be the kind of muddled decision making we’re going to occasionally get when the filmmaker and the executive are the same person.

What About Bob? (1991)

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss, Julie Hagerty, Charlie Korsmo

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. Relatively sure I saw it in theaters.

Did I Like It: If pressed, I would say that the peak period of Bill Murray probably started with the famous Saturday Night Live sketch where he admitted that he wasn’t really doing so great on the show*, and goes up to about Scrooged (1988). His current era is a bit more reserved and attracts some awards, give or take a handful Ghostbusters legacy sequels. Then there’s that middle era, where he was a holy terror to everyone he worked with. Starting here, and culminating with him not being asked back for a second Charlie’s Angels film.

What we have here is a basic, even erring on the side of too-broad-for-its-own good comedy. This is especially true in the third act, where the wide-release sensibility prevents the story from reaching its natural conclusion, where Dreyfuss strangles the life out of Murray, and instead culminates in a comedy of error that sees Dreyfuss blow his own house up.

What the film has going for it is that it is perhaps the perfect matchup of two actors who make it a point not to get along with people. Their chemistry is palpable and might very well have propelled a far less competent screenplay to be just as watchable. What we may all have missed in that is that a far less competent director than Oz would have had no hope at all of keeping this all together. He doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his work behind the camera, in favor of his work as a puppeteer.

*One might make the argument for the moment when he called Chevy Chase a “medium talent” back stage and then got into a physical altercation, but we mostly have to imagine how that one played out.

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright

Have I Seen it Before: I’m sure I had to have. It lies among that long list of movies which seemed perpetually on cable. I would have had to see it over the years, but I may have only seen clips.

Did I Like It: I’m going to double down on that assessment that I must have seen it before, because I found the whole affair—besides the last few minutes; we’ll get to that in a minute—thoroughly predictable. I had to be remembering it, right? Szwarc might be purveyor of films I can’t bring myself to watch all the way through (Jaws 2 (1978)) and films that feel like the studio barely decided to release (Supergirl (1984)), but Richard Matheson really doesn’t have it in him to miss.

The chemistry between Reeve and Seymour sells the movie, but maybe I’m just too inured to the charms of a time travel story to get engaged, especially when traveling across the 4th dimension is presented less a question of improbably physics, and more a question of philosophy, willpower, and the need to clean one’s pockets.

When the film isn’t being predictable, it’s going out of its way to be aggravating. How did Elise (Seymour) put it together that her love (Reeve) was from the future and had to go back there based on the available information. Even Christopher Lloyd and Malcolm McDowell had to level with Mary Steenburgen in order to move things along. There’s also the suddenness of the film’s final moments. It takes great pains to sell us on the romance of the early years of the 20th century, only to rip Richard Collier back to the present and have him miserable amongst some of the most depressing vies of the early 1980s (the film really did have a great casting director when it came to actual, literal garbage). He then dies in such a way that leads me to believe Reeve has to walk before Natalie Portman could run in Star Wars — Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Then their together in heaven. Hey, movie: Jim Cameron called, and he’s positively one submarine away from trying to sell us on the idea of one vacation ruining you from making another connection with a human being for the rest of your life.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DaManicor, Betsy Baker

Have I Seen it Before: No. I’m usually tempted to say at points like this “strangely, no” but I’m more tempted in this particular case to question whether most people have seen it.

Did I Like It: I’m going to try real hard not to blur the lines between my review for this and my eventual review for Evil Dead II (1987), even though Raimi and company didn’t feel much of a need to differentiate between the two films while making them. My memory of the sequel was that I didn’t see the big deal that everyone was going nuts over, and the same can be said here.

I’m all for horror. I’m all for Raimi’s other work*. There’s just something about the Deadites that always left me cold to varying degrees, and seeing them in their prototypical form doesn’t do much to dissuade that. You’ve got to wait for Army of Darkness (1992) or even Evil Dead Rise (2023) before my heart grows big enough to embrace the carnage.

The film isn’t entirely without charms. Seeing a horror movie made with the same kind of near-zero budget and in the same era as Halloween (1978) but that embraces the supernatural aspects of horror, even if the budget isn’t always there to back it up. It’s also worth glancing—if for only the jarring quality that may be my most lasting memory of the film—at a version of Bruce Campbell so youthful that it’s difficult to imagine the Bruce Campbell residing somewhere in his future.

*Drifting through some of the information on this film, I can’t help but be consumed by a desires—as we all must, from time to time—to watch Darkman (1990).

Dogma (1999)

Director: Kevin Smith

Cast: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman

Have I Seen It Before: I’m not sure how someone gets through the early aughts without taking in the film. I’m not sure how precisely my gang and I got to the film when most of them would go out and buy pearls to clutch at anything rougher than a hard PG-13, but we did. Most people didn’t like it. Some people threw some real temper tantrums about it.

I remember this exchange in particular:

Someone trying to make the peace about the whole affair. “I mean, it is a little Unitarian…”

Me, several years before actually becoming a Unitarian. “So?”

These are the moments that stick in your mind, along with, presumably, some moments from the film itself.

Did I Like It: Is it enough to say that it may still be my favorite Smith film? That may be damning with faint praise, as his later works have left me either mildly amused or resoundingly cold, but it has everything someone could possibly want from one of his films. It is funny. Yes, some of it still works. Most of that is in the performances. George Carlin is good as the hapless, self-absorbed priest who accidentally brings existence to the brink. Chris Rock may never have been better in the films (even if he always seemed more at home with in a sketch or with a microphone in his hands). Mewes—always a bit much to take depending on how susceptible one is to the charms of catchphrases—gets all the best lines, and manages to throw away more than a few of them.

It has that independent film spirit that tends to melt away there in the mid-2000s and has felt a little bit forced since Red State (2011).

But most importantly, it has something to say. Back in the day, there was more than a little pearl clutching about his other films, like Clerks (1994), but here you could judge your uptight friends and it actually might lead you to start contemplating more profound ideas about the universe… Like how John Hughes can both set Jay and Silent Bob (Smith) on their holy path by writing The Breakfast Club (1985), and then sell his soul to Satan by the 1990s.

Suspense (1946)

Director: Frank Tuttle

Cast: Barry Sullivan, Belita, Bonita Granville, Albert Dekker

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: The simplest version of the answer to that question can be summed up with the following statement: I have many, many objections to that title. There is very little suspense to be found in the film. That’s probably pretty damning for a film like this, when all you need to do to get the suspense cooking in a B Noir Thriller like this is establish a clock ticking down to zero or cut to cops slowly but surely closing in on the schemers. But perhaps I shouldn’t be critical without offering some constructive suggestions. Here are some alternate titles:

Kind of Noir, But Really Only In The Last Reel

Swordplay, But Not In The Way You’re Thinking

The Dame Sure Can Ice Skate

That’s probably enough.

But there’s something there in those titles, if only in that last one. Belita sure can skate, and the sequences in which she does so are done well. If you’re interested in ice skating, I’m hard pressed to recommend another film. The problem becomes in the lackadaisical way that a plot is just slapped on to some nice ice skating sequences. This material could have been wrapped up in any kind of story. A romantic comedy would have worked, if Barry Sullivan didn’t have the kind of angular face that ensures he’s up to no good the moment that he occupies the screen. Even a Western revolving around a good ice skater would have worked, although I’ll admit the re-working to a period piece might have broken the poor King Brothers’ bank. While I’m still pitching, a rags to riches showbiz movie could have worked.

Come to think of it, why didn’t they build a starring vehicle for Belita around that conceit. After all the dame sure can ice skate.

The Elephant Man (1980)

Director: David Lynch

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, Freddie Jones

Have I Seen it Before: I think so? It would have to have been long enough ago that I spent most of my time watching it not remembering large swaths of what I was seeing.

Did I Like It: It may be a controversial opinion, but I tend to think that Lynch is at his best when he’s a little pinned in by the constraints of commercial filmmaking*. Eraserhead (1977) is—is admittedly intentionally—sort of hard to watch and love. The Straight Story (1999) is probably his best movie**.

So it is here that things are the best of all possible worlds, where Lynch is forced to make a movie a wide audience might see, but is allowed to indulge his instincts a little bit, as a treat. When I’m talking about Lynch’s instincts, I’m not even referring to the makeup job that transformed John Hurt*** into John Merrick. That’s the part that tries to relate to the audience on their own terms. The entire film is an empathy sandwich, real human emotions nestled in between two thin amounts of absurdism****. Where Eraserhead’s symphony of absurdism is directed toward discomfort, The Elephant Man is aimed towards our compassion.

And it works.

The weirdness comes in only at the beginning and the end, where we are treated to an abstract view of Merrick’s conception (I think; we are dealing with Lynch here) and his death. But even that last part is life-affirming.

*You and I both are immediately thinking of a notable exception in Dune (1984), but what is a hot take without an obvious, glaring exception?

**At this point, I should probably just launch a “hot takes about the career of David Lynch” blog, no?

***Completely off topic, but could you imagine what it would have been like if Hopkins had played the War Doctor? The things my mind will drift towards…

****Maybe it’s more of an emotional panini?

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Director: Curtis Hanson

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger

Have I Seen It Before: Yes. It felt like one of those negotiations I had to launch into in the 1990s to retrieve R-rated movies from the powers that B. As scandalous as the film presents itself to be, I’m imagining my 13-year-old self felt like he was sold a false bill of goods.

Did I Like It: This time I loved it. There’s probably not much more to say about the Hanson’s direction, Ellroy’s story designed to be an almost perfect tension-delivery machine, or even the performances. I’m perfectly fine to hear that the one takeaway people might have from this review that I never thought I’d watch a movie with Kevin Spacey and eventually forget that I’m having to watch Kevin Spacey. The man is probably deeply terrible, and I’m imagining that American Beauty (1999) is still made of nuclear levels of discomfort, but there was definitely a time where he had a watchable quality.

But what I would really like to talk about it Jerry Goldsmith’s score. I didn’t even need to see his name in the credits to know he was conducting. It might be his last great score*, and it seems to celebrate all of his disparate works. There’s more than a little bit of Chinatown (1974), and that seems to be a natural reference point. But there’s plenty of other Golsmith-esque flourishes in there, culminating in a celebration of his whole career. A bit of Alien (1979)** is thrown in there, along with some of his larger orchestral themes, and even a few notes from his later synth-heavy scores. The score album of this one is quickly going to be on regular rotation. That much is for certain.

*All due apologies to Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), a solid score that suffers from trying to copy Star Trek: First Contact (1996) a bit too closely, and no apologies to Star Trek Nemesis (2002), because you know what you did.

**When White (Crowe) digs around in the cellar, you’ll hear it, too.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Renee Jones

Have I Seen It Before: I’m reasonably sure that I haven’t. But a TNT marathon in the 90s might have drifted across my consciousness.

Did I Like It: Is there anything to say about this series this many movies in? It’s never been anything more than the poor-man’s slasher franchise*. It never attached to anything resembling a long-term story. Even Corey Feldman is a little bit ashamed of his association with the movies.

Is it enough that there’s a little humor injected into the proceedings? People groan about getting into another mix-em-up with the Man in the Mask**, and children ask each other what they thought they were going to be when they grew up… before it became clear they had parents content to send them to Camp Crystal Lake, by any other name. It is as if they were the first horror movie characters who have ever actually seen a horror movie. That might be revolutionary, but its far more likely giving the film too much credit. Anybody who insists that this was somehow a precursor to Scream (1996) or the far-better Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) are the same kind of people who have A Lot Of OpinionsTM about Jason.

The series is going to have to take a lot of big swings to get a reaction out of me. Thankfully or horrifyingly, I’ve still got Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Jason X (2001) by which I can get properly nauseated.

*That feels like the kind of incendiary that will get people Mad On The InternetTM but I don’t think I’m particularly frightened by anybody who has any kind of strong feelings for Jason Voorhees.

**“He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” the… love theme…? from the movie is probably Alice Cooper’s worst song and sounds more like something that would form the basis of a sketch on “I Think You Should Leave.”

28 Years Later (2025)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Hell, I just recently got on board with 28 Days Later (2002).

Did I Like It: The movie being sold in this film’s trailers seemed like a fine one. Years after the initial onset of the Rage Virus, there’s a little island village in the United Kingdom that got spared the worst of it.

But for how long?

That’s a perfectly fine log line for a movie, and with Danny Boyle back in the mix* it feels like whatever was going to be on tap, it would be both elevated and do its level headed best to transcend the trappings of the genre.

But that’s not what the movie is about. At all. The island of Lindisfarme is just as secure from the Rage Virus as it has been since the beginning of both this movie and the early aughts. What the movie is really about is so much more poignant, genuine, relevant, and—I really can’t believe I’m going to say this about a zombie film—life-affirming.

I really don’t want to tell you what it really is about. If you want to hear my thoughts on the particulars, there’s an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods that is either already available, or will be soon.

Let me leave this then with the thought the film leaves us—when it isn’t setting up a sequel approaching faster than one of the film’s non-obese zombies—and I never thought would come from a Zombie film:

Memento Amori.

As I type this, the film’s opening weekend is still in full swing. It hasn’t nearly reached its full audience yet. I google “memento amori” now, and I get back a bunch of catamaran charters in the Caribbean.

I have a real feeling that the phrase will take on a new meaning very, very soon.

*Did anyone else think the movie would also have a return from a post-Oppenheimer (2023) Cillian Murphy? Did anyone else that one zombie in the trailer was Murphy? Just me? Okie doke!

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement

Have I Seen it Before: I have a strong, unwavering belief that this was the last movie I ever saw in a hotel room pay-per-view. And I mean that as it was the most recent time that happened, and also the final time. Honestly, kids. Ask your parents.

Did I Like It: What is the smallest possible rationale for a movie to be made? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) is what it is because Shatner had a favored-nations clause with Nimoy and thus, the crew of the Enterprise meets God. The Cat in the Hat (2003) was the minimum punishment Mike Myers was able to stomach after refusing to make a movie version of Sprockets. The less said about most adaptations of The Fantastic Four, the better.

Among all of those, the pitch “Josh Brolin can do a pretty good impression of Tommy Lee Jones” has got to be pretty thin. But Sonnenfeld and company make the best of it, for the most part. Trying to get Jones by telling him he maybe had to work for a week probably helped matters more than little.

I’m not entirely sure (pre 2022 Oscars, naturally) why Smith felt the need to come back, and could still around the same time turn his nose up at Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). A summer sci-fi extravaganza is just the same as any other. Maybe if Josh Brolin could do a young Robert Loggia impression…

Ultimately a third venture with Earth’s last line of defenses is about as good as the original and a fair sight better than the almost paint-by-numbers second film. I’m normally in favor of any series wanting to suddenly adopt time travel, but content to reach for the simplest of audiences, we’re not so much allowed to go along on the adventure with Agent J as having him occasionally mention aloud what is happening. It’s not my favorite thing to happen. But it’s all of a piece.

For Heaven's Sake (1926)

Director: Sam Taylor

Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Oscar Smith, Noah Young

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: There’s a moment in Modern Times (1936) where Chaplin as the Tramp roller skates through a remodeling department store. You’ve probably seen the shot. It looks like he’s about to die a horrible death about a half dozen times. To my mind, it was always one of the more daring slapstick stunts put on film.

And then somebody had to do a Youtube video explaining how he did it. Chaplin was never in danger, and it’s a simple illusion using an optical printer. I wished I hadn’t watched it, but now I have and the illusion is always going to be a little bit less. It’s a big reason I try not to engage in any extended conversation with a magician. It just leads to heartache.

That’s the beauty part about this film, as well. There are a great number of times I’m watching this film and I’m thinking, “Thank God John Landis wasn’t working in the 1920s*. Otherwise, a lot more people would have died.” Also, a perfectly reasonable complimentary reaction would be, “Imagine what Lloyd and Co. could do now/Imagine what Tom Cruise would have done had he been in the 1920s.” People dangle off cars in mid-chase. They jump off of said moving vehicles, only to jump back on them. People don’t fall, no matter how much my previous understanding of gravity makes me want to believe that they will. It’s thrilling, you know? To see people disregard their safety for my entertainment, regardless of the decade. It might be the most pure thrill that the cinema can pull off.

Please, please don’t tell me how they managed to pull it off here. It’ll bum me out.

*Or, for that matter, the 2020s, but that’s probably not pertinent to this discussion and more of a reflection of Blues Brothers 2000 (1998).

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Director: Wes Anderson

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Mia Therapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: At it’s basic level, each new Wes Anderson film—at least after he conclusively proved his mettle with The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)—feels like it could be something new. Animation? Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). An alien invasion story? Asteroid City (2023). A breezy journey through a highbrow magazine? The French Dispatch (2021). So, too, the thought of Anderson bringing his meticulous and distinctive visual style to an espionage story? It suddenly becomes appointment viewing for me.

And unfortunately, I may be of the mind that Anderson is stuck in particular themes and stories, no matter what genre with which a new film might have a tenuous relationship. The style is largely still there, although a few shots towards the end of the film embrace movement that isn’t a tracking shot. Every item—and especially every book—looks to be at least sixty years old (it helps here that the film is meant to take place in 1950). Right angles, quirky line readings, and plaid abound.

I’m not expecting Anderson to abandon everything he holds dear in favor of a new genre, but the themes are the same. A general storybook quality? Check. Awkward love story? Check. Some sort of redemption arc for a distant, larger than life father? Also, check.

I’m not necessarily mad or even disappointed that Anderson gave me exactly what I expected from the film. To the twee, indie film set, he’s as reliable as Michael Bay or McDonalds*. Can we not want more from a filmmaker who made his name initially making surprising choices? Does he not want more from the films he has yet to make?

*Yeah, I get it. That sounds like I’m mad and/or disappointed.

Pee-Wee as Himself (2025)

Director: Matt Wolf

Cast: Paul Reubens, Lynne Marie Stewart, Cassandra Peterson, John Moody

Have I Seen It Before: Nope! Bereft that it has taken me this many weeks to finally watch it. My parents had to tell me how good it was. Which feels like more of an injury than anything else.

Did I Like It: Any deep dive into the career of Reubens and the reign of Pee-Wee was going to be a must-watch for me right out of the gate. When Reubens died in 2023, I was more than a little sad, but I got philosophical about the whole thing after watching a few episodes of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, I got kind of philosophical about it all: Paul Reubens was an incredibly talented writer and performer who passed away too soon. Pee-Wee Herman is an idea, and incapable of dying.

Pee-Wee was a vessel designed to show people that you could be so thoroughly weird that most people might find you annoying* and still be worthy of friendship, love, and celebration. Attempting to unravel the relationship between Reubens the actor and Pee-Wee the character would be a minimum requirement of the film, and it delivers on that in spades. There’s plenty of other honest examinations of Playhouse, the downsides of the success in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), and a defenses of the commercial failures of Big Top Pee-Wee (1988) too. It’s everything I could have wanted from a Pee-Wee documentary.

What elevates the film from the competent to one of the best films of the year lays in the friction between subject and filmmaker. One of the essential standards to measure the quality of a documentary is the degree to which the filmmaker has access to the subject. Not knowing that Reubens was battling the cancer that would eventually end his life, the filmmakers were resolute in not letting Reubens’ perfectionism and instincts as a storyteller take over the direction of the film.

Reubens withdrew his cooperation with subsequent interviews, but managed to try and say his peace the day before he passed away. Reubens tried to exercise control over the affair because after all of these years, the bifurcated nature of his identity, coupled with his intermittent legal troubles, and his sexuality, he wanted to be understood for who he was.

It turns out, the guy who needed a character like Pee-Wee the most was Reubens. It might be a sad end to a story about a man who was willing to give up everything for his creative endeavors. But now, after the end, Reubens may be a bit better understood. He got what he wanted, even if what he wanted was never quite under his control.

*I had a talking Pee-Wee doll when I was a kid. That doll talked a lot. Eventually, he talked so much that he wouldn’t talk anymore. I tried to nurse that doll back to health for days. It wasn’t until my 30s when I realized my mother probably just removed the batteries and got everybody on board with the con. I did not plan to make this review a lot therapy. But then again, Reubens didn’t really think the film would be confessional, so it all becomes of a piece.

28 Days Later (2002)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, no.

Did I Like It: One has to wonder precisely why I have missed the film over twenty years later. The likeliest suspect on spec is my general aversion to the zombie genre. I’m fine with misery porn when its based on reality—presumably we’ve surpassed or are trying to surpass the ills that introduced said misery—but when its all hypothetical, my threshold is pretty low.

My antipathy isn’t helped much by my skepticism that Boyle* has spent years insisting that the film isn’t really about zombies. How many directors of zombie films—from Romero to Edgar Wright—have insisted that their opus isn’t really about zombies? More importantly: How many of them are right or even remotely believable in that assertion?

So, I’m happy to report that Boyle was right on the money** and joins the elite minority of those  who actually know what their film is about. The film is incidentally about zombies and more about how the institutions we’re supposed to rely on are bureaucratically and temperamentally unable to meet the needs of the future. Jim (Murphy) awakens in a hospital, but there is no care there. He immediately heads for a church, but there is nothing but frightening realization there. He eventually bands together with some fellow survivors and try to find a base of military officers who offer protection, and possibly, answers.

Answers are scarce, and whatever protection they have in mind is a parody of the concept they would want us to believe in.

If you can get over the pronounced British video quality of the cinematography—it is often distracting, and puts one in mind to watch some BBC sitcom of the era—then the film offers plenty to chew on, and even a little bit of hope by the time the credits roll. The Walking Dead couldn’t even manage that much and they’re still trying to bring that thing to a conclusion fifteen years later.

*Not that one. Har har har.

**Har har har.

Deathtrap (1982)

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I honestly hadn’t even heard of the film before seeing a review in an old episode of Siskel & Ebert. As I’m not allowed to recommend movies for podcasts based on those two gentlemen from Chicago—with good reason—I’m still free to watch films like that on my own, right?

Did I Like It: There’s two very obvious observations one can make about this film. First, it’s clear that Christopher Reeve is having a great time doing this film. He’ll never not be known as Superman, he’d likely never have been a movie star without Superman, and I think he probably liked being Superman. But your guy needed a break. And I can feel the happiness he must have felt when he read this script.

I can also see where this film tripped slightly at the box office. Trying to hit the 1980s moviegoing audience where their red and blue clad hero is a sociopathic writer who is lovers with Michael Caine. I’d like to say that we’re more evolved now, but I can swing my arms and hit somebody on the internet who would set their hair on fire if Henry Cavill kissed a man on film today.

The film itself packs a fair amount of surprises, although most of those occur in the film’s first half. I legitimately thought that Sidney (Caine) had killed Clifford (Reeve). I figured the film wouldn’t have made use of a star only to off him in the first act, if for no other reason than Hitchcock got away with it the one time and it’ll never happen again. When he does return, I didn’t think that would be the shape of the film’s plot. Good on it, surprising me that effectively.

The rest of the film plays out a little by the numbers. Turnabouts are laid on top of turnabouts, only to have the whole film be somebody else’s play. It’s an unsatisfying ending, to be sure.

Friendship (2024)

Director: Andre DeYoung

Cast: Tim Robinson, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer, Paul Rudd

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: If you haven’t watched Robinson’s superlative Netflix series I Think You Should Leave, I wonder why you’re coming to see this film, and I wonder if it would work for you. Robinson has a comedic voice unlike anyone now or before. It can take a second to calibrate to his perfect picture of the modern man dealing with the frustration of existing via expulsions of non sequitur and rage. You should really go watch that show. It’s great!

I write those preceding sentences and realize that there should be plenty of moments to get eased into Robinson’s style. It probably still wouldn’t work entirely. It didn’t for me, sadly.

It’s entirely possible that Robinson’s persona doesn’t work in a longer form. The bubbling up of his ire and confusion can’t sustain itself, or at least can’t do so with consistently being as funny as he clearly can be. He works better as a firecracker of comedy. He may have been built for sketch comedy.

Maybe it’s because Robinson only performs and didn’t write any of the material here. I tend to believe that assessment more than the long term versus short term of it all. His sitcom Detroiters managed to capture that same level of magic. The writers are imitating his style, and while Robinson can play this character, there isn’t much more than a journeymen’s effort on display.

The film isn’t without its charms. It does manage to depict—if not quite elevate—the quiet desperation of middle class life in the the 21st century. It also makes a valiant effort at deconstructing the forever-young myth of Paul Rudd. Even if he wears a bald cap*, he’s willing to make himself the butt of the joke, and that’s always something nice to see from a movie star.

*Is it possible that what Rudd might actually look like?

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg*

Have I Seen it Before: Never, and maybe never again?

Did I Like It: Here’s a confession, if I haven’t already made it in previous reviews for the Mission: Impossible films. Most people are never more delighted during these films than when Ethan Hunt (Cruise) dangles off of increasingly precarious things. That’s the brand. That’s why the vast majority posters for this movie show a biplane flying upside down with Cruise holding on by one hand. That will gets butt into seats**.

I, on the other hand, am never more delighted in this series when they make references to the original Mission: Impossible (1996). I have a weird affection for that uneven first entry with the byzantine plot, even when I’m willing to admit that Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) is likely the most satisfying entry, pound for pound. From Alec Baldwin’s muttering about the CIA Black Vault in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) through the White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) being the heiress to Max (Vanessa Redgrave), all the way to the return of Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023), McQuarrie either has the same soft spot for the first film as I do, or had an interest in making the story of Ethan Hunt one where what came before has an impact on what is still to come. A valid ambition in my eyes, either way.

The references to the original film abound here as well. I found the revelations that Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham) is actually the son of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) to be a little anemic, especially when it confirms finally and beyond all doubt that these films don’t share a continuity with the original television series.

But then there’s William Donloe (Rolf Saxon). The hapless mark in the aforementioned Black Vault, he was just a guy who knew how to manage a database. A man after my own heart, who go mistreated.

And he’s the secret heroe of the series, and steals every moment he’s in this film.

I am delighted, in that much at least, and that’s more than enough to recommend a movie.

Is this really the end for Ethan Hunt and company? Aside from dispensing with Luther Stickell in the first act, the film doesn’t seem like it wants to commit to a valedictory for the dangling man. This is as close as we’re going to get, and I hope it is the end. If for no other reason than I find it increasingly hard to believe that Scientology can give a man the tools he needs to do his own stunts into his 70s. This would be a good place to stop.

But if they want to do a spinoff series with Donloe, I’ll be the first one there on opening weekend.

*It took me all of my patience not to list Rolf Saxon in the main cast. More on that later. Also learned that he narrated the American broadcasts of Teletubbies. So there’s that.

**Enough butts in seats to cover a $400 million budget? One wonders, but maybe that’s a discussion for a different time.