The absence of any major American films from this year’s Cannes Film Festival competition allowed room for some French films to sneak in. The Birthday Party aka Histoires de la Nuit is a film which would have never otherwise been allowed to compete for the Palme d’Or. It’s the kind …
It’s been eighteen months since Season Three of Reacher and the series’ appeal is more valuable than ever. The character of Reacher – ex-military brat, ex-military police, now a keenly observant drifter with no living family, no possessions, no way of being traced as he moves through the world, and …
Seven years after the controversial The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars returns to the big screen with the faint whimper of a broken lightsaber. In the years since the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, Star Wars has continued largely through Disney+ streaming shows. The best of these is Andor by …
I’ll admit I walked into this one with my guard up. Every trailer drop for Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and I avoided them like the plague, though there’s only so much a person can dodge — kept adding another name to an already overstuffed-looking roster: Bruce Banner / Hulk …
To say there’s not much new in this story of female super-soldiers is kind of reductive, because major action blockbusters centered around a woman are still unusual in Hindi cinema. Fortunately Alia Bhatt is a major Hindi superstar, who has occasionally also worked in English, and who absolutely has the …
Note: This review contains some mild spoilers for season 5 of The Boys. Back in 2019, The Boys burst onto the scene by having a supe burst through an actual person. This year, we have the fifth and final season, and it is an absolutely wild ride to an explosive …
It’s always exciting to see a popular actor subvert expectations. Not only does it allow the actor to flex different creative muscles, but it also shows audiences that there is more to them than meets the eye. 2025’s The Smashing Machine attempts this feat with its leading star, Dwayne Johnson. …
In retrospect, it makes sense that EP Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were always going to be the ones to bring Fallout to the screen – after all; what was HBO’s one-time flagship series Westworld if but a trail run? What was Person of Interest if not for a show …
2004’s Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washington (based on a book of the same name from 1980), existed as a seminal film of its time. Twenty-four years after its release, the film has cemented its place in the action movie pantheon. In my younger film-watching years, it existed as a …
While I’m a huge self-appointed Marvel nerd, I have to be honest…The Punisher has never been one of my favorite characters. When I was still pretty young, my eldest sister met a guy who would eventually become my brother-in-law, who was obsessed with The Punisher. So much so that he …
The work of Gerard Butler has been interesting to watch unfold. While he is not the most versatile performer, Butler carved a niche. He has existed as an action star akin to someone like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Known for films like 300 or the Has Fallen series, one …
Hot Water pulls off a very neat trick in the guise of a road movie: it makes thought process form. The act of driving thousands of miles is what provides the mother and son at the heart of this story huge catharsis without a great deal of big stuff happening. …
“Cozy murder” is a thing because it’s an easy way for our society to reassure itself that justice will be done. What’s more, we all fear the reaper, and working out how to manage our inevitable end is one of the most important things we do, individually and collectively. This …
If you thought that David Mackenzie’s previous film, Relay, was stupid, you haven’t seen anything yet. In his latest disaster, Fuze, Mackenzie, and screenwriter Ben Hopkins somehow screw up a tried-and-true pressure-cooker that should elicit strong popcorn thrills and not total bewilderment. However, instead of sticking to the film’s original …
It’s so nice to see something uniting the entire world, especially when that thing is a hatred for artificial intelligence. Per Aspera Ad Astra is a Chinese kids’ movie, released for the lunar new year, with some very big Chinese stars at its core, all about the importance of our …
The instructions are simple: Do not overlook any anomalies. If you find an anomaly, turn back immediately. If you do not find any anomalies, do not turn back. Go out from Exit 8. The instructions hang on the wall, where all who enter the switchback tunnels of this particular subway …
Whenever the names of 87North Productions or 87Eleven Entertainment are linked to a new project, my interest immediately spikes. After all, we’re talking about the teams that redefined modern action cinema with the John Wick franchise and continued to leave their mark on films like Nobody, Violent Night, or The …
Content warning: descriptions of incredibly graphic violence from the start Sometimes a movie makes it apparent why we do the work we do. For example, if someone stabbed me in the shoulder, twisted the knife, and then stomped on the knife while it was still in my body, I might …
Re-released for its 30th anniversary last year, Martin Campbell’s 1995 super spy movie GoldenEye looks and feels particularly vintage, like something you’d watch on a holiday. The seventeenth title in the James Bond franchise, the film introduced a new 007 in Pierce Brosnan, who would end up playing the part …
American movies like The Weight used to be a dime a dozen, which is meant as a compliment. It used to be that Hollywood loved to take an action-heavy script, people it with a fun combination of big stars and delightful character actors, move like the wind from one entertaining …