REVIEWSetc.

There is a moment early in Marty, Life Is Short where Martin Short's alter ego, the oafish celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick, scoffs at the very idea of a documentary being made about Martin Short. "They're making a documentary on literally everyone," Glick grumbles — and he's not entirely wrong. The celebrity documentary has become its own genre at this point, with Netflix leading the charge on what feels like a new one every few weeks. Short is self-aware enough to lampoon

It's been a while since Netflix aired their two seasons of The Punisher, and while I don't ever have the most crystal clear memory of shows I have binge watched, I do definitely recollect that I really loved both seasons. Which is more than I can say for their Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist seasons. Granted, their Daredevil gave us three straight big winners as far as seasons went, but I thought their other character outings were a lot more uneven. Yeah, The Punisher

I am going to tell you something and I need you to stay with me. There is a film on Netflix right now in which a CGI octopus named Marcellus narrates the emotional healing journey of a grieving widow and I watched every single minute of it with my whole chest open like an idiot. Alfred Molina voices the octopus. He is wry. He is world weary. He has opinions. I respected him enormously. The crying is entirely Sally Field's fault. She plays Tova, a woman who has lost her husban

It is legitimately amazing to me how many shark attack movies there have been made in the world ever since the success of Jaws back in the 1970's. "Shark attack movies" is almost commonplace enough to be its own whole genre of cinema. No other breed of animal has been committed to film as predatory antagonists nearly as often as sharks have. Granted, it's not always the same KIND of shark; usually it's a great white, sure, but it's also occasionally been bull sharks, tiger sh

APEX is a new Netflix original, a cat-and-mouse survival thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton. The premise has genuine potential — isolation, survival instinct, a compelling antagonist — and on paper, the cast alone is reason enough to show up. Kormakur has made this kind of high-stakes physical cinema before, so there was no obvious reason to walk in expecting disaster. And yet... GENERAL THOUGHTS APEX is the kind of film that relies almost entirely on its act

What do the United States Military and Hollywood have in common? In Atropia, they are the same. Set in 2006, Atropia follows Fayruz (Alia Shawkat), an actress who works in the fictional nation of Atropia as a role-playing civilian. A political satire, Atropia examines how war is a simulation rather than a product of humanity. Unfortunately, I do not think the film succeeded in its trajectory. The winners of the 2025 Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Atropia, had a lot expected of i

You know a Shudder movie is a big deal when it gets a full theatrical release before it hits the horror streaming service. Previously, such films have included Late Night With The Devil and In A Violent Nature. These were efforts where there was clearly enough sentiment that they would do well in cinemas and draw in some more profit for the company, so they were released in theater months before they made their way to the service. In A Violent Nature finished with a modest bo

The Wrestler-To-Actor pipeline sure is full of twists and turns and loop-de-loops. You would think that being real time performers for whom speaking is a large part of the job, they would be able to create a screen presence and recite lines pretty easily when allowed multiple takes. And yet, as history has shown, it's anything besides a sure thing. One of the greatest and most charismatic professional wrestlers of all time, the Immortal Hulk Hogan, was notoriously bad at the

Luna (Storm Reid) and Auguste (Ivy Wolk) are freshman college roommates. What started as a joyous friendship has quickly gone sideways. How sideways? Auguste is currently throwing every last one of Luna's belongings out of their dorm window. Clothes. Trash. Even the air fryer. When that air fryer comes crashing down and takes out a food delivery robot, Dr. Schilling (Sarah Sherman) happens to be walking by. She puts an end to things immediately and calls both girls into her o

There's a version of Pizza Movie that probably shouldn't work. Honestly, most versions of it shouldn't. And yet, somehow, this one does. Directed by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Pizza Movie follows two college roommates, Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone), who make what feels like a very manageable decision. Take an experimental drug. Order a pizza. Stay in. Do nothing. That plan does not hold. What should be a lazy night quickly fractures into somet

Reef Hawk (Keanu Reeves) has been riding the high of being in Hollywood's good graces since the age of six. Forty years later and he's still on top of the world. He's won two Oscars and has starred in three of the biggest franchises in film history. But what is most important for Reef is that his fans still love him. Throughout his entire career, he's always been very careful in constructing his public image. Sure, he's had his share of struggles, but he's managed to keep it

Netflix has made a habit of commissioning films that exist somewhere between theatrical ambition and streaming comfort food. Thrash , directed by Tommy Wirkola, lands squarely in that territory — a shark-disaster hybrid with genuine technical muscle and a script that keeps tripping over itself. The premise is straightforward enough: a Category 5 hurricane devastates a fictional coastal town called Annieville, and the storm surge carries in something worse than floodwater. Hun

Despite its good reviews and word of mouth, I had missed Bart Layton's Crime 101 when it was in theaters earlier this year. It's not alone; it was simultaneously at the cinema with Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die , and I never made it out those few weeks to see that, either. My loss, I suppose, but at least it did not take long for the former flick to hit Hulu for streaming purposes. (As of this writing, the latter picture is only available as a rental, and it's still $20 just

Imagine you are twenty-seven, a global rockstar, producing hit after hit, touring all over the globe, fans love you, and then your world-famous band breaks up. What do you do? This is where Paul McCartney found himself when the Beatles began to fall apart in 1969, as John Lennon left the band. With all that fame and fortune, most would guess McCartney would spend his days after the Beatles’ breakup in some swanky hotel, living the rockstar life. Quite on the contrary, in fact

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice follows Mike (James Marsden), a gangster trying to leave that world behind, when he's approached on his final night by Nick (Vince Vaughn) for one final job. Mike is secretly dating Alice (Eiza González), who also happens to be Nick's wife. Tensions rise when Mike realizes the Nick he's working with isn't present day Nick, but a time traveling Nick from six months in the future, trying to save Mike on the night he was originally killed. The film als

There is a version of The Housemaid that probably works. You can see the outline of it. The bones are there. This story clearly wants to dig into some loaded material involving a woman’s place in modern life, the power imbalance inside marriage, the pressures of parenthood, and the lingering damage of past trauma. That is not small stuff. And to the film’s credit, it at least gestures toward all of it. The problem is that The Housemaid never really says anything with those

We are living in the weirdest timeline: one where there is a whole cinematic universe of action movies based around ballerinas . With two movies in the last few years simply having been called " Ballerina " (okay, I guess the John Wick spin-off had a subtitle) and being about a ballet dancer who goes on a revenge tour against those who have wronged her, you can be excused for thinking there is a lack of originality in the film world. Amazon Prime Video decided to get in on

Honey Bunch is a relatively new outing featured on Shudder that I had kept passing over for several days due to reasons I will get into in the Ups and Downs. It just kind of sat there on the New Releases screen if I scrolled enough to the right on the AMC+ home page. And I'd look at it, and I'd hem and haw, and I'd end up saying "Not today" and move on. I'm honestly not sure what it was the finally drew me to the new horror feature other than that Shudder has an even newer

It's been a rough year so far with catching new release movies for me. After having seen a personal best 117 new release movies in 2025, as of early March, I was only up to nine here in 2026. I've seen loads of late-2025 flicks, sure! But precious few films that have come out this calendar year. It hasn't been for a lack of trying; there just hasn't been a lot of worthwhile stuff released in this part of the year, the part often considered the dregs of the cinematic calendar.

Today's movie offering comes via Amazon Prime, and it stars two of Hollywood's current hottest gets, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa. I am looking at The Wrecking Crew . The Wrecking Crew is a new direct-to-streaming action-comedy that follows in the buddy cop vein of flicks where two heroic characters are paired together to take down shady ne'er-do-wells. It walks the well-tread path of movies such as Hot Fuzz (my favorite film of all time!), 48 Hour s, Lethal Weapon , and ot