REVIEWSetc.

When your favorite movie is from a particular sub-genre, it can mean one of two things. You either grade that sub-genre really kindly because you know you love it, or you grade it harshly because any competition has an uphill battle to measure up. With me, my favorite movie is somehow NOT from the horror genre, which shocks even me. No, my favorite film of all time is 2007's Hot Fuzz . That means the sub-genre we are judging today is the action-comedy. There is no shortage of

Some films tell a family story. Sentimental Value  feels like it wandered into your own, quietly rearranged a few memories, and then left you to sit with the mess. Joachim Trier’s latest is a father–daughter drama on the surface, but under that it’s a film about time, about the way we turn life into narrative, and about how cinema becomes a substitute language when we don’t know how to speak honestly to the people closest to us. It’s also easily sitting in my top ten of the

I know Netflix kind of hangs its hat on shows these days, but I have always been a movie guy, and I'm glad to see they still release so many new original films. I like television programs, sure, but they're an awful big commitment. Several seasons of several episodes, all lasting between thirty and sixty minutes each. Sometimes much more if you enjoy something like Stranger Things! That's a time commitment of, like, twenty-ish hours or so on a low average. The wife and I rece

A critical deep dive into Wicked for Good—its emotional resonance, standout performances, visual upgrades, and awards potential across major Oscar categories.

I need to watch more of the classic Universal Horror features from the 1930's through 1950's. I've seen a handful of them, sure, but there are several more out there. For instance, I have skipped The Mummy and The Phantom Of The Opera because I had heard they didn't quite measure up to the rest. But maybe I'll dig them anyway when I try them out. My favorites at the point to what I've seen are The Creature From The Black Lagoon , The Invisible Man , and The Bride Of Franken

I just recently, as of this writing, passed one hundred movies released in 2025 watched. In that hundred films, I've obviously seen a lot of movies in theaters and that were big, major releases ( Predator: Badlands was officially #100, for instance), but you don't get to that figure without finding a lot of independent flicks on streaming services. When you watch a lot of indie films--especially in the horror genre--you end up seeing a lot of films of a somewhat dubious qual

Noah Baumbach’s latest turns what could’ve been another “movie about movies” into a layered, deeply human reflection on legacy, regret, and the masks we wear to survive in both Hollywood and life.

After thirty years of planning, Guillermo del Toro breathes new life into Frankenstein — an operatic Gothic marvel that’s as emotionally rich as it is visually breathtaking.

Let's get this straight out of the way because it really matters to this review and will come up again as I talk about Chain Reactions : I'm far from the world's biggest fan of the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre . (Now Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 , that's a different story. I kind of love that movie) To be absolutely fair, I've only seen the 1974 horror classic once, and perhaps it was a "wrong time, wrong mindset" kind of thing. Maybe if I watched it again, I'd be far more into

James Vanderbilt’s   Nuremberg  delivers a haunting courtroom drama that probes the minds behind humanity’s darkest chapter. Anchored by a towering Russell Crowe performance and a chilling moral tug-of-war, the film is long, heavy, and often brilliant — even when it drags its feet. PLOT & SETUP Directed by James Vanderbilt , Nuremberg  adapts Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist , chronicling psychiatrist Douglas Kelley’s  (Rami Malek) psychological evaluatio

Few sports stories are as naturally cinematic as that of Christy Martin — the first woman to ever box on pay-per-view and, unintentionally, a trailblazer for women’s boxing. Christy  aims to honor that legacy, showing how a small-town fighter from West Virginia became a symbol of perseverance and empowerment. Unfortunately, the film often buries that power beneath convention and formula, opting for the expected over the profound. The film’s first act chronicles Martin’s unlik

A Bruce Springsteen biopic that confuses introspection with inertia. Deliver Me From Nowhere looks and feels authentic but struggles to find the heartbeat of its own story.

After navigating the holy halls of the Vatican in Conclave , director Edward Berger trades in papal secrecy for the pulsating nightlife of Macau in Ballad of a Small Player , a visually electric and emotionally turbulent descent into obsession, luck, and moral decay. It’s the kind of movie that walks into the casino with swagger and style to spare, only to realize its chips are stacked on a busted hand. But for all its flaws, Berger’s latest is never dull, never dispassionate

It's time to review another movie coming to Screambox , as we take a look today at the Brazilian horror feature, A Mother's Embrace , which will be dropping on the service on 9/16/2025 ! A Mother's Embrace is directed by Cristian Ponce, and it starts off in the childhood of our protagonist, Ana. She and her mother start off at home--where her mom makes Ana guzzle down a full glass of strange tasting milk--but the two quickly head out to a local carnival. At the fair, the two

I love when you can watch a new movie and directly trace its influences back to other films that you have always loved. But more on that in the Ups and Downs segment of this review for reasons I will get into soon... Coming out on 9/23/2025 to Screambox , we have the new horror flick The Draft! --and yes, the exclamation point is part of the title. I was lucky enough to get an advance screener on this one to review and give my thoughts on. As always, huge appreciation goes o

Every so often, you find a movie that doesn't quite belong on the streaming service on which you find it. To that end, my wife and I just watched the 1999 film Jawbreaker ... on Shudder. The same Shudder that specializes in horror offerings. And it was showing the black comedy film Jawbreaker. It didn't make loads of sense, but that's where we found it. Every so often we find movies like that on Shudder, as if the men behind the service forgot what their mission statement was

I recently dog-sat for the uncle and aunt while they went to Tahiti for three-plus weeks. It turns out, I'm not much of a dog person. I sure like dogs! Other people's dogs. As for having one? Well the need to walk them and take them outside is a bit much for me because I am lazy. And they bark. And they are generally big and clumsy, and they hit you with their paw when they want attention. So while dog-sitting wasn't bad by any stretch, my wife and I will stick to our three c

Sony Pictures Classics There’s a certain magic in watching Richard Linklater return to the intimacy of character-driven storytelling. After experimenting with bigger canvases and some other detours, Blue Moon  feels like a homecoming — not to Austin or adolescence, but to the beating heart of American artistry. The film captures one fateful New York night in 1947 — the evening Oklahoma!  opened on Broadway — and in doing so, paints a bittersweet portrait of friendship, legacy

Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine  is a bruiser of a film—sweaty, unflinching, and desperate to dig into the psyche of one of...

Kathryn Bigelow has always been fascinated by the anatomy of crisis — how people behave when the clock is ticking, the stakes are...