The Bride! (2026)

A feminist, post-modernist reading on The Bride of Frankenstein, starring Jessie Buckley as the title character and Christian Bale as the monster. Hot off the heels of Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein, I can't stand this recent trend to "beautify" the monster, although I suppose Edward Scissorhands already cornered that market years ago. This feels more like a monster gangster movie like Bonnie & Clyde. It's a bizarre characterization, touched by madness, and Buckley once again demonstrates that she's one of the most dynamic young actresses of her generation. Stylistically, there's much to love in its 1930s aesthetic, but it's a mess of disparate parts, much like its characters.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is the mad scientist behind this experimental creation.

3 short legs out of 5

BlackBerry (2023)

1996: Waterloo, Ontario. Mike and Doug are two tech geniuses with an idea who hire the shrewd, aggressive Jim as salesman to whip their business into shape and start churning out results, in what would eventually become the prototype for the smartphone. Normally I find movies about start-ups boring, and I'm not sure how many liberties were taken, but it's a lot more interesting than it has any right to be, mostly due to the charisma of its two main leads. Innovation is the name of the game, and the BlackBerry was advanced for its time, but the world moves quickly and nothing ever stays the same for long.

3½ satisfying clicks out of 5

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990)

AKA: Bugs

Brian Yuzna steps in as director in a sequel that bears little resemblance to the previous three films (no guys in Santa suits here). It represents a clean break from the series, similar to Season of the Witch. In fact, this one also deals with witches, as a journalist investigates a bizarre burning incident, leading her on a dark odyssey. Even though it contains some cool, grody Cronenberg-esque special effects, it's clear the script was repurposed and Christmas seems to be an afterthought. It's so bizarre and nonsensical, it's to be admired, really.

1½ naked lunches out of 5

Blue Moon (2025)

Ethan Hawke plays Lorenz Hart, lyricist to famous tunes such as "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady is a Tramp" and the title of this movie, on the opening night of his former partner Richard Rodgers's hit Broadway show, Oklahoma! The entire film takes place in a restaurant where Hart waxes poetic, bemoans his luck, and harps over a woman half his age. Unfortunately Hawke does such a convincing job at playing the neurotic, overbearing, snobby character that I found the entire movie insufferable and exhausting. It's like Woody Allen except without any of the humor. Also, I couldn't get over the fact that he's playing a five foot character. I kept imagining him crouching in every shot.

2 tiny freckles on her left cheek out of 5

Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1989)

This sequel in name only stars Lana Clarkson as a completely new character that has nothing to do with the first movie, other than featuring a lot of rape and another topless scene on a torturer's rack. In fact, this one seems to have more in common with Robin Hood as they attempt to overthrow the crown. After awhile, I always seem to lose the plot somewhere along the way...

1 gratuitous mud wrestling out of 5

Barbarian Queen (1985)

After their village is destroyed, a tribe of warrior women set out for revenge.

Once Red Sonja came out, it inspired its own legion of knock-offs of kick-ass women slaughtering men (more or less in a state of undress). As someone who finds enjoyment even in the bad, you have to take it for what it is. Cheapy '80s trash (which I hesitate to write off completely) with its spirit in the right place.

2 rape reversals out of 5

Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus (1996)

Don't you hate when a film series randomly changes to Roman numerals?

After time-travel portal hopping, it's a bit of tonal whiplash to go back to a straight S&S film. The cheap television budget removes the rest of its charm. Marc Singer still looks great in the role (he hasn't worn a shirt in three movies), but it's hilarious to me that his right-hand companion Ruh has turned from a black panther to a Bengal tiger to now a fully-fledged lion. Continuity has never been this franchise's strong point, but that's the least of its issues.

This made-for-TV movie marked the end of the film series proper, though it continued on the small screen for three seasons as a syndicated TV series.

1 Shroud of Agony out of 5

Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)

It's Beastmaster meets Back to the Future, if the poster is any indication.

Taking a completely different tack than its predecessor, an interdimensional pathway has been opened up leading to 1990s Los Angeles. And it's quite a culture shock! Especially for the viewer. This is a much more tongue-in-cheek, non-serious film, but the gamble pays off as it's a new take on the usual sword and sorcery tropes. I understand why people might despise this new direction, but it's a novel way to evolve the material. The Highlander influence is strong.

2½ ferrets out of 5

The Beastmaster (1982)

One of the better sword and sorcery flicks regards Dar, a babe born unto a cow (!), who gains the ability to telepathically communicate with animals and wages battle against an evil wizard. Visually, Marc Singer looks the part, which is half the battle, while Tanya Roberts accompanies him as the beautiful slave girl. With such an intriguing premise, I don't know how they manage to make a number of these movies so boring. They could have easily shaved a half hour off the runtime to make it more palatable. Anyway, take the good with the bad.

3 eagle screeches out of 5

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025)

A whimsical romantic fantasy about two beautiful people who can't find love (that old chestnut). Through the help of a car rental agency and a magical GPS, they go on an uncharted journey filled with doorways to the past where they revisit past traumas and other pivotal moments of life that prevent them from moving on. It's predictable and not all as fun as it could be given the concept, but worth watching if you want to get out of your own head for awhile. If life is this difficult for the privileged, then what chance do the rest of us have?

3 fast food cheeseburgers out of 5

Bugonia (2025)

A CEO is kidnapped by a conspiracy theorist who believes her to be an alien planning about the end of humanity. This follows many of the same beats as the original South Korean film, improving it in some respects while ruining some of the things I loved about it. In the end, they are both able to co-exist harmoniously by scratching different itches and fulfilling a different need.

4 chemical castrations out of 5

Blade: The Iron Cross (2020)

A new spin-off of Puppet Master that is once again set during the Nazi period, as if anyone was clamoring for that. Blade was always the coolest puppet and the face of the franchise, so this should have been a slam dunk, but it mostly suffers from the poor pacing and lack of action as the other recent films in the series. This time, a young woman becomes intrinsically linked to the puppet.

½ a chubby from all the nudity out of 5

Black Phone 2 (2025)

Way to ruin a good thing. Without spoiling too much, the Grabber is now on the other end of the line. We jump ahead four years or so into the 1980s, in a story that feels very much inspired by A Nightmare on Elm Street. A girl with visions of the future and the past tries to solve a decades-old murder mystery. It all feels a bit superfluous, but at least it isn't a patent carbon copy of the original.

2½ grainy images out of 5

The Black Phone (2021)

There's a new boogeyman in town. His name is The Grabber and he abducts children. A boy finds himself alone in a locked room with a broken telephone, where he receives mysterious messages that only he can hear. It's a simple but effective horror mystery. I especially enjoyed the stark 1970s aesthetic.

3 black balloons out of 5

Bring Her Back (2025)

Following the death of their father, a blind girl and her teenage brother are placed in foster care and subsequently adopted by an eccentric woman (Sally Hawkins, in top form) along with an odd mute boy. I won't give anything more away, although the poster does a lot of heavy lifting. It starts out promising, gradually petering out by the end. Not as powerful as the Philippou brothers' debut feature, Talk to Me, although it sticks in your head for other reasons.

3 knife teeth out of 5

Bone Lake (2024)

Attractive couple rents a lavish house by the lake only to discover it's been double booked by another attractive couple for the weekend, who decide to cohabit while systematically trying to pull them apart. It's a psychological thriller that teases more than it shows, but I found that it kept my attention rapt and featured a solid climax. It's nothing to write home about, though.

2½ arrows through the nuts out of 5

Bambi: The Reckoning (2025)

Oh, dear. Bambi's seen some hard times. After experiencing a life of tragedy, he feeds on some radioactive sludge, which turns him into a ravenous mutated monster, out for revenge. The fourth entry in the TCU, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but this might be the best one so far. They keep wearing me down.

I have to give it a half-bump up, just to distinguish it from the rest of the crap.

½ a bunny massacre out of 5

Book of Monsters (2018)

A girl's 18th birthday party gets crashed by monsters summoned from an old childhood tome, which proceeds to dispatch the high schoolers (who I'm pretty sure are all 30). It's a dumb splatter comedy that has fun busting tropes, but it's cheesy and not very memorable. It gets points for favoring practical effects over CGI, but it's one of those concepts that would have been better served by a bigger budget. Once again, I feel like I've been catfished by the poster.

1 death by dildo out of 5

Note: It was a Kickstarter-funded movie where the backers chose the direction of the story, which doesn't equal a good film by any measure, but I'm sure it's a lot more fun if you were a part of the process from the very beginning.

Big Top Pee-wee (1988)

This one is mostly for me. 

As a kid, I didn't much care for this movie because it was completely removed from the world of Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Pee-wee's Playhouse. It's only through time and experience that I've come to find it brilliant on those merits alone. It's so completely different from everything else, it's kind of magical to me. Pee-wee plays a farmhand who dreams of being a lounge singer when a traveling circus rolls through town and recruits him, capturing his imagination. It's a throwback type of Pollyanna movie full of carnival set pieces out of Paul Reubens's own childhood. This is a weird, oddball movie that doesn't make a whole lot of narrative sense, yet that is what I must reward it on, through and through.

3½ high-wire acts out of 5

Big (1988)

Some films are so ingrained into who I am as a person that they are hard to look at objectively. Such is the case with Big, about a boy who makes a wish on a fortune-teller machine that comes true, and must suddenly contend with the trials and tribulations being an adult, without any of the experience or tools. Of course, it's a fantasy film, so anything is possible, and he ends up falling backwards into a dream job as a toy tester, while attracting a beautiful young executive with his boyish charms. It's just naïve enough to sidestep any grandstanding moral issues (not that I care about such things anyway) and leaves you longing for those innocent days, before life got too complicated.

5 walking pianos out of 5