Over Your Dead Body (2026)

A murder plot goes off the rails when a few intruders unexpectedly drop in. This gory dark action-comedy is rather twisty, but contains a few good laughs and thrills. Paul Guilfoyle has a small bit part but really made the movie for me.

3 hammer times out of 5

Opus (2025)

John Malkovich (channeling Nicolas Cage) plays what amounts to a cult leader at a commune under the guise of a musical prodigy who has just come out of retirement. Ayo Ebediri plays the only rational character in the film who questions his motives and all the weirdness surrounding them. It's a bit of the horror comedy persuasion (not unlike Get Out and Blink Twice), but feels like it could have gone much, much further. Standards must be slipping over at A24.

2½ bites of the communal bread out of 5

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Two criminals on the run take a few hostages and head for Mexico. Seth Gecko (Clooney) is smooth and calm under pressure. His brother Richie (Tarantino) is a trigger-happy prick who needs protecting from his own impulses.
It's a movie of two uneven halves. For a while it's an edgy crime flick with QT-penned dialogue. It doesn't go anywhere particularly interesting, but there's at least the feeling that it might. The latter part of the film, however, has no such aspirations. Instead, it goes all out to please fans of a very different genre. I'll say no more, to avoid further spoilers, but the direction it takes will either float your goat or it won't. My goat was thoroughly sunk, but I have to hand it to the creators for trying something so outrageously divergent.

2½ lapdogs of Satan out of 5

Romeo is Bleeding (1993)

Gary Oldman plays a police sergeant named Jack Grimaldi who has a sideline in corruption and infidelity. His vices inevitably land him in trouble, but the Noirish setting is only half of the story - it's the performances of the cast that make Romeo as good as it is. It goes without saying that Oldman can be fantastic, but just as good was Lena Olin, an actress who held her own as an over-the-top femme fatale with an edge more deadly and unpredictable than most. Annabella Sciorra got less screen time but was also on top form.
It loses some of its momentum in the last third, but there's more than enough threads and ambiguity left to keep fans of this kind of drama happy.

4 locker envelopes out of 5

NERVE [2016]

Directors Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost's second film of 2016 is the techno teen-thriller Nerve, based upon Jeanne Ryan's novel of the same name.
Emma Roberts plays a shy high-schooler who decides to outdo her more outgoing friend and joins an online game social media game of truth or dare that gets progressively more dangerous the better she gets at it.
With it's warning of social media pressure and fear of technology, it pretty much plays out like a rich teeny-bopper version of a Black Mirror episode only with a happy Hollywood ending with no lasting consequences.  These kids are spoiled and pretty flat, so the stakes feel low and you never really feel the potential danger it could have dived into.  Fortunately the pacing is brisk enough to never really give you time to figure out all the pointless plot-points it introduces for whatever reason.  An admirable effort but in the end it isn't the sharp-witted film it could have been.  

2½ lighthouses out of 5

Strange Days (1995)

A sci-fi drama set in L.A during the last days of 1999. It was co-written by James Cameron, so it’s typically overblown and overlong but there’s a solid story within. Lenny is a black market trader of real life experiences, recorded moments seen through someone else’s eyes that can be re-lived by anyone. Want to know what infidelity is like without ever laying hands on another person? Lenny can provide. Of course, there’s an even darker side to human activity that can also be exploited.
Lenny’s life moves at a fast pace and the camerawork reflects that. It's not as nauseating as it could've been, but nor is it wholly beneficial to the story.
Most of the acting is good, though. My favourite being Angela Bassett; everyone needs a friend like Angela.

3 squids on heads out of 5

Cape Fear (1991)

I can almost see why Scorsese would want to remake such a classic—he wouldn't be restrained by the same kind of moral restrictions as before—but the end result isn't as good as it could've been. He goes to great lengths to show that film has moved on from when the original was made, employing a multitude of techniques that almost overwhelm the story.
If the relationships of the family unit were more believable they might have balanced it out more evenly, but there’s something missing from the performances of both Nolte and Lange. Lewis fares better, though, and like Mitchum before him De Niro as the Max Cady character is the main reason to watch. The finale is balls, but everything he does prior to it is great.
Mitchum gets a small role and there’s a cameo from Gregory Peck, both of whom starred in the original film (1962).

3½ prison skills out of 5

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY [2013]

John Wells adapts Tracy Letts' dysfunctional family stageplay August: Osage County for the screen with a most impressive cast ensemble.
It's Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts who do most of the heavy lifting but it's hard to find a weak link in the bunch as each actor brings tragic dedication to their own role.  While there are some wickedly funny bits of dialogue throughout the film, I found this to be one of the saddest films of the year with it's story about a family falling to pieces after a funeral.  Each character gets their own introduction and since there are so many you start to wonder where it's all going after awhile until the middle of the film when it kicks into high gear.  With the addition of some painfully awkward and uncomfortably funny scenes, I'd watch it all over again just to pick each individual performance because there's so damned much going on at once.

4 catfish out of 5

HICK [2011]

It's unfortunate when actors give strong performances for weak films.
Eddie Redmayne & Blake Lively do just that for director Derick Martini's road movie Hick, based on Andrea Portes' novel of the same name.
Chloë Grace Moretz pulls off a pretty impressive job as a runaway teen who meets a gaggle of folks who seem fun at first but as she gets to know them better it becomes apparent they're all nothing but trouble.   It's overly gritty, terribly uneven and the whole thing feels pretty pointless.  If not for the amazing acting I would have turned it off after about 30 minutes of this trashy dribble.

2 fluffy god-damned delicious eggs out of 5

THE SWITCH [2010]

Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston star in The Switch, a light-hearted romantic film from the goofs that wrote and directed Blades Of Glory.

You know exactly how it's all going to play out the instant you hear what the premise is but for some reason it's still passable for the performances, particularly Jeff Goldblum.   Not really a great film but at least it's not fucking Julia Roberts.

2 cum in a cups out of 5

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Oliver Stone makes political films; NBK is different in approach only. It explores the controlling nature of the media through a violent journey filled with themes of incest, sexual abuse, murder and corruption. It’s a film-lovers film, full of quick cuts, emotive lighting, and utilising eighteen different types of film stock to achieve a canvas of chaotic satire that lets up for just a moment - that moment becomes the pivot upon which the film revolves. It helped make Woody Harrelson the man he is today.

4 snake tongues and shotguns out of 5

DUE DATE [2010]

Robert Downey Jr. and Zack Galifiankis star as two obnoxious unlikable characters in the roadtrip comedy Due Date.

While it supplies some great laughs, they are unfortunately few and far between.  As much as I hated the characters, the chemistry between the two stars made it bearable till the end.  A real shame.  It could have been so much more, given everyone involved in the film.

2½ Men out of 5

The Darwin Awards (2006)

Darwin Awards are an ironic award given posthumously to people "who improve the species by accidentally removing themselves from it!" A police profiler seeks employment at an insurance company by using his Boy Scout skills to identify those kinds of idiots. Non-hilarity ensues. You know you've got a shitty movie when David Arquette is the most heart-warming thing in it. Winona was pretty, as always.

1½ Lars Ulrich is an asshole out of 5

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

The third installment in the Vacation series is also the quintessential standalone movie about staying home for the holidays. It covers all of the usual bases; putting up Christmas decorations, putting up with family, putting up with the stresses of work and bonuses and all the bullshit that goes along with it. It's one of those movies that grows with you year after year until it can do no wrong; it becomes perfect. One of the most laugh-out-loud funniest movies and enjoyable parts of the season, as far as I'm concerned. 

Chevy Chase's incredulous look at the end says it all: I did it.

5 Jelly of the Month Clubs out of 5