Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

The third in the Knives Out series surrounds a murder in the ranks of a parish when a young priest butts heads with the thorny Monsignor. It's a locked-room ("impossible crime") mystery where Benoit Blanc attempts to prove innocence and clear their name. Daniel Craig settles into the role like an old comfortable shoe, while the film itself feels tonally different from the rest, but it's very much worth a spin in all of its complexity and density. I hope Rian Johnson keeps making these films forever because he has a real knack for the genre.

3½ roads to Damascus out of 5

DJANGO UNCHAINED [2012]

Writer/director Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is a violent love story given the cosmetic makeover of an exploitation Western.  

It's filled with geysers of blood, hypnotizing villain monologues, great music and some fantastic performances but in the end of it's near 3 hours it leaves much to be desired.  Jamie Foxx has the acting charisma to carry it for the first hour but after awhile you realize Tarantino wrote him with hardly any depth or attempts to explore the potentially interesting inner conflicts he faces, which has no excuse considering the insanely long running time.  With maybe 25 minutes shaved off and some better scene set-ups I might have been a little more pleased with the end results.

3 horsey dances of victory out of 5

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Forest Whitaker finally got the role he deserved in this political kick in the head. He towers over every scene he’s in with a ferocious intensity that hurt my eyes to watch. He plays a Ugandan Dictator with a fiery and temperamental personality. It’s painted very black and white even when it’s purposing not to be, but it’s so damn good that it kept me hooked regardless. It's based on real events, but I don’t know how accurate it is politically.

4 bad cases of red eye out of 5