One Battle After Another (2025)

This film defies any easy explanation, so I won't even try. Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Viceland, Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling three-hour crime epic covers a lot of ground. It's messy and takes a long fucking time to get going, but it's so close to greatness at times that I have to award it on that merit. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn's fucked up characters make this ride infinitely watchable. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

4 boners under duress out of 5

Scary Movie 4 (2006)

This one revolves around spoofs that include Saw, War of the Worlds, The Village and Ju-On/The Grudge. Except so little of it organically fits together. This one is easily the worst of the franchise. It feels like all the humor has been sucked out of this series. How did it fall so far from such great heights?

1 Viagra boner out of 5

Scary Movie 3 (2003)

The third in the series loses the secret weapon of the Wayans and installs the director of The Naked Gun, while lowering the rating from R to PG-13. It gets dumb in a hurry, with most of the humor coming from broad physical gags and people getting hurt. I was always disappointed how quickly it devolves into lowest common denominator humor, but watching it with fresh eyes, it has a lot going for it. As long as you don't directly compare this to the two films that preceded it, it's rather enjoyable in a way. Parodies include The Ring and Signs.

2½ cursed tapes out of 5

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

This time, the target of ridicule is haunted house and supernatural horror movies. Starting off with the best parody of The Exorcist I've ever seen, the film only gets better from there and piles on the gags. It's safe to say this won't be for the prudes or the pearl clutchers, but it's funny if you're in the mood to lighten up. Chris Elliot, David Cross and Tim Curry remain highlights.

4 strong hands out of 5

Note: The best sight gag in this movie was actually a deleted scene. (NSFW)

Scary Movie (2000)

The Wayans take on the slasher horror genre with this pitch-perfect parody that skewers its target every time. The quality of the humor in this film is so high, dirty, vulgar and sex-charged, and pushes the limits of bad taste, but it matches my sense of humor to a T. To be honest, these movies are a bit of comfort food for me because they remind me a time when I was still young and had my life ahead of me. A quarter-century later, it still holds up for me.

3½ vacuum cleaner attachments out of 5