2025

2025 “Naked Gun” Reboot Lets Deadpan Liam Neeson Be Frank to Fun Effect

Leave a comment

Surely/Shirley Hollywood can’t be serious that the gag-a-minute spoof comedy genre is brazenly dropping trou into our collective consciousness again, and Akiva Schaffer’s 2025 legacy sequel The Naked Gun (B-) is mostly crackling, cackling kindling on the formula fire. More effective than imagined in the lead role playing against type, Liam Neeson is dreamy deadpan. He plays the son of Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen in the original film trilogy and short-lived Police Squad! TV show) who must succeed in his father’s footsteps to prevent a tech billionaire baddie played by Danny Huston from achieving mass mind control over L.A. society. The parade of sassy sight gags and plentiful plays on words play out with feckless abandon in a tidy hour and a half laugh-fest. Pamela Anderson is an absolute joy as a bombshell novelist, who gets to effectively ham it up in jazz speakeasies and an absurdist alpine adventure. Paul Walter Hauser is also funny as the straight man to the straight man as the dad jokes play out one after another. Co-screenwriters Dan Gregor and Doug Mand milk every laugh they can get out of the action and antics, with clear inspiration from the comic classics and undeniable nifty notes from goofball producer Seth MacFarlane. The film is often giddily retrograde, with knowing knock knocks centered around such novelties as TiVo devices, the Black-Eyed Peas, mobile phones, body cams and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer catalogue deep-cuts. Sometimes viewers will see the joke coming from a mile away (I’m looking at you, dropping new year’s balls), but the familiarity doesn’t make many of the proceedings any less chortle worthy. And many of the jokes do actually miss; for all the buzz about the tight running time, there’s certainly still room for pruning. But the act of laughing together in public in a movie theatre is nearly a lost ritual, and I encourage it.

2025

Real-Life Couple Fuse “Together” with Eyes Wide Stuck in Comedic Body Horror Film

Leave a comment

Talk about a two-hander! And every other limb, for that matter! Together (B), the body horror comedy movie directed by Michael Shanks and subsequently buzzed about at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, centers on real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco as a fictional pair finding themselves scientifically and supernaturally fusing into one being. She’s a plucky teacher, and he’s a hapless guitarist, and moving from city life to countryside seclusion proves a prescient change of scenery for taking their relationship to the next level. In a form of magnetic attraction even Plato couldn’t have contemplated, the film depicts the sometimes scary and often funny misadventures when two become one. The movie’s production values are consistently high, even when the makeup effects and particular plot devices become the most far-fetched. The central actors are effective and endearing, and they represent a variety of dimensions about the stages of co-dependency in relationships. A few final act missteps can’t take away from the effectiveness of the generally wise and witty thesis, with an especially awkward post-coital sequence and refreshing takes on how couples drift from intimacy and intensity to sometimes blatant disregard. It’s not graphic or terrifying enough to scare off casual viewers but has enough twisty content to simultaneously appeal to hardcore horror fans. Strangely, it’s an appealing date movie with lots of personality for those willing to examine just how close they’re getting. 

2025

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is At Least Not an Embarrassment

Leave a comment

Third time’s the charm for the new Four, for the most part. Faithful and fastidious to its comic book origins but strangely dramatically inert, Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps (B-) does a better job than past attempts to ignite this story but remains simply a passable initial entry into Phase Six of Marvel movies. The glorious production design evokes a retro-futuristic Manhattan with such splendid detail in the film’s first act that it’s a shame there’s really no place to go from there. Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby dutifully play a married couple in a quartet of astronauts imbued with superpowers. He’s stretchy and she’s sometimes invisible, and very few interesting sight gags come from that premise. Joseph Quinn is equally unmemorable playing the Human Torch, supposedly the comic relief, but he doesn’t really blaze the screen with much of a bonfire of hilarity. This feels like the most obligatory team-up since the Gerald Ford cabinet. The heroes fight an intergalactic character who gobbles up full worlds, and yet his presence is evocative of a kaiju rampaging a city block. Still, given some of the MCU movies of late, this one has a positive message and a science-forward agenda and doesn’t careen into too much nonsense. The crafts are impressive. Graded on a curve, this is at least cogent if uninspiring.

2025

“Happy Gilmore 2” an Abject Calamity

Leave a comment

Kyle Newacheck’s legacy sequel Happy Gilmore 2 (D-) has such a “grip it and rip it” feel, it almost doesn’t even qualify as a movie at all. Undoubtedly a documentary about making this film would have yielded more laughs than those captured and presented on the streaming screen. Slapshot direction meets a scattershot script as the title character played by Adam Sandler returns nearly three decades later to battle alcoholism, incidental deaths on and off screen and a new extreme league of his adopted sport of golf. There’s nary a real threat, a funny gag or a compelling subplot to add to the first film in any substantive way. It just feels like the makers are casually marking time because they know there’s an appetite for more fun on the fairways with a character they’ve grown to love. Fan service flashbacks and throwbacks fill much of the bloated run time, with strained sequences on parade so Netflix can clock viewer eyeballs for a smidge longer. Adam Sandler exudes little of the rowdiness or rage present in the title character before, and his story arch about getting his life turned around and funding his daughter’s dance dreams prove quite incidental. A flurry of real golf stars largely ill-equipped to add to the comic or dramatic timing round out a cast of many actors from the original. It’s an indictment when Bad Bunny appears to be acting the hardest as Gilmore’s new caddy. This outing is a mulligan from nearly any perspective. 

2025, Industry News

James Gunn Shares the Technology Behind the Hit 2025 Film “Superman”

Leave a comment

The company NEP Sweetwater played a role behind the scenes of the new 2025 Superman film, supporting the LED stage technology behind many of the film’s most dynamic storytelling visuals. The film has more than 2,000 visual effects shots.

From flight sequences to the alien chaos outside the protagonist’s apartment, the Lux Stage at Trilith Studios in Georgia gave this team flexibility to move fast, light practically and keep the ensemble connected to their acting performances opposite superhero fantasy elements.

Check out this Facebook video, in which writer/ director James Gunn talks through how this technology helped shape his vision.

2025

As Pandemic Microcosm, “Eddington” is a Wicked Little Town

Leave a comment

For his latest neo-Western fantasia fixated on uncompromising characters maneuvering the tripwires and powder kegs of modern life, Ari Aster dusts up a flurry of ideas and then leaves his audience largely befuddled! The nervy politically-charged dark comedy Eddington (C-) rolls the clock back just a few short years to the opening months of pandemic lockdown in his titular fictional New Mexico town, and a whole lot of story subsequently goes down. Aster finds ample horror in the built-in anxieties of the darkest echo chambers even as many of his ambitious storytelling conventions often fall by the wayside. Joaquin Phoenix as the mask-eschewing sheriff and Pedro Pascal as the by-the-books mayor appear destined for an epic showdown, but largely the writer/director squanders his setup with characters all dressed up with nowhere to go. Phoenix, whose lawman is festooned with iconic holster and inhaler, is entrusted with another in his pantheon of eccentric characters; and although he’s consistently enjoyable to watch, the plot around this very flawed antihero splinters into such a madcap and preposterous series of detours, it simply can’t hold its thesis. Intriguing bit parts by Emma Stone and Austin Butler enliven subplots served like a sentence diagrammed into infinity. The film ultimately proves reductive, as flimsy as a facemask drooping below one’s nose. It’s often as if Aster doesn’t mind punishing his audience and leaving them perplexed, and the cavalcade of ideas he presents rarely coalesce into clarity of purpose. The collaboration between Aster and his cinematographer Darius Khondji is one of the movie’s highlight, though, creating widescreen vistas blending the everyday with the surreal to evoke contemporary anxieties and isolation, all the while depicting mobile devices as weapons to disarm and cancel one another. There’s gallows humor aplenty and a series of snarky surprises for those who can endure the full expanse of Aster’s fever dream of a presentation, but his brand of satire lacks subtlety and unfortunately his enterprise often careens from daring to drudgery. It’s urban sprawl on a small scale and a near-miss in a sometimes frustrating auteur’s catalogue.

2025, Rent It Tonight

Gunn’s Inventive “Superman” a Maximalist Mixtape for Comic Book Movie Fans

Leave a comment

One could fret this superhero reboot’s ambition is akin to Icarus soaring straight and unflinching into the Krypton sun. But fortunately in the hands of writer/director James Gunn’s singular craftsmanship, the new Superman (A-) is sufficiently earthbound and will keep viewers leaning in breathlessly, blissfully to trace its lofty legend. In keeping with his tuned-in, punked-up pop cultural sensibilities, the auteur tenders a mighty mixtape of everything currently intriguing him about comic books, comic book movies and life in the (mis)Information Age, and we as viewers are the beneficiaries of his visionary and occasionally cheeky gifts. Gunn’s candy-colored liberal arts curriculum of peculiar fandom and folklore sometimes careens into a pace oddity, but the boisterous blend of art, science and movie magic will surely reward repeat viewings. There’s a central theme simmering about the mysterious planetary protector being too good to be true and a hypothesis about what would happen if a supervillain pierced the perceived mythology he and we have come to expect. A constant hum of newspaper story uploads, breaking broadcast news, word of mouth buzz and social media posts fills the film’s vaguely contemporary Metropolis and surrounding dreamscapes. Gunn’s whiz-bang fortress of freneticism almost overwhelms and threatens to topple over itself, domino-style, like skyscrapers on a chasm: there’s more imagination per frame of this adventure than we’re used to getting in a summer blockbuster or even in a few twirls of a fidget spinner. From the get-go of its intriguing opening scrolls and multiple milieus, Gunn quickly plots the flight and fight patterns of his hero and those who love and loathe him. David Corenswet, graceful and earnest, and Rachel Brosnahan, wide-eyed and wordy, make an absolutely splendid Clark/Supes and Lois, respectively, with charming and too-infrequent screwball sequences straight out of classic Tracy/Hepburn mode. Nicholas Hoult is a deliciously diabolical Lex, always two steps ahead of his adversaries in his fastidious evil plotting. And Edi Gathegi is a solid standout as Mister Terrific, one of a series of DC Comics emerging characters who spice up subplots across various dimensions (he gets an amazing trick with a force field that’s a showstopper). Gunn raises the stakes with a title character vulnerable to physical and emotional pain, and the film is best when it spotlights this protagonist facing fear and fragility, including in tender moments with his nifty Smallville foster parents. The movie’s visual palette is unusual but inventive; not every effect gets “inked” with precision, but whisked in the whirlwind of super-breath, x-ray vision, heat rays and single-bound leaps, contours are maximized with thrilling panache. Once the action starts, with powerful pups and pocket universes hovering around each corner, the film sustains a rather relentless and surprising rhythm. It’s a run-on sentence no amount of diagramming can harness. The hopes and tropes powering this installment provide ample payoff in a superhero treatise with much on the mind. There’s also meta-textural material here about those who aren’t particularly keen on the filmmaker’s hokier, jokier take on the caped wonder plunged into a primary colored silver age universe; Gunn’s humor is preemptive disarming armor shielding against the haters, but sometimes his clever sensibilities do border on eclipsing the superhero himself. Regardless of the whirling dervish of it all, this movie definitely gets the Superman character right; he’s sure to be a fan favorite. It’s all a glorious calling card for a DC universe of possibilities (things are certainly looking up!), and it all makes for an invigorating and slightly exhausting time of fun under the Gunn.

Watch my 60-second FilmThirst review of the film on TikTok.

Also, check out this making-of featurette.

2025, Industry News

Suiting up for Sports Movies: “F1” Success Reveals Winning Hand of Popular Genre

Leave a comment

With Brad Pitt driving the race car adventure F1 to critical and box office glory, more goofy golf shenanigans courtesy of Adam Sandler as Happy Gilmore 2 this month on Netflix, September’s Jordan Peele-produced horror film Him set in an isolated compound of a dynasty team’s aging quarterback, October’s The Smashing Machine headlined by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a former wrestler and MMA fighter and Timothee Chalamet as a champion ping pong player in December’s Marty Supreme, it’s clear there’s no slowing down the genre of sports films.

A well-crafted sports movie can inspire and motivate and leave you laughing, gasping or thinking. The triumph of a good drama, the bloodsport of a tragedy and the classic curves of a winning comedy all have their place in this hallowed hall of fame.

Listen here at around the 28-minute mark for a podcast discussion about the greatest sports movies of all time on SportsIQ with Larry Smith.

Let’s dispense of the films worthy of the penalty box first. I’m no fan of overly earnest sports movies with surface character development (see recent failed Oscars bait The Boys on the Boat – or better yet, don’t) or franchise sequels that pale in comparison to their predecessors (Space Jam: A New Legacy, Caddyshack II, Major League: Back to the Minors or D3). Films can certainly shortchange social progress, such as when Miguel Nunez pretends to be a woman to play in the WNBA in Juwanna Mann or when The Bad News Bears Go to Japan. Fake sports depicted in Rollerball with Chris Klein or Solarbabies with Jason Patric are a cringe category of their own. And animal actors such as field goal kicking mules (Gus), dunking dogs (Air Bud), boxing kangaroos (Matilda), sprinting zebras (Racing Stripes) and outfield chimps (Ed) rarely enrich the formula. But for every misbegotten Sylvester Stallone sports vehicle like Over the Top in which he plays a truck driver bound for the arm wrestling world championships or Rocky V in which the brain damaged boxer fights a preposterous character called Tommy Gunn, there are dozens of elevated sports films to keep viewers engrossed and entertained.

Let’s look at four critical categories of successful sports films and why they stand the test of time

SUIT UP FOR CATEGORY #1, IN WHICH  JOINING THE CLUB IS THE CENTRAL THEME!

Everybody wants to belong, and a variety of successful sports films showcase the cunning, courtship and camaraderie it takes to overcome obstacles and triumph in the team-up.

Rudy and Lucas are two favorites about would-be football players shooting their shot. In the former, Sean Astin’s real-life blue collar dreamer finds his way to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish roster, carried into history with chants and cheers. The fictional title character of Lucas played by Corey Haim is frequently bullied, and joining the high school football team proves a mixed bag for the pint-sized hero trying to impress the girl. Freeze-frame finales abound!

Sometimes the actual club athletes wish to join (acceptance in the world!) can change the face of history, as the runners of Chariots of Fire must overcome antisemitism in the race to Olympics glory; the prisoner of war soccer players of Victory must prove themselves worthy in an exhibition game against the Germans; Denzel Washington and company must integrate a 1971 Virginia high school football team in Remember the Titans; or when Kurt Russell and his hot-headed hockey players must summon The Miracle to win a gold Olympic medal over the Soviets in a microcosm for American patriotism during the Cold War.

The stakes can also be silly as protagonists aim to fit in! Caddyshack was the ultimate “snobs versus slobs” comedy skewering country club golf culture years before Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story teamed Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller duking it out in an outlandish league.

Coming of age and finding a family are common themes through nostalgic baseball films such as The Sandlot, Penny Marshall’s star-studded A League of Their Own and Richard Linklater’s underrated Everybody Wants Some!! Unlikely team-ups also take center court in Space Jam with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes collaborating for intergalactic basketball supremacy and Bring It On featuring a squad of champion cheerleaders.

Joining the club can also take the form of a sports biopic such as 42, in which the late Chadwick Boseman stars as Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in the MLB who dealt with issues of discrimination and prejudice throughout his career.

SUIT UP FOR CATEGORY #2, IN WHICH HARD-HITTING SPORTS DRAMAS CALL A SPADE A SPADE!

Gritty glimpses behind the scenes of sports legends or contemporary sports issues require unflinching truth.

This can mean a warts-and-all depiction of a real person like Annette Bening’s characterization of cantankerous but determined swimmer Nyad or Will Smith in the unflinching tale of Concussion, exposing dangers on the gridiron . Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull is likely the most famous of this film type with its haunting tale of self-destruction centered on Robert DeNiro as washed-up boxer Jake LaMotta.  Clint Eastwood directs and co-stars in the acclaimed drama Million Dollar Baby, with Hillary Swank also portraying a boxer, and the story doesn’t shrink from pulling any punches for searing effect.

This type of film sometimes manifests itself in a look at history, such as the John Sayles story of the 1919 Black Sox baseball scandal, Eight Men Out or the Great Depression Era films Seabiscuit and Cinderella Man. Other times it’s full-immersion like high-gloss racecar dramas Days of Thunder and Ford v Ferrari or better yet Friday Night Lights, obsessed over the picayune details of West Texas heartland football culture and the men and women affected by the game.

Commitment to authenticity can be so critical that sports cinema is in the form of a documentary like the fascinating skateboarding culture film Dogtown and Z-Boys. Hoop Dreams is one of the greatest examples of the sports doc, centered on two Black Chicago high school teens imagining basketball fame while bussed to play at a white suburban school.

Truth-telling can center on an individual such as Mickey Rourke as The Wrestler or Christian Bale as The Fighter. Or it can simply be a true story, such as Samuel L. Jackson as Coach Carter, locking out a basketball team for poor academic performance.

We Are Marshall depicts the aftermath of a plane crash that killed most of the Marshall University football team and coaching staff and the community’s efforts to rebuild the program.

In the underseen drama Heart Like a Wheel, Bonnie Bedelia as Shirley Muldowney is determined to be a top-fuel drag racer, although no woman has ever raced them before. Despite the high risks of this kind of racing and the burden it places on her family, she perseveres in her dream.

In Ali, director Michael Mann goes full “you are there” centering his biopic on ten years in the life of the boxer Muhammad Ali,  beginning with his capture of the heavyweight title in 1964 and ending with reclaiming it in the “Rumble in the Jungle” fight of 1974.

SUIT UP FOR CATEGORY #3, GREAT SPORTS MOVIES WEARING THEIR HEARTS ON THEIR SLEEVES!

There’s not always a “meet cute” like in rom coms, but uniformly there’s metaphor for the love of the game. Just as filmmakers find fondness for the specific sport they lens, they often find universal truth in the corresponding game of love outside of the ring or off the field or court.

The Rocky and Creed series are likely the most emblematic of this type of movie, blending boxing movie tropes with a centrality of love and the American dream. The Karate Kid series is similar but with the idea of mentors and a father figure embodied by Pat Morita or Jackie Chan as the martial arts patriarch.

This can manifest in the sports weepie, such as 1971’s Brian’s Song exploring the real-life friendship between Chicago Bears teammates Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan). After Piccolo is diagnosed with cancer, they grow even closer during his fight against the disease. Field of Dreams showcases familial reconciliation and ghosts of baseball legends as it spins its acclaimed yarn. The Blind Side tells the true story of former NFL star Michael Oher’s road to football and family, buoyed by Sandra Bullock’s sentimental and Oscar-winning performance. Similarly Will Smith won his Oscar for showcasing the father’s perspective as the proud papa and coach of tennis legends, King Richard.

Love triangles make good fodder in this realm, from Bull Durham’s serio-comic chronicle of minor league catcher (Kevin Costner), pitcher (Tim Robbins) and the woman they both love (Susan Sarandon). Golf story Tin Cup repeats the formula. Last year’s Challengers with Zendaya at the center of the drama shows the fervor for tennis matches and romantic coupling with admirable abandon.

Love can help friends let loose, whether it’s the competitive bicycle racers of Breaking Away or the class of crooners and basketball players of the High School Musical films. Personal Best famously features women in love, played by Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly, whose romance extends to becoming competitors for the Olympic team in their running sports.

In the underseen Warrior, an estranged family finds redemption in the unlikeliest of places: the MMA ring. Tommy (Tom Hardy), an ex-Marine with a tragic past, returns home and enlists his father (Nick Nolte), a recovering alcoholic and former wrestling coach, to train him for “Sparta,” the biggest MMA tournament ever held. But when Tommy’s underdog brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), fights his way into the tournament, the two brothers must finally confront each other and the forces that pulled them apart.

Love and Basketball features Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps as childhood friends who both aspire to be professional basketball players. She’s ferociously competitive but sometimes becomes overly emotional on the court. His father plays for the Los Angeles Clippers, and he’s a natural talent and a born leader. Over the years, the two begin to fall for each other, but their separate paths to basketball stardom threaten to pull them apart.

Bend It Like Beckham stars Parminder Nagra as Jess, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, and she is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton (Keira Knightley), who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

This genre of films loves to depict star-crossed lovers at the rink (Ice Castles or The Cutting Edge) and often amps up the comedy too (Major League, Necessary Roughness).

AND SUIT UP FOR CATEGORY #4, IN WHICH SELF-IMPROVEMENT IS CENTRAL AS PROTAGONISTS POLISH THEIR DIAMONDS!

Sports is all about pushing oneself to the limit, and this can happen in or outside the sports arena. Pride of the Yankees is a great example, a 1942 love letter to Lou Gehrig, played by Gary Cooper. As The Natural, Robert Redford gets his own soaring baseball redemption story. This subtext works really well in baseball, even “inside baseball” baseball movies such as Moneyball, with Brad Pitt running the numbers of what could turn a profit on the diamond, even with a motley crew of players.

Coaches are not immune to comeuppance, be they Gene Hackman among the Indiana basketball players of Hoosiers, Goldie Hawn among the Wildcats of football, Ben Affleck on The Way Back to his alma mater or Emilio Estevez in the pee-wee hockey milieu of Mighty Ducks. Even sports agents such as Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire or Matt Damon as a businessman in the sponsorship saga Air get redemptive arcs.

Sometimes the drama spans multiple films, with Paul Newman as billiard kingpin Minnesota Fats across both 1961’s The Hustler and 1986’s The Color of Money, the film that finally won him his Oscar.

These films can have a lot on the mind, such as Invictus, directed by Eastwood and featuring Morgan Freeman’s emotional portrayal of President Nelson Mandela. This film follows his efforts in uniting post-apartheid South Africa through sport with some help from the rugby team captain (Damon again), the country makes a run for the 1995 World Cup Championship.

Sometimes it’s just a lark, like John Candy taking on Cool Runnings and a ragtag Jamaican bobsled team or Happy Gilmore with an unsuccessful hockey player who finds he has a knack for golf and hilarity ensues.

A favorite diamond in the rough is Talladega Nights as NASCAR superstar Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell). The racer is at the top of his game; adored by fans, a trophy wife by his side, and incredible wealth. But Ricky loses it all when French Formula One champion Jean Girard roars onto the scene. Ricky, with the help of his ruthless father, must pull himself out of the depths of despair and restore his honor on the racetrack.

No matter what sports film suits your taste, there’s bound to be more great ones to watch. Get ready to binge this summer and fall on the sports movies that move you!

Note: For All-Star Week 2025 in Atlanta, The Plaza Theatre is showing famous baseball movies

2025

“Jurassic World Rebirth” Unearths Fab Creatures and Drab Story

Leave a comment

Thankfully at least the Cretaceous creatures and their gnarling antics are impressive on the big screen for those checking out this summer sequel! Director Gareth Edwards creates some splendid action panoramas, but his film’s storyline is scattered and characters uninspiring in Jurassic World Rebirth (C). Several entourages travel to the scene of the dinosaur crimes of the series’ past films to extract yolk from a dino-egg to provide life-saving medicinal benefits for mankind. Scarlett Johansson is a credible action heroine given little to do, and Jonathan Bailey makes the most of his scientist role. Rupert Friend is wooden and Mahershala Ali underused in a film that flashes back and forth between two groups journeying through a dangerous jungle. There are instances of excitement involving capsizing boats plus rappelling and rapids escapades, but other times the action in the woods is way too throwaway. Edwards directs select sequences like beautiful paintings, and the effects are roundly lush, but the creator can’t find a way to unite screenwriter David Koepp’s (and presumably the studio executives’) disparate story ideas. We are left with a film that looks and feels like a big budget tentpole, but it’s built on a mushy mound. Fans of the franchise will eat up this entry but may have to admit it wasn’t all that consequential.

2025

Big-Screen Spectacle “F1” Follows Formula with Precision Pitt Stops

Leave a comment

Director Joseph Kosinski generally elevates the saga of another aging maverick with a need for speed in the polished sports adventure F1 (B+) set amidst the globetrotting Grand Prix of the Formula One World Championship, with its glam characters connected at the hip to the fastest regulated road-course racing cars on earth. Brad Pitt is an American pro driver on the last leg of a rough and tumble history recruited by an old friend and now team owner played by Javier Bardem as a last ditch effort to elevate his struggling franchise; and with the help of Irish actress Kerry Condon as the team’s technical director and British actor Damson Idris as a cocky rookie, they’re off to the races. The movie makes the motorsport majestic on screen, buoyed by the strength of this charismatic acting quartet and especially Pitt’s casual, grizzled grace. Character development by quip service and plot conflicts as largely obligatory obstacles rarely sideline Kosinski’s kinetic placemaking marked by wide open, brisk and bustling raceway vistas. This summer tentpole is an exercise in stargazing, lifted in all cases by the quality of the ensemble and film crafts including clutch cinematography by Claudio Miranda and spirited music by Hans Zimmer, as the flick’s flimsy contours hardly support its ample running time. But as an immersive action experience, it’s a lowkey lark, a technical tour de force to be reckoned with for fans of the charming movie star, a game director and the conventions of the racing genre.

My FilmThirst video review is on TikTok.

2025

“28 Years Later” Brilliantly Bites Back

Leave a comment

Danny Boyle reclaims the director’s chair for the third entry of the dystopian future saga he originated with writer Alex Garland in which brave British citizens fend off hoards of “rage virus” infected humans (don’t call ‘em zombies!). Although still made with urgent, kinetic energy and exciting chases with graphic kills, 28 Years Later (B+) pulls a page out of A Quiet Place: Day One territory to culminate in a more internal and emotionally contemplative conclusion than possibly expected. This sequel centers on a very good child actor, Alfie Williams as Spike, whose stalwart loyalty to his parents played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer puts him in some precarious crosshairs. Boyle sets the action up on a British island with folksy townspeople who have successfully protected themselves from the encroaching undead. Several missions to a mainland connected by a narrow isthmus uncovered by the tide in brief spells reveal mysteries and open up Spike’s eyes to the ways of the world as he and his family face various forms of mortality. The movie is an enjoyably character-driven coming of age story with a dad intent on showing his son the power of the hunt and a mom grappling with a different set of demons. Both actors command attention and interact brilliantly with the young protagonist. Boyle blazes a sensational landscape for this journey and finds balm in the heart of darkness courtesy of a peculiar and too brief performance by Ralph Fiennes.   Boyle certainly elevates the tropes of the genre in this outing, even as tone and energy mutate from time to time. His return to form in this series is welcome.

My FilmThirst video review is on TikTok.

2025

Celine Song’s Smart “Materialists” a Heavenly Match for Hollywood Trio in NYC

Leave a comment

Writer/director Celine Song conjures career-best performances out of a trio of popular actors and serves up a sophomore triumph of a “rom dram” in the marvelous Materialists (A). The auteur with an eye and ear for the art of companionship delivers fresh takes on the nature of love and gives audiences many reasons to care while consistently questioning the conventions of coupling. It’s all more complicated than its seemingly routine log-line implies, as it’s ultimately an incredibly profound meditation on life and love. A young New York City matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson finds her business and personal life getting complicated as she finds herself torn between the perfect match, Pedro Pascal as a wealthy private equity exec, and her imperfect ex, Chris Evans as a struggling actor). The story takes its time to hit effective beats and positions its characters with precision to cast its spell. Johnson is wonderfully empathetic in the lead role, funny and vulnerable and so evocative of her famous mom Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. Lushly photographed by Shabier Kirchner who also lensed Song’s Past Lives, the heroine’s unexpectedly lonely travails in Manhattan are brilliantly  juxtaposed against the bevy of brides and brides-to-be celebrating blissfully in various backgrounds. Her character is obsessed with brokering relationships leveraging the math of modern dating, and the film questions many of the equations with pluck and logic. Song superbly stages dialogue-heavy sequences with spark and has a delicate way of depicting characters making connections as if they are the only two people in the whole world, which is quite a wonder in the concrete jungle. Pascal and Evans are both incredibly charming, despite the suspension of belief needed by viewers to imagine Evans without confidence. They both provide lots to love. Prepare for a few trick endings and some surprisingly moving subplots. This is a great summer date film for adults. After becoming the prominent purveyor of the modern love triangle, it will be fascinating what she does next.