We knowingly attended a surprise screening to see this. I didn't know anything about this duo but from the get go I was down for this brand of humor. It's like jackass but less agressive and violent + plus Canada. It's rare for a movie to get consistent laughs out of me but this one managed to. Idk it's just a good time and I left with a smile. I miss Canada...
It toes the line between an "eat the rich" and a pseudo-banality of evil vibe but never really does either in a satisfying way. Our "hero" Beckett (Glen Powell) is a vacuum of personality with his only motivation seemingly being wanting to be rich because he thinks his mom wanted that for him. Margaret Qualley (I dont remember her character's name... Jane?) exists to ultimately validate Beckett’s hollow desire for money. Either you get rich, or someone is going to get rich off you. It presents this bleak outlook on life. Except that Jessica Henwick’s character (Also don't remember her name... Cathy?) is seemingly very content and fulfilled with the decision to abandon (?) wealth for a high school teaching job. The movie tries to do too much and the titular killings somehow end up being the most boring and rushed parts. Final thoughts: Jessica Henwick is a star.
Seen on 03/06/2026
While some of the narrative elements are pretty generic/poorly executed, I found the relationship between Frankenstein and The Bride to be weirdly charming and endearing. Frank is just a sad lonely man who idolizes an image of male lead chauvinism seen in classic movies, but he’s a literal walking corpse. He goes in search of a wife to try and complete this image of ideal couplism he sees on screen and finds a corpse that he believes is actually to too beautiful for him (AWE). But it turns out she is kind of club queen baddie that doesn’t want to be tied down to the conventional idea of heteronormative partnership. Frank falls for her immediately with a kind of puppy dog love, and she slowly lets him in seeing how much of an outsider he is as well. It feels queer in the way they both fail/disavow the conventional gender norms and expectation, and eventually find a form of partnership that doesn’t eradicate their individualism. It’s kind of a mix of Bonnie and Clyde with the gangster violence but also Thelma and Louise in the way patriarchy is the ultimate villain... but with zombies as the leads. The designs are great and I love all the unexplained weird reality warping powers their love has. If you ignore the forced narrative going on outside of their relationship, and the Mary Shelley possession (lol) it’s a goofy, fun, sweet, time. Jesse Buckley continues to be one of my fave new white queens.
Seen on 03/21/2026
I didn’t really need a sequel to Ready or Not, I felt like the original kind of nailed everything it was going for. It was ahead of the “eat the rich” trend while also just managing to be a gory, fun time separate from its class commentary. Its evolution of the final girl trend felt fresh too. Like she doesn’t just hide, she fights back and gets hurt, A LOT.
Its sequel is less tight, but still competent. Somehow less violent and less funny even with a bigger cast and more deadly arsenal. Everybody in the film has a great face and really give their parts 100% no matter how small. The leads both do a great job but the start and stop of their narrative undermines the action. It’s kind of the same convo 5 different times. By the end it all comes together in a meaningful way though. It's disavowal of wealth in how it ultimately perpetuates a cycle of violence regardless of who’s on top feels pointed and earned. The lifelong commitment to what we have as opposed to what we could have by leaving people behind is sweet. It’s all totally solid, but also not doing anything better than the first one. Perfect 7/10 film. Seeing bodies blowing up never gets old.
Seen on 03/29/2026
A real Ryan Gosling vehicle that is totally serviceable otherwise. For a story about saving the entire human race from extinction, it really feels like there are no stakes here. We’re told things need to be solved OR ELSE over and over but it never feels that bad cuz the movie is constantly undercutting any serious moments with one liners or marvel movie like jokes. And just not even good jokes. One joke is two security guards eating sour skittles? There’s also this long sequence of Ryan gosling and his security shopping at home depot and just like… having fun putting things in a shopping cart. No one in the audience really laughed throughout most of the movie, except for the couple next to me that chuckled at every single joke. Everybody is kind of a non-character, though I did like anatomy of a fall lady for how one note she was the whole time. Her stoic straight to the point Schtick is a fun contrast to the Ryan gosling’s incredibly conventional “woah I’m just a guy I can’t be doing all this????” But she’s not in it much, and it really is just Ryan gosling talking to himself for the majority of the movie. He goes to space, meets a rock, and they save the day. And that’s it. The sets are fun, and there are some pretty space shots so 6/10 I guess. Highlight of the movie was the rock violently fisting itself.
Seen on 03/31/2026
What a fun time! It’s kind of a reverse slasher with the lead character doling out violence at an increasingly aggressive pace without any qualms or hesitations. She’s blood thirsty and determined. Every scene with violence hits hard, and it has some of the best fight choreography I’ve seen in recent films. It’s stylish, but not so over stylized where it felt like it was entirely reliant on it. It’s clearly riffing on older Samurai/Horror B-Movies in aesthetic, it has enough fun ideas to make it feel original though. For example, I really liked how the movie relied on machetes and kitchen knives as opposed to long swords for these closer fights that fit a cramped hotel setting better. In another scene the weapon becomes the light source as we watch her take people out one by one through a landscape shot.
It doesn’t try too hard to say anything new about the evils of wealth, it really is all about the action. It does shift the focus to be about how the working class can perpetuate the evils of capitalism by being okay just having crumbs. It gestures towards this component of capitalism that instill us with the idea that we are not enough for each other and that we should always be wanting more. It’s the same idea that was in Ready or Not 2 also, and I like this kind of collectivist approach to anti-capitalism as opposed to the singular suffering person. Capitalism requires us to leave each other behind for profit, and I appreciate how blatantly the two films acknowledge that directly and reject it through these characters narratives.
There no exploding bodies in this one but there just as much blood and a lot more gore. I was smiling throughout the majority of it.
Seen on 04/07/2026
I have a feeling that with distance I’ll like this move less and think it’s just kind of weird. But coming out of it, I’m feeling positive of center.
My immediate reaction to the twist was “really? That’s it?” In a way that I don’t know if the movie intended. Not to make light of the violence that Zendaya thought of doing, it’s just that she didn’t do it. It might be because of how likable and charming Zendaya and her character both are. She is treated as having no flaws other than the twist, which again, doesn’t hit me as that big a deal. Her feelings of it are very honest and real, and only makes her come across as more human than everybody else in the movie. Everybody else is like "yeah, yeah I did a terrible thing but you THOUGHT about doing something horrible!" Zendaya processing people learning about it and revisiting it is kind of heart wrenching. Her experiences as a child captures the kind of society we live in where violence is validated with attention. The movie does a good job of not making her out to be a villain, which maybe does a disservice to the imagined violence she was planning but also she never does any level of violence. Unlike the rest of the cast.
Once the movie begins to stray from her and become more about Robert Pattinson trying to decide if he still loved her, it lost me. Robert Pattinson is set up to be the more flawed character from the beginning through their "meet cute" and so him reckoning with her one flaw that is in the past doesn't feel very balanced. It kind of goes in circles and you get the impression that the movie really is just interested in one idea and maybe could have been shorter. The ending also left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not against them ending up together but it kind of vaults over the conflict it set up in a way that does a disservice to the very interesting dilemma Zendaya is in. She seems to have no problems at all about marrying him, even though he has provided reasons in a more tangible way than her.
Alana Haim really does an amazing job of being the worst white girl you know though. I like her, I wanna keep saying her. She seems very character actress-y
Seen on 04/14/2026
I had no expectations going on (I don’t really know anything about the video game other than its premise) and yet I was still let down. I really liked the early pov stuff. I think it really captured this overwhelming, pervasive feeling of societal norms in a visceral way. I also liked seeing the main character slowly realize the hall was looping and learn the rules. But then it kind of nose dived and got very repetitive. The shift from first person to third person really cements this not as a fun “play along” experience and more just a “watch this guy suffer.”
But watching this man suffer wasn’t satisfying for me. He makes the same mistakes over and over and it all feels so slow and drawn out. He also is really freaking out after hardly any attempts or time spent in this hallways. Idk Maybe it’s just my gamer brain trying to speedrun, but it really was frustrating how bad he was at this. Like it really is not that scary of a situation in the grand scheme of psychological horror you could experience. They are also kind of going for a silent hill thing of this trap being metaphorical for his state of mind, but even then it doesn’t really commit. The narrative feels very thin, and it’s barely fine enough to justify making a movie.
I guess I wish it was scarier, or the anomalies were more interesting or connected to his internal dilemma. There’s a feeling of propaganda in this too about him ultimately becoming folded back in. I liked walking man’s energy though. I hope someone makes a fancam of him to 360.
Seen on 04/21/2026
I love a chamber piece, and while this isn’t entirely that, it really is fundamentally about two people dealing with projections on each others for basically the entirety of its runtime. Stone faced, bubbling under the surface Lori and neurotic old gay Julian are just so enthralling to watch. Lori has been let down by the artist that came before, and Julian is let down by his children and what he imagines comes after he’s gone. Together they’re deeply disappointed and frustrated with the present world they live in, the one that’s made Julian hate himself, and the one that’s made Lori lose hope in having a career in the arts. And they take it out on each other. It’s watching them finding that middle ground and remembering what it is about art and making art that is the journey of the movie. Remembering how creating art and seeing art captures something that is so hard to put into words.
The forgery story does the job of introducing a moral conundrum but Lori being mad at the world that devalues art is so relatable that the movie doesn’t even have to do the work of justifying her decision to do the forgery. And even then, “forgery” comes to be complicated in this beautiful way where she is once again inspired by the same artist that caused her to not pursue a career in the arts. There is this very inexplainable way that artists and people motivate and inspire each other. We see things in others that they cannot and vice versa. While this isn’t really much of her journey, you do get the sense that she’s reconnected to this appreciation of the work that’s come before her. Julian’s journey back to making art is fun, and one of the most beautiful moments in the movie is when he slides into that flow state after so much antagonism to painting throughout the movie.
It’s a small movie, but it really works with what it’s got. It’s kind of meditative in the way that Materialists (2025) was, but maybe a little more high brow. I also thought of Hamnet (2025) and thinking about the medium discourses. Did you know that Marshall McLuhan was Canadian? They don’t let you forget that up there.
Seen on 04/25/2026
I didn’t really like this movie. It’s very strange, it Doesn’t really show or tell, and so I’m left with nothing to grasp and leave feeling unsatisfied. Even it’s more horror elements aren’t that substantive.
The movies hinges on a core relationship, yet there is no real insight into it. It starts in media res and doesn’t do much work to justify why this is happening until the latter half. There is no real characterization either. Michaela Cole’s character is angry, Anne Hathaway’s characters feels overwhelmed. And that’s really it for the whole movie until their reconciliation.
We’re supposed to assume Anne Hathaway is a big deal but we don’t get told like how many records she’s made or awards shes won. Her performance are pretty lackluster and she lacks a star quality. Michaela Cole feels massive in comparison, just through performance alone, but I struggle to be able to describe her character as anything other than frustrated and kind of funny. The ghost stuff gives a nice jolt to the movie even if it comes out of nowhere and feels kind of cheap in hindsight. If it was all building to this, it should have felt more sinister throughout. It’s pretty, but feels hollow.
FKA twigs is too good in her scene, a real scene stealer. It reminds you what a good body performance is like after the Anne Hathaway’s “dance” scene. It is also nice to be reminded how mesmerizing fabric in the wind can look.
Seen on 05/01/2026
Half way through this movie I turned to my partner and said “this movie is really weird.”
Im not a huge fan of the first movie but I did think it was pretty competent and really liked the conflict between Miranda and Annie. I particularly liked the ending, which has a kind of politics of refusal vibe with Annie choosing to not perpetuate a kind of harmful culture. Speaking to both the bad practices that Miranda does in the work place, but also maybe the fashion industry as a whole.
That’s all thrown out the window in this one. None of what came before it matters. Stanley Tucci’s character even says it’s no big deal that he was over looked by Miranda for that promotion 20 years ago. You know, that whole conflict that made Annie wanna leave. This movie is about saving the publication from consolidation by tech bros. On paper a fun idea, but executed so poorly.
It’s unclear why Andy is so invested in saving Miranda, and less the actually state of the industry. Andy make reference to how many things represent the root of evil or something, yet she also has absolutely no problem being a part of it. The first film was about how she disparages runway for everything it stands for, but ultimately comes to see the artistry and effort that goes into it. There is non of that here at all, where are meant to care about this solely because it means the Miranda character will have less power. And because these are wealthy elite people, under threat from even more wealthy elite people, it’s kind of hard to feel bad for or care at all.
Annie’s edge has been completely shaved off, and she devolved into being a Miranda Priestly apostle. What worked so well about the first one was their conflict, and the pride and prejudice of it all. That’s all gone here and there’s hardly any real scenes of between the two. Things just sort of happen until the problem is solved. All while brands and cameos are repeatedly throw in your face over and over again.
Lady Gaga shows up and gives the best performance of the movie for a few minutes. The romance storyline is terrible. There also this horrible line by Stanley Tucci where he talks about dressing RBG and her really “slaying” or something.
I was really into this movie in the beginning. It’s stylish but not over the top, and the set up of is full of messy potential. Seeing the pieces fall into place was fun, but there is no really pay off or catharsis, mostly because you aren’t really given a lot to get invested in.
The movie is about two relationships between three characters. Beth is Robs Girlfriend, and Nel is Beth’s polish fling she visits during tumultuous times of her life. Rob wants to marry Beth, Beth is bored by Rob, Nel knows that getting with Beth isn’t the best for them. Essentially it’s them dealing with these feelings both directly and indirectly. Nel and Rob are pretty basic though, and Beth feels mostly like a metaphor.
Charli XCX is good. She feels like a menace, the way she responds to her boyfriend so obviously annoyed by him and how she stalks Nel the first night she gets there. I like it, she’s got a good face and her star persona works well for this film. I noticed Charli XCX is also using her stage name like Lady Gaga, giving the impression that she understands her music persona and her actor persona as the same career. If that’s the case, it works particularly well here considering she is playing a party girl with (seemingly) big feelings.
I thought I was getting an If I Had Legs or a Die my love, but it’s more like a less fun challengers?
Seen on 05/16/2026
My first thought leaving this movie was “Cute!” It’s not really a complicated movie. There’s one gimmick to justify the situation and it has a very thin plot with no real characterization after the beginning.
It’s about a guy who makes a wish for his crush to “love him more than anyone else.” For the purposes of this movie, I guess that’s means being obsessed with him. Its tone is interesting. It feels like it’s going for a more conventional horror movie but it’s really not scary to me and leans more into humor and shock moments. For whatever reason, it reminded me of an Evil Dead movie even though I’ve never seen one of those. I’m supposed to be scared of Nikki but she doesn’t really do anything threatening to the lead other than be loud and throw a fit. And that’s not very scary to me. The violence doesn’t start until the very end, and then wraps up pretty quickly after. The best parts were the cinematography and the sound mixing for me. They made some cool choices when it came to how to light and frame the “monster.”
Although it tries to make space for the fact that Nikki is trapped in some realm screaming her ass off, it really is mostly just about the main guy being trapped with a crazy, clinging, controlling girlfriend. And it really leans into the tropey-ness of it in ways that feel like they’re meant to also be humorous. Many people in my theater were quick to react or laugh when there was an ounce of possessiveness as if it was relatable or they knew what it meant. I guess don’t have a problem with this necessarily, but I would have wanted more of her being unhinged then and less scenes of people talking about how she’s being weird and crazy. The lead actress does a really good job with what she’s given. I really didn’t like her vibe when she wasn’t possessed, but then I understood the casting once she started to act more unstable.
It’s fun if you don’t think about it too much. Small but competent enough. Maybe I just don’t find crazy women scary (Sorry I’m a feminist. Or maybe I’m a misogynist?)
Seen on 05/19/2026
I thoroughly enjoyed this move from beginning to end. I wasn’t really sure what the tone of it would be given the Quentin Tarantino-like trailer. It’s much less braggadocios then it is sold and really is more of just a well made drama.
It’s not the most stylish visually but does have a very strong voice. It’s kind of a conventional revenge story but it’s made fresh by the co-leads and the different ways they navigate their trauma. Both are scarred by it in different ways, with one wanting to move past it but constantly reminded of it because of her disfigurement and the other wielding it like a justification to for violence, but it’s never enough. Both feel trapped, and the journey is about them confronting their own trauma and each others. Everybody does an amazing job, no matter the size of their part, but by the end I was really impressed by the two leads.
It feels slight at times and you feel the adaptation quality of it, but I wouldn’t say I was left unsatisfied by any parts of it. I would watch a much longer version, but maybe I should just see the play then. I made me think of Obsession and how they both feel like projects by students who are really invested in a kind of genre. Is God Is feels like a modern greek tragedy, doing something with the genre in a way that feels exciting.
Seen on 05/23/2026
I wasn’t as floored by it as I was after “Sorry to Bother you,” but I was smiling the whole time from beginning to end. It’s really refreshing to see a movie that is so un-abashedly goofy, yet still very precise in the kind of world it’s building and narrative. It can be a bit uneven and it’s more emotional moments feel rushed, but there’s really nothing going this hard.
It’s like a fantastical modern day fairy tail. It’s about boosters, but also about the whole system that has led up to boosters. It’s not just about those that steal the clothes, but also those who make them in abusive conditions, and the delusional ways that those on top come to understand their role in society. Our hero is someone who feels the existential dread and isolation that this system naturally creates if you think about it too long, and the story is about her coming to understand that she is not unique in the best way possible. That the majority of people are feeling this. It’s not a complicated idea, but the movie takes a very universal story and makes something so refreshingly blunt and fun. Cover it in bright colors, stop motion, stunt casting, tilted towers and it becomes a way of dealing with these very real world problems in an exciting new way. Who says late-stage capitalism can’t also be hilarious?
It ends with the general strike and class solidarity, and gestures to how this is the natural course of things. That capitalism will come for all of us and it is only a matter of time until we are made aware that only we will save each other. It reminded me of Superman in how the movie suggest the solution to these big problems isn’t actually that complicated at the end of the day. Except instead of superheroes its wigs, skin suits, and teleporters.
Seen on 05/26/2026
I’m really impressed with how much this movie was able to pack into such a small story. It’s set up to be mystery but that kind of ends up being the least important thing thematically.
It was never laugh out loud funny, but I was always entertained. The sheep are fun to watch bumble around and all the performances are all solid. They mystery falls into the background as it becomes more about prejudice and the main sheep Lilly’s personal journey in accepting the sad parts of life.
Her experiences are very empathetic, we can all understand why she and the other sheep actively delete uncomfortable memories from their brain. Slowly though she comes to accept it as a natural part of life. That acceptance then moves her to interact with other sheep and sheep culture in a more compassionate way. Instead of ignoring the bad and pretending it doesn’t happen she comes to accept it as being important to fully understanding the whole of an experience. She understand not just the burden of memory, but the blessing of it as well.
It’s a very sweet and competent movie. Even though it’s uneven in how it tries to do so many things, I wasn’t left unsatisfied by any parts of it.
Seen on 05/30/2026
As someone who has no previous experience with the backrooms, this was not a good sell to me. This idea of a parallel/alternate dimension that has echoes or fragments of our normal reality isn’t new, but it is always interesting. But this really failed to do anything exciting with it.
I kind of didn’t really like anything about it other than the two initial experiences of the backrooms. The first first person perspective was tense and I had the thought “oh they’re gonna make corners the point of tension.” Then when the lead first enters and it’s these wide ominous rooms with lots of ways out, it’s kind of overwhelming. But then once the monsters are introduced and the chases start, it sort of ruins the threat of space itself.
The writing and pacing of this film are so awful, but the two leads are really giving it everything they got. That puts it in this campy space where I found myself wanting to laugh at the more “tense” situations. The designs of the monsters (?) is also so bad and just looks like something out of spy kids. (No shade to spy kids!)
Seen on 06/13/2026
I don’t have any strong feelings on Steven Spielberg. I didn’t grow up watching his movies and so there was no baggage of that going into this. But I felt like this feels like a pretty boring and small movie for somebody who has made so many large blockbuster films. I really would not thing this was the same person behind Jurassic Park or Jaws.
It’s a film that dares to ask “What if Aliens were real? But like actually?” Instead of the timeless classic of Alien as metaphor for an “other,” it is more interested in what it would mean socially if Aliens existed. How would that affect our relationships to each other as a species and how would it challenge our perceptions of power. I’m not saying this is a bad idea on paper, but it also doesn’t really have anything to say about it other than we should “listen,” to each other.
The actual narrative is thin, because characters are ideas and metaphors. Emily Blunt is the embodiment of communication and understanding, and she rattles off people’s feelings like a machine gun. This was really affective the first times when it comes out of nowhere, but when she starts doing it to literally everybody that she talks to, it gets pretty silly, especially during what are supposed to be more tense sequences. She’s also just working at a much higher level than everyone else in the movie. It veers into campy, she is going so hard but the writing is often really bad and the other actors are pretty flat. Coleman Domingo is also good, but he would could make a napkin charismatic. There’s a lot of maguffins, and things just move in a very weird way. Like very slow in the beginning and then all at once in the back half. It unclear what our characters are working towards or how that is going to solve anything that is set up to be a problem in this world that is on the verge of nuclear apocalypse (???).
It was a pretty packed theater and one person tried to get like an applause going at the end but no one joined in. Allso, The alien footage is so funny. It’s presented as very dramatic but also it’s the most generic design ever. Like it just looks like destroy all humans, how am I not supposed to laugh.