Reviews – Filmibee.com

Erotic Horror Is Long On Innuendo, Short On Climax As It Fails To Deliver On A Promising Premise

administrator — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 05:08:54 +0000

Picture this: you splurge on a stunning estate on AirBnB for a romantic weekend with your long-time partner, only for another couple to show up having done the same, on a different app. With the hosts not responding to messages online and the nearest hotel some 50 miles away, you decide to make the best of it and stay with the strangers. They seem nice enough. Okay, maybe 50 miles doesn’t seem all that crazy, and you’re already wondering why one of the couples doesn’t try to book another place nearby. But it already seems like Joshua Friedlander’s script for Bone Lake has got some holes. Well, have you considered that Diego (Marco Pigossi) has been planning on using this weekend as the perfect setting to propose to his girlfriend, Sage (Maddie Hasson), with an heirloom ring from his grandmother? Does that explain why they’d choose to stay with two complete strangers? It doesn’t. To be sure, Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s sex-crazed thriller is purposefully tilted. If nothing here is all that believable, perhaps it is meant to stir some feelings of incredulity. The film’s frothy aesthetic is announced early with a cold open of two naked people escaping death through the forest, until one of them is pierced through the scrotum by a bow and arrow. So it’s not as if Morgan isn’t warning us that what we’re about to watch might be a bit wild.
Bone Lake Never Lives Up To Its Frothy Premise

Appreciably, that opening metonymic image tells us all we need to know about Morgan’s mission here. As the opening song tells us, we’re about to eat a ridiculous plate of sex and violence in a film about how one begets the other, and vice versa. The problem is, Bone Lake has four truly unlikeable characters doing absolutely unlikeable things. And Friedlander’s script is so poorly written that, even in the context of something so pulpy, no one is responding to their circumstances with any degree of normalcy. Diego is a community college teacher and aspiring novelist; he is bizarrely ashamed of the former and bullish about the latter. The couple is driving across the country for Sage to start a new job as an editor, and to transition into a one-income household so that Diego can concentrate on finishing his book. Sage is uncomfortable about taking on so much financial pressure, especially since it is quite clear she is not exactly sexually satisfied with Diego, and because her own creative writing is taking a pause to feed his. We get all this information through clunky exposition, doled out in strange, forced moments. The other couple, Cinnamon (Andra Nechita) and Will (Alex Roe), are immediately hospitable, warm and, most notably, sexually explicit. Yes, her name is Cinnamon, but don’t worry, she goes by Cin. Not much information is given about them except that Cin works in wealth management and that one of her more high-profile clients is Diego’s favorite author. What a coincidence! Never mind that Cin is oddly quick to offer to send his writing to Mr. Kearns. Suddenly, this romantic vacation has turned into a perfect opportunity for Diego’s career.

Bone Lake never lives up to its opening ten minutes, which is aces.

Almost immediately, Cin and Will go to work to seduce both Diego and Sage, the latter of whom is the only person here who seems to think the entire situation is a bit kooky (but only momentarily). What Cin and Will’s game is exactly remains elusive for the first half of the film, as they successfully start to break down the bonds between Diego and Sage, luring them into “games” in and around the house. Thus, the film slowly takes shape as something of a cross between Michael Heneke’s Funny Games and Speak No Evil. Indeed, the film is at its best when leaning into its promised sadomasochism. Cin and Will’s frank and open sexual libidos reveal in Sage and Diego what they’ve been missing in each other, and when Morgan concentrates on the web-like, erotic dynamics, Bone Lake becomes more interesting and tense. But it does seem pulled between that and its extremely flat and forced comedy in a way that cheapens both the sex and the humor. Roe and Hasson are both strong actors, but Pigossi and Nechita seem adrift. Pigossi is never quite believable as meek, and his character is confusingly drawn. He is both an erotic novelist and scared of sex? Or is it that he wants sex but is so in his own world that he just doesn’t know how to satisfy Sage? Is he not adventurous enough, or is he too adventurous? For Sage’s part, why is an award-winning sex journalist staying with someone who doesn’t satisfy her and is adamant about not using toys in the bedroom? Bone Lake never lives up to its opening ten minutes, which is aces. It is neither as sexy nor as enjoyably violent as it advertises itself to be, and even when things do blow up in the final act, the shock is ham-fisted for shock’s sake. Morgan and Friedlander can’t ever justify properly why Diego and Sage are staying behind with two creepy sex fiends, and especially can’t justify why Sage is such a powerless character, nor why she seems so beholden to a partner she does not seem to like. Some of the violence is fun and goopy, and Bone Lake’s denouement sticks the landing, though cinematographer Nick Matthews and team need to understand that lighting fake blood in the manner they do does risk looking like blackface. While it’s probably fair to say it wasn’t intentional, one does wonder about the lack of care that went into this and other decisions. Haneke’s film, which Morgan and Friedlander seem to be referencing, works because it is so bleakly cynical and sociopathic. Part of its potential success lies in our ability to believe the light of the love that emanates from its victims over the black hole of the villains. But if all the characters are unbelievable, it seems hard to care about the spilled blood.

Release Date

October 3, 2025

Runtime

94 minutes

Director

Mercedes Bryce Morgan

Writers

Joshua Friedlander

Producers

Jason Blumenfeld, Mickey Liddell, Jacob Yakob

Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by filmibee.
Publisher: Source link

Desire, Duty, and Deception Collide

administrator — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 02:48:54 +0000

Carmen Emmi’s Plainclothes is an evocative, bruising romantic thriller that takes place in the shadowy underbelly of 1990s New York, where personal identity collides with institutional control. More than just a story about police work, the film is a taut and deeply emotional exploration of repression, connection, and the fragile pursuit of authenticity under a system that demands secrecy. Anchored by standout performances from Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey, and lifted by a dreamlike, sensuous visual style, Plainclothes is both tense and unexpectedly tender.
The film introduces us to Lucas (Tom Blyth), a young, working-class undercover officer tasked with infiltrating New York’s gay community. His job is to pose as bait, luring men into compromising situations so they can be arrested in stings designed to keep “order.” The premise itself already establishes a moral minefield, one that the script doesn’t shy away from. Lucas begins his assignment with detached determination, but his focus fractures when he meets Andrew (Russell Tovey), a man whose quiet self-possession and vulnerability captivate him. What starts as a calculated act of manipulation turns into an entanglement Lucas cannot easily extract himself from, forcing him to confront not only his mission but also the deep questions of who he is and what kind of man he wants to be.

Performances that Ignite the Story:
Tom Blyth delivers a performance of restrained power as Lucas. He embodies the contradictions of his character—the polished, hardened cop who has been taught to compartmentalize emotions, and the young man caught unprepared by the intoxicating pull of genuine intimacy. Blyth’s physicality tells half the story: his stiff posture and clipped movements during surveillance give way to hesitant, softer gestures when Andrew enters his life. The film’s tension is carried on Blyth’s shoulders, and he does not disappoint.
Russell Tovey is equally magnetic. As Andrew, he brings a world-weariness layered with warmth. His expressive eyes communicate as much as the dialogue: a flash of suspicion here, a flicker of longing there. Tovey’s chemistry with Blyth is palpable, but it’s not immediate fireworks—it’s a slow-burning, hesitant unraveling of trust and attraction that makes their eventual intimacy all the more poignant. Together, the two actors craft a romance that feels lived-in, fragile, and entirely believable, grounding the film’s high-stakes drama in human truth.
A Story of Longing and Entrapment:
Emmi’s screenplay balances its thriller elements with moments of unexpected tenderness. The “sting” operations that Lucas participates in are shot with clinical detachment, echoing the coldness of a system that criminalizes desire. Yet these sequences are contrasted with stolen moments between Lucas and Andrew—an exchange of glances in a crowded mall, a quiet stroll through a greenhouse, the hesitant brushing of hands. These juxtapositions create a rhythm of tension and release, keeping viewers on edge while also investing them emotionally in the characters’ connection.
The story works precisely because it resists becoming either a polemic or a sentimental fable. It doesn’t need to sermonize about injustice—the institutional cruelty is baked into every frame. And it doesn’t overindulge in melodrama either; the emotions come from character decisions, from the danger inherent in each lie Lucas tells and each truth he suppresses. By the time the film approaches its climax, the audience is left with the impression that there are no easy resolutions, only the painful acknowledgment of what has been lost and what remains possible.
A Dreamlike Atmosphere:
The film’s greatest stylistic strength is its atmosphere, achieved through both direction and cinematography. The camera often lingers on faces, drenched in muted neon light, creating an intimate, voyeuristic quality. Smoke-filled bars, dim apartments, and rain-slicked streets are rendered in a way that feels both tactile and otherworldly. This dreamlike visual approach underscores the emotional stakes: every encounter between Lucas and Andrew feels suspended in time, half-real, half-illusory, as though they are moving through a world that will collapse once the outside intrudes.
Cinematographer Ethan Palmer uses soft focus and delicate framing to blur the line between surveillance and romance. A hidden camera lens shares space with the tender gaze of a lover, forcing viewers to ask: when does looking become watching, and when does watching become caring? These choices elevate the film beyond a straightforward romantic thriller into something far more poetic.
Strengths and Shortcomings:
The strengths of Plainclothes are undeniable: two stellar lead performances, a script that balances thriller mechanics with emotional authenticity, and a visual style that conjures a sense of longing as palpable as the danger lurking around the characters. The romance never feels like a tacked-on subplot—it is the beating heart of the film, and its authenticity gives the thriller structure weight and urgency.
Yet the film is not without flaws. Some of the supporting characters, while well-acted, occasionally veer into archetype. Certain subplots, such as Lucas’s family ties, feel sketched rather than explored in depth, leaving the audience with unanswered questions about his background and motivations.
The pacing, too, may divide audiences. The film deliberately lingers in silences and quiet exchanges, which works beautifully to establish atmosphere but occasionally slows momentum during the middle act. Viewers expecting a tightly wound thriller might find themselves impatient during the film’s more meditative stretches.
A Film That Stays With You:
Despite these shortcomings, Plainclothes succeeds in leaving a lasting impression. Its power lies in how it forces viewers to wrestle with contradictions—duty versus desire, repression versus freedom, cruelty versus tenderness. Lucas’s journey is not one of easy redemption, but of gradual awakening, and Blyth captures this transformation with subtlety and grace.
Tovey, meanwhile, embodies the vulnerability and resilience of a man living under constant scrutiny, whose connection with Lucas feels like both a refuge and a risk. Together, their performances transcend the familiar trappings of a police thriller to create something rarer: a film that feels deeply, achingly human.
The romance is moving not because it defies the odds, but because it exists at all—fragile, dangerous, fleeting, but real. And in its final moments, Plainclothes refuses to give easy catharsis, instead leaving viewers haunted by the lingering image of two men caught between the lies they live and the truth they desire.
Overall:
Carmen Emmi has crafted a film that feels both urgent and timeless. While it occasionally falters in pacing and supporting character development, its strengths—particularly the performances of Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey, the intoxicating atmosphere, and the careful interweaving of romance and thriller—make it a memorable, affecting work.
Plainclothes is a film about what it means to live under surveillance, to love under threat, and to find fleeting freedom in another person’s gaze. Its blend of suspense and tenderness ensures it will stay with audiences long after the credits roll.

Plainclothes Review: Desire, Duty, and Deception Collide

Acting – 0/10

Cinematography/Visual Effects – 0/10

Plot/Screenplay – 0/10

Setting/Theme – 0/10

Watchability – 0/10

Rewatchability – 0/10

Summary
Carmen Emmi’s Plainclothes is an evocative, bruising romantic thriller that takes place in the shadowy underbelly of 1990s New York, where personal identity collides with institutional control. More than just a story about police work, the film is a taut and deeply emotional exploration of repression, connection, and the fragile pursuit of authenticity under a system that demands secrecy. Anchored by standout performances from Tom Blyth and Russell Tovey, and lifted by a dreamlike, sensuous visual style, Plainclothes is both tense and unexpectedly tender.

Pros

Nuanced, layered, and emotionally gripping; Tom Blyth captures the struggle between duty and desire
Russell Tovey is vulnerable yet resilient, with expressive subtleties that make the romance feel real
Dreamlike cinematography and atmosphere
Raises questions about repression, institutional cruelty, and the search for authenticity in a hostile system

Cons

Some side characters, like Ron and Uncle Paul, feel more like archetypes than fully realized people
The film lingers in quiet moments that may test viewers seeking a tighter thriller rhythm

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Acting

Cinematography/Visual Effects

Plot/Screenplay

Setting/Theme

Watchability

Rewatchability

Summary: Plainclothes is a film about what it means to live under surveillance, to love under threat, and to find fleeting freedom in another person’s gaze. Its blend of suspense and tenderness ensures it will stay with audiences long after the credits roll.

3.9

Intricate and Tense

Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by filmibee.
Publisher: Source link

Real-Life Couple Justin Long and Kate Bosworth Have Tons of Fun in a Creature Feature That Plays It Too Safe

administrator — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 05:08:21 +0000

In 2022, Justin Long and Kate Bosworth teamed up for the horror comedy House of Darkness. A year later, the actors got married and are now parents, so it’s fun to see them working together again for another outing in the same genre. Coyotes, written by Tad Daggerhart and Nick Simon, and directed by Colin Minihan (Grave Encounters, Extraterrestrial), sees the couple stretching their acting chops by playing… a married couple in Los Angeles with a kid. The difference from reality is that this fictitious husband and wife find themselves hunted down by a pack of ravenous coyotes. The plot and its comedic tone set the stage for some wild fun. However, even though the film sparks at times, it’s never scary or funny enough to make the most of its gimmick. Its stellar leads give it their all, but Coyotes ultimately falls short of its potential. It’s still enjoyable enough, just too tame to become anything more than a little popcorn movie you forget all about days later.
What Is ‘Coyotes’ About?

Coyotes is set in Los Angeles, where we are quickly told that the recent wildfires have pushed desperate coyotes into the suburbs. That’s important knowledge to have, because no matter what might happen next, the coyotes aren’t just there to be simplistic monsters. Instead, they’re a product of our real world who have been pushed out of their environment. No matter how much carnage they cause, we’ll still feel sorry for them, which makes Coyotes more than a mindless creature feature. Living in a nice home on the hillside is Scott (Long), a successful comic book writer, his wife Liv (Bosworth), and their teenage daughter Chloe (Mila Harris), a girl who is no longer a kid and doesn’t want to be on her parents’ hip all the time anymore. Thankfully, Coyotes doesn’t turn Chloe into some predictable trope who is a jerk to her parents, only to remember that she loves them when shit hits the fan. This family is not at all perfect, with Scott’s busy schedule leaving his devoted wife lonely, but these people care about each other. There are no played-out tropes with infighting, affairs, or anything of the sort. They’re a traditional family who have their issues, yet still love one another deeply. Because of this, we will cheer them on when the creatures attack. And attack the coyotes do! They come at night, causing the family, along with their over-the-top neighbors, to fight for their lives. Who will still be alive when morning comes?
‘Coyotes’ Great Effects Keep It From Being B-Level Schlock

Making a horror comedy about killer coyotes could have gone off the rails fast if the wrong choices were made with the monsters. Coyotes had the easy opportunity to make such a common animal more terrifying by portraying them as bigger or having them do things that would be impossible, thus making the plot implausible. But, thankfully, it resists that temptation. Like in the real world, the coyotes here are desperate and angry animals who hunt in packs and have targeted this house. The film’s fear comes from trying to figure out why they won’t leave these particular people alone, which is not given away until the very end in an admittedly lackluster reveal. Don’t worry, this isn’t a case of them being super coyotes with some absurd powers. There is one scene where a coyote is smart enough to open a door like it’s a velociraptor in Jurassic Park, but that’s as wild as their abilities get. They are scary in their numbers and the depths of their rage, not through some wild backstory or biological twist. Obviously, the creatures in Coyotes can’t be real animals, as they are put in many dangerous and violent situations, so the film has to rely on CGI. Fifteen to 20 years ago, this could have been a disaster with some very cartoonish furry villains, but thankfully, technology today has made them look rather lifelike. The effects don’t always hold up in day scenes, so the coyotes are mostly roaming at night, presenting them as a serious threat without being some sort of schlocky werewolf or exaggerated beast. This isn’t a purposely awful comedy in the vein of Sharknado, but a flawed horror film that really tries with its scares and puts the comedy all on its human protagonists instead of the monsters.
There Is Not Enough Fear or Laughs To Make ‘Coyotes’ a Successful Horror Comedy

The silhouette of a coyote with a house on fire behind it in ‘Coyotes’Image via Aura Entertainment

One scene has sex worker Julie (Brittany Allen) trying to compare what they’re going through to that movie about the birds that attack people out of nowhere. The joke is that she can’t recall that the movie is actually called The Birds, but it’s an apt description. No, Coyotes does not compare to Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, yet it has the same beats. Everyday animals attack in a horde with no explanation, and residents of a town barricade themselves inside their homes as the creatures fight to get in. Coyotes immediately tells us that it’s going for a lighter tone by introducing all of its characters with animated, superhero-like name cards. This might make it easier to remember who everyone is, but that still doesn’t save the movie’s most glaring issue: there are way too many supporting characters. Name cards are given out to coyote fodder who are introduced simply to be killed two minutes later. Colin Minihnan would have been better off focusing on Scott, Liv, and Chloe, rather than jumping back and forth between them and characters we don’t care about. Julie is a funny enough character, but the next-door neighbor, Trip (Norbert Leo Butz), is so over-the-top as the rich guy with his gold gun and wild antics that he takes you out of the tension. Coyotes also introduces a rat exterminator named Devon (Keir O’Donnell), and with his sweaty hair, big glasses, and awkward mannerisms, it feels like the movie is going for a John Goodman clone from Arachnophobia. That could have been fun, then Devon disappears for the vast majority of the movie, only to show up when nothing matters. What was the point of even writing his character if he had no use in the second and third acts? Colin Minihan does do an adequate job of crafting suspense, with a few spectacular shots (the silhouettes of coyotes growling with flames behind them are astounding), and one gore shot in particular is something you haven’t seen before. Still, this movie can only bite so deep. Killer coyotes aren’t all that scary, and the comedy of the supporting characters feels forced and overly written. Kudos to the crew for coming up with a premise and refusing to send it off the rails into fantastical absurdism. Still, just because you keep the plot grounded doesn’t mean that there is enough to keep up the tension. The poster for Coyotes says “Eat the rich,” yet there is nothing political to sink your teeth into. This is a minor creature feature, one with no huge flaws, but without many riveting aspects to really recommend it either. Unlike its killer creatures, Coyotes is fairly harmless. Coyotes releases in theaters on October 3.

Release Date

October 3, 2025

Director

Colin Minihan

Writers

Daniel Meersand, Nick Simon, Tad Daggerhart

Producers

Jib Polhemus, James Harris, Nathan Klingher

Pros & Cons

The CGI effects make the coyotes look likelike, especially at night.
There are several great shots of the coyotes with fire building behind them.
The monsters are kept as realistic animals and not over-the-top villains.
The lead family is simply written as three people who care about each other without adding it dramatic subplots.

The supporting characters are thin and too unrealistic to care about.
Many of the comedic moments fall flat.
The scare factor of coyotes has a ceiling no matter what you do.

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Raoul Peck’s Everything Bagel Documentary Puts Too Much In the Author’s Mouth [TIFF]

administrator — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 02:47:52 +0000

Everyone has their own George Orwell and tends to think everyone else gets him wrong. As such, making a sprawling quasi-biographical documentary like “Orwell: 2+2=5” is a brave effort bound to exasperate people across the political spectrum. Even so, Raoul Peck’s repeated usage of the author’s words to buttress his own hazily presented view of current events makes this a less rigorous and engaging work than anything about Orwell should be.
READ MORE: Toronto Film Fest 2025 Preview: 35 Must-See Movies To Watch
The film proceeds along multiple tracks. Some are more gripping than the others, but Peck’s flowing collage style—drawing heavily on adaptations of “1984” and “Animal Farm”—creates throughout a smoothly hypnotic effect in the style of Adam Curtis. The primary framing device is composed of Orwell’s writing and letters from the end of his life, when he was fighting tuberculosis and finishing his last novel, “1984,” on the remote Scottish island of Jura. Peck uses Jura’s rocky green primeval beauty as a stark backdrop for Orwell’s correspondence about anxiety over the book and his declining health. This is dramatically underlined by audio of a person wheezing to catch their breath. Peck uses this in the film’s last stretches to draw a somewhat facile connection to a specific modern tragedy whose relevance is not readily apparent.
This recurring section includes snippets from Orwell’s essays on his upbringing, changing views on politics, and stern declamations about the dangers of propaganda. Peck presents a short precis of Orwell’s life, enlivened by the author’s sardonic and yet incisive portrayal of his very specific “lower upper middle class” upbringing. (Like many great British writers, Orwell had a jeweler’s eye for the class distinctions the country forced on its people.) Unsurprisingly, given the interest Peck’s work, like “Exterminate All the Brutes,” showed in colonialism, he moves quickly to Orwell’s formative years as a young British imperial police officer in Burma. Orwell’s close personal experience with empire and lacerating honesty over having been “part of the actual machinery of despotism” is illuminating and used as an effective bridge to his later focus on anti-totalitarianism both in life (fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War) and art (writing “1984,” still the defining fictional work on twentieth-century authoritarian systems).
The most attention-catching parts of “Orwell: 2+2=5” will likely be Peck’s montages that run Orwell’s narration over an onslaught of current affairs imagery. In straining for relevance and drawing too broadly from Orwell’s writings, Peck muddies up the narrative. Orwell’s denunciations of propaganda and the undermining of truth generated by politicized language were specific and taken from life. Though supporting the war against the Nazis, he was so revolted by producing wartime broadcasts at the BBC that he left, wryly complimenting himself by saying he “kept our propaganda slightly less disgusting.” Comparisons can clearly be drawn from Orwell’s time to the current day about how mass media can shape popular opinion, particularly demonizing foreigners. However, simply running footage showing current conflicts or authoritarians giving speeches, generally without context, does little to illustrate Orwell’s arguments about the power of language.
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Some of the writer’s statements of intent that Peck includes are wisely drawn from Orwell’s 1946 essay “Why I Write,” which is not just about the craft of his profession but his dedication to truth-telling. It is asking too much to insist that a documentary about a genius needs to match the subject’s level of skill or courage. Still, when Peck uses Orwell’s line “I knew I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts,” it becomes difficult not to notice the film’s failure to live up to the second half of that phrase. While many will take issue with the political figures and movements Peck sets his sights on, there is very little in “Orwell: 2+2=5” that is likely to cause a viewer to face an uncomfortable truth.
Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, “Orwell: 2+2=5” remains valuable. Peck’s genuine admiration for the sharpness and clarity of Orwell’s writing, combined with the rich tonality of Damian Lewis’ narration, gives the author as grandly respectful a presentation as “I Am Not Your Negro” did for James Baldwin. If “Orwell: 2+2=5” gets one more person to discover Orwell’s work for themselves, then its job will have been accomplished. [B]
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35 Years Later, Zhang Yimou’s Love Story Remains A Vibrantly Colored Tragedy

administrator — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 11:06:48 +0000

“Uncle bought another wife. Her name is Ju Dou. Pretty looking… expensive.” So begins our first introduction to Gong Li’s titular character, and the film’s ethos is introduced. Depending on your outlook, Zhang Yimou’s Ju Dou is either a cynical, cautionary tale about the immutable vengeance of the gods, or it is a tragic story of love and class solidarity. Either way, Zhang’s third feature, which is now 35 years old, captivates anew in 4K.
Ju Dou’s Inherent Contradictions Are Sometimes A Gift Of Moral Reckoning

The first Chinese film to garner an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Ju Dou almost plays like a film noir, except it’s shot in glorious color film by Gu Changwei and Lun Yang. Taking place in a “small village somewhere in China in the 1920s,” Ju Dou is exceptionally bleak in spite of its vibrant palette. A beautiful, young, newly purchased wife by the much older Yang Jinshan (Li Wei), the patriarch of a family in desperate hope for a male heir, Ju Dou’s arrival signals a massive shift in the life of a small dye mill. Jinshan operates his business mostly off the back of his adopted nephew, Tianqing (Li Baotian), whom he treats with abject cruelty. He also treats his new wife even harsher, tying her up and raping her repeatedly. An insinuation is made that Jinshan’s past two wives have died by his abuse. Perhaps because of their mutual suffering, Tianqing and Ju Dou are smitten almost immediately upon their first meeting, and a dangerous lust is born. Zhang would go on after this to craft some of China’s most memorable Wuxia, a Chinese historical fantasy genre centering martial artists (including Hero, House of Flying Daggers, the Matt Damon vehicle The Great Wall), as well as huge prestige dramas (Raise the Red Lantern, To Live). Ju Dou’s captivating intimacy is nonetheless overshadowed by most of those works. Not yet the rounded dramatist he would become, Zhang’s film is morally confusing.

Liu Heng’s script, based on his own novel Fuxi, Fuxi, begins by engendering us to this star-crossed couple via the evil Jinshan, who is a caricature of patriarchy. But the film strays from its easy depiction of class conflict through the introduction of Tianqing and Ju Dou’s demonic-like love child, Tianbai (played by Zhang Yi and Ji-an Zheng at various ages). Tianbai is an immediate threat to the couple’s potential happiness and is sociopathic even as an infant. At first, the love shared between Ju Dou and Tianqing seems dubious. Ju Dou may be using Tianqing as a way to get rid of her abusive husband, and Tianqing may be using Ju Dou as a means of forcing his own potential inheritance. But as the film goes on, their love is both more believable and more desperate, their sexual unions less like sensual love-making than violent physical clashes. And when Tianbai is born, the two are forced to conceal their relationship, even more so than when there was no child in the picture. One day, Jinshan is badly injured in an accident that leaves him paralyzed from the waist down, and, in the couple’s bitterness and understandable hatred towards him, they resort to long bouts of mockery. Zhang, shifting perspectives between the three corners of his triangle, makes us feel for both abuser and abused, while frequently making us reconsider who is what. The murkiness of Zhang and Li’s moral direction is intriguing, if not all that believable as purposeful, and it stands in stark contrast to the sharp binaries of the film’s starring element: its color. Ju Dou is first introduced in a gloriously deep red dress, but is seen in a faded pink shortly after Jinshan first raped her. Deep, moody blues are cast over the mill’s central areas as Tianqing and Ju Dou slowly encircle one another before they first consummate their love. Which, when they do, is shot against the backdrop of cascading threads in red dye — either a visual metaphor for deepening lust or else a foreshadowing for everyone’s inevitable collapse. The start of the couple’s coupling is an act of voyeurism. Tianqing has carved a small hole from the inside of the barn so that he can watch as Ju Dou bathes. The young woman is quick to catch on to being watched, and after a series of Jinshan’s beatings, she decides to reveal herself in spite of, or perhaps because of the knowledge of Tianqing’s covert eyes. “Look at what’s being done to me,” she seems to be say. Ju Dou, despite much of its uneven surface, is ultimately a story about the levers of justice and how they cannot be pulled until pain is recognized for what it is. Without that recognition, it risks permeating even the deepest of color dyes. Ju Dou is being re-released in theaters on October 3.

Release Date

September 22, 1990

Runtime

95 Minutes

Director

Zhang Yimou

Writers

Liu Heng

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A Surprisingly Hilarious Horror Movie Stuck in a Franchise That’s Completely Out of Ideas

administrator — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 07:46:50 +0000

When the first V/H/S film, produced by Bloody Disgusting, came out in 2012, it was a fresh take on horror, combining the anthology and found footage subgenres into realistic, bite-sized terror. The film created some of the most terrifying moments in recent horror, and its success led to a franchise that built itself on aspiring filmmakers and established names. Some of the sequels were rather good, while others fell flat (we’re looking at you V/H/S: Viral), but the past few efforts, such as last year’s V/H/S/Beyond, were a return to form. So how does the eighth film in the franchise, V/H/S/Halloween, stack up? Well, it’s definitely the funniest of the franchise, but while it’s filled with gore, the derivative segments of shaky cameras, incessant screaming, and jump scares quickly become frustrating. It’s not a horrible movie at all, but you’ve played this tape before, and it’s starting to wear thin.
What Is ‘V/H/S/Halloween’ About?

As with all V/H/S films, V/H/S/Halloween consists of several segments from different directors. “Diet Phantasma,” by music video director Bryan Ferguson serves as the film’s frame device, as we return to it throughout the film. “Diet Phantasma” consists of a series of shorts revolving around a diet soda taste test with bloody consequences, as the unsuspecting testers experience deadly reactions when they take a sip of the drink. If you’re a gorehound, you definitely won’t be disappointed by what comes out of those cans. There are five main segments in V/H/S/Halloween. Anna Zlokovic directs “Coochie Coochie Coo,” where two teen girls get stuck inside a house on Halloween night with a creepy figure known by kids around town as The Mommy. Paco Plaza, the mastermind behind the found footage REC films, is perfect for the V/H/S structure, as he comes in to helm “Ut Supra Sic Infra,” a Spanish story that cuts back and forth between found footage and a police interrogation in the aftermath of a mass killing where the victims’ eyes are removed. The best short film by far is Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size,” where four kids ignore a Halloween candy bowl that says “one per person,” leading them into a candy factory unlike any you’ve ever seen. Alex Rossy Perry’s (Her Smell) “Kidprint” is a story about a video shop where employees make videos of kids in case they go missing (yes, that used to be a thing), only for a lot of those children to indeed go missing, leaving the employees of the company under suspicion. The last segment, “Home Haunt”, from Micheline Pitt-Norman and R.H. Norman, is another haunted house story, this time about a dad obsessed with Halloween who takes his passion for creating the scariest home haunt too far when he comes across a vinyl record that conjures something from the beyond when played.
‘V/H/S/Halloween’ Is the Funniest Film in the Franchise

Horror and comedy go hand in hand, as both are meant to elicit a unique physical response from the viewer that other genres can’t achieve. Sometimes, if done right, such as with classics like Gremlins and Scream, a horror comedy can tickle your funny bone and send shivers down your spine simultaneously. The V/H/S franchise has had segments that are pure horror, many that rely on over-the-top gore and spectacle, and others that are aimed to be sickly funny. Take last year’s “Fur Babies” from V/H/S/Beyond, for example, in which a woman operating a dog sitting company turns humans into pets. It’s silly and gross, yet highly effective. This is what V/H/S/ Halloween aims for in its tone more than any of the previous films. So does that strategy work? The results are mixed. It’s silly, yet attention-grabbing to see a soda taste testing session turn into a gore fest, but when it’s the same thing every time we come back to the “Diet Phantasma” frame device, both the shocks and the laughs at the absurdity of it all quickly disappear. “Coochie Coochie Coo” could have been your traditional story about people being trapped in a house with a monster, so Anna Zlokovic deserves credit for trying to go beyond the norm, but that falls flat when the beast becomes the source of the comedy. The segment breaks down into a Barbarian ripoff with a monster obsessed with being a mother who has six breasts (complete with milk leaking from them), so you’re too busy laughing at the audacity of it to feel any fright. The comedy is lighter in some of the other segments, but “Fun Size” knocks it out of the park in one of the better V/H/S segments in recent years. It’s off-the-wall chaos, with misshapen villains straight out of a maddening old school fast food commercial, and a plethora of blood and guts as the segment breaks down to show us how these demented psychos make their candy. With candy shooting out of orifices and penises being cut off and slowly moving down a conveyor belt, Casper Kelly (who has a long history working with Adult Swim), wants his viewers to laugh. Still, he doesn’t forget to chill us at the same time with some rather creepy scenes. This is the one that will stick with you, and if you happen to be a kid who watches this, you’ll never take more than one piece of candy from a bowl while trick or treating ever again.
The ‘V/H/S’ Format Has Become Predictable

The Mommy (Elena Musser) in ‘V/H/S/Halloween’Image via Shudder

V/H/S/Halloween has potential with some intriguing premises, but it’s held back and kept in the middle of the pack due to one central problem. The latest sequel is relentless to the point of exhaustion, and at 1 hour and 54 minutes (one segment should have been cut), it’s too much. Every single short film consists of characters finding themselves in trouble, then screaming their lungs out as they run with their shaky camera as something jumps out, causing them to scream louder and run faster. At times, it pulls back, such as when “Fun Size” thankfully moves away from the shaky cam insanity, or when latter segments sit in the quiet for a few minutes, but for the most part, it’s the rinse-and-repeat found footage trope of running, jump scare, and screaming to the heavens. V/H/S/Halloween knows that’s an easy way to get to a viewer, but being constantly on edge is not the same as being scared. Kudos to the filmmakers for coming to the table with different ideas that could ignite their careers, but when it’s the exact same storytelling method every time, it doesn’t matter how unique the original concept is. Please keep making V/H/S movies because there’s nothing else like them. They’re the perfect way for established names to reconnect with their passion on a more basic level, while also giving a platform to those on the way up. The last few movies have given the franchise new life because the basics of the stories are so enthralling, but it’s time to try coming at the horror in different ways. Not every segment has to be an assault on the senses. It’s as if they feel limited by the short time frame and aim to go all out as fast as they can. That can work here and there, but the best horror comes when we slow it all down and get paralyzed by our fears of the quiet and unknown. V/H/S/Halloween is dark and demented, and is the funniest movie of this franchise. But if the V/H/S series just turned it down a notch and tried some different storytelling formats, the next one could be even better.

Release Date

October 3, 2025

Runtime

115 Minutes

Director

Paco Plaza, Casper Kelly, Alex Ross Perry, Bryan M Ferguson, Anna Zlokovic, R.H. Norman

Writers

Anna Zlokovic, Bryan M. Ferguson, Micheline Pitt, R.H. Norman

Producers

James Harris, Michael Schreiber, Brad Miska

Pros & Cons

“Fun Size” is one of the funniest V/H/S segments ever made.
The gore and practical effects are top notch.
Many of the segments aim to tell a different story.

It blasts your senses with non-stop noise that seldom stops.
The rinse and repeat of shaky cams and jump scares gets old quick.
It is way too long and needed at least one segment cut.

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Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson Face Off in a Sharp Body Horror That Fans of ‘The Substance’ Will Devour

administrator — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:06:14 +0000

In a year of great cinema, The Substance was by far my favorite movie that 2024 had to offer. Coralie Fargeat’s gruesome, fantastical take on women’s body image was a wicked blend of Cronenberg and Kubrick, viewed through a very introspective female lens. Although not quite my favorite of 2025 (that distinction goes to the brilliant Together), Max Minghella’s Shell is a definite highlight of this year, delivering a similar premise to The Substance from a different angle. If The Substance was a contained, inwardly-focused tale of self-hatred at the hands of the entertainment industry and the male gaze, Shell lifts its head, looks around, and notices that the female gaze is just as insidious.
‘Shell’ Stars Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson on Opposite Ends of the Beauty Standard

Samantha Lake (Elisabeth Moss) is a middle-aged actor who is quickly becoming invisible. Managers and directors aim backhanded platitudes at her, using caustic phrases like “non-traditional body type” to avoid saying that she is fat, old, ugly, and unhirable. Of course, none of these things is actually true, but in the cut-throat world of Hollywood, they basically are. It is with this faux delicacy that those with Samantha’s career in their hands nudge her towards a beauty treatment that only the rich and important can access. Shell is a cosmetic company that offers a revolutionary technique that effectively freezes time, halting the aging process indefinitely, as long as the subject keeps having regular treatments. Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson) is the obscenely rich and glamorous CEO of the company — the embodiment of its core values. When Samantha relents and gives the treatment a try, Zoe suddenly takes her under her diamond-encrusted wing, introducing her to a world of perfection, where beautiful people lounge around in beautiful houses at beautiful parties. At first, it seems as though her life is transforming for the better, but then Samantha notices disgusting growths taking over her body, and comes to realize that Shell is not as liberating as it claims to be, nor is its boss quite the girl’s girl she portrayed herself as.
‘Shell’ Looks at the Corporate Side of Body Image

Shell takes place in a wider world than The Substance, with more figures, more layers of authority, and, perhaps most intriguingly, more background. In a move somewhat reminiscent of the enjoyably yet awful Catwoman, the movie is about how huge corporate entities orchestrate problems so that they can peddle solutions, consequences be damned. After all, they can put people of all sizes and complexions in their commercials, but isn’t every beauty brand still relying on its customers feeling less than perfect and in need of their products in order to feel better about themselves? Shell channels this sentiment through the harsh filter of the entertainment industry, where everybody has an even shorter shelf life than in the real world, and that’s if they’re lucky enough to get on the shelf in the first place. Moss plays Samantha as terminally sweet and charming — the sort of person that the wolves of this world recognize a mile off for their vulnerability — making for an empathetic and relatable central figure, albeit a little exaggerated in her purity. Opposite her is the steely Zoe, who extracts all of Kate Hudson’s best qualities. Even in very light-hearted movies, Hudson has always mastered that sly look, with a great use of facial expression to convey that a lot is going unsaid by her character, and Shell is perhaps the best role I’ve seen her in. Zoe is the vehicle through which the movie examines how women eat away at each other’s self-esteem. You know, that high school mean girl mentality that your parents always assured you people grow out of, but it turns out they never do. Hudson plays Zoe as that popular girl who invites the outcast shopping with her, just so she can laugh about it with her friends later, and she makes for both a fabulously evil villain and a depressingly familiar figurehead of female gaze. Hudson gets a wickedly entertaining villain monologue in which she spills all the secrets of the company and its motivations, and it all comes back to power. She characterizes people as animals desperate to claw their way up the food chain, and that the good-looking ones inevitably end up on top. The world of beauty is not about appealing to men or even women getting what they want by appealing to men. It’s much more basic than that. It’s all about the want of power, of domination, and making everybody else feel undesirable is the most efficient way of doing it. Shell gets a tad ham-fisted here, with Samantha countering the villain’s monologue with what are effectively the morals of the story, spelling out for the audience what they are meant to take away from it all, but the sentiment is a worthy one, nonetheless. Shell looks a little closer at the why of such a power structure, at what those on top have to gain from it all.
‘Shell’ Blends Body Horror With Dark Humor

Kate Hudson as Zoe Shannon in ShellImage via Paramount Pictures

Horror continues to be a widely varied and experimental genre that plays with many pertinent themes and ideas, but what is perhaps most striking is how it is being embraced by big names and the wider world. For decades, it has been relatively rare for major stars to fling themselves into horror territory, especially something as gnarly as body horror, so it’s great to see people like Kate Hudson and Demi Moore going for more interesting projects along these lines. Shell is certainly a horror, albeit more of an allegorical one that you shouldn’t necessarily assume is taking place in the real world, and while it doesn’t hit the wildly grim heights of The Substance, it sure has its grossness. It drops the ball ever so slightly with its big reveal at the end, at which point I was dialed up to 11 and hoping for some hideous hybrid creature right out of The Fly that never arrived. But Shell uses its periodic spurts of horror well, usually to squeamish effect, but occasionally for thoroughly unexpected visual humor. In a story such as this, where the failings and falsehoods of real life are being examined, the right levels of satirical humor really help to tie it all together, and Shell has some great moments. Some opine that horror-comedies work best when the horror and the comedy are kept apart, because using them in tandem can weaken the effects of both..But Shell gets the balance just right and manages to pull off scenes that are very funny while also being totally disgusting. It all adds to that distinct feeling of unreality that it’s going for, set in the not-too-distant future with driverless taxis and other space-age technology. It’s all familiar, yet just advanced enough to get you panicking about what 2030 is going to look like. Shell is the kind of intelligent horror movie that keeps itself accessible to wider audiences. Sure, there will be moments when those not-so-horror-inclined might feel like tapping out, but it isn’t an assault on the senses in the way The Substance is. It dares to end on an optimistic note, and after 90 minutes of casual cynicism, it’s probably a good call. It takes a tale as old as time, adorns it with the accoutrements of soft body horror, and ultimately tells the audience members to keep their chins up; that they have the power to break through these societally-inflicted ideas about self-worth. Shell releases in limited theaters and on VOD on October 3.

Release Date

October 3, 2025

Runtime

100 minutes

Director

Max Minghella

Writers

Jack Stanley

Producers

Alicia Van Couvering, Elisabeth Moss, Jamie Bell, Jared Underwood, Norman Golightly, Rene Bastian, Fred Berger, Hal Sadoff, Victor Moyers, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Teddy Schwarzman, John Friedberg, Andrew C. Robinson, Lindsey McManus, Danny Mandel

Pros & Cons

An extrospective script looks further outwards at the infrastructure of beauty standards.
Kate Hudson gives a deliciously evil performance as the villain of the piece.
The movie makes good use of its body horror elements without being too extreme for regular moviegoers.

The big reveal in the third act was missing some visual punch.

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A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Review: Whimsical But Uneven

administrator — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 12:45:48 +0000

Kogonada has always been a director fascinated by memory, connection, and the textures of time. From his meditative Columbus to the sci-fi reflection of After Yang, his films lean toward the quiet, contemplative, and poetic. With A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, written by Seth Reiss and starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, he attempts to blend his stylistic precision with a more commercially accessible romantic fantasy. The result is an imaginative but uneven film—one that dazzles with moments of tenderness and creative invention but stumbles when it tries to stretch its delicate premise into a feature-length narrative.

A Journey Through Time and Emotion:
The film introduces us to David (Colin Farrell), a man quietly burdened by regrets and unresolved relationships, and Sarah (Margot Robbie), a woman whose cheerful exterior hides a deep yearning for direction. When the two strangers cross paths, they are thrust into a fantastical odyssey where they revisit moments from their pasts. These aren’t just memories—they are tactile, immersive recreations that allow them to step into their most formative experiences, to walk among the ghosts of their younger selves, and to consider whether altering these moments might lead to different futures.
The conceit is simultaneously high-concept and deeply personal. Much of the film’s success rests on how well it weaves together surreal fantasy sequences with grounded human emotion. Some of these scenes are genuinely moving, but others play more like whimsical detours than essential stepping stones, testing the audience’s patience.
Performances That Elevate the Material:
Colin Farrell, coming off a streak of nuanced performances in projects like The Banshees of Inisherin and The Penguin, once again proves his ability to balance humor with melancholy. His David is both wryly self-aware and quietly haunted, a man who isn’t sure whether he wants to rewrite his life or simply understand it. Margot Robbie brings a vibrant counterpoint as Sarah. Her natural charisma lights up the screen, but she also digs into the vulnerabilities beneath Sarah’s charm, particularly in her scenes with Lily Rabe as her mother. Their dynamic provides some of the film’s most heartfelt beats.
Kevin Kline makes an impression in a relatively small but pivotal role as “The Mechanic,” a mysterious figure who seems to pull the strings of this fantastical journey. His presence lends the film a slightly theatrical air, a reminder that this is not meant to be realism but a fable about choice and consequence. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, meanwhile, pops up as a cashier whose playful banter with the leads provides a welcome injection of wit, even if her role is brief.
Kogonada’s Visual Poetry:
As expected from Kogonada, the film is a visual feast. He and cinematographer Benjamin Loeb create striking compositions that blur the line between reality and dreamscape. It’s probably one of the best-looking movies of the year thus far, and that should come as no surprise. There’s plenty of gorgeous colors on-screen, and the framing is excellent, too.
These stylistic flourishes give the film a tactile beauty, yet they sometimes overshadow the storytelling. Where Kogonada’s earlier works found harmony between mood and narrative, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey occasionally feels more interested in aesthetic experimentation than in propelling its characters forward. The film risks drifting, much like its protagonists.
Balancing Whimsy and Substance:
Reiss’ screenplay clearly aims to balance whimsy with emotional heft. The humor often lands, particularly in the interactions between David and Sarah as they awkwardly navigate the absurdity of their situation. Farrell and Robbie have a natural chemistry that keeps the banter engaging, and the lighter moments prevent the film from sinking under the weight of its themes.
Yet the script also struggles with tonal consistency. For every poignant confrontation with the past, there’s a sequence that feels like narrative filler—a quirky vignette that doesn’t fully tie back into the characters’ journeys. While Kogonada’s meditative pacing worked in films that were more grounded, here it risks diluting the impact of the central romance.
Themes of Memory, Regret, and Choice:
The most resonant aspect of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey lies in its exploration of how people live with regret. The film doesn’t suggest that David and Sarah can rewrite their lives; instead, it implies that the act of revisiting these moments is less about change and more about acceptance. In this way, the film recalls other recent works about memory and identity, but filtered through Kogonada’s gentle, almost spiritual sensibility.
This thematic ambition, however, is sometimes undercut by the narrative’s looseness. By the third act, the film attempts to bring its whimsical digressions into sharper focus, but the resolution feels rushed. Viewers may walk away appreciating the message without feeling entirely satisfied by the story’s mechanics.
A Mixed But Memorable Experience:
Despite its flaws, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey lingers in the mind. Its title is both ironic and sincere—big in ambition, bold in its stylistic flourishes, and beautiful in its most tender moments. Farrell and Robbie anchor the film with performances that feel lived-in, while Kogonada continues to prove himself a filmmaker of remarkable sensitivity.
Still, the film doesn’t fully escape the trap of being more interesting in concept than in execution. It’s neither as emotionally searing as Columbus nor as thematically cohesive as After Yang. For every breathtaking image, there’s a narrative gap that leaves the viewer more contemplative than moved.
Overall:
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a film of contradictions. It is both charming and frustrating, poetic and indulgent, heartfelt and meandering. Those who admire Kogonada’s unique approach to filmmaking will find much to appreciate, especially in the film’s visual language and its tender performances. Others may find the story too slight to sustain its runtime, wishing that its fantastical premise had been developed with more narrative rigor.
As a romantic fantasy, it works best as a mood piece—an invitation to reflect on memory, love, and the choices that define us. While it doesn’t quite achieve greatness, it leaves behind enough moments of wonder and intimacy to warrant the journey.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Review: Whimsical But Uneven

Acting – 7/10

Cinematography/Visual Effects – 8/10

Plot/Screenplay – 6/10

Setting/Theme – 6/10

Watchability – 6/10

Rewatchability – 2/10

Summary
Kogonada has always been a director fascinated by memory, connection, and the textures of time. From his meditative Columbus to the sci-fi reflection of After Yang, his films lean toward the quiet, contemplative, and poetic. With A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, written by Seth Reiss and starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, he attempts to blend his stylistic precision with a more commercially accessible romantic fantasy. The result is an imaginative but uneven film—one that dazzles with moments of tenderness and creative invention but stumbles when it tries to stretch its delicate premise into a feature-length narrative.

Pros

Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie bring depth, charm, and emotional nuance to David and Sarah
Farrell and Robbie’s dynamic keeps the romance engaging, even when the script falters
Kogonada’s direction and Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography create striking, dreamlike imagery that blends memory and fantasy

Cons

The film drifts in places, with whimsical detours that don’t always serve the larger story
The high-concept premise isn’t developed as fully as it could be, leaving some sequences feeling slight
Lacks the balance of mood and story seen in Columbus and After Yang

span,
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Acting

Cinematography/Visual Effects

Plot/Screenplay

Setting/Theme

Watchability

Rewatchability

Summary: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a film of contradictions. It is both charming and frustrating, poetic and indulgent, heartfelt and meandering. Those who admire Kogonada’s unique approach to filmmaking will find much to appreciate, especially in the film’s visual language and its tender performances. Others may find the story too slight to sustain its runtime, wishing that its fantastical premise had been developed with more narrative rigor.

Whimsically Uneven

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The Smashing Machine Review | Flickreel

administrator — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 23:04:49 +0000

What’s the difference between “movie stars” and “actors?” We expect an actor to play a wide variety of different roles. Movie stars are expected to play themselves, selling the project with their bankable name, face, and persona. Dwayne Johnson is the definition of a movie star, but, as Patrick H. Willems would put it, he’s also become a brand. Beneath the persona he’s cultivated is a performer with serious chops waiting to be embraced. In The Smashing Machine, we don’t see Johnson the movie star or Johnson the brand. We see Johnson the actor. More importantly, we see Mark Kerr.
Given Johnson’s wrestling background, it makes sense that his best performance would be as an MMA fighter. Johnson and Kerr are two different beasts, however. The physical aspects of wrestling might be real, but there’s a theatrical element to WWE that Johnson fully embraced. This was less the case with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and PRIDE FC, which is where Kerr cemented his legacy. Although many politicians deemed UFC too barbaric, Kerr insists that the fighters don’t hate each other. That doesn’t mean Kerr doesn’t care about winning.
Early in The Smashing Machine, Kerr endures the first professional loss of his career (kind of). Kerr argues that his opponent, Igor Vovchanchyn, used an illegal move. The PRIDE committee agrees, deeming the fight “no contest.” That’s still not a victory. It’s a sign that his glory days are coming to an end. Kerr faces greater challenges outside of the ring as he grapples with painkiller addiction. His girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt) tries to connect with Kerr, who doesn’t want her at his fights. They sometimes feel even more distant at home.
This sounds like typical sports biopic stuff, but director Benny Safdie brings a grounded sensibility deprived of glamor. The Smashing Machine is less about victory and more about learning to live with the blows that life deals. At its core is Johnson in a career-best performance. The Safdie brothers have pushed actors like Robert Pattinson and Adam Sandler to depths we didn’t know were there. Benny, flying solo without Josh this time, does the same for Johnson, whose performance goes beyond the transformative makeup effects. Hulking yet soft-spoken, Johnson finds the ideal middle ground between gentle giant and the titular Smashing Machine.
Ryan Bader also turns in strong work as Kerr’s friend/fellow fighter Mark Coleman. Blunt makes the most of her screen time, although she’s never able to break away from the girlfriend archetype. While the film provides a frank look at Kerr’s substance use, Staples’ struggle with alcoholism is mostly omitted. Blunt has one powerful scene, but Staples feels watered down compared to her portrayal in the 2002 documentary, also named The Smashing Machine. That documentary covered the same timeframe as Safdie’s film, which recreates several moments. For those who’ve seen the doc, this biopic might come off as too familiar.
Johnson is the secret weapon here, delivering a performance that might make him an Oscar nominee on the way to becoming POTUS. While Johnson may pick up a few accolades, the film’s theme of accepting failure demonstrates his growth as an actor. Johnson is notoriously protective of his image, always playing invincible characters. It’s even been reported that Johnson contractually can’t lose a fight and can only be hit so many times per film. In The Smashing Machine, Johnson takes the hits and grows from them. In that sense, Johnson turns loss into triumph.

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Mark Ruffalo & Tom Pelphrey Shine In Brad Ingelsby’s Captivating Crime Drama About Losing Faith

administrator — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 17:44:46 +0000

“It’s easy to talk about forgiveness and mercy when it’s not your loss,” Mark Ruffalo wearily says in the new HBO series “Task,” and with that, writer/creator Brad Ingelsby effectively lays down the heavy emotional gauntlet for what will be more than just a crime drama, true to his métier.
READ MORE: Fall 2025 TV Preview: 45 Series To Watch
Wracked with guilt, hollowed by sorrow, and weighed down by demons of failure, inadequacy, and bitter resentment, writer/creator Ingelsby’s follow-up to “Mare of Easttown”—the acclaimed, Emmy-winning HBO series—operates in a familiar register where the personal and procedural intertwine. While ‘Mare’ centered on a single mother detective whose trauma intersected with the murder of a young woman, “Task” is less a whodunnit mystery and more a slow-burning cat-and-mouse story, pitting a spiritually drained FBI agent against a desperate father-turned-criminal.
But unlike, say, Michael Mann’s “Heat,” there are no slick, mythologized professionals locked in a duel of equals. Instead, the two men at the heart of “Task”—an excellent Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey (“Mank,” “Ozark”)—are tethered by wounds and disappointments, the kinds of scars that gradually expose how much more alike they are than the actual criminals in their orbit. Beneath the crime-drama trappings lies Ingelsby’s deeper preoccupation: faith, its unraveling, and the spiritual disquiet left behind when belief erodes.
Ruffalo plays Tom Brandis, a former priest turned FBI agent, tasked with leading a makeshift unit investigating a string of violent robberies in the working-class suburbs of Philadelphia (Ingelsby’s recurring, well-worn milieu). Haunted by the death of his wife, Susan (Mireille Enos), and consumed by a broader crisis of conviction, Tom abandoned the priesthood but never escaped the void it left behind. Now he numbs himself with vodka, Phillies games, and birdwatching, while his fractured family life—an estranged adopted daughter Emily (Silvia Dionicio), her incarcerated twin brother Ethan (Andrew Russel), and adult daughter Sara (Phoebe Fox)—drifts further out of reach.
Across town, Robbie Prendergast (Pelphrey) works sanitation by day and stages robberies by night, targeting stash houses belonging to the Dark Hearts motorcycle gang. His wife has left him, his brother Billy was murdered, and his sense of self has disintegrated into purposelessness. His niece Maeve (Emilia Jones) has been forced into the role of surrogate parent for Robbie’s two young children, while Robbie spirals deeper into recklessness with the help of his wayward partner Cliff (Raúl Castillo).
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Reluctant to return to field duty, Tom is pulled back in when Robbie’s robberies turn violent and public. His worn-out boss Kathleen McGinty (Martha Plimpton) orders him to assemble a task force: county detective Anthony Grasso (Fabien Frankel), Philadelphia sergeant Aleah Clinton (Thuso Mbedu), and state trooper Lizzie Stover (Alison Oliver), whose inexperience and lack of discipline make her a liability. Underfunded and undermanned, the unit is far from elite, but Tom is forced to work with what he’s given. Even Grasso—the sharpest and most dependable of Tom’s recruits—carries his own scars, having lost faith in a system he long ago recognized as rigged beyond repair. Meanwhile, the Dark Hearts, led by Perry (Jamie McShane) and his volatile lieutenant Jayson (Sam Keeley), circle in, threatening to ignite a war that will put Robbie’s family in the crosshairs.
But the most riveting confrontation comes when Tom and Robbie are finally drawn into each other’s trajectory. Both men are adrift—Tom untethered from the faith and family that once anchored him, Robbie flailing in the absence of purpose or identity—and that sense of loss becomes the current that binds them. Ingelsby doesn’t wait until the final chapter for this reckoning; instead, he wisely lets their paths converge earlier, allowing the series to steep in their uneasy recognition of shared ruin and fractured hope.
If “Mare of Easttown” offered Ingelsby’s definitive portrait of community and mourning, and Derek Cianfrance’s “I Know This Much Is True” (also starring Ruffalo) burrowed into harrowing familial torment, “Task” lands somewhere in between. While it may sound dour on the surface, it never plunges into the outright bleakness of either of those HBO dramas. Instead, the show locates its atmosphere in a more moody, haunted, and ruminative key—serious, yes, but never suffocating. The disillusioned working-class Pennsylvania setting, Catholic guilt, and generational ache may feel familiar, but Ingelsby’s gift is making them feel authentic, never recycled. His dialogue rings true, his characters pulse with hurt, and his settings breathe with the weight of history.
That vision is enhanced by the series’ direction, split between Jeremiah Zagar (“We the Animals”) and Salli Richardson-Whitfield (“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”), both of whom bring a tactile, lived-in style that grounds the show in everyday textures while maintaining narrative propulsion. Composer Dan Deacon contributes a wonderfully restrained score—brooding, atmospheric, and never tipping its hand toward his reputation as an electronic provocateur—while cinematographer Alex Disenhof (“Watchmen,” “The Mosquito Coast”) stitches together the character-driven action with cohesion and clarity, finding poetry in shadow and silence.
Ingelsby, who takes on most of the writing himself, works in classic form here: poignant, filled with characters weighed down by melancholy, and empathetic to everyone’s plight. No one has it easy in “Task,” and the series never tips into judgment or tidy moral binaries. What emerges is an ensemble of wounded souls—cops, criminals, family members alike—all navigating a fractured world with little more than scar tissue to guide them. Actors like Isaach De Bankolé, Owen Teague, Margarita Levieva, and Mickey Sumner round out a deeply impressive supporting cast, but the show ultimately lives and dies by its two central figures.
Ruffalo and Pelphrey are the twin engines here, mirror images circling each other on opposite sides of the law. Ruffalo, as always, is compelling as a man wrung by loss, tender and raw yet never overplaying the grief. Pelphrey, meanwhile, continues to prove why filmmakers like David Fincher and actor/producers like Josh Brolin want to collaborate with him, why he’s already in demand and an Emmy nominee. He brings a combustible mix of volatility and vulnerability, a live wire whose quiet moments are as riveting as his eruptions. Together, they elevate “Task” into something that resonates far beyond its procedural frame.
Ultimately, “Task” is less procedural than the corrosion of belief systems. For Ruffalo’s Tom, it is a crisis of faith born from betrayals and private tragedies too heavy to reconcile; for Pelphrey’s Robbie, it is the sense of purpose stripped away by abandonment and loss; for Grasso, it is the bitter disillusionment of a justice system that has long since failed him. Their encounters are tragic, human, and profoundly affecting—a testament to Ingelsby’s ability to find bruised lyricism in ruin.
What lingers in “Task” is not the cases themselves but the portrait of men and women drifting through the wreckage of institutions, families, and creeds that no longer sustain them, all straining toward something—anything—that might restore a sense of meaning. That, of course, is Ingelsby’s hallmark: his compassion for splintered, working-class lives, his refusal to avert his gaze from the quiet devastations that shape them, and his ability to dramatize the fragile search for renewal in a world that offers little solace. With “Task,” he delivers another hurt, elegiac story—one that finds Tom stumbling toward a kind of redemption, shadowed by loss yet still reaching for the faint glimmer of grace that might lie on the other side. [A-]

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Tobe Hooper & Stephen King’s Quintessential 1979 Horror Shines In 4K, Revealing Its Timeliness

administrator — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 05:03:47 +0000

Small towns are rapidly losing their distinct charm, but that feeling of driving past a small American place and thinking it never left the 1950s, Salem’s Lot presupposes: what if it’s frozen by vampiric bloodlust? Stephen King’s second novel has been adapted three times now (in addition to the mostly forgotten sequel A Return to Salem’s Lot), but none have come close to the overall quality of Tobe Hooper’s 1979 two-part miniseries, which has finally received the 4K restoration it deserves. Beyond Fest recently held the new version’s theatrical premiere.
Salem’s Lot Is A Timeless Horror For Today’s Times

The material here is quintessential Halloween. With secret vampires, creepy, crumbling and abandoned mansions, rabid black dogs, desecrated cemeteries, inherent threats of a full moon, hooting owls, and fog so thick you could swear it emanates from a machine, the original adaptation is prime for the season. It also happens to be the perfect marriage of King and Hooper. Though Hooper also adapted King’s The Mangler, it’s Salem’s Lot which brings together King’s interest in the seedy underbelly of American suburbia with Hooper’s unique talent for the derelict. Five years separated from the film that would define the entire genre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hooper again wonders what lies beyond the reach of mainstream civilization. For the uninitiated, King’s early career opus begins familiarly. Ben Mears (David Soul) is a thriller novelist who has returned to his small Maine hometown of ‘Salem’s Lot (short for Jerusalem’s Lot), which has a population of just over 2,000. The writer has arrived to write a new book about the abandoned Marsten house, a massive cobblestone mansion on the outskirts of town that has been uninhabited for 20 years. It turns out the home has recently been re-purchased from the town’s lone real estate agent, Larry Crockett (Fred Willard), by the mysterious Mr. Straker (James Mason), a black-suited British aristocrat with a porkpie hat whose entire being seems out of place in this tiny place. Alongside the suspiciously absent Mr. Barlow, Straker plans on opening an antiques shop. With nowhere else to stay, Mears opts for the local bed and breakfast run by Eva Miller (Marie Windsor), whose small hotel directly faces Mears’ muse. From his window, Mears keeps a close eye on Straker and periodically types up pages he is perpetually unimpressed by.

[Salem’s Lot is] patiently woven, extraordinary in its service to so many disparate people whose collective contribution to the story is undeniable.

When the first corpses begin to rise with a taste for blood, it isn’t long before the Glicks friend Mark (Lance Kerwin), a horror fanatic, catches on quickly about what is really going on. Mears, too, understands that Straker is no ordinary antiques salesman at all — but the longtime assistant of The Master (Reggie Nalder), a pale blue-skinned vampire with massive, yellow, pointed teeth, who is spreading his immortality. Part of Hooper’s intent here, with an assist from teleplay writer Paul Monash, is a question of responsibility. “Do you believe a thing can be inherently evil?” Mears asks his childhood mentor and schoolteacher Jason (Lew Ayres), with the unspoken follow-up question being if it is humans instead who are sinister by design. Over dinner, Mears suggests to Jason that the Marsten house attracts “bad men,” which leads Jason to naturally ask, then, why the house attracts Mears. Is he evil? Is Mark? Or is it that storytellers and artists are often able to see what others can’t, or won’t? Apart from length, the miniseries format allows Monash and Hooper to revel in these questions and in the incestual relationships that characterize these complex figures. The two-parter is patiently woven, extraordinary in its service to so many disparate people whose collective contribution to the story is undeniable. It remains a remarkable achievement, blending as it does the sensibilities of a novel, television, and film in one compendium of horror.
Hooper & King Ask, “What Is Happening To Our Small Towns?”

In light of the film’s 4K release in the context of America in 2025, Salem’s Lot feels prescient as an existential question over what plagues our small towns and working-class neighborhoods. Jason’s class is rehearsing a comically flat play that seems to glorify ‘Salem Lot’s violent and tragic past, in a way that hints at how nostalgia can be a poisonous drug. Several characters’ devotion to religious absolutism may be blocking them from seeing what’s going on underneath the surface. Yes, he is a servant of pitch-dark evil, but suspicions over Mr. Straker largely arise purely out of his status as an outsider. And, being that The Master seems to target young boys — much mention is made of scores of missing children who have never been recovered — King could be asking what can be salvaged for our future generations who’ve been left behind by elders that have failed them. Mears, Mark, Susan, Jason and Dr. Norton are left to try and save ‘Salem’s Lot from the grips of vampirism in a final act of pure devastation. But, even if they succeed, can evil be truly rooted out? Throughout the film, there is mention of how what is happening to ‘Salem’s Lot could be happening in any small town, anywhere in the country. Perhaps that means that evil lies within us. That the scariest potential of all is what we, as humans, are capable of.

Release Date

November 17, 1979

Runtime

200 Minutes

Director

Tobe Hooper

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An Unexpected Cameo From ‘The Boys’ Leads to the Show’s Darkest Twist Yet

administrator — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 22:43:55 +0000

Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Gen V Season 2 Episode 5. Gen V Season 2 has moved into its second half by revealing just how dark things can get. After Episode 4, “Bags,” showed Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), and Emma (Lizze Broadway) reuniting with Cate (Maddie Phillips) as they confront Cipher (Hamish Linklater), the story takes an unfortunate twist. With Cate taken to Elmira and everyone else willing to risk it all to save her, the details of their imprisonment are on full display, and Cate and Emma even grow closer from this experience. While Episode 5, “The Kids Are Not All Right,” ties him to The Boys’ Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), Gen V still does little to explain Cipher and his plan. The mysteries surrounding his character are in desperate need of clarity, but in the meantime, a familiar face comes in to intensify the story.
The Heroes Face Consequences in ‘Gen V’ Season 2 Episode 5

Emma (Lizze Broadway) in Gen V Season 2 Episode 5Image via Prime Video

Following their bold confrontation with Cipher, the Guardians of Godolkin are left reeling. Cate is taken to Elmira, Jordan must deal with the fact that they were controlled, and Marie realizes that Cipher’s training methods actually worked. Even so, Marie refuses to go back to training, which angers Cipher. Instead, she has a new idea of how to use her powers. While Cate is imprisoned and trying to escape, Marie wants to go back for her. Emma resists due to her lingering dislike for Cate, but due to the lingering trauma she, Jordan, and Marie have from Elmira, they agree to save Cate. With Elmira back in the forefront of the story, Gen V explains more about the show’s time jump, as Marie reveals she only escaped because she killed a guard by pulling blood from his cut, allowing her to climb out of an air duct. Unfortunately, they cannot get back in that way, as Marie’s escape led to increased security. By looking back on this storyline, the series continues to explore the fallout of Season 1, even as the plot rapidly moves forward. As they head out, Emma asks Sam (Asa Germann) for help, but having realized that Cate was still manipulating him, he isn’t eager to help save her, insisting that she deserves whatever happens to her. Sam’s refusal causes the group to hesitate, but Marie has a newfound confidence in her powers. This is a major step for her as she has been denying her strength throughout Season 2. However, as extra insurance, Emma tells Greg (Stephen Thomas Kalyn) what they are doing, instructing him to tell Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) if they don’t return. The secret Starlighters take a backseat in this episode, yet with Greg as the backup, they aren’t entirely gone.
‘Gen V’ Season 2 Episode 5 Takes Sam on a Journey of Self-Discovery

Sam (Asa Germann) in Gen V Season 2 Episode 5Image via Prime Video

Throughout Gen V, Sam has had a particularly tragic story, and Episode 5 takes him back to the beginning as he returns to his parents’ house. While they are surprised to see him, they welcome him home, but it isn’t the happy reunion Sam dreamed of. As he looks for his old things, he discovers they’ve all been packed away following his supposed death, making him feel forgotten. However, his parents explain that when they saw him on TV, they went to see him, only to hear that he wouldn’t let them. However, Vought never told Sam they made contact. Vought’s cruelty is evident in how they came between this family, and though the company has done plenty of horrific things, this might be a new low. Sam may get the reunion he needed, but it doesn’t fix everything. Even in the comfort of his childhood home, Sam has a violent episode, lashing out and hurting his father. He also blames his parents for giving him Compound V and all the issues that have come with it. However, his mother explains that things are not that simple. She tells him that they never wanted to send him away, but had no other options because of his mental health struggle. She also reveals that delusions and hallucinations run in her family, and often result in violent actions. They gave him Compound V in hopes that it would save him from that, but it only made it harder to control. This may surprise Sam, but it paints his parents in an even more sympathetic light. With the full story, Sam no longer blames his family, leading to peace between them. The episode highlights the tragedy of Sam’s treatment at the hands of Vought, but it ends in a happier place as he reaches an understanding with his mother.
Cipher Becomes Even More Intimidating in ‘Gen V’ Season 2 Episode 5

Cipher (Hamish Linklater) with a knife pointed at his throat in Gen V Season 2 Episode 5Image via Prime Video

After revealing his powers, Cipher has become an especially frightening villain, even for this franchise. But the students are not the only ones onto him. Polarity continues his investigation into the man who was involved in the death of his son, meeting with Cipher to discover what he wants with Marie and her friends. But Cipher already knows what Polarity is doing and taunts him, explaining that Andre’s (Chance Perdomo) death was a result of an experiment pushing him too far. While this story seems contradictory to Jordan’s version of Andre’s death, it’s no surprise that Cipher would lie to anger Polarity, and it works. Polarity uses his powers to threaten Cipher with a knife, but the Dean insists that he cannot be hurt, and to prove his point, he drives the knife through his own hand without flinching. This is yet another question about Cipher that remains unanswered. Not only does Polarity’s investigation hit a wall in Episode 5, but he takes a turn as his illness catches up to him. Polarity has a seizure, crashing to the ground as his powers spasm. It’s no secret that he’s ill, but Episode 5 leaves Polarity on a dangerous cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Cipher’s past gets one more interesting update as Gen V reveals a relationship between him and Sister Sage, a member of the Seven introduced in The Boys Season 4. Sister Sage wants Cipher to accelerate his plan with Marie. She fears how Homelander (Antony Starr) will react to how powerful Marie has become, but Cipher insists he’s not done. Though he and Sister Sage are working together, Gen V has yet to explain their final goal, making it difficult for the audience to understand the stakes. Yet, one thing is sure: between her intellect and his ability to control others, the pair make a terrifying enemy.
‘Gen V’ Season 2 Episode 5 Takes the Heroes Back to Elmira

As Marie, Jordan, and Emma mount their rescue attempt, they are quickly captured and thrown back into the cells where they were trapped between seasons. Emma can see Cate, who is touched by the rescue; however, Emma has no hope left, ending up in a dark place emotionally. Pairing these two makes an interesting dynamic. Emma was the one who resisted the idea of saving Cate and seems to hold the most anger against her, but in Elmira, none of their past matters. Meanwhile, Cipher tries to manipulate Marie, promising to let her out if she does exactly what he wants. She refuses, and Jordan, who is in the neighboring cell, argues, revealing that when he was under the Dean’s control, he could feel Cipher’s constant pain. However, Cipher remains focused on Marie, showing her that her sister, Annabeth (Keeya King), is also in Elmira. Despite his promises to let both Marie and Annabeth go if Marie is “reasonable,” she doesn’t trust him, and the threats to Annabeth make Marie that much more determined to kill Cipher, even though there is little she can do while trapped. Though the characters who have been there before have little hope, Cate comes up with her own plan. She pulls a staple out of her head and uses it to pick the lock on the collar that blocks her powers. A guard comes to get her and finds her seemingly injured, but, in truth, the collar is unlocked, giving her control of her powers. Cate gets the key, and she and Emma escape. They find Marie and Jordan, but soon realize that the guards aren’t even after them. Even though it seems like what Ciupher wanted, Marie goes after her sister, and the rest follow. They find Annabeth bleeding out, but Marie won’t leave her, instead using her powers to work a miracle. Pulling the blood back into Annabeth’s body, Marie saves her, proving that Cipher is right about her incredible powers. Yet, despite Marie’s level-up, they are still trapped in Elmira, and not with a barely-alive non-powered companion to protect. Gen V Season 2 is streaming on Prime Video with new episodes on Wednesdays.

Release Date

September 28, 2023

Network

Prime Video

Directors

Nelson Cragg, Clare Kilner, Philip Sgriccia, Sanaa Hamri, Shana Stein, Steve Boyum

Writers

Craig Rosenberg

Franchise(s)

The Boys

Jaz Sinclair

Marie Moreau

Lizze Broadway

Emma Meyer / Little Cricket

Pros & Cons

Episode 5 highlights Sam and his tragic story, establishing that his powers didn’t cause his mental illness.
Cate and Emma getting thrown together creates an interesting dynamic, giving Cate something heroic to do.
Episode 5 ties ‘Gen V’ even more closely to ‘The Boys’ with Sister Sage’s connection to Cipher.
Marie takes a major step in developing her powers, setting up more for her future.

‘Gen V’ continues to build the mysteries around Cipher without explaining his plan.

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