The Movies

THE MONSTER SQUAD brings the Universal Monsters of yore into the '80s with a healthy dose of sugar-blasted cereal and unmedicated ADHD. Directed by Fred Dekker (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS) & written by both Dekker and Shane Black (THE NICE GUYS, LETHAL WEAPON, KISS KISS BANG BANG, most of your favorite movies ever), this combined family drama, top-notch makeup effects and preteen comedy with unapologetic horror. Dracula calls a 5-year-old girl a bitch, because of course, he would? As was done to Freddy Kreuger in this decade, the Universal Monsters were sanitized into cereal mascots and plushies but Dekker and Black's script remind us not to be fooled. These are still vampires and werewolves, after all, ready to carve into flesh and crush whatever magic amulet threatens to lock them into Hell for good.So, who do you call to handle these beasts of death? A bunch of kids, obviously. The motherfuckin' Monster Squad.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

SCARY MOVIE is a staple of my childhood, an entryway into horror movies during a time where I wasn't allowed to watch most of them.It's a time capsule, for better and worse, of the late '90s/early '00s sense of humor & general fatigue regarding the slew of teen slashers riding SCREAM's coattails.This was my intro to the Wayans Bros, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, Shannon Elizabeth during their own first Hollywood at-bats, before Hall would act for Paul Thomas Anderson & Wayans would do his best J.K. Simmons in HIM.Sophomoric? Absolutely. Problematic? You bet your ass. But the Wayans carried the parody torch into the millennium, better than their contemporaries. WAZZUP?!---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

WE ARE STILL HERE occupies a crossroads in the horror genre: that of the '70s & '80s-inspired supernatural chillers, the gorefests from guys like Lucio Fulci and the patient character studies of grief popularized in the '10s (anything A24 would touch).These elements shouldn't work so well together but I guess when you got a horror nerd like Ted Geoghegan writing and directing, it simply does.Paul and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig & Barbara Crampton) have just suffered the death of their college-aged son, Bobby. In an attempt to lessen the pain, they pack up everything and move to a remote New England house with a strange 100-year-old history.The rest moves as you'd expect: Anne hears noises, sees things shuffling about on their own. She's convinced Bobby is somehow in the house trying to connect with his parents. Her husbands drowns the pain with whisky and denial. Once the supernatural grows too obvious to ignore, Anne calls their friends, Jacob and May Lewis (Larry Fessenden & Lisa Marie) to give the house a once-over and provide some much needed friendship.If you're equally a fan of movies like THE CHANGELING, DEAD & BURIED and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, you'll find the threads tying these elements together. It's patient enough with its characters to allow them the space to grieve while also brisk enough to satisfy any genre thrill-seekers. It's a unique balance that leaves me talking about every individual piece for hours after it's over. WE ARE STILL HERE is a pizza-and-beer-and-shoot-the-shit-forum of a flick and isn't that what we want from a proper Halloween watch?WE ARE STILL HERE's 10th anniversary Blu-ray is available to buy now from Dark Sky Films.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

We're 10 days into the 31 Days of Halloween and I feel like we need a palate cleanser. Recently, we've been talking about reanimating dead bodies, torturous twins, eating warm pizza off of cold corpses. I think it's time we take the holiday back to a more innocent, nostalgic time, where we only concern ourselves with what costume we're gonna wear and how much candy we can score.IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN is a 1966 TV special directed by José Cuauhtémoc "Bill" Melendez starring Charles M. Schulz' gallery of PEANUTS characters: Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Sally, Snoopy, the works.Linus, in lieu of trick-or-treating, elects to spend his Halloween night sitting in the pumpkin patch, waiting for The Great Pumpkin to arrive and give him a pile of presents. It's a reward for sincerity.Most of the others think Linus is crazy for believing in a C-grade Santa, but there's something admirable in Linus' valuing honesty of one's motives rather than the transactional element of trading "goodness" for material wealth. The movie operates more like a hodge-podge of PEANUTS strips and gags than as its own singular narrative but much like the ways in which memory flashes through our heads, the mosaic of musings about Halloween and the fall season leads to a highly emotional, nostalgic appreciation for the good times.Though if anyone were to ever give my kid a rock instead of candy, I'd slingshot that fucker through their teeth.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

GOODNIGHT MOMMY is the feature debut of aunt-nephew duo Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala (THE LODGE, THE DEVIL'S BATH). Patient, tense and psychologically disturbed, this movie drew me in and kept me guessing all the way to the end.Twin brothers Lukas and Elias (Lukas & Elias Schwarz) live in pastoral Germany, spending their summer days exploring pitch-black tunnels, bouncing on trampolines during rainstorms, harboring any stray cat or gigantic cockroach who happens to cross their path - typical 9-year-old shit.This idyllic season grinds to a halt when their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns from the hospital, head covered in bandages post-cosmetic surgery. She asks them to keep the house's blinds drawn, leave any newly discovered animals outside wherever the fuck they've found them, and for the love of God, just play quietly.Reasonable demands at first but the mother starts to grow impatient with the boys. She'll split them up, instruct one not to talk to the other, increasingly losing her temper. It also doesn't help that she mostly keeps herself cooped up in her room, not addressing or barely acknowledging the boys unless they trigger her ire. This isn't how a mother behaves. Is this lady even their mother? No. She must not be. Who is this intruder and what does she want with the twins?GOODNIGHT MOMMY excels in drawing me into the boys' points of view, almost like a perverted Amblin film. These kids have no qualms regarding taking responsibility into their own hands, investigating, interrogating their "mom." The entire movie is constructed like an elaborate tightrope walk, throwing in the right red herrings and turns in order to keep me on my toes, never comfortable affirming any conclusions to which I've arrived.And this finale? This last 20, 30 minutes? Some of the most disturbing visuals since I last watched Miike's AUDITION. It's different when kids are involved; what can I say?GOODNIGHT MOMMY is available to watch on Tubi.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

In Karyn Kusama's THE INVITATION, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) is invited to his ex-wife Eden's (Tammy Blanchard) dinner party in the Hollywood Hills after two years of radio silence following the accidental death of their 5-year-old son.Returning to his old home and stepping back into his son's room conjures the guilt and pain Will's tried to bury for two years. Eden, however, not only seems to be unbothered by this but never acknowledges the awkwardness or sorrow of the situation.The dinner party clashes on these fronts as Will hyperfocuses on every change to the house and odd behavior while Eden, along with her new partner, David (Michiel Huisman), deflect any concerns.But wait a minute. Why - are - there bars on the windows? Why does David lock the front door from the inside so no one can leave without a key? If this is supposed to be a reunion of old friends, who are these random people David invited from his and Eden's retreat to Mexico? Why are they talking about this commune of wellness gurus with evangelical fervor? What pills are in that unmarked bag in Eden's nightstand? Why does it not...feel safe to be at this dinner?There's a reason this made it to the 31 Days of Halloween, friends.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

After a long week of watching Halloween movies, it's good to grab some friends, get cozy in your pajamas, munch on a pizza, sip some beer, smoke some weed and settle into a slumber party. If you're lucky, it might even be a slumber party MASSACRE!1982's THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, directed by Amy Holden Jones, is one of my all-time favorites: a clever satire on slasher flicks through the female gaze. When a slumber party hosted by a group of teen girls is crashed by a drill-wielding maniac on the loose, they've got to band together to stay alive and fend this fucker off, assisted by two sisters from across the street.Perspective is the name of the game here, as Jones' lens eschews most of the slasher subgenre's conventions. FRIDAY THE 13TH blew the doors wide open in 1980. The next year, its gang of imitators hacked on through, giving audiences a crash course in the cinematic language of masked men, their gruesome kills and POV shots. Jones grounds her killer, often using these conventions as red herrings, to contrast the blunt and rather matter-of-fact approach of the killer. Women constantly need to keep their head on a swivel because, as Jones reminds us throughout the film, the difference between life and death can last only seconds, occur in broad daylight and be perpetrated by your everyday Joe.It doesn't take much for you to become the pizza boy lying face-up in someone's living room with drill holes where your eyes used to be.---Follow, rate & review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

Donate to the Go-Fund-Me for Gabe Bartalos here.---Just cause I've wrapped up the Universal Monsters series doesn't mean I'm quite yet done with the classics! Frank Henenlotter takes his goofy and gaudy turn with the FRANKENSTEIN story in his 1990 opus FRANKENHOOKER.This movie sees Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) as certifiably cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs after the accidental death of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Shelley (Patty Mullen). Obsessed with using his self-taught medical and surgical knowledge to revive her, Jeffrey decides to harvest body parts from the sex workers of New York City, reinventing his girlfriend in his own sexually fantasized image.Henenlotter is a master of exploitation, crafting disturbed yet humorous stages from which I can't look away nor stifle the naughtiest giggle. However, unlike Elizabeth (and Jeffrey, post a few drill sessions into the back of his skull), this movie is not brainless. Slipped in-between some nasty bouts with explosive super-crack and a tunnel of lady legs lie some sharp commentaries about the exploitation of women's bodies in a patriarchal image and an advocacy for legalizing sex work in this country.All this while a re-animated Elizabeth goes on a hooking spree, accidentally coursing hundreds of thousands of watts of lightning through each trick she finds. God, it's rarely felt this fun to engage in such bad taste.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

Today, we're wrapping up the Universal Monsters with CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON! The Monsterverse jumps into the Atomic Age of the '50s as a group of scientists/archeologists venture on a fossil-finding expedition in the Amazon. What are they looking for? An evolutionary missing link between animals of the sea and land, teased by a webbed long-fingered claw found in a cliff face.But this undisturbed lagoon holds on to its ecological history much longer than expected. The Gill-Man breathes the past into modern day, a survivor of history. And he's not too pleased with a bunch of whites fucking with his home.I love this movie. We're no longer chained to the folklore of yore but rather using their examples to look forward to the promise of the future, the what-ifs of space travel and colonization. By examining the Gill-men and other sea creatures (about which we know woefully little), we can potentially grab clues as to how to adapt ourselves to strange new worlds. But lest we forget, all discovery comes with responsibility. It's only new to us. It's old hat to the Gill-man. Be a good guest.---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

My favorite Universal Monster movie is 1941's THE WOLF MAN, starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot. Larry returns home after 18 years to bury his brother and reconnect with his father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains, who also played the Invisible Man). He hits on the - engaged - neighbor (Evelyn Ankers), goes out with her and her chapero-I mean, friend, to get their fortunes told at the gypsy carnival in the forest. The friend's attacked by a wolf. Larry beats the life out of it with his silver-tipped cane but is bitten in the process. Curse successfully transferred.It's in watching Larry's mental deterioration, his anxiety regarding the nights he can't remember and the coincident murders at the places he's been, that makes THE WOLF MAN so fascinating. It's a mental breakdown accented by literal fog and shadows, witnessing a guy desperate to break an evil, a tragedy that's befallen him and his loves.It's something that only grows more poignant with time, especially in the wake of Leigh Whannell's remake, which turns the curse into something parental and generational. We're all dealing with the remnants of shit that, whether purposefully or not, we've made attempts to avoid or block. Who's brave enough to face that darkness head-on (apply directly to the forehead)?---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

*God, if I can somehow get Clancy Brown to introduce this show, it'd be beautiful but now, you'll just have to imagine his deep, rich voice* DAY 2! GIVE IT UP FOR DAY 2, EVERYONE!31 Days of Halloween continues down the Universal Monsters track. Not even a year after DRACULA's release, wunderkind producer Carl Laemmle Jr. comes back swinging with FRANKENSTEIN, a James Whale-directed adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel.Bela Lugosi is interested in returning. Junior is stoked! Lugosi reads the script and waitaminute, this is for the monster; I wanted to be Henry Frankenstein, what the fuck?Enter Boris Karloff, a veteran English stage actor with 80 credits to his name before taking on the role of the lumbering Creature.Borne of the crude surgery of dead parts and a good ol' blast of lightning, this Creature is the product of Frankenstein's (Colin Clive) defiance against God, the natural order, showers (Look in my eyes and truthfully deny it, I dare you. Henry be stinky.) and sanity.This movie established the benchmark for many who would follow. Any mad scientist crafts their lab in response to the bubbling breakers and sparkling electronics of Whale's movie. The locked-knee hobbling accentuated by grunts and baritone moans for any monstrous brute comes from Karloff's performance. Even cartoons joke about angry mobs with torches and pitchforks, aping this movie's ending. The influence reaches further than one can imagine.And while I dock points for the movie meandering about Henry's wedding (The dude just created life and you people wanna think about bouquets?) and a lack of time developing the Creature's intelligence, as does the novel, that influence makes this a must-watch. For this Universal Monsters run, it's important to see where we've been to better chart where horror can go. ---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

Merry October, you beautiful people! For a holiday as fun as Halloween, who has the right to limit the party to one day? No-fucking-body.That's why on THE MOVIES, I'm celebrating for 31 straight days. This project allows me to further dig down the rabbit hole of my favorite genre, horror, discovering subterranean weird-ass, BARBARIAN-esque detours I've yet to witness. Hold my hand and don't let go. For this entire month, we're gonna get scary.How better to start this bacchanalia of blood than with five days of the Universal Monsters? And how better to begin this run than with the eternally imitated progenitor, Count Dracula? Tod Browning directed and Karl Freund directed the photography (and the whole movie, depending on who you ask) but for my money, this is Bela Lugosi's movie. He's hypnotic, alluring, even amiable at times but don't cross him. He'll just as soon eye you like a panther and in one move, strike. This performance is so iconic, even SESAME STREET had to ape it. Does an Academy Award even MATTER at that point?---Follow, rate and review THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Bluesky & Letterboxd

NICKEL BOYS is one of a kind. That's not to say the narrative is brand-new. Two Black teens struggling to keep their sanity while stuck in an abusive institution brings to mind ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, THE GREAT ESCAPE, the millennial cinematic classic HOLES.But where NICKEL BOYS differs, as the great Roger Ebert wrote, is in HOW it's about what it's about. The camera is an extension of the main characters, their first-person perspective. But unlike other films that've adopted this approach, NICKEL BOYS invests its energy into the authenticity of this perspective.Think about yourself reading this. You might glance down, turn your head to see a phone notification. You might reread the last paragraph and conjure a mental image of Jack Nicholson or Nurse Ratched. Is that thought confined by a tiny editor in your head, INSIDE OUT-style, reacting with the timing of someone who wants the smoothest cut? No. It's instant. How can the experience of being human and all its minutia be translated to a cinematic language? That's where NICKEL BOYS shines.Ross, along with cinematographer Jomo Fray, move their cameras patiently, deliberately in a manner that attempts to pull this off, described in interviews as a "sentient experience." As such, the result is immersive, at times feeling like I or you or she or he have possessed Elwood (Ethan Herisse) or Turner (Brandon Wilson) as they navigates their Black body through 1960s Florida.By doing so, Ross reminds us that while we may not be Black, the story of Nickel Academy and its culture of murdering children, contrasted with the promise of new civil rights and space exploration, is not merely a subgenre of history. It's our collective memory. It's our duty and responsibility to accept, from which to learn and rebuke.---Please follow, rate and review The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram, Bluesky and Letterboxd

DROP follows Violet (Meghann Fahy), a widow/single mom going on her first date after the violent death of her abusive husband.All looks promising across the dinner table: Henry (Brendon Sklenar) is a charming, attractive, thoughtful guy. He's a photographer for the mayor. He bought a trinket for her 5-year-old. He's got a good wit. Perfect first outing, right?The problem lies in Violet's' phone. She's receiving these anonymous airdrops from someone in the restaurant. What starts as a couple of dumb memes quickly devolves as the dropper gets personal and eventually instructs her to kill Henry or the masked man in her house will kill her son and sister. One glance of her security cameras confirms the worst. The game is on.Who's doing this? Why her? Why Henry? How's Violet gonna save her family? This is the wind of the car that's gonna send us through DROP's Hitchcock-inspired story. I enjoy Fahy and Sklenar's chemistry & the production design dazzles my comfort-seeking soul. However, bringing Violet's panicked state to the screen results in some distracting lighting setups, framing and VFX work (You've likely never before seen cell phone text glare onto 70% of the screen across multiple instances.) The end of the movie goes for entertaining, if stupid, gonzo; The blend of serious subjects and pulpy execution leaves a bad taste in my mouth.It's not a worst offender by any means, so I'd mildly recommend DROP as a watch with the kind of people who love tossing themselves into wild scenarios, calling out their own escape plans, critiquing the movie's lapses in logic. Click play on a chill Friday night and I don't think you'll be so disappointed.DROP is currently available to purchase in 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD formats at your favorite home video retailer. Thanks to Universal and Mandy Kay Marketing for the review copy!---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram and Letterboxd

Film critic Megan Loucks, better known as Wonder Meg, comes on THE MOVIES to share who she is using only four films. The Lansing, Michigan native and I chat about an encyclopedia of topics: motherhood, growing up in a tight-knit family, the Snyder Cut fandom (Meg co-founded Justice Con, an virtual charity convention that brought together Snyder Cut, DCEU, and comic book fans to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention), a lifelong devotion to fantasy stories, pillow fort architecture, the art of physical media collecting and so, so much more.---Meg's four films:LA BELLE ET LA BETE (1946) dir. Jean Cocteau (watch on Max or YouTube)DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) dir. Spike Lee (watch on Netflix)EXCALIBUR (1981) dir. John Boorman (watch on Internet Archive)LADY BIRD (2017) dir. Greta Gerwig (watch on Max)---Follow Meg on Instagram, YouTube. Read her interview with THE PENGUIN production designer Kalina Ivanov on Wonder Watchlist & other reviews on InSession Film. ---Please rate, review and subscribe to THE MOVIES wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow THE MOVIES on Instagram, Letterboxd.

Thanks once again to Universal Pictures Home Entertainment for shipping me a review Blu-ray copy of THE WOMAN IN THE YARD!This has been a good way to catch up on movies I missed in the theaters. The teaser for this movie sucked me in right away because it's simple: a family living at a farm house, with no neighbors as far as the eye can see and almost as far as the foot can walk...but then they see a creepy veiled woman, dressed in all black, sitting at the end of the driveway.There's the thinnest veneer of civility in our daily lives. All it takes to send us into paranoid or hostile spirals is one uninvited person approaching our space. Shit, we really are just animals, aren't we? Now imagine this person carries herself with the kind of calm yet firm demeanor reserved only for folks who know they can back up what they say. They can overpower you at any time and the only reason this movie doesn't end in five minutes is strictly due to the fact that they're not just here to rob or pillage or fight. There's something deeper going on.This Woman (Okwui Okpokwasali) is here for Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler). She's the matriarch of a young family: young teen Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and elementary-aged Annie (Estella Kahiha). Ramona's husband has just died in a car accident; the movie starts with her getting around on crutches.Taylor's trying to be the man of the house with the limited resources a 14-year-old has: no groceries, no license, no electricity. Bills pile up; Ramona lies in bed, rotting in her own mind. It's within this scenario the Woman arrives, revealing she knows more about Ramona and her family than any stranger ever should.The movie plays out like a wind-up toy, setting up all the necessary pieces and letting the tension play out, watching Ramona and the kids try to figure a method of escape or deterrence. As the Woman grows closer, almost at the pace of shadows cast by a gliding Sun, secrets are revealed and Ramona's state of mind continues to warp, influenced by the Woman's otherworldly presence. Collet-Serra crafts genre set pieces that work as metaphors for Ramona's deteriorating mental illness, though leave me focused more so on how this works within the movie's world rather than how Ramona's mind is reflected within these scares.I've always appreciated Deadwyler's gusto in pursuing a wide variety of projects (this to I SAW THE TV GLOW to THE PIANO LESSON, TILL and the upcoming siege thriller 40 ACRES carves a wide swath). She plays so much internal strife within her eyes and expressions; there's a woman who's fighting not only to survive, but also stave off this nagging reminder that she never wanted this kind of life. This isn't the plan she had for herself. It's hard not to wallow in self-pity. Deadwyler carries all of this in a way that never feels maudlin, always relatable.The movie doesn't overstay its welcome, coming in at a breezy 88 minutes. Some sci-fi elements threaten to overstuff the story and I wish they'd been developed more throughout the movie rather than explained within the climax. Regardless, the movie, much like most of Collet-Serra's filmography sits at a comfortable 5-6 out of 10, perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon.The Blu-ray release? I can't understand why I'd pick up a "Collector's Edition" without so much as a commentary. The two featurettes into the making of the movie and design of the Woman are nice, but in 2025, falls below the standard for home video ownership.Streaming's already made Blu-rays rarer and more expensive; this sparse set of bonus features wouldn't make me feel any better about dropping $20 for the disc. It shouldn't entice you to do the same.---Please rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram and Letterboxd

I interviewed John Maclean, the director of the coming-of-age samurai revenge movie TORNADO. The titular character is a teenage girl (Koki) avenging her father's murder at the hands of a band of thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden).I swear I didn't mean for this episode to drop on Father's Day but it feels appropriate. The movie features two sets of father and child struggling with communication and good old-fashioned rebellion. It doesn't matter that Fujin (Takehiro Hira) nurtures and disciplines his daughter while Sugarman has left his son to fully grow into adulthood with little more than an idea of how to lead a group of ruffians. Either way, kids will roll their eyes. They'll pull a 180 to spite whatever you say.Maclean and I discussed the importance of leading by example, the necessary shift of perspective from one who rejects their parents' tutelage to one who embraces it with warmth. But don't worry, I didn't forget this is a samurai flick, spraying blood and sword-slashed limbs as Tornado's wind-blown hair shrouds her face in captivating mystery. You know I had to talk the Kurosawa influence, especially one shot that genuinely looks like an anime finisher.This was a fun conversation. Maclean is a thoughtful guy, in love with so many different facets of what film has to reveal. I hope y'all enjoy this as much as I did recording it.Pre-order TORNADO on Fandango at Home Please rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram and Letterboxd

The titular character of TORNADO is a teenage girl played by Kôki, living with her Japanese father (Takehiro Hira) as a marionette/samurai performer in 1790s Britain. When Tornado swipes a bag of stolen gold from a gang led by the villainous Sugar (Tim Roth), the gang murders her father and thus begins the revenge of this tale. MacLean borrows from Kurosawa while showing off the (often over-the-top) samurai action but the best parts of this story are all character-based, primarily the dual father-child relationships regarding Sugarman and Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) & Funji with Tornado. I think it's gentler and more nuanced than what the trailer reveals so I'm pleasantly surprised.

First things first: Thank you for 200 episodes! It's been continuously joyful to keep showing up for y'all, to chat about the art form that fuels my love and obsession. I gave myself a goal to get here by December, so the fact that it's May tells me I've put a decent-sized proverbial fire under my ass.Today, I interview Bille August, the director of the new romantic drama THE KISS, about soldier-in-training Anton (Esben Smed) courting wheelchair-bound aristocrat Edith (Clara Rosager) in 1913 Denmark.At first, this sounds like the stuff of airport love novels, but Anton's main concern is to pull himself up by the bootstraps out of poverty. This pursuit of upper class ends up creating a rift between his feelings for Edith because his prejudice, quiet though unchecked, ensures, in his mind, that a serious romantic relationship would be judged negatively by his community.He does care for her, so he won't be callous as his fellow soldiers do behind her back, but he also won't defend her. He overcompensates with compassion to soften any blow regarding blowing off plans or sneaking in a lie to cover his whereabouts. Compassion bleeds into pity, reflecting the warning posted in the title of the Stefan Zweig novel on which the movie's based: BEWARE OF PITY.August and I spoke about pity, the idea of too much compassion being the real villain of a decidedly thorny, frustrating story. Anton hits too close to home regarding how we pity others, how our own prejudices go unexamined due to cowardice. In this, the movie's evergreen.THE KISS is currently playing in select theaters.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Letterboxd

THE KISS is based on Stefan Zweig's novel BEWARE OF PITY. Pity is the word. It's the emotion that keeps Anton (Esben Smed) at an arm's length from Edith (Clara Rosager).Anton is a poor kid trying to raise his social status by rising through military ranks. Edith is the wheelchair-bound daughter of the wealthy Baron Løvenskjold (Lars Mikkelsen). He makes her laugh. She loves his company. He looks strapping in uniform. She's gorgeous. The movie's called THE KISS. The poster has them an inch away from locking lips; this should be a romance for the ages, right?Not necessarily. Anton's quest for a higher class leaves him susceptible to external (and subsequently internal) judgment. The ableist muttering from other soldiers and cries of "You're not really with her, are you?" are enough to keep him quiet. He doesn't join in the jeering but he also doesn't defend her. The prejudice is quiet yet strong. He flakes on commitments; he lies to her. He clearly enjoys spending time with her but a wheelchair-bound wife isn't great for the image. That's enough for him to justify his distance by extending too much compassion, by doubting Edith's abilities, pushing back on any of her attempts to let loose. Compassion festers into pity. Pity is myopic: It only sees a person for what they can't do, who they can't be.This makes for an appropriately frustrating lead. I think it's going to frustrate because for the most part, Anton's a stand-up guy. But he's got that prejudice. He recognizes it and cowardly remains inert about it. A lot of us can probably see ourselves in Anton and as much as we fear other people's judgments, we fear our own the most. THE KISS isn't the most riveting movie, but it made me point the finger back towards myself.THE KISS is currently playing in select theaters.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Letterboxd

ADA: MY MOTHER THE ARCHITECT is a documentary directed by Yael Melamede, the daughter of the titular mother, Ada Karim-Melamede.Karim-Melamede is one of Israel's finest architects, receiving the Israel Prize for architecture in 2007, an honor she shares with both her father and brother. She co-designed Israel's Supreme Court with her brother from 1982 to 1992. This was a move intended to only keep her separate from her American-based husband and three kids for a year. 40 years later, Ada continues to live alone in Tel Aviv.This tension between mother and daughter is inherent to the story, but never beholden to it. Yael, a self-proclaimed failed architect in her own right, approaches interviewing her mother against a typical cradle-to-career-to-family path. She gets Ada to talk the most by asking about architecture.It's through Ada's breakdowns of five concepts that Yael is able to blend a primer on architectural appreciation with her mother's history. This movie coming in the wake of THE BRUTALIST's success last year doesn't surprise me. What it does do, however, is expand the horizons of my understanding. You can look at a pretty building all day, but once you understand how the architect chooses, characterizes, synthesizes each decision, almost like a filmmaker blocking each frame? It's hard to ever again look at a building with merely a passive gaze.Via Ada's conversations about architectural roots, the role of one's heart, the passage of time and the need to respect the past when it comes time to carve a creative future, I learn about this woman's devotion to the environment, history, the fulfillment of a grand ideological promise, and mostly, the benefits of creating within a community.What Yael Melamede is able to pull off in 80 minutes is astonishing. I shouldn't have expected any less from someone with such a history in design. ---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Letterboxd

This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced some new rule changes regarding eligibility and voting for the Oscars. The main change? Oscar voters are, as of this season, REQUIRED to watch all nominees in each category they vote in. Why this wasn't a rule beforehand is beyond me, but y'know, if the best time to throw water at a burning house is at the start, the second best time is now. Along with this is some language regarding generative AI, new submission deadlines, updates to the voting process for the Animated Short Film and Cinematography categories, and the rule reveal for how the new category for Best Casting will be decided.I was fully ready to let this Oscars news be the full episode, but Thierry Fremaux and his band of merry folx had different plans. Part deux of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival lineup dropped yesterday, adding 16 films to the official selection, including Kristen Stewart's directorial debut THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER and Lynne Ramsay's DIE MY LOVE (which will be featured In Competition).How can I pass up an opportunity to talk about even more potentially kickass movies? Do you SEE the name of this podcast?---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!, Bluesky & Letterboxd

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This week, the Cannes Film Festival announced its lineup for their 78th edition. Taking place in the beachside town of Cannes, France from May 13-24, the festival opens up the movie lover's summer to the widest swath of exceptional global cinema, blockbuster premieres and the first glimpses of next year's Oscars contenders.This episode sees me fumbling through pronunciations to share the movies announced and highlight the ones that look most rad (Ari Aster! Spike Lee! Julia Ducournau!). Pop a squat and let's look forward to the summer movie season!For more information on the festival, click here!---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky

Just because ANORA wears the Oscars' Best Picture crown doesn't mean the movies nominated turn to dust. In fact, as the Best Picture nominees slowly trickle out to home video, discussing them feels more pertinent. A movie's lifespan isn't limited to the awards calendar, especially when it comes to WICKED.Jon M. Chu's fantasy musical, based on the Broadway show, vacuumed up the world's cash to the tune of nearly $750 million, a testament to the musical's 20+ year success. This thing's been around long enough on its own to discuss it in generational terms.But WICKED owes it all to THE WIZARD OF OZ, being a prequel exploring the college years of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande), who will be known later in life as the Wicked Witch and Good Witch, respectively.Grande's lovably bubbly narcissism makes me laugh. Even the camera can't stop following her hair flips and flighty trots across the sets. Erivo seems incapable of playing a false note. They carry years worth of pain behind a restrictive, poised demeanor, presenting confidence as a defense tower.Our technicolor understanding of the land of Oz is muted by a change in perspective. We're not from Kansas anymore, Toto. Director of photography and frequent Chu collaborator Alice Brooks gives Oz a more tactile, European feel, at times flooding the background with natural light that gives the sets a lived-in presence. This isn't a Marvel Studios CGI nightmare (for the most part).But this idea of a realistic Oz, marked by more serious ventures into ANIMAL FARM-esque allegories for fascist subjugations within a caste system, doesn't always gel with the magic or whimsy WIZARD OF OZ is known for. It feels as though each creative grabbed their own idea of what WICKED should be and stretched it in said direction. The result is something that doesn't coalesce but I'll be damned if I say I didn't have fun with it.Though I'm still stunned Chu got a Critics' Choice Award for Best Director. Go home; y'all are drunk.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA is now available to watch at a theater near you. And when you return home, go catch Samir Oliveros' debut BAD LUCKY GOAT for free on Tubi. It's a goddamn gem.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Samir Oliveros directs THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA, a comedy starring Paul Walter Hauser as a man who, in 1984, takes game show execs and a studio audience for the thrill of a lifetime as he aims to pocket the most money ever won on PRESS YOUR LUCK. The execs say he must be cheating. The audience cheers him on, a bumbling working-class zero given the opportunity of a lifetime.I interviewed Oliveros about this kind of person, someone who doesn't wish to walk the safe, paved paths to success, instead carving out their own swath of the jungle. Where do the spirits of a guy chasing a game show streak and a Colombian filmmaker pursuing storytelling as a living with - limited - resources intersect? Let's find out.THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA is available to watch on the big screen in a theater near you. Do your own spirit some good and give it a watch.After you've returned, pop on Oliveros' debut, the quirky microbudget comedy BAD LUCKY GOAT, on Tubi. It's about a brother and sister who strike a goat with their dad's truck and have to scrounge up the money for the repair before he finds out. It plays a great balance of chilled-out island life against the desperation of someone who's seemingly going for broke to tell this story as if they'll never get another shot. Lots of playful camerawork, vibrant colors, and a bickering lead duo for the books. ---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

I missed Leigh Whannell's newest film, WOLF MAN, in theaters. Bit of a bummer since he's a director who's earned my highest personal honor of earning my view purely off of goodwill - no trailer, no social media post needed.So what was I to do? Nothing, but that's where Universal Pictures stepped in and (thankfully) sent me a review copy of the WOLF MAN Blu-ray (Seriously, y'all. Thank you.)WOLF MAN changes quite a bit from the original source material. The werewolf transformation develops not as a curse but rather, a disease, an infection. Instead of a fur-covered beast with extended snout, David Cronenberg's THE FLY inspires a look that stems from the idea of two separate genomes warring within the same body. It's more akin to the creatures in Alex Garland's ANNIHILATION.But where WOLF MAN differs the most is in its family story. Christopher Abbott plays Blake, husband to Charlotte (the seriously-needs-a-goddamned-Oscar-as-of-like-yesterday Julia Garner) and father to Ginger - nickname Snaps? - (Matilda Firth). After his father's death, Blake inherits the remote Oregon farm in which he spent his childhood (complicated at best, emotionally abusive at worst).Upon arrival, Blake and family are attacked by a mysterious creature. Blake sustains a scratch wound and if you've seen a werewolf movie, you know that in here lies the inevitable. It's just a matter of time.But the real tragedy of WOLF MAN doesn't just lie in the creature of it, but rather the character. Blake desperately tries to be a kinder, less angry father and husband than the example he experienced. But old environments bring that nature-nurture battle back to a head. Some wounds may simply be too deep to overcome.This movie may be paced a little wonky and some of the ideas are executed a little too silly for its own good, but goddamn, did this hit hard for this father of a 4 and 1.5 year old.On the director's commentary, Whannell talks about the need to follow one's own barometer for success. If you laugh or cry or fear your own material, it'll translate. And I'm so happy to report Whannell, for me, at least, is 3 for 3.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Today on IN FOUR FILMS, we ask Tara Giancaspro: "Using only four films, who ARE you?" She's a New Jersey-based writer, poet, songsmith, pop culture muser, frequent podcaster, actress, production assistant, music video extra and doting mother to two cats, Simone & Lugosi. To call her a multi-hyphenate just feels like I'm underselling it.Tara's four movies:SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE (2015) dir. Leslye HeadlandNETWORK (1976) dir. Sidney LumetALL THAT JAZZ (1979) dir. Bob FosseBACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) dir. Robert Zemeckis---Subscribe to Tara's Substack: https://substack.com/@taragiancasproFollow Tara on Twitter/Instagram: @sweatylamarr---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Ami Canaan Mann directs AUDREY'S CHILDREN, the story of Dr. Audrey Evans (Natalie Dormer), an oncologist whose staging system revolutionized the way we treat childhood cancers. Before the '70s, the pediatric neuroblastoma survival rate was 10%. After implementing her work, the survival rate is now over 80%. I interview Canaan Mann about meeting Dr. Evans, her collaborations with Dormer & director of photography Jon Keng and the time spent on Robert Redford's set that helped shaped her path to become a director.AUDREY'S CHILDREN premieres in theaters on March 28. Showtimes can be found here: https://www.audreyschildren.com/theaters---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

AUDREY'S CHILDREN stars Natalie Dormer as Dr. Audrey Evans, the oncologist whose staging system revolutionized how childhood cancers are treated. Before her work in the '70s, these cancers were handled with a sort of one-size-fits-all approach. The result of Evans' research was a categorization of cases, impacted by age, tumor location, length of time diagnosed with the disease and more. She advocated for more aggressive chemotherapy regiments, sometimes utilizing a combo of drugs. This wasn't a popular idea at the time, but given that era's survival rate for pediatric neuroblastoma patients was merely 10%, I think said situation couldn't hurt from tougher solutions. Nowadays, the survival rate's jumped up to over 80%.Evans' work didn't just stop in the clinic; she recognized that a child's success with treatment depended on their family's ability to sustain the burden. If they couldn't afford the treatment or the housing required to be close to their kid, families would be forced to cut the help short. Unacceptable. As a result, Dr. Evans partnered with the Philadelphia Eagles football team and McDonald's to open the first Ronald McDonald Charity House.Dr. Evans was indefatigable, which makes Dormer's portrayal that much more impressive. She's in almost every scene, carrying her gait with poise and purpose despite whatever setbacks. It's even a pain getting records with which to build a case study. Never mind trying to nab funding. Never mind having to look at nerve-shredded families in the eyes and update them on the state of their dying kids.But the upside is that the lighting seems to be on Audrey's side. Canaan Mann and director of photography Jon Keng frame their characters against large, backlit windows, which suggest that, even in a dour-looking hospital, the sun and beauty of nature are desperate to break through, giving these kids hope. I mean, it can't ALL be up to Audrey, her full-faced smile and baby blue heels, right?AUDREY'S CHILDREN premieres in theaters on March 28. Find showtimes here: https://www.audreyschildren.com/theaters---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

I interview HOOD WITCH writer/director Said Belktibia about his new thriller, which sees Golshifteh Farahani play the target of a literal witch hunt through urban France. She makes a living selling mystical products and alternative healing remedies and after one of her clients dies by suicide, is accused and then chased by the mob. Now, she, along with her teenage son, need to escape the city before it's too late.Belktibia and I spoke, with the help of a translator, about our increasingly global society, the responsibility required of each individual to examine and critique the messages received in modern media, Farahani's brilliance as an actress and human, and much, much more.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

HOOD WITCH stars Golshifteh Farahani as Nour, a single mom living in urban France who makes her living selling supplies for alternative healing, witchcraft, spells, you name it. She sees herself akin to the ones who sold shovels during the Gold Rush. If people want to believe, she'll happily oblige them.However, after one of her clients dies by suicide, she's accused of murder by the client's father. Suddenly, Nour, along with her teen son, is the target of a literal witch hunt, fueled by the instant transmission of social media and the viral nature of mob mentality and conviction.Said Belktibia, HOOD WITCH's writer/director, crafts a story in constant conflict, both physical and ideological. Does Nour actually have powers? Can illnesses be cured via spiritual means? What constitutes an individual's responsibility for critically thinking through the messages and calls to action bombarded their way on an instant, increasingly global basis?These questions persist throughout the film, kept thrilling and moving by Farahani's ferocious performance and Belktibia's pulse-pounding sensibilities.HOOD WITCH is now available to watch in select theaters and VOD. ---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

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In Abby Brenker and Ellyn Vander Wyden's VOICES CARRY, which premiered last Saturday, March 15 at the 2025 Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California, a woman (Gia Crovatin) returns to her lakefront childhood home, confronting the difficult memories of her mother's untimely death.Discovering an old diary in the shed, she's shocked to discover that not only did her mother write in it shortly before her death, but also did a slew of women, spanning back to the 1700s. What starts as historical intrigue devolves into potentially supernatural obsession as the history of trauma and secrets within the diary's pages leave her swearing she can hear the voices of these women calling to her from across the lake.VOICES CARRY is, at times, too tepidly paced for its own good. Are these voices real? Are they hallucinations of a stressed mind? This tightrope requires a delicate balance to get right but the movie almost goes too delicate, leaving the mystery up to expository dumps and a flurry of beautifully shot scenes that leave me cold.Don't get me wrong. I love Mauricio Vasquez's cinematography, mainly its voyeuristic approach and techniques that help translate the protagonist's state of mind. This lakefront property looks like a travel ad at times, it's so pristine.I think with this movie, the mileage may vary depending on where expectations lie. For those interested in how woman's mental health difficulties are misdiagnosed throughout history - witchcraft, hysteria, possession, etc. - this story may provide a valuable perspective. I just wish the movie also provided a propulsive quality.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

In 1990, millions of dollars worth of art was robbed from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. The crime remains unsolved but provides a backdrop for ANY DAY NOW to explore a story of an insecure 20-something to learn the value of self-respect and the confidence that comes with exercising such respect.Steve (Taylor Gray) is the 20-something in question and he, by all metrics, should be cool. He's good-looking with a healthy beard. He's a guitarist for a band who's earned major-label interest. He works as a night shift guard for the museum, getting paid to absorb the work of hundreds of artists every night, all to himself. No one's robbing museums like gas stations; it's a quiet gig. But Steve's Achilles heel is that he's simply a doormat. He pines for his roommate/bandmate's girlfriend. Said roommate is months behind on rent and Steve's lack of spine makes this guy comfortable with blowing off any conversation about it. Steve's boss punks him for swiping a candy bar from the vending machine (which in most cases, is owned by an independent entity and therefore, out of this guy's jurisdiction, so fuck off, copper).But it's when art thief Marty Lyons (Paul Guilfoyle) approaches Steve in a bar with a proposition to cut him in on the profits of a robbery if he'll look the other way that Steve's prospects start to change. Marty does what he wants, with no qualms or boss to answer to. He loves art, music, a good time. He's lived three lifetimes' worth and ends up taking Steve on as a mentee. I mean, sure, he's a guy who robs museums and sells the art on the market, but is that really worse than living an entire life as an unsatisfied guy without the courage to spend his remaining days on this floating rock in pursuit of what he values and desires? Life's too short to waste it for other people.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

I interview Paul Guilfoyle, star of the new coming-of-age-meets-heist-film ANY DAY NOW about his relationship to Boston as one of its sons, the Dropkick Murphys, classism, the eternal struggle of discovering (or uncovering) one's authentic self & the delicate balance of being both vulnerable and tough on screen.In ANY DAY NOW, Guilfoyle plays art thief Marty Lyons. In his plan to rob Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner museum (which is based off of a real though unsolved 1990 robbery), he marks 20-something night watchman Steve (Taylor Gray) as his potential inside man. What starts as strategy evolves into a mentor relationship as Marty's bold pursuits for what he desires allows Steve to build the confidence needed to abandon his identity as a professional doormat.Guilfoyle brings the comedy, intensity and wisdom to ANY DAY NOW, making for an equally entertaining and thoughtful character study masked in heist film tropes. ---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

To describe Lior Geller's THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE as a rough watch seems an understatement.This tells the story of two Jewish prisoners, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen & Jeremy Neumark Jones, who escape a Polish Nazi death camp and end up providing the world's first eyewitness account of the Holocaust.And god, what an account. This movie's less than two hours and for half of it, we're in the camp with these men, watching every indecency stack on top of each other. Humiliation, torture, extortion, you name it. Prisoners are forced to bear witness to the extermination of fellow Jews, walking in forced silence, listening to the shrieks of men, women and children rattle their skulls (and by proxy, us at home) like a hurricane howling against windows. They bury their brethren in mass graves, shoveling lime on top of the bodies to hide the stench.This isn't spearheaded by the Nazis of Auschwitz or Dachau. This precedes the Final Solution. Watching these monsters fumble their way through genocide exposes the severity of their cruelty. They don't know how to efficiently kill, but by Satan's hand, they're determined.And it's against this backdrop that these two escapees sprint and swim and drive their way to the closest town to get this message out to a local rabbi. Less than 30 minutes away from civilization, unspeakable atrocities are being committed; this might as well be taking place on a separate planet, the whiplash is so fierce.Geller's movie serves as a devastatingly beautiful warning to the rest of us, living in times of ICE raids and political disappearances. If left unchecked, this can and will be us. Act accordingly.THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE premieres in select theaters nationwide (including the Angelika in Dallas) on March 14.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

On this episode, director Lior Geller and actor Jeremy Neumark Jones join me to discuss their new film, THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE. Based on a true story, the film centers on two men, played by Jones and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who escape a Polish Nazi death camp, delivering the world's first eyewitness account of the Holocaust.This movie's a devastating, beautiful work, revitalizing the importance of defying tyranny and the need to, at the very fucking least, call it out for its abhorrence. In a time where Mahmoud Khalil is arrested for leading protests and the government tears parents from their wailing children for the crime of...not undergoing the designated process to enter and live in this country, stories like this ring clearer than ever: a warning to all that a cage is never built for just one use. There are no sides in genocide.We discuss the weight telling this story left on the cast and crew, the meaning behind the movie's title, an actor's need to maintain a full emotional tank and much more.THE WORLD WILL TREMBLE releases in select U.S. theaters (including Angelika Dallas, hell yes) on March 14th.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

EMILIA PEREZ, Jacques Audiard's audacious trilingual crime musical, is our next stop on the Best Picture Showcase! The most critically divisive of the nominees tells the story of a Mexican drug kingpin (Karla Sofia Gascon) who enlists a junior lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to help her transition into living life as a woman via securing gender-affirming surgery, faking her death, moving her wife (Selena Gomez) and kids to Switzerland. It's...a lot.And it's weirdly not a spoiler to say this is only the first 40 or so minutes of the movie? This plan goes off without too many hitches. It's what follows when the kingpin, living now as the titular character, decides she can no longer live without her kids and needs them back in Mexico that leads to the film's culminating chaos.This is a movie of bold choices, wild lighting and camera operation, larger-than-life performances that play like a neon-soaked Mexican telenovela. It doesn't always work, sometimes to derisive hilarity, but sue me, it makes me smile.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

The next stop for the Best Picture Showcase leads us to the nominee widely considered the frontrunner for this year's Best Picture Oscar, ANORA.This movie, produced, edited, written and directed by Sean Baker, follows the whirlwind romance of a Brooklyn sex worker named Anora (a hot-headed Mikey Madison, and by the way, it's Ani, not Anora, she doesn't like her full name) and her wealthy patron-turned-lover Vanya (an impulsive Mark Eydelshteyn whose face appears fixed in an eternal sheepish, inebriated grin stretched from ear to ear). Vanya's parents are loaded and back in Russia, leaving Vanya to indulge in every source of dopamine he can get his hands on, but when a Vegas trip leads to Ani and Vanya's little-white-chapel wedding, the parents send their "goons" - an exhausted priest, his bumbling right-hand man and a stoic, though gentle hired hand named Igor (a frankly excellent and deservedly Oscar-nominated Yura Borisov) - to get the marriage annulled at all costs.ANORA, shot in Baker's independent frame of mind, balances the loose, handheld reality of forgiveness-not-permission filmmaking with a formal understanding allowing his characters to exist in a heightened state. This is a world fueled by that pure, if naive, puppy-dog love, bathed in the dazzling colors and sunlight that allow people to, if even for a short time, believe in magic.The romance contrasts with the screwball-tinged comedy and drama of the second half of the movie and while I sympathize with those for whom this part of the movie sends their nerves into a frazzled state, I find it just emblematic of that enigmatic New York energy. It's a chaotic town where shit can go south quickly, so watching Ani hold her own in a city-wide crusade to resolve her new marriage problems feels me both with gut-busting laughs and deep, sympathetic sorrow. It's a bittersweet movie that promises no easy answers, but what life ever does?---Please rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Today on The Movies, I got a double-interview episode! I interviewed the director and actors from COLD WALLET, a new crypto thriller about a group of Redditors looking for revenge against the influencer responsible for scamming them out of a "life savings" level of money. They break into the influencer's home in pursuit of his cold wallet, a USB drive that holds millions of dollars in crypto, with a goal to return the funds back to every fellow victim.First round goes to actors Raul Castillo and Melonie Diaz, who discuss their preparation time, nailing ineptitude as a performer and how surprisingly kind Octavia Spencer is.Second round goes to director Cutter Hodierne and actor Josh Brener, who discuss the kind of character prep built less from the script and more from directorial conversations, the images serving as guiding light for the project and how they affect the movie's overall visual language.COLD WALLET is playing in select theaters and available to stream on VOD.---Please rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to your podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram and Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

In COLD WALLET, a trio of Redditors (Raul Castillo, Tony Cavalaro, Melonie Diaz) take it upon themselves to make a crypto influencer (Josh Brener) pay for tanking the coin, freezing user assets and suddenly demanding they owe the app almost double what they paid to get to said position. Their plan? Find the influencer, steal his cold wallet drives that store ALL his crypto balances and let them loose into the wild for any victim to reclaim. It's a Robin Hood deal.But the mind games have only just begun and the danger of getting caught or - worse - only grows.I'm not a big crypto head but you don't need all the knowledge to follow COLD WALLET. It works best as a pulpy home invasion thriller with a change in perspective. It's best to know these folks aren't, in any way, professional burglars. The results make for some funny setups. COLD WALLET is playing in select theaters and available to stream on VOD.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

The Best Picture Showcase rolls on with Edward Berger's CONCLAVE, a drama about the election of a new Pope after the sudden death of the old Holy Father. Left with the responsibilities of wrangling every cardinal from 'round the world, along with their egos and ideologies, is a soon-to-be-exhausted Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). As the days and rounds of voting wear on, Lawrence fears, especially after the muckraking dredges up personal and professional drama, a wealth of spiritual doubts and a fear of what kind of person will spearhead the next few decades of Catholicism, that the right candidate, the one truly best equipped to be an ambassador of God's word, may be lost to the squabbles and pettiness of imperfect men.This is a chess game, political theater on the world's stage. In some ways, CONCLAVE is brutally honest about the state of the world and its leaders. In others, I find an idealism that Frank Capra may grin at, god rest him. It's this balance between recognizing who we are and where we'd like to be that CONCLAVE dances with the most. How do we bridge the gulf and who's best equipped to lead us there?If you play enough chess, you'll be able to see the winning route from a good distance and this movie is no exception. But Berger always has a good eye and the score sufficiently ramps up the tension. It's not my favorite nominee but I'm glad I saw it.---Please rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Bluesky & Instagram: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

ARMAND follows Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), a single mother of the titular 6-year-old. She's called into Armand's school for a parent-teacher conference alongside Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) the parents of Armand's best friend, Jon.To say it's bad news is the most severe understatement. Jon has accused Armand of sexual assault, the violent and dehumanizing kind one would expect from someone with a high-schooler's understanding of sexuality.Elisabeth is expectedly blindsided, fiercely defending her son and questioning the intents, the facts, the biases of all involved. Sarah demands justice for her son and immediate action on the school's part. Anders wants what his wife wants.The school's de facto liaison, a junior teacher named Sunna (a sympathetic and highly pitied - the kind of pity derived from being someone sent first over the hill to sustain every rock, arrow, cannonball and nasty word - Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), is just desperately hoping a dialogue between the parents can inspire some concept of a plan.If you're looking for a movie wherein you can crack the code and solve the mystery, this movie isn't it. It's more preoccupied with the parties involved. Their personalities and histories clash and it's in the discovery of the interplays that the story really plays out. Writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel drops these folks into a cavernous school with high ceilings, arched hallways. Every step echoes; secrets can be discovered regardless of whether the conspirators whisper. It's an environment haunted by the ghosts (maybe literal?) of tragedy, of the sinister and wounded natures that plague us all.Near the end, Elisabeth discusses with Sunna the manner in which best to understand and perceive other people. It's not myopic nor impressionistic, but rather somewhere in-between. It's an amorphous yet graceful stamp on a movie whose surreal darkness can be a tough ask on an audience. Humanity is fickle and imperfect. To pretend otherwise betrays the very nature of who we are. I can't say this is gonna land well with everybody who watches it, but it gave me some chewable food-for-thought.ARMAND is currently playing in select theaters nationwide (Shit, my AMC has a random 1:45pm showing of this thing and I just wanna be a fly on the wall to observe whose grandma's walking in to catch this fucker on a Tuesday.)---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Feras Alfuqaha loves to gab about moviemaking. His directorial debut, LIFELINE, premieres in select theatres and VOD on February 21st. It's the story of a suicide hotline volunteer (Josh Stewart) who receives a call from someone he believes to be his younger self (Judah Lewis). The caller says they're at a motel with gun in hand; they'll kill themselves at midnight. Clock's ticking.Based on my interview with Alfuqaha, if I had to associate a word with him, it'd be preparation. He discusses the research needed to understand his main character's work, the decisions finalized before ever stepping onto a set in order to maximize his indie budget's potential, the discovery of characters and their intents done months ahead of time, the amount of effort required before the shoot in order to earn the luxury of on-set flexibility and so. much. more.This interview's got grins and tangents aplenty, one of my favorites in recent memory.Watch LIFELINE here: https://linktr.ee/lifelinemovie---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

Feras Alfuqaha's LIFELINE stars Josh Stewart as Steven Thomas. Steven's spending his New Year's Eve volunteering at a suicide hotline during the graveyard shift. He's the only guy in the office during a time of year in which folks tend to really feel their pain. The holidays can be rough on some of us.Steven handles a series of calls but one stands out: a college-aged kid who says he's gone to a motel with a gun with plans to kill himself at midnight. The kid's name? Steven Thomas.What's initially perceived as a prank reveals itself to extend beyond any wealth of coincidences. Steven knows he's talking to a younger self. As memories of his own abusive childhood begin to seep through repression, Steven knows he only has a few hours to A) figure out how this phenomenon is even occurring and B) convince his younger self to stay alive for the promise of a better day and life.The strength of this movie lies mainly in Stewart's performance. In his exhaustion, I see a man willing to carry the emotional burden of those to whom he extends a helping hand, regardless of the toll on his own body. As his younger, emotionally fraught self launches into self-destructive, nihilistic rants, Stewart's hesitation and expressions reveal that instinctual connection: Once upon a time, he did believe a version of this way of thinking. If you were to really crack the shell, I think he realizes he still believes in some of it, but also recognizes the need to adjust this perspective based on wisdom derived from experience. Older Steven isn't an easy role to bear and Stewart plays it thoughtfully and empathetically.Genres blend and the mystery unfurls in enticing fashion. Once all is revealed, I found myself seeing LIFELINE as poignant, hopeful even. It's an entertaining and heartfelt ode to one's desire to pursue hope against seemingly insurmountable pain. And it's less than 90 minutes? What a win!LIFELINE is currently playing in select theaters in L.A. & available to rent on VOD.---Please rate, review & subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on Instagram & Bluesky: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

I interview Michael Tolajian, the director of the new basketball documentary WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM, premiering on Max February 17. We talk the personal impact the 1992 Dream Team had on Tolajian, the process of establishing relationships with his documentary subjects, which of his favorite directors could stand a chance in the NBA and a whole. lot. more.---Rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on social media: linktr.ee/themovies_pod

A name like the Dream Team understandably comes with baggage. Who could make up a roster so great, the result can only be described as a dream? In the basketball world, guys like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton, Karl Malon-shall I go on?These men were recruited to represent the United States in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the first year in which NBA players would be allowed to play as Olympians. No pressure.But as Michael Tolajian's new documentary WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM showcases, pressure builds diamonds. Pressure, in this case, comes in the form of the Select Team, a group of collegiate players and future NBA superstars (Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, Chris Webber, Penny Hardaway and more), tasked to stress-test the Dream Team before the Olympics.And it's on a fateful day during the first scrimmage between this practice squad and their Hall-of-Fame counterparts that the unthinkable happens: The Select Team wins.WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM is part insider basketball, part history lesson, told 30+ years later with the same youthful exuberance by the gents who achieved what was considered impossible. The best teams internationally got whooped by the Dream Team to the tune of 30-40 point blowouts. These 19-to-21-year-old college students were the only ones who - ever - beat them. Talk about your underdog sports stories, am I right?WE BEAT THE DREAM TEAM premieres on Max February 17th.---Rate, review and subscribe to The Movies wherever you listen to podcasts!Follow The Movies on social media: linktr.ee/themovies_pod