The Film Father - Making an Offer You Can’t Review

Starring : Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien Directed By : Sam Raimi Where It’s available : Disney Plus (all territories) Sam Raimi’s ‘Send Help’ is unquestionably a *Sam Raimi film* - and people who appreciate his work will know exactly what that means - but it’s also a hodgepodge of different genres. It’s part survival film, part slasher film, part workplace comedy - but all the parts work in concert and the result is a film that is more than the sum of its parts. The 500 mile view seems simple enough - Rachel McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, an overworked, overlooked office drone who works in ‘strategy and planning’ at a Fortune 500 company. Dylan O’Brien plays her boss, Bradley Preston, an overbearing, entitled business bro. The two of them are the only survivors of a plane crash in the gulf of Thailand after their plane goes down en route to an acquisitions meeting in Bangkok. Thankfully, Linda is an avid study and reader of such books as The SAS Survival Guide, and a super fan of the t...

Starring : Ryan Gosling, Sandra Huller, Lionel Boyce Directed by : Phil Lord, Chris Miller Where It’s Available : MGM+ (a special channel on Amazon Prime)  On the surface, Project Hail Mary is a simple premise - a sci-fi story about a ‘normal dude’ (Ryan Gosling) trying to save the earth from doom (the sun is slowly burning out - leading to a potential cascade as the earth cools and falls into a permanent ice age).  The ‘regular dude forced into becoming an astronaut’ trope has been done before (Armageddon and Space Cowboys come to mind) but for my money, it has never brought this level of thoughtfulness and heart along with it. Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace is an ex-scientist working as a science teacher in middle America when he’s recruited by Sandra Huller’s no-nonsense nameless-government agent, Eva Pratt, to assist with Project Hail Mary - the last-ditch attempt to save humanity by slinging a few astronauts across the cosmos in the hope that whatever they find out there is ...

  Starring : Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, et. Al Directed By : Rian Johnson Available on : Netflix Wake Up Dead Man is the third in the Benoit Blanc series of whodunnit stories - a film that once again showcases Rian Johnson’s gift with dialogue and clever plotting mechanics. It’s a film that, while not perfect, closes out what may be one of the highest-quality trilogies that you’ll see in modern film and also features a genuine starring turn by Josh O’Connor. It’s twisty, turny, timey-wimey and if you liked the first two films in the series you’ll almost certainly like this one as well. As is always the story with these types of films (the Agatha Christie-style murder mystery), we first meet the players - which this time around centres completely around a catholic church in upstate New York, including the rather-bullish priest (Josh Brolin), his new protege (Josh O’Connor), the head of the church booster program (Glenn Close) and notable parishioners - am...

Starring : Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Odessa Young, Stephen Graham, et al. Directed By : Scott Cooper Where It’s Available : Disney Plus (all territories) Here’s something you may know about me - Bruce Springsteen is my favourite musician of all-time. His songs about working-class struggle and fighting through loss to see just a little bit of sunshine really resonate with my own lower-class upbringing. I’ve seen him in concert four times. I own at least 10 Springsteen vinyls. So when they announced a biopic for Bruce - specifically one with another personal favourite, Jeremy Allen White (of FX’s spectacular ‘The Bear’) - it was a foregone conclusion that I would watch this film. And it might be difficult for me to be truly objective about it. With that said, it pleases me to state that the stands as a solid - if a little rote and formulaic - biopic. Setting the film during a specific time period of Bruce’s life (late 1981 through mid 1982 - just after he finished his world tour...

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Benito Del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall et al. Directed by : Paul Thomas Anderson Where it’s Available : HBO MAX in the US and most territories, Crave in Canada. The first scene of PTA’s 2025 opus, ‘One Battle After Another’ literally involves a group of self-styled ‘revolutionaries’ breaking migrants out of an ICE internment camp. I texted a friend of mine, “Oh, so this film is POLITICAL political”. And it is. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Pat (later Bob), a bomb specialist of the ‘French 75’ revolutionary group. Their manifesto, while not explicitly stated on-screen, is clearly left-leaning (they protect immigrants and minorities, they threaten a senator’s campaign office because they voted for an abortion ban, etc). These are the film’s good guys. The primary antagonist is a white supremacist soldier with a fetish for powerful black women (played with sufficient malice and menace by Sean Penn). This is the playing field on which this film lives - which is why...

In the Year of Our Lord 2025, I rolled credits on 11 games (okay, 10.5 anyway - you’ll see what I mean). That’s three fewer than last year. I blame the fact that I am still wasting a disproportionate amount of time playing Balatro (#2 from last year) and Baldur’s Gate 3 (#1 from 2023 and a top-5 all-timer). This year was ‘very’ strong overall in terms of product (you’ll notice the top two - and six of 11 overall - on my list were from this calendar year), but the state of the industry overall seems like it’s hanging by a thread. Let’s hope 2026 continues the quality output and steadies itself in terms of industry foundation (give talented people money to make games, folks. Please). 11. Night Trap (Limited Run Games - Originally Released 1992, 2017 ‘25th Anniversary Re-Release’) - Available on everything, played on Nintendo Switch. As someone of my vintage, this was more so I could say “I did it” than any real want or need to experience the deep narrative nuance of this infamous Sega CD...

  Starring : Mason Thames, Madeline McGraw, Ethan Hawke Directed By : Scott Derrickson Where It’s Available : A Theatre Near You, on-demand streaming at home digital rentals  The original ‘Black Phone’, released in 2022, was a rare beast in horror films - a truly original idea. Ghost stories have been around even longer than horror movies, but I don’t ever recall the ghosts being the ‘good guys’ in a slasher/horror genre picture before (we’re not talking about Casper here). In case you missed it (spoiler warning for the end of the original Black Phone - which is actually fantastic and well worth a watch if you have not seen it) - at the conclusion of the film, Finn Blake (Mason Thames) had escaped from the clutches of The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) thanks in no small part to his sister, Gwen (Madeline McGraw). In the course of the escape, Finn kills The Grabber (good riddance) and also helps avenge the five dead children who preceded him in being caught in The Grabber’s clutches. ‘...

Starring : Michael B. Jordan, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caron, Hailee Steinfeld et. Al. Directed by : Ryan Coogler Where It’s Available : HBO MAX in the US and most international territories, Crave in Canada It’s not often that a film can seemingly come out of nowhere based on a trued and true idea, take that concept, tweak it and set the world on fire, but in Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’, that’s exactly what happened. Ostensibly a period-piece genre film, but in truth something that’s much more than the sum of its parts, Sinners is a film that years from now, when you look up ‘cool’ in the dictionary, a still from this film will be staring back at you. Michael B. Jordan stars in duel roles as the twin brothers ‘Stack’ and ‘Smoke’ - two wiseguy street toughs in depression-era Mississippi. The brothers have returned home after several years (where, among other things, they worked for Al Capone in an unstated capacity) with designs of opening up their own juke joint - a Chicago-style night sp...

Starring : Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Danny Ramirez, Giancarlo Esposito et al. Directed By : Julius Onah Where It’s Available : Streaming internationally on Disney-+ It’s funny - the fourth Captain America mainline film in the MCU (and first since Anthony Mackie took the shield from Chris Evans) ends up playing like a spinoff sequel to two of the franchise’s lesser-loved products - The Incredible Hulk and The Eternals. Sometimes it works. Sometimes… the film can be a tad dumb and borderline incoherent. In all its one of the most uneven MCU films in the 17 (Jesus) years the venerable franchise is around. But even a ‘bad’ MCU film still has some entertainment value. The film opens with newly-anointed Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) raiding a compound in Mexico to retrieve… something. Basically it’s just a cool action set piece to show off Cap’s new moves with the shield and his now-vibranium-infused wings - and also to give the new Falcon, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) ...

Starring : Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver Directed by : Scott Derrickson Where It’s Available : Apple TV  I’ve been watching a fair amount of Apple TV lately. Severance is the hottest shit on television right now. Before that, season two of Silo was fantastic, engaging, week-to-week television. Before what seems like every episode I was greeted with an ad for this movie. It looked interesting - who doesn’t like Anya Taylor-Joy, after all? I don’t think she’s capable of making a bad film. But I didn’t quite know what to expect going in. And now, after having watched it, this seems completely by design. The top-level description I can give you is that this movie is part-action, part-horror, part-espionage thriller and part-romance. If that seems like a lot, well… it kind of *is*? But for all those spinning plates, it’s remarkably competent and it does at a bare minimum a passable job in every one of those genres. The film is about two lonely special ops assassins who...

Starring : Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Isabel Merced, the ghost of Ian Holm Directed by : Fede Alvarez Where It’s Available : Hulu in the US, Disney Plus in Canada and international territories. When I heard that Fede Alvarez (director of the recent-ish Evil Dead remake and, more recently, the intense “blind man kills a bunch of young no-goodniks” thriller ‘Don’t Breathe’) was helming a new addition to the Alien franchise, my interest was piqued, but tempered. This is, after all, a franchise that hasn’t had an arguably ‘good’ film since David Fincher’s ‘Alien 3’ 30 years ago for Pete’s sake (I see you, ‘Prometheus’ Stans. … you’re very, very wrong. But I see you). Colour me happily surprised when this film jumps out of the gates with a neat concept (anti-capitalist heist film gone *horribly* awry) and great action set pieces. I can say with all honesty, final act missteps aside (we’ll touch on those) this is the third best film in the Alien franchise (behind the iconic, genre-definin...

Last year was … a lot. In a lot of ways. But a good portion of the time I wasn’t decrying the imminent collapse of civilization, I played video games. Quite a few of them, as it turns out.  As has become my wont, I will list here the games I ‘finished’ in CALENDAR YEAR 2024. Again, underline and bold that first part - the games did not have to be released this year (and you’ll note quite quite a few of the games on this list *weren’t*). A few honourable mentions to start with: these are games I’m currently playing (and enjoying) so you’ll see these on my 2025 list, but I’ll note them now so that you know they exist and are relatively worth your time: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (2024 - Microsoft Studios / Machine Games, on Xbox, PC and Gamepass), Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024 - EA / BioWare on Xbox, PC and PS5) and Astro Bot (2024 - PlayStation Studios / Team Asobi on PS5). 14. Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga (2024) - Microsoft Studios / Ninja Theory, on Xbox, PC and GamePass : ...

  Starring : Lacey Chabert, Dustin Milligan, Craig Robinson, Joe Lo Truglio Directed by : Jerry Ciccorriti Where It’s Available : Netflix! This is one of Netflix’s now-annual disposable holiday films. Chances are, if you’re planning on watching ‘Hot Frosty’, you know what to expect. Netflix has been aping Hallmark for a few years now, releasing several saccharine, treacly holiday-pap-fears disguised as original movies in November and December. They all seem to be connected, too, which is completely needless, yet fun (my friends and I call it the ‘NCU’ Netflix Christmas Universe). This film is very much one of those - honestly even dumber than the vast majority of them. But it’s also utterly harmless and not without its charms. The story as it stands: Lacey Chabert plays Kathy - stop me if you’ve heard this before - a small town widower who has given up on love and has lost the Christmas spirit. That all changes when (here’s the catch) a magic scarf she is gifted by a friend of hers...

  Starring : Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Adam Scott Directed By : S.J. Clarkson Where It’s Available? : Crave in Canada, Netflix in the US and other territories. Okay. I’ll get this out of the way straight off the bat - So this film is… a mess. That’s probably not a surprise to those of you who are reading this. But what really shocked me is the level of nonsensical batshittiness that permeates it. This isn’t a fault with the direction, exactly - some of the action sequences and special FX look pretty cool, actually. But the script and some of the post-production decisions are utterly baffling. If you’re hoping to spend five minutes reading as I break down in great detail the nuances and twists of the deep and thoughtful plot of ‘Madame Web’, let me stop you right there. This ain’t that. But if you want to hear me drag a film for some of the most absolutely absurd and asinine dialogue and decisions I’ve heard in a film this decade? Then read on. High level - thi...