‘DANGEROUS ANIMALS’: Sharks and Serial Killers, Oh My!

June 5, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Dangerous Animals, Ella Newton, Hassie Harrison, Jai Courtney, Josh Heuston, Nick Lepard, Sean Byrne Leave a comment

As posited by “The Most Dangerous Game”, no species is harder to hunt than man. Despite lacking ripping mandibles, fierce claws, venomous excretions, or even the ability to fight one measly gorilla, humans are formidable thanks to our big brains. And opposable thumbs. In Dangerous Animals, man meat is back on the menu as a psychotic Aussie serial killer—moonlighting as a shark encounter expert off the Gold Coast—lures victims onto his boat only to feed them to sharks, recording the horror for later private viewings. When Bruce Tucker (Jai Courtney) abducts tough-as-nails American expat surfer Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), he finds reeling in a prized fighter fish might be more exhilarating than his usual guppy fare. The question becomes: has he bitten off more than he can chew? Read More

‘BALLERINA’ Floats like a Butterfly, Stings like a Flamethrower

June 4, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Ballerina, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, Lance Reddick, Len Wiseman, Norman Reedus, Sharon Duncan-Brewster Leave a comment

Ana de Armas explodes into the JWEU (John Wick Expanded Universe) with the franchise-expanding spinoff Ballerina. Or, if we’re using the full, painfully cringe title, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. (The first and last time that full phrase will be used, I promise.) And insofar as any John Wick movie is good, this one is right on par with what the franchise struggles with, what it does well, and what keeps people coming back for more. Armas stars as Eve, a would-be-assassin chica brought up in the same Ruska Roma assassin school as John Wick, bound by their rigid code of contract killer ethics, blood oaths, and golden tokens. It turns out that seeing her father brutally murdered in front of her as a child left a deep impression on her so Eve dedicates herself to this universe’s assassin’s creed of kill, kill, kill. That is until an assignment reveals the very cult responsible for tearing her family apart and setting her on her blood-lusty murder-for-hire path so many years ago. So begins a quest for vengeance that’s very on-brand for this particular revenge-fueled franchise. I am happy to report that no dogs were hurt in the making of this movie. Read More

‘THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME’ Another Charming, Frothy Anderson Diorama

June 4, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alexandre Desplat, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Richard Ayoade, Scarlett Johansson, The Phoenician Scheme, Tom Hanks, Wes Anderson, Willem Dafoe Leave a comment

Wes Anderson’s career is bifurcated between his earlier and later works, with his stop-motion adaptation of The Fantastic Mr. Fox marking the point where things veered into the cartoonishly artificial. His early films had their share of stylistic flourishes: absurdly intricate miniature sets, obsessive symmetry, props so fussed-over they became punchlines. But they grounded these affectations in emotional sincerity. From Bottle Rocket to The Darjeeling Limited, Anderson made films that, despite their quirks, earnestly wrestled with themes of familial estrangement, existential loneliness, and just not fitting in. Since Fox though, emotion has become Anderson’s kryptonite. Something to be avoided at all costs. Read More

Eva Victor on Turning Trauma into Auteur Filmmaking with Festival Darling ‘SORRY, BABY’

May 24, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Eva Victor, Interview, Sorry Baby 1 Comment

Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby doesn’t announce itself. And yet, it arrives fully formed, like someone who’s spent enough time in therapy to know that the best medicine is to laugh at their own ridiculous idiosyncrasies. Premiering at Sundance, closing out Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, and now screening at SIFF, the film has quietly (and then not-quite-so-quietly) become one of the most talked-about directorial debuts of 2025. And yet, talking to Victor, there’s no sign they’re taking the acclaim too seriously. Read More

SIFF ‘25 Capsule Review: ‘COLOR BOOK’ Opens a Window into the Specificity of a Widower’s Grief

May 24, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Color Book, David Fortune, Jeremiah Alexander Daniels, SIFF, SIFF 2025, William Catlett 1 Comment

Rich in both place and emotion, shot in evocative black and white, and scored with delicate precision, Color Book is a heartbreaking tale of grief and perseverance. William Catlett gives a tremendous, pathos-drenched performance as Lucky, a father navigating sudden tragedy, alongside his son Mason (Jeremiah Alexander Daniels), who has Down syndrome, after the loss of their wife and mother in a car accident. Their woe-begotten journey to attend their first baseball game together in Atlanta becomes a soulful odyssey, riddled with the everyday detours of the financially-unstable and the challenges beset by a father and son suddenly jettisoned into a completely new orbit. Read More

SIFF ’25 Capsule Review: Irish ‘FOUR MOTHERS’ Juggles Pride, Parents, and Predictability

May 23, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Darren Thornton, Fionnula Flanagan, Four Mothers, James McArdle, SIFF, SIFF 2025 1 Comment

A perfectly pleasant — if ultimately forgettable — Irish dramedy about gay author Edvard (James McArdle), who juggles the stress of an impending U.S. book tour while caring for his stroke-recovering mother (Fionnula Flanagan) and looking after the elderly mothers his friends abandoned to attend an overseas Pride Fest. Writer-director Darren Thornton delivers a quietly charming, poignant meditation on dignity: both in balancing personal, professional, and romantic aspirations, and in aging with some semblance of grace. Its somewhat formulaic optimism may not linger and the jokes about getting older all seem overly familiar, but the film’s heart is in the right place and makes for a geriatric crowd-pleaser. (B-)
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‘MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING’ Sees One Last Sunrise

May 22, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Christopher McQuarrie, Esai Morales, Hannah Waddingham, Hayley Atwell., Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Katy M. O'Brian, Mission Impossible, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Nick Offerman, Rolf Saxon, Simon Pegg, tom cruise, Trammell Tillman, Ving Rhames Leave a comment

Allegedly, the mission is over. You can see it in the weathered map that is Tom Cruise’s face. Feel it in his and frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie’s willingness to get a little saccharine and sentimental with this nearly 30-year-old property. It lingers in the final acknowledgments exchanged across the ragtag team—the old, the new, and the totally WTF. This is the end. And yet, after The Final Reckoning, I wish that Mission: Impossible—much like Cruise himself—could run forever. Read More

‘BRING HER BACK’ Is As Bleak As A24 “Prestige Horror” Comes

May 20, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Bill Hinzman, Billy Barratt, Bring Her Back, Danny Philippou, Horror, Jonah Wren Phillips, Liam Damons, Michael Philippou, Mischa Heywood, Sally Hawkins, Sally-Anne Upton, Sora Wong, Stephen Phillips 1 Comment

Australian writer-director twins Danny and Michael Philippou are quickly redefining a kind of no-holds-barred prestige horror filmmaking. With their sophomore feature Bring Her Back, absolutely nothing is off-limits. This bleak and deranged story of a brother and sister taken into the home of a foster mother, played by Sally Hawkins (who is most definitely not the kindly counselor the world believes her to be), lands among the most disturbing entries in the “elevated horror” genre, mostly by inflicting gruesome body horror upon children in ways that is as horrifying as is it narratively compelling. It’s a tough film to stomach, not just for its barbaric depictions of violence against kids, but for its thematic notes of child abuse and the grief of losing a child. Bring Her Back is horrifying in its premise, but it’s dramatically anchored by its mirrored narratives about families in grief: one side of the coin desperately trying to stay intact after a tragedy, the other willing to go to truly ungodly lengths to reconstruct what’s been taken. Read More

‘FRIENDSHIP’ is 100 Minutes of Pure Tim Robinson Cringe

May 13, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Andrew DeYoung, Friendship, Jack Dylan Grazer, Josh Segarra, Kate Mara, Paul Rudd, Tim Robinson 5 Comments

Tim Robinson has one speed. Ever since he wrote and co-starred in Detroiters before becoming a sainted meme, ascending to viral sketch-comedy royalty with the gut-bustingly hysterical I Think You Should Leave, Robinson has specialized in playing a singular, ever-mutating archetype: the emotionally volatile social misfit. It’s a character he’s twisted into a hundred different shapes, but the core is always the same: an unhinged cocktail of cringe, indignation, and deeply funny despair. Whether he’s feeding eggs to his office monitor, melting down speed-ordering fast food (“55 burgers! 55 fries!”), or demanding a party host eat a receipt to prove he liked a gift, Robinson excels at crafting men living on the verge of complete and total social collapse. Read More

‘THUNDERBOLTS*’ Asterisks The Future of this Flailing Franchise

April 29, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged David Harbour, Eric Pearson, Florence Pugh, Hannah John-Kamen, Jake Schreier, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Marvel, MCU, Sebastian Stan, Thunderbolts, Wyatt Russell 2 Comments

There was a time when Marvel movies were actually kind of fun. They weren’t always particularly good, sure, and they leaned heavily on a tried-and-true formula — to the point where you could watch one trailer and predict every algorithmic story beat, crocodile tear moment, and ironic quip that would tumble out over the next two hours. But despite that heavy-handed template, they still managed to be a good time most of the time: actually playing at inspiring heroics rather than just paying lip service to the idea, wringing out a handful of genuine laughs (largely thanks to some truly terrific casting), and occasionally conjuring up an impressive set piece or two. Thunderbolts* doesn’t manage any of that. It’s both humorless and weightless, unable to decide if it wants to be taken seriously or not. The character work is thin, the drama feels half-hearted, and the whole movie hovers awkwardly between grim and goofy without ever committing to either. Read More