Reviewed: The Rip, Mercy
Top 5: Male Performances of 2025
Guest: Jeff York
Monthly Theme: Ben Affleck

Get a load of those Oscar announcements eh?? That’s right – they announced the nominees for this year’s Oscar ceremonies, and you bet your sweet buppie we’re gonna talk about that.

And we’ve got somebody great to talk about that with. We’ve brought our old friend and annual guest: Jeff York! He’s a critic and cartoonist here in Chicago, and a fellow member of our very own Chicago Indie Critics group.

Just like Brian, just like Mark, AND just like Cati – Jeff is an annual friend at our yearly wrap-up, and Jeff’s job is to rank the Top 5 Male Performances of 2025.

Plus, we’ve got a review of the new Matt Damon and Ben Affleck detective thriller: The Rip! For everybody wondering why we’re celebrating Ben Affleck this month: here ya’ go!

We’ve got some fun trivia. We’ve got a capsule review of Mercy. We’ve got it all boy, girls, and enbies.

I love you all,

-KP

Reviewed: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Top 5: Female Performances of 2025
Guest: Cati Glidewell
Monthly Theme: Ben Affleck

There are only a few things you can truly count on in this world. 1.) Death. 2.) Taxes. And 3.) CinemaJaw’s yearly recap of the Top 5 Best Female Performances of the year with returning guest Cati Glidewell. And, lucky for you, number three is the one we went with this week!

That’s right boys, girls, and enbies – we’ve got long-time friend of the show, stellar critic, and The Blonde In Front herself, Cati Glidewell. And in addition to the Top 5 Female Performances of 2025, she’s also here for our review this week.

We’ve got the follow up to last year’s hit zombie movie 28 Years Later, and Matt, Ry, AND Cati all caught The Bone Temple.

And, if that wasn’t enough – we’ve also got an absolute banger for trivia this week. Ryan wrote “Devil’s Play” trivia for Matt and Cati.

It’s a great start to the year, and if you aren’t excited about The Bone Temple then you clearly didn’t see 28 Years Later. You won’t wanna miss it y’all.

I love you all,

-KP

Reviewed: Marty Supreme, Primate, Wake Up Dead Man
Top 5: Scenes of 2025
Guest: Mark Dujsik
Monthly Theme: Ben Affleck

Oookeeee okeeee. Oou ouuh oh. Oookeee.

And for those of us who are *NOT* capuchins – let me translate this episode’s writeup:

We’re reviewing Primate BABYYYY. It’s our first review of 2026, and Matt, Ryan and myself are known to be kinda like our furry ancestors, so we were excited to find out if this new horror film will drive us bananas.

AND – to contrast this show’s hosts being monkey-adjacent, we have THE HARDEST working critic on the planet; our friend Mark Dujsik! And I’m not kidding – the guy goes ape s*** insane on watching movies. He’s always in the ball park of 500+ movies a year. He’s a friend of the show. He’s a hell of a critic. And we couldn’t be happier to have him in on all our monkey business.

Plus, c’mon guys. We’ve been off for 3 weeks eating leaves and bananas. And we didn’t spend all that time picking flies off our backs. We also grabbed some movies from last year that we wanted to review too! We’ve got the ping pong… I mean *table tennis* flick Marty Supreme. And we even logged on to Netflix to screen the new Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man.

Plus… listen… If you couldn’t tell by the bad monkey jokes already – this is KP writing this week’s writeup. And let. Me. Tell. YOU: this is the best trivia week of my life, because we are playing MONKEY MOVIE TRIVA!!!!! I cannot emphasize enough how much I like monkeys guys. I wish every week was monkey movie trivia week.

This is a good one! We’re welcoming in 2026 with our bests… our at the very least – our most… *us*. We’re ready to rock the new year with y’all.

Love,

-KP

Top 10: of 2025

You know it. You love it. It’s the annual top 10 lists for the year with our dear friend, Brian Tallerico. Ryan’s got his top 10. Matt’s got HIS top 10. And, if you can even believe it, Brian has HIS top 10 also! That’s 30 times one of Chicago’s finest critics touches on all the things that made this year so magical.

Horror. Comedy. Drama. And the expected levels of “you put that at number _____???” bickering ya’ love to hear from CinemaJaw!

This one’s the last episode of the year, so please PLEASE have a great holiday season. We’re super excited about 2026, and believe you me – everybody on this podcast would agree that all of you listening are a huge reason we’re so excited. 

Love you all,

-KP

Reviewed: Jay Kelly, Train Dreams, The House Made

It’s that time of year. We’re cramming in our last few movies before the year ends, and boy HOWDY is CinemaJaw having fun clearing up our final watchlist.

And we want to share that fun! We’ve got a review-o-rama for ya’ this week JawHeads where we go over 3 movies. Jay Kelly – the new Netflix film starring Adam Sandler and George Clooney. Speaking of Netflix, Matt and Ryan also caught Train Dreams, the meditative period piece about a man working on a railroad during the western expansion. And finally, Ryan also caught The Housemaid, a steamy thriller flick starring Sydney Sweeny and directed by Paul Feig.

It’s a good one guys!

-KP

Reviewed: Five Nights At Freddy’s 2
Top 5: Heartwarming Movies

Grab the tissues and find somebody to hug! Tis the season to watch something heartwarming and that’s just what we’re doing today. We’ve got our Top 5 Heartwarming movies this week Jawheads.

That’s not all – we’ve got one of the last horror movies of the year in for our review this episode too. Matt got out to see if Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is pizza party worthy. 

Ryan’s got some brief thoughts on two year-end sequels just before trivia this week as well folks. It’s a jam-packed one!

Reviewed: Arco, Eternity, Conan The Barbarian (2011), Rental Family

I am 7 pounds heavier. My bank account is remarkably low after winning a death match over a TV. And I think my family might never get together again. So it’s been the typical American family’s Thanksgiving Jawheads.

And if you guys weren’t full enough already – lemme tell ya, Matt and Ryan overcooked this one. We’ve got a special Review-O-Rama with FOUR dip-dang reviews this week!

We start with the animated art-house flick Arco. A little peak into the afterlife with Eternity, a rom com staring Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen, comes up next. Matt caught up with the 2011 Conan The Barbarian movie (as a reference to that trivia a few weeks back) – and that’s… real life. Like I’m not kidding we went there and it’s spicy. Lastly, we take it all home with Brenden Fraser’s Rental Family… (Like, the new movie he’s in titled: Rental Family… Not his own personal family that he happens to rent. I don’t know anything about Brenden Fraser’s family and don’t want to be sued for defamation and libel).

It’s a big one guys. And Ryan’s drunk on champagne. Matt’s crying and arguing with his brother. It’s a simpler time before we knew this was exhausting. And we all love you.

Take her EZ babes,

-KP

Reviewed: Wicked: For Good
Top 5: Musicals of the 2000s
Monthly Theme: Cynthia Erivo

This week, we get down and funky as we let our pipes bellow. That’s right, we’re doing our top 5 musicals of the 21st century (so far). We’re doing that list in honor of Wicked: For Good, the conclusion and sequel to the hit musical from just last year. We’ve also got our standard Cynthia Erivo month festivities and we’re even doing some of that classic Stump the Kubinski we know you know and love!

This is going to be a good one folks! Enjoy.

Reviewed: The Running Man
Top 5: “On The Run” Movies
Monthly Theme: Cynthia Erivo

*KP is sweaty and anxious*

**More than she usually is**

“Okay Jawheads – I’ve got little time to explain so you’re going to have to listen very closely:”

*Panicked breathing continues*

“This week on CinemaJaw… we’re going over the Top 5 ‘On-The-Run’ movies. Like… movies where the characters are escaping the law or some threat or something. 

It’s because we’re reviewing The Running Man, the new Edgar Wright movie. I know; I thought it was the dance too. BUT IT’S NOT. And now, Edgar Wright sent some goons after us and is trying to kill us. So we gotta go. Grab your air pods. Grab your Raycons. I don’t care what you grab, but we gotta go. Edgar is REALLY mad and I think he knows where we are.”

*Silence for a few moments. Only KP’s rushed, unsteady breathing can be heard.*

“Okay fine!! There’s also trivia. Matt’s playing 80s Movie Remake – Stump The Kubinski. LET’S GO!!”

*All the Jawheads in the entire world follow KP moments before Edgar Wright and Glen Powell shoot the locks off the door and barge in saying “Find them”*

Reviewed: Predator: Badlands
Top 5: Movie BADASSES
Monthly Theme: Cynthia Erivo

This week on CinemaJaw, Matt and Ryan walk away from an explosion in slow motion. Because they. Are. Badasses.

We’re reviewing Predator Badlands this week, and, lemme tell ya folks – this movie is badass. So we figured now is the best time we could decide to go over the baddest of the bad with our Top 5 BADASSES in movies – alongside our review of the one and only Predator: Badlands, of course.

And, we even have ourselves a new theme! It’s a new month, and we had to do somebody totally… badass (obviously). So we went with Cynthia Erivo: absolute legend they are.

That’s about all the exposition I could fit in with the slow motion explosion footage I grabbed of Matt and Ryan, so why don’t I quit writing and go on with the hardcore episode with the coolest of the cool.

Love you all (in an BADASS way),

-KP

Reviewed: Frankenstein, Frogs
Top 5: Classic Lit Adaptations
Monthly Theme: Jeff Bridges

It was the best of Episodes. It was the worst of Episodes. Dust off your library card JawHeads, because today we’re talking classic lit!

We’re doing it in honor of Guillermo Del Toro’s new Frankenstein flick. This one’s supposed to be **book-accurate** too, whatever that means!

Plus, since we’re already knee deep in books, we’re going with our top 5 classic literature adaptations. Bring out your Harper Lee, okay guys. Show me some Ray Bradbury, but don’t let him smuggle in matches again. And Oscar Wilde? Yeah – him and that painting of his are invited too. Except none of those people nor books show up in this episode because that would be spoilers.

This is a good episode guys! We also have our review of Frogs and a recap of our event with Ali’s Reptile Den at The Music Box this past week! You aren’t gonna want to miss it guys.

-KP