by Adam Riske and Sonia Mansfield

Sonia and Adam chat about Django Unchained, Galaxy Quest, The Illusionist (2010), I.Q., and more!

Sonia: In this month’s Reel Talk, we’re writing about movies that were released on Christmas Day, some of which are our favorites and others that don’t fit into that description exactly. I’m sure this goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway … We’re talking favorites, not best. If you slide into the comments with “The best movie released on Christmas Day is To Kill a Mockingbird,” well, you’re probably right, but that’s not what we’re doing here. I know F This Movie peeps would never.

So, I’m gonna kick off our list with a real holiday classic, Django Unchained, which opened Christmas Day in 2012. I’m sure a lot of people don’t remember that Django opened that day because it was at the same time as Parental Guidance, starring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, which is a movie that definitely exists, and people still talk about all the time.

Lately, and for reasons *waves arms around* I’ve been watching a lot of movies in which people brutally murder nazis, racists, and fascists. Quentin Tarantino has a lot of movies that scratch that itch.I’ll be honest, Django Unchained isn’t one of my go-to Tarantino movies. I liked it when I saw it in the theater, but it’s (understatement alert) uncomfy. It’s not fun to rewatch like Pulp Fiction or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Still, a lot of racists get murdered. That’s pretty fun.

One of the things I appreciate about this movie is you can go as deep into it as you want. If you’ve seen a lot of blaxploitation or spaghetti westerns, I’m sure you get a lot more out of a movie like this. I like this movie purely as a revenge movie, and I liked it more on this rewatch. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance hit harder this time. He’s a smug and cruel person, but he’s also insecure and can’t handle any criticism. Very presidential. Of course, Christoph Waltz is doing his Christoph Waltz thing, and he won an Oscar for it. I don’t know how you nominate Waltz and give him the award without even nominating Jamie Foxx. But I could write an entire other column about how the Academy Awards disappoint me.

Adam: So many thoughts. First and most important, I was obsessed with Parental Guidance when it came out in 2012 because it was a Billy Crystal/Bette Midler star vehicle in a time where that no longer made as much sense. I wanted it to clear $100M domestic but it didn’t, despite doing surprisingly well as counter-programming that holiday season. Truth be told, I saw it in theaters and walked out halfway through (back when I did that a lot) because I thought it was pretty lame and disappointing.

I’m a fan of Django Unchained but when talking to FTM’s own Rosalie and Andy this past weekend, I found myself ranking it last among the Tarantino oeuvre. It’s just not one I feel great (re)watching or want to revisit all that often. It’s very well-made and the performances are solid (DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson for me are standouts and should be commended for stripping themselves or any actor vanity and unflinchingly being the people they were cast to be) and the movie has a righteous vengeance streak that’s impossible to deny. I think what holds me at arm’s length about this movie (aside from what I’ve already said) is that it’s much shaggier than a lot of Tarantino’s other movies and maybe 25% more impressed with itself than I am (e.g. the Christoph Waltz performance). I dunno…I have complicated feelings about this movie even though I think it’s one of the best of 2012.My first pick is Fred Schepsi’s 1994 Christmas Day release I.Q., starring Meg Ryan, Tim Robbins, and Walter Matthau as Albert Einstein. This is not in any way one of my favorites. I just felt like revisiting it because it’s a movie that sort of has autobiographical infamy for me. On January 13, 1995, I went with my friends to the movie to see Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight on its opening day but was denied entry because we were only 12 years old. The only movies playing at the theater we could be admitted to were Street Fighter or I.Q. We had all already seen Street Fighter, so we picked I.Q. and I was enraged so I didn’t give that movie a fair shake at all. Having now done so, I can say unequivocally that I.Q. is not as good as Demon Knight. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying it’s my least favorite Meg Ryan romantic comedy of the '90s that I’ve seen (I haven’t seen French Kiss). There’s something so dopey about the movie with Einstein and his friends playing Cupid for Robbins’ inquisitive mechanic. My big issue with the movie is that it feels like Ryan doesn’t have any choice in her matters of the heart. It’s like Tim Robbins sees her, says “HER!” to himself in his head, and then just wears her down while Matthau and his boys further manipulate her. There’s no great chemistry between Ryan and Robbins, so I didn’t really want them to get together and then in the scene where she tells him she loves him, it feels so thrown away and false that it pretty much sinks a movie that was otherwise in danger of falling off the rails. For something as seemingly innocuous as a movie like I.Q. presents itself to be, it’s a tad bit annoying.

Sonia: I like to imagine someone pitching this movie to Tim Robbins’s character in The Player. “Einstein has this niece, see. And she’s really smart but not about her own thoughts and feelings …” I love romcoms, but I don’t love romcoms that are about people lying to get someone to fall in love with them. It gives me the ick. And I.Q. gave me the ick before using the term “the ick” was a thing, and it’s for the exact reason you described. The Meg Ryan character has no agency over herself, and she bends to the will of the men in the story.

My next pick I can truly say is one of my favorites that opened on Christmas Day, and that’s Galaxy Quest. Never give up, never surrender! This 1999 comedy is special because it’s a parody that genuinely loves the thing it’s making fun of. It’s never mean-spirited or punches down at the people who created Star Trek or the Trekkies who love it.

Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shaloub, and Sam Rockwell all commit to the bit. They play it sincerely, so a movie that could’ve been Spaceballs feels more like a successful Star Trek movie. It’s poking fun at Star Trek, but it also kinda works as a Star Trek movie.

The cast is so good in this, but I want to single out Alan Rickman, because his character (a classically trained actor playing a riff on Spock) consistently makes me laugh out loud. “By Grabthar’s hammer… what a savings.” He’s so deadpan, and he plays it straight. It’s funny, but you find yourself sad for him because he wanted to do so much more. Who can’t relate to the fear of not living up to your potential?I was curious, so I went to check out Galaxy Quest on Rotten Tomatoes. I couldn’t imagine there was someone who doesn’t like it, yet it has 90%, which means 10% of the reviews are wrong.

Adam: I love Galaxy Quest. It gets better every time I watch it. You said it perfectly that the movie nails the difficult trick of being reverential to Star Trek while also ribbing it and being its own thing entirely. It’s a shame there was never a Galaxy Quest TV show. It might have just been The Orville, actually.

My next pick is The Illusionist (2010), directed by The Triplets of Belleville’s Sylvain Chomet and adapted from an original script by the late Jacques Tati. I saw The Illusionist at the Music Box Theatre in early 2011 and remember being pretty blown away by it. If I were making top 10 lists back then, it certainly would have been near the top of that list. I hadn’t gone back to it in a long time and…it’s not capital GREAT like I remember but it’s still very good.

The story is basically the struggles of an aging magician who gets a happiness boost from making friends with an adoring young girl interested in magic. Times get difficult, earning wages and sustaining a livelihood become impossible, and the two grow apart. I read this movie is at least partially about Tati’s own strained relationship with his daughter and it definitely feels autobiographical in nature. The animation is beautiful, and the mood is pretty transfixing if you give yourself over to the movie, similar to something like Mr. Hulot’s Holiday or Playtime. I think my liking it a bit less than before has to do with my general mood as I get older. This movie is so bleak that I think it registered with me more when frankly I was more depressed as a younger man. I’m still depressed at times these days, but I’ve learned how to manage it better and I think that in a weird way prevents The Illusionist from digging in deep like it did for me when I saw it originally. That’s good, I guess! And bad, I guess!

What did you think of the movie? Also, tell me about your past Christmases at the movies. Do you have any great memories of seeing a movie in theaters on Christmas Day? What was it like working in a theater on Christmas Day and dealing with tons of amped up moviegoers? Do you think movies released on Christmas Day carry any special significance? I think it gives them a certain degree of gravitas, especially the Oscar Bait dramas. And I like how there’s usually types of movies released on Christmas Day e.g. something for kids, something for gamers/action fans, something high-profile like from a big director/actor, etc.Sonia: I liked The Illusionist the first time I saw it in 2010. But this time I actually get it and appreciate it, because I’ve actually seen some Tati movies since then. The movie also hits differently for me now because I’m a parent. The fact that the magician works extra jobs without her knowing to make her feel like life is still magical speaks a lot to what it can be like to be a parent (especially around the holidays). And as a parent, you get to a point when you kinda have to burst that bubble, and your child sees you not as a magical all-knowing figure, but an actual human being. I imagine that’s a very bittersweet feeling. I say “imagine” because obviously I AM A MAGICAL ALL-KNOWING FIGURE, so my son never needs to find out.

Most of my memories of Christmas Day movies involve working at the movie theater. I usually worked a 2pm to 10pm shift or an evening shift. It was slow in the morning and then it would get swamped in the evening. It was mainly huge families that were sick of each other, so they decided to go to the movies and not talk. There were also a lot of teenagers who got gift certificates and wanted to use them right away … and get away from their families and not talk. Honestly, working the Christmas evening shift was fun. My co-workers were usually really happy and the customers were happy to be seeing a movie, even if the movie was a full-on Oscar-baity bummer.

But the thing that would happen every year that always made me raise my eyebrows and say, “Good luck” when I sold them their tickets was when the family movie that they wanted to see was sold out, so they’d just pick another movie.

They want to see Father of the Bride but it’s sold out, so they see JFK instead. “Good luck. I’m sure the 10-year-old will learn a lot.” They want to see Grumpy Old Men but it’s sold out, so they see Philadelphia instead. I was always in awe of the people who would just see whatever with their families. I guess I don’t like living dangerously like that.

What are some of your favorite memories, Adam?

Adam: That’s amazing. I love movie theater employee stories. I worked Christmas Eve and New Years Eve at Blockbuster a couple of times (which was open from 10am to 5pm) and there was always a line from the front of the store to the back of the store with no slow period. My favorite thing about that was seeing all the new release titles that were never checked out otherwise be checked out because people were settling for their fourth or fifth choice and just took whatever was still available. Good times!

As far as in theaters, there’s two Christmas moviegoing memories that come to mind. The first is when I threw up all over the theater after seeing Hook because I got food poisoning from dinner earlier that night. The second is seeing a midnight show Christmas Eve of The Wolf of Wall Street thinking it would just be me and like five other Scorsese die-hards there and instead it was a theater full of me and seemingly hundreds of Gentle Minion type teen bros who were rowdy and learning all the wrong lessons from the movie. I also remember seeing Jackie Brown, A Beautiful Mind, Catch Me If You Can, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on Christmas. I’m sure there were more.

What about you, our wonderful readers, do you have any formative Christmas moviegoing memories? Do you have any favorite movies released on Christmas Day?

Thank you, Sonia! Happy Holidays!

 by JB

The screenings, scenes, shots, performances, and dialogue that now live rent-free in my head, thanks to this... interesting... moviegoing year.

WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead!

The Alto Knights, from March of this year, was so awful, so misbegotten, such a miserable viewing experience, that I no longer remember it as a movie. I remember it as an unfortunate event, a mistake, an automobile accident... in slow motion.

Fucking glad I skipped: Wolf Man.

Fucking glad I skipped: Flight Risk.

Fucking glad I skipped: Captain America: Brave New World.

Still wondering why Riff Raff did not receive more attention. It’s the kind of satisfying, mid-budget movie that viewers will be discovering on streaming services for years to come. Small, but satisfying.

Why did Mickey 17 leave me cold?Thanks to Rob and Adam, I watched Eephus, a wonderful, unconventional film that has stayed with me for months. Most moves these days don’t last until you get out to the parking lot.

The game goes on. Darkness falls. Eephus.

Black Bag did not get the attention it deserved. It makes me happy that it is showing up on many Ten Best lists for the year.

Wait, the live-action Snow White was THIS year? This has been a very long year...

Fucking glad I skipped: Popeye the Slayer Man.

Fucking glad I chanced upon The Luckiest Man in America streaming late one night.

Well, you can’t say that this film didn’t deliver what the trailer promised: The Amateur.

Fucking glad I skipped: Screamboat.

Wait, King of Kings came out in March? How does that make any sense? It’s the animated tale of Charles Dickens regaling his children with the story of Jesus Christ. I’m not making this up. Kenneth Branagh, Mark Hamill, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, and Uma Thurman do voices. Did I dream this movie?

Good for the soul: a big, ambitious movie seen one Saturday afternoon on the biggest screen in the neighborhood: Sinners.The wonder and satisfaction of a big dance number, Sinners.

Dark and irredeemably bleak, welcome to the new Marvel Universe: Thunderbolts.

Streaming movie as comfort food: Nonnas.

Fucking glad I skipped: Clown in a Cornfield.

Yes, it is quite definitely “up its own ass,” but it is still better than 80% of the other movies released this year: The Phoenician Scheme.

The wonder and satisfaction of a big dance number, The Life of Chuck.“So shines a good deed in a weary world.” Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck. This film alone got me through a very long June.

Fucking glad I skipped: The Materialists.

I was so terrified of that fucking radio broadcast (or whatever the fuck it was) in the trailer that I could not bring myself so see the fucking film: 28 Years Later. (EDITOR’S NOTE: It was a 1915 recording of the actor Taylor Holmes reciting Rudyard Kipling's Boots, written about the relentless marching required during the Second Boer War.)

Patrick and Rob assure me that I should not beat myself up over missing F1.

When Corporate Entities Create: Jurassic World Afterbirth.

You are watching the latest Jurassic Park installment and judging how cynical an endeavor it is... by which family members will be killed in the frame story...

Half a good movie. I’m not saying which half: Superman.

I wish I could have seen the following in an honest-to-goodness movie theater: Death by Lightning, Splitsvillle, Riff Raff, Eephus, The Life of Chuck, Roofman, A House of Dynamite, and Smurfs. Just kidding on that last one.

I’m still amazed that I got to see Fantastic Four: First Steps in an honest-to-goodness drive-in movie theater, with all the pleasures and pains that entails: car problems, sound problems, neighbor cars with blinding lights, the sight of our godkids snuggled into the back seat with blankets, the specter of dead batteries, many trips to the snack bar, laughing with friends, needing to see the movie again the next week in a regular theater to see all the parts we missed. Fifties-era fun!

Half a good movie. I’m not saying which half: Oh, Hi!

When Corporate Entities Create Comedy, Julie Bowen dies: Happy Gilmore 2.

Such a thing: Together.Reminder that great movies are still possible, even in 2025: Weapons.

Motivated children go through windows, Weapons.

Josh Brolin gives two of the best performances of the year, Weapons and Wake Up Dead Man.

Fucking glad I skipped: Freakier Friday.

Overhearing a child at the cinema explain to a younger sibling, "There are two ones: Freaky Friday, and Freaker Friday."

“A man has a dream and that's the start...
He follows his dream with mind and heart.
And when it becomes a reality,
It's a dream come true for you and me: Jimmy and Stiggs

Honey, DO: Honey Don’t.

Fucking glad I skipped: The Roses.

Impossible to get out from under the earlier film’s enormous shadow: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.

How delightful to know that there are filmmakers who still know what they are doing. It kind of gives you hope: One Battle After Another.

Leonardo DiCaprio can’t remember the password, One Battle After Another.

Benicio Del Toro extolls the pleasures of a few small beers, One Battle After Another.

Sean Penn perfects the art of walking with a stick up his ass, One Battle After Another.

Small, but satisfying: Dead of Winter.

Fucking glad I skipped: Tron: I’m an Aries.

Small, but satisfying: Roofman.Completely terrifying non-horror: A House of Dynamite.

Anthony Ramos is the only one in the room to realize what that computer screen really means, A House of Dynamite.

Jared Harris doesn’t make the helicopter, A House of Dynamite.

A matter of mismatched parts: Frankenstein.

Who’s that man in the corner? Why, it’s E.B. White! Blue Moon.

Jonah Lees plays the piano throughout the film—it’s the Great American Songbook! Blue Moon.

The very definition of a tour-de-force: Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon.

A film full of pleasures large and small, Bugonia.The audience learns that Jesse Plemons is right about one thing, Bugonia.

A truly great movie. Just don’t start watching it at 1:00 AM. Nouvelle Vague

Small, but satisfying: Good Fortune.

Keanu Reeves’ reading of the line, “Leave me alone, Jeff. I like it. It’s all I have,” Good Fortune.

Fucking glad I skipped: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t See This Movie.

The movie I will now use to illustrate the concept of being “up its own ass.” Pity, because the Adam Sandler performance is one for the ages: Jay Kelly.

Josh Brolin confesses his sins to Josh O’Connor, Wake Up Dead Man.How delightful to know that there are filmmakers who still know what they are doing. It kind of gives you hope: Wake Up, Dead Man.

“So, if there is a message I have to give, it is that I've found one overriding thing about my personal election [...] you have to give people hope.” --Harvey Milk

 by Patrick Bromley

So much more than just a nepo baby.

Before making her feature directing debut in 1999, Sofia Coppola was famous for two reasons: 1) she is the daughter of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and 2) she deliver a much-maligned performance as Michael Corleone's daughter in her father's 1990 sequel The Godfather Part III. By the end of the decade, however, she had mostly silenced her critics by proving herself an accomplished filmmaker and has gone on to continually demonstrate what a unique and singular voice she is in the modern cinematic landscape -- her movies feel almost always feel like they couldn't have been made by anyone else. Now an Oscar-winning filmmaker in her own right, Coppola has established herself as one of the premiere auteurs of the 2000s. Here are some of her highs and lows.

High: The Virgin Suicides (2000)Sofia Coppola starts her career with one of her best movies, an adaptation of the 1993 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about five sisters in 1970s Michigan who cast a spell (not literally) over the boys in their high school. Haunting and gorgeous and achingly melancholy, The Virgin Suicides examines adolescence through a gauzy haze of misplaced nostalgia -- a memory of how things were rather than what they really were, which makes the tragedy at the end all the more shocking and awful despite being right there in the title. I'm not sure there's a sadder image in Coppola's filmography than that of Kirsten Dunst (in her first collaboration with the director; it would not be her last) waking up along on the football field after spending the night with BMOC Trip Fontaine. The moody score by French electronic group Air and the cinematography by Edward Lachman help to announce Coppola not just as a supremely talented filmmaker and someone who appreciates aesthetic beauty but also as someone with remarkable empathy and sensitivity. 

Low: The Bling Ring (2013)I know there are some who accuse Sofia Coppola's films of prioritizing style of substance, a criticism with which I have never agreed -- except maybe in the case of The Bling Ring, Coppola's weakest and most hollow film. I know, I know: the hollowness is part of the point because this is a movie about vapid and entitled socialites who begin robbing houses simply because they're bored and have never had to face consequences for anything in their lives. I think there's a movie here and I think Coppola could have been the right person to make it given her understanding of aesthetics and privilege. Unfortunately, everything about the Bling Ring is surface and not completely in a way that was intended. For a filmmaker who's usually so willing to investigate the movie's themes of privilege and alienation, this movie seems strangely uncurious about its own subject matter.
High: Somewhere (2010)If Sofia Coppola has a movie that can be considered her most underrated, it's Marie Antoinette. And maybe Priscilla. But also this one, which I suspect a lot of people would put in the "lows" column of her filmography even though it doesn't belong there. One of a few movies she's made about fathers and daughters (or father figures and daughter figures), Somewhere gives Stephen Dorff his best role in 20 years as a successful actor attempting to connect with his daughter (Elle Fanning) during an indefinite stay at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. While the movie could be accused of being Coppola's most insular and navel-gazing -- it's all about Hollywood boredom and being stuck at a specific point in your life both geographically and existentially (it's like Lost in Translation that way) -- it's also deeply personal and affecting.
Low: On the Rocks (2020)Coppola's On the Rocks, which barely feels like it exists as it was made for Apple TV and released during COVID, isn't a bad movie, just one that feels formulaic in a way that none of her other films do. An autobiographic story (it has to be, right?) about a daughter (Rashida Jones) and her sometimes absentee father (Bill Murray) coming together to sus out if Jones' marriage is over, On the Rocks reads and often feels like a generic studio comedy drama. A real StuComDram. The performances are good because of course they are (it's nice to see Marlon Wayans getting a good role in 2020 as the husband Jones suspects of being unfaithful), but they're in service of a formulaic screenplay. I can appreciate Coppola's desire to make something more commercial, but she sacrifices what makes her so singular in the process. She's so much about vibes. On the Rocks has no vibes.
High: The Beguiled (2017)Ok I know I said that Somewhere is Sofia Coppola's most underrated movie but I'm changing my mind because it's this one: her 2017 remake of the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood movie The Beguiled. Reimagining the 1971 film about a macho, toxic man that everyone wants to fuck as a movie told from the point of view of the women in the story, Coppola's update does just what a remake should do: it takes the basic premise of the original film but places it under a different lens, imbuing the same story with different meaning and new authorship. Shot on 35mm film using only natural light by French cinematographer Phillippe Le Sourd (who would go on to shoot Coppola's next two films as well), The Beguiled is one of those "every frame a painting" movies that's almost achingly beautiful in its compositions. Coppola was awarded Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival (becoming only the second woman in the fest's history, because progress) and then the movie was hardly talked about upon release. It more than doubled its budget at the worldwide box office but feels like a forgotten film, which is unfortunate because it's among her best.
Priscilla (2023)I want to make sure that this one is included over more obvious titles like Lost in Translation (hit) or Marie Antoinette (hit) for somewhat selfish reasons: it's really only represented on our site by Rob's review and he really didn't like it, whereas it's one of my favorite movies of 2023. The world is a rainbow! From its opening moments in which a young Priscilla Presley's feet touch the floor to its ending in which she finds the courage and maturity to walk away from Elvis (set to Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You"), this is a movie about what it means to be a woman, not just on a personal level but in terms of societal expectations and projections. I love it not only because it presents a Hollywood biopic as filtered through Coppola's sensibilities, but also because it's a great movie.

 by Rob DiCristino

Dream big!

Returning home to New York after a whirlwind tour as the halftime act for the Harlem Globetrotters, twenty-three-year-old table tennis prodigy Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) hands his mother (Fran Drescher) a gift: It’s a rock, a palm-sized hunk of limestone he’s chipped from one of the great pyramids of Egypt. “We built this,” he says, laying claim to a thousand years of Jewish suffering as easily as he takes a breath. Pig-headed? Self-aggrandizing? Maybe, but that’s who Marty is. “I have a purpose,” he tells his pregnant girlfriend (a revelatory Odessa A’zion), as he walks out on her — he says the baby isn’t his — for a shot at international stardom. “I’m not a shoe salesman,” he tells his uncle Murray (Larry Sloman) when offered — threatened, as far as Marty’s concerned — with a managerial position at his shoe shop. “I am the ultimate product of Hitler’s defeat,” he boasts to a group of befuddled sports reporters in London. Yeah. “He was a son of God,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald about his Jay Gatsby. “And he must be about his father’s business.”That business, unlikely as it may seem, is table tennis. It’s Asia’s fastest-growing sport — according to Marty, at least — and an ideal opportunity for any American investor who shares the eager young hustler’s dream of, well, seeing himself on the front of a Wheaties box. But is it a safe bet? Can the kid really win? Don’t ask Marty. He’s never stopped selling himself long enough even to consider the possibility of defeat, the possibility that reigning champs like Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig) or up-and-comers like Japan’s Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) could ever compete with his raw, God-given skill. His victory is merely a matter of vision, you see, of convincing friends like Wally (Tyler Okonma) and industry magnates like Milton Rockwell (Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary; Yes, seriously) to open their eyes and see the future. That future is now. It’s 1952, for Christ’s sake. The war is over. The Great American Century is just beginning. A generational figure like Marty was not born to toil in a shop, making rent and feeding a pack of children. He was meant, you see, for greatness.

And for the better part of Josh Safdie’s brilliant, blistering Marty Supreme, Marty walks — strides, rather — with that confidence of purpose, that unassailable picture of himself as history’s exceptional individual. It’s the kind of confidence that earns him a chance to compete for the British World Championship, a chance to play mascot for Rockwell’s foray into an unlocked Japanese marketplace, and a chance to bed the inkpen mogul’s fading movie star wife (Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone, another in a long list of shrewd stunt casting choices). That confidence also earns him $1,500 in hotel debt, a ban from official competition, and an unthinkable elimination by the mild-mannered Endo. No matter. There’s no stopping destiny, and no pregnant girls or conniving mobsters (Abel Ferrara as Ezra) looking for their stolen dogs — it makes sense in context — will stop Marty’s becoming. Naysayers like you and me? We don’t rate, as far as Marty’s concerned. We’re collateral damage. Means to an end. And one day, we’ll pay the price for our lack of vision.Fueled by a Timothée Chalamet performance that makes Uncut Gems’ Howard Ratner feel like the kind of well-adjusted everyman that its title character would happily crush underfoot, Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is nothing short of a new American masterpiece, an exhilarating — and, as with the Safdies’ Gems and Good Time before it, often excruciating — interrogation of our national psyche, a lens aimed squarely at the intoxicating mix of bull-headed arrogance and religious fervor that had the U.S. convinced it was the envy of the world. Written by Safdie and longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein, it’s also a story about what happens to boys when manhood comes calling, about that fateful day when we’re forced to accept that we’re never going to play Major League Baseball. Never going to invent that million-dollar gadget. Never going to marry that pinup goddess. How, then, do we make our own meaning? How, then, do we find our own bliss? “It’s every man for himself where I come from,” Marty tells someone. How, then, do we know when we get there?

Flittering relentlessly through a series of ever-more-convoluted schemes and swindles — while an inspired selection of ‘80s pop hits and Daniel Lopatin’s synth score flitter relentlessly behind him — Chalamet’s self-styled hero also embodies a crisis of Jewish identity, a particularly insidious brand of post-World War II bigotry that holds the victims of humanity’s most unspeakable evil responsible for the cost of its eradication. O’Leary’s WASPy Rockwell, for example, chides Auschwitz survivor Klezeki for carrying on living after his son gave his life in the Pacific, while Marty’s fleeting dalliance with his shiksa wife points to another social ceiling he’ll never rise above. And then there’s Endo, the symbol of a re-emergent Japan eager to forgive and forget the horrors of war while an entire diaspora of mankind tries to recover its collective dignity. Safdie and Bronstein work with a light enough touch to keep their subtext, well, subtext, but there’s no denying that Marty’s embarrassment on the world stage — especially by Japan — carries a broader meaning.And while Marty Mouser may share DNA with plenty of other Safdie scamps, it’s Timothée Chalamet’s career-defining performance that truly brings him to gangly, chattering, insufferable life. Chalamet feels looser and more agile than he ever has before, giving Marty an unrepentant guile that Paul Atreides would consider unbecoming. And while Safdie and Bronstein have considerably more sympathy for Marty than for, say, Howard Ratner — it’s easier to blame Ratner’s behavior on addiction, whereas Marty is simply a mirror held up to the striver inside us all — each of Marty’s little failures seems laced with a lively undercurrent of Schadenfreude. Even the film’s competition scenes feel like they’re filmed in air quotes, as if we’re indulging Marty’s sports hero aspirations only insofar as they’ll contribute to his self-destruction. Still, Safdie knows that cynicism is the easy way out, and Marty’s eventual acceptance of his real destiny — hint: it’s not the cover of a Wheaties box — overflows with all the joy and purpose he could never quite find at the ping pong table.None of this focus on Timothée Chalamet should draw from Marty Supreme’s other virtues, chief of which is a galaxy of supporting faces that includes everyone from Penn Gillette to Sandra Bernhard, each of whom shows up for half a scene — seriously, it’s like Oppenheimer in ‘50s New York — without ever slowing down the film’s breakneck momentum. Darius Khondji’s cinematography is impeccable. Jack Fisk’s production design is lush. Safdie and Bronstein’s editing is note-perfect. In other words, while Marty may see fit to cast himself as the underdog, everything in his world has been precisely engineered to support his journey. Everything has been arranged for his benefit. In the end, the real question isn’t whether or not Marty will become an international sporting celebrity, but whether or not Marty will find a level of humility that allows him to appreciate what he already has, whether or not he’ll get out of his own way long enough to count his blessings and learn his place. That greatness he’s been looking for? It’s been right in front of him this entire time.

Marty Supreme hits U.S. theaters on Christmas Day.

 by Adam Thas

Going it alone for a new streaming Christmas movie.

This started out with a discussion with my wife and myself as to whether or not we were going to review Oh. What. Fun. for "Adam and Alison Watch Christmas Movies." We decided against it, which then led to a conversation about when a movie is too big or has too big a budget to considered in the genre of “Hallmark Holiday Rom-Com.” We haven’t quite figured out where the line is going to be drawn, but for me it’s when I’ve heard of the director before. In this case, Michael Showalter was too big a name (which says a lot about the holiday rom-com genre) for the column.

Oh. What. Fun. starts out telling you exactly what it wants to be. The opening scene is a voice-over from Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays Claire, going through all the famous holiday movies pointing out how they all follow men and there are not any movies from the women’s point of view. To be fair, she’s right. Think of a holiday movie off the top of your head. Chances are that movie either follows kids or men, with most examples of women being side characters who can usually best be described a “tolerant.”After reading the synopsis and seeing the trailer, it would stand to reason that Oh. What. Fun. is going to be a mix between multiple holiday movies but told from a woman’s point of view. For the much of the first act, that is what it sets up. After the opening narration, the movie begins proper with Claire’s house in the Texas suburbs, where she is obsessed with Christmas decoration and a neighbor she can’t stand (National Lampoons: Christmas Vacation). Slowly we are introduced to her husband, Nick (Denis Leary); her daughter, Taylor (Chloe Grace Moretz); her son, Sammy (Dominic Sessa); her eldest daughter, Channing (Felicity Jones), and Channing’s husband Doug (Jason Schwartzman). Claire only wants two things for Christmas:  to make a magical holiday for her family and to be nominated by her family as a “Holiday Mom” on the fictional Zazzy Tims Show. After a series of mix-ups, Claire’s family leaves for a holiday concert and leaves Claire at home (Home Alone). This causes Claire to snap and, since none of her family nominated her, she decides to drive cross country to Burbank and attend the Zazzy Tims Show (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles).

The set-up is there, it's executed perfectly, and the table for a great holiday movie is set. The possibilities are endless with all the points that could be explored as Claire travels across the country. Would she meet her John Candy and go on some zany adventure? Would she booby trap a house and fight off robbers? Maybe she will run into an elf and needs to fix Santa’s sleigh? We get none of that. They do try: Claire needs to share a room with an annoying sleeper and buys a used car, but besides that Claire becomes the very thing the movie claims to be a against -- a side character in a holiday movie. There are no zany adventures, there are no roadblocks put up for our character to navigate through. She just drives to California as the camera spends time with her family.Oh. What. Fun. suffers from what so many ensemble movies suffer from: they’re trying to tell so many different stories that rather than getting one good story you end up getting a handful of half-assed ones. Oh. What. Fun. is clearly trying to channel several Christmas movies, including Christmas Vacation, another holiday classic with a large ensemble cast. The reason Christmas Vacation works is because everyone besides Clark Griswald is a one-note character. No one has an arc besides Clark. The weird part is that Showalter knows this; after all, he wrote one of the funniest and greatest ensemble movies of all time in Wet Hot American Summer. The frustration with Oh. What. Fun. is that there's a movie hiding in there somewhere. There is a good moment with Claire and her husband Nick where they talk about becoming complacent in marriage. There is a side story with Channing and Claire about not feeling supported that just sputters out and feels unearned. Had the movie included more comedy beats and concentrated on what it wanted to be -- a movie told from the women’s point of view -- that might have worked.

There is another thing going on in Oh. What. Fun. that's a bit more difficult to talk about. After Claire decides to leave for California, the movie decides to stay on the family storyline so intensely that it feels like it’s channeling another Christmas movie in It’s a Wonderful Life, where we watch what life is like for the family without Claire. It goes poorly and her family melts down without her to the extent that her husband Nick needs to lie down and profess how he doesn’t know what to do without Claire. To compare Oh. What. Fun. and It’s a Wonderful Life may seem fair in this regard, but when you juxtapose the two movies, both come at the idea of showing what the lives of others would be like without the main character from two separate directions. In It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey reaches his low point and wants the life of his family to be better without him. He and the audience are shown he’s wrong. When Claire reaches her low point, she no longer cares what happens with her family and concludes that her family would fall apart without her, an assertion the audience (and eventually Claire herself) are shown to be correct. Claire then finds herself smoking weed with a group of women as they complain about how terrible their families. She then publicly reaffirms how horribly she’d been treated by her family a second time.There are women in the world that feel  unappreciated by their families for any number of reasons. This movie, and particularly Claire, are meant to speak to them. But outside of this demographic, Claire becomes very unlikable. To put it another way, Claire feels unappreciated by her family that has come from all over the country to be with her for the holidays. She leaves her million-dollar house and family in her Audi to get the present no one got her for Christmas. In the end, Claire is vindicated after she finds out how terrible her family’s life was without her.

On a positive note, when discussing the movie with each other, it did turn into a very informative and enlightening discussion with my wife about the culture surrounding the movie. For a director like Showalter, though, who has made hilarious and compassionate movies in the past, he creates a movie with very little laughs and some incredibly unlikable characters. While the movie was supposed to be a pro-mom, pro-woman, mold-breaking venture into holiday movies, it misses the mark in about everything it sets out to do.
Oh. What. Fun. is streaming now.

It's another epic holiday celebration with Patrick and Adam Riske.



Download this episode here.
Subscribe to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Most Wanted (1997), Dangerous Ground (1997), Full Eclipse (1993), The Threesome (2025), Red Corner (1997), King Kong (2005), A Merry Little Ex Mas (2025), Oh. What. Fun. (2025), Tron: Ares (2025), Song Sung Blue (2025), Red Sonja (2025), Relentless (1989)

 by Adam Thas & Alison Thas

That one named after a Taylor Swift song. No not that one the other one. The one in Paris.

Alison: If you go into Netflix’s Champagne Problems thinking you’ll find references to Taylor Swift, think again. While the lyrics from Swift’s song "Champagne Problems" could lend themselves to a plot in a movie, the Netflix film is about just that: problems encountered while trying to acquire a winery that produces champagne. Sydney Price (played by Minka Kelly) is tasked with landing a deal with a champagne producer in the French countryside. Plot twist: Sydney is going to fly to Paris so that she can give her pitch to the owner in person. Standing in her way is the son of the owner, Henri (Tom Wozniczka). It goes without saying that these two don’t stay enemies for long.Putting the predictable plot aside for the moment, I found Champagne Problems to be particularly charming. I believe a lot of that charm is owed to the movie being filmed in both Paris and the Champagne region of France. The film allows us a brief escape from our everyday lives to one that is filled with chateaus, champagne, and fromage. I would argue that if this movie were to be filmed anywhere but France, it would have fallen flat.

Another bolster for this movie is the cast of supporting characters. Sydney has to have a little competition and that comes in the form of a few other potential investors. Roberto (Sean Amsing) and Otto (Flula Borg) steal every scene they’re in and do the heavy lifting of keeping the movie light, bubbly, and appealing. As previously mentioned, the arc that our female and male leads go on is a tale as old as time. The supporting cast, however, sets the film apart from others and made the film that much more endearing for me. Champagne Problems is the first film in awhile that I will rewatch because of the holiday magic it was able to capture.

Adam: Add this to the list of holiday rom-coms that was clearly written starting with title. I mean, I get it? Knowing the audience for these types movies, it makes sense to start with the title of a Taylor Swift song and work backwards from there. You can usually tell the holiday rom-coms that were created with the title first because they always start out strong: beautiful career woman has to complete a task, meets a handsome guy, then circumstances pit them against each other. We’ve seen this before, but what got me excited for this one to start was seeing Minka Kelly, someone we aren’t used to seeing in these movies (yet). The movie was actually shot in the city in which it takes place! Again, a rarity for the genre, plus bonus points for it being Paris. They put some funny people in the comic relief roles, something that worked out well in Hot Frosty. The most surprising to me, though, was that they have French people speak French to each other. This may seem an obvious choice, but so many of these movies would just have the French people speak English to each other because how else are you going to scroll on your phone and follow what’s happening?Unfortunately, Champagne Problems isn’t doing anything unique, and that’s the main issue. For the first 45 minutes, I really enjoyed this one and then it just kind of sputters out. At one point, the owner of the winery brings everyone to his Chateau, claiming he wants to get to know them before selling him his winery. Ok, a believable request, but then he then proceeds to have them do menial tasks and decorate a tree. Again, believable, but it is very clear that these tasks had no bearing on the outcome of the movie.

When something happens in a movie, it should either inform us about the character or advance the plot, So much in this movie does neither. At one point early in the movie, Henri explains that years ago he once hid the book Le Petit Prince somewhere in the Chateau so his “monster” of a father wouldn’t take it from him. My beautiful wife quickly said, “She’s going to find the book.” Alison was right. Later Sydney finds the book behind some bottles of wine and gives it to Henri. Now for those of you who may be upset that I just “spoiled” the movie: that’s my point. Sydney just gives Henri the book. That’s it. That entire plotline was, “I lost my book. Here, I found your book.” It has no impact on the plot whatsoever. That’s just a small piece of what is repeated over and over in this movie.Champagne Problems started off great and built up enough good will throughout the first half that I was able to ignore some of the problems that appeared later. The scenery was great, there were a few laughs, but this one was solidly in the middle of the pack as even the “One Year Later” scene we seem to always get couldn’t clean up the relationships that went unearned. You could do worse than this one, but you could also do better.

Adam’s List:1) Holidate (2020, Netflix)2) Love Hard (2021, Netflix)3) Your Christmas or Mine (2022, Amazon)4) Hot Frosty (2024, Netflix)5) Holiday Calendar (2018, Netflix)6) Snowed Inn (2017, Hallmark)7) Christmas in the Spotlight (2024, Lifetime)8) The Princess Switch (2018, Netflix)9) Falling for Christmas (2022, Netflix)10) The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix)11)  EXmas (2023, Amazon/Freevee)12) Midnight at the Magnolia (2020, Netflix)13) Deck the Walls (2025, Hallmark)14) The Christmas Train (2017, Hallmark)15) Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (2024, Hallmark)16) Joy to the World (2025, Hulu)17) Holiday in the Vineyard (2023, Netflix)18) Meet Me Next Christmas (2024, Netflix)19) Champagne Problems (2025, Netflix)20) Christmas Under Wraps (2014, Hallmark)21) Reporting for Christmas (2023, Hulu)22) The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again (2020, Netflix)23) A Christmas Vintage (2023, Amazon)24) Merry Gentlemen (2024, Netflix)  25) The Noel Diary (2022, Netflix)26) The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021, Netflix)27) One Royal Holiday (2020, Hallmark)28) Christmas on the Farm (2022, Hulu)29) Holiday in the Wild (2019, Netflix)30) Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe (2018, Hallmark)31)  A Perfect Christmas Pairing (2023, Amazon)32) Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022, Hallmark)33) Christmas on the Ranch (2024, Hulu)34) Best. Christmas. Ever. (2023, Netflix)
Alison’s List:1) The Princess Switch (2018, Netflix)2) Your Christmas or Mine (2022, Amazon)3) Love Hard (2021, Netflix)4) Holiday Calendar (2018, Netflix)5) Falling for Christmas (2022, Netflix)6) Holidate (2020, Netflix)7) The Christmas Train (2017, Hallmark)8) The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix)9) Deck the Walls (2024, Hallmark)10) Champagne Problems (2025, Netflix)11) Holiday in the Vineyards (2023, Netflix)12) Meet Me Next Christmas (2024, Netflix)13) Midnight at the Magnolia (2020, Netflix)14) Hot Frosty (2024, Netflix)15) Christmas Under Wraps (2014, Hallmark)16) Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe (2018, Hallmark)17) The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again (2020, Netflix)18) EXmas (2023, Amazon/Freevee)19) Snowed Inn (2017, Hallmark)20) Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story (2024, Hallmark)21) Reporting for Christmas (2023, Hulu)22) The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021, Netflix)23) One Royal Holiday (2020, Hallmark)24) The Noel Diary (2022, Netflix)25) Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022, Hallmark)26) A Christmas Vintage (2023, Amazon)27) A Perfect Christmas Pairing (2023, Amazon)28) Christmas in the Spotlight (2024, Lifetime)29) Joy to the World (2024, Hulu)30) Christmas on the Farm (2022, Hulu)31) Holiday in the Wild (2019, Netflix)32) Merry Gentlemen (2024, Netflix)33) Best. Christmas. Ever. (2023, Netflix)34) Christmas on the Ranch (2024, Hulu)

  by JB

Reading about this godforsaken thing on the Wikipedia machine, one would think that it is a beloved holiday classic. I recently watched it and proclaimed it “the worst holiday special and the worst re-telling of Dickens ever made.”

Impressionist Rich Little was all over television during my misspent youth. From The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to Dean Martin’s Celebrity Roasts to a network show he hosted called The Kopycats, it seems that back then you couldn’t turn on the goddamn TV without seeing Little. He started his career in Canada as a disc jockey and nightclub performer, developed a talent for mimicry, and recorded two popular albums, one of which was Scrooge and the Stars, a version of A Christmas Carol with Little playing all the characters, re-imagined as stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age.The album was withdrawn two weeks after its release because American President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and Little had Kennedy playing the Ghost of Christmas Present on the album. At one point Little has Kennedy say, “"Scrooge, my life upon the globe is brief; it ends tonight. In fact, it ends as fast as you can say your name.” Continuing to sell the album was seen as being in bad taste.Imagine my surprise the other night when, binging all the holiday delights on the YouTube machine, I came across a holiday special made for the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 1978. It was shown on HBO in 1979. It won awards. It’s Rich Little’s Christmas Carol, a warmed-over remake of the Scrooge and the Stars album Little had made 16 years earlier. It is one of the most joyless and soul-crushing holiday specials I have ever seen.CAVEAT: I do think it’s cool that classic Hollywood had a kind of resurgence in the Seventies. Impressionists were popular, and classic films got a new life on television and in reparatory theaters. Hell, even the doomed kids in the original Friday the 13th attempt impressions of Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, and Katherine Hepburn.

Why? I have never been able to figure that one out. My point is that Little could exploit his audience’s nostalgia for these old-time movie stars BECAUSE PEOPLE STILL REMEMBERED WHO THEY WERE.

I would love to try an experiment. I will gather a group of young people 13 to 30 years old, force them to watch the Rich Little Holiday Special, and ask them all if they know any of the celebrities that Little is mimicking. I think I already know the answer.The holiday special fails on almost all levels: 1) It is not funny. It was written by Rich Little, but contains no jokes; 2) It has a sluggish pace that kills the comedy; 3) Except for a few scattered vocal reactions from extras, Rich Little is the only actor in the show who speaks. He also narrates; 3) Someone had the bright idea to make this a musical, but the musical numbers and generic and simplistic. They sound like songs written to herald a new grocery store opening. Also, Rich Little cannot sing. This problem is compounded by having Rich Little imitate famous actors who also could not sing, then he has them sing. Say what you will about W.C. Fields, Groucho Marx, and Jimmy Stewart; they were not known for their singing. The musical numbers are a slog; 4) The Dickens’ characters seem to have been assigned to classic Hollywood stars with no rhyme or reason. Little plays Scrooge as W.C. Fields. Scrooge’s old partner Jacob Marley is Richard Nixon. Scrooge’s nephew Fred is Johnny Carson. Scrooge’s old boss Fezziwig is Groucho Marx. Scrooge’s clerk Bob Cratchit is Paul Lynde. Bob Cratchit’s wife is Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker. Tiny Tim is Truman Capote. The Ghost of Christmas Past is Humphrey Bogart. The Ghost of Christmas Present is Peter Falk as Columbo. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. The two businessmen who implore Scrooge to make a charitable contribution are Laurel & Hardy. John Wayne, George Burns, and James Mason show up as the men on the street commenting on Scrooge’s death. None of this makes any sense. None of the “casting” exists to make any sort of comedic point; it’s just characters that Rich Little is known to imitate.CAVEAT: I did think Richard Nixon’s Marley, covered with audio tapes instead of chains, was kind of funny. Nixon once stole a piece of America’s soul that we have yet to get back.

Believe it or not, this confused mess was so popular, it won an International Emmy Award and was followed by another HBO special in 1983, Rich Little's Robin Hood, which featured Little imitating Groucho Marx as Robin Hood, Humphrey Bogart as Prince John, John Wayne as Little John, Laurel & Hardy as the Sheriffs of Nottingham, and George Burns as Alan-a-Dale. What, no place for Edith Bunker or Truman Capote?

This is an hour of my life that I will never get back. Rich Little is still alive and owes me. Don’t believe it? Watch it for yourself!

by Adam RiskeWhat award did your favorite movies get this year?

A Diorama Up Someone’s Ass: The Phoenician Scheme

A Dog Can’t Do All Your Homework: Good Boy

Also Recognizes The Peacemaker (1997) Rules: Jay Kelly

Always Listen to Patrick and Mike Recommendations: Nouvelle Vague

Attaboy Elric: The Dead Thing

Best 2025 Burns: The Family McMullen

Best Centerpiece Sequence: Highest 2 Lowest

Better Than I Expected: 28 Years Later

Biggest Disappointment: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Could’ve Been an Email: Megadoc

Did I Hallucinate This? Stealing Pulp Fiction

Did You Mean to Make Him Look Like an Asshole? It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley

Dumbest Shit Ever: I Know What You Did Last Summer

Enough Already: Superman

Feels Like a Movie from 1993: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

Feels Like a Movie from 1996: One of Them Days

Feels Like a Movie from 2007: Fight or Flight

Good 2025 Burns: Millers in Marriage

Good Drama, Bad Comedy: Materialists

Good One Scene/Bad Another: Together

“Heartbreak Feels Good in a Place Like This”: The Life of Chuck

Hidden Gem: Eephus

Homeboy Looks Just Like Cruise Lestat: Frankenstein

I Didn’t Mind It: Caught Stealing

I Dunno…He Probably Had Good Times Too? John Candy: I Like Me

I Dunno…Recommended? Karate Kid: Legends

I Give It Tree and a Half Branches: Train Dreams

I’m the Only Person Who Saw: Not Just a Goof

It’s Fine/She’s FINE: Oh, Hi!

It’s Kinda Just There: Freakier Friday

Like a Saturday Morning Cartoon Show: Predator: Badlands

Like Eating at Applebee’s When You Wanted to Eat at Chili’s: Paddington in Peru

Most Canadian (complimentary): The Shrouds

Most Clamoring for an MTV Movie Awards Nomination for Best Villain: Sinners

Most Cognizant of People Getting Meals In: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

Most Dollar Tree: The Fetus

Most Geico Slasher Movie Commercial: Clown in a Cornfield

Most Intermittently Funny: Friendship

Most Obnoxious: The Monkey

Most Old Country Buffet: The Alto Knights

Most Patting on its Own Back: Heart Eyes

Most Pennywise: Weapons

Most Pleasant: Sacramento

Most Product Placement: Oh. What. Fun.

Most Surprisingly Violent: Novocaine 

Most Sweet: Nonnas

Most Tedious: Mickey 17

Most Tense: One Battle After Another

Most Undercooked: Shelby Oaks

Most Underrated: The Surfer

Most Unnecessary: Lilo & Stitch

Most Walmart $5 Bin: Final Destination Bloodlines

Most Wealth Flaunting: Being Eddie

Movie I Can’t Believe I Saw in Theaters: Witchboard

Movie I Like Less Than Everyone Else: Black Bag

Movie I Like More Than Everyone Else: Honey Don’t!

Pleasant Surprise: Dangerous Animals

Pretty Good: Ballerina 

Saves Me a Trip to the Academy Museum: Jaws at 50: The Definitive Inside Story

Seems Irresponsibly Expensive: F1

So Bad It Should Be Against the Law: High Rollers

So Poorly Made It’s Uncomfortable: Happy Gilmore 2

The Ideal January Movie: Companion

“The Wood-man’s Done It Again”: Bugonia

Ugh: Thunderbolts*

We Misunderstood Why People Like This: Den of Thieves 2: Pantera

What Are Movies? A Merry Little Ex-Mas

Will Play Like Gangbusters at Fraternities: The Long Walk

Worst Movie: Love Hurts

Worst Product Placement for Orange Juice: Presence

Worst Third Act: The Running Man

Worst Twist: Relay

WTF: The Threesome

Yikes: Bad Shabbos

“YOU BLEW IT” (Robert De Niro voice): The Naked Gun

You Can Stop Any Time Now: Jurassic World Rebirth