2025 Critics’ Choice Award Winners
2025 Critics’ Choice Winners
Eraserhead (1977)
In the 1970s, the midnight movie scene primarily catered to bored stoners who wanted to watch exploitative, low-budget films with a lot of sex and carnage while staying up late in a weakened state of mind. Since I was one of them in the past, I should know. However, this scene at the time would […]
BAFTA Winners Announced
Conclave wins Best Film at 2025 BAFTAs. Full List of winners here:
Gladiator 2 (2024) Review
I can’t accurately rank what my favourite movie is – I have a couple that move up and down on that list with my mood and current interests – but I know that the first Gladiator movie has never fallen out of the top four. It’s such a carefull made film that, even with a […]
A Real Pain “Review”
A Real Pain, directed by Jesse Eisenberg, tells the poignant story of Jewish cousins David and Benji touring Poland to honor their grandmother. The film’s beautiful piano soundtrack enhances their emotional journey, revealing old tensions and family history. Despite minor shortcomings, it offers engaging performances and is worth watching, earning a rating of 6.5/10.
Small Things Like These Review
From director Tim Mielants and based on the book written by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These is an adaptation with heart about a situation involving layers of uncertainty. The story is woven in a way that is thought-provoking. It weighs the choices a man must make when faced with secrets. The film is set in areas around County Wexford and County Wicklow in Ireland. The season of the film gives off a chilly feeling and thecinematography feels cold as […]
Maria Review
A direction by Pablo Larrain with emphasis. A performance by Angelina Jolie that is stunning and emotional. Maria is a spellbinding film about the talent of an artist with a screenplay that displays honor and courage, Maria takes the appreciation of art and opera to a level that is truly committed. It is more of a reflection piece where […]
REVIEW: “The Order” (2024)
Out of the many features premiering this Fall movie season, few have peaked my curiosity quite like Justin Kurzel’s “The Order”. Based on the 1989 non-fiction book “The Silent Brotherhood” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, Kurzel’s period crime thriller sets out to tackle some potent subject matter. And with Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, and […]
Film Review: Emilia Pérez
A Mexican cartel leader undergoes gender-affirming surgery in Jacques Audiard’s really bad musical Emilia Pérez.
Lanthimos: Kinds of Kindness (2024)
The working title of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindnesses was And. In some ways, that was a more apposite title, since this anthology comedy is obsessed with one of the uncanniest spectacles in a hyper-connected world: the physical spaces and silences between things. The structure of the film itself reflects that interest in connective tissue […]
“The Piano Lesson” Film Review: The Ghosts of our Past
The Piano Lesson (2024) is an American drama film from director Malcolm Washington, producer Denzel Washington (his father) and starring John David Washington (his brother). It tells the story of the Charles family in 1930’s Pittsburgh, as they debate whether to sell a piano that has become a family heirloom. The film debuted at the Telluride […]
Anora
Anora makes it clear why no woman — no man — should marry the son of a Russian oligarch. In Sean Baker’s comedy the title character, played by Mikey Madison, meets Vanya Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn) at a Manhattan club where she’s a sex worker and after a dizzy weekend he plays Richard Gere to her […]
Conclave “Review”
The film “Conclave,” directed by Edward Berger and set for release on October 25, 2024, presents a mysterious narrative centered around the selection of a new pope. While it features strong performances and intriguing moments, its slow pacing and lack of a satisfying conclusion left the reviewer feeling disappointed, rating it a 6/10.
Breaking All The Rules (1985) — What did you do on the last day of summer vacation?
” I’m sixteen. It’s time I experienced life; did things. I’m a young woman in full control of her physical being.” Justin’s rating: I just want to run my hands through those spikes. Just once. Then, I will have lived. Justin’s review: Quite often when I’m perusing my massive “to review” list or flipping through […]
50 Films to Watch for the 2026 Oscars
NICKEL BOYS
By Marc S. Sanders Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys, is now an Oscar nominated film for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is based on a true story that needed the exposure of a film. However, a better adaptation than what director RaMell Moss did with it should have been completed. The […]
Mothers’ Instinct Review
The title of this film comes to mind as concerning in that it implies a parent senses wrongful or disconcerting matters. Thestoryline vibes with housewives’ scenarios going awry discreetly. Mothers’ Instinct tackles the subject matter on an eerie path. It follows the personalities of two friends who are neighbors. In the wake of a devastating event, a series of detrimental consequences are unleashed. Directed by Benoit Delhomme, Mothers’ Instinct is written with an underlying layer […]
Film Preview: Harbin (2024)
Follows Korean independence activists who launched a daring attack in Harbin against the Japanese to gain their country’s independence. […]
Liar Liar
“It’s going to get weirder and weirder and weirder, and finally it’s going to get so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is.” -Terrence McKenna
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023)
“Pham sinks his teeth in his debut feature with a politic but formulaic blueprint, his own distinct originality has yet to materialize. So whether he could be hailed as a new auteur to be reckoned with, the jury is temporarily out until his next offering, which has its own shell to break.”
Engage Intellect (Let Go)
I’m cold, but rowing with this icy current. Embracing The “Wu wei” principle of Taoism.
WHIPLASH
It’s impossible to find absolute perfection. I don’t care if it’s in the field of medicine, law, mathematics, art or even music. No one is THE ONE. Yet, if you are determined to partake in that hunt, it’s likely you’ll scream with frustration. You might think you’re on to something but still it’s not quite […]
The Room Next Door (2024)
Almodovar’s first English-language feature doesn’t quite strike gold, but Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore give riveting performances as two friends who haven’t seen each other for a long time, exploring themes of mortality and morality.
Universal Language (2024)
Rankin’s sophomore feature feels like Kaurismaki meets Kiarostami as his surreal, and at times perplexing tale brings us through a hybrid Canadian-Iranian space marked by quaint shophouses and bustling highways.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024)
A brilliant idea to set a ‘warring gangs’ action film in the iconic if long-demolished Kowloon Walled City, but this comic book adaptation feels numbingly empty with its stylistic excesses a tonal mismatch with the more sobering space of marginality and exploitation.
Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)
Natural prehistory comes to life in a series of special effects ‘attractions’ as Zeman’s charming adventure sees four boys enter a cave that transports them back to millions of years ago.
1969
1969 is summoned in a pat and predictable yet sincere, excellently acted, frequently moving 1988 drama about two families caught up in and forever changed by events in that wild final year of an extraordinary decade. Ernest Thompson had scored a big win some years earlier writing On Golden Pond; this time out he directed […]
The Happy Ending
THE HAPPY ENDING, one of those misery-doesn’t-really love-company dramas that usually revolve around married women approaching or arrived at middle age. Written, produced & directed by Richard Brooks in 1969, it gave his wife, actress Jean Simmons, 40, a strong finish to the decade. After the 1960 glories of Elmer Gantry (Brooks directing) and Spartacus, apart […]
‘Babygirl’ TIFF Review: A Delightfully Kinky Ride for the Sickos
Halina Reijn challenges simplistic morality and puritanical standards about human interaction through this delightfully risqué erotic drama.