May 6, 2026 “Brown Sugar” (*1/2 out of four) was a sour urban melodrama about a young woman (Shamia Lassiter) desperate for money who turns to the streets and to prostitution and gets involved with a kingpin drug dealer (Leon Griffin) and has to use all her survival skills to stay alive. Sleazy story filled with unlikeable characters and you really don’t care about who’s doing what to whom and who comes out on top. Allegedly inspired by the D’Angelo song of the same name but other D’Angelo song titles “Ain’t That Easy” and “1000 Deaths” are more apt descriptions of the proceedings. Continue reading →
May 6, 2026 “Hijacked” (** out of four) was a derivative suspense potboiler about a father (Tremayne Norris) who realizes his daughter (Chrissy Stokes) and friends (Lateria Hope and Jessica Jarrell) have been abducted by a deranged rideshare driver (Ken Lawson) and he frantically attempts to track all of them down and save their lives. Made entirely of spare parts from other movies (“The Call”, “Kidnap”, to name a few) but overall proficiently done and watchable. Stokes also wrote and directed. Continue reading →
May 6, 2026 “Project Hail Mary” (** out of four) was an interminable sci/fi melodrama about a science teacher (Ryan Gosling) who wakes up alone on a spaceship in outer space with no memories of how he got there; while trying to piece together memories from his past, he then discovers a plot to affect Earth’s future. Some scattered effective moments and Gosling’s usual likeable performance are swallowed up by film’s meandering nature and overlength at nearly three hours. Yet another space opera that cannot escape the classic shadow of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Continue reading →
May 6, 2026 “Brothers Under Fire” (*1/2 out of four) was a colorless action melodrama about a world-weary military captain (Kiefer Sutherland) whose squadron (Ashton Sanders, Fredy Yate, and others) are on leave for a wedding in Mexico but soon find themselves under siege from a bloodthirsty Mexican cartel (Omar Chaparro, Solly McLeod, and others) and have to fight to the death to survive. You can only imagine what Sam Peckinpah or Walter Hill would have done with material like this but Justin Chadwick instead turns this into a plodding bore. Sutherland walks through a token paycheck role. Continue reading →
May 6, 2026 “Apex” (**1/2 out of four) was a visually spectacular but dramatically empty action melodrama about a trained mountain climber (Charlize Theron) reeling from a recent tragedy and retreats to the Australian wilderness; she is then hired by a local (Taron Egerton) to help with a climb but soon finds that he is a cunning psychopath who is out to kill her. Beautifully filmed by Lawrence Sher on stunning locations in Greenland and Australia but after a while there’s a fundamental hollowness to the script and story that film never fills. Moderately entertaining while it lasts but stops short of being really satisfying. Continue reading →
May 2, 2026 “The Whistler” (*1/2 out of four) was a boring horror thriller about a young couple (Diane Guerrero and Juan Pablo Raba) who come into possession of a Venezeluan farm which they initially regard as great fortune but soon realize that (yawn) it has otherworldly and sinister and subversive forces that they have to combat in order to hope to stay alive. Takes forever to get going and even when it does- film is hopelessly Kubrickian derivative of “The Shining” and “A Clockwork Orange”. Camilo Monsalve’s colorful cinematography is one of film’s few virtues. Continue reading →
May 2, 2026 “Undertone” (* out of four) was an underwhelming horror psychodrama about a paranormal radio talk-show host (Nina Kiri) who becomes haunted and terrorized by recordings sent her way (voiced by Adam DiMarco) that question her state of reality and state of mind. Seemingly endless movie with twists-and-turns you simply don’t care about because you don’t care about the characters or their plights and film becomes numbing and monotonous. Film runs about an hour-and-a-half but believe me feels far longer. Continue reading →
May 2, 2026 “Brothers Under Fire” (*1/2 out of four) was a colorless action melodrama about a world-weary military captain (Kiefer Sutherland) whose squadron (Ashton Sanders, Fredy Yate, and others) are on leave for a wedding in Mexico but soon find themselves under siege from a bloodthirsty Mexican cartel (Omar Chaparro, Solly McLeod, and others) and have to fight to the death to survive. You can only imagine what Sam Peckinpah or Walter Hill would have done with material like this but Justin Chadwick instead turns this into a plodding bore. Sutherland walks through a token paycheck role. Continue reading →
May 2, 2026 “Apex” (**1/2 out of four) was a visually spectacular but dramatically empty action melodrama about a trained mountain climber (Charlize Theron) reeling from a recent tragedy and retreats to the Australian wilderness; she is then hired by a local (Taron Egerton) to help with a climb but soon finds that he is a cunning psychopath who is out to kill her. Beautifully filmed by Lawrence Sher on stunning locations in Greenland and Australia but after a while there’s a fundamental hollowness to the script and story that film never fills. Moderately entertaining while it lasts but stops short of being really satisfying. Continue reading →
April 22, 2026 “The Crucifix: Blood Of The Exorcist” (* out of four) was a yawn-inducing rundown of exorcism and horror-movie cliches about a young couple (Hannah Bang Bendz and Alex Walton) who make a gruesome discovery in the grounds of their new home which plunges them into a whirlwind of spiritual battles, demonic possession, Paegan and Viking rituals, etc. etc. Yet another amalgam of “The Amityville Horror” and “The Exorcist” with other synthetic plotting stirred in a blender but the result is a real snooze. It’s movies like these that might make you become agnostic. Continue reading →
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