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F This Movie! — TV & Film
F This Movie!

Movie love for movie lovers.

Latest Episodes:

Weekend Open Thread Feb 22, 2025

FTM 1998 Month Rewind: VELVET GOLDMINE Feb 21, 2025
Patrick and Rosalie Lewis put on their best glam outfits to talk Todd Haynes' 1998 rock epic.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Pusher (1996), The Fallen Idol (1948), Safe (1995), Suzhou River (2000), May December (2023), Eileen (2023), Dream Scenario (2023), Saltburn (2023)

Review: MILLERS IN MARRIAGE Feb 21, 2025
by Patrick Bromley
Ed Burns grows up, kind of.
If you've been following his career over the last 30 years, Millers in Marriage, the latest film from writer/director Edward Burns, is going to feel very familiar. It is, in many ways, a revisit of the same ideas and themes he was working out in his 1996 breakthrough feature The Brothers McMullen, a story of family and relationships, of those afraid to commit and those seemingly unable. Though he's been making movies in the indie trenches for the last three decades, Burns has never strayed far from the formula that seems to work best for him, typically working with ensemble casts in films that are about dialogue and performances, not plot. And while Burns has never been much of a visual stylist, he's still a born filmmaker, someone who has continued to make movies not in the hopes of finding mainstream success but because he has to tell stories. It's a quality I've always admired in him as a writer/director and a tradition that carries into Millers in Marriage. Burns is Andy, an artist and part of the close-knit Miller family. His successful writer sister Maggie (Julianna Margulies) has been married to her husband Nick (Campbell Scott), another great novelist experiencing a years-long case of writer's block, for a long time -- maybe too long, as evidenced by the fact that she's sleeping with the groundskeeper (Spotlight's Brian d'Arcy James) and harboring resentment towards her husband, as he does towards her. Andy's other sister Eve (Gretchen Mol in a welcome return) is an unhappy empty-nester and former musician married to an alcoholic (Patrick Wilson) whose life takes a turn when a journalist (Benjamin Bratt) takes an interest in her both personally and professionally. Finally, there's Andy, separated from a terrible woman (Morena Baccarin) and dating a much nice one (Minnie Driver) even though baggage from the past keeps threatening to ruin a good thing.If these story threads sounds a lot like past Burns efforts The Brothers McMullen or She's the One or The Groomsmen -- sibling relationships, infidelity, fear of commitment, revisiting ghosts from the past -- that's because Millers in Marriage feels like Burns revisiting his filmography and doing his Greatest Hits only with 30 years of age and experience on him. His dialogue has matured, his perspective has deepened. I would make a case that he's also gotten better at working with actors, but the truth is that his casts are better and this might be the best one he's ever had. Scenes rarely focus on the ensemble here, though, instead pairing the cast off into two-person dramas: Mol and Wilson or Mol and Bratt; Burns and Driver or Burns and Baccarin; Margulies and Scott or Margulies and James. It's unfortunate that we only get one or two scenes with the whole cast together, but such are the limitations of making a low-budget film with a cast of movie stars and busy schedules. While it's more polished and professional than some of his previous work -- thanks, in part, to DP William Rexer's handsome photography -- Millers in Marriage also distinguishes itself by approaching Burns' usual cinematic preoccupations with a more adult lens. Without spoiling any of the movie's developments, there is a practicality to the characters' choices that wouldn't have been possible when Burns was a young romantic. The director retains his traditional point-and-shoot style (it's nowhere near as flat as say, Kevin Smith's, but Woody Allen remains Burns' primary visual influence), but the editing here is more sophisticated, nesting flashbacks inside of flashbacks and withholding necessary information on a need-to-know basis. It's an effective technique in that it adds some style and mystery into what is otherwise an entirely dialogue-driven film, but also because Millers in Marriage is a movie about the things its characters don't say, the thoughts and feelings they keep secret. The structure devised by Burns and editor Janet Gaynor reflects these emotional states, disguising truths in memories and revealing them only as other characters are learning as well.To see Millers in Marriage is to be reminded of a kind of movie that rarely gets made anymore, and that's not just me lamenting the loss of the 1990s Sundance indie boom that allowed for Ed Burns' to build a career in the first place. This is a movie about adults made for adults, and while I'd love to suggest it's become the sort of thing that's relegated to streaming I don't even know if that's true when Netflix and Amazon are greenlighting titles like Kinda Pregnant and You're Cordially Invited. There doesn't seem to be as much of a place for artists like Ed Burns in today's movie marketplace, but that's what I love about him -- he continues to demand room at the table through sheer force of will, work ethic, and talent. He's hardly reinventing the wheel he built for himself in the mid-'90s, but he continues to tell the kinds of stories he wants to tell, making movies with the people he wants to make movies with. Millers in Marriage isn't just a good Ed Burns movie; it's a reminder that we're lucky to have Ed Burns making movies at all.
Millers in Marriage is in theaters and on digital today, February 21st.

Review: MILLERS IN MARRIAGE Feb 21, 2025
by Patrick Bromley
Ed Burns grows up, kind of.
If you've been following his career over the last 30 years, Millers in Marriage, the latest film from writer/director Edward Burns, is going to feel very familiar. It is, in many ways, a revisit of the same ideas and themes he was working out in his 1996 breakthrough feature The Brothers McMullen, a story of family and relationships, of those afraid to commit and those seemingly unable. Though he's been making movies in the indie trenches for the last three decades, Burns has never strayed far from the formula that seems to work best for him, typically working with ensemble casts in films that are about dialogue and performances, not plot. And while Burns has never been much of a visual stylist, he's still a born filmmaker, someone who has continued to make movies not in the hopes of finding mainstream success but because he has to tell stories. It's a quality I've always admired in him as a writer/director and a tradition that carries into Millers in Marriage. Burns is Andy, an artist and part of the close-knit Miller family. His successful writer sister Maggie (Julianna Margulies) has been married to her husband Nick (Campbell Scott), another great novelist experiencing a years-long case of writer's block, for a long time -- maybe too long, as evidenced by the fact that she's sleeping with the groundskeeper (Spotlight's Brian d'Arcy James) and harboring resentment towards her husband, as he does towards her. Andy's other sister Eve (Gretchen Mol in a welcome return) is an unhappy empty-nester and former musician married to an alcoholic (Patrick Wilson) whose life takes a turn when a journalist (Benjamin Bratt) takes an interest in her both personally and professionally. Finally, there's Andy, separated from a terrible woman (Morena Baccarin) and dating a much nice one (Minnie Driver) even though baggage from the past keeps threatening to ruin a good thing.If these story threads sounds a lot like past Burns efforts The Brothers McMullen or She's the One or The Groomsmen -- sibling relationships, infidelity, fear of commitment, revisiting ghosts from the past -- that's because Millers in Marriage feels like Burns revisiting his filmography and doing his Greatest Hits only with 30 years of age and experience on him. His dialogue has matured, his perspective has deepened. I would make a case that he's also gotten better at working with actors, but the truth is that his casts are better and this might be the best one he's ever had. Scenes rarely focus on the ensemble here, though, instead pairing the cast off into two-person dramas: Mol and Wilson or Mol and Bratt; Burns and Driver or Burns and Baccarin; Margulies and Scott or Margulies and James. It's unfortunate that we only get one or two scenes with the whole cast together, but such are the limitations of making a low-budget film with a cast of movie stars and busy schedules. While it's more polished and professional than some of his previous work -- thanks, in part, to DP William Rexer's handsome photography -- Millers in Marriage also distinguishes itself by approaching Burns' usual cinematic preoccupations with a more adult lens. Without spoiling any of the movie's developments, there is a practicality to the characters' choices that wouldn't have been possible when Burns was a young romantic. The director retains his traditional point-and-shoot style (it's nowhere near as flat as say, Kevin Smith's, but Woody Allen remains Burns' primary visual influence), but the editing here is more sophisticated, nesting flashbacks inside of flashbacks and withholding necessary information on a need-to-know basis. It's an effective technique in that it adds some style and mystery into what is otherwise an entirely dialogue-driven film, but also because Millers in Marriage is a movie about the things its characters don't say, the thoughts and feelings they keep secret. The structure devised by Burns and editor Janet Gaynor reflects these emotional states, disguising truths in memories and revealing them only as other characters are learning as well.To see Millers in Marriage is to be reminded of a kind of movie that rarely gets made anymore, and that's not just me lamenting the loss of the 1990s Sundance indie boom that allowed for Ed Burns' to build a career in the first place. This is a movie about adults made for adults, and while I'd love to suggest it's become the sort of thing that's relegated to streaming I don't even know if that's true when Netflix and Amazon are greenlighting titles like Kinda Pregnant and You're Cordially Invited. There doesn't seem to be as much of a place for artists like Ed Burns in today's movie marketplace, but that's what I love about him -- he continues to demand room at the table through sheer force of will, work ethic, and talent. He's hardly reinventing the wheel he built for himself in the mid-'90s, but he continues to tell the kinds of stories he wants to tell, making movies with the people he wants to make movies with. Millers in Marriage isn't just a good Ed Burns movie; it's a reminder that we're lucky to have Ed Burns making movies at all.
Millers in Marriage is in theaters and on digital today, February 21st.

Review: PARTHENOPE Feb 20, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
“Beauty is like war. It opens doors.”
In The Odyssey — soon to be a major motion picture from Christopher Nolan — the hero Odysseus encounters three beautiful sirens whose enchanting songs spell doom for any travelers who hear them. Odysseus, not trusting himself to resist temptation, ties himself to the mast of his ship and plugs his crews’ ears with wax so that they will not be swayed from their mission. Upon the sirens’ defeat, one of them, Parthenope, drowns herself off the shores of what is now Naples, Italy. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the disgrace, the implication that her beauty was no longer powerful enough to entice her prey. What does that beauty mean, anyway? Does it have a purpose (aside from nautical entrapment)? Does it have a shelf life? How do we measure it, bottle it, keep it fresh? Is that beauty exclusive to youth and innocence? Do we, as Cheever wrote, waste the beauty of our youths on clothes and jobs and dishwasher maintenance in adulthood? In its best movements, Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope dissects this connection between youth and beauty. His conclusions, however, are hardly conclusive at all.We begin in 1950s Naples, where a new Parthenope is born to a wealthy family of shipping magnates just off the very same coastline where her mythical namesake earned her infamy. By the late seventies, a teenage Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) has become a siren in her own right: Her beauty, effortless and immaculate, captures the imagination of everyone from the housekeeper’s son (Dario Aita, whose Sandrino spends most of the film pining from the margins), to her father’s middle-aged employer (Alfonso Santagata). Even her older brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo) is nursing urges he can’t seem to squash, a troubling conflict that will prove tragic in the film’s later acts. All the while, Parthenope herself remains delightfully aloof, encouraging a dozen playful seductions — including a businessman who spots her from a helicopter and refuses to land until she agrees to a ride — but rarely deigning to bore herself with consummation. “Desire is a mystery, and sex is its funeral,” she quoth Cheever, and our girl is far too beautiful for funerals.
Like many young people who don’t understand the freedom that beauty affords them, however, Parthenope becomes principally concerned with complicating her life, which leads her to the lecture hall of anthropology professor Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando, playing the crusty old bastard I’ve basically got a 50/50 shot of aging into). Like all good teachers, Marotta is unimpressed by Parthenope’s ability to regurgitate names and theories and instead challenges her to explore the true meaning behind their work: What is anthropology? What does it mean to understand humanity? What questions haven’t been asked? What corners haven’t been explored? To solve these mysteries, Parthenope will cross paths with an aging actress (Luisa Rainieri), a pair of mob families hosting a public “Great Fusion” between their respective son and daughter — it’s exactly what you think it is — a horny priest who promises to reveal the Miracle of San Gennaro, and, as you might have guessed, the inscrutable John Cheever himself (Gary Oldman), drowning in liquor and his trademark ennui.For all its intellectual pontification, however, Parthenope is about as leisurely-paced and minimally-plotted as movies come, more an invitation to whimsy than a serious character study. Sorrentino does have a true movie star in Celeste Dalla Porta, though, a muse whose beauty barely profits from any of her director’s generous blocking or adoring lighting schemes. At the risk of sounding indelicate, Dalla Porta is an ethereal, other-worldly screen presence, a vessel so impenetrably perfect that nearly every male character — and most of the female characters — are forced to remark on the disruptive nature of her very existence. Sorrentino lavishes her in vivid close-ups, leaving almost nothing to our imaginations in bikini scenes and, in more than a few sequences, next to no room in the frame for anyone else. Appropriate as it might be for a film that explores the transient nature of beauty to document its title character’s flawlessness this extensively, though, Sorrentino seems to do it with a note of bitterness, telegraphing — unintentionally or not — his own frustration with that transience.And it’s through that lens of frustration that Parthenope really stumbles. While fawning so extensively over a creature of such exquisite, unobtainable beauty, Sorrentino fails to extend her any real depth besides bemused smiles and quippy one-liners (“You always have a clever comeback,” she’s told over and over again), as if in imitation of the enigmatic, unsolvable women from his own romantic past. And while Parthenope’s odyssey may take her from childhood to academia to the underworld to celebrity to the very face of God, the film’s only attempt at catharsis is a surreal penultimate scene that fails to illuminate anything significant about that life or that journey. Perhaps, as Professor Marotta insists, real anthropology is “seeing,” and it’s on each of us to draw our own conclusions about how those sights should be interpreted. Or more likely, Sorrentino — whose script also tellingly laments the decay of Naples itself — is simply a conflicted filmmaker lashing out against his own mortality, against his own lost youth and fading beauty. If that’s the case, then I have only this to say in response: Get in line, buddy.
Parthenope is in wide release on February 21st.

Review: PARTHENOPE Feb 20, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
“Beauty is like war. It opens doors.”
In The Odyssey — soon to be a major motion picture from Christopher Nolan — the hero Odysseus encounters three beautiful sirens whose enchanting songs spell doom for any travelers who hear them. Odysseus, not trusting himself to resist temptation, ties himself to the mast of his ship and plugs his crews’ ears with wax so that they will not be swayed from their mission. Upon the sirens’ defeat, one of them, Parthenope, drowns herself off the shores of what is now Naples, Italy. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the disgrace, the implication that her beauty was no longer powerful enough to entice her prey. What does that beauty mean, anyway? Does it have a purpose (aside from nautical entrapment)? Does it have a shelf life? How do we measure it, bottle it, keep it fresh? Is that beauty exclusive to youth and innocence? Do we, as Cheever wrote, waste the beauty of our youths on clothes and jobs and dishwasher maintenance in adulthood? In its best movements, Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope dissects this connection between youth and beauty. His conclusions, however, are hardly conclusive at all.We begin in 1950s Naples, where a new Parthenope is born to a wealthy family of shipping magnates just off the very same coastline where her mythical namesake earned her infamy. By the late seventies, a teenage Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) has become a siren in her own right: Her beauty, effortless and immaculate, captures the imagination of everyone from the housekeeper’s son (Dario Aita, whose Sandrino spends most of the film pining from the margins), to her father’s middle-aged employer (Alfonso Santagata). Even her older brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo) is nursing urges he can’t seem to squash, a troubling conflict that will prove tragic in the film’s later acts. All the while, Parthenope herself remains delightfully aloof, encouraging a dozen playful seductions — including a businessman who spots her from a helicopter and refuses to land until she agrees to a ride — but rarely deigning to bore herself with consummation. “Desire is a mystery, and sex is its funeral,” she quoth Cheever, and our girl is far too beautiful for funerals.
Like many young people who don’t understand the freedom that beauty affords them, however, Parthenope becomes principally concerned with complicating her life, which leads her to the lecture hall of anthropology professor Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando, playing the crusty old bastard I’ve basically got a 50/50 shot of aging into). Like all good teachers, Marotta is unimpressed by Parthenope’s ability to regurgitate names and theories and instead challenges her to explore the true meaning behind their work: What is anthropology? What does it mean to understand humanity? What questions haven’t been asked? What corners haven’t been explored? To solve these mysteries, Parthenope will cross paths with an aging actress (Luisa Rainieri), a pair of mob families hosting a public “Great Fusion” between their respective son and daughter — it’s exactly what you think it is — a horny priest who promises to reveal the Miracle of San Gennaro, and, as you might have guessed, the inscrutable John Cheever himself (Gary Oldman), drowning in liquor and his trademark ennui.For all its intellectual pontification, however, Parthenope is about as leisurely-paced and minimally-plotted as movies come, more an invitation to whimsy than a serious character study. Sorrentino does have a true movie star in Celeste Dalla Porta, though, a muse whose beauty barely profits from any of her director’s generous blocking or adoring lighting schemes. At the risk of sounding indelicate, Dalla Porta is an ethereal, other-worldly screen presence, a vessel so impenetrably perfect that nearly every male character — and most of the female characters — are forced to remark on the disruptive nature of her very existence. Sorrentino lavishes her in vivid close-ups, leaving almost nothing to our imaginations in bikini scenes and, in more than a few sequences, next to no room in the frame for anyone else. Appropriate as it might be for a film that explores the transient nature of beauty to document its title character’s flawlessness this extensively, though, Sorrentino seems to do it with a note of bitterness, telegraphing — unintentionally or not — his own frustration with that transience.And it’s through that lens of frustration that Parthenope really stumbles. While fawning so extensively over a creature of such exquisite, unobtainable beauty, Sorrentino fails to extend her any real depth besides bemused smiles and quippy one-liners (“You always have a clever comeback,” she’s told over and over again), as if in imitation of the enigmatic, unsolvable women from his own romantic past. And while Parthenope’s odyssey may take her from childhood to academia to the underworld to celebrity to the very face of God, the film’s only attempt at catharsis is a surreal penultimate scene that fails to illuminate anything significant about that life or that journey. Perhaps, as Professor Marotta insists, real anthropology is “seeing,” and it’s on each of us to draw our own conclusions about how those sights should be interpreted. Or more likely, Sorrentino — whose script also tellingly laments the decay of Naples itself — is simply a conflicted filmmaker lashing out against his own mortality, against his own lost youth and fading beauty. If that’s the case, then I have only this to say in response: Get in line, buddy.
Parthenope is in wide release on February 21st.

Reserved Seating: SOLDIER (1998) Feb 20, 2025
The review duo (w/ special guest Adam Thas!) who only speak 104 words during this review.

1998 Month Rewind: Reserved Seating: HARD RAIN Feb 19, 2025
by Adam Riske and Rob DiCristino
The review duo who will cooperate and evacuate during a flood.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on July 16, 2020.
Adam: Welcome to Reserved Seating. I’m Adam Riske.
Rob: And I’m Rob DiCristino.
Adam: This week, we return to our series looking back at notorious box office failures with 1998’s Hard Rain, an action-disaster movie directed by Mikael Salomon (the cinematographer for The Abyss, Backdraft, and Far and Away) starring Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Minnie Driver, and Randy Quaid. Christian Slater plays an armored car driver who gets caught up in a robbery by a group of thieves led by Morgan Freeman. With the town completely flooded, Slater must evade the thieves and the corrupt local sheriff’s office, led by Randy Quaid, who want to claim the money from the armored truck for themselves.
I watched a lot of action and disaster movies in the 1990s, but Hard Rain was one that escaped me all these years. I always meant to track it down but just never did. It must be that the film’s reputation was so poor at the time of its release that I just eventually forgot about it. I’m a big fan of Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman, but I’m sorry to say that this is not one of their better movies or performances. The Christian Slater part could have been played by anyone. It’s missing the “Gee whiz, I’m an action hero” pluckiness the actor brought to his similar role in Broken Arrow. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand, is either giving a misguided performance or just has a poorly written role in Hard Rain. He’s meant to be the main villain but he’s so benevolent by comparison to the surprise villain that Freeman becomes this weird outlier in a movie for which he’s top-billed. Faring best is probably Minnie Driver, because she’s lively in a film where most of the cast seems openly miserable. I don’t blame them. I felt bad for the actors in Hard Rain. They’re constantly soaked. Did anyone get sick on set with a cold or, even worse, pneumonia? If so, this movie wasn’t worth it. Hard Rain has the unique disadvantage of failing at being a disaster movie (not enough flood related obstacles) and a standard late-'90s Paramount Pictures action flick because with flooding you’re kind of limiting the kinetic energy an action movie requires.
What did you think of the movie, Rob?
Rob: Hard Rain is the most frustrating kind of bad movie. It doesn't make me angry. It doesn’t make me laugh. It’s just there, leering at me and wasting my time. I actually laughed out loud at about the halfway mark, when Christian Slater looked at his watch in a key scene. I felt that.
As you say, the characters are vanilla, the action is uninspired, and it lacks the creativity to reward the “heist thriller during a disaster movie” premise. It’s a fugazi Speed clone, essentially, something churned out by studio executives looking to profit from that film’s success without understanding what made it work. Nearly every creative choice feels like a concession to mediocrity: Slater should be in danger, but never too much danger. Freeman should be ruthless, but never too ruthless. Every action scene should be a variation on “They’re tied to something and need to get untied before they drown!” because anything else could seem too complicated for grandma. This thing has no balls. It can’t decide whether to zig or zag, so it just sits still.
As much as I hated watching it, though, I appreciated that Hard Rain ends up being a kind of unintentional indictment of late ‘90s studio filmmaking: “Get the Speed guy [screenwriter Graham Yost], get a plucky actor like Keanu, get a rising starlet like Bullock, and...I don’t know...Betty White, I guess? Just do Speed again!” But you can’t! Good filmmaking is alchemical, and Hard Rain feels like a cynical production that deserves every bad review it got.
Speaking of Betty White: What did you think of the supporting cast? Did you have a favorite backup player? This cast is like Twin Peaks-level colorful, at times.
Adam: I honestly didn’t have a favorite supporting character. The backups are written like David E. Kelley characters which means they’re winking at the audience. That’s not my cup of tea. As for Betty White, I’ve seen her in Lake Placid, Bringing Down the House, The Proposal, etc. I know this is sacrilege, but I’m just not a fan of her shtick in movies. It’s even worse because people swear its top-notch comedy and I just sit there stone-faced at every line delivery. Humor is subjective; so be it.
Have you read the Wikipedia page for Hard Rain? It’s more entertaining than the movie. I like how grumpy Morgan Freeman is that the studio re-shot the ending after audiences complained during the test screenings that his character didn’t live and get some money at the end.
Rob: I liked how angry he got at the idea that “we listen to [the audience] now.” I wonder how he feels about how that’s gotten worse 22 years later.
Adam: Two questions for you:
1. What’s your favorite thing about Hard Rain? Mine is the Jars of Clay song at the end credits because it’s a good song and because it meant the movie was over.
2. The movie opened poorly before going on to be a box office bomb (it made $19.9M on a $70M budget). Is Christian Slater not strong enough of a lead in an action movie?
Rob: I liked how the Ricky Harris character ran out of situationally-appropriate Bible quotes and just started going with Bruce Springsteen lyrics. Like you said, he’s one of those characters whose whole deal is just mugging to the audience, but I appreciated how a legitimate bit just turned into a shrug.
Adam: As a Bruce Springsteen fan, I found that part tough to watch.
Rob: For the second question, I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and my guess is that Slater has a little too much of that oddball persona to be the everyman. It’s the Jack Nicholson thing, right? My favorite lead performances of his (True Romance and Pump Up the Volume) embrace his idiosyncratic side, and stuff like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves or Interview with the Vampire play him off more traditional leading men, which only accentuates that difference. I like him a lot, personally, but I think I understand why he might have more of a niche appeal.
What do you think of Mikael Salomon as a director? This was one of his only major theatrical efforts before switching over to TV. Personally, I think he got a bad break with Hard Rain. I noticed that it’s not listed on his Wikipedia page until the “Filmography” at the end. That probably shows his level of affection for the project.
Adam: It’s difficult to say. I haven’t seen A Far Off Place or Freezer. I think he’s a terrific cinematographer, though. Far and Away is one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve seen, and I don’t just mean Nicole Kidman. I think he was betrayed by a bad script here and studio/test screening meddling where it came to the ending. You can tell he’s competent enough where he should have gotten more chances, but you could say that about many directors.
Rob: Agreed. I’m glad that he continued to work in television, at least. Alright, we’ve already devoted more time to Hard Rain than anyone should. We have a special Reserved Seating next week, right?
Adam: We do. We’re discussing a new documentary about a dying indoor shopping mall and the people who work there called Jasper Mall. It’s from the director of The Rock-afire Explosion. Until next time…
Rob: These seats are reserved.

1998 Month Rewind: Reserved Seating: HARD RAIN Feb 19, 2025
by Adam Riske and Rob DiCristino
The review duo who will cooperate and evacuate during a flood.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on July 16, 2020.
Adam: Welcome to Reserved Seating. I’m Adam Riske.
Rob: And I’m Rob DiCristino.
Adam: This week, we return to our series looking back at notorious box office failures with 1998’s Hard Rain, an action-disaster movie directed by Mikael Salomon (the cinematographer for The Abyss, Backdraft, and Far and Away) starring Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, Minnie Driver, and Randy Quaid. Christian Slater plays an armored car driver who gets caught up in a robbery by a group of thieves led by Morgan Freeman. With the town completely flooded, Slater must evade the thieves and the corrupt local sheriff’s office, led by Randy Quaid, who want to claim the money from the armored truck for themselves.
I watched a lot of action and disaster movies in the 1990s, but Hard Rain was one that escaped me all these years. I always meant to track it down but just never did. It must be that the film’s reputation was so poor at the time of its release that I just eventually forgot about it. I’m a big fan of Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman, but I’m sorry to say that this is not one of their better movies or performances. The Christian Slater part could have been played by anyone. It’s missing the “Gee whiz, I’m an action hero” pluckiness the actor brought to his similar role in Broken Arrow. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand, is either giving a misguided performance or just has a poorly written role in Hard Rain. He’s meant to be the main villain but he’s so benevolent by comparison to the surprise villain that Freeman becomes this weird outlier in a movie for which he’s top-billed. Faring best is probably Minnie Driver, because she’s lively in a film where most of the cast seems openly miserable. I don’t blame them. I felt bad for the actors in Hard Rain. They’re constantly soaked. Did anyone get sick on set with a cold or, even worse, pneumonia? If so, this movie wasn’t worth it. Hard Rain has the unique disadvantage of failing at being a disaster movie (not enough flood related obstacles) and a standard late-'90s Paramount Pictures action flick because with flooding you’re kind of limiting the kinetic energy an action movie requires.
What did you think of the movie, Rob?
Rob: Hard Rain is the most frustrating kind of bad movie. It doesn't make me angry. It doesn’t make me laugh. It’s just there, leering at me and wasting my time. I actually laughed out loud at about the halfway mark, when Christian Slater looked at his watch in a key scene. I felt that.
As you say, the characters are vanilla, the action is uninspired, and it lacks the creativity to reward the “heist thriller during a disaster movie” premise. It’s a fugazi Speed clone, essentially, something churned out by studio executives looking to profit from that film’s success without understanding what made it work. Nearly every creative choice feels like a concession to mediocrity: Slater should be in danger, but never too much danger. Freeman should be ruthless, but never too ruthless. Every action scene should be a variation on “They’re tied to something and need to get untied before they drown!” because anything else could seem too complicated for grandma. This thing has no balls. It can’t decide whether to zig or zag, so it just sits still.
As much as I hated watching it, though, I appreciated that Hard Rain ends up being a kind of unintentional indictment of late ‘90s studio filmmaking: “Get the Speed guy [screenwriter Graham Yost], get a plucky actor like Keanu, get a rising starlet like Bullock, and...I don’t know...Betty White, I guess? Just do Speed again!” But you can’t! Good filmmaking is alchemical, and Hard Rain feels like a cynical production that deserves every bad review it got.
Speaking of Betty White: What did you think of the supporting cast? Did you have a favorite backup player? This cast is like Twin Peaks-level colorful, at times.
Adam: I honestly didn’t have a favorite supporting character. The backups are written like David E. Kelley characters which means they’re winking at the audience. That’s not my cup of tea. As for Betty White, I’ve seen her in Lake Placid, Bringing Down the House, The Proposal, etc. I know this is sacrilege, but I’m just not a fan of her shtick in movies. It’s even worse because people swear its top-notch comedy and I just sit there stone-faced at every line delivery. Humor is subjective; so be it.
Have you read the Wikipedia page for Hard Rain? It’s more entertaining than the movie. I like how grumpy Morgan Freeman is that the studio re-shot the ending after audiences complained during the test screenings that his character didn’t live and get some money at the end.
Rob: I liked how angry he got at the idea that “we listen to [the audience] now.” I wonder how he feels about how that’s gotten worse 22 years later.
Adam: Two questions for you:
1. What’s your favorite thing about Hard Rain? Mine is the Jars of Clay song at the end credits because it’s a good song and because it meant the movie was over.
2. The movie opened poorly before going on to be a box office bomb (it made $19.9M on a $70M budget). Is Christian Slater not strong enough of a lead in an action movie?
Rob: I liked how the Ricky Harris character ran out of situationally-appropriate Bible quotes and just started going with Bruce Springsteen lyrics. Like you said, he’s one of those characters whose whole deal is just mugging to the audience, but I appreciated how a legitimate bit just turned into a shrug.
Adam: As a Bruce Springsteen fan, I found that part tough to watch.
Rob: For the second question, I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and my guess is that Slater has a little too much of that oddball persona to be the everyman. It’s the Jack Nicholson thing, right? My favorite lead performances of his (True Romance and Pump Up the Volume) embrace his idiosyncratic side, and stuff like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves or Interview with the Vampire play him off more traditional leading men, which only accentuates that difference. I like him a lot, personally, but I think I understand why he might have more of a niche appeal.
What do you think of Mikael Salomon as a director? This was one of his only major theatrical efforts before switching over to TV. Personally, I think he got a bad break with Hard Rain. I noticed that it’s not listed on his Wikipedia page until the “Filmography” at the end. That probably shows his level of affection for the project.
Adam: It’s difficult to say. I haven’t seen A Far Off Place or Freezer. I think he’s a terrific cinematographer, though. Far and Away is one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve seen, and I don’t just mean Nicole Kidman. I think he was betrayed by a bad script here and studio/test screening meddling where it came to the ending. You can tell he’s competent enough where he should have gotten more chances, but you could say that about many directors.
Rob: Agreed. I’m glad that he continued to work in television, at least. Alright, we’ve already devoted more time to Hard Rain than anyone should. We have a special Reserved Seating next week, right?
Adam: We do. We’re discussing a new documentary about a dying indoor shopping mall and the people who work there called Jasper Mall. It’s from the director of The Rock-afire Explosion. Until next time…
Rob: These seats are reserved.

FTM 761: ENEMY OF THE STATE Feb 19, 2025
Patrick and Adam Riske are either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Sphere (1998), The Red Violin (1998), Black Dog (1998), Firestorm (1998), The Last Days of Disco (1998), The Hunted (1995), Pinocchio (1940), Face/Off (1997), The Avengers (1998), Rush Hour (1998)

1998 Month Rewind: 1998 at the Movies 20 Years Later Feb 18, 2025
by Adam Riske
Random thoughts and memories to finish off my retrospective of 1998 in film.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on December 18, 2018.
Note: I missed many good movies from 1998 as you will soon read. I blame the ’97-’98 Chicago Bulls and working at Office Depot. Please let me know in the comments which I should prioritize. This column is a little bit of a cry for help.
January
• My English teacher in high school had the theatrical poster up for the ’98 Great Expectations and it was distracting.
• I thought Hard Rain looked sooooo gooood!
• I think about the line “The doctor said I need a backiotomy!” from Half Baked about once a week.
• I’ve always felt oddly defensive about Star Kid.
• Still need to see: Desperate Measures, Firestorm, Zero Effect
February
• I just thought about the Billy Idol cameo in The Wedding Singer this week and then went to check out his greatest hits album from the library.
• Still need to see: Caught Up, Dark City, Kissing a Fool, Palmetto, The Replacement Killers, Sphere
March
• I once believed U.S. Marshals to be a terrific film. I wanted to be a U.S. Marshal after seeing it and researched that job in my high school’s career development office for a solid 10 minutes.
• I saw The Man in the Iron Mask on opening night for some reason.
• I thought John Travolta had an Oscar in the bag after Primary Colors.
• Wild Things was an event to high school me and my friends.
• I had no tolerance for The Big Lebowski in 1998. Now I love it just like everyone else.
• I was so disappointed by Mr. Nice Guy that it ruined my day.
• I wanted to see Chairman of the Board really bad. I thought the trailer cooked!
• Still need to see: Nothing. Good work, me!
April
• I love the Alanis Morrissette song (and Dennis Franz) in City of Angels.
• I thought Bruce Willis had an Oscar in the bag after Mercury Rising.
• I used to have to convince my friends that The Big Hit was not a good movie.
• A lot of families were seeing Paulie during the one weekend I worked in a movie theater.
• I used to hate Species II. Now I think it’s pretty bad, but entertainingly so.
• I’ve always felt oddly defensive about My Giant.
• Major League: Back to the Minors is one of the worst movies ever made.
• People rented Suicide Kings from my Blockbuster a lot.
• Still need to see: Lost in Space (came free with my first DVD player), The Player’s Club
May
• Deep Impact is better than I remember it being.
• The theater by me played Godzilla ('98) on I think eight screens opening night and advertised that it was playing every 20 minutes! My screening had less than 20 people in it. Hubris!
• Bulworth does not hold up.
• I didn’t get carded when I bought my ticket for He Got Game, but I did get carded by the dude tearing ticket stubs. Asshole.
• Finally saw Black Dog recently. It wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, but it had some great truck mayhem.
• I’m one viewing away from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas clicking for me. It was close last time.
• I watched Almost Heroes entirely on breaks from my job during the weekend I worked at a movie theater.
• Still need to see: The Last Days of Disco, Quest for Camelot (I dunno…the poster works)
June
• I went through a phase where I thought The Truman Show was amazing, then I thought it was pretentious. I’m curious what I’d think of it now.
• I thought Mulan was terrific the one time I saw it, but I haven’t revisited the movie since that late 90s.
• Out of Sight is possibly the best movie that came out in 1998.
• So many people I know love Can’t Hardly Wait but I never have. It has a very good Third Eye Blind song on the soundtrack, though.
• Still need to see: Dirty Work, Six Days, Seven Nights (came free with my first DVD player)
July
• Saving Private Ryan should have won Best Picture.
• I remember my friend’s dad picked me and my friends up after seeing Armageddon and he was driving barefoot like Fred Flintstone. Do people do this or is he the only one who ever has?
• I don’t know what it is, but There’s Something About Mary has never clicked for me. I felt a lot of pressure to love it by the time I saw it.
• I was with a group when I went to see Lethal Weapon 4. To impress the girls, I jumped from one aisle into the one in front of me. I intended to land butt in seat in one smooth motion. The seat didn’t fold down, and I slammed ass first onto the theater floor. It hurt a lot.
• I really wanted to see the remake of The Parent Trap in theaters, but I was 16 so I couldn’t tell anyone. I ended up seeing it on cable about 10 years later.
• I always want to love Small Soldiers, but I just like it. My boy Frank Langella does a voice, though, so that’s cool.
• I saw The Negotiator while on vacation in Hawaii. That’s the only way to see it.
• I saw Mafia! before I saw The Godfather.
• I thought Disturbing Behavior was going to change the game when it came out.
• My friends used to quote BASEketball and I would just stand there and wait for them to stop.
• I was one of those guys at Blockbuster who was like “Mulan is fine for your kids, but have they seen Pi?”
• Full-Tilt Boogie is one of the douchiest movies I’ve ever seen.
• Still need to see: The Mask of Zorro
August
• There was nothing cooler than Blade the day after I saw Blade.
• Snake Eyes is a movie I don’t really like but will watch once every three years.
• Pretty sure I like Halloween: H20 more than Halloween (2018). I like Jamie Lee Curtis more in H20 for sure. I think they were more creative with the character in that movie.
• The Avengers (1998) is not as good as The Avengers (2012) but I would rather watch the ’98 version if you put the two in front of me right now.
• Dead Man on Campus felt important because Zack Morris was in college.
• Return to Paradise is underrated and features a great dramatic Vince Vaughn performance. It also is the movie with the most laughable character names of maybe any movie ever (John ‘Sheriff’ Volgecherev, Beth Eastern, M.J. Major).
• Still need to see: 54, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
September
• Rush Hour was the first movie I drove to after I got my driver’s license. I remember I drove up onto the curb of the movie theater because I was a bad driver. My friends were like “You’re a bad driver” and I was all “You’re lucky you even have a ride, I hate all of you.”
• Urban Legend has really grown on me over the years.
• I will stop to watch Rounders anytime it’s on cable.
• I thought Simon Birch would be nominated for Best Picture.
• I’ve seen Knock Off three times. Once I walked out, once I thought it was hilarious, once I couldn’t finish it on DVD and turned it off.
• I wanted to like Clay Pigeons so badly, but I don’t. I was in a big post-Swingers Vince Vaughn phase back then.
• Cube was a popular movie in my fraternity during college. I still like it, but I haven’t seen it in over a decade.
• Still need to see: Permanent Midnight, Ronin
October
• I used to think Life is Beautiful was a masterpiece. Customers at Blockbuster would always rent the dubbed version over the subtitled one.
• For the life of me, I cannot believe I went to Navy Pier to see T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous.
• I really don’t like Practical Magic. I still feel bad, Ale.
• I used to like Bride of Chucky but not anymore. The original, 2 and Curse are my jams.
• A Night at the Roxbury rented well when I worked at Blockbuster.
• I was excited about John Carpenter’s Vampires in 1998 because the villain was the bad guy from The Karate Kid Part III.
• I remember Soldier being kinda underrated, but I’m afraid to revisit it and potentially prove myself wrong.
• I watched 10 minutes of Holy Man on cable once this year. I didn’t miss anything.
• Apt Pupil was a very uncomfortable movie. It probably is even more so in 2018.
• I had friends who always wanted to rent American History X and I was like “You know I’m Jewish, right?” They thought it was super deep. Their eagerness to revisit was concerning to me.
• I thought The Mighty was going to be nominated for Best Picture.
• Still need to see: Beloved, Pleasantville, Strangeland, What Dreams May Come
November
• I have never rewatched A Bug’s Life because bugs are gross.
• I never liked The Waterboy. It was the first Adam Sandler movie I didn’t like. There were many more to follow.
• Enemy of the State is maybe the best Will Smith movie.
• I’m with Patrick on Meet Joe Black. It’s so good.
• The Siege is depressing as fuck.
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer has a better Jennifer Love Hewitt song than Jennifer Love Hewitt movie it's featured in.
• I always want to love Babe: Pig in the City as much as Babe, but I just like it.
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998) is a miracle of nuttiness. I kinda love it.
• I saw Very Bad Things almost by mistake and ended up really liking it. I showed it years later to a few friends who turned on it and then were mad at me because apparently I ruined their night and how dare they ever see a movie they don’t like.
• Many people told me the opening credits scene of Belly was the only bit of cinema I needed to see in 1998. People loved that scene.
• I’ll always love the movie The Red Violin because it was the indie I really went all in on during my high school cinephile phase (same with The Eel). I recommended it to so many people. I was totally in the bag for Francois Girard and Don McKellar back then. Half of the people who know about Colm Feore know about him because of me in 1998 and 1999.
• Still need to see: Elizabeth, Gods and Monsters
December
• I remember seeing Patch Adams once and thinking it wasn’t terrible but I’m sure I was wrong and it’s terrible.
• I saw You’ve Got Mail on my first date ever and it means a lot to me for many other reasons too. I wrote about it once as “A Movie I’m Thankful For.”
• A Civil Action is the type of solid, star-studded drama I wish were still in theaters.
• I saw The Faculty on my second date ever. The movie’s not that great.
• The Thin Red Line is very good, but I prefer Saving Private Ryan in the showdown between 1998’s WWII films.
• Jack Frost ('98) won this year’s Christmas Movie Scorecard.
• Despite hating it, I have seen Psycho ('98) maybe five times or more.
• I have oddly no opinion of Rushmore.
• A Simple Plan is fantastic, and I’m embarrassed I’ve only seen it one time.
• Still need to see: Affliction, Mighty Joe Young, Shakespeare in Love, Star Trek: Insurrection, Stepmom (came free with my first DVD player)
My 20 Favorite Movies from 1998 (alphabetical order): Babe: Pig in the City, The Big Lebowski, A Civil Action, Cube, The Eel, He Got Game, Meet Joe Black, Mulan, Out of Sight, Primary Colors, The Red Violin, Return to Paradise, Rounders, Rush Hour, Saving Private Ryan, A Simple Plan, Urban Legend, The Wedding Singer, Wild Things, You’ve Got Mail

1998 Month Rewind: 1998 at the Movies 20 Years Later Feb 18, 2025
by Adam Riske
Random thoughts and memories to finish off my retrospective of 1998 in film.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on December 18, 2018.
Note: I missed many good movies from 1998 as you will soon read. I blame the ’97-’98 Chicago Bulls and working at Office Depot. Please let me know in the comments which I should prioritize. This column is a little bit of a cry for help.
January
• My English teacher in high school had the theatrical poster up for the ’98 Great Expectations and it was distracting.
• I thought Hard Rain looked sooooo gooood!
• I think about the line “The doctor said I need a backiotomy!” from Half Baked about once a week.
• I’ve always felt oddly defensive about Star Kid.
• Still need to see: Desperate Measures, Firestorm, Zero Effect
February
• I just thought about the Billy Idol cameo in The Wedding Singer this week and then went to check out his greatest hits album from the library.
• Still need to see: Caught Up, Dark City, Kissing a Fool, Palmetto, The Replacement Killers, Sphere
March
• I once believed U.S. Marshals to be a terrific film. I wanted to be a U.S. Marshal after seeing it and researched that job in my high school’s career development office for a solid 10 minutes.
• I saw The Man in the Iron Mask on opening night for some reason.
• I thought John Travolta had an Oscar in the bag after Primary Colors.
• Wild Things was an event to high school me and my friends.
• I had no tolerance for The Big Lebowski in 1998. Now I love it just like everyone else.
• I was so disappointed by Mr. Nice Guy that it ruined my day.
• I wanted to see Chairman of the Board really bad. I thought the trailer cooked!
• Still need to see: Nothing. Good work, me!
April
• I love the Alanis Morrissette song (and Dennis Franz) in City of Angels.
• I thought Bruce Willis had an Oscar in the bag after Mercury Rising.
• I used to have to convince my friends that The Big Hit was not a good movie.
• A lot of families were seeing Paulie during the one weekend I worked in a movie theater.
• I used to hate Species II. Now I think it’s pretty bad, but entertainingly so.
• I’ve always felt oddly defensive about My Giant.
• Major League: Back to the Minors is one of the worst movies ever made.
• People rented Suicide Kings from my Blockbuster a lot.
• Still need to see: Lost in Space (came free with my first DVD player), The Player’s Club
May
• Deep Impact is better than I remember it being.
• The theater by me played Godzilla ('98) on I think eight screens opening night and advertised that it was playing every 20 minutes! My screening had less than 20 people in it. Hubris!
• Bulworth does not hold up.
• I didn’t get carded when I bought my ticket for He Got Game, but I did get carded by the dude tearing ticket stubs. Asshole.
• Finally saw Black Dog recently. It wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, but it had some great truck mayhem.
• I’m one viewing away from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas clicking for me. It was close last time.
• I watched Almost Heroes entirely on breaks from my job during the weekend I worked at a movie theater.
• Still need to see: The Last Days of Disco, Quest for Camelot (I dunno…the poster works)
June
• I went through a phase where I thought The Truman Show was amazing, then I thought it was pretentious. I’m curious what I’d think of it now.
• I thought Mulan was terrific the one time I saw it, but I haven’t revisited the movie since that late 90s.
• Out of Sight is possibly the best movie that came out in 1998.
• So many people I know love Can’t Hardly Wait but I never have. It has a very good Third Eye Blind song on the soundtrack, though.
• Still need to see: Dirty Work, Six Days, Seven Nights (came free with my first DVD player)
July
• Saving Private Ryan should have won Best Picture.
• I remember my friend’s dad picked me and my friends up after seeing Armageddon and he was driving barefoot like Fred Flintstone. Do people do this or is he the only one who ever has?
• I don’t know what it is, but There’s Something About Mary has never clicked for me. I felt a lot of pressure to love it by the time I saw it.
• I was with a group when I went to see Lethal Weapon 4. To impress the girls, I jumped from one aisle into the one in front of me. I intended to land butt in seat in one smooth motion. The seat didn’t fold down, and I slammed ass first onto the theater floor. It hurt a lot.
• I really wanted to see the remake of The Parent Trap in theaters, but I was 16 so I couldn’t tell anyone. I ended up seeing it on cable about 10 years later.
• I always want to love Small Soldiers, but I just like it. My boy Frank Langella does a voice, though, so that’s cool.
• I saw The Negotiator while on vacation in Hawaii. That’s the only way to see it.
• I saw Mafia! before I saw The Godfather.
• I thought Disturbing Behavior was going to change the game when it came out.
• My friends used to quote BASEketball and I would just stand there and wait for them to stop.
• I was one of those guys at Blockbuster who was like “Mulan is fine for your kids, but have they seen Pi?”
• Full-Tilt Boogie is one of the douchiest movies I’ve ever seen.
• Still need to see: The Mask of Zorro
August
• There was nothing cooler than Blade the day after I saw Blade.
• Snake Eyes is a movie I don’t really like but will watch once every three years.
• Pretty sure I like Halloween: H20 more than Halloween (2018). I like Jamie Lee Curtis more in H20 for sure. I think they were more creative with the character in that movie.
• The Avengers (1998) is not as good as The Avengers (2012) but I would rather watch the ’98 version if you put the two in front of me right now.
• Dead Man on Campus felt important because Zack Morris was in college.
• Return to Paradise is underrated and features a great dramatic Vince Vaughn performance. It also is the movie with the most laughable character names of maybe any movie ever (John ‘Sheriff’ Volgecherev, Beth Eastern, M.J. Major).
• Still need to see: 54, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
September
• Rush Hour was the first movie I drove to after I got my driver’s license. I remember I drove up onto the curb of the movie theater because I was a bad driver. My friends were like “You’re a bad driver” and I was all “You’re lucky you even have a ride, I hate all of you.”
• Urban Legend has really grown on me over the years.
• I will stop to watch Rounders anytime it’s on cable.
• I thought Simon Birch would be nominated for Best Picture.
• I’ve seen Knock Off three times. Once I walked out, once I thought it was hilarious, once I couldn’t finish it on DVD and turned it off.
• I wanted to like Clay Pigeons so badly, but I don’t. I was in a big post-Swingers Vince Vaughn phase back then.
• Cube was a popular movie in my fraternity during college. I still like it, but I haven’t seen it in over a decade.
• Still need to see: Permanent Midnight, Ronin
October
• I used to think Life is Beautiful was a masterpiece. Customers at Blockbuster would always rent the dubbed version over the subtitled one.
• For the life of me, I cannot believe I went to Navy Pier to see T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous.
• I really don’t like Practical Magic. I still feel bad, Ale.
• I used to like Bride of Chucky but not anymore. The original, 2 and Curse are my jams.
• A Night at the Roxbury rented well when I worked at Blockbuster.
• I was excited about John Carpenter’s Vampires in 1998 because the villain was the bad guy from The Karate Kid Part III.
• I remember Soldier being kinda underrated, but I’m afraid to revisit it and potentially prove myself wrong.
• I watched 10 minutes of Holy Man on cable once this year. I didn’t miss anything.
• Apt Pupil was a very uncomfortable movie. It probably is even more so in 2018.
• I had friends who always wanted to rent American History X and I was like “You know I’m Jewish, right?” They thought it was super deep. Their eagerness to revisit was concerning to me.
• I thought The Mighty was going to be nominated for Best Picture.
• Still need to see: Beloved, Pleasantville, Strangeland, What Dreams May Come
November
• I have never rewatched A Bug’s Life because bugs are gross.
• I never liked The Waterboy. It was the first Adam Sandler movie I didn’t like. There were many more to follow.
• Enemy of the State is maybe the best Will Smith movie.
• I’m with Patrick on Meet Joe Black. It’s so good.
• The Siege is depressing as fuck.
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer has a better Jennifer Love Hewitt song than Jennifer Love Hewitt movie it's featured in.
• I always want to love Babe: Pig in the City as much as Babe, but I just like it.
• I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998) is a miracle of nuttiness. I kinda love it.
• I saw Very Bad Things almost by mistake and ended up really liking it. I showed it years later to a few friends who turned on it and then were mad at me because apparently I ruined their night and how dare they ever see a movie they don’t like.
• Many people told me the opening credits scene of Belly was the only bit of cinema I needed to see in 1998. People loved that scene.
• I’ll always love the movie The Red Violin because it was the indie I really went all in on during my high school cinephile phase (same with The Eel). I recommended it to so many people. I was totally in the bag for Francois Girard and Don McKellar back then. Half of the people who know about Colm Feore know about him because of me in 1998 and 1999.
• Still need to see: Elizabeth, Gods and Monsters
December
• I remember seeing Patch Adams once and thinking it wasn’t terrible but I’m sure I was wrong and it’s terrible.
• I saw You’ve Got Mail on my first date ever and it means a lot to me for many other reasons too. I wrote about it once as “A Movie I’m Thankful For.”
• A Civil Action is the type of solid, star-studded drama I wish were still in theaters.
• I saw The Faculty on my second date ever. The movie’s not that great.
• The Thin Red Line is very good, but I prefer Saving Private Ryan in the showdown between 1998’s WWII films.
• Jack Frost ('98) won this year’s Christmas Movie Scorecard.
• Despite hating it, I have seen Psycho ('98) maybe five times or more.
• I have oddly no opinion of Rushmore.
• A Simple Plan is fantastic, and I’m embarrassed I’ve only seen it one time.
• Still need to see: Affliction, Mighty Joe Young, Shakespeare in Love, Star Trek: Insurrection, Stepmom (came free with my first DVD player)
My 20 Favorite Movies from 1998 (alphabetical order): Babe: Pig in the City, The Big Lebowski, A Civil Action, Cube, The Eel, He Got Game, Meet Joe Black, Mulan, Out of Sight, Primary Colors, The Red Violin, Return to Paradise, Rounders, Rush Hour, Saving Private Ryan, A Simple Plan, Urban Legend, The Wedding Singer, Wild Things, You’ve Got Mail

FTM 1998 Month Rewind: THE MASK OF ZORRO Feb 18, 2025
Patrick and JB always wear masks.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), Star Wars (1977), Godspell (1973), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), War of the Worlds (1953), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Downhill (2020), Onward (2020)

1998 Month Rewind: I'll Watch Anything! CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD Feb 17, 2025
by Patrick BromleyRemember when they tried to make Carrot Top a movie star? Because I don't.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on November 7, 2013.
I have gone 15 years without seeing Chairman of the Board, the starring vehicle for hugely successful prop comic-turned-Nightbreed Carrot Top. How I made it this long I cannot say. I saw Ringmaster, the Jerry Springer movie, during its theatrical run. I saw Spice World the night it opened. From Justin to Kelly? You bet. How did I miss out on the Top?
This will not be a screed on whether or not Carrot Top is funny as a comic. First of all, that's a stupid, lazy reference. Ha ha, he uses props and that's dumb! Go fuck yourself. Second, I don't know enough about his comedy to make that kind of judgment. From what I have seen, I don't find him funny. But he has had a long, successful career touring colleges and becoming a permanent fixture in Las Vegas, so obviously he has his fans. I know he uses props, and I know that some people think that's lame. I don't have a problem with Carrot Top using props, just as I don't have a problem with Jeff Dunham using puppets. I have a problem with Jeff Dunham being racist and hateful, which I don't think can be said of Carrot Top. Again, I haven't seen his Vegas show.
Plus, the quality of Carrot Top's stand-up has little to do with his viability as a movie star. I am not a fan of Andrew Dice Clay's comedy act, but I like Andrew Dice Clay as an actor (and, just to validate my 20-year defense of him, he was great in this year's Blue Jasmine and forced even the cynics to take him seriously). It is possible to divorce the two. You don't have to love Weird Al Yankovic's music in order to love UHF (I don't want to know you if you don't love his music). Sure, it helps, because you're entering as a fan, but funny is funny and stand-up has nothing to do with what works on film. Chris Rock is one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time and can't make a movie work to save his life. It stands to reason that Carrot Top could be a hacky, unfunny comic and still make a really funny movie.
Chairman of the Board is not that movie.
Carrot Top (née Scott Thompson) plays Edison, an inventor, a surfer and a dreamer who lives in a beach house with his two surfer buddies and spends his days coming up with wacky new products in which no one is interested. They can't even pay the rent! It's hilarious. One day, Edison pulls over on the side of the road to help a guy having car trouble. Turns out that guy is Armand McMillan, titan of industry, who drops dead shortly after and -- WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT?? -- leaves his whole company to Edison! Crazy, right? A guy who doesn't know anything about running a company gets left a whole company!
But wait, it gets even more interesting! There is a sniveling Larry Miller type (played by Larry Miller) who wants control of the company so he can sell it to a RWILF (played by Raquel Welch), so he decides to sabotage Edison's efforts. But then his plan backfires and Edison's latest invention -- a TV dinner with a built-in TV -- takes off! But Edison gets a big head and forgets his roots! He becomes a real jerk! And then the company faces a lawsuit and Edison has to remember who he used to be and save the day! And then I take my phone off the hook and drink all the bleach in my house!
Chairman of the Board has to be one of the most aggressively unpleasant comedies I've ever seen, its every moment devoted to being as ugly, loud and obnoxious as possible. It is a movie informed entirely by episodes of The Monkees and Slim Jim commercials, all canted angles, wide angle close-ups and exaggerated set design. Clearly, a huge influence for everyone involved was Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a film that made a star out of a well-developed comic persona by reflecting that persona in every frame, from the music to the editing to the art direction. I guess that's what director Alex Zamm is going for here, but the aesthetic he chose suggests that Carrot Top is a horrible human being from whom everyone should stay away.
Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself:

Doesn't it make you desperate to NOT see another second? Doesn't it give you a headache? The obnoxious, ugly photography? The shouting of the dialogue? The constant stupid sound effects? These were not marketing choices added for the purposes of the trailer. THAT IS WHAT THE WHOLE MOVIE IS LIKE. You know the last scene of the trailer, in which an elderly woman licks her lips and tries to give CPR to a man who is CLEARLY FUCKING CONSCIOUS? That's the last scene of the movie. That's how it ends. Leave them laughing, I always say. And if you can't do that, leave them hating their lives.
Chairman of the Board plays like anti-comedy. It opens with baby Edison (played by a baby in a Carrot Top wig, a sight gag that's a good indication of the level of humor to follow) inventing something while inside his mother's womb. This means that the filmmakers had to build a realistic-looking INSIDE OF A UTERUS to film for the OPENING OF THEIR COMEDY MOVIE. Ah, the inside of the human body. So pink, so gross, so hilarious.
Or take this comic premise that is also ugly and offensive: Estelle Harris (better known as Mrs. Costanza) plays Carrot Top's landlady, a nagging shrew perpetually clad in a housecoat and rollers. That's not the part that's ugly and offensive. It's the fact that she speaks through one of those Electrolarynx devices used by people missing their voice boxes. There is no explanation for why she needs this, which means someone just thought it would be funny. It's not. It's just grotesque and mean spirited. Maybe it's because this was 1998 and a character on South Park was using one? Option B suggests the filmmakers are thieves. Option A suggests they are dicks.The landlady bit is actually uncharacteristic of the movie, which is mostly innocuous in an annoying, in-your-face way. Carrot Top's M.O. was never about being "edgy" or offensive, and neither is Chairman of the Board. Maybe that's why the few instances of ugly or misogynist humor stand out more sorely. Yes, the movie is offensive, but only to your eyeballs, earballs and funny bone balls.
The plot has all the creativity of an '80s TV movie. Why is it that the central conflict of so many contemporary comedies hinges on business and finance? Whether it's kids' "comedies" like Yogi Bear, The Flintstones or The Smurfs or movies like Trading Places, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy -- they're all concerned with who is going to run the company, or whose product is going to succeed, or who is going make money and who is going to be financially ruined (and don't get me started on the whole subgenre of movies about dads who work to much and have to learn to value their families more). It's a cheap, lazy way of establishing dramatic stakes and finding a way for the childish main character to "grow up": once he or she (but always he) can run a successful corporation -- or, as is often the case, has grown wise enough to pass the company along to someone more deserving -- we know he has grown up. And isn't that what's most important? Following the status quo? Every one of these comedies is about the path from anarchic individualism to corporate conformity -- oversized personalities that need to be tamed. This film is no different.
Because I've spent my life romanticizing movies, I forget sometimes that acting is a job like any other job. People need to work. Chairman of the Board is a harsh reminder of that fact. Watching otherwise talented people like Jack Warden, M. Emmet Walsh, Raquel Welch and Larry Miller (not to mention Taylor Negron, Fred Stoller, Glenn Shadix, Estelle Harris and Rance Howard) suffer through the indignity of appearing the Carrot Top movie is a depressing reminder that professional movie stars have bills and a mortgage and will one day die like the rest of us. Yes, Chairman of the Board is a reminder that we will all die.
Or maybe everyone involved wanted to get in on the ground floor of what was sure to be Carrot Top's huge movie career. Again, it had happened before; the '90s success of Pauly Shore, Movie Star is clearly the model being followed by everyone here. But Pauly Shore never made a movie as bad as Chairman of the Board.
Maybe Bio-Dome. I haven't seen Bio-Dome.
Poor Courtney Thorne-Smith. There has to be a special seat in heaven reserved for Courtney Thorne-Smith, who has made a career of propping up unfunny male costars in terrible vehicles with the patience of a saint. This is a woman who has had to pretend to be romantically interested in Robert Carradine in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Jim Belushi on According to Jim, Jon Cryer on Two and a Half Men and Carrot Top in Chairman of the Board. Her work in the movie is as good as it is in anything else she does, which is to say she gets through all of her lines without weeping on film and avoids sticking a gun in her mouth. She deserves a lot of credit.
Chairman of the Board was the feature directing debut of filmmaker Alex Zamm, whose very name is the onomatopoeic equivalent of the movie: ZAMM!! He has since become the go-to guy for shitty direct-to-video sequels like Tooth Fairy 2, Inspector Gadget 2, Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and the upcoming The Little Rascals Save the Day. There is little I can say about his "style" or the choices he makes here that I haven't beaten to death already. He clearly wants to inject the movie with a lot of manic energy, but it's all Fake Fun.
On paper, there's a lot about Chairman of the Board that makes sense. Carrot Top was a very popular comedian with a recognizable name and face. It stands to reason that he would make the leap to film, because that was popular career path in the '90s. He has the kind of manic, loud energy that lends itself to this kind of comedy, and casting him as an inventor allows for him to lean on a bunch of his homemade props. Had the movie come out in 1993, it might have done ok. But while it released was just five years later, 1998 was a very different landscape in which to drop a Carrot Top movie. America was no longer putting up with this kind of shit. Pauly Shore movies were on the way out. This is a movie that must have felt dated the weekend it opened.
Not that anyone noticed. The movie made about $300,000 in its theatrical run despite being made for a budget of $10 million. For you mathmagicians, that's less than five percent of its cost. The thing shit the bed is what I'm saying.
Perhaps the most puzzling thing about Chairman of the Board is that it ends with an onscreen dedication that reads "Inspired by Bijan Amin." That's fucking mysterious. I can't find anything out about Bijan Amin online, nor what that credit actually means. Did he come up with the idea for the movie? He would have gotten a "story by" credit for that. Was he the first person to suggest Carrot Top as the lead of a movie? Was he the real Chairman of the Board? WHO IS BIJAN AMIN AND WHAT DID HE INSPIRE? This is something I'm willing to get to the bottom of. Bijan Amin is my Keyser Soze.
I usually try to find something positive to say about these "I'll Watch Anything!" movies, maybe because it makes for a more useful discussion and maybe because I'm trying to rationalize wasting my time. I'm having a tough go of it with this one. I'm told Chairman of the Board is a comedy, so I guess I can give it points for that. Wanting to make people laugh is a noble thing. Whether or not one succeeds in that pursuit is another.

1998 Month Rewind: I'll Watch Anything! CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD Feb 17, 2025
by Patrick BromleyRemember when they tried to make Carrot Top a movie star? Because I don't.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on November 7, 2013.
I have gone 15 years without seeing Chairman of the Board, the starring vehicle for hugely successful prop comic-turned-Nightbreed Carrot Top. How I made it this long I cannot say. I saw Ringmaster, the Jerry Springer movie, during its theatrical run. I saw Spice World the night it opened. From Justin to Kelly? You bet. How did I miss out on the Top?
This will not be a screed on whether or not Carrot Top is funny as a comic. First of all, that's a stupid, lazy reference. Ha ha, he uses props and that's dumb! Go fuck yourself. Second, I don't know enough about his comedy to make that kind of judgment. From what I have seen, I don't find him funny. But he has had a long, successful career touring colleges and becoming a permanent fixture in Las Vegas, so obviously he has his fans. I know he uses props, and I know that some people think that's lame. I don't have a problem with Carrot Top using props, just as I don't have a problem with Jeff Dunham using puppets. I have a problem with Jeff Dunham being racist and hateful, which I don't think can be said of Carrot Top. Again, I haven't seen his Vegas show.
Plus, the quality of Carrot Top's stand-up has little to do with his viability as a movie star. I am not a fan of Andrew Dice Clay's comedy act, but I like Andrew Dice Clay as an actor (and, just to validate my 20-year defense of him, he was great in this year's Blue Jasmine and forced even the cynics to take him seriously). It is possible to divorce the two. You don't have to love Weird Al Yankovic's music in order to love UHF (I don't want to know you if you don't love his music). Sure, it helps, because you're entering as a fan, but funny is funny and stand-up has nothing to do with what works on film. Chris Rock is one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time and can't make a movie work to save his life. It stands to reason that Carrot Top could be a hacky, unfunny comic and still make a really funny movie.
Chairman of the Board is not that movie.
Carrot Top (née Scott Thompson) plays Edison, an inventor, a surfer and a dreamer who lives in a beach house with his two surfer buddies and spends his days coming up with wacky new products in which no one is interested. They can't even pay the rent! It's hilarious. One day, Edison pulls over on the side of the road to help a guy having car trouble. Turns out that guy is Armand McMillan, titan of industry, who drops dead shortly after and -- WOULDN'T YOU KNOW IT?? -- leaves his whole company to Edison! Crazy, right? A guy who doesn't know anything about running a company gets left a whole company!
But wait, it gets even more interesting! There is a sniveling Larry Miller type (played by Larry Miller) who wants control of the company so he can sell it to a RWILF (played by Raquel Welch), so he decides to sabotage Edison's efforts. But then his plan backfires and Edison's latest invention -- a TV dinner with a built-in TV -- takes off! But Edison gets a big head and forgets his roots! He becomes a real jerk! And then the company faces a lawsuit and Edison has to remember who he used to be and save the day! And then I take my phone off the hook and drink all the bleach in my house!
Chairman of the Board has to be one of the most aggressively unpleasant comedies I've ever seen, its every moment devoted to being as ugly, loud and obnoxious as possible. It is a movie informed entirely by episodes of The Monkees and Slim Jim commercials, all canted angles, wide angle close-ups and exaggerated set design. Clearly, a huge influence for everyone involved was Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, a film that made a star out of a well-developed comic persona by reflecting that persona in every frame, from the music to the editing to the art direction. I guess that's what director Alex Zamm is going for here, but the aesthetic he chose suggests that Carrot Top is a horrible human being from whom everyone should stay away.
Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself:

Doesn't it make you desperate to NOT see another second? Doesn't it give you a headache? The obnoxious, ugly photography? The shouting of the dialogue? The constant stupid sound effects? These were not marketing choices added for the purposes of the trailer. THAT IS WHAT THE WHOLE MOVIE IS LIKE. You know the last scene of the trailer, in which an elderly woman licks her lips and tries to give CPR to a man who is CLEARLY FUCKING CONSCIOUS? That's the last scene of the movie. That's how it ends. Leave them laughing, I always say. And if you can't do that, leave them hating their lives.
Chairman of the Board plays like anti-comedy. It opens with baby Edison (played by a baby in a Carrot Top wig, a sight gag that's a good indication of the level of humor to follow) inventing something while inside his mother's womb. This means that the filmmakers had to build a realistic-looking INSIDE OF A UTERUS to film for the OPENING OF THEIR COMEDY MOVIE. Ah, the inside of the human body. So pink, so gross, so hilarious.
Or take this comic premise that is also ugly and offensive: Estelle Harris (better known as Mrs. Costanza) plays Carrot Top's landlady, a nagging shrew perpetually clad in a housecoat and rollers. That's not the part that's ugly and offensive. It's the fact that she speaks through one of those Electrolarynx devices used by people missing their voice boxes. There is no explanation for why she needs this, which means someone just thought it would be funny. It's not. It's just grotesque and mean spirited. Maybe it's because this was 1998 and a character on South Park was using one? Option B suggests the filmmakers are thieves. Option A suggests they are dicks.The landlady bit is actually uncharacteristic of the movie, which is mostly innocuous in an annoying, in-your-face way. Carrot Top's M.O. was never about being "edgy" or offensive, and neither is Chairman of the Board. Maybe that's why the few instances of ugly or misogynist humor stand out more sorely. Yes, the movie is offensive, but only to your eyeballs, earballs and funny bone balls.
The plot has all the creativity of an '80s TV movie. Why is it that the central conflict of so many contemporary comedies hinges on business and finance? Whether it's kids' "comedies" like Yogi Bear, The Flintstones or The Smurfs or movies like Trading Places, Billy Madison, Tommy Boy -- they're all concerned with who is going to run the company, or whose product is going to succeed, or who is going make money and who is going to be financially ruined (and don't get me started on the whole subgenre of movies about dads who work to much and have to learn to value their families more). It's a cheap, lazy way of establishing dramatic stakes and finding a way for the childish main character to "grow up": once he or she (but always he) can run a successful corporation -- or, as is often the case, has grown wise enough to pass the company along to someone more deserving -- we know he has grown up. And isn't that what's most important? Following the status quo? Every one of these comedies is about the path from anarchic individualism to corporate conformity -- oversized personalities that need to be tamed. This film is no different.
Because I've spent my life romanticizing movies, I forget sometimes that acting is a job like any other job. People need to work. Chairman of the Board is a harsh reminder of that fact. Watching otherwise talented people like Jack Warden, M. Emmet Walsh, Raquel Welch and Larry Miller (not to mention Taylor Negron, Fred Stoller, Glenn Shadix, Estelle Harris and Rance Howard) suffer through the indignity of appearing the Carrot Top movie is a depressing reminder that professional movie stars have bills and a mortgage and will one day die like the rest of us. Yes, Chairman of the Board is a reminder that we will all die.
Or maybe everyone involved wanted to get in on the ground floor of what was sure to be Carrot Top's huge movie career. Again, it had happened before; the '90s success of Pauly Shore, Movie Star is clearly the model being followed by everyone here. But Pauly Shore never made a movie as bad as Chairman of the Board.
Maybe Bio-Dome. I haven't seen Bio-Dome.
Poor Courtney Thorne-Smith. There has to be a special seat in heaven reserved for Courtney Thorne-Smith, who has made a career of propping up unfunny male costars in terrible vehicles with the patience of a saint. This is a woman who has had to pretend to be romantically interested in Robert Carradine in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Jim Belushi on According to Jim, Jon Cryer on Two and a Half Men and Carrot Top in Chairman of the Board. Her work in the movie is as good as it is in anything else she does, which is to say she gets through all of her lines without weeping on film and avoids sticking a gun in her mouth. She deserves a lot of credit.
Chairman of the Board was the feature directing debut of filmmaker Alex Zamm, whose very name is the onomatopoeic equivalent of the movie: ZAMM!! He has since become the go-to guy for shitty direct-to-video sequels like Tooth Fairy 2, Inspector Gadget 2, Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and the upcoming The Little Rascals Save the Day. There is little I can say about his "style" or the choices he makes here that I haven't beaten to death already. He clearly wants to inject the movie with a lot of manic energy, but it's all Fake Fun.
On paper, there's a lot about Chairman of the Board that makes sense. Carrot Top was a very popular comedian with a recognizable name and face. It stands to reason that he would make the leap to film, because that was popular career path in the '90s. He has the kind of manic, loud energy that lends itself to this kind of comedy, and casting him as an inventor allows for him to lean on a bunch of his homemade props. Had the movie come out in 1993, it might have done ok. But while it released was just five years later, 1998 was a very different landscape in which to drop a Carrot Top movie. America was no longer putting up with this kind of shit. Pauly Shore movies were on the way out. This is a movie that must have felt dated the weekend it opened.
Not that anyone noticed. The movie made about $300,000 in its theatrical run despite being made for a budget of $10 million. For you mathmagicians, that's less than five percent of its cost. The thing shit the bed is what I'm saying.
Perhaps the most puzzling thing about Chairman of the Board is that it ends with an onscreen dedication that reads "Inspired by Bijan Amin." That's fucking mysterious. I can't find anything out about Bijan Amin online, nor what that credit actually means. Did he come up with the idea for the movie? He would have gotten a "story by" credit for that. Was he the first person to suggest Carrot Top as the lead of a movie? Was he the real Chairman of the Board? WHO IS BIJAN AMIN AND WHAT DID HE INSPIRE? This is something I'm willing to get to the bottom of. Bijan Amin is my Keyser Soze.
I usually try to find something positive to say about these "I'll Watch Anything!" movies, maybe because it makes for a more useful discussion and maybe because I'm trying to rationalize wasting my time. I'm having a tough go of it with this one. I'm told Chairman of the Board is a comedy, so I guess I can give it points for that. Wanting to make people laugh is a noble thing. Whether or not one succeeds in that pursuit is another.

2K Replay: PRIDE & PREJUDICE Feb 17, 2025
by Adam Riske
Winner for “Best Movie for Mature Audiences” at the MovieGuide Awards.
• Best Scene/Moment: I really like the scene where Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) tells her father (Donald Sutherland) about all of the cool things Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfayden) has been doing behind the scenes and Sutherland happily gives his consent for Elizabeth to marry Darcy.
• Best Song: “Dawn” written by Dario Marianelli and performed by Tamzin Merchant.• Best Merch: This is my choice solely for the seller’s description. A “DVD Pride & Prejudice 2005 W/Kevin Knightley A Joe Wright Fun ” for $5.00. And, of course, it’s Full Screen.
• Director Grade: Pride & Prejudice was directed by Joe Wright.
Great Movies: Pride & Prejudice
Good Movies: Hanna
OK Movies: Atonement, Darkest Hour
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: The Soloist, Anna Karenina, Pan, The Woman in the Window, Cyrano
Overall Grade: B
• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Casanova
• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, The New World
• Never Talk to Strangers or Pride & Prejudice? Pride & Prejudice.
• Mall Movie? Not a chance. A fancy theater movie all the way.• Only in 2005: I watched an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. It’s all because of Keira Knightley, who rules.
• Scene Stealer: Donald Sutherland.
• I Miss: Donald Sutherland.
• I Don’t Miss (tie): Studios still releasing DVDs in Full Screen in 2005 and the decades-long run of having to clap for Judi Dench for doing literally anything in a movie. She’s good but calm down people.
• 2005 Crush (tie): Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike.
• 2025 Crush: Keira Knightley.• What I Thought in 2005: I remember being surprised by how much I enjoyed Pride & Prejudice (2005) on my first viewing. It was involving and I really liked Knightley in the lead role of Elizabeth Bennett. Plus, now I understood the references to it in You’ve Got Mail.
• What I Think in 2025: Pride & Prejudice (2005) held up really well. You have to be patient with it, but it rewards you for giving it your full attention. The cast is great, and it reminded me of Little Women (1994) -- which I hadn’t seen back in 2005 -- and that’s always a good thing. In other words, I might be a better match for Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail than Tom Hanks.

2K Replay: PRIDE & PREJUDICE Feb 17, 2025
by Adam Riske
Winner for “Best Movie for Mature Audiences” at the MovieGuide Awards.
• Best Scene/Moment: I really like the scene where Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) tells her father (Donald Sutherland) about all of the cool things Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfayden) has been doing behind the scenes and Sutherland happily gives his consent for Elizabeth to marry Darcy.
• Best Song: “Dawn” written by Dario Marianelli and performed by Tamzin Merchant.• Best Merch: This is my choice solely for the seller’s description. A “DVD Pride & Prejudice 2005 W/Kevin Knightley A Joe Wright Fun ” for $5.00. And, of course, it’s Full Screen.
• Director Grade: Pride & Prejudice was directed by Joe Wright.
Great Movies: Pride & Prejudice
Good Movies: Hanna
OK Movies: Atonement, Darkest Hour
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: The Soloist, Anna Karenina, Pan, The Woman in the Window, Cyrano
Overall Grade: B
• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Casanova
• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, The New World
• Never Talk to Strangers or Pride & Prejudice? Pride & Prejudice.
• Mall Movie? Not a chance. A fancy theater movie all the way.• Only in 2005: I watched an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. It’s all because of Keira Knightley, who rules.
• Scene Stealer: Donald Sutherland.
• I Miss: Donald Sutherland.
• I Don’t Miss (tie): Studios still releasing DVDs in Full Screen in 2005 and the decades-long run of having to clap for Judi Dench for doing literally anything in a movie. She’s good but calm down people.
• 2005 Crush (tie): Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike.
• 2025 Crush: Keira Knightley.• What I Thought in 2005: I remember being surprised by how much I enjoyed Pride & Prejudice (2005) on my first viewing. It was involving and I really liked Knightley in the lead role of Elizabeth Bennett. Plus, now I understood the references to it in You’ve Got Mail.
• What I Think in 2025: Pride & Prejudice (2005) held up really well. You have to be patient with it, but it rewards you for giving it your full attention. The cast is great, and it reminded me of Little Women (1994) -- which I hadn’t seen back in 2005 -- and that’s always a good thing. In other words, I might be a better match for Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail than Tom Hanks.

Weekend Open Thread Feb 15, 2025

Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD Feb 14, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
It’s really The Incredible Hulk 2, but it couldn’t possibly matter less.
Watching a Marvel movie in 2025 feels a lot like being an American in 2025: Everything bears a vague resemblance to the classic highlights of yesteryear, but there’s an acrid stink of laziness and desperation in the air that you just can’t ignore. It all feels like a front. An act. It insists upon itself without merit. The awe and spectacle you remember from your childhood is nowhere to be found, and you’re starting to wonder if it was ever all that awe-inspiring or spectacular to begin with. The most familiar faces are well past their prime, all of them milling about aimlessly without the slightest clue as to why they’re still around or what purpose their actions might serve. The new class, such as it is, is made of second-string pretenders who pale in comparison to the icons who spun miracles out of nothing but charisma and guile. Those forebears took great risks and reaped great rewards. Their successors, like Captain America: Brave New World, are ignorant and ineffectual, soft with privilege and lacking the power to inspire anything but apathy and frustration.In the years since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk — which is quickly summarized by talking heads who seem to know it’s the MCU movie no one watches — Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, in for the late William Hurt) has traded the military for Pennsylvania Avenue, foregoing his long-standing crusade against The Avengers in an appeal to the superhero-loving American electorate. His first presidential policy initiative is securing a treaty with a group of nations claiming ownership of “Celestial Island,” the site of Tiamut’s emergence in Eternals. You remember Eternals, right? Tiamut’s the big dude sticking out of the ocean. Anyway, the island is filled with unrefined Adamantium, which Ross says is “more indestructible than Vibranium.” Whistling past the semantic detail that indestructibility isn’t measured in degrees — The only thing lower than America’s literacy standards for its children, of course, is its literacy standards for its presidents — Ross enlists Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America, to get a firm grip on this valuable asset.
Well, sort of. It’s true that Seth Voelker (Giancarlo Esposito) stealing an Adamantium sample is technically Brave New World’s inciting incident, but the film kicks off in earnest when a group of White House VIPs — including America’s forgotten black super-soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) — are Manchurian Candidated into an assassination attempt on visiting dignitaries, destabilizing the treaty before it’s even signed. Excommunicated by the president and supplanted in his inner circle by former Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), Wilson and his plucky new Falcon (Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres) go rogue to hunt down the attack’s real mastermind, prove Bradley’s innocence once and for all, and uncover a conspiracy that will force Ross into a confrontation with the demons of his past. There will also be a fight with Red Hulk somewhere in the last act because Marvel knows how insane it would be to bet their entire $200 million blockbuster on Tim Blake Nelson (returning from The Incredible Hulk as The Leader) in a Spirit Halloween mask.And if Brave New World grasps at any deeper thematic inquiry between its ungainly action set pieces and empty military intrigue, it might be this: What role should a black Captain America play in the U.S. government? How can Wilson acquiesce to a system so inextricably linked to oppression and abuse? Bradley — who recounted his personal horrors on that front in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — poses these questions early on, and a film with bigger brains or balls might have attempted an answer. But this one gets distracted with a dull retread of The Winter Soldier grafted onto an undercooked and largely incoherent story about Ross atoning for years of war-mongering and mistreatment of his daughter, Betty (Liv Tyler). Rather than dovetail these threads into a grander lesson about honor, responsibility, or social justice, Brave New World is content to have Wilson and Ross blow shit up, spout empty platitudes, and nod at each other in self-congratulation as the credits roll. It’s probably for the best, really; God forbid a political thriller features a political message.There’s more to dissect, if you like: With all due respect, Anthony Mackie is not a movie star. He’s not going to be able to carry a major franchise, least of all one that can’t give him tangible human material to work with. Harrison Ford is so bored by this dialogue that he seems to be in physical pain, which would be charming were it not such a rampant plague on all MCU A-listers. What else? There’s an interesting symbolism in watching the president literally smash the White House to pieces, I suppose — especially in 2025 — but again, Brave New World lacks cogency enough to make even the most blunt and obvious metaphors land with any real impact. Oh, and temper your Red Hulk expectations, folks. He’s in this for about eight minutes. Look, I could go on, but the bottom line is that Captain America: Brave New World is a gutless, brainless, empty waste of time, money, and talent. Like America itself, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is over, and nothing — not even that dry-ass Fantastic Four trailer you’re all dying over for some reason — is going to bring it back.
Captain America: Brave New World hits U.S. theaters today, February 14th.

Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD Feb 14, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
It’s really The Incredible Hulk 2, but it couldn’t possibly matter less.
Watching a Marvel movie in 2025 feels a lot like being an American in 2025: Everything bears a vague resemblance to the classic highlights of yesteryear, but there’s an acrid stink of laziness and desperation in the air that you just can’t ignore. It all feels like a front. An act. It insists upon itself without merit. The awe and spectacle you remember from your childhood is nowhere to be found, and you’re starting to wonder if it was ever all that awe-inspiring or spectacular to begin with. The most familiar faces are well past their prime, all of them milling about aimlessly without the slightest clue as to why they’re still around or what purpose their actions might serve. The new class, such as it is, is made of second-string pretenders who pale in comparison to the icons who spun miracles out of nothing but charisma and guile. Those forebears took great risks and reaped great rewards. Their successors, like Captain America: Brave New World, are ignorant and ineffectual, soft with privilege and lacking the power to inspire anything but apathy and frustration.In the years since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk — which is quickly summarized by talking heads who seem to know it’s the MCU movie no one watches — Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford, in for the late William Hurt) has traded the military for Pennsylvania Avenue, foregoing his long-standing crusade against The Avengers in an appeal to the superhero-loving American electorate. His first presidential policy initiative is securing a treaty with a group of nations claiming ownership of “Celestial Island,” the site of Tiamut’s emergence in Eternals. You remember Eternals, right? Tiamut’s the big dude sticking out of the ocean. Anyway, the island is filled with unrefined Adamantium, which Ross says is “more indestructible than Vibranium.” Whistling past the semantic detail that indestructibility isn’t measured in degrees — The only thing lower than America’s literacy standards for its children, of course, is its literacy standards for its presidents — Ross enlists Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), the new Captain America, to get a firm grip on this valuable asset.
Well, sort of. It’s true that Seth Voelker (Giancarlo Esposito) stealing an Adamantium sample is technically Brave New World’s inciting incident, but the film kicks off in earnest when a group of White House VIPs — including America’s forgotten black super-soldier, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) — are Manchurian Candidated into an assassination attempt on visiting dignitaries, destabilizing the treaty before it’s even signed. Excommunicated by the president and supplanted in his inner circle by former Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), Wilson and his plucky new Falcon (Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres) go rogue to hunt down the attack’s real mastermind, prove Bradley’s innocence once and for all, and uncover a conspiracy that will force Ross into a confrontation with the demons of his past. There will also be a fight with Red Hulk somewhere in the last act because Marvel knows how insane it would be to bet their entire $200 million blockbuster on Tim Blake Nelson (returning from The Incredible Hulk as The Leader) in a Spirit Halloween mask.And if Brave New World grasps at any deeper thematic inquiry between its ungainly action set pieces and empty military intrigue, it might be this: What role should a black Captain America play in the U.S. government? How can Wilson acquiesce to a system so inextricably linked to oppression and abuse? Bradley — who recounted his personal horrors on that front in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier — poses these questions early on, and a film with bigger brains or balls might have attempted an answer. But this one gets distracted with a dull retread of The Winter Soldier grafted onto an undercooked and largely incoherent story about Ross atoning for years of war-mongering and mistreatment of his daughter, Betty (Liv Tyler). Rather than dovetail these threads into a grander lesson about honor, responsibility, or social justice, Brave New World is content to have Wilson and Ross blow shit up, spout empty platitudes, and nod at each other in self-congratulation as the credits roll. It’s probably for the best, really; God forbid a political thriller features a political message.There’s more to dissect, if you like: With all due respect, Anthony Mackie is not a movie star. He’s not going to be able to carry a major franchise, least of all one that can’t give him tangible human material to work with. Harrison Ford is so bored by this dialogue that he seems to be in physical pain, which would be charming were it not such a rampant plague on all MCU A-listers. What else? There’s an interesting symbolism in watching the president literally smash the White House to pieces, I suppose — especially in 2025 — but again, Brave New World lacks cogency enough to make even the most blunt and obvious metaphors land with any real impact. Oh, and temper your Red Hulk expectations, folks. He’s in this for about eight minutes. Look, I could go on, but the bottom line is that Captain America: Brave New World is a gutless, brainless, empty waste of time, money, and talent. Like America itself, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is over, and nothing — not even that dry-ass Fantastic Four trailer you’re all dying over for some reason — is going to bring it back.
Captain America: Brave New World hits U.S. theaters today, February 14th.

FTM 1998 Month Rewind: 54 Feb 13, 2025
Patrick and Erika like the night life. They like to boogie.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Magic Mike XXL (2015), The Overnight (2015), The Punk Singer (2014), Beyond the Lights (2014), Voices from Beyond (1991)

Reserved Seating: RUDYARD KIPLING'S THE JUNGLE BOOK Feb 13, 2025
The review duo (with special guest Rosalie!) who declare February to be Sommers Time!

1998 Month Rewind: WILD THINGS 20 Years Later Feb 12, 2025
by Adam Riske
Watch it with a couple of acquaintances. See what happens.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on March 19, 2018.
I saw Wild Things opening weekend in March 1998. I was 15 years old. It was an important movie to me. My high school friends and I were whipped into a frenzy in anticipation of its lurid thrills. I remember after we saw the movie, we were in my friend’s car and he decided to play a game I’ll now call “Wild Things! No red lights!” where he made a right turn at any red light, then pulled a U-turn, followed by another right turn to beat every red. He even cut through a gas station at one point. We were pumped. Sure, there were other “hot” movies in the ‘90s, but this was “our hot movie.” It had Sidney Prescott and Denise “Fleet” Richards getting it on. It was an important movie to me. I was 15 years old. None of us had girlfriends.
Up until this past weekend, it had been maybe 19 years since I had seen Wild Things. Thankfully, it’s a different experience to me at 35 years old. I have grown up and calmed down. It’s a movie that’s a little #problematic in 2018. It uses the serious crime of rape as a plot device. It certainly has male gaze problems. If that were to step on anyone’s enjoyment of the movie, that’s 100 percent understandable. On re-watch, I was amused in a couple of ways. One, it’s a funny movie and one of the most entertaining noir thrillers I’ve seen, twisting its characters every act and throwing our allegiances into haywire. Second, it’s a movie that I think was meant to trick a person like 15-year-old me. Director John McNaughton is basically saying “Ok, you little shit, you want a late-night Cinemax sex movie? How about a clever, well-written thriller?” Another thing that struck me on this watch was how much fun the actors are having. They know the movie they are in is trash, but that’s not going to stop them from giving 100 percent and making Wild Things better than it should be. It’s a positive troll.
In 1998, I was most excited about Wild Things because I was in peak Neve Campbell crush mode. Hers might be my least favorite performance in the film now (which I feel bad saying, because I’ve met her at a convention and she was nice) but that’s mostly because she has the most mysterious role in the end. She has to play different fronts to different characters and a lot of the ticks she adopts are to make her seem all “eh..uh..guh..DON’T TOUCH ME!” when she’s really (SPOILER) the film’s ultimate criminal mastermind. As for the other performances, this might be my favorite Denise Richards performance. I can’t tell if she feels less wooden here than usual or if her not-great-actingness is perfect for the role she’s playing. Whatever it is, it works. Matt Dillon is perfectly cast as a ‘50s greaser-turned-Glades guidance counselor who is a scumbug masked in polo shirts. He’s a good bad guy because no matter the movie, he just looks like the kind of asshole who would trip you and then call you “champ” as he kicks you in the ribs and high fives his friend, Jimbo. Kevin Bacon is fun. He’s an actor I love seeing on screen and it’s awesome that he has a part where he can do his stoic thing and then gear-shift into creepy Bacon. Plus, you see his dick so…equality? I remember in the theater my friends and I were not happy about that moment (we were like “OH! NO!”) but now I’m like “It’s an A-lister. It would be rude not to look.” The secret weapon of Wild Things is Bill Murray as Dillon’s lawyer, who also has ulterior motives. It’s the tone he sets that allows Wild Things to take on an extra layer of play it might not have otherwise had. I can easily see Wild Things following the usual noir beats, being self-serious/mean-spirited, but none of that heaviness comes across because Murray pops up and cues the audience that they’re meant to sit back and have a good time.
One of my favorite aspects of going back to write about movies 20 years later is to see them through new eyes. I like selecting the films that existed in their weekend, their month, but not much longer because that’s where you’re more likely to find hidden gems and recall nostalgic memories as opposed to favorites you may have built a history with in the subsequent years. Wild Things has been one of the most pleasant revisits for me to date. It’s even better than I remember. Also, this movie was one of the early DVDs back when Columbia Pictures was still making Full Screen/Pan & Scan copies of their films. Watching Wild Things this way was a nightmare (so many zooms, so many tracking swipes, that gaudy Mandalay Pictures logo I thought I’d never have to see again) but it also gave this viewing an extra nostalgic charm I’m glad to have experienced.
Note: The end credits to this film > any Marvel credits scene ever. Can we have a Wild Things cinematic universe?

1998 Month Rewind: WILD THINGS 20 Years Later Feb 12, 2025
by Adam Riske
Watch it with a couple of acquaintances. See what happens.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on March 19, 2018.
I saw Wild Things opening weekend in March 1998. I was 15 years old. It was an important movie to me. My high school friends and I were whipped into a frenzy in anticipation of its lurid thrills. I remember after we saw the movie, we were in my friend’s car and he decided to play a game I’ll now call “Wild Things! No red lights!” where he made a right turn at any red light, then pulled a U-turn, followed by another right turn to beat every red. He even cut through a gas station at one point. We were pumped. Sure, there were other “hot” movies in the ‘90s, but this was “our hot movie.” It had Sidney Prescott and Denise “Fleet” Richards getting it on. It was an important movie to me. I was 15 years old. None of us had girlfriends.
Up until this past weekend, it had been maybe 19 years since I had seen Wild Things. Thankfully, it’s a different experience to me at 35 years old. I have grown up and calmed down. It’s a movie that’s a little #problematic in 2018. It uses the serious crime of rape as a plot device. It certainly has male gaze problems. If that were to step on anyone’s enjoyment of the movie, that’s 100 percent understandable. On re-watch, I was amused in a couple of ways. One, it’s a funny movie and one of the most entertaining noir thrillers I’ve seen, twisting its characters every act and throwing our allegiances into haywire. Second, it’s a movie that I think was meant to trick a person like 15-year-old me. Director John McNaughton is basically saying “Ok, you little shit, you want a late-night Cinemax sex movie? How about a clever, well-written thriller?” Another thing that struck me on this watch was how much fun the actors are having. They know the movie they are in is trash, but that’s not going to stop them from giving 100 percent and making Wild Things better than it should be. It’s a positive troll.
In 1998, I was most excited about Wild Things because I was in peak Neve Campbell crush mode. Hers might be my least favorite performance in the film now (which I feel bad saying, because I’ve met her at a convention and she was nice) but that’s mostly because she has the most mysterious role in the end. She has to play different fronts to different characters and a lot of the ticks she adopts are to make her seem all “eh..uh..guh..DON’T TOUCH ME!” when she’s really (SPOILER) the film’s ultimate criminal mastermind. As for the other performances, this might be my favorite Denise Richards performance. I can’t tell if she feels less wooden here than usual or if her not-great-actingness is perfect for the role she’s playing. Whatever it is, it works. Matt Dillon is perfectly cast as a ‘50s greaser-turned-Glades guidance counselor who is a scumbug masked in polo shirts. He’s a good bad guy because no matter the movie, he just looks like the kind of asshole who would trip you and then call you “champ” as he kicks you in the ribs and high fives his friend, Jimbo. Kevin Bacon is fun. He’s an actor I love seeing on screen and it’s awesome that he has a part where he can do his stoic thing and then gear-shift into creepy Bacon. Plus, you see his dick so…equality? I remember in the theater my friends and I were not happy about that moment (we were like “OH! NO!”) but now I’m like “It’s an A-lister. It would be rude not to look.” The secret weapon of Wild Things is Bill Murray as Dillon’s lawyer, who also has ulterior motives. It’s the tone he sets that allows Wild Things to take on an extra layer of play it might not have otherwise had. I can easily see Wild Things following the usual noir beats, being self-serious/mean-spirited, but none of that heaviness comes across because Murray pops up and cues the audience that they’re meant to sit back and have a good time.
One of my favorite aspects of going back to write about movies 20 years later is to see them through new eyes. I like selecting the films that existed in their weekend, their month, but not much longer because that’s where you’re more likely to find hidden gems and recall nostalgic memories as opposed to favorites you may have built a history with in the subsequent years. Wild Things has been one of the most pleasant revisits for me to date. It’s even better than I remember. Also, this movie was one of the early DVDs back when Columbia Pictures was still making Full Screen/Pan & Scan copies of their films. Watching Wild Things this way was a nightmare (so many zooms, so many tracking swipes, that gaudy Mandalay Pictures logo I thought I’d never have to see again) but it also gave this viewing an extra nostalgic charm I’m glad to have experienced.
Note: The end credits to this film > any Marvel credits scene ever. Can we have a Wild Things cinematic universe?

FTM 760: FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS Feb 12, 2025
Patrick and Rob were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: La Bonheur (1965), Beau Travail (1999), Notorious (1946), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Kinda Pregnant (2025), Great Expectations (1998), Apt Pupil (1998)

FTM 1998 Month Rewind: LOST IN SPACE Feb 11, 2025
Patrick and Rob sense danger in the world beyond the world.
Download this episode here.
Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.
Also discussed this episode: Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), Glass (2019), The Perfection (2019), Booksmart (2019), Aladdin (2019), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

1998 Month Rewind: THE SPANISH PRISONER Feb 11, 2025
by JB
Twelve years ago, I wrote about this lesser-known David Mamet gem.
Not quite as famous as David Mamet’s American Buffalo, House of Games, Glengarry Glenn Ross, or Heist, The Spanish Prisoner is a terrific, twisty, con-artist film. The Spanish Prisoner can also be seen as an extended metaphor for how Mamet views the entire enterprise of filmmaking.
David Mamet, the writer and director of The Spanish Prisoner, is one of the most interesting voices working in movies today. David Mamet is also the greatest living American playwright. Not a week goes by that I am not reminded (by some film, essay, or conversation) of Mamet’s seminal nonfiction works, Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama and Bambi Vs. Godzilla. The first book is a must-read for anyone interested in fictional narrative. The second is a fun look at the author’s experiences in Hollywood, including his championing of Galaxy Quest as a paragon of narrative structure. I recommend both books without reservation.
Mamet is the complete package.THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has invented a “process” for his company. Joe meets successful businessman Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin) on a vacation trip, and the two form a friendship. The company is just at the point where the process will begin paying big dividends, and Joe grows paranoid that the company will not pay him his bonus. He asks Jimmy for help, and this starts an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Joe, his company, Jimmy, and the FBI.
Who can Joe trust?
“The process” as Mamet uses it in The Spanish Prisoner, is a perfect example of “the MacGuffin” – the vague force or object that sets the plot in motion. We never find out what “the process” is, we never find out what it does. Alfred Hitchcock is usually credited with inventing the MacGuffin; others say it was the Scottish writer Angus MacPhail. In the book-length interview Truffaut/Hitchcock, Hitchcock explains it thus: “[The MacGuffin] is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace, and in spy stories it is most always the papers. It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says ‘What's that package up there in the baggage rack?’ and the other answers, ‘Oh, that's a McGuffin.’ The first one asks, ‘What's a McGuffin?’ ‘Well,’ the other man says, ‘It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers, ‘Well, then that's no McGuffin!’”
I love any and all uses of the MacGuffin in movies. I think McDonald’s should invent a new Hitchcock-inspired menu item and call it the MacGuffin. No one ever explains what it really is, no one really knows what’s in it, but judging by the length of the drive-thru line, everyone wants it. And it will make you as fat as Hitchcock.I have of late been enjoying a book, Celebrations of Curious Characters, by Ricky Jay. Jay and Mamet are good friends; Mamet even wrote the introduction to the book and has directed all three of Jay’s theatrical showcases. Ricky Jay appears in The Spanish Prisoner and was a special technical consultant to the filmmakers on the subject of con artists and con games. Ricky Jay’s involvement gives all the movie’s twisty bunko elements the ring of authenticity. If you’re bored one night, look up videos on the YouTube machine of Ricky Jay’s magic shows. Genius. Steve Martin’s performance as Jimmy Dell is my main reason to recommend this film. Martin is such an underrated actor, and his performance here and in the 1999 movie Bowfinger (which I have written about at some length here) and 2005’s Shopgirl reveal the Martin I really like to watch. Gone are the concessions to “likability” and forced goofiness of his more mainstream, family-friendly films (Parenthood, Father of the Bride, and Cheaper By The Dozen); I like Martin with a little edge and a little bite. Martin’s performance in The Spanish Prisoner also reminds us that the word “con” in “con-game” originally comes from the word “confidence.” If the player does not have the innate ability to charm people, to draw them in, to gain their confidence, he will get exactly nowhere.
Unfortunately, not every performance in The Spanish Prisoner resonates as well as Martin’s. Why are so many famous men driven to work with their spouses? Mamet made House of Games in 1987 with his then-spouse Lindsey Crouse, who gives a terrific, if mannered performance. Since divorcing Crouse and marrying Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet has featured Pidgeon in all of his films. Pidgeon is a hard actress to like; her unusual acting style and speech cadences suggest that Mamet married her because she was the closest thing he could find to a living, breathing David Mamet character. Maybe it is just that she works with Mamet more than anyone else, but her stylized performance here is odd, and I would argue that her performance alone gives away what is supposed to be a major plot twist.
Still, I love this film. In The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet creates one of the best metaphors yet for the process of moviemaking (something he also does in his later, more explicitly Hollywood-themed State and Main, though he does it to greater effect in The Spanish Prisoner). Film itself – as a medium, as an art – is a con artist, Mamet slyly suggests; it insinuates itself into a viewer’s subconscious, gains our trust and suggests that what we are seeing and feeling is real. In reality (real reality, not fake Hollywood reality) the movie is an illusion, created with smoke and mirrors, spit and shoe polish. When it works just right, when we are totally taken in, we are dazzled by the sheer depth and intricacy of the deception.AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FOOTNOTE: I had a friend in graduate school (hard to believe I had any friends, I know, but still) and we would do our dueling “Mamet Impressions” at the drop of a hat. To everyone’s annoyance, we would riff using the peculiar cadence of Mamet’s dialogue:
HESo this is the thing?
IYes, the thing.
HEYou are positive… this is it. The thing?
IYes, the thing of which we speak.
HEJust so we are sure.
IYes.
HESure of the thing.
IYes, the thing…
HEBecause there are many things…
INo, this is the thing. This is the thing.
And so on for another twenty minutes. It was a hoot. Try it with friends on a lengthy road trip!
The Spanish Prisoner DVD goes for $19 on Amazon, but the Blu-ray is sadly out of print. (There is currently a single copy for sale on the eBay machine for $82.00!) The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi, and The Roku Channel.

1998 Month Rewind: THE SPANISH PRISONER Feb 11, 2025
by JB
Twelve years ago, I wrote about this lesser-known David Mamet gem.
Not quite as famous as David Mamet’s American Buffalo, House of Games, Glengarry Glenn Ross, or Heist, The Spanish Prisoner is a terrific, twisty, con-artist film. The Spanish Prisoner can also be seen as an extended metaphor for how Mamet views the entire enterprise of filmmaking.
David Mamet, the writer and director of The Spanish Prisoner, is one of the most interesting voices working in movies today. David Mamet is also the greatest living American playwright. Not a week goes by that I am not reminded (by some film, essay, or conversation) of Mamet’s seminal nonfiction works, Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama and Bambi Vs. Godzilla. The first book is a must-read for anyone interested in fictional narrative. The second is a fun look at the author’s experiences in Hollywood, including his championing of Galaxy Quest as a paragon of narrative structure. I recommend both books without reservation.
Mamet is the complete package.THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has invented a “process” for his company. Joe meets successful businessman Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin) on a vacation trip, and the two form a friendship. The company is just at the point where the process will begin paying big dividends, and Joe grows paranoid that the company will not pay him his bonus. He asks Jimmy for help, and this starts an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Joe, his company, Jimmy, and the FBI.
Who can Joe trust?
“The process” as Mamet uses it in The Spanish Prisoner, is a perfect example of “the MacGuffin” – the vague force or object that sets the plot in motion. We never find out what “the process” is, we never find out what it does. Alfred Hitchcock is usually credited with inventing the MacGuffin; others say it was the Scottish writer Angus MacPhail. In the book-length interview Truffaut/Hitchcock, Hitchcock explains it thus: “[The MacGuffin] is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace, and in spy stories it is most always the papers. It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says ‘What's that package up there in the baggage rack?’ and the other answers, ‘Oh, that's a McGuffin.’ The first one asks, ‘What's a McGuffin?’ ‘Well,’ the other man says, ‘It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers, ‘Well, then that's no McGuffin!’”
I love any and all uses of the MacGuffin in movies. I think McDonald’s should invent a new Hitchcock-inspired menu item and call it the MacGuffin. No one ever explains what it really is, no one really knows what’s in it, but judging by the length of the drive-thru line, everyone wants it. And it will make you as fat as Hitchcock.I have of late been enjoying a book, Celebrations of Curious Characters, by Ricky Jay. Jay and Mamet are good friends; Mamet even wrote the introduction to the book and has directed all three of Jay’s theatrical showcases. Ricky Jay appears in The Spanish Prisoner and was a special technical consultant to the filmmakers on the subject of con artists and con games. Ricky Jay’s involvement gives all the movie’s twisty bunko elements the ring of authenticity. If you’re bored one night, look up videos on the YouTube machine of Ricky Jay’s magic shows. Genius. Steve Martin’s performance as Jimmy Dell is my main reason to recommend this film. Martin is such an underrated actor, and his performance here and in the 1999 movie Bowfinger (which I have written about at some length here) and 2005’s Shopgirl reveal the Martin I really like to watch. Gone are the concessions to “likability” and forced goofiness of his more mainstream, family-friendly films (Parenthood, Father of the Bride, and Cheaper By The Dozen); I like Martin with a little edge and a little bite. Martin’s performance in The Spanish Prisoner also reminds us that the word “con” in “con-game” originally comes from the word “confidence.” If the player does not have the innate ability to charm people, to draw them in, to gain their confidence, he will get exactly nowhere.
Unfortunately, not every performance in The Spanish Prisoner resonates as well as Martin’s. Why are so many famous men driven to work with their spouses? Mamet made House of Games in 1987 with his then-spouse Lindsey Crouse, who gives a terrific, if mannered performance. Since divorcing Crouse and marrying Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet has featured Pidgeon in all of his films. Pidgeon is a hard actress to like; her unusual acting style and speech cadences suggest that Mamet married her because she was the closest thing he could find to a living, breathing David Mamet character. Maybe it is just that she works with Mamet more than anyone else, but her stylized performance here is odd, and I would argue that her performance alone gives away what is supposed to be a major plot twist.
Still, I love this film. In The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet creates one of the best metaphors yet for the process of moviemaking (something he also does in his later, more explicitly Hollywood-themed State and Main, though he does it to greater effect in The Spanish Prisoner). Film itself – as a medium, as an art – is a con artist, Mamet slyly suggests; it insinuates itself into a viewer’s subconscious, gains our trust and suggests that what we are seeing and feeling is real. In reality (real reality, not fake Hollywood reality) the movie is an illusion, created with smoke and mirrors, spit and shoe polish. When it works just right, when we are totally taken in, we are dazzled by the sheer depth and intricacy of the deception.AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FOOTNOTE: I had a friend in graduate school (hard to believe I had any friends, I know, but still) and we would do our dueling “Mamet Impressions” at the drop of a hat. To everyone’s annoyance, we would riff using the peculiar cadence of Mamet’s dialogue:
HESo this is the thing?
IYes, the thing.
HEYou are positive… this is it. The thing?
IYes, the thing of which we speak.
HEJust so we are sure.
IYes.
HESure of the thing.
IYes, the thing…
HEBecause there are many things…
INo, this is the thing. This is the thing.
And so on for another twenty minutes. It was a hoot. Try it with friends on a lengthy road trip!
The Spanish Prisoner DVD goes for $19 on Amazon, but the Blu-ray is sadly out of print. (There is currently a single copy for sale on the eBay machine for $82.00!) The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi, and The Roku Channel.

1998 Month Rewind: THE WATERBOY Feb 10, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Yup. Come at me.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on July 20, 2017.
There’s a big old elephant in this room, and there’s no sense in moving forward until it’s addressed: In 1998’s The Waterboy, Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, an intellectually disabled man-child with a Cajun accent and an unreasonable fixation on the proper maintenance, conditioning, and delivery of water. There is no denying, changing, or circumventing that fact. The film is full of jokes made at Bobby’s expense and at that of several other characters embodying embarrassing and outmoded cultural stereotypes ranging from crass and immature to homophobic and racist. The Waterboy could not be made today, nor should it be. It’s an Adam Sandler vehicle, after all, and (with the exception of The Wedding Singer and Punch-Drunk Love) most seem to prefer that we leave this stretch of his career in our collective rear view. With all that said — and with allowances made for the nearly twenty years that have passed since its release — there is a worthwhile argument to be made that The Waterboy is actually a well-constructed comedy that understands exactly how to bend its potentially offensive premise into something warm, offbeat, and deserving of more than its lukewarm reputation.
Despite its off-putting lead performance and, again, super juvenile sensibility, The Waterboy succeeds as a comedy primarily through its story structure and execution. While lesser DudeBro comedies simply introduce schlubby goofballs struggling with a rocky transition into adulthood, this one instead spends its first act setting up a bizarre set of colorful characters in a fantasy world and the quirks and complications that guide their behavior. Bobby Boucher is a 31-year-old waterboy for the prestigious University of Louisiana Cougars football team. He’s courteous, conscientious, and committed to the seemingly-mundane task of water distribution engineering. It’s a laughable job, and he’s predictably treated like shit by the players and their cruel Coach Beaulieu (Jerry Reed). When he’s suddenly fired from the job he cherished for years, he returns to his dilapidated swamp house and the Mama (Kathy Bates) we quickly realize is the primary cause of his arrested development. While Bobby loves his overbearing mother, he also craves independence, so he accepts a non-paying waterboy position with the far less prestigious South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, led by the mentally-imbalanced Coach Klein (Henry Winkler).
But we’re not laughing at Bobby’s weakness or his misfortune. In fact, the most admirable thing about The Waterboy — the factor that elevates it above other comedies of its kind — is that he’s almost never the low-status character. Even in situations where he’s derided and abused, those abusing him are always portrayed as ignorant, barbaric, and unenlightened. Bobby has standards and goals. He has passion, benign and useless as it may seem to the rest of us. He takes pride in his abilities and demonstrates expertise in situations where others fall short. He carries bottles of specially-treated water and teaches fellow players (including The Wire’s Larry Gillard, Jr.) about proper methods for preparation and delivery. It’s dumb — so dumb — but it’s how the movie lets us know that we’re on his side, that he’s more than just a punching bag. While he lacks intelligence, he demonstrates a ton of wisdom, and that gives us insight into his point of view. He’s sympathetic to Coach Klein and his losing team. He’s got his eye on the insane and sexy recidivist Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk), who encourages him to man up and overcome his insecurities. He makes personal sacrifices to appease his Mama. Because Bobby accepts people for who they are and refuses to treat anyone with disrespect, we’re laughing with him instead of at him.
Then again, Bobby does have pent-up rage, and when it earns him a spot on the team, we see a literal example of a character’s interior struggle influencing their outward behavior and directly driving the story. While balancing college courses, football practice, and his shaky courtship with Vicki (and keeping all three a secret from Mama), he becomes the unifying force for a team of misfits to whom opportunity so rarely comes. Bobby’s moral fortitude inspires Coach Klein to look past his nervous breakdown and find his lost potential as a master strategist. His earnest enthusiasm provokes his teammates and fans (most of them weirdos and underdogs) to see themselves in a better light. All the while, Bobby channels his anger at his bullies into a remarkable physical force that earns him attention in the highest circles of college athletics. But Bobby’s goals never deviate; he isn’t gradually corrupted by his success or exploited by more intelligent higher-ups. He’s never driven by anger, nor do his emotions compromise his personality. All he wants is to be a good son and play football. It’s such a small thing, but it’s a significant testament to the film’s ethos. The great irony is that Bobby is almost always the smartest, most conscientious guy in the room.
Despite all of this, The Waterboy still features Adam Sandler talking like a baby and screaming at people. It’s crass and lazy as often as it is creative and interesting. That’s going to be more than enough for most people to forgo a rewatch. Hell, Rob Schneider is in it, which more or less disqualifies most things from serious consideration. There will be no nostalgia-fueled critical reexamination of this film anytime soon, but viewers able and willing to see past the surface will find that even the dumbest of jokes at least comes with a set-up and a pay-off (a cornerstone of comedy writing that the Apatow imitators have largely discarded in favor of improv). They’ll find that Bobby’s impaired speech doesn’t affect his wit or grace. They’ll find an underdog story that, while certainly lacking their nuance and dramatic prestige, shares more than a few sensibilities with the classics of the genre. It’s even got a pretty fun Championship Game sequence in which Bobby magically learns to throw a football with perfect accuracy to a receiver eighty yards away. Most important of all, it’s a legitimate step up from the Grown Ups and Jack and Jills of Sandler’s career, an artifact from a time when he didn’t seem so bored. It’s a low bar, sure, but it’s something.

1998 Month Rewind: THE WATERBOY Feb 10, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Yup. Come at me.
To celebrate 1998 month in anticipation of F This Movie Fest on March 1, we will be re-running 1998 movie content all month long. This article was originally published on July 20, 2017.
There’s a big old elephant in this room, and there’s no sense in moving forward until it’s addressed: In 1998’s The Waterboy, Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, an intellectually disabled man-child with a Cajun accent and an unreasonable fixation on the proper maintenance, conditioning, and delivery of water. There is no denying, changing, or circumventing that fact. The film is full of jokes made at Bobby’s expense and at that of several other characters embodying embarrassing and outmoded cultural stereotypes ranging from crass and immature to homophobic and racist. The Waterboy could not be made today, nor should it be. It’s an Adam Sandler vehicle, after all, and (with the exception of The Wedding Singer and Punch-Drunk Love) most seem to prefer that we leave this stretch of his career in our collective rear view. With all that said — and with allowances made for the nearly twenty years that have passed since its release — there is a worthwhile argument to be made that The Waterboy is actually a well-constructed comedy that understands exactly how to bend its potentially offensive premise into something warm, offbeat, and deserving of more than its lukewarm reputation.
Despite its off-putting lead performance and, again, super juvenile sensibility, The Waterboy succeeds as a comedy primarily through its story structure and execution. While lesser DudeBro comedies simply introduce schlubby goofballs struggling with a rocky transition into adulthood, this one instead spends its first act setting up a bizarre set of colorful characters in a fantasy world and the quirks and complications that guide their behavior. Bobby Boucher is a 31-year-old waterboy for the prestigious University of Louisiana Cougars football team. He’s courteous, conscientious, and committed to the seemingly-mundane task of water distribution engineering. It’s a laughable job, and he’s predictably treated like shit by the players and their cruel Coach Beaulieu (Jerry Reed). When he’s suddenly fired from the job he cherished for years, he returns to his dilapidated swamp house and the Mama (Kathy Bates) we quickly realize is the primary cause of his arrested development. While Bobby loves his overbearing mother, he also craves independence, so he accepts a non-paying waterboy position with the far less prestigious South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, led by the mentally-imbalanced Coach Klein (Henry Winkler).
But we’re not laughing at Bobby’s weakness or his misfortune. In fact, the most admirable thing about The Waterboy — the factor that elevates it above other comedies of its kind — is that he’s almost never the low-status character. Even in situations where he’s derided and abused, those abusing him are always portrayed as ignorant, barbaric, and unenlightened. Bobby has standards and goals. He has passion, benign and useless as it may seem to the rest of us. He takes pride in his abilities and demonstrates expertise in situations where others fall short. He carries bottles of specially-treated water and teaches fellow players (including The Wire’s Larry Gillard, Jr.) about proper methods for preparation and delivery. It’s dumb — so dumb — but it’s how the movie lets us know that we’re on his side, that he’s more than just a punching bag. While he lacks intelligence, he demonstrates a ton of wisdom, and that gives us insight into his point of view. He’s sympathetic to Coach Klein and his losing team. He’s got his eye on the insane and sexy recidivist Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk), who encourages him to man up and overcome his insecurities. He makes personal sacrifices to appease his Mama. Because Bobby accepts people for who they are and refuses to treat anyone with disrespect, we’re laughing with him instead of at him.
Then again, Bobby does have pent-up rage, and when it earns him a spot on the team, we see a literal example of a character’s interior struggle influencing their outward behavior and directly driving the story. While balancing college courses, football practice, and his shaky courtship with Vicki (and keeping all three a secret from Mama), he becomes the unifying force for a team of misfits to whom opportunity so rarely comes. Bobby’s moral fortitude inspires Coach Klein to look past his nervous breakdown and find his lost potential as a master strategist. His earnest enthusiasm provokes his teammates and fans (most of them weirdos and underdogs) to see themselves in a better light. All the while, Bobby channels his anger at his bullies into a remarkable physical force that earns him attention in the highest circles of college athletics. But Bobby’s goals never deviate; he isn’t gradually corrupted by his success or exploited by more intelligent higher-ups. He’s never driven by anger, nor do his emotions compromise his personality. All he wants is to be a good son and play football. It’s such a small thing, but it’s a significant testament to the film’s ethos. The great irony is that Bobby is almost always the smartest, most conscientious guy in the room.
Despite all of this, The Waterboy still features Adam Sandler talking like a baby and screaming at people. It’s crass and lazy as often as it is creative and interesting. That’s going to be more than enough for most people to forgo a rewatch. Hell, Rob Schneider is in it, which more or less disqualifies most things from serious consideration. There will be no nostalgia-fueled critical reexamination of this film anytime soon, but viewers able and willing to see past the surface will find that even the dumbest of jokes at least comes with a set-up and a pay-off (a cornerstone of comedy writing that the Apatow imitators have largely discarded in favor of improv). They’ll find that Bobby’s impaired speech doesn’t affect his wit or grace. They’ll find an underdog story that, while certainly lacking their nuance and dramatic prestige, shares more than a few sensibilities with the classics of the genre. It’s even got a pretty fun Championship Game sequence in which Bobby magically learns to throw a football with perfect accuracy to a receiver eighty yards away. Most important of all, it’s a legitimate step up from the Grown Ups and Jack and Jills of Sandler’s career, an artifact from a time when he didn’t seem so bored. It’s a low bar, sure, but it’s something.

2K Replay: HITCH Feb 10, 2025
by Adam Riske
Winner for “Favorite Movie Actor” (Will Smith) at the Kids’ Choice Awards.
• Best Scene/Moment: Will Smith and Michael Rappaport playing pool. It’s like something out of science fiction because Rappaport is the stable, non-neurotic one and the movie posits that Rappaport is the wingman/best friend/brother-in-law to Will Smith’s Hitch character. And then we never see Rappaport again. This scene haunts me with its untapped potential.
• Best Song (tie): This is next to impossible. The Hitch soundtrack rules. I’m going with a tie between “1 Thing” by Amerie and “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D. & The Boyz.• Best Merch: A “Hitch Japan Movie Program…” for $3.25. I like that he’s James Bond now for some reason.
• Director Grade: Hitch was directed by Andy Tennant.
Great Movies: Fools Rush In
Good Movies: Hitch
OK Movies: The Secret: Dare to Dream
Bad Movies: It Takes Two, Sweet Home Alabama
Unseen By Me: Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Anna and the King, Fool’s Gold, The Bounty Hunter, Wild Oats
Overall Grade: B
• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Bewitched
• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Guess Who, Wedding Crashers
• Never Talk to Strangers or Hitch? Hitch.• Mall Movie? Maybe eventually at the end of its run. For starters though it would play at the fancy theater in town where you take your date after dining at an upscale bistro.
• Only in 2005: A Will Smith romantic comedy. It’s insane he doesn’t have at least two more of these.
• Scene Stealer: Kevin James wants this superlative so badly but I’ll go with Adam Arkin who is basically just an outlet store of unsold George Clooney mannerisms.
• I Miss: Movies having the courage to name a character Vance Munson.
• I Don’t Miss: Virtually all of the wisdom Hitch parses out. He sounds like a Disney parks vlogger on YouTube. Here are a few examples:
1. “Like I always tell my clients: begin each day as if it were on purpose.” UGH
2. “Because that's what people do! They leap and hope to God they can fly. Because otherwise, we just drop like a rock, wondering the whole way down, "Why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am, Sara, falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly. That's you.” BARF
3. “Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.” YIKES
4. “Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.” STFU• 2005 Crush: Eva Mendes.
• 2025 Crush: Paula Patton.
• What I Thought in 2005: I wanted to like Hitch more than I did but it was fine and I liked the performances and the ritzy New York-ness of it all. I was in my early 20s and dating a lot at the time so this was an important text.
• What I Think in 2025: It’s what Siskel & Ebert would call a marginal thumbs up or down. I can’t decide. It’s the type of movie that on DVD is just okay but if you catch it in the wild on TBS in a hotel room it feels like an 8 out of 10. I’ll give it this…it’s better than many fellow romantic comedies of the era (era) and Will Smith & Eva Mendes have good chemistry together.

2K Replay: HITCH Feb 10, 2025
by Adam Riske
Winner for “Favorite Movie Actor” (Will Smith) at the Kids’ Choice Awards.
• Best Scene/Moment: Will Smith and Michael Rappaport playing pool. It’s like something out of science fiction because Rappaport is the stable, non-neurotic one and the movie posits that Rappaport is the wingman/best friend/brother-in-law to Will Smith’s Hitch character. And then we never see Rappaport again. This scene haunts me with its untapped potential.
• Best Song (tie): This is next to impossible. The Hitch soundtrack rules. I’m going with a tie between “1 Thing” by Amerie and “Now That We Found Love” by Heavy D. & The Boyz.• Best Merch: A “Hitch Japan Movie Program…” for $3.25. I like that he’s James Bond now for some reason.
• Director Grade: Hitch was directed by Andy Tennant.
Great Movies: Fools Rush In
Good Movies: Hitch
OK Movies: The Secret: Dare to Dream
Bad Movies: It Takes Two, Sweet Home Alabama
Unseen By Me: Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Anna and the King, Fool’s Gold, The Bounty Hunter, Wild Oats
Overall Grade: B
• Double It with This 2005 Movie: Bewitched
• Year 2005 Movies to Trailer Before Them: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Guess Who, Wedding Crashers
• Never Talk to Strangers or Hitch? Hitch.• Mall Movie? Maybe eventually at the end of its run. For starters though it would play at the fancy theater in town where you take your date after dining at an upscale bistro.
• Only in 2005: A Will Smith romantic comedy. It’s insane he doesn’t have at least two more of these.
• Scene Stealer: Kevin James wants this superlative so badly but I’ll go with Adam Arkin who is basically just an outlet store of unsold George Clooney mannerisms.
• I Miss: Movies having the courage to name a character Vance Munson.
• I Don’t Miss: Virtually all of the wisdom Hitch parses out. He sounds like a Disney parks vlogger on YouTube. Here are a few examples:
1. “Like I always tell my clients: begin each day as if it were on purpose.” UGH
2. “Because that's what people do! They leap and hope to God they can fly. Because otherwise, we just drop like a rock, wondering the whole way down, "Why in the hell did I jump?" But here I am, Sara, falling. And there's only one person that makes me feel like I can fly. That's you.” BARF
3. “Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.” YIKES
4. “Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.” STFU• 2005 Crush: Eva Mendes.
• 2025 Crush: Paula Patton.
• What I Thought in 2005: I wanted to like Hitch more than I did but it was fine and I liked the performances and the ritzy New York-ness of it all. I was in my early 20s and dating a lot at the time so this was an important text.
• What I Think in 2025: It’s what Siskel & Ebert would call a marginal thumbs up or down. I can’t decide. It’s the type of movie that on DVD is just okay but if you catch it in the wild on TBS in a hotel room it feels like an 8 out of 10. I’ll give it this…it’s better than many fellow romantic comedies of the era (era) and Will Smith & Eva Mendes have good chemistry together.

Weekend Open Thread Feb 08, 2025

Review: LOVE HURTS Feb 07, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Gas leak cinema.
A few weeks back, there were rumblings in the cinema-going press about a new “second screen directive” sent by the Netflix brass to the various writing staffs working on their Original Content. According to rumors, writers were being advised to simplify their plots and increase the amount of expositional dialogue between characters in any given scene, making the Content easier to follow for viewers using Netflix as a “second screen,” or, in less generous terms, “something to have on in the background while they scroll on their phones.” Netflix denies ever issuing any directive of this kind, of course — even Netflix is canny enough not to openly admit any real culpability in the death of cinema — but it kept coming back to me as I watched Jonathan Eusebio’s Love Hurts, a noxious, ugly, addled, half-cocked, and dim-witted action-comedy that would have made these alleged Netflix executives explode in orgiastic delight. Critics were given a box of branded candy hearts at the screening, but a better gift package might have included a gas mask or a handgun.Marvin Gable (Academy Award-winner Ke Huy Quan) is a real estate agent living and working in a small Milwaukee suburb. He’s a brilliant, good-natured salesman who always looks on the bright side, even when his assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton, Emma Stone’s lovechild with Aubrey Plaza) is consumed by eye-rolling negativity. His life is humming along just fine until an unsigned Valentine’s Day card — “With Love,” also the film’s original, more sensical title — triggers a series of events that bring him face-to-face with the past he thought he left behind. That past has something to do with the beautiful Rose (Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose) and a knife-wielding warrior-poet called The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), both of whom are in some way connected to Marvin’s estranged brother, local crime boss Alvin “Knuckles” Gable (Daniel Wu). Why is Rose sending these valentines? What do they have to do with Marvin’s past? Why does Knuckles want revenge? Why does Marshawn Lynch keep cursing? Wait, Sean Astin is in this movie?
There are answers to these questions, of course, but not a single one of them justifies the eighty-three minutes of our time that Love Hurts has the unmitigated temerity to waste. It’s a movie held together with off-brand glue sticks and littered with the kind of inane voice-over that I can only assume represents the panicked intervention of an underpaid film editor. “How will we know that the amethyst stone on Marvin’s coffee table wards off bad dreams or that Rose is the one who gave it to him?” the editor must have asked while sifting through reels of misshapen footage. Realizing that his director had fucked off to Universal’s new Dark Universe amusement park, he likely took it upon himself to have DeBose record this clarification: “That’s an amethyst stone. It wards off bad dreams. I’m the one who gave it to you.” American literacy standards may be in the toilet, but at least we have movies like Love Hurts to make complicated concepts like “stones” and “dreams” and “what it means when someone gives you a gift” clearer and more manageable for the audience.But let’s not pick nits. Surely Love Hurts has the basic narrative coherence necessary to inspire two Oscar winners to sign on. Hell, the trailer has Everything Everywhere All at Once vibes, and “assassin-turned-suburbanite” sounds like a perfect vehicle for Ke Huy Quan’s first leading role. And it’s true that Quan is largely innocent, especially in one charming fight scene where Marvin fends off assassins while protecting his framed “Agent of the Year” award. The award is a symbol of his new life — we know this because he tells Rose, “This award is a symbol of my new life” — and his effort to preserve it is a clear nod to the best of Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong cinema. Seeing Marvin uncork it after playing it so straight is also cathartic for the viewers, who are excited to see him return to the life he left behind. Trouble is, there’s no indication that Marvin ever wants to do that. He’s not harboring lingering urges toward violence. He doesn’t seem to miss his crime lord brother. You know how movie characters say things like, “Something’s missing”? Nothing’s missing.But Love Hurts hopes you’ll be too distracted by its haphazard action and a running joke about Ashley and The Raven falling in love — the joke being that they’re falling in love, I guess? — to notice the thick layer of horseshit on which its foundations are built. This is a movie meant to be watched in clips on Tik Tok, really, where things like “character arcs” have no relevance and the galaxy-sized chemistry vacuum between Quan and DuBose will seem much smaller. Actually, a lot of the movie would work better on Tik Tok, including a late scene where Marvin goes full assassin to take on his brother’s goons: The music swells. He growls and poses. A cheerful Rose shouts, “Finally! There he is!” It’s all very exciting, but it would be a lot more effective had we not spent the last hour watching him kick the shit out of people all over town. Like everything else in Love Hurts, that moment has no weight because it makes no sense. But hey, we’re in the “second screen” era (era) now, when cinema is designed to be watched out of the corner of your eye. Does anyone even care?
Love Hurts is in U.S. theaters now.

Review: LOVE HURTS Feb 07, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Gas leak cinema.
A few weeks back, there were rumblings in the cinema-going press about a new “second screen directive” sent by the Netflix brass to the various writing staffs working on their Original Content. According to rumors, writers were being advised to simplify their plots and increase the amount of expositional dialogue between characters in any given scene, making the Content easier to follow for viewers using Netflix as a “second screen,” or, in less generous terms, “something to have on in the background while they scroll on their phones.” Netflix denies ever issuing any directive of this kind, of course — even Netflix is canny enough not to openly admit any real culpability in the death of cinema — but it kept coming back to me as I watched Jonathan Eusebio’s Love Hurts, a noxious, ugly, addled, half-cocked, and dim-witted action-comedy that would have made these alleged Netflix executives explode in orgiastic delight. Critics were given a box of branded candy hearts at the screening, but a better gift package might have included a gas mask or a handgun.Marvin Gable (Academy Award-winner Ke Huy Quan) is a real estate agent living and working in a small Milwaukee suburb. He’s a brilliant, good-natured salesman who always looks on the bright side, even when his assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton, Emma Stone’s lovechild with Aubrey Plaza) is consumed by eye-rolling negativity. His life is humming along just fine until an unsigned Valentine’s Day card — “With Love,” also the film’s original, more sensical title — triggers a series of events that bring him face-to-face with the past he thought he left behind. That past has something to do with the beautiful Rose (Academy Award-winner Ariana DeBose) and a knife-wielding warrior-poet called The Raven (Mustafa Shakir), both of whom are in some way connected to Marvin’s estranged brother, local crime boss Alvin “Knuckles” Gable (Daniel Wu). Why is Rose sending these valentines? What do they have to do with Marvin’s past? Why does Knuckles want revenge? Why does Marshawn Lynch keep cursing? Wait, Sean Astin is in this movie?
There are answers to these questions, of course, but not a single one of them justifies the eighty-three minutes of our time that Love Hurts has the unmitigated temerity to waste. It’s a movie held together with off-brand glue sticks and littered with the kind of inane voice-over that I can only assume represents the panicked intervention of an underpaid film editor. “How will we know that the amethyst stone on Marvin’s coffee table wards off bad dreams or that Rose is the one who gave it to him?” the editor must have asked while sifting through reels of misshapen footage. Realizing that his director had fucked off to Universal’s new Dark Universe amusement park, he likely took it upon himself to have DeBose record this clarification: “That’s an amethyst stone. It wards off bad dreams. I’m the one who gave it to you.” American literacy standards may be in the toilet, but at least we have movies like Love Hurts to make complicated concepts like “stones” and “dreams” and “what it means when someone gives you a gift” clearer and more manageable for the audience.But let’s not pick nits. Surely Love Hurts has the basic narrative coherence necessary to inspire two Oscar winners to sign on. Hell, the trailer has Everything Everywhere All at Once vibes, and “assassin-turned-suburbanite” sounds like a perfect vehicle for Ke Huy Quan’s first leading role. And it’s true that Quan is largely innocent, especially in one charming fight scene where Marvin fends off assassins while protecting his framed “Agent of the Year” award. The award is a symbol of his new life — we know this because he tells Rose, “This award is a symbol of my new life” — and his effort to preserve it is a clear nod to the best of Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong cinema. Seeing Marvin uncork it after playing it so straight is also cathartic for the viewers, who are excited to see him return to the life he left behind. Trouble is, there’s no indication that Marvin ever wants to do that. He’s not harboring lingering urges toward violence. He doesn’t seem to miss his crime lord brother. You know how movie characters say things like, “Something’s missing”? Nothing’s missing.But Love Hurts hopes you’ll be too distracted by its haphazard action and a running joke about Ashley and The Raven falling in love — the joke being that they’re falling in love, I guess? — to notice the thick layer of horseshit on which its foundations are built. This is a movie meant to be watched in clips on Tik Tok, really, where things like “character arcs” have no relevance and the galaxy-sized chemistry vacuum between Quan and DuBose will seem much smaller. Actually, a lot of the movie would work better on Tik Tok, including a late scene where Marvin goes full assassin to take on his brother’s goons: The music swells. He growls and poses. A cheerful Rose shouts, “Finally! There he is!” It’s all very exciting, but it would be a lot more effective had we not spent the last hour watching him kick the shit out of people all over town. Like everything else in Love Hurts, that moment has no weight because it makes no sense. But hey, we’re in the “second screen” era (era) now, when cinema is designed to be watched out of the corner of your eye. Does anyone even care?
Love Hurts is in U.S. theaters now.

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 50 Feb 07, 2025
by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley
Pre-game for F This Movie! Fest with these ten 1998 double features!
Double Feature 1:
Adam: #1: Palmetto (1998)
Patrick: #2: Twilight (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Dark City, Rounders, Phoenix
Patrick: Theme: ‘98 Noir
Patrick: Hey, 1998 was a pretty great year for neo-noir, wasn’t it? I’m a big Palmetto guy, mostly because the triptych of Chloe Sevigny, Gina Gershon, and Elisabeth Shue is basically my sexuality. I like a sweaty Florida noir and Palmetto is a good one. I’ve also really come to appreciate the 1998 geriatric noir Twilight way more than I did when it came out, probably because I’m closer to the age of the characters that I used to be, a sentence that depresses me so much to type that now I’m not sure I can attend this double.
Adam: I added Palmetto to my list of movies to watch for the first time this month. I’ve always wanted to see it (Shue!) but have never gotten around to it. I saw Twilight (1998) for a Reserved Seating last year and thought it was decent. I like that it’s so unique in its target audience and casting and I remember the movie being playful. This will be a fun night of neo-noir for sure.
Double Feature 2:
Patrick: #1: Zero Effect (1998)
Adam: #2: Wild Things (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Can’t Hardly Wait, The Replacement Killers, Spice World
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Columbia Pictures
Adam: 1998 Columbia Pictures was okay. Let’s celebrate it! I think Zero Effect and Wild Things will play well together since they’re both darkly funny mysteries. P.S. For those who don’t know, Zero Effect was featured on one of our Friday Night Double Features podcasts a couple years back and because of that it’s a Linderground Cinemarink staple we play every year. It’s the movie equivalent of having your jersey hung from the rafters.
Patrick: We’ve done so many of these that I don’t remember programming Zero Effect in the past, much less rewatching it for a FNDF podcast! I love showing it every year, though, like it’s Wizard of Oz in the ‘80s. With the trailers and everything, this is a pretty kickass night at the movies. Can we get Bill Pullman to come out and introduce Wild Things?
Double Feature 3:Adam: #1: Caught Up (1998)
Patrick: #2: The Big Hit (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Relax…It’s Just Sex, Armageddon, Almost Heroes
Patrick: Theme: Starring the Cast of Caught Up
Patrick: This is a cheat because really we’re just doing two Bokeem Woodbines, but I thought these two movies would be really fun together because they’re both super wild and over the top, though the second one is much more comedic. Is The Big Hit good? I don’t think I’ve seen it since the theater, and I don’t remember loving it then. Whatever, Bokeem Woodbine rules and Caught Up rules so hard that we could play almost anything after that and I would still be riding high.
Adam: Isn’t Caught Up the greatest thing ever? If you’re reading this and haven’t seen the trailer, do yourself a favor and check it out. The voiceover choice is fantastic. I saw The Big Hit opening weekend and remember it not delivering at all on what I expected or wanted but that was a long time ago so I’m curious to give it a revisit. Bokeem Woodbine’s the best so I’m glad we’re highlighting him tonight.
Double Feature 4:
Patrick: #1: Your Friends and Neighbors (1998)
Adam: #2: Happiness (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Clay Pigeons, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Opposite of Sex
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Dark Comedies
Adam: I haven’t seen either of these movies and don’t plan on getting to them before F This Movie Fest, but they should be represented since Happiness at least has a reputation of being a subversive masterpiece. I like a few Neil LaBute movies so maybe I should try Your Friends and Neighbors eventually. Is it more In the Company of Men or Nurse Betty?
Patrick: It’s more In the Company of Men. It’s probably my favorite of Neil LaBute’s movies, which is a pretty qualified recommendation. The cast is great and the young man in me responded to the cynicism and literate dialogue, but I suspect the older me has less patience for LaBute’s brand of nihilism. I feel similar to Todd Solondz, but still have to admit that Happiness is kind of a masterpiece. These are my two favorite movies from two auteurs I’ve more or less outgrown and I’m weirdly looking forward to the double.
Double Feature 5:Adam: #1: Knock Off (1998)
Patrick: #2: The Replacement Killers (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Rush Hour, Mulan, Jackie Chan’s Who Am I?
Patrick: Theme: Chinese Imports
Patrick: I liked that period in the 1990s when American movies were really being influenced by Asian actors and filmmakers. I guess this is where it kind of peaked, with Chow Yun-Fat making his Hollywood debut in The Replacement Killers and Tsui Chark directing a JCVD movie. This was the year that Jackie Chan had his biggest American hit too! It felt like a time when we were really trying to learn from other filmmaking cultures. Now we just shove our bullshit down everyone else’s throats.
Adam: I have a love it or hate it relationship with Knock Off -- I usually hate it (which is saying something because I’m a huge JCVD guy) but there was one watch where I loved it and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. The Replacement Killers is by far the better movie and one I’d like to revisit since I’ve only seen it once so it will feel new to me. I love that you picked this as a theme. It was a great trend while it lasted.
Double Feature 6:
Patrick: #1: The Thin Red Line (1998)
Adam: #2: Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Deep Impact, Armageddon, Antz, A Bug's Life
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Movie Showdowns
Adam: This is going to be a long, not fun evening but hopefully we’ll leave satisfied having seen two great war movies from 1998. I’ve always been more of a Saving Private Ryan guy than The Thin Red Line but that’s mostly because I’ve seen SPR more times. I plan on revisiting The Thin Red Line before F This Movie Fest and that might be the first time I’ve seen it since VHS rental back in 1999 (I liked it at the time). There sure were a lot of cases back in 1998 of two movies being released that shared similar premises, huh? P.S. A Bug’s Life isn’t my least favorite Pixar movie, but it’s the one I least want to revisit because bugs.
Patrick: Whoa, Doc, this is heavy. Of all the ‘98 movie showdowns, this is the one I’d probably want to watch the most because both movies are so good but seeing them back-to-back will be…a lot. I plan to revisit these in the next month and I’m curious how I’ll feel about both because Saving Private Ryan was a movie I liked less over time (I was snarkier back then) and The Thin Red Line was a movie I liked more, probably just because I was the kind who read Cracked when everyone else read MAD. Adult me will hopefully be able to appreciate them for the totally different movies from great directors they are.
Double Feature 7:Adam: #1: Very Bad Things (1998)
Patrick: #2: Dirty Work (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Nil by Mouth, Bulworth, The Horse Whisperer, The Players Club
Patrick: Theme: Directed by Actors
Patrick: Finding a movie to pair with Very Bad Things was a challenge because that’s a lot of movie and usually leaves me feeling exhausted when I revisit it. Hopefully Dirty Work is the right choice because it’s not very challenging and it’s really short. Also, both movies have plot points centered on dead sex workers.
Adam: I love this one. I just revisited Very Bad Things this morning and wow is that a nasty little movie. I kind of admire that it’s a black comedy that seems to completely ignore that comedies are supposed to be funny. It’s just wall-to-wall darkness without humor. It’s an impressive debut for Peter Berg as a director. I’ve never seen Dirty Work, so this is a great excuse to finally check it out. Good stuff, yo.
Double Feature 8:
Patrick: #1: Kissing a Fool (1998)
Adam: #2: Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Mercury Rising, The Negotiator, U.S. Marshals, Bulls Championship Highlights
Adam: Theme: “What Up, Chicago!”
Adam: I’m so glad to have Kissing a Fool be a meme in my life. “What Up, Chicago!” is something I text to you (with a picture outside of Wrigley Field) whenever I see a movie at the nearby Music Box Theatre or Alamo Drafthouse and every time I do that it makes me want Kari Wuhrer…I mean to watch Kissing a Fool. I haven’t seen Blues Brothers 2000, but I might as well take the dive this way. P.S. I’m most excited about seeing Bulls “The Last Dance” highlights on the big screen. Also, no one will be admitted wearing a Utah Jazz jersey. Sorry, Greg Ostertag.
Patrick: Those texts crack me up every time I get them. It’s nice to find a third person who loves Kissing a Fool because it makes me and Doug feel less alone. I’ve never seen Blues Brothers 2000 either but it’s on my list for this month. It’s one of my last unseen Landis movies, but I’m not expecting very much at all.
Double Feature 9:Adam: #1: Rush Hour (1998)
Patrick: #2: City of Angels (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: There’s Something About Mary, She’s All That, Armageddon
Patrick: Theme: 1998 MTV Movie Awards “Best On-Screen Duo” Nominees
Patrick: This might be the double I see first this month because I love an onscreen duo, and I love both of these movies. I wish Brett Ratner wasn’t such a piece of shit because I did used to like his movies. I also wish Brad Silberling was still making stuff. It’s weird to me that City of Angels was nominated for an MTV movie award because that movie does not seem to be targeted at the MTV audience. Such is the power of “Iris,” I guess.
Adam: This was a solid category that year at the MTV Movie Awards. Rush Hour had aged well (even if Brett Ratner hasn’t) so it’ll be great to give it another watch with an audience in a theater. I don’t love City of Angels (it’s pretty good) but I’ll take any opportunity to see cinematic Dennis Franz that I can. He’s my hero. It’s why I’m slowly trying to age into his look. How am I doing?
Double Feature 10:
Patrick: #1: Out of Sight (1998)
Adam: #2: How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Primary Colors, Sphere, Urban Legend
Adam: Theme: $37M to $39M Domestic Grossers
Adam: The theme is hyper specific, but this turned out to be a happy accident because it allowed me to pair two sexy 1998 movies. I haven’t seen How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but I should (I’m a fan of both Angela Bassett and Taye Diggs) and what better way to get to see it than on the back half of a double feature after one of my favorite movies of 1998?
Patrick: I haven’t seen Stella either! Funny that we missed a lot of the same 1998 movies. It seems criminal that Out of Sight grossed as much as fucking Sphere (another ‘98 movie I haven’t seen) when it’s so, so good, I know it’s pretty beloved (another ‘98 movie I haven’t seen) now but it deserved to be a big box office success just so we could get a bunch of George Clooney/Jennifer Lopez movies. Remember the Karen Sisco TV show with Carla Gugino? It’s like that character can only be played by women I love.

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 50 Feb 07, 2025
by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley
Pre-game for F This Movie! Fest with these ten 1998 double features!
Double Feature 1:
Adam: #1: Palmetto (1998)
Patrick: #2: Twilight (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Dark City, Rounders, Phoenix
Patrick: Theme: ‘98 Noir
Patrick: Hey, 1998 was a pretty great year for neo-noir, wasn’t it? I’m a big Palmetto guy, mostly because the triptych of Chloe Sevigny, Gina Gershon, and Elisabeth Shue is basically my sexuality. I like a sweaty Florida noir and Palmetto is a good one. I’ve also really come to appreciate the 1998 geriatric noir Twilight way more than I did when it came out, probably because I’m closer to the age of the characters that I used to be, a sentence that depresses me so much to type that now I’m not sure I can attend this double.
Adam: I added Palmetto to my list of movies to watch for the first time this month. I’ve always wanted to see it (Shue!) but have never gotten around to it. I saw Twilight (1998) for a Reserved Seating last year and thought it was decent. I like that it’s so unique in its target audience and casting and I remember the movie being playful. This will be a fun night of neo-noir for sure.
Double Feature 2:
Patrick: #1: Zero Effect (1998)
Adam: #2: Wild Things (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Can’t Hardly Wait, The Replacement Killers, Spice World
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Columbia Pictures
Adam: 1998 Columbia Pictures was okay. Let’s celebrate it! I think Zero Effect and Wild Things will play well together since they’re both darkly funny mysteries. P.S. For those who don’t know, Zero Effect was featured on one of our Friday Night Double Features podcasts a couple years back and because of that it’s a Linderground Cinemarink staple we play every year. It’s the movie equivalent of having your jersey hung from the rafters.
Patrick: We’ve done so many of these that I don’t remember programming Zero Effect in the past, much less rewatching it for a FNDF podcast! I love showing it every year, though, like it’s Wizard of Oz in the ‘80s. With the trailers and everything, this is a pretty kickass night at the movies. Can we get Bill Pullman to come out and introduce Wild Things?
Double Feature 3:Adam: #1: Caught Up (1998)
Patrick: #2: The Big Hit (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Relax…It’s Just Sex, Armageddon, Almost Heroes
Patrick: Theme: Starring the Cast of Caught Up
Patrick: This is a cheat because really we’re just doing two Bokeem Woodbines, but I thought these two movies would be really fun together because they’re both super wild and over the top, though the second one is much more comedic. Is The Big Hit good? I don’t think I’ve seen it since the theater, and I don’t remember loving it then. Whatever, Bokeem Woodbine rules and Caught Up rules so hard that we could play almost anything after that and I would still be riding high.
Adam: Isn’t Caught Up the greatest thing ever? If you’re reading this and haven’t seen the trailer, do yourself a favor and check it out. The voiceover choice is fantastic. I saw The Big Hit opening weekend and remember it not delivering at all on what I expected or wanted but that was a long time ago so I’m curious to give it a revisit. Bokeem Woodbine’s the best so I’m glad we’re highlighting him tonight.
Double Feature 4:
Patrick: #1: Your Friends and Neighbors (1998)
Adam: #2: Happiness (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Clay Pigeons, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Opposite of Sex
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Dark Comedies
Adam: I haven’t seen either of these movies and don’t plan on getting to them before F This Movie Fest, but they should be represented since Happiness at least has a reputation of being a subversive masterpiece. I like a few Neil LaBute movies so maybe I should try Your Friends and Neighbors eventually. Is it more In the Company of Men or Nurse Betty?
Patrick: It’s more In the Company of Men. It’s probably my favorite of Neil LaBute’s movies, which is a pretty qualified recommendation. The cast is great and the young man in me responded to the cynicism and literate dialogue, but I suspect the older me has less patience for LaBute’s brand of nihilism. I feel similar to Todd Solondz, but still have to admit that Happiness is kind of a masterpiece. These are my two favorite movies from two auteurs I’ve more or less outgrown and I’m weirdly looking forward to the double.
Double Feature 5:Adam: #1: Knock Off (1998)
Patrick: #2: The Replacement Killers (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Rush Hour, Mulan, Jackie Chan’s Who Am I?
Patrick: Theme: Chinese Imports
Patrick: I liked that period in the 1990s when American movies were really being influenced by Asian actors and filmmakers. I guess this is where it kind of peaked, with Chow Yun-Fat making his Hollywood debut in The Replacement Killers and Tsui Chark directing a JCVD movie. This was the year that Jackie Chan had his biggest American hit too! It felt like a time when we were really trying to learn from other filmmaking cultures. Now we just shove our bullshit down everyone else’s throats.
Adam: I have a love it or hate it relationship with Knock Off -- I usually hate it (which is saying something because I’m a huge JCVD guy) but there was one watch where I loved it and I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. The Replacement Killers is by far the better movie and one I’d like to revisit since I’ve only seen it once so it will feel new to me. I love that you picked this as a theme. It was a great trend while it lasted.
Double Feature 6:
Patrick: #1: The Thin Red Line (1998)
Adam: #2: Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Deep Impact, Armageddon, Antz, A Bug's Life
Adam: Theme: ‘98 Movie Showdowns
Adam: This is going to be a long, not fun evening but hopefully we’ll leave satisfied having seen two great war movies from 1998. I’ve always been more of a Saving Private Ryan guy than The Thin Red Line but that’s mostly because I’ve seen SPR more times. I plan on revisiting The Thin Red Line before F This Movie Fest and that might be the first time I’ve seen it since VHS rental back in 1999 (I liked it at the time). There sure were a lot of cases back in 1998 of two movies being released that shared similar premises, huh? P.S. A Bug’s Life isn’t my least favorite Pixar movie, but it’s the one I least want to revisit because bugs.
Patrick: Whoa, Doc, this is heavy. Of all the ‘98 movie showdowns, this is the one I’d probably want to watch the most because both movies are so good but seeing them back-to-back will be…a lot. I plan to revisit these in the next month and I’m curious how I’ll feel about both because Saving Private Ryan was a movie I liked less over time (I was snarkier back then) and The Thin Red Line was a movie I liked more, probably just because I was the kind who read Cracked when everyone else read MAD. Adult me will hopefully be able to appreciate them for the totally different movies from great directors they are.
Double Feature 7:Adam: #1: Very Bad Things (1998)
Patrick: #2: Dirty Work (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Nil by Mouth, Bulworth, The Horse Whisperer, The Players Club
Patrick: Theme: Directed by Actors
Patrick: Finding a movie to pair with Very Bad Things was a challenge because that’s a lot of movie and usually leaves me feeling exhausted when I revisit it. Hopefully Dirty Work is the right choice because it’s not very challenging and it’s really short. Also, both movies have plot points centered on dead sex workers.
Adam: I love this one. I just revisited Very Bad Things this morning and wow is that a nasty little movie. I kind of admire that it’s a black comedy that seems to completely ignore that comedies are supposed to be funny. It’s just wall-to-wall darkness without humor. It’s an impressive debut for Peter Berg as a director. I’ve never seen Dirty Work, so this is a great excuse to finally check it out. Good stuff, yo.
Double Feature 8:
Patrick: #1: Kissing a Fool (1998)
Adam: #2: Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Mercury Rising, The Negotiator, U.S. Marshals, Bulls Championship Highlights
Adam: Theme: “What Up, Chicago!”
Adam: I’m so glad to have Kissing a Fool be a meme in my life. “What Up, Chicago!” is something I text to you (with a picture outside of Wrigley Field) whenever I see a movie at the nearby Music Box Theatre or Alamo Drafthouse and every time I do that it makes me want Kari Wuhrer…I mean to watch Kissing a Fool. I haven’t seen Blues Brothers 2000, but I might as well take the dive this way. P.S. I’m most excited about seeing Bulls “The Last Dance” highlights on the big screen. Also, no one will be admitted wearing a Utah Jazz jersey. Sorry, Greg Ostertag.
Patrick: Those texts crack me up every time I get them. It’s nice to find a third person who loves Kissing a Fool because it makes me and Doug feel less alone. I’ve never seen Blues Brothers 2000 either but it’s on my list for this month. It’s one of my last unseen Landis movies, but I’m not expecting very much at all.
Double Feature 9:Adam: #1: Rush Hour (1998)
Patrick: #2: City of Angels (1998)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: There’s Something About Mary, She’s All That, Armageddon
Patrick: Theme: 1998 MTV Movie Awards “Best On-Screen Duo” Nominees
Patrick: This might be the double I see first this month because I love an onscreen duo, and I love both of these movies. I wish Brett Ratner wasn’t such a piece of shit because I did used to like his movies. I also wish Brad Silberling was still making stuff. It’s weird to me that City of Angels was nominated for an MTV movie award because that movie does not seem to be targeted at the MTV audience. Such is the power of “Iris,” I guess.
Adam: This was a solid category that year at the MTV Movie Awards. Rush Hour had aged well (even if Brett Ratner hasn’t) so it’ll be great to give it another watch with an audience in a theater. I don’t love City of Angels (it’s pretty good) but I’ll take any opportunity to see cinematic Dennis Franz that I can. He’s my hero. It’s why I’m slowly trying to age into his look. How am I doing?
Double Feature 10:
Patrick: #1: Out of Sight (1998)
Adam: #2: How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Primary Colors, Sphere, Urban Legend
Adam: Theme: $37M to $39M Domestic Grossers
Adam: The theme is hyper specific, but this turned out to be a happy accident because it allowed me to pair two sexy 1998 movies. I haven’t seen How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but I should (I’m a fan of both Angela Bassett and Taye Diggs) and what better way to get to see it than on the back half of a double feature after one of my favorite movies of 1998?
Patrick: I haven’t seen Stella either! Funny that we missed a lot of the same 1998 movies. It seems criminal that Out of Sight grossed as much as fucking Sphere (another ‘98 movie I haven’t seen) when it’s so, so good, I know it’s pretty beloved (another ‘98 movie I haven’t seen) now but it deserved to be a big box office success just so we could get a bunch of George Clooney/Jennifer Lopez movies. Remember the Karen Sisco TV show with Carla Gugino? It’s like that character can only be played by women I love.

Review: HEART EYES Feb 06, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Two movies in one! Neither of them good!
Two movies in one! Neither of them good!
The opening sequence of Heart Eyes makes its audience a promise: As the titular masked killer dispatches the world’s most nauseating couple during their carefully-staged proposal — one of them using a vineyard’s grape-crushing hydraulic press — director Josh Ruben sets up a self-aware, blood-splattered genre pastiche that aims to do for the rom-com what Happy Death Day did for the time loop movie or Little Shop of Horrors did for the musical. Horror-comedies are nothing new, of course, but there’s certainly something novel about the idea of a crossbow-toting psychopath ripping through an assortment of unsuspecting Instagram models as they Meet Cute, misunderstand, break up, and sprint across airport terminals hoping to reunite just in the nick of time. It’s the kind of four-quadrant premise that studios salivate over, one designed to bring in both the date-night normie couples and the genre-savvy Letterboxd crowd. All it takes to pull this off is clever screenwriting, inventive kills, and a pair of lovers you’d actually want to see fight their way to a happy ending.But instead of all that, we’ve got Heart Eyes, a movie so lackluster, interminable, and tonally rudderless that it becomes impossible to tell whether or not it’s even in on its own jokes. Our lead is Ally (Olivia Holt), a twenty-something copywriter who’s decided she’s done with love after a recent breakup. She’s closed off! She’s bulletproof! She’s better off alone, she tells her best friend (Gigi Zumbado), especially as the Heart Eyes Killer prepares for his annual Valentine’s Day murder spree. But wouldn’t you know it, she’s just been paired up for a new campaign with a gorgeous and sensitive freelancer (nu-Scream’s Mason Gooding as Jay) whose persistent charm and washboard abs threaten to change her mind. But when their V-Day “not-a-date” work meeting is interrupted by the Heart Eyes Killer — “We’re not a couple!” they shout at the lumbering leviathan, a bit of foreshadowing sure to set off alarms among the theater’s more discerning morons — Ally must shift into Final Girl mode to escape the HEK, clear Jay’s name, and save this Valentine’s Day for couples everywhere.
On paper, this should work. Slashers and rom-coms are so inherently trope-heavy that screenwriters Christopher Landon, Phillip Murphy, and Michael Kennedy (two of whom are veterans of Paranormal Activity, It’s a Wonderful Knife, and Freaky) should be able to mix and match story beats at will, peppering in some comedy and periodic ultraviolence. And it’s true that Heart Eyes leans on the fourth wall for a few funny gags and indulges itself with some decent gore, including a goopy “slow beheading” in the last act. The problem is that it can’t ever seem to decide which beats are tongue-in-cheek and which it’s playing sincerely. There are times when Ally and Jay are self-conscious cliches, openly inviting the audience to notice the artifice behind their terrible dialogue, and then there are other times when we’re asked to authentically invest in their budding relationship. Sometimes both happen at once! Their “tragic backstory” monologues, for example, are exchanged in the front of a van while its owners have loud, obnoxious sex in the back. That may play funny in Scary Movie, but I thought we were supposed to care about these people?So while Heart Eyes may know the tropes, it has no idea how to deploy — or subvert — them effectively. This proves lethal when it pivots to a disastrous secret identity reveal sequence that, among other sins, goes on longer than the goddamn Brutalist. Critics were explicitly told not to spoil the ending — believe me, it couldn’t matter less —but suffice it to say that any twists the screenplay thinks it’s pulling off land with a thud because the audience is so tonally lost. Heart Eyes simply isn’t smart enough to understand what Shaun of the Dead, Hatchet, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and other genre-bending horror movies do so well: You have to be the thing before you can comment on the thing. You can’t talk down to a genre and then expect your audience to invest in a story that uses it. Honestly, all this is assuming that Heart Eyes is actually trying to weaponize the genres the way I’m giving it credit for doing; it’s so poorly constructed that it’s impossible to give it the benefit of any doubt. After all, this is a movie that introduces Detectives Hobbs and Shaw (Devon Sawa and Jordanna Brewster) and then slams on the brakes so everyone can call out the reference.It’s always risky to come down against a horror movie online, especially one from a pseudo-indie production company like Divide/Conquer (Cam, M3GAN, Totally Killer). Genre communities are protective of their identities and guarded about their self-worth, so any suggestion that one of its products might be blemished is usually met with backlash, dismissal, or an insistence that those of us ignorant or illiterate enough to criticize the film will one day recognize it for the secret masterpiece it actually is. And I get it. I do. Art gives us definition. Identity. For horror fans, championing a new slasher like Heart Eyes is akin to championing ourselves. We want these things to be great. We want to be rewarded for our devotion to the form. We want to encourage the filmmakers who are keeping our childhoods alive. But maybe we should value ourselves enough not to celebrate uninspired pretenders like Heart Eyes just because they’re what’s being put in front of us. Good horror is hard. Good comedy is hard. Good genre exploration is hard. Good movies are hard. They should be. You deserve that. Don’t forget it.
Heart Eyes hits U.S. Theaters on February 7th.

Review: HEART EYES Feb 06, 2025
by Rob DiCristino
Two movies in one! Neither of them good!
Two movies in one! Neither of them good!
The opening sequence of Heart Eyes makes its audience a promise: As the titular masked killer dispatches the world’s most nauseating couple during their carefully-staged proposal — one of them using a vineyard’s grape-crushing hydraulic press — director Josh Ruben sets up a self-aware, blood-splattered genre pastiche that aims to do for the rom-com what Happy Death Day did for the time loop movie or Little Shop of Horrors did for the musical. Horror-comedies are nothing new, of course, but there’s certainly something novel about the idea of a crossbow-toting psychopath ripping through an assortment of unsuspecting Instagram models as they Meet Cute, misunderstand, break up, and sprint across airport terminals hoping to reunite just in the nick of time. It’s the kind of four-quadrant premise that studios salivate over, one designed to bring in both the date-night normie couples and the genre-savvy Letterboxd crowd. All it takes to pull this off is clever screenwriting, inventive kills, and a pair of lovers you’d actually want to see fight their way to a happy ending.But instead of all that, we’ve got Heart Eyes, a movie so lackluster, interminable, and tonally rudderless that it becomes impossible to tell whether or not it’s even in on its own jokes. Our lead is Ally (Olivia Holt), a twenty-something copywriter who’s decided she’s done with love after a recent breakup. She’s closed off! She’s bulletproof! She’s better off alone, she tells her best friend (Gigi Zumbado), especially as the Heart Eyes Killer prepares for his annual Valentine’s Day murder spree. But wouldn’t you know it, she’s just been paired up for a new campaign with a gorgeous and sensitive freelancer (nu-Scream’s Mason Gooding as Jay) whose persistent charm and washboard abs threaten to change her mind. But when their V-Day “not-a-date” work meeting is interrupted by the Heart Eyes Killer — “We’re not a couple!” they shout at the lumbering leviathan, a bit of foreshadowing sure to set off alarms among the theater’s more discerning morons — Ally must shift into Final Girl mode to escape the HEK, clear Jay’s name, and save this Valentine’s Day for couples everywhere.
On paper, this should work. Slashers and rom-coms are so inherently trope-heavy that screenwriters Christopher Landon, Phillip Murphy, and Michael Kennedy (two of whom are veterans of Paranormal Activity, It’s a Wonderful Knife, and Freaky) should be able to mix and match story beats at will, peppering in some comedy and periodic ultraviolence. And it’s true that Heart Eyes leans on the fourth wall for a few funny gags and indulges itself with some decent gore, including a goopy “slow beheading” in the last act. The problem is that it can’t ever seem to decide which beats are tongue-in-cheek and which it’s playing sincerely. There are times when Ally and Jay are self-conscious cliches, openly inviting the audience to notice the artifice behind their terrible dialogue, and then there are other times when we’re asked to authentically invest in their budding relationship. Sometimes both happen at once! Their “tragic backstory” monologues, for example, are exchanged in the front of a van while its owners have loud, obnoxious sex in the back. That may play funny in Scary Movie, but I thought we were supposed to care about these people?So while Heart Eyes may know the tropes, it has no idea how to deploy — or subvert — them effectively. This proves lethal when it pivots to a disastrous secret identity reveal sequence that, among other sins, goes on longer than the goddamn Brutalist. Critics were explicitly told not to spoil the ending — believe me, it couldn’t matter less —but suffice it to say that any twists the screenplay thinks it’s pulling off land with a thud because the audience is so tonally lost. Heart Eyes simply isn’t smart enough to understand what Shaun of the Dead, Hatchet, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and other genre-bending horror movies do so well: You have to be the thing before you can comment on the thing. You can’t talk down to a genre and then expect your audience to invest in a story that uses it. Honestly, all this is assuming that Heart Eyes is actually trying to weaponize the genres the way I’m giving it credit for doing; it’s so poorly constructed that it’s impossible to give it the benefit of any doubt. After all, this is a movie that introduces Detectives Hobbs and Shaw (Devon Sawa and Jordanna Brewster) and then slams on the brakes so everyone can call out the reference.It’s always risky to come down against a horror movie online, especially one from a pseudo-indie production company like Divide/Conquer (Cam, M3GAN, Totally Killer). Genre communities are protective of their identities and guarded about their self-worth, so any suggestion that one of its products might be blemished is usually met with backlash, dismissal, or an insistence that those of us ignorant or illiterate enough to criticize the film will one day recognize it for the secret masterpiece it actually is. And I get it. I do. Art gives us definition. Identity. For horror fans, championing a new slasher like Heart Eyes is akin to championing ourselves. We want these things to be great. We want to be rewarded for our devotion to the form. We want to encourage the filmmakers who are keeping our childhoods alive. But maybe we should value ourselves enough not to celebrate uninspired pretenders like Heart Eyes just because they’re what’s being put in front of us. Good horror is hard. Good comedy is hard. Good genre exploration is hard. Good movies are hard. They should be. You deserve that. Don’t forget it.
Heart Eyes hits U.S. Theaters on February 7th.

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Talk Scary To Me TV & Film

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Sisters Who Watch: Reality TV, Movies, and More! TV & Film

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The Show Girls TV & Film

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