The Hunger Games (2012)

★★★½
The Hunger Games books carry the label of dystopian young adult fiction, but much like Robert Heinlein's juvenile novels (Have Space Suit—Will Travel is a standout), Suzanne Collins's stories have broad appeal that reaches well beyond the Y.A. demographic. She writes at a very high level and incorporates complex themes into a fast-paced narrative focused on combat and survival. Series protagonist Katniss Everdeen is plucky, cunning and resilient. She navigates a deadly contest planned and manipulated by gamemakers who have accepted the yearly sacrifice of children as a part of life. Their world of Panem consists of a highly centralized and authoritarian capital city (called the Capitol) and its 12 districts of varying degrees of poverty and disenchantment. Collins advances the plot efficiently and succeeds in simultaneously conveying Panem's geopolitical environment and maintaining a clear focus on Katniss's journey.

Nope (2022)

★★½
Capsule Review

I'd like to believe Jordan Peele is the newest innovative horror movie director on the scene, and perhaps when he has a larger body of work, we can recognize him as such and acknowledge a few weaknesses along the way. It's not like John Carpenter and Wes Craven always knocked it out of the park. His latest film, Nope, is a little bit of sci-fi and a little bit of horror. It involves a U.F.O. that hovers over a Southern California horse ranch and the owners (brother and sister played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) who try to record it. The Haywood siblings are also dealing with the negative fallout from the death of their father and a nearby Old West theme park owner who wants to buy their land. The players are all in some way involved with the mysterious U.F.O., which has certain rules that don't seem to be followed consistently enough to get a good grasp of how it works. Uneven pacing takes momentum out of the movie. It's an okay effort that doesn't match the ominous dread of Peele's debut Get Out.

© 2025 Silver Screen Reviews

Die My Love (2025)

★★★½
Capsule Review

Lynne Ramsay's Die My Love is a scorching and uncompromising examination of a woman's mental deterioration starting with her postpartum depression and following her through a maddening descent into the darkest recesses of her mind. The sequence of events unravels. How much is authentic? Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson star as Grace and Jackson, who move into an old family home and aim to start a family there. After the birth of her child, Grace experiences depression and boredom, but she also exhibits odd behavior like crawling on the ground and hallucinating. While the movie progresses more or less in a linear fashion, there are seemingly unrelated sidesteps in the narrative and drastic jumps in time that illustrate Grace's fragmented state of mind. Lawrence's performance is stellar. John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence is a clear inspiration, but Ramsay's movie stands on its own with its surreal imagery to carry it.

© 2025 Silver Screen Reviews

American Pie (1999)

★★★
American Pie came along when I needed it. I've lauded 1999 on this website as my favorite movie year. Personally, though, I was in a bit of a funk that summer. I enjoyed South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me before this, but they weren't enough. American Pie snapped me out of it. Everything was okay going forward. Jim Levenstein's foibles were more than just easy lowbrow attempts at humor in a high school sex comedy. They were keen observations of a confusing and irrational period of life during which the ability to have second thoughts about one's actions has yet to emerge as a stabilizing force. Jim and his buddies make decisions that teenagers would make and are convinced that their actions are correct, but these decisions originate from a point of view unshaped by real world experience.

Bugonia (2025)

★★★½
Capsule Review

Director Yorgos Lanthimos takes the premise of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet! and, with a keen eye and experienced hand, elevates it to soaring heights. That's okay. It's happened before. Vanilla Sky was superior to the original Spanish film Open Your Eyes. In Bugonia, cousins Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap the C.E.O. of a pharmaceutical company and hold her hostage on the belief that she is an alien from outer space on a mission to destroy humanity. Michelle (Emma Stone) tries to convince them she is not an alien, but they don't listen, which leads to a power struggle between the two sides to see who will emerge victorious (either them, by getting on to her "spaceship," or her, by escaping). Lanthimos improves upon the original by establishing the paranoia of the abductors before the abduction takes place, by allowing the abductee to assert her position strongly and by placing less emphasis on the law enforcement subplot. The result is a more accomplished film that delivers a powerful punch.

© 2025 Silver Screen Reviews

Save the Green Planet! (2003)

★★★
Capsule Review

Paranoia fuels this little shocker from South Korea. In Save the Green Planet!, a loner and conspiracy theorist kidnaps a high-profile C.E.O. and holds him hostage because he is convinced that this public figure is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy. Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) and his girlfriend Suni (Hwang Jeong) bind and gag their victim Kang Man-shik (Baek Yoon-sik) and torture him until he confesses. I watched this after watching the American remake Bugonia, and the remake is the better version of the same story. Writer and director Jang Joon-hwan came up with this highly original concept and filmed it with passion, but his completed project had room to improve. Kang's manipulation of Lee towards the end plays too quickly. I preferred Emma Stone's calculating persuasion. Jang's movie is a great template, but on its own as a study of paranoia and the extremes someone could take it, Save the Green Planet! works well enough.

© 2025 Silver Screen Reviews

Café au Lait (1994)

★★½
Capsule Review

Lola (Julie Mauduech) is pregnant, and the question of who the father is dominates the story early. There are two possibilities, but the answer to the question is resolved before we expect it. Rather than keep us in suspense, director Mathieu Kassovitz (who also wrote and stars) uses the question to examine how the two potential fathers feel drawn to Lola and how the men might feel about each other. His story creates an interesting dynamic that sees Felix (Kassovitz) and Jamal (Hubert Koundé) at first as competitors and eventually as partners to ensure Lola's comfort during the later stages of her pregnancy. Their collaboration is tenuous at best, resulting in outburst and reconciliation and back again. The actors are good enough to perform what the script asks of them, but there isn't much narrative thrust to make for an engrossing story. The actors and costar Vincent Cassel as Felix's friend would reunite in La Haine, which is nothing like Café au Lait and much more accomplished.

© 2023 Silver Screen Reviews

The Last American Virgin (1982)

★
I had a Karen once. Her name was Maria, so I get it. The Last American Virgin has this reputation for being brutally honest about the unfairness of unrequited love and the heartache that follows when the realization settles in that all your best intentions were for naught. Writer and director Boaz Davidson culminates his T&A show with this hard lesson, but he doesn't earn it because of his inability (or unwillingness) to present his characters as anything other than sex-starved teens looking for their next fix. The denouement is there for shock value. It does not serve the purpose its defenders say it does because the characters are shallow, the narrative is scattershot, the sex is sleazy, and the acting is substandard, which prevents us from being truly invested in the story.

Roofman (2025)

★★★
Capsule Review

The true story of "Roofman" is the kind that would lend itself to a good movie if handled right, and Derek Cianfrance's Roofman is up to the task. It's a funny, lighthearted and fictionalized version of the actual events, which featured an escaped convict who hides out in a Toys R Us store (the Circuit City next door in real life) and befriends and eventually dates a local woman. Channing Tatum is Jeffrey Manchester, an Army veteran who went on a crime spree by robbing McDonald's restaurants but notably not abusing the employees in the process. After a prison escape, he hides out in the famed toy store and meets Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst) and begins a courtship that he balances with his outlaw status. They have great onscreen chemistry. The details of how Manchester carves out his hiding place and passes the time while hidden are presented here in plentiful and meticulous fashion.

© 2025 Silver Screen Reviews

Christy (2025)

★★★★
I looked up Christy Martin's fight record after I finished watching the biopic Christy and was amazed by her win-loss totals. I then watched her 1996 match against Irish boxer Deirdre Gogarty, which took place on the undercard for the Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno main event. It was an astonishing display of athleticism and a technical masterpiece. Writers Mirrah Foulkes and David Michôd and director Michôd bring Christy Martin's turbulent life to the big screen to chronicle her beginnings in amateur boxing competitions to the professional stage in Las Vegas and beyond. It was a life of triumph and shocking lows that almost came to a tragic end. It's a remarkable story on its own, but to see Sydney Sweeney embody the role so effectively as Christy is to see an actress take a big leap forward to challenge herself and convey all the pain and tragedy of that story into a gripping narrative.

Scream 3 (2000)

★★
The below review was written in 2000. After my rewatch, I looked at this review and decided to repost it and not write an update, since it largely explains my current feelings about the movie.

The first two Scream movies were all about being self-aware. They knew the conventions of horror movies and poked fun at them too. What they didn't do was fall victim to them. Scream 3, on the other hand, is a by-the-numbers slasher flick that offers a few chuckles but otherwise doesn't have anything new to say. Even with the same director and the main actors of the series returning, Scream 3 falls short of expectations. Maybe that's because Kevin Williamson didn't write this installment. Ehren Kruger (any relation to Freddy?) has the screenwriting credit. Williamson does have a producer credit, though I have to wonder how much he was involved with the production, because this entry isn't as fresh as the first two.

Scream 2 (1997)

★★★
Scream 2 continues the premise of the original film and adds to it by featuring characters who not only know they're in a horror movie but also know that they are in a sequel to a horror movie. As Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), the resident horror movie buff, helpfully explains to former deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette), there are rules to follow regarding the body count, level of violence and suspects. Kevin Williamson returns as the screenwriter, and he has no shortage of ideas to explore in this sequel, which is amazing considering that he was a busy man during this time. In addition to this, he wrote 1997's I Know What You Did Last Summer and created Dawson's Creek, which premiered in early 1998. This time around, he toys with the conventions of slasher movie sequels and our expectations for them. The result is a movie that doesn't match its predecessor's originality but does feature a worthy mystery and engaging cast.

Scream (1996)

★★★½
Scream was the perfect storm that made landfall at the right time when it was needed the most. By 1996, the big three horror franchises of the '80s were finished. Freddy was dead, Jason went to Hell and Michael had one last shot at relevance with 1995's dreadful Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers before his series ran out of gas. There were still notable horror movies in the first half of the '90s (Candyman, Body Snatchers), but the outlook for the slasher movie genre looked bleak. It was just as well. Most were just obvious cash grabs with little to offer beyond what had already been done better by John Carpenter and Wes Craven. It would be Craven himself who saw an opportunity to reflect on the genre and toy with its conventions in his 1994 feature Wes Craven's New Nightmare, but its low box office haul showed that something was missing to make this kind of movie appealing again.

Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)

★★★½
If Ghost Protocol writers André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum and director Brad Bird laid the groundwork for increasingly stacking the deck against mission success to test Ethan Hunt's resolve and make the plot compelling, then Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation director Christopher McQuarrie was the perfect man to bring in to follow that blueprint and develop challenging adversaries who will push Hunt to great lengths to finish the job. Whereas James Bond can quip a one-liner to decompress after a near death experience, Ethan Hunt remains alert. His missions are too multilayered to allow him any respite. This isn't surprising, as McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, a dense and complex crime thriller the ending of which slowly unfolded in a way to force us to rethink everything. Previous Mission directors didn't write the scripts. McQuarrie not only wrote this one, but he will also write and direct the rest of the series. A film universe that needs an I.M.F. perfectly plays to McQuarrie's strengths as a writer.

Terrifier (2018)

zero stars
Terrifier is pure, unadulterated trash. I hated every second of it. Director Damien Leone gives us a killer clown named Art, who dispatches his victims in the most gruesome ways possible, but he doesn't stack up well at all to filmdom's more sinister clowns. Pennywise commits psychological warfare and exploits his victims' fears. The Chiodo Brothers' killer klowns from outer space were inventive in their use of circus props to hunt humans. The Joker? He's been analyzed to death. He warrants it. He's one of the greatest comic book villains of all time. Art the Clown doesn't belong in that company, nor does he belong in the company of Freddy, Jason and Michael. He's a one-dimensional killing machine in a one-dimensional movie that isn't scary, suspenseful, interesting or clever. It's witless and stupid. It's a parade of characters who meet a grisly demise for no purpose other than to showcase the special effects crew's talents.

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

★★
Around the World in 80 Days is an unspectacular movie that runs on Jackie Chan's star power, which is fading fast in the U.S. after his The Medallion failed to impress anyone. While the writers—three Davids (Titcher, Benullo, Goldstein)—reworked the Jules Verne story to make the Passepartout character Chinese, director Frank Coraci stages some good fight scenes featuring the Buster Keaton of martial arts but renders everything else in the movie as afterthoughts. This makes for a very dull affair in which the story just plods along, and we have no choice but to look forward to the next fight scene.

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)

½ star
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's I Know What You Did Last Summer was coasting along at a slow but inoffensive pace until its ghastly third act, which infuriated me with its total disrespect not just for the first movie from 1997 but for its contempt for a strong male character who needed to be destroyed in the director's eyes. I liked the callbacks to the original and placing this movie in the same universe in which the Julie James ordeal occurred, but I hated the turn of events that led to the identification of the killer. Jim Gillespie's original wasn't without its faults, but it was a slick and thrilling ride. It was a good complement to Scream (1996), which is not surprising considering that both were written by Kevin Williamson. Robinson's version starts out as plug-and-play in a modern setting, but her twist is short-sighted and serves only to give a momentary shock to legacy fans who don't bother to think about the implications of orchestrating such a heel turn.

Hanging Up (2000)

★★
Nora Ephron's name will most likely forever be linked with chick flicks. It's ironic that her best work has nothing to do with that genre. In 1983 she co-wrote Silkwood, a fine film based on the true story of a nuclear factory employee uncovering corruption at the plant. Another notable film is My Blue Heaven (1990), starring Steve Martin as an oddball gangster hiding away while he awaits his court appearance. Ephron sometimes hits the target and dishes out something worth watching (1996's Michael), but lately I have found her films, whether written and/or directed by her, too cute for my tastes. I was unimpressed with her wildly popular Sleepless in Seattle (1993), and You've Got Mail (1998) was weak too. Now, she and her sister Delia have cowritten Hanging Up, which was directed by Diane Keaton, and again Ephron has created something with a warm and fuzzy exterior but with a shallow interior.

The Founder (2016)

★★★
Ray Kroc's venerable restaurant chain, like all the big-name retailers and food establishments that dot the landscape, started out as one store. It has endured periods of low profit, lawsuits, failed products (though I loved the Arch Deluxe), a critical documentary, a critical book and shifting eating habits to remain the go-to place for a quick meal and senior citizens who gravitate to the nearest store for coffee every morning. It has also inspired parody ("They got the Big Bac. We got the Big Mic.") and a sly pop culture reference courtesy of Quentin Tarantino. The Founder gives us the story of how Ray Kroc turned a lone hamburger stand in San Bernardino into the national brand known as McDonald's. Kroc's rise to the top of the restaurant food chain is an intriguing story so good it's taught in business schools. Director John Lee Hancock presents a struggling milkshake machine vendor in his 50s who finally sees an opportunity to find the success that has eluded him after years of effort. If he has to take someone else's concept and run with it, then so be it.

The Relic (1997)

★★★
The Relic is so much fun that it's easy to forgive its shortcomings, and there are plenty. This is a gory monster movie that takes place in a vast building with corridors that are perfect for a mutated beast to roam free and attack unsuspecting prey. If this sounds pretty routine, well, it is, but Peter Hyams directs the film like a well-oiled machine. There are occasional surprises to go along with the formulaic elements.