By: Bob Garver Poster credit IMDB Audiences largely left last June’s zombie threequel “28 Years Later” thinking the same thing, “That was a good movie, but what the heck was up with that ending?” They were referring to the last-minute saving of young protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) from a hoard of Infected by a gang of blonde-wigged, tracksuit-wearing ruffians led by long-missing earlier character Jimmy (Jack O’Connell). The tone of the sequence was one of stylized action,

By: Bob Garver Poster credit IMDB             It’s time once again for that magical set of releases on the cinematic calendar: January Horror! Unable to get a Halloween release, unable to compete in blockbuster season, and unable to dominate a random weekend anywhere else on the calendar, January Horror movies are released at a time when their biggest competition is leftover holiday blockbusters and awards-season darlings. Studios are banking on audiences not wanting movies t

By Bob Garver “The Housemaid” has unofficially sold itself based on how crazy it gets in its second half. This is slightly less annoying than when movies sell themselves based on their twist endings – at least here, the twist gets a chance to breathe, and maybe there will be other twists after the initial shock – but it still creates the problem of forcing the audience to wait for something crazy to happen. As “The Housemaid” went along in a direction that made sense, the mov

By Bob Garver Poster credit IMDB Back in 2019, brothers Benny and Josh Safdie delivered one of the best films of the year, and possibly the decade, with “Uncut Gems.” The film was, as I wrote in a review earlier this year, “a 135-minute anxiety attack.” And I mean that in the best possible way – I have enormous amounts of respect for movies and filmmakers that know just how to push my buttons. Now in 2025, the Safdie brothers have graduated to solo projects. Benny didn’t fare

By Bob Garver    Poster credit IMDB All the way back in 2009, director James Cameron introduced the world to the planet Pandora and the Na’vi race in “Avatar.” The film soon set the record for all-time highest grossing movie at both the domestic and international box offices (it still holds the record for the latter). Sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water” came out in 2022 and made its way onto the top 10 on both lists. Can three years’ worth of inflation help third installment “F

By Bob Garver   Poster credit IMDB   Since this weekend’s highest-grossing as-yet-unreviewed theatrical film, 205-minute Indian actioner “Dhurandhar,” is playing on only 377 screens in the entire country, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review something a little more accessible. “Wake Up Dead Man” is the third installment of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” mystery franchise. Like its predecessor “Glass Onion,” “Wake Up Dead Man” is treating fans to a brief theatrical run t

By Bob Garver   Poster credit IMDB               From its ridiculous opening scene, there is little denying that “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is one of the stupidest movies of 2025. Its only real competition comes from Disney’s live-action “Snow White” remake thinking that its Dwarfs were fit for human eyesight. And it’s not even the fun kind of stupid horror movie. It was never really on the table for this to be a “good” horror movie like “Sinners,” but it could have at least

By: Bob Garver   Poster credit IMDB               2016 was a great year for animation. Disney gave the world a new musical masterwork in “Moana.” Pixar had its biggest hit up to that point in “Finding Dory.” Even underdog Laika came out with cult classic “Kubo and the Two Strings.” But the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar that year wasn’t any of those films (“Finding Dory” wasn’t even nominated), it was another Disney movie, “Zootopia.” It wasn’t a terribly controver

By: Bob Garver Poster credit: IMDB Previously, in “Wicked” Aspiring witches, green-skinned outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and pink-and-popular Glinda (Ariana Grande), started off as enemies at school, but then became friends. They decided to go their separate ways after discovering a plan by the nefarious Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) to blame and punish animals for problems in the Land of Oz. The Wizard and henchwoman Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) tried to have Elphaba captured

By Bob Garver Poster credit IMDB It was all the way back in 2013 that audiences were first introduced to the Four Horsemen of Magic – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). The quartet blurred the line between “magic tricks” and “heists,” in that they would make the money and valuables of rich evildoers disappear and then reappear in the hands of their audiences. The film spawned a 201

By Bob Garver Poster Credit: IMDB “Predator” and I got off on the wrong foot. I’m not talking about the new movie, but rather the 1987 original, and by extension the whole franchise. I rented the film hoping to enjoy some action-movie interaction between two future governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Unfortunately, there was little to no interaction between the two, and Ventura’s character got picked off by the Predator earlier than I would have liked. I spent

By Bob Garver Poster credit IMDB How is it that Halloween of 2025 couldn’t give us a better horror movie than “Black Phone 2”? It’s not that I’m shocked that a Halloween horror movie is a disappointment. I’m just shocked that we got such a disappointing movie this year. 2025 has been such a banner year for horror thus far. “Sinners,” “Weapons,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” were all blockbusters. There’s serious Oscar talk around those first