Spencer TuckermanIntro
Opus dir. Mark Anthony Green Watched April 10
If Blink Twice is the cheap ripoff of Get Out, then Opus is the ChatGPT iteration on Blink Twice. This doesn't do a single thing right. Almost awe-inspiring.
Another Simple Favor dir. Paul Feig Watched May 4
I remember thinking the first in this series was surprisingly fun before ultimately caving to an extremely stupid resolution. Another Simple Favor picks right up where its predecessor left off. It reflects a bleak state of affairs that a studio felt the need to circle back to this material seven years later for a direct-to-streaming reheat, and the resulting film emits the stink of this decision.
You’re Cordially Invited dir. Nicholas Stoller Watched January 31
Nicholas Stoller directed one of the best rom-coms of the 21st century in 2008 and has spent the ensuing years throwing up bricks. This feels twice as long as its runtime, isn't nearly as funny as it needs to be, and falls directly within my least favorite comedy subgenre by rooting its humor in everything going wrong and everyone hating each other. Even the very best of this ilk (say, Meet the Parents) are a struggle for me, so something playing those beats with a half-baked script and mailed-in performances is a very tough hang.
Wicked: For Good dir. John M. Chu Watched November 25
The first one of these––which was not good but I found enjoyable enough––really spoils the second film, which is much of the same, just with an unavoidably baffling narrative structure and without any of the stuff that actually worked. There's nowhere to hide here.
And at the risk of getting caught up in the emotional wake of my screening experience, this may be the single ugliest film I've ever seen in a theater. Everyone talks about the color or lack thereof but I think this discussion lets the rest of the photography off easy. This is a movie shot without perspective or intent. It's as if they strapped the camera to a Roomba and just cut it loose while they ran lines. This bears the photographic eye of a '90s camcorder dad.
Absolutely abysmal stuff.
Cleaner dir. Martin Campbell Watched April 6
Repeats a mistake a lot of these kinds of movies make by trying way too hard to convince me it’s above B-movie pitfalls, oblivious to the fact that’s the only reason I’m watching.
Fountain of Youth dir. Guy Ritchie Watched May 26
I don’t love reacting to movies in this way, but there's really only so much I can hate an adventure movie with this scale. If National Treasure is a watered-down Indiana Jones, then this is a watered-down National Treasure. And if this had any sense for how to conclude its story, it would have earned a passing grade, flaws and all.
Turteltaub is no Spielberg, but at least he had a sense for what makes these movies tick. Ford was born to play Indy, but Cage is still awfully serviceable as Benjamin Gates. He's a performer who's wily enough to sell even the most outlandish script and charismatic enough to make it fun, even grounded.
Krasinski, meanwhile, simply has none of the sauce––just one problem in a movie that spends $180 million running in place around the globe. This guy played Jim Halpert on the back of an office-drone, everyman quality and has spent the ensuing years desperately trying (with a lot of success!) to be an action star. Simply a confounding career arc that defies all logic. Can't help but feel like almost any other 40-something white guy would've worked better here.
Happy Gilmore 2 dir. Kyle Newacheck Watched July 25
A raft of product placements, celebrity cameos, and lukewarm nostalgia ploys wrapped around a handful of funny gags and a legitimately great Benny Safdie performance. I guess it's what I expected, but still pretty nuts that the plot of Happy Gilmore 2 is literally just "Hey, remember Happy Gilmore?"
(Not the worst way to spend a Friday night on the couch.)
Good Fortune dir. Aziz Ansari Watched November 10
Mr. Riyadh makes a movie about how life is worth living if you're poor because of tacos and laughter. Maybe I was just not in the right mood but I found this to be extraordinarily bleak.
Bring Her Back dir. Michael and Danny Philippou Watched October 11
Incredibly tedious. I didn't love Talk To Me, but I felt like there was enough in it to be interested in what the Philippous were up to. This is a step in the wrong direction––a blunt-force depiction of grief packed with more unearned grandeur than successful tricks, setting its sights on an obvious end point very quickly and then arriving there in a straight line.
I think it's especially frustrating in the age of AI when "hey, do not under any circumstances become obsessed with reanimating the dead" actually *is* a necessary reminder. Instead I'd direct you to pretty much any other film on the subject.
I like a horror movie that's fun––either in its plot or in the elegance of its construction. This is not fun.
Materialists dir. Celine Song Watched June 12
Anyone who's been in a successful relationship will tell you that love is a magical, mysterious, perfect force that in many ways holds our entire existence together but that relationships––especially marriages––are largely the opposite. They're scary and illogical and oddly rooted in simple logistics: Puzzle pieces that need to fit together either through sheer luck or some light manipulation. Very few movies are willing to be realistic about this, which is why I really love the ones that are. I love an un-romantic romance.
I only bring all this up to illustrate that there were a few times I thought this movie was going to connect as a kid of blunt force romance which explicitly externalizes all these gross little bits of red tape we sort through in our heads either shamefully or subconsciously. Instead, I'm left absolutely BAFFLED. I thought Celine Song's Past Lives was pretty special, especially for a debut, but watching this movie will have you questioning if she's ever had a relationship with another human.
I frequently love Dakota Johnson, but I have to admit it's odd that she's what works best here. No fault to Evans or Pascal, as they're good actors done no favors by this script that oscillates between paint-by-numbers and romance film uncanny valley. Any time the movie slows down for a conversation between two people, strap in, because you're about to get 70 years of the genre synthesized into a few minutes of shot-reverse shot torture.
What the hell was this? What a bummer.
Kinda Pregnant dir. Tyler Spindel Watched February 7
Listen, I am not above some Happy Madison trash, and this is indeed trash.
...but I also laughed more than I'd like to admit. Sorry. Watch it late at night.
Love Me dir. Andrew and Sam Zuchero Watched February 23
Very funny to conjure up the vastness of time and space and the miraculous power love has to form bridges across it, only do deliver a message that boils down to "be urself :)"
It's got a pretty promising first act though!
Ballad of a Small Player dir. Edward Berger Watched November 9
This reminded me a bit of Guadagnino’s Queer except for it’s straight and boring.
Companion dir. Drew Hancock Watched February 21
Thankfully not as smug as Thatcher's last film but still slots pretty seamlessly into the Thought Provoking Movies For Dumb People genre that seems to only be growing. She's pretty good here, and so is Quaid, despite a screenplay that feels written to be recapped on TikTok.
Freakier Friday dir. Nisha Ganatra Watched August 13
I probably like this a little less than I should given how annoying I find Jamie Lee Curtis in 2025. The GM needs to get Julia Butters out of Triple-A before we stunt her development.
M3GAN 2.0 dir. Gerard Johnstone Watched July 20
Actually a bit more evolved in its thinking on AI than the original (two more years of living with the robots will do that) but not quite as fun, partly owed to a two-hour runtime. These movies have a 90-minute shelf life. I don't know who let them mess that up. And the ending absolutely reeks.
Eenie Meanie dir. Shawn Simmons Watched August 24
If you wished Baby Driver were less annoying and didn't force you to spend time with Ansel Elgort and Kevin Spacey and are from Cleveland, I have the perfect movie for you.
Competently made but just so... nothing. A classic streamer in that way.
House of Dynamite dir. Kathryn Bigelow Watched November 1
Built like a docudrama for an event that never happened, which helps provide the film a kinetic and aesthetic framework but of course can't provide it the heft, perspective, or meaning of an actual event. Despite a nice tempo and a handful of performers I like, I can't help but wonder what on earth the point is, especially with so many other movies across the history of the medium that caution against (?) a climate of nuclear war. I gave up hope the moment it started Rashomon-ing.
Frankenstein dir. Guillermo del Toro Watched November 8
Kind of depressing when your whole thing is that you're obsessed with Frankenstein and you finally get to make it and it looks like Wicked and everyone watches it on their TV.
It's been a while since I've read the novel, but this feels awfully faithful as far as adaptations go. The trouble is that GDT seems to have sucked all the life out of a story he clearly cares a lot about, leaving us a film desperately in search of the bite of 2021's quiet masterpiece Nightmare Alley. The parts are all here but it feels kind of inert––a weird, accidental meta commentary for a movie about ill-advised creations.
(But I like that they did the Arctic stuff! Feels like nobody ever does the Arctic stuff!)
Paddington in Peru dir. Dougal Wilson Watched February 17
Bad news: The Paddington franchise has regressed to the mean.
Dear Kelly dir. Andrew Callaghan and Elliot Liedgren Watched January 28
Parts of this strike gold. Andrew views Kelly with empathy despite disagreeing with him, and I think he's able to zero in on the external (and largely apolitical) factors that contribute to disenfranchisement and radicalization. I think these are conversations we should be having.
And yet I think it also butts up against something Andrew has always struggled with, awkwardly oscillating between a piece of objective journalism and something more personal. The moments in which Andrew himself is a character in the film are frankly odd. Bouncing back and forth between neutral observer and silly participant might work on YouTube but it's jarring within the context of a single film, especially one approaching a serious topic. Andrew very successfully makes the connection between Kelly's radicalization and the implosion of his personal life, but the moments in which he tries to create parallels between himself and Kelly are kind of ridiculous.
Wick Is Pain dir. Jeffrey Doe Watched May 19
This would probably count as essential viewing if you’re a Wick diehard or an aspiring action filmmaker. If you’re not in one of those groups it feels a bit like two or three DVD featurettes strung together.
Ballerina dir. Len Wiseman Watched June 21
Weird movie. Not that Ana de Armas is coming for an Oscar any time soon, but she certainly has a screen presence and this film feels completely disinterested in tapping into it. This lead role is disappointingly anonymous––soulless, sauceless, whatever you want to say. Eve could've been played by anyone, which feels like a missed opportunity.
It all contributes to making this feel a lot more like a John Wick knockoff than a John Wick spinoff, but if you aren't locked in when the flamethrowers come out then I can't relate to you.
The Life of Chuck dir. Mike Flanagan Watched July 5
Perhaps says more about some of my own cynicism than it does about the movie, but this never really got close to “working” for me.
It opens with this really strange and scary and melancholic “third act” but when King needs to resolve it, everything falls apart, because of course it does. Not only is he a writer who (despite my appreciation for a lot of his work) struggles with deep and nuanced human emotion, but he’s written himself into a corner with this story. There’s no way to write yourself out of the apocalypse of a man’s mind, as exciting and rewarding as that idea can be for a bit. So he hits you with this great opening and then has no exit except through every rote idea you’ve seen in other storytelling. I certainly didn’t hate it, but it slams into all the road blocks I expected.
Last Breath dir. Alex Parkinson Watched Mark 18
Pretty fun little trash thriller—“trash” being the operative word. Not particularly impressed with these performances and I found the construction to be pretty disorienting, even before it was supposed to be. (Lots of “Wait, where are we?” and “What is this guy trying to do?”)
But that doesn’t matter in a story this good if you can keep the plotting on a steady rhythm, and they’ve nailed that, at least through the middle 80 minutes or so. Worth a watch!
Elio dir. Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina Watched August 20
I want a redo on this, starting from the end of the first act. This goes from Good Pixar Movie to Mid Pixar Movie in a hurry right at the 25-minute mark, devolving from a sci-fi story about a kid looking for belonging in the stars into something much more convoluted. There's no way children are even able to follow this.
Oh, Hi! dir. Sophie Brooks Watched August 29
Has one good idea (what if Misery but for situationships) and feebly tries to construct a whole movie around that. It's pretty tedious as a statement on modern dating but consistently surprised me with its humor through the second and third acts when it leaned a bit more towards weird caper. (Then, more tediousness!) Kind of a great little cast, aside from Logan Lerman, who––my apologies––is very bad.
Honey Don’t! dir. Ethan Coen Watched August 22
Very much like Drive-Away Dolls in that I'm not even sure how good it is but I know that I had fun and I'm glad it exists, especially as a Margaret Qualley season ticket holder. And when you're someone with Ethan Coen's resume, I think you've more than earned the right to make some late-career curiosities with your wife/creative partner.
I know things are not as cut-and-dry as they appear but it's been fascinating to watch the Coen brothers' solo work over the last four years as it reveals a bit about what each brings to the duo. My takeaway is that together they consistently make some of my all-time favorite movies and apart I have no evidence they ever will.
Echo Valley dir. Michael Pearce Watched June 15
I think the mark of success for any domestic thriller is the ability to keep my investment, bring in a few twists and––perhaps most importantly––make me feel absolutely terrible about the world. This succeeds on those metrics, even if it's particularly silly and doing nothing to advance the genre as a whole.
Secret Mall Apartment dir. Jeremy Workman Watched November 12
Pretty deftly delivers wacky human interest while contrasting the cost of urban renewal and American consumerism against the power of art and human coalition.
It would pair well with Roofman for the obvious reason, but also because they're each 2025 films which I came into with knowledge of the subject matter because I listened to a podcast episode about them years ago. In this case: 99% Invisible, 2018.
The Long Walk dir. Francis Lawrence Watched October 28
Pretty bang-up little movie. If you're familiar with King's work, a political commentary this overt will worry you. He tends to be a blunt writer, and that surfaces here, mostly in the opening and closing minutes as Hamill is stinking up the joint. Fortunately the film allows the middle 90% of the movie to rely on the central metaphor and not so much state its worldview. It results in a sufficiently gnarly, propulsive movie that does well toeing the line between social statement and cinematic adventure.
Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are great, though Jonsson is doing some of the most bizarre accent work I've ever seen.
Drop dir. Christopher Landon Watched May 4
Exactly like every other successful, high-concept Blumhouse thriller: Perfectly entertaining and delivering what it promises, yet it's also it's hard not to think about the fact that an inspired director could pretty easily elevate this 3-star to a 4-star.
Though Landon did work a Saab 9-3 into this so I must concede he knows ball.
Together dir. Michael Shanks Watched August 30
Fascinating movie, as I'm not sure I've ever seen such a significant gap between narrative and theme. Pretty smart and entertaining as a movie about marriage. Pretty stupid as a movie about these two people, and this relationship.
(Very disorienting to watch this the day after I watched Oh, Hi!––a very similar kind of movie with the exact inverse problem.)
The Smashing Machine dir. Benny Safdie Watched October 3
I actually think this is a fairly brave film. The Safdies have made it clear that they know how to make a movie feel like a lit stick of dynamite, and applying that ethos to a story about a fighter staring down the barrel of time and addiction would've been slick, fun, and easy. Instead this is very downbeat, earning the comparisons to the brothers' brilliant and depressing documentary, Lenny Cooke. The Rock really does disappear into this character, and Safdie has turned a relatively cookie-cutter career turn into something that actually is fairly surprising and bold. This is not a popcorn flick, or something that strives for satisfaction, and I'd imagine that's what viewers coming for a UFC movie, or The Rock superstardom, will get hung up on.
But for me the issue comes in the structure. Watching this I found it impossible to shake the idea that it only exists as a Serious Acting Showcase for The Rock. That's perfectly fine and many great movies have come from similar game plans. But the trouble comes from the fact that the film could not be structured any more like your standard biopic. This is a character study jammed into a pretty rigid narrative structure, which leaves you with vanishingly little to grip on to. It kinda felt like the whole thing never really got going.
And this is to say nothing of the fact that the stuff that actually works best here is not the biopic elements (which are pretty flat) or the acting showcase (which is pretty good) but the first-act stuff that serves as a pretty effective portrait of addiction. But relatively little time is devoted to that stuff, in favor of fight scenes and flat supporting characters.
One of Them Days dir. Lawrence Lamont Watched February 12
Keke Palmer is a superstar and we're not doing nearly enough with her. She's got this movie on her back, with an assist from Katt Williams. (!)
Presence dir. Steven Soderbergh Watched January 25
Takes the classic haunted house tropes and yanks them inside out, making it an experience less about sitting on pins and needles waiting for the next jump scare and more about feeling that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The story's got a really effective black cloud hanging over it––a family strained and stressed and depressive, while only the audience is aware that something even worse must be coming.
And yet the climax isn't able to really meet the muster. This is a ton of fun as a formal exercise from a director in his lunch pail era and eventually pretty inert as a piece of narrative storytelling.
Sacramento dir. Michael Angarano Watched May 4
Michael Cera has been in the game so long that he's now in his second wave of late-2000s Fox Searchlight indie comedies. The pros and cons are exactly the same as they were 15 years ago: This is very funny and also containing zero emotional surprises, or really much complexity at all.
The Gorge dir. Scott Derrickson Watched February 15
Fun, gnarly stuff. It's what Spiderhead should've been a few years ago.
I think the real trick here is the way this sets itself up as a cloistered mystery––maybe like a sci-fi-tinted Rear Window––before a turn towards junk survival shoot-em-up type stuff that I genuinely did not see coming. Would've been fun in a theater, but not sure anyone would've seen it. In that sense, it's kind of the ideal streamer. It's dumb, but it's the exciting, adventurous kind.
Superman dir. James Gunn Watched July 15
One of those movies that's just good enough to make me irritated by its flaws. I think Gunn nailed down a lot of trickier elements (tone, style, worldview of the character) but wasn't able to escape the comic book movie slog that eventually made me give up entirely on the MCU more than a decade ago. I can stomach the CGI sensory overload climax, I can handle an antagonist that spends the entire movie in a single room, I can even look past Ted Lasso-ing Superman. But can we just make a movie that exists within itself and doesn't feel like a sales pitch for what the creator hopes will be a $25 billion enterprise? I admire the film's ethics, but it's not enough to paper over a lot of the same flaws I find in any of these movies.
But when it works, it works. So much of the "boring" domestic stuff is great, and I wish the movie saved more space to explore Corenswet and Brosnahan's chemistry or the farm in Kansas and devoted less time to pocket universes. I used to feel like the MCU ran in fear of all this stuff (and for very good reason), but this movie really starts to sing in those interstitial moments and could've used more of them.
Cleveland and Cincinnati both look great (an entire scene at Progressive Field!) but the single most shocking twist of the film is the Noah and the Whale needle drop. What an absolutely surreal choice for someone with my music taste in 2008.
Final Destination Bloodlines dir. Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky Watched June 16
I've only seen one (though likely two and possibly as many as three) of these movies, so take this with a grain of salt, but as someone with a begrudging respect for franchise filmmaking and "legasequels" I was interested from the start. This is the sixth film of the series, and as such the brilliant conceit is old by now, but here's an entry that does a pretty impressive job reviving and expanding upon it in fascinating ways. It's truly a model for how to write a new branch onto an old tree, successfully reheating the franchise for a new generation––dark humor, grisly kills, and all.
I just wish it didn't look like absolute garbage while doing so. One of the reasons the first film is so fun is the phenomenal mood it sets. This is comparatively artless. (Though credit the decision to overload some of the production budget into the climax.)
Splitsville dir. Michael Angelo Covino Watched September 30
Dakota Johnson, whom I adore, has appeared in a second 2025 movie that takes a unique angle on modern relationships and whiffs. No movie has ever been more clearly starring its director/writers, and I think it helps contribute to the same kind of uncanny valley feeling I got from Materialists. This just did not really work for me at all as a relationship movie.
Fortunately it has humor to fall back on, and it's really funny, delivering a handful of legitimately great jokes and toting along some more screwball, slapstick comedy, if that's your thing. I almost feel it would've succeeded better if it had just sustained the absurdity throughout, because the air went out every time the film tried leading me back to The Serious Parts.
After the Hunt dir. Luca Guadagnino Watched October 18
Didn't hate this but found it pretty frustrating as a case of a director using a kitchen full of incredible ingredients and creating a meal less interesting and satisfying than thought possible. For how much this has working in its favor––incredible cast, score, and photography to arrive at, broadly, Tár via The Social Network––this ends up just feeling like being lectured by an old person who doesn't get it and doesn't care to learn.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd love to spend an autumn in New Haven going to parties, eating Indian food, and listening to jazz with Julia and Ayo.
Flight Risk dir. Mel Gibson Watched January 24
Hilarious, tense, and an absolute blast. I went in sorta prepped to enjoy this and it actually exceeded my expectations––a true blue Netflix (or maybe TNT?) junk thriller, projected on AMC's "Big D" screen. What a novel experience. It feels like an accident that this got a wide release on premium screens.
The "DIRECTED BY MEL GIBSON" credits drop is a laugh line unto itself, and considering how hard they worked to hide him in marketing materials it's hilarious to imagine how many moviegoers will not find out he directed this until that moment.
Virtually the entirety of the lean runtime is spent in the fuselage of a small plane as Wahlberg spits out absurd dialogue and Topher Grace (wonderfully cast) cowers in handcuffs. It's everything I want from January.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie dir. Peter Browngardt Watched July 8
Gorgeous and hilarious––just exuberant filmmaking. I rarely think about it, but I grew up on animation that was almost exclusively hand-drawn, and it's easy to forget, in 2025, the potential of the art form. I had so many "Oh yeah, cartoons used to do that" moments while watching this. Hardly my favorite movie of the year but definitely one of the most joyful.
Baby Invasion dir. Harmony Korine Watched March 25
I'm too old to know if this is still the case, but there was a time when way-too-online 16 year olds were basically forced to watch Kids. And Spring Breakers came out when I was 20––a relatively small blip in the zeitgeist but a wide-spanning ripple on the internet I occupied in 2013.
Suffice it to say I will always be in the bag for Harmony and his BS, even the bad stuff. I think he's always made movies specifically for those who speak his language, but I also think it's safe to say that his work has never been more insular. I wouldn't recommend Aggro Dr1ft or Baby Invasion to a single person, though the latter is awfully hypnotizing.
At some point soon Blumhouse is going to make a completely overbuilt and artistically bankrupt movie satirizing how it feels to live in this current moment, but Harmony's got his finger on the pulse right here. In 2013 the internet was a sea of social media feeds––Tumblr, Twitter––self-soothing to hollow vibes and curated aesthetics. Now it's all just an unending web of slop-tier live streams––TikTok, Twitch, StreamEast––atop whirring comment sections filled with AI bots or 11 year olds with deep-fried synapses.
I don't think this is a particularly smart movie, nor do I think it wants to be seen as one. But it does feel right.
The Naked Gun dir. Akiva Schaffer Watched September 7
"UCLA?" "I see it every day, I live here!"
As someone who watched Airplane! when he was too young, I am predisposed to love this.