DEVO (Chris Smith, 2025): 4/5

“When the captain says the ship is sinking, you don’t call him ‘a pessimist’ if it is.”

A needed reintroduction to the great Ohio art-punks Devo: Kent State students radicalized-as-artists in 1970 when they witnessed the National Guard open fire on unarmed protestors, killing 4. (It’s a chilling reminder of what we’re seeing today: The normalization of the federal government turning on its own people.) They saw the dehumanization of the factory workers around them and embraced the anger they saw in Dadaism and the multimedia subversion in Pop Art. Their Brian Eno-produced Q: Are We Not Men? remains an astounding debut, and their first several albums are all good-to-great, but their 1 pop hit was a blessing and a curse. For a few years they had a much bigger audience, but in the ‘80s their anti-conformity message baffled their interviewers, who kept asking if they were serious. Because mocking President Reagan's phony-macho conservatism—and having a good time doing it!—was unfathomable to them.

Director by Chris Smith gets great interviews from the guys, and rightly keeps the focus on them and the music to show how much the politics was always there in plain sight. “We were seeing a world that was the antitheses of the idealized, promised future ginned up in the ’50s and ’60s.” The devolution they started seeing in the ‘70s was willfully ignored in the ‘80s and only seems worse now. “We didn’t want to be right,” they say towards the end. But they left a great soundtrack for dancing while the ship goes down.

Thanks to this widely available and entertaining doc, we can all get a glimpse into the right context to appreciate Devo. Synth pop provocateurs that were designed to be too ahead of their time. I mean, that was the point. Right?

It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley (Amy J. Berg, 2025): 3.5/5

Damn that white boy can sing!

Stans (Steven Leckart, 2025): 2.5/5

“Eat a dick.” Thank you, Marshall, truly inspiring.

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie, 2025): 2/5

and

F1 (Joseph Kosinski, 2025): 2/5

I was never entirely comfortable with or even able to comprehend "brat summer" but it beats the hell out of "aging white men with messiah complex" summer.

Superman (James Gunn, 2025): 2/5

Good casting for Superman himself. I hope Guy With The Worst Last Name I Ever Heard gets better Superman movies. But Hoult was a terrible choice. He's great in FURY ROAD and absolutely nothing else. He's the definition of mid and has zero charisma, which would have been necessary to this and most Lexes.

Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025): 3/5

Can someone take Joaquin Phoenix’s dick and balls out of Ari’s peripherals so he can go back to making monumental horror movies

The Thursday Murder Club (Chris Columbus, 2025): 1/5

Chris Columbus has always been a company hack. So basic and televisual. Legitimately an ugly movie, simultaneously too bright and too hazy at the same time, everything lathered in this nauseatingly digitized uncanny valley that makes everyone look like they've been digitally de-aged, even though this is specifically a movie about pensioners! (And the script is an absolute joke.)

I remember some news story about the Netflix algorithm dictating that no new movie should be over two hours, since apparently that's the limit for when people decide not to bother (I'd argue a much bigger hurdle for audience retention is that all their movies are dogshit like this, but that's just me).

Weapons (Zach Cregger, 2025): 4.5/5

IMO not as much Magnolia as it is 23 Short Films about Springfield.

Tightly constructed and thoroughly gripping. Cements Zack Cregger as one of the most exciting voices working in horror right now. No notes!

Together (Michael Shanks, 2025): 3.5/5

You ever love someone so much you become non binary

Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor, 2025): 4/5

"I’m sorry that bad things are gonna happen to you. But sometimes bad stuff just happens. That's why I feel bad for you, in a way. That you're alive and you don't know that yet. "

An exceptionally assured tonal tightrope, and a stirring, exciting debut. Naomi Ackie has the greatest face in cinema today.

War of the Worlds (Rich Lee, 2025): 0.5/5

Data, you understand, is the aliens’ food. They eat it up like spaghetti.

“Mmmm data!” They cry as they nosh on your smartphone.

To them, a thumb drive is but a Snickers bar and a 5G network is a Michelin star restaurant.

(Slop in its sloppiest form.)

I May Destroy You (Sam Miller, Michaela Coel, 2020): 3.5/5

Impressive stuff by Michaela Coel, both writing-wise and acting-wise. There are some ups and downs along the way (particularly the flashback episode and the handling of Kwame's arc), but it's made with love and handled with care throughout, and the finale is terrific. Thematically, it bears some similarities to Fleabag in a way that it is a fresh, sharp and original British dramedy that doesn’t go for traditional closures or happy endings at any point. Plus it comes with a powerhouse lead performance. For the most part, brimming with creativity, pain, and self deprecation. I doubt I’ll forget it any time soon.