That was not at all what I expected. Marty Mauser is an excellent table tennis player, and he certainly knows it. But when his uncle refuses to pay for his flight to Japan for a tournament, he takes matters into his own volatile hands. A sequence of escalating chaos, formed by Marty’s own hubris, threatens…
Tag: 2025
Video Games of 2025
2025 has been a massive year for video games. Frankly, there’s more to talk about than in the movie industry. Games such as Silk Song, Hades 2, Ghost of Yotei, DOOM: Dark Ages, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Pokemon Legends ZA, Mario Kart World, Metroid Beyond, Donkey Kong Bananza, Blue Prince, Death Stranding 2: On the…
Best and Worst of 2025
This year has been a slog. That’s about as well as I can put it, for me personally. I wonder if this has affected my perception of movies, too? There were a lot of 3.5 ratings, and zero 5 cups of cocoa scores. It feels like a year dominated by video games; there are plenty…
Review: Avatar – Fire and Ash (3D)
What is this all for, James? While Jake Sully and his family grieve for the losses from their last battle, war escalates as Quaritch allies with the violent Ash Clan. Three hours and fifteen minutes, summarised in a single sentence. I want to get on board with what director James Cameron is doing with Avatar,…
Review: Bugonia
Crazy diamond Lanthimos shines again. Bugonia is as weird as it is thought-provoking. Two cousins agree to kidnap a high-value pharmaceutical company CEO believing her to be an alien. Their plan: to have her confess, then contact her Emperor with demands to stop her species from destroying the Earth by systemic means. Director Yorgos Lanthimos…
Review: The Running Man (2025)
It is fine? But for being an Edgar Wright film, just “fine” feels wrong. In a dystopian America, jobless father Ben Richards signs up to the televised death game The Running Man to support his family. Can he survive the game with everyone out to kill him? The Running Man is yet another 2025 movie…
Review: Predator – Badlands
Is this the gentrification of the Predator franchise? A young warrior from the Youtja clan seeks to prove himself worthy by defeating a ferocious beast on a deadly planet. But his skills are lacking, and he is forced to work beside a mysterious synthetic lifeform. Predator: Badlands is directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who has taken…
Review: Frankenstein
Sympathy for the monster. Doctor Victor Frankenstein seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of his father by unlocking the secret of immortality. But his experiments create a creature that, in his eyes, is devoid of intelligence. Written for the screen and directed by visionary director Guillermo Del Toro, Frankenstein is an adaptation of Mary…
Review: Good Fortune
Narratively busy, but quite a fun time. Arj is at the bottom of the employment ladder; barely holding his life together. Meanwhile, Gabriel the angel wants to fix Arj’s life before it gets any worse… with a solution involving Jeff, a born-to-riches millennial tech bro. Written, directed, and starring Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation) Good…
Review: TRON – Ares
Well, that’s the TRON era over I guess. Short lived. Two competing tech companies race to unlock Kevin Flynn’s “permanence code”; a way to make AI last forever in our world. Ares, a defence and hacking program made by Dillenger corp, is one such AI. But he has started to question his master’s motives. “Sequel”…