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Three of 2025’s best films
By: Gordon Briggs
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For devout cinephiles like myself, this is the busiest time of the year. The holidays mean many multiplexes are packed with family-friendly blockbusters. Awards season brings plenty of prestigious films… Read More
Three standout horror movies from 2025
By: Gordon Briggs
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If you are a horror fan, 2025 gave audiences plenty of bizarre and beautiful films. We had suburban horror with Weapons, rom-com horror films like Companion and Together. We even… Read More
‘Train Dreams’ is a haunting frontier film and one of the year’s best
By: Gordon Briggs
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Train Dreams follows the life of quiet laborer Robert Grainier in the early 20th-century American West. Depicting his hard work building the railroad and his happy life with his wife… Read More
‘Blue Moon’ breaks biopic conventions to cast an enchanting spell
By: Gordon Briggs
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What a charming movie Blue Moon is. I’ve been hesitant to watch many new biopics. Despite their best intentions, many of them feel like sanitized stories that often smooth down… Read More
Three masterful murder mysteries
By: Gordon Briggs
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Wake Up Dead Man is the latest installment in a series of whodunits from director Rian Johnson. His Knives Out series is packed with references to past murder mystery movies…. Read More
‘Wake Up Dead Man’ will restore your faith in the whodunit
By: Gordon Briggs
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I love a good whodunit. The idea of a dead body, an isolated location, and a room full of potential suspects, all played by a gang of talented actors, has… Read More
Three eerie early films from Yorgos Lanthimos
By: Gordon Briggs
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The new dark comedy Bugonia is a strange story about isolation and alienation from prominent director Yorgos Lanthimos. As the director has achieved mainstream success, I want to highlight three… Read More
‘Bugonia’ is another bleak and bizarre black comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos
By: Gordon Briggs
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Powerful alien overlords are secretly controlling humanity. These aliens are actually disguised as ordinary-looking people and have been manipulating humans for generations. At least that’s what a disgruntled factory worker… Read More
‘The Lost Bus’ spins a real-life story into a tense tale of survival
By: Gordon Briggs
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Recently, there have been numerous sequels, reboots, and remakes flooding theaters. In the rush to capitalize on the familiar, I want to praise The Lost Bus, a tense and effective… Read More
Frankenstein on film: Three movies that grapple with the mad scientist
By: Gordon Briggs
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The new adaptation of Frankenstein is just one of several films that have been inspired by the story or are direct adaptations. While Boris Karloff’s ’30s version of the monster… Read More
Frankenstein is a striking monster movie about science gone awry
By: Gordon Briggs
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Upon reflection, I enjoyed this new Frankenstein film. You already know the basics of the story: an ambitious scientist who wishes to create life spawns a powerful but misunderstood creature… Read More
When life is no fairy tale: three dark fantasy films inspired by classic fairy tales
By: Gordon Briggs
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Once upon a time, long before Disney sanitized many of them, Grimm’s fairy tales were ominous works meant to warn children about the evils of the world. Occasionally, we get… Read More
One of the year’s freakiest horror films is also a fairy tale
By: Gordon Briggs
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Before Disney sanitized most of them for American audiences, fairy tales were dark and twisted stories meant to frighten children into behaving. So, for this Halloween season, I would like… Read More
When horror doesn’t need humans: three disturbing films with dogs and other animals
By: Gordon Briggs
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The new horror movie, Good Boy, is quickly becoming a minor hit, thanks to good buzz and the clever hook of being a horror film that takes place from a… Read More
‘Good Boy’ is a good and gruesome pet-centered horror movie
By: Gordon Briggs
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I’ve seen several thrillers in my day that had celebrities with multi-million dollar budgets, and plenty of jump scares, only to have them fail because they didn’t have a point… Read More
What to watch if you liked ‘One Battle After Another’
By: Gordon Briggs
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One Battle After Another is a gripping action drama about the hunt for political revolutionaries. Watching the movie, I was reminded of three other films that deal with revolution and… Read More
‘One Battle After Another’: a tense and timely look at America at war
By: Gordon Briggs
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This movie is wild. Right from its fluid opening sequence, where we see a group of revolutionaries raid a detention center, it’s clear One Battle After Another is going to… Read More
‘HIM’ is an entertaining, but unusual, blend of sports film and horror movie
By: Gordon Briggs
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I’ve seen plenty of horror movies in my time, but I haven’t seen many that venture into the world of sports. With its fetishizing of the male body, blood doping,… Read More
‘The Long Walk’ is a harrowing journey, but one that’s worth taking
By: Gordon Briggs
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Our world seems to be awash in cinematic dystopias. Whether it’s the world of horror with zombies, science fiction with evil AI enslaving humans, or action movies featuring any number… Read More
‘Dahomey’: A superlative documentary about art, history, and storytelling
By: Gordon Briggs
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I must confess that I haven’t watched many documentaries lately. It feels like streaming platforms have been overloaded with true-crime documentaries, celebrity bios, and retrospectives of various tragedies. Unique educational… Read More
Don’t See ‘Honey Don’t’: When it comes to Ethan Coen’s new movie, the title says it all
By: Gordon Briggs
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All the elements of an entertaining crime flick are here. You’ve got a talented cast that have all been good in other movies, an award-winning director, and plenty of bad… Read More
‘The Roses’ is a dark comedy that proves that married life is no bed of roses
By: Gordon Briggs
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Hollywood seems to be in the midst of a renaissance of breakup movies. Some fall into the category of horror, some are science fiction, and others are award-winning dramas about… Read More
‘Caught Stealing’ is a crime film worth catching
By: Gordon Briggs
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Hank Thompson is having a terrible week. He’s got a screwed-up liver, the cops are on his case, a pair of oddball hitmen are on his tail, and worst of… Read More
‘Highest 2 Lowest’ is a rare remake of a classic that stands on its own
By: Gordon Briggs
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I had serious doubts when I heard that Spike Lee was remaking Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low. However, I’m happy to report that this re-imagining is both a sharp… Read More
What to watch if you liked ‘Weapons’
By: Gordon Briggs
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Weapons hooked audiences and became a surprise summer hit with its story of missing children, macabre characters, and memorable suburban setting. Watching it, I couldn’t help but think of other… Read More