The Long Walk (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

It's become somehow fun for people to either adore or detest Stephen King -- especially his adaptations -- and I don't have the slightest interest in those conversations. King is a master of horror fiction, that much has always been clear, and I'm rarely more intrigued than when a new title surfaces. While I've been a longtime personal fan of his work, I'm by no means an expert or even a completionist. Yet. So this novel, published in 1979 under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, was not one I had read before, and I was eager to experience it. Little did I know that it would blow me away.

If you've seen the trailer, or seen the title itself, you already know the plot. A simple concept becomes much more, though, in King's imagination, as he imbues diverse characters with such fascinating psychological quirks that they end up being the story far more than the plot is. His imagined America, here, is bleak and evil, and the characters are cogs in a dystopian machine, lorded over by a totalitarian military regime that feels shockingly close to where we're currently headed. Think something between The Hunger Games and The Handmaid's Tale, and that's the kind of haunting mess you'll have stuck in your head after watching this film.

Which is apt, as it's helmed by Francis Lawrence himself, director of most of the Hunger Games film series (and Constantine, I Am Legend, Water for Elephants, and Red Sparrow). He melds quite well, here, with King's story of adolescent male bonding -- rather typical of his work -- in a somewhat retro version of Americana, set in remote rural Maine. I can only imagine the difficulty with which writer JT Mollner had to grapple in dramatizing this story for the screen, visually monotonous as it is and with a literally set pace of 3mph. Yet Mollner's sheer brilliance in Strange Darling should have prepared me for the psychological thrills he'd deliver here, on the edges of civilization and civility alike. There's a literary sensibility to this film I have trouble identifying, but it has something to do with Steinbeck and Bradbury. And the characters' dialogue is never less than riveting, as it's pretty much all we -- and they -- have to go on. What else can you do while walking endlessly by necessity?

I don't really have much else to say, so forgive the coming non-sequiturs. The actors are all excellent, especially leads Cooper Hoffman (yes, Hoffman) and David Jonsson (making a huge case for leading man stardom, after Alien: Romulus), the latter of which was so charming and charismatic in this film I sometimes had trouble believing he was suffering at all. Talk about literature; Jonsson is the film's Samwise Gamgee. Judy Greer, Charlie Plummer, and Mark Hamill are all grim and suitably entertaining, though none are really given any character depth to feel like high points in the film. The scenes of horror -- and I do mean pure, unadulterated, violent and gross and shocking horror -- truly upset me in this film, perhaps because I didn't expect it of Lawrence. This is a hard R rating, for sure, and even someone too accustomed to such things may find parts of this film difficult to endure. I sure did.

This is going on my list of favorite King adaptations, for sure. It's a somber affair, one rife with elevated ideas and major themes woven with care and compassion for its characters. Depicting a hard world like this can so easily result in flattened character archetypes and forced action; this feels raw and immediate in a way that's difficult to put into words. This is along the lines of The Green Mile or The Shawshank Redemption, Dolores Claiborne, even Stand By Me, in terms of King's work, and I just loved it, despite sweating profusely and weeping loudly during our screening. The film's climax was a tad disappointing to me, but no less satisfying for it, and by the time the credits started, I was a mess. Thankfully, that meant I stayed in the darkened auditorium and heard the original song "Took a Walk" by Shaboozey and Stephen Wilson Jr., which is already my choice for best original song of 2025. What an extraordinary final touch to an already highly successful film.

Halloween Kills (2021)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Here it is. Perhaps my most-anticipated movie of the year, and it's killer. Literally. Halloween Kills takes its title and runs with it in graphic, gory glory. The original 1978 film scared the shit out of us (and still does), and in the years since, Michael Myers has become something of a joke. The closer he got to the camera, the less scary he seemed; the more people tried to explain him -- in the movies, as Laurie's brother, or about the movies, almost always psychosexually -- the less mysterious and potent his terror. When David Gordon Green rescued the franchise from Rob Zombie's flaccid grip, retconning all the other films but the first, we were all a little nervous. But Halloween (2018) allayed my anxieties in that respect, even as it tied my constitution into knots. And now, in the continuation of Green's planned trilogy, we get the bloodbath that is the middle installment.

Much like the previous film, this one features Green's amazing ability to at once channel John Carpenter and make his own, new product. While he felt a little shackled in the first, like he was working to re-introduce old fans to his new vision through homage after homage, here Green is breaking free and playing his own twisted game. The story picks up immediately after the first one ended, with Laurie's house in flames and Michael trapped in its basement. A group of firefighters hurries to the house -- ignoring Laurie's screams to "Let it burn!" -- and are subsequently slaughtered. It's an interesting pseudo-homage to My Bloody Valentine, much as the previous film did with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which suggests to me that Green is making consummate works of horror art with these flicks. One can only imagine with gleeful anticipation what he'll do with his upcoming Exorcist reboot.

But so begins this chapter, which sees the diabolic Michael yet again stalking the streets of Haddonfield on Halloween night (actually, the clocks show that it is after midnight for most of this movie, but November First would be a terrible new title). Once Karen (Judy Greer) and Allyson (Andi Matichak), Laurie's daughter and granddaughter, learn that he survived, they alert the hospital and go into lockdown, certain that he's coming for his original Final Girl (Jamie Lee Curtis, of course). I wondered how much of this movie would feel like a reboot of Halloween II, in which Michael indeed follows her and butchers all the night staff at the local medical center. Not so much here, but the lockdown sequence begins easily the most surprising and shocking -- and realistic -- turn of events in this movie. Panic. Utter chaos as people get up in arms, angry about the bloodshed and renewed horrors of their past. The pot proverbially boils over, and many people are hurt and even die without Michael so much as coming anywhere near the building.

That's because he's far too busy. Much will be made, critically, of Michael's titular kills, but I couldn't help feeling awe at his prowess. Other Halloween entries have been criticized for having lower body counts than other contemporary slasher films. Not so here, which I expect may very well have the highest body count of any slasher. I lost count around 17, and that was at least half an hour before the end of the film, which features yet another bloodbath. A few nasty shocks took place in the previous movie -- especially one scene in which Michael enters two or three houses in a row to stab away -- but this one really showcases his murderous creativity. This movie reminds us, much as Rogue One did with Darth Vader, that Michael isn't a joke; this movie makes him utterly terrifying as the most prolific (hmmm... anti-lific?) serial killer we've ever seen. Perhaps most disturbingly, this film takes its time with most of its deaths, showing the suffering victims as they gargle on pooling blood and struggle to take their last breaths; one scene in particular, involving an older interracial couple and a fluorescent light tube, forced me to look away from the screen for the first time in this franchise.

In a third focal point for this wide-ranging but remarkably coherent film, we get a fabulous re-introduction to legacy characters played by their original actors. A 48-ish-year-old Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), drinking at a bar in observance of 40 years of Michael's lockup, cheers with other survivors of that fateful night in 1978. We've got Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), Lindsay Wallace (Kyle Richards), and even Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet, who was not in the original film although the bullying character was) whose son is dating Allyson. Even Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), the former sheriff whose daughter Annie was murdered by Michael, returns to wearily and warily oversee the events of this Halloween anniversary. Once they hear about the firefighter massacre, they drunkenly get up in arms and rally together a mob to hunt down Michael Myers once and for all. In their journey across town, they stop at the hospital and police station where Tommy whips them into a furious frenzy. Monsters beget monsters, you might say, and Tommy is pretty terrifying in these scenes as he begins the (admittedly campy) "Evil dies tonight" chants.

Surprisingly, Deputy Hawkins (Will Patton) survived his attack by the evil psychiatrist in the previous movie, but that's about the only good news here. We're finally given some much-needed backstory on him in a brilliant and beautiful flashback scene right away in this movie: transporting us visually and stylistically to Carpenter's masterpiece, Green shows us a young Hawkins chasing Michael after he disappeared from the Doyle lawn at the end of the '78 film. His own trauma stems from this scene, which puts him in bed thematically with Laurie and the others; their present-day scenes together in the hospital suggest their romantic past as well, which may have blessed them with a daughter, Karen, whose badassery almost steals this movie as well as the previous one.

Green's endgame here is still unknown, and frankly its mystery has compounded exponentially. Very few questions are answered in this film, and it deliberately sets up a lot more. Without spoiling the finale of Halloween Kills, after which very few characters seem to be still alive, we have to wonder what will happen in next year's Halloween Ends. Moreover, the mythos of Michael Myers himself is now under the most scrutiny I think it's ever endured. Those answers will come -- or not -- in time, but what remains is easily one of the most nihilistic and downright cruel slashers I've ever seen. Much as Green knows the franchise has survived off audience cheering each new murder, here he dares us to do so; in fact, he seems intent on forcing us to eat the cake we so often demand from this genre. "You want more blood?" he seems to ask; "here it is, and all the pain that comes with it." Much as the mob created to kill Michael has trouble facing its own violence, Green seems to turn the camera on us in the final sequence, asking what exactly we want in the final chapter of this franchise, and if we have the courage to stomach it.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's a dangerous business, dear reader, to expect something too specific from a movie. With a title like Where'd You Go, Bernadette, I was so sure this would be a delightful romp of a global mystery. A sort of spectacular fantasy mix of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Eat, Pray, Love that features a disappearing mother and her trail of clues for her daughter to follow, leading to a place of fulfillment and healing for both. And, in a way, that's what this movie is, except that it's completely tonally different, stretching out the melodrama while cutting the mystery woefully short.

Bernadette (Cate Blanchett) is a loner. Reclusive physically and emotionally, she hides in her large, somewhat unkempt house, only comfortable when she's working on some kind of project. We learn, after some time and an unwieldy (but quite funny) expository device, that Bernadette is a world-renowned architect. After a professional setback -- her environmentally-friendly magnus opus gets bulldozed by a competitor, provoked by Bernadette's pride -- she cuts herself off. She doesn't seem to be agoraphobic so much as misanthropic, deliberately making herself unlikable in her limited interactions with real people. Her disdain and eccentricities play off each other as she recedes into her own mind, going so far as to trusting even menial household chores to an Indian personal assistant named Manjula who actually lives in India.

It would all make for a fascinating character study and star vehicle for Blanchett if there wasn't a half-baked plot to go along with it all. Her daughter Bee, having received excellent grades, asks her parents to take her to Antarctica on a vacation. And this is where the film really threatened to derail for me (unfortunate, as this is the first scene) because it frames the whole thing immediately as rich people problems. How many kids are allowed "anything they want" as a result of getting good grades? And how many of them choose to go to Antarctica -- nearly impossible logistically, not to mention legally -- only to have their parents casually discuss it before acquiescing? It's a pretty tone-deaf approach to a story arguably about empowerment and fulfillment.

Bernadette's gauche social hostility gets her in trouble with her neighbors and her husband, but it also gets her into trouble with her audience. I think the blame here must go to director Richard Linklater, who doesn't seem able to bridge the gap between his protagonist's strangeness and her charm. He's out of his element here, playing off Bernadette's hilarious inability to function while showcasing her as a sassy elitist whose casual racism and brilliant neighborly antagonism are forgivable because of her supposed story arc. See, being a mother changes you, the movie seems to say. Bernadette gave up her artistic and professional passions for her family, which apparently has resulted in festering resentment and debilitating anxieties. So in order to reconnect with herself, she has to leave her family and go to the ends of the earth.

It's a weird piece, and one that could open up fascinating conversations about gender, wealth, and artistic integrity. But will it? I'd say not, as the generic film hardly brings enough attention to itself to warrant much discussion. It doesn't even feel like a Linklater film and has very little visual style except in the climactic "intervention" scene. That and the overused "Time After Time" song suggest to me that Linklater didn't really know what he himself wanted out of this movie. We're left with a mostly inaccessible story about privileged people behaving badly in a lackluster film that can't quite muster the courage to do what Bernadette did: something.

Halloween (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

FINALLY. A Halloween movie worthy of the title. Move aside, Rob Zombie, nobody wanted you around anyway.

Jamie Lee Curtis is back in a big way as Laurie Strode, her iconic heroine, forty years after her introductory role catapulted her to stardom. Laurie lives an isolated life, dealing with her PTSD by fortifying her lone home out in the countryside. Unfortunately, her efforts to prepare for Michael Myers's inevitable return have also cost her more than physical labor and thicker walls. After two failed marriages, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) was taken by child services, but not before Laurie worked to train her with weapons and combat. Karen, now an adult, still lives in Haddonfield but maintains a strained relationship with her mother, largely trying to keep Laurie away from her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak).

The story itself begins and unfolds much as that of the 1978 film: Michael breaks out from his asylum during a transfer and goes on a murderous rampage. This time, however, he isn't so much an unpredictable stalker-killer as he is a walking bloodbath. The body count is bigger in his first scene here than it was in the entire original film. Each death is more visually stunning and creative than the last, and while that sounds desperate on the filmmakers' part, it's actually quite effective in making Michael more terrifying -- he isn't restricted to a kitchen knife anymore. He also isn't restricted in his choice of victims now. He will kill and kill and kill on this night, seemingly making up for all the lost time.

In addition to the piles of corpses, this movie does some fascinating work in both re-imagining the original film and in following up with it. It quickly and absolutely discounts the events of all other sequels in the franchise, making itself the one and only sequel that matters. Which it arguably is. I'll always consider the 1981 sequel canon, because it's just fabulous, and it continues the story from the original quickly and concisely (with the exception of the whole Laurie-and-Michael-are-siblings thing).

This picture maintains a high level of both drama and horror, with emotional outbursts from Laurie and her daughter and granddaughter interspersed with them each being badass. Of course, the rest of the film similarly balances comedy, character development, and -- already mentioned -- some surprisingly brutal violence. The visuals and editing are definitely more David Gordon Green than John Carpenter, but Carpenter's palpable influence permeates the picture through music and images (which is appropriate, as Carpenter is credited for music). Green clearly struggles to both isolate his own vision for the movie and honor Carpenter and his fans, though a few gorgeous moments eke their way onto the screen; when Michael returns to Haddonfield there's a long take of him walking amongst trick-or-treaters and entering houses to...well, you know.

And then there's the film's climax, when Michael assaults Laurie's house and all three generations of women. I gasped aloud when I realized, quickly, that the scene would play out as an ingenious reversal of the original's climax. Without spoiling too much, it's nice to see the victims not only turn the tables but to in fact use their apparent helplessness to their own advantage. In an era of #MeToo and accountability and both recognizing and overcoming trauma, Halloween isn't just a fun and spooky movie. It's an important one.

IMDb: Halloween

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I don't know why Ant-Man gets such a bad rep among the MCU heroes. It can hardly be the character, because he's one of the funniest and most grounded characters in the series; perhaps it's that he's too pedestrian, and (out of his suit) not terribly special apart from his fast-thinking, safe-cracking mind and simple old-fashioned guts. It can hardly be Paul Rudd, who gives "dad bod" a smoking hot run for its money and whose wisecracking, heartstring-tugging performance carves out its own sizeable niche in the enormous MCU cast.

Perhaps the reason Ant-Man is so low on many fans' list of favorites is because, as a film, it is far more standalone than many others in the franchise. The other heroes who have tons of money, strength, powers, and influence change big, galactic things in their films. But Ant-Man's adventures are distinctly smaller in scope, and so these films don't feel as Big and Important as, say, a Thor movie. But they're not supposed to!

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a delightful, funny, sweet, interesting, and thoroughly entertaining romp that is both welcome and needed after the last few MCU movies. There's no big war happening. Thanos is nowhere to be seen. There aren't dozens of characters to keep track of. Michael B. Jordan isn't breaking our hearts and minds. Michael Pena does his speedy voiceovers again.

This is -- much more importantly -- the first time a female character has been given title credit, and Evangeline Lilly rocks every minute of her screen time as the Wasp. She's smart, funny, badass, in a suit that isn't particularly sexualized, and shows that leading women are long overdue in the MCU. It's also notable for having one of the most clearly queer-ish scenes yet in the franchise, when Janet van Dyne (the original Wasp, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) uses her quantum entanglement with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to reconnect with her husband Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Scott changes his posture and his voice and suddenly he's channeling Janet, caressing Hank's face and holding his hand as they work together to rescue Janet from the quantum realm. The whole thing may just be played for laughs -- in the screening I sat through, there was riotous laughter from the back row -- but it's a sincere moment and Hank shows no discomfort or hesitation when Scott reaches out to him in tenderness.

The rest of the film is a fitting sequel to the first Ant-Man, featuring cinematic stylization unlike anything else in the franchise, fresh and unique humor, and some really ingenius storytelling. Think about it -- we're wowed by Doctor Strange's ability to warp the very fabric of reality, but that's a whole lot of safety netting for lazy writers: mess up or reach a plot hole, and have him cast a spell or two. But team Ant-Man has to rely on careful planning, fights have to be carefully choreographed, and the special effects can often be shot practically. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but it makes these films -- all of them -- far more rich when we can appreciate their varying aesthetics.

A final note: while Walton Goggins's villainous character is boring and flat, Hannah John-Kamen plays a fascinating antagonist called Ghost. While, like Killmonger, she's not a "villain" in the usual sense, Ghost is simply trying to survive and live a life free of excruciating pain. This path puts her at odds with team Ant-Man, and so their run-ins become fights. But her thankless role and dedicated performance shine in this film, and she may be one of the most interesting antagonists yet written in the MCU. Especially cool is that she doesn't die or need to be locked up at the end, but instead is helped by our heroes. Plus, her powers (if we can even call molecular breakdown a power?) are really cool to watch, even as we're aware that they're killing her. Ghost is also notable in that, in the comics, she is a male character. Hooray for having another powerful, interesting female instead!

P.S.: The mid-credits scene -- after the fun and funny film -- drives a stake right through our warm fuzzies when, while harvesting quantum energy to help Ghost, Scott gets stuck in the quantum realm when Hank, Janet, and Hope all disintegrate into ash. They were the only ones monitoring Scott when Thanos snapped his fingers and destroyed half of humanity. It's a brutally chilling reminder of where we are in the MCU storyline that is sure to wipe the smile off your face.

IMDb: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Our Souls at Night (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Yet another fabulous Netflix feature, Our Souls at Night is one of the quietest and sweetest movies of the year. It concerns a widow and a widower, neighbors, who begin sleeping together to combat their loneliness. As their affections grow, they grow from platonic partners to romantic partners, creating a family of their own when their children and grandchildren come into the picture. As age and personal commitments begin to separate them, their love is tested, and the end result is an enlightening, empowering testament to what can happen when we love without restraint.

The film has its familiar rhythms and tropes, but it never once feels tired or vague. Its wit is as sharp as its sense of purpose, and hardly a moment is wasted. So many of the scenes have nothing but stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda together, talking, and these make up the meat of the movie. There's nothing better than watching two amazing performers acting the crap out of a solid screenplay, and their chemistry is endlessly watchable. Toss in a cute little boy (Iain Armitage), a sweet dog, and support in the forms of Matthias Schoenaerts, Phyllis Somerville, and Judy Greer, and you have an absolute delight.

Plus, for a romance and drama about aging, the film is remarkably slim on sentiment. There's not an ounce of melodrama, nothing nostalgic or weepy. These are very real characters -- some of the most complex I've ever seen in a romance -- and they confront their problems with frankness, intelligence, and gumption. A total lack of irony makes this film a breath of fresh air, one that reminds us of how ridiculous so many in the genre can be.

IMDb: Our Souls at Night