Becky (2020)

I saw the sequel to this film last summer, but if I'd seen this first I wouldn't have bothered.

Becky is still in grief mode after losing her mother to an illness. When Dad surprises her with an impromptu getaway to their vacation home, she's momentarily excited until she realizes that his new girlfriend and her son are joining them. But then some bad dudes, having just escaped from prison transport, show up looking for a key that was hidden on the property years back and it everything goes sideways.

Though the deaths are inventively gory, it gets really repetitive. I also couldn't silence my mental frustration at Becky for not simply going for help.

C

Dead of Winter (2025)

Widow Barb decides to go ice fishing on the lake she and her husband visited on their first date. When she stops for directions at a remote cabin, she gets suspicious about some blood spatter. Later, her suspicions are confirmed and she makes it her business to rescue the young woman being held in the cabin. She's not a superhero and makes tons of mistakes, but she's tenacious enough to cause the captors real trouble.

The best parts of this movie are the flashbacks to Barb's marriage. Everything else is serviceable but forgettable.

C

xXx (2002)

Xander Cage is a bad-boy star due to his involvement in all the extreme sports and for dunking on THE MAN, so he gets recruited by a spy organization to be extreme for America. Lots of stuff explodes.

The story's ridiculous and Asia Argento (as the villain's girl) looks so young that I was halfway thinking that the foreign baddie was also a pedophile for a while, but the stunts are fun even when (or maybe because??) they defy physics. 

I wouldn't watch it again, but I won't lie and say it wasn't entertaining.

C-

Purple Noon (1961)

A French telling of Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which the lower class Tom Ripley is tasked by Philippe's father to find him and bring him home. Instead, Tom decides to tag along with Philippe for as long as possible, enjoying the high life he so craves. Eventually, of course, his welcome wears out and he has to get creative to keep the fun going.

Without a clear rooting interest, even a decent thriller like this just can't really have much of a lasting effect. Tom is the villain, but the idle rich he's duping could never be called innocents or heroes, so who really cares?

C+

A Private Life (2025)

Though obviously a successful psychiatrist, Lillian seems to be annoyed with humanity in general and is living a solitary life. Her son (a new father) only gets her attention when she needs something from him, which is also the experience of her ex-husband. After a patient dies from suicide, she learns that the patient's husband holds Lillian responsible and soon becomes convinced that it wasn't suicide.

This plays very much like a thriller, but that's obviously because we're seeing everything through Lillian's eyes. She feels threatened -- paranoid -- and very stuck in the life she's curated for herself. As she investigates the death of this patient, she can't help but re-engage with the world outside of her work and home. When all is said and done, she's still herself, but she's also an upgraded version of that person, no longer stuck. I thought it was brilliant.

A-

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Picks right up where the last one ended. Even though Grace "won" by surviving her wedding night in the first film, she's not free until she does it again. This time, she's dodging representatives from the remaining family dynasties that control the entire world. She's also got her estranged sister by her side and the same bloody wedding dress on her back.

It obviously had a BIGGER BLOODIER mandate which, along with the pampered elites forced to fight, kept things fun. But it also just felt like another trip to the well and that's never gonna be as refreshing as the first time. I also have a quibble with the rules changing: survive 'til dawn and you're free! Oh, unless you actually DO survive, in which case you gotta keep fighting.

C+

Fall (2022)

In order to pull her best friend back from the deep grief she's been in since becoming a widow, Hunter convinces Becky to climb to the top of a 2000-ft television tower in the middle of the desert. They get stuck up there.

I had zero expectations of this film since I was only watching it in order to laugh along with this week's "How Did This Get Made," but it surprised me by being truly terrifying. This definitely had more to do with my extreme fear of heights than the script or acting, but the special effects were good enough that I felt that fear in my stomach. Not a good movie, but it's got some really decent trickery.

C

The Hunt for Red October (1990)

When Gary and I first got married, we bought of those huge "sit on the floor" console TVs for like $10 at a garage sale. One of the tubes was bad, so everything we watched had a pinkish hue and that's how I originally saw this film. All of the underwater missile scenes were impossible to decipher because it came over as just an unbroken wash of mauve. This viewing was much more interesting!

Great tension in this story about a handful of men in a Russian submarine executing their plan to defect to the United States. They have to hope that the Americans are smart enough to realize this while the Russians (including the bulk of the men on board their own craft) are kept in the dark. They're also having to deal with an on-board saboteur! Luckily, Jack Ryan's figured it all out. Now, will the American brass listen?

Though the special effects look a bit silly now, everything else still works pretty well. I did, however, get a little tired of the repetitive scenes that boiled down to Jack arguing that his gut is telling him they're defecting only to be slapped down by his superiors with the "too risky" argument. 

And wow -- Alec Baldwin was such a pretty young man.

B-

Vertical Limit (2000)

I saw this movie within a couple of years of its release and, somehow, I rated it a "B" back then. I'd love to be able to put myself back into the simple mindset of the girl who could like this piece of shit -- she must have had a handle on finding the positive.

Anyway, this is terribly stupid. I think a good 25% of the dialogue is coughing.

D

Against All Odds (1984)

Jeff Bridges plays a footballer who's upset at being released from his contract, but his skeevy buddy has a job for him: track down the girlfriend who left him. Bridges is pretty and when he finds the girlfriend, she's pretty too so they get pretty naked together.

There's some big conspiracy with the team owners and the team lawyers and bookies and shaving points and everyone's involved (including the girlfriend) and people die... just why did it need to be so complicated? We could've stuck with underworld asshole tasks his friend with finding his girlfriend and they fall in love. Instead, it gets all convoluted and lost me completely.

D+

Companion (2025)

Iris is uneasy about the weekend that she and Josh are going to spend with two other couples. Turns out she has good reason to be nervous as she's an AI companion bot who's treated as "less-than" by some of the guests. Although Iris's status is spoiled by the poster, I didn't know anything else about this going in, and that's exactly how this should be watched. 

This was not only surprising, but entertaining as hell. Though I'm not sure how long it's going to live in my memory, I was impressed.

B+

The Drowning Pool (1975)

This is the follow-up to Harper (a movie I really liked), with Paul Newman reprising the titular P.I. Though there are flashes of wit early on, the movie settles into a series of scenes featuring Harper chasing down (or being dragged to) yet another lowlife with another bit of information that may or may not be useful.

Meandering, confusing, and ugly. Also, Melanie Griffith as a nymphet ups the "yuck" factor.

C-

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Novelist Richard and Ellen get together almost immediately after meeting on a train. Her family seems to characterize her more reckless decisions as normal for her -- a sign of free-spirited fearlessness -- and Ellen's mother even tells Richard that Ellen loves too hard. But they marry and Ellen throws herself into domestication. It's only when Ellen's family comes to visit that Richard seems to notice Ellen's mask slipping a bit, while mother and sister recognize her impatience and rudeness as Ellen being Ellen.

Long story short: things go very badly and I think undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder is to blame. Gene Tierney is both gorgeous and chilling as the calculating Ellen.

B

A House of Dynamite (2025)

Radar picks up a missile aimed at the United States -- is it a deliberate attack? A launch error? A test? A data glitch? And, if it's real, who's behind it and how should the U.S. respond? We take it in turns to follow the action from different perspectives including the the base that would launch an interception, the White House Situation Room, and the President himself.

The lack of professionalism in almost every area was what struck me most. People strolling rather than sprinting when they know time is of the essence; the time wasted on personal matters when training should've kicked in to make them focus on the actions that might actually help, etc. I imagine I would've been yelling at the screen if I had been engaged at all.

C-

Speak No Evil (2024)

Two couples -- each with a child -- hit it off while staying at the same resort during vacation. When the "city" couple is invited by the "country" couple to come out to stay with them for a weekend, they accept. Though city wife is immediately on her guard (mostly because the country husband seems to delight in creating an uncomfortable atmosphere), they're determined to go with the flow in order to have a nice time.

It's one of those "what are you doing? RUN, for god's sake, you idiots" stories, which the trailer made pretty clear. So, I wasn't really ever surprised, but the mood was oppressive and it's done well. Basically, you already know if this is your type of movie.

B

Drop Zone (1994)

A pair of US Marshals (who happen to be brothers for no reason at all) are transporting an important witness/criminal hacker by plane to a more secure location. While in flight, a hole is blown in the side of the plane and the witness is presumed to be among the casualties, as is one of the Marshals. But the surviving Marshal Pete believes that the witness is still alive and has been snatched by the parachuting attackers.

It never gets any more sane which, honestly, is probably the right call here. If you're trying to make a serious movie about a ring of parachuting criminals, you just might be delusional.

C-

Send Help (2026)

Despite her social awkwardness and frumpy appearance, Linda is really, really good at her job. But when the owner of her company dies and his frat-bro son Bradley takes the helm, she's passed over for a promised promotion and is tasked with proving her worth on a business trip... which is interrupted by a plane crash killing everyone on board except Linda and Bradley.

On the island, Linda's survivalist skills help her turn the tables on her useless boss. It's basically like a dumbed-down Triangle of Sadness.

C

Act of Violence (1948)

A few years after the war, a veteran with a grudge comes looking for a successful suburban family man with the obvious intent of killing him. It becomes clear that the target knows what what's happening and may even feel it's justified, but that doesn't stop him from running while keeping his wife in the dark.

Though it builds a real sense of dread, the poetic justice feels equal parts too neat and unbelievable to be completely satisfying.

C+

The Running Man (2025)

Though I'm not a fan of the original film, the plot made a lot more sense. In the earlier film, Ben Richards was wrongfully convicted of a heinous crime, breaks out of prison, and -- once caught -- is forced onto "The Running Man" game show to either die or win his freedom and mountains of cash. In this one, Ben Richards is a hothead who can't keep a job so is struggling to make ends meet for his family. He willingly auditions to be on a game show for cash. Though "The Running Man" is the one he was hoping not to land on, he still knew it was a possibility. There's no railroading here

I don't know if the part is written wrong or if Glen Powell just plays it wrong, but I am absolutely positive that this doesn't work. Why would I root for a guy whose pride is jeopardizing his family? He's just an entitled asshole who happens to be poor. Some of the action sequences are fun, but I kind of hated Ben Richards and that ruined any chance that I would care if he lives or dies.

Final note: it took me 3 full weeks to finish watching this.

D

Frankenstein (2025)

Visually stunning and unexpectedly deep. I was especially taken with the creator's journey as what I initially interpreted as callousness revealed itself to be something else: a scientific mind disgusted at his latest failure -- unable to see the striking achievement and beauty of his creation because it didn't match up to what he'd hoped. Victor's disinterest in nurture masked the creature's capacity to wonder and learn and, although it's tragic enough that he doesn't realize the miracle until he's nearly dead himself, it'd be even more of a tragedy if he'd never grasped it.

My cheeks were so wet when this was over. I'm not sure when the tears started as it could've been at almost any moment after the creature was animated. Elordi definitely earned that nomination.

A-