Author: S. Brady Calhoun

Not being a film historian I just want to tell you how it appeared to me but I cannot swear by the veracity of what follows. 

In the 1970s Burt Reynolds was one of the biggest stars in the world and capped off a hit and miss run with one of the biggest box office hits of all time with Smokey and the Bandit in 1977. 

You might think, given his star power, that Burt would use his influence to make some great movies. 

Instead, we got Cannonball Run, two Smokey sequels and eventually a pretty good (for its time) sitcom Evening Shade. 

Speaking about this period frequent co-star Ossie Davis said Burt just wanted to make movies with his friends. 

And that’s where Adams Sandler’s career has been, mostly, since he had a string of hits at the box office in the 1990s. Outside of the really rare flick Sandler is content to let Netflix pay for his vacations to interesting foreign countries and cut checks to his friends for cameos that mostly don’t do anything for whichever movie he happens to be making. 

For the last 20 years for me at least it’s been notable when Sandler makes something decent (Murder Mystery, Hustle) instead of an unwatchable mess (Hubie Halloween).

Uncut Gems is a heckuva flick but it belongs in an entirely different conversation about Sandler’s career. 

With Happy Gilmore 2 everybody in the first one who is still alive gets to come back (no, I mean everyone). 

There are jokes that work – John Daly made me snort a bunch, and jokes that don’t – just about anything with the evil golf league. 

More of it works than I expected. I imagine my nostalgia for that period in Sandler’s career, and the corresponding period in my own life, carried me along. 

It’s a little like a high school reunion. You notice how old your classmates have become but given how far along in the cycle you are you can just be happy most everyone is still here. 

Sandler made some astonishingly funny movies. Hardly anyone is getting close to The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates. And he’s also made a ton of dreck. 

This is somewhere in the middle. If you have no affection for Happy Gilmore you should skip it. Even if you do remember Gilmore fondly this is nowhere near that comedy classic.  

But, if you do decide to watch this, if you ever get down on it, just look up every time Verne Lundquist comes on screen. 

That guy was having a blast.

I think there are three ways to look at this film.

The first is that it is a masterpiece. Certainly that’s what the majority of critics and other creatives think about it. the New York Times ranked it number two on their list of 100 best movies of this century.

That’s one of the reasons why I watched it. Or watched it again. There is a possibility that I watched a DVD of this 20 some years ago and simply forgot everything about it.

The second interpretation is that this is an emperor has no clothes moment. Where all of the critics and movie makers are wrong and this is a bad movie that the culture has decided is good simply to go along. We as a society are never so smart that we are more than 5 seconds away from Tulip Mania.

The culture loves something until we all decide it was bad and we never loved it at all. We have always been at war with Eastasia! Mulholland Drive is a masterpiece!

There is almost no performer, writer or director who doesn’t get dragged down eventually. It’s just that a precious few are able to rise back up.

So this could be a bad movie and everyone else is wrong.

The third option is that I am a stupid person. And you, out there reading this, you who also did not like the flick, you too could be unintelligent. Never discount the possibility that you are a dumb-dumb.

There is a particular comic book writer that everybody likes. No I’m not going to name him. But his thing was to take really obscure references and thrown them in his comics. And like, if I have to be familiar with a particular panel of a Batman comic from 1955 in order to understand and enjoy your 2015 Batman comic I feel like the fault for my lack of enjoyment is on you and not me.

It’s possible that I am an idiot but it is also possible that you wrote a bad Batman comic.

Here’s how I feel right now about Mulholland Drive.

I feel like there is no actual answer, no interpretation and no correct way to understand this film. 

And that’s not because I’m too dumb to understand it. Though, again, that’s certainly possible. But because Lynch is having a go at us. He’s off camera laughing at us as we try to interpret his dream journal. 

He’s hinting at an answer that isn’t there because it can’t be there because he doesn’t know either. 

I can imagine him saying, “it’s just some scenes I thought would be weird or interesting and I filmed them and edited them somewhere close to the run time of a finished film.” 

When I was done with it those French guys put it out in the world. 

What does it mean? It’s sound and fury suckers. You figure out what it means. 

If you believe IMDB someone gave David Lynch close to 20 million in 1999 money to make this film. And that’s certainly a triumph but it’s not an artistic triumph in my mind. It’s a triumph in the same way that DB Cooper got away with all that money when after he hijacked that airplane.

In a decade or two I’ll watch Mullholland Drive again. We’ll see how I feel then.

The thing about Jesse Armstrong is that he is very interested in the worst people in the world. 

The problem with that is that in order to watch his movie, Mountainhead, or his show Succession, you have to spend time with the worst people in the world. 

And I see these people all the time in the news stories about them even when I don’t read their interviews or care about their lives or political opinions. I love social media too much and so I am forced to live with an algorithm that feeds me garbage. 

It pays off because the crackerjack writing pays off. But it’s hard to get to the laughs when I desperately want to smack everyone all the time. 

Succession only worked for me when they got to the second season. Because it takes time to get comfortable watching the horrors masquerading as human beings. 

You have a lot less time, of course, to get comfortable with this group of homunculi. But when it finally gets going it’s sharp and funny and suitably evil. 

I guess I give it a mild recommendation. If you are missing this particular brand of Succession themed entertainment here is a movie you might enjoy. 

When Succession got hot and I discussed it every week with my buddy I took to writing down the best lines during the show so I could share them with him. (I have a terrible memory sometimes) 

Anyway, here’s the best stuff. It’s spoilery so you have been warned. 

“Let’s just call Dave and say, ‘Hey Dave, we’re thinking of killing a guy.’l

“It’s your house dude. You’re the host.”

“He can’t cut us he can only shave us.”

“I might not be able to enjoy a sauna.”

“The petroleum insurance policy.”

James Gunn’s vision of Superman is a guy who is constantly knocked around but keeps getting back up. It never slows down and never quite hits the points it wants to make because it won’t slow down long enough to make them. 

It’s a little nervous or maybe I was nervous watching it but it mostly works out and I feel I will grow more comfortable with it the more I see it. 

I think what affects this version of Superman, more than anything else, is that Gunn is in competition with every other version of Superman. And that’s not just dealing with the legacy of Snyder and the bros but also with three popular television series adaptations since the 1990s, an animated universe that is widely considered the best representation of all of these characters and a mountain of comics that Gunn mixes and matches as he sees fit. 

Gunn eliminates the origin story (he figures you know it) in favor of a Superman who has already been active for a few years and has a new relationship with Lois and several friendly super co-workers.

It’s an unusual way to reboot Superman and an unusual way to make the first big statement in a new version of the DC movie and television franchise. 

If you have been following Gunn online then it should not come as a surprise that this Superman is faithful to the spirit of the comics. 

That’s such a loaded thing but the best way to explain it is that Raimi’s Spider-Man movies always felt like they were ripped from the pages of Stan Lee Steve Ditko and John Romita’s first 100 issues or so of The Amazing Spider-Man. 

The same for Batman: The Animated Series which hewed close to Batman comics from the Dennis O’Neil, Neal Adams and a host of others from the 1970s and 1980s. 

This Superman comes from the Silver Age and comics that were either homaging the Silver Age or responding to it. 

But if I handed you any of the really good Superman comics from the last 40 years or so they would look and feel a lot like this. 

Superman is a good guy in a science fictiony future city who tries to help people and deals with his love life, super villians and annoying problems like social media, his dog and the US Government. 

Lex Luthor hates him because of what he represents and uses all of his money, power and genius to not only try to kill him but to show the world that he is a danger to humanity. 

Nicholas Hoult was the real deal before he was cast as Luthor but he hits nothing but dingers all the way through the movie. Watch his face as things explode around him in the Fortress of Solitude. 

Gene Hackman’s Luthor was a comedy villian in the Donner Superman, a character that Superman almost always outsmarted. Here, Luthor really could kill Superman and really wants to and is a solid, dangerous, deranged villian. 

David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan get a few fleeting scenes as Clark and Lois. Skyler Gisando’s Jimmy Olsen is a treat and Wendell Pierce’s Perry White is just a background character. He’s fun though, for a moment or two. 

The other superheroes all get one scene to shine except for Mr. Terrific who is almost a costar and a killer character. 

One final thing, if you ever asked me at any point what makes Superman, Superman I would have told you it was not his powers or his Kryptonian origins. It was that he was raised by kindly Americans who told him that anyone with power has a duty to help people who need it. 

He’s a creation of people who saw themselves and their country as a force for good in the world. 

He’s not a God, he’s just an American who understands that his highest calling is to do right by other people. 

By the end of this movie I was certain James Gunn agreed with me. 

This is probably the only movie I will see twice in theaters this year. I’m already looking forward to going back. 

Brad Pitt plays a former F1 driver whose entire life is a washout and now lives in a van and goes from town to town trying to win various types of races. 

It’s not about the money, he says when anyone offers him any money to drive. 

Well what’s it about then? They ask. 

And when they do that Pitt gives them a laconic movie star smile. 

So, Pitt’s not playing a human being in this flick — he’s a myth. An old gunslinger who’s trying to prove to himself and the world that he’s still the fastest guy in the west. 

While everyone else presumably walks through doors to get to the F1 team center Pitt will just appear on racetracks and do a cowboy walk toward his crew in jeans, boots and his pack on his back. 

Is it ridiculous? My god yes. But Director Joseph Kosinski’s has a great reason to do it this way. That reason? 

The cowboy walk looks cool as hell. 

If anybody else did this you would laugh your ass off. But when Brad Pitt does it … I believe. 

Damson Idris does a great job as The Kid who has lessons to learn from the old cowboy. Kerry Condon is too good an actress to be playing The Girl but she’s here anyway and she does a fine job with it. 

Javier Bardem is the Town Marshall (team owner) who needs the gunslinger’s help. The movie spends a little time with a slimy bad guy and no time at all with the other drivers who are just minor obstacles on the way to Pitt’s final glory. 

As a movie this is all fine. If you see it on your iPad in a month you will wonder what anyone thought was good about it. As an IMAX spectacle it rumbles and it’s glorious. 

I saw it at 10 p.m. on a summer night in Panama City Beach with a crowd of high school and college kids who all knew each other and took up the last four rows. 

They yelled all through the trailers but if they talked through the movie I couldn’t hear them over the sound of squealing tires and crushed metal and a thumping rock soundtrack. 

When it was over I couldn’t help but hear them celebrating as we walked out. 

My ultimate review is the same as one of them who turned to his pal and said, “That movie was peak, bro.” 

I’m sure in my excitement I will just spoil this so pre-spoilers just know that is one of the best movies of the year. 

It’s certainly a horror movie but it also transcends the genre (or does what genre should do) to deal with eternal questions about families, community, tragedy, life and dealing with pain and death. 

Ok now here come the spoiler parts. 

As they were planning this thing I hope director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland threw themselves a little party when they decided on “Coming of Age tale after the Zombie Apocalypse.” 

If we have done this before I missed it. And I’m willing to bet it’s never been done with the care and detail of this flick.

The first third of the movie is a walk in the woods with a boy, Spike (Alfie Williams), and his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor Johnson). Now these are English woods and this is after the events of 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later so they are somewhat infested with zombies. 

The rest of the world goes on but England is quarantined and alone. Brexit allegory or just what is required in a zombie movie? I’ll let you decide. 

It’s important to note that you do not need to watch either film to enjoy this. I would suggest you watch 28 Days Later because it’s awesome and skip 28 Weeks Later. But all you need to know is that there are zombies and England is quarantined.

In this part of the film there is both adventure and dread. Some of it created by piping in Rudyard Kipling’s poem Boots as read by Taylor Holmes in 1915 and flashes of film footage of English soldiers and history. Archers, waiving flags, other things. I don’t have the kind of recall to tell you exactly. 

Without dissecting it too much it’s grand when a movie does this. Boyle shows such swagger and confidence here because if anyone got pedantic about it “where is this coming from” it would take them right out of the movie. 

But Boyle correctly assumes that the viewer will be having to much fun to care. 

The only answer to this question that matters was given to Sean Astin while filming Lord of the Rings. 

Astin asked cinematographer Andrew Lesnie where the light was coming from in a dark tower. 

Lesnie replied, “Same place as the music.” 

Exactly. 

So the first third of this is a father and son adventure. Then there is a party at their home village. What I was struck by was how much love there was there and how much love Jamie has for his son. Now, there is clearly some creepy things going on in this village. Hints of The Wicker Man. Or maybe it’s just that cloistered English villages are inherently terrifying no matter how friendly the community seems.

Jamie is no hero as evidenced by his actions during the party. But just look how proud he is. He beams. 

There is, in my opinion, a shaky start to the second half of the flick. While the movie does everything possible to explain Spike’s actions I had a hard time with it. It’s too much “idiot ball” for me. Something dumb that a character must do in order for the movie to continue. Of course, I’m also willing to admit that I am too conservative a person to have ever defied authority the way Spike does here. 

But despite that caveat the rest of the movie is scary, disturbing and hopeful in a way that you just can’t anticipate. 

Screenwriter William Goldman writing about Fargo said that the first part of the movie had too much crazy violence to the point that he wasn’t sure if he could get through it. But then Marge Gunderson, the police chief shows up, correctly assesses a triple homicide and then proceeds to begin her full investigation. 

At that point he was able to sit back, relax and enjoy the rest of the flick. It helped that he knew she was married to one of the Coen Brothers and would likely not be at risk of the same terrible fate that befell some of the other characters. 

I went through the same thing with 28 Years Later when Ralph Fiennes character finally shows up. “Oh he’s that sort of person. Whew. I’m good.” 

In the final third of the movie we get the most important lessons the film has to teach. 

Then there is a surprise sort of ending. And here we can probably have a debate. Because the ending of 28 Years Later is not an ending to the movie you have been watching but rather the set up to the sequel. 

I liked it. But it’s an end credit scene. And it’s amusing to me that 28 Years doesn’t do an end credit scene where it should and Sinners treats the real end of the movie as an end credit scene. 

Strange choices abound for the two best films of the year so far.  Also, I don’t know what it says about me or us that we have a vampire film and a zombie flick as two best examples of filmmaking in 2025. 

Perhaps this:

Great monsters never die and great filmmakers can always find new ways to light up the dark. 

I avoided 28 Weeks Later when it came out in theaters and only watched it this weekend so that I could catch up in time for 28 Years Later. 

I have a touch and go relationship with horror. I’ve probably never seen anything that might be labeled as torture porn. No Saws or Terrifiers or whatever. There’s a level of cruelty that’s part of the inherent structure of those things that I do not enjoy. 

Or another way to put it is that I am a huge Stephen King fan and I am never going to read or watch Pet Cemetary. 

I’m out. 

28 Weeks Later has a cruel but wickedly fun opening that gave me hope for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was mostly just a collection of miseries and horrible deaths inflected on characters who were mostly noble. 

On the one hand you could argue that this is what happens in war (this one is a war allegory) the bravest and most noble often die horribly. But mostly it felt ugly and violent for the sake of being ugly and violent. 

I do not go to movies to see what I already suspect – that life is often merciless, capricious and pointless. I go to movies to be uplifted. 

However, there is a scene where a helicopter takes on a hoard of zombies that you really should check out. Likewise that solid opening. 

And, at least so far, this film has nothing to do with 28 Years Later and likely will not need revisiting to enjoy it or the upcoming sequels. 

Watch the first one. Jump to the third one. And unless you feel the need for some pointless, ugly violence, skip this altogether. 

This is a movie that has the goods, and knows it has the goods almost from the start. 

Confidence means an awful lot in a horror flick. 

Not so much in the actual start of the film which is a bit of business to explain the Rage virus which will create fast zombies and set up the entire movie. 

It’s the kind of scene that multiple people probably decided was necessary so that you wouldn’t lose the audience.

It feels like a scene in a lesser movie. 

However, the real opening of the real movie is Cillian Murphy waking up 28 Days Later (natch) in a hospital after being in a coma. 

He is completely alone and walks through an empty London trying to determine what happened and what he should do. 

It’s a stunning and eerie scene and its power is only heightened because we have now seen similar images in real life thanks to COVID-19. 

I feel certain I saw this when it came out though I don’t know if it was in a theater or at home. Watching it again I remembered several story points but forgot others. It feels familiar, not only because it’s been copied in television and film for 30 years but also because it’s built on the bones of great zombie and horror films of the past. 

These aren’t George Romero zombies but the movie is full of Romero’s themes. 

What’s striking about it, I think, is that this is a zombie film that has insight into our basic humanity. 

It’s not a film about goblins and jump scares (though there’s plenty of both) but a film about families struggling to survive and about how hardship can turn us into our best and worst selves. 

It’s also just a banging action picture with inventive cinematography, an amazing score and out of their world acting by four premiere talents in Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleason, Naomie Harris and Christopher Eccleston. I mean … read those names again. 

There are all kinds of great movies and ways to make great movies. This one is a propulsive thriller that makes every moment count. Even in the down times the sense of dread and tension remain. It doesn’t have a false scene (except for the previously discussed plot required opening) or a false note. 

As the hype for 28 Years Later got serious I decided I would revisit the first one, watch the sequel — 28 Weeks Later —- and go see the new one this weekend. 

I’ll save my thoughts on the other two for later this week. 

Pop culture is a funny thing because in revisiting this I’m confident that 28 Days Later is a perfect horror film and probably should be in a top 100 list amongst the greatest films (just films) ever. 

And yet, I had completely forgotten it until this week. But it isn’t it grand to find an old love and discover she is as wonderful as you remembered. 

I’ve struggled to figure out what to say about this movie but after some time with it I think I have my answer. 

It’s funny, shocking, surprisingly complex and Tim Robinson gives me the icks. 

The closest comparison I can think of is Chris Elliott and also possibly Ricky Gervais. I find them so off putting that I struggle to enjoy any time with their various projects. 

There is also, I think, an inherent cruelty to what they do — sometimes directed at others — often directed at themselves that I do not enjoy. 

Some people love to cringe. I am not among them. It’s not my scene man.

Borat is like that for me too. Lots of people found that movie funny. I gave up. I thought it was mean. 

I once struggled through Dumb and Dumber as a large crowd of family members around me laughed at every moment. 

I’m not saying anyone who enjoys any of this is wrong I’m just saying I’m out. The same is true for body horror movies. I get why people like them but they are not for me. 

I just present all this so you know where on the spectrum to place Friendship. If any of those things I mentioned really do it for you then Friendship is almost certainly your jam. 

And I must say that I laughed at a lot of this but the laughs usually gave way to the ick. 

And there is real genius here. Getting Paul Rudd to essentially reprise his Anchorman character is big plus. 

I was invested in the marriage between Robinson and Kate Mara’s characters Craig and Tami 

The little things that keep coming back, like Tami’s frequently mentioned ongoing connection to her ex-boyfriend or Craig’s obsession with a large meal, made me cackle. 

It’s a well made movie, in the way that The Substance is a well made movie. 

Something can be great but still not be your jam.