How to Make a Killing: More like How to Make a Shitty Movie

★★--Yeah, not good. In fact, bad. Cast was good. Story was dumb. Directing wasn’t great. But fine. Nothing I haven’t seen before. Based on some book from 1907 apparently. There have been like 10 adaptions or so. It’s like the Dracula/A Star is Born of whatever the fuck genre this is. 

 

Glen Powell stars as Becket Redfellow, a dude last in line for an obscene amount of family wealth. He’s basically his Chad Radwell character from Scream Queens without the support of his billionaire family. Hollywood really wants him to be a star. Sounds like George Clooney. Looks like a forgettable Hemsworth. Him and Austin Butler are the biggest Hollywood plants there are. I don’t think either one of them are real A-Listers. No Timothée Chalamet for example. This is our new dude? His stick is thin. Basically charming douchebag that wears a lot of disguises. How many fucking times can I see this and a year or so. This is the third time I’ve seen this in a year. Female lead is Margaret Qualley, who is indeed hella fine. She plays the rich bitch Becket pines over. She’s ok.

 

I used to like Ed Harris, who plays Powell’s asshole scion grandfather. I’m confident I haven’t liked him in anything in the last 20 years. Jessica Henwick, sort of recognize her from Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, plays the normal hot girl, as opposed to Qualley’s unattainable hot. Which reminds me, no idea what this movie is trying to say. Ditch the nice girl for the one that is insanely hot and exciting? Well, yeah.

 

Ger.

Rounding out the cast are Zach Woods from Silicon Valley and The Office, and Jude Law’s kid Raff. They are cousin fodder in the way of extreme wealth. Their crime was being born rich and being douchebags. Woods isn’t a deathworthy douche... Law is, though. Also get a really good two minutes out of Topher Grace. He’s another douche cousin. This one a megachurch pastor. 

 

Had decent hopes going in but was disappointed after the first 20 minutes. Directed by one John Patton Ford. His only other film is Emily the Criminal, which was halfway decent. Overall, this film is trash. Felt too long. Also crazy confusing. Not sure who the redhead guy married to Qualley’s character is or supposed to be. Also, spoiler, no idea how Powell was framed for his murder.

 

The most insane thing about the movie though is the passage of time. I was sort of thinking wow he’s really coming up in the world in the month or whatever it’s been since he killed his first cousin. Then in queue shows up for like the third time and it’s like, “remember when I saw you two years ago?” WTF? How much time has passed? Pretty sure this movie legit covers like 45 years.

Send Help: Raimi's still got it

★★★★★--Super early yet, but this is my favorite film of 2026 thus far. Sam Raimi makes one hell of a horror movie. No one does splatter and gross-out humor like him. And he keeps you guessing. This movie was fun as shit. Go in knowing just what you see in the trailer.  
 
Caught Raimi's three common easter eggs in all of his movies ("The Classic," the Evil Dead necklace, and Bruce Campbell). Most of the time they are pretty easy to spot. I was sort of surprised I saw all of them in this flick as I'm not very observant and these were somewhat well hidden.  My favorite of the three was the Bruce Campbell portrait in the son's office. 
 
Anyway, yes, this is the ultimate "good-for-her" flick. No character is a true hero or villain in any Raimi movie, even the superhero ones. Such is the case here to the extreme. For example, the male lead, the POS CEO played by Dylan O'Brien (he is mostly thought of as the guy in those Maze Runner movies) is comically unlikable. Every time you think he is actually alright, then he comes back extra douchey, practically screaming "fuck you for thinking I'd change!" But you understand why he is that way and sort of feel for him in the end. 
 
Rachel McAdams is always fantastic, but is all-time here. Surprisingly does a pretty good job of making her kind of gross early on, but she's smoking by the time she is on the island. Doesn't surpass Regina George, but the woman has range. I'm sure this will go down as one of her most memorable performances.

Top 10 of 2025: 3. Eddington

★★★★★--Another film that I absolutely adored that I suspect will be in my top 10 for the decade. A Covid movie about mask mandates, political divisions, and unwillingness to compromise, even when it means death. 

Shares some DNA with Needful Things, except the thing that they all want is a speck of power.  We basically see a man whose desperate grasps for authority results in further loss of power/control, a guy that can’t get out of his own way. He’s not the only one, of course, as everyone lives in their own separate reality. Everyone realizes there is something wrong, but what that is and who they blame is different, even though in the end, they all have the same enemy. 

Great performances from a great cast—Joaquin Phoenix, Deirdre O’Connell, Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler, and others—another Ari Aster home run. His fourth film—Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid—he hasn’t made a bad movie in my book. For me, this and Midsommar are my favs. 

Top 10 of 2025: 5. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

★★★★★--Ever feel like you’re on the edge? Well this is the movie for you! It’s also about massive holes, both real and metaphorical.  One of two really solid mothers under extreme stress movies this year (the other is Die My Love). In this one Rose Byrne stars as a woman that is worse off than being alone. All the men in her life (her neighbor played by A$op Rocky, her absentee husband played by Christian Slater), hell, pretty much everyone in her life (example: the hotel manager played by Ivy Wolf), is actively working against her. 
 
No one listens to what she needs, offering what they think is best, things that are not at all helpful, never giving her any answers about what she can do to help her child and herself. “Why won’t you listen to me! I just want someone to tell me what to do,” she tells her psychiatrist, played by Conan O’Brien. This while people like her child’s doctor, played by director Mary Bronstein, tells her “I’m on your side here.” But she’s not. Setting unrealistic goals for the child’s progress. “You set us up to fail,” Byrne says. The only person that seems to understand is a patient of hers, Caroline, played by Danielle Macdonald, who is contemplating murdering her child. She at one point abandons the infant with Byrne, saying “you know” in a way that acknowledges the horror at the center of the movie. 
 
Just Bronstein’s second movie. Her first since Yeast from 2008, which starred herself, Greta Gerwig, and Benny Safdie. Gerwig seems to have been in roughly 100 movies from 2008-2012. This one is great and should be required viewing by shitty dads. 

Shallow Grave - Danny Boyle - 1994

★★★ - Another dar comedy crime flick. This one British. Directed by Danny Boyle, of Trainspotting fame, in his debut. Stars a young Ewan McGregor, a guy I don't recognize named Christopher Eccleston, and a mom type, probably in her late 20s, named Kerry Fox. 

Gist is a group of three roomies (flatmates) in Edinburgh look for a fourth, eventually finding some guy cool enough for them who's got cash. On his first night in the house, the mysterious new tenant dies. The group finds a suitcase full of money and decide not to call the police, opting to dismember and bury him in the woods instead. This sets off this whole chain of events that leads to a lot of death and suffering. 

I liked it alright even though I thought the characters were pretty obnoxious. While they are interviewing potential roommates, they laugh in one guy's face and ask him if he really thought they would hang out with a boring loser like him. When he shows up later, waiting on them at a black-tie function, they recognize him and treat like shit. It's bad enough that he and the other waiters end up beating Ewan McGregor's character. When they get what's coming to them, you really don't mind, is what I'm trying to say. 

Film is really a contemporary morality tale. It reminds me of “The Pardoner's Tale” from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, easily my favorite tale. If you're interested, the Pardoner sets the tale up by talking about how he sells indulgences for the Catholic Church and how it's all bullshit. He then tries to sell them pardons, which pisses everyone off, then proceeds to tell the most overtly moral tale of them all. 

Spoilers for this 600 year old plus tale. The tale involves three dudes who want to kill Death. They find an old guy under a tree who says he saw Death over by a tree. At the tree they find a treasure. They are going to carry out in the middle of the night, so no one sees them. But they don't want to go hungry or be sober, so they send one to bring back provisions. While that dude is gone, they decide to kill him as soon as he gets back. After they do the deed, they now only have to split it two ways and, hell, with all this food and wine, might as celebrate. That shit is poisoned. So, in the end, they all find Death. While this movie isn't all that bleak, it is pretty fucking bleak. Also, the theme, not exactly a new one, is “Radix malorum est cupiditas,” Latin for “The love of money is the root of all evil”—from the Book of Timothy.

Vengeance – B.J. Novak – 2022

★★★★-A dark Blumhouse comedy written, directed, and starring B. J. Novak, sign me up. An impressive directorial debut. He's come a long way from his intern days. In addition to Novak, it stars Dove Cameron whom I don't recognize, Boyd Holbrook (the blonde guy in Narcos) as the bro, Ashton Kutcher, and Issa Rae (from The Lovebirds and Insecure).

Gist is Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and podcaster from New York City, gets a call in the middle of the night from the brother of a girl he was casually hooking up with. She has died from a opioid overdose which the family finds suspicious. Convinced his sister was in love with this Ben fellow, the brother more or less demands he come down to Bumfuck, Texas to attend the funeral. While there, he begins to investigate circumstances of her death, discovering a compelling story along the way... This has me written all over it.

Underneath all this stuff going on, the film has some interesting things to say about modern society, storytelling, biases, journalistic ethics, addiction, the rural poor, and casual internet sex. Deep down it is a story about a storyteller who is creating a story about how stories are created. Don't see that too often, but that is obviously my brand. It is a clever take on a kind of morality play. Also, I'll never drive past a Whataburger without thinking of this film. Supplanting Infinite Jeston that front. 

Harold and Maude - Hal Ashby - 1971

★★★★★ - My partner’s pick for this movie club we are in. 

I adore this movie. Love it more with each watching. 

Flawless performances from Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, and Vivian Pickles. Hal Ashby's directing and Colin Higgins' script are perfection as well. Don’t even get me started on the Cat Stevens soundtrack. 

Beautifully kooky movie with some really dark undertones. This scene kills me.