Anaconda

Image credit: Fandango

When you want to get out of the house on Boxing Day but can’t stand the idea of being crushed in a Lion King reenactment during the Boxing Day sales, where do you go? The movies. What could be better than going to see a dumb popcorn movie in the wake of the Christmas aftermath? Honestly, a lot of things but regardless, a dumb comedy-horror hit cinemas on Boxing Day so Partner and I braved the stampedes of the shopping mall and went to see Anaconda.

Griff (Paul Rudd) is a struggling actor pining for the old days when he and his childhood friends would make movies together. Thankfully, his friends are also going through similar mid-life crises so when he proposes remaking their favourite horror film, Anaconda, they are immediately on board. With Doug (Jack Black) directing and Griff and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) starring as the leads, the group heads into the jungle full of hope and excitement. But their dream quickly turns into a nightmare when they find themselves being stalked by an enormous anaconda.

While the poster gives off Jumanji vibes, the film is definitely more like Tropic Thunder: a bloody, rough, and brutal comedy flavoured with not-so-subtle social commentary about the state of cinema and the genre’s penchant for metafiction. The twist of the plot is also very similar in that it’s a group of filmmakers who inadvertently land in the middle of the story they are trying to tell.

The film is very much about the funny, filmmakers-living-the-film plot but there are some thinner narratives about friendship, growing-up, and never giving up on your dreams peppered throughout. A reasonably funny script combined with eco-horror and the gross-out humour that can accompany it does not put Anaconda in the realm of comedy genius, but certainly delivers laughs and cringes.

The performances are all solid, there is definitely a fun and friendly vibe or chemistry that flows through the central cast. It really does feel like a bunch of friends and cinephiles making a movie.

Image credit: Decider

While it’s nothing to write home about, Anaconda is a fun and mindless popcorn movie that delivers respite from the year that has been. Filled with action, suspense, a couple of predictable plot twists, and plenty of comedy, it’s a perfectly adequate way to kill some time.

Director: Tom Gormican, 2025

Cast: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, Steve Zahn, Selton Mello, Ione Skye, Sebastian Sero, Daniela Melchior, Rui Ricardo Diaz, & Ice Cube

The Roses

Image credit: Wikipedia.org

The cinematic climate in which we currently live is rife with remakes. While I am primarily of the opinion that there is a wealth of unexplored stories out there that could benefit from a screen adaptation, I am also inclined to believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a remake, as long as it’s done well. Doing a remake could arguably be as much of a gamble as adapting a heretofore unadapted novel, the pressure lies with the director, writer and everyone on the film’s credit list… and hinges on what is chosen to be updated.

Comedy, as a genre, is a tricky playing field, as what is considered funny today could well be downright offensive tomorrow. It’s the fastest-changing genre of cinema as well as the truest supportive evidence that art imitates life, so making the choice to remake a comedy is ballsy and tactical. We’ve seen a number of reasonably successful comedies remade: Fun With Dick and Jane (2005), Ghostbusters (2016), The Naked Gun (2025) etc; all chosen because the stories lend themselves to a brand of comedy that has managed to remain popular. Recently sprouted to add to this lush forest of comedy remakes is The Roses, an updated version of the dark comedy War of the Roses (1989) which starred Micheal Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

When architect Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) met chef Ivy (Olivia Coleman), it was love at first sight. A raucous trip to the restaurant cool room quickly escalated into a ten-year marriage in which Ivy takes care of the kids and cooks part-time in her restaurant while Theo designs a historic museum building. When a hurricane destroys the museum, Theo’s career is ruined, while Ivy’s takes off as her struggling restaurant serves as a storm-escape for a popular food critic. Suddenly, the roles are reversed with Ivy working full-time and Theo looking after the kids. But as Ivy’s career as a popular chef and restaurateur takes off, jealousy and resentment between her and Theo starts to bubble to the surface and soon the two are locked in a vicious divorce, trying to drive the other out of their dream house.

I did not realise that this was a remake when I settled down for an afternoon with Disney+. I am inclined to now check out the original because while I did enjoy this movie, I can’t really identify how I feel about it and would like to see if the original differs or fills I any little craters that The Roses was pitted with.

For the majority, the film is a delightfully modern, dark, and witty verbal jousting match between the two romantic leads. Cumberbatch begins the film as an ethical and idealistic gentleman whose inflated ego then takes a battering and inspires him to push other people to achieve their potential. Coleman is a charming and eloquently crass British take on the manic pixie dream girl who then becomes the classic displaced, sardonic mother figure. The two are delightful together, matching each other’s energy and delivering a very eloquent and darkly funny script with mesmerising, scathing finesse. It’s like watching a boxing match or fencing tourney in slow-motion; a compilation of when all the best and brutal blows are landed that is disturbing, yet you can’t tear your eyes away from it.

Image credit: Mubi

I think the film falls down during the third act where the all-out war breaks. The theatrical trailer shows all the best bits of the insane battle that ensues. Audiences hoping for even more vicious and absurd shenanigans are surprised during the height of the third act where the drama of the entire film explosively rushes to the surface. We are aggressively shoved into an anxious spiral of lost hope for a happy ending or any sort of closure. And then the film ends on a shock-gasp shot that provides the perfect mental space for the underlying depressing aspects of the movie – and indeed life and nature of relationships - to cover our brains like a weighted blanket. The credits roll on a mellow cover of ‘Happy Together’ that suddenly seems really dark, while we stare unblinkingly at the screen, having mentally blue-screened.

While The Roses leaves a lasting impression, I feel that the ending counteracts the hopeful threat of a happy ending throughout the film and perhaps it would have had more of a profound impact if the film had been marketed more as a drama with some comedic elements. Funnily, it reminded me of Remember Me.

But, aside from the bombshell ending that tears everything asunder, The Roses is a fun and entertaining look at the transformative intricacies of modern relationships, the dangers of career-addiction, and the romance of finding that someone who will have an EpiPen handy when you go into anaphylactic shock.

Director: Jay Roach, 2025

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colmen, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Ncuti Gatwa, Sunita Mani, Zoe Chao, Jamie Demetriou & Allison Janney

Wolf Man

Image credit: Wikipedia

Horror is a genre that is not to everyone’s taste – honestly, mine included. The funny thing about that though, is that it is the genre that I have the most fun talking about. For all their predictability, cliches, and often rigid cinematic and narrative progression, it’s what horror movies do and what they explore is that turns me into a gleeful mad scientist dissecting a freshly dug-up corpse.

As you can probably tell, the most recent film I sat down and watched was a horror. Partner and I curled up for a Friday night, choosing to spend it with Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man.

Upon receiving the news of the death of his father, Blake (Chrisopher Abbott) brings his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to his family’s remote cabin in the Oregan woodlands. Upon arriving they get into a car accident and are then attacked by a strange monster. Blake receives a nasty scratch on his arm and while the monster stalks the permitter of the cabin, inside the family is suffering unknown horror as Blake slowly transforms into something bloodthirsty and unrecognisable.

Beginning with a flashback of little boy Blake hunting with his father and then jumping forward thirty years to adult Blake being the film’s protagonist, Whannell’s rendition of Wolf Man is an allegory and exploration into the many faces toxic masculinity and abusive parent-offspring relationships. Terrified of his own father as a boy, Blake tries to be the opposite for Ginger, but we are quickly shown that while the two have a very loving and close relationship, there is still fear that manifests itself in overprotectiveness and a quick temper. The closeness of Blake and Ginger also isolates Charlotte who, at the film’s beginning, is very career-oriented and disassociates when she’s at home. Tragically, during the second act when the horror and suspense is leading the charge, the forgotten love between husband and wife is remembered, which makes the climactic third act very moving despite its predictability. We’re not talking David Kronenberg’s The Fly moving, but still very sad and dispiriting.

Wolf-Man transformations have been spectacles of cinema for years from the original Wolf Man to the famous transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London. In this film the transformation is painfully slow and gruesome with bits of Blake slowly falling away: teeth, hair, hearing, and even mental comprehension. It’s a sad and horrifying balance of physical and mental metamorphosis that builds up a lot of the film’s suspense and terror.

Image credit: Fernby Films

With solid performances, well-timed suspense and jump scares, and interesting audio and visual techniques to convey the internal transformation of the protagonist, Wolf Man is a compelling film that makes the most of a minimal cast and predictable narrative.

Director: Leigh Whannell, 2025

Cast: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger, Zac Chandler & Benedict Hardie

Thunderbolts

Image credit: IMDb

Reluctant, unexpected, and antiheroes are characters that always add a bit of fun and spice to a genre that can be stifled and restricted by its narrative binaries of good vs. evil. While the superhero genre works similarly to fantasy, with magic being replaced by science-fiction explanation, it ventures further into the unexplored frontier of the human condition than the former, examining the swings between anticipated and contradictory behaviours in people in tandem with their personalities and their social, mental, economical, and geographical environments. The narrative aspect of the antihero or unexpected hero is a popular one in the superhero genre, as it explores the dichotomy of good and evil by truncating and localising it to within the personal parameters of the individual. It then grows from there, case in point: Batman.

What station did this train of thought come from? I recently sat down and watched Marvel’s Thunderbolts.

A group of mercenaries are sent on an assignment by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fonataine to eradicate some loose ends that tie the director to the O.X.E Group’s ‘Sentry’ project to create a new ultimate superhuman. But upon arrival they realise that the assignment is a trap and they are the ‘loose ends’. Working together to fight their way out, the group then make it their mission to ensure that Valentina is impeached for her crimes, but things take a turn when one of their number is revealed to be a successful patient of the ‘Sentry’ procedure. Unfortunately, the procedure also empowered the dark alter-ego of Bob, the amnesiac patient, and suddenly a quest of revenge turns into one of saving the world from The Void.

Thunderbolts has been loosely labelled as Marvel’s Suicide Squad, but the similarities between the two films really do stop at the fact that the superhero group is made up of not-superheroes. While Suicide Squad was about villains being put into a position where they have to save the day, Thunderbolts is made up of a rag-tag team of impressive people who are remorseful about their past actions. The line-up includes former Black Widow Yelena Bolova, Red Guardian Alexei Shostakov, Captain America understudy John Walker, Ghost Ava Starr, and the Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes.

Image credit: IMDb

The film is an exploration into the mental minefield of anxiety and depression and the ways we can get through it. Imposter syndrome rans rampant throughout the team, but it’s through external support as well as internal fortitude that they can overcome their mental humps and help other people. While subtlety is not necessarily at the forefront of the film, with the Big Bad being a literal bipolar opposite to the Sentry, the nods to and explorations of various mental illnesses as well as everyday anxiety and depression bring the heroes down to earth and delivers a very encouraging message about exceptional people going through the same shit we do.

Like its predecessors, the film is a good balance of action, narrative exposition, character development, and comedy, with a refreshing take on the Avengers origin story of a group of exceptional people brought together to become something more.

Director: Jake Schreier, 2025

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lewis Pullman, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Geraldine Viswanathan, & Wendell Pierce

Addams Family Values

Image credit: IMDb

Continuing on with our little trip down the creepy and kooky rabbit hole that has been sparked with the new season of Wednesday on Netflix, Partner and I curled up last weekend to indulge in the family fun and madness of Addams Family Values.

While there is certainly a lot of love going on in the Addams family mansion with the arrival of baby Pubert, there is also discontent. While Wednesday and Puglsey concoct deadlier games to play with their brother, Uncle Fester begins to despair that he'll never find the special love that Gomez and Morticia have. But this changes when Debbie, the new babysitter, enters the mansion and Fester falls head over heels in love with her. But Debbie’s not really a babysitter, she’s a gold-digging serial killer known as the Black Widow and Fester is her next victim.

Where the first movie was all about the kooky novelty of the Addams family, the second one provides a bit more of a narrative backbone, giving the film semi-solid plot reasons for a few of the circumstance in which the characters find themselves. Alongside the central murder plot, which goes delightfully awry as Fester proves harder to kill than a cockroach, is the escape from summer camp plot starring Wednesday and Pugsley. For context, Debbie convinces Gomez and Morticia to send the kids to summer camp, as they suspect she’s not what she seems. Stuck at a cringeworthy camp for the rich and privileged, the two attempt a number of escapes before having to succumb to a full-out mutiny. During these scenes, we get to enjoy more of Wednesday and Puglsey as characters as well as a load of face-scrunching racism, ableism, and other political incorrectness because, it’s the ‘90s.

Still playing on the ironically sweet naivety and trustingness of the Addams Family and the idea that ‘normal’ people are actually the ones to be scared of, the film goes through a series of fun and chuckle-inducing sequences exploring themes of familial bonds, sex, and companionship.

Image credit: Fangoria

A lot more well-rounded that its predecessor, Addams Family Values is another fun, quirky, and engaging family comedy, definitely a bit dated in terms of some social commentary as well as janky special effects, but I think that all adds to the cinematic experience. There’s still never a dull moment.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld, 1993

Cast: Angelica Houston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Jimmy Workman, Carel Struycken, Christopher Hart, David Krumholtz, Dana Ivey, Peter MacNicol & Christine Baranski

The Addams Family

Image credit: Wikipedia

One pro of the reboots and revamp debate in visually consumable media is that it does create/prove the longevity of certain stories or characters by exposing them to a different audience and seeing if it bites. As an example, Partner and I have been recently binging Wednesday on Netflix and enjoying the characters so much that we recently curled up on the weekend and watched the Addam’s Family movie from the early ‘90s.

The creepy, cooky, and eccentric Addams family have been lamenting the loss of their dear Uncle Fester for years, holding seances to try to find him either on this side of existence or the other. Their grief and vulnerability make them the prey of a group of con artists who send a Fester lookalike to infiltrate the manor and steal the fortune in their vault. But the plan starts to falter when Gordon, the undercover infiltrator, starts to develop rapports with the Addamses.

A classic ‘90s spoopy romp that is all about the sight gags and playing on the absurdity of its characters, The Addams Family is a delightfully funny movie that is 100% about its characters and aesthetic rather than its story. The weak narrative with an ending that you can already see coming a mile away is more of an afterthought, a necessary framing structure to support the delightful set design, costume design, performances, and visual comedy.

The fun of the Addams Family has always been the characters. In the role of Gomez Addams we have Raul Julia who is amorous, charismatic, and hilariously zealous in every dance or sword-fighting scene he’s in. We then have Angelica Houston as Morticia Addams: sultry, sincere, a beautifully morbid matriarch. Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams delivers every line with a wonderfully unfathomable deadpan expression and inflection, and then Christopher Lloyd as ‘Uncle Fester’ provides the film with a significant portion of its comic relief, being the bodily trigger for many of the manor’s wonderful traps while also playing the role of heart-fluttering black sheep in an already unusual flock.

Image credit: vrogue.co

The Addams Family is a movie that delivers a cinematic experience based on how well the audience is across its characters and their history. I am certain that there were many jokes that we missed due to our having never seen the original series or followed the characters’ origins but nevertheless, we still found ourselves laughing out loud at the silliness and sharp-witted humour of the film as well as being touched by its heartwarming message about the staying power of family.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld, 1991

Cast: Raul Julia, Angelica Houston, Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson, Christina Ricci, Judith Malina, Carel Stuycken, Dana Ivey, Jimmy Workman & Paul Benedict

Greed

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Greed and the pursuit of capital has been a villainous theme in storytelling for centuries, with the hubris of those afflicted delivering satisfying emotional payoff for audiences of all races, ages, and genders. Even though one can absolutely guess where characters are heading in a film entitled Greed, the craftmanship and artistic direction of Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 silent classic still holds shock and cringe value for the modern audience.

The film follows quack dentist, Mac McTeague (Gibson Gowland) who falls in love with an extraction patient, Trina (Zasu Pitts) despite his best friend Marcus (Jean Hersholt) already being sweet on her. As a sign of friendship, Marcus gives Mac his blessing to court Trina, but changes his attitude when, shortly after their marriage, she wins five thousand dollars in a lottery. The sudden fortune starts to put a strain on Mac and Trina’s relationship as Trina hoards her winnings, even when Marcus forces Mac out of business and the couple begins to starve.

An adaptation of the novel McTeague by Frank Norris, Greed is credited as the first film to be shot entirely on location. Showcasing 1920s San Francisco, the film is an epic psychological drama that depicts the poisonous and corrosive nature of addiction. Rather than showing a terrifying descent into madness due to alcohol or narcotics a la Blow or Days of Wine and Roses, Greed explores how the fundamental need for capital can become a cyst that can fester and grow to the point where it destroys even the strongest relationships. Alongside the terrible ends that meet our heroes-turned-villains, we lament the death of the wholesome and sweet tone that the film begins with before Stroheim begins to torment us with disturbing and borderline erotic scenes that include starved and elongated limbs caressing mounds of gold.

The performances are all incredible with Gowland and Pitts both starting the film as likeable and upstanding people and then plummeting into a free-fall of manipulation, gaslighting, drunkenness, and violence.

Image credit: Wikipeda

Considering that the original runtime was over nine hours, then cut down to four and, finally, to two, Stroheim manages to tell a very rich and disturbing story, mainly through his use of mise en scene and reflective metaphors. The shots of Mac’s pet birds that he presents as a wedding gift are particularly powerful in depicting the marital turmoil, beginning the second act as docile and loving creatures before shrieking and fighting some scenes later. We then have the increasing grubbiness of the costumes, set, and even the camera lens as the final scenes in the third act, set in Death Valley, take on a grainier and dustier look – aside from the shots of the bag of gold of course.

A film that claimed notoriety for its behind the scenes story as well as the one it enthrallingly tells on screen, Greed is captivatingly dramatic and disturbing.

Director: Erich von Stroheim, 1924

Cast: Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Franke Hayes & Joan Standing