The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Image credit: Disney

Leaving the shores of black and white for a jaunt into the more modern age, this weekend saw me diving back into the MCU with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. I’ll admit there was some trepidation, after all there hasn’t yet been a Fantastic Four movie that has been particularly good: the one from the Naughties I recall with a bit of embarrassed nostalgia and honestly, I never bothered seeing the remake in the 2010s. But of course, there have been too many hints that the cosmic-hero quartet were muscling into the MCU, so I had to go see it. I’m glad to say that I was pleased with the experience.

Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Susan and Johnny Storm have been the protectors of the world since venturing to space and coming back with superpowers. Now they are about to voyage to a whole new frontier: parenthood. Shortly after announcing Sue and Reed’s pregnancy, a mysterious silver surfer comes to Earth heralding its destruction. The four heroes suit up and follow the herald into space where they discover a monstrous, consuming entity named Galactus, who agrees to spare their world in exchange for Reed and Sue’s baby.

What’s nice about Fantastic Four: First Steps is that it works as another standalone Marvel movie. Despite taking place within the multiverse, no prior knowledge of the various other universes and timelines is really required. Like the later Thor movies or Multiverse of Madness, First Steps is another enjoyable genre piece, paying homage to the comics’ Silver Age in the 1960s. Set in a campy, retro, yet somehow also space age NY, it’s got the feel of a classic ‘60s sitcom or cartoon – the predominant vibe is The Jetsons -  with a refreshing edge of not being over dramatized.

Where a slight bit of discombobulation comes in is from the scenes that take place in outer space, in which the modern computer wizards have free reign to remind us that this is an MCU movie. The special effects of Galactus and Shalla-Bal are visually very impressive and the battle sequences that take place both in space and NY are reminiscent of The Avengers, Thor, or Guardians of the Galaxy. But the jarring contrast between the ’60s futuristic sets and the great beyond is fleeting and doesn’t really dampen any of the fun cinematic experience of the film.

Image credit: Space

With great performances, funky set designs, and classic Marvel special effects, Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fun instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Director: Matt Shakman, 2025

Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Mark Gatiss, Sarah Niles, Matthew Wood, Paul Walter Hauser & Natasha Lyonne

Intolerance

Image credit: Amazon

The cinematic masterpiece: what makes it so? We’ve had over a century of cinema and I don’t believe we have even come close to identifying a magic formula that makes a masterpiece. They just are or they become. The ones that later become celebrated thanks to the progression of time and the changing of cultural attitudes are the more interesting ones to consider. Films such as D.W Griffith’s Intolerance.

The film explores tragedy fuelled by intolerance and the struggles of love through the ages over the course of four stories. A selection of events from the life of Jesus, a tale from Babylon in which a king is betrayed by those against his rejection of sectarianism, the story of the St Bartholemew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants, and a modern melodrama in which a young man is wrongly convicted of murder.

While critically hailed as a masterpiece today, thanks to its epic scale and ahead-if-its-time editing, Intolerance is also considered an epic disaster and flop in Hollywood’s history; (ironically) thanks to its epic scale and ahead-if-its-time editing.

Riding high off the success of Birth of a Nation, it’s believed that Griffith made this epic doom-and-gloom saga of tragic love stories as something of a retort to the backlash he received regarding the racial politics in Birth. Indeed, he released a pamphlet entitled ‘The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America’ to coincide with Intolerance’s release, arguing against film censorship. And it certainly is a film that forces audiences to look at some hard truths about human behaviour. Everything from conspiracy, to betrayal, to incredible violence, to jealousy, to a plethora of prejudices is depicted.

While the audience of the time struggled with the random time-jumping and crosscutting between stories, the modern audience – especially feminist- will cringe at the questionable ‘love’ stories, the rough treatment of women on screen, and the fact that none of the young heroines are given names.

Then there is the sheer size of the thing. The film is famous for having had a couple of million invested in it to make a lavish spectacle: the enormous sets for the Babylon sequences are monumental and very impressive, as well as the elaborate costumes for the both the Babylon story and the French period drama. Add to this a herd of elephants, camels, catapults, and what appears to be a flame-throwing Babylonian tank, it’s a very elaborate visual feast that sadly failed to make back its costs.

Image credit: Amazon

The performances are captivating, if you can keep track of who everyone is, and this is good because both original and contemporary audiences immediately baulk at the thought of sitting down for that long: the film’s runtime is 3 hours.  While the pacing of the first half of the film can stretch and feel doughy, the climactic final act proves to be quite nail-bitingly dramatic and exciting.

There are certainly a number of things about Intolerance that make it a landmark piece of Hollywood history, but I don’t think that the ‘genius’ of D. W. Griffith stands the test of time. Like Metropolis – another piece of extravagant cinema- you need to really psych yourself up to get through this endurance trial of a film.

Director: D. W. Griffith, 1916

Cast: Spottiswoode Aitken, Mary Alden, Frank Bennett, Barney Bernard, Monte Blue, Lucille Browne, Tod Browning, William H. Brown, Edmund Burns, William E. Cassidy, Elmer Clifton, Miriam Cooper, Jack Cosgrove, Josephine Crowell, Dore Davidson, Sam De Grasse, Edward Dillon, Pearl Elmore, Lillian Gish, Ruth Handforth, Robert Harron, Joseph Henabery, Chandler House, Lloyd Ingraham, W. E. Lawrence, Ralph Lewis, Vera Lewis, Elmo Lincoln, Walter Long, Mrs. Arthur Mackley, Tully Marhsall, Mae Marsh, Marguerite Marsh, John P. McCarthy, A.W. McClure, Seena Owen, Alfred Paget, Eugene Pallette, Georgia Pearce, Billy Quirk, Wallace Reid, Allan Sears, George Siegmann, Maxfield Stanley, Carl Stockdale, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Constance Talmadge, F.A. Turner, W.S. Van Dyke, Guenther von Ritzau, Erich von Stroheim, George Walsh, Eleanor Washington, Margery Wilson, & Tom Wilson

Ghost Rider

Image credit: Wikipedia

It’s funny to think that there are so many great stories and characters and narrative ideas out there in the world and many of them get picked up and turned into bad or mediocre movies. Indeed, it’s a funny industry that allows for terrible pieces to be created, distributed, and then left to age and (sometimes) outlive us all. For every groundbreaking masterpiece or commercial blockbuster that breaks the Box Office, there are dozens, hundreds even of mehs and megaflops. It’s a delightful world of content that we live in.

This train of through is partly influenced by a very interesting book that I am currently reading about a century of Hollywood flops and partly inspired by a dumb foray into a lesser celebrated Marvel movie that I saw for the first time recently: Ghost Rider.

When he discovers that his father has cancer, motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) sells his soul to Mephistopheles to save him. But a deal with the Devil never goes the way as planned and now, years later Johnny is forced to serve as Mephistopheles’ ‘Ghost Rider’ – an agent of vengeance. His task: eradicate a group of rebellious demons that seek an ancient and powerful scroll that would bring about the end of the world.

Falling into the category of Marvel antiheroes, Ghost Rider seems to be a movie that was made because a) Marvel characters had never really left our cinematic consciousness and it was about to have a real resurgence, and b) the idea is metal as Hell. Director Mark Steven Johnson definitely went in for a camp, metal, romp with a simple story that allowed for computer wizards to have fun with making demons, devils, and leather-clad, flame-wreathed skeletons. It’s a stupid and fun lone-gunman type metal western that rides on its silliness, which is made even more enjoyably ridiculous by the special effects. I mean, we’ve got a leather-clad, chain-wielding, skeleton who is on fire riding a motorcycle directly up the side of a skyscraper!

Having said this, the now-dated and janky special effects are completely what carries this movie. The story is simple and ‘eh’, but the characters are as boring as unseasoned rice water with both Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes delivering performances that felt like they had no idea who their characters were. Johnny Blaze and his love interest are like that film that covers soup when it’s left to cool: a flimsy coating that you have to mash with your spoon to get at the good stuff.

Image credit: Fangoria

Ghost Rider is not a good movie, but it is a dumb fun movie and sometimes that’s the vibe you want on a Friday night.

Director: Mark Steven Johnson, 2007

Cast: Nicholas Cage, Eva Mendes, Matt Long, Sam Elliott, Raquel Alessi, Brett Cullen, Donal Logue, Wes Bentley & Peter Fonda

Jurassic World: Rebirth

Image credit: Wikipedia

There is something to be said for genre or franchise films that are ‘tried and true’. Of course, when you know a formula works, why would you mess with it? If you’ve seen one Alien movie, you’ve seen them all. The same can more or less be said for Scream, Predator, and of course Jurassic Park. Despite the Jurassic World movies being rather garbage all around, it seems that Universal are going to ironically try to pump as much life into this T-Rex skeleton as they can. Can you tell, I went and saw Jurassic World: Rebirth recently.

The novelty of dinosaurs has officially run its course, with many species dying out all over again. But it seems man is not quite done with them yet. A pharmaceutical company hires a team of mercenaries to lead an expedition into isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three specific prehistoric creatures in order to make groundbreaking advances in medical science.

Set five years after the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, which I have not bothered to watch at this point in time, Rebirth does breathe a little bit of life back into the franchise, by taking the screenplay back to basics: a group of people suddenly find themselves in a very dangerous situation where survival becomes the only goal. Pretty much all the standard plot twists make their way onto the screen at some point, resulting in the expected amount of emotional payoff and smug comeuppance.

While the opening scene has us holding our heads in disbelief at the bad decisions and even worse security measures of a dangerous facility, the film still manages to provide a reasonably enjoyable movie experience thanks to a cast of relatively interesting and likeable characters, fairly measured action sequences that balance the gore and suspense, and of course that wonderful, recognisable soundtrack.

The film is definitely carried by Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, the leading lowlifes with strong senses of duty and honour. Johannson is strong with that classic flirty aloofness, and Ali is the one you would definitely help to the best of your abilities: a man doing questionable things but for the right reasons.

Image credit: Los Angeles Times

There isn’t much to say about a Jurassic Park/World movie that has not already been said. After the cringe of previous trilogy, Rebirth is a somewhat self-aware resurrection of an exciting franchise. It works perfectly well as a standalone movie and while it’s not a tremendous cinematic experience, it still proves to be a nice night out.

Director: Gareth Edwards, 2025

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain & Ed Skrein

Nonnas

Image credit: Wikipedia

I like the sweet, wholesome, and nondescript heartwarming foodie comedy a la Julie & Julia, Ratatouille, or Delicious in Dungeon. I put as much love into food preparation and consumption as I do movie consumption (i.e. I love to cook and am fascinated by the power that food holds). So it’s a real punch in the gut when I spot a movie that promises to be all sweet and wholesome and about the healing power of food, that then does not deliver. This would be the (unbelievably) Emmy-nominated, Nonnas.

After his mother passes away, Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) finds himself struggling to move on and cooking his mother and Nonna’s recipes as a means of coping. At the suggestion of his childhood friends, he takes the money left to him and decides to open a restaurant with real Italian grandmothers as the chefs. What could go wrong?

This film is based on a true story, this restaurant is a real place in Staten Island that has blossomed into a multicultural family kitchen with grandmothers from all backgrounds cooking family recipes. The real Joe Scaravella even makes a cameo in the film. It’s a sweet and inspiring story that I am now tempted to investigate to see just how much of it was kept and what parts were written in to flesh out the movie.

Ironically, despite the immediate pull of the wholesome food-related true story, Nonnas suffered from a serious lack of seasoning. The story itself is the flavour that carries the film, but the clumsy script, forced character development, and wholly uninteresting protagonist really bring the whole thing down. Like a cream of mushroom soup that’s more ‘water of mushroom’.

Vince Vaughn, what happened to you? In every Vaughn movie I’ve seen he is charismatic, endearing, and goes a mile a minute: with the exception of Zoolander in which he has no lines. Hell, even in the remake of Psycho he was more engaging. In Nonnas his performances in the most bland and wooden thing I have ever seen, eating a pinecone would be more entertaining and provide the same nutritional value. Maybe this is the first example of an AI lead?

The real stars of the show are the supporting cast of chefs: Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, and Susan Sarandon. The chemistry between the Nonnas is heartwarming and instantly recognisable, the real crime of this film is not doing more with their characters. I feel like so much flavour could have been added if we got to hear stories about their recipes. Instead, we get one good scene in which they all bond and it’s so ham-fistedly written that you spend the rest of the film massaging your jaw from clenching too hard.

Image credit: Eater

As a main dish, Nonnas was lacking. Carried by a simple and novel plot, there was nothing added to enrich, compliment, or deepen the flavour of the film. A bland protagonist that does not inspire us to be on his side, a group of supporting characters who don’t get the showcase they deserve, and a script that feels like it was left on the stove to bubble away without being stirred once. Not a dish I would order again.

Director: Stephen Chbosky, 2025

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro, Jimmy Smagula, Adam Ferrara, Kate Eastman, Karen Giordano, Joe Manganiello, Linda Cardellini & Susan Sarandon

Maneater

Image credit: themoviedb.org

Continuing on in our pursuit of delightfully dumb eco horror movies to watch on a Friday night, the film of choice last Friday was a perfectly predictable and boring large shark movie called Maneater. No relation to the videogame of the same name, which honestly might have made the film better. B-grade horror films are fun, but I’m starting to see that there is a fine line between the overly enjoyable dumb ones and the ones that are just boring and bland. These ones are probably the worst because you can’t even enjoy making fun of them. I think this boils down to a lack of sincerity; you can’t feel the fun or love or want that made this movie come into existence and thus, can only talk about it coldly.

Recently broken up with, Jess (Nicky Whelan) spends her would-be honeymoon with a bunch of friends at a beachside resort. Eager to get her mind off her melancholy, her friends organise an ocean tour that takes them to a beautiful little island where they plan to camp. But the idyllic getaway turns nightmarish with the arrival of a great white shark that starts to pick off the campers one by one.

Narratively, it’s clear that the waters for good shark movie plots are shallow indeed. Jaws worked because it didn’t necessarily villainise the shark, but the greed of people and our own sense of status within the pecking order. Deep Blue Sea added a science fiction element into the story that at least made the sharks’ behaviour interesting. Even The Shallows made a point of using believable shark behaviour to heighten the terror of being caught between teeth and a wet place. But Maneater is a movie that just says, ‘by the way, shark’.

A bland and boring film that narratively treads the path of Jaws with a revenge story mixed in, this film could have been fun but suffered from burnout very quickly. It felt as though everyone in it stopped caring even before shooting began. The story is predictable, basic, and (most annoyingly) unfulfilling, as characters establish that there’s something odd about this shark’s behaviour but they don’t bother exploring it beyond, ‘this shark isn’t killing for food, it’s killing for fun’.

Image credit: Rakuten.tv

There is zero character development, thus absolutely zero emotional reaction when they get chomped. Even the vengeful hunter character is boring A F so the only thing there is to enjoy about this film is wondering why the shark looks like it’s been through a shredder.

Despite its name, which instantly gets the Hall and Oates song stuck in one’s head, Maneater is a boring and mediocre shark movie that’s fine for a mindless night it but don’t expect any real enjoyment to come from it.

Director: Justin Lee, 2022

Cast: Trace Adkins, Nicky Whelan, Shane West, Porscha Coleman, Ed Morrone, Kelly Lynn Reiter, Alex Farnham, Zoe Cipres, Branscombe Richmond, Jeff Fahey, & Kim DeLonghi

Unleashing the Demons

Image credit: Amazon

Having a love of something and then finding people who share that love with you is -in my opinion- the best thing about being human. We find that special something, we become enamoured, obsessed, and then dissect it to understand why we love it. Then we share those findings with people we come into contact with due to their love of that special something. It’s a deepening and ever-replenishing wellspring of fascination, connection, and excitement. And what’s even more wonderful, is that that love inspires us to create our own and share. It’s delightfully contagious.

In case it’s not apparent yet, I have a love of movies. The majority of my adult life has been encompassed by them: first job being at Blockbuster (let that nostalgia wash over you), then a media advisor at Australia’s largest home-entertainment retailer, and now a client services coordinator in film distribution. While my love inspires me to dissect and talk about movies ad nauseum, through my jobs I have met inspiring and passionate individuals whose love of movies has inspired them to create their own. Below is an example of what happens when a creative and a dismantling love meets.

Years after a terrible incident that involved the death of four of his friends, Derek (Keiron McDonald) has been discharged from hospital and has moved in with his cousin April (Violet Shaw). But Derek is convinced that the nightmare isn’t over. Plagued by gruesome visions and hours he can’t account for, Derek tries to convince April that he is still possessed by a demon. And when April begins to have visions of her own, she can’t help but start to believe him.

Unleashing the Demons is a cinephile’s passion project in the sweetest sense. It’s a tiny production built on the talents at hand that explores the modern intricacies of one of the most widely parodied and dissected genres around: horror. The narrative is simple with all contextual history told through blunt and simple exposition and made more intriguing with the use of quick and cutting camera shots that indicate the presence of ‘visions’. This aspect of the movie gives it a sinister edge while at the same time forcing the audience to do the mental work a la Hitchcock. It’s a fresh and modern balance of show and tell that works well to keep the brain cogs turning throughout the film.

Image credit: IMDb

While being a small-scale horror movie by itself, the film is also an homage to the genre. This is how you can tell that it was made by cinephiles: it’s packed to the rafters with subtle references and tributes to a whole range of horror subgenres including religion-horror, meta-horror, and amateur-horror. The blend of the modern setting and the archaic horror work to heighten the seriousness of the narrative by powdering it with comedy, which then primes the audience for the ethical whiplash of the climactic third act. Think This is the End, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream, there are vibes of all these in there.

Admittedly, my response to this film is arguably coloured by the fact that I know the character of the creator, but honestly I really enjoyed watching this movie and because of its simplicity I was made aware of all the work that went in: the music, the makeup effects, the acting, the ‘set design’ – which includes a most immaculate Blu-ray collection FYI - with both cast and crew being one and the same creative entity. If anything, watching films like this can remind us that we can get blinded by the money, lights, and shiny of mainstream cinema and that everything grand comes from humble beginnings (that are honestly, more satisfying to talk about).

Unleashing the Demons is a film made by cinephiles for cinephiles.

Director: Callum Knox, 2020

Cast: Keiron McDonald, Violet Shaw, Hayden Geens, Laura Fraser, Eddy Price, Adele Samus, Callum Knox, Robyn Shaw & Eleanore Knox