“The genius of Obsession isn’t in its concept, but in its execution... it answers what realistically happens to a person’s brain when forced to carry out someone else’s wish.”

This was a film I have been curious to see ever since its popularity blew up out of absolutely nowhere. The entire movie had a budget of only about $1 million, and it’s the type of movie where... you can’t really tell. It feels seasoned, professional, and undoubtedly more expensive than it was. When it came out, word of mouth carried this thing from sea to shining sea, and everyone had to say something about it. I haven’t seen word of mouth carry a film like this in a very long time, so I had to check it out.

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My current schedule is so backed up that I’m writing this in July... even though I know my review is set to drop around November of 2026. Needless to say, as soon as I had the ability to check it out, I did. Now, I should also say that once I heard how popular it was becoming, I did my due diligence and avoided the film like the plague until I had the chance to see it myself. I stayed away from reviews. I didn’t read synopses. I didn’t even watch the trailers. I knew nothing about it and went in pretty darn blind. All I kind of figured was that it had something to do with one person being obsessed with another person, given the title. That’s it.

So, I was beyond surprised to see that the plot of the film is simply put... a love spell gone wrong. It’s something we’ve seen, literally, hundreds of times in other movies and TV series, and I’m sure in books and other forms of media as well. It’s a well-known trope. I’ve seen it done in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Craft, Supernatural, Smallville, Midsommar... the list goes on. The director even confirmed he was inspired by an episode of The Simpsons. Past the specific love spell trope, you have an even broader message of being careful what you wish for... which, I mean, obviously. It couldn’t be more on the nose than that... and yet.

And yet... this may be the best possible iteration of a love spell that I’ve seen in a movie or TV show.

I gotta say, though... a part of me watching can’t help but ask... is that it? This film was hyped to the nth degree as the best thing since sliced bread, so I kinda figured it was maybe more original than what it was. Or maybe they took the love spell idea as a foundational point and then evolved it from there... do the Butterfly Effect thing and have him try to wish everything away, only to make things that much worse. Something like that. But no, it’s just a dangerous love spell.

Again, that’s not to say it’s bad. I very much enjoyed this movie. It’s in my top five of the year so far. Not number one or anything, but top five is still pretty darn good. The genius of this film isn’t so much in the concept, but rather in the execution. A lot of other love spell stories, even the best of the best, usually just focus on the “be careful what you wish for” aspect. OBSESSION, on the other hand, does a really good job answering the question: what realistically happens to a person’s brain if they’re forced to carry out someone else’s will or wish?

The writer and director showcased the loss of autonomy and the reality of being under someone’s spell without consent better than anything I’ve really ever seen. It’s terrifying to think about. This guy knows he did something horrible to this woman. At first, he tries to shrug it off because magic isn’t real and the twig was just a toy he used. But the more she kind of glitches here and there... showing there’s something dark going on underneath the surface... the more he realizes he did this to another human being. It’s that realization that I think hits him hardest, because he did this as a lonely, desperate guy who legitimately cared for this woman, and now he’s taking advantage of her.

Not only that, but the rules of the wish state that you can’t do anything about it. You can’t unwish it. You can’t cancel the wish. You can’t alter the wish. You made your bed, now you gotta lie in it.

These characters are endlessly complex. There are things about them you don’t know until the film gets pretty deep into the story, but it all makes sense. There are motivations and agendas that certain people have in this film that all play a part in what happens, and it all ties together nicely through the performances and editing. The cinematography is subtle, but strong, especially for such a lower budget.

If I had any complaints for this film whatsoever, it would be the hype. While the film is extremely good and one of my favorites of the year, there were so many people suggesting this literally should be the number one movie of the year. That it’s that good. It’s that original. It’s that surprising.

I don’t think that’s true. I just think it’s good... it’s very good, and as I’ve said, it’s in my top five. But it’s not original. It operates off of one of the most overdone tropes in supernatural thrillers ever. The execution was less predictable and a lot more complex and deep than what you typically get from something like this, but the premise itself isn’t all that original. So, I would have to say the hype... was a little overkill.

• Unbiased / Technical Score: 43/50 (86%)

• Biased / Entertainment Score: 46/50 (92%)

• Total Combined Score: 89/100 (89% or 4.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along on my Clint Eastwood-directed films, this is the first movie that Eastwood has directed where he has not cast himself in a role. In Breezy, he cast himself as a non-speaking background extra, but in Bird, he is nowhere to be seen. Initially, that certainly seems to be the right move, as Bird was the first time he received significant awards. It won for Best Sound at the Academy Awards, earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress (with Eastwood winning Best Director), and even took home a few awards at the Cannes Film Festival, along with a handful of smaller wins.

This was a pretty critically successful movie, even though it was a box office failure. The production budget was estimated to be around $9–14 million dollars, while the worldwide box office was $2.2 million, mostly because it came out as a limited release.

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Now, it comes as no surprise that Clint Eastwood made a movie about a jazz musician, as this is a topic that has always interested him as a lifelong fan. Specifically, the life of Charles Parker—aka Yardbird, aka Bird—because of his contributions to the genre and his invention of bebop, a modern variation of jazz. Beyond that, the man lived kind of a tragic existence during his short time on this planet, given his various addictions to heroin and alcohol, a death in the family, and at the end of the day, an early death. Yet, his contribution to jazz music is considered legendary all the same.

Forest Whitaker as Charles Parker is very good. From the beginning of the film to the end, he carries the movie on his shoulders and never ceases to surprise. He’s had a lot of fantastic roles over his career, so it’s hard to say which performance is his best, but his portrayal of Charles Parker is probably up there. You believe it... you really do. You believe it when he’s a little bit more giddy, happy, and energetic, and you believe it as well when he’s at his lowest points and susceptible to drinking and shooting up.

Opposite Forest is Diane Venora as his wife, Chan. I don’t know if I’ve seen her in anything other than this, but she really knocked it out of the park. I would almost say she was more of an MVP in this film than Forest Whitaker. Her attitude, behaviors, sarcasm at times, and genuine silent worry are sometimes the most compelling displays of performance in the film. Past them, you have Forest Whitaker’s brother who plays the younger version of Charles Parker, and what a choice for casting. He looks very similar to his brother, obviously... back before they even knew what de-aging was.

Past all that, I think it’s important to discuss the editing of the film. So, what Eastwood was going for—or at least I think he was, based on what I read—was that he wanted the pacing of the film itself to mimic how jazz works. So it is non-linear and literally all over the place, and I guess that makes sense. Jazz isn’t a specific type of art like other musicians who have sheet music. From my understanding, you mostly play what feels right in your soul. So, it follows the beat of the heart or what’s on his mind at the time. For most movies, we just look at this like flashbacks with a slight edge of non-linear storytelling overall. I think that’s fine. I think Eastwood was going for something more specific, but I don’t think it plays out exactly as intended... but for what it’s worth, it’s fine.

Here’s the thing, though. The movie is literally 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and you feel it. This film is far too long for what was necessary. No matter how good the performances are or how interesting a life Charles Parker had, it’s still a very long movie that had me tapping my toes a LOT.

Prior to watching all of Clint Eastwood’s directed films, I covered Spielberg’s movies, and thematically, Bird reminds me of a really long and boring biopic Spielberg also made: Lincoln. Both movies feature a lot of technically savvy things, performances that blow you away, and accolade-deserving aspects. I appreciate so much of both movies, but I’m also haunted by the same question for both films... why should I care?

With biopics, you essentially want one of two things, which I think are the same two things you are looking for with a documentary. First of all, if it’s a person I’m already familiar with, I want the film to teach me something new and interesting about them. However, if it’s featuring someone I’m not already familiar with, like with Charles Parker, I want it to introduce me to the character in an interesting enough way to get me invested and interested in learning more about the real man after I watch the movie. A good biopic of a jazz musician would have me immediately looking him up and listening to his music after watching the movie.

Unfortunately, none of that happened with my experience of Bird. I went into the movie not really loving jazz. I appreciate it for what it is, but it’s not my go-to genre. And I came out of it with the exact same experience. So, the movie didn’t interest me more in jazz, and it also didn’t really interest me in learning more about Charles Parker.

Personally, I think the movie would have worked a lot better if it had just stuck with a two-hour runtime. Fact of the matter is, thanks to the non-linear storytelling, a lot of this movie operates like a broken record. His life operates kind of like a broken record. When times get tough, the man drinks or shoots up heroin, and then has to deal with the after-effects. Rinse and repeat. I’m not saying that’s not compelling... however, it does get old when we see it happen over and over again for 2 hours and 40 minutes. It needed to be shorter.

• Technical/Unbiased Score: 33/50 (66%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 27/50 (54%)

• Total Combined Score: 60/100 (60% or 3/5 on Letterboxd)

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Free Solo? Isn’t that what Princess Leia does at the beginning of Return of the Jedi? ...I kid, I kid.

52-WEEK MOVIE CHALLENGE #13 - A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT AN ATHLETE

I chose this as the next part of my 52-WEEK MOVIE CHALLENGE under the prompt for WEEK #13 - A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT AN ATHLETE. For those of you that have been reading my reviews for a while, you’ll know that I rarely talk about documentaries. It’s not that I don’t enjoy them. There are a few documentaries and docu-series that I’ve loved. However, for obvious reasons, they don’t match virtually any criteria that I have for my rubric. So, I usually have to approach them a little bit differently than usual. For this prompt, I wanted to find a popular documentary featuring a non-traditional athlete, and then I remembered... wait... a lot of people were raving about this film, Free Solo, for a while. In fact, it won an Oscar for the Best Documentary Feature of that year. A mountain climber is 100% an athlete. I knew I had my pick.

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Little did I know that this guy has gone on to be featured in a bunch of other dangerous and crazy climbing stunts that are filmed for documentaries and specials. Most recently, he was on a live Netflix special where he climbed a building called Skyscraper Live. While that was more of a spectacle, I would venture a guess to say it was not as technically dangerous as the feat seen in Free Solo. Both are very tall things, and in both cases, you would die if you fell, but a building is constructed with repeated textures on the windows and walls all the way to the top. If you can climb a couple of stories, you basically know what you’re in for all the way up. It makes for a great spectacle regardless, but in Free Solo, he’s climbing something natural with zero repetition and a lot less room for error.

A big chunk of Free Solo isn’t even the climb; it’s the prep work. The mountain that he is climbing in this movie, El Capitan, has been climbed before, of course... he’s not the first or anything. So, those that have climbed it in the past have noted all of the most difficult areas for you to get past in order to climb. This movie operates kind of like a traditional narrative, in that these literal obstacles are his narrative obstacles to get to his goals. He explains very specifically what it takes to pass this obstacle, this trial... whatever the case may be. Throughout the movie, we’re shown that he’s imperfect. He HAS fallen. He has broken bones. For part of the movie, he’s healing from a fall as well. While preparing for the climb, he’s showing up roped up, knowing that one wrong move can result in him falling. This thing that he’s doing is death-defying and nothing anybody has ever wanted to do before, other than him.

What I was surprised to find going in was how little of this movie shows the actual climb. I’m serious when I say the actual climb doesn’t start until roughly one hour and 20 minutes in. For the most part, the only parts of the climb you see are those obstacles he’s meticulously gone over and over throughout the prep portion of the film. You never see any other part of the climb. It’s just from obstacle, to the next obstacle, to the next, and then the movie is over.

This is probably where I get the most miffed. I understand the prep portion of the film is important. It serves a purpose. It shows us who this man is, why he is the way he is, and why he doesn’t necessarily sense fear like the rest of us do. He’s kind of like Spock. He’s smart, he’s meticulous, he’s calculating, and he’s rarely wrong. It was also important to show us the most difficult areas of this mountain first so that when he gets to those moments, we are reminded that, oh man, here we go, this is going to be one of those difficult moments.

However, I think an hour and twenty minutes is far too long to get to the climb. By that point, the movie gives the audience next to no climbing whatsoever. Instead, we get a couple of clips before the movie is over. I would have shown less of the prep work and started the actual climb roughly 30 minutes into the film. I still probably would have cut the actual climb down, since it took him over three hours or something, but I would have shown a majority of it. That’s what I was expecting when I turned on the movie and was kind of disappointed to see so little of it. Skyscraper Live at least understood the assignment, because he climbs that thing live. So, a majority of that was the actual climb. This was not. Which... booo.

Overall, it was a good documentary. I think this guy is a really fascinating, brutally honest guy that knows what he’s doing. I was entertained, regardless of it not really doing what I thought it would.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 44/50 (88%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 37/50 (74%)

• Total/Combined Score: 81/100 (81% or 4/5 on Letterboxd)

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It’s been a wild journey traversing through each and every single adventure alongside Riggs, Murtaugh, and Leo Getz. I last watched all four of these films a little over a decade ago when I last reviewed them, and those written reviews were all technically rewatches... meaning this is the third time I’ve gone through these films. I’m a little disappointed in myself because, for the most part, they all felt like completely fresh, first-time watches. I had forgotten about so many things that happened in each and every single one of these films... yet, there was always one or two main things that I remembered from each franchise entry.

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The first movie was more about the introductions of these characters and especially how crazy Riggs was. The second movie introduced you to the dislocating shoulder and, of course, the diplomatic immunity gag. The third movie is the most forgettable out of every film in the series, but it had a few fantastic action set pieces and jokes that land pretty well, as well as Murtaugh having, most likely, his strongest performance after killing his son’s friend in the line of duty.

This fourth film also has a few memorable things going on.

First and foremost, my man Jet Li. This movie came out slightly before Jet Li became a lot bigger in the U.S., but he still is kicking some major tail. Even though it’s laughable to think either Mel Gibson or Danny Glover... or both of them... could remotely take on Jet Li in his prime, I’ll forgive it given how absolutely memorable and iconic his presence is in the film. I would go as far as to say I believe his character is the best villain of the franchise. Not only just because it’s Jet Li and he’s doing kung fu, but really... the story is the strongest and most original out of all four films. You have smuggling Chinese into America, and you don’t know why at first, but it has something to do with counterfeit money and bribing someone to break some terrorists out of prison. It’s hard to lay out how it all fits together because you don’t really learn what’s actually happening until much later in the film, but trust me, it was actually some smart writing.

The second biggest memorable aspect of the film is this highway car chase later in the movie where Mel Gibson ends up on an overturned table that’s being dragged down the road, and he’s clinging on for dear life. While you can tell that a stunt performer is doing the brunt of this, and you know Tom Cruise would have volunteered to do it for real, it’s still a very cool scene. Most importantly, it goes on for a good while. Logically, you have to wonder why the driver didn’t slow down. There’s no way he or she had no idea they were dragging a guy on a table for a few miles... not a chance. However, it looks cool and was super tense.

One of the best aspects of the film, though, is that I would call this entire thing the best of both worlds. There have been some great moments in this franchise and some weak sauce moments as well. This film takes the best of both worlds and creates a solid entry all around that is funny, has a lot of character development moments that honestly shine, some heart-throbbing action moments, and really... just a perfect series ender for the franchise.

Do I have any negatives? I do. Mel Gibson, for the first time in the franchise... cut his hair. You can make fun of that mullet all you want, and I sure have as well... but it’s a part of his character. An extension. Without the hair, he’s just Mel Gibson, and you can tell when you watch it what I’m talking about. This is especially true given the fact that his character has grown throughout the franchise. There has been character development... he’s less crazy, he’s a lot more down to earth, and he just seems like Mel Gibson, not Riggs anymore. Character development, of course, is a great thing for a film series to have. It’s what you want, but I almost want to say they gave him too much development to the point where they made him transform into Mel Gibson, and all of what made Riggs so unique and different is entirely gone.

It’s not the end of the world, though, as his chemistry with Glover is fantastic. Leo Getz back in the middle of everything is hysterical. He keeps changing jobs: 2nd movie he was in witness protection, 3rd movie he was a real estate agent, 4th movie he’s a private investigator. It is always changing and I love it. Chris Rock is in the film as well, and these four stooges together... I don’t know what it is, but it’s fantastic.

This might actually be my favorite movie in the series, and you know what? My end score reflects that.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 42/50 (84%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 46/50 (92%)

• Total/Combined Score: 88/100 (88% or 4.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along on my list of Clint Eastwood-directed films, this movie is what I like to call The Mighty Ducks… in the military. We got a reluctant, flawed authority figure who is forced to take charge of an undisciplined group of misfits and lead them through a trial-by-fire transformation. I say The Mighty Ducks because I grew up with it, but it’s also an example of a trope that we’ve seen in a ton of other movies. A few come to mind, such as Dangerous Minds, School of Rock, and Sister Act. All of these movies do essentially the same thing by taking a group of impossibly unruly people and shaping them up, and you know what… the military seems to be the perfect setting for the trope.

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Past that, I also want to mention that even though a majority of these Clint Eastwood movies have Clint playing basically the same exact grizzled, gruff, squinty-eyed tough guy, this was actually one of the first times I’ve believed in the performance more than just a typecast role. There are layers to his character. Not a ton, mind you. A majority of the character is really no different than anything we’ve seen in the past, but he takes a liking to this ragtag group of misfits. Even though he treats them like your typical drill sergeant, I would argue he plays the role honestly to the degree that you can tell he’s warming up to them.

Past that, you have the story of his character trying to get back into his ex-wife’s good graces. To be honest, this was the part of the movie I thought was mostly unnecessary. Narratively, I do get it. This was the part of the film that was supposed to showcase the different layers to his character, humanize him a bit, and let that character development shine. So, as far as writing goes, it makes a lot of sense, but it was extremely uninteresting. You didn’t need it. If you wanted to humanize him and showcase his character development more, all you had to do was have him show that through these Marines that he is attempting to beat into shape. It was already doing that to begin with, and honestly… that’s all it really needed.

The film has a few good one-liners, as I’m really starting to realize is kind of Clint Eastwood’s… thing? Additionally, from what I understand, those that have actually gone through the Marine Corps have praised the film for its authenticity in what the training is really like, from the camaraderie to the action they have to face. But let’s talk about the action for a moment. The main aspect that this movie is based on and building up to is the invasion of Grenada in 1983. That’s all fine and dandy, but the most I can say about that is… the invasion itself felt significantly anticlimactic and maybe under-budget. It needed to feel bigger with more stakes so all of that camaraderie they’d built before that would feel more significant and earned. It’s not a huge complaint at the end of the day, but it certainly waters a lot down.

Overall, I’d simply call the movie “okay.” I had a good enough time with it. It had a lot of strong ideas and concepts. Clint Eastwood pulled off a strong character that is reminiscent of what he always does, but also sometimes a little bit funny. The film is listed as a dark comedy on top of being a war drama, and I would say that sometimes comes through, but not always.

• Technical/Unbiased Score: 35/50 (70%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 31/50 (62%)

• Total Combined Score: 66/100 (66% or 3.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along in my Clint Eastwood watch-a-thon journey of films, we have…unsurprisingly, another Western. Only, what’s interesting about this one is…it feels incredibly similar to another Clint Eastwood movie I feel like I just watched not too long ago.

Believe it or not, Pale Rider shares a lot of the same DNA with High Plains Drifter. If you’re not familiar with that movie and you do want to watch it without being spoiled, then you’ll have to pause this review and get back to it later, because I’m about to spoil that in order to talk about this. Why? Because they are both structured insanely similar to one another, to the point where…it almost feels like a mirror image of one another. I doubt this was on purpose, but I can’t help but realize the similarities.

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So, the reason why I’ll be spoiling the other film is due to the “twist” of that film, if you can even call it that. While everything in that movie is very much up in the air and left for the audience to decide for themselves, it’s heavily hinted at that they Sixth Sensed that movie. Clint was playing a dead guy the whole time, only everyone could actually see him. He was basically a vengeful demon who was uber pissed and comes to this town, forces them to do weird crap before massacring them all out of revenge.

In this film, he’s playing a spirit AGAIN, but this time it’s not a vengeful demon type of situation, but rather like a guardian angel. Benevolent, protective, like a guide. He’s still a tough guy and kicks major tail, but the initial purpose of his presence is completely different.

Now, where it was a twist in High Plains Drifter, this was not. The movie more or less opens up on a little girl praying for a protector, and in comes Clint on his trusty pale steed to save the day.

Now, I remember specifically not loving High Plains Drifter. I found it weird and kind of random most of the time before it got to the point. This felt a lot more grounded and emotionally resonating than the other, so between the two, I definitely prefer this...even though the other one is often touted as a masterpiece.

Neither are movies I loved, keep in mind. In fact, I haven’t loved any of his movies so far. I’ve mostly just appreciated them and considered some of them hidden gems and a good time, but nothing masterpiece level or anything. My average score across the 11 films I’ve seen so far is 63%…which matches how I feel about these movies overall. They’re mostly fine. Enjoyable to a degree, but I know there’s better out there.

Overall, in terms of filmmaking, I would say there are a few takes in the film that stood out to me and I noticed as being pretty cool for whatever reason, but I would say Eastwood’s directorial craft has seen better days. Most of that stuff feels business as usual here. Most of the villains are one-note…I like some of the townsfolk that Eastwood is helping, but again, not enough to be incredibly memorable either.

I think at the end of the day, this is the type of movie you’re going to remember more for its concept and premise, and ultimately spirit. It’s a good Western action film and one of the few I wouldn’t mind rewatching down the line.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 34/50 or 68%

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 37/50 or 74%

• Total Combined Score: 71/100 or 71% (3.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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It’s basically about this insanely annoying, overachieving high school girl who runs for student council president, and her social studies teacher hates her so much that he goes out of his way to ruin her chances. He does this by convincing a well-liked, totally clueless jock... and eventually the jock’s sister... to jump into the race, which completely spirals out of control and wrecks his own life in the process.

I chose this film to be the next part of my 52-Week Movie Challenge under the prompt for Week 12: A Comedy About a Teacher.

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There are a few comedies out there centered around teachers, but I think a lot of people put Election as top dog. It’s the gold standard, the benchmark for what you inspire a film like this to be. I’d never seen it, so I went ahead and checked it out... and it’s easy enough to see why people consider this the best of the best in terms of teacher comedies.

It’s not your typical slapstick, silly comedy; rather, it’s deeply satirical. We’re talking pitch-black comedy. There are, for sure, people who are going to watch the movie and miss the point entirely.

On the surface, it just seems kind of random. You have a list of characters, all of whom seem to be important. None of them are classic main characters or heroes of the story. They’re all just... people... going about life, and they are all kind of tragic, miserable, unsatisfied people in their own right. All, of course, other than Chris Klein’s character, who is just happy-go-lucky. Nothing gets him down. He’s kinda like Patrick in SpongeBob. A little bit dimwitted, but you like him anyway because he’s so nice. Everyone else, though? Miserable, out for themselves... but at the same time, they all think they’re doing the right thing.

There’s a big theme in this movie about ethics versus morality, and the difference between them. Right from the first scene of the movie, you are introduced to this teacher, played by Broderick, who is teaching his class that very difference. This single scene is incredibly important to the rest of the movie. Ethics are clear-cut. They come from textbooks and dictionaries. You can recite them, and even believe in them, but morals are something that come from inside. It’s not so clean-cut. Morality is slippery and emotional, and our own prejudices, grudges, and personal beliefs often bump heads with what ethics are all about. We do terribly and obviously horrible things to other people, and then we retroactively try to redefine or translate ethics to fit our morals instead of the other way around... which is a perfect representation of actual elections and the government.

This film uses something small and trivial like a high school election to communicate a message about what the world is really like, and how the system is often rigged against the people. It shows how the nice guys always finish last, and how those who are heartless and emotionally distant often come out on top. It abandons the notion that if you work hard, have a ton of ambition, and act nice, you will be rewarded... because that’s not how life always works. There are rules created by flawed individuals at the top of the food chain, people with grudges and prejudices, who try their best to make sure you don’t succeed if your success puts them in a bad spot. The movie is brilliantly stitched together in a way that will 100% go over people’s heads if they aren’t paying attention, so I can understand someone watching it and not fully appreciating everything it has going for it.

From a technical standpoint, right from the first shot, I knew the movie was going to be put together really well. Our writer-director here, Alexander Payne, had a unique vision behind how he wanted this film to look and operate. It looks and feels classic... right away. The way it is edited specifically, bouncing from character to character and freeze-framing certain shots... it works much more than it had any right to, and it stands out in a big way.

Now, I’m a little bit annoyed that I picked a movie that isn’t a huge laugh-out-loud comedy from beginning to end... as that was more or less what I thought the prompt was calling for. But it’s definitely a movie I’m glad to have watched anyway because it is just so smart. It’s not just a black satirical comedy. It’s a pitch-black satirical comedy. I use that term because it hides that edge of comedy so incredibly well, and it’s definitely more high-brow than you might realize at first glance.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 39/50 (78%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 42/50 (84%)

• Total Combined Score: 81/100 (81%) — 4/5 on Letterboxd

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Thinking back to the entire Lethal Weapon saga, this is the movie I admit I remember the least from, and after rewatching this film for the third time... I think I have a solid understanding of why. It’s not a terrible film, but when compared to the rest of everything this series represents, it’s certainly what I think is the weakest. We’ll see if I still think that next week after I see the fourth one again, but one of this film’s biggest problems is its villain.

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You have a very forgettable dirty cop. Right off the bat, they decided to go against this guy, and obviously, dirty cops in general are a dime a dozen. You have to do something really special with characters like that if you want them to stand out. Unfortunately, they really don’t. Once he’s introduced and gets away, that storyline is primarily sidelined for a majority of the film as we focus on other things... like the love interest storyline with Lorna, and of course, Murtaugh dealing with the fact that he killed his son’s friend.

This hits Murtaugh so deep that he dabbles with alcohol and disappears from the film for longer than I’d like, as Riggs kind of does his own thing with Lorna not far behind. It’s just much more of a sloppy, convoluted mess.

That’s not to say the film is garbage. It has a lot of great action moments and a lot of great humor. You got Joe Pesci in there doing his thing. You have the jokes that keep coming, the weirdness, the chemistry, and the camaraderie... all of it. Mel Gibson has this recurring joke where he eats dog treats to get over his addiction to smoking. Hilarious stuff.

I also give the film crap for Lorna, but to be honest, she’s a better love interest than the random floozy chick in the second movie. The fact that she’s basically a mirror image of Riggs, I do think works wonders for the film and his character. She still isn’t a great character and is ultimately forgettable, but she worked on screen a lot better than the last movie.

I also had a good laugh at the film where Mel Gibson had either his typical mullet... or a ponytail. Neither of which looked great on him, so I had to laugh at the film giving him two bad haircuts.

Overall, I had a good time with the movie. It makes for a fun time on a rewatch like this. I just think it’s much more typical and weaker for a Lethal Weapon film, and it doesn’t really give me anything I want out of it. It’s much more of a let’s-pass-the-time, let’s-watch-something-but-not-actually-pay-attention kind of movie.

You know what it really is? It’s a date movie. Something you turn on in the background while you make out with your date. Lethal Weapon and chill.

• Technical/Unbiased Score: 34/50 (68%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 31/50 (62%)

• Total Combined Score: 65/100 (65% or 3.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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Thirteen years ago, I watched my first Dirty Harry film, and it wasn’t the first film in the franchise. It was the final film, The Dead Pool. The reason I watched that film was, at the time, I was going through Jim Carrey’s entire filmography, and he played a very small role in it. The thing is... I remember next to nothing about that movie. Now, over a decade later, I’m watching the fourth film in the saga as I’m going through yet another filmography: Clint Eastwood’s directed films. Given the fact that he directed one of his own Dirty Harry films, I just ended up watching the fourth movie.

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Apparently, I am going to be watching this franchise in reverse every ten years or so. At this rate, I should be finished watching all of the Dirty Harry movies in the year 2065 when I’m 77 years old... if I make it that long.

While I didn’t really remember that much about The Dead Pool, I will admit this one stuck out to me quite a bit more. First of all, it has the iconic line, “Go ahead, make my day...”, which Clint Eastwood actually says twice in the film, and it is every bit as awesome as I thought it would be. But I think what surprised me the most about this film is who the MVP is here. It’s not Dirty Harry. It’s the vigilante that he is tracking down, played by Sondra Locke.

Throughout all of these Clint Eastwood movies that I’ve been covering, Sondra has shown up in them... a lot. She was one of his many long-term mistresses and he put her in the forefront of a lot of his projects, but this is probably my personal favorite performance and character from her. It’s very human, very relatable, and very understandable. This is a woman scorned after she and her sister were sexually assaulted by multiple people. This left her sister basically catatonic after the encounter, and she’s out there tracking down each perpetrator and taking them out one by one when the justice system has otherwise failed them.

I love this plot. It makes you think. It’s not just this questionable cop tracking down a terrible person; he’s tracking down someone he can fully understand on a deeper level. I mean, the film even opens up with Dirty Harry going to a court trial and watching as a person who is very clearly guilty is let go. He sees very early on that the court system doesn’t always work, and he understands right from the get-go that the system is broken. The level of “makes you think” that this film operates around is akin to some of the best episodes of Law & Order: SVU, where the justice system is portrayed as great in theory, but imperfect and not fully black-and-white when it matters most.

Personally, I do wish Dirty Harry had more screentime in the film, but what we do get, I really enjoyed watching. His quick quips are always fun, including the line I’m still trying to figure out where he says, “Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog.” The guy he’s talking to is like, “What are you talking about?” because yeah... what are you talking about? Everyone puts ketchup on a hot dog! It’s the primary topping! I also put mustard on it, sometimes some chili and cheese, sometimes some jalapeños, maybe some onions. Okay... now I’m getting hungry. There’s very little I won’t put on a hot dog, okay?

But yeah, most of the time that he’s taking out the bad guys, it’s these random scenes where people are trying to take him out because earlier in the film he accidentally spooked a crime boss into a heart attack. It’s very random and not connected to anything other than kicking the story into gear for him to investigate a smaller homicide, which turns into this serial killing vigilante plot. So, throughout the movie, while Sondra Locke is doing her thing, Dirty Harry low-key is also avoiding being murdered by multiple people. I feel like this is just to keep the action going, and it works, but it’s a little bit of uneven storytelling.

Overall, this is one of the funner Eastwood films I’ve seen throughout this experience. Out of the ten that I’ve seen so far from the total of forty I will be watching, I have this as my third best. It was that entertaining for me, but it’s still an imperfect film at the end of the day.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 36/50 (72%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 37/50 (74%)

• Overall Total Score: 73/100 (73% or 3.5/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along with my journey through Clint Eastwood’s directed films. I really don’t know what to make of Honkytonk Man. On one hand, it seems to be made just in order to give Eastwood an excuse to star alongside his son for a fun little roadtrip movie. On the other hand, this was the first time Eastwood directed a movie where he starred as, as he put it, a loser that has no interest in winning... which is something he’d go onto do a lot moreso in his later years, but this was his first foray into doing it, but obviously it wasn’t taken amazingly well at the box office, as this film was a flop. In general, most movie rating websites have it rated somewhere along the lines of 6 out of 10, which isn’t great... but also isn’t terrible and mostly smack dab in the middle. There’s a reason the internet provides for people’s disdain of the film: expectations. People expected a Clint Eastwood movie to feature his typical tough guy exterior who has a penchant to kick tail and take names... but not so much here. His son is probably more of a main character than Eastwood at the end of the day.

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Pacing-wise, the film is at least partially considered a western, and I wouldn’t say cowboys and indians western, but I would say structurally, it’s definitely western. What I mean by that is I’m beginning to realize how these movies play out and ultimately why I’ve avoided them for years. Westerns are mostly episodic in plot. While this film has an overarching story goal to get to Nashville, there’s a lot of mini goals along the way. Lots of places they stop, and like I said before, shenanigans occur with a very broad reason behind it. For instance, a lot of their stops have something to do with trying to make money, so they act like criminals here and there to get just enough money to get to the next stop, and these play out like episodes... the problem is there’s no real rhyme or reason. They could do ANYTHING to get to the next stop. They could do ANYTHING to get that money and nobody would really bat an eye. Whereas, other roadtrip or adventure films would lay it all out before they hit the road... we need to stop here for A, so we can get to this place for B in order for us to finally get to C... so on and so forth. This provides a film with purpose, but that’s not what this film does. Again, random shenanigans. Some are silly, some are more heartfelt, but most feel random. So, what I ended up feeling with this film is that it’s mundane. It’s slow. It’s boring, and most importantly... it feels aimless and purposeless. I can deal with a slow film as long as we understand the reasons behind what they’re doing, and are on the journey with them. I understand what he’s doing... he’s got TB and he wants to sing at the Grand Ole Opry. Great in theory, and if they really honed in on that TB stuff, lessen the comedic charm of the film and made it a drama, and provided significant, deep purpose to every stop they made... I think the film could have been phenomenal. Instead, the film is a tad too long, which only worsens the experience overall.

Now, it’s not all bad by any means. There is solid chemistry between Eastwood and his boy, obviously, and Eastwood did all of his actual singing in the film as well, which is a level of dedication that’s not as dangerous as what he did in The Eiger Sanction, but still respectable. The dialogue and script of the film is all pretty solid overall and everyone mostly gave it their all.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 34/50 or 68%

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 24/50 or 48%

• Total Combined Score: 58/100 or 58% or 3/5 on Letterboxd

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I chose this film for the next part of my 52-Week Movie Challenge under the prompt for Week 11: A Western Starring Kevin Costner. Up to this point, I haven’t really loved Westerns, so to say I was apprehensive about this film in particular is putting it lightly. But what’s a challenge without, you know, challenges? Kevin Costner is often found in this genre, just like Clint Eastwood is, but he plays a character who is arguably more human than Eastwood’s rough and rugged tough-guy exterior... which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

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When thinking about Costner and Westerns, I think a lot of people probably think of Dances with Wolves as his golden standard, but I wasn’t about to watch that three-hour film. I’m pretty sure I saw it when I was in school, and I also remember hating it. 25 years later, I’ll admit I might love it at this point, but I’m not ready to take that dive just yet. Instead, I chose Open Range, which was more traditional in terms of Western films than Dances with Wolves. We got the cowboys herding their animals across the land, and you know what? That works for me.

You know what else, though? I really liked the movie. As a complete shock to the system... I didn’t hate the movie, nor was I ever bored by it. I can finally say I like a Western movie that isn’t Back to the Future Part III.

From the very start, you get some beautiful, wide-sweeping cinematography of the open country, and we get a good idea of what Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, and their group are doing. They are free-grazing, which was a term I personally was never really familiar with before watching this movie. I know... gotta brush up on American history! But it was essentially where, before the whole world was split up by fences and property lines, a mass majority of the country was government-owned and public. So instead of keeping animals secluded in one area, they would literally live on the road, herding their cattle across these wide-open spaces, allowing them to eat and drink naturally from the land.

Eventually, though, this was a practice that ended with the help of things like barbed wire and property lines. But before that happened, there were people who hated free grazers and thought of them as stealing from their land... even though it’s public. That’s what this movie is essentially about. You have a land baron whose hatred is so extreme he is willing to kill, and then you have this war that breaks out between two different ways of living. It’s not even that farfetched to think about. The greedy elite who often think only about themselves, try to control everything, and don’t care who they hurt along the way? Sound familiar?

So, we have a believable story, believable characters, and some really great practical set designs. They literally built this town from the ground up for this movie. We’re not talking front-facing facades... we are talking about actual structures you can walk into for the movie to feel that much more authentic. Before shooting, they also allowed the town to get weathered and dirty, again to authentically feel like the Old West. There are also foundational structural fallacies in the town that are destroyed by bad weather, which, as I understand it, was accurate as well. All of this movie, or a big chunk of it, was budgeted out of Costner’s own wallet. Yeah, he used his own money to make this thing. That’s how much he believed in it.

You also have characters that, for the most part, you love. They feel like family. In a big way, they are family, even though they don’t know that much about each other other than that they work together really well and care about each other. That is why, when their kind is murdered by these terrible townsfolk, they don’t just shrug their shoulders and move on to the next place. They believe in getting justice for their family... and it’s an important distinction between justice and vengeance, because that’s a thin, fragile line that is often almost crossed in this film.

However, I’ll admit, there were elements I don’t think fully work all of the time in the movie. The biggest negative for me was probably the chemistry between Kevin Costner’s character and the doctor’s sister, Sue. This was a storyline introduced in the film that I don’t think really worked that well, and the chemistry, for the most part... felt forced. Even a kiss toward the end felt like Annette Bening, who played Sue, didn’t fully want to kiss Costner, but it was in the script, so she just went along with it. It was weird. It was a small moment, though... after all of the rest of the film worked as well as it did, so I’m not going to complain too much about it, other than to say the movie probably would have worked a whole lot better without that substory.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 42/50 (84%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 41/50 (82%)

• Total Combined Score: 83/100 (83% or 4/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along on my journey through these Lethal Weapon movies, this second film was one that I simultaneously didn’t remember much of, yet praise for being more in line with what I personally consider the franchise to be all about... right in the sweet spot of a balance between something grounded and serious versus something silly and over the top. For instance, Mel Gibson’s Riggs in the first film was nuts, but his craziness was linked a lot more to depression and suicidal tendencies. He had no fear because he just didn’t care. Well, they fixed that more or less by the end of that movie, so what you have here is... well, you still have to have a crazy Riggs or else it’s not Lethal Weapon, but you have to explain it in a way that makes sense. For Lethal Weapon 2, his persona is a lot more comparable to Tony Stark in Iron Man, where both are nuts, a little bit wild, and intermittently crack jokes. Also, they added a characteristic for Riggs in this film that ends up being a staple for his character: when you think about his shoulder dislocating, you almost always think of Mel Gibson first. That’s such a gimmick, and they play into it in every movie after the first.

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Narratively, I also slightly prefer this film’s story over the original. The first movie was kind of all over the place... it was basically “drug dealers are bad, people are corrupt, but look at the hijinks of Murtaugh and Riggs, they’re great together.” If you really sat down and thought about the story of the first movie, you’d realize it really is kind of scattered, while the story of this film is a lot more linear and makes more sense. However, it does dip its toes into logical fallacies, sacrificing realism for the coolness factor.

What do I mean by this? Diplomatic immunity, brothers and sisters. This idea that these foreign nationals can do literally whatever they want, including kidnap, murder, and whatever else, and the US can’t touch them legally. I love this concept, and even in 2026, there aren’t a lot of movies or TV series that really touch it. But it really is a silly concept when you think about all of the logistics involved. For instance, you don’t get diplomatic immunity unless you’re in Washington, D.C. There are consulates in other cities, such as LA, but at that point, you’re only going to get something called consular immunity, which only covers actions performed as part of official job duties. I promise you, kidnap, murder, and smuggling drug money are not officially in their job description. Secondly, even if the movie took place in Washington, D.C., the host country would declare the criminal persona non grata... otherwise known as unwelcome... and expel them. But I have to admit, the idea is pretty awesome.

There are also some really fun moments in the film outside of that core plot. Joe Pesci is always fun in pretty much everything he’s in, and he has great chemistry with the two leads. The toilet bomb scene is iconic. So iconic, in fact, that MythBusters tested what they did in that scene and decided everything shown in the movie was... plausible. Which was crazy, because the entire setup almost plays out like Indiana Jones nuking a fridge.

I would have to argue that the film definitely focuses much more on Mel Gibson’s Riggs than Danny Glover’s Murtaugh. The scenes with both of them are great, and I actually love one of Glover’s only scenes without Mel Gibson where he’s playing a Black man trying to move to South Africa and they tell him he can’t do that. He asks why, and they’re like, “Well... because you’re Black.” That was great. But yeah, Riggs gets much more focus than Murtaugh. Even with the love interest storyline... I didn’t care that much about it. The idea is that we have to get Riggs past the storyline about his wife dying in a car wreck, since that was the reason he was depressed in the first movie. Well, we dealt with the depression, but we didn’t deal with his inability to move on yet, so that’s what this part of the movie was all about. Fine... whatever... but it’s the main thing that I think drags the film down a fair amount.

• Technical/Unbiased Score: 39/50 (78%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 41/50 (82%)

• Total Combined Score: 80/100 (80% or 4/5 on Letterboxd)

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Moving right along on my watch-a-thon of Clint Eastwood-directed films, we are now traveling into Cold War spy territory, which I find really interesting. I feel like I used to look at the Cold War and its spies as boring, but it really was a crazy time in our history. I’m beginning to appreciate the era more and more, and thrusting Clint Eastwood undercover into the Soviet Union to steal a stealth plane actually sounds like a lot of fun... and it is.

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I need to stop looking at the critical reception for these movies because my experience rarely lines up with them. For instance, The Outlaw Josey Wales is supposed to be some kind of masterpiece of Western cinema, and I just found that to be... fine. In general, the critical reception for Firefox is honestly not that great. Rotten Tomatoes has it sitting at around 40% rotten or something, but honestly, I had a lot of fun with this one. I recognize that, yes... it has some serious logical fallacies, but they are fallacies you ultimately forgive because it’s Clint Eastwood doing his thing.

So, let’s first talk about the stealth jet aspect of the film. This movie was released nearly a decade before the government officially revealed to the public that we had stealth capabilities for our military aircraft. Technically, it was also released right around the time real stealth jets were being tested for the very first time under total secrecy. Firefox was the first movie to really show a stealth plane in a film that was at least halfway based in science rather than pure science fiction, like Star Trek or Wonder Woman’s invisible plane. All of that is great.

The aspect in the movie that is very science-fiction, however, is that all you have to do is think to control the plane and shoot missiles. I don’t know why they included that... maybe to cement the idea that it’s such futuristic tech. And you can’t just think in general; you have to think... in Russian. That is why they need Clint Eastwood’s character: because he can speak Russian.

Clint Eastwood’s character is introduced as someone with, essentially, PTSD from the Vietnam War. Right off the bat, they are at least attempting to provide his character with some depth and development. This PTSD follows him every step of the way and actually gets him into some really precarious positions, so I did appreciate that. But the more you actually THINK about what this movie is about, the more you have to have a good laugh.

Smuggling someone like Clint Eastwood into Russia to steal a Soviet Union plane is one thing, but doing it because he speaks Russian is about as believable as Brad Pitt’s Italian in Inglourious Basterds. He doesn’t even attempt an accent, and for the most part, he doesn’t even attempt to speak the language! He speaks English 99.99999% of the time. Even when he’s in the plane and he’s supposed to be controlling it with Russian thoughts, he’s speaking English. He’d be caught so fast in real life. But again, this IS Clint Eastwood, and the things you look past and forgive in the film really come down to how much you like him as an actor... and I’ll admit it does work. Like I said in the beginning, though... you have to suspend your disbelief to get into what the film is trying to do, because it IS silly and nonsensical. However... it IS fun.

Now, at least half of the film takes place after Clint gets into the plane and is dodging all of these attacks from the enemy. That’s cool in theory, but obviously in 1982, we had a real lack of ability when it came to making flights like this look... real? You can clearly tell what’s composite-generated and digitally placed over a video of clouds and all this. Again, more silliness, but this is the stuff I found more difficult to actually forgive because it pulled me right out of the experience. I don’t think half of the film should have been dedicated to this. I think this sequence should have been... 15 to 20 minutes tops, not an hour. So, pacing-wise, I do think it struggles a bit once this happens. That’s unfortunate, because I feel like what they were going for was to make THIS part of the movie the most exciting, and it just wasn’t.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 33/50 (66%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 35/50 (70%)

• Total Combined Score: 68/100 (68%) | Letterboxd: 3.5/5

Identical Twin Score: The Eiger Sanction (another Eastwood film sharing the exact same biased, unbiased, and total score).

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Moving right along on my Clint Eastwood watch-a-thon journey, we have crossed into the ‘80s... the land and the decade of the strange, and Bronco Billy is no exception. This film is... odd. What we have here is a contemporary Western, so it’s not the usual setup you get with Eastwood and cowboys in the Old West. Technically, this is set in the modern day... well, 40 years ago, but still... and you have Eastwood and his group acting essentially as a traveling circus... and that’s the movie.

I mean, at the end of the day, why do we join circuses? At least, what was the excuse people made to join circuses back when that was popular? It was to start over, right? Start anew, wipe the slate clean. It was about how our lives prior to the circus are irrelevant, how the past is the past, and how important following your dreams ultimately is. That’s what all of these characters represent, especially Sondra Locke, and it’s about finding a family in these weirdos who just kind of do what they want to do.

There’s really not much more to this film than that. I have no idea how it is nearly two hours long when there’s very little substance to be found. The whole thing actually feels five hours long because it is so repetitive and... dare I say... boring. I also have no idea how or why Clint Eastwood made this thing, nor why he chose to star in it. There are so many choices going on here that baffle me beyond belief. Are the performances bad? No, but they are definitely very average and forgettable. Is the story good at least? No, the story and direction are kind of aimless overall. This was a story that makes more sense as a short film than a full-length feature, let alone a two-hour one.

I almost want to say they made the movie because Sondra Locke wanted to make it. After all, she’s even publicly stated this was the favorite film that she and Eastwood made together. At the time, they were in the middle of a heated affair... one of Eastwood’s many affairs. The dude was an unapologetic serial cheater, I’ve come to learn.

But yeah, at the end of the day, I really don’t have much to say about the movie. For the most part, I felt disinterested in it right from the get-go. I didn’t care about the characters, and I didn’t feel as if they had enough depth or development. I feel like it wanted to be a lighter film that made some tongue-in-cheek jokes about Eastwood’s own career... like if The Gauntlet was making fun of his tough-guy cop movies, Bronco Billy was making fun of his tough-guy cowboy movies. But it wasn’t as interesting as The Gauntlet, which, by the way, I didn’t think was all that fantastic of a movie either.

This is just a lose-lose type of film. I knew at some point the other shoe would drop with Eastwood and I’d eventually run into some movies I wasn’t a big fan of, but I am surprised to see one this early in his career.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 20/50 (40%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 19/50 (38%)

• Total Combined Score: 39/100 (39% or 2/5 on Letterboxd)

The Impossible was a disaster drama film that was released in 2012, directed by J. A. Bayona, written by Sergio G. Sánchez, and starring Naomi Watts as Maria, Ewan McGregor as Henry, and Tom Holland as Lucas. It is ultimately about a family chillin’ on a Christmas vacation in Thailand who get completely wrecked when a massive tsunami smashes right through their resort, tearing them apart and leaving the badly injured mom and her oldest boy to hike through the mud and wreckage while the dad goes on a desperate, chaotic search through crowded hospitals and ruined villages to find out if they are even still alive.

I chose this film to be the next part of my 52-WEEK MOVIE CHALLENGE under the prompt for WEEK 10: A DRAMA STARRING TOM HOLLAND. For this challenge, it was between three different films for me, but I ultimately landed on his very first feature debut, actually. The Impossible is often touted as one of Tom Holland’s best dramatic performances in general, and it’s also where he got his start. A fun factoid for ya... early on in the film, before the madness begins, we do get to see Tom Holland do a backflip on a beach, because of course we do.

But how is the film? It’s decent. It’s based on a true story about an actual tsunami that struck Thailand in 2004 and killed nearly a quarter of a million people across 14 countries, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. This thing is absolutely devastating, so it’s no surprise when disaster strikes in this film as well, it is rough. In fact, they could only shoot the opening strike once because it would be too expensive to build the set again to destroy.

This scene is… everything. This is ultimately what got people into their seats to watch the movie, and it is just so honest in its brutality and destruction. It’s equally hard to watch and to look away from at the same time.

Now, I had to sit on the rest of the movie and think about what this thing was about, because it’s not your typical action disaster film. It might open up like that, but the rest of the film is much more about survival, hope, and love against all odds, making a big chunk of the film dramatic, emotional, and a tearjerker for a lot of people. Choosing this as the dramatic Tom Holland movie was definitely the right choice, as we really do get to see some of his best performances ever, especially as a 14-year-old. He is very young in this... which is funny because this is around the same age he’s supposed to be in Captain America: Civil War, which is hilarious.

But yeah, everyone here does do a really great job in their performances. I personally bought that everyone here, including Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Holland, were actually experiencing something, as the title suggests, impossible. Where they are torn apart, not knowing if they’ll ever see each other again, or if they’re even alive. It’s a terrifying thought and I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. The only actors that I didn’t believe, and thankfully there’s not much screen time with them, are the two youngest brothers. They seem like they’re just carrying on, having a grand old time while everyone is dying around them. Noooo problem.

I’ll tell you a couple of problems that I had with it though. First of all, I decided to watch a trailer to this before I saw it. Big mistake. I almost never watch trailers anymore because of what trailers like this do... and that is, this trailer doesn’t say much, but it shows everything. It spoils literally the entire story. Who lives, who dies, who reunites, who doesn’t. Everything. Whoever was in charge of putting together that trailer did not understand the assignment.

Other than that, I would just say don’t go into this movie expecting a big action disaster film, because I feel like some marketing might point you in that direction, but that’s not what the movie is. After the first 20 or 30 minutes or so, the film slows down almost to a complete halt for the rest of the runtime, as these people scramble to put their lives back together and figure out what it is they have to do now. This part of the film might have audiences struggling to see past repetition and pacing, and it definitely had me in the same spot here and there. I don’t think the pacing is perfect. I also think the film thinks it’s more emotionally resonating than it is, at least for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like to fight back tears a little bit while watching something like this, but for whatever reason, this didn’t get me that way at all. Whenever you watch an “emotional” film that you’re not vibing with, the experience isn’t going to be as great as others who are vibing with it.

I think it’s important to note, however, the look and sound of the film is spectacular. Practical effects, set designs, hair and makeup making these people look bruised, dirty, and dying is astounding. The sound editing as well is equally as strong, making it so if you close your eyes during these frightening moments, it’s still equally as tense and edge-of-your-seat, especially during the first half hour.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 39/50 (78%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 35/50 (70%)

• Total Overall Score: 74/100 (74% or 3.5/5 on Letterboxd)

Identical Twin score (same unbiased and biased scores): The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

So, it’s been years... years since I last saw this franchise, so I’m really excited to dig back in. Not too long ago, though, these characters were revamped for a Lethal Weapon TV series that lasted three years on Fox. It only really ended because they fired Riggs from his own TV show and had Murtaugh team up with someone else... apparently you don’t understand what Lethal Weapon is.

Anyway, I did like the show okay, but the films are often deemed the birth of the modern-day buddy cop film. There were films before this, but this movie kind of defined what buddy cop movies are supposed to be from here on out. You can’t really do that without the genius chemistry between Gibson and Glover, who are just magnetic together. They are funny, they’ve got each other’s backs, and there’s this great dichotomy between one who is absolutely banana sandwich crazy and one who is simply too old for this [bleep]. It’s just a fantastic pairing.

While they are both great, I do think that Mel Gibson is the MVP here. He’s got to be. He has the most character development and is the most layered out of the two of them. On the surface, he really is a fearless, crazy cop who will do everything and anything to get the job done, and nobody can trust him for it. But we learn why he is the way he is. We learn that he’s suicidal on a daily basis because of the death of his wife when he breaks down and explains it to Murtaugh. That is when we get the switch almost immediately from a partner who can’t find trust to someone who cares deeply for their partner, invites him over for dinner, and by all accounts... are brothers. It’s crazy how quick that happens, but it also feels really organic, natural, and honest. It’s a big reason why this movie works as well as it does.

Past that, this film has pretty much everything you want out of it, especially if you’re a guy. It’s got the action, which is actually really solid. It’s got the laughs, it’s got the heart, and it’s got the cast to carry it through.

If I had one main complaint about the film, it would actually be more about the story. I loved the introduction: we have a mystery where a woman who is alone in her apartment stands up, strolls to her balcony, and jumps to her death... which we later learn was a murder because she was drugged and was going to die anyway. Very cool set up. But the reason why this death happened is loosey-goosey to me. There’s way too many moving parts. It’s connected to a lady whose house blows up, which is connected to a drug ring, which is connected to connections to higher-level people... there’s all these different people and all these different locations that they keep going back to multiple times, so the why of it all kind of gets lost in the narrative. They definitely cared much more about you caring about these characters than the story at hand.

Apart from all that, did you know this was a Christmas action film? Yeah, it was. One year before Die Hard came out and took that mantle, this film was doing the exact same thing. All this death, explosions, violence, action, and wise-cracking jokes... but in Lethal Weapon instead.

I’ve always maintained Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie, but you know what? I’ll say it: I think Lethal Weapon IS. There’s much more Christmas spirit in this one, much more music, decorations... all that. So if Die Hard was like... 20% Christmas and 80% action, Lethal Weapon is more like... 35% Christmas and 65% action. I said it. Neither are full-blown Christmas movies, but this is definitely MORE of a Christmas movie than Die Hard. Plus, Bruce Willis even said Die Hard wasn’t a Christmas movie. Let’s not forget that.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 38/50 (76%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 43/50 (86%)

• Total Combined Score: 81/100 (81% or 4/5 on Letterboxd)

“It has some of the most exaggerated use of gunfire in a movie I’ve ever seen. An entire house is flattened like a pancake after bullets riddle it... and you’re left wondering where the heck they got all those bullets.”

Moving right along on my Clint Eastwood directed-films marathon, this one... is interesting. That’s the best way to put it. It’s interesting.

You know how ridiculous the action is in Last Action Hero, where it’s almost cartoony in nature? That’s more or less what you get in The Gauntlet, minus the meta elements. A majority of the weirdness that makes The Gauntlet so hilarious is the use of guns. I’ve heard of never-ending ammunition before, but my god. Thousands of rounds of ammunition. They don’t stop shooting for anything. This film features some of the most exaggerated gunfire I’ve ever seen in a movie. They level a house. An entire house is flattened like a pancake after bullets riddle it... and that’s not an isolated incident. There are at least three or four different times where this happens, leaving you wondering where on earth they got all those bullets.

There also seems to be a debate online over whether this film was meant to be a comedy. Officially, sites like IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes list it strictly as an action crime thriller. However, unofficial coverage often argues the film was 110% intended as a satirical, tongue-in-cheek comedy... almost poking fun at Clint Eastwood’s own career up to that point. Typically, you’d get his gritty, no-nonsense hero rescuing damsels in distress. Here, you get the exact opposite: a down-on-his-luck, somewhat stupid drunk who couldn’t save himself from the flu, let alone anyone else. In fact, it’s the woman who is smarter and constantly saves him from the madness around them. To me, it feels like a spiritual precursor to Last Action Hero, except that movie was much more in-your-face and unapologetic about its tone. There was no question about its intent.

I think my main issue with The Gauntlet is that I’m constantly left wondering whether it’s actually meant to be funny.

Now, as a directorial note, this marks another first for Eastwood: it is the very first cop movie he ever directed. He would go on to direct several others later in his career, some of which are highly revered as his best work, but this was his first outing with the genre.

Narratively, the setup is as simple as it gets. It’s a movie about escorting a witness to a trial while a mountain of chaos happens on the road to stop them. Is it much more than that? Nope. Have we seen plenty of other movies follow those exact same beats? Sure, though maybe not as extravagantly or over-the-top as this.

The biggest question is... why should we care? That’s the hardest question for me to answer. It’s hardly a terrible film, and it’s enjoyable enough. If you look at it as a comedy, there’s plenty to laugh at and have a good time with, especially if you’re an Eastwood completist. But for a casual viewer who randomly stumbles across it? I don’t know if they’d get nearly as much out of it.

What this film really needed was a clear acknowledgment of its own humor. It needed to fully embrace the silliness and officially categorize itself as a comedy. One of the main reasons I doubt it was originally intended as one is that Clint Eastwood publicly stated he believed Sondra Locke wouldn’t just be nominated for an Oscar for her performance, but that she would win Best Actress. She wasn’t even nominated. If this had been pitched as a self-aware comedy, I just don’t see him making a statement like that.

• Technical / Unbiased Score: 29/50 (58%)

• Biased / Entertainment Score: 24/50 (48%)

• Total Combined Score: 53/100 (53% | 2.5/5 on Letterboxd)

So, I’m moving right along in my journey through all of Clint Eastwood’s directed films. The Outlaw Josey Wales is yet another one of his films that I’d never heard of before. As far as I understand it, this is supposed to be a masterpiece within the Western genre. Westerns aren’t really my forte... cowboys, Native Americans... I don’t think there’s ever been a Western where I’ve sat down and said, “You know what, I love this movie.” The closest might be Back to the Future Part III, if that even counts, and even so, I still think that third movie is the weakest of the trilogy. Wait, no, I know: Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. Those are solid Westerns. However, take that with a grain of salt, because the biggest Western movies ever made... I’ve never seen. So... it is what it is.

How about this Josey Wales story? Is it truly a masterpiece?

Hard to say. As this film is from the late ‘70s, I’m not sure what people considered Western masterpieces back then, but I guess the movie is fine. From my perspective, it is a pretty solid example of what I imagine when I think of a Western film, at least visually. Clint Eastwood kicks butt. He’s imposing, but personally, if the film came out today, I just have a hard time believing folks would call it a masterpiece.

It has an issue with pacing. The film kicks things off right away with the murder of Clint Eastwood’s wife and child. It is brutal, he has no control over the situation, and there’s a lot of emotion there. It kicks off the vengeance story perfectly. The first act here... I actually love it. From there, it goes into a bit of a Civil War montage depicting Eastwood’s rise to legendary status before he goes on the run as an outlaw. Still good. Still good.

From there, though, we head into the second act of the film, where Clint is on his own... which feels appropriate for a Western cowboy film. No notes, really. However, this is where the movie starts to do... strange things, in my opinion.

In a strange way, the film starts to feel episodic in nature. It feels like a television series where each episode Eastwood’s character runs into yet another damsel in distress experiencing some sort of hardship that he feels obligated to help with. This could be a TV show. Damsel of the week, right?

I like the general idea that this is him building this ragtag team together, and the overall concept that they’re all very different types of people who, in several different ways, remind him what he has to live for after his family died. There’s heart there. I definitely respect it for that.

I try my best to watch a movie from this time period and think about what it was like for the audiences of the time, especially for fans of the genre. It’s hard for me to compare, since I haven’t seen the best Western movies out there. But for me, this was a film where I liked the idea and the overall message of what they were going for, but something about the pacing just rubs me the wrong way.

It’s not a terrible film, but I can’t help but feel bored here and there throughout it, and so far, that’s been kind of a running theme with these Eastwood films. Every non-Western film of his that I’ve covered, I’ve enjoyed immensely. Truly. Some of them I love, and most of them I consider hidden gems. But my experience watching High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales, his first two directed Western films... have been the experiences where I’ve struggled the most to get into them. That’s where my bias outshines everything else.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 30/50 (60%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 20/50 (40%)

• Total Combined Score: 50/100 (50% or 2.5/5 on Letterboxd)

52-WEEK MOVIE CHALLEGE #9 - A FILM WITH A HEIST & FAST DRIVING

A prompt like that immediately makes me think of the Fast & Furious saga, right? Or maybe Gone in 60 Seconds, but those are all movies I’ve seen in the past. As usual, I like to stick to films I’ve never seen before for these challenges, which led me to either the original or the remake of The Italian Job. I’ve seen neither, believe it or not, and I opted for the remake based solely on the cast, which is insane: Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def, and Donald Sutherland.

It’s stacked, and what’s more, I mostly felt their characters here. They actually felt right for their respective roles rather than just feeling like they’re there based on their star power alone. That’s good, and it reminds me a ton of The Fast and the Furious.

This film has so much Fast & Furious spirit in it that it even features a couple of the latter’s cast members before they joined Vin Diesel’s family... primarily Jason Statham and Charlize Theron. But just as a whole, thematically, this film feels like Fast & Furious, especially Fast Five and beyond, where it’s got the high-stakes heist stuff alongside some truly ridiculous car action. I love that the cars they trick out are these super colorful, tiny Mini Coopers carrying out all of these heists with precision and flair. Personally, I love a good heist film, and the way The Italian Job wrote and planned out the central heist was pretty smart. The fact that everything about these gold bars is kind of silly and old-school fits the overall vibe of the film.

One thing that really bugs me, though, is that I almost want to say we have some false marketing here. The movie is called what? The Italian Job. And where does the movie actually take place? Hollywood, California. Not Italy. The original film on which it’s based did, in fact, take place in Italy, but the plot was moved to California for this remake. The initial heist in the first ten minutes of the film takes place in Italy, but that serves more as a gimmick and a reason to keep the title The Italian Job. The real job of the film takes place in Los Angeles... so it would make more sense to call it The Hollywood Job.

This is more of a very light complaint at the end of the day; it doesn’t make the movie better or worse. It’s just kind of an obvious thing. As a 2003 film, you can more or less bet it will feel very specific to that era. 2003 was a unique time in film history for action, and a lot of movies from the first few years of the new millennium felt a particular way. Maybe cringey, maybe tacky... but fun anyway? The Italian Job fits that mold perfectly. They had originally planned a sequel called The Brazilian Job, and I wish they had followed through with it, but it was ultimately scrapped.

Overall, I’m glad I saw this one. I have it pretty high on my ranking for this 52-Week challenge... currently sitting in 3rd or 4th place, just because of how good of a time I had with it.

• Unbiased/Technical Score: 38/50 (76%)

• Biased/Entertainment Score: 44/50 (88%)

• Total/Combined Score: 82/100 (82% or 4/5 stars on Letterboxd)

Hoppers was an animated sci-fi comedy Pixar film that was released in 2026, directed by Daniel Chong, written by Jesse Andrews, and starring Piper Curda as Mabel Tanaka, Jon Hamm as Mayor Jerry Generazzo, and Bobby Moynihan as King George. It is ultimately about a teenage animal lover and environmentalist who uses a crazy, secret technology to upload her brain into a realistic robot beaver so she can secretly talk to animals out in the wild, concocting a crazy plan to save a local forest glade from a greedy mayor trying to bulldoze it for a highway. This goes hilariously off the rails when she accidentally gets crowned by a real beaver king and accidentally incites a massive animal uprising against humans.

For a little while, this was the final Pixar film that I had yet to watch, as I’d seen everything else Pixar had done... and then Toy Story 5 came out, so now that is the only remaining Pixar film I have yet to watch. I’ll get there. I’ll get there.

But Hoppers is one of the few Pixar movies that I swear I saw like... next to no marketing for. It just kinda... hopped in out of nowhere. Without knowing anything about it, I dove into the film expecting some kind of Easter Bunny movie. But no, we’re talking beavers.

The next thing I wondered was if this was a really young crowd type of Pixar movie, like The Good Dinosaur. Maybe it was an all-animal type of movie with no people, but no... we have people for sure. So, the plot of this film was a nice surprise. We’re talking Avatar, right? They even make an Avatar joke and reference in the film saying, “THIS IS NOTHING LIKE AVATAR,” except... it is. At least the uploading of your brain into a literal secondary creature to gain the trust of those creatures... I mean... I’m not blind to it.

But yeah, the main plot of the film on every movie website says this girl is an animal lover. I’m not saying she isn’t... but it’s a little misleading, as it’s much more about nature with her. Yes, she tries to save a few class pets as a kid in the beginning of the movie, but after she moves in with her grandmother, her thing was basically going out to a pond, sitting on a rock, and being quiet. Just to let Mother Nature do her thing. Listen to the colors of the wind, basically. Close your eyes. Reset your brain, basically.

Then she gets really upset when the guy comes in trying to build a highway over her nature site... but it didn’t scream she’s mad because it made the animals run away... it screams she is mad because this was her grandma’s spot. This is where she goes to listen to nature, and now she can’t anymore. So, I won’t say animal lover; I say environmentalist. I know it’s a weird nitpick... but that feels more appropriate.

Past that, you have a story that is just silly, fun, and cute. It made me chuckle at a few parts here and there, especially with how silly it is. I love how she accidentally put the animals on a warpath to planning out squishing the human king, aka the mayor of the city. I was like, how are these animals going to squish a human? And then the birds lifted the giant shark out of the water and I was like... whaaaaat? That’s not realistic.

I think I’m too far gone with kids’ movies and far too logical about what I’m watching. After that, I just had to shut off my critiquing brain and accept it for what it was, and I had a good enough time with it. These characters are fun, relatable, and the message at the heart of the film is ultimately about being wary of our actions and how they affect others, especially when it comes to nature and animal rights... pretty much spot-on with a Pixar movie, I’d say.

• Unbiased / Technical Score: 40/50 (80%)

• Biased / Entertainment Score: 37/50 (74%)

• Total Combined Score: 77/100 (77%)

• Letterboxd Rating: 4/5