Feature Underground

And here's my review of The Naked Gun, starring Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, and Danny Huston. It's directed by Akiva Schaffer and written by Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, and Akiva Schaffer. Hunter addresses the simple question of "is it funny," what makes its stupidity funnier than Adam Sandler's straight-to-Netflix stupidity, and the UFC's g...

And here's my review of Fanastic Four: First Steps. The film is directed by Matt Shakman and written by way too many people. Who held the pencil, who held the paper, and whose back did they use? It stars Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson. Hunter discusses the film's embracing of Jack Kirby's...

And here's my review of Eddington, written and directed by Ari Aster, produced and distributed by A24. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. Hunter discusses how the film satirizes our posturing and signaling in the digital era, which side the film comes down on, Aster's ear for culture war nuances, Death St...

And here's my review of F1 The Movie, written by Ehren Kruger and Joseph Kosinski, directed by Joseph Kosinkski. It stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Javier Bardem. Hunter discusses how film's lack of guts, how it compares to Steve McQueen's Le Mans, and the impressive racing sequences. 0:00 Intro0:44 Risk-Averse Film About the Value of Risk1:55 Steve McQ...

And here's my non-spoiler review of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, directed by Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Angela Bassett. The film follows secret spy guy, Ethan Hunt, as he jumps, swings, falls, and dives. There are plot machinations that aren't important. Hunter discusses how the film loses its campy '60s roots,...

And here's my review of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 character-thriller, High and Low, starring Toshirō Mifune. This is the first entry in the Feature Pantheon series, which will have me revisiting the greatest movies ever made. The film follows a wealthy executive suddenly face with a dilemma: his hard-earned wealth or the life of someone else's child? What follows is a clever police procedu...

And here's my review of Henry Johnson, written and directed by legendary playwright, David Mamet. It stars Evan Jonigkeit, Shia LaBeouf, Chris Bauer, and Dominic Hoffman. Link to the movie: https://henryjohnsonmovie.com/Based on the play of the same name, the film follows the impressionable Henry Johnson -- a walking opportunity in a world of running opportunists. Hunter discusses how the whet...

And here's my non-spoiler review of Warfare, directed by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. It stars D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Joseph Quinn, and Charles Melton. The film follows a platoon of Navy SEALs trying to escape a home while under fire by Iraqi insurgents. Hunter discusses how the film backs up its tagline, the focus...

And here's my non-spoiler review of Black Bag, the newest movie from Steven Soderbergh. It stars Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchette, Regé-Jean Page, Marisa Abela, Naomie Harris, Tom Burke, and Pierce Brosnan. A little bit Mr. and Mrs. Smith and a little bit Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Black Bag ends up being an espionage whodunit. The detective is legendary spy, George Woodhouse, and...

And here's my non-spoiler review of Daredevil: Born Again's first season. The show stars Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Margarita Levieva, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Wilson Bethel, Michael Gandolfini, and Jon Bernthal. Daredevil is back, and now with an all-new supporting cast. Does the show survive the move from Netflix to Disney Plus? What's been gained and what's been...

And here's my non-spoiler review of The Monkey, written and directed by Osgood Perkins, but based on a short story by Stephen King. When we first meet the titular toy, it’s a generational albatross tight around the necks of the Shelburn family (Adam Scott, Tatiana Maslany, and Theo James), though we later get the impression it has nothing personal against the Shelburns. The monkey just has a d...

Three Russ Meyer classics have been restored in 4K and an impending Blu-Ray release is upon us. January 28th, to be precise. These films include Vixen! (1968), Supervixens (1975), and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (1979, co-written by Roger Ebert). Severin Films, responsible for the upcoming release and two of the restorations, was kind enough to send me early copies. One thing led to anot...

To celebrate making it out of 2024 alive, I wanted to do something truly unprecedented: create a list of my favorite movies from the past year. Bear with me, as something like this has never been attempted. 0:00 Intro 1:40 Anora 2:52 The Beast 4:02 The Brutalist 5:10 Coup De Chance 6:06 A Different Man 8:18 Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World 9:50 Drive-Away Dolls 10:42 Furiosa 11:50...

And here's my non-spoiler review of Nosferatu, the latest movie from Robert Eggers, which stars Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, and Willem Dafoe. After a mysterious Count purchases some land in 19th-century Germany, a deeply evil presence casts its shadow on the city. Call him Dracula. Call him Orlok. Just don't call him collect. Transylvania's fa...

And here's my review of A Complete Unknown, the upcoming Bob Dylan movie starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, and Scoot McNairy. The film chronicles Bob Dylan's early days as an artist, from the moment he arrived in New York City to his tumultuous performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. As he evolves as an artist, the public--and those c...

And here's my review of Juror #2, the latest and quite possibly last movie from the legendary Clint Eastwood. It stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Zoey Deutch, and Kiefer Sutherland. After a small theatrical release, it will come out on MAX on December 29th. Juror #2 is a high-concept story, as it centers around a juror in a murder trial who not only knows the defendant to be inno...

And here's my spoiler free review of Gladiator II, directed by Ridley Scott. It stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Pedro Pescal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, and Connie Nielsen. The film finds slave-turned-gladiator, Lucius (Mescal), on a Death Wish campaign to avenge the killing of his wife by Roman general, Acacius (Pescal). He ends up purchased by a former slave, Macrinus (Washington), who...

And here's my review of Heretic, the latest A24 production. It stars Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East. It's directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. We meet two Mormon girls (Thatcher and East) on their uphill assignment of converting complete strangers to an entirely new religion. They're naive, but smart, and easy targets for mockery. When Mr. Reed (Grant) opens the door with a humble...

And here's my review of Anora, the festival sweetheart directed by Sean Baker and starring Mikey Madison. The ending of Anora is discussed at the end of the video in a spoiler section. If you're not already aware, Anora is about a stripper whose ability to speak Russian gets her an admirer in the ambiguously rich Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn). Dressed in her finest pair of jean shorts, Anora marries Va...

And here's my review of Memoir of a Snail, one of my favorite movies of the year so far. It features the voice talents of Sarah Snook, Eric Bana, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, and Nick Cave. It's directed by Adam Elliott, who hasn't directed a movie since 2009's critically acclaimed, Mary and Max. The life of Grace Pudel (Snook) is not a charmed one, but it's not an unusual one either. It's a vo...

Full spoiler-free review of Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow, directed by Edward Berger. Opening in theaters October 25th. After the sudden death of the pope, Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) is chosen to MC the coming conclave, which proves more difficult than he could have ever imagined. He tries to juggle the ticker tape of gossip, scandal, and re...

And here's my review of The Apprentice, the mildly controversial film about Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, directed by Ali Abbasi and starring Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong. Ben Braddocking it up in the wolves den of '70s New York--and the wolves den within the wolves den, which is the upper crust of '70s New York filled with ruthless plutocrats and libertines--the timid Donald Trump doesn't know w...

And here's my review of Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to Todd Philips' acclaimed film from 2019 that won two Academy Awards. This Joker 2 review is brought to you by the French pronunications of Jean Renoir. The film reconvenes with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) as he McMurphys it up at Arkham Asylum, waiting for his murder trial to begin. At Arkham, he goes gaga for Harleen Quinn (Lady Gaga),...

And here's my review of Megalopolis, the first film in over a decade from legendary director, Francis Ford Coppola. The film is a bedtime story of heroes, villains, and fantastical worlds from Grandpa Coppola. Its hero is Cesar (Adam Driver), the imperfect artist who gives people cars when all they ask for is faster horses. Its mayor is Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who represents structure, or...

Deadpool & Wolverine, the latest from the MCU, is the subject of this Feature Underground review. The film follows the titular Super-Bums, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), as they get into all sorts of shenanigans after angering the temporal bureaucrats at TVA (a metaphor for the corporate entities that run these franchises). Hunter discusses the freedom of the R rating,...