I Am The Wiz Film Club

This is it: The Top Ten First Watches of 2024! Thanks all for listening to the podcast! Moving forward, reviews will be exclusively on YouTube but I will be working on what I will do on the feed, possibly a weekly podcast rounding up what I reviewed and other things I'd like to talk about. Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a great 2025!

Wiz RECOMMENDS Holiday Inn ...But It's Not A Christmas Movie I came into Holiday Inn under the pretense of "I watched White Christmas last year and liked it...and this is a remake of Holiday Inn ...so I'll watch Holiday Inn to compare the two!" Well...there's a few problems with this mode of thinking. FIrst: White Christmas is a loose remake of Holiday Inn ...and loose is the key word here. The on...

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND Three Days of the Condor Sometimes you watch a movie and you just enjoy it even though there are glaring issues with the finished product. This was my exact feeling finishing Three Days of the Condor , Sydney Pollack's paranoia thriller about a CIA reader (Robert Redford) who comes back from lunch finding his entire team assassinated. The movie is actually entertaining: it's...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Tangerine I've heard about Tangerine for nearly a decade now. But there's a few things that get mentioned about the film whenever I hear about it: it's about transsexual sex workers and it was shot on three iPhone 5s'. But unless you pay real close attention (and I mean REAL CLOSE ATTENTION) you won't be able to tell. Tangerine takes the seedy, grimy L.A. setting and gives it a vivi...

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (But You Should Probably See It Anyway) I may struggle to convey how odd Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is. This Finnish genre blender incorporates a whole load of genre and film sensibilities: It's a dark, brooding thriller that slowly boils up the tension It's a grim-dark like fantasy It's a children's Christmas movie It's an at times violent...

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND Edward Scissorhands Combining a gothic horror monster with a 1950s aesthetic and sensibility, Edward Scissorhands takes this odd mash-up and turns it into an allegorical story on being an outsider and the vapidness of suburban life. Edward has Johnny Depp as the title character who's scarred face, leather and buckle attire hides a very child-like, mousey demeanor. The charac...

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Arthur Christmas I understand to a certain extent that critics overrate movies for kids to a certain extent. The reason why is simple: how are they going to review something meant for kids through a kids perspective? They can't. For the most part, it feels like they review those movies based on how painful it will be for the adult watching it with them. But honestly, it feel...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Klaus For the first thirty minutes of Klaus , I had the most acute sense of deja vu: did the filmmakers seriously just copy/paste The Emperor's New Groove from the main character to the humor? Honestly, it sure as hell felt like it: Jesper can easily be a stand-in for Kusco with his smarmy, rude sense of humor that might as well have been David Spade. The only difference is that in...

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND In Bruges Part pulpy crime story, part morality play with a crass, blackened humorist tinge, In Bruges is a film that is a hilariously dark with a surprisingly sweet aftertaste. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson carry a curse-laden, non politically correct yarn about two hit men waiting for their next assignment while they discuss what happened in the last contract. The film...

Wiz RECOMMENDS "Spencer" To be honest, I was conflicted after watching Spencer . On the one hand, the biopic is chock full of formulaic crap that highlights performances that are little more than good mimicry than anything that lets you see the heart and soul of the person it's about. For every brilliant movie like I'm Not There , Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters and Malcolm X , there's a crap ton...

This is it: After watching all 13 Star Trek films, here are Wiz's thoughts on the Star Trek film series.

Wiz RECOMMENDS Hannah and Her Sisters Like a lot of Woody Allen’s films, its feature is more about the dialogue and actors than anything Allen can do behind the character. This is certainly the case with Hannah and Her Sisters , an at times hilarious film about the lives of upper crust sisters and the people in their lives. Some of the characters in this film are hilariously written and performed....

Wiz RECOMMENDS Monkey Man Monkey Man is a film that makes critical rookie mistakes. It expands when it should retract. It pulls punches when it should have hit hard. It strives for ambition when it should have kept things to the fundamentals. Dev Patel's revenge thriller about a man named "Kid" who gets into a sinister organization to find a way to murder the people who killed his mother should ha...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Mad Max: Fury Road took the film world by storm with it's amazing visuals and mind-bending stunts. It's an action film that, to this day, seems to hold a special place in action film fans hearts. And I agreed: the stunt work, visuals and it's breakneck pace in action gave it a breathless, if not mindless, adrenaline rush. Furiosa: A Mad Max Tale has a lot of...

Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND The Fall Guy It was pretty easy to see what The Fall Guy was trying to emulate to get it's laughs and entertainment: Tropic Thunder . Tropic Thunder got its laughs not only by lampooning the film industry, its vapid stars and celebrity culture, but it also did it by having ridiculous humor that was often vulgar and offensive. It has a biting edge to it that, even to this day...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Star Trek Beyond Whereas the 2009 Reboot and Star Trek Into Darkness made characters one of it's key focuses, Star Trek Beyond decides on a more comfortable, if not safe, route in storytelling. Star Trek Beyond feels much more like a popcorn action flick where the characters and their developments are simple and thin. They basically feel more like The Next Generation movies: the dep...

Zero and Wiz RECOMMEND The Manchurian Candidate This review will be kind of weird. And the reason why is because I watched the 2004 Jonathan Demme remake before I watched this version. So, I will likely compare the two in this review. The film centers its narrative around Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), the stepson of a McCarthy-like U.S. Senator with an intensely controlling mother (Angela Lansbu...

Wiz HIGHLY RECOMMENDS Challengers The marketing for Challengers doesn't begin to actually describe what the movie is truly about. From the trailer to the poster, Luca Guadagnino's tennis drama gives the impression that this was to be a steamy, sultry sex capade with rackets and jealous. Now, there's some of that, but it's really not the biggest story of the film. What the film is really about is a...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Star Trek Into Darkness Star Trek Into Darkness has all of the things that made the reboot film good: it has a great cast with great characters continuing their adventures and arcs in a satisfyingly entertaining film. This goes doubly for Zachary Quinto as Spock, who is furthering the depth of the Vulcan with his struggle between being both Vulcan and Human. The charm and the likabi...

Note: At the end of the episode, Wiz states the next review will be All The King's Men directed by Robert Rossen. Unfortunately, Wiz has a cold and will not be recording an episode with Zero this week. So, next week, Zero and Wiz will review The Manchurian Candidate directed by John Frankenheimer. Sorry about that. Wiz DOES NOT RECOMMEND Thirteen Days Historical films can be a pretty thorny premis...

Wiz HIGHLY RECOMMENDS Star Trek (2009) The reboot of Star Trek was my first experience with the franchise. Not sure exactly what brought me to give it a chance, but I ended up liking the film for it's good action, characters and charm. Nothing special but definitely good. After watching the films based on The Original Series and The Next Generation, I was actually surprised how much more I liked i...

Zero and Wiz DO NOT RECOMMEND The Craft The one surprising thing about The Craft , a 90s teen horror drama that has gone on to be a Halloween teen classic, is how bland and generic a large amount of the movie is. The film mashes a standard high school outsider story with a power mad style morality tale mixed with threadbare teeny bopper fashion and character depth to a concept that, honestly, wasn...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages More of a visual essay than a documentary, Häxan can be best described as a college course that was performed by a theater troupe and directed by the professor. In fact, the film is very academic: it cites sources in the movie while showing pictures like a visual dissertation. Honestly, it this was a film that was made today, it would feel very dry...

Wiz RECOMMENDS Star Trek: Nemesis Honestly, all this movie did was confirm what my suspicions were when I reviewed Star Trek: Generations : These series of films requires you to already be well versed in the characters and their story lines because these films will not bring you up to speed. On top of that, don't expect much in the way of character moving forward whether it's the crew or the villa...

Wiz HIGHLY RECOMMENDS The Boy and the Heron When I originally watched The Boy and the Heron in theaters last year, my feelings on the film were mixed and kind of muddled: The animation was absolutely gorgeous to look at, whether it was in motion or just by looking at the vivid, luscious colorwork that both the real world and the "dream world" inhabit. Also, the music is incredible when it's there,...