Flash Frames

“Some search for battle, others are born into it…” Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti Synopsis: “Bob is a washed-up revolutionary who lives in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter, Willa. When his evil nemesis resurfaces and Willa goes missing, the former radical scrambles to find her as both father and daughter battle the consequences of their pasts.” __________________________________________________ Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson has already cemented himself as one of the go-to directors of this era, and even if you don’t know that name, you’ve at least heard of the movies he’s made. There Will Be Blood , Punch-Drunk Love , Boogie Nights , The Master , Magnolia , Phantom Thread … He’s rarely missed, at least for me. It’s been tough to wrap my head around his latest film, One Battle After Another , and I’ve seen it twice. I gotta...

Caught Stealing (2025) Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Austin Butler, Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Vincent D'Onofrio, Benito Martínez Ocasio, Griffin Dunne, and Carol Kane. Synopsis: Burned-out ex-baseball player Hank Thompson unexpectedly finds himself embroiled in a dangerous struggle for survival amidst the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York City, forced to navigate a treacherous underworld he never imagined.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Director: Matt Shakman Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson. Synopsis: Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, the Fantastic Four must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, the Silver Surfer.

Superman (2025) Director: James Gunn Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, and Isabela Merced. Synopsis: When Superman gets drawn into conflicts at home and abroad, his actions are questioned, giving tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to get the Man of Steel out of the way for good. Will intrepid reporter Lois Lane and Superman's four-legged companion, Krypto, be able to help him before it's too late?

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) Director: Gareth Edwards Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Ed Skrein. Synopsis:  Zora Bennett leads a team of skilled operatives to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park. Their mission is to secure genetic material from dinosaurs whose DNA can provide life-saving benefits to mankind. As the top-secret expedition becomes more and more risky, they soon make a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades.

  28 Years Later (2025) Director: Danny Boyle Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, and Ralph Fiennes. Synopsis:  It's been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped from a biological weapons laboratory. Still living in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amid the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily defended causeway. When one of them decides to venture into the dark heart of the mainland, he soon discovers a mutation that has spread to not only the infected, but other survivors as well.

I'm deciding to try out video reviews again, so please let me know if you like this format! Ballerina  (2025) Director: Len Wiseman Cast: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Norman Reedus, Ian McShane, and Keanu Reeves Synopsis:  An assassin trained in the traditions of the Ruska Roma organization sets out to seek revenge after her father's death.

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning I’m not gonna lie, this review is tough to put into words. Mission: Impossible is personally one of my favorite franchises ever, handily the most consistent one since the first film’s release in 1996. I personally haven’t seen the original show, but I did end up buying the whole series right after I watched this movie, so I’m hoping to watch the series, or at least start it, soon. I could also easily say that Fallout , the sixth entry, is one of the best action movies ever made. I know it’s not a rare opinion to have Fallout as the best entry (shoutout Rogue Nation ), but any franchise would be lucky to have a movie with such a striking banger:flop ratio. In my opinion, only one M:I movie is bad, and it’s the second one. Every other one is a banger, some of them for completely different reasons. As much as I love the last entry in the franchise, 2023’s Dead Reckoning , I did think “how could they possibly one-up this after the ...

Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, and Sebastain Stan in Thunderbolts* This one’s a little late too, I know, but during the last two weeks of stewing on Thunderbolts* and superhero movies in general, I’ve hit a small realization about comic book movies. There’s a good chance that the glory days are done. I know, just hear me out. Remember when westerns were so insanely popular, and the popularity of them just waned over time? Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re in the middle of that. Oddly enough, maybe that’s why I feel like Thunderbolts* , the 36th (!) film in the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe, is such a breath of fresh air. The closest thing to a relative comparison to the Thunderbolts team in other media is DC’s Suicide Squad , but even then, this team is pretty different, at least in Thunderbolts* . The main focus here is Yelena Belova, played excellently by Florence Pugh, a former Black Widow and m...

Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan in Sinners (Michael C. Jordan…?) Look, I know this is late. Plain and simple reason for it. I wanted to get out and watch Sinners again before I wanted to write about it. I finally ended up doing that, so I now feel pretty confident in how I want to put into words just how incredible Sinners is. If you didn’t know already, this is the latest film from Ryan Coogler, who’s directed Creed and Fruitvale Station , as well as the Black Panther films. Already, Coogler has been a part of huge hits like the Black Panther movies, the first arguably being a cultural phenomenon that hasn’t really happened yet. We often forget that Black Panther made more money than Avengers: Infinity War , and while Coogler wasn’t at the forefront of that conversation, he was the writer and director, and that alone may be enough. Sinners is the first original movie Coogler’s made, not based on any existing material or a real event, and just to keep it simple, it real...

Charles Melton in Warfare War movies usually aren’t my thing. I think that a lot of them do end up having the same message of “war is bad,” but there are certainly ones that I respect a lot. The big modern ones like Saving Private Ryan , Dunkirk , and The Hurt Locker are all great stuff, but I’d never go back to them personally. I’ve seen the recent remake of All Quiet on the Western Front , mainly because it was a big Oscar contender that year, but even then, war movies still aren’t my cup of tea. Alex Garland, however, has been someone I’ve at least admired. Even though Men is probably one of the worst movies of the decade so far, he’s got a really good track record as both a writer and a director. He’s directed Ex Machina , Annihilation , and the FX series Devs , as well as being a writer on Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later , who he’s reuniting with this summer for 28 Years Later . Garland’s last movie, Civil War , ended up stirring a lot of controversy with its depiction of a civil wa...

A Creeper and Jason Momoa in A Minecraft Movie Yes, I know that this is a later than I hoped it’d be, but don’t get it twisted: I feel obligated to write about A Minecraft Movie , mainly because of my experience watching it. You’ve seen the videos of audiences (that mainly consist of children and teenagers) losing their minds over “CHICKEN JOCKEY,” and I’m here to say… that didn’t happen at my screening. It was insanely packed, but there really weren't any rowdy reactions. As someone who respects good theater etiquette, I’m glad to see that it isn’t dead. Either way, there’s no denying that Minecraft , the game, and A Minecraft Movie are now cultural beasts. The game has been around since 2009, and its popularity really hasn’t dwindled since then. It’s the highest-selling video game ever, and I was saying that even before we’d see the record-breaking box office performance it’s currently in the middle of, this thing was going to make so much money no matter what the reviews were. ...

Jack Quaid in Novocaine I’m fully aware that this is probably going to be a shorter post, but I’ve been busy as hell recently and I just gotta get this thing out there. Honestly, though, Novocaine might be the perfect movie to just get a quick post out there and in the open. This is the newest movie in a now-typical sort-of conceptual action movie that’s been going on for the past few years, and I really think John Wick really opened the floodgates with this archetype: someone who’s mild-mannered, whether it’s really who they are or they’re hiding a part of themself, has to get out there and save someone/enact revenge for something that was done to them. If anything, this could also be attributed to David Leitch, one of the co-directors of the first John Wick and the founder of 87North, a studio that specializes in bloody, brutal movies that are reminiscent of the John Wick franchise: Nobody with Bob Odenkirk, Bullet Train , Violent Night , and The Fall Guy are probably the main ...

Still from Baby Invasion There aren’t too many movies where I think of what I think “movies” can and cannot be. I like to keep my mind open for a lot of things, even if I haven’t seen some of the widely agreed-upon classics yet. A massive standout in experimental film I’ve seen recently was AGGRO DR1FT , the first venture for acclaimed erratic filmmaker Harmony Korine into his multimedia company, EDGLRD. I thought AGGRO DR1FT was surreal to watch in a theater, and true to his statements on that movie and this one, it really didn’t feel like a movie. I have good memories of watching AGGRO DR1FT in a theater, even though it’d probably be a one-time event. Korine isn’t stopping with this, though. Outside of AGGRO DR1FT and his latest “film,” the one we’re about to talk about, his next film is already set: The Trap , his first animated movie which was originally going to star Idris Elba, Robert Pattinson, and Benicio del Toro before it imploded right when it was going into production. T...

Eiza González in Ash It’s not too often that I get to see indie horror in the theater, but I’ve tried my best to. By “indie,” I don’t mean a studio like A24 or NEON, even though they technically are indie. I mean Shudder, a studio that deals exclusively in horror and typically puts out their movies and movies they buy the right to into theaters with IFC. The last couple of Shudder films I’ve seen in theaters are In a Violent Nature , which was one of my favorite horror movies of last year, and Skinamarink , a lo-fi experimental horror movie that might just be the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had in a movie theater. That being said, I do have somewhat high expectations whenever I see the Shudder banner. Even if it’s not a great movie, I just wanna see some cool stuff, and boy did I get that with Ash , a cosmic horror/sci-fi exhibition match that pretty much snuck up on me. What Ash is ends up being a fun twist on something we’ve all seen before: Alien as a murder mystery. Riya...

Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt & Ke Huy Quan in The Electric State There’s been a lot of talk online about the “death of movies” surrounding The Electric State , and from a certain point of view, I can understand why. This is a Netflix-exclusive movie, with no theatrical release that I knew of beforehand. It’s directed by the Russo Brothers; while having made some of the best/most successful movies in the MCU, their movies after their run in the MCU just haven’t landed: Cherry , The Gray Man , and now, The Electric State , an adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name. I haven’t read that yet, although I’ve heard very good things about it, but there’s been a big backlash to this not really being an adaptation of the book. Call me crazy, but if I can call something like Dragonball Evolution for not being a good adaptation even though I haven’t watched a single bit of anything else in that franchise, I might be able to say that about The Electric State . It also...

Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista in In the Lost Lands It’s not obvious to see why I ended up going to see this in an empty theater, but I might as well start off with saying that I love going to the movie theater. A bad movie wouldn’t ruin my experience in the theater when it’s all said and done, but having an empty theater is one of the best feelings in the world. That being said, I was fully expecting to have an entire auditorium to myself with In the Lost Lands , the latest movie from Paul W.S. Anderson. If you don’t know that name, he’s mainly the director of the original run of Resident Evil movies with Milla Jovovich, who happens to be his wife. He’s also directed the original Mortal Kombat movie from the 1990s and the sci-fi gem Event Horizon . However, Event Horizon is really the only good movie he’s made out of what I’ve seen. His other movies I’ve seen, mainly the Resident Evil movies, are something I’ve dubbed “nu-metal.” It’s not unlike the subgenre of music where bands...

Still from The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim It’s interesting to see how fast this movie came and went. Yeah, an animated fantasy movie aimed at adults isn’t exactly a wide audience in America, but just look at the title of this post. A new Lord of the Rings movie, the first ever since the Hobbit movies, hit theaters last December. Granted, I didn’t see it until now, maybe that proves just how well this ended up going. I’ve never been too into Lord of the Rings and all that, but I’ve enjoyed what I remember of those movies. I guess this is a reminder that I have to watch those again at some point. Either way, this isn’t just an animated movie: it’s anime, honest-to-god anime. When The War of the Rohirrim was first announced, I thought it would be anime-inspired, like elements of the Spider-Verse movies. I really didn’t think it’d just be anime, but once I saw that Kenji Kamiyama, the director of this, created the Ghost in the Shell series, Stand Alone Complex , that’...

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Russell Crowe in Kraven the Hunter I’m not even sure what to say. Sony’s little venture into Spider-Man spin-off movies that don’t actually have Spider-Man in them was admittedly interesting to watch unfold, in a morbid sort of way. I remember being pretty excited for the first couple of Venom movies, which I think are fun in their own right. Turning Venom and Eddie’s relationship into a rom-com is an inspired call, but I can’t even begin to say that about the other films in this “franchise.” Morbius and Madame Web were both famously clowned on by the internet, but even though the latest Venom movie really wasn’t, I think that was the worst of all of these spin-offs so far. Now, we have the unfortunate end to this little world. Sony said just a few days before Kraven the Hunter released that the solo Spider-Man villain movies aren’t returning any time soon, so we’re getting to see a cinematic universe implode in the span of two hours. For the sake of savin...

Still from Transformers One It’s nuts to see that there’s actually a pretty well-received Transformers movie out there now. I know I’m very late to the party with this one, but I just kept hearing about Transformers One and how good it is, from non-fans and fans alike. I know I should take out that bias when I’m reviewing something, but it was so overwhelming that it felt unescapable. One is apparently a prequel to Michael Bay’s live-action Transformers films, but there’s no real connection to them. I honestly don’t even know why this is tied to it. One follows two lonely workers: Orion Pax and D-16. They work in the mines on Cybertron, where the intelligent robots are divided into two classes: the ones who can transform and the ones who can’t. Why they mine for Energon, the fuel that powers Cybertron, is because the planet lost the Matrix of Leadership. Gaining this back could end the need for what’s basically slave labor and restore Cybertron to its former glory. It’s refreshing t...