The very first scene of Oh, Hi! announces the shape the story will take. Iris (Molly Gordon) has beckoned Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) to the vacation home she’s sharing with her boyfriend, Isaac (Logan Lerman), for the weekend. Both women are in disbelief about an unnamed “bad thing” that Iris has done to Isaac. The scene lasts […]
Author: Austin Noto-Moniz
40 Acres Review
It’s dizzying how quickly Danielle Deadwyler burst into the limelight. Her screen debut came over a decade ago, after which she only occasionally worked but was often hailed as the highlight when she did. Her supporting role in The Harder They Fall in 2021 finally made general audiences take notice, and 2022’s Till earned her […]
Dangerous Animals Review
Every shark movie lives in the shadow of Jaws. While not the first, it had an immediate and lasting impact on movie culture and the industry. For one, it spawned a bunch of imitators, most of which failed to make any impression, much less a comparable one. Even once that initial wave subsided, and shark […]
Sister Midnight Review
I was fortunate enough to catch the New England premier of Sister Midnight at the Boston Underground Film Festival back in March, where I listed it as one of the best features of the festival. A huge benefit of catching an early screening is knowing nothing about the film beyond the title until the lights […]
Steppenwolf Review
Steppenwolf is a movie at war with itself. It doesn’t seem to know what to make of its own story, as what it seems to be saying shifts multiple times. On more than one occasion, Braiyuk (Berik Aytzhanov) responds to questions about death by laughing and pretending to fuck a large, floppy, plush dog. His […]
Final Destination Bloodlines Review
As a staple of the aughts, it’s fitting that the last entry in the Final Destination horror franchise came fourteen years ago. It’s a series of mid-budget horror films with almost no recurring characters spawned from a rejected spec script for The X Files, squarely situating it in another time. While none of the original […]
Rosario Review
The decline of the movie star has been well-documented. For the uninitiated, the idea is that audiences historically showed up to a movie on the strength of its lead actors, but that’s not generally true anymore. Currently, the ones who can draw a crowd are mostly over forty, indicating that Hollywood hasn’t been minting new […]
The Shrouds Review
If you ask most people what makes a David Cronenberg movie, they’ll inevitably use the phrase “body horror”. It’s not unreasonable: his breakthrough came when he codified the genre in the 80s with Scanners and Videodrome, softening the ground for The Fly to become his biggest box office success in 1986. The connection between his name […]
The Amateur Review
While The Amateur is technically a remake, it’s more akin to last year’s The Fall Guy. Popular culture has largely forgotten the original spy movie (and book), and the marketing for James Hawes’ version has avoided mentioning that source material. Given that neither was very well received, that’s probably for the best, as it gives Rami […]
Hell of a Summer Review
At first, the offer of Hell of a Summer is very recognizable. An unknown and unseen killer slowly picks off a bunch of kids at a summer camp while their friends obliviously go about activities nearby. There are campfires, tall tales, tiny cabins, lame ice breakers, and awkward hook-ups. There’s the initial moment when they […]










