Weekly movie reviews

By Bob Garver “The Housemaid” has unofficially sold itself based on how crazy it gets in its second half. This is slightly less annoying than when movies sell themselves based on their twist endings – at least here, the twist gets a chance to breathe, and maybe there will be other twists after the initial…

By Bob Garver Back in 2019, brothers Benny and Josh Safdie delivered one of the best films of the year, and possibly the decade, with “Uncut Gems.” The film was, as I wrote in a review earlier this year, “a 135-minute anxiety attack.” And I mean that in the best possible way – I have…

By Bob Garver All the way back in 2009, director James Cameron introduced the world to the planet Pandora and the Na’vi race in “Avatar.” The film soon set the record for all-time highest grossing movie at both the domestic and international box offices (it still holds the record for the latter). Sequel “Avatar: The…

By Bob Garver             Since this weekend’s highest-grossing as-yet-unreviewed theatrical film, 205-minute Indian actioner “Dhurandhar,” is playing on only 377 screens in the entire country, I thought I’d take this opportunity to review something a little more accessible. “Wake Up Dead Man” is the third installment of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” mystery franchise. Like its…

By Bob Garver             From its ridiculous opening scene, there is little denying that “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is one of the stupidest movies of 2025. Its only real competition comes from Disney’s live-action “Snow White” remake thinking that its Dwarfs were fit for human eyesight. And it’s not even the fun kind of…

“Zootopia 2” By Bob Garver             2016 was a great year for animation. Disney gave the world a new musical masterwork in “Moana.” Pixar had its biggest hit up to that point in “Finding Dory.” Even underdog Laika came out with cult classic “Kubo and the Two Strings.” But the winner of the Best Animated…

By Bob Garver Previously, in “Wicked” Aspiring witches, green-skinned outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and pink-and-popular Glinda (Ariana Grande), started off as enemies at school, but then became friends. They decided to go their separate ways after discovering a plan by the nefarious Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) to blame and punish animals for problems in the Land…

By Bob Garver It was all the way back in 2013 that audiences were first introduced to the Four Horsemen of Magic – J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher). The quartet blurred the line between “magic tricks” and “heists,” in that they would…

By Bob Garver “Predator” and I got off on the wrong foot. I’m not talking about the new movie, but rather the 1987 original, and by extension the whole franchise. I rented the film hoping to enjoy some action-movie interaction between two future governors: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Unfortunately, there was little to no…

By Bob Garver How is it that Halloween of 2025 couldn’t give us a better horror movie than “Black Phone 2”? It’s not that I’m shocked that a Halloween horror movie is a disappointment. I’m just shocked that we got such a disappointing movie this year. 2025 has been such a banner year for horror…