Dead of Winter (2025) Review – Emma Thompson and Judy Greer Shine in a Frozen Nightmare

Dead of Winter 

Directed by: Brian Kirk

Written by: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, Dalton Leeb

Starring: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca

Release Date: September 26th, 2025

Genre: Thriller / Horror

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)

Dead of Winter (2025) is a tense, character-driven thriller starring Emma Thompson and Judy Greer in against-type performances. Directed by Brian Kirk, this icy survival story mixes suspense, realism, and powerhouse acting into a chilling, unforgettable ride.

When Familiar Faces Turn Terrifying

Dead of Winter stars two beloved actresses—Emma Thompson and Judy Greer—in harrowing roles that reshape how we see their talents. Thompson, the English icon of literary dramas and refined wit, and Greer, the sweet-natured sidekick and genre regular, both step far outside their comfort zones here.

Each performer has built a career on warmth and relatability, but Dead of Winter weaponizes those associations to suspenseful effect. These aren’t “playing against type” performances for shock value—they’re rich, layered turns that twist our expectations into dread.

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A Frozen Journey into Fear

Emma Thompson plays Barb, a widowed Minnesotan woman whose accent and demeanor are as comforting as a cup of cocoa on a frozen lake. Her husband’s recent death has left her adrift, but she’s determined to honor his final wish—one last ice-fishing trip to the remote Lake Hilda.

Her day begins with simple rituals: packing the truck, braving snowy backroads, and setting up her fishing gear. But when Barb gets lost and stops at a lone cabin for directions, her quiet grief collides with something far more sinister.

There, she encounters a disturbed man in a camo jacket (Marc Menchaca). His explanation for the blood outside—“deer blood”—does little to calm her unease. When she later witnesses the same man dragging a screaming young woman back to the cabin, Barb faces a terrible choice: risk her life to intervene, or flee and hope someone else finds help two hours away.

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Judy Greer’s Chilling Turn

Barb’s rescue attempt brings her face to face with a mysterious woman in purple, played with eerie intensity by Judy Greer. Frail, sickly, yet fueled by a drug-induced fury, Greer’s character commands the situation—and her accomplice—with ruthless precision.

It’s an astonishing transformation for Greer, whose empathetic screen presence makes her descent into menace all the more frightening. Her character’s obsession and physical collapse intertwine, creating a villain both human and horrifying. Greer plays it straight—no camp, no overacting—just cold conviction.

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Taut, Realistic, and Relentless

Screenwriters Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb keep Dead of Winter lean and focused. There’s no wasted dialogue, no contrived subplots—just tension, realism, and the relentless ticking clock of survival.

Director Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, 21 Bridges) knows exactly how far to push the stakes. Unlike many thrillers that pile on implausible injuries or absurd coincidences, Dead of Winter stays grounded. The pain feels real, the geography logical, the survival tactics clever but believable.

Thompson’s Barb is resourceful without becoming superhuman. Greer’s villain, meanwhile, is terrifying because she believes in what she’s doing. Kirk’s pacing and stark compositions turn the snowy wilderness into a psychological maze of isolation and fear.

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Final Thoughts

Dead of Winter is a sharp, chilling thriller that strips the genre to its essentials: character, tension, and atmosphere. Emma Thompson delivers one of her most physical and emotionally raw performances, while Judy Greer redefines what audiences thought she could do.

It’s a film about resilience, moral conviction, and the quiet strength that emerges when terror closes in. Dead of Winter may take place in the frozen north, but it burns with the heat of two unforgettable performances.

Verdict: Smart, suspenseful, and anchored by two exceptional actresses, Dead of Winter is one of the most satisfying surprises of the 2025 horror-thriller season.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977): A Hateful, Sensory Nightmare Masquerading as a Movie

Looking for Mr. Goodbar 

Directed by: Richard Brooks

Written by: Richard Brooks (based on the novel by Judith Rossner)

Starring: Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Tom Berenger, William Atherton, Tuesday Weld

Release Date: October 19, 1977

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) is one of the most hateful, chaotic, and misogynistic movies of the 1970s. Despite Diane Keaton’s best efforts, Richard Brooks delivers a cinematic disaster that blames women for their own abuse and murder.

(Just a note, I intended to write a positive review of a Diane Keaton movie in the wake of her passing. This movie was recommended to me as one of her best performances. She's as good as she could be under the circumstances. Apologies to Keaton fans.)

A Film That Punishes Women for Existing

Wow. What a piece of trash.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a sensory nightmare — a film of utter chaos and incoherence. It’s as if Richard Brooks set out to punish both the audience and his lead character, Theresa Dunn, for daring to exist outside of patriarchal norms.

The message? If a woman is sexually liberated and steps away from her family, she’s asking to be taken advantage of, abused, or even murdered. That’s not subtext — that’s the actual takeaway of this movie.

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Diane Keaton Tries to Save a Lost Cause

Diane Keaton plays Theresa, an innocent woman trying to escape her suffocating Catholic family. Her reward for that independence? A string of emotionally and physically abusive men.

Her first boyfriend is a married professor who tells her, post-coitus, “I just can’t stand a woman’s company after I’ve f*ed her.” Charming, right? From there, she meets Tony (Richard Gere), a swaggering sex addict who uses her and disappears. Every relationship is another humiliation.

Between the chaos of her love life, we get scenes of Theresa tenderly teaching deaf children — a transparent attempt by Brooks to “redeem” her for the audience, as if to say, See, she’s not a total whore! It’s moral policing disguised as character development.

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A Gallery of Awful Men

Every man in this movie is an abuser, and yet the movie blames Theresa for their actions. James (William Atherton) starts out as a nice guy — until she rejects him, at which point he becomes obsessed and violent. Then there’s Gary (Tom Berenger), a gay man introduced in a bizarre, incoherent parade sequence who exists solely to embody Brooks’ twisted sense of sexual panic.

By the time Gary snorts cocaine, rapes Theresa, and stabs her to death, the film’s point becomes clear: women who seek sexual freedom are doomed. Brooks frames it as tragedy, but it’s really moral punishment.

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Misogyny and Madness Behind the Camera

Beyond the hateful message, Looking for Mr. Goodbar is simply bad filmmaking. Brooks shoots everything like he’s terrified of silence — televisions blare, radios scream, extras wander across the frame, and the camera jitters as if the operator is drunk.

It’s an exhausting sensory overload, a constant assault on the viewer. The noise isn’t atmosphere; it’s incompetence.

Even Tuesday Weld, playing Theresa’s sister, gets thrown under the bus. The film frames her as a “good girl gone bad” — promiscuous, drugged up, and punished by the story. Every woman in this movie is either a saintly mother or a damned whore. There’s no in-between.

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The Verdict: A Cruel, Hateful Relic

Looking for Mr. Goodbar isn’t just bad — it’s offensive. It’s the kind of movie that pretends to explore sexual liberation while secretly despising it. The story blames women for male violence, then pretends to offer a moral lesson about “dangerous lifestyles.”

This isn’t provocative art — it’s propaganda for repression.

Even Diane Keaton can’t save it. Despite her honest, layered performance, the movie uses her as a punching bag for Brooks’ toxic worldview. The result is an angry, ugly, morally bankrupt mess that deserves to be forgotten.

Final Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ — 1 star for Diane Keaton, 0 for everything else.

The Cider House Rules: Cloying, Sanctimonious, and Unbearably Shallow

The Cider House Rules 

Directed by Lasse Hallstron 

Written by Lasse Hallstrom 

Starring Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Michael Caine, Paul Rudd

Release Date January 7th, 2000 

Lasse Hallström’s The Cider House Rules turns complex themes of abortion, morality, and human choice into a syrupy sermon. A cloying, shallow Oscar darling that proves even the best actors can’t save a movie this hollow.

When Sentimentality Smothers Substance

Lasse Hallström’s cloying, simpering direction grates on my nerves. His 1998 feature Chocolat was arguably the nadir of his soft-focus, soft-headed romanticism. Hallström favors simple emotional beats over shading or moral complexity. He likes his dramas black and white—no gray, no grit, no blood. It’s drama for toddlers, scrubbed clean of anything that might sting.

But as bad as Chocolat is, The Cider House Rules may be even worse. Working with writer John Irving, Hallström adds sanctimony to his simplistic brew. Now, not only are his characters devoid of depth, they’re indignant about it.

The Cider House Rules takes the early, ugly years before Roe v. Wade—a time when women risked their lives for autonomy—and turns them into a homey parable about “doing what’s right.” The result is a Hallmark-card sermon about moral courage with all the danger and ambiguity stripped away.

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The Story: A Moral Dilemma Without Any Weight

Tobey Maguire plays Homer, an orphan raised in a New England orphanage by the kindly Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine). Larch, in addition to running the orphanage, performs secret abortions for desperate women. He begins teaching Homer medicine—and abortion—hoping the boy will carry on his work. But Homer, uncomfortable with the practice’s legality and morality, leaves to find his own way.

When Homer meets Candy (Charlize Theron) and her boyfriend Wally (Paul Rudd), he leaves the orphanage to work on their family’s apple orchard. With Wally away at war, Homer and Candy fall into a forbidden romance. But dark secrets emerge when one of the orchard workers, Arthur, impregnates his daughter Rose (Erykah Badu). Homer faces a moral crossroads that should carry devastating weight—but doesn’t.

Because under Hallström’s soft lighting and swelling strings, the story feels sanitized. Homer’s moral awakening—whether to help a woman abort her father’s child—plays like he’s deciding between steak or fish at dinner.

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Hallström’s Hallmark Aesthetic vs. Harsh Reality

Surprise: Hallström’s gauzy, sentimental style misses the point when tackling a rape-incest-abortion storyline. There’s no tension, no internal struggle, no real sense of consequence. The film desperately needs a director with emotional heft, not one obsessed with moral tidiness and gentle lighting.

Instead, every difficult decision feels preordained, as if made during a commercial break. The result is a movie that congratulates itself for tackling “tough” subjects while sanding off every rough edge.

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Oscar Night Regrets: The Great Michael Caine Robbery

If I sound bitter toward The Cider House Rules, I am—but my bitterness extends to the 2000 Academy Awards, where Michael Caine won Best Supporting Actor for this performance.

That year, Tom Cruise delivered one of the greatest performances of his career in Magnolia—a volcanic, vulnerable masterclass that laid bare the emptiness inside a man hiding behind charisma. Cruise’s work was electric and fearless. Caine’s was cozy and predictable.

When Caine won, it felt like Hollywood was rewarding comfort over challenge, tradition over innovation. The Cider House Rules was easy to watch, easy to forget, and utterly unworthy of that moment.

And that cloying line—“Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England”—still makes me cringe.

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Final Thoughts

The Cider House Rules is the epitome of Oscar bait: a self-satisfied, sentimental drama that mistakes moral platitudes for emotional depth. It flatters its audience instead of challenging them, offering easy answers where none exist.

In a just world, this movie would’ve been forgotten. Instead, it stands as a cautionary tale of what happens when Hollywood mistakes sincerity for insight.

Magnolia (2000): Paul Thomas Anderson’s Masterpiece About Fate, Chance, and Connection

Magnolia

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Philip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy

Release Date: January 7, 2000

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (2000) is a sprawling, emotional epic about fate, coincidence, and the fragile threads connecting our lives. Featuring unforgettable performances from Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Magnolia explores the chaos and beauty of human connection.

The Six Degrees of Magnolia

Years ago, pop culture briefly obsessed over a curious idea — Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The premise was simple: nearly any actor in Hollywood could be linked to Kevin Bacon through six or fewer co-stars.

It wasn’t just a game; it revealed something deeper about us. The fascination came not from Bacon himself, but from what he represented — the idea that all of us are connected in unseen ways. A casual conversation, a shared acquaintance, a fleeting coincidence — the smallest interactions ripple outward.

It’s that very sense of interconnectedness that drives Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious and deeply humane 2000 epic. Like the petals of the magnolia flower itself, the film’s many stories overlap, curl into one another, and form a single, blooming portrait of life, love, guilt, and chance.

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Interwoven Lives in Los Angeles

The film takes place over one extraordinary day in Los Angeles, where characters cross paths in ways both mundane and miraculous.

At its core is Tom Cruise’s astonishing performance as Frank “TJ” Mackey — a swaggering, self-styled guru who preaches his toxic “Seduce and Destroy” philosophy to rooms full of desperate men. Frank’s misogynistic confidence masks deep pain; he’s the estranged son of Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying TV producer who abandoned him years before.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Earl’s caretaker, Phil Parma, one of the few truly good souls in the film. His quiet compassion provides emotional ballast amid the film’s storms of guilt and regret.

Meanwhile, Earl’s much younger wife Linda (Julianne Moore) spirals into despair, wracked with guilt for having exploited her husband before unexpectedly falling in love with him for real.

Elsewhere in the city, Officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly) responds to a domestic disturbance involving Claudia (Melora Walters), a cocaine-addicted woman estranged from her father, Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) — a game show host dying of cancer.

And on that same game show, a brilliant young contestant named Stanley faces mounting pressure from his abusive father, while a former child prodigy, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), tries in vain to reclaim some sense of purpose decades after his own fleeting fame.

These are the threads of Magnolia — separate lives bound by invisible strings, intersecting at moments of tragedy, grace, and absurdity.

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When It Rains Frogs

The most famous image in Magnolia arrives near its end: a rain of frogs. Literal frogs, falling from the sky. It sounds ridiculous, but in Anderson’s world, it feels transcendent — an act of divine chaos that washes away the film’s pain and hypocrisy.

The frogs are both punishment and salvation, a surreal reminder that the universe doesn’t play by our rules. Chance and fate coexist, and sometimes miracles arrive wearing absurd faces.

Anderson’s use of coincidence — like the opening montage of bizarre “true stories” involving murder, suicide, and impossible luck — frames the entire film as an argument about control. We think we steer our lives, but often, we’re just reacting to events that feel cosmic in their timing.

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A Film About Everything That Makes Us Human

The magnolia flower itself becomes a symbol — a living structure of interdependence. Each petal strengthens the next, and together they form something beautiful, fragile, and whole.

Likewise, Magnolia’s characters form an emotional ecosystem. They mirror one another’s fears, regrets, and fleeting hopes. Anderson dares to ask how much of our lives are ours to control — and how much is simply the randomness of being alive at the same time as everyone else.

The film’s closing scenes, punctuated by Aimee Mann’s haunting song “Save Me,” drive this point home: we are all connected, even when we can’t see it.

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Final Thoughts: Fate or Chance?

Magnolia begins and ends with stories of chance — a boy shot mid-suicide attempt, a diver dropped from the sky, a plane flown by the man he fought with the night before. Fate or coincidence? Paul Thomas Anderson leaves that question for us to wrestle with.

What’s undeniable is the film’s emotional reach. It’s sprawling, messy, and breathtaking — like life itself. Magnolia remains one of the most ambitious American films of the 2000s, a cinematic symphony about regret, forgiveness, and the strange, miraculous ways our lives intersect.

And yes — sometimes, it even rains frogs.

Directed by: Chris Columbus

Written by: David Simkins

Starring: Elisabeth Shue, Keith Coogan, Anthony Rapp, Penelope Ann Miller

Release Date: July 3, 1987

⭐️⭐️⭐️½ (3.5 out of 5)

Revisit Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Chris Columbus’s charming directorial debut starring Elisabeth Shue. This 80s cult favorite blends teen comedy, suburban satire, and pure heart for an unforgettable night out in Chicago. A Lovable Relic of 80s Teen Comedy

 

When Adventures in Babysitting hit theaters in 1987, few could have guessed that this modest teen comedy would become such a beloved 80s relic. Directed by Chris Columbus in his feature debut and starring the effortlessly appealing Elisabeth Shue, the film captures both the reckless fun and innocent sweetness of a bygone era of studio comedies.

Now nearly four decades later, the movie remains a charming time capsule — a story about a young woman thrust into chaos, navigating danger, city lights, and clueless boys with the poise of a true hero. It’s not perfect, but it’s bursting with personality, humor, and a big, silly heart.

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Elisabeth Shue Shines as the Ultimate Babysitter

Elisabeth Shue plays Chris Parker, a suburban teen whose fancy date night gets canceled by her no-good boyfriend (a smarmy Bradley Whitford). With nothing better to do, she agrees to babysit the Anderson kids — Sara (Maia Brewton), an imaginative little girl obsessed with Thor, and her older brother Brad (Keith Coogan), who secretly adores Chris.

When Chris’s best friend Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller) calls in a panic from a Chicago bus station, Chris does what any self-respecting babysitter shouldn’t: she loads the kids into her mom’s station wagon and heads downtown to rescue her friend. Along for the ride is Brad’s wisecracking buddy Daryl (Anthony Rapp), who blackmails his way into the adventure.

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A Night in the City — and One Misadventure After Another

From a flat tire on the expressway to a run-in with car thieves, mobsters, and blues musicians, Adventures in Babysittingunfolds as a whirlwind of absurd urban escapades. The tone is pure slapstick adventure, but what makes the movie sing is how earnestly it commits to the fun.

There’s even an unforgettable scene in a blues club where the gang is forced to perform a song about — you guessed it — babysitting. It’s utterly ridiculous, yet somehow delightful, especially with legendary bluesman Albert Collins on guitar.

Chris Columbus’s direction is rough around the edges, but that scrappiness gives the film its charm. The Chicago streets are grimy and chaotic, yet Columbus’s camera treats them with affection and humor. You can already sense the filmmaker who would go on to craft Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, using suburban order clashing against urban chaos as the source of comedy.

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A Sweet and Surprisingly Sincere Coming-of-Age Story

What elevates Adventures in Babysitting beyond its genre peers is its sense of sincerity. Beneath the gags and goofy peril lies a story about responsibility, growing up, and self-belief.

The standout emotional moment comes late in the film, when young Sara meets a mechanic who looks just like her hero Thor (played by a pre-Law & Order Vincent D’Onofrio). When he snaps at her, Sara insists he’s only acting that way because he doesn’t have his magic helmet — and then offers him hers. It’s a simple, touching gesture that captures the film’s earnest belief in the magic of kindness and imagination.

Columbus has always been gifted at moments like these — small, sincere beats in the middle of chaos — and this scene remains one of the sweetest of his career.

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How It Holds Up Today

It’s true that Adventures in Babysitting contains a few outdated moments, particularly in its racial and gender politics, a common issue with many 80s comedies. But the film’s missteps feel more naïve than malicious. At its core, this is a movie about decency — about a young woman trying to do the right thing in an impossible situation.

Judged by the standards of its day, it’s a delightfully silly, often hilarious teen comedy that never forgets its heart. The performances are loose and joyful, the pacing brisk, and the city feels like a wild playground where danger and laughter exist side by side.

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Final Thoughts

Adventures in Babysitting may not have the layered wit of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or the rebellious edge of The Breakfast Club, but it doesn’t need to. Chris Columbus set out to make a fun, fast-paced urban adventure, and he succeeded.

Nearly 40 years later, it’s still an endlessly rewatchable crowd-pleaser — a film that reminds us that being a “babysitter” can be as heroic as being a superhero, especially when you’re played by Elisabeth Shue.

Despicable Me 3 Is Wildly Adequate: Illumination’s Masterpiece of Mediocrity

Despicable Me 3 

⭐️⭐️ (2 out of 5)

Directed by: Pierre Coffin & Kyle Balda

Written by: Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio

Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Julie Andrews

June 30th, 2017 

Despicable Me 3 is proof that even global animation hits can run out of steam. Steve Carell returns as Gru in a sequel that’s bright, loud, and utterly mediocre — a film that coasts on nostalgia and Minion merchandising more than storytelling.

The Latest from Illumination Is Awesomely Mediocre

Despicable Me 3 is so wildly mediocre, so achingly adequate, and so puzzlingly prosaic that I can barely bring myself to write about it. Honestly, I spent more time researching synonyms for “mediocre” than thinking about the movie itself.

The film represents the perfect middle ground between competence and boredom — a brightly colored void where jokes exist, animation happens, and absolutely nothing resonates. It’s the cinematic equivalent of eating plain oatmeal while watching a fireworks display through a fogged window. There’s noise and movement, but nothing of substance.

Illumination has always aimed to make movies that feel familiar enough to comfort kids and disposable enough to keep parents from complaining. With Despicable Me 3, they’ve refined that formula to a glossy art form. The result is a film that is perfectly fine — and utterly lifeless.

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Gru vs. Bratt: When Nostalgia Becomes a Gimmick

The story begins with reformed super-villain Gru (Steve Carell) continuing his new career as a hero, this time alongside his equally well-meaning wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig). Their target: Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), a villain obsessed with the 1980s, complete with purple shoulder pads, bubble gum weapons, and a synth-heavy soundtrack.

The idea is mildly clever at first. The visual jokes — Rubik’s Cubes, keytars, moonwalks — hit a nostalgic sweet spot. But the novelty burns out fast. Bratt becomes a one-note character, and his endless dance battles start to feel like rejected sketches from a forgotten SNL episode.

The 1980s aesthetic should have offered room for satire or irony, but instead, it’s just a surface-level gimmick. There’s no commentary, no depth — just a parade of neon references that hope to distract you from realizing how little story there actually is.

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Double Trouble: The Twin Brother Nobody Asked For

Because one thin plotline isn’t enough, the movie introduces Gru’s long-lost twin brother, Dru. He’s got a head of golden hair, a sunny personality, and absolutely no reason to exist beyond giving Steve Carell another voice to perform.

The central joke is that Dru is handsome and terrible at being a villain. That’s it. The entire subplot rests on this one-note contrast. Even worse, the film tries to wring humor out of Gru’s cruel mother (voiced by Julie Andrews), who reveals she deliberately hid Dru’s existence from Gru. It’s a weirdly mean-spirited twist played for laughs — as if emotional neglect were the setup for a punchline.

Adding insult to injury, Gru’s mother also gets a recycled gag involving her ogling her swim coaches. It’s creepy, lazy, and completely unnecessary. This is supposed to be family entertainment, but much of the humor lands somewhere between tone-deaf and uncomfortable.

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Meanwhile, the Minions Are Still Here

Of course, no Despicable Me film would dare skip its real stars — the Minions. This time, they rebel against Gru and head off on their own misadventure, eventually winding up in jail.

Their subplot exists for one clear reason: to justify another round of Minion toys. The prison sequence includes two elaborate musical numbers, both of which feel like filler created to extend the runtime and give the marketing team something to work with. The Minions remain marketable chaos engines, but without the emotional anchor of Gru and the girls, they’re just noise.

When Despicable Me premiered in 2010, the Minions were fresh and funny — supporting characters with visual wit. Seven years later, they’ve become corporate mascots for prepackaged chaos, speaking in gibberish while executives calculate how many lunchboxes they can move.

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From Heartfelt to Hollow

The original Despicable Me had heart. Its central story — a villain softened by his love for three orphans — was simple but touching. You rooted for Gru because there was something human beneath the cartoon.

By the sequel, that emotional foundation had eroded, replaced by noisy spectacle and toy-friendly antics. Now, in Despicable Me 3, the series has reached its final stage of evolution: total emotional vacancy.

The movie isn’t hateful or incompetent, but it is aggressively safe. Every design choice, every joke, every musical cue feels pre-approved by a focus group. It’s a film made by talented people working within the most soul-crushing boundaries imaginable.

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When Mercenary Filmmaking Becomes the Point

At least when Pixar goes mercenary, there’s still a trace of artistry. Cars 3, for all its faults, had craftsmanship and genuine affection for its characters. Illumination, by contrast, seems content to coast on brand recognition.

Their philosophy appears to be: make it cute, make it fast, make it bright, and make it sell. The animators do fine work, the voice cast gives professional performances, and yet the movie still feels hollow — a product disguised as a story.

Millions of dollars and countless hours of labor have gone into creating something aggressively average. It’s not a failure, but it’s not a success either. It simply exists — an echo of better movies made by studios that still care about storytelling.

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Final Thoughts

Despicable Me 3 is competent, colorful, and completely uninspired. It never offends, but it never delights. It’s a film designed to be consumed, not remembered — the cinematic equivalent of a fast-food meal you forget five minutes after eating.

There’s no passion here, no spark of creativity. Just another round of Minions, another paper-thin plot, and another reminder that Illumination has mastered the art of making movies that are “good enough.”

Final Rating: ⭐️⭐️ (2 out of 5)

Technically fine, emotionally vacant — Despicable Me 3 is a monument to mediocrity in high definition.

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Tags

#DespicableMe3 #IlluminationEntertainment #AnimatedMovies #SteveCarell #FamilyMovies #MovieReview#AnimationCriticism #DespicableMeFranchise #FilmReview #Reelscope

Okja (2017): Bong Joon-ho’s Daring Netflix Masterpiece About Friendship and Food Ethics

Okja

Directed by Bong Joon Ho 

Written by Bong Joon Ho, Jon Ronson 

Starring Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal 

Release Date June 28th, 2017

Bong Joon-ho’s Okja is more than a Netflix fantasy about a girl and her super pig—it’s a bold, genre-bending masterpiece that exposes the hidden horrors of the food industry while celebrating love, friendship, and resistance.

A Netflix Film That Defies Easy Description

Okja is a movie that resists simple categorization. On the surface, it looks like a children’s adventure: a young girl and her oversized animal friend fighting to stay together against greedy adults. But this surface-level description undersells the film entirely.

Directed by Bong Joon-ho, one of the most daring and original filmmakers of our time, Okja is a razor-sharp blend of satire, fantasy, and social commentary. Beneath its colorful imagery lies one of the most pointed critiques of corporate greed and the food industry ever put on screen.

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The Mirando Corporation and Its Super Pig Campaign

At the center of Okja is the Mirando Corporation, a multinational giant attempting to rebrand its image from destructive polluter to eco-friendly innovator. CEO Lucy Mirando (a gleefully unhinged Tilda Swinton) leads the charge with a PR campaign promoting a so-called miracle of modern science: the “super pig.”

According to Mirando’s marketing spin, these pigs are environmentally sustainable and a solution to world hunger. But beneath the corporate sheen lies a disturbing truth—the animals have been genetically engineered for maximum size, productivity, and taste.

To sell this lie to the public, Lucy launches a global contest. Twenty-five farmers across the world will raise a super pig, and after ten years, the “best” pig will be chosen. It’s nothing more than a marketing ploy—but one that sets the stage for the film’s most powerful relationship.

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Mija and Okja: A Bond Stronger Than Corporations

Ten years later, high in the mountains of South Korea, we meet Mija (Ahn Seo Hyun), a young girl who has spent her life caring for Okja, the largest and healthiest of the Mirando pigs. Their bond is pure and deeply moving—Okja is not just livestock, but family.

When Mirando’s flamboyant zoologist Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal, hilariously channeling both Steve Irwin and Bill Nye) arrives to claim Okja for the final contest in America, Mija’s world is shattered. Determined not to lose her best friend, she embarks on a rescue mission that quickly transforms into a dark and unflinching journey through the machinery of the food industry.

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Bong Joon-ho’s Genre-Bending Vision

To describe Okja in straightforward plot terms does the film a disservice. This is a movie best experienced with fresh eyes, free of spoilers. What makes it so striking is Bong Joon-ho’s ability to twist familiar genres into something completely new.

Working with cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, Amour, The Lost City of Z), Bong creates a film that visually resembles a children’s movie, with bright colors and heightened characters. But this playful exterior makes the film’s darker turns—the cruelty of corporations, the realities of industrialized slaughter—even more devastating.

It’s this juxtaposition that gives Okja its staying power. You laugh, you feel wonder, and then you recoil in horror. Few films in recent memory have juggled tones so effectively.

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A Masterpiece with a Message

Bong Joon-ho is a filmmaker known for precision and purpose, and Okja is no exception. The glossy production design and stunning CGI aren’t just technical polish; they’re deliberate choices meant to mirror the slick surface of modern consumer culture.

By using Hollywood spectacle to tell a story about exploitation and cruelty, Bong forces viewers to confront uncomfortable truths. Okja isn’t just entertainment—it’s a mirror held up to the way we consume, packaged in the form of a heartfelt tale about a girl and her pig.

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Final Thoughts

Okja is one of the most original films of 2017 and a defining work in Bong Joon-ho’s career. It’s playful yet brutal, heartfelt yet devastating. It reminds us that movies can entertain while also challenging us to think deeply about the systems we live in—and the costs hidden behind convenience.

For viewers willing to embrace its oddities, Okja offers not just a thrilling adventure but also a bold commentary on the world we take for granted.

Streaming now on Netflix, Okja is a must-watch.

Paulina (2015) Review: Santiago Mitre’s Radical Exploration of Politics, Violence, and Female Agency

Paulina 

Directed by Santiago Mitre 

Written by Mariano Llinas, Santiago Mitre 

Starring Delores Fonzi

Release Date June 23, 2017

Santiago Mitre’s Paulina (2015), starring Dolores Fonzi, is a daring Argentine drama that interrogates politics, justice, and female agency. A challenging, award-winning film that demands critical engagement.

An Arthouse Drama with Political Urgency

Argentine director Santiago Mitre has built a reputation for politically charged cinema, and Paulina (La Patota) may be his boldest work. Premiering at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize, the film interrogates justice, violence, and autonomy through a story that refuses easy answers.

At its center is Dolores Fonzi, delivering a remarkable performance defined by restraint. Her inscrutable expressions and measured delivery create a protagonist who resists audience empathy in conventional terms, instead inviting viewers to wrestle with her choices on their own terms. She is at once frustrating, courageous, and enigmatic—a figure who embodies the contradictions of both personal and political identity.

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A Radical Narrative Structure

The film opens with one of its most impressive sequences: a ten-minute, unbroken take in which Paulina informs her father (Oscar Martínez) of her decision to abandon a promising legal career for a teaching post in a remote province. The scene’s theatricality recalls the intensity of stage drama, while the dialogue grounds us in the political and ideological tensions of contemporary Argentina.

Initially, the narrative seems to be about Paulina’s attempts to bring political education to disengaged rural students. Her lessons fail, her students resist, and the film positions her as an outsider both culturally and socially. Mitre emphasizes this dislocation by leaving the students’ dialogue unsubtitled for non-Spanish-speaking viewers, effectively aligning the audience with Paulina’s alienation.

But the film radically shifts when Paulina is raped by a gang of young men. Mitre films the assault with a matter-of-fact gaze—eschewing sensationalism or melodrama—in a style reminiscent of cinéma vérité. Just as the audience begins to process this rupture, the film fractures again, rewinding to recount events from the perspective of one of the attackers (Cristian Salguero). This structural gamble destabilizes the spectator, placing the crime within a wider social, political, and gendered context.

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Female Agency and Controversial Choices

The aftermath of the assault makes Paulina one of the most divisive Argentine films of the last decade. Instead of following a conventional trajectory of trauma and recovery, Paulina makes choices that are at once courageous, perplexing, and unsettling.

Mitre and Fonzi refuse to present her as a symbol of victimhood. Instead, she asserts a radical form of agency—one that will undoubtedly divide audiences and provoke debate. In doing so, the film interrogates how society, politics, and law frame women’s bodies and decisions. Paulinarefuses catharsis, offering instead the uncomfortable recognition that justice, morality, and healing do not conform to neat narratives.

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Placing Paulina in Mitre’s Career and Argentine Cinema

Seen within Mitre’s larger body of work, Paulina represents a continuation of his interest in the intersection of politics and individual lives. His earlier feature, The Student (2011), explored corruption and ambition within the Argentine university system. His later international success, Argentina, 1985 (2022), dramatized the historic trial of the country’s military juntas. Paulina sits between these works, smaller in scale but equally rigorous in its political engagement.

It also resonates with a tradition of Argentine cinema that uses intimate stories to explore systemic violence and moral ambiguity. Like Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman (2008), Mitre’s film refuses clear resolutions, compelling the viewer to confront uncertainty and complicity.

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Why Paulina Demands Attention

Paulina is not an easy film. It is exhausting, intellectually demanding, and deliberately alienating. Yet it is precisely in this difficulty that the film derives its power. Like much of Latin American political cinema, it compels audiences to question the systems of power that shape individual lives.

For scholars of international cinema, Paulina is essential viewing: a film that destabilizes narrative conventions, foregrounds political context, and insists on the complexity of female subjectivity. For general audiences, it may feel austere or even frustrating, but for those willing to engage, it is among the most provocative works of 21st-century Argentine film.

If you can find this film, see it. Paulina is not designed to comfort—it is designed to provoke, to disturb, and to linger long after the credits roll.