Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Star Trek: Section 31

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June 27

All I heard from everyone was that Star Trek: Section 31 was terrible. That is was the worst Star Trek movie ever made.

It starred Michelle Yeoh, so it can’t be as bad as they say, right?

Amazingly, somehow, it was worse.

I should have just trusted everyone who said this was terrible.

I pulled this up on Paramount + and it did not take me very long to realize that it may be the worst movie of the year.

I am not a Trekkie, but I can understand why they all despise this movie. It does not feel like a Star Trek movie. It feels like a cheap, low budget sci-fi film with a messy plot and a dirty feel. I would never guess this was a Star Trek movie, except for a few of the mentions, such as a Vulcan. That Vulcan did not act like any Vulcan I ever heard about though. Why did the Vulcan have the bad Irish accent?

The film looked terrible. It was dumb, storywise. The acting was not good, even from the Oscar winner, Michelle Yeoh, who seemed like she was just going through the motions.

Listen to what everyone else tells you. Don’t watch this movie. It is one of the worst of the year.

0.5 stars

M3GAN 2.0

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In 2022, a surprise horror film was released in January involving an AI robot named Megan that turned into a killer. It did not seem like it was going to be anything worthwhile, but turned out to be a big hit and was very entertaining. It became so successful, a sequel felt like it was destined to be released. That sequel was released this weekend.

M3GAN 2.0 was very much different than the original. The original was a horror film whereas this sequel is basically an adventure comedy/tech thriller.

Sadly, this was nowhere near as entertaining as the first M3GAN, as it was much more convoluted and silly. Silly is not a negative overall, as the entire concept does fall into the campy category, but this is not campy enough to make the film more than just a bad movie.

According to IMDB, “Two years after M3GAN’s rampage, her creator, Gemma, resorts to resurrecting her infamous creation in order to take down Amelia, the military-grade weapon who was built by a defense contractor who stole M3GAN’s underlying tech.”

The whole story with Amelia, the other killer robot was messy and nonsensical. These people recreated M3GAN for some reason despite her being a murder robot. The whole mess of the story just did not work for me.

The film was two hours long and that should just never be. Ninety minutes, tops for this. The fight scenes were fine, but shaky at times, which is not a personal favorite.

So much nonsense. I nearly lost my mind when M3GAN broke into a musical number. I mean the dancing earlier at least made some sense narratively. I felt just like Allison Williams did in the scene. She wanted out of there. So did I.

2.0 Stars

Hitpig

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June 27

The June Swoon has been on a bit of a down swing. It happens every year as we go through stretches of movies that are not very good. We’ve been luckier this year than before as we have had some really good films. Then there was Hitpig.

Hitpig was an animated movie from 2024 featuring a strong voice cast with a poor script. The humor is forced, the story is predictable and the dialogue is cringy.

According to IMDB, “Hitpig is a pig hired by humans to bring back their escaped animals. It’s not easy, but it’s a living. His latest hit is Pickles, a naive but vivacious elephant who has escaped the clutches of an evil Vegas showman. Though Hitpig initially sets out to capture the perky pachyderm for big cash, the unlikely pair find themselves on an unexpected adventure criss-crossing the globe that brings out the best in both of them. Set in a futuristic cyberpunk world, Hitpig proves sometimes what we want isn’t what we need. From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Berkeley Breathed’s wild imagination comes an adventure about learning that sometimes what we want isn’t what we need“

The voice cast was stacked. The cast included Jason Sudeikis, Lilly Singh, Flavor Flav, Rainn Wilson, RuPaul, Anitta, Andy Serkis, Hannah Gadsby, Lorraine Ashbourne, and Charlie Adler.

The animation is good and the colors and character designs are well done. Little kids probably will enjoy the bombastic nature of the story and will be distracted by the look. Unfortunately, I need more in an animated movie than this offers.

Until Dawn

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June 26

I have been waiting for this movie to drop price on Fandango at Home before I purchased it. Then, just before the June Swoon is getting read to conclude (four days remaining) Until Dawn went on sale.

After watching it, Until Dawn was not on sale enough.

Based on a 2015 video game, Until Dawn is a survival horror film with a million jump scares and a bunch of horror tropes and cliches.

According to IMDB, “One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.“

I couldn’t care any less about these characters. Because I couldn’t care less about them, I was bored as the jeopardy surrounded them. The film was chocked full of jump scares but none of them were anything but your typical jump scare. There as little thought behind them.

The concept itself had some possibility, but it also removed most of the drama, since we knew they would basically return at the end of the night. How did this work? No idea.

And the biggest crime here is that the killings were so dull, I am having trouble remembering any of them. Maybe the film just never grabbed my attention.

I did not like this one and I am glad I did not go to the theater to see it.

2 stars

Your Monster

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June 26

Rom Com- Horror? No way that is going to work.

Except it really does. Your Monster is a surprising film with some deeply troubled characters and an ending that is absolutely wild.

According to IMDB, “After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.“

Melissa Barrera is Laura Franco and Tommy Dewey is the Monster living in her closet. Unexpectedly, the pair hook up and seem to really get along. However, Laura is dealing with some deep seeded trauma from a relationship with Jacob Sullivan (Edmond Donovan), a writer/director of a play that he had originally written for Laura, only to recast when they broke up.

Laura has plenty of issues in the film, dealing with her own feelings of betrayal and anger. She is clearly not ready for any kind of relationship so, when she walks onto tryouts for the play, things were awkward.

The chemistry between Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey is off the charts and makes the weird story work. If that center relationship did not have the chemistry it did, the film would be a total flop. I was wondering about some of the characteristics of the character of Laura, but it all made sense in the end.

This was unexpectedly good and really became more of a character study. It is the type of film that might require a second viewing to see the subtleties in the story.

Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse

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June 25

The second film for the June Swoon today is a documentary about the life and career of Art Spiegelman, a comic strip/book writer and cartoonist who you may never have heard about, but a man who has done more to elevate the perception of the graphic novel.

Spiegelman is most well know for his work on the graphic novels Maus I & II, which told the story of the Holocaust and the death camps through anthropomorphic animals. In Maus, the people of Jewish faith were portrayed as mice while Germans (and other Fascists) were shown as cats.

Maus is the first, and currently only, graphic novel that won a Pulitzer Prize and is one of the major factors that allowed a different perspective of graphic novels among the academia. It allowed people to see what kind of stories that was capable of being told in this format.

The doc looked at Spiegelman’s beginnings as a child inspired by Mad magazine and how he wound up working as a cartoonist. They showed his work through the times of the underground comics and included the work of people who inspired him, such as R Crumb.

They outlines how the work on Maus took him years, as he struggled through this very personal story.

I wondered as I watched the doc if it would address the recent controversies of how some schools and libraries have banned Maus from their shelves. The film did have a section on this topic, with Art Spiegelman’s own comments accentuating the fear of what this could mean.

We get several comments, words from Art Spiegelman himself, really showing us who he is as a person as well as a creative force.

4 stars

Chicken for Linda

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I have no idea where this one came from.

I had Chicken for Linda on my list of movies for the June Swoon, but I do not remember where I heard about it. I knew it was an animated movie, but that was about it. I had rented it on Fandango at Home, but when I started it, I realized that it is in French.

According to IMDB, “Linda is unfairly punished by her mother, Paulette, who will do anything to make it up to her. Even a chicken with peppers when she can’t cook. Linda absolutely wants to have the chicken that her father made that day…But there is a strike, a general strike.“

The film is unlike any animated film I have seen. The animation was very stylish and different than I had seen before which was a cool feature of it. The colors made much of the film stand out and each color had a purpose to the characters.

The story was very sweet, and surprisingly deeper than one would expect. It had a lingering sadness to it with plenty of humor and joy to go around. Ridiculous situations occur all around and the animation style served it well.

All this trouble for chicken with peppers?

Revelations

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June 24

The second June Swoon film of the day was on Netflix and it was one that I had to read. What I mean by that is, of course, it is a Korean film and it had the English subtitles for the dialogue.

According to IMDB, “A pastor and a detective, driven by their beliefs, pursue a missing person case, with the pastor seeking retribution after a divine revelation identifies the culprit who abducted his son.“

This was wild. This had a ton of twists and turns as the characters involved all were crazy in some way. The strangest things were happening and I found myself truly engaged with the story. Each character flipped around during the story and I bought everything.

There were a lot of dumb choices made by characters, particularly the pastor, and it built a really strong story.

Like all good Korean films, I forget that I am reading the film as I became even more involved in the movie. It just seems to be natural.

Actor Shin Min-jae stood out among the others in the cast with his crazy performance. Ryu Jun-yeol was also great as the quickly descending pastor.

If you like Korean movies, Revelations would be a decent watch. I was into the film all the way through, even during the moments when I was yelling at the characters.

Tuesday

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June 24

I have not seen a movie start off with a bigger WTF in a long time than Tuesday, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

A24 has used some bizarre concepts to deal with serious issues, from farting corpses to being transformed into animals if they can not find love. On the surface, it may seem absurdist at times, but there are always deeper undertones in the narrative than what you would expect.

This movie deals with death, but not just the grief and pain of the loss, but specifically the inability to accept the inevitability of the end and the strides someone will go to to avoid that acceptance.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus played Zora, the mother of Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), who is a 15-year old, wheelchair bound girl with an incurable fatal disease. Julia Louis-Dreyfus gives the best performance of her career, which is saying something, as she struggled with the denial, taking steps to avoid the loss unlike anyone has every done before.

I am trying to remain somewhat vague in my details of this movie, because I went into it with no expectations for it and I was blown away by the surreal aspects of the film. If you can go into this film without any knowledge of the way the story progresses, the better your experience will be.

Tuesday is a powerful piece that deals with something that everyone can relate to and does it in a poignant and emotional way. It is another winner for A24 and their amazing catalogue of films. It is available on HBO Max.

Nonnas

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June 23

For the second film of the day for the June Swoon, I went to my queue at Netflix for a film recently released starring Vince Vaughn. It was a comedy/drama called Nonnas.

After the death of his mother, Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) impulsively decided to open an Italian restaurant on Statin Island, using real life Italian nonnas as the chefs. He wanted their homemade feel of family for the restaurant, warm and loving.

Of course, there are a bunch of troubles that spring up for Joe in his attempt to create his dream restaurant that would honor his mother.

The four women the film cast as the nonnas have a fun chemistry together and their Italian flair truly is the strength of the film. The actors included Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, and Brenda Vaccaro. They were as real as you could expect, right down to some of the same stereotypical flavors. Still, I think these ladies were the best part of the film.

I did feel like I was watching a sweeter version of The Bear in movie format. Many of the challenges that we saw play out on The Bear were also on display in Nonnas and I am certain that the reason this was made was to play off the success of the FX TV show. That is not a bad thing, but it does limited anything new that we could see.

The sweetness and warmth of the script and cast go a long way here, as some of the moments were very warm-hearted. Vince Vaughn played his role beautifully, holding everything together even when things were never going to work. I do think the ending is a bit predictable, and seemed to come out of nowhere quickly, but it does work for what we get here.

This may not be the greatest film ever made, but it is a very enjoyable watch with some characters that will make you feel good and a menu that might make you hungry.

3.5 stars

Nickel Boys

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June 23

Today’s June Swoon film is the final of the 2025 Academy Award nominated films for Best Picture that I needed to see. Nickel Boys was directed by RaMell Ross.

Nickel Boys tells the story of its two main protagonists, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), who meet at Nickel Academy, an abusive and brutal reform school in Florida during the 1960s.

The film is told through the first-person perspective of both Elwood and Turner, though never at the same time. The perspective of either Elwood or Turner is used as the camera, with the supporting actors looking directly at the camera. The technique makes this film different than most other movies that I have seen.

The story is also told in a nonlinear format with flashforwards to Turner’s future. There were some moments that were difficult to follow during the movie, considering the switching of the POVs.

There are several artsy scenes throughout the film including a few scenes from the Sidney Poitier film “The Defiant Ones” as well as clips with Martin Luther King Jr.

There are some powerful scenes during the horrors of the reform school. It is a long movie and I had some trouble focusing on it, but there is no doubt that this is an amazing piece of art.

Another Simple Favor

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June 22

2018 saw the release of a movie that caught the world by surprise. A Simple Favor was directed by Paul Feig and starred Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in a black comedy/mystery that was really clever and creative. In 2025, Amazon Prime streamed a sequel to the film, Another Simple Favor trying to catch magic once again.

I will say that this sequel is not as great as A Simple Favor, but it is entertaining as well.

According to IMDB, “Stephanie Smothers and Emily Nelson reunite on the island of Capri, Italy for Emily’s extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman, which is interrupted by murder and betrayal.“

Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) becoming an author of true crime books and an online vlogger about other cases she investigated worked well for the character. Part of the key to the success of the original was the clever dialogue and interactions and this kept Stephanie active in that part. Then, with Emily’s unexpected return from prison and immediate reinsertion into Stephanie’s life, the film started to keep the audience on its toes with what was about to happen.

Allison Janney appeared as Emily’s Aunt Linda, and she provided her acting chops to a story that does get crazily weighed down with weird story elements.

The key to the film is the banter between Lively and Kendrick. This is the strength of the film as their dialogue is crisp and funny. Their barbs back and forth keep you guessing about what is actually going on with a convoluted story.

The story itself is really not great. It turned out to be more of a parody of the first film than anything else. There are so many bizarre choices that it made me wonder if that was the overall purpose of the sequel.

As an Amazon Prime streaming film, this is fun. A solid watch on a Sunday afternoon. There is a reason why a sequel to a surprise hit was not released in the theaters. It is because the film is not strong enough for that. However, I did enjoy this on the power of the two lead actresses, even when they are in the most ridiculous, bordering on stupid, situations.

3.2 stars

The Fire Inside

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June 22

The June Swoon continued this morning with a boxing movie detailing the pursuit of the Olympic gold medal by Claressa “T-Rex” Shields.

Claressa Shields became the first American woman to win a Gold Medal in boxing but she discovered that, even after the ultimate success, there is nothing in life that is guaranteed.

Ryan Destiny played Claressa Shields, teenager whose dream was to become a star in the boxing ring. She was trained and supported by Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry). Claressa did not have a perfect life. She had troubles with her mother and struggling with the dedication required in her training.

In most sports biopics, the big victory is the ending of the film, but, in this case, Claressa success at the Olympic games in 2012 was just the start of the story. She discovered how difficult it was for a woman to translate her success in the boxing ring into big time success in life. The product endorsements were not coming and Claressa was being offered less than the male boxers were to go for another gold medal.

The struggle for Claressa became the chunk of the movie, detailing how she nearly hit the bottom, nearly pawning her gold medal. The film is also inspiring to see how she was able to overcome these problems in a push for a second gold medal.

I did like how this movie flipped the general formula of the sport biopic upside down and told the story in a different way. Strong performances made the film even more compelling.

The Friend

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June 21

The second film of the June Swoon today was one I rented off Fandango at Home and I rented it because they had Bill Murray on the cover and had a decent Rotten Tomatoes score. We are under ten days now left in the June Swoon and the 2025 movies have been tough to find to watch.

According to IMDB, “Novelist and creative writing teacher Iris (Naomi Watts) finds her comfortable, solitary New York life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor (Bill Murray) commits suicide and bequeaths his beloved Great Dane to her. The regal yet intractable beast, named Apollo, immediately creates problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones, his looming presence constantly reminding her of her friend’s choice to take his own life. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding to the animal, she begins to come to terms with her past, her lost friend, and her own creative inner life.“

I had no idea what this movie was about. I did not know that this was going to be a story about a girl and her dog. I’ve never been a big fan of dog movies that try to tug on the heartstrings. However, this added more to the story than just the dog. The story of Walter (Bill Murray) having committed suicide and how that affected the people around him was very interesting for me.

Naomi Watts is always great. There could have been more Bill Murray for my tastes, but I understand why that is the case with the story.

I am not a dog person, but this was a nice film. I liked the balance between the guilt and sadness of one aspect of the story and the bonding between a very charismatic dog and a human.

3 stars

I’m Still Here

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June 21

Another Academy Award winning film came next in the June Swoon. This film won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film and had received nominations for Best Picture and Best Lead Actress. I’m Still Here is a political biopic from Brazil that detailed the story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband, a former congressman, was a victim of a forced disappearance during the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1971.

Fernanda Torres did win a Golden Globe for her role as Eunice Paiva, along with the Academy Award nomination. She was a powerful force in this film, showing so much depth of her character. It could have easily degenerated into a sob story, but the strength of Eunice and her constant desire to protect her family while searching for the truth really marked her as an amazing woman. Fernanda Torres brings all of the emotion and power to the role.

The resiliency of the Torres family was on full display as they had to go through so much uncertainty after armed men came into their house and took away their father. Then, Eunice and one of her daughters were taken for “questioning” and held for an extended period of time. Such behaviors of a government is and was unacceptable and I’m Still Here makes that argument clearly.

As an audience, we are given time at the beginning to get to know Rubens Paiva and see how important he was to his family before he was removed by the military. We could see the hole that his forced disappearance put in his family and how Eunice did everything she could to fill that gap herself.

The film did have a couple of sections at the end showing the family in the future, including one in 2016 where Eunice was in a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer’s. There was still a powerful hope within that family, a trait that came from Eunice’s decade long fight for the truth. I am not sure if these last two scenes were really needed, but it was nice to see how these people’s lives moved on after they realized that their father was not coming back.

This is a long film, but it was worthwhile thanks to an amazing lead performance and a story that helps us understand what life under a dictatorship could be like.