F This Movie!

Review: MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 5 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Boys with toys.

While it’s seen more than a dozen permutations across a variety of multi-media platforms since Mattel released the first Masters of the Universe toys back in 1982, it’s fair to say that most fans of He-Man’s adventures in Eternia were introduced to the franchise with Filmation’s animated series, which was broadcast in weekday syndication from 1983 to 1985. Over 130 episodes, He-Man and his rotating lineup of colorful, fully-poseable allies faced off against the sinister Skeletor in an epic battle for the fate of the universe. Hoping to capitalize on the franchise’s popularity, the Cannon Group brought a live-action Masters of the Universe to the big screen in 1987, a film that — though a critical and commercial failure at the time — has been reappraised in some circles as a landmark in low-budget fantasy schlock. In fact, I’d venture a guess that most of you reading this right now remember He-Man and Masters of the Universe with warm nostalgia — it was a simpler time, an era (era) of possibility unmarred by the cruel, Skeletor-like yoke of adult responsibility.

And while I’m a bit too young to share in that nostalgia — I was born in 1986, just after He-Man’s heyday — Amazon MGM and director Travis Knight (CEO of animation giant Laika) have brought Eternia back to life again. The new Masters of the Universe begins as Adam (a winning Nicholas Galitzine) recounts his childhood in the faraway kingdom, which he was forced to flee after Skeletor (Jared Leto, blessedly masked) stole the throne from his father, King Randor (James Purefoy). Stranded on Earth for the last fifteen years, Adam has finally tracked down the Sword of Power, a legendary artifact that opens a path to home. Now, he’ll team up with his childhood friend, Teela (a game Camila Mendes), and her father, the Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba, still trapped in IP hell), to free Eternia from Skeletor and his sorceress (Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn) before their darkness consumes it forever. Along the way, he’ll discover the power of the Sword of Power and use the words of power to become the powerful…You know what? It’s He-Man. Big guy. Fights evil. You get it.

But does Amazon get it? Masters of the Universe certainly presents with enough credibility to satisfy the most ardent fans — each costume, weapon, and setting is pulled right from the source material, producing an unabashedly-cartoonish Filmation wonderland that would have been impossible to pull off back in the old Fox X-Men days — and Daniel Pemberton’s muscular score (with wailing guitars courtesy of Queen’s Brian May) is beefy enough to fill every loin cloth in the theater. Knight’s action setpieces are goofy and playful: Adam swings his signature sword with reckless abandon, while a supporting cast of minions and warriors — including Fisto (Jóhannes Jóhannesson), Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), Karg (Hung Dante Dong) and Trap Jaw (Sam C. Wilson) — wields their Battle Accessories™ to satisfying effect. And while he never comes close to the theatrical bombast of Frank Langella’s 1987 performance, Jared Leto aims his Skeletor at the cheap seats, slicing off a few prime cuts of ham and bouncing off Brie’s cackling Evil-Lyn with ease.

But while there seems to have been no debate about how this Masters of the Universe should look and sound, the film’s six credited screenwriters must have been locked in their own mortal struggle about how it should feel. What begins as an earnest adventure story of heroes and villains quickly shifts gears into post-modern Marvel smarm, with winking asides made about nearly every Eternian oddity and character nickname (get ready for uncomfortable jokes about Fisto fisting his enemies, Ram-Man “giving them head,” and Battlecat being a “pussy”). Knight tries to balance this self-awareness with the pathos of James Gunn’s Guardians films and the metatextual wit of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie — undercooked Aesops about “inner vs. outer strength,” etc. — but ends up with an atonal cacophony that seems thoroughly embarrassed by the very fantasy world it’s created. Skeletor may have been a haughty megalomaniac in the old days, but he’s literally Dr. Evil now, with extended cringe bits and awkward pratfalls played for laughs at his expense.

And, look. There’s no sense in asking why Amazon would remake Masters of the Universe if they had no intention of handling the material seriously. The answer is the same as it was back in 1982: To sell toys. And that’s fine! These aren’t real characters, after all; they’re products, and no one’s asking for the Dark Knight of Masters of the Universe movies. These colorful, fully-articulated action figures demand little in the way of subtext — “Because he’s evil,” answers Teela when Adam tries to uncover a deeper meaning to Skeletor’s diabolical plans — and there are countless moments when Knight and his crew wisely forgo any dramatic nuance and, instead, see fit simply to smash their toys into each other at high speeds. There’s a clear understanding of and reverence for the source material here, and most of the (literal) sword-carrying MOTU devotees in my preview audience were howling with delight by the time the credits rolled. If you want nothing — and I mean absolutely nothing — more than that from Masters of the Universe, then you, my friend, have the power.

Masters of the Universe hits U.S. theaters on Friday, May 5th.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 5: Teenagers!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 5 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Friday Night Double Features Vol. 67

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 4 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske and Patrick Bromley

Ten new double features to kick your summer off strong!

Double Feature 1:

Adam: #1: The Blues Brothers (1980)
Patrick: #2: The Stunt Man (1980)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Animalympics, Urban Cowboy, Up the Academy
Patrick: Theme: June 1980

Patrick: I guess with enough distance every month in the past becomes an amazing month. I’m not saying Up the Academy is amazing, but it does have Robert Downey Sr. adapting MAD magazine. I watched Animalympics about 200 times on cable as a kid. Urban Cowboy obviously rules and was very nearly the second feature I wanted to program, but then I saw that The Stunt Man was released the same month as The Blues Brothers and couldn’t resist pairing those two. I love the idea of watching a big, expensive Hollywood musical and then a movie that totally deconstructs the movie making process. I’ve never seen either movie on the big screen and I’m excited to see them together.

Adam: This sounds great. I don’t think I’ve seen The Blues Brothers in a theater either and this will be my first viewing of The Stunt Man. I miss when movies had legacies. Not to entirely knock current movies, but they really struggle with remaining resonant in subsequent years. I can’t wait to hear that Blues Brothers soundtrack on the Linderground speakers.

Double Feature 2:

Patrick: #1: The Fury (1978)
Adam: #2: The Entity (1982)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Fists of Fury, Mad Max: Fury Road, Iron Eagle, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Adam: Theme: “The Fury. The Furie”

Adam: It’s sort of a nonsensical theme since these movies have nothing to do with Marlon Brando or Apocalypse Now but I nonsensical’d my way into pairing two movies that I think will play well together. Plus, The Fury is one of my unseen DePalmas and I’m becoming more of a Sidney J. Furie guy with each new movie of his I watch so I gotta keep that ball rolling. Are you a fan of these two movies?

Patrick: This is a pretty incredible double even beyond the title/theme because these movies would play really well together. The Entity is one of SJF’s best in large part thanks to the Barbara Hershey performance, but it can be a tough watch because it’s very ghost rapey. Like Ghostbusters but less hilarious. The Fury is one of the great underappreciated De Palma movies that lives on mostly because of its ending but there’s so much more to love than just that. It’s the movie that gave me my first crush on Amy Irving. I’ve never been able to see it in a theater, either, so this will be so cool.

Double Feature 3:
Adam: #1: The Housemaid (2025)
Patrick: #2: Chloe (2009)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Alpha Dog, Lovelace, Jennifer’s Body
Patrick: Theme: Trashy Seyfried

Patrick: Amanda Seyfried is quietly amassing a pretty amazing body of work. I like that she’s still willing to make trashy movies like The Housemaid even when she’s also making super respectable and audacious stuff like The Testament of Ann Lee. Before anyone gets angry or offended, please know that just because I say something is trashy doesn’t mean I think it’s bad; The Housemaid and Chloe and Jennifer’s Body are all “elevated” trash – movies that know exactly what they are and lean into what the audience wants and expects while simultaneously offering something deeper and more thoughtful.

Adam: Amanda Seyfried is great. I’m looking forward to this double so I can no longer be the only person who hasn’t seen The Housemaid. I remember Chloe being decent and kinda hot. It’s like Atom Egoyan was making up for the fact that Exotica wasn’t all that hot.

Double Feature 4:

Patrick: #1: Dragonslayer (1981)
Adam: #2: The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Corvette Summer, Batteries Not Included, Bingo
Adam: Theme: Matthew Robbins: The Whole Bloody Affair

Adam: I’ve never seen Dragonslayer or The Legend of Billie Jean so this might be my first choice for the month. I’m interested since I know they both have their fandom. Do you like them? It’s also cool to have a night dedicated to a director’s entire filmography. I think Batteries Not Included was the first sneak preview I ever saw in theaters and my Dad had to explain the concept of a sneak preview to me. P.S. I’m so happy Matthew Robbins made Bingo because now Rosalie, Andy, and I can talk about our beloved Bingo the entire night.

Patrick: I love it when we devote a FNDF to an uncelebrated filmmaker, so this has me very excited. I haven’t seen The Legend of Billie Jean in years so I can’t remember if I like it or not, but that Pat Benatar song is a real banger. I’m a big Dragonslayer fan; it’s one of the best of all the ‘80s fantasy films and has the best dragon ever put on screen. Matthew Robbins filmography makes no sense to me. I really wanted to see *batteries not included as a kid because of the Spielberg connection but even back then I didn’t much like it and I’ve never actually seen Bingo. Please don’t tell Rosalie and Andy. I need them to keep respecting me.

Double Feature 5:
Adam: #1: Friday (1995)
Patrick: #2: CB4 (1993)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, How High, Fear of a Black Hat, Pootie Tang
Patrick: Theme: Hood Comedies

Patrick: I thought about pairing Friday with How High and passing out joints at the Cinemarink, but seeing as I’ve never tried weed before I don’t think now is the time to start. Do I need to rewatch How High? E and I saw it in theaters, and I remember laughing a lot when they smoke the corpse of John Quincy Adams or something but nothing else. I decided instead to double Friday – a movie I liked more until I had to see Ice Cube writing it in Straight Outta Compton – with CB4, a somewhat underrated ‘90s Universal comedy (only you get what this means) about the gangster rap scene. I think this would be a really fun night at the movies.

Adam: I saw How High once and don’t remember much about it other than a couple of jokes that were really funny. The guys in my fraternity liked it for what it’s worth. This is a great pairing. Friday is one of my favorite ‘90s comedies. It’s a great hangout movie and different jokes get me each viewing (“What the hell you stealing boxes for? You trying to build a clubhouse?”). I’m of the opinion that CB4 is better than Fear of a Black Hat. Am I crazy? That might be because I’ve seen the former maybe 10 times and the latter only once. Wacky D’s in the house!

Double Feature 6:

Patrick: #1: Cruising (1980)
Adam: #2: Author! Author! (1982)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: Scarface, Revolution, Sea of Love
Adam: Theme: '80s Al Pacino

Adam: I went with '80s Al Pacino as a theme because he made relatively few movies during that decade and it was a weird time for him. I’ve seen Cruising a couple of times and it’s one of the more unsettling movies I can remember seeing even if it doesn’t connect all the way story wise (to me at least). Following it up with Author! Author! was intentional because that movie is pitched like a sitcom (how will Al Pacino raise all these kids!???) and will allow the audience to decompress after the intensity of Cruising.

Patrick: OMG the Pacino whiplash we are going to get. There are some days where I might call Cruising my favorite Friedkin even though I know it’s not; it’s just one that I revisit a lot because I love the early ‘80s NY sleazcore vibes and that ZZ Top song kicks so much ass. Pacino’s ‘80s were so nuts. Did you ever see Revolution? I haven’t but kind of need to. I know he was semi-retired during the decade, but why did he come out to make stuff like that and Author! Author!?

Adam: Revolution is one of the few Pacinos I have yet to see. I think that was the movie that made him semi-retire and not come back until Diane Keaton forced him to make Sea of Love.

Double Feature 7:
Adam: #1: Grease (1978)
Patrick: #2: Hairspray (1987)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: Can’t Buy Me Love, Cocktail, Bird on a Wire
Patrick: Theme: Erika Night

Patrick: Sometimes you just want to devote an entire night to movies your wife loves more than anyone else. I like most of them (never Cocktail), but they will always belong to her.

Adam: I love it! I like that I’ve known you two long enough to immediately associate most of these movies with Erika’s love of them. I need to revisit Hairspray. I haven’t seen it since cable in the ‘80s where I remember being afraid of it because I found out Divine passed away and for some reason, I thought that made the movie scary. We need to play the Cocktail soundtrack as part of the pre-show. For goodness sake, let’s give the Cinemarink the hippie hippie shakes. P.S. Do I need to see Bird on a Wire? I used to like that poster. It popped whenever you’d see it as an ad in Premiere Magazine.

Patrick: You should totally see Bird on a Wire. It’s a fine movie that becomes a three-star banger in hindsight. Plus, it’s 1990 Universal and that shit just hits different.

Double Feature 8:

Patrick: #1: Hook (1991)
Adam: #2: The Fisher King (1991)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: The Doors, Hudson Hawk, Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Adam: Theme: Tri-Star 1991

Adam: I credit studios like early '90s Tri-Star for being gateways for me as a kid to watching movies made for grown-ups. For example, Terminator 2 was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater and when I saw the preview for The Doors where Val Kilmer is all “Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin…” I was fully ready at 8 years old to be walked through the doorway of my own oblivion. Hook is a movie that’s kind of a joke in my family because I got food poisoning before we saw it on Christmas Day 1991 and I spent most of the movie and after the movie throwing up all over The Catlow theater. Good times. I’m a Hook guy. I actually like it more as an adult than I did as a kid. Back then I sort of needed to will my way into liking it, but I saw it a few years ago in 70mm at the Music Box and was connecting to the Robin Williams arc a bit. I paired Hook with The Fisher King because it’s a Williams movie I own and have meant to see forever but have never watched.

Patrick: I’m much more of a Fisher King guy than a Hook guy (as has been well established) so I’m excited that we have, as La Bianda says, one for you, one for me. I keep waiting for my magic viewing of Hook, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m sure a 70mm Music Box screening would help so hopefully they do it again. It’s so weird how much I like Robin Williams as an actor when he made so many bad movies (these are not them) and never really makes me laugh despite being a mostly comic performer. I will watch him in just about anything. The Fisher King is one of his best.

Double Feature 9:
Adam: #1: The Princess Diaries (2001)
Patrick: #2: Purple Rain (1984)
Patrick: Trailers/Shorts: The Princess Bride, “Kiss” music video, Graffiti Bridge
Patrick: Theme: Princes and Princesses

Patrick: This was a tough one so I hope our audience will go with us on it. I don’t think I’ve seen The Princess Diaries since a sneak preview in 2001 (I never saw the sequel either) so I had to zag and take a different direction. There’s never a bad time to watch Purple Rain, and you can definitely introduce the movie and tell the Cinemarink about the words the movie taught you.

Adam: Lol. I just revisited Purple Rain over the weekend on my smoky, snap case DVD just as everyone should. It’s like vinyl. The last concert in Purple Rain might be some of the best cinema ever put on film. It’s incredible. I’m also (as you already know) a huge Princess Diaries guy so this evening is all nutmeg to me. I like the theme a lot too. Do I need to see Graffiti Bridge? I’ve been tempted but never took the dive.

Patrick: I’ve never seen Graffiti Bridge or any Prince movie outside of Purple Rain. Our Cinemarink speakers are really getting a workout this month, and I am here for it.

Double Feature 10:

Patrick: #1: Far and Away (1992)
Adam: #2: The Age of Innocence (1993)
Adam: Trailers/Shorts: L.A. Story, Sweet November, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Enya music video block
Adam: Theme: Enya Music

Adam: I programmed this evening not as an Enya fan (I’m not a detractor either for the record) but because she’s had songs in a lot of movies. Her song in Far and Away is pretty badass. It’ll get you through the last three pumps when you’re bench pressing. I’ve seen Far and Away maybe three times, and it never clicked for me but the promise of being in the company of Cruise and Kidman is enough to keep going back to it. I’m also using this as an excuse to revisit The Age of Innocence, which I’ve only seen once and probably should have liked more than I did. I really wanted to like it because of the cast and Scorsese of course.

Patrick: I love this. She should come play live. I need to rewatch Far and Away, so I programmed it here because I don’t remember loving it but regret not seeing it in 70mm when it played at Woodfield 1&2 because it was one of the last movies that ever did. I only recently saw The Age of Innocence and was pretty knocked out by it despite it not being my thing. That Scorsese is pretty good.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 4: Blaxploitation!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 4 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

FTM 823: EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Patrick and JB will lead you to Pazuzu. (Note: The levels on this episode are messed up and we apologize for the inconsistent sound. We promise to do better next week.)

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: Fantasy Life (2026), I Love Boosters (2026), Backrooms (2026), Obsession (2026)

Junesploitation 2026 Day 3: Linda Blair!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Fifty Before '50: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 2 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small...

In 1951, Walt Disney Studios released Alice in Wonderland, a film that had been kicking around the studio for the better part of thirteen years. The studio had high hopes for its success. Certainly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio had proved that beloved children’s book + Disney magic = box office bonanzas.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Alice and her sister spend some time together by a tree. Alice is not interested in her sister’s history lesson and begins to daydream. She chases a passing White Rabbit and plummets down a hole. After ingesting magical cookies and mysterious liquids, she ends up in Wonderland and meets twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Dodo, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, and the Cheshire Cat. She ends up at a Mad Tea Party, attended by the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, and (briefly) the White Rabbit. The Cheshire Cat directs Alice to the Castle of the Red Queen, and Alice quickly runs afoul of her. The Red Queen orders Alice brutally executed. Except for the fact that many of these characters are anthropomorphic animals, how on earth is this a film for children?

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT: It’s all a dream. So there.

Alice in Wonderland was the rare animated film that was not a hit for the Walt Disney Studio upon its original release. I would humbly suggest that any or all of the following might be reasons for its relative failure:

1. Lewis Carroll’s particular brand of whimsey and fantasy does not match Walt Disney’s particular brand whimsey and fantasy; it’s like oil and water.

2. The film has a protagonist who is unsympathetic and weak; she is acted upon more than active, and her actions largely consist of eating biscuits and delivering stern, humorless lectures. Critic Miyako Pleines wrote, "Unlike the other Disney princesses before her, Alice seemed to have no real purpose (even if that purpose is simply to be a damsel in distress). People saw her as lacking ambition and drive, a lazy girl who daydreamed during her studies and wandered into a magical world.”

3. The film is full of songs (16!) but only a single memorable one: “A Very Merry Un-Birthday.”

4. The film has too many characters (Eighteen, by my count) and a plot that consists of “and then she went here... and then she went here... and then she went here.”

5. With the exceptions of Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter and Bill Thomas as the White Rabbit, the voice cast is uninteresting and interchangeable.

6. Structurally, the film is very much like The Wizard of Oz, but here the ending feels like a cheat because Alice has not forged any kind of relationship with any of the other characters.

7. Some of the material presented is quite “Un-Disneylike:” During “The Walrus and the Carpenter” segment, oysters are presented as little babies in diapers and bonnets... and (SPOILER ALERT) the Walrus eats them. As Goofy might say, “Garsh!”

8. Some of the character design and direction is a tad creepy; I could see little children in the early 1950s being frightened by this film.

9. In spite of all I've mentioned above, this version of Alice in Wonderland still manages to be quite boring.

Post-World War II, Disney released several compendium films—Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Melody Time (1948)—that were little more than collections of shorts. If these “feature films” failed, Disney planned to release the shorts separately. That was not the release strategy with Alice, but you can see how the anthology films' strategy of using different teams of animators for each segment “trickled down” to Alice, assigning various teams to work on segments where the only common element is Alice herself. (This is a very episodic film. Other episodes from the book were planned for, but later cut from, Alice in Wonderland: the Jabberwocky, the White Knight, the Duchess, the Mock Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and the Gryphon all “hit the studio floor” before final animation began.)

I’m sure this “teams” approach saved production time. Hand-drawn animation is very expensive to produce. What’s lost is any kind of narrative cohesion between the segments. Animator Ward Kimball thought the film "...suffered from too many cooks—directors. Here was a case of [nine] directors each trying to top the other guy and make his sequence the biggest and craziest in the show. This had a self-canceling effect on the final product."

Why is this an ideal cartoon to watch today for Junesploitation? Because after a few years had passed, a random bean counter at the Disney Studios noticed that this film was doing big business in the 16mm rental market on college campuses.

Hmmmmmm. The 1960s. College campuses. Alice in Wonderland.

Disney Studios pulled the film from 16mm rental, and mounted a nation-wide theatrical re-release with a new trippy ad campaign. Disney Studios exploited itself. Don’t believe me? Go ask Alice... when she was just small.

NOTE: Three weeks ago, on May 5, Alice in Wonderland was released in 4K Blu-ray to celebrate the film's 75th anniversary. The Disney restoration team spent nine months on a digital scan of the original nitrate negative. The Walt Disney Animation Research Library collaborated with Walt Disney Animation Studios to ensure the restoration remained true to the animators' original intent and color palate. This is a terrific-looking disc and the two teams finally put the colors back to the way they were in 1951; it is highly recommended for that reason alone.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 2: Cartoons!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 2 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Thrill Seeker: GUILTY AS SIN

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Sonia Mansfield

Sonia puts on the world’s biggest scrunchie and heads into court.

Guilty As Sin
Starring Rebecca De Mornay, Don Johnson, Stephan Lang, and Jack Warden
Written by Larry Cohen
Directed by Sidney Lumet?!
Rated R for violence, language, really big scrunchies, and some sexuality
Tagline: She's finally met her match. He's handsome, wealthy, seductive. A Real Lady Killer.

Welcome to Thrill Seeker, in which I watch thrillers from the '80s and '90s. This month, I watched 1993’s Guilty As Sin, starring Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson.

I decided to move this one up the list because it stars Rebecca De Mornay, who, between Guilty As Sin, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and Never Talk To Strangers, was the Ashley Judd of early '90s thrillers. (Ashley Judd was the Ashley Judd of late-'90s thrillers.)

And then I realized that Guilty As Sin is directed by Sidney Lumet. Whaaaa? Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), Prince of the City (1981), and The Verdict (1982): You know, real garbage. Guilty As Sin is a glossy Hollywood thriller. It’s not really his style, but by 1993 his career had hit an, ummm, quieter stretch.

I saw this in the theater when it came out. I was working at the theater at the time, which meant I got to see it for free, and of course, I brought my mom, because it had Don Johnson in it. All moms loved Don Johnson back then. It’s a psychological condition known as the Miami vice. There are certain actors that moms of a certain age love: Don Johnson, Tom Selleck, and Mark Harmon.

OK, let’s run through the plot, no spoilers.

The plot: Rebecca De Mornay plays Jennifer Haines, and like so many characters in these thrillers, she’s a big-time Chicago defense attorney. The movie opens with her in court, getting some mobster acquitted, because she’s just that good. And there in the courtroom is Don Johnson.

“Your biggest fan is back. He’s gorgeous, and he can’t keep his eyes off you,” Jennifer’s assistant ~~explains to viewers~~ tells her.

Jennifer celebrates her big win by rushing into her boyfriend’s office, stripping off her legal briefs, and … cut to them eating Chinese food. Did I mention that the boyfriend is a curly-haired Stephen Lang with a porn stache? I kinda think the movie is worth it just for that.

The next day, Jennifer’s biggest fan strolls into her office without an appointment. Rude.

Don Johnson plays David Greenhill, a handsome man accused of pushing his wealthy wife out a high-rise window and making it look like a suicide. We know he’s handsome because everyone tells us repeatedly throughout the movie. I actually double-checked to see if Don Johnson has a cowriting credit on this movie. He doesn’t.

We’re also repeatedly told that he’s charming, but the movie never shows us that. David tells Jennifer that he doesn’t have a job. He just lives off rich women and cheats on them. If this movie were remade now, David would be a podcaster in the manosphere.

She hears all that and thinks, “Yeah, he’s innocent. I’m gonna help him.”

In the first few days after taking the case, Jennifer realizes she’s made a big mistake. The dude flakes on the legal bills, harasses Stephen Lang, starts insinuating to people that they’re having an affair, and makes a sandwich in front of her in a threatening manner.

Jennifer gets her private investigator/father figure, Jack Warden, to do some digging, and well, David has a history of dating older women who disappear or die. You don’t say.

David knows that she knows the truth, but he doesn’t care. It makes it clear that he’s going to take full advantage of the whole attorney-client privilege thing.

Finally, Jennifer is like, “Fuck this shit,” and tries to quit, but the judge is like, “You broke it. You bought it,” and won’t let her resign from the case.

So, she puts on the world’s biggest scrunchie and heads into court. Seriously, look at that thing.

And here’s where my plot summary ends, thrill seekers. Just know there’s another murder, monologuing, and (my favorite) a bat shit ending.

Is it a thrill? Sadly, no. Guilty As Sin wants to be trashy fun, but that’s not Lumet’s style. The movie plays it too straight. It’s not until the end that it gets over the top, and that’s when you get just a little taste of what it could’ve been all along.

The movie is written by Larry Cohen, best known for low-budget genre films, but he also worked as a screenwriter-for-hire. This is obviously one of those jobs.

Johnson is fine in the movie. His character is supposedly so charming that women can’t help but want to support him, but we never see that. Instead, he’s just a handsome creep. Since we never see that side, the performance feels a little one-note.

But De Mornay is terrific. A year earlier, she was doing the menacing in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, and she’s really good at being menaced here. I don’t think we appreciated her enough back in the day. She always commits, and she’s so good even in movies that don’t deserve her.

Rating: I really wanted to love this movie, but instead I’m giving it 2 bunnies in a boiling pot out of 5.

I want to hear from y’all. What '80s-'90s thrillers do you love? What should I cover next? I love requests.

Junesploitation 2026 Day 1: '90s Action!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 1 Jun 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 30 May 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: MISS YOU, LOVE YOU

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 29 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Light up the summer blockbuster season with a two-handed chamber drama!

Among 2024’s many underdiscussed gems was Hard Truths, the brutal and uncompromising character study from English auteur Mike Leigh and one of his most celebrated collaborators, Marianne Jean-Baptiste. In what should have been an awards-sweeping performance, Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a surly and bitter wretch of a woman whose anger masks a deep sadness that only love — specifically, the love of her sister (Michele Austin as Chantelle) — can overcome. Leigh’s intimate presentation makes Hard Truths a compelling watch, but it’s the universality of Pansy’s journey that really makes it memorable: At one point or another, we’ve all hidden wounds behind resentment and rage. We’ve all withheld truths from those with the power to make us pay for them. We’ve all succumbed to doubt and insecurity. But the more unbearable Pansy’s behavior gets — and if you haven’t seen Hard Truths, then you haven’t seen just how repugnant a human being can be — the more we see the desperation and misery behind all of her fury.

Written and directed by Jim Rash — whom I got to know as the flamboyant Dean Pelton on Community before he won an Oscar for co-writing Alexander Payne’s The Descendents — the new HBO film Miss You, Love You plays in a similar realm. Just days after the unexpected death of her beloved husband, Henry, the hardheaded and irascible Diane (Allison Janney) hears a knock on the door: It’s Jamie (Andrew Rannells), who says he’s an assistant to her son, Tyler, and that he’s here to help her with Henry’s funeral arrangements while Tyler researches a new novel in some faraway land. He’s stuck there for safety reasons — or at least, that’s what Tyler would have Diane believe — and Jamie is here to guide Diane through this difficult time in his stead. Diane isn’t thrilled to welcome this substitute son, however, and she has absolutely no compunction about letting him know it. But as the preparations progress, both Diane and Jamie will confront a few shared animosities that — you’ll never believe this— reveal them to be far more alike than they initially thought.

An elegantly-staged two-hander set in an arid New Mexican desert community, Miss You, Love You is driven by the stifling weight of absence: Both Henry and Tyler are frequently spoken of but never seen in person — Henry appears in photos and voicemails, while Tyler exists only as a series of urgent chirps on Jamie’s phone — leaving Diane and Jamie to dump all kinds of displaced resentment onto each other, instead. Diane’s angry at Henry for dying, for example, for leaving her stranded in an adobe rancher when she’d rather be in a Manhattan penthouse. She’s angry at Tyler for never calling her, for using old family feuds as an excuse to keep her at a distance. And Jamie? Well, he’s just here to do his job, right? Or is he an overeager people-pleaser who hopes that handling Diane will help Tyler see Jamie the way he wants to be seen — he can’t let go of an unrealized romance between them — and force Tyler to admit that he was wrong to let him go? These recriminations quickly pile up, bonding Diane and Jamie in a mutual discontent that they can no longer ignore.

Rash’s screenplay is the kind of three-course meal that actors like West Wing alum Allison Janney and Broadway favorite Andrew Rannells chow down on with ease, but it’s the unlikely physical chemistry between them that saves Miss You, Love You from its writing whenever the sheer tonnage of dialogue — each actor has a handful of wordy, impassioned outbursts that seem to go on for ages — starts to feel too studied and exact to have come from real live human beings. It’s especially effective given the confines of the setting: Janney’s trademark imperiousness and statuesque height should reduce the more mild-mannered Rannells to a puddle on the kitchen floor, but watching Jamie hold close-ups, find his footing, and push back with hooks and jabs of his own is one of the film’s great joys. For as clumsy and overwrought as things become in the third act — Rash eventually loses patience with dramatic conceits and starts shouting his characters’ emotional subtext from the rooftops — Janney and Rannells sell the histrionics like pros.

At its best, Miss You, Love You gives its grieving leads an opportunity to test drive the conversations they might one day have with their shared tormentor, especially once they realize that their brief co-habitance is low-stakes enough that they have nothing to lose by being honest with each other. Plus, getting live feedback from someone who understands what you’re going through is a lot better than practicing self-righteous takedowns to yourself in the bathroom mirror, isn’t it? Jim Rash should also get some credit for avoiding easy cliches and neat thematic shortcuts: A worse movie might have Jamie win Diane over enough that she encourages him to go after Tyler (spoilers: she does just the opposite), or have Diane admit that all her passive-aggression is just a refusal to deal with the fact that Tyler doesn’t depend on her anymore (spoilers: it isn’t). Real life is more nuanced than that, and Miss You, Love You doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. It does help us see ourselves a little better, though, and sometimes that’s all it takes for the real healing to begin.

Miss You, Love You hits HBO on Friday, May 29th.

2K Replay: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 28 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Choice Summer Movie: Drama/Action-Adventure” at the Teen Choice Awards. It lost to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): The chase through Tokyo that ends with Han (Sung Kang) crashing and Dominic Torreto's (Vin Diesel) cameo at the end.

• Best Song (tie): “Conteo” by Don Omar and “She Wants to Move” by N.E.R.D.

• Best Merch: An “Affliction Fast and Furious Bodysuit Leotard Tokyo Drift Black White XS” for $20.00. With any luck, this will be your partner’s wardrobe of choice on your wedding night. Bonus points for the eBay seller being named rowdydowdycoyootie.

• Director Grade: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was directed by Justin Lin.
Great Movies: Fast Five
Good Movies: Better Luck Tomorrow, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast and Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond
OK Movies: Annapolis, F9
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: Shopping for Fangs, Finishing the Game, Last Days
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: Cars

• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Annapolis, Find Me Guilty, Running Scared

• Ella McCay or The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift? The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• Mall Movie? 100 percent. This movie has an arcade game. You could go straight from the cinema to the arcade afterwards.

• Only in 2006: A movie about drifting.

• Scene Stealer: Sung Kang, who's still cool in this movie despite how uncool the most recent Fast movies made him. Honorable Mention: Bow Wow who brings a certain gravitas to his role as…Twink.

• I Miss: Casual, breezy, not overly stuffed Fast and the Furious movies.

• I Don’t Miss: Movies trying to pump you up with Kid Rock's “Bawitdaba.”

• 2006 Crush (tie): Nikki Griffin and Keiko Kitagawa.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Lynda Boyd and Keiko Kitagawa.

• What I Thought in 2006: I sort of checked out on the franchise after the original and didn’t catch up with Tokyo Drift until it hit DVD. I remember thinking it was better than I expected and would have classified it as a guilty pleasure back then.

• What I Think in 2026: I go back and forth between liking and really liking Tokyo Drift. The first hour is super fun and energetic but the second hour when the plot (namely the Yakuza stuff) kicks in is a little sluggish. Overall, I like that the movie embraces being about a very specific subculture of car racing and Tokyo is so photogenic that I enjoy going back to this one just for the travelogue aspect of it all.

FTM 822: THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU & THE YEAR SO FAR (2026)

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 27 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Kick off summer with Patrick and JB.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Fifty Before '50: THE PHANTOM STALLION

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 26 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

Uh-oh! It’s the last of the “singing cowboy” Westerns!

“The Singing Cowboy” is a musical genre that has sadly gone the way of the horse and buggy. Carl T. Sprague is usually given credit for being the first singing cowboy on radio with his hit song, “When the Work’s All Done This Fall.” Other singing cowboys from radio and records included Jules Verne Allen, Harry McClintock, Wilford Carter, and Tex Allen. Most of these performers grew up on ranches and had real experience working as cowboys. Their songs used simple, rustic vocals; simple arrangements; and simple, stringed-instrument accompaniment. Give it a listen:

Sound films brought with them a slew of new singing cowboys: Gene Autrey, Bob Baker, Ken Curtis, Dick Foran, Vaughn Monroe, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and Rex Allen. This subgenre of film was incredibly popular from the early 1930s through the 1950s. Rex Allen is considered the last of the singing cowboys... and The Phantom Stallion the last of the singing cowboy Westerns.

THE PLOT IN BRIEF: Rex Allen (Rex Allen) returns to California and finds his old buddy Slim (Slim Pickens) working for curmudgeonly ranch owner Mike Reilly (Harry Shannon). Reilly has been losing prize horses, and he wonders where they have gone.

His niece Claire Reilly (Carla Balenda) and his violent foreman Gil (Don Haggerty) have been having a little ranch romance. Not incidentally, Claire is Mike Reilly's only heir.

Rex prevents someone on the ranch from being trampled to death by the titular beast, and Reilly’s adopted son Tony (Peter Price) tries to get to the bottom of all this horsey intrigue. Will Rex take Tony's side? Is there a secret brewing at the ol' ranch? Can horses dream?

ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAUSE: Shortly after getting married in 1987, my lovely wife and I drove into Chicago one summer day (probably to attend the Music Box Theater, but this cannot be confirmed) and ended up at an antique shop called Yesterday in the shadow of Wrigley Field. There, we found an original one-sheet poster for The Phantom Stallion and fell in love with it. We bought it. We took it home. We had it framed. We hung it in the upstairs hallway, where it remained for thirty years. We never actually saw the film.

Meanwhile, Yesterday closed in 2019 following owner Tom Boyle’s passing. His collection was liquidated. The building was demolished in the summer of 2020 to make way for a three-story residential building. This is sad. Chicago has thousands of three-story residential buildings. It will never have another Yesterday.

Flash forward to 2024. My lovely wife and I move to California, and we take The Phantom Stallion poster with us. It hangs proudly in our great room. Friend-of-the-site Heath Holland of Cereal at Midnight pays a visit, notices the poster, and asks me if I have ever seen the film. No, I explain it has never been released on any home video format that I know of. He asks if I have checked the YouTube machine. Of course, I haven’t, because I am old and uninformed. Of course, it’s there. After 35 years, I finally get to watch The Phantom Stallion.

It's delightful! At a brisk 53 minutes, it never wears out its welcome. It’s peppy. The performances are great. As I’m watching it, I slowly realize that ranch owner Harry Shannon played Kane’s father in Citizen Kane!

It was a hoot to see a “young” Slim Pickens performance; I’m far more familiar with “old” Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, The Getaway, and 1941. (That’s Slim Pickens, not Slim Shady.) The plot is simple, but involving. The bad guys are really bad; they actually contemplate killing horses and children. They are the worst. Rex Allen towers above the whole thing with that incredible voice of his; he spent the end of his career narrating Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventure nature films.

The Phantom Stallion is perfect for our upcoming Junesploitation marathon month; you can watch it on June 7, 16, 21, 22, 26, or 29th. The choice is yours. You can watch the film right now, right here:

10 Perfect Movies That Aren't JAWS or BACK TO THE FUTURE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 25 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley

And also not The Godfather.

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982, dir. Nicholas Meyer)

You don't have to be a huge Star Trek nerd to fully appreciate The Wrath of Khan, still my favorite Trek thing ever made, but it does help. The characters become more meaningful, the relationships and our connections to them deeper. But because writer/director Nicholas Meyer designed the low-budget sequel as a WWII nautical warfare adventure, it's accessible to anyone with a spirit of adventure. This is one of my favorite movies from my favorite year of movies.

2. Sorcerer (1977, dir. William Friedkin)

Confession: I have only seen this movie once, but it was a perfect screening of a perfect movie: on the big screen on 35mm with director William Friedkin introducing and doing a Q&A afterwards. I have been wary to revisit it for fear of breaking the spell. I'm going to rewatch it soon because if you ask me on the right day I might say this is my favorite Friedkin movie. The older I get the more I realize we took Roy Scheider for granted.

3. Fargo (1996, dir. Joel Coen)

The best Coen Brothers movie featuring my favorite movie character of all time. There are so many scenes and moments in Fargo that make it perfect. I won't do a recap here. It's funny and shocking and sad and beautiful in equal measure and so few movies have ever been able to be or do what Fargo does.

4. All the President's Men (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula)

Three months ago I would not have included this movie on the list, but having just revisited it for our recent podcast I realized there's not a frame that ought to be changed in the story of Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) bringing the truth of the Watergate break-in to light. Journalism has never been more compelling on screen.

5. Observe & Report (2009, dir. Jody Hill)

I have to give credit to a film critic I used to read for his review of Jody Hill's mall copy comedy in which he wrote "Just because a movie has flaws doesn't mean it's not perfect." It was this review that turned me on to reading the critic regularly, not just for that sentiment but because the reaction to Observe & Report -- a polarizing movie, to be sure -- completely aligned with my own. This is about as dark as comedy gets, but so expertly navigates the high-wire tone that it's hard to call it anything but perfect.

6. Die Hard (1988, dir. John McTiernan)

Still the best action movie ever made. Bruce Willis became a movie star, the greatest action protagonist of all time was born, and an entire template for action films to follow was created. In his mixed pan of the movie, Roger Ebert pushed back against the Paul Gleason character and pointed out that he only existed to be wrong at every turn. His presence is not a dealbreaker for me, maybe because I love Gleason in this mode but mostly because I like how it gives John McClane one more person to push back against and one more person to prove wrong. Everyone doubts him. No one should, least of all himself.

7. The Apartment (1960, dir. Billy Wilder)

Romantic comedies are a hard thing to do correctly, but no one understood both the Sour and the Sweet of unrequited love like Billy Wilder. Jack Lemmon and Shirly MacLaine are equally adorable and heartbreaking as a pair who could be perfect for each other if they would both stop making bad decisions and mistakes. There are elements that maybe haven't aged as well -- the amazing office set that takes up the entire widescreen frame would never exist anymore -- but the emotions remain true and timeless.

8. Groundhog Day (1993, dir. Harold Ramis)

There are very few perfect movies; there are even fewer perfect comedies. We must give credit where it is due, and Groundhog Day is absolutely perfect. Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" article on Groundhog Day is one of my favorite pieces of film writing ever, so I should really just direct you there instead of even trying to articulate its unique genius. Bill Murray should have won his Oscar for this performance.

9. Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter)

I'm on record as recognizing John Carpenter's original Halloween as a perfect movie while at the same time being left a little cold by it. I prefer some of the sequels, Halloween 4 most of all. Still, I'd be lying if I tried to deny the technical skill and craftsmanship in the making of the slasher classic. It is, like Michael Myers, a perfect machine.

10. The Social Network (2010, dir. David Fincher)

There probably has to be a David Fincher movie somewhere on this list, as he is cinema's biggest and most exacting contemporary perfectionist. I'm not positive The Social Network is his best movie when Zodiac exists but that one is messier and more sprawling by design -- even Fincher's messy movies have to be just right. The Social Network is perfectly constructed and controlled. The cast is brilliant and the film has more to say about the modern world that most others despite being close to two decades old.

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 23 May 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: TUNER

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 22 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

What if a piano tuner…was also a CRIMINAL!?

Roger Ebert taught us that there are few things in movies more satisfying than watching skilled professionals excel at their work. It’s a true joy, for example, to watch Danny Ocean and his crew robbing casinos. To watch Billy Beane trading for baseball players. To watch Paul Blart mall copping. It’s aspirational, isn’t it? Seeing Bruce Lee roundhouse kick a guy makes us feel like we, too, might one day be able to roundhouse kick a guy. That probably goes double for niche professions like piano tuning. Think about it: How many movies featuring piano tuners — only Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies comes to my mind — have you ever seen? That’s because it’s a dying art practiced only by eccentric devotees like Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) and his young apprentice, Niki White (Leo Woodall), in celebrated documentarian Daniel Roher’s (Navalny) narrative debut, Tuner. But while Roger would have lauded Tuner’s focus on such a specialized talent, he would have been even more frustrated by the rote and predictable thriller it ends up inspiring.

A former piano prodigy whose career was cut short by a debilitating case of hyperacusis — it’s like tinnitus, Niki explains; he’s essentially allergic to loud noises — Niki spends his days criss-crossing the Five Boroughs with Harry in their repair van, popping in and out of swanky mansions whose owners barely even notice that they own pianos (“They fall out of tune whether you play them or not,” Niki explains to a particularly uncooperative one-percenter) let alone appreciate his unrealized genius. That all changes when he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a type-A graduate composition student who practically quivers right out of her skivvies when Niki demonstrates his perfect pitch. What feels at first like a match made in heaven is complicated when Harry has a heart attack, forcing the OG out of commission and saddling him and his wife (Tovah Feldshuh as Marla) with $35,000 in debt. Luckily, Niki just happens to have discovered a new talent for safe-cracking, and local gangster Uri (Lior Raz) just happens to have an opening for his particular set of skills.

If that last part seems a bit perfunctory, well, it should. Structured like a rom-com that keeps being interrupted by a crime thriller, Tuner is at its best when it’s developing the bond between Harry and Niki — Niki’s late father was Harry’s partner back in the day, which Niki honors by looking out for the old man — and the unlikely romance between Niki and Ruthie: Despite catering to the upper crust, Niki’s work is decidedly working-class compared to Ruthie’s. She’s putting the finishing touches on a thesis piece that she hopes will earn her an apprenticeship with acclaimed maestro Meissner (Jean Reno, gloriously aged from human cigarette into august elder statesman). Roher’s screenplay (co-written with Robert Ramsey) tries to balance that by drawing attention to the hidden delicacy of Niki’s work — one key out of tune compromises the other eighty-seven, etc. — which in turn creates a missed opportunity to extend that metaphor to the characters themselves. Out of Tune? Out of Key? The point is that there’s a good dramedy in here, somewhere.

Instead, Tuner takes an abrupt second-act left turn and devolves into an undercooked “the-kid’s-in-over-his-head” crime thriller jammed with so many off-the-shelf tropes and clichés that you’ll actually find yourself missing the singular charm of Dustin Hoffman (!) once everyone starts screaming and shooting at each other. Roher is a talent stylist, to be sure, and his final product is about as slick as slick can be — occasional flourishes, like when Niki navigates a booming rave completely MOS, keep Tuner from feeling too Netflixy — but neither Uri nor any of his bumbling, manchildish goons (including Nissan Sakira and Gil Cohen) come anywhere close to earning the disproportionate attention the plot is required to give them. Even scattered thematic seeds about class warfare — like how Uri convinces Niki to help him rob the wealthy in part because they don’t appreciate what they have, which should have dovetailed nicely with Niki’s own regrets about his wasted potential — end up having next to no real effect on where Tuner goes in its climax.

In fairness, Tuner does close on an elegant note — literally — that hints at the depths the film might have been able to probe with more time and a different structure. Also, in a cinematic landscape full of cheapo streamers like Thrash and…wait. What was the name of the Charlize Theron thing I just watched? Oh, Apex! Anyway. In light of all that bullshit, it might be worth celebrating Roher’s technical skill and eye for specificity: The parts of Tuner that work do so because he takes the time to invest in a moment, an emotion, or a detail that nearly every other genre programmer would overlook. With that in mind, we might reframe Tuner’s two-and-a-half-star mediocrity as the efficient employment of tried-and-true technique — think of a world-renowned chef making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — and focus on what lessons he might take into his next feature effort. I hope it’s not a sequel to Tuner, though, because you can’t call it 2ner. Two-ner, maybe? No, that’s confusing. Look, Roher’s a talented guy. I’m sure he’ll come up with something.

Tuner is in limited U.S. release today and opens wide on May 29th.

Announcing Junesploitation 2026!

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 21 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Patrick Bromley
Let's f*%$ing go.

This year marks our 16th year (!!!) as a site and our 13th year of Junesploitation, our annual celebration of exploitation and genre films. What started as a selfish excuse for me to spend a few weeks watching '70s and '80s grindhouse fare has exploded into a yearly tradition with many, many participants both on our site and on social media. Thank you for that!!

Most of you know the drill by now, but for those of you new to Junesploitation, here's how it works: each day of the month has its own theme, and you're supposed to watch a movie that ties into that theme. How you interpret the connection is entirely up to you, which means if you have no interest in exploitation or genre movies that's ok and you can still join in!

We've tried to expand the categories a bit this year to be a little broader in the hopes of making Junesploitation even more inclusive. After hearing that some folks were running out of Lucio Fulci movies to watch, we've also opted to retire Fulci Day on his birthday. Maybe it will be back in the future!

Stay tuned for our annual Junesploitation Primer for help on where to find some good titles, though by now most of you know where to look.

Here is this year's schedule, as always featuring a several new categories and some returning favorites:

1 – ‘90s Action!
2 – Cartoons!
3 – Linda Blair!

4 – Blaxploitation!
5 – Teenagers!
6 – South Korea!
7 – Free Space!
8 – Zombies!
9 – Thrillers!
10 – Private Eyes!
11 – Disasters!
12 – Kung Fu!
13 – ‘90s Horror!
14 – Cannon!
15 – George Romero!
16 – Free Space!
17 – Hong Kong Action!
18 – Franco Nero!
19 – Black Filmmakers!

20 – ‘80s Sci-Fi!
21 – Free Space!
22 – Revenge!
23 – Exploitation Auteurs!
24 – Slashers!
25 – Jackie Chan!
26 – Heroes & Villains
27 – Italian Cinema!
28 – PM Entertainment!
29 – Free Space!
30 – ‘80s Comedy!

Thank you to our regular readers and commenters @JMVargas, @ACasualListener, and @Zillagord (and any others) for suggesting some of this year's new categories! And, as always, thanks to our very own Doug for designing the calendar!!

FTM 821: PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Wed, 20 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

Patrick and Rob visit the basement of the Alamo.

Download this episode here.

Listen to F This Movie! on Apple Podcasts.

Also discussed this episode: Green Card (1990), Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Ugly Stepsister (2025), The Toxic Avenger (2025), We Bury the Dead (2026), In the Grey (2026), Marty: Life is Short (2026), Ishtar (1987)

Fifty Before '50: MONSTER MAYHEM COLLECTION

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Tue, 19 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by JB

We have here an early nominee for “Disc of the Year.”

At the beginning of April, the fine folks at Film Masters released this two-disc set that is chockablock full of cheesy monsters, budget special effects, inexplicable musical numbers, and scenes shot economically at famous Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park.

This Monster Mayhem Collection includes Frankenstein’s Daughter, Giant from the Unknown, Brain from Planet Arous, and Monster from Green Hell; the Frankenstein picture and the Brain picture are two of my particular favorites.

I must admit my first motivation for purchasing the new set was space. I am running out of room for physical media in my office, and this would allow me to replace four separate keep-cases with one. Then I saw the cornucopia of extras and I began to mentally salivate, waiting for the new discs to arrive.

LONG, POINTLESS TANGENT: For a number of reasons, I thought that relatively new boutique Blu-ray label Film Masters was an offshoot of similar boutique Blu-ray label Film Detective. I bought many of Film Detective’s early releases and loved them. Film Masters seemed to focus on the same sorts of genre titles. So, I asked the Google Machine, “Hey, what gives? Are Film Masters and Film Detective really the same company?” The answer came from friend-of-the-site Heath Holland over at Cereal at Midnight. “No, Film Masters and The Film Detective are two separate companies, but they are closely linked by the same founder. Philip Hopkins founded The Film Detective and later launched Film Masters as a brand new, separate boutique DVD and Blu-ray label focused on the preservation and restoration of classic cinema. While The Film Detective was acquired by Cinedigm in 2020 and operates largely as a streaming channel and content distributor, Hopkins moved on to establish Film Masters to focus on physical media and film restoration." A-ha!

THE PLOTS IN BRIEF: In Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), Dr. Oliver Frank (Donald Murphy) turns Trudy Morton (Sandra Knight) into a monster by plying her with secret formula fruit juice. She nightly turns hairy and ugly and runs amuck. Trudy’s friend Suzie Lawler (Sally Todd) winds up with her head grafted onto the body of Frank’s second (male) monster. Why? In a charming nod to how shitty the past really was, Dr. Frank explains, “Now we're aware the female mind is conditioned to a man's world. It therefore takes orders, where the other ones didn't.” Dr. Frank turns out to be the last living descendant of... guess who! He changed his name to “Frank” because changing it to “Stein” would just be too goddamn obvious.

Giant from the Unknown (1958) finds residents of a small California town up in arms about a recent spate of livestock mutilations. Turns out, it’s the Diablo Giant (Buddy Baer), running amuck around the outskirts of town.

In 1957's Brain from Planet Arous, Gor, a mischievous and horny brain from the titular planet, arrives on Earth and possesses the body of Steve March (John Agar). Gor falls in love with Steve’s fiancé Sally Fallon (Joyce Meadows). Gor runs amuck and engages in destructive mischief. A less destructive brain, Vol, comes down to earth to vanquish Gor. To accomplish this, he possesses... another body (Arf). Vol explains to anyone who will listen that Gor is a wanted criminal on Planet Arous.

Monster from Green Hell (1957): Doctors Brady and Morgan (Jim Davis and Robert Griffith) head an experimental rocket program that sends animals into space. A rocket containing wasps is irradiated and lands in South Africa, with predictable results. Giant wasp-like creatures run amuck in an area known as Green Hell. When all seems lost, an active volcano begins to spew and conveniently kills all the radioactive bugaboos. Morgan notes wryly that nature has ways of covering up mistakes and concluding low-budget B-movies.

The transfer on Brain from Planet Arous is a tad grainy, but acceptable. The prints of Giant and Monster look fine. The transfer on Frankenstein’s Daughter is one of the best I’ve ever seen, sharp and crisp. The transfer on Frankenstein’s Daughter will make you wish that you lived back then. It will make you wish that you were best friends with John Ashley and that you drank a lot of mid-priced beer.

Film Masters has thoughtfully included the following bonus features, which really make this package a must-buy: Frankenstein's Daughter and Giant from the Unknown, full-length commentary with Tom Weaver; The Brain from Planet Arous, full-length commentary with Tom Weaver and special guests; Giant from the Unknown, archival full-length commentary with Gary Crutcher; and Monster from Green Hell, full-length commentary with Stephen R. Bissette. Featurettes include: “Richard E. Cunha: Filmmaker,” “Missouri Born: Films of Jim Davis,” “The Man Before the Brain: Director Nathan Juran,” and “The Man Behind the Brain: The World of Nathan Juran”.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM BONUS FEATURES AND FURTHER PROOF THAT EVERYTHING IN HOLLYWOOD IS CONNECTED SOMEHOW:

1) Nathan Hertz, the director of Brain from Planet Arous, was actually Nathan Juran. Juran started his career in Hollywood as an art director, winning an Oscar for John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. He later directed The Deadly Mantis at Universal, Hellcats of the Navy with future President Ronald Reagan, 20 Million Miles to Earth and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad with special effects by Ray Harryhausen, and perennial cult favorite Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

2) Sandra Knight, female lead in Frankenstein’s Daughter, was Jack Nicholson’s first wife. Knight’s romantic interest in the film, John Ashley, later appeared in several Beach Party movies and ended his Hollywood career producing The A-Team on television. Second lead Sally Todd was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for February, 1957. Harry Wilson, who plays the Monster once it gets its new head, was a popular character actor who appears in The Wizard of Oz, Some Like It Hot, Guys and Dolls, and The Great Race.

3) The makeup effects in Giant from the Unknown were handled by Jack Pierce, famous for his Universal Monster makeups in the 1930s and '40s.

4) Some original release prints of Monster from Green Hell had sequences tinted green. Spooky.

These movies are just plain fun. If we judge new releases of classic and cult films using some super complicated mathematical formula that equates cost and hours of enjoyment derived, (Perhaps c = price per film/hours spent watching X rewatchability quotient2?) this release is off the charts. Not only are its pleasures multitudinous... but I JUST CAN’T DO MATH. I’m too busy rewatching Brain from Planet Arous and Frankenstein’s Daughter. Pass the brains.

2K Replay: CLICK

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Mon, 18 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Makeup” at the Academy Awards. It lost to Pan’s Labyrinth.

• Best Scene/Moment: Not much to choose from so I guess anytime Christopher Walken shows up. He and Adam Sandler have good chemistry.

• Best Song: “Someday” by The Strokes.

• Best Merch: A “Click Movie Premiere Promo Baseball Black Visor New” for $29.97. It makes sense to me that there were Click visors because the type of dude who would go up to you and rave about Click probably would wear a visor -- backwards and upside down.

• Director Grade: Click was directed by Frank Coraci.
Great Movies: The Wedding Singer
Good Movies: N/A
OK Movies: The Waterboy, Around the World in 80 Days
Bad Movies: Click
Unseen By Me: Murdered Innocence, Zookeeper, Here Comes the Boom, Blended, The Ridiculous 6, Hot Air
Overall Grade: C+

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: The Benchwarmers, Grandma’s Boy, Underworld: Evolution

• Ella McCay or Click? Ella McCay

• Mall Movie? This is one of the classier Adam Sandler comedies but not enough to play the fancy theater in town. This would still play at the mall.

• Only in 2006: A movie about a universal remote.

• Scene Stealer: Christopher Walken.

• I Miss: 2000s comedies. In hindsight, it was a pretty great era (era).

• I Don’t Miss (tie): Rob Schneider playing ethnicities other than his own and the truly terrifying de-aging makeup on Julie Kavner and Henry Winkler.

• 2006 Crush: Kate Beckinsale.

• 2026 Crush: Kate Beckinsale.

• What I Thought in 2006: Adam Sandler comedies are usually either hilarious or bad with few in between. I remember being disappointed by Click back in 2006. It was surprisingly serious and not all that funny.

• What I Think in 2026: I was right. This movie’s ambitious so I’ll give it that, but it’s also boring and surprisingly depressing despite the happy It’s a Wonderful Life ending. I’m a fan of some 2000s Sony Adam Sandler comedies, but Click is not one of them.

Weekend Open Thread

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Sat, 16 May 2026 02:00:00 -0500

Review: THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Fri, 15 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Rob DiCristino

Because oligarchs are people, too.

Does anyone else remember the VH1 original movie, Two of Us? Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Let It Be) and broadcast in February of the year 2000, it dramatizes a supposedly-real-life reunion between John Lennon (Jared Harris) and Paul McCartney (Aidan Quinn) in New York City over the course of an autumn day in 1976, six years after the break-up of The Beatles. Intimate and understated, Two of Us is built around a series of conversations between the estranged friends — on everything from Wings to Yoko, from spiritualism to Saturday Night Live — and concludes on a note of optimism, a suggestion that these two blokes from Liverpool might someday rekindle the magic that defined a generation. Despite never being much of a Beatles fan (then or now), I always found Two of Us captivating: There’s just something comforting about an imagined world where Paul and John settled their differences before John’s untimely death, a world where towering figures feel more like sensitive and vulnerable human beings than unknowable icons.

Based on the 2022 Giuliano da Empoli novel of the same name, Oliver Assayas’ The Wizard of the Kremlin tries to bring a similar degree of texture to some of the most consequential figures in modern Russian history, specifically Vladislav Surkov, former chief advisor and deputy prime minister to Vladimir Putin. Fictionalized as “Vadim Baranov” (Paul Dano), the shadowy kingmaker helps orchestrate a cultural revolution in post-Soviet Russia that sees the Federation move away from the rigid ideology of communism and toward the capitalist free-for-all that was born in the new millennium. Told in flashbacks over an interview with a Western journalist (Jeffrey Wright as Lawrence Rowland), the film recounts Baranov’s early days as a thespian-turned-theater director, his transition to state-controlled media production — working for TV mogul Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen) — and eventually his doctrine of "sovereign democracy,” which would coax FSB director Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) out of the espionage sector and into the international spotlight.

Co-written by Assayas and Emmanuel Carrére, The Wizard of the Kremlin parallels two key shifts in post-Cold War Russian culture: the structural collapse that took the country out of the hands of its ineffectual president (George Sogis as Boris Yeltsin) and gave it to the oligarchs, and the philosophical revolution that created an avenue for Baranov to build Putin’s strength through propaganda. Though he was born into a Soviet political family that granted him early access to the party elite, it was Baranov’s misspent youth in the ‘90s bohemian artistic scene that taught him the power of media messaging, a power that he’d wield from the shadows while Putin reasserted Russia’s influence on the world stage. Along for the ride are Baranov’s college frenemy Dmitri Sidorov (Tom Sturridge) and his lover, Ksenia (Alicia Vikander), whose transition from performance artist to mobster arm candy symbolizes Russia’s spiritual decay and eventually inspires Baranov to retire before Putin — now firmly entrenched as de facto dictator — no longer has any use for him.

Though he’s mostly known to American audiences for enigmatic thrillers like Personal Shopper and psychological dramas like Clouds of Sils Maria, Oliver Assayas aims to inject The Wizard of the Kremlin with a cold, uncompromising realism, styling his actors as closely to their real-life equivalents as possible — Jude Law’s signature pout is given a threatening new context under his Putin makeup — and interspersing archival footage of events like the Second Chechen War and the Orange Revolution. Dano narrates his character’s rise to power with a tone of grim finality, the kind of self-effacing wisdom that comes with age and experience. His Baranov never seems entirely penitent for his role in the corruption of the Russian state, but he does seem to understand how his vision of politics as avant garde theater helped power-hungry figures like Putin and Sidorov — not to mention infamous deputies like Igor Sechine (Andrei Zayats) — shed any idealistic democratic fantasies and embrace the totalitarianism that characterizes Russia to this day.

But while Assayas’ film deserves credit for illuminating figures and events that have been largely shrouded in mystery until now, it ultimately fails to muster any lasting insight into its titular character or the system of "vertical power” he spearheaded. Paul Dano is a talented actor — despite comments to the contrary from a certain blowhard director — but his Baranov is aloof and one-note, and it’s almost impossible to believe him as a master manipulator of the human psyche. In fact, most of the film’s performances are problematic in one way or another, chiefly because each actor seems to be pulling from a grab-bag of vaguely Anglo-European accents — none of them Russian — that shift from scene to scene. This gives the already overwrought Wizard of the Kremlin a real “community theater” energy that makes it feel less like Two of Us and more like Nuremberg, another unfortunate bit of speculative fiction that asks us to sympathize with ghouls whose refusal to recognize our humanity led to the hellscape we’re all enduring today.

The Wizard of the Kremlin hits select U.S. theaters on Friday, May 15th.

2K Replay: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III

fthismoviepodcast@gmail.com (fthismovie.com) — Thu, 14 May 2026 05:00:00 -0500

by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Best Thriller” at the Empire Awards UK. It lost to The Departed.

• Best Scene/Moment: Tom Cruise running during the climactic action sequence. It’s a special effect all on its own.

• Best Song: “Best of My Love” by The Emotions. I could have been the Kanye West end credits song if that guy wasn’t such an asshole.

• Best Merch: A “Movie Mission Impossible 3 Bag…Rare Special Gift for the Crew” for $200.00. The price is ridiculous, but the bag is cool looking. I used to have a messenger bag like this. I was in college, so I believed I needed something more sophisticated looking than just a backpack. It worked and I was accepted into high society. All I’m saying is, if you buy this the IMF might recruit you, that’s all.

• Director Grade: Mission: Impossible III was directed by J.J. Abrams.
Great Movies: Star Trek (2009), Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
Good Movies: Mission: Impossible III, Super 8
OK Movies: Star Trek into Darkness
Bad Movies: Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker
Unseen By Me: N/A
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Final Destination 3, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, X-Men: The Last Stand

• Ella McCay or Mission: Impossible III? Mission: Impossible III
• Mall Movie? No. A Paramount Pictures release starring Tom Cruise is fancy theater all the way.

• Only in 2006: Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q were part of the IMF team.

• Scene Stealer (tie): Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Monaghan.

• I Miss: Philip Seymour Hoffman. I can’t tell if he’s good in this or phoning it in. Maybe a little bit of both.

• I Don’t Miss: The rabbit’s foot. I know it’s just a MacGuffin, but it sounds stupid and beneath a movie with a budget of $150M. Try harder.

• 2006 Crush (tie): Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russell.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Michelle Monaghan and Maggie Q.

• What I Thought in 2006: I really liked it and didn’t understand why people thought it was disappointing, especially coming off the sluggish previous entry. I appreciated that they humanized the Ethan Hunt character, which I think was crucial for audiences giving a damn about him in later films.

• What I Think in 2026: I still like Mission: Impossible III, just not as much as I did twenty years ago. It’s still probably the most underrated in the series in my humble opinion. The action and story are good (root for two people madly in love!) and it feels refreshingly small compared to the lengthier, more set piece-driven later entries. The rabbit’s foot sucks but I’m glad the movie treats it as a nothingburger unlike “the entity” which became WAY too important to the last two Mission: Impossible movies.