What’s wrong with being passionate?

Comedy | Horror

The genre billing doesn’t help The Menu. Way too many men are afraid of horror.

If you’re one of the fraidy-cats, take a long look in the mirror. Alone. Fight past the terror. Because you sound like a sissy.

“Have you seen The Menu? Because I’ve heard good things,” I may suggest.
“I don’t like scary movies,” they reply, “I’m frightened and quake in the night.”

Like – that old escape hatch. What is like?

Anyway, don’t let a categorical error scare you away. Because look at where it ranks:

Best Films Released in 2022

1. The Batman
2. Avatar: The Way of Water
3. Top Gun: Maverick
4. The Menu
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Sharp, insightful and witty; The Menu is easily that year’s biggest oversight. Like a lot of great films, it stumbles into the surreal.

The talent is highly invested. All the actors, known and unknown, work their tails off here. Ralph Fiennes may be our finest working actor. John Leguizamo – who’s had a massive career of inspired performances – might just be our best working character actor. Nicholas Hoult, Anya Taylor-Joy… everyone comes to play.

ATJ

Taylor-Joy stands out as the unwilling participant. She strikes a delicate balance — cold, standoffish, unwilling to join in the sport of gobbling and gushing. That initial detachment feels wrong at first. But as the courses are served, our feelings toward her shift. She may not be likable — but she’s far more honest than everyone else at the table.

There’s a confidence to the film’s irregular structure. Tonally, it’s a balancing act: class satire meets food porn meets cult thriller. There are numerous laughs — a handful on the hardier side — and the violent moments (while infrequent) are handled tastefully. They serve the story rather than hijack it.

The editing deserves a nod. Creative audio transitions — the clap, sizzling meats, scraped spatulas — paired with title-card dishes mocking haute cuisine. Even the supporting players, like the sacrificial lamb and the sous chef, nail their marks with challenging dialogue and unflashy presence.

And no — The Menu isn’t all that profound. Its points about artistry, self-indulgence and critical reception don’t hit with revelation. But they do land. The film both celebrates the culinary and quietly reminds us not to oversell what art is supposed to do.

It’s a character study. A psychological farce. A dish best served weird.

Don’t lump it in with the unearned grotesquery of Nosferatu or The Substance.

The Menu is far more refined — and way more satisfying.

★★★ ★★★ ★★★

Short analyses available via IMDb and Letterboxd. Or read my review of Wicked.

If Celtic Pride holds up, it does so just barely. This film can have easily been forgotten. But there’s enough charm, silliness and actual basketball know-how here to make it (mostly) half-entertaining. This 1996 comedy is about fan obsession. It also portrays sports fanaticism and the utterly irrational logic of the most diehard Celtics fans. The film is both very specific and oddly timeless. It’s a strange cocktail but one worth sipping – at least once.

The film stars Dan Aykroyd and Daniel Stern as lifelong Celtics fans who go from rowdy, beer-swilling super-fans to actual kidnappers when they abduct the star player of the opposing team – Damon Wayans’ Lewis Scott – on the eve of Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Yes, really. It’s a ridiculous premise and the movie knows it. But what’s surprising is how fully it commits to it.

Dan Aykroyd shines in a way that really helps the film stay afloat. He plays this kind of character well – his deadpan intensity blends with comedic timing to bring some actual believability to the absurdity. Daniel Stern, on the other hand, is shouting for most of the runtime. He’s not bad but it gets grating especially as the film goes on. Wayans meanwhile is mostly solid as the arrogant, self-centered superstar who finds himself chained to a radiator. It’s a role that could’ve leaned too far into caricature but he grounds it enough to keep the whole thing from floating away.

Christopher McDonald appears in a supporting role as the team’s head coach and while he isn’t given much screen time, he nails the vibe you want from a fictional NBA coach. Surprisingly, one of the best performances comes from the young actor playing Stern’s son. He brings an earnestness to the film that’s missing elsewhere – he’s one of the few characters you actually believe.

A special mention is warranted for the actress who plays Daniel Stern’s wife, Gail O’Grady. She’s unfamiliar but quite good – striking, calm, believable. She doesn’t get many scenes but her presence breaks up the madness with something resembling normalcy.

The background details deserve praise too. The set decoration and props are rich and textured. There’s a realism baked into the environments that actually elevates things. A great example is a scene where they flip through channels – each clip has its own visual identity and sense of realism. That’s not an easy thing to pull off. In fact, it’s overly ambitious for a film this silly. But it provides a texture that many comedies from this era lack.

Unsurprisingly, the screenplay is by a young Judd Apatow. The moment his name popped up in the credits, everything clicked into place. Celtic Pride feels like a sketch of the tonal mix he’d later refine: grounded relationships, obsessive characters and emotional arcs folded into high-concept comedy. That said, it’s a bit over-written. Some of the dialogue is needlessly expository – we already get how much this championship means to these guys, we don’t need it hammered in repeatedly by the end.

Thematically, the movie plays with the line between fandom and obsession – sometimes successfully, sometimes not. It captures the strange rituals and superstitions of sports fanatics better than most sports comedies. One of the funniest moments involves a friend being kicked out of his seat for being bad luck. That kind of scene feels true especially in the world of Boston sports culture.

So does the narrative wrap-up feel earned? Not really. The idea that Wayans’ character would consider these two losers “friends” by the end? No chance. But for the sake of wrapping things up cleanly, it’s a forgivable stretch. Even the final beat – an unnecessary Dion Sanders cameo – feels like a tacked-on joke but fine. It adds to the film’s charm more than it detracts. In the end, Celtic Pride is more fun than it has any right to be. It’s silly, inconsistent, sometimes over-the-top but there’s a strangely grounded quality to its madness. As far as NBA-oriented films go, it stands out for how it handles the basketball sequences and how seriously it takes the world it’s mocking. Aykroyd brings just enough fire and the film gives just enough care to detail to earn its place as a niche comedy relic from the ’90s worth rediscovering.

★★ ★★★ ★★

Read my shorter analyses via IMDb and Letterboxd.

Want more sports comedy? Read The Mighty Ducks. Or a forgotten 90s flick check Swimming with Sharks.

Significant award buzz back in 2013. Positioned as progressive, emotionally profound and achingly relevant. But was it? Or was it just soft-spoken science fiction, wrapped in a muted aesthetic, coasting on the novelty of its premise?​ You see where this film review is heading.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore, a lonely man who falls in love with his AI assistant, Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. her aims to explore the evolution of connection and the blurred lines between human and artificial intimacy. The concept is solid; the execution, less so.​

There are moments of intrigue. Scarlett Johansson’s voice work is effective – warm, playful, alluring. She brings more depth to Samantha than the script probably deserves. But Phoenix? I’ve never been a fan of his performances aside from his roles in Gladiator and Signs. Here, he embraces his usual detached and introspective awkwardness. This choice, instead of inviting empathy, makes the experience feel muted. It also feels lifeless. Joaquin Phoenix is essentially a second-rate Daniel Day-Lewis – dull DDL – consistently choosing monotonous roles.

“This script isn’t slow enough,” he tells his agent often, “This is too thrilling. Where is the melancholia?”

The romance is only as compelling as its participants. If one side isn’t engaging, the entire premise struggles to take hold.​

The majority of this film consists of telephone scenes, which are notoriously weak from a cinematic perspective. Phoenix didn’t interact directly with Johansson during filming; her lines were recorded separately in post-production. This approach emphasizes the detached artificiality of Phoenix’s performance. If Johansson had recorded her lines live, it could have represented inspired filmmaking. It would have elevated inherently dull phone scenes. Instead, we watch Phoenix act alone, delivering lines into a void. It’s the easiest, laziest form of acting.

Danny, my film-watching counterpart, adored her from the outset. He entered the screening pre-loaded with enthusiasm – having read early reactions and aware of the awards chatter. That matters. It’s easier to embrace a film’s strengths when you’re primed to like it. I didn’t have that luxury. I walked in clean. And what I found was something mostly unremarkable, dull and simplistic.​

Was her an independent film? With a $23 million budget, that’s $3 million above the typical indie threshold for 2013. It grossed $48.3 million – a return roughly fair on a cosmic level. But a film doesn’t become great just because it predicts something correctly. her takes its ideas with such unwavering sincerity that it forgets to challenge them. The film assumes its premise is profound enough to carry it, but does it ever dig beneath the surface?​

I’ve reconsidered her in recent years, particularly in light of my own conversations with AI. But my stance hasn’t changed much. AI can be engaging, even meaningful, but it will never replace human connection.

And a film about AI love can be interesting without being great. That’s where her lands for me – an idea ahead of its time, wrapped in a film that never quite justifies its existence.

For peak Scarlett check out Under the Skin.

★★ ★★

This review is briefer on IMDb and Letterboxd.

Click Colossus for a slightly older AI film.

The Documentation

Some music documentaries tell you why a band matters. Becoming Led Zeppelin just lets it happen.

This isn’t a behind-the-music exposé – no scandalous detours, no dirt-digging. Instead, it’s a clean, carefully assembled history. A film that understands Led Zeppelin’s story doesn’t need embellishment to be interesting. The band’s formation, their relentless early touring, their creative philosophy, their refusal to play by industry rules. All unfolds in a way that’s patient, immersive and strangely elegant.

What makes Becoming Led Zeppelin special is its restraint. It doesn’t oversell the myth. It just connects stray dots across vast distances. Showing how Jimmy Page’s disciplined career as a session musician intersected with Robert Plant’s wandering, near-destitute bluesman existence. How John Bonham’s monstrous drumming, fine-tuned from endless small club gigs, gave Zeppelin their engine. Their first album wasn’t a fluke but a precise and calculated creation. It was built by four people who had already invested their 10,000 hours.

Best Left Unsaid

The film is packed with footage – early performances, studio work, tour clips. But it also knows when to let moments breathe. A perfect example: we see Jimmy Page using a violin bow on his guitar multiple times. We hear what it does, we see the technique – but nobody in the film ever explains it. Same goes for Plant’s vocals. Nobody outright says, “These early lyrics were improvised,” but the evidence is there. The film trusts you to pick up on it.

Zeppelin didn’t just play music – they played against history. While humanity was landing on the Moon, LZ was burning down concert houses on Earth. Their timeline and mythology seem almost deliberately intertwined. Additionally, the way they conquered America wasn’t by appeasing radio stations or chasing hit singles. They tore through it by playing live. They succeeded by being an album band in a singles era and a performance band in a radio era.

There’s a looseness to the storytelling that works. No cheap nostalgia grabs, no faux-deep analysis – just a methodical unraveling of how this band came to be. The camaraderie is the most striking part. Page’s instrumental mastery combining with Plant’s unique improvisational vocals.

When performing at music festivals, Bonham would often mirror the techniques of fellow drummers – and visa versa. Similarly, Plant’s air guitar solos mimicked Page’s riffs with sheer enthusiasm.

These moments, though different in form, were both flavors of the same phenomenon. This was an intuitive connection that bridged musical styles, personalities, and performance styles. It added layers to Zeppelin’s raw energy. These guys weren’t just in a band – they were obsessed with music. They refined, expanded and lived inside of it.

The Truth

Does it drag in the final stretch? Sure. Most documentaries do. But that’s a minor flaw for a film that’s more about absorption than revelation.

If you enjoy a well-crafted documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin is worth seeing. Even if Zeppelin isn’t your favorite band. The musical craftsmanship is impressive. The obsession and sheer commitment to doing things their way make it all fascinating to watch unfold.

Like all great things, Becoming Led Zeppelin knows exactly where to end.

★★★★ ★★★★

TLDR? Short editorials located at IMDb and Letterboxd. Or read up on another doc at An Inconvenient Truth.