#10- Cold Storage
[Watched in theaters]
This was a pretty fun gore fest with some fun performances from Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell that doesn't take itself even the least bit seriously which is exactly what a movie like this needs to be. It is sloppy and gross and violent with a sense of goofiness and bizzareness that worked for me. Again, it's not something I likely will ever return to, but for this month, it's one of the more fun experiences I had.
#09- Dracula
[Watched in theaters]
First off, I didn't really know if I should watch this as Luc Besson has been accused of SA by a few women and while acquitted in one of the cases, it still feels icky and especially where I refused to see
Scream 7 based on the inappropriate firing of Melissa Barrera, it felt hypocritical to not boycott this. That said, it seems like the cases against Besson have been mostly dropped and so while I still can't say I'm gonna rush to see any of his movies assuming there has to be a reason for those accusations, the pull of a
Dracula adaptation (one of my favorite classics) was irresistible unfortunately.
This is definitely a very different version of
Dracula, focusing way more on a love story than on the vampiric elements and prince of darkness perspective. We follow Caleb Landry Jones as the forsaken Count Dracula who gave everything up for the love of his life but ultimately lost her and thus forsake God and became an immortal vampire. This still follows a lot of the familiar elements of the story like Dracula spreading his vampirism, him being infatuated with a living woman, a visit from a property salesman at his castle, a vampire hunter character, but it is done in a moderately unique way.
This is FAR from the best adaptation of
Dracula, even a romantic take on
Dracula, but it was fun enough and the performances were solid. Easily the worst element were the freaking
Hunchback of Notre Dame gargoyles being present for whatever reason. Not something I'd rush to again, but a decent enough time at the movies.
#08- Crime 101
[Watched in theaters]
I like a good crime/heist movie and so
Crime 101 was on my list of movies I wanted to check out. It being essentially
Heat in 2026 was pretty alluring too, as was the star-studded cast featuring Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Monica Barbaro, Nick Nolte, and Barry Keoghan. What wasn’t particularly alluring was the 2 hour 20 minute runtime and ultimately that’s the worst part of this movie.
Crime 101 is effective at building suspense but arguably more effective at killing that suspense by dragging it out to unbearable lengths. I think a 90-100 minute cut of this movie would be an absolute banger, but unfortunately the pacing here just drags and drags and drags through moments I wish we could’ve fast forwarded through. I think a lot of that comes from the sheer amount of intersecting plot lines.
You have Halle Berry’s plot line where she’s trying to advance in her insurance sales job and make partner, Ruffalo’s plot where he’s the detective on the case, Hemsworth has two plot lines, one professional criminal and one where he’s dating Monica Barbaro’s character and is very socially awkward, plus Barry Keoghan’s plot line where he’s attempting to hijack the robbery. There’s just so much going on here and I think some of it could’ve been cut down or cut out entirely. Honestly, Keoghan’s role is pretty minuscule and unnecessary until the very end of the movie, and Berry’s role is the opposite where she does a lot at the first half but falls off the second half. Then you throw in the fact Nick Nolte completely disappears after two scenes and never gets followed up with and Monica Barbaro doesn’t do much more herself. It’s like every draft that was put out for this movie ended up making it to the Final Cut rather than trimming some of it and it would’ve benefited from that fat trimming.
#07- Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
[Watched in theaters]
I’ve not seen the web series this is a follow up to, it was a little before my time of being terminally online, I was still playing outside and having a social life in the late aughts (I was nine) so this definitely wasn’t on my radar. Still, I heard so many amazing things about this movie, I saw people listing it as their best of 2025 despite it only playing at some festivals, this thing really built up the hype for me, so when I finally was able to check it out over a year after first hearing buzz about it, I walked out with a resounding “yeah, that was fun.”
I will give the movie this: I genuinely don’t know how some of the things they achieved in this movie were done. Between the 2008 setting, the stunt work, and some of the public watching, this ended up being a pretty fun and creative experience. Yet, it harkens back to an era of comedies I don’t think are really a thing anymore because of how terribly annoying YouTubers got with it and that’s the
Borat-style Mockumentary with unwitting members of the general public. Those, however, are easily the best moments of the movie. Where it kind of faltered for me was in the scripted stuff which just dragged on a bit too long and focused too much on the same problem over and over. For a movie that wears so proudly on its sleeve a reverence for
Back to the Future, it definitely didn’t copy that movie’s tight writing or storytelling and meanders way more than is necessary.
#06- GOAT
[Watched in theaters]
I definitely think that out of the most recent Sony Pictures Animation output, this is the weakest, it's far from a
Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs The Machines or even
KPop Demon Hunters, but it's still a pretty effective and solid animated movie from a studio who not all that long ago released highlights like
The Emoji Movie.
GOAT is very much a standard underdog story about a scrappy kid who comes from nothing and ends up becoming a professional athlete, but it takes that genre and gets to play with it in a pretty interesting and fun world. This feels like
Zootopia's grittier and lived in cousin where allegory actually works because you see the disparity in the classes without it taking up too much focus in a lighthearted sports drama. The world is the highlight here, but the characters are fun too, especially the lead goat who is a likeable protagonist and the Komodo dragon played by Nick Kroll who is surprisingly funny and doesn't overstay his welcome the way I worried he would. Patton Oswalt's coach character is solid too as is Gabrielle Union's aging leopard player character.
The animation here uses the
Spider-Verse frame rate that looks really solid in a sports movie too, and I'm pretty close to just calling the 2020s for Sony Animation the way Disney had the 90s and Pixar had the aughts because even if this and
KPop Demon Hunters weren't my favorite things ever, this studio is undeniably cranking out solid and quality animation.
#05- Paul McCartney: Man on the Run
[Watched on Prime Video]
A pretty interesting documentary about Paul McCartney's career post-Beatles that still, for whatever reason, is overstuffed with moments from The Beatles. It covers their breakup pretty in depth for the first half, then meanders as he did post breakup, then I guess eventually it goes somewhere. I can't say I ended up caring all that much because while I do respect the Beatles and Paul McCartney's output, I've never been a huge Wings fan and outside of his legacy, I've never really cared about Paul McCartney either.
I can see you getting more mileage from this if you are a huge superfan, but for me it's a well enough made documentary that does have interesting stuff in it, enough to make my top five of the month, but honestly I can see a world where this and
GOAT swap places and either way neither will be near the top of my end of the year list.
#04- OBEX
[Watched on VOD]
Close enough, welcome back David Lynch.
#03- I Don't Love You Anymore
[Watched on VOD]
This is a phenomenal little indie nothing movie with three performances that really carry the story. It follows a mystery about who shot a homeless man at a couple's home and why and it ends up unravelling in a way I did find pretty unique and engaging. Honestly, out of everything this month, this movie was my biggest surprise because it's short, snappy, and carries a lot of punch with it. It won't be super high on my end of the year list probably, but I can see a world where upon reflection this could overtake #2 or maybe even #1 for this month because I really did enjoy it.
#02- Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
[Watched in theaters]
I'm glad Gore Verbinski is back, that's really exciting, and I'm glad he's making absolutely batsh*t insane anti-AI movies like this, we need more content about how AI is ruining our lives and our society. That said, this does feel kind of "old man yells at clouds" in its execution. It's a lot of "all technology bad" between Sam Rockwell's character and especially Haley Lu Richardson's character. The humor here, especially the humor involving school shootings, was also pretty cringe and while I'm not opposed to satirizing school shootings as a terrible thing that have just become a part of normal life, I don't think this movie did it with all that much tact.
There's elements here I loved, I think the opening scene in the diner is truly the best hook in a movie I've seen in a long time, but pretty much as soon as the group leaves the diner, my interest faded and by the third act when this insane sh*t starts happening and the CGI clusterf*** takes over, I was pretty much out.
There's stuff to love here and I think Verbinski still has it, but I came out of this one very much liking it, but not loving it the way I wanted to.
#01- How to Make a Killing
[Watched in theaters]
This was another pretty big surprise. I saw a lot of middling reviews and I'm honestly not a huge fan of Glen Powell as a leading man, but I ended up really enjoying this movie. Like some of the others on the list, it's short and snappy which has kind of become the thing for me the beginning of this year as so many movies that have come out have felt longer than their runtimes, so when a movie can feel less, that's been really helpful. It's also just a very fun story of a dude taking out his extended family for an inheritance where you don't really feel bad because these people all suck.
There's also a romance in here I did like and of course it ends up with Powell's character being a liar and not able to maintain the relationship, a lot like last year's
Roof Man, but the romantic scenes were good. Also, Margaret Qualley is in this and while she's probably the worst plot point in the movie, you will NEVER see me complain about anything Margaret Qualley related other than the fact she's already married and it's not to me.
Ultimately, this was just a really fun movie that I enjoyed every minute of, even if it won't end up very high on my end of year list just because it is this simple fun movie that we will move on from. I still do think it's a nice time at the movies and out of everything out right now, it's the one I'd recommend checking out.
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Well, March better be better than this slate, I NEED it to be. But what am I looking forward to?
This weekend we have two pretty big releases with
The Bride! and
Hoppers, both of which I have middling hopes for. I hope they're better than I'm expecting, I've heard good things but Pixar's recent original slate hasn't been the best and I don't love the
Frankenstein but modern day angle the trailers have presented for
The Bride! Still, I'm here for Jessie Buckley as she sweeps best actress. Also this weekend, it's a nothing documentary, but Werner Herzog's
Ghost Elephants comes to Disney+ and Nat Geo which is pretty exciting for me personally.
Next weekend has next to nothing, but the 20th gives us two pretty highly anticipated movies for me with
Project Hail Mary and
Ready or Not 2: Here We Come, both of which I've heard very good things about. Then, the weekend after gives us
They Will Kill You which looks like a
Ready or Not rip-off so we're repeating the
Immaculate/The First Omen thing from a few years ago of the exact same movie coming out a week apart. Then we also have
Forbidden Fruits which looks like
The Craft and stars Victoria Pedretti from
The Haunting of Hill House so if nothing else this looks like a fun time.
Maybe there will be more surprises in there too, but that's what I'm for sure watching this month, plus, of course, a major double feature of The 98th Academy Awards and The Third Annual Golden Tikis BACK TO BACK on Sunday March 15th, so don't forget to tune in!
