"Jack Shindo has made it back alive from Mars. but his reappearance will raise more questions than it answers. He has a secret that cannot be shared. He can tell no one that he is Ultraman, a savior from the stars."

Ultraman is a huge part of Japanese culture and pretty much has been since the original live-action show in 1966. Perhaps Godzilla started the ball rolling, but Ultraman brought us these monsters on a regular basis. In Japan, Ultraman is like our Superman. He’s an iconic hero and a huge part of the pop culture. Since the 60’s he has appeared in many forms, most of them animated. But it is this 1966 series that made a ton of us kids fall in love with him and an entire genre. Yes, there were many from the era: Space Giants featured a giant fighting robot who fought monsters and sometimes converted into a spaceship

"Welcome to Derry, home of Paul Bunyan."

I can still remember the It miniseries from a few decades ago. I thought Gary Oldman was just wonderful as Pennywise the clown at the center of Stephen King's novel of the same name. What I really never took into account was that being wonderful really wasn't the point of the character at all. With much love to Oldman and the many characters he's brought to life over the years, I never realized until 2017 was who Pennywise the clown was truly meant to be. Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara went to work on a two-film attempt to bring It back to life, this time on the big screen. Like most people I was pretty skeptical of the whole thing, and a lifetime of failed Stephen King films that never lived up to his written word was the evidence I cited. Can't be done, I said. They'll only run it into the ground to be resurrected badly as if it had been buried in King's Pet Semetary.

“You are a pig!” / “I’m a rural farm boy. It’s part of my charm.”

The quote above really sets the tone of The History of Sound (2025). It is a charming movie, a cinematographically soft motion picture, subtle and intimate in execution. It was directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Ben Shattuck, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2025. The movie has since won three awards and been nominated nine times. After watching it, I can see why, and I immediately knew I wanted to write an affectionate review for such an affectionate film. That said, I could write what the movie was about, and I could write what the movie was really about. The nuance in interpretation may sound minute, but worth exploring to understand in depth. The film is a soft gay romance, showing how two men fall in love. It centers around these two men, Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O’Connor), although the story is essentially told from Lionel’s point of view. It is set at the brink of World War I in 1917 when David is drafted into the military.

Lurker (2025), written and directed by Alex Russell, presents itself as a subliminal film that examines the toxicity of pop culture through an allegory of parasitism in the emergence of fame. At its core, it leans into themes of parasocial obsession, identity construction, and celebrity as a kind of social system. Rather than relying on spectacle, the film grounds itself in perception and lived experience. This comes through most clearly in its use of diegetic characterization, where elements within the film are not just stylistic choices but extensions of the story itself. One of the more interesting ways it does this is through its soundtrack. The film features a bi-layered original score by Kenny Beats, made up of both non-diegetic music and diegetic tracks performed in-character by Archie Madekwe as the pop star Oliver. At first, the songs can come off a bit corny, but they start to click as the film unfolds. “Sweet Talk” plays into charisma and appeal, “Snakes in the Garden” taps into paranoia within the entourage, “Domicile” reflects in-group dynamics, and “Love and Obsession” leans directly into parasocial tension.

It's Planet Of The Apes meets Cujo, and it sure isn't pretty. Part of me actually loves this kind of thing, but it has more to do with when the film is than how good or bad the film happens to be. For a lot of critics, we have just spent the better part of our last year being inundated by awards bait in one form or another. Everyone wants your attention right then. I have to vote in two guilds, and honestly by the time it's over and I've managed to cram 60-70 films or more into my holiday activities, I'm more than a little burned out. So after that little break as the new year begins, I always welcome those first films that asks nothing more of me than to sit there and soak it in. There aren't going to be any Best Picture nominations here. No one is going to be buzzing about Primate when we start talking Best Actors and Cinematography.