Reely Bernie’s Top Ten of 2025
At least it wasn’t 2024. I know it’s all personal and subjective, and I’m sure I’m in the minority when I say this, but I thought last year was a drag for movies. I couldn’t even squeak out a Top Ten of 2024. This year? Much improved! In fact, I think we uncovered a few…
Reely Bernie’s Top 5 Worst Movies of 2025
Before I share my Top Ten of 2025, I thought it might be fun to dish out my least favorite experiences watching movies this year. Like the agonizing aches and fever of bedridden flu, bad movies do exist, and they can make you just as sick. You wonder what else you could have done with…
Frankenstein Defibrillates to No Avail
Commendably adapted or blasphemous to Mary Shelley, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a movie — and a fair one at that. Skies hang ominously over a wet, bone-chilling landscape where the infamous creature doesn’t stop its rampage, as if It Follows dipped its toes into the 18th century. Del Toro’s obsession with flesh rekindles echoes of The Fly and Hellraiser,…
Scent of a Woman (1992): The Perfect Thanksgiving Movie
There is a disarming tenderness inside the miserable monster Al Pacino creates in Scent of a Woman. Lt. Colonel Frank Slade elevates bitterness into a kind of sport. He yells, he scolds, he repels—he’s the human equivalent of a “Do Not Touch” sign with legs. And yet, maddeningly, you still want to hug him. Maybe…
Reely Bernie Horror Fest: Longlegs (2024)
I’m late to the party with this one, but in hindsight, staying home would’ve been the better choice. Longlegs offers little beyond a thin plot: a young, inexperienced female FBI agent—clearly echoing Silence of the Lambs—is on the trail of a bizarre serial killer. That’s the whole premise. If you took every horror gimmick imaginable—serial killers, possessed…
Reely Bernie Horror Fest: Arachnophobia (1990)
More a charming nod to nostalgia than an outright comedy, and more horror than spoof, Arachnophobia still manages to sink its fangs into enough entertainment value to work 35 years later. Gosh. Thirty-five years. I first saw this mild screamer at the now-gone Southbridge 8 Theatres in Littleton, Colorado—the same year I saw Edward Scissorhands. Those were innocent…
Reely Bernie Horror Fest: Ghostwatch (1992)
To fully appreciate the found footage trope and the intrigue of media fakery, Ghostwatch is essential viewing. There’s a charming innocence to its “live TV special” premise, set in a claustrophobic, purple-carpeted British flat and driven by sincere performances that help sell the illusion. Michael Parkinson deserves particular praise for portraying a convincing host whose…
‘One Battle After Another’ Boldly Beats to Its Own Drum
One Battle After Another is a daring genre-bender — unmarketable by Hollywood standards — that demands to be seen in theaters for its subtle audacity and monstrous vision. That vision is Paul Thomas Anderson’s, and he has outdone himself again. Magnolia was a chapter in my life. That film cracked something open in me back in 1999 — a…
I Dare You to See ‘Weapons’
I can’t think of a roller coaster or haunted house attraction that made me gulp, laugh, and scream more than watching Weapons in the theater. The horror trope has broken wide open this year, and it is a shame more than half the country would rather go on the merry-go-round. Starting with the grim premise…
Naked Gun: Laughter in a Birthday Suit
From the 80s to the 2020s, there is always a time and need for imbecile slapstick. Brainless to offensive, the gags levitate the belly to chuckles we once released as children. My dad raised me on Airplane! and Naked Gun, so who better to watch this reboot than with him. “Reboot” might be this relentless…
Together: A Romantic Horror
If Ari Aster made a better second half to Midsommar, his take on toxic codependency would top them all. Unfortunately, his setup for relational imprisonment fell not just for gimmick but worse—pretentiousness. The cinematic potential for unhealthy emotional reliance is uncanny. Did you ever see Barfly, Fatal Attraction, or Blue Valentine? Funny. Frightening. Funereal. Add a body horror component to the…
F1 The Movie: A Thrillingly Long Ride
Brad Pitt swoons and the cars go fast, but the entertainment value runs out of gas at the 156-minute finish line. As per mind-numbingly usual, Hollywood takes a user-friendly summer blockbuster formula and bloats it. The washed-up-veteran-mentoring-the-cocky-rookie story works well on the racetrack, and actors Pitt, Javier Bardem, and Damson Idris divvy the testosterone respectfully.…
28 Years Later, Still Got It
Only Director Danny Boyle could resuscitate the “zombie”/infected trope with on-brand, Brit pop-accompanied flare. Blasting electronica to slo-mo shots of arrows piercing through ghastly, virus-ridden monsters, it’s as if the MTV music video married the modern video game. (It’s an added trivia perk that the whole thing was shot on an iPhone.) Yes, the Last of…
Reely Bernie Horror Fest: 28 Days Later
Origin/Director: UK, Spain/Danny Boyle Viewings Tally: This is my second viewing. I saw it in the theatre the year it came out. Synopsis: Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally unleashed from a British research facility, a small group of London survivors are caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected.…
Lilo & Stitch Burps a Cash Grab
No matter how much this live-action interpretation tries to appeal to grownup sensibility and kiddos who adore fuzzy creatures, there is a visual and emotional discrepancy between the human acting and CGI-renderings. You simply can’t have it both ways. Where six-year-old Maia Kealoha melts our hearts with a touching performance of Lilo in need of…
Ranking the Mission: Impossible Series
You can make the argument that four of the 8-movie Mission: Impossible franchise are the best. What other 8-movie series can you say the same? After lighting the wick and cueing Lalo Schifrin’s infamous introductory theme, I recently viewed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and reranked my worst to best list to this tremendous…
Mary Poppins (1964) and Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
After dozens of viewings with my young daughters, I still come to the same conclusion: Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are exceptional both in musicianship and laser point expression, the knack for lyrical metaphor is astounding, and the grownup sense of humor sneaks in seamlessly with the kiddo magic. The gigantic soundstage that envelops Cherry…
Paul Schrader’s “Man in a Room” Trilogy
Filmmaker Paul Schrader is renowned for taking us to the dingiest of places and introducing us to the gloomiest of people. By vicariously walking in the shoes of the taxi driver, raging middleweight boxer, and LA gigolo, we are challenged to sympathize with these pitiful characters. If anything, they are all seeking salvation. Because they…
“Sinners” bites off more than it can chew
Is it a mystical origin story about the Delta Blues a la Robert Johnson selling his soul at a crossroads? Unfortunately, no. How about a diabolical feud between African American spirituals and Irish folksongs and their evolutionary ties to the Devil? Nope. Think From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) disguised in Jim Crow Mississippi—45 minutes of promising setup…
Black Bag: An Icy Spy vs. Spy (2025)
Utility filmmaker Steven Soderbergh presents a sleek spy thriller that lands on intrigue and misses on humor. Merciless British intelligence agents bite and claw through the dialogue (script credit to David Koepp), anamorphic cinematography protrudes the eye like an investigation lamp, and the jazzy drumkit score makes the 90 minutes breeze by. Like most Soderbergh…
Anora, No Thank You
I stopped taking the Oscars seriously in 1999 when Steven Spielberg won Best Director, but his epic Saving Private Ryan did not win Best Picture. Wouldn’t the “Best” Director have directed the “Best” Picture? No, the forgettable, Harvey Weinstein-produced Shakespeare in Love took the glory, and you can now find DVD copies of it near…
Well, Wolf Man, I’ll Bite
There’s not much out there right now, and I normally reserve horror flicks for October, but I had to see this rebooted Wolf Man for one reason and one reason only: Leigh Whannell. This is the director who pleasantly shocked me with another reboot in The Invisible Man in 2020. Whannell has a knack for…
Nosferatu in Spandex
Played more like a rabid dog, cowering in the corner, Max Schreck’s interpretation of Nosferatu in 1922 is less a spectacle and more a freak of nature. The audience can’t help but feel fear turned to pity, as if the Phantom of the Opera becomes tangible reality, and the myth lingers in the fog. Robert…
Reflecting on 2024 and Movies
This year, I reached a wonderful point in my life when my daughters’ tutu dance parties in the family room and a few more visits to the gym superseded the necessity to write about movies. I’m good with this. I’m a firm believer in a life that evolves. If anything, time to simply watch a…
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Reely Bernie 