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3 1/2 Stars

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Recently, there was news that a company named Particle6 had created the world’s first AI actress, and that certain agencies were looking into hiring her.

The idea of this actress (named Tilly Norwood) has understandably upset most of Hollywood. I read one actress said one of the main reasons this won’’t work is because Tilly lacks one of the most crucial tools an actor needs: past experiences to draw from. This is one of the main ingredients that makes Dwayne Johnson’s performance in The Smashing Machine so remarkable.

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Mark's 21st Century Movie Milestones

Number 9…

Months ago, my friends and I had a night where we had fun making power point presentations on anything we wanted.

I generated positive feedback for my presentation as I managed to dream cast our cohorts into Disney characters. While I did not do a slide for myself, I was asked at the end which character I would best associate with myself. As someone who does not do well socially all the time but is also a hopeless romantic who yearns for romance, I easily identified with the titular character of my favorite Disney/Pixar film to date, WALL-E.

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4 1/2 Stars

One Battle After Another (2025)

Barely two minutes into the newest Paul Thomas Anderson film, I jotted down one word:

“Timely?”

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1 Star

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025)

Nearly a month ago, I caught up with an old romantic fantasy called Somewhere in Time from 1980.

As I have always been a fan of time travel, I managed to overlook the questionable approach to that phenomenon because the leads (Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour) had such palpable chemistry and the John Barry score was enjoyably hypnotic. 

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Mark's 21st Century Movie Milestones

Number 10…

If you were asked to come up with the most prominent film director of the 21st century and the name was not Christopher Nolan, you would be climbing a rather slippery slope.

After his breakout second feature Memento, Nolan began a steady rise as the most revered of directors of the last century. When coming up with this list, I knew sticking to the “one film per director” rule would prove most difficult with him, because even his lesser movies are still worth watching. That said, when you make a film that is possibly the most popular of all films this century, one of the best sequels ever made, the best of its genre (superhero/comic books), and, after not getting a Best Picture nomination, even (allegedly) made the Academy start having more than five Best Picture nominees,…yeah, I had to go with The Dark Knight.

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2 1/2 Stars

The Long Walk (2025)

There are a lot of things I would tell my younger self to have done differently, but one for sure is to have read more Stephen King novels. Actually, any of his novels.

Perhaps the main culprit was that I was imitated by the page count of the books (especially IT). You can disagree with him on Twitter all you want, but your just being silly if you think he is a bad writer (and this coming from someone who has yet to read one of his books).

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Mark's 21st Century Movie Milestones

Number 11…

Throughout my four years of being on my High School Speech team: there was one unwritten rule that seemed to be the most concrete (when it comes to written speeches): Never write a speech about speech team.

True, one should write what one knows, but there were so many speeches about speech team (especially in the Original Comedy event, which I was mainly in) that it was a cliche even before I entered High School. What I never mentioned was how the idea came from having just seen the Spike Jonze film Adaptation.

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4 Stars Movies

Highest 2 Lowest (2025)

As someone who has yet to visit New York City (still near the top of my bucket list), I in no way feel I can say what director in the history of cinema has best captured the city.

A few names do come to mind: Martin Scorcese, Nora Ephron, Sidney Lumet, and Woody Allen (despite his troubled personal life). Then of course there is Spike Lee. While he has not entirely relied on New York for all of his films, his best ones (namely Do the Right Thing in 1989) have helped shape parts of the city that never sleeps in our movie going psyche.

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Mark's 21st Century Movie Milestones

Number 12…

There are a few variables as to why it took me longer than I would have hoped to get to see a Quentin Tarantino film. 

For starters, my mom had only two movies I was not allowed to see growing up, and one was Pulp Fiction because she thought it too weird (the other was The Exorcist, which one cannot blame her for in the long run). My older brother’s last bit of cinematic knowledge I remember him passing on to me (before he lost interest) was on QT, and I eventually got to Pulp as well as other films of his, the first being Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003. Yet my mind was truly opened a year later, with Kill Bill, Vol. 2.

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0 Stars Movies

War of the Worlds (2025)

It’s been around a year and a half since Pepsi had the unfortunate plug in Madame Web, making Pepsi supporters redder in the face than the red in the can of its rival soda company. 

There were scarce a number of product placement that were unfortunate in recent cinematic history, but at least Pepsi was not in the shameless promotion. What Amazon has going for it in the newest version of War of the Worlds is so wanton I legit thought of spending some time apart with my Prime Benefits relationship.

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