[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review three new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, June 5th, 2026. 1) MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE There are some movies that arrive carrying decades of baggage. Masters of the Universe is one of them. Before I get into the movie itself, I should probably start by s

Once again, it’s time to talk about my monthly 'Nick’s Pix' screening at the beautiful Lake Theater in Oak Park, and this month I am unbelievably excited because we are bringing back to the big screen one of the funniest, smartest, most outrageous, most offensive, and most brilliant movie musicals ever made. Yes, on Wednesday, June 10th at 7:00 p.m. at the Lake Theater in Oak Park, I will be hosting a screening of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Trey Parker and Matt Stone

With the release of the new movie Tuner, which is a terrific film and honestly one of the best movies of the year, I thought it would be fun to go back and talk about heist movies in general and specifically one of my favorite things that happens in heist movies: safe-cracking scenes. Now Tuner is a really interesting combination of character study, suspense thriller, and caper movie. It’s about this once-brilliant musical prodigy who’s now reduced to tuning pianos for a livi

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, May 29th, 2026. 1) BACKROOMS I didn’t know much about the Backrooms web series before seeing this movie. I had heard about it in passing. I knew it was a YouTube thing, a Creepypasta thing, part of this whole Li

So with the release of the new Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu, I thought I would finally talk a little bit about the Star Wars franchise and rank all of the theatrical films that exist inside that universe. And yes, I know, for a lot of people this is sacred territory. This is religion. This is childhood. This is obsession. This is action figures and conventions and cosplay and sleeping bags and waiting in line for three days outside a movie theater and arguing onl

Hitchhiking is one of those things that feels incredibly tied to a very specific kind of freedom. It’s romantic in theory, terrifying in reality, and absolutely perfect for movies. The idea itself is simple: stick your thumb out, stand by the side of the road, and trust a complete stranger to take you somewhere. Sometimes it’s across town. Sometimes it’s across the country. Sometimes it’s across Europe with a backpack and twenty bucks in your pocket and nowhere to sleep. And

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, May 22nd, 2026. 1) THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU Well, I should probably start this review by saying something that, depending on who’s reading this, may immediately get me kicked out of the nerd community forever:

You know, sometimes the weirdest ideas for movie lists come from the strangest places. That’s one of the reasons I love movies so much. You can go down these bizarre little rabbit holes and suddenly realize there’s an entire cinematic subgenre devoted to something you never even thought about before. In this particular case: sheep. Lambs. Movies featuring sheep and lambs. And honestly, the reason this even crossed my mind is because one of the absolute biggest surprises of 20

Who doesn’t love Sally Field? Seriously. Who doesn’t? I mean, if you grew up anytime from the mid-1960s on (and especially if you’re around my age, I'm 60) Sally Field has basically always been there. Television, movies, sitcoms, prestige dramas, goofy comedies, soap opera satires, giant blockbuster superhero movies, Oscar-winning performances, Emmy-winning performances…she’s one of those rare performers who somehow became both a massive star and completely relatable at the s

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review three new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, May 15th, 2026. 1) IN THE GREY I am not a Guy Ritchie fan. I have never been a Guy Ritchie fan. I missed the boat completely when everybody lost their minds over Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch b