Screener Squad Archives -

OBEX MOVIE REVIEW OBEX, the latest film from multi-hyphenate artist Albert Birney, is set in the pre-internet days of the 1980s. In addition to writing and directing, Birney also stars as Conor, a computer nerd and shut-in who lives alone with his dog Sandy. One day, intrigued by an ad, Conor orders a copy of […]

STRANGER THINGS – SEASON 5 PART 3 REVIEW Released in 2016 to relatively little fanfare, Stranger Things quickly became a word of mouth hit, a pop culture phenomenon, and Netflix‘s flagship show. Now, almost a decade later, the show has completed its final voyage. It’s possible the ship might have suffered some damage along the […]

THE ELEPHANT REVIEW According to legend, and a very quick google search, the very first animated story was by French artist Émile Cohl called Fantasmagorie back in 1908. It lasted a little over a minute and featured our protagonist trying to get rid of hats, a clown, and an elephant. Over a century later, a […]

NE ZHA 2 MOVIE REVIEW Ne Zha, the story of a rebellious and powerful child deity in Chinese mythology with origins in Buddhist lore, has been interpreted and adapted throughout the centuries through word of mouth, written folk lore, and like all the best myths, adapted to the silver screen. Therefore it is no surprise […]

STARRING DICK VAN DYKE MOVIE REVIEW Go over to PBS online and do yourself the favor of watching Starring Dick Van Dyke for FREE! You have no excuse not to enjoy this beautiful documentary that celebrates the life, legacy, and unshakable charm of one of entertainment’s most enduring icons. This film traces Van Dyke’s journey […]

STRANGER THINGS – SEASON 5 VOLUME 2 REVIEW Once again, Netflix has dropped another volume of Stranger Things Season 5 episodes on a major holiday, and once again our reviewers took a break from their vacation plans to binge these three new episodes and record their thoughts ahead of the feature-length finale scheduled to drop […]

INFLUENCERS MOVIE REVIEW Smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe to that hashtag #MurderBeautifulPeopleOnVacation! Whether you follow on Instagram, Twitter rebrands, TikTok, or are over the hill and on Facebook, Influencers is that Gen X to Z killing spree goodness you need to close out your holiday shuffle as we all dance into […]

SMILING FRIENDS SEASON 3 REVIEW Smiling Friends returns on Adult Swim for a third season and it chronicles the employees of Smiling Friend Inc. and their never ending quest to chase the blues away and help you recognize the brighter days ahead. Smiling Friends employees Pim (Michael Cusack) and Charlie (Zach Hadel) are here to […]

WE BURY THE DEAD MOVIE REVIEW The apocalypse arrives with a bang after a catastrophic military experiment off the coast of Tasmania wipes out nearly all life on the island. Slowly, the dead begin to rise and shamble due to the effects of the fallout. Ava Newman (Daisy Ridley) scours the post-collapse nation for her […]

ALL’S FAIR SERIES REVIEW RIta Rudner once said “Marriages don’t last. When I meet a guy, the first question I ask myself is: is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?”. Hulu presents a show about a law firm of ladies helping women turn those I Do’s into I don’t […]

OH. WHAT. FUN. MOVIE REVIEW One Christmas you’re bound in a homemade leather suit decapitating mannequins while eluding the detective skills of a millionaire with daddy issues while awakening your independence and empowering an audience of all ages to do the same in the face of an uncaring apathetic world. Meow! Then three decades later, […]

IT: WELCOME TO DERRY SERIES REVIEW Sister duo “Patience and Prudence” sang the cheerful tune A Smile and a Ribbon which said “A smile is something special, a ribbon is something rare. So I’ll be special and I’ll be rare with a smile and a ribbon in my hair.” Decades have passed since the ironically […]

JAY KELLY MOVIE REVIEW Netflix’s Jay Kelly arrives as a quiet, contemplative drama about success, friendship, and the uneasy space between who you were and who you’ve become. Noah Baumbach uses his career-long craft of telling stories that explore themes of success, sacrifice, loss, and existential dread to get George Clooney and Adam Sandler Golden […]

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT MOVIE REVIEW Allen Ginsberg once said “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” Andrea Gibson is a poet whose works include the acclaimed […]

UNDER THE STARS MOVIE REVIEW Regarding true love, I give you this quote from the pages of “A Wizard and Glass” by Stephen King. “True love, like any other strong and addicting drug, is boring—once the tale of encounter and discovery is told, kisses quickly grow stale and caresses tiresome…except, of course, to those who […]

THE ABANDONS SERIES REVIEW ‘The way of the gun’ crashes against the power of wealth while the law watches with a big bucket of popcorn in this Netflix series by The Shield and Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, The Abandons. Fiona Nolan (Lena Headey) is a ruthless calculating homesteader who adopted several orphans to […]

THE CHAIR COMPANY TV REVIEW It seems like cringe comedy has evolved quite the bit over the past decade. Some would say that both the UK & US The Office really kicked off the trend. But now with comedians like Nathan Fielder and Tim Robinson, they’ve taken the comedic style to a whole new level […]

JINGLE BELL HEIST MOVIE REVIEW Nice Christmas tree you got there with all that silver and gold on it. Be a shame if something happened to it. Jingle Bell Heist follows Sophia (Olivia Holt) who is all dressed up in red and green, and making cash at the Christmas department store adorned with Christmas trees […]

LEFT-HANDED GIRL MOVIE REVIEW Director Shih-Ching Tsou once said “I fell in love with my own city again. I spent 23 years of my life in Taipei. That’s home. That’s where my family is. I can never remove that from my brain or my body, and I notice every little detail of the city now. […]

THE LOWDOWN SERIES REVIEW Mark Twain once said “If you tell the truth, you won’t have to remember anything”. This great advice seems to go largely unobserved in the Oklahoma city of Tulsa in the FX series, The Lowdown. Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) is a bookstore owner that also happens to moonlight as a self […]

TRAIN DREAMS MOVIE REVIEW Denis Johnson once said “If you write fiction, you’re by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don’t have to explain anything to anybody”. An adaptation of one of Johnson’s most cherished novellas is now streaming on Netflix, Train Dreams. Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is a man living […]

BUNNY MOVIE REVIEW There are so many songs about New York from all kinds of artists. From crooners to rappers, the adulation of the big apple can be heard world wide, but the best kind of harmonies that make up the most memorable stories are from the voices of the communities within the city itself. […]

STRANGER THINGS – SEASON 5 VOLUME 1 REVIEW The fifth and final season of Stranger Things might leave you feeling nostalgic, not for the 1980s, but for the halcyon days of 2016; back when a streaming series with no pre-release buzz could become a surprise word-of-mouth hit, when unknown child actors were actually the same […]

HAZBIN HOTEL SEASON 2 REVIEW Heaven’s extermination of Hell’s sinners in order to keep the sinner population below the numbers of the righteous has been thwarted by Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen). Along with her girlfriend Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz) she runs the Hazbin Hotel, a place sinners can go for redemption. Hell isn’t forever anymore after […]

CHAINSAW MAN – THE MOVIE: REZE ARC Tatsuki Fujimoto’s most hellish manga creation has rev’ed up from the the page, onto the tv screens, and moving onto the biggest screens of silver and into our hearts. We are talking about Chainsaw Man The Movie- Reze Arc directed by anime key artist and showrunning legend Tatsuya […]

THE PAPER SERIES REVIEW What are some things you can use the newspaper for? Paper mache for a float or some kind of school art project. Catching droppings at the bottom of your bird cage. A prop for a costume at halloween or a play. However it may surprise you to learn that in the […]

MUZZLE: CITY OF WOLVES MOVIE REVIEW Surprise! A sequel to a movie you didn’t know exists! Well, at the very least The Screener Squad didn’t know about it. Muzzle: City of Wolves storms onto the scene as the surprise sequel to 2023’s Muzzle, once again centered on Aaron Eckhart’s LAPD K-9 officer Jake Rosser. Still […]

STAR WARS: VISIONS SEASON 3 REVIEW Star Wars: Visions returns with nine bold new animated shorts that push the galaxy far, far away into fresh artistic territory while continuing a few fan-favorite stories like The Duel, The Ninth Jedi, and The Village Bride, as well as 6 brand new visions. Each short brings a different […]

CHAD POWERS SERIES REVIEW Its the 4th quarter with the clock ticking and the game on the line in front of a sea of fans and that one person in the stands that matters more than anything. Lesser men would crumble under the pressure and the moment calls for a true hero. Unfortunately, that’s not […]

BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER MOVIE REVIEW Did you know that there are other casinos in the world and Las Vegas doesn’t corner the market on gambling? It’s true! Also the tables offer more than poker and blackjack. That’s right, sometimes the cards are used for a game called baccarat. It’s a simple game in […]

NOUVELLE VAGUE MOVIE REVIEW In 1959, film critic Jean-Luc Godard set out to direct his first feature, “À bout de souffle” or Breathless as it is known in English. Following Godard’s oft quoted dictum that ‘All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun’, Breathless tells the story of a louche […]

PREDATOR: BADLANDS MOVIE REVIEW Director/writer Dan Trachtenberg gets his third go-round helming a Predator film (definitely watch Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers). This time he gets a theatrical release, like his previous two should have, and again he finds a way to tell a story very different from your traditional Predator film entry. Dek […]

HEDDA MOVIE REVIEW That Gatsby, now he was great, a guy who knew how to throw a party. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. You know who else could throw a luxurious party and all for the sake of killing […]

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE MOVIE REVIEW Tony Scott’s Crimson Tide. John Woo’s Broken Arrow. Heck, even Michael Bay’s The Rock. What do these films have in common? Bad men have THE BOMB and they are threatening to launch. Okay, Gene Hackman as a bad man in Crimson Tide is sort of debatable but that’s what […]

SLOW HORSES SEASON 5 REVIEW Slow Horses Season 5 wastes no time setting up the stakes, starting with a brutal mass shooting in the heart of London. This kicks off a series of terrorist attacks in a politically divided city during the midst of a fraught mayoral campaign. Ordinarily, this would be a job for […]

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING SEASON 5 REVIEW After four seasons of murders in the building, you would think the titular building would be the least desirable apartment complex in all of Manhattan. Fortunately for fans of Only Murders in the Building, people are still dying to move into The Arconia, home of true crime […]

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE MOVIE REVIEW In the 1992 film The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, fictional character Peyton Flanders said “When your husband makes love to you, it’s *my* face he sees. When your baby’s hungry, it’s *my* breast that feeds him. Look at you! When push comes to shove… you can’t […]

TASK SERIES REVIEW Remember Mare of Easttown on HBO? A self contained mini series with three acts about an FBI agent with no extended universe, no hanging threads or unresolved plots, and also it was for grown ups? We were watching week to week the dominoes being set up by the hand of cruelty and […]

V/H/S HALLOWEEN MOVIE REVIEW Close down that YouTube browser and put the leftover creepy pasta in the fridge. The time of year has arrived for short form horror films in a nice packaged anthology! Presenting the eighth film in the franchise, V/H/S Halloween. A collection of scary cinema icons and prospects present six chilling tales […]

THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 MOVIE REVIEW Author Ruth Ware once said “The only advice I can give to aspiring writers is to write the book you would want to read, and hope other people agree”. I don’t know about reading but Netflix sees you, Ruth, and is hoping A Woman in Cabin 10 is […]

MR. SCORSESE SERIES REVIEW Martin Scorsese has been one of our most acclaimed filmmakers for so long, that it’s easy to forget his reputation and career weren’t always as secure as they are now. Scorsese has been the subject of many articles, books, and documentaries before, so it’s hard to imagine anything that hasn’t been […]

STAY MOVIE REVIEW One of the most famous and spooky scary EVP’s (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) ever documented was the phrase “Get out of my house”. Often a haunted house tale is a story of a restless spirit that doesn’t want anyone in its space and someone figuring out why it’s so restless. Move on? I […]

MARVEL ZOMBIES SERIES REVIEW The dead have risen… and they’ve got superpowers. Marvel Zombies shambles onto Disney Plus, expanding the fan-favorite What If…? episode that first teased this gruesome alternate Marvel universe. Inspired by the 2005 comic series by Robert Kirkman, the animated show imagines a world where a zombie virus infects Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, […]

STEVE MOVIE REVIEW A famous monologue in the Irvine Welsh novel Trainspotting reads “Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total […]

HAUNTED HOTEL SERIES REVIEW Whenever I check into a hotel I know I’m in good hands when I see that delicious mint on my pillow. Chocolate and fresh breath? I am loved. Worst case scenario? Cold water showers, paper thin walls, no mints, and a diabolical room 1408 situation. For those of you that haven’t […]

PEACEMAKER SEASON 2 REVIEW Who would have guessed that a D list superhero like Chris Smith AKA Peacemaker would be the cornerstone of DC Comics latest cinematic universe, or that the role would offer former wrestler turned actor John Cena the meatiest role of his career, thus far? Nobody, that’s who. And yet here we […]

PLAY DIRTY MOVIE REVIEW Trim the tree, put up the lights, hang the stockings with care: there’s an action film on Amazon Prime with Shane Black as writer/director…Christmas will soon be here! Inspired by the popular Parker book series by Donald E Westlake, Play Dirty starring Mark Wahlberg, is about a heist gone wrong that […]

HOUSE ON EDEN MOVIE REVIEW All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I went to a church, and it was so spoooooky SCARY! Halloween is coming and Shudder is ready to assume its final form. Director, writer, and actres Kris Collins finds the camera and supplies the footage for a haunted house […]

THE MAN IN MY BASEMENT MOVIE REVIEW Charles (Corey Hawkins) has fallen on the worst of times in the most apathetic of decades, the 90s. He doesn’t have a job, the bank is continually threatening to foreclose on his house, and he is burdened with a past full of trauma and anger. His ancestral domicile […]

KILLING FAITH MOVIE REVIEW It was a time of tumbleweeds, rawhide, and ghost towns. A time of doctors who traded in bottles of medicine to find the bottom of bottles made of dead families and glass. Ranches with too many horses in a one horse town with no name. Well, the town had a name, […]

ALL OF YOU MOVIE REVIEW Criss Jami once wrote, “To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect.” Beautiful, profound, and thought provoking. […]

ALIEN: EARTH SERIES REVIEW The common online geek response to a hyped up writer/director being giving the reins to a beloved classic sci-fi franchise is “get away from her you bitch!”. With a track record that includes the Legion and Fargo TV Series, at least some geeks were excited to give Noah Hawley a crack […]

DEAD OF WINTER MOVIE REVIEW Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said “Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak”. Had he ever been to Minnesota during ice fishing season? Dead of Winter is the story of Barb’s (Emma Thompson) solo pilgrimage through northern Minnesota. It’s an annual trip she used to take with her husband […]

NIGHT OF THE REAPER MOVIE REVIEW Once upon a time we all had a babysitter and once upon a time within that once upon a time we all watched babysitters get massacred by a maniac around Halloween. From the network that brought you such nostalgia as “Kids on bikes solving mysteries” and “Your ghost isn’t […]

DEMON SLAYER INFINITY CASTLE MOVIE REVIEW Over 220 million copies sold world wide across its 23 volumes. Adapted into an anime of 4 seasons and 63 episodes all translated into several languages propelling it into a world wide phenomenon. An empire of merchandising that rivals that of Star wars and The Simpsons. Writer/artist Koyoharu Gotouge’s […]

WEDNESDAY SEASON 2 REVIEW It’s back! Wednesday! No, I’m not talking about hump day, I’m talking about the eldest daughter of that creepy, kookie, mysteriously ookie, all together spooky Addams Family. Snap Snap. Wednesday, the hero of Nevermore, returns to find her new found popularity a dreadful nuisance. New Principal Dort (Steve Buscemi) is bursting […]

THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB MOVIE REVIEW When four retirees (Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie) trade in bingo night for cold-case crime solving, they get more than they bargained for after stumbling into a very real murder. Suddenly, the cozy English village is buzzing with secrets, suspects, and amateur detective work that’s […]

BANG BANG MOVIE REVIEW Float like a Butterfly. Sting like a bee. Get your head examined and live with CTE. This quote is not quite right, but it’s the reality of what boxers are left with after their time in the ring is at an end and the promoters high tail it outta town. Former […]

HIGHEST 2 LOWEST MOVIE REVIEW Rick Rubin once said “There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across” and Spike Lee once said “I think it is very important that films make people look at what they’ve forgotten”. Apple Plus presents Highest 2 Lowest a film directed by […]

LOVE, BROOKLYN MOVIE REVIEW Everybody loves a fluff piece, and why not? In these trying times, feeling good is a hallmark of being human and keeping the hope alive. What borough of a city is more of an example of hope and prosperity than Brooklyn?. I know what you’re thinking: a lot of parts of […]

THE THREESOME MOVIE REVIEW Have you ever had a crush on someone for so long that you’d be willing to do anything just to hook up with them intimately? Even agree to a third person being invited to the bedroom? Director Chad Hartigan and writer Ethan Ogilby answer this question with a sexy cast in […]

THE TOXIC AVENGER MOVIE REVIEW The janitor becomes the hero, the mop becomes the weapon, and the toxic sludge becomes… well, a makeover. The Toxic Avenger returns in a reimagined reboot of the cult classic, telling the story of Winston (Peter Dinklage), an everyman who finds himself transformed into a grotesque but oddly noble vigilante […]

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS SEASON 3 REVIEW As One Of Us bids farewell to Jordan in her final review, the Screener Squad sets course for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3—where Pike, crew, and canon collide, and destinies get teased with every warp jump. This season delivers ten wildly different adventures: a tense […]

HAPPY GILMORE 2 MOVIE REVIEW Creed, Maverick, The Colour of Money. All defined in film terms as “The Legacy Sequel”. Whether it’s an entirely new Star Wars trilogy or Ridley Scott milking his ideas before a big fan of the franchise on the come-up in tinseltown does it for him. The legacy sequel is front-loaded […]

MY MOTHER’S WEDDING MOVIE REVIEW Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today not to exchange vows, but to talk about Kristin Scott Thomas’s directorial debut, My Mother’s Wedding. Three daughters return home for the wedding of their twice-widowed mother, Diana—and with them comes more baggage than could ever fit in the bridal registry. All three […]

STICK SERIES REVIEW Mark Twain once said “Golf is a good walk spoiled”. Which is a rude way to open up a show about golf. But perhaps the show in question isn’t so much about golf. Perhaps it’s about a walk through life, spoiled by the many harsh realities we all endure on our day-to-day […]

WHAT WE HIDE MOVIE REVIEW When it comes to raising a family there’s a lot hidden from the children as they come of age, and a lot to teach about what we hide from others when it comes to maintaining innocence and the beauty of childlike wonder. Easter eggs in the spring or the messiness […]

FIXED MOVIE REVIEW Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed plays like the result of a studio willing to fund the juvenile machinations of a middle school kids’ dare. At its center is Bull (Adam Devine), a gentle dog who learns he’s slated for neutering the next morning. Facing the end of his manhood, he sets off on a […]

THE PICKUP MOVIE REVIEW Eddie Murphy returns with The Pickup, another straight-to-streaming action-comedy. Murphy stars as Russell, a long-time armored truck driver on the verge of retirement, who finds his last stretch on the job complicated when he’s paired with Travis (Pete Davidson). Travis dreams of becoming a cop, but his lack of tact—and basic […]

KING OF THE HILL – SEASON 14 REVIEW From 1997 to 2010, The Hill family has comforted audiences with heart warming and thought provoking episodic adventures about a propane salesman who also sells propane accessories, navigating work life, marriage, and raising a boy that ain’t right. No matter what was thrown at Hank Hill (Mike […]

SHAMAN MOVIE REVIEW There is missionary work all over the world, bringing the word of God to all sorts of places, even places you would not expect like a remote Ecuadorian volcano! Director Antonio Negret and writer Daniel Negret present another horror summer film feature in limited release, Shaman. Candice (Sara Canning) is all about […]

ET TU MOVIE REVIEW Lou Diamond Phillips is Brent – a miserable director forced to endure weeks of his own awful community theater production of Julius Caesar. Worse still, he suspects his wife is having an affair with his dim-witted leading man. But when the theater’s janitor reveals a dark secret, Brent may finally have […]

STRANGE HARVEST MOVIE REVIEW When it comes to successful harvesting, all you need is a strong work ethic, a team of farmers dedicated to the crop, and a handful of teachers with patience to cultivate the next generation of harvesters. This is community, this is life. Every once in a while though that community turns […]

HELL MOTEL SERIES REVIEW It’s a dark and stormy night and you’ll never make it to your final destination on these roads. Better check into a motel for the night. It would be quite unfortunate if that was your final destination after all! What you never know about these seedy looking places just off the […]

RICK AND MORTY – SEASON 8 REVIEW Since Rick and Morty debuted in 2013 (yes, it’s really been that long), it has grown from an absurd sci-fi comedy into a layered, multiverse-spanning saga full of emotional depth, dark humor, and some surprisingly tight continuity. Rick has evolved from a detached god-complex genius to a man […]