Mark McPherson's Blog, page 10

“The Girl with the Needle” Review

In the fight for abortion and female empowerment, The Girl with the Needle doesn’t shy away from the darkness of that struggle in 1919 Denmark. Not just the darkness of women being forced to have these procedures behind closed doors but the bitterness that brews internally when trying to assert amid tough times. The limited freedoms are given a grim and grimy depiction with how hard it was to do anything in a poor, post-war society, be it choosing a lover or aborting a baby.

There’s plenty o...

Thoughts on the 2025 Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations were announced this week and there’s plenty of surprises this year. Some were genuinely pleasing, as with Sean Baker’s wild drama Anora and the body horror The Substance getting top honors of Best Picture. Some were expected, as with Wicked and Dune getting plenty of technical nominations. And then there some that were disheartening, like…okay, I won’t bury the lead, Emilia Pérez is weakest in every category, especially Best Picture. Here are some thoughts on each category...

“Creature Commandos” Season 1 Review

Creature Commandos won me over almost instantly for the character of GI Robot (). He is a robot programmed during World War II to fight Nazis. He enjoys gunning down Nazis. His favorite topic is about hunting Nazis. His favorite type of person is somebody who enjoys killing Nazis. His least favorite type of person is, well, Nazis. What I’m trying to say is that GI Robot kills a lot of Nazis in this show and it’s a delight.

Gunn stages this animated series with the same style as his ...

“T Blockers” Review

Here’s the good stuff. Here’s that scrappy, rebellious spirit for the transgender experience we need now more than ever. The cheapness of T Blockers can be felt in its rickety horror staging, but the rage for the world is loud that you can just want to scream/sing along. The rise of fascism, the anti-trans rhetoric, and the weary anxiety of continuing the fight is all there in a neon swirl of blazing queer fury. It also has that gooey gore center that makes it such a horror treat.

The film c...

“Get Away” (2024) Review

Subversion is a tricky thing to inject into a film. Get Away is a film that attempts to surprise with its twist of a folk horror nightmare vacation that is turned on its head. To get to that point, however, this film stumbles with so many bog-standard horror tropes that the twists are not so much exciting as they are a break from the exaggerated misfires. It’s a film that wants to pretend it’s in a shitty Swedish horror film by commenting on how the scenario feels like a shitty Swedish horror f...

“Pepe” (2024) Review

Late last year, I watched Dahomey, a film that tried to mix the ghostly narration of an ancient spirit with the modern-day political documentary of Benin. At a brisk 68 minutes, that film touched on the lingering voices of lost traditions and the concerns of preserving it in the present, where the anti-colonialism movement has been slow. Pepe, however, makes the mistake of trying to mix a ho-hum human drama of the Dominican Republic with the existential contemplations of a dead hippo. This film...

“Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy” Review

A gross feeling washed over me during Buy Now, and not the intended disgust of the waste in our world. That admission of our hideous consumer culture had already been placed by numerous documentaries and news articles covering this topic with great detail. No, the true terror of this Netflix documentary is that it attempts to weave a satirical sci-fi staging on top of its interviews and stats. I’m sure this placement was meant to be a challenge, trying to see if the viewer could peer through th...

“Hard Truths” Review

has a certain wizardry with how he crafts characters that are so real it hurts. Hard Truths is a return to form for the director/screenwriter, returning to melodrama most effective rather than his recent historical epics. He stages a film so eerily accurate in portraying troubled people that it’s spellbinding enough to be a stage play, performed with the same amount of eye-locking vigor.

is at her best for playing the anxious mess, Pansy Deacon. She’s a wife...

“Better Man” Review

Although I was initially unfamiliar with the pop icon Robbie Williams, his rise to fame is familiar. He had a dream of singing, blossomed into the member of a boy band, struggled with drugs, struggled with family, and inevitably fought his demons back to success. But what instantly stands out about his bio-pic, Better Man, is that he’s portrayed as a monkey. That’s a gimmick strong enough to garner the eyeballs, but keeping them glued to the screen would take some effort. Surprisingly, the monk...

“Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” Review

The sequel to the heist film Den of Thieves is a film that is all work and no play. It confuses intricacy for intrigue and competency for charisma. For the audience member who complains about how people keep making mistakes in movies, here’s a film where a heist is pulled off with characters who are personally flawed but criminally professional. The monkey’s paw curls for this film that delivers all the intensity and little personality.

The cat-and-mouse game continues between law enforcer N...