Did anyone know that Microsoft literally has their own toasters that they have been selling since like 1998?!?! Nothing like a bit of delicious irony in the morning, huh?!
But yeah, Microsoft isn’t doing so hot these days! From it’s terrible handling of the Xbox brand for the past several years to it’s lackluster support over Windows and their PCs to it’s absurd pricing with their latest RAMs and consoles to going completely balls deep into A.I., it has not been a great time to be a fan of Microsoft! And as if the Xbox starting to dip their toes into the third-party gaming pool with Gears of War and Halo wasn’t bad enough, this latest leadership shake-up might just be the final nail on the coffin!
A few days ago, it has been reported that current CEO and longtime employee of Microsoft, Phil Spencer, has announced his retirement. Mr. Spencer has been working for the company since 1988, joining the Xbox team in 2001 and later gaining significant leadership roles as his tenure with the company grew. He became the general manager of Microsoft Studios in 2008, the leader of Xbox division in 2014, and the CEO of Microsoft gaming in 2022! He was the man tasked into trying to right the wrongs that was caused by previous Microsoft/Xbox executive Phil Spencer after the company’s disastrous launch handling of the Xbox One. And after the results of that aftermath have been mixed at best, he is set to leave Microsoft after nearly four decades.
Another person that is set to leave their role in leadership is current president of Xbox operations, Sarah Bond. Arriving at Microsoft in 2017 and even winning the VentureBeat Visionary Award in 2022, Ms. Bond was thought of as being the clear successor to Mr. Spencer for Xbox gaming divisions after his time with Microsoft has passed. However, that is not meant to be as she is too suspected to resign from her presidential role after nearly a full decade working on Xbox.
Who is expected to replace the two you may ask? Well, the new CEO of Microsoft gaming is expected to be Asha Sharma. And if you don’t know who she is, she is currently the Microsoft’s top executive with AI. Yes, you read that correctly!
A woman that has played a role in the controversial “copilot” features of Microsoft Windows and shoving A.I. “slop” down everyone’s throat with Microsoft’s own products is now about to be the next person up as the CEO of Microsoft gaming. And there’s also Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty that is also being promoted to Chief Content Officer, expecting to work closely with Ms. Sharma as she is believed to have very minimal experience in regards to gaming development.
I don’t think I need to explain any further why these leadership moves seems like a disaster waiting to happen. You are taking the two people that (despite their flaws) have been basically the glue that has been holding Microsoft together for the past 12 years and you are replacing them with folks that champion the “A.I.” bubble features that no one likes and has cost Microsoft billions plus throughout for the past year. That surely seems like the ideal candidates!
And that’s not even going into recent reports that confirms that Phil Spencer’s retirement was not actually planned and Microsoft might have actually fired him in secret. And that because Sarah Bond wasn’t offered the role as oversight of Xbox and Microsoft or massively disagreed with Spencer getting cannoned, she chose to step down herself. That’s TOTALLY a sign that everything is going just fine at Microsoft!
If I’m going to be as fair as I can be, Asha Sharma has been doing everything in her power to say all the “right” things since it’s been announced she’s taking over for Microsoft gaming. She’s been getting into nice and friendly banters with players on Twitter/X on what their favorites games are and what they may want for the Xbox. She even claims she doesn’t want to just turn Xbox games into “A.I. slop”, valuing human creativity when it comes to gaming development! And there’s even been a not-so subtle hint of her intent to commit to gaming exclusives that’s only for the Xbox!
However, if you are being completely honest, can you trust a single thing that Microsoft says or does nowadays? This is a company that has constantly tripped over themselves and have done everything in their power to annihilate their consumers since at least 2013! Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Activision-Blizzard-King, Former IPs going Third-Party, Windows, CoPilot, OpenAI, etc… Do you really believe after pulling all of that B.S. for nearly the past 15 years that THIS is the leadership shake-up that will help them turn things around after so many years of their brand being tarnished?! I’m pretty sure you know your answer to that question!
As cool as it’s been to make fun of Microsoft and Xbox for the past several years, it really is sad how far they have fallen! I still have great and fond memories of the original Xbox and the Xbox 360, the latter of which might just be my favorite gaming console of all time. I even gave the Xbox One a chance when I got it for Christmas in 2015 since there was still exclusives I wanted to play on it. But once I switched over to my PS4 and PS5, I have not given an Xbox a second thought ever since. And with all that has gone one since the release of Xbox Series S/X, it looks as though I made the right decision.
To be sure, I HOPE I am wrong here and that Microsoft doesn’t turn out to be literal toast with this leadership shake-up. I do hope that Asha Sharma and Matt Booty turn out to be the people that helps save the Xbox brand. I do hope that Microsoft is able to return to form in amazing ways with their next console, giving them the comeback that helped fuel Sony and Nintendo after their previous missteps surrounding the PlayStation 3 and Wii U. But if hope is the only thing you have in this day-and-age, you can expect nothing but disappointment.
Once again, Phil Spencer is set to retire from Microsoft and Sarah Bond is set to step down as President of Xbox. They will be succeeded by Microsoft’s top A.I. executive Asha Sharma and Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty! The transition is expected to come into effect today, February 23rd!
Here’s a full piece on Microsoft Blog about this latest shake-up:
And here’s Greg Miller’s brief mention about how Phil Spencer’s retirement might’ve actually not been planned:
During the new Kinda Funny podcast, Greg Miller said Phil Spencer’s retirement was not planned. Gregg said, “I’ve been passed something that again reiterates to me, i’m not going to read it, this was not planned”. #Xboxpic.twitter.com/SCaMUVoHHV
When adapting a well-known book onto the big screen, there always comes a very tight rope you need to walk on in order to make a winner out of it. Not only do you have to make it work as a faithful adaption to it’s source material that longtime fans will love, but you also have to make it work as it’s own self-contained story that can land with mainstream audiences who have never read the book (or any book) beforehand and coming into this one with fresh eyes. We’ve seen many times where film adaptions can make changes to it’s source material but still win the hearts of everyone by staying true to it’s origins such as Jurassic Park, How To Train Your Dragon, and (hopefully) Project Hail Mary while also seen adaptations surprisingly fall short BECAUSE of sticking to close to it’s origins and refusing to make changes such as The Running Man (2025) and (hopefully not) Dune: Messiah! Then you get adaptions like Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, that doesn’t seem interested in celebrating it’s successful book series it’s based on but more of making it’s own engaging story of it while wanting nothing to do with it’s book’s origins and is basically only a film adaption in name only. An adaption that seems to wants to be EVERYTHING but have to do with it’s own source material.
I’m not gonna pretend like I’m an expert on the Wuthering Heights series because I sure as heck am NOT but after doing my research on it before seeing the film, I can see why longtime fans of the book would have a grudge against this latest film iteration done by Emerald Fennell. Yes, the film puts the spotlight on a tragic yet heartfelt love story that puts the novel’s themes surrounding abuse and trauma to the wayside. Yes, the two main leads are about 10 to 15 years older on screen than they are in the novel! Yes, Fennell seems to be less interested in exploring the longing of the source material and more interested in plain lust here. And yes, the dark skinned male lead from the novel is replaced by a white, caucasian man (No fault to Jacob Elordi!) in the finished film.
This isn’t so much a fan fiction of Wuthering Heights but more of just plain fiction that’s a response to other fan fiction out there. It’s more of Emerald Fennell wanting to tell her own romantic tale that I’m sure she’s dreamed off since she was a little girl while desperately trying to do her best Greta Gerwig’s Little Women impression. Regardless of what angle you chose to look at this latest take on Wuthering Heights, it just doesn’t work.
Premise: A passionate and tumultuous love story set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire moors, exploring the intense and destructive relationship between Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) and Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie).
As much as there has been a strange hate boner towards Emerald Fennell in the film twitter community, I do find her to be a very talented director. Her debut feature film, Promising Young Woman, was a masterclass of a thriller that was perfectly executed in it’s social commentary of the post-Me Too era while containing one of boldest endings of any film in recent memory. Saltburn made for a worthy sophomore follow-up even though you can hear the gears turning and the perfectly straight forward pathway that Fennell lays out from the very beginning this time around. Say what you will about the narrative and structural choices of those films but you can at least see where she was going with it and her vision felt 100% present throughout. With Wuthering Heights, I’m not entirely sure what Emerald was trying to do here.
For the first half, you think it’s about a broken man and woman who grew up together and bonded under the shadow of abuse of their elder while slowly and chaotically becoming obsessed with one another the older they got, similar to the themes of it’s source material. But then, as soon as the first passionately loving scene between the two comes around at the halfway point, nearly all of that gets shoved entirely to the background in favor of several sequences of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi making out and relentlessly having sex with one another.
I’m sure there are many men out there that are in love with Margot Robbie and many women out there that are in love with Jacob Elordi but Emerald Fennell seems to think that’s all what anyone is coming to this film for. Just for two very attractive people doing things that two very attractive people like to do with one another. And if she thinks that’s the case, then what was even the point of teasing your faithfulness to Wuthering Heights in the first place if you wanted to make your own hot and steamy film about two people that just wanna pork each other with for an hour and a half?
To be sure, the sex scenes in particular are quite tasteful and well done. Fennell clearly is getting the best out of Robbie and Elordi in these sequences, even if the two are about seven years apart in real life. Their chemistry only ever works during these parts, of being two individuals so chained to their tragic lifestyles that it’s only when they are together and f**king that they feel the most like themselves. But considering, these sequences don’t take place until around the halfway point and I’m sure if you combined every sex scene all together that you will only get around ten total minutes of the film’s 136 minute long runtime of them, you might be better off just waiting for the film to hit digital or until someone uploads a compilation of every one of those scenes on YouTube.
The problem here is that the film doesn’t particularly care about wanting the audience to root for Cathy and Heathcliff to get together. It thinks that just because the two knew each other since they were kids and went through some form of childhood trauma that we are expected to invest in their love triangle when they become adults. And considering both show constantly throughout the film that they can’t even be bothered to care about the partners that they are ALREADY committed to, I can’t even imagine a world where the two end up together in the end as a real happy ending.
I don’t want to be the person that compares the new Wuthering Heights to Fifty Shades of Grey but at least the latter is well aware that the audience is ONLY there for the love scenes and sexual tension throughout. It knows that the plot, characters, and themes are absolute dog water that makes Twilight look like a competently told love story in comparison. You only want to see Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan find weird and disturbing ways to bone one another in ways that is only BARELY suitable for film form. While nowhere near as bad or offensive as Fifty Shades of Grey and the best parts certainly work better as a more sexually satisfying experience, Wuthering Heights can’t function properly on it’s own merits because it’s trapped underneath it’s own weight of it’s source material that it’s actively trying to avoid.
That’s not to say there’s no redeemable qualities whatsoever that doesn’t involve the two main leads doing the awkward parent talk. The production design is absolutely lavish, with convincing costume designs, set aesthetics, and location shootings that perfectly mirror the time period that the film itself is set in. Margot Robbie NEVER phones it in with any movie that she is a part off, making an unwinnable situation to her best advantage and taking a great oath to making 2026’s Wuthering Heights work as a theatrical experience. And while there will be (much deserved) discourse surrounding the potential resurrection of whitewashing which may or may not be Hollywood’s ill-fated response to the current political climate, Jacob Elordi works well as the handsome, lustful male lead that is masterful at making his charms disguise his chaotic hidden nature.
When viewing Wuthering Heights as a proper date night movie for Valentine’s Day weekend to get a certain young couple in the “mood” by the time the credits roll, it’s passable at best. When viewing Wuthering Heights as a faithful adaption or a stand alone cinematic experience, it’s a misfire. It’s caught between trying to be a slow burn haunting tale of two people that believe they are faithfully forced to be together and being a straight up sex-filled craved fantasy with no substance required. If the runtime consisted of 90 to 105 minutes, it could have gotten away with it. At a total of 136 minutes, no chance.
I don’t know how this film would have fared if Fennell chose to stick with the actual roots of the source material but it feels like she went over her head here. Not necessarily because she believes she’s better than the source material but more she believes the source material is better than her. When taking that into consideration, it makes sense as to why you shouldn’t try honoring the material because it’s too special to be messed with and just create new material of your own that may or may not bring new medium to the title which the book is based on. If this is how Emerald truly saw her head at here, than this was basically doomed from the start.
Strong performances and production values can not mask the faults of a film so empty, overlong, and directionless in it’s own vision. I’ll still defend Promising Young Woman and Saltburn but as for this one, sorry Emerald, you are on your own!
Anyone remember when the term “GOAT” used to be described as a bad thing?! Remember when “GOAT” was meant to refer to someone as a scapegoat whenever their sports team suffered a humiliating loss that put a dark cloud on them that made them lose sleep overnight?! Remember when “GOAT” symbolized “sinners, rebellion, or those separated from God for judgment” like it was depicted as in the bible?! Well, just like about every single meme, gif, slang, and cultural touchstone that Gen Z has gotten their greasy hands on for the past decade, “GOAT” now means something else entirely.
In modern times, “GOAT” now refers to someone as strictly the “GREATEST OF ALL TIME”! “GOAT” is simply someone that is just the best of the best at what they do! Or in the case of Sony’s newest animated feature, GOAT, it’s simply about a teenager named Will Harris, who just so happens to be a literal goat, trying to work his way up to the top and become the professional roarball player he has always dreamed of so he may one day become a “GOAT” of his own! (I don’t think I’ve ever said the word, “GOAT” more times in my life than I just did in the first two paragraphs of this review!)
While I wouldn’t put it on the same level as Sony Animation’s recent animated masterclasses such as Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs the Machines, and K-Pop: Demon Hunters, GOAT still works well on it’s own merits as a cute if not very déjà vu-like story thanks to it’s amusing gags, stunning visuals, likable characters, and relatable messages that everyone can get behind! It does move a bit too fast for my liking, giving the impression it was designed to appease the fast-scrolling TikTok obsessed crowd, and I don’t know if it will win over those that are not fond of the standard cliches that are found in these sports movies but for a new animated original film released in our year 2026, you can’t ask for anything more competent.
Premise: The story follows Will (Caleb McLaughlin), a small goat with big dreams who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball – a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Will’s new teammates aren’t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but Will is determined to revolutionize the sport and prove once and for all that “smalls can ball!”
When reading that description alone, you can basically tell where GOAT’s head is at right from the get-go! We have a small fry who has great ambitions to one day live out his childhood dreams of become the “GOAT” in the sport that he loves and become the ultimate superstar that changes the game entirely, just like his idols before him. It hits the same beats you would expect from a typical underdog story and very rarely tries to subvert way from those tropes. However, there are elements that GOAT does on it’s own that helps distances it enough from those typical underdog sport stories.
First off, it has the guts to acknowledge that one players does NOT equal to one whole team. No matter how good one particular player maybe, they can’t win a darn thing if they don’t have a fully form team to back them up. We see that perfectly with Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union). She might be a GOAT of her own (even though she’s actually a black panther) and Will’s idol but she’s not a fairy that can magically wish her team, the Thorns, a championship if she wants, she needs her magic pixie dust of her own that she can spread around her squad so they may one day play together to actually win the big game. It’s only when she meets Will that she is now given that chance to live up to her superstardom and have a trophy around her head.
It’s also quite refreshing to have a sports movie that pits the male and female dynamic together without making a big deal about it or even acknowledging it. There’s not one moment where one specific gender takes down another or vice versa because they are of that one specific gender. The film treats boys and girls working together as completely natural and not something you should think too much about or portray in a completely different light. Each member of the team is given their own individual moment to shine and eye popping imagery of their own while also able to serve Will’s arc of working hard to make a difference in roarball. It makes for a nice if not quite subtle commentary on gender equality and the importance of putting differences behind in order to work together to achieve your main goal.
And if you are looking at strictly as a basketball movie, then it definitely works too. The basketball sequences are quite entertaining, delivering some of the best sequences of the entire film with each member of the Thorns getting the opportunity to score some points of their own. It also does help to have veteran basketball stars to the cast such as Stephen Curry as Lenny the giraffe, Dwyane Wade as Rosette, Kevin Love as Daskas, Angel Reese as Propp, and a few others to help evaluate the experience. The film doesn’t offer a brand new perspective on the sport other than perhaps how a player handles the press and social media but it does deliver the goods on what fans of basketball would want in a movie that represents their sport.
Speaking of which, the voice cast is a lot of fun here and helps bring extra depth to their characters. Caleb McLaughin is likable and engaging as the main lead Will, even if you can see his development going from the very beginning. Garbielle Union stands out as perhaps the most engaging character of the film as Jett Filmore, the player that wants to win it all the most but lacks the resources and shared will in order to do so. Nick Kroll is entertaining as the komodo dragon who can breath fire, David Harbour plays the same father figure role he did in Black Widow, Thunderbolts*, and Stranger Things but still manages to make it work, and Patton Oswalt delivers the best laughs of the whole movie as the head coach Dennis (although he will still always be Remy to me whenever he voices an animated character!).
The animation is of course gorgeous and helps bring the film its own distinct personality without it feeling like it’s trying too hard to ape recent animated films with this similar visual style. The world itself is fun to explore and is loaded with a bunch of colorful animated furry animals that would make for a proper home next to the worlds of Zootopia and The Bad Guys. And while there are times where the soundtrack by Kris Bowers (The Wild Robot) is trying a bit too hard to capture the same punkrock lightning of the bottle of the Spider-Verse films, it does work to the film’s advantages whenever it needs to.
If there is one thing that holds GOAT back, as mentioned before, that would be it’s very familiar and paper thin plot. As mentioned before, there is nothing here that we haven’t seen before in these underdog sports movies. Even if this story hasn’t been this told before in the form of animation that is THIS beautiful and includes a couple of elements thrown in that aren’t included as much nowadays with these movies, you will likely see major story beats coming from a mile away. Even if the road getting to the destination takes a few different turns and routes than expected, the destination is still all the same.
The pacing can also be a bit too breath neck, not giving certain moments the time to breathe because the film is anxious to get to the next slam dunk moment to another, giving the indication that the filmmakers thought kids would get bored too quickly if it wasn’t constantly moving from Point A to Point B without a big visual or setpiece happening on screen. And while there are jokes in here that are quite funny, there are certain ones that are too obvious and quite eyerolling (They just HAD to include a screaming goat gag somewhere because…..of course!), with a few too many “modern” references to boot.
Thankfully, all the flaws for GOAT can be forgiven because of the amount heart and enjoyment the film itself brings. There’s plenty in here for lovers of basketball and those that enjoy a good animated family flick to chew on here, with many easter eggs and references scattered throughout that diehard NBA and WNBA fans will have a blast looking for through the 95-minute long runtime. It’s amusing, charming, beautifully animated, and even if it tells a very familiar story, it’s able to stand well as it’s own original animated film with no established franchise or prior entries to weight it down.
Between this, Pixar’s Hoppers, DreamWorks’s Forgotten Island, and Disney’s Hexed, 2026 seems like the year where western animation studios will have to work hard to get their latest original animated films to be a success, proving that they don’t always need to rely on nostalgia and endless sequels to make a smash hit in theaters. If the early box office projections for GOAT and Hoppers are anything to go by, we are off to a good start but let’s hope the actual audiences are “GOAT” enough (I swear that is the LAST time I will do that in this review!) to show up and prove exactly that.
Remember when Sam Raimi kinda sorta tackled the spiritual prequel to The Wizard of Oz? You don’t! Well, that might just be for the better! The decision to try to tackle the lore of Oz using the story template of Army of Darkness is a neat idea on paper but very iffy in execution. From the obvious green screen effects to the bizarre casting choices (James Franco as Oz?! Really?!) to the baffling treatment of the witches themselves, Oz: The Great and Powerful offers Sam Raimi as his safest and weakest! This feels like the only film on this list where it felt like literally ANYONE other than Sam Raimi could have directed it. There’s some entertaining bits scattered throughout and is certainly watchable but you are better off just watching the original Wizard of Oz or the Wicked films if you want your cinematic fix in the Land of Oz!
15.) Crimewave
Following his first notable success with The Evil Dead, Raimi decided to take matters into his own hands with his follow-up Crimewave, a slapstick comedy about an innocent man accused of numerous murders. Unfortunately, the studio had other plans. Bruce Campbell wasn’t aloud to be casted as the lead role, Raimi’s personal composer and editor was replaced entirely, and you can really tell the inexperience that young Raimi had when it came to production and being able to make a film with a studio breathing down his neck. The good news is that several elements from this film would make way to later productions from Raimi down the road, leading directly to Evil Dead II. There’s a handful of moments that capture Raimi’s visionary lightning in a bottle but not enough to hide the compromised mess that Crimewave is.
14.) For Love of the Game
Here’s the one time that Raimi tried to make his own sports movie! He even went as far as to cast baseball movie star veteran Kevin Costner and even got the late great broadcaster Vin Sully (RIP!) to come in the booth! The end results however are just okay! The baseball scenes themselves work well enough and there’s enough of a beating heart to keep him from being in any way detestable. However, the sluggish pacing, by-the-numbers storytelling, and a shockingly bloated runtime (This is two hours and 18 minutes long!), keep For Love of the Game from being an all-time sports classic. Still, for those that are fond of baseball movies and your typical baseball movie cliches, this should do you just fine.
13.) The Gift
With what was his last indie project before promoting himself to blockbuster territory with Spider-Man (2002), Raimi made a supernatural thriller about a fortune teller getting roped in a small-town murder investigation (Doesn’t that ring a small bell from earlier?). This contains a stacked cast with Cate Blanchett, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Michael Jeter, future Spider-Man stars J.K. Simmons and Rosemary Harris, and Keanu Reeves, in EASILY his most unlikeable role to date (And I mean that in the best way!) The main issue has to do with the main protagonist being overly stupid, making for the worst psychic and detective you can possibly imagine. Even if that’s part of the joke here (which it isn’t), it doesn’t make the experience that much better. The Gift has an intriguing premise that never feels like it lives up to it’s 100% potential!
12.) The Quick and the Dead
Raimi decided to dip his toe into the western genre and the results are mostly pretty good. Aided by the proper cast with Sharon Stone, Gene Hackma, Russell Crowe Leo DiCaprio, and many others, pretty sharp direction that manages to feel properly Raimi, and the characters manages to all be quite intriguing and entertaining in their own right. It does suffer from an overlong middle stretch and the film’s entire build up is strictly on a quick draw tournament, which results in a crap ton of build up to not a ton of payoff. The Quick and the Dead still makes for a fun time and is worth checking out if you are a sucker for a solid western.
11.) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Arguably the most divisive MCU installment since Iron Man 3, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a film that uses it’s set pieces and effective imagery to flirt with and mock the kind of fandom that cares more about filmmakers making their bizarre fan theories coming true instead of making a genuine work of art. It doesn’t quite reach it’s ambitions with the characterization being paper thin, a script that doesn’t seem to care about what happened during WandaVision, and not taking as much advantage of the actual multiverse as much as say the Spider-Verse films do but Sam Raimi’s unique horror-like style is on full display here. The set pieces that work here are some of the best in the entire MCU, Benedict Cumberbatch feels completely at home as Stephen Strange (even if he has absolutely zero chemistry with Rachael McAdams), and Elizabeth Olsen is an absolute force to be reckoned with as the Scarlet Witch, making even the most out-of-character moments for Wanda feel completely in character. As much as one can complain about the issues with the script and the leaps of logic presented here, one can’t deny that the moments where Sam Raimi is allowed to go full Sam Raimi is what saves Multiverse of Madness from being in the absolute bottom of the barrel of the MCU!
10.) Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3 has more flaws than it does characters and subplots but it has more heart to it than most people are willing to admit. As everyone and their mother has pointed out about this movie, there’s just too much going on it. It feels the need to cram in every single idea it can think off that it has to defy logic, have previous events being retcon, and letting it’s characters do uncharacteristic things to make it all happen. However, most of the thing that worked well with the first two movies such as the wonderful action, breakneck pacing, great music and heard hitting emotional beats work very well. Not to mention, the themes surrounding forgiveness and finding the humanity in others is a wonderful message for a Spider-Man movie and helps make the whole trilogy come full circle. When watching Spider-Man 3 back-to-back with the first two movies, it does make for a rather satisfying experience. I’m not gonna act like this isn’t the weakest of the trilogy but it’s no where near the abomination that people claimed it was back in 2007.
Also, Bully Maguire FTW!
9.) The Evil Dead
The film that put Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the map as the forces of nature in Hollywood, The Evil Dead is the beginning of something truly special for the horror genre! Inventing his own camera tricks and cost-cutting filmmaking techniques, Raimi is able to create something truly unique on his first go-around despite all odds in financial shortcomings against. The gore effects are impressive, the flashy camerawork works like wonders, and Bruce Campell’s Ash Williams is an instant horror icon. However, there are still plenty of imperfections throughout when it comes to controlling the tone, balancing the gore and humor, and Campbell going through some growing pains as a leading man. The Evil Dead offers plenty of promise for a future beloved filmmaker and star but the best had yet to come for Raimi, Campbell, and the horror genre in general.
8.) Send Help
Can we point out how much of a miracle that a film like Send Help exists? In an age of sequels, reboots, remakes, and legacy-quels conquering the film landscape and sucking up the remaining creative energy that Hollywood might still have, films like these are becoming more diamonds in the rough in the film industry. Thankfully, someone at 20th Century Fox or Disney was wise enough to give a blank check to the godfather of horror and superhero movies in Sam Raimi, his first original horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell! Send Help is yet another worthy addition to Raimi’s Hall of Fame of Horror! It’s able to capitalize on it’s simple yet effective premise thanks to it’s two charismatic leads, it’s incredibly visionary direction, unapologetically excessive gore, and a script that will keep audiences on their toes the whole way through. Even if it can be rough around the edges that it knocks it down to the middle-of-the-pack of Raimi’s filmography rather than up there with the likes of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, it’s still an absolute blast of a motion picture that is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.
7.) Drag Me To Hell
After spending nearly a full decade with Spider-Man, Raimi returned to the horror genre with 2009’s Drag Me To Hell! This is an old school scare fest about a bank clerk who has grand ambitions but gets cursed and terrorized by it in the form of demons. When it comes to horror and straight up NASTINESS, this is Raimi at his most brutal. There is nothing more delightful here than see characters constantly being torture for the benefit of the audience’s pleasure. We also see what is easily the most HAUNTING imagery in Raimi’s filmography, the kind of imagery that lived rent free in my head when I saw the commercials for this film when I was a kid and is still on my mind now. Not everyone will be fond with what Drag Me To Hell offers but if you have an appetite for unhinged horror, this will deliver you a complete meal.
6.) A Simple Plan
This is Raimi favorite for many people and for good reason. A Simple Plan makes for Raimi’s most dramatic work to date, feeling like a spiritual prequel to The Gift. Much like the latter film, this is a tale of betrayal, murder, and folks that are prone to awful mistakes in judging others. This makes for a very effect tale about the cruel nature of greed, aided by a terrific cats of Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton, and Brent Briscoe, very well made production values, the ending is an all-timer, and has conflicts that feel among the most human in a Raimi film that does not involve a certain web swinger. However, this feels Raimi at his most restraint, stepping back from his usual style and camp to make room for a more somber and serious tone. It certainly works well enough but this almost feels like a Sam Raimi film specifically made for those that don’t like Sam Raimi. Even so, A Simple Plan is hard to criticize too much because everything that works ends up working spectacularly well that I can’t recommend it enough.
5.) Darkman
Before doing Spider-Man, Raimi’s very first comic book property he translated into film was no other than Darkman. Even all these year later, it still holds up as a gloriously camp dark superhero film, proving that Sam knew how to tackle superhero material 12 years before tackling the web swinger. This makes for a pretty tragic origin story of a man who had everything in his life but then lost it completely, leaving him nothing but complete vengeance! Liam Neeson is great as the title character, Larry Drake makes for a very memorable antagonist, and the score once again proves that Raimi + Elfman is a match made in heaven! It does have some clunky aspects surrounding the romance and some pretty poor blue screen work but this is still very impressive stuff! If you are a big fan of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and haven’t check out Darkman yet, I highly recommend it!
4.) Evil Dead 2
Part sequel, part remake, all-time banger! Evil Dead II does want every great horror sequel does, it takes everything you loved about the original and makes them even better. This manages to be better, bloodier, and funnier than the original while also delivering plenty of new scares, gore, and physical comedy of it’s own. Raimi and Bruce Campbell feel completely at home in their roles, the direction is perfectly on point, the set design and make-ups affects could not be anymore perfect, and the frustratingly imperfected parts of the original are nearly gone here with a full budget to help Raimi execute the exact vision he has in his crazy little mind. There are still some dated parts here and there but Evil Dead II‘s influence on the horror genre can not be overlooked. However, there is still at least one more pure horror flick that I feel is absolute 100% unhinged Sam Raimi!
3.) Spider-Man (2002)
The one movie that kick started the modern era of comic book movies and was also the one movie that got me along with plenty of kids of my generation into Spider-Man. This was the first ever superhero movie I’ve ever watch and one of the first movies that I remember having incredibly fond memories of as a child. Even if I’m unable to take off the bluntly obvious nostalgia goggles (I never can!), Spider-Man (2002) is still an amazing film in it’s own right. The origin of Peter Parker turning into Spider-Man is perfectly told, Tobey Maguire is as every bit as likable and iconic as the title character as you can imagine, and Sam Raimi’s unique version of this world is felt perfectly through every single frame. And that’s not even talking about the insanely memorable supporting cast (J.K. Simmons is everything!), extremely quotable lines, phenomenal score, fist bumping action, and the light hearted tone that makes this movie super enjoyable to watch all of these years later. While I’m sure there are those that like to poke fun at the outdated elements of the movie such as the special effects, cheeseball dialogue, and the Power Ranger-looking Green Goblin, they all still feel right at home with what Raimi brings into his style of Spider-Man. Regardless if you feel like this movie has stood the test of time or not, you can’t deny that if it weren’t the success of this movie, there’s a good chance that this subgenre of movies as we know it today would be no where near big as it has been for the past two decades.
2.) Army of Darkness
That’s right! I have Army of Darkness this high on the list and above the first two Evil Dead films! This is the one where Raimi just swing for the fences and shatters them to pieces! From the unapologetically over-the-top tone to the many standout moments of blood and gore, to the perfection of visual storytelling to the masterfully controlled tone from epic scares to goofy comedy to Bruce Campbell never being better as a crazy chainsaw wielding badass, this is horror Sam Raimi at his absolute best! There’s no low budget that limited the first one or the sluggish recap of the second one, Army of Darkness goes all in from minute one and NEVER holds up, taking you on a wild ride the whole way through! While I’m sure some folks out there won’t agree, this is Sam Raimi horror at it’s absolute finest and makes for one of my favorite horror films of all time!
1.) Spider-Man 2
If you want an example of how to do the perfect superhero sequel, look no further than Spider-Man 2! This is the sequel that was able to take everything we love about the original, expand upon it, and trim any sort of fat that could possibly ruin the experience. This is a movie that perfectly dives into the inner turmoil of being a superhero and the life superheroes have outside of that. Just like with the best Spider-Man movies, it’s all about struggles to balance two different life styles at the exact same time. And how even though being Spider-Man can suck sometimes, it’s something that Peter has to do because it’s just who he is and what his responsibility consists of. Throw in some truly fantastic action, with the main stand out being the spectacular train sequence, arguably the best fight in any superhero movie, a tremendous villain in Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, character arcs that come full circle, and one of the most satisfying endings in any movie, you get an absolute cinematic masterpiece that is Spider-Man 2! If you are someone that loves Spider-Man, superhero movies and especially Sam Raimi, I have no idea how you couldn’t at least like this movie. When it comes to every film that Sam Raimi has made, there has yet to be a movie that comes even remotely close to topping Spider-Man 2!
Can we point out how much of a miracle that a film like Send Help exists? In an age of sequels, reboots, remakes, and legacy-quels conquering the film landscape and sucking up the remaining creative energy that Hollywood might still have, films like these are becoming more diamonds in the rough in the film industry. The one lone genre that can be seen as a slight exception to that is with horror, at least if the likes of The Black Phone, Barbarian, Talk To Me,The Substance, Sinners, and Weapons are anything to go by. They’ve offered some of the most fresh and inventive feature films that we have seen in recent memory, providing a glimmer of hope for smaller scaled indie filmmaking! To add to that stunning rose gallery, someone at 20th Century Fox or Disney was wise enough to give a blank check to the godfather of horror and superhero movies in Sam Raimi, his first original horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell!
Thankfully, Send Help is yet another worthy addition to Raimi’s Hall of Fame of Horror! It’s able to capitalize on it’s simple yet effective premise thanks to it’s two charismatic leads, it’s incredibly visionary direction, unapologetically excessive gore, and a script that will keep audiences on their toes the whole way through. Even if it can be rough around the edges that it knocks it down to the middle-of-the-pack of Raimi’s filmography rather than up there with the likes of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, it’s still an absolute blast of a motion picture that is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.
Premise: A woman (Rachael McAdams) and her overbearing boss (Dylan O’Brien) become stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. They must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.
With Send Help, you really get a sense desperately wanting to return to his roots in the horror genre, that made for classics such as the original Evil Dead trilogy, Darkman, and the previously mentioned Drag Me To Hell. From his good old-fashioned camera tricks to entertaining hammy performances to stylized blood filled set pieces to complete descent into horror imagery, Raimi feels truly at home yet again. Sure, there were some unique moments like that in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but you still got a sense of the Marvel machinery that Sam was forcedly kneecapped too in order to keep the higher ups at Disney satisfied. Thankfully, that is not the case whatsoever with Send Help. Here, we get Sam Raimi fully unleashed!
The main driving force here are the two leads played by Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien. McAdams’s Linda is easily the bigger standout of the two, being able to successful convey the consistent transaction from scene-to-scene, going from the stoic and socially awkward “ugly” girl to a woman that becomes more unhinged once she is able to take power into her own hands. She’s someone that anyone who has dealt with asshole bosses like Bradley in the film can get behind but that commitment gets tested the more you discover about her. It’s the great subversion of expectations of having a female dominant force that crosses the fine line between the hero you are behind and root for to the protagonist you are forced to follow. While her performance definitely takes inspiration from other iconic psychotic female performances such as Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns, McAdams still delivers a Raimi-worthy performance that would certainly make Ash Williams proud.
Dylan O’Brien’s Bradley is able to make for a perfect counterpart to McAdam’s Linda. On the surface, he does come off as the stereotypical misogynist boss that sees his employers as pushovers rather than genuine hard workers, going as far as to promote a guy who just got employed over a woman whose been with the company for some time now. However, once the power dynamic shifts and we see Bradley getting a taste of his own medicine (Those are not spoilers! These plot points are all in the trailers!), we see a different side of Bradley that showcases that not only is he not the over-the-top alpha male we are lead to believe but he might not even be the more absurd person that’s trapped on that island. Similar to Linda, Raimi is able to test the audience’s patience as to who is more sympathetic and who is more worthy of being the most scrutinized! Anyone that thinks the back-and-forth between our two leads follow the traditional routes for male-and-female troops both old and now are NOT prepared here!
And speaking of not prepared, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift are able to craft out a script that’s full of witt, suspense, and absolute surprise. Each scene on the island is able to properly transition to the very next scene that not only will keep you guessing about what’s going to happen next but also feels very fluent with the film’s perfectly controlled tone and thematic undertones, giving the indication that a lot of thought and proper preparation went into the writing here. Even if the entire destination does feel quite obvious at the end (All you have to do is remember what Linda’s favorite show is), the journey getting there will keep you on the edge of your seats, making you wonder how exactly each scene will resolve itself until we get to those final moments.
As it’s stated in the title, Raimi leaves no stone unturned here. With no MCU guidelines like his last go-around or low budget restraints to bring him down like some of his earlier films, he is able to fully commit his unique horror movie stamp into this well-down picture. He is able to let his actors go loose with their performances, allows for his camera and editing tricks to shine, brings up all the gore and carnage that will make even the most die-hard horror fanatic cringe a little bit, and is able to re-team with Danny Elfman to deliver a score that’s different but feels right. It might’ve been a hot minute since we last saw a Sam Raimi film feel 100% like a Sam Raimi film but Send Help is able to deliver those blessings with pure camp and carnage.
I wouldn’t quite say that Send Help is on the level of the very best of Sam Raimi. The plane crash sequence does reek heavily of poorly done CGI that even with a $40 million budget, did take me out of the movie in ways that I don’t believe was intentional. There are moments in the third act that feel more exposition heavy than it needs to be where a character has to explain their motives and fill in certain blanks involving sequences in the middle chunk, almost feeling like a cliff note from the studios. And while with the way things are wrapped up does make sense from a narrative and thematic standpoint, there’s a bit too much lapses in logic and handwaving as to how the resolution presents itself that feels like Raimi needing to cheat his way out to get the ending that he wanted.
Send Help is basically the spiritual successor to Drag Me To Hell that horror fans have waited 17 years for. Sam Raimi is able to go back to basics in a way that feel refreshing and not as a desperate attempt to recapture the magic of the good old days. It’s fun, witty, twisty, and filled with blood, gore, violence, and messed up characters doing messed up things. Those are the recipes that made Raimi’s prior horror work a success and he is once again is able to make something old feel new again.
Even as we see studio merger after studio merger and more reliance than stuff we loved in the past than ever before, Send Help is a reminder of what happens when we still allow our favorite creative and talented filmmakers to make fresh and original pictures that can stand on their own. We’ve seen that visionary in the horror genre grow throughout the 2020s and thankfully with Send Help, Raimi is able to fit right in with today’s kids instead of yesterday’s adults.
I just hope today’s kids who saw Iron Lung will take time to see this as well!
Adam's Blog 