June 2025 - Kevflix

From the Collection: Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

Charlotte Zwerin’s 1988 documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser has been added to the Criterion Collection. The closest a film camera ever got to enigmatic jazz visionary Thelonious Monk, this intimate portrait sheds light on the corners of a brilliant and complex life. Superbly crafted by Direct Cinema pioneer Charlotte Zwerin from a trove of precious 1960s archival footage, Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser captures the pianist, composer, and bebop innovator in rare, unguarded moments on- and offstage, revealing an…

Movie Review: F1® The Movie

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

F1® The Movie establishes its personality right from the opening scene. Taking place at the 24 Hours at Daytona, an endurance race where race teams race for 24 hours, we are introduced to Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), who is preparing to take over the driving from his teammate. When Hayes gets behind the wheel, we immediately learn how great a driver he is. He’s aggressive and smart, seamlessly moving past other drivers. Director Joseph…

Movie Review: 28 Years Later

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

28 Years Later is one of the most frustrating watches I have had in 2025. The third entry in the 28 Days franchise brought back director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland, the team from the first film, 28 Days Later, to show us what the world is like following the outbreak of the Rage Virus. It is made with the skill and kinetic energy we have come to expect from a Danny Boyle…

Movie Review: Materialists

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

We’ve heard the term “elevated horror”, which describes a horror film that is both scary but also features social commentary of some kind and is made with a different level of artistry from the standard horror movie. But the term “elevated romantic comedy” isn’t nearly as popular a phrase in the cinematic lexicon. Much like an elevated horror movie, elevated romantic comedies have plots and characters that feel like they are from a typical…

From the Collection: The Wiz

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

Sidney Lumet’s 1978 musical The Wiz has been added to the Criterion Collection. L. Frank Baum’s timeless story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, gets a funky reimagining in this lavish adaptation of a landmark Broadway show based on the book. Diana Ross brings her showstopping star power to the role of Dorothy, here a Harlem schoolteacher who is magically transported to a surreal fantasyland that resembles New York City, complete with man-eating trash cans and a disco…

Movie Review: Ballerina

Posted on June 7, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

I think if you surveyed anyone who saw the first John Wick film back in 2014, there wouldn’t have been a whole lot of people who thought this would become a franchise of four movies and a spin-off. The film, which grossed a modest but respectable $43 million at the box office and received solid critical reviews, became a word-of-mouth hit and an immediate cult sensation, reviving Keanu Reeves’ career and creating a franchise…

From the Collection: Killer of Sheep

Posted on June 5, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

Charles Burnett’s long-lost directorial debut, Killer of Sheep, has been added to the Criterion Collection. A quiet revelation of American independent filmmaking, Charles Burnett’s lyrical debut feature unfolds as a mosaic of Black life in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a father worn down by his job in a slaughterhouse, and his wife (Kaycee Moore) seek moments of tenderness in the face of myriad disappointments. Equally attuned to the…

From the Collection: How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Posted on June 5, 2025June 5, 2025 by Kevin Wozniak

Bruce Robinson’s dark comedy How to Get Ahead in Advertising has been added to the Criterion Collection. Writer-director Bruce Robinson and star Richard E. Grant, the cracked comic geniuses behind the cult favorite Withnail and I, reteamed for this diabolically dark satire of runaway capitalism in Margaret Thatcher–era England. Grant gives a virtuosically crazed performance as an ambitious advertising exec whose latest assignment—devising a campaign for a pimple cream—has him on the edge of a nervous breakdown….