FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

If you want to understand the exact moment that high fantasy on the big screen transitioned from campy fairy tales into something visceral, blood-soaked, and operatic, you have to look at John Boorman’s 1981 masterpiece, Excalibur. Long before Peter Jackson brought a literalist grit to Middle-earth, Boorman was out in the Irish countryside capturing a version of the Arthurian legend that feels less like a history lesson and more like a collective fever dream. It is a film that exists in a state of constant, shimmering intensity, where every suit of armor glows with an otherworldly chrome and every forest seems to be breathing. It is easily one of the most beautiful and deeply strange movies ever made, and it remains the definitive cinematic take on the rise and fall of Camelot. The story follows the entire arc of the legend, starting with the brutal, rain-slicked nights of Uther Pendragon and ending with the misty departure to Avalon. What makes Boorman’s approach so unique is that he ...

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if an Italian filmmaker tried to rip off The Omen, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind simultaneously while high on espresso and fever dreams, you’ll find your answer in the 1979 madness that is The Visitor. This isn't just a movie; it’s a psychedelic artifact of a time when the cinematic rulebook was thrown out the window in favor of pure "vibes" and avian-based violence. The film opens in a blinding white void where an intergalactic warrior named Jerzy—played with a magnificent, weary gravitas by the legendary John Huston—meets a cosmic, bald Christ-figure played by Franco Nero. They are surrounded by dozens of bald children in a scene that looks like a high-fashion cult meeting. They are locked in a multi-dimensional war against "Sateen," an ancient evil force whose genetic legacy is currently manifesting on Earth in the form of a foul-mouthed eight-year-old girl named Katy who lives in Atlanta. It...

I went into Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 totally expecting the standard sequel escalation, you know, bigger jumps, louder stings, and animatronics dialed up to nightmare levels. I figured the studio would just take the "more is more" approach that usually kills horror franchises by the second installment. But honestly? The movie actually knows exactly what it’s trying to be, and it stays remarkably disciplined. It’s "gateway horror" in the truest sense. It’s built for tweens who want the thrill of being scared without the actual lifelong trauma of a hard-R slasher, and it handles that balance with a ton of confidence. It understands that for a ten-year-old, the sound of a mechanical joint clicking in a dark hallway is way more effective than a bucket of fake blood. The film sets the stakes early with a heavy flashback to 1982, showing us the origin of the tragedy at the very first Freddy’s location. It’s a grim opening that establishes the long-standing rivalry and the...

Double Impact (1991), directed by Sheldon Lettich and starring Jean Claude Van Damme in a dual role, is a deliriously entertaining artifact of early 1990s action cinema. Equal parts martial arts showcase, revenge melodrama, and globe trotting crime thriller, the film embraces excess at every level. It is not subtle, nor is it especially concerned with narrative plausibility. But what it lacks in restraint, it compensates for with muscular energy, unapologetic style, and the novelty of seeing Van Damme fight quite literally himself. The premise is pure pulp. Identical twin brothers, Chad and Alex Wagner, are separated as infants after their parents are murdered in a Hong Kong business conspiracy. Raised in radically different environments, they grow into contrasting men. Chad, brought up in California by a family retainer played by Geoffrey Lewis, becomes a polished, charismatic martial arts instructor. Alex, who remains in Hong Kong, grows into a streetwise smuggler with a chip on his ...

Keeper from 2025 continues Osgood Perkins’s exploration of slow-building psychological horror, reaffirming his reputation as a filmmaker more interested in dread than spectacle. Like his previous work, the film resists conventional horror rhythms and instead focuses on atmosphere, emotional unease, and the quiet terror of isolation. Keeper is not designed to shock in obvious ways. It unsettles through patience, ambiguity, and a steady erosion of safety that lingers long after the film ends. The narrative centers on a remote setting and a small group of characters whose sense of control gradually dissolves. Perkins has always favored confined spaces and limited perspectives, and Keeper follows that tradition closely. The film unfolds at a deliberate pace, allowing the audience to sit with discomfort rather than escape it. Events are presented without urgency, which paradoxically increases tension. The absence of constant explanation forces the viewer to observe closely and draw their ow...

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) occupies a fascinating and sometimes underappreciated place in the slasher canon. Arriving just one year after Sean S. Cunningham’s surprise hit Friday the 13th, the sequel had the unenviable task of continuing a story that seemed, on the surface, neatly wrapped up. Instead of merely repeating the original’s formula, Part 2 subtly reorients the franchise, laying down many of the elements that would come to define Friday the 13th as a long-running series rather than a one-off success. While it may lack the novelty and shock value of its predecessor, it compensates with atmosphere, character, and, most importantly, the first fully realized incarnation of Jason Voorhees as the franchise’s central menace. One of the most striking aspects of Friday the 13th Part 2 is how it reframes the mythology of Crystal Lake. The opening recap reframes the ending of the first film, reasserting Jason’s drowning as the primal trauma of the series while quickly moving past Pam...

Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973) is a deceptively simple science-fiction thriller that has grown more significant with time. On its surface, the film is a high-concept adventure about a futuristic theme park where wealthy guests can live out fantasies without consequences. Beneath that surface, however, lies an unnervingly clear-eyed warning about technological arrogance, corporate hubris, and humanity’s blind faith in systems it barely understands. Though modest in scale and restrained in style, Westworld remains influential precisely because of its clarity and restraint. The premise is immediately compelling. Delos, a high-end amusement resort, offers three immersive worlds, Westworld, Medieval World, and Roman World, populated by lifelike androids programmed to serve human desires. Guests can drink, fight, seduce, and kill without fear of retaliation. The androids, known simply as robots, are designed to malfunction safely: if something goes wrong, they shut down. Or so the desig...

Roofman is one of those rare films that takes an unbelievable true story and transforms it into something quietly meaningful. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the 2025 film resists easy categorization. It is not a traditional crime thriller, nor is it a straightforward comedy or romance. Instead, it is a thoughtful and surprisingly warm character study that finds humanity in an unlikely place. By focusing less on spectacle and more on emotional truth, Roofman becomes a film that lingers long after it ends. The story follows Jeffrey Manchester, portrayed by Channing Tatum, a former Army reservist who earns the nickname “Roofman” by robbing fast food restaurants through their roofs. After being imprisoned, Manchester escapes and secretly lives inside a closed Toys “R” Us, constructing a strange but functional life while remaining hidden from the world. On paper, this premise sounds absurd. In execution, it becomes poignant. The film treats Manchester’s situation not as a gimmick, but as a r...

T eenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  (1990) occupies a fascinating spot in pop-culture history. It arrived at a moment when the ninja turtle craze was at full commercial saturation, cartoons, toys, arcade games, and yet it chose, somewhat boldly, not to simply replicate the candy-colored tone of the Saturday morning series. Instead, director Steve Barron and the filmmaking team looked back toward Eastman and Laird’s original Mirage comics, blending grit and humor into a film that was darker, moodier, and more grounded than most viewers, especially parents, expected. That unexpected tonal mix is precisely why the film still holds up more than three decades later. Visually, the movie is immediately defined by its practical effects. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop created the turtle suits, and they remain one of the film’s greatest strengths. These suits could so easily have slipped into camp or awkward immobility, but instead they manage a delicate magic trick: the turtles look tactile, weight...

“Snakes on a Plane” has always lived at the intersection of joke and movie, meme and text. Released in 2006 and instantly absorbed into internet culture, it’s a film whose title seemed to do all the work in advance: there are snakes, and they are on a plane. The promise is both absurdly high-concept and blatantly literal. Yet within that simplicity lies the reason the film remains oddly enduring: it is fully aware of its own ridiculousness and leans into it with gusto. The premise is straightforward pulp. An FBI agent, played with relaxed authority and winking intensity by Samuel L. Jackson, escorts a key witness on a commercial airliner. A crime lord, unwilling to let justice unfold through ordinary legal channels, arranges to sabotage the flight by releasing a cargo hold full of venomous snakes midair. Chaos ensues, bodies pile up, oxygen masks drop, and the laws of herpetology bend to the needs of cinema. What follows is part disaster movie, part creature feature, and part meta-come...

Under Siege occupies an interesting and now rather nostalgic place in the action-movie landscape. Released in 1992 and directed by Andrew Davis, the film is both a quintessential product of its era and a surprisingly polished entry in the “Die Hard-on-a-[insert location here]” subgenre. It stars Steven Seagal at the height of his box-office popularity as Casey Ryback, a Navy cook who is, of course, not merely a cook, but a former elite operative demoted for insubordination. When terrorists take control of the battleship USS Missouri, Ryback becomes the only person aboard capable of stopping them. The result is a tight, contained thriller that pairs efficient action mechanics with memorable villains and an earnest, slightly self-serious tone that oddly works in its favor. At its core, Under Siege succeeds because of its simplicity. The premise is clear, stakes are straightforward, and the geography of the story, a massive battleship, creates a sense of claustrophobic escalation. Unlike ...

Catch Me If You Can is one of those rare films that manages to be breezy and exuberant while quietly sneaking up on you with emotional weight. Directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 2002, it tells the story of Frank Abagnale Jr., a teenage con artist who successfully impersonates a Pan Am pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer while cashing millions of dollars in fraudulent checks. On the surface, that premise sounds like the setup for a slick caper. But the true pleasure of the film lies not just in its clever scams and period style; it’s in how Spielberg turns a crime story into something more tender—an exploration of identity, loneliness, and the longing to belong. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as Frank Abagnale Jr. is the film’s emotional engine. He plays Frank not as a mastermind from the outset, but as a frightened, reactive kid with razor-sharp instincts. This nuance matters. The film doesn’t lionize fraud; instead, it roots Frank’s actions in disruption—his parents’ divorce, fin...