Mathew Buck

I keep saying it, but I'm mostly there, not here.

What a way to kick off the year! I team up with @diamandahagan for a look at the 80s comedy-horror Terror Vision, which she thinks is a subversive piece of satire, but I think struggles to stretch the premise out to 80 minutes. Tune in if you dare! youtube.com/watch?v=IY_xIM…

I posted 75 movie reviews in 2025, which is the most I've done in a single year in long time - maybe ever? Why not revisit some of your favourites? Or find a few you missed? youtube.com/playlist?list=…

Written up a Short review of the Chevy Chase documentary. Well, a little longer than the one word often used to describe him.

ICYMI - Don't have a cow, man!

ICYMI - In the tradition of Brassed Off, here's another awards-friendly British drama, although it has had a rather muted reception.

New Projector Short! How about one final review of the year? Ralph Fiennes leads The Choral in a Yorkshire town decimated by the First World War in this drama written by Alan Bennett, that's strongly acted but has too subplots competing to be heard. youtube.com/shorts/mK3knH7…

Same director as The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and clearly has the same "meta" angle, but it looks like Sony did a hatchet job to get this in at 90 mins, because the second half appears to have been gutted of any real connective tissue between setpieces.

Trailers: Giant, Cold Storage, Shelter, Mortal Kombat II, Project Hail Mary Cold Storage and Mortal Kombat II are "tame" 12A variants that haven't appeared online yet.

Anaconda (2025): Paul Rudd and Jack Black decide to remake the 1997 horror "classic" in this "snake eating its own tail" meta-commentary on IP and remakes. Super messy, and would be awful without Rudd and Black's inherent funniness, especially falling apart in the second half.

RIP Isiah Whitlock Jr., 71. Credits include The Wire, Da 5 Bloods, Veep, Goodfellas, Cedar Rapids, Cocaine Bear, I Care a Lot, 25th Hour, BlacKkKlansman, Lightyear, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, 1408, Enchanted, Chi-Raq, Pete's Dragon (2016), The Old Man & The Gun, Hoppers, & more.

New Projector Short! Aaron Eckhart is a "cow cop" who is after Devon Sawa's band of rustlers in Thieves Highway, a flagrant Yellowstone cash-in actioner that tries to be a neo-western, that's not so much "old-fashioned" as clichéd and deeply regressive. youtube.com/shorts/OaLP0qw…

New Projector review! It's the most last-minute of festive videos, as I review the absolutely bonkers new take on the Charles Dickens' carol, Christmas Karma, a disaster which has its heart in the right place. Oh, and Boy George is Ghost of Xmas Future. youtube.com/watch?v=KBdohF…

ICYMI - Casting Boy George purely for a Karma Chameleon reference is a bold choice.

Murder at the Embassy (AKA An Invitation to Murder: A Death in Cairo): Mischa Barton's sleuth returns in this whodunnit, this time investigating a killing at the British embassy in Cairo, leading to a conspiracy. There's a pulpy paperback trashiness, but is rather plodding.

I edited @AllisonPregler and @Phelous looking at The Santa Clause 2, and we're coming to put a stocking full of funny down your chimney for Christmas! youtube.com/watch?v=ox5m76…

The biggest laugh is when Kiefer reenacts his infamous drunken dive at a Christmas tree, if you remember that.

Tinsel Town: Fading action star Kiefer Sutherland is duped into starring in a small town English panto of Cinderella in this festive comedy, where laughs dry up quick despite having half the comedians in Britain in it (and Danny Dyer). Rebel Wilson's Yorkshire accent is a shocker