Author: Derrick Murray

It’s quite a wonder that a film like “The Amazing Maurice” has received zero marketing of any kind whatsoever. It’s based on an award winning children’s novel, has a stellar celebrity voice cast, and feels right in line with some of the rather strong animated offerings we’ve had in the last few months. But despite having its premiere at the Manchester Animation Festival in November and limited release in the UK in December in 2022, there hasn’t been a single peep about this film stateside. Were it not for the Sundance Film Festival this year I would have no clue…

“Infinity Pool” is a scathing, horror satire of very rich people doing very bad things, and begs the question, who will you become when your actions have no recourse? More human or more inhumane?

The Academy Awards has officially announced the nominations for the 95th annual Oscars ceremony. Check out the full list!

“Missing” is a solid anthology follow up that keeps you on the edge of your seat and utilizes all of its technology tools to deliver a thrilling, engaging new generation mystery.

“The Old Way” misses on every level, including Cage who can’t overcome glaring shortcomings, snail pacing, and incomprehensible script.

“Plane” is the Spirit Airlines of mid-level action thrillers, selling you budget thrills but overcharging you for everything once you’ve bought your ticket.

“M3GAN” arrives as the first wide theatrical release of 2023 and is here to slay. Literally.

Happy birthday Nicolas Cage! Born January 7th, 1964, the prolific American actor has done just about everything under the sun in terms of roles and movies. Drama, Horror, Comedy, Action and more, it’s hard to find a film genre that doesn’t have at least one performance from the eccentric actor. Love him or hate him, Cage is guaranteed to always give you 100% Cage. It’s almost impossible to find a movie in his very long filmography that you can point to and say he phoned it there. He operates at 11 out of 10 at all times, whether it works…

As Boys II Men would say, we’ve come to the end of the road. After 200+ new films and few category best lists to eliminate some contenders and make the list more manageable, we’ve come to the fateful attempt to boil down the entire year to 10 films. Admittedly, it was incredibly difficult to try select the top 5% of such a massive watchlist, and even as I write this I’m not even 100% sure I got it all correct. So before we get into the list, let’s set some expectations and disclaimers to add some context as to how…

I regrettably did not watch enough animated features this year. Not sure if was a lack of options or I just didn’t seek them out as often as I normally do. Attacking such a vast array of films (and total number) does leave some categories lacking, and unfortunately animated films took the largest hit in 2022. I’m sure excluding anime entirely and zero desire to sit through another Minions film doesn’t help, either. There’s probably a lot of marque animated releases I just didn’t get to, so I”m fully expecting a lot of “why wasn’t SUCH AND SUCH ON YOUR…