Amazeballs

“Lifeline” is the kind of taut, haunted psychological drama that feels like it’s been mistakenly shipped to the Science Fiction shelf by a jittery intern, where it sits in the company of time-travelers and androids, looking around, appalled at the company it keeps. The film, directed by Feras Alfuqaha, has the brooding nerve to face the black and blue marks left by trauma, personal and societal, and invites you to press your thumb to the bruise. To call it science fiction is to miss the point with the earnestness only a certain kind of literalist can muster. The tricks with reality, disorienting, elliptical, aren’t flights to the moon but dives into a mind coming apart, or maybe clawing for unity in the first place. “Lifeline” wants not just to test its protagonist, Steven Thomas (played with a wonderful, agitated delicacy by Josh Stewart), but to prod at the audience’s own nerves, the little lingering doubts and regrets we all ferry around. There’s a current of self-examination running through this film that curls right back into the viewer’s lap, whether we like it or not.

Osgood Perkins’s “The Monkey” offers up a carnival of mutilation and tumbling gags, a film so wanton in its pleasures you almost suspect the projectionist of lacing the celluloid with laughing gas. The miracle, if there is one, is that its freshness lies not in reinventing the wheel (or the wind-up monkey) but in letting the wheel wobble, careen, and spin out in a delirious, bloody gymkhana. Stephen King’s reputation hovers somewhere over this project, but for those of us spared the original short story, the movie arrives naked: it must enchant, or revolt, on its own. Whether the King DNA matters is a parlor game for fanatics. What matters is how Perkins handles his inheritance, a prop-shop horror premise that could have been creaky as an attic toy chest.

There is an itch in contemporary science fiction which no number of tight scripts and digital vistas can entirely scratch: the genre longs to mean something again, to be both playground and arena, but all too often balloons out into ponderous “themes” and sterile future-worlds. It’s a relief, a relief laced with a kind of giddy disbelief, to witness Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, a film that doesn’t just cross genres, but seems to tear them up and ball them in one trembling fist.

If Alex Parkinson’s Last Breath reminds us of anything, it’s that even the most harrowing true stories can be neatly packaged, pressed into narrative conformity, and, somewhere along the way, lose their vital spark. Parkinson, remaking his own 2019 documentary, attempts to fuse the cold sweat realism of survival thrillers like 127 Hours with the hallucinatory dread of The Abyss, but winds up stranding us not in the abyssal dark, but somewhere in the anodyne blue light of a well-meaning, mildly gripping genre exercise.

A Working Man, directed by David Ayer invites audiences back into the thrilling embrace of a Jason Statham-led action thriller. With a storyline that echoes familiar tropes from the action genre, the film revolves around themes of justice, devotion, and the lengths one will go to protect those they care about. Although its premise isn’t groundbreaking or original, it captivates viewers who crave high-octane sequences coupled with a compelling narrative centered on loyalty and sacrifice. Set against a slick backdrop of crime and consequence, A Working Man delivers an adrenaline-packed experience that finds comfort within the archetypes of its genre.

In the vibrant landscape of action comedies, Novocaine emerges as a refreshing concoction that blends humor, romance, and a dash of absurdity. Released on March 14, 2025, by Paramount Pictures, this film directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen invites viewers into the chaotic life of Nathan Caine, a bank employee with a peculiar condition that renders him incapable of feeling pain. The film's opening, underscored by the hauntingly beautiful "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M., sets a poignant tone that resonates throughout the narrative, complemented by an eclectic soundtrack featuring tracks like "Casual" by Chappell Roan and "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness. This musical backdrop not only enhances the film's emotional landscape but also serves as a nostalgic reminder of the power of music in storytelling.