When did murdering people become so freakin’ violent?

There are a few things every Scream film is required to include. It has to have Ghostface as the killer; that’s a given. It has to establish early on that no one is safe, something the first film introduced in the opening scene courtesy of Drew Barrymore. It has to be full of twists and turns; the killer has to be obvious, then not so obvious, then implausible. It’s got to be filled with self-aware teens and young adults who understand the rules of the horror genre and still manage to get themselves stabbed. And, especially evident in the last few films, the levels of violence, gore, and blood must surpass the previous films.

All of this happens within the first five minutes of Scream 6. This time, the sacrificial lamb is a film professor and expert on the horror genre who possesses two things required for the role: a smokin’ hot body and a severe lapse in judgement. It only takes a phone call from a potential suiter to lure our professor into a dark New York City alley, and before you know it Ghostface emerges from the shadows to stab her. Violently. Again, and again, and again. It’s an uncomfortably long scene that establishes the film’s level of violence. The days of satisfying horror fans with a few jump cuts followed by a lingering shot of a bloody corpse are long gone. Anything less than a close-up of the knife going into a person’s gut no less than 10 times is unacceptable. Our sacrificial lamb gurgles as all of her blood empties itself into the dirty alley, and finally we can cue the opening credits.

Scream 6 continues the story of sisters Sam and Tara, who survived their encounter with Ghostface in the previous film (2022’s “Scream,” which for simplicity’s sake we’ll refer to as “Scream 5”). Courtney Cox reprises her role as pesky investigative reporter Gail Weathers as do a few members of the sisters’ friend circle because who else would we have to stab? Not returning are David Arquette (who was killed in Scream 5) and Neve Campbell (who wanted too much money for Scream 6).

In Scream 6 we learn the surviving sisters have moved to New York City, and when Ghostface shows up and begins killing the people around them, older sister Sam makes the smartest suggestion of the film and recommends they leave town immediately. But they don’t, because this is a Scream film, and soon we’re back in Stabbyville as Ghostface begins his traditional slaughter. Of course Ghostface isn’t the same “Ghostface” from Scream 5, Tara’s ex-boyfriend Richie, because he was killed. Then again, every entry in the franchise has featured multiple killers and they always get killed, and none of that acts as a deterrent to the next film’s killer. No matter the body count, there’s always just enough of a connection for someone to don the infamous mask and pick up the knife once again. If nothing, it saves the franchise from all the embarrassing hoops other franchises (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween) have jumped through to bring back a killer that was “we promise super duper dead this time.”

Like every other film in the franchise, you can’t trust much of what you see in Scream 6. In every Scream film Ghostface has had a partner that allows the killer to throw suspicion away from him or herself. We’ve literally seen people die in these movies only to return — sometimes the wounds weren’t quite fatal, while in other cases deaths were faked. People have swapped masks to make it appear Ghostface was in two places at once. By the time you get to Scream VI, all hope of figuring out who the killer is goes out the window as literally anyone in the film, including our two final girls from Scream 5, get fingers pointed at them. Is it the girls? The boyfriend? The FBI agent? Another film students? Gail Weathers? One of the new characters? A complete stranger? In Scream, the process of elimination happens as suspects are removed from the film in body bags, and even then you shouldn’t use a permanent marker to strike through their names. At some point with these films you have to quit worrying about where the rollercoaster is taking you and just enjoy the bloody ride.

One thing these films never account for is how multiple people of varying heights and often different sexes all pass for the same Ghostface. I suppose when you’re running for your life, estimating a killer’s height isn’t the first thing on your mind. Also, for the record, either putting on Ghostface’s cloak and mask gives people superhuman powers, or there must be MMA-levels of cardio training required as a prerequisite to wield the knife. Compared to his victims, Ghostface is always faster, always stronger, and always more resilient. In one scene, Ghostface shrugs off a hit to the face with a metal frying pan. My memories of wearing a latex Halloween mask as a kid was that I couldn’t breath and I couldn’t see anything. Somehow, the Ghostface mask has the opposite affect. Even characters that appear to be weak become Spring-heeled Jack once the cloak goes on.

I literally laughed when, after the release of Scream 4, everyone involved with the franchise — and I mean everyone, from the production company to the writers and directors to all the actors — said Scream 4 was the absolute, no bullshit, 100% last film in the franchise. After the release of that film, Harvey Weinstein famously said “we’ve milked that cow.” (He said some other famous things, too.) But if there’s one thing I know about horror movies and Hollywood in general, it’s that cows can be milked for a long, long time… and after the milk dries up, those cows can have baby cows which can then be milked. There will always be teens willing to get stabbed and always angry people with just enough of a motive to put on a mask and do the stabbing. There will always, always be milk.

Oh, and blood. There will always be blood.

As part of a plea bargain, disgraced basketball coach Marcus Marakovich (Woody Harrelson) has been court ordered to serve 90 days as the coach for a not-very-good local basketball team. The idea of a coach inheriting a team of under performing athletes and turning them into winners is not new (see: A League of Their Own, Major League, The Replacements, Glory Road, Gridlock Gang, The Bad News Bears, Cool Runnings, Hoosiers, The Mighty Ducks, Remember the Titans…) If Champions brings anything original to the table, it’s that in this case, the athletes are mentally challenged.

The theme of Champions is revealed early in a bit of tough love assistant coach Marakovich’s receives from his coworker Coach Phil Perretti (Ernie Hudson), who informs Marakovich he’s not bad at coaching — he’s bad at relationships. And while the members of the “Friends” basketball team could certainly use some pointers on the court (one of the players insists on shooting backward granny shots; in six seasons, he’s never even hit the backboard), what the players really need is a mentor and a friend. It’s obvious that Marakovich has what it takes to improve his players’ skills on the court, but what they really need is a little help succeeding off the court, too.

The movie dips its toe into the stories of the individual basketball players (all of whom are played by actors with real mental challenges) but only inasmuch as their struggles overlap with the coach’s goal of turning the misfits into a winning team. One member of the team works for an abusive manager at a local restaurant, but it only becomes a problem when the manager won’t let him off to attend practice. The best player on the team has a personal reason for refusing to play for Marakovich, but resolving this issue seems less about helping someone with mental challenges and more about helping the team win. The de facto leader of team Friends is Johnny, a young man with Down Syndrome who is struggling to move out of his mother’s home and is too afraid of water to take a shower. Johnny gets more story time than most of his teammates, but his attractive sister is dating the coach. None of this is particularly detrimental to the film’s plot, but to be sure this is a movie primarily about the redemption and growth of a coach and not as much about the players. In the end it’s not the players who learn that winning means doing their best — they already know this — it’s the coach that needs to learn this lesson.

Costarring with Woody Harrelson and Ernie Hudson are Kairlin Olson as Alex as the coach’s love interest (and Johnny’s sister), Cheech Marin as Julio, manager of the local rec center, and Mat Cook as Sonny, Harrelson’s former assistant who mostly serves the story as someone who can give Harrelson a break from coaching so that he can do other things. Among the team’s players are Madison Tevlin, Kevin Iannucci, and Joshua Felder. I didn’t recognize any of the players from other films and most of them only have this film listed on their IMDB page, but a few of them are return actors and no doubt we’ll be seeing some of them again.

If you’ve seen the trailer you’ve seen the film, but that doesn’t make the 90 minutes any less of a feel good film.

There’s something inherently disturbing about Christmas-themed horror films. The holidays are a time of year when most people spread goodwill and exchange gifts, so I can see how a killer axe-wielding robot dressed in a Santa suit may not be suitable for everyone’s holiday party. For those who aren’t opposed to a little blood sprinkled over a fresh blanket of snow, Christmas Bloody Christmas might just be right up your chimney.

The setup to Christmas Bloody Christmas is criminally simple. A fleet of robots acquired from the US Defense Department have been repurposed as “RoboSanta+” units, designed to replace “degenerate mall Santas.” Unfortunately for just about everyone in their vicinity, the RoboSanta+ units have a flaw that occasionally causes them to revert back to their previous military programming, turning them into ho-ho-horrible killing machines.

The film stars Riley Dandy as Tori Tooms, the twenty-something owner of a local record store whose only goal this Christmas Eve is to get drunk and hook up with a random stranger on Tinder. Robbie, one of Tori’s employees, convinces her that drinking and hooking up with him would be less work. On their way to Tori’s the pair make a few stops, one to meet Tori’s friends who are having their own drunken and drug-fueled party at the local toy store, and another at the local bar. Along their journey Tori and Robbie drink, do drugs, and drop more f-bombs than Santa drops presents. The majority of the first act is spent introducing us to future victims.

The film wakes up the same time RoboSanta+ does, and unfortunately for our partying friends at the toy store, someone left a sharp axe a little too close to their robotic Santa. Before the couple knows what hit them, RoboSanta+ hits them. (Like, with the axe.) Soon, ol’ RoboSanta sets its laser sights on Tori and, with a belly full of Christmas spirit, anyone who makes the mistake of getting in its way.

The movie’s low budget hasn’t affected the cinematography. The film, shot on 16mm, looks great. The sets are highly stylized (seemingly every store and bedroom has neon lighting) and the synthwave music sounds like it came straight out of an 80s slasher. The film thankfully eschews CGI and serves up a series of practical (and very bloody) kills as RoboSanta makes his way through town. That being said, it doesn’t take long to see where the budget went and where they skimped. The film’s medium-sized town only seems to have about a dozen citizens, only about half of which are played by actual actors. According to IMDB’s trivia section, one is the writer/director, one is the producer, one is the costume designer, and one is the art director.

As fun as the movie is to watch, it’s also incredibly shallow. I can get over the fact that RoboSanta+ units spontaneously wake up and “break bad” (although it would have been nice to have some some inciting event — being struck by lightning worked for both Short Circuit’s Number 5 and Chopping Mall’s Killbots), but what’s never really explained is why this particular RoboSanta+ is after Tori. Its pursuit of her is unstoppable, just like the Terminator and Michael Myers, but in both of those cases we know why. Just a little bit of work in the story department could have elevated Christmas Bloody Christmas.

In the end, Christmas Bloody Christmas perfectly emulates an 80s slasher film. Unfortunately, like most of those films, it’s pretty forgettable.

The year is 1973, and Ralphie — the young boy who wanted a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas more than anything in the world back in the 1940s — is now married, with children of his own. With the passing of Ralphie’s father (“the Old Man”), Ralphie and his family must rush from Chicago back to the home he remembers (the one we [i]all[/i] remember) in Cleveland to take care of family affairs while pulling off Christmas for the first time without help from his father.

Several actors from the original film have returned to portray adult versions of themselves including Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), his younger brother Randy (Ian Petrella), his childhood friends Schwartz and Flick (R.D. Robb and Scott Schwartz) and others. Sorely missed are Ralphie’s parents, The Old Man (originally (Darren McGavin, who passed away in 2006) and Melinda Dillon as the mom, who has been replaced by Julie Hagerty (of Airplane!), who plays the role completely wrong.

A Christmas Story Christmas has its own story of Ralphie attempting to pull of Christmas with a b-plot of him attempting to become an author, but there are so many callbacks and references to the original film that at times the plot gets lost. Multiple times throughout the film Ralphie reminisces about events from his childhood, after which we are treated to short clips from the original film. The original A Christmas Story is one of the most watched holiday films of all time. Nobody watching this film doesn’t remember the pink bunny suit, Flick sticking his tongue to a frozen flagpole, or what a triple-dog dare means.

Now that the Old Man has passed, it is up to Ralphie to put together Christmas for his family. Much of the plot is dedicated to how he’s going to accomplish this, but it’s almost played as if Ralphie has never seen or heard of Christmas before. Ralphie struggles to come up with things for his family to do, but he’s a married man with a roughly 10 year old son and slightly younger daughter. I guess… do what you’ve been doing the past 10 years? How much brainstorming is involved in putting up lights and a tree? Fortunately, everybody in the film takes a pact “not to be sad” early on, so little time is spent mourning, talking about, or even reminiscing about The Old Man. And how convenient that the Bumpasses still live next door, and still have a lot of dogs.

A Christmas Story Christmas isn’t terrible — it’s a Christmas story with people you know. There’s fun and laughs to be had, and more nostalgia than Cleveland has snow. The film relies heavily on nostalgia (in many cases nostalgia of the first film), but until the original which was about the magic of Christmas and a boy who would do anything to get the present of his dreams, this one is about a middle-aged man trying to hold together Christmas while dealing with the loss of his father. Merry Christmas!

In the summer of 2021, 22-year-old Gabby Petito was murdered by her fiancée, Brian Laundrie, while the two traveled across the country in a modified camper van. The Gabby Petito Story is a 2022 made-for-TV movie documenting the couple’s relationship from its inception through its untimely end.

For those who did not follow the story as it unfolded in 2021, Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie left their apartment in 2021 in a camper van to see the country. At least twice, the couple became involved in public domestic quarrels, one of which led to the couple being pulled over and, in a decision that has been both scrutinized anc criticized, were allowed to leave together. Days later, Brian returned to Florida, conspicuously without his fiancée. Ultimately, Petito’s remains were discovered in Wyoming’s Bridger–Teton National Forest. Two months later Laundrie’s body was found in Florida, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Gabby Petito Story fills in the gaps of the couple’s relationship, and wastes little time in showing Brian Laundrie’s dark side. In the early days of their relationship. Laundrie is portrayed as merely insecure; by the time the couple moves in together, he’s jealous, paranoid, and ultimately violent. Despite Petito’s constantly reassurance that their relationship is solid, Laundrie’s rage is constantly simmering, always on the verge of boiling over.

Second only to “maybe a baby will save our relationship” on the list of bad ideas, the two decide to move into a small Sprinter van (approximately 35 square foot) and see the country, a living arrangement that could test even the healthiest of relationships. Along their way, the two are portrayed relatively one-dimensionally; Laundrie constantly puts down Petito’s blog, website, and just about everything else; while Petito never gives up hope on her husband and is confused by his eternal despise.

It is only after multiple public confrontations that Brian Laundrie eventually returns to Florida without Gabby. Lifetime posits that Petito may have attempted to end their relationship, which caused Laundrie to snap. Multiple “creative” scenes and conversations have been added to pad out the story; ultimately there’s a lot nobody knows, and nobody wille ever know, about what happened. The Petitio family stated they were neither consulted nor connected to this film, so it seems a lot of artistic license may have been taken to connect the dots.

The Gabby Petito Story leaves out a lot. It is mentioned that the FBI obtained a warrant for Laundrie after he used Petito’s debit card, an action we never see. We don’t see how Laundrie sneaked out of his own home while being surveilled by the FBI, nor do we hear from his parents, two people who were under suspicion for assisting a murder suspect. And finally, we don’t see anything about what it was like for two people growing apart to spend time together in a small van. We see them driving occasionally, but imagine the tension of two people eating, sleeping, and living together in 35 square feet.

The Gabby Petito Story comes off as one long Unsolved Mysteries reenactment. Little is added to the story and other than Lifetime’s theory that a breakup was what caused Laundrie to snap, few theories are posited. Anyone who followed this case on CNN as it unfolded won’t find much new material here.

[Note: All comments in this review regarding Gabby Petito, Brian Laundrie, and any other characters appearing in this film are referring to the characters only and not the real people.]

HALLOWEEN ENDS is the 13th film in the Halloween series of films and the third of the Blumhouse trilogy, proceeded by 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills. While the franchise’s infamously twisted timeline consisting of disconnected sequels and reboots is messier than a Michael Myers crime scene, the latest three movies serve as a direct continuation of 1978’s Halloween, ignoring everything that happened in films two through ten. As such, HALLOWEEN ENDS serves as both the conclusion of a trilogy and the culmination of the battle between babysitter Laurie Strode and boogeyman Michael Myers, a battle of good vs. evil that began more than 40 years ago.

Any momentum gained in the previous two films comes to a screeching halt at HALLOWEEN ENDS inexplicably opens with a flashback in which newly introduced character Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) accidentally causes the death of a young boy three years prior while babysitting. Shunned by the citizens of Haddonfield after the incident, we see Corey bumbling his way through life working at the local junkyard. Before long Corey crosses paths with Allyson Strode (Andi Matichak), Laurie’s granddaughter. The Strode family themselves are none too popular with the citizens of Haddonfield, many of whom blame the Strodes for the return of Michael Myers and subsequent trail of carnage he carved through town before disappearing. Before long the two dysfunctional twenty-somethings have crossed paths and become a couple.

Through a chance encounter we learn the seemingly immortal and eternally evil Michael Myers has been eking out an existence in a drainage ditch below an overpass. During the exchange, Myers appears to infect Corey with his evil essence. Before long Corey and Myers have teamed up, and who needs who more is unclear.

Also unclear is why Laurie Strode seems to have forgotten the events that took place in the last two movies, much less the previous 40 years. In 2018’s Halloween it was established Laurie had spent the past four decades preparing for the return of Myers, including (but not limited to) acquiring an arsenal of weapons and turning her home into a fiery death trap. In HALLOWEEN ENDS, Strode — after suffering the loss of her daughter to Myers in the previous film — has moved back into town, began work on her memoir, and bafflingly embraced Halloween to the point of carving jack-o-lanterns and baking pies.

Before arriving at the Myers/Strode showdown audiences came to see, the film must first deal with Corey who himself has arrived for Laurie. The final confrontation does happen — it has to happen — with an outcome as unambiguous as it could possible be. Thein again, this is Halloween, a franchise that likes to have its pumpkin pie and eat it, too. Michael Myers has been presented as a mortal man, the personification of evil, and everything in between. Never say never.

In the early 2000s just as nostalgia for the 1980s was really ramping up, VH1 launched I Love the 80’s, a series that featured musicians, comedians, and actors talking about relics from the 80s like Rubik’s Cubes, Alf, and Duran Duran. Each topic was presented as a short stand-alone segment featuring comments and memories from a handful of talking heads before moving on to the next one. Like blocks of music videos, there was no overall overarching narrative for each episode — topics were presented and discussed briefly before moving on to the next one.

A better name for 2021’s IN SEARCH OF TOMORROW might have been I Love the 80s: Sci-Fi Movie Edition. With a run time of just over five hours and a tagline claiming “The Definitive ’80s Sci-Fi Documentary,” I was curious as to how the documentary’s content would be organized and presented and what exactly would be covered. Five hours is a long time.

The scope of the documentary is sci-fi movies from the 1980s, and while not every single science fiction movie from the decade is touched upon, an awful lot of them are. Movies are discussed chronologically (except when they aren’t) and segments are broken up into bite-sized (niblet-sized?) portions. The documentary doesn’t explain how the content is about to be presented so the beginning felt a little disjointed until I caught on and realized this film is exactly like I Love the 80s. Films are introduced, various people discuss and comment on them for approximately three minutes, and then it’s on to the next one — rinse and repeat until the end of 1989 is reached, five hours later.

For the most part movies are presented in a chronological fashion, year by year, but occasionally a topic will be presented — “world building,” for example — and the program will touch on a series of movies in that category. I just search Google for the top 10 sci-fi films of 1984 and of those, six (The Terminator, Ghostbusters, Dune, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, The Last Starfighter, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai Across the 8th Dimension) are all specifically covered, while two of the others (Repo Man and Night of the Comet) are mentioned in other groupings. The final two films, Starman and The Ice Pirates, are not discussed directly but do appear in montages.

The talking heads featured throughout the film vary. In the three-minute segment covering Howard the Duck we get input from six people: Ed Gale (the actor who portrayed Howard), Craig Miller (publicist for Lucasfilm, Ltd), Angelique Roche (host of Syfy Wire), Julie Brown (writer/actor of Earth Girls are Easy), Tim Cogshell (NPR film critic) and Phil Tippet (special effects/stop-motion supervisor). As with each segment, comments are presented along with clips from the film and behind the scenes footage. While everyone who appears in the documentary is knowledgeable, several of them were unknown to me, and few megastars appear. For E.T. we get Dee Wallace; representing Aliens are actors like Mark Rolston and Carrie Henn (who played the young girl, Newt), but no Sigourney Weaver. In between names like Billy Dee Williams and Gene Simmons are people like Ian Nathan (editor of Empire Magazine), John Knoll (ILM), Craig Safan (composer), and Gray Scott (“Futurist”).

Big films like Back to the Future, Predator, and E.T. get lengthier coverage than most, but no single film takes over the documentary’s focus for long. If anything, I was surprised at how much screen time films like Explorers, Flight of the Navigator, and Spacehunter got. I think of all the movies featured there were only two I hadn’t seen: Miracle Mile, and Akira.

Although the five-hour runtime of IN SEARCH OF TOMORROW may seem intimidating, the style of presentation makes it convenient to pause the film and consume the content over multiple viewings. I learned a few things from watching the film, and even more than that, kept a running tab of movies I want to revisit in the near future because of it. Highly recommended for fans of 80s sci-fi.

Throughout the years I’ve watched hundreds of UFO, cryptid, and supernatural documentaries, and spent the majority of my life hoping to personally see something that would convince me any of those things existed. I have stood at the bow of a ship traveling through the Bermuda Triangle, scanning the water something, goddammit anything, to persuade me into believing all those stories I read as a child were true. I’ve been to Mt. Rainier, Gulf Breeze, Roswell, and half a dozen other UFO hotspots in hopes of catching any hint of a flying saucer zooming across the sky. Not a one. I even bought a book full of magical spells at a garage sale as a young teen and hid in my closet reading supposedly ancient gobbledygook in an attempt to summon demons to smite my enemies. None materialized.

It turns out the secret to experiencing the supernatural is forming a ghost hunting crew, buying some night vision cameras, and making a documentary. While despite my begging they’ve never shown themselves to me, it appears ghosts can’t resist coming out of the woodwork to make their on-screen debut.

Steve T. Shippy directed, produced, and edited the documentary A HAUNTING ON DICE ROAD – THE HELL HOUSE. Not only is Shippy a filmmaker but also a paranormal investigator and former professional rapper known as “Prozac.” If that’s not a combination of skills you can trust, I don’t know what is.

The titular house resides on Dice Road in Saginaw, Michigan and was originally owned by the Pomeraning family. According to the film, the house is one of the most haunted places in America, which I find odd as every single Google search I could come up with lead back to this documentary. The strange activity began back in the 1970s, when the original owners reported “loud knocks on the walls” to the local police dozens of times. Despite multiple stakeouts, investigations, and the fact that the family had two teenage boys, no one was ever able to determine the source of the knocks. Current and former residents, neighbors, police, firement, and other random people line up in front of the camera to give their first hand knowledge of the case. Based on the number of people interviewed and the events witnessed this house should be as famous as “that one” in Amityville.

The interview footage is intercut with Shippy and his ghost hunting pals snooping around the property in the dark. Half the footage is of Shippy alone, recalling spooky tales about the home. The other half is of all three stooges performing their own ghost investigation with random handheld gadgets that randomly flash and light up. It’s not important to know what these things do or how they work. All you need to know is that flashing lights means there’s a g-g-g-ghost! Half a dozen times an entity (read: shadow) passes by in the background. If you miss it, don’t worry as each time it happens the film rewinds, magnifies the grainy footage up 10x, and plays it again in slow motion. All of Shippy’s footage is filmed at night, either by flashlight or with night vision cameras. Incredibly, Shippy and his team were able to capture more paranormal activity on camera than every professional paranormal investigator combined has caught on film in the history of paranormal investigations. On cue, walls knock, shadows appear, doors creak open, radios turn on, and so on.

An hour into the film during one of these segments, Shippy breaks out the ol’ Ouija board and starts asking it questions in the dark. “Who are you!” he demands to know, with both hands controlling the planchette. The former rapper doesn’t get a reaction until he asks if the spirit is upset they are there, at which point the planchette doesn’t merely lead Shippy’s hands across the board but literally zips out from under his hands completely and slides across the board under its own power, stopping dramatically on the word YES. And it’s at that moment that viewers have to make a decision. Either MC Prozac and his gaggle of goons have just captured undeniable evidence of paranormal activity, or this scene is fake and everything in the entire “documentary” becomes suspect. Based on my use of quotation marks around the word “documentary,” you can guess which side of the pearly gates I land on.

The investigation footage goes off the rails when handheld “PK readers” lead the researchers to a jar buried underneath the house containing evidence of a witch’s curse. The longer the investigation goes on the more this documentary begins to feel like a knock-off version of the Blair Witch Project. The fact that I can’t find a single reference to this case online that doesn’t also mention this film makes me think that this entire thing was made up, or if not, extremely exaggerated. I don’t have a PK meter or an EMP scanner, but I was born with a BS detector and it was going off the entire time.

Mildly entertaining as a haunted house story, completely unbelievable as a documentary.

There are multiple reasons why most of us have never robbed a bank: there’s a pretty good chance of getting caught, prison isn’t a wonderful place to spent 10-20 years, and, occasionally, bank robbers get shot and killed in the process. But, turns out, that wasn’t always the case, and specifically not in Canada.

In the 1980s, Gilbert Galvan Jr escaped from a medium security prison in Michigan, high-tailed it into Canada, and eventually decided to try his hand at robbing banks there. What he quickly learned was that bank employees and security guards in Canada are much more polite than in the states. Tellers refrained from placing dye packs or pressing silent alarm buttons simply because Galvan asked them nicely not to, while security guards were more concerned with making sure no one got hurt than stopping a robbery in progress.

BANDIT is based on Galvan’s biography, who in the 1980s held the record for the most consecutive bank and jewelry store robberies (59) until he was caught by a task force dedicated to finding him. Galvan avoided capture for so long by wearing elaborate disguises and flying back and forth across the country to rob banks far away from where he lived, giving him the real life nickname “the Flying Bandit.”

Josh Duhamel plays Galvan perfectly, keeping the anti-hero likeable. The chemistry between Duhamel and his girlfriend/wife Andrea (Elisha Cuthbert) is palpable, as her personal morals clash with the man she has fallen in love with. Nestor Carbonell (Richard from “Lost”) plays John Snydes, head of the task force dedicated to taking down the bandit, while the local underworld kingpin is portrayed by Mel Gibson, the man bankrolling Galvan’s adventures.

At two hours the film drags a bit in places and there’s not as much action as one might think in a film about bank heists, but it’s an entertaining watch that’ll have viewers rooting for the bad guys… even the nice ones.

Although Galvan reportedly netted more than $2 million from his string of robberies, police were never able to track down any of the money, which Galvan claims to have spent.

Earlier this week, Peacock (NBC Universal’s streaming service) announced the cancellation of 2021’s Punky Brewster reboot after a single season. My reaction (and apparently, millions others) was… “there was a Punky Brewster reboot?”

One of Peacock’s best kept secrets was 2021’s PUNKY BREWSTER, a reboot of the original show that aired in the mid-80s. Soleil Moon Frye returns as Punky Brewster, now a middle-aged single parent of three. Living in the same Chicago apartment she grew up in, Punky is raising her 15YO biological daughter Hannah along with her two adopted sons, Diego (14) and Daniel (11). By the end of the first episode, Punky has also taken in Izzy, a seven-year-old who reminds Punky of her childhood self. Also along for the ride is Punky’s ex-husband Travis (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who despite being separated comes and goes freely to and from the apartment. Also back is Punky’s childhood friend Cherie (Cherie Johnson), who now manages Fenster Hall, Punky’s childhood shelter.

PUNKY BREWSTER is an interesting mix of new and old. Many of the storylines are progressive. In one episode, Cherie and her girlfriend Lauren propose to one another; in another, Diego defends Daniel in a fight after he goes to school with painted fingernails while wearing a sarong. That being said, the show has a very 80s sitcom feel, right down to the laugh track. Issues are introduced, lessons are learned, and everything is neatly wrapped up by the end of the episode.

Unlike the original show which occasionally dipped into darker subject matters (remember the time Punky gave Cherie CPR after she hid inside an abandoned refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek?), the 2021 reboot keeps things pretty light. Most of the episodes revolve around the family unit’s relationships — Punky’s relationship with her ex-husband, Izzy’s relationship with her new family, Cherie’s relationship with her girlfriend, and Hannah’s relationships with boys. There’s also a series overarching storyline regarding Punky and her birthmother, who makes contact with Punky for the first time.

For those who grew up watching the original, PUNKY BREWSTER offers plenty of callbacks. In one episode, the treehouse Punky and her friends built in the original series is repaired and updated. In another, Punky and Cherie run into their childhood friend, Margaux. During an 80s block party, Izzy dresses up as the original Punky Brewster: bandannas, mismatched Converse, and all. Punky keeps a photo of Henry hanging on her apartment wall, which she occasionally speaks to. In her car, Punky cranks the 80s tune “Maniac,” which calls back to the first episode of the original series. And of course, you’ll get to hear catch phrases like “Holy Macanoli!” and “Punky Power!” more than once.

The series is not perfect. Most confusing is Punky’s relationship with her ex-husband Travis, who sometimes knocks when he enters the apartment and sometimes doesn’t. It is alluded to that the couple split due to Travis’s commitment to his gigging rock band, but throughout the series he watches the kids and even turns out a tour to stay at home, which begs the question why he didn’t do that before divorce papers were filed. We are presented with a divorced couple who constantly hang out, occasionally kiss, and no doubt would have been reunited by the end of season two. Also problematic were the episode where Izzy gets to meet her WWE heroes and the episode where Punky teaches the kids a lesson by making them sleep in her brand new shiny SUV. Both episodes push product placement to the point that they almost felt like commercials. The SUV episode features lingering shots that look like advertisements.

The problem with most rebooted sitcoms is that they start with the question “what are those kids you grew up watching up to now?” and don’t move forward from there. In Fuller House, and the Saved by the Bell reboot, and to a certain extent The Connors, that’s all we get. But in a few cases, like Netflix’s Cobra Kai, the story continues.

PUNKY BREWSTER has that kid-friendly Dis-Com feel. I would have loved a second season in which Punky stepped out of the house and we got to see what Chicago was really like for the kid-turned-adult still full of Punky Power. I enjoyed the first season and was looking forward to the show moving forward — not in a gritty fashion, but a slightly more adult one. Maybe though, in this single season, we saw what we needed to see — that Punky Brewster and her clan turned out okay.