Review: ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is Faithful to an Entertaining Fault

From its initial release in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy’s became an overnight phenomenon. The horror video game series has remained relevant within popular culture thanks to recognizable mascots and cryptic storytelling that oozes intrigue. Despite the franchise’s campy yet frightening premise of surviving security shifts against haunted mascot animatronics, it contains a behemoth of a story spanning multiple games, spin offs, and novels. After a tumultuous eight long years of development, that list grows to include a film adaptation by director Emma Tammi. A big concern for adapting video games into movies is whether the story can stand on its own, while being faithful to the source material. In that regard, Five Nights at Freddy’s excels. The film translates the gameplay of being hunted by animal mascots well with silly, but exciting chases. More importantly the film lives up to its convoluted and incomprehensible source material by telling a charmingly abysmal story.

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Review: ‘The Holdovers’: A Nostalgic Winter Tale of Loneliness, Laughter, and Unlikely Bonds

The Holdovers is set in 1970s New England at an all-boys boarding school called Barton Academy. The film encapsulates the 70s vibe with the grainy film stock and soft string-heavy music. Barton during the wintertime is laden with snow and boys who are itching to leave for winter break. Many of them come from wealthy families who have extravagant vacations planned for the holiday. One of these boys is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) who is looking forward to a December spent on the beach when he receives a call that his mother has canceled the vacation, and he must “holdover” at Barton throughout the holidays. His caretaker during this time is Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a lonely, sarcastic teacher who attended Barton himself some years ago. They are also joined by the school chef Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who is grieving her son lost in Vietnam. The trio forms an unlikely bond throughout the holidays while each deal with their own issues of loneliness and loss. They find comfort in each other’s company despite Tully’s repeated attempts to escape.

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Review: ‘The Killer’ Executes a Killer New Take on the Assassin Sub-Genre

“It’s amazing how physically exhausting it can be to do nothing. If you are unable to endure boredom, this work is not for you.” — The Killer

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Review: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ has All the Right Parts

A possibly murderous mystery where Marriage Story meets courtroom drama, French director Justine Triet presents Anatomy of a Fall. After premiering at Cannes Film Festival this year and winning the prestigious Palme d’Or, this film has proven to be one worthy of audiences worldwide. From beginning to end, Anatomy of a Fall is an entertaining and emotionally driven film with questions around each corner to keep the audience’s attention on lock.

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UW Film Club Podcast #96: Nimona

“Podcasting is not a love language!”

For this week’s UW Film Club podcast, we talk about the 2023 animated film Nimona (Nick Bruno, Troy Quane), discussing its story, progressive queer themes and its overall place within the current Renaissance of mainstream American animation.

On This Episode: Harrison Hall, Drew Favors, Luke Wilhelm
You can find us on Facebook at /UWFilmClub, and on Twitter and Instagram @FilmClubUW. Make sure to rate, comment, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play, and tune in every week for a new episode of the UW Film Club Podcast!

Review: ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Doesn’t Quite Rise to the Top

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (dir. Steven Caple Jr.) is an anticipated addition to the Transformers franchise that serves as both a prequel to the 2007 Transformers (dir. Michael Bay) and to the 2018 smash hit Bumblebee (dir. Travis Knight). It largely focuses on the Autobots, once again led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), as they attempt to save Earth once again from the Decepticons with the help of some new technorganic beings and human friends including military veteran electronics expert Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) and artifact researcher Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback).

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Review: ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Struggles to Justify Its Place

Following a fifteen-year hiatus, Indiana Jones has returned to the big screen in The Dial of Destiny. This time around though instead of being directed by the original creator Steven Spielberg, James Mangold takes directorial control. The previous Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was met with very mixed reviews as it came out 19 years after the conclusion of the trilogy.  Many felt that it was a poorly done money grab profiting off of nostalgia for the previous three films.  So, the question going into Dial of Destiny is: what is its justification for once again coming back after all this time, besides being another easy money grab?  Upon watching, it’s hard to really see a reason for its reemergence besides to once again revel in nostalgia for the wildly successful original films.  As a film based purely on nostalgia bait though, it does a decent job at giving fans of the series what they want and making the experience a relatively good time.

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UW Film Club Podcast #95: SIFF 2023 Highlights

With SIFF 2023 coming to a close, we visited some of our website writers and film club board members who were able to cover the festival and talk about which films were the highlights of their festival experience. If you’re interested in getting a heads-up on some of the best films coming out soon, or just why you should attend SIFF due to its overall experience, you won’t want to miss this episode!

On this episode: Drew Favors, Sarah Kelley, Harrison Hall, Natalia Valvano, PJ Knapke

You can find us on Facebook at /UWFilmClub, and on Twitter and Instagram @FilmClubUW. Make sure to rate, comment, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play, and tune in every week for a new episode of the UW Film Club Podcast!

Review: ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Positively Crosses Boundaries

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse (dir. Joaquim dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) is the long-awaited sequel to 2019’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (dir. Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, and Bob Persichetti). The story picks up about a year after the last movie left off, as Miles (Shameik Moore) navigates his sophomore year of high school, keeping up with his family, and being Spider-Man. But this time around there’s one big difference: he’s doing it all by himself, without his friends from the Spider-verse. Or at least, that’s how things start out. But since when does anything go according to plan?

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