Thriller

Basic Instinct

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  • Title: Basic Instinct
  • IMDb: link

It’s hard to describe how big director Paul Verhoeven‘s stylish neo-noir was when it hit theaters in 1992. Splitting audience and critics, the controversial erotic thriller cashed in big at the box office (providing a boom for the genre that was never quite duplicated, despite many imitators) while stirring up controversy for from both the left, for its depiction of a bisexual woman as a nymphomaniac serial killer, and right with the kind of explicit sexuality usually reserved for softcore porn shown late at night on Cinemax. The film made Sharon Stone a star moving her on to bigger and better projects including being the rare woman to headline a western in The Quick and the Dead and a supporting role in Casino both just three years later.

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Scream 4

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  • Title: Scream 4
  • IMDb: link

Scream Sunday takes us back to the world of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in the worst movie (at least so far) of the 30 year-old franchise. The characters feel far too long-in-the tooth at this point as the film goes extra-hard with Stab parody sequel cameos (featuring the likes of Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell, Shenae Grimes, and Lucy Hale) and new Ghostface killings (this time with the killer filming their own murders) while limping to an unsatisfying twist ending that ties in social media feeding narcissism and fame-seeking without delivering a satisfying conclusion.

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The Amateur

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Amateur
  • IMDb: link

Half Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and half revenge fantasy, The Amateur stars Rami Malek as CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller who blackmails his way into the field with some incriminating evidence against his boss (Holt McCallany) after the death of Charlie’s wife (Rachel Brosnahan). Out of his element, but not without some skills of his own, Charlie gets a crash course by another operative (Laurence Fishburne) before disappearing and chasing down those responsible for his wife’s murder.

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Play Dirty

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  • Title: Play Dirty (2025)
  • IMDb: link

Not to be confused with the upcoming Shane Black film of the same name, Play Dirty stars Theo Rossi as corrupt Police Detective Frank Grady about to be indicted by Internal Affairs for his partnership with a local crime boss (Ron Perlman). In order to run, Frank needs the money he’s owed. However, Murray (Perlman) offers a condition of only paying out once Frank takes out Murray’s various competition all in one night. However, what’s set up as a near-impossible task turns out to be relatively easy for Frank who makes it through most of the night unscathed (with his only wound coming late in the film) to tell his story to a couple of tweakers.

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Scream 3

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  • Title: Scream 3
  • IMDb: link

Scream Sunday takes us back to when the franchise first hit its rough patch. Rather than offer another sequel, Scream 3 attempts to reshape the three Scream films into a cohesive trilogy retroactively allowing for the film to dive into new rules to abide and reframing the events of the original Scream to reveal a hidden backstory for Maureen Prescott with ties to all the murders. The film brings Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) out of seclusion to the set of Stab 3 (a movie supposedly about the Woodsboro murders making you wonder how the previous two movies, also about those events, didn’t already cover all of this?) where a new Ghostface (Roger Jackson) is killing victims in part to draw Sidney out into the open.

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