COCKTAIL – Gentong Film LK21

Masters of the Universe – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:24:18 +0000

He-Man is back, and just in time for Pride Month. Remembered as being your dad’s third favorite toy line, He-Man was a product that became a cartoon, that became a cultural phenomenon…like, 30 years ago. Safe to say, this new Masters of the Universe film feels like it’s coming just a bit too late, don’t you think? Sure, there recently was a She-Ra cartoon that had no He-Man and a Masters of the Universe cartoon that had He-Man for ten minutes, but it’s not like the masses were clamoring for some more buff men in funny outfits. Actually, wait, the masses have never not been clamoring for that.

He-Man was the response of a toy company who wanted to try to compete with Star Wars, and this new film is a response from the same toy company who got shocked by Barbie doing insanely well. The franchise has never not been a reaction to something else, so is there really any fun to be had with the Masters of the Universe in the year of our He-Lord 2026?

Surprisingly, yeah, there is. Enough fun? I’m not entirely sure.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam/He-Man

2026’s Masters of the Universe reminded me a lot of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves in its style, wit, and the fact that it’s probably gonna make no money. Which is honestly a shame, because there was a surprising amount I liked here. I think this modern characterization of He-Man, a spellbound himbo who’s in touch with his feelings enough to put the “man” in “human”, is actually pulled off fairly well. It helps that every actor in this is fully bought into the silliness of the setting and aesthetic, but the film surprisingly doesn’t feel like it’s been overmedicated on irony pills. Somehow it manages to strike a nice balance between winking and nudging at the absurdity of the world, but it never completely undermines it either, feeling actually sort of proud to be repping Eternia. Plus some of these fight sequences are actually a lot of fun, getting real wild and winding with the camera work and particle effects. Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from perfect. The pacing really drags its feet, and the world feels incredibly artificial at times. The comedy isn’t too bad, but it’s not exactly gonna make you laugh out loud, even if you’re a diehard fan I reckon. But, with all that, this is actually not half bad for what it is. A misguided cash grab for sure, but one that still manages to have a little fun along the way.

The cast absolutely sells the weirdness of this world, with there not really being a bad performance from the main characters to even some of the one-off freaks we come across. Nicholas Galitzine is great as the buff but kinda dumb version of He-Man, with Bottoms being a great precursor to his final form. Okay, he’s not dumb per say, just a little naive. It keeps him likable and far from being a boring protagonist, especially with his grapples with masculinity and manlihood. Now, don’t choke on your Mountain Dew, chuds. This isn’t a woke-ified adaptation, this is just taking a bare bones idea and putting a little depth into it. We get some nice back and forths with his best friend Teela, played by Camila Mendes, but she’s honestly left out to dry on character development, feeling mostly just like a competent sidekick. Her dad, on the other hand, is a different story. Idris Elba once again proves he can be the best part of an okay film, as his Man-at-Arms is a man who failed, desperately trying to become the man he once was again in quite entertaining fashion. Alison Brie, who I didn’t even recognize at first as Evil-Lyn, is effortlessly campy in the role. And then there’s Jared Leto.

Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn

What dirt does he hold on Hollywood execs to be consistently landing these big roles? Sure, he’s talented, but I can’t remember the last time a role of his floored me…until this one. Leto is phenomenal as the big bad Skeletor. I had my hang-ups when I heard he wasn’t gonna have the nasally voice, but this version of the character is just as pompous and whiny as I remember him being. He actually serves as a decent antithesis to He-Man. Sure, he’s nothing but pure evil, but his obsession with control and power is driven by the expectation of being the strongest guy in the room, which goes against He-Man’s rejection of those ideas. The role is fully mocapped and the voice is modulated, so I don’t know how much of Leto’s performance actually comes through here, but for what it’s worth, the guy does a great job at feeling menacing yet silly.

I was actually kinda surprised by some of the brutality of this film. It’s nothing gory or anything, but people are straight up dying in sometimes gruesome fashion, so I just thought that was neat. There’s definitely an air of the adult to the film; just enough that kids might not catch on, but plenty for the adult fans this movie is definitely trying to pull in. There’s talk of fisting, giving people head and swords dangling between creamy thighs, but I actually think the film keeps from being too overtly cringey with its attempts at humor. Like I said earlier, this isn’t the most gut busting of comedy at play here, but I honestly found the jokes to hit more often than they miss. It helps that the script actually has a nice bit of wit to it. Genuine wit, not the artificial “ha ha, isn’t this character’s name stupid” kind of wit. There is some of that here,and it’s the worst parts of the comedy, but luckily it isn’t the bulk. And while I can take or leave some of the bigger action set pieces in this, anytime someone’s throwing hands, I was having a good time. The camera work and editing is so playful, punching in for emphasis and allowing the action to be well seen rather than hidden by particles or the shake of a camera.

Jared Leto as Skeletor

A good amount of positives, but there’s some negatives too. This thing did not have to be nearly 2 and a half hours long. I get there’s a lot of lore and backstory to stuff in, but surely there could have been a more concise way to do this. Prince Adam’s backstory, his time on Earth and the final act could have absolutely had a few minutes shaved off of each. I just kept getting bored until the film went to its next setting, and even then, the story doesn’t entirely feel like a journey. Everyone just happens to be in the right place at the right time, so there doesn’t always feel like you’re getting a lot of character growth or narrative beats. The story itself is pretty bone dry, with a lot of those aforementioned themes not really having a worthwhile impact in the story. Then there’s the visuals, which I think are mostly fine, but man, for every interesting practical set, there’s another obvious green screen that takes all weight out of the film. I get that not every fantastical space can be created practically, but the characters hardly even interact with their environments, like they were just pasted into them rather than them being a part of the story. Eternia hardly even feels like a realized place; just a mismatch of environments that leave no real impact. For everything it does better than some modern superhero movies, there’s still the usual trappings the movie occasionally falls into.

So, look, this isn’t some amazing, franchise revitalizing thing, mostly because no one seems to care about this franchise in the first place. But there are genuinely some elements here that are worth appreciating. It feels earnest to the IP, looking just as weird as you would expect these characters to. The script actually sounds like it was fun to write, at least from a dialogue point of view, and the whole thing feels like it could appeal to any age. It’s solid, just maybe not that memorable. After all, we’ve been down this road so many times before when it comes to superhero movies and IPs being resurrected from the dead. Despite its attempts to break ahead of the pack, there are unfortunately enough elements working against it that keep it from going from good to great. But a somewhat good movie it is; one that might actually be worth checking out somewhere down the line. Just wake me up when Street Sharks are getting their own movie. The kids have had their fun, but now it’s the men’s turn.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 big metal fists)

SKELETOR

Sure, He-Man is the face of this franchise, but no one has endured cultural relevancy quite like the big bad, Skeletor. So I decided to base the cocktail off of him, getting wild and weird with out-there flavor pairings that make for a smokey, yet fruity cocktail. There’s a lot of hoops to jump through, with the optional Electricdust and the pineapple ice cube shaped like a skull, but this can be simplified to your heart’s content to make it more accessible for you. Don’t have Electricdust? Skip it! Don’t have an skull ice cube? Any ice mold will do! Never forget, you have the power.

NOTE: Cocktail was staged for presentation rather than practicality. If that’s not something you want to worry about, serve the drink in a more standard glass, like a rocks glass.

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz mezcal
3/4oz lychee liqueur
1/4oz blue curacao
1/2oz lime juice
OPTIONAL: Pinch of electricdust
Pineapple skull ice cube

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice.
Strain into cocktail glass.
Add pineapple skull ice cube to glass.

PakarPBN

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Backrooms – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 13:57:51 +0000

So, in the last review, we talked about Obsession, a stellar horror film from yet another YouTuber turned director, Curry Barker. This has been a growing trend over the years, and now we get to talk about yet another instance of this phenomenon. Except this one is the only one of them that wants to make me end it all. In a good way.

Kane Parsons broke onto the YouTube scene with the The Backrooms, a vibey, found footage style horror series centered around empty, subliminal spaces. Parsons created this series when he was just a teenager, and it became such an online success that A24 allowed him to make a feature length adaptation of his series with a much higher budget and some of the best actors working today. This kid is 20. Ten years younger than me. And here I am bitching and moaning on the internet.

But I’m honestly super happy for this growing trend of online creators transitioning to film. It’s allowing creative minds with actual ideas and ambitions to take a crack at the box office, and it’s the kind of shake up the scene has been needing for a minute. So, how does Backrooms compare to the latest slew of online creator horror films?

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Chuck

Backrooms is absolutely a showcase of Parson’s ability as a wordbuilder and tone maestro. The same somber sense of dread and amazement that originated in his short film series is carried over to the big screen with incredible effect. The recreation of the droning, otherworldly spaces of yesteryear make for a haunting, astonishing journey through a world that feels familiar, but only just. The scenes taking place in the Backrooms are filled with ample tension that put your right in the shoes of the characters as they delve deeper into a madhouse of nostalgia and bygone eras. But while this film is undoubtedly a showcase of Parson’s strengths, it’s also quite clear where he stands to improve as a narrative storyteller.

While the vibes, setup and execution are all solid, it’s those elements that flow in between them that ultimately makes this film feel less impactful than it ultimately could. As much as I appreciate the attempt at trying to tie the backrooms to a greater theme of memory and change, a lot of the reflections on it ultimately feel hollow, with the film having to explain its themes verbatim to you through dialogue between an underwhelming Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. Additionally, the third act kind of moves away from the ambient horror of the first two acts, kind of feeling like the film overplayed its hand and didn’t stick the landing as much as I’d hoped. Even still, I think fans of the original series are really gonna love this, while still finding ways to unsettle those who aren’t as chronically online.

There is no Backrooms without the backrooms; the sprawling, off-kilter world of 1900s reflections that feel alien, yet familiar. Originally created in Blender in Parson’s prior series, the world is expertly brought to life, making for what I would wager to be one of the most fun looking sets to be on. Parsons manages to capture a world that feels massive, yet claustrophobic; enticing, yet off-putting. All the scenes set in this world hidden beyond our own is a wonder to see on screen, and it’s made all the more haunting by a very obvious understanding of tone and pace. Parson knows exactly how to get the most out of this world, navigating through it at just the right speed that builds curiosity and anxiety over what lays around the corner. It makes for some of the most compelling found footage scenes I’ve witnessed in a minute, and while the scenes presented not through an in-world camera aren’t always as scary, it still sells the maze as the sprawling space of uncertainty it should be.

Renate Reinsve as Mary

Leading the journey through the backrooms is Clark, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, a recently separated, angry furniture store manager who stumbles across this hidden world in the lower level of his store. He’s going through therapy with Dr. Mary Kline, played by Renate Reinsve, trying to get to the source of his tendency to ruin everything he touches and take accountability for his rage. A good enough character structure to get the narrative going, not one that ultimately leads to anything worthwhile. Truth be told, both of these terrific actors feel misused here, not really playing to their strengths or giving them something all that meaty to deliver on. We spend the most time with Clark, whose spiraling the film rushes through to get to its madhouse climax that doesn’t feel all that earned. Ejiofor does the most with what he’s given, managing to at least be entertaining even if his characterization feels like it’s missing pieces to itself.

I’ve really enjoyed Reinsve in The Worst Person in the World and Sentimental Value, but she sort of just feels out of place here. Those aforementioned performances are very grounded, very reigned in, and I don’t think her style really aligns with what this film was going for. Her character of Mary is carrying her own baggage of having grown up with a mother paranoid of the outside world, but like Clark, the deeper aspects of this character don’t ultimately get explored through the lens of the setup. Reinsve does fairly well in scenes that involve sitting with metaphysical despair and uncertainty, but she almost feels like a fish out of water when thrown into more traditional horror setups. I don’t think this is a complete knock on her acting ability; it more just shows how the film kind of goes from being one thing to another, and that transition isn’t a total home run.

I do recognize that, by having someone like Parsons take on the directing role, the film avoids a lot of pitfalls modern horror movies fall into. For one, you can actually see what’s going on. The uncomfortableness of the backrooms comes from its overexposure, and I’m glad that was carried over, because you just know there was a director out there that wanted to make it all dark at night. The film also refrains from overexplaining and taking away the mystique of the area as well. There’s no real, definitive answers given to what it is outside of what the other characters interpret, and I like that. It makes you feel as if you’re discovering it alongside them, formulating your own theories and reasonings. I almost kind of wish the film went a little vaguer, as it’s a concept that can honestly speak for itself purely through visuals.

But, as a horror movie, the terror of the film mostly comes from the uncanny visuals and a hindrance on drawing too much attention to what you should be scared of. There’s a couple found footage sequences here that completely envelop you and unnerve you based on what you see, rather than by scripted jump scare noises that tell you what you should be frightened of. The third act definitely departs from this quite a bit, but while it’s not nearly as frightening as the prior acts, it still turns out to be a good time.

My only real critique of this comes down to the script, which I still feel is a much better outcome than what I was expecting. Like I said before, the themes of the film don’t entirely make themselves known in the cleanest fashion through the narrative, so some heavy handed therapy dialogue is employed to really drive this stuff home. It makes a lot of the writing come off kind of clunky, but there’s a humor to it that I certainly appreciated. I just wish there was more to take away from those underlying elements here, because the central idea behind the backrooms is quite interesting. I read it as almost a haunting reminder to the spaces that dominated the cusp of the new millenia. Large malls and office spaces defined the aesthetic of the time, and now to see them in such a mangled, mistakenly remembered setting is almost like seeing the remnants of an empire. All we’re left with is the memory of what once was, but even our own memories can’t be trusted 100%. The film’s narrative and the two main character’s journeys feel a bit disconnected from that idea, but I will confide that actual thought was put into this film than most creepypasta movies would ever allow. Looking at you, Slenderman.

Horror has always been the proving grounds for directors getting their start, and that trend seems to be continuing tenfold. Backrooms is an incredibly solid piece of online horror brought to the big screen that has a patience and maturity to it that some might not be expecting and more might not even like. But Kane Parsons has proven he wants to tell stories, not appease swarths of Roblox players, and I’ve gotta tip my hat to him. I think the young director is right on the cusp of making something truly great, and if he feels so inclined, I’m sure he’ll have quite a prosperous future in film if he sticks with it. Definitely give this one a watch if unconventional horror interests you, and remember to take a chance on small creators who truly have passion. Remember next time a guy on the street tries to get you to read his screenplay. It’s me. I’m the guy.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 fluffs of furniture stuffing)

LEMON-AL SPACE

Liminal spaces tend to evoke on odd comfort almost as much as they invoke a sense of uneasiness. The environments feel familiar to you, but not entirely, and yet there’s still a sense of weird warmness that comes with gazing into the past. But those feelings are confusing! So lets give you a feeling that’s a bit more straightforward with the Lemon-al Space. This is a creamy, light cocktail that pulls in tart flavors from limoncello and lemon juice to make for a slightly desert, slightly refreshing cocktail that can make the madness of staring at that same wallpaper design over and over again a little more palatable.

INGREDIENTS

2oz gin
3/4oz limoncello
1/2oz lemon juice
1/2oz heavy cream
1/2oz simple syrup
GARNISH: lemon zest

INSTRCUTIONS

Add ingredients to a shaker and shake with gin.
Strain into chilled coup glass.
Grate a lemon over the top to garnish with lemon zest.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Obsession – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Wed, 27 May 2026 12:31:59 +0000

On paper, Curry Baker’s Obsession sounds like the same old crap that you’re used to seeing from Blumhouse. Another toothless, simplistic horror centered around an object that’s gonna do the bare minimum and still somehow make 3 billion dollars. But there’s one element to this that made this thing stand out from the get go. Curry Barker; a director with a clear vision if his 2024 horror film Milk & Serial is anything to go by. Barker joins the now growing lineage of YouTubers graduating to full on filmmakers, joining the likes of the Philippou Brothers, Chris Stuckman and even Markiplier. But not everyone is cut out for the transition, and when I saw the plot synopsis and Blumhouse’s involvement, I was, admittedly, a bit skeptical. But Obsession is an example of a belief I’ve always held; a film doesn’t have to necessarily re-invent the wheel, it just needs to show a new way the wheel can be used. And Obsession is a speeding, ricocheting wheel straight to the head.

This is the feel-bad movie of the year, and the film is all the more better for it. Obsession takes a pretty familiar monkey’s paw concept and really goes for it, seeing just how dark and messed up it can get without necessarily feeling like torture porn. There’s actually a bit of poignancy to the film; maybe not enough to generate a ton of thinkpieces about it, but enough to come across as honest and grounded while still going absolutely batshit. A lot of this comes through in the lead performances of Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, who pull no punches in creating characters that are supremely grounded but also outlandishly psychotic. Plus the atmosphere, blocking and overall structuring of the film breathes actual life into a story you may have seen a hundred times, making it feel fresh with its own voice. This is a gut punch that also has a lot of dark humor to it, with a constant cloud of dread hovered over the entire thing. This is easily one of the best horror outings to come from 2026, if it’s making me say positives about a Blumhouse movie, then you know it has to be doing something right.

Michael Johnston as Bear

A lot of people have rightfully praised Inde Navarrette’s star-making performance as Nikki in this, as they should, but I also want to throw some flowers to Michael Johnston’s Bear as well. Not just because his name makes up two-thirds of my name, but because he does an absolutely tremendous job at capturing a character that easily could have been made out to be a flat, obvious stereotype. Bear isn’t the typical, woman-hating, woe-is-me incel this film could have made him. He has unrequited feelings for a childhood friend that he just can’t work up the courage to vocalize, and it’s that hesitance that drives him to using a One Wish Willow to grant him Nikki’s affection. He’s certainly relatable and a bit sympathetic, but all of that gets thrown out the window when he decides to ignore very obvious signs and takes the easy way out. He is 100% in the wrong and all of his suffering is a direct result of going along with this plan of removing Nikki’s agency, but the film actually refrains from being outright cartoonish with this setup. But Johnston does a terrific job at selling the agony of the situation, being just relatable enough to make us uncomfortable, which really challenges the viewer on how sympathetic you can be.

But let’s talk about Inde Navarrette’s Nikki, the dream girl who is quickly turned into a nightmare through another man’s weakness. A really important part of this film is making sure you know that Nikki is the victim here, despite the fact she’s the one scaring the crap out of everyone and committing heinous acts. She’ll terrify you and keep you on edge the entire film, maybe she’ll even make you laugh. But there’s still a deep sadness to her situation that keeps her from totally being seen as a monster. Navarette is displaying a physicality here that is impressively warped, almost dipping into uncanny valley territory. The way she manipulates her face and plays with the octaves of her voice is super impressive, knowing just the tone to strike for each individual scene. Additionally, the way she’s presented in many scenes where her face is obscured or she’s lit so darkly that you can barely see the glimmers of her eyes is not only haunting, but also fully drives home the idea of the erasure of her identity, being turned into a plaything for someone who’s going to get what’s coming to them.

Indie Navarrette as Nikki

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a horror comedy, but I often found this to be just as funny as it was depressing. I think it’s a testament to Barker’s online routes; it’s very clear that, like the Phillipous, he’s tapped into the humor of the modern age and the younger generations that were molded by it. It helps to give this thing more of an identity, more of a voice, but it’s still content with making your skin crawl. I do think the film occasionally gets saddled with some stupidly loud jump scares from time to time, but they’re a bit more forgiving because the tension is laid thick early on and never really relents. Shadows, erratic motions and things just out of view do most of the heavy lifting, with a big emphasis on drawing your eyes to backgrounds or empty spaces to keep you on your toes. It’s this great mix of horror and humor that kept this thing engaging throughout, never really pumping the breaks or showing even a glimmer of possible happiness.

This is one of those films that puts a pit in your stomach; the kind that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and yet, you can’t help but savor what you just had. Which is impressive considering this kind of setup isn’t wholly original. The progression of the narrative is pretty cut and dry, but the film still finds ways to surprise you and reel you in. Obsession is elevating the idea, and not in some kind of pseudo-intellectual, snobby way. It’s injecting an actual voice, a personality into it, which is kind of what Blumhouse should have been doing all along. There are ideas and concepts that can be done on a budget, but a real, genuine talent will take them to new heights, shocking people and genuinely giving them a reason to be scared. That’s what I believe Curry Barker has done here, and I hope it leads to a shift in the status quo for not just this studio, but every studio.

Needless to say, I thought Obsession was a blast that also super bummed me out. It generates real feelings, whether it be humor, fear or empathy because it does such a great job at building off authentic interactions and mindsets. At the same time, it revels in its goofiness, but not enough to the point where the impact of each depressing beat after another feels dull or limp. It’s certainly scary, strange and not afraid to challenge you with uncomfortable imagery and ideas. Let this be a reminder that the worst thing she can do is say no, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can avoid her doing something much, much worse.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 suspicious sandwiches)

ONE WISH WILLOW

The One Wish Willow is the latest horror movie MacGuffin to ruin someone’s life, but in this case, this one stands to actually improve yours. This is a bittersweet cherry cocktail that’s loaded with botanical notes and the slight tartness that comes from black cherry and lemon juice. I can’t promise you this drink will make your dreams come true, but a little alcohol never hurts the believing process.

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz sloe gin
3/4oz amaro
3/4oz lemon juice
1/2oz dark cherry syrup
GARNISH: Lemon peel heart (refer to video for visual example)

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice.
Strain into coup glass.
For the heart, remove the flesh from a lemon wheel and cut the peel to make it a long, linear piece.
Cut a slit down the middle of the peel.
Trim off the edges of one of the ends to make the pointed part of the heart.
Twist the peel to make a heart shape and garnish the cocktail with it.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Mortal Kombat 2 – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Fri, 15 May 2026 11:43:16 +0000

Mortal Kombat is one of my favorite games that I am absolutely dogshit at. I can’t string combos together to save my life, but that’s not why I really love the games. I like them because they’re just a candy store of interesting characters, great designs and heaps of lore that doesn’t make a lick of sense. But that hasn’t stopped the series from trying to inject a little bit of storytelling into its bones, whether it be through the games or with a handful of movie adaptations. When it comes to theatrical live action adaptations, the series doesn’t have the strongest track record. You’ve got a campy kick off, a follow up considered to be one of the worst movies ever, and a modern reboot that nailed the aesthetic while forgetting that movies also need to have good characters and interesting dynamics. So if you enjoyed that previous film, then I’ve got good news, and if you didn’t, then…well, you probably already know.

Mortal Kombat 2 is perhaps the most true-to-form the Mortal Kombat movies have ever been, wherein its colorful and fun to look at while having an absolutely nonsense narrative. The characters do look their parts, but their characterization is so flat and boring that it often borders on being unfun. The film is stuck between being cheesy and self-serious, not really fully committing to either, leaving you with a slew of good moments that have to live right alongside halfhearted moments of sentimentality. The storytelling is, unfortunately, just not strong enough to make this balance work, so the movie relies on keeping the action constant and plentiful to make up for it. That’s certainly welcome, but outside of a few gory fatalities, the action often doesn’t manage to hold a candle to what the action genre has accomplished in the past few years. You could call this “for the fans”, and as a fan, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. That doesn’t mean it’s all that good.

Adeline Rudolph as Kitana

For starters, the film has a bit of a main character problem, unsuccessfully juggling the new characters taking center stage while also giving enough play to the returning cast. Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban, is a washed up action star who is pulled into the world of Mortal Kombat, basically the same kind of set up with Cole Young from the first movie. Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of that OC, by the way. That’s all I’m gonna say. Urban does have his moments, but his performance is so wooden, mostly due in part to the character being as flat as a board. It’s the same “washed up hero” act we’ve seen before, and the film rushes through giving Cage any real depth or emotional moments. And I hate to say this about Urban, but his performance just isn’t funny enough to kind of let that slide. The story leans into the more pathetic side of Cage every now and then, but there seems to be this resistance to really go all in to make his eventual turn into a hero all the more satisfying.

Newcomer Kitana, played by Adeline Rudolph, has the more interesting background out of the two leads, and I kind of wish the film had her more front and center. There could have been more turmoil over betraying her homeland in order to defeat her evil, adoptive father Shao Khan, or more push and pull between her and her longtime protector and friend Jade. She’s easily the heart of the film; a heart that is barely beating after being ripped out of a chest, but still a heart. Speaking of heart ripping, Josh Lawson’s Kano is back and he is the best part of this movie. Everything he says is just so funny, and even though his entire inclusion in this movie is so shoehorned and needless, I’m happy for it, because he makes everybody else look worse by comparison. Seriously, everyone else here is either an exposition machine or background filler, while Kano is the only one I actually got excited to see in each scene.

Karl Urban as Johnny Cage

And Kano ties into this film being a lot more funny than its predecessor. The comedy doesn’t always work, but it does make the film feel a lot more fun in comparison. The cheese isn’t cranked up to the same levels of the original films, but I do think it was needed. For how serious the games are, there’s no real way to approach this source material without being a little tongue in cheek. That being said, the more serious moments feel really jarring to the rest of the film.They try to add some emotional weight to the film, but it honestly just feels kind of insulting with how halfassed they come across. They go through all the cliches you’d expect, struggling to build an enticing narrative around the central idea of the film; punching a hole through a guy’s head. There is actually a Mortal Kombat tournament in this film, even though the rules are insanely loose and apparently don’t matter. It’s supposed to be fights to the death, but the film doesn’t want to kill off too many of its main characters, so some fights just end for no reason. There’s also a moment when someone switches sides right as the tournament ends, which restarts the final fight. Where is the referee? Do something, blue! Maybe these basic storytelling beats would be more serviceable if there was an interesting style to the film, but you’re not really gonna find that outside of the fight scenes.

But narrative weaknesses aside, at least the fights are good…right? Well, some of them. When they’re focused on spectacle and solid use of the environment, they can be. The fight between Johnny Cage and Kitana has some solid use of the area, while Lui Kang’s first fight is quite flashy and has some solid uses of special effects. But, for me, so many of these fights feel heavily choreographed, more like a dance than an all out brawl to the death. It can make it feel like a lot of fists are thrown, but rarely is anything hitting or causing lasting damage. And when the special effects get brought in, things can be a tad mixed. The whole look of the film sways in quality, with green screens looking too obvious at times and some particle and light effects looking shockingly bad. I hate to say it, but I hate the Baraka design here, mostly the mouth. Doesn’t look much better than the Halloween mask the original character was created with.

Martyn Ford as Shao Kahn

I’ll be fair; I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to. I can chalk this up to Kano making me laugh every time he’s onscreen, and to the occasional good fight that actually looks visually impressive. The quick pace of this thing certainly helps, wasting no time and getting right into the action. But with the flat characters, the bland story and the hesitance to do anything all that stylish, this just seems destined to be a film remembered less for the movie itself and more for its “Mortal Kombat 2 – All Fight Scenes Compilation” videos on YouTube. You know they’re coming, and they might just be the ideal way to watch this thing.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 sunglasses)

NOOB SAIBOT

I was going to do a Sub Zero cocktail to match the Scorpion cocktail I did for the first film a few years back, but unfortunately, old chilly doesn’t make an appearance in this film. At least, not as the cryomancer we once knew. Instead, he has transformed into his next phase, the undead shadow warrior Noob Saibot (who they do not call him that because the filmmakers are cowards). So, to match this dark figure, we have an equally dark cocktail that combines Japanese whiskey, blackberry and a little cola to create a tart, slightly sweet cocktail. For added flavor (and considering Noob is occasionally connected to the character Smoke in the games), I have also smoked the cocktail, which makes for quite a unique and welcome alteration to the fruit and soda flavors. FINISH IT!

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz Japanese whiskey
1/4oz raspberry liqueur
1 barspoon mezcal
6 blackberries
1/2oz lime juice
pinch of black sugar
Top: cola
EXTRA: Smoke

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice.
Double strain into a rocks glass filled with ice.
Top with cola.
If you’d like, smoke the cocktail with whatever smoking apparatus you have available (the glass may have to be smoked beforehand depending on your setup.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Hokum – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Fri, 01 May 2026 10:45:51 +0000

Hokum is the latest horror film from director Damian McCarthy, who just a few years ago gave us the supernatural horror film Oddity, and before that, the film Caveat. Oddity is really what put McCarthy on the map for me. I thought: here’s a guy who understands how to take what we’ve seen before and do something unique with it. Oddity was one of my favorite horror films of 2024, so when the chance to see McCarthy’s newest film early fell into my lap, I couldn’t help but react like the statue from Oddity. Just petrified with anticipation.

And if you’re looking for something that just has that old school horror feel with a contemporary approach, Hokum is the movie for you. A lot of what I appreciated about McCarthy’s previous film returns here in spades, giving us a tense, creative haunted house flick that plays with your mind and gets under your skin. While light on the disturbing imagery, the film makes up for it with expertly paced sequences of looming dread that actually pay off with some of the more effective jump scares I’ve seen in a minute. If I’m honest, I enjoyed a lot more of the out-there creativity of Oddity, this is still finely distilled Irish folk horror in its purest form. I knew there was something strange going on with a country that only drinks Guiness.

Adam Scott as Ohm Bauman

Depressed American author Ohm Bauman decides to make the long overdue trip to the Irish hotel his parents honeymooned at in order to spread their ashes. But, like most old hotels, some things just don’t feel right. After some odd occurrences, a disappearance and the theory of a witch living in the locked-away honeymoon suite, Ohm finds himself trapped in a nightmare as he must try to survive the hotel’s horrors while also battling the demons he brought along with him.

Man, is Adam Scott a dick in this. For me, he’s always just gonna be goofy, lovable Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec for me, but projects like Severance and this are all the proof you need to believe there’s more range to him than you may think. Scott’s Ohm Bauman is a rather difficult character to make work, because he comes with both a lot of baggage and a bad attitude that he takes out on the kind employees of the hotel. You do learn more about why he’s like this later in the film, but the movie really tests how much sympathy you can give a main character like this. There’s honestly this interesting balance where you want to see Ohm get the crap scared out of him, but you also want to see him make it out okay as well. It’s a prickly character that can be tough to execute, but I think both McCarthy and Scott do an excellent job with that for the most part.

We’ll get into why the horror in this is so great in just a second, but I also want to give props to how funny the film can be too. After a very somber and dark film like Oddity, it was nice to see a little bit of comedy injected into McCarthy’s work. A lot of it comes from the phenomenal supporting characters, from the sheepish bellhop played by Will O’Connell to the moonshine and mushroom consuming drifter played by David Wilmot. The comedy adds a nice bit of a reprieve from the more dark and depressing moments of the film, which there are quite a few of. But the impact of those moments isn’t undercut by the little bits of humor, so these moments are okay in my book.

But the horror of this film is pure haunted house-core. There’s a lot of bumping around in the night to be seen and heard, and the film is smart enough not to overplay its hand too early on. Ohm is plagued by visions of his dead mother, distant wailings and dark memories that begin to manifest themselves in frightening ways. I dunno what’s going on with that rabbit, but get it away from me. Like I said earlier, every scare is paced and presented super well. The film really knows how to get you hanging onto every creak and every movement going on in the background, and more often than not, you get some satisfying payoff in the form of actually good jump scares. Although sometimes it does feel like the film is trying to throw in more of them to fill a quota, they aren’t egregiously forced like in many modern horror movies.

Like Oddity, Hokum makes great use of its primary setting, with the sections of the hotel being meticulously designed to fit the narrative without going too far beyond the realm of believability. Once Ohm makes it to the honeymoon suite is where you really start to see this at play. A lot of thought was put into the room layout and the little pieces that later shape how the story progresses. I love single location films that put a lot of thought into their rooms, and this film is another great example of that.

I do have some minor hang ups with this, despite me pretty much enjoying the entire thing. There’s an underlying theme of trauma, grief and atoning for your sins that I think doesn’t entirely coincide with the plot all that well. It does add some depth to Ohm for sure, but the way it’s integrated into the story, both through Ohm’s novel and his visions of his mother, kind of felt a little forced to me, but not enough where it felt like the film was reaching for something it couldn’t obtain. Additionally, for how great the tension and looming dread is in the film, I did find the big realization to what was going on to be a tad underwhelming. It’s a lot more open ended than I was expecting, but it still felt like more could have been given. I think Oddity did a much more interesting job at building towards big reveals in a unique way, but this felt a lot more straightforward.

That being said, Hokum takes a pretty simplistic idea and setup and elevates it thanks to a lot of different elements working in harmony. Ample attention is put on making every character feel genuine and realized, while the scares are thrown at you smartly and intentionally, feeling more than earned rather than just an expectation. This is a lot of fun with some solid crowd pleasing moments, but it has enough of an edge to still remain dark and ominous. Weirdly this kinda made me want to go back to Ireland. I dunno, the vibes of being haunted and sent to hell in Ireland just sound way more appealing than in the states.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 tape recorders)

IRISH HONEYMOON

What’s scarier than an old Celtic witch? Saying “I do!” (unless my wife is reading this, who I am much more scared of than any hag). But we can water down all those fears with this cocktail inspired by the beautiful country of Ireland and all the medicinal compounds its given us. This drink is loosely inspired by a batch of mushroom-laced goat milk that plays a somewhat pivotal role in the film. The Irish Honeymoon is lightly creamy, crisp and has an ever so slight botanical note to it. You’ll be feeling like you’re on your honeymoon every time you have this, and your blood alcohol level will most likely be just as high.

INGREDIENTS

2oz Irish whiskey
1oz apple juice
1/2oz honey syrup
1/4oz lemon juice
1/4oz Benedictine
1/2oz half and half
garnish: apple chip heart

INGREDIENTS

Add ingredients to a shaker and shake to chill.
Strain into coup glass.
Garnish with two apple chips, skewered with a toothpick to make them look like a heart.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Faces of Death (2026) – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:00:12 +0000

Younger viewers might not realize this, but seeing videos of people kicking the bucket was not such a common occurrence once upon a time. Nowadays you could just be scrolling Twitter or TikTok and BAM, someone gets absolutely annihilated right before your eyes. Back in the day, you had to actively search stuff like that out, whether it be through outlets like LiveLeak or 4chan. But while the availability of disturbing content has changed over the years, the human fascination with death has not. There’s something about that inevitability and the swiftness in which it can happen that’s terrified us, but also intrigued us. And it’s that intrigue that led to the rise of the mondo subgenre of horror, with one of the most notorious offerings being 1978’s Faces of Death.

This was a mockumentary style horror film that presented footage of gruesome deaths in an effort to better understand the many forms expiring takes. Most of the stuff shown in the film is indeed fake, but it did stir up quite a bit of controversy at the time, having been censored or outright banned in some countries. And, as someone who’s seen it, it’s a neat little piece of film history; a window into a time before all the world’s atrocities were accessible at the press of a button. But it doesn’t hold up much more beyond that, in my opinion. Truth be told, like the fictional pathologist in the film, we’ve kinda become desensitized to real world violence and the progression of realism in film and TV that the gruesome scenes might not affect you as much as you’d expect. So, how do you make a Faces of Death for the modern age? Well, you turn it into a Scream style slasher movie, apparently.

Barbie Ferreira as Margot

I was pretty floored for this meta continuation of the series from director Daniel Goldhaber, whose 2022 film How to Blow Up a Pipeline was a shocking and grounded look into activism and eco terrorism. But man, it just feels like the mark was majorly missed with this one. 2026’s Faces of Death takes on the reality of desensitization through social media, but only really as a set dressing rather than a fully explored theme. It bemoans society’s obsession with the macabre without really showing us the effect it has on us in an interesting or thought provoking way. The social commentary never really comes full circle, but it’s the film’s parallel story of a serial killer looking to go viral that ultimately makes this watchable. Its darkly funny moments are more than worth the admission, but I just can’t help but wonder why this decided to latch itself onto the self-serious cult film of the same name. With only a surface level of enjoyment to be had here, I found myself making a variety of faces throughout, and I only wish those expressions weren’t dominated by an overwhelming feeling of “meh”.

Margot Romero (yes, really) is a content moderator working for the world’s largest social media platform. Her job is to approve what’s acceptable for audiences to view and flag things that insult modern sensibilities. But when she comes across videos of possible murders reenacting scenes from the original Faces of Death, she begins to dig deeper and discovers that a serial killer might be feeding off people’s sick curiosities, leading to more and more vertically-shot snuff films to be created. With seemingly no one believing her, Margot must do what she can to warn the world of this threat before others, and maybe even herself, become another piece of gory content.

Dacre Montgomery as Arthur

Margot is portrayed by Barbie Ferreira, who I think is unfortunately done a little dirty here. Her position puts her in a place where she should be numb to the amount of violence and depravity she has to shift through, but a dark moment from her past keeps her from fully slipping into being unfeeling. I think this is a solid build for a character, but as soon as the film starts to devolve into a more stereotypical slasher direction, she really starts to fall apart. She’s written to handle all of her hangups and issues in kind of an annoying way where you want to root for her on principle, but she just doesn’t come off as likable or complex. The second and third act of the film subject her to the traditional dumb and contrived decision making many horror movies thrive on because a person would not realistically respond in such a way that the movie needs them to. From not illustrating her point to needlessly delaying escape, Ferreira is not done many favors, leading to an unfulfilled character whose payoff is nowhere near satisfying.

The saving grace of the film comes in the form of Dacre Montgomery as Arthur Spevak, a weirdo obsessed with the original Faces of Death who sets out to recreate scenes from the film with limelight-adjacent people he kidnaps, only this time he actually kills them. It’s certainly not the first take on a murderer who is also obsessed with getting likes and follows, but it is certainly entertaining. Arthur is competent, yet his ego keeps him from being a full on Zodiac Killer. His obsession with virality leads to some goofy moments, from wondering how many question marks he should put in a post to taking a selfie with a dismembered body he’s dissolving with acid. There’s unfortunately not a whole lot of nuance to the character, mostly because we don’t see a lot of effect to his cause. Still, he’s entertaining for what it’s worth, and I kinda wish the film was more centered around him.

Oh, and Charlie XCX is in two scenes to do nothing but get confused about what accent she should be using. Cool.

I can’t say this thing isn’t competently directed, however. Goldhaber has proven himself to be fairly reliable as a guiding hand when it comes to visuals and composition. The film has a lot of color to it, which I think gives it a pop-type vibe at points that I enjoyed. Even still, I was surprised by how reigned in this felt at times. The original Faces of Death was unapologetic in its use of violence and gore. While it could be argued this was mainly done for shock value, it does set a precedent you would expect to be carried over into this meta-sequel. It doesn’t really capture the essence of what the original film was trying to do, and this goofier, more stylized approach kind of water down not only the visceral impact, but what the film is trying to say in general. By the time the third act rolls around, the psychology of its topic is thrown out the window, leaving us with an underwhelming ending that plays out exactly like you’d expect.

The film takes on a lot of ideas. The reality of the attention economy, the inability to discern authenticity from the fake, and how seeing a grisly death is just another Tuesday in the modern day. It says a lot of these ideas, but none of them are really articulated in a way that ends up being meaningful or poignant. We don’t really see the greater effect of this societal change outside of the killer getting a lot of unconcerned comments and likes on his posts and two guys being like “have you seen the latest beheading?” I don’t know, I guess I was expecting something a little more surgical based on Goldhaber’s prior film. I certainly wasn’t expecting the villain to monologue the themes of the movie back to the audience, but that’s sort of the trapping that most of these societal mirror films fall into. Every time it brings up an interesting point, it has to be doused in forced, frustrating horror movie BS that complicates things further purely for the sake of the plot. If the world was shown to be as truly vapid and depraved as the film seems to suggest, I think this could have been a much different story.

Not quite as unnervingly reflective as something like Red Rooms and not nearly silly enough as something like Evil Ed, 2026’s Faces of Death lands somewhere in the middle. It’s most serviceable as a goofy social commentary, but it’s disappointing that there’s not really much to be said here. It comes very close to breaking into something more nuanced, but it lacks the grit that made its namesake a piece of media to be feared. Without the Faces of Death name, this probably would have just been seen as an average Shudder original, but because it brings a bit of history along with it, I can’t help but feel underwhelmed. It’s not terrible, just shockingly not as noteworthy as I was anticipating.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 lipsticks)

MONDO REEL

If you’re gonna subject yourself to terror beyond your comprehension, i.e. social media, you better make sure your brain is wired. The Mondo Reel is a balance between the sweet and bitter, combining the flavors of coffee and Campari to make a flavor akin to dark chocolate. Additionally, we’ll be throwing in some raspberry to sweeten it up, making for a blood-red mixture that’s gonna wake you up and get you ready for some doom scrolling.

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz gin
1oz Campari
1/2oz coffee liqueur
1/2oz lemon juice
1/2oz raspberry liqueur
Garnish: orange peel

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice.
Strain into coup glass.
Garnish with orange peel cut in a triangle shape (for a play button).

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

The Drama – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:19:27 +0000

We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat of regret over all that money I took from that plane a couple decades ago. But what about the stuff you didn’t do? The things out of your control that don’t exist in the material world yet nonetheless are used to demonize and condemn you. That was the idea behind Kristoffer Borgli’s 2023 film Dream Scenario, an awkwardly funny dark comedy about the modern realm of fame and cancel culture, but it appears Borgli still has more to say with this kind concept.

Which brings us to 2026’s The Drama, a follow up that, despite having a similar crux to Dream Scenario, doesn’t feel like it’s returning over trampled ground. It does return to the concept of people’s lives getting ruined not by what they’ve done, but the idea of them doing something bad. Dream Scenario used this idea to tackle the parasocial relationships and unrealistic expectations we form for people we hardly know, and now The Drama uses that idea in a way that hits a bit closer to home with how we’re perceived by others by actions we didn’t actually do. And it’s one of those films that’s gonna make you laugh as much as it makes you squirm.

(from left to right) Robert Pattinson as Charlie and Zendaya as Emma

Borgli continues his trend of dissecting the uncomfortable conversations of the modern era in stellar form with perhaps his most poignant film yet. The Drama is one of those films that holds a mirror up to you in real time as you watch, forcing you to make your assumptions and construct your feelings about the characters as they learn new information at the same time as you. It’s uncomfortable not just because of the subject matter, but because we’re almost living the discomfort alongside the characters. And luckily we have two of the best actors working today in Zendaya and Robert Pattinson leading the charge through these emotions while also pulling a lot of laughs out as well. Mix that with Borgli’s signature style of distorting reality and getting playful with the edit, and you’ve got a hell of a first date movie that’s sure to ruin things in record time.

The film follows couple Charlie and Emma just less than a week away from their wedding. Things seem all happy and whatnot until a fateful night of drunken oversharing with friends stands to ruin everything. They go in a circle, revealing the worst thing they’ve ever done, with Emma’s being the most shocking. With this newfound info about his bride-to-be, Charlie begins to second guess their upcoming wedding, but is he overreacting or are his feelings justified. And what did Emma do? Well…

A24 did a stellar job with the marketing for this film, because you don’t know what it is Emma did going in. But, based on the reactions from her friends in the trailer, it kinda makes you want to see the movie. This doesn’t have to do with the movie itself, I just thought it was great to have a film advertised in such a way where you get a good grasp on what it’s about, but not the why. And luckily, the film doesn’t dance around the secret either. You learn it very early on, which better helps you sympathize with all characters involved and allows you to slowly develop your feelings about the whole situation. It really is interactive in a way where you feel like you’re part of the story, because it’s not about the secret, it’s how people digest. I won’t spoil what it is, but it does make for some compelling reflections on the length of people’s forgiveness and understanding, even if it’s just over a thought rather than an act.

Robert Pattinson’s Charlie is the one who really takes the brunt of this info dump, becoming nervous, erratic and on the verge of a complete breakdown. But there’s layers to his feelings; layers that help you see where he’s coming from and layers that make you think he’s going about this all wrong. He gets so wrapped up in the concept of the secret that it completely inhibits his ability to see Emma as anyone but the person she was years ago. Pattinson is excellent in a role where you can both root for him and also want to slap him upside the head. Truly one of the best around.

And while Zendaya’s Emma and her unearthed past are the lightning rod for “the drama”, the focus is way more about Charlie’s reaction to the info. This does put Emma in a pretty sympathetic role, one that doesn’t even seem to toy with the idea of her being a different person than she was years ago. It kind of limits Zendaya’s potential here, but it does work in service of what the film is trying to accomplish. After all, she’s a victim of the crime of thought, not action, but she’s still being treated as if she’s the latter. This makes the character incredibly interesting on its own, even if it doesn’t give Zendaya as much to do as Pattinson here, yet this is in no way a terrible performance.

A performance I actually didn’t think I would praise as much is Alana Haim’s Rachel, Emma’s maid of honor. I’m not the biggest fan of Haim’s acting credentials as of yet, but I couldn’t help but feel she nailed the most relatable character in the film. Not relatable in the sense that I identify with her, but relatable because I know people like her. She’s an instigator that’s quick to harp on others but deflects any and all blame that comes her way. She is infuriating in this film, and I do think it takes some talent to pull that off, so I gotta give her props for that.

Borgli once again puts a lot of emphasis on the edit here, utilizing cuts to play with reality and visually reflects the anxiety the characters are feeling. It’s all very intentional, really amplifying the mental panic the characters are going through quick cuts and emphasis on moments and ideas that aren’t real, but are manifestations of their fears and psyche. There’s a moment where Charlie is going around the city with the teenage version of Emma, and even though the sight of it is pretty fun, the whole intention behind it is rather sweet. The editing is also a big tool for delivering on the comedy as well, particularly in the sound design. There’s several sound effects given an extra audio boost for emphasis, which is used to build anxiety in both a stressful and funny way.

Big props to the film, because the subject matter it decides to tackle is certainly heavy, but it represents a greater picture that certainly needs to be discussed. Some people might point out that it’s a film devoid of answers to said problem, but I don’t think it is. Because above all, the film is about compassion, understanding and forgiveness. Are people capable of change, and can we actually accept that they have changed? We live in a world where becoming empathetic and informed are encouraged, but only if we let you. Like Dream Scenario, this film reflects the modern age of understanding, which more often than not, becomes a game of moral superiority if left unchecked.

I love a film that isn’t afraid to be prickly about its subject matter, and I think The Drama definitely delivers. Its bold topic and the way it frames it teeters the line of distasteful, but it’s an honest reflection of the modern age in more ways than one. It completely unravels in a darkly funny and kinda sweet way that makes you wonder if there are things we can truly come back from. Of course, Pattinson and Zendaya are in top form, and I can’t emphasize enough how entertaining and engaging the editing is. If only real weddings were this drama filled. If I don’t experience a wedding where someone shouts “I object” before I die, I’m gonna be pissed.

RATING

(out of a potential 5 bottles of wine)

RUMOR HAS IT

What is it about wine that gets people revealing their darkest secrets? Beer would never do that to you. Beer keeps your secrets locked up tight in exchange for ballooning your waistline. But a little rose is the catalyst for the entire downfall of our characters, so we’re gonna be making a cocktail with it. This is gonna be a simply structured yet complex tasting cocktail that combines rosé wine, amaretto and Campari into a bittersweet love letter to gossip. And for added curb appeal, we’re gonna also add a large ice cube with a rose frozen on top of it. Did you know roses were edible? You learn something new every day, and sometimes that thing you learn ruins your view of someone forever.

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz rosé wine
1oz campari
1/2oz amaretto
Garnish: rose bud frozen in large whiskey cube

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and stir to chill.
Strain into rocks glass.
Add ice cube with rose bud.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Send Help – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 07:41:02 +0000

I think there’s a bit of a universal shared fantasy about getting stranded on a desert island with someone you’re attracted to. Sure, it seems dire at first, but after you manage to make shelter, find food and create a nice little life on the isle, you slowly start to fall in love and black out the fact neither of you have showered in weeks. But there’s a bit of a subgenre to that fantasy that involves you and your boss, where you just skip all that other shit and immediately go to beating their head in with a rock.

Director Sam Raimi has created a mix of those two fantasies with Send Help, the director’s first original project since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell. I’ve been a big fan of Raimi’s for years, but due to timing in and a shocking lack of showtimes in my area, I missed this film when it first hit theaters. But now the film has hit digital platforms and I only wish I would have gotten the chance to catch this in theaters. But I decided to make up for lost time, and if you’re in a similar boat, I definitely think you should too.

Rachel McAdams as Linda

Send Help is a pretty entertaining blend of both Raimi’s more grounded films and his inclination for going absolutely insane. While it’s not as horror leaning as I expected, it’s still nevertheless entertaining thanks to Raimi’s trademark sense of humor and two highly enjoyable performances from Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brian. Admittedly, it’s that meeting in the middle that kind of holds this back a bit for me. While thoroughly engaging, it certainly isn’t as much of a madhouse as something like the Evil Dead films or the aforementioned Drag Me to Hell. The insanity is much more spread out, and while the rest of the film is anchored by those two great performances, there aren’t too many interesting dynamics at play here you couldn’t find in other films like Triangle of Sadness. Even still, I’m very happy to have Raimi back, because there’s very few directors that truly understand camp and genre movies like he does.

Linda Liddle is an awkward corporate strategist who is destined for a big promotion at her work. That is until her boss dies, leaving his immature and fratty Bradley son in charge, who doesn’t feel too inclined to deliver on Linda’s promotion. But power dynamics get thrown out the window when a plane crash leaves the two stranded on a deserted island. Thankfully, Linda is well versed in survival skills and manages to care for herself and Bradley, but as tensions begin to rise and loyalty starts to be tested, it becomes very clear that one of them may not be leaving the island alive.

Rachel McAdams as Linda (top) and Dylan O’Brian as Bradley (bottom)

Rachel McAdams is absolutely perfect for this role; managing to be goofy, endearingly depressing yet ever so slightly unhinged. It’s actually pretty impressive that in her darker moments, you still find yourself rooting for her and might even think she isn’t going far enough. She ends up holding all the power alongside the incapable and spoiled Bradley, and yet she doesn’t always let the mountain of abuse and embarrassment she experienced shift her into the realm of cruelty. You may be disappointed to find this is not a mad with power story, but it honestly makes her character super interesting while defying some of the narrative beats you’d expect in this story.

And I gotta say, I was very entertained by Dylan O’Brian’s Bradley as well. I haven’t been too dialed into his career in a post-Maze Runner world, but I thought he absolutely nailed it. O’Brian is very good at being cruel, but in a way that almost makes you think there’s still some humanity inside of him. He tests that belief again and again, but the film occasionally has its moments where you think he’s really learned his lesson. But he easily suffers the most in this film, and he does a great job in selling that agony in a way that’s believable and comedic. From stumbling around on one leg to squealing like a little bitch, O’Brian did everything he needed to do to make this character both detestable and entertaining.

It was also very nice to see this thing take place on a real beach. I was a bit skeptical at first, because there were times it did look like volume slop straight out of the live action Moana trailer, but this was actually filmed on a Thai coconut farm. Which makes me hate this modern age of digital cinematography, because this shouldn’t look like it was shot on a sound stage, but sometimes it does. So the believability in the setting is mostly there, but I also loved the set design this film incorporated. Linda is a Survivor superfan, so she knows how to construct practically anything with just a few leaves and bamboo chutes. From huts to hammocks to sunhats, this was a really cool and fun touch to a pretty predictable genre. Sure, it’s not exactly super realistic to see Linda with a fully weaved backpack that looks like something Anthropologie would sell for $300, but it’s just part of the silly charm Raimi is known for.

And the bits of Raimi-isms that get injected into this are such a delight. From the intense closeups to the predatory POV camera to Raimi’s obsession with puke getting in other people’s mouths, this feels wholly authentic to the director. It’s these directorial touches that got the most laughs out of me, as the script was kinda just okay. The comedy isn’t always the strongest and some interactions and bits are drawn out just a bit too long, but the style makes these pretty forgivable. I do think the script could have used a bit of retooling at times. This is far more of a dark comedy than you might have expected, and I would have liked the more horror-adjacent moments to be more frequent and pack a bit more punch. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the wild boar scene, but it doesn’t really set a precedent for the rest of the film. So temper your expectations there, as this doesn’t get as balls to the wall as you may have expected from Raimi. And then there’s that ending. I won’t spoil it, but there’s an element to it that’s supposed to be a big reveal that just wasn’t needed in my opinion. The film ends pretty much the way you would expect, which is a shame because I was hoping for something that would elevate the material a bit more and give me something new.

Send Help certainly isn’t going to change the game with its relatively flat narrative, but I can’t deny that I had a good time. It’s great to have a film Raimi could dig his teeth into, even if it’s maybe not one of his most on-brand outings. Still, this is a lot of fun, super gross, and just campy enough of a time to win me over. And yet…there was no Bruce Campbell, aside from a picture. So actually , this movie sucks. Disregard everything I said and throw it in the trash.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 tuna fish sandwiches)

S.O.S.

We’re gonna get tropical and bloody with this rum based riff of a tequila sunrise. There seems to be plenty of mangos lying around on their island, as well as coconuts, so that’s going to be the two focal points of the drink’s flavor. And then, to give it a nice layer of blood, we’re going to employ some creme de cassis, a black currant liqueur that will give the last sips of this drink a nice and desserty finish. And the name S.O.S. could mean a number of things connected to the movie. Silly On Spirits. Skewer Odd Swine. Sever Our Scrotum. I’ll let you choose your favorite.

INGREDIENTS

2oz coconut rum
2oz mango juice
2oz coconut water
3/4oz lime juice
1 barspoon saline solution (1 part salt + 4 parts water)
1oz creme de cassis
Garnish: mango slice

INSTRUCTIONS

Add all ingredients (except the creme de cassis) to a shaker and shake with ice.
Strain into tall glass filled with ice.
Slowly pour in creme de cassis to create a layering effect.
Garnish with mango slice and cocktail umbrella.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

Project Hail Mary – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:31:21 +0000

Space: the final frontier…unless we’re talking movies, in which case the subject matter has had a train ran on it by Hollywood for decades now. But that just reflects the intense fascination the human race has on the great unknown, and we’ve managed to to use it as a lightning rod for a variety of emotions. Fear, loneliness and adventure can all be pulled from the wonders of the universe, but some of my favorite instances use the limitless space to reflect back on the individual and highlight the drive that makes human beings so remarkable. And annoying, but you know, saving the world warrants you to a little silliness.

Project Hail Mary finally gives filmmaking duo Chris Miller and Phil Lord the big budget blockbuster spectacle they were destined to have…like two movies ago. But the duo make the most of the time, driving a charming if not somewhat sickly sweet Ryan Gosling through a visually stunning adventure about human perseverance and having a funny little pet rock. Yeah, it’s cheesy and borderline sugar coated at times, but it still feels like it’s been a while since we’ve gotten a big sci-fi movie that feels so earnest without becoming too overly artificial. It’s been a slow year so far but I do think this is one of those films worth braving the pigsty that is the current movie going experience to see on the biggest screen you can.

Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace

The world is dying and humanity is gonna die with it. But enough about current times, a middle school science teacher Ryland Grace is tasked by the government to help fix an extinction-level phenomenon that requires a perilous journey into deep space. Along the way he forms an unlikely friendship with a creature on a similar mission as they race to save their planets and maybe discover a little bit about themselves along the way.

We may never get a The Nice Guys sequel, but I’ll be supporting Ryan Gosling every step of the way regardless. Can’t say the dude doesn’t have range, and in this film, Gosling is tasked with roping in the comedic and dramatic as the character of Ryland Grace carries the somber alienation of being alone in space, but manages to have a silly little time as well. Gosling’s charm is undeniable and he definitely keeps this from growing drab or boring, but the characterization of Grace can admittedly be a bit overbearing at times. This film is all about maintaining hope in the face of insurmountable odds, but does there have to be a joke for every single situation. Lord and Miller are known for their mile a minute joke output, so I wasn’t really mad about that going in, but it does feel like some of Grace’s more dramatic moments are undercut by the need to insert a joke. I get it, comedy is a coping mechanism and all that, but it still feels like the film is struggling to let these moments resonate at times. Gosling is still a delight so it’s not a huge issue, just offputting enough to be likable yet you still totally understand why he’s a got no one in his life.

Turning in the best performance though is Sandra Huller, who plays Eva Stratt, the head of the Hail Mary project and the one who recruits Grace. She’s cold and standoffish, but there’s complexity to her that makes total sense. She, perhaps more than anyone, understands the stakes of what’s to come and approaches the situation with surprisingly more humanity than you’d expect. She isn’t calloused into not caring; she probably cares more than anyone. That’s why when she gets a moment to do some karaoke to Harry Styles Sign of the Times, a surprisingly very apropos song choice, it genuinely shook me more than perhaps any other moment in the movie. She serves as a great foil for the self-conscious and joking Grace, although the film almost hints towards something romantic between them? They don’t pull the trigger on that, which I’m pretty thankful for.

And that’s because Grace already has a soulmate and that’s Rocky, a stone spider type alien he meets on his travels. Rocky’s appearance in the book was a pretty big surprise that wasn’t telegraphed from the get go, but you couldn’t really expect a Hollywood movie to not tell you about its cute little critter. I won’t spoil too much about Rocky’s role in the film, but his relationship with Grace can be quite endearing as they learn more about one another. His Microsoft Sam-esque voice is cute and his butchering of the human language leads to some decent laughs, but it can be a bit much at times. You could tell Rocky was gonna be the merch magnet here, so they really revved him up to be a quirky animal sidekick. It’s fine for what it is, but how can you not at least feel some love for a creature brought to life so effectively.

This thing is really a visual and production marvel, from the puppeteering of Rocky to the rotating sets employed for the spaceship. The big tout that’s been attached to this film is that they used no green screens for this. Of course there are obvious visual effects that can only be generated by a computer, but it’s still astonishing to see some of the visuals they pull off with practicality. Having no green screens means you really have to put some thought into how you’re going to block or light a scene around the environment, and I think that attention to detail really pays off. There’s a groundedness to it that heightens the claustrophobia and the anxiety of being on a ship by yourself, even when the story sometimes to forget about that.

Now, I haven’t read the book, but my wife has, and a lot of my friends have, so that kinda means I read the book too? Not really, as I can’t really speak too confidently on what the movie gets right and wrong from the book. From what I understand, most of the plot is fairly intact with some specifics either minimized or left out completely. But I want to focus on what it succeeds on as a movie, as well as what it trips up on, removing the book from the equation. Like I said, it’s dazzling to watch while also being humorous and heartfelt, but I can already tell people are gonna have some issues with the comedy. Yeah, it’s a bit cutesy, no doubt in an effort to make this more accessible to younger audiences, but like I kinda mentioned before, it does lead to the movie feeling a bit declawed at times. There’s some real emotional gut punches here that occasionally get hindered by the film being unwilling to drop the humor at times. There’s also some pacing issues here and there that made me dip in and out at times while the film also seemingly struggled to end. There’s like three climactic blowoffs that feel like everything is wrapped up, but then it just keeps going. But overall, these aren’t really huge issues for me, because the team still managed to create a bit of hope-core that does showcase the bravery that lies in all of us that can be brought out due to unfortunate circumstances.

Project Hail Mary is a genuine feel good time at the movies, one that isn’t steeped in irony or pessimism and actually knows how to trigger something deeper in the heart. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s wrapped in visual mastery that only blows you away the more you look at it. I really did enjoy this, but there’s something to it that kept me from outright loving it. Maybe it’s the overly cutesy tone or its narrative dips, but I’m not exactly feeling the urge to rush and see this again. But I definitely think this is 100% worth seeing on the biggest screen you can. It’s been a minute since we’ve gotten something hopeful at this scale, and I think we could all use a little hopium nowadays.

RATING

(out of a possible five hacky sacks)

PETROVA LINE

One of the most stunning visuals in the film involves what’s called astrophages. Basically these microorganisms feed solar energy and form an infrared line from Sun to Venus as they hop across the galaxy. When our hero Grace stands among them, it makes for a really dazzling scene, and I wanted to capture that in a cocktail. So, keeping with the cosmic setting, this is going to be a bit of a cosmopolitan riff, but we’ll be adding some watermelon and gin flavors to the drink, because it is warming up out there and we need a nice drink for summer. The combination of fruit and botanicals make this a sweet, easy to drink cocktail that utilizes a flavor that doesn’t get a ton of play in most cocktails. Additionally, we’ve got a few special ingredients to make it even more cosmic. So I hope you like it, because it’s the only drink we’ve got onboard for the next two decades.

INGREDIENTS

1.5oz gin
1/2oz lime juice
1/2oz cranberry juice
1/2oz watermelon liqueur
1 dash orange bitters
Pinch of luster dust (pink preferably but I used purple)
Garnish: cherry + lime wheel rind

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice.
Strain into cocktail glass filled with ice.
For the garnish, pierce the rind of a lime wheel with a toothpick with a cherry in the center.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch

The Bride – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Film LK21 — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 01:08:46 +0000

You know, I was pulling for this one. I think Maggie Gyllenhaal had shown some competency as a director with The Lost Daughter from a few years back. I’m a big Jessie Buckley fan, a big Christian Bale fan and a big fan of movies that just say f*ck you and go balls to the wall mad. That’s what I anticipated The Bride! to be based on the trailers, and believe it or not, it was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. A Bonnie and Clyde-style story with two of the most famous movie monsters of all time? Right here, please. But this is not that. In fact, I don’t really know what this is. All I know is that it’s bad, and that makes me sad.

The Bride! is a scattershot of ideas and reimaginings that never truly came together to make something truly provocative or, at the very least, entertaining. Terrific actors like Buckley and Bale are forced to combat with a script that acts like it has so much to say but never intends on being totally coherent with its intentions. It’s certainly not boring, thanks in part to an admittedly fun visual style, but I can’t say I was really enjoying my time with it either. And the thing is this had full range to do what it wanted with the established characters and history of the novel, and yet its perceived reflections of Mary Shelly’s work not only feel misused, but just plain wrong. There’s something of substance here, but it gets buried under too many baffling decisions that ultimately drown this film. There might be more to unearth from it, but at this point, you’re better left just leaving it at the altar.

Jessie Buckley as Ida/The Bride

Set in the 1930s, a woman named Ida is killed by the mob when she tries to make the bosses’ crimes known. She ends up being revived by Frankenstein’s monster and a local scientist in order to give the monster the companionship he never had for over a century. Bonded by their undead physiology and their shunning from society, the two embark on a destructive spree across the country, intent on living the life they were never meant to have.

I think the thing about this that hurt the most was seeing Jesse Buckley in a truly bad role. I don’t think Buckley is entirely to blame, as I truly believe she was handed a role that was designed to not work. Buckley actually plays two characters, the titular Bride and the ghost of Mary Shelley. Yes, the spirit of the author of Frankenstein possesses her in order to, in her words, create the sequel to her novel she was never able to make. What that essentially entails is Buckley portraying someone with a split personality, and one of those personalities only wants to speak like they have a case of mid-Atlantic tourettes. When Buckley is allowed to just be The Bride, I actually think her performance is quite good, tapping into the rage of being unheard and being an afterthought. It’s these interjections from Mary Shelley that not only becomes grating on the ears, but her delivery is sometimes borderline incomprehensible. This really muddies what her intentions are, and what I gathered is kinda questionable. Shelley essentially is made out to be this witch that gets a woman killed so she can essentially turn her into a monster. Not only does this just feel like weak characterization, it also acts like it’s giving Shelley agency over the legacy of Frankenstein. I could see that being an interesting idea if it went a certain way, but it just reads like a misunderstanding of Shelley’s work as a whole, but we’ll talk more about that later.

Christian Bale comes out a little cleaner in this, but not by much. No surprise here, but Bale really nails the physicality of a role like this. He’s obviously drawing a lot from Boris Karloff, hell, even a little bit of Peter Boyle. I do feel like we don’t get nearly enough of the inner workings of his intentions. We know he’s lonely and wants a bride, but we don’t really get too much deeper than that. Does he want a bride truly because he’s looking for love, or because he feels he’s entitled to it as many men believed back in that era? These kinds of things would have added a bit more layers to him, but the film struggles to truly characterize him outside of the typical ostracizing you’d expect from a Frankenstein film. He’s lying to Buckley’s character, convincing her she was engaged to him before her death, and the film doesn’t really do enough to villainize him or even generate some moderate sympathy for him. It makes an otherwise complex relationship just feel half-baked at the end of the day. He does nearly die if he doesn’t go to see a movie enough, so I can’t say he’s not relatable.

And that’s a bit of a trend with this movie; it presents ideas that it only seems to go halfway on. Like I said before, the whole Mary Shelly thing doesn’t really seem to have a lot of depth to it, but it does seem to feed into this feminist, empowering narrative that lurks in the background of this film. There’s a point where this thing legit becomes Joker, as women around the city rise up, painted as the Bride to do…something. This idea gets presented and that has practically no impact on the rest of the story. We don’t see the city change or even really understand what the “movement” means to others. Perhaps the strongest thematic element to this film revolves around Frank who has an obsession with cinema. He uses it as a guiding light to frame his expectations for life without realizing it’s a romanticized reflection of life itself. A great idea, but one that doesn’t always feel like it’s adding more depth to the character than it thinks. Ironically enough, this thing often feels like a stitched together hodgepodge of ideas, which…I guess makes it authentically Frankenstein.

Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster/Frank

I will say that this thing is presented in the kind of chaotic, slapshot way that I really appreciate. In a film of big swings, the visuals are perhaps the element that pays off the most. There’s a lot of interesting choices in colors and framing here that’s really splendid, really capturing a gothic noir aesthetic that’s a lot of fun to see at times. It’s aggressive and a bit sloppy at times, but I think it fits right at home with what the film is trying to present. Now, if only the script could have done the same. I’ll give it credit, there are some interesting ideas, concepts and recontextualizations of the original novel that makes this thing far from being pointless or without merit. But intention is not the same thing as execution. The way it approaches some of these themes feels incredibly underdeveloped. The “movement” the Bride ignites amongst scorned women is an afterthought for most of the movie. The side plot revolving around two detectives hunting down the monsters is boring and grinds the film to a halt whenever it cuts to them. This worked best when it was a silly, slightly poignant monster movie romp. The dance number and the citizens of Chicago literally chasing the monsters with pitchforks and torches are goofy, but they might have been what the movie needed more of, especially with how weak this feminist narrative turns out to be.

And that’s what kind of bugged me the most. This film almost kind of frames the story around Frankenstein finally getting a woman’s voice behind it, seemingly forgetting it was written by a woman. The text of the original Frankenstein is incredibly feminist in how it portrays creating and nurturing life, and I don’t think it necessarily needed Mary Shelly returning from the dead to reclaim the narrative. Maybe this was trying to bring those feminist elements of the story back into the forefront, but this just wasn’t the way to do it in my eyes. While The Bride! is bold in execution, the final result ends up being a stylish but rather empty take on the classic monsters. Things like the character of the Bride and the weak, surface-level approaches to female struggles keeps this from being the quirky genre film it was probably meant to be. Never thought I’d be saying these words, but it’s no Lisa Frankenstein. Even still, this is far from the worst thing ever as some people on line have labeled it. Believe it or not, I want more movies like this. I’d rather a bold attempt crash and burn than have a corporately produced piece of content give you everything you think you want. Men make confusing, baffling misfires all the time. It’s only fair that women get in on the fun as well.

RATING

(out of a possible 5 black goo splatters)

THE RE-INVIGORATOR

Sometimes we need a little jolt to get us up and moving, whether it be because we’re tired or we just had our neck snapped. That was my idea for the Reinvigorator, but I also wanted it to have the aesthetic of the titular bride. So this will be a dark coffee cocktail that we’ll combine with a little fruit and a big head of whip cream to mimic the Bride’s crazy hair. But this is definitely a drink for the living, so mind the Wu-Tang Clan and protect ya neck.

INGREDIENTS

2oz dark rum
1oz coffee liqueur
8-10 blueberries
1/2oz lemon juice
pinch of black sugar
Top: whipped cream

INSTRUCTIONS

Add ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice.
Double strain into chilled cocktail glass.
Top with a swirl of whipped cream.

PakarPBN

Jasa Backlink

Download Anime Batch