Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice - Mobsters & Time Travel & Steve Winwood & Gilmore Girls & Ampersands!

There are plenty of reasons for me to be wary of Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (beyond having to type so many ampersands each time I refer to the title). It’s a modern mob action comedy that at first glance looks like a Joe Carnahan Smokin’ Aces-type thing (I’m just not a fan of the subgenre). There’s not one, but two Vince Vaughns. It’s a straight to streaming movie (check it out right now on Hulu or Disney+ or both because I’m still not sure what’s going on with those two services!). I guess that’s it, so maybe “plenty” isn’t accurate. But it doesn’t matter because Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (which I will no longer refer to by its full title out of ampersand protest) is surprisingly entertaining, weird, and delightful. 

In simple terms, MNNA is a love triangle movie about a mobster (Vaugh) who stumbles into a time machine and uses the opportunity to spare the life of his wife’s (Eiza González) lover and his mob buddy (James Marsden). Okay, that’s not exactly simple, but I swear the movie is easy to follow. The main thing is that the title is accurate: there are two Nicks (a future and a present), and one Mike and one Alice, and they’re all on a mission to save Mike. 

Mike has been set up as a rat, so the mob, run by the always awesome Keith David, wants him dead, especially as his son, Jimmy Tatro, has just been released from a prison sentence he thinks Mike is responsible for. So while the time travel hijinks are being worked out, the film keeps cutting to different levels of Tatro’s welcome back party. It’s all very silly, but mostly funny. 

This leads to quite a bit of R-rated violence played for laughs, which can be difficult. If it’s too hardcore, it becomes disturbing, and if it’s too silly, it becomes annoying. For the most part, writer/director BenDavid Grabinski walks that tightrope providing just enough gory headshots and gore to keep things funny, but not too funny. It helps that beyond the three, technically four, main characters, you don’t really care what happens to anyone. Tatro and David are funny (as is Tatro’s dumbass buddy played by Arturo Castro), but I don’t care about them, and I certainly don’t care about the dozens of other mobsters just hanging out waiting to die a horrible death. 

Still, action comedy alone can get a little boring. That’s where Grabinski’s quirky pop culture shit and fun needle drops come into play. I don’t want to ruin much, but if you’re a fan of Gilmore Girls, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this. I’ve never seen the show, but I could still appreciate the comedy of these characters geeking out over the show. Beyond that, my personal favorite random bit was Tatro’s Big Trouble in Little China back tattoo that includes the title of the movie and its year of release. More on Tatro in a bit.

The needle drops were my favorite aspect of the film. As a big Steve Winwood fan, I found the use of “Valerie” perfect. And dropping the music from the Reptile fight scene from Mortal Kombat into an action scene felt like Grabinski was personally tailoring the film to me. 

Back to Tatro. He was the all-star of the film for me. I could’ve watched an entire movie of Tatro and Castro being morons and talking about their dicks. And a scene with David describing how he came to adopt Tatro was the icing on the cake. Silly, idiosyncratic moments like that are what make comedies memorable, and MNNA has enough to warrant an annoying Screen Rant YouTube video (“Every Pop Culture Reference, Needle Drop, and Weird Joke You Might Have Missed in Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice!”).

Perhaps what surprised me the most with this film was Vince Vaughn’s dual performance. I got tired of Vaughn’s schtick a long time ago, so the prospect of two fast-talking neurotic mobsters worried me. Thankfully, he plays the whole film rightfully somber. In both versions of himself, he’s dealing with depressing things: the failure of his marriage and the death of his friend. So instead of speed-running jokes the whole movie, he comes across as a little numb, and it works. 

MNNA is the kind of comedy we used to get all the time but has now become a rarity, and it sucks that you can see it on your TV right now and not the theater. But it is what it is. I’m just glad someone out there still knows how to put together a stupid comedy that knows how to balance action and comedy, and quirkiness and stupidity. Check it out now, and hopefully it will do well enough to convince some dickhead executive to give Grabinski’s next movie a theatrical release.

2026 Academy Awards Predictions

Believe it or not, the 2025 movie awards season is not over. It finally comes to a close with the Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15. Each year, I make predictions for every major category to wildly different results. Ever since the Academy vastly expanded membership, the Oscars have become increasingly unpredictable, but I still like to try. 

The expansion of the voting base has allowed for movies of all kinds to possibly win cinema’s biggest award. In the past few years, a foreign language film (Parasite) has won Best Picture, and insane and edgy stuff like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Anora have won. Some people might look at these and think, “Those movies just don’t seem like the Best Picture winners of the past.” And that’s exactly what the Academy is going for. “Prestige” films are no longer a shoe-in, and stuff that would normally only get accolades from minor awards shows and area critics associations are now in the big race. 

This has made predicting things much more difficult, but it’s also made for a lot more crossover between my personal favorites and the nominees. This year, six of my top ten films are also nominated for Best Picture. And there’s only one nominee that I actively disliked (F1: The Movie), though I understand why it was nominated. (Cars go “vroom!” just isn’t enough for me to love a movie, but I do concede that the filming of the races in that film is impressive.) To put it another way, the Academy now nominates movies I like. A film like Sinners (my favorite of the year), which broke a record for most nominations for a single film, would most likely have only received nominations in technical categories twenty years ago, if any.

All of this is to say these predictions are not meant to be anything but fun, and it’s more of a chance for me to slightly comment on a few categories. I’ll break each category down in three ways: I will make my prediction for the winner, I will make my personal pick among the nominees, and I will name my favorite overall, whether it’s nominated or not. Sometimes all three will be different; sometimes they will be one film. In the interest of keeping this reasonably short, I’ll only make some slight comments on the bigger categories.

I will not be listing every single nominee because that would take up too much space, and I’m too lazy to do that. So feel free to just Google the nominees.

Cinematography

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - One Battle After Another

Original Score

Prediction - Sinners

Pick and Favorite - Bugonia

Original Song

Original Song

Prediction - KPop Demon Hunters

Pick and Favorite - Sinners

Visual Effects

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Avatar: Fire and Ash

Original Screenplay

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sinners

This is where I start getting very conflicted. I feel like Sinners could win almost every category it's nominated in, or they could only give it Original Screenplay while One Battle wins everything else. I’m just going with my gut on this one, but Sentimental Value could sneak in this one, too, but the Academy will likely feel good enough about just giving that film Best International Feature.

Adapted Screenplay

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - One Battle After Another

One of the few picks I feel 100% confident about.

Documentary

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - The Perfect Neighbor

Full disclosure, this category is a big blindspot for me, and The Perfect Neighbor is the only nominee I watched. But it’s very good. Check it out on Netflix if you haven’t already.

Animated Feature

Prediction and Pick - KPop Demon Hunters

Favorite - Predator: Killer of Killers

International Feature

Prediction - Sentimental Value

Pick and Favorite - The Secret Agent

I would love to see a little upset here for The Secret Agent, one of my favorite films of the year. But it seems like the Academy is big on this one, so I think it will go with it here, and it might get Best Supporting Actor, as well.

Supporting Actor

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sean Penn

This is the most coin-toss category of the night. Jacob Elordi is the only nominee that would truly surprise me with a win. Penn has been winning the big awards leading up to this, picking up the BAFTA and the SAG Award, so that’s my reasoning. But I’d be happier if del Toro or Lindo won. Skarsgård is a strong possibility, too.

Supporting Actress

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Amy Madigan

I could see this also going to Wunmi Mosaku or Teyana Taylor, but I’m banking on Madigan since Weapons got snubbed elsewhere this year. And she’s great.

Actor 

Prediction - Michael B. Jordan

Pick and Favorite - Wagner Moura

Until a few days ago, Chalamet would’ve been my prediction. He’s great, and he still could win, and deservedly so, but he didn’t win the BAFTA or the SAG, and Jordan won the SAG, so I think it goes to Jordan, which would be awesome, anyway, since he pulls double duty in Sinners and truly made each character unique.

Actress

Prediction - Jessie Buckley

Pick and Favorite - Rose Byrne

This is one of the only locks, apparently. Buckley is great in Hamnet, but that film is just too miserable for me. Byrne is amazing in an equally tough to watch film. But Buckley has been winning pretty much everything so far, so odds are it’ll be her.

Director

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Paul Thomas Anderson

This and Best Picture are giving me the most trouble this year. I could truly see this going any number of ways with One Battle and Sinners. I’m thinking it’ll be a split this year, honoring Anderson for the current film along with an amazing career, but giving Sinners the top prize. Or it could be vice versa. Or either film could win both. If it’s not the split I predict, then I think it’ll be One Battle winning both awards.

Picture

Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sinners

I pretty much laid out my thoughts on this in the Director category. I’ll just add that I loved Sinners, and it will be the film from this year that I revisit the most in the future. I hope it wins.

So there you go. I have no faith in these predictions, but it’ll be fun to see how badly I do on Sunday night. Also, Conan O’Brien is hosting again, so there should be plenty of off-beat weird humor during the show, as well. 

Bodycam - "You Took Something from Us."

Found footage has become a common gimmick at this point in horror, but it usually works for me. So when the chance to check out Shudder Original Bodycam (streaming on 3/13) came up, I checked it out immediately. It’s not likely to become a classic of the genre or anything, but the premise, run time, and general execution make it worth checking out if you’re into found footage at all.

Bodycam follows two police officers on a routine domestic violence call that turns into demonic chaos. There’s no need to get into the plot because this is the kind of movie you’re either down for or not. If you want plenty of creepy scenes like the dude standing in the corner at the end of The Blair Witch Project, then Bodycam is for you. If you’re not into found footage, this isn’t going to change your mind.

For those willing to go for the ride, you won’t be disappointed. Perhaps having characters explore dark locations and constantly having them whip-pan around a room to reveal a creepy, zombie-like person standing ominously is a cheap scare, but it’s still effective. The bodycam nature of the film makes it even better, as there is no score to falsely amplify the creepiness. There is distortion and a squelching noise that is used a few times too often, but for the most part, you get the feeling that you’re watching real bodycam footage.

Since this is about two police officers’ bodycams, there is a bit of commentary on the perception of police in the modern world. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t dwell on it because the film’s frenetic pace doesn’t allow for a lot of nuance, and who’s coming to this film for that, anyway? But there are a few moments dealing with how one cop talks about the area of town they’re in, and there’s a moment when they’re trying to destroy their bodycam footage and talk about how the events early in the film could ruin them. That stuff is interesting, and there’s certainly a lot that could be unpacked on this topic, but the film kind of sidetracks that for the most part in favor of making this a Prince of Darkness-type Satan-is-coming movie (technically it’s not Satan, but it doesn’t matter).

The frenetic pace not only allows Bodycam to sidestep touchy subjects; it simply makes the film more palatable. Even fans of found footage have their limits with the style. There is a lot of running in dark places, and you can only do so many of those reveal scares. But the film is only seventy-five minutes with credits. It knows not to overstay its welcome. 

Because of the short run time, it’s easy to forgive the film’s shortcomings. We get a bit of background with these characters, but you don’t get a good feeling about how strong their partnership is. And the mother of one character seems to know a lot about what’s going on, but she shoos them out of her house without going into great detail. Including a few more minutes at the beginning with the two leads to establish more of their dynamic and having a lengthier scene with the mother would not stretch the run time to even ninety minutes. So that aspect is a little frustrating. 

Overall, though, I’m glad that stuff wasn’t fleshed out. The strongest point of the film is how it throws you right in the middle of it all, just like the main characters. And what would an exposition scene about the demon or whatever accomplish, anyway? All that kind of mythology in movies like this is just filler. Bodycam instead embraces the chaos, even if it might leave you with a question or two.

It’s hard to sift through the glut of low budget horror out there these days, but if you have Shudder and like found footage at all, Bodycam is worth your time. And even if it isn’t, at least it won’t take up too much of it.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

I don’t have much to add here, but I did want to comment on the monster or demon or underman, or whatever the fuck the thing at the end is. I dug the symbol they used for it, but the design of the monster itself was a little too cartoonish. I’ve seen a few Letterboxd entries describing the film as part Creepypasta, and the monster is definitely the reason for that. Younger audiences might like it, but I thought it would have been better if done practically and kept largely in the dark. I get that they didn’t have the budget for some gnarly prosthetics, but a lot can be done with a good mask or makeup, minimal CG, and darkness. It didn’t ruin the movie or anything, but the reveal was a bit of a letdown.

And some might be disappointed that this isn't more of a commentary of police misconduct or something, but I just don't think it's necessary. There's enough stuff hinted at and blatantly covered, anyway. The whole subplot about trying to delete the footage; the way both cops talk about the zombified people scattered throughout the film. That truly says enough right there. They walk past the "tweakers" that are clearly more than just high, but they treat them as less than human. And you could argue that they pay the price for their ignorance. So yeah, the movie doesn't hit you in the head with a big, capital M, message, but there's a bit of subtext if you're wanting a little social commentary along with your CG monster.

Sakuran - 88 Films

As usual with the stuff I get from 88 Films, I had never heard of Sakuran, but the cover alone intrigued me. I knew I was in for something, at the very least, visually impressive. Sakuran, the debut film from photographer Mika Ninagawa, is more than just visuals. It captures the life of a sex worker in a compelling and realistic manner.

First off, I am not a fan of movies about sex workers. They tend to make for a tough watch, highlighting the struggle of such a life. I just don’t need a movie to make that point for me; I think it’s an inherent fact of that world. But with Sakuran, which follows the journey of Kiyoha from initially being sold to a brothel to rising up to oiran, it’s more complicated than that.

The easy route for Sakuran would be to present the world of 18th century Japanese courtesans as visually beautiful but with a dark underside. There is a bit of that, to be sure, but there’s more nuance than just “pretty things can hide darkness.” It’s best portrayed in the film in the goldfish metaphor. Kiyoha, after attempting to run away, is told that a goldfish can stay within the bowl and be beautiful. If it leaves the bowl, it could die, and even if it can escape the bowl and make it to a river, it will grow into an ugly carp. For this time period, this metaphor perfectly captures the chances a beautiful woman in Japan has. 

Kiyoha can stay in her bowl at the brothel and exert quite a bit of power as an oiran (she would have a say in who her clients are, for instance). She could live in a beautiful world, even if it is also a bit of a prison. Or she could chance the outside world, which will undoubtedly be uglier, at least on the surface level, than her life in the brothel. Typically in a movie like this you immediately want the main character to get away from this life, but Sakuran makes it a more interesting question. 

There’s not much more to say beyond that. If you’re like me, and this was completely unknown to you, then it is very much worth checking out. It isn’t the depressing watch you might imagine, and the colorful world created by Ninagawa is mesmerizing at times.

Transfer and Special Features

88 Films has quickly become one of my favorite distributors. First, the films always look great. Second, the cases and cover art are always interesting, and they don’t stick with a set style. This release doesn’t have the slip cover that I’ve come to love, but it’s fine without it because the cover art is so arresting. 

As for the special features, there’s a commentary and a featurette from Amber T. of Fangoria that gets into the history of the film and the inevitable comparisons to Memoirs of a Geisha. There is also a beautiful booklet included with an article that gives extensive background of the world of the film that is immensely helpful for ignorant viewers like myself.

Force: Five - MVD Rewind

I was excited to check out Force: Five (out now) because I had never heard of it. An ‘80s action movie about putting a team together to take down a Jim Jones-esque cult by primarily using martial arts? Sign me up. I hoped this was either a hidden gem that had been outshone by its louder ‘80s counterparts or a Gymkata-level (it features the same director) exercise in insanity. Sadly, it was neither. 

Force: Five has the elements necessary for a cult classic action movie. The team put together by martial artist Joe Lewis is fine and includes Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, but there’s nothing special about it, even though the helicopter pilot is set up as the “crazy” one. They’re all pretty plain. It reminded me of The Expendables, in that they talk about each other as being “crazy” and “badass,” yet we never get to witness it; we just have to take them at their word that they used to be awesome. The cult they’re tasked with infiltrating is a little more interesting, with martial artist Han Bong-soo as the Jim Jones-like leader. Everyone involved being a martial artist got me excited about the action scenes, at least.

Perhaps part of the problem is my recent watch history, as I watched this right after Duel to the Death, a movie that amazed me with its action choreography. Regardless, I found the action in this basic at best. It’s one of those movies in which goons stand around waiting for their turn to be punched or kicked. 

There were a handful of elements that showed promise. The weird-looking muscle man for the cult, Carl (Bob Schott, more memorable in Gymkata), was amusing. And the politician used as cover for the team getting on the island just decides to get hammered on Jim Beam, which was a fun choice (I think they were going with a Ted Kennedy joke with this character). And then there’s the bull in the maze, easily the weirdest part of the movie. In this martial arts cult, you can be killed two ways: by the leader and special spur-boots, or you get put in a maze with a bull. 

The inclusion of the bull implies there will be copious amounts of gore, but all of the brutal violence is just implied. I’m not gore-dependent when it comes to action movies, but when nothing else is clicking for me, a comical amount of blood and gore can salvage a movie, but this was tame. 

All this written, I’m sure this has a fan base that most likely saw it when it first came out and has a bit of nostalgia for it. I imagine people think the same of me when I gush over a lower-tier Van Damme movie that most people ignored if not out-right hated. It’s just not my thing. Not everything can be Gymkata.

Transfer and Special Features 

For fans of the film, MVD Rewind did right by them with this restoration. It looks great, and the disc comes with everything you’d expect from them: a nice slipcover with old video store elements added on, a reversible cover, and a mini-poster. 

On the special features side, things are a little strange. There’s a lengthy interview with Lewis (who died in 2012) that is mainly about his relationship with Bruce Lee. It’s interesting because it appears to have been done in a hotel room while Lewis was at a fight or convention or something. It’s very loose, and there are many moments when he starts giving the interviewer shit (in a fun way).

There are a couple featurettes with Benny “The Jet.” One seems to be a promotional video meant to get people to buy lessons from him, I assume on video. He just shows a few tips, like how to properly wrap your fists for a fight. The other one is a bit of German footage of a fight, but there are no subtitles for the German narration. The fight is decent, though, as you get to see him win by a knockout in one round. 

None of this is specific to Force: Five, but it’s still interesting enough. Something tells me there’s not a ton of background material available for this film, so what’s here at least gives a bit of background info on a couple of the stars.