Movie Reviews | The Last Movie Guy

Warfare (2025): The Horror of War

War has always been fertile ground for cinema. Warfare (2025), by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, ventures into these paths by telling a specific incident during the Second Battle of Ramadi in 2006. American forces were fighting for control of this key city in central Iraq. But Warfare does not aim to be an action film or a thriller that leans on real events to take the audience on a rollercoaster of visual effects and endless gunfights—no. Warfare seeks to be a testimony, a kind of tribute, and a recounting based purely on memory.

Heretic: An Intense Experience

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

If there is one film genre that thrives in confined spaces and is grounded in a single location, it is horror. Heretic by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods serves as the perfect example to support this premise. The directors confine us to a house and, for much of the runtime, to a single room. Using this creative device, they manage to maximize tension and keep the viewer captivated, eagerly awaiting the story’s resolution. Of course, many other examples across different genres also take advantage of the virtues of shooting in a single location, from my perspective, none fit as seamlessly into this ecosystem as horror does.

Anora: A Cinematic Journey Through Emotion and Resilience

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Anora is the latest example of how director Sean Baker creates protagonists drawn from the most neglected and marginalized characters in our society. The strength of his characters stems from this fractured world, the hostile environment, and the inevitable hardships that accompany the individuals he portrays on screen. Now it’s the turn of Ani (Mikey Madison), a sex worker who crosses paths with the son of a Russian oligarch, and her world changes unexpectedly overnight.

The Wild Robot: A Robot’s Search for Meaning

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

The Wild Robot (2024) is a film that can be perceived as simple. Being an animated film aimed at children, it is normal that we have that feeling of lightness in its narrative. But what lies beneath the surface is much more complex and emotionally challenging. This is how the director and screenwriter Chris Sanders understood it when he learned about Peter Brown’s book of the same name. Since its publication in 2016, the book has not stopped receiving awards and two sequels have followed.

Blood on the Moon (1948): A Film Noir Western

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Before making Blood on the Moon (1948), Robert Wise had already established himself as a prestigious director in the Hollywood industry. What few know is that it was Orson Welles who gave him the opportunity that would change his life. Wise began working in RKO’s accounting department but soon ended up working as an assistant director. When Welles embarked on producing his legendary Citizen Kane (1941), he sought Wise to edit the film. After the impressive work editing Welles’ masterful work, Wise’s career took off.