reviews | The Last Movie Guy

Bringing Up Baby (1938): A Classic That Shaped Cinema

There are films so far ahead of their time that only history can grant them the recognition they truly deserve. Bringing Up Baby by Howard Hawks is the perfect example. A box office failure, dismissed by critics and ignored by the Academy, its impact was immediate and severe. Hawks even lost his job at RKO. This was meant to be the first of a six-film deal with the studio, but the financial disaster led to the contract being canceled. For Katharine Hepburn, the situation also became difficult, forcing her to buy out her own contract to leave RKO.

Faces of Death (2026): A Disturbing Mirror of Our Time

Posted on April 15 by Hugo Pagan Soto

The first rule of content creation: give the audience what they want.

Faces of Death (2026) is an uncomfortable but necessary film. Daniel Goldhaber confronts us with the idea that nothing is more disturbing than the content we consume daily on social media. No horror imagined by fiction comes close to the micro-videos that flow through our devices, disguised as harmless by the screen’s illusion of distance. Goldhaber accuses us of not being innocent spectators; we are guilty voyeurs.

Outcome (2026): When Criticism Falls Flat

Posted on April 14 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Hollywood criticizing itself is something we’ve seen many times in cinema. In that sense, Outcome (2026) offers nothing new. Jonah Hill writes and directs a comedy that satirizes the industry by exposing its modern problems and the methods executives use for crisis management. The idea serves as an interesting starting point. Still, its execution is bland, and the film delivers only isolated moments that fail to sustain either the story or the message the director aims to convey.

Bionico’s Bachata (2024): A Raw Urban Chronicle

Posted on April 13 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Bionico will do anything to please his Flaca. Calvita refuses to accept losing his friend over a woman, while I can’t stop imagining Bionico’s Bachata as the Dominican Trainspotting. The cold streets of Edinburgh dissolve into the sweat of a Santo Domingo neighborhood, and we no longer have Danny Boyle’s Renton, but Bionico from the Mentes Fritas crew. From its opening sequence, the film signals a singular, frenetic journey that pushes us to the edge of the absurd.

Et Maintenant? (2025): A Reflection on Life and Adversity

Posted on March 13 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Cinema has always imitated life, and it finds inspiration for the stories that fill the big screen in those ordinary lives. Et Maintenant? (2025) is another example that supports that idea. Written and directed by Jocelyn Forgues, the film opened the 2026 edition of the Ottawa International Film Festival. With this work, the director offers a reflection on life through adversity, drawing inspiration from his own experience.