Seattle Film Critics

Film Review - Scream 7 | The MacGuffin Allen Almachar reviews the horror film Scream 7, from director Kevin Williamson and starring Neve Campbell, Joel McHale & Courteney Cox.

Despite the return of original screenwriter Kevin Williamson and star Neve Campbell, SCREAM 7 (2026) ends up being a low point for the long running franchise. My review.
macguff.in/film-reviews...

@seattlecritics.bsky.social @ofcs.bsky.social #Filmsky

... and here we thought the SFCS award for Youth Performance was going to be the most unique statue presented to Jacobi Jupe this season. Well played, SAG.

Late last November, I spoke with Jafar Panahi about filmmaking, the state of the world, and his latest Palme d'Or-winning film IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (now on Hulu). You should give that a read below and see this searing new film as well as all his past work which is now more essential than ever 📽️

Should I See It-Paul McCartney: Man On The Run (2026) What happens when you wake up the morning after leaving the most important rock band of all time? Man on the Run captures Paul McCartney's transformative decade in the wake of The Beatles' break-up.

What happens when you're blamed for breaking up the biggest band of all time?

MAN ON THE RUN explores Paul McCartney's run through the 1970s - following the end of the Beatles, his marriage to Linda, and the formation of Wings.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Suburban Fury allows Sarah Jane Moore to make her own myth - The SunBreak One of the best entries in last year's SIFF Northwest Connections program is situated 800 miles south on I-5 and a half century in the past: the biography of Sarah Jane Moore, one of two women who…

In Robinson Devor's entrancing SUBURBAN FURY, Sarah Jane Moore spins her own myth in recounting a life that led to her firing a bullet in the general direction of Gerald Ford. One of the stronger entries from last year's SIFF festival, it plays @SIFFnews.bsky.social film center beginning tonight.

#ICYMI I spoke to director Robinson Devor, who'll be at SIFF for a Q&A tonight, about his fascinating new doc SUBURBAN FURY and its long, winding journey. At one point, Jennifer Jason Leigh or Olivia Colman could've played Sara Jane Moore who attempted to assassinate a president. Read that below 📽️

Film Review - The Bluff | The MacGuffin Allen Almachar reviews the action adventure The Bluff, from director Frank E. Flowers and starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas & Karl Urban.

THE BLUFF (2026) strikes a good balance between serious and silly. This is one of those “Turn Your Brain Off For Two Hours” movies and shouldn’t be seen as anything more than that. My review.
macguff.in/film-reviews...

@seattlecritics.bsky.social @ofcs.bsky.social #Filmsky

Ghostface is back, and so is Sidney Prescott, but that doesn’t stop #Scream7 from stabbing the franchise right in the heart. So frustrating.

⭐️1/2
moviefreak.com/scream-7-2026-movie-review/

'Scream 7' Is a Moral and Artistic Failure Even at their worst, the Scream films have always at least tried to inject interesting ideas about fandom and horror culture into their storylines. That trend comes to an end with Scream 7.

SCREAM 7 is a moral and artistic failure www.decodingeverything.com/scream-7-rev...

A page from The Seattle Times with the headline Seattle filmmaker Robinson Devor on the long road to 'Suburban Fury' with a photo of 1 cinematographer Sean Kirby, left, and Devor on the set of the film in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood in 2010. (Michael McConville)

For @seattletimes.com, spoke to Robinson Devor, the longtime Seattle filmmaker behind classics POLICE BEAT and ZOO, about why he's had a presidential assassination attempt on his mind for 15+ years and his great new doc SUBURBAN FURY📽️

Read that in print or here: www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

Film Review - Dreams | The MacGuffin Allen Almachar reviews the psychological drama Dreams, from director Michel Franco and starring Jessica Chastain & Isaac Hernández.

DREAMS (2025) has themes involving sex, immigration, class division, and power, but doesn’t articulate any of them well on screen. We walk away confused over what it wants to say about anything. My review.
macguff.in/film-reviews...

@seattlecritics.bsky.social @ofcs.bsky.social #Filmsky

A reflective and surprisingly moving look at Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles reinvention, #ManOnTheRun is an engaging intro to the messy, misunderstood, and ultimately triumphant rise of his band Wings. moviepie.com/man-on-the-r...

An adorkable young man has his sexual awakening as a submissive in #Pillion, a leather-clad dom-com that’s as laugh-out-loud funny as it is surprisingly sweet. moviepie.com/pillion-2025/

#ICYMI I wrote about the journey of TRAIN DREAMS that kicked off with a rough plane landing, became what multiple people told me was one of the hardest films they've ever worked on, with one comparing it to APOCALYPSE NOW, and how the crew scrambled to successfully land the plane. Read that below 📽️

A still from the animated short film WEEDS with a plant growing up tall in the middle of a vibrant setting while various other flowers all look on.

Recommend checking out @seasluganimation.bsky.social which, among many great things, is entirely created by people with no AI allowed. In other words, it's about slugs and not slop. Read about all that and the festival’s highlights in my piece @thestranger.com 📽️: www.thestranger.com/film/2026/02...

The cover of The Inlander's February 26, 2026 culture/film section with the headline 'This Is My Apocalypse Now' with the subhead Train Dreams began with an unexpectedly rough plane landing. Now it may fly high at the Oscars with a still of Joel Edgerton as protagonist Robert Granier flying in a plane while looking to his right at the world growing smaller below him as the sun shines behind them in the film's final frames.

NEW: TRAIN DREAMS, Clint Bentley’s transcendent Washington film may fly high at the Oscars, but it began with an unexpectedly rough plane landing. This is the story of the little film that could which one producer called their APOCALYPSE NOW📽️

My piece @inlander.com: www.inlander.com/culture/trai...

Now on VOD, Kaouther Ben Hania’s THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB remains one of the most essential films of the year that, at one key point near the end, makes use of screens in a way I'll never be able to forget. It's a shattering, necessary confrontation with the violence consuming so much of our world 📽️

Abbie Cornish Astonishes in Australian Filmmaker Cate Shortland’s Debut <i>Somersault</i> SOMERSAULT  (Cate Shortland, Australia, 2004, 106 minutes)  In her directorial debut,  Somersault , Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland turn...

On the return of a terrific film.

"Actors and directors sometimes meet at just the right time, and that was the case with Shortland, who was making her first feature after several shorts, and Cornish, who was playing her first lead after several supporting roles." @seattlecritics.bsky.social

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions explodes the documentary as visual album - The SunBreak Kahlil Joseph's multi-sensory film takes inspiration for W.E.B. Du Bois's dream -- unfinished at the time of his death, but realized decades later by a group of scholars led by Henry Louis Gates --…

Just noticed that Kahlil Joseph's outstanding visual album as documentary mixtape 📽️BLKNWS: TERMS AND CONDITIONS, one of the stars of last year's SIFF, is back in Seattle with some showings this weekend at Northwest Film Forum. Revisit it or see it for the first time on Saturday and Sunday.

John Patton Ford’s HOW TO MAKE A KILLING is entertaining enough, but fails to really say anything or do anything with all of its potential. #SFCS

Check out our full review for more: www.filmfroth.com/how-to-make-...

How to Make a Killing taps the breaks on the Glen Powell Experience - The SunBreak John Patton Ford taps Glen Powell to star in his loose re-imagining of a 1949 black comedy in which an outcast needs to eliminate everyone on the family tree ahead of him in the line of succession to…

📽️HOW TO MAKE A KILLING taps the breaks on the Glen Powell Experience -- The Glenaissance hits a speed bump in this frustratingly dull death march comedy of murders.

Pillion brings BDSM to the multiplex - The SunBreak Who could have possibly guessed that the squirmiest elements of watching a meek all-grown-up Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling) inadvertently stumble his way into a submissive arrangement with a godlike…

📽️ PILLION brings BDSM to the multiplex -- we were charmed by Harry Lighton's unconventional rom-com starring Harry Melling & Alexander Skarsgård at Telluride. It motors into Seattle theaters this weekend.

Blades of the Guardians (Yuen Woo-ping, 2026) Yuen Woo-ping is back with a spectacular digital wuxia uniting old friends in a familiar and well-executed story.

New for subscribers only: Yuen Woo-ping returns with a familiar yet spectacular wuxia starring Wu Jing, Zhang Jin, The Other Tony Leung, Chef Nic, and Jet Li

www.thechinesecinema.com/blades-of-th...

A cover of The Inlander's screen section for February 19, 2026 with with the headline Short and Bittersweet with the subhead spotlighting the best of this year's Oscar-nominated short films with stills from THE DEVIL IS BUSY, PERFECTLY A STRANGENESS, and RETIREMENT PLAN.

Wrote my yearly Oscar Shorts Superlative piece about the best nominated films most don't know about but should. Specifically, I recommend BUTTERFLY (PAPILLON), BUTCHER’S STAIN, PERFECTLY A STRANGENESS, RETIREMENT PLAN, THE DEVIL IS BUSY, and THE SINGERS 📽️

Read here: www.inlander.com/screen/spotl...

Crime 101 strikes gold with Chris Hemsworth masterminding freeway robberies - The SunBreak Bart Layton’s newest crime thriller, Crime 101, has nearly everything going for it. A stacked cast led by Chris Hemsworth, beautiful cinematography from Erik Wilson, an intriguing story adapted from…

Catching up with last weekend's releases, Marina has a review of Bart Layton's latest, 📽️CRIME 101, which features Chris Hemsworth masterminding a series of Los Angeles freeway robberies. With supporting performances from Mark Ruffalo and Halle Berry, the film is now in theaters.

Minneapolis folks, go to this screening both because it is one of the best, most urgent documentaries (named 2025's best by @seattlecritics.bsky.social) you'll ever see, but you'll be able to hear from one of the minds behind it (@prophetkotto.bsky.social) + also support a good cause in the present📽️

‘HOW TO MAKE A KILLING’ Is Slick Nihilism That Never Quite Gels - Silver Screen Riot A film review of 'How to Make a Killing' directed by John Patton Ford and starring Glen Powell and Margaret Qualley.

‘How to Make a Killing’ is a stylish crime caper about a man murdering his way toward a faster inheritance, but its inability to cut beneath the surface of its characters leaves it feeling as vacuous as the ultra-wealthy figures it aims to lampoon. silverscreenriot.com/how-to-make-...

A few more words about the soundtrack, because...*dang.*

It's Just Me and the Boys: Isaac Julien's 1991 Queer-Punk Anthem <i>Young Soul Rebels</i> YOUNG SOUL REBELS (Isaac Julien, UK/Germany/France/Spain, 1991, 105 minutes)   "I'll make tonight so funky, even the white boys will shake a...

"There's no guarantee that a film that opens with a great song will live up to it, but it's something that always puts me at ease. Set during June 1977, the film opens with Parliament's 'P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)' before segueing into X-Ray Spex's 'Identity'... #BlackHistoryMonth