Billy Magnussen – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

VIOLENT ENDS – Review by Nadine Whitney

October 28, 2025November 1, 2025 Nadine Whitney Alexandra Shipp, Billy Magnussen, Bruce McKinnon, John-Michael Powell, Matt Riedy, Ray McKinnon, Violent Ends

Violent Ends, John-Michael Powell’s neo-western cum Southern Gothic cum revenge crime thriller is formulaic. In a small Ozarks town hit hard by financial woes for the farmers of the area, the Frost family dominated the river-based drug smuggling operations in Arkansas in the 1980s. Three brothers: Donny (Bruce McKinnon), Walt (Ray McKinnon), and Ray (Matt Riedy) all vied for complete control of the operation leading to a schism where Walt took the meth market and Donny the cocaine. Ray was taken off the chess board when he ended up serving a long prison sentence. Bad blood is never forgotten nor cleansed, and the next generation continues the crime legacy.

Reviews

LILO & STITCH – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

May 24, 2025 Valerie Kalfrin Billy Magnussen, Chris Kekaniokalani Bright, Courtney B. Vance, Dean Fleischer Camp, disney, Lilo & Stitch, Maia Kealoha, Mike Van Waes, Sydney Agudong, Tia Carrere, Zach Galifianakis

Lilo & Stitch, the new mostly live-action version of Disney’s 2002 Lilo & Stitch, is … fine. Yet-another mining of the Disney catalogue, it’s an inoffensive adaptation that feels familiar, comfortable, and completely unnecessary. I sound like I’m channeling the titular blue alien before he discovered ohana and people who love him, antennae, six legs and all. It’s just that this new Lilo & Stitch is so much like the original animated Lilo & Stitch, down to recreating whole scenes and dialogue, that I wondered why it existed beyond merchandising possibilities. (There’s enough Capri Sun in here alone to guarantee a tie-in, not to mention new Stitch toys.)