In-Review: May 2025
A Review of Marvel's Latest Ensemble Picture and Some Home Video Releases
Welcome to another month in review. We are officially what is known as the summer movie season, despite it only being the first week in May.
That’s why I found myself in the movie theaters on discount Tuesday watching the latest Marvel movie. I don’t see as many of these in the theaters as I used to, as the last two I’ve seen were The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Honestly, it was probably the glowing reviews that brought me to the theaters to see Thunderbolts, and thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. It works better than a lot of these MCU movies because it’s actually about something—mental health.
The last time I saw Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova in an MCU project was Black Widow. She’s almost the de facto Black Widow, and she works for O.X.E. founder Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as a paid assassin. But every mission Yelena does has the same result—she kills a lot of people, finishes her mission, and then goes home to an empty home. While the movie never puts a word to exactly what she’s suffering from, it reads like depression. She seeks guidance from Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), her surrogate father, and he suggests that she find something more public-facing. Something that can bring good to the world, rather than these dangerous jobs she’s undertaking for Fontaine.
Fontaine agrees to Yelena’s request under one condition— she follows another hired assassin into the vault of O.X.E. secrets and makes sure that person doesn’t escape. Yelena quickly discovers that Fontaine has no interest in letting her go free and that there might be a few others whom Fontaine has no interest in keeping around.
When I first saw the trailers and promotional materials for Thunderbolts, I mistakenly compared it to James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. That movie features villains whose only choice is to do the government’s bidding or face death. The anti-heroes in Thunderbolts have a lot more agency over their decisions. Ultimately, what drives each of them is reaching some kind of redemption. Watching this movie was the first time I’ve seen John Walker (Wyatt Russell) in action. His character was introduced in an earlier MCU TV series, but Thunderbolts does a fine job of explaining who he is and why he’s been working for Fontaine. Since I haven’t seen a lot of projects leading up to this, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to follow all the plotlines. Thunderbolts is pretty easy to follow if you’ve seen even a few post-Avengers: Endgame projects.
But outside of Pugh, the other scene stealer is Bob (Lewis Pullman). I’ve seen Pullman sporadically over the years, including a minor role in Top Gun: Maverick. While I might’ve missed some of his other starring vehicles, Thunderbolts felt like the first time I’ve gotten to enjoy one of his performances.
What makes Thunderbolts work is that it’s a Marvel movie that’s grounded. Perhaps that makes sense for a bunch of comic book characters that can’t fly. Focusing on mental health was a smart script direction and helped me identify with this group a comic book characters more easily. I’m not ready to say that Marvel is back making quality entertainment because we’ve still got this summer’s Fantastic Four: First Steps, but Thunderbolts is certainly heading in the right direction. [B]
Thunderbolts is now in theaters nationwide.
Here are the movies I caught up with in April:
As always, if you’d like to follow along on Letterboxd, my account can be found here.
Podcast
🎙️My co-host Evan Crean and I have recorded a new It’s the Pictures podcast episode since the last newsletter. Episode 193 features a conversation about baseball movies.
Home Video
3 Classic Clint Eastwood movies get updated to the 4K UHD format and are now available.
Dirty Harry
Commentary by Richard Schickel
Generations and Dirty Harry - NEW
Lensing Justice: The Cinematography of Dirty Harry - NEW
American Masters Career Retrospective: Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows
Clint Eastwood: The Man from Malpaso
Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Fighting for Justice
Interview Gallery
Patricia Clarkson
Joel Cox
Clint Eastwood
Hal Holbrook
Evan Kim
John Milius
Ted Post
Andy Robinson
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Robert Urich
Dirty Harry’s Way
Dirty Harry: The Original
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Commentary by Richard Schickel
An Outlaw and an Antihero - NEW
The Cinematography of an Outlaw: Crafting Josie Wales - NEW
Clint Eastwood’s West
Eastwood in Action
Hell Hath No Fury: The Making of The Outlaw Josie Wales
Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Reinventing the West
Pale Rider
The Diary of Sydney Penny: Lessons from the Set - NEW
Painting the Preacher: Bruce Surtees and Pale Rider - NEW
Clint Eastwood: A Cinematic Legacy – Reinventing Westerns
Eastwood Directs: The Untold Story
The Eastwood Factor
Warner Bros. has done a great job bringing these classics to the 4K format, with Dirty Harry receiving the most attention.
A Sean Baker Double Feature Arrives in the Criterion Collection
The Academy Award-winning Best Picture, Anora, has entered the Criterion Collection. The disk is stacked with extras, including:
New 4K digital master, supervised by director Sean Baker and producer Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan
New making-of documentary
New interviews with Baker and Madison
Cannes Film Festival press conference
Q&A with Madison and actor-stripper Lindsey Normington
Deleted scenes
Audition footage
Trailers
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, and English descriptive audio
PLUS: Essays by film critic Dennis Lim and author Kier-La Janisse
Also joining the collection is Baker’s The Prince of Broadway. This earlier Baker film has been a blind spot of mine, and I’m eager to sit down and watch it. Being a Criterion release, this disc is also filled with extras:
New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Sean Baker and restoration supervisor Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker and the other featuring producer and cowriter Darren Dean, associate producer and actor Victoria Tate, and actor Karren Karagulian
New introduction by Baker
Archival interviews with Baker and actor Prince Adu
Two documentaries on the making of the film
Restoration demonstration featuring Baker and Coco
Trailers
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by film critic Robert Daniels
I’ll have more about the home video market in May, but the prices have been getting out of control. Warner Bros. and Criterion haven’t been affected yet, but the whole market is being squeezed.
Links
There have been a lot of Marvel TV shows that I haven’t seen. If that’s the case for you and you’d like to see Thunderbolts, I’d suggest taking a look at this article from The Ringer that details everything you might want to know before seeing the Thunderbolts.
If you wanted to know why your friends were shouting “May the Fourth Be With You” the other day, The Hollywood Reporter wrote an explainer about Star Wars Day. I celebrated by watching 80 minutes of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope before falling asleep on the couch.
I won’t be sharing links from Polygon anymore since the website was sold to Valnet on May 1st. It’s an awful end to a terrific website I was proud to write for.
During his late-night ramblings, the President announced a 100% Tariff on movies made outside of America. Since EVERY movie is made outside of America due to the shooting locations, that means either A) Movie prices are about to skyrocket, B) Fewer blockbusters are going to be made, or C) a combination of the two. “All of the leading studios make movies overseas, including many of the major tentpole franchises such as Avatar, Mission: Impossible, James Bond, and countless others,” says The Hollywood Reporter.
I had an opportunity to see A24’s newest film, Sorry, Baby, during the closing night of IFFBoston. While I wouldn’t say I loved it, it is a great feature debut from writer-director Eva Victor. It’ll be out in theaters on June 27th.