Movies, Films & Flix

Quick Thoughts:

1. Ethan Hawke is 100% believable. He delivers a physically impressive performance.
2. It’s nice seeing a film shot on location. The German locations aren’t exactly the Pacific Northwest, but they look nice.
3. I love rickety bridge scenes.
4. Julia Jones should get bigger roles.
5. Director Padraic McKinley and Ethan Hawke have been doing good work together.
6. Best 2026 boulder moving.

McKinley described the shoot as fast, scrappy, and rough around the edges, and he crafted the film to feel like Deliverance, Sorcerer, and Jeremiah Johnson. The result is a low-budget action film that features another excellent Ethan Hawke performance. There are rickety bridges, gold blocks, dangerous country folk, and a lot of walking (which Ethan Hawke is familiar with). The bare-bones plot is refreshingly straightforward, and it’s nice to watch a resourceful man up against impossible odds (and rogue floating logs).

The Weight kicks off with World War I veteran Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) pushing his 1930s Ford to its limits along Pacific Northwest dirt roads to entertain his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry). Murphy is pretending to be chased by cops, and his reckless driving makes sense when we learn he’s a mechanic who can repair any damage their joyride causes to the stressed vehicle. The veteran Murphy is also a widower who struggles to make money during the Great Depression. His lack of repair jobs leads to eviction from their shabby apartment, which forces them to look for a new place to live. While apartment hunting, he gets into a fight with a group of thuggish cops who arrest him and send him to hard labor under the watchful eye of warden Clancy (Russell Crowe), a stern-but-fair(ish) man who bonds with Murphy over their love of cars (and Murphy’s ability to fix them). When Murphy proves himself to be a capable engineer, Clancy recruits him for a mission that will grant him immediate freedom and reunite him with his daughter before she becomes a ward of the state. Murphy is tasked with recruiting three reliable prisoners, and they’ll travel to a gold mine in the Oregon wilderness where they collect backpacks stuffed with gold bars and transport them through treacherous mountain terrain. They’re trekking with the gold bars because of President Franklin D. Roosevelt passing Executive Order 6102, which required all Americans to turn in their gold to the government. Their job is to keep the gold safe and out of the government’s hands.

What follows is a 72-hour hike in which Murphy, alongside his prisoner buddies Rankin (Austin Amelio), Singh (Avi Nash), and Olson (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), cover many miles while being watched by mining company guards Amis (Sam Hazeldine) and Letender (George Burgess – a physically imposing former Rugby player turned actor). They are joined by Anna (Julia Jones), who catches them leaving the mining camp and joins them for protection and a way out of Oregon. During their trek, they come across shady hunters, dangerous rivers, and tall mountains that make carrying large quantities of gold almost impossible.

In the press notes, Hawke mentions that he signed on for the project because he wanted to make a simple film about a “good person who values things like integrity, decency, and hard work.” His performance anchors the film, and it’s nice seeing Hawke play a physically capable man who can catch heavy gold bars while standing on a wooden-planked bridge that’s falling apart (excellent scene). His presence makes the film feel special because it’s nice following a capable man who is really good at walking, hunting, fighting, driving, and surviving.

Costume designer Esther Walz drew inspiration from The Grapes of Wrath and created denim-heavy outfits that look authentic and practical. Cinematographer Matteo Cocco attempted to blend the artistic look of Train Dreams and the grittiness of Sorcerer, with some success. Cocco shot the film with an ARRI ALEXA 35, which can capture low-light shots with its enhanced sensitivity modes. This saved director McKinley from time-wasting lighting setups that wasted the natural light.

The MVPs of the production are the southeastern German forests, home to lush green trees and an endless terrain. They don’t exactly mimic the Pacific Northwest wilderness (the film was shot in Germany because of tax credits and production partnerships); instead, they provide welcome realism, and it’s nice knowing the crew battled the wilderness to make the film feel dangerous and authentic.

Final thoughts – Watch it for Ethan Hawke’s performance. He’s great.

We recently published an episode focusing on the sublimely under-the-radar cult classic Heavyweights (1995). We were struck by how Ben Stiller’s character, Tony Perkis, was decades ahead of his time. The business model he built around his personality and promise of transformation looks remarkably familiar in today’s creator economy, and we need to give credit to this forward-thinking character from the summer camp movie genre.

For a quick summary, the story follows a group of overweight kids who arrive at Camp Hope expecting a fun summer, only to discover that the camp was sold by the beloved owners, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, to Tony Perkis, a maniac fitness and lifestyle guru who brought a cameraman and sought to feature the kids as a success story in “the No. 1 weight loss infomercial in the country.”

For those of you who may not know about “infomercials” (information + commercial) from the 90s, they were long-form television programs, 30 minutes in length, and dedicated entirely to demonstrating, pitching, and selling a product. The closest equivalent is probably TikTok/Instagram/YouTube “direct-response content” that blends entertainment with an aggressive sales pitch. Think of a buff guy working out and talking into the camera, saying something like, “I used to struggle to get enough protein, then I found XYZ product. One scoop has 25g of protein, and it tastes great. I’ve been using it for three months and see noticeable gains. Tap below to get your first order for 20% off.”

Tony pushes his extreme program on the campers until they mutiny, and the movie ends with a competition victory over a rival camp on the other side of the lake. The kids love the freedom and friendship of having a great summer after all.

While watching the film, several big points jumped out at us three decades after its unheralded release in theaters.

First, the movie definitely holds up. It respects kids, has interesting/edgy humor, and remains positive without cynicism. It’s streaming on Disney+, and we highly recommend it.

Second, and most importantly, Tony Perkis’ concept was impressively far ahead of its time. We now see versions of his business model everywhere, with creators who build audiences around a personality and lifestyle, then turn those audiences into customers for their own products, programs, and brands.

Alix Earle, for example, went from promoting other products on livestreams to building her own product ecosystem. Mat Fraser, a five-time “Fittest Man on Earth” CrossFit champion, built HWPO (Hard Work Pays Off), a training brand based around his approach to fitness. Nick Bare has built a business around the hybrid athlete trend and his supplement company.

In Heavyweights, everything is built around Tony Perkis’ image as an expert who has discovered the secret to changing people’s lives. He understood the value of turning one’s personality into a business long before social media made that model commonplace.

Here’s a quick summary:

Brand: Perkis Power, an entire business built around Tony Perkis

Platform: Camp Hope served as the setting for the health transformations

Lifestyle: “Perkisizing” or the “PerkiSystem”

Slogan: “I’m Tony Perkis, and I’m your motivation!” An actual quote from Tony Perkis is “Kids, at age 12, I weighed 319 pounds… Now, I eat success for breakfast, with skim milk.”

Logo: A direct parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Vitruvian Man” drawing that maps out the mathematical “ideal proportions” of the human body.

What He’s Selling: Transformation. Essentially, he’s selling how to become a different person. An actual quote: “Today is evaluation day. The key word here is value. Do you have any? Not yet. But by the end of the summer this camp will be full of skinny winners. You think I’m crazy? I’m not crazy. I just believe in you.”

Yes, this is extreme, and we’re not saying all content creators are like this. The similarity is the promise that you’ll become a more successful version of yourself by buying into these types of systems.

Content: A dedicated crew onsite (aka Kenny the Cameraman) to document daily routines, meals, and interactions. He was essentially shooting the equivalent of daily “Vlogs,” “Day in the Life” content, and “Get Ready With Me” videos decades before they were popularized. The heavily edited content, before & after photos, and testimonial footage were supposed to prove that Perkis Power works.

Merchandise: A full ecosystem of merch from the camp, vocabulary, branding, fitness tapes, and more to pull customers deep into the Perkis Universe.

Summary

Tony Perkis understood the scalable creator-business model before smartphones and social channels existed. This got us thinking: What would Tony Perkis look like today?

We’d love to tune into the Perkis Podcast, subscribe to Perkis+, and order some Perkis Protein Powder.

You can download or stream the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).

If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome.

Mark and Niall discuss the 2026 science fiction film Project Hail Mary. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and starring Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Ortiz, and a comfy sweater, the movie follows two unlikely heroes as they try to save their planets from a mysterious threat. In this episode, they also talk about successful book adaptations, saving the world, and practical effects.

If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions (we love random questions). We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!

Quick Thoughts:

1. The world needs more straightforward and efficient 90-minute genre films.
2. Between You’re Next, The Guest, and Onslaught, I really like Adam Wingard’s action horror films.
3. Adria Arjona is legit.
4. Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, Drew Starkey, Reginald VelJohnson, and Eric Wareheim are clearly having a blast.
5. The “G.I. Joes from Hell” are wonderful villains who exist to smash through doors and look cool. Their tactics are a bit suspect, but they are zombie soldiers who’ve gone rogue, so their horror-inspired tactics make sense.
6. It’s not the most ambitious of projects and feels like Wingard needed a palate cleanser after the Godzilla films.
7. I don’t see it becoming a cult classic like You’re Next or The Guest, but I appreciate the world-building and likable characters.

For 20+ years, director/writer Adam Wingard and writer/producer Simon Barrett have smashed genres together to create wonderful films like The Guest and You’re Next. With Onslaught, they put a bunch of films into a blender, added their sensibilities, and created a brisk romp. After finishing up work on Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, Wingard wanted to make “a really crazy, violent action-slasher film that’s paying homage to John Carpenter and James Cameron.” His low-budget film, shot in 35 days, combines elements from Assault on Precinct 13, The Terminator, The Fog, Halloween, and Aliens to create straightforward action films. He also tossed in elements from Universal Soldier (out-of-control super soldiers), Jurassic World (the bunker escape), and Tremors (likable trailer park crew) to fill out the running time and build the world. Onslaught isn’t the most ambitious of projects, but the idea is marketable, and it must’ve been easy for Wingard to sell the high-concept film to A24.

Onslaught revolves around what happens when a high-heel-licking Nazi scientist named Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens – amazing) and his super evil wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall – wonderful) attempt to create super soldiers in a secretive New Mexico bunker. Their experiments are too successful, as they reanimate a trio of maniacs into hulking beasts who quickly escape the isolated bunker and tear through rural New Mexico. After a brutal truck stop massacre, their murderous journey leads them to a trailer park managed by Celeste (Adria Arjona), a retired military sniper who deals with crippling PTSD and post-war injuries. Once there, the trio attacks the unsuspecting residents and kills them in a variety of grisly ways. The onslaught forces Celeste, Vietnam vet Josiah (Reginald VelJohnson), and a goofy/brave cop (Eric Wareheim) to protect the trailer park and keep Celeste’s seven-year-old daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) safe. What follows is a bloodbath involving chainsaws, butcher knives, charcoal grills, sniper rifles, and many smashed doors.

After the escape, a local “janitor” named Cyrus (Drew Starkey) is summoned by Hanna (from a high-class sex party) to clean up the murders and track the exploits of the super soldiers. His scenes help build the world and extend the film’s running time as he witnesses the aftermath of the chaotic encounters. It’s a smart budgetary decision as locations are reused and Cyrus’s conversations/calls help build the secretive private-contractors network. Aside from being under the influence of MDMA, Cyrus is a relatively chill agent who occasionally slips on blood and casually jumps over corpses. The nice thing about Drew Starkey’s performance is that he doesn’t overload the quirky character with too many quirks. His performance creates a nice middle ground between the insanity of Dan Stevevens (and Rebecca Hall) and Arjona’s grounded realism.

On the performance front, Arjona does a fine job of creating a three-dimensional human who suffers from PTSD, went through a divorce, and doesn’t have the capabilities to deal with her trauma. So, she lives in a trailer park where she collects rent and fixes the often-malfunctioning trailers. She also must love carving pumpkins because the opening of the film features her using carved pumpkins as shooting practice to establish her sniper credentials. The addition of Reginald ValJohnson means that audiences will immediately cheer for the likable actor as he battles the super soldiers played by Alex Pereira (MMA Legend), Dave Campbell, and Tyler Hall (who worked on Splitsville with Arjona).

Production designer Tom Hammock (Pearl, Weapons) does excellent work building a realistic trailer park in the vast New Mexico desert. The on-location shoot helps authenticity as wind sweeps through the park and everything seems beaten down by the blazing hot sun. Instead of lining up the trailers in a neat row, Hammock and Wingard organized them in a circle to create a gladiatorial ring where the final confrontation between Celeste and The Butcher (Alex Pereira – MMA legend) takes place. Cinematographer Oren Soffer (The Creator – great work) does a fine job capturing the mayhem and adding in enough low-budget spice (inspired crane and dolly shots) to make the film look ambitious and expansive.

Jay and Mark discuss the 2026 shark film Chum. Directed by Jonathan Zuck and starring Alice Eve, Eric Michael Cole, and an incredible amount of ADR, the movie focuses on a shark hunter who is really bad at hunting sharks. In this episode, they also talk about temporary shark-riding, cynical cash-grab AI slop, and ghost poetry.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Between Osiris and Man of War, I’m enjoying the LaMonica Garrett/William Kaufman/Linds Edwards crew.
2. The action blends together after a while, but the dedicated actors and stunt crew make it feel professional and tactically sound.
3. Daniel Bernhardt!
4. Andrew Howard!
5. It’s nice watching William Kaufman find his groove with The Channel, Osiris, and Man of War. He’s an excellent action director who can stretch a budget to make films that punch above their weight.

Man of War is a refreshingly straightforward action film about a private military contractor named Connor (LaMonica Garrett – 1883, The Lioness, The Terminal List)) fighting his way through the back roads/streets of Ukraine to rescue his niece Riley (Rosmary Yaneva). There are no bells and whistles or balletic gunplay; instead, it’s a muscular experience filled with dedicated actors and confident direction from action maestro William Kaufman (Osiris, The Channel, One in the Chamber, Sinners and Saints). It helps that the villain is played by Daniel Bernhardt (Nobody, John Wick, The Matrix Reloaded, Deathstalker), who clearly enjoys playing a psychopathic Skorzeny mercenary who is lethal with a rocket launcher.

Filmed in Bulgaria and shot in 25 days, Man of War is a solid action film that features gunfights in deserted roads, dense forests, empty streets and a massive police station, Connor bulldozes his way through countless masked mercenaries with the help of his local guide Dany (Andrew Howard – Limitless, Inception, The Odyssey), and Bunny (Linds Edwards and his beard) a British mercenary who leads a group of soldiers (played mostly by real-life stunt performers). The actors were trained by tactical advisor Max Kraus (Red Sonja, The Princess), who put the crew through a weeks-long training regimen involving movement and gun handling. The training and smart casting decisions paid off as the actors look believable and fluid as they battle countless mercenaries.

In the press notes, Kaufman mentions that he wanted Mark Rutledge’s camerawork to feel rough and immediate, and the results are perfect for the low-budget action film. Rutledge went hard on close-ups to keep the budget down (less to dress in the background), but they work because Garrett, Bernhardt, Edwards, and Howard can hold the screen. The camerawork is never too shaky, and Rutledge does a fine job of following the actors during the final police station battle (a lot of rehearsal went into this film because the movements are well-synced). Like Osiris, the action scenes become less distinctive during the long battles in the police station/space ship. The action scenes are technically impressive and well-designed, but there are only so many ways to stage a shootout in a hallway.

The color palette is loaded with blue-grays, muddy browns, and muted greens, which decimate the world of color. Man of War is a dour affair, which makes sense because of the content (Bernhardt has some bleak moments), but it does zap some of the energy out of the air. The film opens with Garrett’s character contemplating suicide as he haphazardly drinks whiskey from a bottle (most of it makes his beard drunk). From there, things stay bleak as he travels to Ukraine to rescue his niece. I’m not saying humor or pratfalls were needed, but I will say that things perk up whenever Linds Edwards or Daniel Bernhardt have screen time because they clearly relish their various roles.

Final thoughts – Man of War is a well-made film made by professionals. It’s worth a watch.