Mike McAllister Archives -

KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR MOVIE REVIEW Quentin Tarantino’s tribute to all his favorite geeky things Kill Bill Volume 1 originally came out in theaters in 2003, with Volume 2 following in 2004. They reached the highest gross of a Tarantino release at that point and were largely critically acclaimed. His original cut for […]

BUNNY MOVIE REVIEW There are so many songs about New York from all kinds of artists. From crooners to rappers, the adulation of the big apple can be heard world wide, but the best kind of harmonies that make up the most memorable stories are from the voices of the communities within the city itself. […]

THE RUNNING MAN MOVIE REVIEW The Stephen King adaptations won’t stop coming of late and we’ve gotten some pretty good ones like The Life of Chuck and The Long Walk. Now, Paramount is going back to the well with The Running Man, which had a somewhat successful 1987 adaptation as an Schwarzenegger film. Problem with […]

NOUVELLE VAGUE MOVIE REVIEW In 1959, film critic Jean-Luc Godard set out to direct his first feature, “À bout de souffle” or Breathless as it is known in English. Following Godard’s oft quoted dictum that ‘All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun’, Breathless tells the story of a louche […]

BLACK PHONE 2 MOVIE REVIEW Based on a Joe Hill short story, 2021’s The Black Phone was a surprise late-pandemic success, a modestly budgeted supernatural horror film that found a sizable audience despite not having any big stars, or recognizable IP. With success comes expectations – and sequels – so director Scott Derrickson and frequent […]

HAUNTED HOTEL SERIES REVIEW Whenever I check into a hotel I know I’m in good hands when I see that delicious mint on my pillow. Chocolate and fresh breath? I am loved. Worst case scenario? Cold water showers, paper thin walls, no mints, and a diabolical room 1408 situation. For those of you that haven’t […]

PEACEMAKER SEASON 2 REVIEW Who would have guessed that a D list superhero like Chris Smith AKA Peacemaker would be the cornerstone of DC Comics latest cinematic universe, or that the role would offer former wrestler turned actor John Cena the meatiest role of his career, thus far? Nobody, that’s who. And yet here we […]

PLAY DIRTY MOVIE REVIEW Trim the tree, put up the lights, hang the stockings with care: there’s an action film on Amazon Prime with Shane Black as writer/director…Christmas will soon be here! Inspired by the popular Parker book series by Donald E Westlake, Play Dirty starring Mark Wahlberg, is about a heist gone wrong that […]

THE TOXIC AVENGER MOVIE REVIEW The janitor becomes the hero, the mop becomes the weapon, and the toxic sludge becomes… well, a makeover. The Toxic Avenger returns in a reimagined reboot of the cult classic, telling the story of Winston (Peter Dinklage), an everyman who finds himself transformed into a grotesque but oddly noble vigilante […]

HAPPY GILMORE 2 MOVIE REVIEW Creed, Maverick, The Colour of Money. All defined in film terms as “The Legacy Sequel”. Whether it’s an entirely new Star Wars trilogy or Ridley Scott milking his ideas before a big fan of the franchise on the come-up in tinseltown does it for him. The legacy sequel is front-loaded […]

WHAT WE HIDE MOVIE REVIEW When it comes to raising a family there’s a lot hidden from the children as they come of age, and a lot to teach about what we hide from others when it comes to maintaining innocence and the beauty of childlike wonder. Easter eggs in the spring or the messiness […]

FIXED MOVIE REVIEW Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed plays like the result of a studio willing to fund the juvenile machinations of a middle school kids’ dare. At its center is Bull (Adam Devine), a gentle dog who learns he’s slated for neutering the next morning. Facing the end of his manhood, he sets off on a […]

NOBODY 2 MOVIE REVIEW Just give us the Bob Odenkirk & David Cross action team-up already! The team that brought you John Wick and The Fall Guy are back with their follow up to their hit actioner Nobody starring Bob Odenkirk. After the events of the first film, Hutch (Odenkirk) constantly finds himself on high […]

KING OF THE HILL – SEASON 14 REVIEW From 1997 to 2010, The Hill family has comforted audiences with heart warming and thought provoking episodic adventures about a propane salesman who also sells propane accessories, navigating work life, marriage, and raising a boy that ain’t right. No matter what was thrown at Hank Hill (Mike […]

ET TU MOVIE REVIEW Lou Diamond Phillips is Brent – a miserable director forced to endure weeks of his own awful community theater production of Julius Caesar. Worse still, he suspects his wife is having an affair with his dim-witted leading man. But when the theater’s janitor reveals a dark secret, Brent may finally have […]

RICK AND MORTY – SEASON 8 REVIEW Since Rick and Morty debuted in 2013 (yes, it’s really been that long), it has grown from an absurd sci-fi comedy into a layered, multiverse-spanning saga full of emotional depth, dark humor, and some surprisingly tight continuity. Rick has evolved from a detached god-complex genius to a man […]

EDDINGTON MOVIE REVIEW No matter how much some of us may want it, Ari Aster seems to be done with horror for now. He certainly isn’t done with horrifying though. His latest film Eddington reteams him with Joaquin Phoenix, this time playing Joe Cross, the sheriff of the titular small town in New Mexico. When […]

ESCAPE FROM THE 21ST CENTURY MOVIE REVIEW Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road, but what if time didn’t grab you by the wrist and direct you where to go? What if time violently chucked you 20 years into the future every time you sneezed? Written and directed by Yang Li, Escape from […]

SUPERMAN MOVIE REVIEW Most audiences no longer have a problem ‘believing a man can fly’ in movies. Now the challenge is, ‘believing anyone can make a Superman movie that brings us even half of the quality of the original Christopher Reeve film’. There certainly seems to be a lot of confidence, both at DC/Warner Brothers […]

DOGMA 25TH ANNIVERSARY MOVIE REVIEW Jesus was beaten, bled, died for your sins and if ye so believe in him thou will be saved. Guilt, shame, and discipline are the blessings on the path to righteousness. These doctrines served the purpose of frightening kids and adults into attempting a life of virtue for years to […]

FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN MOVIE REVIEW You know what they say about successful trilogies with satisfying conclusions? They gotta make another one now. After the huge success of R. L. Stine’s Fear Street trilogy adaptation on Netflix in 2021, it was only a matter of time before Netflix tried again to adapt the greatest YA […]

THE SURRENDER MOVIE REVIEW If the Conjuring series has taught major studios anything, it’s that the best time to release a scary film is summer time. In The Surrender,  Megan (Colby Minifie) has returned home but not under the best circumstances. Her father Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) has one foot in the grave and the other […]

HUNT THE WICKED MOVIE REVIEW Lewayne, Mike, and T.C. enter the One Of Us lair to square off against one another while discussing this new Chinese martial arts crime drama about a brilliant narcotics detective and a mysterious criminal mastermind, as they clash in a crime-ridden city. The cops are doing everything they can, while […]

FIGHT OR FLIGHT MOVIE REVIEW Following a raid on a hideout in Bangkok, an elusive hacker simply called “The Ghost” manages to escape. A government sect, led by Agent Brunt (Katee Sackhoff) manages to acquire enough information to locate the Ghost’s escape route, via a flight to San Francisco. Due to a lack of field […]

TRIGGER HAPPY MOVIE REVIEW In a world where you must buy a gun in order to get health care, where the number one show on television is an infomercial for a sponge and the most watched kids program is about a dino-gun character named Tricera-Glock, one man struggles to escape the inescapable mundanity of suburban […]

CLEANER MOVIE REVIEW When Die Hard needs to Die Hard but in a new Die Hard that is a lot like Die Hard but not the exact same Die Hard, you would hope that Martin Campbell, director of Casino Royale, GoldenEye, and The Mask of Zorro, would be the right guy to Die Hard. Mike, […]

OLD GUY MOVIE REVIEW An old hitman is tasked to train a young up and comer in the action comedy Old Guy written by Greg Johnson and directed by Simon West. Danny Dolinski (Christoph Waltz) has busted so many caps into so many of his targets for so many years that he’s got chronic pain […]

THE MONKEY MOVIE REVIEW Director/writer Osgood Perkins is on a roll. Not long after making the horror movie everyone was talking about (good or bad) Longlegs, Perkins is back already with an adaptation of the Stephen King story The Monkey, but this time he’s playing with splatstick comedy-horror. Theo James plays twin brothers Hal and […]

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL MOVIE REVIEW From Aardman studios and presented by Netflix, the stop motion sensation from across the pond is back in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. The feature length film is a sequel to the original classic Wallace and Gromit adventure The Wrong Trousers. A diamond thief penguin named […]

THE BEST FILMS OF 2024 PART TWO Our best of 2024 film list continues with double the speed and that many more films for us to gush about. Come sit around the round table with the One Of Us Austin crew and see if we can turn you on to some stuff you may have […]

THE BEST FILMS OF 2024 PART ONE This more accurately should be titled, the best films of 2024 that we haven’t already talked about (largely). Because we are not talking about Anora, The Brutalist, or The Substance here. We did those reviews. We’re primarily talking about the other greatest films that we didn’t get to […]

Y2K MOVIE REVIEW Some of us are old enough to remember New Year’s Eve as we went from 1999-2000. There was a big scare dubbed Y2K that was about fears that all computerized devices were going to shut down (or something) because their internalized clocks were not set up to deal with that calendar change. […]

GET AWAY MOVIE REVIEW Boring families go on vacations to well known attractions surrounded by fellow tourists and the safety of park security. An adventurous family, like Richard (Nick Frost), Susan (Aisling Bea), Sam (Sebastian Croft), and Jessie (Maisie Ayres), prefer something a little more off the beaten path. They take a vacation to a […]

YOUR MONSTER MOVIE REVIEW Thomas Fuller once said “abused patience turns to fury”. Adapted from a short film by writer director Caroline Lindy and coming to a theater near you is the rom-com horror film, Your Monster. Breaking up is hard to do, or at least you’d think so when your partner is diagnosed with […]

HERETIC MOVIE REVIEW Just because Halloween is over, that doesn’t mean random young people won’t come knocking on your door; only this time they aren’t asking for candy, they’re asking if you have a moment to talk about their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s right, we’re talking about Mormon missionaries. When Sister Barnes (Sophie […]

Saturday Night Movie Review In the midst of its 50th season on television, Saturday Night Live is without question a staple in American comedy. It’s hard to imagine that the comedy juggernaut was almost an impressive disaster right up until it aired on October 11th, 1975. Saturday Night, directed by Jason Reitman, tells the story […]

AZRAEL MOVIE REVIEW Some time after the Rapture, we find civilization in disarray and no one can speak. Azrael follows the titular character (Samara Weaving) and her partner Kenan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), as they escape imprisonment from a female-led community of religious zealots. As she’s recaptured, she is due to be sacrificed by an evil entity, […]

KITE MAN: HELL YEAH! SERIES REVIEW When you are a villain that’s mocked by the C-list and even ridiculed by the most obscure Robins, sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. Kite Man (Matt Oberg) is an off-again never-again romantic interest from the Adult Swim DC dark comedy show Harley Quinn. With a […]

KAOS SERIES REVIEW The thing about prophecies is that they tend to come true in spite of a person’s best efforts to stop them, and when it involves the gods, it is often mortals who suffer the consequences. With Prometheus acting as guide, the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, Caeneus, and Ariadne are woven together […]

THE 4:30 MOVIE FILM REVIEW Kevin Smith is one of the defining Gen X filmmakers. Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy inspired countless storytellers from the 90’s to today. He’s also the guy who made Cop Out and Yoga Hosers. The guy’s had a mixed bag of a career. So, it comes as a wonderful surprise […]