Josh Lewis

Toronto

Mojito fiend, leftist, film bro, host @sleazoidspod, film programmer, theater manager & physical media guy. I write about movies: https://t.co/m8NhVgImhG

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Articles

A ★★★ review of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)

1 week ago | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis |Christopher McQuarrie

★★★ I’m not sure there’s much wrong with this one that you can’t argue is a problem with the entire McQuarrie era, and the franchises transition from hiring interesting auteurs to bring their inconsistently stylized visual stamps to the more reliable and functional framework for the Tom Cruise stunt spectacular circus these turned into. McQuarrie’s primary contribution was in working so closely with Cruise in the pre-production process and designing a diverse array of escalating espionage...
‎‘Sinners’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

1 month ago | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis |Ryan Coogler

★★★★ This review may contain spoilers.
‎‘Eephus’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

2 months ago | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★★★ I can’t remember the exact wording of it, but a tweet that pops into my mind every so often and makes me laugh is that one about how men invented online gaming in order to have an excuse to talk to each other on the phone for hours at a time. I sort of feel similarly about sports, which are in the broadest possible terms a communal contract with generational traditions and rituals that we inherently form bonds of friendship around by adhering to. Very few sports movies understand this...
BEST FILMS OF 2024

Mar 2, 2025 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

It's Hollywood's biggest night! And as is tradition, time for me to finally drop this. Notable blind spots (adjustments may be issued once seen): The Room Next Door, Nickel Boys, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, All We Imagine as Light, No Other Land, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the WorldTitles carried over into 2025 when they actually get released: Seven Veils, The Shrouds, Friendship, The Life of Chuck
‎‘No Country for Old Men’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

Mar 2, 2025 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

First time in a number of years inspired by Criterion putting out their new 4K, and first time having actually read McCarthy's book which I did not realize was nearly beat-for-beat/word-for-word what ended up on the screen; and not just most of the iconic moments of dialogue (“What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”, “Your mother's dead, Llewelyn… Well then I'll tell her myself.”, “You mean the nature of this conversation?
‎‘Clifford’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

Jan 30, 2025 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★★★ I’d long heard about this solely in the context of Martin Short’s unbelievably hilarious and frankly upsetting physical performance as 10-year-old demon child merging of “a ton of sugar and a book about Hitler”, whose tight school boy outfits and cartoonish mugging serve as a deliberately silly aw-shucks exterior/mask for the genuinely malevolent and destructive gaslighting prankster behavior of Clifford, that despite being in service of such a low-stakes goal like getting his uncle to...
A ★★★★ review of Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025)

Jan 11, 2025 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★★★ In between doing uncredited writing and rewriting for many 90s/00s studio movies, LA native Christian Gudegast spent many years trying to get his B-movie passion project Den of Thieves off the ground where he would be able to remix the extended elaborate procedural heist mechanics of an Ocean’s movie job with the macho, tactical, destruction-heavy cops-and-robbers brotherhood crime dramatics of Heat, and place both inside the dirtier more industrial pockets of LA he grew up around (that...
‎‘Gladiator II’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

Nov 24, 2024 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★ As someone who doesn't even have any particular affinity for the original Gladiator I'm a bit shocked to report that this was somehow still disappointing. I think it's maybe because I've mostly been enjoying the recent run of Late Ridley being a bit weirder and sillier about the prestige British statesman awards season productions he's been mounting; whether it's the baffling uncontrolled cartoon performances of House of Gucci, the relentlessly morbid but kind of funny pissing-contest...
‎‘Juror #2’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

Nov 3, 2024 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★★★ The last decade of Clint Eastwood movies has been defined by a certain level of unadorned technical sturdiness in service of ambivalent yet engaged depictions of attempts at individual heroism within flawed American institutions (military/policing, the media, the justice system); so honestly a courtroom-drama-as-morality-play-thriller may have just been the perfect match of maker and material the man has had during this stretch of his career. In terms of what he’s doing here, the closest...
‎‘Terrifier 3’ review by Josh Lewis • Letterboxd

Oct 19, 2024 | letterboxd.com | Josh Lewis

★★★ This review may contain spoilers.