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Midwest Film Journal

Midwest Film Journal is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Aly Caviness, Evan Dossey, Joshua Polanski, Nick Rogers.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
2.5/5
Rounders (1998) Nick Rogers It is certifiably insane for "Rounders" to anchor its narrative with two generational talents in the lead and then trample over their excellent efforts to convey context, or sometimes even just text, without incessant narration.
Posted Jan 28, 2026  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Dante's Peak (1997) Nick Rogers The volcano’s eruption and its aftermath are the obvious draws here, excitingly realized through effects supervisor Patrick McClung’s measured combination of miniature photography and judicious CGI.
Posted Jan 27, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Killers (2014) Nick Rogers A story of unheroic bloodshed, as it were, "Killers" aspires for profundity but just feels prolonged, a what-if / yes-and exercise in empty nihilism that’s slick but shallow.
Posted Jan 27, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
A Private Life (2025) Nick Rogers It's not unlike if Nancy Meyers attempted to loosely remake "Caché." Despite a handful of entertaining moments, it simply lacks that certain je nai sais quoi.
Posted Jan 27, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Evil Under the Sun (1982) Nick Rogers Acknowledging Hercule Poirot's eccentricities are part of the equation, "Evil Under the Sun" spends entirely too long indulging them. Once it shifts from "The White Poirotus" to the actual mystery, the film improves.
Posted Jan 26, 2026  Edit critic review
3/5
Diva (1981) Nick Rogers The tension here is less between criminals and heroes than between the tactility of media and the transmutability of memory and perception. An always stylish and occasionally crackling thriller, it's also occasionally slow and disengaging.
Posted Jan 26, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) Nick Rogers Although the conclusion can't sustain the rhapsodic brilliance of its first hour, "The Testament of Ann Lee" remains a unique and impressive musical drama from the makers of "The Brutalist."
Posted Jan 20, 2026  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Iron Eagle (1986) Nick Rogers "Iron Eagle’s" greatest resemblance to "Top Gun" is that it is also deeply silly. Had it dispensed with dull drama and repetitively disappointing action beats, it may not have been so culturally grounded by comparison 40 years later.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
3/5
The Rip (2026) Nick Rogers Apart from an adorable dog named Wilbur, there's nothing novel about "The Rip." But Ben Affleck and Matt Damon entertainingly enliven things with an entertaining dance around the depth & dedication of their real-world friendship.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
2/5
Dead Man's Wire (2025) Nick Rogers This feels like a haphazard TV production, down to how its most cinematic instincts are clumsily edited around as if to whittle for primetime. There's little heat to this version of the iconic Indianapolis winter's tale.
Posted Jan 13, 2026  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Is This Thing On? (2025) Nick Rogers Despite a few iffy crutches and choices, Bradley Cooper's smaller-scale dramedy shows he can fill a small room with emotions as shrewdly as stadiums.
Posted Jan 06, 2026  Edit critic review
Clash by Night (1952) Joshua Polanski Simply serviceable as a scandalous seaside noir.
Posted Jan 03, 2026  Edit critic review
4/5
Disposable Humanity (2025) Nick Rogers Cameron S. Mitchell's message of advocacy builds to a summary quote that uplifts the need to share stories, lessons and empathy and prevent any such darkness from again descending on the world in the destructive manner as it did 86 years ago.
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
1.5/5
Song Sung Blue (2025) Nick Rogers So bad! So bad! So bad!
Posted Dec 22, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) Nick Rogers While still far from James Cameron at his best, "Avatar: Fire and Ash" at least represents an infinitely more nimble and entertaining improvement on its immediate predecessor.
Posted Dec 16, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Lone Samurai (2025) Nick Rogers Samurai films are full of tales of taciturn, towering cutting to the quick of inner peace as much as flesh and bone. But that requires a more charismatic presence than Shogen, and the action is far too sporadic.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) Nick Rogers You won't get a full-blown case of Christmas fever from the latest remake of "Silent Night, Deadly Night." But at least writer-director Mike P. Nelson's take moderately elevates the temperature.
Posted Dec 10, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Dust Bunny (2025) Nick Rogers Making his big-screen debut after a fruitful TV career, writer-director Bryan Fuller delivers a delightfully surprising advent calendar of R-rated fantasy affectations.
Posted Dec 10, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Anemone (2025) Nick Rogers Less about the sins of the father than the sins of the father-son screenwriting exercise.
Posted Nov 26, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Wicked: For Good (2025) Nick Rogers The lead trio of actors gives this film their all, but there is otherwise very little over which to rejoicify.
Posted Nov 24, 2025  Edit critic review
4.5/5
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Nick Rogers Leave it to William Friedkin to trample all over the moral righteousness warmly asserted in the prologue, seize a map of popular culture, and march boldly and loudly off it into uncharted, unforgettable territory.
Posted Nov 21, 2025  Edit critic review
5/5
The Rock (1996) Nick Rogers A thunderously effective show of farce thanks to its cast's show of force.
Posted Nov 20, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Jay Kelly (2025) Nick Rogers A coming-of-age-at-old-age film that shrewdly avoids treacly sentiment, draws laughs without sticking to inside-baseball industry satire, and achieves resonance without resorting to a redemptive arc.
Posted Nov 18, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins (1975) Nick Rogers Above-average amiable road vibes with agreeable casting all around.
Posted Nov 16, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Just Cause (1995) Nick Rogers This has one of cinema's most ridiculously overwrought car chase relative to its general plot and pacing. It also has Ed Harris extracting every nutrient from this 100-calorie snack pack, which is entertaining unto itself.
Posted Nov 12, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Trap House (2025) Nick Rogers The presentation of porridge is all over the place and certainly never just right, but "Trap House" gets some points at least for an absurdly audacious premise.
Posted Nov 10, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Nuremberg (2025) Nick Rogers From a substantial slab of docudrama meat, writer-director James Vanderbilt carves only gristly, thin and unsatisfying portions, with a disastrously bad turn from Rami Malek. Not even Russell Crowe's inimitable growly gravitas can compensate to save it.
Posted Nov 06, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Christy (2025) Nick Rogers Despite a solid but unsurprising turn from Sydney Sweeney, "Christy" unfolds as the sort of middling, by-the-numbers sports-figure biopic you’ve gone 12 rounds with many times before.
Posted Nov 06, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Die My Love (2025) Nick Rogers From a commercial perspective, the pairing of major stars in "Die My Love" is sure to suffer a quick demise. But for fans of big-swinging, esoteric-but-empathetic character studies as revealing as they are raucously funny, it’s practically proof of life.
Posted Nov 06, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Puppet Master: Doktor Death (2022) Nick Rogers It’s easy to slap the life-support tag on almost any installment of a franchise that has ballooned to 15 films. But this is particularly egregious, especially with a mid-movie narrative recap of a story that runs a scant 59 minutes.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Blade: The Iron Cross (2020) Nick Rogers The only eroticized real-world moment for any puppet in the entire franchise doesn’t take any such bold narrative leap as the "Child's Play" franchise did. But it's interesting and affirms the anything-goes exploitative aspects of what may be yet to come.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018) Nick Rogers Easily the most polished series production & a lot of fun. Still, thumbing its nose at the larger franchise would've played better in its dregs rather than in between the appropriately kitschy "Puppet Master: Axis Termination" and "Blade: The Iron Cross."
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Puppet Master: Axis Termination (2017) Nick Rogers The franchise's most vibrantly realized villains, its most inspired human-puppet team-up and a rather nicely, and unexpectedly, poetic rumination on the soul and self. Most people don't like this, but it's the best film of the "Puppet Master" series.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Puppet Master X: Axis Rising (2012) Nick Rogers Very little happens until a suitably bonkers final 20 minutes, but Brad Potts delivers one of the most endearing performances here as a supporting military liaison and the Nazi-created puppets are all fun. Well, except one. You'll know it when you see it.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Puppet Master: Axis of Evil (2010) Nick Rogers The puppets frankly feel like an afterthought to historically uninformed World War II human cosplay, which involves an alliance of German and Japanese forces conspiring to acquire André Toulon’s puppets.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys (2004) Nick Rogers The TV-movie limitations are abundant, but this is the low-grade coke-spasm oddity the series needed, given Baby Oopsie Daisy’s fart flights and assaults on Corey Feldman (who plays this, along with Vanessa Angel, at the appropriate level of absurdity).
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Demonic Toys (1992) Nick Rogers The Demonic Toys’ inaugural film is a solid single-location story that keeps things brisk with no shortage of gnarly, goofy developments, culminating in a great bit where the heroes fire guns at every toy they see to take no chances on an attack.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
1.5/5
Retro-Puppetmaster (1999) Nick Rogers The overdubs are rampant to a point that it’s entirely possible no voice you hear is matched to a mouth you see moving, and there is zero point to making a PG-13 "Puppet Master" film.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
1/5
Puppet Master: The Legacy (2003) Nick Rogers A terminal headshot to any semblance of unified continuity, an embarrassing clip show meant to mark time until funds could be made for another proper installment, and unequivocally the worst piece of the "Puppet Master" franchise.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Curse of the Puppet Master (1998) Nick Rogers This 78-minute film abruptly ends right at the point where 20 more minutes and maybe just a few more dollars could’ve let things get crazier.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
1.5/5
Puppet Master 5 (1994) Nick Rogers The last thing you want in an 81-minute film is to hit the 50-minute mark and wonder how there could possibly be a half-hour left.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Puppet Master 4 (1993) Nick Rogers A pleasant enough "Gremlins" vibe for the era of kids who wore No Fear shirts, and the rule-redefining cold open is a suitably impressive gamble to take in what is really just the second sequel.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge (1991) Nick Rogers A rather rote and routine expansion of what could’ve been an easy flashback shoehorned into a feature-length tale. That doesn’t mean it’s not without the occasionally enjoyable kitschy moment — such as the origin story of the Leech Woman puppet.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
3/5
Puppet Master II (1990) Nick Rogers A puppet doing a homicidal end-zone dance creates enough cognitive whiplash to add to the charm here, and that’s before very upsetting makeup in the finale — which also does a great job of making you feel bad for how easily the puppets are exploited.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2.5/5
Puppet Master (1989) Nick Rogers While the climax unfolds in an impressive combo of upsetting dentistry, medieval medicine and orthopedic brutality, this is all over the place tonally in a way a first installment should not feel and suffers from leaving the most boring characters alive.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
2/5
Ballad of a Small Player (2025) Nick Rogers Uncut Cubic Zirconia.
Posted Oct 28, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Strange Days (1995) Nick Rogers It remains James Cameron's most persuasively prescient piece of pessimistic prediction and depressing dystopia. A film about society’s tipping point into desensitization and disengagement gets at more actual boogeymen than indestructible robot people.
Posted Oct 28, 2025  Edit critic review
3.5/5
Girls in Uniform (1958) Nick Rogers While a mostly male crew could easily lead to more lurid and leering disaster, this 1958 remake remains a refreshing reminder of enduring empathy. With sensitivity and skill, it suggests the kids, although a handful, may still fundamentally be all right.
Posted Oct 24, 2025  Edit critic review
4/5
Night of the Juggler (1980) Nick Rogers The film filters the story of "High and Low" through exploitative propulsion, errantly romanticized and radicalized notions of urban pride, and that inimitable charge of truly insane location filmmaking in the tinderbox that once was New York City.
Posted Oct 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Frankenstein (2025) Aly Caviness If del Toro could only get one thing right about Frankenstein, I think Mary would be proud that it was [...] the brief, shining moment that gives a Creature so cruelly rejected by his father the unconditional love he desperately craves.
Posted Oct 18, 2025  Edit critic review
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