Editor’s Note: Freeline Media’s movie critic, Mike Fried, takes a look at four new movies streaming on cable. All good? or all bad? Read on!

By MIKE FRIED

COVER-UP (Netflix)

*****

We live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by people with pens.  

It’s a a simple as that! 

In this day and age where the news media doesn’t ask the most critical questions, who will? The corporatization of news into conglomerates that have other interests at large has caused the once independent press to be beholden to those interests. 

This examination of the career of Sy Hersh, the man who exposed the My Lai massacre, who jumped on the Watergate story when the Times didn’t want to, covered the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and exposed the government’s domestic spying program is so eye opening and will, unfortunately, not be watched by the 50% of the population that should watch it. 

Don’t get me wrong — Hersh is not always right and he is a prickly guy about journalism and sources and even being asked questions he doesn’t like. Hell, he even quits the interview for this movie midstream because he was getting agitated. 

But he asks questions, something that is sorely missing from today’s reportage. 

It has my vote as the best documentary of 2025.  

WATCH IT! 

THE LIFE OF CHUCK (Hulu)

****

As the world slides to cataclysmic disaster, volcanoes, Southern California sliding into the ocean, sinkholes, tidal waves, and worst of all no internet (meaning no Pornhub — can you imagine!!!!), we are introduced to the world of Charles “Chuck” Krantz whose face appears on mysterious billboards and who is referenced in radio ads, graffiti and skywriting thanking him for 39 great years. Nobody seems to know who he is. 

Well, Chuck is an accountant who seems to have touched the lives of so many in the course of his 39 years.

Mike Flanagan has done it again, writing another terrific adaptation of a Stephen King story. The movie does belong to Tom Hiddleston but it also belongs to Jacob Tremblay and especially Benjamin Pajak.  

If anything, it drags a bit in the third act but not for long — it prevents the movie from reaching the heights that it might have. But with exquisite supporting performances, especially from Mark Hamill as Zaydee (Grandpa) and Mia Sara as Bubbe (Grandma) and soothing almost god-like narration by Nick Offerman, it doesn’t matter. The movie takes us through Chuck’s short, happy life. There’s even a brief appearance by Heather Langenkamp, an acknowledgment of Flanagan’s horror roots. 

And what is in Chuck’s mind? As his ditzy hippy-dippy teacher tells him “Everything you see. Everything you know. Planes in the sky. Manhole covers in the street. Every year that you live, that world inside your head will get bigger and brighter and more detailed and complex. You will build cities and countries and continents, and you will fill them with people and faces, real and imagined.”

We are Chuck. 

And we should be thankful for what we have. 

WATCH IT!

REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (AMC Plus/Shudder)

****

A grindhouse movie like I’ve never seen before. 

Imagine a director on acid decides to make a James Bond movie with gadgets and violence and all that stuff but make it like a 60s movie with a 2025 aesthetic … and this tale of a retired spy who believes that some of his old adversaries are coming after him might just be up your alley. 

Thai is one of the most inventive movies of the year. It is batshit crazy  But in a totally good way.  It is a viscerally exciting and visually inventive piece of cinema. 

QUEENS OF THE DEAD (AMC Plus)

*** 1/2

Tina Romero, the daughter of famed horror and zombie director George A. Romero, puts her family heritage to great use in her feature film directorial debut.  

And her debut is about drag queens and other clubbers trapped at a party in a warehouse that is surrounded by zombies and they must all put aside their differences to fight the undead as a zombie apocalypse hits the Big Apple. 

Full of camp and glitter, this is a movie that I don’t think her father would have ever thought about doing but it’s a Romero nevertheless. It’s an tremendously gay old time featuring an almost entirely LGBTQ cast including Katy O’Brian, Margaret Cho, Cheyenne Jackson, Jack Haven, Nina West, and Dominique Jackson, among others and all of them seem to be having the absolute time of their lives making this film. 

A lot of the humor is derived from all of the characters and their sensibilities. Particularly funny is Quincy Dunn-Baker as Barry, the straight brother of Dre (Katy O’Brien) who can’t understand all of the pronouns.  And the interactions between the rest of the cast are equally hilarious.  When one of the zombies slow-walks through the dancers, she gets knocked on her ass. I couldn’t help but laugh.  

But it’s a Romero film at heart. And its closest relative is the batshit crazy Return of the Living Dead crossed with Dawn of the Dead. And it’s a terrifically put together zombie film.  It is so well paced and beautifully edited that it moves by in no time at all. 

Plus, you have to love a movie that casts horror legend Tom Savini as the Mayor of New York saying “This is not a George Romero movie. There no such things as zombies.”

It just has that great sense of humor to it. 

Tina did her dad proud. 

WATCH IT !

Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.

Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.