Shaw Writes Reviews, Rugby (2026)

15/06/2026

DISCLOSURE DAY 👽 - 9/10

Genuinely have not leaned further forward in my chair during a movie in YEARS. Disclosure Day had me absolutely locked in throughout, and it's no surprise given the names attached to this movie. Written by David Koepp, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Colin Firth, Emily Blunt and Colman Domingo, and the score was composed by John Williams? Disclosure Day is arguably not a film solely made by it's story, because while it is just a fantastic story the team behind it were simply S Tier from the start. There's so much still left to talk about after seeing it too, with Koepp hiding just enough from the canon to allow theory crafters to go wild, and being that kind of person I'm really eating it up. Truly stacked to the brim and given a really big headstart in public opinion, but in my opinion Disclosure Day holds up and is one you won't wanna miss this year.

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13/06/2026

DEAD GRANDMA 👵 - 8/10

Almost too wowed to review this one. DEAD GRANDMA is the most "what it says on the tin" short film I've ever seen, literally 80 short seconds of exactly what you'd expect but basically the most perfect story from start to finish. It almost feels like a PSA with how short it is, and I'm astounded with just how blunt and dark it is. I may sound like I'm glazing here as the film is literally 80 seconds long but this is what short film and experimental filmmaking is all about. Less than 2 minutes but more effective in its delivery than most. An argument can be made it's bait for shock value, and thus uninspired in it's creation, but in reality if it works it works. DEAD GRANDMA is, as a matter of fact, award winning, thus there's no argument to its legitimacy, so if you have a spare 5 minutes, it's available right now on YouTube.

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07/06/2026

SCARY MOVIE (2026) 😱🔪 - 2/10

"Every line will be crossed" said the movie who thinks saying the word "c**t" is a clutch pearls moment. For the 6th movie in a series of satirical comedies parodying horror movies, you think they'd get better every time to the point they'd perfected it by the 6th one, right?

Scary Movie was comedy de-evolution, a sick parade of Facebook humour and run-down attempts at topical jokes and culturally relevant comedy. I think there were maybe one or two moments that got a laugh out of me, the points in the film where they truly embraced absurdity for a moment, before the film returned solemnly to the cesspool of X verified writers on their third divorce. It's borderline unbelievable for a film so dependant on "offensive humour" to be so out of date, out of touch, and intensely unfunny. Not even in like a "this is a bad taste joke" way, this s**t was so butters man its unreal. They are doing twitch streamer parodies in the big old year of 2026, accenting nearly all of their actual jokes with unnecessary quips and one-liners, and even had a Covid segment. Bro I get the whole thing with the segment is that Covid is no longer an issue, but that doesn't make it funny in any way.

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Read my FULL review right here 👉 https://boxd.it/eGMTcx

05/06/2026

BACKROOMS 🛑⚠️ - 7/10

I think the problem I had with Backrooms was, admittedly, my expectations were a lot higher. With the director of the well-known YouTube series, Kane Parsons, directing, it was almost guaranteed Backrooms would be a 2026 hit, with it possibly rising to cult acclaim status, however the direction the movie took in regards to it's well established lore and backstory surprised me in many way. While, yes, it did include the famous found-footage moments here and there, there was a surprising lack of it implemented into the entire movie, which somewhat reduced the scare factor for me significantly. Going the psychological/thriller route instead of a psychological/cosmic horror route was also a big change that changed the entire outlook of the movie at times, and it's arguable had the movie been simply Blair Witch 2 it would be lauded more after the fact, but unfortunately I feel like Backrooms became a typical "outsmart the audience" case whereby it becomes too full and expansive to be done well.

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28/05/2026

THE SHEEP DETECTIVES 🐑🐏🔍 - 8/10

The Sheep Detectives was simple, wholesome fun all in all, definitely not the Mona Lisa of movies but I think the film had a right not to be with it being so consistent in its tone, its charm, and its purpose. The Sheep Detectives felt like a film that knew it wasn't out to win Oscars and embraced that fact, moving into a quirkier, more comedic attitude every other second, but that doesn't hide the fact that this movie has an incredibly mature take on grief and loss that a lot of kids can learn well from. Like Fisherman's Friends: One and All before it, I have a soft place in my heart for quintessentially British feel good films grounded in reality, and The Sheep Detectives stayed very firm in its attempts to keep a movie about talking sheep as grounded as it could, so much so that I can brag proudly that I did guess the culprits by the halfway mark. Thankfully, predictability doesn't spoil The Sheep Detectives, as even if you manage to guess the ending, writer Craig Mazin managed to slip in a ton of heartfelt scenes that make it all worth it.

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21/05/2026

ONLY YESTERDAY 🌹 - 6/10

Only Yesterday sadly felt like an utter slog to get through at times, which is disappointing as in my experience with the Ghibli catalogue because so far Only Yesterday is the most grounded and down to earth film I've watched. Following Taeko, a run-of-the-mill office worker who decides to take a vacation as a farmer in the Japanese countryside, the story recounts her memories growing up and introspectively judges the self-defined success she believes she's achieved, cutting often between her current life and the events of her 10 year-old self's life. It's a wonderfully mature and emotionally resonant idea, and absolutely pays-off it's build-up in the third act, but the first and second acts felt unwittingly dull at times with very little intention to her stories other than reminiscence. I can't fault it's style and animation, but the story takes so long to get started it's tough to say it was a fun journey.

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12/05/2026

CASTLE IN THE SKY 🤖 - 7/10

Castle in the Sky sadly didn't enamour me as much as previous Ghibli experiences, but it wasn't by any means a bad film. It was fun, a whimsical adventure that gives great vibes and tells a concise and meaningful story, but it didn't quite feel full. You can definitely tell this is a very early Miyazaki creation not just by the still developing animation style he would eventually become famous for, but also from less depth in the story itself. Miyazaki would eventually hone his craft from storytelling, but Castle in the Sky feels somewhat unfinished, especially near the end. Still, it carries it's themes of anti-war environmentalism consistently and provided a fun bit of rubber-hose inspired slapstick comedy scenes along the way. It kinda felt like Japanese Goonies in a way, coming almost a year to the day after the release of the actual Goonies.

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11/05/2026

MICHAEL ✨️ - 5/10

Michael was largely a lie by omission when it comes to the true story of Jackson, because while it didn't outright say any lies about the life of the world famous pop sensation, it basically ended the film before any of it could actually happen. Michael could've been quite a good and fun film about Jackson's life, but the blatant disregard for the controversy that surrounded him in his later years felt very disingenuine, and the filmmakers seemed to largely hope the audience would overlook this fact and pay more attention to the music on display. When you take a step back and look at the whole movie from a technical standpoint, it's very mid and seems to place Jackson's now deceased father in an almost comically evil villain role when it's very evident Jackson's mother also had at least some responsibility in Michael suffering childhood abuse. Really, all Michael does is play each song like a jukebox and fast forward through most of the rest of it, fairly bland and uninspired stuff.

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07/05/2026

MISS KOBAYASHI'S DRAGON MAID: A LONELY DRAGON WANTS TO BE LOVED 🐉 - 7/10

Bro the special effects and the sound design teams for this movie absolutely fu**ed, shoutout to Yota Tsuruoka, Soushi Shiihara, and Rina Miura for making a show that was once almost the pinnacle of goonerslop pseudo-fantasy anime into a genuinely impressive looking above average movie. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: A lonely dragon wants to be loved wasn't especially incredible honestly, it's hard to take a show seriously that contains primarily female characters whose major defining traits are the fact they are dragons but disguised as humans with massive honking cheps. It does step away from this for the purposes of this movie, granted, and focuses a lot on the impact of generational expectation on children of high class families in it's own weird and eccentric way, but it doesn't really say or do anything especially breathtaking with this topic. Still, Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: A lonely dragon wants to be loved was a fun time, and stays especially faithful to the source material.

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30/04/2026

HULK HOGAN: REAL AMERICAN 🇺🇸 - 3/10

This 4 episode documentary was, in simple terms, shameless. I'm a lifelong wrestling fan, so I know the ins and outs of everything Hulk Hogan has done to help and harm Wrestling as an entertainment, and I can categorically say that Hulk Hogan: Real American is filmmaking in cowardice. To give the documentary credit for touching on the controversies as late as the FINAL EPISODE is to give a soldier credit for shooting when the war is over, because Hogan's wrestling universe atrocities could quite simply have been all 4 episodes long with room for a second series. The real issue I have with Hulk Hogan: Real American is how much the filmmakers truly downplay the bad things Hulk Hogan did in favour of retaining the mythical figure and icon he became in happenstance. He killed WCW but they pass all the blame to Russo, he mortally wounded TNA with Dixie Carter but plays it off because divorced dad rhetoric, and was so amazingly racist that in a leaked 2007 recording he stated he thought his karma for getting into a car accident with his son would be that he'd be reincarnated as a Black man, but hey lets ignore that and get 8 shots of people weeping real quick.

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Shaw Writes Reviews

15/06/2026

13/06/2026

07/06/2026

05/06/2026

28/05/2026

21/05/2026

12/05/2026

11/05/2026

07/05/2026

30/04/2026

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