every movie ever made, in alphabetical order
(we’re in the K’s, with anti-alphabetical cheats)
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2003/2004)
Kill or Be Killed (1950)
Kill the Messenger (2014)
Kill Them with Kindness (2024)
The Killer (1989)
Killer App (1998)
and The Breakfast Club (1985)
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Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2003/2004)
Seeing Kill Bill, Volumes 1 & 2 decades ago, my recollection is that they’re well-made but overwrought tributes to the action and kung fu genres, and that two damned movies to tell this one woman’s tale of endless vengeance on the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was a bit much.
Great movies I watch over and over, so I guess Kill Bill isn’t great — I’ve never had any urge to re-watch the double feature. But Tarantino also sewed the two films into one, retitled Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, so I gave it a try. Didn’t get very far, though.
It’s more than four hours long, with rape, pedophilia, and a cartoon section… and that’s where I clicked it off, about 45 minutes in. I’d forgotten the cartoon section, and I’m just … no.
Still recommending the combined movie, because I remember enjoying both halves when my hair wasn’t gray and my pecker worked, but now I’m old and life is too short to sit through four hours of Tarantino’s self-indulgence.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Kill or Be Killed (1950)
Lawrence Tierney installed the air conditioning for a night club owned by a small-town big-shot, but he hasn’t been paid for his work. He gets cranky about it, which makes him the only suspect when the small-town big-shot turns up dead. And then Tierney falls for the dead guy’s wife, which makes him seem even guiltier, despite actually being a mensch.
This is not a good movie, but Tierney is terrific. He’s a star who deserved better flicks.
Verdict: MAYBE.
♦ ♦ ♦
Kill the Messenger (2014)
“My friend, some stories are just too true to tell.”
Writing for the San Jose Mercury-News in 1996, reporter Gary Webb broke the biggest story of his career: that President Ronald Reagan’s beloved “freedom fighters,” the anti-commie Contra rebels in Nicaragua, had been funded by selling dreaded crack cocaine in America — and that the Central Intelligence Agency had known about it.
The feds’ response to Webb’s scoop was mostly to stay silent, while leaking anonymous counter-tidbits to the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post. All three papers obediently published stories focusing on minor errors in Webb’s reporting and aspects of Webb’s personal life, intended to cast doubts on the facts of the matter.
In an embarrassing moment of American journalism, the Mercury-News eventually apologized for their coverage and said it “did not meet our standards.” Over subsequent years, further revelations have backed up Webb’s reporting, while a chorus of government sources continue nit-picking and saying he was wrong.
He wasn’t.
This movie is the story of Webb’s reporting, based on his book Dark Alliance, and also the story of how the CIA and the rest of the federal government struck back, based on Nick Schou’s book Kill the Messenger.
There’s an early scene establishing Webb’s character as a hyper-driven reporter, as he discusses an article with his editor. The script gives him a few lines that sound more like notes for a journalism lecture than something an actual reporter would say. “You can be such an asshole,” says his editor. “I’m an asshole because I believe in due process?”
The film ends with an on-screen claim that “Gary Webb was never able to earn a living as a journalist again,” but I remember reading his work in the Sacramento News & Review around the time he died.
The movie uses real names of real people and the real paper, instead of saying it was Chet Smith at the San Jose Bugle or whatever — six points for that, thank you — and the story can’t possibly not be compelling and interesting. This is definitely a good movie, recommended by me.
It’s not as good as it should’ve been, though, and never approaches such top flight journalism flicks as Spotlight or All the President’s Men. On a scale of 1-10, Kill the Messenger is maybe a 7.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Kill Them with Kindness (2024)
Here’s a 12-minute short about the horrors of waitress work. The customers are demanding, rude, entitled, and beyond the bounds of human decency, but the waitress finds a way to deal with them sweetly.
Not quite a comedy, but it’s sure fun.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
The Killer (1989)
Written and directed by John Woo, and starring Chow Yun-Fat (Hard Boiled), here’s another festival of gunshots.
A hit man has had enough, wants out of the business, and plans to retire after one last job. But things happen and shit goes down, there’s a shootout in a crowded nightclub, and he accidentally blinds a beautiful singer named Jennie (Sally Yeh).
This killer-of-many finally connects with a sense of guilt over what he’s done, and goes back to work — killing more people — to raise money for the operation that might save Jennie’s eyesight.
It’s ridonkulously ridonkulous, an overwrought opera without singing, but what the hell (in a good way). Watch it with the right frame of mind, and it’s a blast, maybe even an effective drama.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
Killer App (1998)
Written by Garry Trudeau and directed by Robert Altman, this is a TV pilot for an unsold series set among tech bros in Seattle.
The story is fun, the dialogue crackles, the acting is enthused, The Tragically Hip makes music, and Altman’s behind the camera so the visuals are sometimes dazzling. Sally Kellerman voices an AI, and the tech bros enthuse, “That sounds like Sally Kellerman.”
This is almost 30 years old, so most elements are dated, which is hard to avoid when you’re looking at old sci-fi. In this case, it’s full of dial-up tech, the big breakthrough is streaming video, and everyone at the start-up is ecstatic that they’ve scored $10-mmmmillion in venture capital. And the movie is filmed on video, so it looks like a VHS tape.
It peters out at the end, because it’s a TV pilot. The story can’t reach a resolution and isn’t supposed to; it’s supposed to make you want to watch another episode. And I would.
Verdict: YES.
♦ ♦ ♦
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Saturday, March 24, 1984.
Shermer High School.
Shermer IL 60062.
Five students — a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal — are sentenced to Saturday all-day detention. Despite the title, breakfast is not served. Sitting in the library unsupervised, the kids have nothing to do but get on each other’s nerves.
Gotta sell tickets, so the movie plays by the ordinary high school movie rules, but eventually it accumulates genuine gravitas, some thoughtful moments, and a point. Written and directed by John Hughes, this is his masterpiece, a darn near perfect mosh of adolescent insecurities, anxieties, cruelty, obnoxiousness, and jokes.
If you don’t already know The Breakfast Club, where’ve you been for the past 41 years? For me, it’s comfort cinema, a flick I’ve seen so many times it’s almost memorized, and after watching I always feel temporarily better about the world and myself.
“Don’t you forget about me…”
Verdict: BIG YES.
4/16/2026
Logo illustration by Jeff Meyer.
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If you can’t find a movie I’ve reviewed, or if you have recommendations, please drop me a note.
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No talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff.
