Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is an epic in every sense of the word. Spanning almost three hours and taking place over decades, it is the first Nolan film that, to me, has felt constrained by the limits of cinema itself. Nolan himself seems to agree, given his decision to film the entirety of The Odyssey on IMAX—a feat that has never been accomplished before and required the development of a brand-new 65mm IMAX camera, appropriately named after David Keighley, IMAX’s late Chief Quality Officer.

The development of new technology to capture Nolan’s vision for one of the world’s oldest stories is triumphant. It reminds me of the dual role James Cameron has played in advancing CGI throughout his film career, particularly through the development of the Avatar film series.

These directors are visionaries through and through, and I don’t think it’s a shock that this approach has translated into enormous box-office success. In a world rapidly filling with AI slop, people yearn for authentic work that only a human can make. For a story that has been retold across generations, it’s fitting for Nolan to lend his vision to this definitive take on the character of Odysseus.

A WAR

The Odyssey, though, is not without its faults. It’s nearly impossible to follow a masterpiece like Oppenheimer—though, if anyone could do it, it’s certainly Nolan—and perhaps my expectations were as lofty as the cameras used to shoot the film. Still, I did not find Nolan completely successful in translating this epic text onto the big screen.

I should note: these critiques are minor. This film is a stunning achievement on both technical and storytelling levels. Nolan perfectly builds upon his penchant for nonlinear storytelling—pioneered in Memento, perfected in Tenet, and honed further in Oppenheimer—smartly utilizing the time Odysseus spends with Calypso as a vehicle for jumping among the story’s set pieces.

And while this nonlinear storytelling never detracts from the story itself, I did find the pacing just a bit rougher than Nolan’s usual crescendo into an all-timer of a third act—which we still get; it’s just a little bumpier getting there.

Nolan’s choices in this well-known story generally worked for me—from the Cyclops to the fall of Troy—but a number of sequences feel rushed. The moments themselves are compelling, but the audience has little time to sit with them or react before we jump to the next key moment in Odysseus’s journey. Both the battle with the Laestrygonians—which shows the ultimate hero of the Bronze Age being witlessly outclassed by the coming Iron Age—and the devastation of Scylla, one of many impossible choices Odysseus is tasked with making, unfold too quickly. We breeze through some scenes while still feeling their impact—the Sirens, for example, in a sequence that reinforces Nolan’s Christian reading of The Odyssey, with Odysseus undergoing this story’s version of Christ’s crucifixion—but these sequences feel too rushed. Nolan would have been better off either omitting or expanding them.

A MAN

Matt Damon’s Odysseus is the heart and soul of this film. The king of Ithaca, the mastermind behind the Trojan Horse, and the quintessential hero of the Bronze Age, he is also Nolan’s most unlikable protagonist—and Damon is perfect. Peeling back the layers of the myth, Damon captures the character’s humanity, including all the incongruities and faults therein, better than any other rendition of Odysseus. He has been depicted as both a hero and a villain, but Damon manages to delicately balance the two, finding someone all audiences can root for despite his obvious faults.

This epic only works, though, because of the stellar cast surrounding Damon. It’s nearly impossible to go through everyone, and while some performances are weaker than others—Charlize Theron, Travis Scott, and Jon Bernthal—none are bad. A few, however, stand out and deserve additional accolades.

Anne Hathaway is wondrous as Penelope. As Odysseus’s isolated wife, she has one specific monologue to Tom Holland’s Telemachus articulating the unacknowledged role she has played in her husband’s absence that is so profound and so moving. She somehow captures the entirety of the feeling that so many women who have stood beside—or behind—“great” men experience and rarely receive credit for.

Tom Holland, too, is excellent as Telemachus. Of course, we know Holland can play a puckish, if immature, boy in Peter Parker, but the film gives him one particularly standout moment in the third act. The parallel journey Telemachus has been on finally reaches its end, and he must silently compose himself because the journey now colliding with his own requires just a bit more of him.

Robert Pattinson eats up the screen as the sleazy Antinous. In a role that is already being memed across the internet—“Somebody get these beggars out of here”—it is both the fun Pattinson has as this delightfully evil character and the character’s pathetic nature that make him infinitely watchable. Seriously, at one point, he kicks an elderly dog and then places him on a pile of feces seconds later. Pattinson presents Antinous as a strategic man masquerading as confident, brilliantly capturing the underlying tension between his outward façade and internal doubt. He’s not someone to root for, but I’ll be damned if I did not love every second of his time on screen.

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Samantha Morton reportedly received applause on set while filming her scenes as Circe—and deservedly so. Perhaps the most compelling character Odysseus meets on his journey home, Morton injects an entire unseen story into the role, one never shown on screen but felt deeply through her character. She deserves a movie of her own and serves wonderfully as the linchpin of our understanding of Odysseus and his men, highlighting the sheer absurdity of their quest.

A THOUGHT

The larger theme echoing throughout the film is Zeus’s law, or xenia, which Nolan molds into the commonly understood Golden Rule—treat others as you would want to be treated—with a slight bend rooted in the Greek gods themselves: extend hospitality because the gods may take any form.

This thematic throughline anchors the film. From Odysseus’s men requesting accommodations along their journey to Penelope entertaining suitors in the halls of Ithaca, there is a clear moral core to this story. Its violation in the most profound of ways—the Trojan Horse—has tremendous consequences throughout the entire world.

Odysseus is a hero, but at what cost? The film wrestles with the idea over and over. Do the ends justify the means? Frankly, how could they after what we witness over a brisk 172 minutes? Odysseus is incapable of returning to his homeland until he reckons with what he has done—an act that took mere hours but that he comes to terms with over decades of tragedy and defeat. A hero known for plucking his bowstring to provide a fair fight for any prey he stalks, his actions at Troy violate xenia on both a micro and macro level.

A TRICK

When Odysseus and his men end up on the shores of Hell, confronted by the men they have lost, it all becomes clear. What has all this been for? How do we occupy ourselves with these superficial and frivolous conflicts, ultimately meaningless in the face of inevitable death?

At the steps of Hades, Tiresias—in an incredible turn by James Remar—reveals the divine doom awaiting Odysseus and his men. This journey is about Odysseus overcoming his faults and atoning for his sins, but none of his men are lucky enough to endure that torture and emerge from the other side.

This scene echoes the larger themes at play. We may be following one man’s journey, but the violation of xenia extends far beyond the literal act of the Trojan Horse—it has ingrained itself deep within the souls of Odysseus’s men and all those still alive in this waning Bronze Age.

This tragedy is not just about one man or one family—it’s a tragedy for the soul of an entire nation. Odysseus is to blame for the Trojan Horse, but there is far more blame to go around for the downfall of the greatest civilization that had existed to that point. We see this with Agamemnon, played by an unrecognizable Benny Safdie. As the general of the Trojan War, he is only technically the victor. He succumbs to his own tragic flaws—and to the consequences of an unimaginable sacrifice he made years before this story begins—meeting the same fate as the rest of Odysseus’s men.

A TRICK TO BREAK THE WALLS OF TROY

AND BURN IT SCREAMING TO THE GROUND

The third act alone is a masterpiece. After all the setup of the previous acts and the trials and tribulations we endure with our hero-turned-man, Nolan, his cast and crew, and the greatest composer in the world, Ludwig Göransson, go god mode on all of us.

Greece is doomed. By this point, that is clear—I’m looking at you, Athena, perfectly portrayed by Zendaya. But that doesn’t stop Nolan from executing an utterly compelling climax in which our tragic family is reunited and the villains waiting in Ithaca are given their deserved punishment.

You see, Odysseus and Oppenheimer are not so different. The Trojan Horse is treated as the atomic bomb, and the men who made it must reckon with the world that allowed such a thing to be created and the tragedy that follows. It’s this idea that Nolan grapples with once again, leaving us with an ambiguous ending for our characters that, in the moment, can feel optimistic, but underneath it all, we know that optimism has not yet been earned.

Men will continue to make the same mistakes, to the detriment of us all. Structures become nothing without respect for what they stand for. Myths and legends—stories—are at their best when they seek to enlighten, not just when they entertain. While The Odyssey does not quite reach the heights of Oppenheimer, it does cement Nolan as a generational storyteller. I just hope we can all heed his warning and find a new path forward.

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1/5

James Gunn represented the hope for a new DC Universe after Zack Snyder’s controversial edgelord take on its classic heroes. Lacking Snyder’s abrasive edge but overflowing with heart, 2024’s Superman was a great inaugural entry in this new DC world. Gunn, a veteran of the MCU—and one of the few to leave the franchise unscathed, thanks, surprisingly, to one of the industry’s fastest cancellation-to-uncancellation turnarounds—was tapped by WB to bring some of that Marvel magic to DC’s classic heroes.

What impressed me so much about Superman was Gunn’s restraint. He established a distinct vision for the character. You can feel the DNA of his Marvel hits like Guardians of the Galaxy, yet he took care to subvert expectations and grow as a filmmaker. Gunn knows how to use a needle drop—see: the opening scene of every GotG movie—which works once but feels less magical the next dozen times. He wisely avoids relying on that device throughout Superman, giving the excellent use of “Punkrocker” during the film’s denouement an even greater impact.

If Superman was an exercise in restraint from a filmmaker who was cancelled and uncancelled in record time, there is some irony in the possibility that the second film in the new DC Universe, Supergirl, could bomb hard enough to kill this iteration just as it gets started. And the killing blow? The total absence of that restraint in Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl.

In what appears to have been a troubled production, WB took over final cut, and the version we see was signed off on by Gunn—hence some of the blame landing with him. This film needed to be at least as good as Superman, if not better. It may instead be the worst DC film since WW84.

It reeks of someone trying to emulate Gunn’s style while learning all the wrong lessons. The film is overstuffed, with some of the worst music choices I have ever heard in a movie. Whereas “Punkrocker” at the end of Superman will have you shedding a tear (complimentary), Supergirl’s closing song will have you bursting out laughing (derogatory).

Milly Alcock is the one redeeming feature, playing a great Supergirl—it is just a shame she is stuck in such a bad movie. Her character is largely incomprehensible, with contradictory motivations that serve to prolong the plot rather than align with any cohesive characterization. Is she good or is she bad? Why are we even asking this question?

Jason Momoa is also fine but saddled with truly terrible material as Lobo. Lobo is completely inconsequential to the film. Half of his scenes are designed to look or sound cool (they do not), and the other half tell the audience how to feel (which is impossible). Krypto is sidelined throughout the film, and I am shocked to say that my favorite part is a glorified cameo from Seth Rogen as a space-bus driver. I, too, wish I had called in sick for this movie.

The action feels like a CGI-slop fest, with all the weight of a cheap video-game cutscene. Every set piece feels the same, populated by totally interchangeable cannon fodder. The stakes feel too low, admittedly a difficult problem in a superhero film but not one James Gunn has not already proven he can handle.

And that is the shame of all of this. Maybe Gillespie was the wrong director, but this failure goes all the way up to James Gunn as the head of the DCU. For a man who has constantly espoused quality over quantity, he certainly failed to achieve it with Supergirl.

Supergirl is not just a failure in its own right but an indictment of the entire DCU project, which, for a brief moment after Superman, appeared to have a bright future. Somewhere, Zack Snyder is probably having a grand old time. He knows better than most that these properties are not easy to lead and manage.

On to this fall’s Clayface, which I now have little faith in after the debacle of Supergirl.

Leviticus

2/5

In our modern horror renaissance—with recent standouts like Obsession, a true box-office phenomenon the likes of which we have not seen since Top Gun: Maverick, and Backrooms, with Kane Parsons making a smash hit at age 20 and forging a new path for the next generation of filmmakers—I am sad to say that Leviticus does not reach the exceptionally high bar set by so many horror films of the past few years.

It is a 90-minute film that feels both too long and not long enough. It drags yet still fails to explore anything deeper or more interesting. There are a number of compelling vignettes, but a hodgepodge of short films does not a feature film make.

It squanders a relatively interesting premise—you actually can pray the gay away, but the reality is more horrific than you could imagine—and fails to carve out an identity for itself. It wears its inspirations on its sleeve, from the teenage sex and STD allegory of It Follows to its LGBTQ spin on doppelgänger monsters. Yet it does not do enough to elevate these familiar themes beyond throwing some gay paint over them and calling it a day.

When the film tries to capture something new and unique, it mostly works. There is simply too little of it, and none of it is explored deeply enough to really affect you. The complicated nature of the hidden relationship between Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) is fraught with tension, especially as we learn that Naim is actually the reason Ryan is forced into a horrific religious ceremony that feels all too real. But that tension never pays off in any meaningful way.

There are some steamy moments between the two leads that capture the shame and guilt of desiring something you have been taught never to want, and this is easily where the movie shines brightest.

Ryan and Naim have great chemistry. They act their age, which means they are clearly still figuring everything out and are bound to make mistakes—mistakes with consequences far larger than usual, though frankly comparable to those of the not-so-distant past. Their love story works, and you will be rooting for them to overcome the evil thrust upon them.

There is one heartbreaking scene in which a friend betrays Ryan while Naim watches in horror, unable to help and wrestling with the fact that his own actions are not so different from hers.

All that said, this is a horror film that sometimes feels unsettling but rarely feels scary. Not every horror film needs jump scares, but it does need to capture some sense of dread or tension; Leviticus lacks both.

Special shout-out to Mia Wasikowska as Naim’s mother, Arlene, who gets too little screen time but seems to ooze a compelling backstory. Was this religious curse inflicted on her?

The film works just fine as an allegory for internalized homophobia and religious trauma, but it fails as a horror film - and is a pass for me.

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5/5

Olivia Wilde’s The Invite takes place on a single set, with four actors, in real time over the course of one evening. It is filmmaking boiled down to its simplest parts—and each of those parts is executed flawlessly.

Wilde, as star, director, and co-writer, is revelatory. Every choice feels like the correct one. From casting and set design to syntax and diction, you can tell Wilde took special care—and backed it up with enormous talent—in adapting this remake from its source film, itself based, unsurprisingly, on a stage play.

All four performances—Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen as the hosts, Penélope Cruz and Ed Norton as the guests—are nearly perfect, but I have never seen Wilde act like this before. There is one scene involving a soufflé that contains the best bit of physical comedy I have seen from any actor in years.

Rogen is great as a down-on-his-luck, self-defeating middle-aged father—but it is not exactly a huge stretch either. Ed Norton and Penélope Cruz, as the cool couple next door who have loud sex, are… obviously the cool couple next door who have loud sex. Once again, not a huge stretch for anyone with eyes. That does not discount their performances in any way; they all have moments to shine.

Rogen shines when he moves away from being goofy and instead embodies the righteous indignation that only a man who feels like a failure can. Cruz plays an open-minded, sex-positive therapist who reads the room instantly but always appears to be waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Norton constructs a persona, then hilariously undresses it at the most inopportune moment (…Hawk). These moments give the characters complexity and depth, along with the chance to show their acting chops. That is hugely important given the scale of the film. Cruz, in particular, is outstanding. She is so precise with her language—even though English is not her first—and feels plucked straight out of an Almodóvar film.

But it is Olivia Wilde who completely blew me away. She plays a woman who cannot help but be honest while seemingly always lying. Her face gives her away seconds before her words do. She layers each lie by degrees, keeping much of what she says close enough to the truth without ever quite reaching it. Her performance is a true standout, but the fact that she also directed the film with equal precision is nearly unheard of.

So many films nowadays feel like TV (derogatory), with uninventive blocking and scripts that assume their audiences are only half paying attention. Wilde is a breath of fresh air. Every scene is blocked impeccably, with the characters inhabiting each room in subtle and telling ways—from the mirrored composition of Wilde speaking with Norton to Rogen sulking in the kitchen as the guests arrive. Each scene gives you so much to chew on.

I am still thinking about the clothes they wear, including the shades of blue that echo the paint colors Rogen and Wilde are testing for the bedroom: hers matches the shade she selects, while his matches the room’s existing hue, showing how he is being lost inside an inherited home he never truly chose.

All of these small details add up to a monumental triumph. Every single moment is meaningful and worth unpacking. There is nothing extraneous in this brisk film. Stripped to its essential and astounding parts, it builds to an explosively quiet ending that refuses to provide any clear-cut answers but eloquently shows how a single night can sometimes feel like a lifetime.

As much as I may recommend seeing a grand spectacle like Avatar: Fire and Ash or Mission: Impossible on the silver screen, this film earns its place on the big screen just as much as any of those blockbusters.

Backrooms

4/5

While Obsession is the current horror phenomenon—and boy, is it one, grossing over $400 million on a budget of less than $1 million—there is a second horror success story in Backrooms.

Also made on a paltry budget of under $10 million, Backrooms comes from Kane Parsons, a 20-year-old director who cut his teeth making inventive YouTube videos in his bedroom using tools like Blender. This nontraditional path led A24 to take a chance on a true Zoomer IP with Backrooms, and while Parsons is not the only YouTuber-turned-filmmaker, he is certainly the youngest and, after seeing this film, the most talented.

Backrooms, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, takes place in the ’90s. Ejiofor plays a failed architect managing a failing furniture showroom and inexplicably seeing a therapist, played by Reinsve, following the dissolution of his marriage. It is in this department store, Captain Clark’s, that an innocent investigation into a mysterious electricity bill leads to the discovery of a door—portal? entrance?—into the titular Backrooms.

The Backrooms appear endless, capturing a distinctly liminal atmosphere through unsettling set dressing and even more unsettling architecture. There are staircases to nowhere, doors that are too small, piles of clothes hiding something sinister, and, eventually, creatures that resemble humans grotesquely morphed into something else. The real star of the movie is, as it should be, the Backrooms—and what a star it is.

From the very first jump scare, I was on edge for the entire film. In the Backrooms, you never know what is lurking around each corner, what you might see next, or where the pathway forward—or backward—might be. It is a diabolical, horrific maze that begs to be studied but will never be fully understood.

In case you cannot tell, I am a big fan of this film, though that is in spite of its flaws—of which there are a few. Ultimately, a weak script holds it back from becoming the masterpiece lurking just behind its façade. Backrooms is incredibly compelling, but its stunning visual language is hampered by thin characters and a technically impressive third act that seems unsure of its own ending.

This lack of focus does not derail the film, but it does feel out of sync (hehe, iykyk) with the incredible quality of the images on screen. To Parsons’s credit, he did not write the film and seems aware that his skills lie more behind the camera than on the page. If he can find a better collaborator for the inevitable sequel, there is a real opportunity for Backrooms to become the defining horror spectacle of the decade.

I think the most complimentary thing I can say is that I had never engaged with the years of Backrooms lore Parsons developed on YouTube—or with the broader mythology spread across forums and subreddits—yet I left the theater ready to immerse myself completely in this world.

This film feels like the dawn of a new era of horror, finally moving beyond the “elevated” horror of the past decade—I am looking at you, Ari Aster—and into something new and fresh. Sign me the hell up!

I could not be more pleased to share that John Early, of whom I am a huge fan — seriously, how can you not be after that iconic Britney Spears impression? — has a winner with his directorial debut, Maddie’s Secret.

A cross between a made-for-TV movie, a takedown of influencer culture, and a harrowing HBO drama, Maddie’s Secret finds John Early in the lead role as Maddie Ralph, more on that later, playing a cis woman, earnestly, might I add, in a way that only a gay man can. Maddie is a dishwasher at Gourmaybe, where she seems to be happy enough working her way to a more desirable position the old-fashioned way: by putting in the time and doing the grunt work.

Her best friend, Deena (Kate Berlant), sees something special in Maddie. She’s not just passionate about food; she is a genius with it. And Maddie, a reluctant hero in Deena’s eyes, is more self-deprecating than confident. She knows she’s good, but there is something holding her back.

When Maddie’s boyfriend, Jake (Eric Rahill), convinces her to film one of her recipes and posts it online, Maddie is shifted overnight from the comfort of her dishwashing duties to being Gourmaybe’s newest and most exciting star. As Maddie’s profile rises, her dark secret begins to show at the seams, and it quickly appears that she is in over her head.

This new role sets Maddie up for a great opportunity to possibly become the food consultant for The Boar, a not-so-subtle analogy for The Bear, though she has stiff competition in Gourmaybe’s other chef, Emily (Claudia O’Doherty), who seems to feel a certain type of way about the spotlight shone on Maddie.

The film is filled with other excellent supporting roles, including Kristen Johnston as Maddie’s largely unseen mother, Beverlee Ralph; Connor O’Malley as the pig of an executive in charge of Gourmaybe; and Vanessa Bayer as Maddie’s roommate during treatment.

And it’s this shift into treatment that elevates the film beyond its simple satire of foodfluencers and Lifetime movies. John Early can’t help but ask what the darkest secret Maddie could be hiding as a food influencer is, and, of course, that secret is an eating disorder.

I’ll applaud the film, in particular, for treating this disease with the seriousness it deserves. In a film that vacillates between tones so wildly — when asked at a Q&A how Early managed the tone of the film, he simply responded that he didn’t, he just let it all happen — I found myself deeply moved by the struggle Maddie and her peers in treatment face. Maddie goes through it, including cardiac arrest and a perforated stomach, ultimately leading her down a path where she finally has to confront the beginnings of her trauma: her mom.

The film does a great job of making these largely caricatured people feel real, and the arc Maddie goes on feels more earned here than I’ve seen in most movies this year. For as much as this film follows a formula, Early knows exactly when to keep things ambiguous and trust the audience to think deeper about the images we see on screen. For a film with an ostensibly narrow scope, Early does not shy away from tackling big ideas and heavy topics, and the film is stronger for it.

And while the film does, at times, feel like a debut, the raw talent on display has me thrilled for his future as a director. Come for the laughs. Stay for the emotion. And keep an eye on John Early’s career. For as much as we may love him for the clips that go viral on TikTok, it’s clear he has grander ambitions and the talent to back them up.

I don’t even know where to begin. All I can think about is how lucky we are to be living in a time when Steven Spielberg is still making movies.

His technical merits have been proven time and time again, so it’s no surprise that we get a film packed with camera swings that always land in the perfect spot, one-shot takes that will make you question how they are even possible, and incredible set pieces that are somehow overflowing with both heart and tension. This film is jam-packed with big, lofty ideas, but never too many at a time. Despite starting from a small-town, low-stakes conflict, the film ramps up and up until we are seeing something that affects the entire world, and beyond, as Spielberg perfectly scaffolds this film. All three acts are mesmerizing, leading into a truly breathtaking third act that does things I don’t think we’ve ever seen before.

I found myself overwhelmed with emotion as Spielberg masterfully orchestrates the magic of cinema before our very eyes. I am going to spoil the film beyond this point, because I don’t know how else to talk about it, but go see it. It’s Emily Blunt’s best performance, maybe ever? In one of the most audacious big-budget films you’ll see all year, if not this decade. Go and submit yourself to the wonder and magic of the movie hall.

Spoilers Inbound

As you might guess, Disclosure Day is not really about aliens. I mean, it is, but they are the vehicle that gets us to our destination, not the destination itself. I can see how folks may be frustrated by the marketing, or expect something different from what they actually get over this brisk two-and-a-half-hour runtime. But to that I say: grow up. Art is not made specifically for you. It’s made to be experienced. So stop shorting yourself by getting upset that a film is not exactly what you thought it would be and engage with what this brilliant director has worked so hard to bring to the silver screen.

And boy, is it brilliant. If The Fabelmans was largely autobiographical, about how Spielberg became Spielberg, then this serves as a perfect companion piece. He became what he is, as he needed to, and now he’s reckoning with the world around him. How he contributed to it. What the path looks like moving forward. Wondering if there even is one. It’s both shockingly nihilistic and overwhelmingly hopeful, two ideas so in contrast with one another that I can barely comprehend how he pulls it off. This film is just as personal as The Fabelmans, if not more so. Colman Domingo’s character, Hugo Wakefield, prognosticates that “People are starved for the truth. This 79-year terror campaign of lies has to end. Full disclosure to the whole world. That truth will upend all established order across the entire world.” I don’t think it’s an accident that Spielberg himself is 79 years old.

The opening scene is unexpected, as we see a wrestling match take place before our eyes, and before the eyes of one of our protagonists, played by Josh O’Connor. This, I think, sets up the conflict of the film: disclosure, truth. Everyone knows wrestling is fake, but we are perfectly happy to accept it for what it is and be entertained. We just want to see people fight. We don’t care how made up the reasons are. And this is really a microcosm of the world Spielberg paints in the film, one not so dissimilar from our own.

Through background images and news clips, we see that the world appears to be on the brink of World War III. Nobody quite knows what to do beyond what they usually do: uphold the status quo and look to be entertained. The news is not interested in being a truth-teller. It is interested in entertaining an increasingly vicious audience. We’ve all become so siloed, so fragmented, and Spielberg appears to feel some ownership over that. He’s not just an innocent passenger, but part of the problem, too. And this is where the film gets so interesting.

There is no obvious director stand-in, as one might expect. This is Spielberg wrestling with his inner demons. He has Emily Blunt in a career-defining role as a hilarious weather reporter for a local news channel in Kansas City. Blunt is tasked with acting through every emotion in the book, and she pulls it off with ease. You’ll find yourself laughing at her trying to break her phone on purpose, only to then find yourself unable to catch your breath as she is unable to catch hers in one of the most realistic and heart-wrenching renditions of a panic attack I have ever seen on screen.

Her superpower of empathy is on full display, manifesting in what should be cheesy but is so earnest it works, as she reads into people’s souls and appears as family. This superpower is as magical as when E.T. levitates the kids through the sky. It’s just a more grown-up and more mundane version of that, though no less special. It’s Blunt’s performance that anchors the entire film, and the narrative hinges completely on her. And she pulls it off.

Josh O’Connor is her foil, similarly dealing with the consequences of non-human intervention, though manifesting in a completely different way. His mathematical ability is off the charts, but it’s made him alone and isolated, unable to relate to others. If Emily Blunt represents our otherworldly ability to empathize, then O’Connor represents that universal and deep loneliness so many of us have struggled with. For fans of The Fabelmans, it shouldn’t be too surprising that these intertwined protagonists seem to exhibit many similarities to the doomed Spielberg-adjacent parents played by Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, emphasizing the personal nature of both films.

These two protagonists are working with our shepherd, Hugo Wakefield, played by Colman Domingo, who is in conflict with his former boss and current big bad, Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth. Hugo has a plan for full disclosure, and O’Connor and Blunt are, for much of the film, unknowing instruments in that plan. But Firth’s Noah is the man in black, putting the pieces together and doing everything he can to stop this from happening.

And the film does an incredible job of not overexplaining everything to you. We see this with Firth in particular. He may appear to be a caricature of a villain with nebulous motivations, but look closer and you see exactly who he is: a man who, after losing the love of his life, lost faith in humanity. A deeply tragic villain, he feels like the personification of what we often feel. Sometimes we just want to throw our hands in the air and give up. People are capable of truly horrible things. And sometimes that equation tips over to one side, and it gets easier and easier to justify your actions because of the harm that others cause. Spielberg’s genius is in knowing what to make explicit and what to leave implicit, and this balance highlights the way Spielberg can simply run circles around many of his peers.

It’s wholly compelling in a way that is rare to see on screen. And depth is the name of the game for Disclosure Day. Every character has layers upon layers. Every scene is meant to be chewed on and savored. It also happens to be very fun. From incredible set pieces like O’Connor’s breakout at the farm to an all-timer train sequence that feels Spielbergian in the best of ways, the film is always looking to ramp up the tension. As O’Connor and Blunt are smashed into an oncoming train, it’s not enough to just have another train hurtling at them from the parallel tracks; one of our mysterious NGO villains is taking aim and shooting at them, too. This is just one example of the tension so delicately woven throughout the film, which culminates in an all-timer of a third act.

And what an act it is. I resist calling the film political. I don’t think it’s political in the modern sense, but I do think it is political in that it is responsive to our world, has a point of view, and is expressly interested in sharing that. As the film culminates at a local news station in Kansas City, I found myself moved by this brilliant turn. In a world where truth is increasingly rare, news is more about spin than informing, and national news stations are being utterly dismantled through tech acquisitions and politically hostile takeovers, I was profoundly moved that the film is bold enough to add another key protagonist: local news itself.

As the film crescendos, I found myself leaning forward and breathless, fully engaged with the fantasy presented before us. For a film called Disclosure Day, that buildup to full disclosure is perfectly earned. As we see our characters succeed, not on their own but with so many others working toward a common cause, I found Spielberg tapping into something we are so starved of: community, shared moments. Watching this film just before the Knicks’ legendary NBA Championship win could not have been more perfect. For anyone in NYC that day, the final moments of Disclosure Day felt like millions of us taking to the streets as the Knicks ended a 53-year terror campaign against them. The whole city was together, in community, and that is exactly what we capture as our heroes upload the raw, unedited footage of non-human life, as the staff rally other networks to broadcast it, and as they quite astutely shut down any idea of an “exclusive.”

And so much of this hinges on the introduction of a new actress in the final minutes of the film: Courtney Grace. Grace plays a national news anchor who is live on television, receiving the same images in real time as everyone else, while also having the responsibility of doing her job and commenting on the images shown to us all. Her ratio of screen time to impact is incomparable. The entire climax of the film hinges on her performance, and it is perfect. I cannot imagine another supporting performance exceeding what Grace is doing here, and it’s incredibly brave to introduce this actress with minutes until the end of the film, at the most critical moment.

And that is the highest of compliments considering the other supporting performances in the film are also outstanding. I specifically want to highlight Eve Hewson as Jane, O’Connor’s girlfriend, and Elizabeth Marvel as Sister Maura. One of the grand ideas the film is unafraid to tackle is the impact that full disclosure may have on religion and faith. This is explored with Jane and Sister Maura, who have a relationship because Jane explored becoming a nun but ultimately did not. Despite leaving the monastery, it’s clear that Jane has not lost her faith, but perhaps just her trust in organized religion. Jane’s struggle with faith is physically manifested as she is, basically, demonically possessed as a way to get to O’Connor. It’s not subtle, but what’s the point of subtlety when tackling such big, lofty ideas?

There is a moment where Jane calls Sister Maura, getting to the heart of the questions about what she has learned and squaring it with her own struggles with faith, and Sister Maura delivers the answer beautifully. In any other film, this may have felt like too much, but in Disclosure Day, it works because it is earned. After seeing Jane wrestle with her faith over the runtime, the answer Maura gives feels deservedly profound.

That’s what Spielberg really understands. In a world where CinemaSins has effectively ruined so much of film criticism, what that shallow criticism will never be able to appreciate is the suspension of disbelief in service of a larger purpose. Spielberg perfectly ramps up the tension and conflict, puts the characters through real struggles, and manages to provide nuanced answers that feel earned.

Which gets us to the end of the film. The final moments. If I was leaning forward during the third act, my jaw was practically on the floor by the end. Full disclosure has been achieved. Hugo wheels in a real non-human life-form, finally connecting with our two protagonists, who were sent on this journey long before the events of the film take place. The alien, a word never uttered in the film, by the way, passes along a message to Margaret through our translator, Daniel. She turns to the camera, and to us, and begins to share the message with one word: “Listen.” And the film cuts to black.

As I said before, the aliens are the vehicle, not the destination, and this ending reinforces the ethos of the film. We need to listen to one another. We need to break through our silos and reject the spin. We need to empathize with one another. And this moved me so deeply because it’s true. When you are in a city of nine million people, collectively experiencing the Knicks’ incredible victory, there is something indescribably human about it. But it’s not an easy answer either. I did not find this film overly optimistic. Some days I believe we are capable of empathizing, of collective action, of making the world better, and other days I am not. We all felt it in NYC on Saturday night, but the world did not fundamentally change.

Spielberg is not arrogant enough to posit the solution here. He is just highlighting the key component that he does know: the power of empathy. The need to see one another and be seen. If we have any hope of breaking through these silos, of surviving and thriving, of helping one another, we need to relearn this superpower that makes us so unique among all of God’s creatures.

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Each year I like to ask a couple variations of a similar question. What movie did they get that I didn’t? And what movie did I get that they didn’t? This year, I’m already thinking about Obsession - which is the movie that just did not work for me (despite my deep appreciation for how it was made), but is resonating deeply with audiences, who are propelling it on a truly historic box office run (overtaking Star Wars, increasing weekend after weekend - it’s a true outlier and will likely be the biggest story of the summer). And now I have found an answer to the other question. The film that I greatly enjoyed that almost no one else seems to get. That film is Masters of the Universe.

I’ll confess I am not much of a He-Man fan. I don’t have fond childhood memories of it. I maybe caught glimpses of the show when I was younger. But Batman, it is not. So, lo and behold, I am as surprised as anyone what a delight this movie is. Like 2024s Fall Guy, I am sad to report that another excellent summer blockbuster has been released and has somehow failed to connect with audiences.

Masters of the Universe is a treasure - and it’s the closest thing we will get to a boy-version of the Barbie movie. For a property that started as toys before any sort of narrative took hold, I am as shocked as you may be about how successful it is at being a movie with a complete narrative.

Like Barbie, Masters of the Universe works because it’s not aiming to be the shallowest adaptation of a property for mass audiences - it has a vision and a message and while it doesn’t always hit, I can’t help respect the swings it takes. And the thing is, more than enough here works to warrant a trip to the multiplex.

For one, this film feels like an antidote to the Marvel+Star Wars=Disney machine. This film immediately has stakes. It smartly twists the usual blockbuster formula that we are so accustomed to in ways that keep this film familiar but fresh.

For example, I love that our hero remembers his past - there is no amnesia at play here to conveniently create conflict as he learns about his powers or his past. Instead, the film smartly leans into the humor of a grown man trying to tell people he grew up on another world with absurd landmarks like Castle Greyskull. And this really feels like the ethos in the entire film. At no point is the movie trying to be anything else than the best possible Masters of the Universe film, and it does so by leaning into what makes it special. This all started because of toys, and the whole film feels like a child’s imagination running wild with the newest action figures.

There is no pandering to the audience here. There is no cute little creature designed by a focus group to make you care about something regardless of whether the narrative earns those feelings (Ahem, Mandalorian).

And the action! Travis Knight impressed greatly with every action sequence and set piece. The CGI does not feel floaty and weightless, every punch and kick feels real and powerful. There are no quick cuts - these battles are well choreographed and Knight ensures you have the best view the whole time.

From a technical perspective the film is outstanding. But then it does something really special with the narrative, too. Perfectly poking fun at gender norms (like Barbie), it was a blast to see Nicholas Galitzine prantz and fight in a miniskirt and harness, while his childhood friend Camila Mendes is fully dressed. This film highlights the ways our masculine ideals can sometimes be toxic, and paves a way forward to be more authentic and open-minded.

And I guess that’s probably why this film isn’t working for most people. This is not really for kids (way too many sexual innuendos), and it’s asking a lot of a potential fan-base - to basically reject the nostalgia-tinted glasses that we so often wear and expect more, better, and new things from those that held a fondness to in the past. Masters of the Universe feels like an antidote to nostalgia-slop - the remake of the remake that seems incapable of doing anything besides hitting the exact same beats. Masters of the Universe works so well because it simultaneously comments, criticizes, and elevates its source material. That may be why audiences are missing it: Masters of the Universe is not selling nostalgia back to us; it is asking nostalgia to grow up.

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The Mandalorian and Grogu should have been huge. It is the first Star Wars film in theaters in seven years. The start of the new trilogy, The Force Awakens, was a true test of the brand, and it delivered. TFA made almost a billion dollars domestically, and it remains the highest-grossing domestic film of all time. The acquisition by Disney was monumental, and it seemed they could do no wrong. With Marvel becoming a similar phenomenon, Pixar producing hit after hit, and now Star Wars under their belt, this was supposed to be a new era for these enormously important properties.

So, seven years after The Rise of Skywalker, after countless forgettable Disney+ shows (no, I am not including Andor here) after we’ve seen Pixar lose its footing and rely on sequel after sequel, after we’ve seen the height of the Avengers and the lows of… the Avengers, Disney has all but destroyed these beloved brands under their stewardship.

Yet, I held out some hope. I actually enjoyed The Mandalorian TV show (Grogu’s cuteness is maybe a big part of that…. one of my most prized possessions is a Swarovski Grogu, to be fair). Yet, I could sense the lack of excitement all around me for this film, despite the show having plenty of highs. If the film could just capture that, I didn’t think we’d be in terrible shape. Even as first impressions were tepid, I reminded myself that I found a lot to enjoy in the show that others universally panned.

I was delusional. This film, if you can call it that, has almost no redeeming qualities. It feels like four episodes of the TV show squished together. Seriously, you can tell exactly when one episode ends and another begins. Except these are not even good episodes of The Mandalorian. They might just be the worst. I don’t even feel the need to warn about spoilers - nothing happens in this film to warrant it!

I’ve never seen a franchise film feel more inconsequential than this one. It’s the first time I’ve seen Sigourney Weaver completely phone in a performance, though it’s clear she knows exactly the pile of crap she was making. Pedro Pascal gets top billing for… all of five minutes of screen time. Shout-out to his body doubles, who are actually on screen doing the work. Jeremy Allen White gives an absurd performance as Rotta the Hutt, who exists like an action figure with a button that repeats exactly one line (I am NOT my father).

Actually, though, this film is so incredibly stupid that I am ashamed my precious Grogu is even part of it. The film starts with a heist gone wrong, kind of. Basically, instead of capturing the evil bad guy, they end up killing him, which seems to be a big deal, except they manage to capture the bad guy at the end of the film, and it’s completely unclear what the difference is between the two because this film simply has zero stakes. Also, why the hell does the New Republic think the Hutts’ criminal enterprise is not double-crossing them? These are a couple of the egregious issues, but truly nothing makes sense in this movie.

It’s insulting to moviegoers everywhere and feels like the perfect metaphor for Disney’s bungling of this IP. They have completely fumbled the bag in a way that almost feels intentional. When esteemed artists are banging on your door to work on Star Wars, how do you mess it up so badly that the newest film in almost a decade is an outright bomb at the box office? There is no way to spin this, and all eyes are on next year’s Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling, though I can tell you right now I will not be lulled into a false sense of excitement. I made that mistake before, and I simply have no goodwill left to extend on behalf of Star Wars.

The one redeeming quality — and I am not kidding; there is only one I can think of — is Ludwig Göransson’s score. His music is impeccable, and I hope Disney has written him a blank check to make whatever the hell he wants.

Even when this slop ends up on Disney+ — maybe in four 30-minute episodes instead of a feature-length film — I would still not recommend watching it. No film has wasted my time more in 2026 than The Mandalorian and Grogu, and that is coming from someone who was, more than most, willing to excuse some of its flaws for the cuteness of my little Grogu.

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The first word that comes to mind when I think about Curry Barker’s Obsession is “economical.” When I describe a film that way, it’s not necessarily good or bad. On the one hand, it might mean that, despite budgetary limitations, the film manages to break open at the seams, creating something that feels like it cannot be contained. Sure, it might be a little messy, but the ambition on display may very well be awe-inspiring. I am looking at you, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie and Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes.

Other times, a film can feel like it is constrained by its budget. It does some things well but can never quite escape the sense that its creators wanted to do more and simply could not figure out a convincing way to pull it off. Frequently, I find myself respecting a film more than liking it, where it feels like less than the sum of its already meager parts. See: Peter Hujar’s Day.

I’ll stop leaving you all in suspense and say that Obsession is an impressive feature made for under a million dollars… and quite disappointingly falls into the latter camp.

Obsession follows the world’s worst friend group as they aimlessly navigate the perils of early adulthood. Michael Johnson plays Bear, a typical nice guy who just can’t seem to muster the courage to say what’s really on his mind. He’s flanked by his two coworkers, friends, and trivia teammates, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), who are some of the flattest characters I’ve seen on screen this year. The saving grace is Inde Navarrette as the tragic Nikki, who falls under Bear’s spell when, in a moment of emotional frustration, he breaks the One Wish Willow, bringing doom and despair upon all of them. His wish, as you have likely surmised, is for Nikki to love him more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the world. Pretty obvious where this is all going to go wrong, huh?

And that’s really the issue with the film. Johnson and Navarrette are excellent. Their relationship, or lack thereof, is the core of the film. We are given glimpses of Bear’s struggle with this wish, though my main criticism is that the film clearly does not know what to do with him. Barker appears to try to inject some complexity into our main character, but it feels glib and half-assed. The film seems scared to make a statement about Bear, which feels especially ironic considering the age of the incel in which we are living. At times, Bear is sympathetic; at other times, he is vile. But at no point does he feel like a real human character. His decisions exclusively serve the plot, as do those of the entire cast, creating a daunting disconnect that prevents you from feeling anything beyond the most superficial emotions while watching this film.

Navarrette, as Nikki, is rightfully getting rave reviews, and she is excellent. The film just, once again, does not know what to do with her. She has some amazingly memorable moments that feel designed to be memorable rather than creative and engaging in their own right. I certainly don’t blame the actors here. In fact, they should be getting even more credit for elevating such a thin script into something even remotely worth seeing. I just wish the film were able to rise to their level of commitment.

Obsession is clever at times. It feels like a somewhat fresh take on possession, though it ultimately squanders its premise. There are excellent gags and moments of gore rounding out the sloppy writing and thin characters… but we all deserve better than that, and we often get it. The horror genre is an embarrassment of riches in so many ways, but Obsession feels more like a blight on this trend than a beneficiary of it. It seems to be pulling from recent, excellent films like Talk to Me and It Follows without ever grasping what makes those films great modern horror classics.

Those films manage to tap into something — to be about something. Yes, there are frights and gore and humor and all the staples of a great scary movie, but they are there to serve a deeper purpose: to peel away the layers of something uniquely human and often intangible. Obsession utterly fails in this regard. In the most offensive way possible, it feels exactly like a film made by a guy who got his start on YouTube. Obsession feels more like “content” than art, and it’s a shame because there is the potential for something very special here.

A perfect example of this is how mean-spirited the film is, both to its characters and to its audience. There are numerous unearned reveals about our characters’ dynamics that serve no purpose at all. The film has no interest in dissecting the downsides of Bear’s wish or its impact on others. Yeah, it’s bad, but it doesn’t seem to care at all about why it’s bad. This might be the feel-bad movie of the year. Anytime a character tries to get anything they want, they are punished for it in a frequently gruesome and horrific way. There is no differentiation among the characters. The film has one thesis and is only capable of repeating that point to no end. For all its blood and bravado, Obsession mistakes cruelty for insight and ugliness for depth… and this unbelievable box office run is inexplicable to me.

I firmly believe that we should judge art based on what it is trying to do rather than what we want it to be. That is how we get this deluge of shallow, soulless art like the latest MCU films and Star Wars properties. Instead of having a singular vision, these properties are trying to be content that appeals to everyone. That is not art.

A Michael Jackson movie, admittedly, is hard to judge in that manner. It is nearly impossible to separate the art from the artist, or to go into a biopic clouded by so much controversy surrounding its main character. Regardless of your feelings about Michael Jackson, of which the internet seems to have plenty, my goal is always to engage with the art presented to us based on what it is trying to achieve rather than what I, or anyone else, may demand of it.

All that said, Michael is a travesty. If you are in the camp that believes Michael Jackson is innocent and has been unfairly maligned by the media, or if you are someone repulsed by the fact that a movie would even be made about an alleged pedophile, I can assure you it does not matter, because this film is made for no one.

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Taking place from the very start of Michael’s career to the final moments of the Victory Tour, conveniently avoiding the period when the accusations came to light, Michael is a superficial and shallow look at a person who, by all accounts, is both monumental and controversial. Given that, the only word I can use to describe this half-biopic, half-concert film is boring.

With so much to mine, the film is only comfortable painting in the broadest strokes. Wasting a truly impeccable performance by Jaafar Jackson, who completely and utterly transforms into Michael Jackson, Michael feels more like a shameless PR exercise than anything else. This obvious and uninspiring point of view paints Michael as a saint, his father as the devil, and refuses to peel back any layers or show us anything new.

The two-hour film is paced like a series of vignettes. There is no rhythm, something the King of Pop was so well known for, and the same tired conflict plays out over and over again, resulting in absolutely zero tension or drama in a film so dead set on painting Michael in a positive light. This defensive posture robs the film of saying anything at all, even as it seems desperate to say one very specific thing that is ultimately unearned.

Jaafar Jackson is great, but he cannot carry a film that feels made by committee, filled with compromises and too scared to say anything of substance. No doubt you will enjoy the music, but that is in no part the result of the film. They were simply lucky enough that Michael Jackson really was a musical genius, and the movie has every excuse to showcase his music.

Except even the music feels soulless. As much as Jaafar Jackson embodies Michael Jackson, it feels like a perfectly uncanny copycat because there is no depth to the character. At two points in the film, we see Michael spending time with ill patients in a hospital, as if the film is scared to show the audience anything remotely challenging about him. And the film is ruled by that fear. Even Colman Domingo, as the torturous patriarch Joe Jackson, is given nothing to work with. He is abusive and single-minded, with no complexity. The film revels in telling you how to feel without ever showing you—a true cardinal sin of filmmaking.

It is not even worth mentioning the other actors, who somehow manage to make almost no impression despite the film’s long runtime and its focus on the entire Jackson family, except Janet, who apparently refused to be portrayed in the film. This production was troubled. Apparently, an entire third act was excised when they realized that the settlement connected to the first child sexual assault allegations meant none of that could be portrayed on screen by the Jackson estate, and Diana Ross’s character is so obviously missing from major moments in the film. These absences are felt, though I have little faith that a more compelling version ever really existed here.

There is a moment when Jaafar Jackson, as Michael, is pulling together the iconic “Thriller” music video. He asks the director to pull the camera back and make sure everyone’s legs are captured, wisely suggesting that the special sauce is the dancing and that it needs to be seen. It is an astute observation, a good enough moment to leave in the film, and advice that Antoine Fuqua apparently never thought to implement. For all the musical recreations we see, not one captures the magic of an MJ music video or performance, instead relying on wild cuts that lack rhythm or momentum.

This film fails to capture what made Michael special, what made him controversial, or anything about the biggest pop star’s personal and private demons. If you have written Michael off, you have nothing to gain here, and if you still call yourself a Michael Jackson fan, you will not find much to enjoy either.

Despite all this, Michael is poised to be a success, likely bringing in over $100 million domestic this weekend and an even larger haul internationally. It is a shame, really. Michael, in a more deft filmmaker’s hands—I am looking at you, Spike Lee—could have, at the very least, been interesting. It could have been a commentary on his abusive childhood, its impact in his adult years, and the incentives that have made it nearly impossible to come to any agreement on who, or what, Michael Jackson really was. But there I go again, breaking my own rules. Judging this film on its own merits, it is a hard pass for fans, critics, and everyone in between.

I’ll confess I found this review a chore to write. Faces of Death has the makings of an interesting film, but this reimagining has soured even further since my initial tepid response.

I’ll start with the good. Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery are giving a rough script more than it deserves. Dacre is perfectly unhinged, clearly inspired by many famous serial killers seen on screen before him. As a social media serial killer, this is an interesting dynamic that he leans into 110%. Of course, we see glimpses of Hannibal Lecter and John Wayne Gacy—this is a terminally online psychopath taking inspiration from the most obvious of places. It’s a great modern homage to these enduring characters. And Barbie Ferreira eats up every scene, even if her character is startlingly underdeveloped. But there I go. It’s hard to stay with the good. Before this goes off the rails, I want to call out Gavin Brivik’s great retro-inspired synth score, which feels right out of a Cronenberg film. This score is flawless and deserves a better movie. It almost feels like it was made for a different version of this film—one with a more singular vision, and one that is less a hodgepodge of interesting questions met with uninteresting answers.

There is one scene that gave me hope the film was turning a corner and about to lock in. Ferreira and Montgomery are on each other’s tails, but Montgomery is one step ahead. In the film’s most tense scene, he breaks into her apartment and captures her. Montgomery gives the performance such physicality, perfectly captured in these long shots as he stalks his prey, complemented by Brivik’s masterful score—I was thrilled. This felt like the talent I knew was behind this film. Goldhaber’s last film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, was so good it is the sole reason I was even excited for his Faces of Death take.

Unfortunately, none of the rest of the film manages to hit those highs. This film commits the cardinal sin of thriller and horror films: characters who behave so unrealistically that it completely removes the tension. All films require some suspension of disbelief, but Faces of Death demands far too much. The coincidences and the choices all feel laughable, reminding you over and over again that you are watching a movie and stopping you from getting pulled in. It diminishes the whole experience.

So what’s left when the characters behave like plot devices instead of people? I am not sure. This film has an interesting meta-premise that appears to lack any confidence in what it is attempting to do. This is never more apparent than when Dacre Montgomery is explicitly asked why he is remaking Faces of Death, and he launches into a monologue about the nature of remakes and nostalgia in the age of social media. It’s frankly offensive writing that only exists because the thesis of the film is muddled by its incongruous tone—it feels the need to explain everything to the audience, and wrongly indulges that impulse.

This is a shame, and I am only harsh because I know the team behind this film has a better version of it somewhere. I noticed Daniel Garber, editor of How to Blow Up a Pipeline and Cam, was not a collaborator on this film, and maybe it was lost in the edit. There are glimpses of something good here, and the message is timely. When Faces of Death was released decades ago, nobody could have imagined a world where we would walk around with devices that serve us actual real-life death and terror at a moment’s notice, with algorithms that make it frequently unavoidable to see tragedy and death almost daily. The film paints with broad strokes and leaves the complicated nature of our current reality off the table. It seems aware that there is a lens to be shined on the role social media companies play, and on the impact of social media on our personal and professional lives, but it is unwilling to really explore any of that. Which is shocking, considering Goldhaber’s last film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, specifically works because he knew exactly how to shine a light on similar societal structures in the world of ecoterrorism.

If it’s not the editing, then the script itself is just weak. The multitude of confrontations the film builds to lacks all tension. The film also gives Ferreira a backstory that feels completely unnecessary; it is a perfect example of how little confidence the film has in its audience, dedicating time to revealing this very obvious trauma in a way that feels completely at odds with the film itself. And that’s a big issue here. This film purports to be critical of the violence we are so consumed by, but it also goes to great lengths to provide some very realistic gore.

I hope Goldhaber’s next film feels as confident as his previous ones. Faces of Death is a pass for me, especially in a world where Pascal Plante’s brilliant Red Rooms exists. If you are looking for a film that actually knows how to wrestle with our modern traumas and the moral ambiguity we so rarely confront, Red Rooms is where you should spend your time.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama starts out innocuously enough. We meet Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) recounting the beginning of their relationship as they work through their vows with their closest friends. This film is all about perception, and that is abundantly clear as we see the realistic ways many of us may, on purpose or not, choose to misremember the past in order to tell a better story for the present. This is our first subtle inkling that something is awry, with Charlie and Emma’s meet-cute perfectly bordering the line between romantic and creepy. Charlie, you see, is presented as a bit of a sheepish romantic, quickly sneaking a peek at the book Emma is reading and pretending to have read it to break the ice. This is innocent enough, but it colors how these little lies can become so integral to the stories we tell ourselves.

To Emma’s credit, she picks up on this lie pretty quickly, and Charlie comes clean on their first date. Emma is willing to pass this off as a romantic gesture, not a mischievous one, which reminded me of the old adage: it’s only creepy if someone ugly does it. Pretty privilege points go to you, Mr. Pattinson. Her empathy around lying becomes more understandable when we find out Emma has been keeping a pretty big secret for a very long time.

Before I get to spoilers, which is necessary given how integral this premise is to the ensuing acts, I have to say this is one of the best films I’ve seen in 2026. The Drama is the ultimate cringe-fest, played beautifully by Charlie, who really is the center of our story. Charlie and Emma, along with their two friends Rachel, played by Alana Haim, and her husband Mike, played by Mamoudou Athie, embark on a mission to become the most unlikable characters you are likely to see on screen in a while. I laughed frequently, mainly out of discomfort, and the film hits all the right notes to build tension and relieve it.

But what was most surprising to me is that the film delicately balances these unlikable characters and preposterous situations with real heart. I found myself deeply moved by the end and, for as much as the film sets up the imperfect ways these characters interact with one another, it’s the empathy on display that truly took me aback. There are a couple of hilarious moments in the film where empathy, the word literally, is front and center. One is when Zoe Winters, in a dazzling portrayal of the world’s best-worst wedding photographer, asks Charlie and Emma to say what they love most about each other. Double empathy. Love it. There is also a scene where Charlie specifically deletes the word empathyfrom his wedding speech. So as much as the film wants to shock you, and it does, there’s something deeper and rawer that elevates it far beyond where you think it will go. It’s one thing to make a film where the audience can snidely judge all the characters and walk out with an inflated sense of self, but the film doesn’t think so little of its audience. It forces you to see yourself in these characters, who are the opposite of inspiring, and empathize with them in a way that we so rarely seem capable of extending to one another.

With that said, let’s talk spoilers. At the food tasting with Rachel and Mike, which, by the way, the film inexplicably seems to be totally unaware of the mechanics behind planning a wedding—you are deciding on food literally a couple of days before the wedding? This is not the last or even the most egregious example—they bring up this “game” they played before getting married in which they told one another the worst thing they had ever done. You see where this is going. It’s played for laughs, but we all know something darker is about to happen, aided in no small part by the free-flowing wine from our caterer. Mike gives a kind of nothing-burger of an answer: he used his ex-girlfriend as a human shield against a feral dog in Mexico… on her birthday. Rachel shares what was, in my opinion, maybe the most egregious answer of them all: as a child, she trapped a young disabled child in a closet in the middle of the woods and left him there overnight, resulting in a formal police search, where he was found, ostensibly unharmed but likely traumatized. Rachel excuses this later in the film as a simple impulse, and this ultimately makes for one of Alana Haim’s most memorable roles yet. Charlie seems unable to come up with much of anything, admitting half-heartedly to cyberbullying someone as a kid, though this feels either completely fictional or largely embellished, and then attention turns to Emma. Our sweet Emma admits to planning a school shooting as a teenager, going so far as to bring the gun to school and use a webcam to record a manifesto, in a scene that nearly had me in stitches, where her computer errors out multiple times while trying to record. Rachel is the first to turn, mouth agape in disbelief, and immediate judgments are hurled across the table.

There’s no going back now. We are all on this roller coaster, and the next 70 minutes are a ride you may desperately want to escape. Charlie completely deteriorates. This is really his film, his descent into madness, as this one truth upends everything he thinks he knows about his future wife. It’s this play on truth versus lies that really gets at the film’s core.

While Emma is truly empathetic, easily dismissing Charlie’s lie that is the foundation of their relationship, Charlie is not so skilled in this realm. After the couple sleeps on it and reconvenes the next day, what stuck out to me most was Charlie’s immediate line of questioning. He asks two things of Emma. First, was that true? But second, and most damningly: why did you say that in front of everybody? And that is what gets at the thesis of the film. It’s not about what she did or didn’t do—which, by the way, she didn’t do, but Rachel fully abused and traumatized a neighbor—it’s about the fact that other people know, and now this is a thing that needs to be contained. Which, of course, it isn’t, and Charlie knows this. Lies have a way of catching up with you. Whether it’s on a first date or at a wedding, whether they are little white lies or big secrets that have never been said before, they impact everything we do, and that burden is unlike anything else.

Charlie would not be described as double empathetic. He can’t stop thinking about this revelation, and it shows up in hilarious ways. Rachel and Mike are unable to drop it, with Rachel threatening to drop out of the wedding and needing to confirm with her cousin Sam, paralyzed from an implied school shooting, that she has permission to attend this wedding, in a wonderful play on Rachel’s performative nature that feels deliciously more evil than anything any of our other cast members do. Charlie finds lying easier, and he lies to everyone. He lies to Rachel and Mike about why Emma did this, making up some story about Emma witnessing her best friend killed in a car accident and having untreated trauma, wonderfully highlighting how there seems to be some imaginary bar folks need to clear in order to earn empathy and understanding from one another. He also ends up cheating on Emma with his coworker Mischa, played by Hailey Benton Gates. Seriously, she and Zoe Winters are competing for the best supporting roles here; everything they do is some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever seen on screen. Charlie, as we come to expect, does not go through with it all the way, but his one and only line to Mischa after the almost-affair is, “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

Charlie still has a preoccupation with how he is perceived, which is so ingrained it has even shaped his career as Head of Curation at a museum, and he does not apologize to Mischa at all. He just wants to protect himself by hiding who he is and continuing to lie so that his perfect facade remains unblemished, even if he is perfectly willing to confront other people about their lies and act aghast when they refuse to admit to them.

And this is where I have my only real criticism of the film. This is really Charlie’s journey, but it’s not quite earned. I’ve gone back and forth on this, and I’ve landed on the fact that it is not so egregious that the rest of the film doesn’t work, but his transformation is too subtle for me. When Emma and Charlie are eventually reunited after the wedding blows up in spectacular fashion—don’t worry, our wedding photographer never stops shooting—I was less convinced than I wanted to be that Charlie had changed and realized the error of his ways. Rachel, despite going through it, proves to be more than double empathetic.

Her hidden past has shaped her into being divinely understanding. She knows just how terrible people can be—she came pretty damn close herself to being the worst version of herself possible—and so she doesn’t have the same hang-ups around perception that everyone else has. I mean, I never thought I’d see a film turn almost committing a mass shooting into an emotional superpower, but here we are, and it actually works. So in the end, after everything Charlie has done—it should be said that Rachel, for her part, has not really done much of anything at all, simply committed the cardinal sin of almost doing something terrible—Rachel’s acceptance feels maybe a bit undeserved, but it ultimately aligns with what we know of her character.

And that final scene did deeply move me. The film captures how nobody really knows anybody. We all have lies and secrets, and certainly nobody really knows what is going on behind the scenes in someone else’s marriage. But for all of that, our ability to empathize with and love one another despite all our flaws is what makes that commitment, and that love we share, so meaningful. It’s a pressing reminder to stop chasing aesthetics and focus on what’s real. Even if it is messy and painful at times, it’s all we have, and we are darn lucky that this is something we are capable of.

By the way, some of my favorite moments in the film:

• Emma sharing the specifics of what defines a mass shooting or not. It’s 4 or more, by the way.

• The photographer’s “Shot” list. Grandparents TBD.

• “Smile completely naturally… like in real life”

• Everything about the replacement DJ

• “Call the police”

• Blake

• “You grew up around guns”

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie was barely on my radar. I knew it came from Matt Johnson, who directed the brilliant and criminally under-seen BlackBerry, and that it was a follow-up to the web series Nirvanna The Band The Show, which I had never seen and knew essentially nothing about. Then I started seeing wave after wave of ecstatic praise online. My interest was piqued. I am thrilled to report the film more than earns that praise.

NTBTSTM follows best friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, playing themselves, as they hatch yet another absurd plan to finally land a gig at the Rivoli. If that premise sounds simple, rest assured: the reality is far stupider, and far funnier, than whatever you are imagining.

The Rivoli is, on paper, a fairly unremarkable Italian restaurant in Toronto that sometimes books musicians. Matt and Jay have spent 17 years trying to play there. They have failed spectacularly. It does not take long to understand why. Matt is a chaos agent, forever dreaming up elaborate, deeply ill-advised schemes to get the venue’s attention; Jay, with the weary loyalty of a man who has suffered enough, keeps going along with it. But after nearly two decades of disappointment, it begins to feel like Jay may finally be ready to let the dream die.

What follows is some of the most deliriously inventive filmmaking I have ever seen, and I will not dare spoil any of it. Do not watch the trailer. Do not read another synopsis. Go in as blind as possible. The less you know, the better. Few films this year will reward that leap of faith as richly as this one.

What Johnson and company pull off here is astounding. On a technical level, I genuinely cannot wrap my head around how much of this movie was accomplished, especially on what was clearly a shoestring budget. The gags are not just funny; they are feats. Again and again, the film left me wondering not only how did they think of this? but how on earth did they actually pull it off? There is a stunt early on that is so outrageous, so brazen, that I am still completely baffled by its execution.

The film’s faux-documentary style is essential to why it works so well. For all the cinematic sleight of hand involved, everything feels startlingly immediate and real. The movie has a lived-in, off-the-cuff texture that makes its wildest swings land even harder. There is a sequence in the first half, which I later learned was filmed without permission, that captures the genuine reactions of unsuspecting bystanders as Matt and Jay carry out the first of many insane ideas. That kind of commitment gives the film an electricity that cannot be faked.

And yet the real triumph of NTBTSTM is that it is operating on far deeper levels than its setup initially suggests. Yes, on the surface, this is a movie about two idiots trying to book a show at the Rivoli. But it is also a film about friendship: about the way the traits that first endear us to people can, over time, become the very things that exhaust us; about resentment, co-dependence, forgiveness, and the stories we tell ourselves to avoid looking too closely inward. It sneaks up on you emotionally because it understands something essential and painful about long-term relationships of every kind.

It is also, to be clear, hysterically funny. My husband and I have been quoting it back and forth nonstop since we saw it. There is a fourth-wall break that absolutely flattened me, and one gag set in a movie theater that I have not stopped thinking about. The film understands that comedy is rhythm, escalation, and precision, and it is paced with extraordinary confidence.

But reducing NTBTSTM to “a great comedy” does it a disservice. By the end, I was in tears. Not because the film abruptly changes modes or strains for sentiment, but because it earns its emotion with such disarming grace. What begins as a ridiculous mission gradually reveals itself to be about much larger questions: how we choose to spend our lives, who we choose to spend them with, and how easy it is to lose sight of what really matters while chasing after something else. By the time it reaches its final movements, NTBTSTM becomes something unexpectedly profound: a deeply moving story about two very different people coming to understand just how rare and how meaningful it is to have found one another at all.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come had an opportunity to be a sequel, almost a decade later, and build upon the very fun world established in the first film. This film squanders that opportunity, giving us a largely soulless retread of the first one which, spoiler alert, worked so well because the film saves the reveal that Satan is real until the very end. This twist is totally earned, reframing the entire film and landing somewhere even scarier than we could have imagined.

Going into the sequel, the film does not have the luxury of any exciting reveals. The film is certainly more. It’s gorier and more brutal than the previous one, and it may even be a bit funnier, but it wastes a great premise and setup for an ultimately safe sequel. I am most disappointed because of the pedigree behind the film. Penned by Guy Busick, who knocked it out of the park with last year’s Final Destination: Bloodlines, and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who cut their teeth on inventive shorts in V/H/S and Southbound and reignited the Scream franchise before unceremoniously leaving for the most recent addition to the series.

I can’t say I didn’t have fun — I did. Samara Weaving is excellent as Grace MacCaulley, picking up immediately from the first film without skipping a beat. Kathryn Newton is a fine addition as her estranged sister, and I adored Elijah Wood as the devious lawyer behind the Satanic cult, though I wish he had more to do. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Shawn Hatosy, who is particularly nasty given how different his character is from The Pitt, play twins vying for control of the devil’s organization. Sarah Michelle Gellar, our wonderful vampire slayer, is also wasted by the film. She serves as a foil to her brother, but has no character growth of her own and is effectively fridged for the sake of her sibling’s rise to power.

The rest of the cast is not particularly good, serving as caricatures more than anything else, though I did enjoy Antony Hall as a bloodthirsty child dual-wielding fully automatic pistols. Even an actual cameo by David Cronenberg, as the deceased head of the Danforth family and father to Gellar and Hatosy, cruises on his star power more than anything the film gives him to work with.

And that’s really the story of the whole film. It’s a missed opportunity. The world has changed a lot since 2019, when the first film came out, and this one does not seem interested in evolving with it. We add a sister, we up the stakes, but it all feels hollow and boring. It’s a film that is ostensibly fun, but it leaves no lasting impression. It’s a shame because the first film oozed creativity, and this sequel jettisons all that made it interesting, resulting in a disappointing slasher with an inert emotional climax and a forgettable ending.

Did summer come early? Because we have our first blockbuster of 2026 on our hands.

Project Hail Mary (based on the novel by Andy Weir, author of The Martian) is a stunningly heartfelt space odyssey — Interstellar meets Disney (in a good way, I promise). Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, an amnesiac astronaut tasked with saving humanity (and maybe more) from a somewhat incomprehensible threat called the Astrophage. He has some help along the way, including the wonderful Rocky (disappointing that the trailers gave this away, but what can you do), puppeted perfectly by James Ortiz, and a foil in Sandra Hüller’s Eva Stratt — the leader of the Hail Mary project, who seems to be the only one who really bears the weight of everything at stake.

It’s this small cast that taps into what made The Martian so special. This is a movie with big ideas, but it never gets dragged down by them. We are experiencing this story through a narrow lens, and it’s all the better for it. We get to know these characters on a deep level, fully understand their relationships with one another, and that’s the best recipe for a tense film that takes big swings and manages to hit most of them. Kudos to the creative team for knowing what to cut to translate this book to the silver screen.

And while I do have a few criticisms (I’ll get to that), I find myself enamored with what this film does so well. Gosling reminds us all why he’s a leading man, and the character of Ryland Grace is surprisingly complicated and likely would not have worked nearly as well with someone else in the role. Without spoiling too much, this is more than just your reluctant hero who steps up and becomes the savior we all need.

On the flip side, we have Sandra Hüller’s Eva Stratt. She’s nothing but business. She understands exactly what is at stake and will go to any lengths to achieve it. She delicately balances this mission that she wholly embodies with the empathetic side that so often seems to be in tension with her goals. She exudes control for the sake of others, and even her warm moments seem strategically calculated — at great cost to her own humanity.

What I loved so much is that these are not the usual characters you root for. Lord and Miller (and Goddard) have made one hell of a crowd-pleasing film, but they didn’t shy away from our morally gray protagonists, and it makes the film all the richer for it.

Then there is the star of the show: Rocky. Our delightful alien friend, the true companion to Grace as they team up to achieve the same mission. The film has a hard time balancing when to double down on the science and when to wave it away, and that’s most apparent as Rocky and Grace figure out ways to communicate with one another. The film needs you to suspend your disbelief, but it seems to have a hard time figuring out how to do that effectively.

This can be forgiven, though, considering the sheer ambition of the production. Rocky is a puppet. Our actors are on real sets. Of course, there is CGI, but the subdued use of green screen is such a welcome relief after years of Marvel films that feel weightless and Disney’s effusive use of the “Volume,” which feels more akin to a video game skybox than a real-life location.

For a 2.5-hour movie, the pacing is never quite right. The beginning feels clunky (which may be by design, given our protagonist’s memory loss), but it ends up hampering the experience more than helping it. Then the third act feels overstuffed, trying to capture the emotional beats of a novel but not translating them quite as effectively as it could. There are multiple plot points that end up stealing from one another’s emotional impact because they are crammed so closely together. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it has to be said given how close this film gets to being a masterpiece.

All told, this is a glorious ride that is easily recommendable to almost anyone. Worth seeing on the big screen as you, Grace, and Rocky are transported to Tau Ceti to accomplish mankind’s most important mission yet.

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I’ve shared my predictions below, though I’ll confess that I hope to be surprised this year. My hunch is that One Battle After Another will be duly rewarded by the Academy in the major categories, including Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay. I think we’ll see Sinners relegated to the more technical races, though perhaps an Original Screenplay win will keep us guessing throughout the night. Sentimental Value, despite its strong showing in the nominations, will likely be shut out outside of the International category, unless Stellan ekes out a Supporting Actor win. Given the Academy’s fondness for Sinners this year, I also think we might see another horror film rewarded, with Madigan taking Best Supporting Actress for Weapons. The Academy has been reluctant to celebrate Timothée Chalamet, and we could see a surprise upset in Best Actor. The Twittersphere is pulling for a Wagner Moura upset, but if it isn’t Timmy, it’s more likely to be DiCaprio, Jordan, or even Hawke.

I wish I were more excited about this slate of nominees. The complete absence of Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee is the year’s biggest travesty. A superb film that should have Amanda Seyfried all but guaranteed an Oscar was instead relegated to a botched theatrical release by Searchlight Pictures, which is especially shocking considering they managed to pull off an Oscar win for Adrien Brody with this filmmaking team’s last film, The Brutalist. I could not be more disappointed by what happened here, especially when I so deeply disliked Hamnet and Buckley seems all but guaranteed the statue.

One film I was pleasantly surprised to see on the list is Spain’s Sirat. It is an absolutely brilliant piece of work that deserves nominations across the board, but I’m happy to see it receive at least some recognition in the International Feature category, even if it has no real hope of winning. We’ll soon see what the show has in store. I only hope it proves a little less controversial than some of the other awards shows this year. Speaking of which, the BAFTAs controversy was addressed deftly in this article from The Guardian.

All that said, my predictions are below:

I’ll admit I’m in a bit of a movie lull at the moment. After a great Sundance weekend at the end of January — though that was too many movies in too short a span — and the usual industry slowdown during the first few months of the year, plus a brilliant little time sink called Marathon, I’m looking forward to getting back to The Movie Hall this month, starting with Project Hail Mary on Friday.

Check out my recent reviews below, and don’t forget to subscribe to The Movie Hall.

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Rebuilding:

Wuthering Heights:

Send Help:

Sundance Recap:

Josephine:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: Josephine

Josephine begins with a young 8-year-old girl (our titular lead, played miraculously by Mason Reeves) jogging in the park with her father, Damien (Channing Tatum in another spectacular dramatic role), when she witnesses a brutal rape…

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6 months ago · The Movie Hall

Union County:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: Union County

Union County is a film we’ve seen before, but it’s done so well that it’s hard to hold that against it. Will Poulter and Noah Centineo play foster brothers entering an Adult Recovery Treatment Program for addiction…

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6 months ago · 1 like · The Movie Hall

Carousel:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: Carousel

Chris Pine and Jenny Slate play a couple reunited after years apart, their unspoken history simmering beneath the surface. Both do admirable work with a weak script and overly indulgent direction (did the cast of 30 Rock shoot the film’s dozen Cleveland establishing shots?). The visuals are monotonous, making this 90-minute film feel far longer than it …

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6 months ago · The Movie Hall

Hot Water:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: Hot Water

Hot Water is a classic American road-trip film, following a mother and son who are strikingly similar yet feel worlds apart by the time we meet them. Lubna Azabal plays the mother, a Lebanese immigrant torn between identities and still struggling to feel at home. Daniel Zolghadri plays her son, fully Americanized, refusing to speak his mother’s native l…

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6 months ago · The Movie Hall

Chasing Summer:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: The Musical

Best seen knowing as little as possible, the premise is deceptively simple: Doug (Will Brill) decides to sabotage his school’s Blue Ribbon chances after discovering that his art-teacher colleague—and ex-fling—(Gillian Jacobs, aka Britta Perry) is now dating the hunky, effortlessly cool principal (Rob Lowe). This is a revenge tale filtered through Tim Ro…

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6 months ago · The Movie Hall

The Incomer:

The Movie Hall

Sundance 2026: The Incomer

A wonderful folk tale—funny, heartwarming, and charming. I found myself holding back tears while simultaneously giggling at the absurdity of it all. This is a tiny film with a huge heart, anchored by truly excellent performances from Domhnall Gleeson (our titular incomer, Daniel) and the two isolated island siblings Isla and Sandy, played by Gayle Ranki…

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6 months ago · The Movie Hall

Disappointing in almost every sense of the word. A lackluster lead performance by Josh O’Connor was the most surprising, given his track record of, at the very least, interesting indie films (La Chimera, The Mastermind). Even if those films didn’t work for me, that hardly reflected on O’Connor’s acting pedigree. As his profile has increased (Wake Up Dead Man, Challengers), I hope he is able to be a bit pickier about his roles. A rare miss for O’Connor, but a miss nonetheless.

This really falls at the feet of writer-director Max Walker-Silverman, who writes this film as if it’s a first draft (despite this being his sophomore effort), and shoots it as if it’s a student film — though I fear that may be too unkind to student filmmakers, who often take risks and punch far above their weight given their minuscule budgets.

This script is bare-bones. It revolves around Dusty (O’Connor), a farmer caught out of time, whose heart is in the right place but who can’t seem to make the choices that back up his true feelings. He’s the misunderstood cowboy, forced to reckon with a new reality after his farm and livelihood burn down. We get glimpses of his past, culminating in the film’s central conflict: how Dusty can fit his daughter into his narrow worldview.

You’ve seen this story before, and you know how it ends. It’s not a terrible template, but Rebuilding seems so uninterested in doing anything new with it. We meet a cast of characters living in temporary trailers — new neighbors impacted by the fire who were previously acres away are now within spitting distance. These characters are so thin that it would be more accurate to call them caricatures. It’s a complete waste of Kali Reis, and the film commits the cardinal sin of making all of these side characters more interesting than Dusty while using them only in relation to his character growth.

Meghann Fahy plays Ruby, Dusty’s ex (girlfriend? wife? It’s unclear), and she simply acts circles around everyone else. I came away impressed once again. After injecting a ton of life into her season of The White Lotus and last year’s thriller Drop, I continue to be inspired by her chameleon-like ability to embody these roles and make them her own. She picks up what little there is in the script and manages to make something wonderful with it. We learn so little about her, yet you understand her perfectly. She has one scene that asks so much of her, opposite her mother — another underutilized actor, Amy Madigan of Weapons — that moved me to tears. I may just be glad this film exists so Fahy can use that scene on her reel to showcase her undeniable talent. I wish I could say it was worth watching for her performance alone, but I’d advise just prioritizing her next project.

Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” earns those quotation marks—serving as a fever-dream of an adaptation, taking extensive liberties with the source material while honing in on a very modern vibe that, I am quite pleased to say, really worked for me.

I was most surprised by how relatively tame this film is. Amy Poehler remarked on her “Good Hang” podcast about the “sexually violent third act turn” that occurs in all Emerald Fennell films. It’s easy to poke fun at Fennell’s penchant for shock (as we’ve seen in Promising Young Woman and, even more so, in Saltburn), and that’s not to say this doesn’t exist to some degree in “Wuthering Heights”—but it’s the restraint she displays in this film that makes the whole thing work even better than her previous films.

Excising almost half the book and a plethora of supporting characters, Fennell smartly focuses the story on Cathy and Heathcliff. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are just great in this film as our two doomed lovers, matching each other’s freak like these two only can. These performances are key, because neither of these characters are particularly likable. In fact, there’s hardly anyone redeemable on display, except maybe our oh-so-innocent Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), Cathy’s forlorn husband who never quite grasps what he signed up for.

Hong Chau’s Nelly and Alison Oliver’s Isabella are the true standouts. Elevated from a mere narrator role, Nelly is the most complex character on display. Her station in life as a maid to Cathy, stuck in a subordinate role while slowly accruing power through her own machinations, makes her someone you’ll find yourself rooting for one minute and hating the next.

It’s these themes of class and power that Fennell focuses on that I found particularly compelling. All our characters are trapped by the station they are born into, and as we peel back the layers, we find the ways some overcome their station while others are relegated to it. From Cathy’s ascension as the heir to the dilapidated Wuthering Heights to the lady of the opulent Thrushcross Grange; Heathcliff’s unexplained return as a well-groomed and rich man (this return is hilariously dramatic—the entire theater seemed to gasp as Elordi revealed a delicate hoop earring and a gold tooth); to Isabella’s deal with the devil, debasing herself to become a mere pet as she so frequently treated others, ultimately finding herself as she fulfills her destiny on her own terms and leaves for London (which makes me desperately want a sequel focusing on this journey).

Some may deride the whitewashed casting of Heathcliff, but if you are looking for a more faithful adaptation, I’d recommend Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film. This film works so well because it’s an adaptation rooted in memory and bias, rather than a slavish devotion to the text that inspired it. Fennell has a vision, and maybe it works for you or maybe it doesn’t, but it’s this singular vision that makes the film so compelling. Fennell, for all her flaws, is never an uninteresting filmmaker. The casting, the set design and production, the costumes—these all work because Fennell is brave enough to put everything she is on screen. She’s a risk-taker, and even when her films struggle, you can’t ever describe them as boring. I’d take this over a like-for-like adaptation any day (which, at that point, you can simply engage with the book itself).

In an age where TV and film are prioritized to fit on a vertical screen, or writers are implored to over-explain and to assume people are scrolling their phones while watching, a big-budget, loose adaptation such as this is a great respite in a world where AI slop is becoming more and more rampant. Take those quotation marks for what they are, and I implore you to engage with the art being presented to you—not some idea or expectation of what that art should be.

I could go on and on, but the one piece of the puzzle that elevates the film is the inspired collaboration with Charli XCX. Her soundtrack perfectly complements the visuals Fennell puts on display, while serving as her own interpretation of the original book. Every song elevates the scenes they accompany—and also happens to be a banger in its own right. Emerald Fennell is 3/3 in my book, and is possibly getting better and better. Whereas Promising Young Woman has a brilliant script (pushing the limits of what the costs of revenge really are), and Saltburn was a great ride but ultimately a superficial jaunt through the English aristocracy, it’s Fennell’s restraint with “Wuthering Heights” that finally allows her quiet moments to land as powerfully as her loud ones (the eggs are simply… iconic). If you are a fan of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, you’ll find a spiritual successor with Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.”

Sam Raimi is back at it again, this time with an extended version of Triangle of Sadness’s culminating third act—filled with his well-known cinematic flourishes, avert-your-eyes gore, and iconic jump scares.

It’s a shame the script by Mark Swift and Damian Shannon can’t live up to the best of Raimi’s filmography. While Dylan O’Brien and Rachel McAdams (who they shockingly manage to make look believably unattractive, at least in the opening act) are giving 110%, the rest of the film feels like everyone is just phoning it in.

For a $40 million budget, I was shocked by how bad this film looked. Distracting CGI—especially when 80% of the film takes place in one remote location with two characters—makes it feel like everything wrong with the Hollywood machine. If this film were made for a fraction of the cost, I’d be more sympathetic, but I cannot excuse the sloppiness on display when Mona Fastvold is making an international-spanning epic like The Testament of Ann Lee for a quarter of the cost.

Yet, there is quite a bit of fun to be had here. O’Brien plays the perfectly hatable, silver-spoon-fed boss who inherits the title of President through no apparent work of his own. He’s the worst parts of corporate America rolled into one despicable “leader.” The few values he displays are purely superficial, and his comeuppance is a sight to behold.

When the tables are turned and the frumpy McAdams—O’Brien’s subordinate—seems to have been shut out of the corporate elevator, relegated to the stairs, where she has dutifully served in her role for seven years, with all the good old boys taking credit for her work and receiving her well-earned rewards, it’s almost impossible not to be entertained. Her dutiful Survivor viewing translates a little too perfectly to their tragic turn when O’Brien and McAdams are stranded on an island off Thailand after their private jet inexplicably crashes on the way to Bangkok.

On this island, Raimi hits us over and over again with his greatest hits. From the brutal hunting of a boar (including a decapitation that feels unnecessary but certainly had me smiling in the theater) to the grossest food poisoning you can think of (I’ll confess I had to avert my eyes more often than not), this retread of Raimi’s iconic filmography is entertaining for fans, but feels hollow when you realize there simply isn’t anything new on display here.

Even Danny Elfman’s score, which is perfectly serviceable, reinforces the idea that everyone here outside our two leads is simply collecting a paycheck. And why shouldn’t they? This isn’t bad by any stretch. My full theater was wincing and groaning in unison, and I found myself entertained throughout most of the runtime. But I left the theater feeling hollow. This is a fine way to waste a couple of hours, but it unfortunately does feel like a bit of a waste.

The most interesting story beats have been plumbed more succinctly—and more interestingly—in other films, including some by Raimi himself. If you are dying to see an extended cut of the third act of Triangle of Sadness, then by all means, you’ll enjoy this film. Unfortunately, I found myself losing steam by the time the final act rolled around, with a climax and conclusion that feel entirely too predictable, and downright lazy. Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien deserved better here, and I fear even those who like the film will find it’s the performances alone that make this remotely watchable.

Josephine begins with a young 8-year-old girl (our titular lead, played miraculously by Mason Reeves) jogging in the park with her father, Damien (Channing Tatum in another spectacular dramatic role), when she witnesses a brutal rape.

This scene is harrowing, and not since Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible have I seen such a gratuitous crime take place on screen. I’ll admit I found this immediately off-putting, but the perspective with which we see this crime, specifically from Josephine’s point of view, is, in my opinion, necessary for the film that Beth de Araujo has succeeded in making.

This is a film about female fear—something we all generally know about and half the population sadly experiences. The fear of walking alone at night. Entering a bathroom alone. The fear of a man losing his temper and getting violent. The film has plenty to say about that too—male violence—but it’s this specific and confident lens that de Araujo channels through Claire (Josephine’s mother, Gemma Chan) and Josephine herself that takes center stage.

An 8-year-old girl witnesses something that nobody should ever see, let alone experience, and her whole world is blown wide open. You see, in those devastating first moments, her innocence crumble, never to be seen again. As adults, a crime like this is incomprehensible. As a child, I don’t think there is even a word for it. Josephine does not have any context, any language, or any perspective—but the world does not wait for us to grow up; it forces us to, often in tragic ways.

This tragedy is seen over and over again with Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan playing her parents. Damien is fit, strong, and knows how to fight back. He is, by almost every definition, a “good” man. But he’s hard. He’s been hurt physically and has not dealt with the fact that much of his pain is now rooted in his mind. Claire is a great foil to Damien. She’s softer, more graceful. Where her husband is a fan of contact sports and self-defense, she is a professional ballerina and willing to admit the realities of the world that her husband thinks you can defend from. She knows that’s not possible. Sometimes terrible things happen. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop it. And those terrible things? They don’t exist in a silo—they affect us every day, in big and small ways.

Which brings us to Josephine. Frankly, I am astonished they were even able to make this film, and I have to trust the filmmakers took all precautions to protect her from the trauma this film seeks to explore. Mason Reeves, in her first role ever (the director found her at a farmer’s market), is the true standout here. She perfectly captures a child trying to understand but being just unable to do so—the fear that didn’t exist one day and suddenly is all-consuming the next. She’s observant and quiet, but it’s her unrelenting strength, slowly building through the two-hour runtime, that will leave your jaw on the floor, culminating in an excruciating courthouse scene where a diabolical defense attorney will have you pulling your hair out in chunks.

By the time the film reaches its final stretch, Josephine has tightened its grip completely. De Araujo understands that fear isn’t a single event; it’s a lifelong rearranging of the self, of a family, of what “safe” even means. The film is formally controlled, emotionally devastating, and cathartic in the way it refuses easy closure. It’s the kind of movie you walk out of shaken, then realize you can’t stop thinking about—because it didn’t just show you something horrific; it showed you what it does to a person. Expect to see this film in the Oscar conversation come year-end.

Union County is a film we’ve seen before, but it’s done so well that it’s hard to hold that against it. Will Poulter and Noah Centineo play foster brothers entering an Adult Recovery Treatment Program for addiction.

Stories like this can easily feel exploitative, but Adam Meeks, in his directorial debut, infuses the film with empathy that permeates every scene. Set in rural Ohio, the film incorporates real addicts enrolled in the program, alongside actual staff members playing their real-life roles.

Poulter delivers a quiet, devastating performance. Every pause and glance communicates pain, shame, and the overwhelming difficulty of confronting addiction. Centineo serves as his foil, arriving with an energy that puts everyone on edge, waiting for him to blow. As strong as Poulter is—and he truly is—it’s Centineo, working against his typical pretty-boy casting, who steals the film. The brothers’ emotional arcs diverge beautifully: Poulter internalizes, while Centineo combusts.

The film is steeped in tragedy, but it uses that weight to reinforce the fragile hope embedded in recovery programs. At a time when faith in institutions is at an all-time low, it’s powerful to witness real people, real struggles, and the communal effort required to make something that feels impossible marginally achievable.

This grounding in lived experience lends the film an uncommon gravity. We’re invited into group sessions where participants lay bare the damage addiction has wrought on themselves and others. Everyone feels like they’ve reached the end of the line—because they have. For Poulter and Centineo, all bridges are burned, no support exists beyond this court-mandated structure, and the stakes are absolute: this works, or it doesn’t.

Good people do bad things—some more than others—but everyone deserves a chance to make it right. Union County asks us to extend empathy to a population so often dismissed, and it does so by embracing complexity rather than moralizing. The performances are excellent across the board, but it’s the film’s commitment to community that resonates most deeply. In a world increasingly eager to dehumanize the “other,” Union County insists that empathy remains a vital skill—one we seem to be losing at our own peril.