October Movies Part 2: Forgotten Island, The Social Reckoning, The Love Hypothesis

I was on vacation for a few days so am trying to catch up on movies. Which is why I now present to you a real melange of reviews, ranging from gorgeous animation to biographical drama to steamy romcom. Let's get into it!

Forgotten Island: Written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, this is a very creative movie about two girls, Jo and Raissa (H.E.R. and Liza Soberano) in the Philippines who become best friends as children, grow into teenagers, and have one last adventure on the mythical island of Nakali where legendary creatures roam. Along the way, there will be themes of female friendship, found family, and discovering your purpose. All set to very bright and anime-esque animation, in a very unique setting, as everything takes place exclusively in the Philippines and draws extensively from Filipino folklore and mythology. As such, this should feel really unique and specific, right? Unfortunately, no.

The voice cast includes almost any Filipino actor who has become famous in Hollywood, but then we've also got folks like Dave Franco and Jenny Slate playing some of the creatures on the island because I guess fantastical beasts don't need to have a particular ethnicity. The two main characters are being voiced by Filipino-American actors, which sadly means that they have American accents, and according to my Filipino colleague, pronounce all the Filipino words with American accents, which was rather grating. It is very annoying to me when Hollywood Americanizes language like this - if your setting is the Philippines, why do your characters sound like they're from California? Oddly, the first 15 minutes of this movie, when the girls first meet, befriend each other, and grow up under the loving eye of Jo's grandmother (voiced by my girl Dolly de Leon), who is the one who tells them all the stories about Nakali, are the best part, when this genuinely feels like something you've never seen before. But once we get to the island, it just becomes a generic children's animated film, complete with weirdly cutesy characters that only seem to be there to encourage plushie sales. This movie is certainly trying to have a soul, but sadly, I don't think it fully succeeds.

The Social Reckoning: Speaking of soulless films, Aaron Sorkin is back as the writer-director of this movie where he explores how Wall Street Journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Alan White) cultivated a source at Facebook named Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) in 2019, who ultimately became a whistleblower and testified before the Senate in 2021 about all the harm Facebook was causing with its algorithm designed to promote inflammatory and harmful content. That storyline runs parallel to a January 2021 practice session where Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) was meeting with his PR team to go over his responses for an upcoming Senate testimony about whether or not Facebook fact-checks political ads. If you discover something revelatory in this movie, it would mean you were living under a rock, because there's no new information here. We're treading old ground in terms of what a bane Facebook is to society and the many ways in which it has become a dangerous and immoral company that prizes profits over any other ethical obligation.

This movie is meant to be a serious drama, but to me it felt like an insane comedy because it is such a Sorkin film. The dialogue, the acting, the condescending tone and casual misogyny...it's all so terrible that it makes you laugh. White and Madison are great actors, but they have clearly been told to deliver the lines the way Sorkin intended and don't bother imbuing their characters with any nuance. Their scenes honestly feel like two Sorkin avatars talking at each other rather than the two real-life human beings they are meant to be portraying. Jeremy Strong therefore seems to be the only one doing any real acting here, but he is playing a man who is famously devoid of personality, so there isn't much he can do either. In a weird way, this movie feels like Facebook itself, with Aaron Sorkin as the demanding Zuckerberg who no one can say No to, while all the actors are Facebook employees, just showing up to collect a paycheck and turn a blind eye to the terrible work they are producing. So maybe that makes this film so Meta it's actually good? Wait no, it does not.

The Love Hypothesis: Based on the 2021 novel by Ali Hazelwood, writer Sarah Rothschild and director Claire Scanlon are here to offer us a diverting and sexy romance that follows all the usual tropes and gives us a happy ending (or two). Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman star as Olive and Tom, a biology grad student and a surly postdoc at Stanford who have to pretend that they are dating for...reasons. We all know the fake dating trope, and so yes, you can expect them to initially hate this idea but go along with it for a noble cause, and then to reluctantly catch feelings and realize maybe the other person isn't quite so hateful after all.

This movie is thoroughly charming, the actors have solid chemistry, and the supporting cast are also very fun and lovely, with Rachel Marsh playing Olive's best friend, Ahn, and providing the all-important female friendship that is so crucial to ensuring our heroine is a well-rounded human being and not just a woman in need of a man. It's a tale as old as time, but it's clear that a woman directed it with a very female gaze, which makes it oh-so refreshing. I can think of no better way to spend an afternoon than to lightly lust after these two beautiful people and watch them fall in love. I'm not made of stone, people.

October Movies Part 1: Finding Emily, Practical Magic 2, The Testament of Ann Lee

Let's kick the month off with reviews of three exceedingly random movies. Sounds promising right?!

Finding Emily: Written by Rachel Hirons and directed by Alicia MacDonald, this is a cute little British romcom about what happens when a young man named Owen (Spike Fearn) meets a girl named Emily at a student union bar at the fictional Manchester City University, gets her number, tries to call her later, and discovers he didn't get her complete number. Distraught, he decides he's just going to look for women named Emily who go to the university, which is how he finds Emily Raine (Angourie Rice), an American student who is getting her psychology degree in the UK. She has been struggling to write her thesis about how love is a form of destructive madness, so it feels like Owen and his desperate quest to find his lady love has fallen right into her lap. She agrees to help him, so she can secretly study him and see how his life falls apart, thereby proving her hypothesis.

Obviously, hi-jinks ensue and the two of them devise increasingly creative ways to find the real Emily, some of which may violate data privacy laws and get Owen into a lot of trouble. No points for immediately knowing how this plot is going to go -- it is very predictable -- but like with any good romcom, the journey matters more than the destination. Both of the leads are very charming, and the movie is full of swoony British vibes. This is a cozy film that will appeal to Anglophiles and is ideal for a lazy weekend afternoon. Enjoy!

Practical Magic 2: I had never watched the 1998 film Practical Magic, despite being a huge Sandra Bullock fan. So, I watched that movie in preparation for this sequel and thought it was exceedingly weird but had its charms. Which is now exactly how I feel about the sequel. Bullock and Nicole Kidman (what a cast!) play Sally and Gillian Owens, two women who were raised by their aunts (Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing) in a beautiful house in Massachusetts. Their aunts are witches, and they teach the girls how to wield their magical powers as well. But due to the doomed romance of an ancestor, the Owens women are cursed - they can never love a man. If they fall in love, that man will tragically die. In the first film, Sally falls in love, gets married, has two daughters, and then her husband dies, leading her to renounce her magic and deny her identity until circumstances force her to engage with magic again to save her sister. In this movie, the plot is almost exactly the same, except that she now has to engage with magic again to save her daughter.

I am not going to get into much more detail. If you like the first movie, you'll like this sequel, but otherwise move right along. These movies are just so tonally weird and strange, but at the end of the day, you've got Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock being fiercely feminist and extolling the virtues of sisterhood over everything else, even romantic relationships (though Lee Pace does show up to inject a little bit of romance into the proceedings, because, come on. You can't have Sandy B. in a movie and not let her be a little romantic!) This movie is all over the place, but 28 years later, at least the special effects are better, and it has its moments when you can't help but smile. Give it a chance and experience the magic!

The Testament of Ann Lee: This movie came out last year, but it has taken me this long to finally summon it on streaming and give it a go. Directed by Mona Fastvold who co-wrote the screenplay with Brady Corbet, I was hoping this would be a Brutalist-esque vibey epic about a real-life woman I had never heard about but would be thoroughly compelled by. While Amanda Seyfried cannot help but compel you with her enormous eyes and charisma, I found this movie to be a slog.

Seyfried plays the titular Ann Lee, a woman in 1730s Manchester who was persecuted in the UK for founding the Shaker movement and subsequently moved to America to preach and create a religious community. Of course, she was also persecuted there and deemed to be a witch, because that's how we always deal with charismatic women who command a following. The script really plods along, but this is also a musical for some odd reason, which means that I couldn't help but feel like we were getting a religious Mamma Mia every time Seyfried started singing. Perhaps if I was in a theater for two hours, I would allow myself to be swept along in this story and give myself over to the religious ecstasy, but this is emphatically not a movie that works on streaming unless you are very disciplined and forego all other distractions. Much like Ann Lee herself. Am I a heathen for preferring Practical Magic 2 to this critically acclaimed film? Yes. Just burn me at the stake.

September Movies: Coyote vs. Acme, Best of the Best, Pressure

September has been a bit of a slow movie month in my household but we're starting to get caught up on things. Whether you're seeking a raucous comedy or WWII drama, let's dive in for some reviews.

Coyote vs. Acme: Written by Samy Burch and directed by Dave Green, this is a movie that is so specific that I found myself both thoroughly delighted by it and also wondering if mine was the last generation that could even understand this film. In the vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? this is a glorious Looney Tunes film where cartoon characters live alongside humans and Will Forte plays a jaded lawyer named Kevin, who has been hired by Wile E. Coyote to sue the Acme Corporation, because they keep selling him defective equipment for his various traps to catch the Road Runner. What follows is a very silly and engaging film about how there's a whole conspiracy over at Acme, and how maybe the Coyote does have a case after all.

The first half of this movie is just an ode to nostalgia where you get to watch the Coyote's many failed ventures and it feels like you're watching a dozen Road Runner cartoons on a loop. Then the action mostly shifts to the courtroom, which is a setting I am always fond of, but may not keep you as entertained. My favorite critique of this film came from a small child that was watching this in the theater next to me, who loudly exclaimed "I thought there would be more Coyote, but this is all Acme!" This movie may have cartoons, but I don't think I would ever take a kid to see it - this is solely a cartoon movie for grownups who grew up watching Looney Tunes and are going to burst out laughing at a throwaway joke about Speedy Gonzales. The animation is great, the script is engaging, and you'll feel like you're a little kid again.

Best of the Best: Written by Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam and directed by Lena Khan, this is a movie about two best friends, Maya and Anjali (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia), who join a Bollywood dance team at UCLA and have to navigate the competitive nature of the enterprise alongside their own personal baggage. There are a lot of jokes about the type of people who join a Bollywood dance club, including the one obligatory white boy who speaks Hindi and is more Indian than the Indians on the team, and when I saw the trailer, I immediately wanted to inject this movie directly into my veins. Unfortunately, the final product is aggressively mid.

The lead actors are great, but no amount of charisma can prop up this script that is fairly lackluster, and Ramakrishnan feels like she's just reprising her character from Never Have I Ever. There's a reason this movie is just on Netflix and not worth a theatrical release - you can stream it on a rainy afternoon, but you wouldn't want to venture out for it. The dance choreography is definitely spectacular and worth your eyeballs, but it feels like all the effort went into those sequences and everything else is just going through the motions. I may have enjoyed this more if it were a multi-episode series where we could get more twists and turns and character development, but as a movie, it failed to either entertain or engage me.

Pressure: After all those comedies, you know what you need? A tense World War II drama about the hours leading up to D-Day when the final decision about whether or not to deploy the troops came down to a meteorologist. Directed by Anthony Maras, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Haig, based on Haig's 2014 play of the same name, this is a true story about RAF Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott), who was recommended by Churchill to General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) as the best man in the country to provide a weather forecast for the upcoming D-Day landing. Preparations have been underway for weeks, and the American meteorologists, headed by Colonel Irving Krick (Chris Messina) have no doubts that the weather will be sunny and perfect, based on historical weather patterns. But Stagg is not interested in history - he wants the data to accurate forecast the future, and as he gathers that data, he doesn't have good news to report to the Armed Forces, who just want him to say that they will have clear skies ahead.

These actors are all at the top of their game and who doesn't want to watch Scott and Fraser go head-to-head in a battle of wills? The Americans are loud and brash, but Stagg is a quiet and resolute Scot who will not allow anyone to sway him from his scientific rigor. Even though we all know what eventually happened and that D-Day was a success, this movie makes you forget all of that for 100 minutes as you sit there, anxiously awaiting the final result and whether our hero will be redeemed for sticking to his guns. The footage of D-Day is also incredibly moving, set to music by Volker Bertelmann, and as with any movie about this time in our history, it all makes you feel incredibly horrified that humankind keeps engaging in warfare at all. This is a well-made and compelling film, and though it went in and out of theaters too quickly, it is well worth a watch.

April Binges Part 2: Company Retreat, Twenty Twenty Six, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins

I have been watching a lot of comedies this month and binged my way through two, while reaching the very satisfying finale of another one I had been watching week-to-week. Now they are all available to give you a giggle and some respite from reality. Dive in!

Company Retreat: This is from the creators of Jury Duty, but obviously you cannot just keep faking jury duty all the time, so this time, creators Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg decided to hire an unsuspecting man named Anthony as a temp for a fake company called Rockin' Grandma's Hot Sauce. Anthony joins the company and gets to know the wacky staff, and a week later, he is whisked away on their annual company retreat. He thinks the camera crew are just there to film a documentary about small businesses, but little does he know there's a whole operation behind-the-scenes that are filming him at every turn and trying to see what he will do in increasingly chaotic situations.

Much like Ronald in Jury Duty, I don't know how the show's producers managed to find such a gem of a man, but it's wonderful to watch Anthony just roll with the punches and make some deep and meaningful connections with these strangers. Things fall apart real fast, but Anthony, the good-natured temp, is always ready with a smile and some calming words to help defuse the situation and get his zany colleagues back on track. They even capture a moment when he says that everything is so nuts that you couldn't write a script to match it, which the show's writers obviously got a real kick out of.

The penultimate episode is where Anthony really gets to shine as the hero, making a grand gesture to help save this company and the people he has come to love over the course of such a short time. And then in the final eighth episode, we get the grand reveal where the show's producers walk him through just what has been going on for the past two weeks and we get some insights into the production design and rehearsal process that took place months before filming. It's such a massively creative endeavor, and it's insane to think that it requires everything running on rails - sometimes they don't, and we get treated to some moments when the actors had to quickly cover up a mistake, or the moments when they simply couldn't stop laughing. It's a very funny show, but mostly it's an extraordinarily heartfelt show that reminds us that there are still some very good humans out there in the world.

Twenty Twenty Six: I had no idea that creator John Morton was doing this show until I randomly saw a YouTube ad for it and discovered all six episodes were now available to binge. Which I proceeded to do in a heartbeat. Hugh Bonneville is back as Ian Fletcher, the man that we got to meet in Twenty Twelve, when he was helping to plan the 2012 London Summer Olympics, and W1A when he was trying to help re-brand the BBC. This time, he's in Miami, trying to help organize the 2026 FIFA World Cup (the show has to bleep "FIFA" anytime a character says it, which makes for an amusing running gag).

Much like those other shows, Ian finds himself amidst a group of weirdos, all of whom are trying to promote their agendas, and simply cannot answer a single question with a straight answer. There's the Zurich liaison, Eric (Alexis Michalik), who is absolutely no help in a crisis; the Sustainability champion (and potential love interest), Sarah (Chelsea Crisp), who is passionately pushing initiatives to make the games more environmentally-friendly but fighting a losing battle; Gabriela (Jimena Larraguivel), a Mexican woman who is heading up Optics and Narrative and wants every match to be held in her home country; Nick (Paulo Costanzo), the extremely volatile Business and Legal head, who is as New York as they come; Owen (Stephen Kunken) the head of Logistics, who doesn't seem to realize that's his job; and then Phil (Nick Blood) a Mancunian who loves David Beckham but otherwise doesn't know what's going on. And of course, they all have to deal with the social media team, who know nothing about football, but are going to try to market the hell out of it anyway.

The only other character who is back from the other shows is Will (Hugh Skinner), as Ian's bumbling assistant. Here, he continues to be thoroughly lost but still failing upwards, and it's fun to see how his every mistake turns into a potential win for this hapless team. Every episode features yet another bizarre crisis that requires quick decision-making and strategic problem-solving, which are of course, anathema to this group. And yet, they always manage to pull something out of the hat at the eleventh hour and save the day in some extremely improbable fashion. Each episode is only a half hour long, but I could watch these people talk in their strange double-speak for hours, saying absolutely nothing but talking a mile a minute anyway. It's truly the best of British humor, and while I don't care about the World Cup at all, I'm so grateful for it just because it allowed me to get another season of this absolute chaos.

The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins: Created by Robert Carlock and Sam Means, this is exactly the show you want if you've been missing the zany stylings of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or 30 Rock. Also, like Kimmy Schmidt, you may find yourself singing the theme song (composed by Jack Grabow) every single time you turn it on. 

Tracy Morgan stars as Reggie Dinkins, a famous football player who became infamous once he was caught gambling and was ignominiously kicked out of the NFL. Now, an Oscar-winning documentarian, Arthur (Daniel Radcliffe, in an incredibly delicious comic role), has arrived to film Reggie and his life, in the hopes of rehabilitating his image. Arthur himself has had a fall from grace after he was fired from directing a superhero blockbuster. He has a lot to prove, but a documentary about Reggie Dinkins may not be the best way to do that. Meanwhile, Reggie's support system consists of his ex-wife Monica (Erika Alexander), who is still his manager and is very close to him as they co-parent their teenage son Carmelo (Jalyn Hall); his best friend Rusty (Bobby Moynihan), who was his former teammate and is a very lovable doofus; and his fiancée Brina (Precious Way), a young entrepreneur who is always hustling to find a new side hustle, and fits right into the madness.

This is a show that is incredibly joke-dense. Forget the actual plot and storylines, half of the time you will find yourself dying of laughter at side gags involving fake TV shows like FDNY: Chicago, where New York firefighters go to Chicago to fight fires but keep forgetting the time difference or losing their hoses at O'Hare. If that sounds like the spectacularly dumb but hilarious comedy you're into, then buckle up, because this show has ten episodes of the stuff to deliver. All of the actors are having a great time, and who knew Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe were the comedy duo we had all been missing in our lives?! The show also has a tremendous amount of heart and is so good-natured. Everyone on this show loves and supports each other, even if they are the most ridiculous people on the planet, and every time you watch an episode, you are bound to laugh out loud at least once and then leave with a big smile on your face.

And the 2026 Oscar Goes To...

I must say, I'm hard-pressed to feel much excitement for most of the Oscar-nominated movies this year. They were a showcase of immense talent and technical expertise, but my heart simply couldn't get emotionally invested in a lot of these films. But, as is tradition, below are my thoughts on what I would pick if I were an Academy voter. If you disagree, let's fight about it in the comments!

Best Picture: Obviously, I'm going with Sinners here. Of the ten nominated films, this is the only movie that was technically brilliant, but also weird, original, and a cinematic treat from start to finish. It was a reminder of what moviemaking is supposed to be all about and why people go to the movies. It was a genre-defying crowdpleaser that still had extremely deep and impactful things to say, and shouldn't that earn a Best Picture Oscar? Unfortunately, the favorite is probably One Battle After Another, a movie that has some grand moments, but was an absolute slog as far as I was concerned. My difficulty with Paul Thomas Anderson's movies has been long documented on this blog, so let's not belabor the point any further. If I had to pick a runner-up for the award, I would go with Hamnet, a beautiful and lush adaptation that features some exquisite acting, but still managed to leave me a little cold at the end. I know I'm in the minority there, and I'd love nothing more for this little film about a strong, grieving mother to beat out the bombastic movie about an incompetent father, but sadly, the world does not revolve around my desires. Of the two foreign movies nominated in this category, I certainly would pick Sentimental Value over The Secret Agent, but I don't have much love lost over either of those films. Honestly, the Foreign Film I loved most this year was It Was Just an Accident, and I highly recommend you watch that before you watch these other two films. Of the weirder films, we've got Frankenstein and Bugonia, directed by men who certainly have a very distinctive vision. I loved Frankenstein, but not enough to give it an Oscar, while Bugonia was a fun time at the theater, but again, just a little too bizarre towards the end to warrant an award. Train Dreams is quiet, beautiful, but ultimately dull, while Marty Supreme is loud, brash, and ultimately overstays its welcome. And finally, we have F1, the obligatory, "let's nominate something people actually watched!" pick. It was a fun time, and I felt like I was racing along the track with the drivers, but did I give this movie another thought after I left the theater? Nope. So, what would I have nominated instead? Sorry, Baby and Rental Family. Now those are movies that made me tear up and chuckle and were genuinely surprising and unique and wonderful. And how about Wake Up Dead Man or Highest 2 Lowest instead of F1 if we're awarding brilliantly directed audience favorites that promise a great time at the movies? Basically, I've established that I'm starved for original screenplays that tug at my heartstrings. Hopefully 2026 will have better offerings!

Best Director: Can we please give this to Ryan Coogler for Sinners? The DGA award was unfortunately given to my arch nemesis Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, so my hopes are low, but I shall continue to hope, because that's how I roll. And if Coogler doesn't get it, I would give it to the only woman nominated, Chloe Zhao for Hamnet. Joachim Trier is on my list of "auteurs" who make indulgent movies I don't vibe with, so I'm not awarding him for Sentimental Value. And Josh Safdie did a fine job with Marty Supreme, but he needs to get better with the editing and less precious with his material if he doesn't want to fall into my over-indulgent auteurs hit list.

Best Actress: This seems to be Jessie Buckley's to lose, and her powerful performance in Hamnet certainly deserves it; I don't begrudge her after all the phenomenal work she has put in over the years. Emma Stone already has two Oscars, so she doesn't need another for going bald in Bugonia. Kate Hudson did some wonderful work in Song Sung Blue but this is a "she's just lucky to be nominated" performance considering her competition. Renate Reinsve is an Academy darling who will probably win an Oscar soon, but this year she should just be happy to be nominated for Sentimental Value. Which leaves me with my sentimental favorite, Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. That is a harrowing movie I will never watch again, but my God she delivers a performance of a lifetime. I hope she gets the chance to showcase her talent like this again so she can be the one walking away with an Oscar in another year. 

Best Actor: Now this category presents a bit of a challenge for me. Michael B. Jordan played twins in Sinners, so surely, he deserves an award for doing double the work of the other nominees and looking fine while he was doing it? I like Wagner Moura, but I did not like The Secret Agent so I'm not giving him an Oscar for that performance. And Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't need another Oscar, and certainly not for One Battle After Another. Which leaves us with Timothee Chalamet for his visceral performance in Marty Supreme, and Ethan Hawke for his impeccably commanding performance in Blue Moon. Listen, I can't begrudge Timmy C. who has been chasing this Oscar for years (though his frontrunner status has certainly faded in recent weeks after Jordan won the Actor Award and Timmy is being derided for his unfortunate comments about ballet and opera), but how on earth does Hawke not have an Oscar already?! I have such a soft spot for Ethan Hawke, who has been delivering standout performances for years, so he's the one I would secretly give an award to. But c'mon Michael B. Let's give you your award at last!

Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas are both nominated for Sentimental Value. Both actresses are great, but they're not going to win the award. Amy Madigan was so brilliant and creepy in Weapons that a little part of my heart wants to secretly root for her. But Wunmi Mosaku was so fantastic in Sinners that I am more openly rooting for her. And I love Teyana Taylor with all my heart, but I don't think she had enough to do in One Battle After Another for me to give her an Oscar here. So again, rooting for Sinners, and against One Battle After Another or Sentimental Value. Are we sensing a theme?

Best Supporting Actor: Delroy Lindo's nomination for Sinners is finally his chance to win an Oscar after decades of delivering incredible performances. So, I'm wholeheartedly in the tank for him. Am I rooting for Sean Penn or Benicio del Toro's performances in One Battle After Another? Nope. How about Stellan Skarsgard in Sentimental Value? Nope! Which leaves us with Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein, a performance I did really love. But Elordi will have plenty of chances to win an Oscar later in his career, so he needs to sit down and let Lindo take the stage. 

Best Original Screenplay: This is a really interesting one because original stories are so few and far between these days that I genuinely would root for all of these scripts to win (except Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt for Sentimental Value, of course). The WGA just awarded Ryan Coogler for Sinners, so that seems to be the likely favorite. I'm rooting for him, for writing the truly genre-bending original script of Sinners. But I did love Robert Kaplow's tour-de-force script for Blue Moon, as well as the very surprising It Was Just an Accident, where writer-director Jafar Panahi manages to walk this delicate tightrope of comedy and drama that was a real joy to watch. Given everything Iran is going through right now, would it be wonderful to give Panahi this award? Yes. But does Coogler deserve his flowers? Of course.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson won the WGA award for One Battle After Another...blergh. I'm rooting for Chloe Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell for Hamnet, who managed to turn that very literary novel into a dazzling cinematic spectacle. Frankenstein was gorgeous, but the script was not particularly novel, Bugonia was too odd, Train Dreams was too boring. Fin.

Apart from these categories, I will be rooting for Ludwig Goransson to win Best Original Score for Sinners, and KPop Demon Hunters for Best Animated Film, with "Golden" winning Best Original Song. This will be the first year there will be an Oscar for Best Casting, so I'll root for Sinners to set a precedent for excellence in that category. Frankly, I might be most excited for Best Live Action Short Film, where a VERY silly and hilarious movie named Jane Austen's Period Drama is nominated. But boy I hope there are some upsets or incredible speeches during the ceremony. Otherwise, I'm not going to be very invested in any of it this year.

January Movies Part 4: Song Sung Blue & Train Dreams

Every year, when the Oscar nominations are announced, I have to do a mad scramble to catch up on all the movies I missed. Thankfully, this year I watched a good number of films, so I can catch up at a more sedate pace. Here are reviews of two movies I watched this week to get fully informed before the awards ceremony!

Song Sung Blue: Written and directed by Craig Brewer, based on the documentary by Greg Kohs, this is a rather charming biopic about Mike and Claire Sardina (played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson), two musicians who met in 1987 in Wisconsin and decided to work together to create a Neil Diamond tribute act. Now, let's be real, apart from Sweet Caroline, I didn't know any Neil Diamond music, but boy did I get a robust education while watching this movie, including discovering a very bizarre bop called Soolaimon that I still mindlessly hum to myself out of nowhere.

This is a pretty traditional story about two Midwesterners who were battling their own personal demons but had great talent and a great love for each other that helped them overcome their struggles. Jackman and Hudson turn in wonderfully charismatic performances, and considering all the drama that happens to Hudson's character over the course of this movie, it's little wonder she has been nominated for an Oscar. I honestly wasn't expecting to like the movie as much as I did, but it was so sweet, so kind, so understanding of human foibles, that I simply couldn't help myself. I'm a sucker for musicals and stories where music brings people together. There's a little side plot where Mike is trying to get a job at a Thai restaurant, and it turns out the immigrant owner is a huge Neil Diamond fan and loves Soolaimon. That's the kind of cross-cultural human bonding that I simply eat up with a spoon.

Watch this movie if you like great acting, good music, and purely wholesome vibes. It's like watching a Bollywood movie, but the actors are doing their own singing. And it's all true, which makes it all the more spectacular.

Train Dreams: Directed by Client Bentley who co-wrote the screenplay with Greg Kwedar, adapting it from the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, this is a vibey movie that starts out in the 1890s and tells the story of Robert (Joel Edgerton), a young orphan in Idaho. We watch his life as a young man in the American West, working in forests, helping to build railroads alongside Chinese laborers, and eventually falling in love and building a remote cabin by the river to live in with his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones) and their young daughter. He becomes a logger and has to leave them for months at a time during logging season and we get to watch their struggles to build a life together in this harsh but beautiful New World.

This movie is only 100 minutes long, but we get to see the trajectory of this man's entire life, from sawing down trees in the early 1900s to watching the moon landing in 1969. The movie simultaneously feels extremely slow and deliberate, and then extremely rushed. This is the kind of film that is all about the cinematography and vistas and frankly, might have done better with a 3-hour Brutalist treatment. Instead, we get something that feels a little bit unmoored, much like its protagonist. It's a slice of life, conveying the extraordinary changes that one man can experience in one short lifetime, but did I find that moving or fascinating? Not particularly.

October Movies Part 1: One Battle After Another; The Lost Bus; Sorry, Baby

October is off to a good start with two excellent movies on streaming and one predictably overhyped movie in theaters. Let's discuss!

One Battle After Another: I very begrudgingly walk into the theater any time I have to go watch a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. So you will not be surprised to hear that this film, written and directed by him, did not manage to make me gasp in awe like most critics who are always quick to fawn over his work. It's inspired by the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, so you've got a white male auteur adapting another white male auteur and it's all very sigh-inducing. However, this movie does have a lot of plot, and isn't just heavily vibes-based, so I did appreciate that. 

The movie opens with Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor playing Pat and Perfidia, members of a far-left terrorist group who try to break out immigrants from detention centers and attack people and organizations they disagree with. Which certainly has a lot of parallels to the current state of affairs in the United States where every liberal seems poised to get militant to defend their rights. Perfidia gets pregnant, has the baby, but has no interest in being a mother when her life has been devoted to the revolution. When she is caught on a job, she makes a deal for witness protection, naming other members of the group who all have to flee for their lives, including Pat and his baby daughter. The action then picks up 16 years later, with Chase Infiniti playing Pat's long-suffering teenage daughter, who thinks her father is insanely paranoid and is just trying to live her best life. But they are in for some trouble because a far-right colonel named Steven J. Lockjaw (nothing subtle about that name, and nothing subtle about this performance by Sean Penn), is coming for them. He was sexually obsessed with Perfidia back in the day, but now has to show his allegiance to a KKK-style group he has become allied with, and it's all very icky and insane. 

Predictably, I enjoyed the performances of all the Black women in this movie (Chase Infiniti in particular is an absolute STAR and I'm excited to see what she does next in her career), and then was thoroughly fed up of Penn and DiCaprio. I understand that I am supposed to hate the Lockjaw character, but I have to say, it did not feel like much of a stretch for Penn to portray this rage-filled lunatic with insane ideas. Meanwhile, Pat is constantly getting high and self-pitying, which feels thoroughly pointless if you think you're in danger and should be protecting your daughter, but you know, that's how fathers operate. Overall, I would say the plot is fine, the characters are blah, but the actual filmmaking is compelling. The score by Jonny Greenwood is yet another masterpiece, with a lot of chaotic piano in tense chase scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat. And Michael Bauman's cinematography in the climactic car chase on some rolling hills is epic and destined to make this an iconic cinematic moment. I was not happy to watch this movie, and found it overlong and underwhelming, but I cannot deny that it did manage to have moments of brilliance throughout. If only it could have been edited down to only feature those moments and separate the wheat from the chaff.

The Lost Bus: This movie was directed by Paul Greengrass, from a screenplay he wrote with Brad Ingelsby, based on a section of the non-fiction book, Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson. It takes place during the 2018 Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California's history, and specifically focuses on the true story of a bus driver named Kevin McKay who had to navigate a school bus of 22 elementary school children through the wildfire and drive them to safety. In real life, there were two teachers on board, but in the movie we only get one, Mary Ludwig, as the other teacher did not wish to be portrayed.

Matthew McConnaughey and America Ferrera play Kevin and Mary and it is miraculous to watch these two wonderful actors work together over the course of this film. These two strangers are thrust together in an absolutely horrendous situation, and their ability to join forces, calm each other down, and most importantly, calm these children down as they fight for their lives, is absolutely heroic. But the real star of this film is the direction by Paul Greengrass. His documentary style is in full force here, with close-up shots of his excellent actors that capture every look of fear and panic, and sweeping shots of this fire that is raging through the land with absolutely no intention of sparing the humans along its path. 

There is only one word to describe this movie: harrowing. The shots of the fire and how quickly it spreads are panic-inducing, and watching seasoned firefighters battle against Mother Nature and eventually just give up is painful. It is such a shame this movie had a limited theatrical release and is now just on Apple TV+ because this was meant to be seen in a theater. But considering my reaction to the film when watching it at home, perhaps it's best I didn't have a more immersive experience. At one point I simply burst out crying because I couldn't believe what these people were going through. Living on the East Coast, it's so easy to become inured to hearing stories of wildfires in California, and understanding their horror in the abstract without needing to get into the details. Well, this movie will certainly introduce you to the visceral details. I thought this would be a corny Hollywood "based on a true story" movie, but it's a truly moving piece of cinema that introduces us to some heroic figures and reminds us of how much damage is being done in California every time another one of those fires gets out of control.

Sorry, Baby: After watching those sweeping epics, you may want to settle in for this quiet and yet nonetheless powerful movie written and directed by Eva Victor, who also stars in it (triple threat!). Victor plays Agnes, an English professor at a liberal arts college in the wilds of New England. The movie opens with a visit from her best friend, Lydie (the marvelous Naomi Ackie), and the two of them have a wonderful time together, marred only by an awkward dinner with some of their friends from graduate school. As Lydie and Agnes talk, you get the sense that Lydie is worried about Agnes, wondering why she still lives in the same house and works at the same school they graduated from, and overall seems to have a somewhat subdued and stagnant life. But Agnes reassures her that all is well.

The movie follows as a series of vignettes that flash back in time to gradually give us the story of what happened to Agnes in graduate school and how she has subsequently been dealing with the fallout during The Year of the Bad Thing. Be warned, it involves sexual assault, but this movie deals with the topic in such an incredibly nuanced and heartbreakingly funny way. It highlights the thoroughly useless response most of society has when you have to report a sexual assault or actually hold anyone accountable for it, whether it's the doctor that Agnes goes to see or the college administrators she makes a report to. Of course, Lydie is by Agnes's side throughout, and this movie is the ultimate ode to female friendship, showcasing how female friends can have a relationship that far transcends the paltry realm of romantic love. 

The dialogue is spare and direct, and most of the joy of this film is in watching expressions flit over Agnes's face as she struggles to figure out what would be the right thing to say or how she should feel in any given situation. It's such a remarkable and singular performance. The final monologue she delivers at the end of the movie serves as a distillation of the entire human condition and is so profound that it makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Everyone should watch this movie, watch that final monologue, and come away with a renewed understanding of their role in humanity. I can't wait to see what Eva Victor does next.

September Binges: The Paper & Duster

Yes, it's October 1, but I've been travelling, and I did watch these two shows in September, so indulge me, OK? 

The Paper: Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, this is ostensibly a sequel to The Office, with the same behind-the-scenes documentary crew now having moved on to filming the staff of a struggling newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, called the Toledo Truth Teller. A new editor-in-chief has just joined the paper, Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), and he is certainly no Michael Scott. But he is also a bit of a nepo baby, who was previously a star toilet paper salesman, so there is understandably a lot of doubt as to how this man is going to turn this newspaper around. He is full of gusto, filled with a love for proper journalism, and determined to return the Truth Teller to its former glory as a prestigious local paper that features original reporting instead of a hacky click-bait venture that has nothing substantive to say. 

Obviously, there are going to people that support his cause, like former Army soldier and Stars and Stripes reporter, Mare (Chelsea Frei), and then people who hate everything he's doing and want him to fail, like Esmeralda (Sabrina Impacciatore), the interim editor-in-chief who was usurped by Ned's arrival and has no interest whatsoever in his brand of journalism. But the majority of the staff are just people trying to work a 9-to-5, who will go along with the new guy's plans because they just need to take home a paycheck. As the ten episodes of the first season progress, however, you can start to see these people come together and maybe understand Ned's vision. And of course, there will be a healthy mix of their personal and professional lives before the season ends.

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about this show, but it has a wonderfully charming cast and goes down real easy. These characters are all relatable, and if you loved The Office, there's no reason you won't fall in love with this show too, as it has many familiar beats but also feels updated for 2025. The only returning cast member is Oscar Nunez, so you will get some fun asides with him as he tries to avoid the camera crew abut spectacularly fails as he gets more invested in the Truth Teller's journey. This show is telling a relevant story about the importance of local reporting and the need for real journalism in a world that is increasingly prone to lazy reporting standards. But overall, it's a light and breezy comedy that will give you plenty to laugh about.

Duster: I binged all eight episodes of this show on a single plane ride back from Amsterdam. It was the best seven hours of my life. And I was devastated to then learn the show was cancelled after a single season, probably because it took people like me so long to get around to watching it. Alas. But I am now here to exhort all of you to watch it as well. Who knows, maybe if more eyeballs get on it, it'll magically come back to life? But even if it doesn't, it makes for a riveting miniseries that will have you on the edge of your seat from the first episode to the last. Created by J. J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan, and set in 1972 Phoenix, this show is unlike anything else I've seen on TV for a long time.

The charming Josh Holloway stars as Jim Ellis, a getaway driver who works for Ezra Saxton (the brilliant Keith David), a mob boss who was in the war with Jim's father and who has known him all his life. Jim essentially regards the Saxtons as family, but all of that is about to change with the arrival of FBI Agent Nina Hayes (Rachel Hilson), the FBI's first Black female graduate, who has specifically requested to work on this case. Nina has a personal axe to grind against Saxton, and with the help of her new partner Awan (Asivak Koostachin), she sets out on a mission to recruit Jim as her inside man to help her get the dirt she needs to arrest Saxton.

All of these actors are doing incredible work, and the scripts are tight and propulsive. No bloated 1+ hour runtimes here - each episode usually lasts 50 minutes or so and it's a wild ride every time. The characters are all interesting and lived in, and there are constant twists and turns where you will get little doses of information at a time that completely upend your understanding of what has been happening all along. While a work of fiction, the show will also randomly involve actual historical figures, like Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, or Richard Nixon, and it's so wildly inventive and delightful that I had a big smile on my face the whole time I was watching it. It's insane to me that more people have not been raving about this show, but now here I am, and I suggest you watch it so you can rave about it alongside me. It does end on a huge cliffhanger to set up the (now-cancelled) Season 2, but it manages to wrap up most of its plot lines neatly and heartily satisfy you for this one glorious season. You can't always get what you want - but this show is exactly what you need.

July Movies Part 3: Eddington & KPop Demon Hunters

I can't think of a blog post where I have reviewed two more different movies. Settle in readers, it's gonna be a wild and bumpy ride!

Eddington: Written and directed by Ari Aster, watching this movie is like reading a David Foster Wallace novel (or what I imagine that must be like, since I have never read one). It's long, winding, and pompous, and doesn't seem to have any kind of point. 90 minutes into this movie, I thought it was fantastic and one of the better things I'd seen in 2025. But then, it went on for a whole other hour, and by the end of it, I was thoroughly fed up with this meandering mess of a movie.

Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal star as Joe Cross and Ted Garcia, the sheriff and mayor of a fictional small town in New Mexico called Eddington. The movie begins in May 2020, so we're right in the middle of pandemic panic and a new mask mandate, that the liberal mayor has fully embraced, but the conservative sheriff is completely against. The two of them have a past, and now their political differences are fueling even more resentment and angst. Emma Stone plays Joe's wife, Louise, a woman who is suffering from mental illness and unable to put up with her husband's drama, while her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell), is living with them and filling Louise's head full of online conspiracy theories. That's not going to end well.

The first 90 minutes of this movie perfectly capture the craziness of 2020, and the heightened anxiety, anger, and anarchy that seemed to fill every waking moment of our lives. There's also a look at the protests following George Floyd's murder, and some rather humorous commentary on white teens trying to support the BLM movement without any clear action plan. It's a perfect time capsule of that moment in history. But then things take a violent and bizarre turn and escalate into a horror film that is simply exhausting and relentless to watch. There's no point to any of it, and it has nothing interesting to say, which is a huge disappointment considering how well it all began. Who is this movie for? Certainly not me.

KPop Demon Hunters: Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan, this is an animated movie about a K-pop girl group called Huntr/x that are world famous for their singing ability, but are also secretly using the power of their voices to create a protective barrier that keeps demons from invading the human world. So yeah, this movie is nothing like Eddington.

Unless you're living under a rock, you're probably aware that the songs from this movie are currently blowing up the global music charts and people are listening to these songs on repeat. The songs are extremely catchy, and while I can't say I was a fan of all of them, I'm certainly humming a couple of them and doing the little shoulder dance to "Soda Pop" as we speak. The animation is gorgeous, and while the plot is fairly straightforward (well as straightforward as a movie about K-pop stars hunting demons could be, I guess), this is a movie that's executed with flair and panache. And it's only 100 minutes long, so it goes down easy, and you're never bored for a minute of that runtime. 

KPop Demon Hunters is an unusual movie because the premise is so wildly unexpected and unique. And yet, it still manages to be a predictable and tropey animated movie that makes for a great comfort watch. So, hop on the couch and fire it up on Netflix. You'll be bopping along to some great tunes in no time. And then you'll be jonesing for a visit to your closest Korean bathhouse.

July Movies Part 1: Jurassic World Rebirth & Superman

July means summer blockbusters and plenty of action. I checked out the two big franchise movies that have come out so far this month, and one of them was good and one of them was atrocious. Place your bets before you read any further!

Jurassic World Rebirth: I'll be honest, apart from the original Jurassic Park, I would be hard pressed to tell you anything about what happened in the subsequent sequels and reboots of this franchise. In this film, directed by Garthe Edwards and written by David Koepp, we have a greedy pharmaceutical rep (played to perfection by Rupert Friend), who needs the DNA from three different types of dinosaur species, to help him perfect a drug for heart disease that could potentially extend human lifespans by several decades. He hires Zora (a buff and action-ready Scarlett Johansson), a mercenary-for-hire as a bodyguard and general facilitator for an expedition to the Equator, where dinosaurs currently roam free in an area that is off-limits to humans. Henry (the delicious Jonathan Bailey), also joins the crew as the paleontologist who is needed for his dino knowledge, and Duncan (the always wonderful Mahershala Ali), a former colleague and friend of Zora's, steps in as their team lead and boat captain. There are other members of the crew, but the fact that they are not famous Oscar-winning actors should clue you in that maybe they're not going to last long on this expedition...spoilers!

The cast is excellent, but this script is an absolute dud, and it just keeps going and going. This is not a good movie, but I guess it's a good AC movie, i.e. it's worth it on a hot day when you really need to spend two hours indoors in an air-conditioned theater. I'd like to think that the actors had a fun time swashbuckling around the jungle, pretending to be awed by majestic dinosaurs, and collecting ridiculous paychecks, but otherwise, this is a very paint-by-the-numbers exercise where you can see every story beat coming from a mile away. There is an unusual twist involving some people they pick up on the way to their expedition, but it's really funny how some members of this team are so unlucky, while others seem to live a perfectly charmed life among these carnivorous dinosaurs. Go to this movie for a thoroughly mindless time, but please don't go into it with any expectations whatsoever.

Superman: If you're a Zack Snyder fanboy, this movie is emphatically not for you. But if, like me, you appreciate the humor that James Gunn brings to comic book movies and have a fondness for the original Guardians of the Galaxy, this movie will check a lot of your boxes. Written and directed by Gunn, this movie stars the very square-jawed and anodynely handsome David Corenswet as our titular hero, and Rachel Brosnahan as the intrepid Lois Lane, the journalist who works alongside his alter ego, Clark Kent, at the Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis. This movie does a great job of not belaboring his origin story or their love story - the action picks up right in the middle of Superman suffering his first ever defeat at the hand of Lex Luthor (a brilliantly demented performance by Nicholas Hoult), and we then follow along to discover what's been going on in his life and fill in all the gaps in his biography along the way. It's a great "Show, not tell" script, and bypasses a lot of the tiresome tropes we can sometimes fall into when rebooting a superhero franchise for the umpteenth time.

There is a lot of plot, involving many cameos from weird fringes of the DC universe, so I won't get into all of that. The production design is beautiful and it genuinely is a very funny movie that has just the right amount of Superman earnestness that makes it feel wholesome without being impossibly corny. But like Guardians of the Galaxy, the lasting impact this movie will have on my memory involves the music. There is one action sequence set to a song I love that I would never have imagined would be in the background of a fight scene. And the end credits song is a perfect callback to a seemingly innocuous conversation between Superman and Lois halfway through the film, and makes me certain that Gunn first thinks about what songs he wants in a movie and then writes the entire script around how he's going to get those songs in. 

This movie is silly, fun, and perfectly captures the essence of Superman without being all gloom and doom about it. And while there has been a lot of talk about it being some sort of woke anti-Israel movie, I honestly felt like it was merely an anti-war movie that would apply to a war being fought in any era of modern history. If anything, this movie felt like more of a commentary on anti-immigration policies and ICE raids, with all the rhetoric of Superman being an alien who didn't deserve to be on our planet. So yeah, this movie can mean anything you want it to mean, but at the end of the day, it's simply a great comic book film that understood the assignment and fully delivered. 

June Comedy Binges: Adults & #1 Happy Family USA

Need to delve into some comedy for a bit? Depending on whether you're interested in Gen Z or Muslim families, I've got you covered!

Adults: All the marketing basically posits that this is Friends for Gen Z. Which, fine? As a millennial, I have never felt more like a boomer than when watching this show and shaking my head at how incomprehensibly silly these twentysomethings seem to be. But as with all comedies, the show managed to win me over by Episode 3. There was a line of dialogue that struck me as being so brilliant and hilarious, that I instantly knew the show had found its groove. And once you love the writing on a comedy, you can forgive any number of flaws.

Created by Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, the show follows a group of five friends (played by Malik Elassal, Lucy Freyer, Jack Innanen, Amita Rao, and Owen Thiele) who live in Queens (very exciting for me, as I also live in Queens, though it was quickly apparent that this show was shot in Toronto, because the subways looked different, booooo). They all live in Samir's (Elassal) childhood home while his parents are off traveling, which is convenient as none of them seem to have jobs that would enable them to really live in NYC otherwise, except for Billie (Freyer) who loses said job pretty quickly. Over the course of eight episodes, the series follows the usual story arcs - there are work anxieties, sexual anxieties, romantic anxieties, and just the general anxiety of being a Gen Zer. The overall impression you get is that being a twentysomething is always the same, where you're perpetually struggling with your career or your love life, and the only thing that makes this Gen Z is that everyone's a little bit queer and everyone's deeply unprofessional. Give this show a chance - I was all set to cross my arms and declare that I was too old for this show, but it really won me over in the end. 

#1 Happy Family USA: Well, we're back to having another war in the Middle East, so I guess watching this show would be pretty timely? Created by Pam Brady and Ramy Youseff, who also voices the main character, this is an adult animated show about a 12-year-old Egyptian boy named Rumi Hussein who lives in New Jersey with his parents and older sister, Mona. The show begins on September 10, 2001, and we get a glimpse into Rumi's life and ordinary teenage struggles with school and family life. Adolescence is painful enough, but then, September 11 happens. And now Rumi's life is upended by the fact that he is a Muslim teenage boy.

The show is very funny but also very astute. In particular, I love how it deals with the ways in which Rumi's parents deal with the aftermath of 9/11. His mother decides she wants to don the hijab and embrace her religion and Muslim community, while his father is desperate to prove that he loves America...to the point of going on Fox News to prove he's "one of the good ones." If that made you groan and then chuckle, welcome to the vibe of this entire show. It's incisive and wonderful, a dark comedy about one of the most painful moments in America's history and the immigrants who suffered because of it. Which sadly is all too relevant today.

June Movies Part 1: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, The Phoenician Scheme, The Penguin Lessons, Mountainhead

I have a long list of movies I have yet to see this month, but I've still managed to watch a lot of other random ones. Eclectic mix of reviews incoming...

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl: Written and directed by Rungano Nyoni, this is a Zambian movie about a woman named Shula (Susan Chardy) who discovers the dead body of her uncle lying on the road when she's driving home from a party one night. She seems strangely unfazed by this and goes through the motions of calling up her family and the police, navigating all the bureaucracy of getting this matter sorted out. What follows are the various funeral arrangements, involving Shula's mother and many aunties, aka the sisters of this dead man. Everyone is insisting that Shula grieve and show more emotion, but she seems to just be going through the motions, alongside her cousins, Nsansa (Elizabeth Chisela), who seems to be perpetually drunk, and Bupe (Esther Singini), who is suicidal.

If you haven't pieced it together yet, the nieces are not mourning dead Uncle Fred because of...reasons. And yet this movie is a very dark comedy, an insight into the patriarchy, and the many ways in which older generations of women will still try to protect men, while the younger generation are trying to break a vicious cycle. It's a very vibey film, but I had never seen any movie set in Zambia before, so it was extremely engaging, along with its many parallels to my experiences with Indian funereal customs...and the patriarchy, of course. Give it a shot if you want to immerse yourself in something completely unique and strange, but obviously, trigger warnings abound.

The Phoenician Scheme: Written and directed by Wes Anderson, this movie is exactly what you would expect (or at least, it's what I expected). I find it increasingly hard to talk about Anderson's films because they just all seem to blend together into one big twee art project featuring a lot of famous actors delivering nonsensical dialogue or running around like they're in a Benny Hill sketch.

In this one, Benicio del Toro stars as Zsa-Zsa Korda, a rich man in 1950 who decides to name his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who is a nun, as his sole heir. Together, they must travel the world and meet various investors to help fund Korda's morally dubious Phoenician scheme. And of course, along the way, maybe this estranged pair will build a proper familial bond. It's all very weird, it's a string of silly vignettes, and I didn't much care for it. But I must stress, I am entirely too jaded to properly review Anderson's movies anymore - my husband thought this movie was wonderful and a return to form. So, if you're a fan, perhaps this movie will perfectly scratch an itch for you. But if you're too tired of "auteurs" like I am, give it a miss.

The Penguin Lessons: Written by Jeff Pope, based on the memoir by Tom Michell, and directed by Peter Cattaneo, this movie stars Steve Coogan as Michell, an English teacher who decided to teach at a boy's boarding school in Argentina in 1976 when they were in the midst of a coup d'etat. During a holiday in Uruguay, he rescues a penguin who was caught up in an oil slick on the beach, and then proceeds to smuggle it back to Argentina. What follows is a heartwarming story about how a grumpy old Englishman learns to become more empathetic as he is forced to engage with this penguin. And also learns to maybe stop being politically neutral while the Argentinians around him are being abducted and tortured by their government? 

The tone of this film is all over the place, but it's certainly charming enough to stream over an afternoon, particularly if you're into cute penguins. But there's something decidedly colonial about the proceedings, with a classic "white people are shocked to learn how the rest of the world operates" aesthetic. Coogan delivers a good performance, and the movie is certainly intriguing since it is based on a true story, but beyond that, it lacks any real substance.

Mountainhead: Written and directed by Jesse Armstrong (aka creator of Succession and Peep Show - talk about range!), this is a bleak movie about four tech billionaires (well one of them only has millions), who convene in a snowy mansion in Utah to talk about how they might take over the world. Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, and Jason Schwartzman star as four Silicon Valley dudes modelled after the likes of Thiel, Musk, and Zuckerberg, who are of course convinced of their own inherent genius, and blithely ignore all the chaos their technologies have wreaked upon the world. At the moment they're meeting, the world is particularly rife with misinformation and anarchy, all spurred on by the fake videos and messages being circulated on a social media platform one of them owns, and what follows is a hodgepodge of tech speak and insanity.

This is probably a good movie for those of you who are massively online. But depending on your politics, you will love this movie for very different reasons. As you can imagine, I did NOT enjoy this movie, as it depicts the very reasons why I am not massively online and do not care for tech bros. It's the darkest of comedies, and practically a horror film. It does a brilliant job of capturing that painful Silicon Valley tech speak and how these men want to optimize their lives and think that they are the only ones who know how to run the world. It's the epitome of Move Fast and Break Things, and after you watch this movie, you'll certainly feel like your brain got broken!

April Movies Part 1: Snow White, Warfare, The Amateur, Drop

I have spent a very erratic few weeks at the movies, watching a real mishmash of films that vary in terms of genre and quality. If you're ready for some cinematic whiplash, let's dive right in!

Snow White: Oof. I know the reviews were terrible, but I needed to see it for myself so that I could have my own opinion. Turns out my opinion was the same as everyone else's - this movie is awful. Also, I had somehow completely missed the controversy around the dwarves, so imagine my horror to discover they are played by CGI characters, instead of what I had been expecting, something more akin to the sexy hobbits from The Hobbit. Yeesh. 

There's nothing spectacular happening here. The costumes and production design are expectedly lovely, but the songs fall flat, the script is mediocre, and while Disney have done their usual thing of trying to make the Princess more of a feminist icon who is getting things done rather than waiting around for her Prince, it all feels pretty strained. I did enjoy how Snow White (Rachel Zegler, trying her best) is basically advocating for socialism during this entire movie, while the Evil Queen (played so woodenly by Gal Gadot) is a capitalist who is trying to hoard the people's riches for herself, but other than that, there was nothing particularly entertaining about this two-hour slog. 

Warfare: Let's take a hard turn to this remarkable movie that is tough to watch but absolutely extraordinary. Written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, this is a movie based on an actual US Navy SEAL encounter Mendoza and his platoon experienced in 2016 in Ramadi, Iraq. For a tense 90 minutes, we are embedded with these soldiers (played by an incredible cast of actors like Will Poulter, Jospeh Quinn, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Cosmo Jarvis, and Charles Melton) and get to experience what they went through. 

The opening scene of this movie is simply perfect and grabbed my attention from the get-go. Which was important, because the next 15-20 minutes felt so slow, concerned purely with these soldiers hunkered down in a building, looking through scopes at the neighborhood to assess potential threats, continuously offering up monotonous updates on the radio. But then things escalate quickly, and watching these men in action as they attempt to extricate themselves from an extremely volatile situation is both harrowing and grisly.

If you're squeamish (or a pacifist), this is not the movie for you. And if you are an Iraqi civilian who had their life summarily upended by American forces, this is also not the movie for you. This is definitely a rah-rah pro-US military movie, because that is who is telling the tale, but they do briefly capture some of what their impact was on ordinary civilians. But of course, those civilians don't get any say in this narrative, and we have no idea what subsequently happened to them. This is only a story about these soldiers, so your mileage may vary. But as a piece of cinema, it is powerful, tense, and searingly shot, capturing the psychological trauma these men are subject to in addition to the physical toll. To someone like me, it's a powerful condemnation of the horrors of war, but I'm sure to someone who plays Call of Duty 24/7, this move will offer up a completely different experience that only further glorifies what these admittedly brave men do on the battlefield.

The Amateur: If you are looking for more fictional action, you may turn to this film. But beware, the action is going to be more of the hacker variety, where you spend time learning about codes and surveillance systems, rather than getting caught up in gun battles. This was a plus for me, but a minus for my husband who was expecting more fights, so be forewarned. The trailer will basically tell you everything you need to know about this film, and with a two-hour runtime, it definitely overstays its welcome. But if you like Rami Malek and the genre of mindless spy thriller, this might help you while away an afternoon.

Malek plays Charlie, a CIA boffin who is distraught when his wife is taken as a hostage and killed during a random attack in London. He asks his CIA overlords to give him field training so that he can find the four men responsible for this attack and avenge his wife's murder. Obviously, the CIA thinks this is a ridiculous request, as Charlie has only ever sat in the basement poring over his computer. But, for reasons I won't spoil here, they accede to this request, and Charlie gets some light training from Colonel Henderson (gamely played by Lawrence Fishburne) before he sets off on a European revenge spree. Based on that premise, this movie really should be a lot more exciting, but unfortunately it just feels a bit rote and predictable, and at one point I found myself wishing Charlie just had to kill three men instead of four so we could be done already. This movie had a lot of promise but doesn't live up to expectations. Do you still want to give it a shot?

Drop: Based on the trailers, I thought I didn't want to see this movie. But then the reviews of it were so ecstatic, that I decided to give it a shot. And it was a 90-minute delight. This is one of those films that suffers from having a trailer that gives away too much, but despite that, I found myself thoroughly engaged in the central performances of Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar, who play Violet and Henry, a couple that are meeting up at a fancy restaurant for a first date after months of texting back and forth. Unfortunately, this is going to be the worst first date ever because Violet keeps getting memes dropped to her phone from some unknown person (who must be in the restaurant - who could it be?!) and then starts to get threatening texts. She left her five-year-old son behind with her sister to babysit at home, and it becomes increasingly clear that her family is in danger if she doesn't follow the commands that this mysterious stranger is texting her.

No more spoilers - as you can imagine, this is a tale of a plucky heroine who is trying her best to save her family while not wreaking any extra havoc on the people in the restaurant. Meanwhile, her noble date is thoroughly confused about what's going on but gamely trying to play along and be a gentleman. Honestly, the true horror of the movie is how it captures the madness of a bad first date. Fahy and Sklenar have great chemistry, but it is amazing to see how much Henry is putting up with towards the end, as well as the hapless waitstaff, who are initially rooting for this couple and then discreetly asking if they need some help extricating themselves from what is clearly a disastrous night. With a tight script by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, and impeccable direction by Christopher Landon, who really elevates many of the shots in the film to high art, this is a funny, clever, and thrilling movie that will thoroughly entertain you from start to finish.

And the 2025 Oscar Goes To...

Another year, another Oscars. With less diversity, but still some excellent storytelling. We can't have it all, folks. Let's dive into it and see what we got this year!

Best Picture: We've got another wide-ranging set of movies, covering a slew of genres, making it an even more ridiculous exercise to say that one of these was "Best" when they are all so audaciously different from each other. But my pick is The Brutalist. This movie was unfathomably astonishing, and I know that it's fashionable for people who haven't seen it to quibble about its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, but just give it a shot. This movie is sublime, earns that runtime, and absolutely deserves all the kudos it is receiving. Next up, I would say that Anora and Conclave are tied for my affections. These movies feature crackling performances and propulsive plots that kept me on the edge of my seat up until the very end. And then we have Nickel Boys, I'm Still Here, and The Substance, three films that remind us of why we need more gender and racial diversity in film, both in front of and behind the camera. These are great films, tackling very different subjects, but approaching them from a unique, often mind-bending perspective, and wholly immersing the audience in the characters. Then we get to the two musicals, Wicked and A Complete Unknown. Wicked is the better movie, a complete package featuring excellent music, production design, and performances, while A Complete Unknown is a thin biopic that shines in terms of the performances from Timothee Chalamet and Monica Barbaro. And yes, there is a third musical, the chaotic Emilia Perez, but the less said about that the better. That movie has had a true fall from grace over the course of its Oscar campaign and is destined to become a laughable footnote in cinematic history. And then, we have Dune: Part Two as our final nominee. Listen, I don't know why this movie is nominated for Best Picture - it was a spectacle, sure, but this is clearly just a plea to get more audience viewership for the Oscars by nominating some big box office films. Let's move along.

Best Director: Coralie Fargeat has nabbed the one nomination for a woman in this category, for her truly visionary work in The Substance. While I thought the movie was spectacular and she is clearly a force to be reckoned with, I loved The Brutalist too much and am rooting for Brady Corbet to win this award instead. Fresh off a DGA win, however, Sean Baker might end up as the winner for Anora; he has rapidly become one of my favorite directors, so I wouldn't be mad about this win, but oh, poor Brady Corbet. And...no to James Mangold for A Complete Unknown or Jacques Audiard for Emilia Perez. Mangold is a journeyman director who put in serviceable work, but this is a pretty basic movie, while Audiard is an example of why we need someone other than a white man behind the camera when telling a movie about Mexican folks. RaMell Ross should have been nominated here instead, for his truly remarkable work on Nickel Boys, but alas. We'll have to give him his Oscar some other year.

Best Actress: Well, we know Karla Sofia Gascon will not be winning for Emilia Perez, so let's quickly dispense with that. While Cynthia Erivo put in phenomenal work in Wicked, she is going to have to just be happy to be nominated this year. Which leaves us with Mikey Madison for Anora, Demi Moore for The Substance, and Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here. I loved all three of these performances, but I will have to personally root for Demi Moore just because it would be a fitting tribute to her long "popcorn movie" career. Madison has plenty of time to earn another nomination, but Torres is a worthy opponent for Moore who may never have a second chance at this, so I won't begrudge her if she nabs the trophy instead. 

Best Actor: This is an interesting category. I love Colman Domingo and wish he would win an Oscar already, but Sing Sing didn't move me as much as it did other people, and he does not seem to have much of a shot of getting up on that stage this year. Timothee Chalamet was fantastic in A Complete Unknown and put in so much work that I honestly would enjoy seeing him walk away with a statue. Adrien Brody was superb in The Brutalist, and while I loved his performance, the man already has an Oscar so why can't he share the wealth? Interestingly, Brody was the youngest man to win Best Actor in 2003 for The Pianist but if Chalamet wins, he will snatch that record from Brody. Doesn't that feel fitting? Of course, he also has stiff competition from Ralph Fiennes for Conclave and Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice. I was surprised to discover Fiennes has never won an Oscar before, but this will still not be his year. Stan has been putting in remarkable work this year, but he will probably have to wait his turn like everyone else.

Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldana is the shoo-in here for Emilia Perez. She delivers a powerhouse performance that is by no means "Supporting," but I guess we'll play this game. I was truly delighted to see Monica Barbaro's nomination here for A Complete Unknown, because I was worried people were giving Chalamet all the kudos for his work as Bob Dylan and neglecting to acknowledge her work as Joan Baez. She won't be winning this year, but hopefully she will now have many future chances to win an award. Ariana Grande was wonderful in Wicked, but this is not her year - maybe she'll have a shot next year with the sequel! Felicity Jones has a meaty role in The Brutalist, but she can't quite eclipse her competitors in this category. And Isabella Rossellini is barely even in Conclave - this is a truly Judi Dench-esque Supporting performance, and she will not be winning for it.

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin is going to walk away with this one for his incredible work on A Real Pain, and it is rightfully deserved, even though, this is very much a Best Actor performance and not "Supporting" in any way. I was personally delighted to see Yura Borisov nominated for his work in Anora where he does more acting with his soulful eyes than anyone else and I was a complete sucker for it. Jeremy Strong and Guy Pearce deliver strong performances as hateful, powerful men in The Apprentice and The Brutalist, respectively, but an award seems unlikely. And while Edward Norton is wonderful as Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown, he simply does not have a shot this year. Better luck next year, gentlemen.

Best Original Screenplay: Anora just won the WGA award, so that dizzyingly entertaining and endearing script is likely the frontrunner. But the first time I saw The Brutalist, I genuinely thought it was a true story - doesn't that deserve something? And September 5, which is not nominated for anything else, has a taut and brilliant script that I dearly loved. And then A Real Pain and The Substance are equally brilliant and creative and wild in their own ways. My God. This is a thoroughly stacked category where I'm hoping for a five-way tie - can we make that happen please? 

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nickel Boys won the WGA award, and I'm certainly rooting for them to win the trophy here. No to Emilia Perez (boooo!). I loved Conclave, so it's probably my runner-up in this category. Sing Sing would be a very deserving winner, but I don't think it has a shot, while A Complete Unknown was just another humdrum biopic and doesn't need to be winning here. 

That's all for the major categories. There has been a lot of back-and-forth in the precursor award shows and it's not clear who the real frontrunner is - Anora has been staging a massive comeback, and The Brutalist seems to be increasingly sidelined, but I do hope they can each divvy up a slew of awards as they were two of my favorite films this year. That being said, I loved many of these movies and performances, so this is a year when I'll truly just be happy with whoever wins. Except Emilia Perez. Boof.