Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) * *

 

Directed by: Joe Dante

Starring:  Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Robert Prosky, John Glover, Haviland Morris, Christopher Lee

Gremlins 2 is a retread of the second-half of the original, when the mischievous gremlins wreaked havoc on a small upstate New York town.  The original idea was how teenager Billy Peltzer (Galligan) was given a cute little creature named Gizmo for a birthday present.  The lovable little guy came with two rules:  Don't get him wet and don't feed him after midnight.  There might be a third, but I don't recall it.  

Well, we know there wouldn't be a Gremlins movie if the rules weren't disobeyed, and now there wouldn't be a sequel if the commandments were followed this time around.  The first Gremlins was cute and fun enough, especially when I saw it as a teenager.  However, the sequel (which I didn't see when it was released) is much, much more of the same gremlins only this time they're destroying half of New York City.  They get into everything and seem a bit nastier in Gremlins 2.  Soon enough, there are so many of them that it's a relief to see the humans when they do appear. 

Billy and his girlfriend Kate (Cates) live in New York and work for Clamp Industries, a conglomerate run by Daniel Clamp (Glover), and who is certainly modeled after Donald Trump.  His assistant and soon-to-be-girlfriend is named Marla just so the point can be jammed home.  Clamp's building and security system are state-of-the-art, until Gizmo finds his way back to Billy and of course gets wet accidentally.  The offspring that pop up in little balls from Gizmo's body then eat after midnight and away we go.  Billy and Kate spend the bulk of the movie warning the others of danger and trying to outwit the clever critters. 

The gremlins themselves range from sorta cute to dastardly.  They take over the movie much in the same fashion they take over Manhattan.  They're proof that even somewhat cute little monsters like them can still be too much of a good thing.  

Sinners (2025) * *

 

Directed by: Ryan Coogler

Starring:  Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Jayme Lawson, Yao, Li Jun Li

I caught up late to Sinners, following a record sixteen Oscar nominations this year.  The movie is an ungainly mix of crime drama, social commentary, and vampire horror all in one.  The vampire stuff seems typical no matter how Coogler introduces it and tries to dress it up.  The first hour before any bloodsuckers even show up gives us the players and some backstory, but it is a slog getting to the main event.  

Sinners centers around bootlegging twins Smoke and Stack (Jordan), who are difficult to differentiate not just because it's Michael B. Jordan playing them both, but because their personalities are similar.  One actor playing twins can be distracting because you're looking for the editing tricks.  Sinners does this seamlessly, but after a while I gave up trying to figure out which twin is which.  One way the movie differentiates them is by giving them different love interests.  Stack is in love with Mary (Steinfeld), who is half-black but passes as white in societal circles.  Smoke wants to reconnect with a voodoo priestess (Mosaku) whom he left behind when he and Stack moved to Chicago to work for Al Capone after they fought in World War I.

The twins want to open a juke joint in their Mississippi hometown and dream of making big dollars, but on opening night, the establishment and its many patrons are accosted by three vampires (concealing their identities of course) who ostensibly want to enter so they can play the blues.  They're turned away and the horror show starts as the vampires turn each of the living into the undead.  There is also teenager Sammie (Caton), a blues guitarist who wishes to break into the blues scene.  In one time-bending scene, he plays a blues song, and Coogler reflects on how the blues influenced future music like disco, rock, etc. and the room is replete with visions of future singers and dancers occupying the same space.  

Sinners is superior from a production standpoint, capturing the essence of its time and place in 1930's Mississippi, but it tries to be too many things at once, almost as if Coogler was filming two different movies at the same time and attempted to mesh them together.  Themes of racism and cultural appropriation are also explored.  Are the white vampires symbolic of these?  Sinners makes the answer apparent, and you will be the judge as to whether that works for you.  But from an entertainment perspective, Sinners is a mixed bag that never lifts off the ground despite its lofty intentions.  

The Bride! (2026) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Maggie Gyllenhaal

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Penelope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal

The Bride! comes equipped with an exclamation point but has nothing for us to be excited about.  Maggie Gyllenhaal's retelling of The Bride of Frankenstein is complete with a feminist twist, hints at MeToo, and an annoying bride.  It is told in overly artsy fashion in which Mary Shelley's ghost inexplicably possesses Ida (Buckley), who is getting drunk at a Chicago mobster's party circa 1936 and makes enough of a spectacle of herself to soon be murdered by the mobster's goons.  The Bride! like Frankenstein's monster is an ungainly spectacle of ill-fitting parts. 

The Bride! steps wrong in the first frame with the black and white spirit of Mary Shelley yapping about some nonsense before stepping into the body of Ida at the worst possible time.  Soon after Ida's death, Frankenstein's monster (Bale) appears at the doorstep of Dr. Euphronius (Bening), who was inspired by and written books on Dr. Frankenstein's work.  "Frank" as the good doctor soon calls him, is pent up with a century of loneliness and wants the doc to reanimate a dead woman to be his, er, companion.  They dig up Ida, jolt her with electricity, and then she's back to life with little memory of who she was.  Frank is ecstatic, or as ecstatic as anyone is allowed to be in such an ironically lifeless film, which is telling considering how much activity Gyllenhaal wants to cram into it.

Once Ida and Frank become an item, they visit a nightclub which wasn't likely to be found so easily in 1936 and following a confrontation in which two men try to rape Ida and Frank kills them, they find themselves on the lam like Bonnie and Clyde.  Do they go on a crime spree?  Not intentionally, but bodies soon pile up and Chicago detectives Wiles and Malloy (Sarsgaard and Cruz) are on the trail of the couple to New York and all over the country where they are taking in the movies of actor Ronnie Reed (Gyllenhaal, who has the mannerisms of a 1930's movie star down).  By then, The Bride! has become all but incomprehensible.  

Gyllenhaal saddles the actors with too many subplots, questionable motivations, and no real reasons to care.  They try mightily, but ultimately The Bride! just isn't much fun to watch and even less fun to think about.  Gyllenhaal does indeed swing for the fences, but strikes out. 

Death on the Nile (1978) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  John Guillermin

Starring: Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Jane Birkin, Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Simon MacCorkindale, Maggie Smith, George Kennedy, Lois Chiles, Jack Warden, Olivia Hussey, Angela Lansbury

Death on the Nile, based on the Agatha Christie novel, is the first featuring Peter Ustinov as the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.  People mistakenly assume he's French, and he's quick to correct them.  Nothing escapes him, although the murderers try their best to fool him.  He won't be swayed or distracted.  Once he's on the case, the killers ought to just confess and save everyone time.   But what fun would that be?  One of the most fun aspects of Death on the Nile, or any Agatha Christie film adaptation, is the detective gathering the suspects all in the same room and toying with each person's guilt or innocence.  Everyone is a suspect because everyone has a reason to want to kill the victim.  It's their poor fortune to be on the same boat as Hercule Poirot.   Just ask the folks on the Orient Express. 

I'll tread lightly.  The victim is Linett Doyle (Chiles), an heiress married to Simon Doyle (MacCorkindale), who dumped his lover Jacqueline (Farrow) prior and now she's obsessively stalking the couple.  Linett is found shot to death with a "J" written in blood on the wall next to her.  This was moments after Simon was accidentally shot in the leg by Jacqueline in a jealous rage in the dining room.  Simon was incapacitated and Jacqueline was escorted back to her room with witnesses present, so they're not involved.  Or are they?  Each suspect has motive and the movie speculates who could've done what and how.  

I won't go through the list of suspects except to say they are played by some of the legends of show business from a bygone era.  They exhibit class, style, and relish the material.  At least the actors do, even if the characters don't.  In the middle of it all is Ustinov's unflappability which keeps everything centered.  

How to Make a Killing (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  John Patton Ford

Starring:  Glen Powell, Margaret Qualley, Bill Camp, Zach Woods, Topher Grace, Ed Harris, Nell Williams, Jessica Henwick 

How to Make a Killing has the potential to lure us in and make us co-conspirators as Becket Redfellow (Powell) begins his quest to knock off the seven family members in line for his grandfather's inheritance in order to claim it for himself.  But it never takes off.  It plods when it should crackle.  We should care enough to hope he either gets away with it or gets caught, but in this case, it's neither.  Why is this?  Because the characters Becket needs to bump off aren't established enough for us to root for their demise and Becket's plight isn't exactly one we can sympathize with.   

Becket's mother got pregnant as a teenager and is subsequently cast out of her family by her father Whitelaw (oh, these names) (Harris) after refusing to have an abortion.  Mom creates a life in North Jersey where she grooms her son to be a future inheritor of the family fortune.  She dresses him in suits, teaches him how to speak like the manner-born, and eventually passes away from cancer while Becket is a teenager.  Becket's dad dropped dead from an embolism while witnessing his birth, in case you were wondering.

After working as a tailor for a while, Becket decides to go after the fortune when his childhood crush Julia (Qualley) spurns him because she's marrying some rich prick.  Julia acts like a femme fatale dropped in from a nearby thriller.  She catches on early that Becket is up to no good and acts accordingly.  The FBI also catches on since those who are dying are directly blocking Becket's succession to the inheritance.  Becket has occasional pangs of conscience and also forms a relationship with Ruth (Henwick), the former girlfriend of one of the cousins Becket kills.  

Becket tells the story to a priest while on death row awaiting execution.  How Becket manages to avoid this is unconvincing and screams of an attempt to give this story a happier ending.  Powell doesn't exhibit much charisma here, and we aren't much moved by his mission.  He isn't sympathetic or even unsympathetic.  He's just there.  So is the movie and that's deadly to the whole enterprise.  

Scream 7 (2026) * *

Directed by: Kevin Williamson

Starring: Neve Campbell, Joel McHale, Courteney Cox, Ethan Embry, Matthew Lillard, Isabel May, Mason Gooding, Sam Rechner, Anna CampCamp

Ghostface is back.  One day, I won't have to write those words, but as long as Scream movies continue to make money, there will be more Screams to be made.  Scream 7 feels by-the-numbers and uninspired.  There is always the whodunit aspect which keeps just enough interest to prevent the viewer from falling asleep, but the Scream movies have become a series of grisly killings which try to top the others in their blood and viciousness.  When you see someone's guts spilled out all over the place after a brutal kill, you realize Scream has lost its sense of fun.

Sidney Prescott (Campbell) returns to the franchise for the first time since Scream 4.  She lives with her police chief husband (McHale) and daughter Tatum (May) in a small town in an unnamed state and owns the local coffee shop.  Soon, after a loooong opening scene in which the Ghostface killer emerges, Sidney is contacted by someone proclaiming to be Stu (Lillard-who was killed in the first movie) and even calls her on FaceTime.  Is Stu really alive?  Or is this AI run amok?  And why do the people in these movies answer all calls from Unknown or Restricted callers?  If no one answered these calls, then the movies would screech to a halt.  

Now, one or more Ghostface killers are stalking and killing Sidney's loved ones and Tatum's friends.  Poor Sidney likely has enough PTSD to last three lifetimes and now has to go through it again.  No wonder she took two movies off.  Who could blame her?  And once the killer (or killers) is revealed, we realize that anyone who has more than 1-2 lines in the movie should be considered a suspect.  The explanation is ludicrous, as you would expect from someone who was only given a couple lines earlier in the film.  The Scream series has run out of gas and was only running on a half-tank to begin with. 

Miracle: The Boys of '80 (2026) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Jacob Rogal, Max Gershberg

It's impossible to reference the 1980 USA Men's Olympic Hockey team and not refer to the words "miracle" or "miraculous".  Those words will follow these players around for all time.  There are other movies about the team like Miracle (2004), Miracle on Ice (1981), and now Miracle: The Boys of '80 which focuses on the players, their stories, and their complicated relationship with their late head coach Herb Brooks.  The documentary reflects a time and place where the Olympics could be held in a quaint little town like Lake Placid, NY, where the opening ceremonies look like they were held on a local football field.  

February 1980 was the height of the Cold War between the USA and USSR, but the Soviet hockey team was head and shoulders above all of its competition.  They had won each four gold medals in a row and 1980's tournament was supposed to be merely a formality as they claim their fifth straight.  The American team was made of players in their late teens or early 20's, but the Soviets were veterans (some in their late 20's or early 30's) who were ostensibly professional players who skirted the then-Olympic amateur-only status by through "Red Army employment".  

Days before the Games, the USSR trounced the US in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden 10-3.  Their hopes of even competing for a medal, much less beating the unbeatable Soviets.  The USA managed a tie in the final minute of play in their first game vs. Sweden.  Had they lost that game, there would be no Miracle on Ice to document and sports history would've been drastically changed.  The economic and political climate in 1980 called for something to hope for and the US team provided that as they then tallied some unlikely wins.  Then, they drew the Soviets in the medal round and the rest is history.

The Boys of '80 is moving because of how it sees the players, their stories, and their lives.  Each played hard for Brooks, but they regret that they never got close to him.  Brooks wanted it that way, and the players' ambivalence towards him resonates to this day.  The players all sit in the arena where they upset the Soviets and ultimately claimed gold two days later, and we have to pinch ourselves that these men who captivated a nation were now older and histories of their own.  Many gave thanks to their supportive parents and still get emotional when discussing how they won the gold medal in their honor.  Each game is analyzed and the players themselves discuss what went through their minds especially in the final period of the win vs. the Soviets.  It was the longest ten minutes of their lives as they clung to a 4-3 lead.  

Then after the win, the team partied and basked in the glory, but Brooks, being who he was, said in harsher words that if they don't win the gold, all of this was for naught.  The win was so huge that people still forget that the win vs. the Soviets was only a semifinal game.  The Soviets likely came in overconfident after thrashing everyone in their path.  When the U.S. tied the game late in the first period, the Soviet coach responded by benching their world-class goaltender.  When the team trailed late, the coach didn't even pull the goalie to gain an extra attacker on the ice.  They were not used to being behind late in a game.  The players and Brooks were stunned, but they sure were not going to tell the Soviets.  

Miracle captures the essence of the Olympics in 1980 and how the win wasn't simply an upset, but a defining Olympic moment.  The players walk around Lake Placid today and many thank them.  Is this staged?  Possibly, but the sentiments are real.  This week, the gold medal winning Men's Hockey Team faced criticism for visiting the White House and the State of the Union address.  Years ago, such backlash wouldn't have existed.  America was proud of its champions.  They still are. 

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