One Night Only (2026) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Will Gluck

Starring:  Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Quintessa Swindell, Molly Ringwald, Levar Burton

One Night Only is a series of meet-cutes and misadventures of two fairly pleasant people who are destined to be together, but are kept apart over a twelve-hour period.  This is no normal twelve-hour-period, however, but a twelve-hour-period once a year in which single people are permitted to have sex.  Yes, you read that right.  The hook of One Night Only is that a law was passed in which it is illegal for single people to have sex except for one night a year.  My first question was:  How do they enforce this?  This is done through biometrics which are measured by small markings on the left wrists of single people.  I suppose the goal is to have everyone be married and not have to put themselves through the annual ritual.  How does Big Brother govern extramarital affairs?  This is one of many questions which goes unanswered.

The main issue with One Night Only is that the one nagging question we have is:  How did such a law get passed?  There is a brief argument between two characters about the origins of the law, but to me that's the more intriguing prospect to explore.  Everything else about New York City seems to be normal, but then the subways and streets are littered with postings about the twelve-hour exemption period and there is a red digital readout clock counting down from 7pm to 7am the following morning.  People don't even find rooms.  They just perform their PDAs right out on the street.  There are some graffiti posts stating "Fuck the Mandate" and other meek protests, but it seems this law is here to stay.  Oh, and you do have sex, you have to wear a condom.  No ands, ifs, or buts. 

Because One Night Only is billed as a romantic comedy, we have Allie (Barbaro), a singer of jingles about medications which cure psoriasis and other ailments which flood the media (not any different than the present day), and Owen (Turner), who owns a pizzeria.  Owen has a girlfriend (Hawke), who confesses she wants to sleep with someone else on this night, so Owen is now single and heartbroken, but not immune to random hookups.  Allie isn't exactly thrilled at the idea of sex with a stranger, but the movie wouldn't exist without prospects for her which include a musician she idolizes who turns out to be a creep, and another guy who turns out to be a parole violator.  

Allie and Owen continue to run into each other and It Must Be Destiny, but other than these two are attractive and seemingly kind, there isn't much reason to care about either of them.  They are two of many people looking for love in spite of this preposterous law.  One Night Only is a typical romcom shrouded in High Concept, but maybe how the law came into being could be reserved for a prequel called One Night Only: The Beginning.  Don't laugh or mock.  It's not out of the realm of possibility. I'm reminded of the absurd Civil War (2024) from a few years back, in which Texas and California united and declared war on the rest of the country.  The mandate in One Night Only is every bit as unlikely and laughable, even though the filmmakers are Trying to Make a Point that Conservatives Are Out to Get Us.  

Looper (2012) * * *

 

Directed by:  Rian Johnson

Starring:  Joseph Gordon Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Pierce Gagnon, Summer Qing, Paul Dano

Looper is a futuristic time-travel picture (which already piques my interest) and shakes it up with one paradox and conundrum after another.  Looper takes place in 2044 and 2074, where we see the evolution of Joe (Levitt), a hitman who overcomes a drug addiction and by 2074 is living in Shanghai with a wife whom he credits for saving him from certain death.  However, soon she is killed by an unseen crime kingpin known as The Rainmaker, who has taken over control of all criminal activity and uses the now-banned time travel to conduct his assassinations.  

The Rainmaker is no ordinary crime lord.  He has vast psychic powers which allow him to wreak havoc on wherever he chooses.  Here's how the assassination stuff works:  Joe from 2044 waits in a cornfield at a specified place where time travelers from the future are deposited through a time loop.  They are hooded, and Joe quickly blows them away with a shotgun.  One day, though, an unhooded man comes through.  Joe quickly determines the man is the older version of himself.  Old Joe (Willis) commandeered the time loop to travel back in time to kill a kid he believes will grow up to become The Rainmaker.  Joe doesn't kill Old Joe, but instead they sit in a nearby diner and essentially lay out their intentions.  Old Joe is here to kill The Rainmaker before he has a chance to become The Rainmaker.  Joe will stay out of his way as much as he can, until he comes to realize the young woman who owns the cornfield where Joe commits his murders has a son who must be...

Joe falls for Sara (Blunt), who lives with her son Cid (Gagnon).  Cid creates psychic chaos when he's angry and only his mother can calm him down enough to stop him.  He's the future Rainmaker alright, and Joe now has to stop his older self from killing Cid, damn the consequences.  The romance between Sara and Joe feels forced, as if it just had to be thrown in there by writer-director Rian Johnson, but Looper doesn't necessarily revel in the paradoxes of your average time travel movie.  Old Joe wants to preserve his life and bring his wife back and while he takes no pleasure in having to kill a child to do so, he does what he must.  Joe is struggling with drug addiction who finds Sara may be his own way out of the life he has created.  Johnson gives both Joes love interests who are seen by the men as saviors.  

The conclusion is both unexpected and practical.  Joe views how the situation will play out as he sees Old Joe with his gun pointed at Sara and realizes there is one way to solve this dilemma.  Johnson deserves credit for taking the story where it goes and having the courage not to shoehorn in a happy ending where none is required.  

The Bear (Season Five-2026) * * *

 

Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jon Bernthal, Oliver Platt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lionel Boyce, Will Poulter, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss Bachrach, Abby Elliott, Edwin Lee Gibson, Matty Matheson, Liza Colon Zayas

The Bear's final season mostly delivers by keeping what made the first season so extraordinary.  It defined its characters by how they handle pressure as their restaurant runs the gamut of business highs and lows.  In season five, most of the action occurs over the course of one night with the financial future of The Bear hanging precariously in the balance.

The season opens with the worst rainstorm in Chicago history, with several inches falling during the day which could result in total cancellation of all reservations on a night the restaurant can least afford it.  Uncle Jimmy (Platt) and his partners brave the elements to find out whether a woman who was sold The Bear's air rights years ago would be willing to sell them back.  I looked it up.  Air rights is indeed a real thing.  How do you even determine a price for them?  Beats me, but it's always fun to see Platt and friends cursing each other out and trying to schmooze anyone for one more dollar to keep the business afloat. 

Inside The Bear, Carmy (White) and Sydney (Edebiri), although Carmy signed over his stake in The Bear to Sydney, are handling pipe breaks and nearly running out of food to serve to customers who may or may not cancel.  The solution?  Serve even smaller portions and have Richie (Bachrach) set a time limit of ninety minutes per table and, if are hesitant to leave, have them go outside to a party where alcohol flows while other guests are waiting to be seated.  It's ingenious and that's where The Bear soars.  Of course the time crunch doesn't prevent characters from stepping outside for a smoke break, gab it up while Rome burns, and even have sex.  The long, drawn-out conversations are still a distraction, but not fatally so this time.  

Watching The Bear revert to its best pressure cooker elements is far more engrossing than watching characters engage in overly bloated conversations.  The actors are at the top of their game, and the final scene reflects the characters' sense of family.  Season Five isn't as riveting as season one, but it works as a return to form and a fitting goodbye. 

Cape Fear (2026-TV Series) * *

 

Starring:  Amy Adams, Javier Bardem, Patrick Wilson, Lily Collias, Juliette Lewis, Ron Perlman, CCH Pounder, Joe Anders

Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) like the 1962 movie before it, focuses on ex-con Max Cady's desire for revenge against the attorneys who caused him to spend years in prison.  In 1962, Cape Fear was mroe straightforward, with Robert Mitchum's Cady tormenting the prosecutor (Gregory Peck) who put him in prison.  In 1991, Robert DeNiro gave among his best performances as Cady sought vengeance against his defense attorney (Nick Nolte) who he believes correctly hid crucial evidence that might've secured a not-guilty verdict.  The 2026 series on Apple TV features Cady (Bardem) seeking revenge against both his defense attorney Anna Bowden (Adams) and prosecutor Tom Bowden (Wilson), who are now married and live affluently in Savannah, Georgia.  

Cady's former girlfriend commits suicide and leaves behind a note exonerating Cady.  He is freed with help of the non-profit law service run by Anna and Noa (Pounder), and Cady serves as positive press for the foundation.  However, is Cady truly innocent?  And while he verbally expresses holding no animosity towards the Bowdens, we know better.  He also suffered a devastating head injury in prison after a fight with a gang and with Anna's help, plans to settle for millions which will essentially finance his revenge campaign.

The show covers ten episodes, with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg serving as executive producers.  Because it has to cover ten episodes, it has to introduce numerous characters and subplots which are soon hard to keep track of.  I won't get into too many of them so as not to spoil them for you, but soon character allegiances, motives, alliances, and backstories become so convoluted that you lose focus and interest.  I've never seen a show where questions are asked, and characters provide only half-truths or veiled answers and by the end, we don't know fully what happened.  The Bowdens themselves are presented as both victim and perpetrator, and the show itself seems to think they're the heroes when they are clearly not.  This grows frustrating.  

Nonetheless, Bardem, who is no stranger to playing psychopaths, is one here that possesses a certain charm and charisma while barely concealing smoldering resentments (some of which are surely understandable).  Adams and Wilson are strong enough actors to be able to handle their characters' plot swings although why they simply don't just kill Cady when they have the chance, which would justifiable under the circumstances, is a mystery.  They should know darn well that sending him back to prison won't be the end of this ordeal, and that will likely lead us run into an unnecessary season two. 

Motor City (2026) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by: Potsy Ponciroli

Starring:  Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster, Ben McKenzie, Pablo Schreiber, Lionel Boyce, Amar Chadha-Patel

Motor City reminds me of John Woo's Silent Night, a revenge picture with no audible dialogue.  I recall giving that movie a negative review because the concept distracted from the overall story.  The movie contrived various ways to avoid spoken dialogue.  Motor City works in much the same capacity, although there are snippets of audible dialogue every now and then to let us know that these people actually know how to speak and don't need to pantomime everything.

Once you get past the whole no talking thing, Motor City gains a rhythm and begins to move along as an involving action thriller.  The plot feels like a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, with the innocent man framed and sent to prison because his fiancee is coveted by another.  In Motor City, the action begins in 1977 with working man John Miller (Ritchson), an ex-con and Vietnam veteran, turning his life around.  His probation is soon to be commuted and he proposes to his longtime girlfriend Sophia (Woodley), who works as a waitress after leaving behind a previous life as a criminal kingpin's girlfriend.  Moments after John proposes, his home is invaded by cops and he is framed with kilos of heroin found in the trunk of his car.  A slick, leather trench coat-wearing cop (Schreiber) is behind the frameup, and the man pulling his strings is Reynolds (Foster), who wants Sophia back.  We see a flashback to the night John and Sophia meet, with Reynolds trying to intervene and John kicking the crap out of him in the process. 

Sophia believes that John is a drug pusher and throws the engagement ring at him while he's behind the glass at the police station.  Reynolds then suavely seduces Sophia into being his girl again, and he's such a snake that he sends photos of the eventual wedding to him in prison, taunting John and fanning the flames of revenge.  John's Vietnam buddies (Boyce and Chadha-Patel) formulate a plan to break John out of prison and seek vengeance, with tragic consequences for Sophia when John tries to rescue her from Reynolds' fortress.  Rescue is an apt word considering Reynolds has hooked her on heroin to keep her from leaving him.

John is already a hulking mass of seething rage and after Sophia's death, he turns up the jets to 200 in his quest to kill Reynolds and anyone who stands in his way.  It's difficult not to mention Ritchson without using the word "hulk" or some variance of it.  He is a massive physical presence, and in Motor City, he uses nonverbal skills to show his vulnerability and sadness.  He speaks only three words in the movie and those are in the final scene and they carry resonance, as do the ones spoken by his nemesis he has spent years tracking.  Since Motor City is not a movie of dialogue, but of action and emotions conveyed nonverbally, any words that are spoken carry a heavier emotional weight.  The actors are more than up to the challenging task, although why filmmakers choose this route of storytelling is anyone's guess.  I gave up trying to figure out the reason and found myself swept away by this tale.  

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) * *

 

Directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton

Starring:  Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Marisa Tomei, Sadie Sink, Mark Ruffalo, Tramell Tillman

Marvel movies have lost their appeal.  There isn't much left to do that hasn't already been done.  In Spider Man's case, if we've seen him fly through downtown Manhattan once, we've seen it one thousand times.  The action scenes are a blur and are quickly forgotten, so it comes down to story, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day's plot revolves around psychic mutant Jean Grey (Sink) wanting to infiltrate Damage Control, which I think was introduced in a previous Marvel movie but I'll be damned if I remember which one.  Marvel movies start to blend together after a while.  

The entire Marvel franchise reeks of trying to regain relevance following Avengers: Endgame.  We've had Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, and even Thunderbolts (aka The New Avengers), all of which were forgettable.  One of the Thunderbolts shows up in a cameo here in a Russian bathhouse.  To recap:  Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up long after the ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Doctor Strange created a universe in which MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Batalon), Peter Parker's best friends, no longer remember that he existed.   I can't recall why this had to be, but much of the first half-hour of the bloated Spider-Man: Brand New Day is Peter following his friends and their journey through college on TikTok and Instagram and longing to be with them.  That sentiment works but Spider Man has to get down to the business of crimefighting and immerses himself in it. 

Then the whole Damage Control business happens and Jean Grey takes center stage.  She is at first seen as a nefarious presence, but we learn there is More To The Story and it involves Damage Control kidnapping Jean's psychic sister and how her soul (I suppose) can jump from one person to another (as long as they stay within 33 feet).  Once the sister is kidnapped, Jean goes on a mission to find her, and we find ourselves checking our watches frequently to see if the time has moved along any faster.  

This installment of the new Spider-Man series features Frank Castle aka The Punisher (Bernthal) and he's able to inject some life into his scenes as Spidey's newest ally.  Tom Holland is asked to shoulder quite a burden as the superhero who must sacrifice being Peter Parker in order to be Spider-Man.  Thinking back to the first Spider-Man (2002), Tobey Maguire had to more or less deal with the same conflict, and all of these years later, it still sucks to be superhero, but the CGI has improved if that helps. 

Morning Glory (2010) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Roger Michell

Starring:  Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Wilson, Ty Burrell, Matt Malloy, John Pankow

Becky Fuller (McAdams) is an Energizer bunny of a morning show producer hired by a network to save its drowning morning show "Daybreak".  Daybreak is anchored by the ever-smiling Colleen Peck (Keaton), who laughs so that she may not cry, and Paul McVee (Burrell), a lecherous HR nightmare waiting to happen.  Becky fires Paul, revamps the show, and hires the very reluctant news legend Mike Pomeroy (Ford) to co-anchor.  Mike has two years left on his contract and isn't doing much of anything except occasional "hard news" stories, so he's obligated to join Daybreak and acts like it's a career killer every step of the way.  

Mike laments the loss of television journalism for the fluff that is Daybreak, and he lets the world know it.  Becky tries to plead and reason with Mike, whom she admires, but soon even she has enough of his attitude.  We know how their professional relationship trajectory will go:  They will have a frosty start, followed by detente, and then Mike thaws and accepts Becky.  They don't have a romantic involvement.  Adam Bennett (Wilson), Mike's former producer, is on hand to be Becky's boyfriend, but this reeks of an unneeded subplot.  

Daybreak starts to rise in the ratings and Becky is soon being wooed for a major network show gig, but does she want to leave behind the group she now regards as family?  The answer will surprise you only if you've never seen a movie before.  McAdams is full of energy, while Ford matches that energy with the temperamental opposite approach, with Keaton in the middle sometimes refereeing.  Morning Glory is innocuous stuff which never extends into greatness.  We like the people here, we're sort of happy when they're happy, and then we move on with our lives.  It's that type of movie.