The Weight (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Padraic McKinley

Starring:  Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Austin Amelio, Avery Perry, Avi Nash, Julia Jones

The Weight is a movie about desperate Oregon Depression-era prisoners looking to secure their freedom by hiking gold bars through the wilderness which will enrich their warden and his cronies.  Sam Murphy (Hawke) is one month from losing his daughter (Perry) to the state adoption system unless he is freed from prison in time to regain custody of her.  Warden Clancy (Crowe), after witnessing Murphy solve a problem of moving an immovable rock during their road construction project, offers Murphy and four other prisoners a chance to win their freedom if they can move the gold successfully upriver.   Clancy is a charmer who sounds like he may be as good as his word, or too good to be true.  Murphy is willing to take that chance.

The Weight is an adventure with superior cinematography and a score that reminded me of the techno one featured in Oscar-winner All Quiet on the Western Front (2022).  I would not be surprised to see The Weight listed as one of the Oscar nominees for Best Cinematography coming Oscar time.  Hawke's performance carries the movie as a strong, determined man imprisoned for defending he and his daughter against cops looking to assault them.  He was just evicted from his apartment, but we learn he is intelligent and handy fixing almost anything.  This ingratiates him to Clancy when he is able to repair Clancy's car so it can run again.  

FDR wanted to take the country off the gold standard and centralize the gold into one location.  The miners in cahoots with Clancy want the gold not to find its way to where the government wants it.  Murphy and his crew, along with goons working with the miners, are tasked with moving the gold in backpacks across treacherous forests.  How heavy those must be after a few steps, let alone miles and miles per day.  They are joined by Anna (Jones), a Native American woman with skills of her own whose home as been wrecked by the mining company.  In another movie, she would be a romantic interest for Murphy, but thankfully not in this one.

The Weight's momentum ebbs and flows with each obstacle such as a raggedy bridge which surely can't sustain the weight of the prisoners and the gold, leaving Murphy to come up with an ingenious plan to move both without the bridge collapsing.  The scenes in which they camp for the night don't hold as much interest, and they feel like marking time until the next day's move.  The payoff for this entire enterprise, though, makes the movie more than worthwhile, involving an offer to Clancy that he would be stupid to refuse.  The Weight is an atmospheric action film and that's a compliment. 

Runner (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Scott Waugh

Starring:  Alan Ritchson, Owen Wilson, Leila George, Rodrigo Santoro

With this summer's Motor City and now Runner, Alan Ritchson has established himself as a formidable movie action star.   It's hard to describe Ritchson without using the word "hulk" and in Runner, he plays a hulking courier with a heart of gold and pain in his soul.  Runner takes place in Brisbane, Australia and I love movies where Americans occupy stories that take place in other countries and the characters give a lengthy explanation as to how they wound up in Australia, England, Ireland, etc.   We all know those nations must have given Hollywood very favorable tax breaks.  

In Runner, Ritchson plays Hank, a grieving father of a young daughter who recently died.  He also is still in love with his ex-wife, whose new beau has the annoying habit of being a terribly nice guy.  Today is Hank's one-year anniversary of sobriety and he has been tasked with picking up a liver which will be delivered to a hospital to be used for a dying seven-year-old girl's transplant.  Accompanying the liver is Ben Bishop (Wilson), who goes along for what is supposed to be a fifteen-minute ride to the hospital, but Hank's car is soon descended upon by thugs led by Damien (Santoro), who wants the liver for his own purposes.  Cue the car chases and the action scenes.  

However, the fight scenes have a Jackie Chan quality to them in which everything is used but the kitchen sink to subdue the opponent(s).  It takes the edge off of the blood and broken bones.  I admired the creativity which elevates what would be standard movie violence.  There are a few surprises in Runner, and I also couldn't help but think of Ritchson in Ordinary Angels, where he plays a father whose daughter needs a transplant or will die.  In Ordinary Angels, he was a hard-working family man of few words.  He speaks a few more in Runner, and throws many more punches.  Runner is surely not a movie in which the liver won't find its way to the little girl despite so many obstacles being thrown in Hank and Ben's way.  It's engaging and the fate of one of the main characters is something we don't see coming.  

By Any Means (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Elegance Bratton

Starring:  Mark Wahlberg, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas, Nicole Beharie, Giancarlo Esposito

By Any Means covers some of the ground as Mississippi Burning in the sense that the most effective way to gather information is to pound it out of the racist locals.  This happened in 1964, when By Any Means opens with New York mobster Gregory Scarpa Jr. (Wahlberg-doing his best goombah) is cracking skulls, knees, and anything else in order to obtain the whereabouts of three missing civil rights workers.  Cut to two years later, FBI agent Wayne Strider (Mateen II) moves from Chicago down to the rural Mississippi town where he grew up attempting to solve a series of race-related crimes.  The locals won't talk to the FBI and especially a black agent, so the FBI teams Strider up with Scarpa to get a little rough...off the record of course.

It turns out Scarpa turned state's evidence a while back and works for the FBI as an informant.  He does the dirty work, and the FBI keeps the mob off of Scarpa's back.  Strider wants to do things by the book, and we know what Scarpa is all about.  By Any Means is in a way a more violent version of Green Book, but it is a study of contrast in styles (old school vs. new school) more so than a study of race relations.  Will Scarpa learn to be kinder and gentler or will Strider decide to take the gloves off when his family is attacked and his best friend is burned to death when the KKK sets his house on fire?

We know how this will go, and while By Any Means isn't a deep movie, it's involving during its 105-minute running time.  It turns out to be fairly close to the truth, with the addition of some dramatic license taken to consolidate time, but as far as true stories go, it sticks close to what actually happened. 

I enjoyed the savage energy of Wahlberg, while Mateen II is a big guy trying to work within a system that simply won't allow cooperation.  By Any Means won't be an awards-season juggernaut, but it achieves its desired result and it works on its own oddball level.  

Coach Carter (2005) * * *

 

Directed by:  Thomas Carter

Starring:  Samuel L. Jackson, Channing Tatum, Ashanti, Ron Brown, Rick Gonzales

Ken Carter (Jackson) is a former star player at Los Angeles' Richmond High School who has assumed the thankless role of basketball coach.  Carter makes it clear at the outset he doesn't take guff and he is there not only to win games, but to mold his players into lives beyond basketball.  He demands his players sign contracts to attend classes and sit in the front row.  He expects teachers to provide him with progress reports on his players' attendance and grades.  When the players and teachers ignore him, he locks the players out of the gym and forfeits games, which brings national attention and community outrage.  

Coach Carter's message (both the movie and person) is simple:  Only a miniscule fraction of players ever reach the NBA.  It is wise to get an education and secure a better future than life on the streets where you'll more than likely be killed before your next birthday.  Coach Carter is kinder version of Joe Clark (from Lean on Me) but he's rigid in his standards.  Samuel L. Jackson commands the screen in his own inimitable way in Coach Carter.  He is someone who hasn't given up on his players even if the rest of the world has.

The players themselves aren't out of Welcome Back, Kotter, but each has their own story and all fall in line once they understand Coach Carter knows what he's talking about.  The scenes outside the school and basketball courts maintain a familiar rhythm, and of course there's The Big Game, which almost contrasts the point of the movie.  However, Coach Carter for the most part remains involving.  

Coyote vs. Acme (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  David Green

Starring:  Will Forte, John Cena, Lana Condor

Coyote vs. Acme's production and release history overshadows the movie itself.  It was produced and then shelved and then bought out by another production company and is now in theaters.  It is a comedy in the spirit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which animation is successfully merged with live actors.  This time it's the beloved Looney Tunes characters with Wile E. Coyote taking center stage after years of fruitlessly chasing the Road Runner and continually coming up empty.  

Mr. Coyote uses Acme products and they all fail him.  He's flattened, crushed, exploded, and everything else that could befall a cartoon character, but he keeps plugging away and ordering more Acme products.  One day, in desperation, he sees an ad on television for Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery of the firm Avery, Jones, and Maltese (a nod to the Looney Tunes creators) who sues Acme regularly and nets his clients tens of dollars.  Kevin settles quickly for little money and claims enough settlements to keep advertising to cartoon characters victimized by defective Acme products.   Wile E. Coyote hires Kevin, but doesn't want to settle for anything less than millions of dollars. 

This terrifies Kevin, who isn't used to big money trials and is even more afraid of his former friend and now Acme's lead attorney Buddy Crane (Cena), who uses his power to intimidate Kevin and continually remind him of past failures.  Kevin is aided by his niece assistant (Condor), who wants to help her uncle win and discover his true self.  Coyote vs. Acme isn't simply a courtroom comedy, but it has heart and a touching view into the nature of Wile E. Coyote's frenemy relationship with Road Runner.  The Looney Tunes carry a lot of goodwill with me.  (I even liked last year's The Day the Earth Blew Up) and it's great to see not just the Coyote and Road Runner, but Foghorn Leghorn as the blustering CEO of Acme and even Bugs Bunny.  There is even Peter Lorre as Dr. Lorre, who worked at Acme years ago and disappeared into a cartoon hole.  Coyote vs. Acme doesn't want to leave anything, or anyone out, and the results are surprisingly and genuinely heartfelt. 

John Q (2002) * *

 

Directed by:  Nick Cassavetes

Starring:  Denzel Washington, Anne Heche, James Woods, Shawn Hatosy, Kimberly Elise, Robert Duvall, Ray Liotta, Ethan Suplee, Daniel E. Smith, Kevin Connolly

John Q. Archibald (Washington) is a working man whose healthy pre-teen son collapses at a Little League game.  The doctors grimly tell John and his wife (Elise) that the boy's heart is three times too large and will need a transplant or die.  John's insurance at work changed and he has no way to pay out-of-pocket for the exorbitant costs.   John is soon fed up with the cold bureaucracy of insurance and the hospital and takes matters into his own hands by taking hostages at the hospital emergency room with one demand:  Put his son at the top of the list to receive a new heart.   

Robert Duvall plays the hostage negotiator caught between city politics and his desire to have John release the hostages unharmed.  Ray Liotta is the publicity-conscious police chief.  James Woods is the heart surgeon caught between insurance regulations and his Hippocratic oath.  Anne Heche is the cold hospital bureaucrat who keeps her eye on the bottom line.  This is quite a cast while the movie itself brings back memories of Dog Day Afternoon and The Negotiator, both of which were better than John Q. 

We know John's son won't die because that ending would simply be too sad.  John couldn't be allowed to walk free after taking hostages (if he avoids being shot).  There isn't a lot of suspense and the story can only end one day.  The ending is as happy as can be under the circumstances, and Washington does his best to infuse sympathy into John.  Many would surely understand the frustration with the health insurance and healthcare systems.  But John Q. never truly gains stream because its conclusion is inevitable and we witness A-list actors trudging through average material. 

Stone (2010) * *

 

Directed by:  John Curran

Starring:  Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, Milla Jovovich, Frances Conroy

Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton were electric together in The Score (2001), but while it's initially fun to see them together again in Stone, the movie itself starts strongly and ends as confused and directionless as DeNiro's Jack Mabry.  Mabry is a parole officer on the verge of retirement when he meets Gerald "Stone" Creeson, who is itching to be paroled and tries any means (especially those which skirt protocol) to cajole Jack into writing a positive report for the parole board.  

Stone sets up as a tense psychological thriller, but dissolves into nothingness.  The opening scenes are promising, but don't develop into anything.  We meet a young Jack, whose religious, overly subservient wife Madylyn serves him whiskey as he stares blankly at the television.  When she threatens to leave him, Jack rushes upstairs and threatens to throw their newborn daughter out the window if she leaves.  Madylyn relents and years later we see Jack driving to work and scenes of their loveless marriage.  On the soundtrack is spiritual radio talk show chatter which sets the stage for some of the religious overtones the movie underlines.

Gerald is up for parole, and after an unsuccessful attempt to appeal to Jack's sympathetic nature (in which there really isn't one), then he sends his wife Lucetta (Jovovich) to seduce Jack.  Jack finds himself willing to be seduced and then manipulated into writing a recommendation that Gerald receive parole.  Gerald receives what he wants and Jack feels guilty about not doing right by his job.  This is hardly a gripping cinematic experience although the movie and Gerald hint at something more sinister at play.  Is Gerald enjoying bending Jack to his will?  What is the payoff to all of this?  The movie can't satisfactorily resolve the conflicts it starts, and in the end we're struggling to make sense of it all.  Stone plays like a movie that felt a DeNiro and Norton reunion was enough to make itself palatable.  These superb actors can only cover up so much.  

Mutiny (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  Jean Francois Richet

Starring:  Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Jason Wong, Roland Moller, Adrian Lester

Jason Statham's latest action movie Mutiny will surely please Jason Statham and action fans alike with its bone-crunching, shoot 'em up sequences.  Statham plays once again the steely man of few words who seeks revenge for a loved one who is murdered.  He is surely convincing as the guy with a particular set of skills who kicks ass, but this is becoming repetitive.  Mutiny, like Shelter from earlier this year, is made by rote.  There isn't much reason for us to care, even though Statham's Cole Reed stumbles across a human trafficking ring when he boards a freight ship in search of those who murdered his boss earlier in the evening.  

Statham doesn't shed tears, but he sure does get pissed and springs into action.  Mutiny becomes Die Hard on an ocean-trekking vessel, with an innocent last-minute replacement supervisor (Wallis) brought in to aid Cole and have him protect her as well.  The captain (Moller) is waist-deep into the trafficking and has a seemingly endless group of thugs working for him which exist for Statham to punch, kick, and annihilate.  This is video-game level stuff.  

One thing about Statham movies is that they are taut and barely run over ninety minutes.  Wrath of Man, which remains the best "Jason Statham" movie, ran nearly 2 1/2 hours but had depth and plenty of plot twists.  Statham was out for revenge, but Guy Ritchie gave us three-dimensional villains and a lot of noir atmosphere, while Statham himself was a career criminal who we wouldn't necessarily root for under normal circumstances.  I also enjoyed The Bank Job, in which Statham masterminded a bank heist and was occasionally stumped in the planning.  It was refreshing to see Statham not have all the answers.  

I suppose wanting to review Statham's better movies rather than Mutiny is a tribute to how by-the-numbers Mutiny is.  It is competently made and delivers what you'd expect, but it's a ho-hum affair.  It would be fun to see Statham stretch himself, but that's not what puts butts in the seats. 

The End of Oak Street (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  David Robert Mitchell

Starring:  Ewan McGregor, Anne Hathaway, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne

If Jurassic Park and its endless sequels hadn't come about, The End of Oak Street would seem fresh and new.  However, we've seen humans evading dinosaurs on screen for thirty-plus years now and it has worn thin, no matter what type of packaging it comes in.  

The End of Oak Street successfully captures a time and place (1982 Michigan suburbs) without poking fun at it.  The Platts, with father Greg (McGregor) and Denise (Hathaway), and siblings Audrey (Stella) and Brian (Convery) are going through issues as the movie opens.  Audrey and Brian suspect something is wrong with their folks and even speculate on whether a divorce is imminent.  It isn't quite at that level yet, but Greg is forced to deliver pizzas to stave out bill collectors and Denise is a teacher writing a book which she claims isn't about her family, but once Greg discovers its existence, he sure isn't convinced.  I'm reminded of the scene in Funny Farm (1988), in which Andy's wife tells Andy the children's novel she's writing isn't about him, but the name of the clueless main character is in fact Andy.

As the family tries desperately to hold it together, there is mention on the radio about NASA exploring fissures in space and every night, a loud noise is heard in the neighborhood following by a very bright light.  Are aliens in the offing?  Thankfully no, but instead a few days later, the neighborhood is transported back in time to when the dinosaurs roamed, or did the dinosaurs propel forward in time to 1982 Michigan?  Either way, the dinosaurs are hungry (they are all apparently carnivorous) and the Platts and their neighbors don't have time to marvel at the prehistoric creatures because they're busy trying not to be eaten.  Just like Jurassic Park's sequels saw the dinosaurs as something to be hunted or run from, The End of Oak Street strictly sees them as perpetually deadly and only interested in seeing the humans as a new food source.

McGregor and Hathaway are far superior to the material.  They do their best, as does the rest of the cast, to inject some life into characters whose sole purpose is to avoid being eaten.  Once you've seen one person running frantically from giant dinosaurs, you've seen them all.  The End of Oak Street manages to pull a happy ending out of its hat with some clever plot twists and taking advantage of time travel paradoxes.  But in the end, what we have here is a journey into the typical.  

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. 

Wolfs (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Jon Watts

Starring:  George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan, Zlatko Buric

Wolfs begins promisingly with George Clooney and Brad Pitt reuniting for the first time onscreen since the end of the Ocean's Eleven series.  This time they play rival cleaners who are both called to a hotel room to dispose of a seemingly overdosed young man.  Margaret (Ryan), a politico who doesn't want to be linked to a scandal such as a dead guy in her hotel room following a tryst, calls Clooney.  Another party calls Pitt, and the two bicker about how to get rid of the supposedly dead man.

Clooney's and Pitt's characters are not named, which I find annoying, but I suppose it adds to the mystery of the characters.  Clooney is billed as Margaret's Man, while Pitt is billed as Pam's Man, so let's go with that.  The overdosed man is called "Kid".  Coming up with character names must be nerve-wracking business.  About thirty minutes in, Kid is actually alive and Clooney and Pitt also come across bricks of heroin among the Kid's possessions.  Who is the heroin meant for?  Is Kid a drug dealer?  If so, who is he working for?  Kid drones on with a long story about how he was helping out a friend and we realize Wolfs is now a mundane action flick with shootouts, chases, and its stars playing it perpetually cool.  

It's fun to see Clooney and Pitt in action.  They could play cool and charming in their sleep, and there are fun allusions to their ages, but their charisma can only take Wolfs so far.  They're called upon to carry Wolfs and they do for a while, but then the movie drifts into the typical and the initial goodwill of seeing Clooney and Pitt together on the same screen evaporates.  

The Odyssey (2026) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Christopher Nolan

Starring:  Matt Damon, Tom Holland, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey naturally runs nearly three hours because the movie is of course about an odyssey, but it is staged as an epic adventure with horror elements and healthy moments of divine intervention on behalf of its hero Odysseus (Damon).  Damon convincingly assumes the role and is a sturdy, resourceful protagonist who is on a journey home following the Trojan War which is sidetracked by battles with mythical monsters, witches, and the wrath of the gods.  Odysseus is gone from his home island of Ithaca for twenty years.  In the meantime, Odysseus' palace is overrun by would-be suitors for Odysseus' wife Penelope (Hathaway), who remains steadfastly faithful to her absent husband.  The most persistent of the suitors is the scheming, devious Antinous (Patterson) who thinks he has the inside track to the throne.

Odysseus' son Telemachus (Holland) decides to leave Ithaca to search for his father and determine whether he is alive which will not only bring he and his mother peace, but will shape the future of the kingdom.  However, having a stepfather like Antinous is hardly a positive.  The previous Nolan films from Interstellar on to his Best Picture-winning Oppenheimer (2023) were artistic triumphs but lacked in the story department.  The Odyssey, based on the epic poem by Homer, is more plot-driven and chock full of Nolan's famed superior production values.  It looks gorgeous and while not as taut as Clash of the Titans, it covers the same ground successfully.  

Among the standout sequences involve a witch on a remote island who turns Odysseus' crew into swine and watching how Odysseus pieces together these bizarre events.  The Odyssey is gargantuan in scope and moves through many characters and worlds seamlessly without boring us.  There are times having such a distinguished cast would feel like a movie hedging its bets, but Nolan doesn't mind going for broke and being bold, even with movies like Tenet which was released during the pandemic but was hardly the movie to break the movie business out of its doldrums.  

Little Brother (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Matt Spicer

Starring:  John Cena, Eric Andre, Michelle Monaghan, Christopher Meloni, Sherry Cola

Little Brother is raunchy, yes, but not overly so and it has a heart.  I'm not familiar with Eric Andre, but from what I've gathered he specializes in raunch.  In Little Brother, he leans on that while also creating a sympathetic foil to John Cena's Rudd Landy, a famed realtor to the stars who envies his older brother Josh (Meloni) and wants to crank up his fame level to 11.  As he's plotting this, his "little brother" Marcus (Andre), after reading an email supposedly sent by Rudd, decides to escape from rehab to travel to New York to support Rudd.  

Well, things don't go that smoothly.  Years ago, Rudd enrolled in a Big Brothers program in an attempt to ingratiate himself to colleges.  One day, he abandons poor Marcus on the basketball part after promising they would always be brothers.  Marcus took the offhand statement to heart.  Rudd pretty much forgot about him until they reunite when Marcus is hospitalized.  Rudd is guilted into allowing Marcus to stay with him.  Marcus tries to be a help to Rudd, but those efforts usually go south.  Despite it all, Marcus remains true to his pledge to help Rudd, even as Rudd stars in a reality show and Marcus becomes a television star as Rudd's sidekick. 

It turns out Rudd never communicated with Marcus, but all correspondence was sent by Rudd's loyal assistant (Cola), who feels sorry for Marcus.  Cena, a gifted comic actor, is the straight man while Andre infuses Marcus with touching vulnerability even as his attempts to reunite with Rudd go haywire.  Little Brother could do without some of the gross-out slapstick, but it never loses its center, which is the idea that these two men needed each other more than they ever could've imagined.  The results, while of course predictable, are touching.  

The Dictator (2012) * * *

 

Directed by:  Larry Charles

Starring:  Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley, John C. Reilly, Jason Mantzoukas

General Admiral Aladeen (Cohen) is the dictator of a North African nation named Wadiya.  He rules with an iron fist, and orders executions on a whim for even minor infractions.  There's a funny payoff with this. Aladeen addresses the United Nations over human rights violations and through a series of failed assassination attempts and a coup attempt by Aladeen's right hand man Tahir (Kingsley), he has his beard shaved off and is wandering the streets of Manhattan while an installed body double poses as him.

Aladeen begins working for a health food store owner named Zoey (Faris), who is ideologically opposed in every day to Aladeen (without knowing he is indeed the despised dictator).  Do they fall in love?  Yes, of course.  Does Aladeen change?  Kind of, sort of.  By the end, he's at least open to the possibility of free elections in Wadiya, you know like the ones in Russia.  In between, Cohen and company go for lowbrow verbal gags that make you laugh and sometimes cringe, but there is a zeal to how Cohen delivers his humor.  Previous outings like Borat (2006) and Bruno (2009) gave us the same style in which not much was off-limits.  

The Dictator actually has something of a plot and isn't just a character wandering the United States and recording his interactions with people in semi-documentary fashion.  Cohen's The Dictator is funny, yes, and we find ourselves laughing despite ourselves.   Aladeen is the hero, and he's a dictator.  

The Invite (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Olivia Wilde

Starring:  Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton

The Invite is a simple tale that I'm not surprised to learn started as a stage play and has been adapted to the movies on two other occasions.  The Invite has four characters and we spend ninety minutes with them at fragile stages of their lives, although none of them will admit it.  One constantly bickering couple is Joe (Rogen) and Angela (Wilde-who also directed).  Angela invited their upstairs neighbors Hawk (Norton) and Pina (Cruz) over to dinner without informing Joe, likely because he would've said no.  Angela burns the souffle, but otherwise puts on a dog-and-pony show in order to impress their neighbors.  Joe, however, isn't so quick to welcome them, because their late-night sex parties keep Joe up.  

Hawk is an affable retired firefighter who is open to sexual experimentation like his therapist wife Pina.  Their stories of orgies, swinging, and BDSM acts shock Joe and Angela, who rarely have sex as their years of marriage wear on.  Hawk and Pina attempt to entice Joe and Angela into becoming their next partners, but Joe has to say his piece about the all-night banging which keeps him up.  Not that he's not attracted to Pina, while Angela lets Hawk know she may be interested.  We wonder if there is more to Hawk and Pina, and not surprisingly, there is.  Both use sex to mask vulnerabilities and insecurities about growing older.  Both are generally kind people who despite their parties seem lonely.  

Joe and Angela are in a mid-marriage crisis, while neither wants to admit it.  Joe gave up his dream of rock stardom to take on a professorship at a local university that he clearly hates.  They have a daughter who is staying over at a friend's house, but Joe and Angela wrestle with the idea of staying together for her sake.  The Invite is populated by accomplished actors who relish the material.  Seth Rogen is known mostly for comedy, and his affable presence is always welcome, but he's more than capable of handling dramatic turns such as The Fabelmans and Steve Jobs.  The Invite maintains a tone straddling the line between what's comic and what's pathetic.  It ends predictably, and under the circumstances, rather touchingly. 

Nebraska (2013) * * *

 

Directed by:  Alexander Payne

Starring:  Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach

Alexander Payne's Nebraska is a quiet comedy about a retire, senile alchoholic named Woody (Dern), who believes he won a million-dollar sweepstakes prize and is willing to walk from his home in Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim it.  His son David (Forte) sees him walking along the highway and decides to drive him to Lincoln, with stops along the way.  David knows this is a fool's errand, but goes along with his dad's journey and finds he knows more about him at the end of the trek than at the beginning.

Nebraska, filmed in black and white, follows Payne's previous films which display subtle humor and engrossing characters who aren't easy to nail down.  There are no villains, just very flawed human beings whose motives we can understand even if we don't agree with them.  Woody keeps to himself and words trickle from his lips like there aren't many more where that came from.  His economy of words means that when he says something, he means it.  A funny scene involves a stop at Mount Rushmore and Woody is subsequently unimpressed.  ("Lincoln doesn't even have an ear").

It's fitting that his wife Kate (Squibb) is a firecracker who says what's on her mind, even being ribald, saucy, and oversharing most of the time.  She and Woody are temperamental opposites.  However, with Woody, David, and Kate, we sense their decency and humanity.  A jerk from Woody's past (Keach) is really the only fly in the ointment in Nebraska, because he wants to take advantage after learning Woody may suddenly be rich.  Does Woody even believe it himself that he has won a million dollars?  Or is he just looking for purpose and some kind of legacy for his children?  Nebraska isn't cheerfully folksy nor is it satirizing its Midwestern characters.  Some parts move slowly, unlike Payne's Election which also takes place in Nebraska and moves along with energy and pessimism about the human condition, but after spending two hours with these people, we're glad we had a chance to meet them. 

Cheech & Chong's Last Movie (2024) * * *

 

Directed by:  David L. Bushell

The 2024 documentary Cheech & Chong's Last Movie is a documentary highlighting the comedy duo's start and their rise to movie stardom, while only scratching the surface of their breakup and eventual reunion.  The most frustrating aspect of Last Movie is how projects following Cheech Marin's solo Born in East LA and even Tommy Chong's federal prison stretch for selling bongs on the internet.  Yes, that really happened.  However, it was only covered with a post-credits news blurb.  What's here is worthwhile for any Cheech & Chong fan, but I would've loved to learn how they wound up in Martin Scorsese's After Hours and what led to their eventual reunion.  

We see they are clearly reunited and working together again.  They tell their stories as they are driving down the road together, commenting on the beginning of their stand-up career, their albums which produced top 40 hits and a Grammy, and then the movies beginning with Up in Smoke, which was a huge success and led to Cheech & Chong's Next Movie.  Their manager, legendary producer Lou Adler (who appears in the movie), directed Up in Smoke, but Tommy Chong took over the directorial reins starting with Next Movie, which strained the partnership over the course of several movies to the point that by the late 1980's, the team essentially disbanded.  We know the tensions that caused their demise, but how did they reunite?  

The stand-up and movie footage is classic Cheech & Chong, and it's fascinating to see the inspirations behind something as simple as "Dave", which was borne out of Chong breaking Cheech's balls on a hot day when Cheech knocked on the door to come in and Chong wouldn't let him.  The simplest situations lead to classic humor.  Their movies don't have plots, per se, but are stories of two guys who just want to hang out and smoke some weed while the universe conspires to prevent those two things from happening.  The duo went in a completely opposite direction with The Corsican Brothers, which oddly has more time devoted to it than After Hours...and that's a Martin Scorsese movie.  

Supergirl (2026) * 1/2

 

Directed by: Craig Gillespie

Starring:  Milly Alcock, David Corenswet, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenarts

Supergirl is a dreary, dull superhero movie with a lead actress who in the words of Fortune in Rudy: "You're five foot nothing, weigh one hundred and nothing".  Milly Alcock is listed in Google at 5'5" but that seems like a stretch.  I don't normally like to point out physical characteristics of an actor, but Alcock doesn't scream Supergirl when you see her.  She's just not physically impressive but that's not the main reason why Supergirl doesn't work.  

The bulk of Supergirl takes place on desolate planets you would see in Borderlands, and when a movie reminds you of Borderlands, it's clearly not going in the right direction.  Alcock's Supergirl is a hard-drinking, uninspired superhero still grieving from the loss of her parents and still simply lacking spirit about everything.  She lit out to a faraway planet with a red sun, which saps her of her superpowers and gives us another superhero movie (like last year's James Gunn Superman saga) in which the hero is bullied and beaten up.  

An adventure involving an orphan wanting to avenge her parents brings Supergirl reluctantly into the fray as she learns to care again.  We glimpse her parents' life as they escaped Krypton when it exploded and settled on another planet where she was born.  So, Superman wasn't the only survivor of the doomed planet.  Then, the planet where she grows up goes kaboom also and Supergirl is sent away to Earth to meet up with her cousin Clark Kent (Corenswet).  Very little screen time is spent on Earth and we instead are treated to dusty, deserted planets inhabited by creatures rejected from Star Wars.  Supergirl regains her empathy and the orphan is avenged without us being much moved. 

Alcock tries, but is adrift in a standard action movie which didn't need to even feature Supergirl.  I vaguely recall the 1985 version and while it was silly and campy, it was light and had a sense of fun, everything this version of Supergirl is not. 

Disclosure Day (2026) * *

 

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell, Elizabeth Marvel 

Disclosure Day begins with the promise of something wonderful, but it doesn't deliver.  The payoff feels as if the movie ended just when it should be revving up.  If anything, the movie should be called "Pre-Disclosure Day" because all of the action brings us to the Disclosure Day of the title.  Steven Spielberg's tale is a profound disappointment that should have been titled, "Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind"

However, most of Disclosure Day doesn't involve the mere possibility of alien life, but instead the coverup that aliens have been among us for some time.  I don't know.  This doesn't seem like news.  How secret could Roswell be if everyday people and conspiracy theorists alike seem to know of its existence?  Daniel Kellner (O'Connor), formerly of a government agency called Wardex, whose mission is to prevent the information Daniel possesses from seeing the light of day.  Wardex, led by Noah Scanlon (Firth), fears that such information would upset people too much.  A former friend of Noah's named Hugo (Domingo) urges Daniel to reach him so the world will see what Daniel knows.

We also have Margaret Fairchild (Blunt), a Kansas City television meteorologist who suddenly begins speaking in alien tongue during a weather forecast.  Margaret doesn't remember this episode after it happens, and as further incidents occur, it becomes obvious she is somehow connected to the aliens.  However, the big reveal involving Margaret and Daniel is underwhelming.  The actors do their best, with Firth giving us more dimensions as the villain who is able to transport himself into other people's kitchens using a special device that looks like a futuristic mouthpiece. 

With all of the movies we've seen about aliens over the years, Disclosure Day doesn't bring anything new or fresh to the genre.  It feels pedestrian, which is something you can't normally say about a Steven Spielberg film.  Spielberg is nearing eighty years old and we don't know how many movies he has left in him.  Disclosure Day leaves room open for a potential sequel, but when the evidence of the aliens is presented to the world, I kept waiting for some conspiracy theorist to explain how the recordings were fake.  Hey, they're still doing it for the moon landing and it would be realistic considering today's media.  Disclosure Day feels like it was written in 1985 and never updated to reflect the current media era. 

Power Ballad (2026) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  John Carney

Starring:  Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Peter McDonald, Marcella Plunkett, Beth Fallon, Jack Reynor

Rick Power (Rudd) is an American living in Ireland who once dreamed of music stardom many moons ago.  He is much in love with his wife Rachel (Plunkett) and adores his daughter Aja (Fallon) while working as a wedding singer.  His band works steadily, and at one wedding in the Irish countryside, Rick learns pop star Danny Wilson (Jonas) is the groom's best friend and will be attending.  Danny is even convinced to join the band for a number.  Afterward, Rick and Danny bond over beers, weed, and a love of music over the course of one night.  They appear to strike a friendship, Ricks plays a song called "How to Write a Song (Without You)" which he wrote many years ago.  Danny loves it and promptly tells Rick to look him up if he's ever in Los Angeles.  We get the feeling he has made that hollow promise to many people over the years. 

Danny is looking to shed his former boy band image and embark on a lucrative solo career, but he's stuck artistically and his manager is looking to drop him if he doesn't produce a hit.  He plays Rick's song to his girlfriend, who is wowed and convinces him to record.  The song becomes a worldwide smash and makes Danny an adored superstar.  Rick is miffed that his song was stolen, and is unable to convince his wife, daughter, and bandmates that he wrote it years ago.  He has no evidence of having ever recorded it or wrote it, and Danny can easily dismiss Rick's claims.  What makes Danny interesting is that we know he stole Rick's song, but we understand his motives and he is ambivalent about it.  He urges his manager to pay off Rick and give him writing credit, but that may destroy Danny's reputation.  Rick meanwhile travels to LA to confront Danny, which doesn't give Rick a satisfactory resolution.

Power Ballad involves us from the very beginning in Rick's story.  He gave up his dreams of music superstardom once he married and became a father.  He never lost his love for music, but he's content with his life and family.  Meeting Danny doesn't make him pine to become a rock god, he only wants the credit coming to him and the forever link to a hit song (and its royalties).  The only time Rick grows salty is when he bans playing the song during his performances, even though it's heavily requested.  It's understandable.  Power Ballad is an overall moving experience in which Danny isn't really a villain and Rick isn't a hero.  Both are just men trying to get by in the world, and we can identify with them both.  The ending and the payoff are also winners.  

Reagan (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  Sean McNamara

Starring:  Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Robert Davi, Jon Voight, Mena Suvari

Surely Ronald Reagan had faults.  Not that you would know it from watching Reagan, which portrays the late 40th president as something just short of saintly.  The narrative of Reagan is that Ronald Reagan despised communists from the get-go and worked his entire life to bringing down the Soviet Union.  That dream was eventually realized two years following Reagan's exit from office in 1989.  Reagan is a story of the Reagan presidency which was surely more complex than the movie shows here.  Reagan doesn't inspire us to love, hate, or want to learn more about its subject.  Even its narrator, a Soviet spy named Viktor (Voight) can't help but admire the man the movie believes brought down his beloved country.

We can surmise the collapse of the Soviet Union was brought on by economic and other factors besides just the Cold War with the United States.   Reagan stars Dennis Quaid as the president and begins back in the 1940's when Reagan was an actor who soon became President of the Screen Actors Guild as his acting career faded.  He was married to actress Jane Wyman (Suvari), but if you blink you may miss that.  Instead, the movie focuses on Nancy Davis (Miller), who became his second wife and eventual First Lady.  

Reagan begins with the 1981 assassination attempt in which Reagan survived and then reverts to the 1940's when Reagan was a well-known actor, but whose career was on a downswing.  The movie runs nearly 2 1/2 hours and feels every bit of it, even though it whooshes past certain periods of Reagan's life without much insight or depth.  Reagan is mostly superficial.  The Quaid performance gets the speech cadence and the mannerisms of Reagan right, and he does what he can, but the movie simply doesn't give us more than a glimpse of the former president. 

Scary Movie (2026) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Michael Tiddes

Starring:  Anna Faris, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Regina Hall, Olivia Rose Keegan. Cheri Oteri

Scary Movie, or Scary Movie 6, plays like a mish mosh of recycled gags and quotation masquerading as satire.  Pointing out that something exists isn't the same providing a humorous point of view.  Scary Movie thinks being meta should be funny enough, but it draws nary a laugh.  I think I smiled once at one line, "You're like John Wick.  I was going to say Ballerina, but nobody saw that,"  There.  I saved you the price of admission. 

The plot doesn't much matter except that Ghostface, also of the Scream movies, is back terrorizing a small town and popping up everywhere to kill people.  This draws the characters from the original Scary Movie (2000) back into the fold and we have a long discussion about "requels" which is eerily similar to the one from Scream 5 (or Scream).  We also think of 2018's Halloween, which had the same title as the original 1978 film and asked you to wipe away memories of any sequels that occurred between the original and 2018.  No worries.  I beat you to it a long time ago.

Movies like Scary Movie aren't made to judge the plot.  It is to be judged on how often you laugh, and I confess I didn't laugh at all.  The movie hurls sight gags and verbal humor at the screen at a dizzying rate in the hope that something sticks.  Nothing does this time.  The method worked in the original Scary Movie and Airplane! but here, it doesn't.  When reviewing a movie like this one, not many criteria other than laugh quotient matters. 

Tuner (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Daniel Roher

Starring:  Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Tovah Feldshuh, Havana Rose Liu, Lior Raz, Jean Reno

Niki (Woodall) is a piano tuner working with Harry Horowitz (Hoffman) traveling around New York City tuning the pianos of rich folks who use their pianos as part of the interior design.  Niki was once a piano prodigy whose performing career was cut short due to hyperacusis, which he describes as being allergic to loud noises.  He wears ear buds all the time, and noise-cancelling headphones while walking the streets.  Even with the afflictions, his pitch is perfect and he knows if a key is even slightly out of tune.

Niki falls for classical composer Ruthie (Liu), who wants to write a piece which will win her an internship with a legendary composer (Reno).  She falls for Niki too but resents his genius while at the same time admiring it.  However, Niki's story will turn to a life of crime once Harry suffers a heart attack and his medical bills skyrocket.  One night, Niki hears loud banging at a home where he's working and discovers thieves upstairs trying to break into a safe.  Niki soon becomes part of the crew and expertly cracks safes while securing enough money to pay Harry's bills.  Niki's criminal life doesn't go smoothly and causes rifts between he and Ruthie due to unintended consequences of one of his thefts.

It's always great to see Dustin Hoffman even in the small role of Harry and every screen appearance at his age is a treasure.  Woodall exudes quiet agony of someone who tries to make the best of his situation but would rather be playing pianos at concert halls than tuning them.  Tuning is a way to keep him close to music, and he knows the life of crime won't last and will only end one of two ways.  Tuner isn't fast-paced mindless action, but a quieter and more thoughtful story of a young man dealt a bad hand who tries to make the most use of his gifts.  In the end, he sees deafness not as a curse, but as liberation.  You'll see what I mean.   

Backrooms (2026) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Kane Parsons

Starring:  Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Lukita Maxwell, Finn Bennett, Mark Duplass

The plot of Backrooms mirrors the experience of watching it:  You walk through an endless maze of rooms without any hint as to their meaning, how they connect, or why should you care.  There is no real payoff and we're left with more questions than answers, but getting to the non-payoff becomes a tiresome chore.  There is suspense in the beginning of Backrooms as furniture store owner Clark (Ejiofor) discovers the hidden maze in the basement of his store.  The rooms resemble an abandoned office building with flickering lights above and assorted items spread about.  But soon our impatience outstrips the suspense and we just want to know what the hell is going on already.

Clark's store is devoid of customers and life has taken a hard left on him.  We learn through early sessions with a therapist (Reinsve) that his marriage recently ended and while he's a trained architect, he bought the furniture store and holds deeply held grudges against his ex-wife.  Clark also has a major drinking problem and sleeps in the store on one of his showcase beds.  Why not?  It's not like anyone is buying anything.   But before we even meet Clark, we witness a man dressed up in a hazmat suit exploring the very rooms Clark will soon find, and this doesn't lead to any payoff either, not even late in the movie when we find out who this is and what they know about these supernatural rooms.

Clark's fate is soon revealed as he and his assistants trek through the unknown maze, or is it truly explained?  By the time Backrooms wraps up, (or does it?), we are left with the sinking feeling that a Backrooms 2 will be in the works thanks to the box-office success of this installment.  Because Backrooms is a low-budget horror film like Obsession (which is also raking in beaucoup bucks at the box office these days), there is a temptation to compare the two, but Obsession is a far-superior film that honors the traditions of horror and all of its silliness.  That's a compliment.  Backrooms is just a bore. 

The Cooler (2003) * * *

 

Directed by:  Wayne Kramer

Starring:  William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, Ron Livingston, Paul Sorvino, Shawn Hatosy, Estella Warren, Joey Fatone

Bernie Lootz (Macy) is a "cooler" who works for the Shangri-La Casino in Las Vegas under the watchful eye of Sheldon Kaplow (Baldwin).  What is a cooler?  He's someone who canvasses the casino floor looking for tables or machines where gamblers are winning.  He then inconspicuously touches or brushes up against them and their luck changes for the worse.  The mind boggles as to how Sheldon can tell if Bernie's magic is working.  One night, the casino loses over $1 million and Sheldon asks Bernie what's wrong with him.  Coolers were apparently used by old-school casino moguls like Sheldon, and they must've worked once upon a time, but when new investors buy into Shangri-La and inform Sheldon that changes will be coming, Bernie's future as a cooler is no doubt in jeopardy.  The idea of Sheldon relying on superstition as a business plan is quite foolish in theory, but maybe it works better in practice.

Bernie and Sheldon go way back.  They were friends, until Bernie incurred a gambling debt and Sheldon hobbled him by breaking his kneecap.  Even after, Sheldon hires Bernie to be his cooler because anyone with Bernie's rotten luck could surely be used to Sheldon's advantage.  However, waitress Natalie (Bello) enters Bernie's life and they fall in love, or at least Bernie falls hard for Natalie.  The nature of this relationship is at the center of The Cooler, while Sheldon panics when Bernie suddenly loses his edge and can no longer put the molloinks on unsuspecting gamblers.  Alec Baldwin was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance and it's notable for its ruthlessness and its cold gestures masquerading as mercy.  Just look how he handles the casino's smack-addicted headliner (Sorvino).  Sheldon is a monster with a heart of gold.  I don't quite buy Sheldon's changes in the final act, but this ranks among the best of Baldwin's screen performances.

Macy relies heavily on his charm as a sad sack.  His relationship with Sheldon is essentially indentured servitude, but Natalie could be his way out, if his and her luck holds out.  Complicating matters is the reappearance of Bernie's son Mikey (Hatosy) and his pregnant wife Charlene (Warren).  Bernie feels guilty about their estrangement, and Mikey plays right to it.  Bernie lives to be taken advantage of and even agrees to pay Mikey's debts well after it is established that Mikey and Charlene are con artists. Sheldon can't believe what a fool he is, and neither can we.

More is discovered about the true nature of Natalie, Bernie, and Sheldon's relationships to each other, and that part of The Cooler feels like formula, but the movie is at its best as we see the contrast between old and new in the casino world.  Sheldon invites Larry (Livingston), one of the new young investors in the Shangri-La, to witness how the casino protects its investments...old-school style.  There is a payoff to that which Sheldon realizes later, and all too late.  

The Hunt for Red October (1990) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  John McTiernan

Starring:  Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Tim Curry, Sam Neill, Fred Dalton Thompson, Peter Firth, Richard Jordan, Joss Ackland, James Earl Jones

The Hunt for Red October is the first Tom Clancy novel adapted to the big screen featuring CIA analyst Jack Ryan, who in later years would become a full-fledged action hero, but in this 1990 adventure he is in the center of the action, but mostly trying to convince the Americans that legendary Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius (Connery) is planning to defect after stealing Russia's latest technological marvel: a submarine undetectable by sonar. 

Ryan hinges his belief on a brief meeting he had with Ramius at a state dinner years before, plus years of studying the man and his maneuvers.  The Hunt for Red October's suspense draws on whether Ryan can convince his superiors that Ramius is not planning to start World War III.  It's quite a gamble, especially for those who believe Ryan solely on faith and without concrete evidence.  Ramius plays his intentions close to the vest.  He kills a KGB agent assigned to accompany him on the sub ("Where I'm going, you cannot follow") and only his XO Borodin and a few others aboard know his true motives.  The movie slowly reveals what we and Ryan suspect, but Ramius doesn't make it easy.  He is a revered captain so used to government scrutiny that he knows he has to play a silent game of chess and know his opponent's moves before they do.  Ramius soon has to outwit the American subs who are being ordered to blow him out of the water.

Of course, Connery plays the Lithuanian Ramius with a Scottish accent.  He's Sean Connery and you're not, so we forgive that premise.  Liam Neeson and Arnold Schwarzenegger do the same thing to the point that no explanations are needed as to why they have respective Irish and Austrian accents.  They just do, and we move on.  His aura of mystery is crucial to the success of The Hunt for Red October.  Meanwhile, Jack Ryan (Baldwin) is collected, analytical, and expends plenty of energy pleading his case.  He is allowed more emotion than Ramius because he's not operating a prototype nuclear submarine and perhaps hiding an agenda.  The Jack Ryan of the recent Jack Ryan: Ghost War is unrecognizable when compared with Baldwin's.  

The Hunt for Red October allows for suspense and intelligence.  It isn't simply mindless action.  In the waning years of the Cold War with tensions easing but both sides being cautious, the episode here could prove disastrous if Ryan isn't able to talk the Americans out of blowing Ramius and the Red October submarine out of the water.  If anything, The Hunt for Red October is a last gasp before the old Cold War ended and a new one began shortly after.