The End of Oak Street (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

"Greg, you only go to church at Christmas and now you're telling the kids God's looking out for us?"

Do you remember, back in '80s and '90s blockbuster releases, when you could walk out of a film quoting it at several parts because there were some real zingers? "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" "I'll have what she's having." "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." It was also always about the delivery, and that's something that has gone out of style. Nowadays it would sound cheesy to declare such lines with the same gusto; we've largely moved to a more internalized acting style on screen, with flatter timbre and diminished range of pitch. Just close your eyes and listen to "content creators" online; it's mind-numbing to hear such droning, yet it's affecting all of us and being reflected on the silver screen. Point being: the filmmakers and cast, in this case, knew exactly what kind of film they were making. 

The End of Oak Street throws us back to 1982 in both its setting and its style. Housewife Denise (Anne Hathaway) is secretly writing a novel that seems to verbalize her desire to divorce Greg (Ewan McGregor). Meanwhile, Greg has lost his job and works as a pizza delivery driver to try and make ends meet. Of course this is an absurd premise, but we go along with it (EDIT: I may be mistaken, but I don't think Denise has a job. I'll have to see it again to be sure). Their kids, teens Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery), have their own issues that stem directly from their parents' domestic strife: Audrey's a loner and Brian's acting out. Their secrets will all have a reckoning before this drama concludes because, stylistically, these films focus on and usually reinforce the nuclear family, the American dream, and simple morality.

Their neighborhood, in an idyllic Michigan suburb called Flowerdale, is awash in bright amber glow, pulsating with that nostalgic and tactile warmth we recognize from 30+ years ago. This is the kind of dreamlike neighborhood Laurie Strode inhabited in Halloween; that film was shot in California but set in Illinois, and Oak Street was shot in Georgia but set in Michigan. Something about them warmer climes sure does work for a welcoming atmosphere in realizing the world of the film. This is the kind of neighborhood that feels like what we should want. Broad manicured yards with well-maintained fences and community pathways between for the school kids to navigate; clean front porches filled with people, especially during the apparently regular neighborhood block parties; established old trees and gently curving roads; trios of bullies on bikes and teens reading on the roof outside their upstairs window. There's the kindly elderly lady down the street who is Denise's only confidante, the irritable and constantly complaining next door neighbor who threatens the dog, and even the suspiciously tokenized new Black family in the neighborhood, whose daughter will befriend Audrey. Only Audrey, much to Brian's confusion. 

David Robert Mitchell, the Metro Detroit native whose previous films include It Follows and Under the Silver Lake, seems to have quite the bone to pick with these quiet, nice suburbs and their grotesque underbellies. Conspiracies and sex and violence in the geopolitical heart of the American Dream. This time, he compounds his critique not with an embodied moralistic curse or with a trippy odyssey through paranoid possibilities. This time, he... well, in a sense, yes, he does that here, too. But he allows these characters to grow naturally and breathe together. He allows us to get to know and care for them: to see them at ease at dinner, cracking jokes and gossiping about the neighborhood drama. They're so lovely, it hurts extra when the parents start fighting and we're moved to the kids' perspective. These characters aren't communicating healthily, the filmmakers beat us over the head with. This is the dissolution of the family and the neighborhood.

This is also the kind of archetypal nostalgic town that features an omniscient librarian who lives in a beautifully tended, massive green Victorian mansion atop the town's tallest hill. When, researching in the library, Denise fails to identify a mysterious and large new plant in a neighbor's backyard, the librarian instantly recognizes it as an extinct plant from twenty million years ago. And Denise -- and we -- aren't meant to think of that as odd or coincidental or really fucking lucky. We're just supposed to go with it. Because of course our childhood librarian would have been able to instantly identify a prehistoric sapling from a single Polaroid image. 

Oh, right. Did I mention? The twist happens when the family wakes up after a freak storm to discover that carnivorous and predatory dinosaurs are roaming their neighborhood. 

Yeah, this is a horror film, though one determined to make a fairly general audience feel safe and entertained. You might not have guessed it based on my words thus far; that's because the film is really about the family dynamics, and the spectacle is really just a means to enhance and entertain around that drama. Between a few brief moments of awe, this film, much like Jurassic Park, is mostly a strung-together series of increasingly intense set pieces involving the family members fleeing, hiding from, or fighting back against an onslaught of large, reptilian monsters. Actually, much like 65 from a few years ago, this is a rare example of a dinosaur movie for adults that isn't related to the aforementioned franchise. And it's one that, importantly, also makes dinosaurs scary again. These aren't familiar beasts like the T-rex or velociraptors of Isla Nobler; these are freakish, feathered horrors hell-bent on chasing their terrified prey and feasting in the middle of paved roads and mulched flower beds.

The extent to which we want to add meaning to this film will vary on your context. I could not help focusing on some of the surprisingly thoughtful dialogue about philosophy and religion (as you may have guessed from my opening quote), and so I found myself wondering about the Garden of Eden, monstrous reptiles, angelic portals, a devastating fire, two kinds of pristine paradises smashed together, and the characters' forbidden fruits. Most of the film's plot -- from violent episode to intense emotional conversation to violent episode -- feels structured in a predictable, comfortable manner. This fits with the characters' actions, as they repeatedly attempt to batten down their hatches and make themselves more safe by hiding inside, pretending things are normal as they listen to music or drink the last of the milk while they hear neighbors screaming and being eaten just outside. What does it take for sleepy, comfortable American suburbanites to wake up and get to work? To go outside and help the people who need it? Ah, but it's so much easier to convince yourself things outside aren't as bad as they seem; that the media is lying to us so why should we bother to investigate; that personal security is even possible when the world is burning around us.

The horror of the film stems from attempts by the characters to normalize what is, functionally, irrational and actively harmful. A shotgun blast often isn't enough for these monsters. If you think you're safe on the roof, wait till the pterosaurs swoop in. While scouting, the parents come across a mating pair of giant, hairy long-necked herbivores. And when you think you've seen it all, an enormous albino snake slithers all through the house in eerie silence until someone finally notices it and saves its intended prey. And don't get me started on the wormholes. These aren't reasonable things, which makes it all the more anxiety-inducing for us watching when the family starts tearing off cabinet doors to haphazardly board up their windows. Do you really think two two-by-fours and a couple nails will stop a triceratops from smashing through your bay window?

Regardless, what's amazing about this film is how much it packs into a speedy, exciting, and consistently entertaining ninety-something minutes. Plenty of suspense and action for the fans of classics, gore for the horror fiends, inspiring romance for both parents and kids, a feel-good sense of community (and, perhaps, some subversive critiquing for the debaters), a gorgeous and rousing score by Michael Giacchino that felt inspired by John Williams. I hummed theme music as I left the cinema, and immediately started quoting it. At one point, Hathaway tearfully admits that she's "just trying to figure out the least scary way to handle this," which will haunt me for a while yet. These aren't heroic characters in an epic struggle against a dangerous new world. This is the story of a family dissolving and suddenly being forced to choose to help each other try to survive at least a little longer as they come to terms with their own bleak doom.

Easily the surprise of the year, The End of Oak Street is already a forever favorite of mine. It's the kind of rare art that feels tailor-made for me. If Stephen King wrote a Steven Spielberg film inspired by Jumanji and the end of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, this would be it. And I couldn't be happier with it.

In the Grey (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

Guy Ritchie's latest rambunctious action-filled crime film is a bit of a misnomer.

When something is in a gray area, we usually mean that a situation is morally complicated to the point that no action can be clearly identified as right or wrong. So when Rachel (Eiza Gonzalez), a lawyer and high-stakes strongman for the wealthy and naughty, describes in her opening narration that she lives and works "in the grey," I didn't expect a plot featuring what she'd later call a pincer operation. Before long, we understand that how she recovers debts for rich and powerful clients is to hunt down and corner the debtor using both legal and extralegal means. This means, basically, things like freezing their assets and being formally investigated by court order as well as sending out specialists for violence and terror, all so the debtor pays up. I'm not sure that constitutes ambiguity so much as it describes having a foot in two worlds; she's a merc vigilante who happens to also serve justice in court. It sounds more like the plot of a Shondaland series, doesn't it?

Her best help are her two sons, easily a decade older than she. Sid and Bronco (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal) are quirky leaders of a mercenary commando squad, a team of elite operatives who can infiltrate and basically wage war as needed to pressure Rachel's targets into paying their debts. Apparently she saved them, in the recent past, from death row in a foreign prison, and they must have sworn an oath of loyalty to her; Ritchie doesn't tell or show us much, beyond a brief flashback to said release from prison, and some intentionally funny yet confusing language about "mom" and "boys" between the characters. In typical Ritchie style, the rapid-fire dialogue is dry and layered, rendering it occasionally difficult to parse and consume; I watched with subtitles, which helped considerably. 

The performers, at least the leads of whom have worked with Ritchie before, feel lived-in and comfortable, as if we already know them, too. These aren't performances that take us some time to appreciate or settle into; they just are these strange, Coen-brothers-esque people with verbal shorthands and disarming alertness despite seeming so bored. It's like seeing John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in a Western, or Doris Day in a musical: these people seem to simply be their character, even in the public eye, even decades later. Obviously the guys look great, and inasmuch as we can know anything about their internal lives -- the film is quite opaque on that front; this is by no means a movie for studying characters -- it seems they're a couple. Hard to tell, their exact relationship, but one claims the other is his husband and they express love in a stilted, stoic, realistic way. They're definitely more than just brothers in arms, at any rate. And this, too, shapes the unique tone of this film, with its intentionally playful machismo. They and their team share a beautiful dynamic we don't often see in mainstream films, and there are some fun elements of gender play that feel like a throwback to old Howard Hawks movies.

Also typical of Ritchie's projects, there's a profound diversity of eye candy in the film. Despite not capitalizing on the beautiful bodies of his stars, Ritchie offers up a smorgasbord of costumes, locations, and action to keep us interested. Or, rather, entertained. I never once cared about the plot of this film, mired in excessively detailed technicalities of international banking and tactical invasion of an island fortress. Caring about the superficial elements is the game in this kind of film: gorgeous vistas of Saudi Arabia and the Canary Islands, a vehicular chase on dangerous roads and lots of firefights, and knockout habiliments that include seersucker, desert robes a la Lawrence of Arabia, and some devastating suits. These are what carried me through this film.

Which is good, because I am still not entirely sure about the plot specifics. Not due to any fault of the filmmakers, though; this thing is edited to death (by Martin Walsh, prolific editor extraordinaire) in clever montages with explanatory voiceovers about all the various schemes and plots as they unfold. Sometimes live action flash-forwards help us understand that the plan is unfolding as planned, intercut as they are with the map or diagram. But the quick pacing and constant stream of voiceover monologuing left me feeling breathless, bemused, and sometimes befuddled. This may work well for viewers who enjoy the sensory overload that is life with our cell phones, but not so much for me. I enjoy breathing while watching a movie, and being able to focus on something.

And, for goodness' sake, if you're going to cast Rosamund Pike in something, please let her show off. She deserves more time to shine.

Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)

Score: 2.5 / 5

I had rather hoped the series would end with the wrapping of the Lambert story in its fifth installment, The Red Door. But the Further indeed goes further this summer, and its diminishing returns are a disappointing validation of my hope. 

Insidious: Out of the Further continues its franchise-building in this sixth installment. Instead of continuing the trends of Chapter 3 and The Last Key in following medium and psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) in other paranormal investigations of her long career, the film decides to start a new story. Well, mostly. At the risk of spoiling a key moment for you who might be interested (and who haven't seen any trailers or cast lists), Elise does indeed show up to mentor and save this new protagonist, but it's only in the Further. Because of course, at the end of the first film, she dies. It seems she is continuing her work of shepherding people through the Further and safeguarding the living who enter it, a sort of posthumous chaperone delaying her own rest for the good of others. 

And boy, do we need help. The Further, the series' concept of another dimension like limbo, is bursting with the dead. Ghosts and demons lurk in its ever-swirling misty darkness, and they crave escape and the chance to live again. so when dental hygienist and single mother Gemma (Amelia Eve, of The Haunting of Bly Manor) starts astral projecting, they swarm. Gemma is just trying to have a normal life with her daughter Maya and her cop boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea, of Nope and Twisters), but she's haunted by memories of her mother, who killed herself twenty years prior. After that upsetting opening sequence, we learn that her mother was mentally unwell through a smattering of flashbacks. What's spooky is that Gemma is starting to act in similar ways, paired well through visual design and composition for our viewing benefit. While she may not be fully conscious of her astral projecting, she is keenly aware that spooky, ghastly figures are stalking her and often invading her home, which is also her childhood house. 

Unfortunately, the film spends far too much time on other elements of plot and theme to be really coherent. The film I just described would have been lovely, especially once Gemma meets Elise and they start ghost hunting. We don't need an extensive backstory for the new villain, a monstrous ghost named Cyrus who, we eventually learn, was a death cult leader and retains his following in the Further, promising them all life again in the living world. We don't need Elise to have an additional character be her avatar in the living world; no shade to Maisie Richardson-Sellers as full-time tattoo artist and part-time medium Clare, who performs very well, but whose role is written seemingly for the sole purpose of having more bodies to scare, injure, and kill in a scary movie. We could have simplified the story, used another generic but visually stimulating demon or entity -- heck, use Cyrus, but cut the dialogue and endless "research" they do on him, and trust the audience to work it out for ourselves! -- and gotten on with the drama and scares.

Because that's what an Insidious audience wants at this point. Family drama and scares. This franchise is to horror films what haunted houses are for Halloween. For those who seek out its unique pleasures, it's a staple in our diet. We want the brooding atmosphere, endless grim anticipation, cheap shocks with jolts of harsh light and sound, zany characters launching themselves from pervasive darkness, and a wandering sense of the netherworld coming too close to our own. Haunted houses aren't for everyone, and you can certainly enjoy Halloween without them, but they bleed into our consciousness even in the festive decoration aisle at your local hardware and grocery stores. Similarly, Insidious isn't for all horror fans, but franchises like this set the standard for those surface-level scares and wickedly fun spectacles of the genre, while proving the financial viability of the genre on an institutional (indeed, global) level. 

But director and writer Jacob Chase manages to handle some clever and novel set pieces effectively, so don't write off this film as a wholly skippable blip in the franchise. I squirmed right out of my seat in not one but two nasty scenes in a dental chair, and there's a nightmarish scene that takes place in a pillow fort -- and no, I will not be elaborating beyond extolling its Backrooms-flavored claustrophobia and its uncanny sound design. It's a spooky little ride that manages to be charming, nonsensical, thrilling, and mostly forgettable, so perfect for a movie night with friends or a date. And it's got some truly bizarre moments (the grapefruits, anyone?) sure to provoke entertaining conversation, if not quite stimulating.

Obsession (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

Be careful what you... oh, you know.

Curry Barker, the 26-year-old former YouTuber, has crafted what might be the defining horror film of 2026, and it's only his first theatrical release. His directorial debut, Milk & Serial, an excellent found footage horror flick from a couple years ago, failed to be picked up by a distributor, so he released it on YouTube, where it went viral, much like his short films. And since the release of Obsession in May, it has become one of the highest-grossing indie films of the year and one of the highest-grossing, ensuring that Barker has only just entered the realm of exciting new horror artists. As of this writing, he has announced his third film as a horror-comedy backed by James Wan's company, an A24-backed reboot of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and an original horror film for Universal. This reminds me of the successes of similar artists like David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, which led to Annabelle: Creation, Shazam!, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and Until Dawn), Kane Parsons (of this year's Backrooms), and Chris Stuckmann (of last year's Shelby Oaks). 

Turning our current anxieties around control and consent -- especially between genders, but also socially -- into a scalpel cutting right to the heart of horror, Barker gives us the story of a young man who just wants to be loved by the girl he likes. There has been a resurgence of such films lately, often genre-bending, always led by a strong young actress who fights the terrible restrictions put upon her by insecure and violent men (think of Companion and Promising Young Woman, for starters). Obsession, carving out its own niche, hinges on magic to work, or at least something supernatural and inexplicable. Taking its hint from nightmare scenarios spawned by gameplay and/or playful trinkets, the vehicle of this horror is a stick called the "One Wish Willow" sold in a witchy little new age shop for a few dollars. With one's spoken wish while breaking the twig, the thing is said to come true. 

A veritable genie's wish or monkey's paw for a new generation, the One Wish Willow's power manifests in unexpected and usually unpleasant ways. This is the rising action of the film, which follows the misguided desires of young Bear, the nickname of Baron, your archetypal boy next door. He's a sweet fella, a nice guy, who doesn't want his coworker and hardcore crush Nikki to know his feelings. Telling her will be awkward and weird, as is demonstrated in the film's harrowing first shot as he delivers his speech declaring his love to the camera and an offscreen female voice. So, what if he waits for the right moment...indefinitely? Or, better yet, what if he just announces his feelings at his next trivia night with friends? That's his plan, anyway, much to the frustration of his friend and confidante, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson, apparently a longtime friend and collaborator with Barker). Ian is also their coworker, along with Sarah (Megan Lawless), who harbors her own crush on Bear. I found myself repulsed by this foursome of people who are clearly their own best friends, and while I think we're meant to care about them, I think we're also meant to feel that they're a bit too insular and too emotionally disconnected from each other and reality.

That's not relevant at all, these days.

Barker's construction of this film's spiraling plot is deceptively simple, shoving his characters into miserable and horrid emotional and existential traps and forcing us to watch the often relatable consequences. One of the more uncomfortable cinematic experiences of the year is following around a guy we've all been at some point as we grow to realize that his "nice guy" caricature is inauthentic and desperate, manipulating others not explicitly but by planning his own actions to get them to do what he wants them to do. All the while, he justifies it to himself and us. After all, he's suffering, too, and we're meant to see and feel that. Michael Johnston's acting as Bear is award-worthy, if only because his sweaty and teary face is contorted into such grotesque images of horror so consistently in the film, whenever he's not hiding behind a meek and mild mask. 

His insidious obsession with Nikki climaxes early in the film, when he snaps his stick to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world. He should have been more specific.

Who among us hasn't wished something ghastly -- or even potentially ghastly -- in the heat of a charged moment? We sympathize with him in the moment, after a highly economic narrative setup by Barker, and while we don't like it, it doesn't really settle in until he looks out the car window to see Nikki's black silhouette in front of the door she was supposed to have entered. This is going to be bad. 

While I won't spoil the rest of the plot here, as its cruel spiral features some truly nasty revelations best served raw, I want to speak on Inde Navarrette's performance as Nikki, who indeed is suddenly and horrifically held in thrall of Bear. The film plays with the extent of her agency and self-awareness in pretty cool ways, including moments in which we think she may be earnest and lucid and when she's forcibly playacting, and even when she's clearly being controlled by an outside force. Baker himself seems to know this, and he brings his cinephilia to task here, referencing other horror films about female agency with specific shots and plots points that reminded me of The Exorcist, Evil Dead, Smile, Possession, and of course Fatal Attraction. But Navarrette's similarly award-worthy performance is shockingly, devastatingly physical. Her frenzied movement and unpredictable body language is a masterclass in nonverbal communication, especially of her facial muscles, often pulled taut when seen in super close-ups where she morphs into such controlled and unbelievable visages that Lon Chaney would be impressed. Which is insane, because she's also delivering richly nuanced lines, often in doublespeak, while manically altering her vocal output. It's hard to know what of her performance may have been enhanced by various practical or special effects or post-production ADR, but regardless, it's exactly the kind of performance that makes a star.

This film might spark heated debate about things like using women for exploitative horror and the extent to which we really get any female perspective in the film at all -- there isn't really any justification or redemption for the female brutalization here -- but I wonder, too, if that is kind of the point. There is cruelty being done to women in this world of desperate, incel-coded men who live online and disregard their material impact on the world, so we need to see that and recognize it and take steps to address it. 

And we haven't even talked about the actual violence in the film, which is considerable and considerably graphic. No doubt influenced by Ari Aster among others, Barker lets the gorehounds have their fill as much as the intellectual crowd. Bear continues to cuddle Nikki even after he suspects that her soul is being tortured in hell while a demon possesses her body -- one of several possible "behind-the-scenes" explanations for what's happening here -- which is a moment of scarring emotional violence. In another scene, a character is bludgeoned to death and we see all of it; the scene reportedly had to be edited down from its original vision to avoid an NC-17 rating. These two kinds of violence are paired appropriately and thoughtfully by Barker's screenplay even as he deliberately skews our pacing and visual composition expectations, keeping us always unsettled. Beware, ye who enter here. Obsession is a hell of a ride.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

I don't know quite what I wanted from what amounts to a legacy sequel to the 2006 runway runaway hit that Botha adapted and improved its source material. Frankly, it doesn't seem like the filmmakers of The Devil Wears Prada 2 knew what they wanted either. Settling for nostalgia over novelty, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (27 Dresses, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and director David Frankel (Hope Springs, Collateral Beauty, Marley & Me) work hard to recreate the tone, beats, and general sensation of their original masterpiece. What they perhaps don't do as well is craft a compelling story, but I'm not sure any of us really want or need that in a sequel to a film more about its effect and affect than anything else. So I'm not here to discuss the plot; you can discover that for yourself. In summation, I can tell you that I had a blast seeing this movie in cinemas, and that I satisfyingly checked my brain at the door to just have a good time. It delivers that in spades.

I do, however, think this film has a few noteworthy elements that, had I known heading into it, might have improved my attention and appreciation. Let us start with the world itself. Things have changed drastically in the past twenty years, and media is in chaos. Merging companies in an endless shuffle have only gotten worse, along with the proliferation of online "content" and clickbait and the near death of print media. Remember that twenty years ago, flip phones and Blackberries were the shit; now, they're so much dead tech. The film opens with a dramatic moment when, as Andy Sachs (the inimitable Anne Hathaway) accepts a prestigious journalism award at a gala, she and her entire newsroom are laid off via text message. Her speech, perhaps a little too on the nose for the first scene, brings us back to her ambitious character whose dreams are, once again, going to take some serious grit and guts to continue achieving.

So when Miranda (a typically glorious Meryl Streep) enters the picture, we're ready for their shenanigans. She and Runway are under fire for a puff piece ignoring -- arguably promoting -- sweatshop labor, a sure recipe for cancellation in our viral digital age. Perhaps unrealistically, Andy is brought in by the big boss of Runway's parent company to correct the problem and move the magazine into a bold, better new age. Yet Miranda was not told about this, and her stuck-in-the-mud, old-fashioned managerial attitude won't loose the reins without a fight. She's being watched by new assistants who constantly gossip and connive around her, hearkening back to Miranda's old abusive behaviors while relishing their new protection from such diabolic passive-aggression thanks to new HR policies. Andy is shocked, for example, to see Miranda hanging up her own coat in the office. It's hilarious, and oddly sad.

That's because the world now punishes (some) wicked bosses, valorizes remote work under the guise of "work/life balance," and cares less about social awareness or critical engagement in journalism than about monetization and success via clicks. Runway is dying, and Miranda can't save the sinking ship. Streep's performance, though not the Miranda we know and love to loathe, is knowing and nuanced despite some ham-fisted dialogue. She's unsure of her job, being constantly watched and reported on by overpaid underlings while attempting to make sense of social media and online noise, but she is still the best at what she does. Or, did. I thought of the song from White Christmas more than once: "What do you do with a general when he stops being a general?" Streep's softening makes her sad and confused, like a grandmother in early stages of dementia, grasping fiercely for those zingers whenever someone around her threatens to expose her vulnerability. 

Similarly, Emily and Nigel (a diva-esque Emily Blunt and a distressingly aging Stanley Tucci, both excellent if underused) are here with mostly nothing to do but to offer bitchy quips and glamorous looks. Their dialogue, along with most of the film's one-liners, desperately seek to warm us with overwrought and obvious throwbacks to the original film. Don't get me wrong; nostalgia sells, and there's nothing wrong with revisiting some of the lovely moments that we still watch (the first film is a regular watch for me when I've fallen ill, and I know others who do the same). But whereas previously we went on a journey with Hathaway's Andy, getting to know her character from the inside out and everyone else from the outside in. This time, we know everyone of consequence (minus a few new additions like Kenneth Branagh and Justin Theroux, who are easy enough to understand), so we're just bumping along between them, much like we might in a sitcom. 

Each beat of the plot is a hamfisted rehash of the original, from a high-stakes bid for impossible validation (in the first, an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript and in this, an interview with a reclusive billionaire-philanthropist played by Lucy Liu) to a new romantic liaison between Andy and the renovator of her new apartment (played by Patrick Brammall), who is clearly better than the men she juggled last time, but with whom Hathaway seems to beg to have chemistry with. No doubt due to its sinfully larger budget, this film does include many celebrity appearances, all of which really worked for me; Lady Gaga, playing herself, has a too-brief but delightful moment in a dick-measuring contest with Miranda before taking the stage to sing one of the three fabulous songs she recorded for this film. But then there's the ending, which turns abruptly from the rather grim realism of the plot, offering a deus ex machina wherein the machina is a billionaire who existentially saves journalism for the present. Maybe it's a good idea for Hollywood to produce more stories about billionaires choosing to give their ill-gotten gains back to society -- obviously, that's true -- but the lionizing of such people smacks of tone deafness in this particular story and at this particular time in real life.

Finally, the editing of this film simply didn't work for me. Previously, we had magnificent montages of various fashion walks, each of which told a specific and layered mini-story. We understood Andy's essential other-ness from the young, hot fashionistas of NYC from the music-led montage that opened the first film, whereas this film nods to that with its first three or so shots before scrapping the style altogether. A story literally about looking and grabbing/commanding attention should mirror that impetus in its own composition and structure, and this one inexplicably refuses to do so.

And Emily? That's all.

The Odyssey (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

How do you tell a new version of one of the oldest stories in the Western world? You start by telling a story about stories. I was a little nervous at first that Christopher Nolan would pull some of his usual shtick again and mess up the timeline of his own film, but then I remembered that The Odyssey itself isn't really linear. Of course there's no reason not to start in medias res, and in this case it makes perfect sense with Nolan's oeuvre. But the truth is that if you're consuming the foundational epic for its plot, you've already missed the mark. Sure, the whole dang thing is arguably "about" its plot, but what makes it really compelling is its sense of style, its complicated characters, its sense of pacing and propulsion despite its stretched timeline. 

Actually, Nolan's film feels at once like a wildly satisfying (and the first, which is crazy) adaptation of Homer's epic poem for a modern audience and one of the most riveting pieces of filmmaking this year. In a perhaps unobvious move, he starts us focused intently on Telemachus (reliable Tom Holland) and Penelope (a glorious Anne Hathaway), fending off a cadre of suitors feasting and whoring in the king's hall in Ithaca. These scenes take place near the end of the story, chronologically, as Odysseus has been missing for ten years. That's in addition to the ten years he was away from home for the Trojan War. He barely knows his own son, and Penelope is nearing the end of her rope. Or, rather, tapestry, which she cleverly uses (and unravels) to keep the wolfish suitors (led by a sniveling Robert Pattinson) at bay. These scenes, occasionally sprinkled in between flashback episodes of Odysseus's adventure, are filmed like a bleak political thriller, ending in a climactic banquet hall battle that, truly, took my breath away with its sheer barbarism and spectacle.

The bulk of the film -- though, as I say, arguably not its focus -- concerns the titular journey of its hero, told in lengthy flashback sequences. He's on an island with Calypso (Charlize Theron, wasted in the bit part but always a commanding and welcome presence on screen), eating lotus flowers (in a curious but effective change to the source material), suddenly trying to remember why he's there and for how long he's been stuck in a somewhat limbo-esque beachside paradise. He's seeing visions of his past in Troy, wallowing with his army for years outside the city gates until he designs and creates a massive wooden horse; this bit takes several scenes, including a particularly gross montage of the men hiding inside with their piss and shit and dead comrades, getting dragged and flipped around as they're brought into the city (again, not part of the original story, nor from The Iliad). He's also seeing the goddess Athena (Zendaya), though he doesn't always seem sure if it's really her, or a dream, or just his own imagination. All this is to say that his mind is fractured, and so is our approach to his story, a highly effective means of granting us emotional access to these characters and their plight as we, too, attempt to figure out what's happening.

Even a graduate-level familiarity with the material won't save you from at least wondering once or twice, "Gosh, I don't remember that part" or "Wait, who is that again?" That's because Nolan's vision isn't a straightforward adaptation so much as it is a thesis project, combining other sources (like Virgil) along with Homer to deliver a story that's familiar but fresh at the same time. He's uniting stories rather than corrupting them. At its heart, it's very much the story we want to see; in his grip, though, Nolan's story takes on new and important themes paired with some of the most arresting and thrilling visuals we've ever seen from an epic. Not because it's bombastic and loaded with CGI, but because most of it is filmed in seemingly natural light and with practical effects. Perhaps the only scene clearly done with CGI is the encounter with Scylla and Charybdis, and while I didn't love those designs, they worked fine enough. But the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, the sirens, Circe's animals, and all the "big ticket" creatures and visuals are apparently practical. It's gobsmacking.

Yet for all the spectacle -- even the frustrating moments -- Nolan cares more about the effect of these things on his characters than about our experience of them. He makes it a profoundly human story, grappling with weighty themes of fate and purpose; he makes us wonder about our own lives, our glorious intentions, our miserable failures, our great shames and hopes, inviting us to think about the story of our own lives through the warping lens of memory, regret, and uncertainty. With all these ideas whirling around our minds, it might be easy to say the nearly three-hour runtime is a slog, but it isn't. The simplicity of these proceedings keeps us grounded, compelling us to continue experiencing rather than drifting away. The experience, though, is exhausting, and more than once during the film I had to stretch and breathe deeply, just to attempt to revive my endurance.

Despite the hullabaloo online about this film -- perhaps hypocritically, I'm becoming increasingly convinced to leave social media, if only to avoid people complaining loudly about things they neither understand nor care to -- and as a student of the classics, I had no significant qualms with this film's depiction of history or characters (or the cast, for that matter). Everyone is playing at the top of their games, including Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong'o in brilliant double roles, Himesh Patel, and even John Leguizamo. Samantha Morton plays such a terrifying Circe that I nearly choked on my own saliva (and, again, her scene features some of the nastiest and most inventive practical effects I've ever seen on film). The costumes are exquisite, especially Agamemnon's helmet. Ludwig Goransson's score is transportive, utilizing ancient instruments to evoke a unique sonic palette. Sure, some of the dialogue can be off-putting (the repeated use of "dad" in Telemachus's mouth is grating), but any complaints about accents, etc., are little more than stupid hot air from people who have clearly never thought critically about any film.

And we haven't even discussed the analog filmmaking, the brutally physical shoot, Nolan's use of brand new technology for IMAX film cameras, or even Matt Damon's performance as the complicated protagonist. There will be college courses based around this film for the sheer amount of material to be covered. While I'd have liked a few changes, having now seen the film twice (specifically, more cleverness and agency and violence from Penelope, more comeuppance for Mia Goth's character, a better visual on the sirens, less obsession with genre lingo like "Zeus's law," and slightly more elevated dialogue a la The Lord of the Rings), I'm so thrilled that this is what we have. Seeing this on the biggest screen possible and with the best sound system will change you; there were moments of such intense passion from the subwoofers that my seat was vibrating like in a 4D movie. Most importantly, Nolan expects us to both do our homework, denying us the pleasures of modern blockbusters and forcing us to catch up with him in a story that feels almost suspiciously anti-AI and anti-summary. These are complex ideas and characters, and we're meant to approach them with appropriate nuance and thoughtfulness. Harryhausen films and their ilk are fabulous and personal favorites, but Nolan is giving us something brand new. Which is saying a lot when he specifically references such things, including a shot from the original Clash of the Titans (1981) involving Athena's statue's head broken off and tumbling down steps. It's a single shot, and I let out a half-strangled moan and laugh combined that probably unnerved people sitting around me. They should be so fortunate to understand the craft at work here. All hail!

Pillion (2026)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Come for the kinky sex. Stay for a transcendent and challenging story of self-discovery and learning how to take the reins of your own life.

Pillion, the feature film debut of writer and director Harry Lighton, is adapted from a 2020 novel of a different name. The title, tellingly, refers to the secondary seat on a motorcycle, for a passenger along for the ride instead of doing any driving. Appropriately, the film dramatizes a sexual relationship between an eminently dominant man and a profoundly submissive one, quite literally one who drives a motorcycle and one hanging on for dear life. As is true in most comedy, it works best as a mirror for ourselves: most of us, at least at some point, chose to be merely a passenger (or spectator, if you rather) in our own lives, allowing someone else undue influence and power to the point of control, and we were happy to do so. It can be easier, can't it, to let someone else care for us?

In this case, it might also feel better to let someone abuse us. That's where the film gets interesting. It doesn't really articulate its own psychological justification, but it does offer a clear-eyed window into the steamy, sexy, raw, and often awkward life of two men engaging in a somewhat taboo sexual relationship. Colin (a compelling and brilliant Harry Melling) lives with his aging parents and sings with his barbershop quartet, the picture image of an incel who means well, too shy and sheltered to pursue any kind of individuality or even his own dreams. So when a leather-clad biker named Ray (an effortlessly sexy Alexander Skarsgard, clearly having a blast in the role) gruffly invites and controls a fast, fierce fellatio in the alley, Colin is completely enraptured at a new horizon of opportunity. He's also a little smitten by the mystery man of his dreams.

Lighton's approach to their budding relationship isn't salacious or sleazy, which might affect your mileage with the film. Sure, it's sexy, but mostly in a heartwarming, even funny way. Lighton frames his characters -- especially the giant-sized Skarsgard -- in knowingly witty ways, ensuring that we never forget the wild mismatching of these stars and their star-crossed characters. He's often in focus and on a plane with more power than other characters, but he occasionally also offers stability and comfort simply due to his blocking and placement in the frame. Thankfully, Lighton also avoids what might be an expected pitfall by carefully not making either man an antagonist, or even really a villain at all. Sure, Ray does some bad things, but for most of their relationship, Colin actively seeks that out. 

Colin wants to experience a wilder side of life, so he abandons himself to the whims of a man willing and able to make those calls. Melling tactfully and carefully delivers a performance that's best when he's nonverbal, nervously gazing at his dom for approval and assurance, or studying the other biker gang members to see just how he fits in and how he might improve himself in their eyes. Lighton doesn't quite detail the dynamics of these lifestyles, so don't expect an education on BDSM relationships in this film. But he does underscore that this particular dynamic is neither sustainable nor ultimately healthy for these two men, and it's painted in colors we can all understand. We all want love, and might allow undesirable things to happen to us when we're swept up in the excitement of something new.

Not to get too personal, but I found this film's exploration of the life-affirming process of learning not to accept what you think you want and instead pursuing greater self-awareness and sustainable relationships to be deeply cathartic and healing. And by film's end (spoiler alert), when Colin learns that perhaps his relationship with Ray -- while having taught him valuable lifelong lessons -- needs to end, I was a blubbering mess in scenes that most people would probably find simply nice. That's part of the beauty of film in general, and especially from a studio that empowers its artists to do the weird, personal art: some will hit us unexpectedly hard. Hopefully we can all be adults about it.

The Drama (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

After his genre-bending humorous nightmare Dream Scenario, writer and director Kristoffer Borgli dives into the fraught world of romantic comedies. As we should surmise from the title, this is not the meet-cute leading to courtship that ends with marriage; there will indeed be drama along the way. The Drama is nominally about revelations: due to a stupid dare among friends who clearly don't know each other as well as they should, two couples each share their individual shame. Go around the circle, and tell everyone the worst thing you've done in your life. Sounds fun, right? 

Of course, everything goes horribly wrong. Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are engaged, and her revelation that, as a teen, she planned a school shooting nearly destroys their relationship. She's drunk when she reveals this, and is sure to emphasize that she did not actually follow through or hurt anyone. But Charlie reels, wondering who this woman is and if he really wants to get married. Could she snap at any moment? Is the woman he's sleeping with and planning the rest of his life with capable of cold-blooded murder of kids? Even their friends (the other couple, played by Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim) serving as best man and maid of honor are so horrified by this revelation that they withdraw from socializing in the week leading up to the wedding. 

Did I not mention? The timeframe of this film is literally the week before the wedding. Disturbing as this secret might feel to Charlie, we have to wonder why they haven't discussed deep, dark things before. Or, for that matter, why they don't have a therapeutic outlet for such disruptions to their relationship. Surely an emergency couples' therapy moment isn't out of the question, but instead the characters -- as in any rom-com or sitcom -- resort to shutting down and acting out in increasingly unhealthy ways. Emma apologizes endlessly, explicitly requesting "starting over" with any conversation that leaves her cornered and under the microscope, as of course they all do. Charlie, on the other hand, interrogates her at every opportunity, asking for more details, more justification, more reassurance. It's exhausting, even though Borgli has carefully paced things to avoid doldrums.

What is clear, even before Emma's revelation, is that Charlie is a sniveling coward of a man, riddled with crippling anxiety and so locked in his mind that he can barely engage for a full conversation. The opening sequence includes crosscut flashbacks to his meeting with Emma two years prior, and frankly it's a creepy introduction for us to his character. Thus, immediately, Borgli sets an unsettling tone not unlike any of a number of romantic thrillers of late: Charlie, spotting Emma reading in a cafe, hovers nearby to stare until Emma steps away so that he can hurry over and snap a pic of the book she's reading so he can look it up and say something clever about it. In this already semi-subversive moment, Borgli turns the screw yet farther by then having Charlie approach Emma not once but twice in an awkward exchange because, as she reveals, she's partially deaf and didn't hear him the first time.

Unfortunately, it's mostly downhill from here in terms of character interest. Sure, Emma's revelation is fascinating, but so are those of the others. One used his ex-girlfriend as a human shield against a dog attack, one locked her "slow" neighbor in an abandoned trailer overnight. Charlie himself admits to cyberbullying a kid who ended up having to move away. All committed actual violence on another person, yet when Emma describes her bullying and thinking about taking her father's rifle to school, they are so horrified they lose the ability to communicate humanely with her. Their self-righteous hypocrisy fuels the film, or at least it did for me: any time they showed up with their smug (and juvenile) piety, a veil of red descended over my mind until something else groan-inducing happened. 

In case you can't tell, the film juggles several thematic balls, and I'm not convinced any are brought to fruition, except perhaps Charlie's psychic violence being physically realized upon him before film's end. And he fully deserves it at that point, especially considering how he treats a co-worker. But it's hard to fully buy -- at any point in the film -- that Emma and Charlie even have much substance to their relationship. Perhaps it doesn't matter, but there's a hollowness baked into it. Perhaps her cute "why don't we start over?" suggestion at their initial encounter set a bad precedent for their relationship, wherein any time they argue they can just wipe it clean and disregard the real issues at the core of their dynamic. 

I do think it's a bit suspect that Borgli almost glaringly skirts the issues of Emma's gender and race while demonizing (and, arguably, redeeming) her in this story. Zendaya is performing a very different kind of character than we've seen from her of late; internalized and demure, apologetic and submissive in calculated ways. We wonder how much is real and how much is an act, perhaps intended to protect her from further accusations of being an "angry" Black woman or mentally ill, etc. So she listens and weeps and collapses her body to seem small, remorseful, and penitent. But she never really indicates if it's intentional or not, and I have to wonder if that's a result of the role being race-neutral; having the added layers simply as a result of casting becomes icky, though, as moments of her Louisiana background come to the fore and we see Charlie attempting to care for her as a violent madwoman of color.

But that's just my musing; the film itself sidesteps all these concerns, and I'm still not sure if that's for the better or not. It doesn't seem that Borgli is interested in us empathizing with these characters in the same way many romantic dramas are (I'm thinking of films about the dissolution of a marriage), preferring rather to make us feel uncomfortable and anxious. And in that, he succeeds magnificently. We're often treated to a warped sound mix, layering tidbits of conversation over each other into and out of scenes and montages, blurring the lines of reality and time. He sometimes saps the film of sound, putting us in Emma's aural perspective or, at least twice, in Charlie's stressed head. 

As a sensory experience and a conversation-starter, The Drama is more than worth a watch, preferably loud and with a group of intimate, hopefully married friends. As a story, and as messaging conveyed by the filmmakers, it doesn't quite satisfy. Kind of like its central relationship. Which makes the film's denouement especially complicated and uncomfortable, depending on how invested you become in these characters. 

The Mummy (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

Lee Cronin's big-budget bloodbath has more in common with the Evil Dead franchise than anything related to Universal's property, but that doesn't make it any less entertaining and disgusting.

In developing his original take on curses involving mummified bodies, Cronin crafts a strange story that removes any sentimental ideas about a pharaoh-mummy looking for his ancient lost love (like in the 1932 original or any of its sequels and remakes) or even one seeking global domination. Instead Cronin gives us a family grieving its daughter, abducted in Cairo with no trace. Moving on in Albuquerque, they're shocked to receive a call eight years later that Katie, their eldest, has been inexplicably found, having been tortured and malnourished to the point of catatonia, despite being in otherwise reasonable health. She's brought home and brings an unspeakable horror with her, threatening to tear the family apart, and I do mean bodily.

Our filmmaker pulls from what he learned in his previous directorial feature, Evil Dead Rise, in how to be as gross and wet as possible on screen. Actually, once Katie is home and the real horrors commence, the story could just as well be about the chaotic Deadites; people are violated, mutilated, and possessed in rapid, often random sequence. Cronin does seem to have some trouble pacing the film in a consistent manner, and I think that has to do with these competing impulses of what defines a mummy movie and what makes torture porn. He has to often pause the onslaught of violence to explain a fairly complex plot involving a demon that consumes family units; any previous Mummy movie is almost exclusively about its plot, whereas no Evil Dead movie is about its plot (at least, none of the ones worth watching). But when we get back to the violence, it can be pretty hard to stomach.

Part of the problem with these gross-out horror films with big budgets -- I'm also thinking of Evil Dead Burn, this summer -- is that there's only so much they can do that hasn't been done before. While there's always room for simple stylistic differences, some of these franchises push things perhaps too far. I had trouble, during the climax of this film, stomaching some of the abject cruelty it was projecting from the screen. I can handle a lot, but watching extended sequences of a child being terrorized and tortured was simply unpleasant, made much worse intercut with her parents' helpless reaction to seeing it all graphically recorded on VHS. After an entire -- and too lengthy, really -- film that made us wonder about how Katie had been tormented into the monster we see, they finally decide to show us in gratuitous manner without justifying the need for us to see it. Hearing it is almost unbearable enough.

Cronin's skills at crafting nasty scares don't entirely make up for this screenplay, which also features a few too many holes for my liking. Much like the Deadites, there don't seem to be any rules as to what the demon inside Katie can do, so she can conveniently perform telekinesis or telepathy at certain moments. The characters simply do not behave rationally around this consistently violent and profane presence in their house, like the grandmother who repeatedly prays over Katie and gets attacked each time. And don't get me started on the plane crash scene that inexplicably reveals Katie to the authorities.

But then, who comes to a movie like this (meaning like torture porn, not a cute '90s adventure-comedy-romance about ancient curses and librarians) for the plot? It's all about the big set pieces covered in gore, and Cronin does that effectively. A notable scene that felt ripped from Sam Raimi himself features lots of bodily fluids being splashed all over plates of food and wine at a funeral service, and it's a moment like that when you can see why an auteur decides to pursue certain material. He's helped in pursuing his vision by a dedicated cast, including wide-eyed Jack Reynor and a fierce Laia Costa, whose scenes together (usually terrified, always weeping) must have been simply exhausting to shoot.

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

In a year marked by waves of viral attention for "elevated" horror in Backrooms and Obsession, it seemed that the inevitable kickback would be brutal. Indeed, the Deadites arise to wreak havoc in our summer, pouring gore into our eyes just when we thought we were safe. 

If a film can be a bully, this is it. Mean-spirited and cruel in a calculated way, Evil Dead Burn delivers a knockout experience. The franchise tilts again into full-blown torture porn as it did in 2013; instead of dealing with addiction, though, this time we're dealing with domestic abuse. You know, because horror films these days have to be about something. I had rather hoped that with the success of Evil Dead Rise the franchise would continue to lean into its uniquely macabre sense of humor, but this one is so bleak I had to literally shake it off as I left the cinema. Rare is the film that makes me feel evil as a palpable presence (Infinity Pool comes to mind), yet in this screening, I had to avert my eyes to remind myself to breathe.

Rather than eliciting joyful frisson, this film works hard to make you feel its carnage. Though I didn't recognize a single actor in the film, and the characters were generally unlikable, I nevertheless found myself groaning along with their screams. Something between the editing and sound design worked really well to craft an experience of being in pain along with the character, adding a sense of weight and wetness we feel more than see; frankly, it reminded me of The Passion of the Christ in that way. It didn't help that the film also bravely steps into full taboo territory by deliberately choosing to exploit the mutilation of an animal by a human. As someone who can stomach a lot, I wish I had known in advance of this screening that the family dog would be brutally killed no fewer than three separate times during this film. Consider this your warning. You're welcome.

An exhausting film, Burn takes you through a gauntlet course for your endurance. Once the violence starts -- was it three minutes? Five, maybe, into the film? -- it does not let up, relentlessly assaulting your eyes with unspeakable horrors. There was a plot, I think, because I remember not quite following it. Of course, a long time fan, I can catch up pretty quick when the characters talk about a Kandarian dagger and the Necronomicon, but the entire opening sequence of this film could only make sense if you saw Evil Dead Rise. And then there's the post-credits scene, which I'm not even going to try to understand now, but I'm annoyed anyway because we don't need more franchises with endless interconnected stories. We just don't, and Evil Dead works best as standalone bloodbaths with imaginative violence and a sick comedic bent.

But even in the bulk of the film, which is I suppose more standalone, the plot is at once painfully simple and needlessly complicated. What is taking Will so long, when the possessed keep saying he's coming? Can Deadites now reassemble their burned, drowned, dismembered, and even cremated bodies? And don't get me started on the final girl, who is immediately recognizable as the eventual survivor of an abusive husband and his enabling family. What carried me through, instead, were some of the amazing cinematography and fight choreography, which make the ever-increasing violence watchable if not always palatable. One distinct memory is a fight in a car as Edgar, the family father, becomes possessed and uses every conceivable part of the inside of the car as a weapon; it's so brilliant I had to remind myself to breathe (have I mentioned that I was breathless for most of this movie?).

The filmmakers embrace the titular idea of burning in the ashy palette of this production in lighting and color grading, much like the conceptual high-rise of Evil Dead Rise. It does make the affair more visually solemn, which could feel like a bit of a downer for some audiences who prefer humor with their blood. This is as nihilistic as they come (though with a few nice laughs, especially during the funeral scene and later from the grandmother), so when we dip into slow-motion during particularly nasty moments, I wanted to stand and cry, "Why? Why??" because it would at least release the pressure in the room.

Sebastien Vanicek was clearly the effective choice here as director. While stylistically very different from Lee Cronin, Fede Alvarez, and of course Sam Raimi, Vanicek has already proven his talents with Infested, one of the most upsetting spider horror flicks I've endured. Here he continues turning the screws, pushing his singularly nasty vision into a bold new frontier for the franchise as he makes us wriggle in our seats. Call it part of the French extreme horror canon or not, that this film is bringing that sensibility to an American cult phenomenon is remarkable and pretty cool.