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.