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. 

Hoppers (2026)

Score: 2 / 5

Too little too late, the latest Pixar film reminds me of its sad decline in novelty and style. Hoppers takes as its story that of a young activist. Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a Japanese-American college student, loves a glade filled with animals near her late grandmother's house. The two had bonded there, with Mabel learning to appreciate the quiet stillness of nature, and now the location holds great sentimental value. So when Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) announces his plan to build a beltway right through the glade, Mabel takes it upon herself to protest.

Anger defines Mabel. In the opening scene, she's trying to "rescue" classroom pets from her elementary school, angry that they're captive; when she's stopped, she gets even more angry. It's not until her grandmother invites her to the edge of her secret pond and to sit in silence that Mabel begins to calm down. "I used to get angry," the grandmother muses, saying that it's hard to stay angry when you become aware of the web of life around you. It feels quite zen, like Yoda telling Luke to reach out with his feelings in a hostile swamp. So, years later, when we see Mabel angry at Jerry, it feels more personal than straightforward environmental activism. Her anger stems from fear, but she hasn't clearly worked out what that means or how to deal with it. Instead, she lashes out (as also indicated by the cast on her arm, no doubt from reckless skateboarding), only making herself seem crazed, undermining her own goals.

Mabel connects with her biology professor, Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy), whose research is far more practical than we might at first expect. She's developed a technology she calls "hopping," which is basically transferring one's consciousness into a 3D-printed robot animal in order to better study animal behavior. Mabel recognizes this for what it is -- "Like Avatar!" -- despite Dr. Sam's chagrin, and impulsively uses it on herself. She becomes a beaver, for all intents and purposes, and goes out to the glade to investigate the disappearance of its resident beaver. The "keystone species" is what dammed the creek, making the pond a haven for all kinds of wildlife; without the beaver, Jerry is justified in saying they can bulldoze the glade because there aren't animals there to displace.

The problem is that there's nothing original about this film. Indeed a ripoff of Avatar, it also pulls heavily from other recent films, notably The Wild Robot in its interest in the interconnectedness of nature in the face of increased urbanization. More damagingly, the film features too many plot holes that seem designed to upset whatever pro-environmentalism it offers: Mabel can inexplicably immediately understand verbal communication between all the animals, regardless of species. She's befriended and welcomed by these creatures (like in Elio) and given immediate audience with an array of animal royalty (which, though mostly unrecognizable in the film, include A-listers like you wouldn't believe in the film's credits, from Meryl Streep to Isiah Whitlock Jr.). So why doesn't Dr. Sam know more about the animals and their plight, if she's been moonlighting as a beaver herself?

Thick sci-fi/fantasy jargon ensues, with much hubbub about "Pond Rules," wherein predators will eat prey in the great circle of life and so forth. Species usually at odds must confabulate to fight back, though still oddly territorial a la Zootopia, with similar attention to animal-based humor. And it all distracts from what could have been an insightful and galvanizing drama about how a young person can and should go about environmental activism in their community. I think, too, of Strange World, one of Disney's most progressive and moving films of this decade, which handled these exact matters and more with stronger rhetoric and a better story, despite its similarly derivative inspiration. Several subplots coalesce into a frenetic climax so uninspired that I found myself wishing for the film to end. 

Admittedly, it's also simply not my preferred artistic style. The animation feels cartoonish and inflated, like something shiny and waxy from DreamWorks rather than Disney. Editing and "performance style" (if we can call character animation that) feel more reminiscent of anime -- much like Pixar's Turning Red, which I also disliked visually -- and shoves what might have been organic character interest into a parade of explosive exaggerations and jerky mannerisms. Thankfully, the film redeems itself slightly in its quieter moments, focusing on Mabel's grief (spoiler alert: she has to deal with the grief, because anger is its manifestation) and even Jerry's internal commitment to genuine community-building. So, in the bizarre and overwrought climax, a new villain materializes (Dave Franco, and that's all I'll say about that delightful addition) and the whole thing goes up in flame and smoke. Much like my hopes that this film would steal my heart like most Disney fare.

The Bride (2026)

Score: 4 / 5

Having rewatched Maggie Gyllenhaal's sophomore directorial feature thrice, I can now say with certainty it's a favorite. Her follow-up to The Lost Daughter continues her unexpected and artful approach to new feminist cinema, yet does radically, offensively different things than we might expect or even want. While it's not out to garner her many new fans -- except maybe those interested in classical horror -- anyone who buckles in for this insane, ballsy ride will experience a thrill unlike many others. 

Nominally inspired by Bride of Frankenstein (1935), the classic Universal comedy-horror sequel to its 1931 flagship cinematic phenomenon, The Bride harnesses its metafictional take on the story to great postmodern effect. We open with an onscreen narrator, seemingly the ghost of Mary Shelley. Jessie Buckley, in her commanding dual performance, stares balefully into the camera out of a black-and-white limbo with low-key lighting that shifts unexpectedly around her, droning on in a thick character voice about her torment. As a writer, she cannot rest, burdened by another story she meant to tell before her untimely death. How to tell it? Well, naturally, she'll possess a vulnerable woman -- apparently one in a similar state of mind and/or danger as she was in life -- and enact the story herself. 

Enter Ida (also played by Buckley), a young woman caught among the higher-ups of an organized crime boss in Chicago, 1936. She seems a flamboyant nightclub performer and likely escort for these dangerous men, and in her introductory scene she's being assaulted by lascivious older men. Taking her opportunity, Mary Shelley inserts herself, forcing Ida into a full trance-like possession state in which she moves twitchily and spills the beans of the crime boss's sins. Trying to rush her out of the stunned nightclub, two henchman end up cornering her on the stairs as they try to figure out what's wrong with her, and soon enough Ida falls down the stairs to her death. The violent sequence -- from verbal altercation to broken bones -- is stylized to the point of alienation, I suspect, from some viewers. But it's proof that Gyllenhaal is a true artist, making bold swings and risky choices rarely allowed to female artists; I wish more directors followed their passions and tried weird things.

That's not to say the material couldn't have used a bit more workshopping. The screenplay, penned by Gyllenhaal, inconsistently plots itself through lurching steps, much like the monsters it dramatizes. After this lengthy prologue, we shift suddenly to Frank (Christian Bale), the original Frankenstein's monster, now in Chicago himself and looking for a deeper human connection than any he's had in his long, lonely life. He approaches Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening, working fabulously from what could have been a miserably flat part to electrify her scenes) to request that she expand her work on reanimation to a full -- recently deceased -- human corpse. He only stipulates that the corpse be female. Thanks to Ida's recent demise, she's carted in and successfully returned to life.

Or whatever passes for life, anyway. She's still possessed by Shelley and, as we might expect, has her brain fried during her resurrection. Buckley has the seemingly impossible task of playing an English woman from 1818 possessing a very different Chicago woman in 1936 who has amnesia and thus a new persona: essentially three different characters in one, constantly shifting throughout her often incoherent monologues. As is thankfully becoming vogue in cinema, Buckley glories in her unrepentant, deliberately defiant character, a feminist icon who isn't afraid to be nasty and crude and lusty and rebellious against any constraints. A favorite moment is at her first meal, when she begins smashing tableware in an almost bored state, waiting for demands on her to cease.

One can only imagine how much physical therapy Buckley had to undergo, both for her voice -- her verbal athletics are olympian in scope and fervor -- and for her body, which moves in contorted, angular patterns even when she's not putting her weight on a shattered shin. After an initial rebellion, Ida accedes to Frank and the two embark on a hedonistic, criminal spree not unlike Bonnie and Clyde, finding solace in their isolation. More touching moments occur as they go from cinema to cinema, absorbing old Ginger Rogers movies. Frank especially loves Ronnie Reed, a Fred Astaire riff played by a slick and debonair Jake Gyllenhaal. Yet all is not well in paradise, and the couple is being investigated by two detectives in the form of Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz in what might the film's weakest subplot despite its eminent charm. 

This is a maximalist's movie, a cinephile's movie, and a movie for anyone who values excess of style. Building more from films noir than classic, theatrical cinema, Gyllenhaal injects rage into her humor and sickness into her sexiness, meshing candy-colored sin with grayscale grime in every shot. If Poor Things told this story in a surrealist fashion, and Joker (and Folie a Deux in particular) told it in realistic fashion, The Bride camps it up, making mockery of deadly serious matters while acknowledging its own absurdity. And then there's the ending, which after a countrywide chase, resolves things in an unexpected and perhaps unearned happy way. I loved it. By film's end, I was exhausted from sheer imaginative joy and did not want a tragic denouement. And Gyllenhaal knowingly gives us what we need more than what we deserve in the film's final moments. It may not ring true to the world she's so painstakingly built up to that point, but it feels damn good. 

Good for her.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

The unpleasantness of Danny Boyle's usual style is mitigated here by a daringly beautiful attempt by Mia DaCosta to inject artistry and -- dare I say -- beauty into a world overrun by zombies. There was no way the titular set would have been built for Boyle's 2025 return to the franchise if more wasn't to come. The bone temple, a glorious and instantly iconic memento mori for the characters of 28 Years Later, deserved a film of its own, rife with arcane rituals, demonic drag, and deeper thematic merit than this franchise has ever had. And, thankfully, DaCosta was exactly the right person for the job.

Pitfalls and all, this material has never been my favorite, even within the fairly specific genre of post-apocalyptic zombie horror. The Rage virus, groundbreaking in its 2002 debut, is now so familiar in conceit that writer Alex Garland and the creators have needed to add new kinds of zombies and start categorizing them by mutation, yet another typical problem in this subgenre. With its attempt at edgy immediacy through shaky camerawork and more or less natural lighting, the series has never quite managed to achieve visual artistry on par with its occasionally sophisticated themes. DaCosta, approaching the whole affair almost as a dark fantasy, helps us view the world with more awe. Which is unexpected and a bit jarring, as this is the first entry to be temporally connected to the setting of its predecessor. How many franchises do you know of in which the third entry is, itself, a planned trilogy?

That's not to say this film isn't as gratuitously, viscerally cruel as the others. The story concerns young Spike (Alfie Williams), who starts in a bad place immediately following the events of the previous film. If you recall, a grotesque group of parkour thugs under command of "Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal," a seemingly sociopathic cult leader (Jack O'Connell), saved Spike from a group of the infected, inviting the wee lad to join them. It does not bode well, and the opening of The Bone Temple solidifies our fears as Jimmy orders Spike to fight to the death against his Fingers (the name he gives his tracksuit-wearing followers, who individually have variations of the same name like "Jimmima" and "Jimmy Shite"). It is revealed to us that they believe Jimmy's father is "Old Nick," the Devil, and this blood sacrifice merely a regular occurrence in their lives together. Spike survives and is inducted into their order as a new Jimmy, but his life gets more violent and less safe by the day. Even when he cautiously befriends Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), who tries to help shield Spike from their most barbaric acts and from Jimmy Crystal's wrath, it's a far cry from safety.

Thankfully, the film crosscuts Spike's journey with that of Dr. Ian Kelson, played again by Ralph Fiennes in full command of his considerable craft. His introductory scene is a montage of him collecting rotten corpses in what appears to be an eccentric routine to continually improve the bone temple he's constructed; he goes about the macabre affair while absentmindedly singing hits from Duran Duran (the opening is "Girls on Film," which when I finally recognized nearly slayed me dead). Kelson lives in a bunker beneath his temple and spends the remainder of his time studying Samson, a giant of a zombie who apparently craves the sedation from Rage provided by drug darts Kelson uses. While under the influence, Samson is placid and Kelson develops what amounts to a friendship with him. Whether through teaching Samson language or dancing to the music, Kelson will make the connection.

Fiennes is magnetic in this role: a crazed humanist, a generous and hospitable mad scientist, an artist in every way yet alone and humble, the character he has constructed is impossible to nail down, and he constantly surprises us in his demeanor. He's also the saving grace of the film, which spends far too long tormenting young Spike (and us, by extension). When one of the Fingers spot Kelson and Samson chumming it up one day, he's sure he's seen Old Nick and demands an audience from Jimmy Crystal, who suddenly knows he's made quite a pickle for himself. Thus intersect the two plotlines of the film just in time for its magnificent climax.

This was never meant to be a character study, so the snippets of flashbacks to the "before times" of Kelson and Samson didn't really work for me, though we definitely needed more ways to connect with them. But even with these, none of the characters really feel fleshed-out by the screenplay or in performance. Other than Kelson. Fiennes takes a mostly nonverbal character and turns him into a fountain of stimulation. When, in the climax, Kelson performs as Old Nick in order to satisfy his unwelcome, threatening audience of Fingers, Fiennes is dressed in some kind of demonic drag (a cross between War Boys in Mad Max and the Cenobites from Hellraiser) performing Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" in a drug-induced rave replete with mosh pit and pyrotechnics. It's electrifying to behold. It also introduces a wholly unexpected theme of religious theatrics into consideration, one that deconstructs the artifice even as it elicited audible laughs from me, mostly due to Fiennes's otherwise deadpan, quietly monotonous delivery of his lines out of character. Though he so often plays the villain, we must never forsake his profound gift for comedy.

By film's end, DaCosta has done something rare in film. She crafts a visual and aural experience meant to push us along to the point of questioning, earnestly, how and why God would allow such horrors on earth. That's a dark place to go, even with fun and scares along the way. But the sensation I had, upon a recent rewatch, was not that of nihilism or despair. And, no, I'm not talking about the ending, which offers yet another obnoxiously optimistic little cliffhanger ending reminding us that there's another installment yet to come; that just pissed me off, yet again. No, the hope I felt was far more spiritual and human. In a cast of characters basically rendered dead inside from their hopeless, interminable existence, we're made to feel that Kelson actually made a difference. No spoilers here, but the film's proper finale (before that inexcusable stinger) validates and valorizes his life as an ethical doctor in this hellscape and offers encouragement to viewers feeling a similarly bleak outlook on a world gone mad.

Moana (2026)

Score: 2.5 / 5

I've long been an apologist for Disney's live action remakes, for reasons shared elsewhere on this blog. And despite not liking a handful of them, I find myself of a new opinion entirely when it comes to the new Moana: utter ambivalence.

While it's patently silly for Disney to remake something only a decade old, this is the kind of material they should be adapting. Human-centered narratives, in my apparently controversial opinion, should center the human element, so I tend to prefer such stories in live action. Why we haven't, then, gotten the likes of Hercules or The Hunchback of Notre Dame is beyond my comprehension, while Lady and the Tramp and its ilk fill up Disney+ with nightmare fuel. Animation is exactly for stories that cannot be told by real people in front of real cameras: stories like The Little Mermaid or Treasure Planet that would be almost entirely animated anyway. Yet in this expensive-looking production, I could not help but find myself annoyed that so much appeared to be CGI, and not much of it of more realistic quality than in the animated original.

Yet director Thomas Kail (mostly a theatre director, but whose Fosse/Verdon is still criminally underappreciated) and his extensive production team (including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dwayne Johnson, returning to his role as Maui, and Auli'i Cravalho, who does not appear but who sings a new song during the credits) take great pains to make this film an almost shot-for-shot remake. One wonders why. The history of "The Long Pause" is intriguing, and surely within the past ten years there has been sufficient research into Polynesian history and interest in culture in general to have improved the storytelling of this otherwise simple plot and its straightforward themes. And in a year when The Odyssey will surely sweep the summer (and yearly) "best of" lists, it feels odd that Moana couldn't expand her horizons and seek out any new adventures.

The material literally sings for an inexplicable compulsion, a call from beyond the familiar to prove oneself and save one's home. Why, then, are we locked into the exact same screenplay with the exact same adventures? Only two years ago, Moana 2 gave us more options to play with -- though we can certainly debate the value of those options -- so this feels like a disappointing return to basics. Apart from a couple new guffaw-inducing jibes from Johnson's narcissist demigod, even the laughs are exactly the same, down to precisely timed beats involving the braindead google-eyed sidekick Heihei. 

Thankfully, it's all very fun and very pretty, much like the original. The ocean, delightfully animated in its fantasy, pseudo-anthropomorphized form, is wonderfully rendered, and I certainly don't tire of the tropical vistas of thickly jungled islands. Rena Owen is the pulsing heart of the film as Moana's grandmother who sets her on her quest and returns like a Force-ghost in Moana's climactic turn; her gravitas and whimsy combine in an effective characterization that wrung tears from my eyes more than once. Jemaine Clement returns, too, as Tamatoa, the monstrous crab who hoards shiny things, in a replicated scene of the original film's standout moment, but his voice does feel tired and uninspired this time around. Too bad he wasn't given some fresh material to crack open and masticate.

The strength of this movie lies almost solely in its human element. To that end, the film's first act is easily its strongest, as Moana is chosen by the ocean as a child and as she grows into her father's daughter, a chief-in-training to lead her island's people. The first big musical number is magnificent, and I found myself repeatedly wishing that Kail leaned even more into his theatre background and away from the original film. How much more satisfying it would be to have long takes of masses of Motunui islanders harvesting coconuts and fish while dancing and singing, instead of cartoon-esque choppy edits and eye-popping set pieces! Yet in seeing real people in gorgeous production design, we are nevertheless transported into an escapist fantasy as Disney does best. Alas, we must settle for what we've been given, and its mediocrity and redundancy won't work for everyone, though I had a lovely time singing along in my otherwise empty cinema.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Opening immediately after the end of the first film, the film centers on Grace as her horrors continue. In a nice long take focused on Samara Weaving's face as she collapses and is carried into an ambulance, Grace blacks out but is resuscitated, each jolt reminding us of key flashbacks to the traumatic night she's just endured. The Le Domas family is no more -- well, apart from her now bearing their surname, legally -- and in case you missed the first one and for some reason started with the sequel, we're given some nice exposition early on. Grace's estranged sister Faith (yes, there's a jab about Catholic names) is her emergency contact and arrives as Grace is handcuffed to her bed, under suspicion of unspeakable things to the Le Domas family and estate.

But, as they do in all things, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writer Guy Busick handle the our return to this world with wit and style. Even exposition dumps are riddled with humor and nihilism, earned by what they know fans loved about the first film. Swiftly, a new plan is hatched as the young women are attacked in the hospital and spirited away. We're shown a new assemblage of wealthy assholes, representatives of various families associated with the diabolic Mr. Le Bail (apparently literally the Devil), gathering at a remote estate; these new characters have been summoned to partake in a new "game" of sorts: a battle to vie for the High Seat of "the Council," a group of elites who have made Faustian deals and who now secretly control the world. One (played by David Cronenberg himself) is introduced to us as watching news footage of a war and calling someone privately to have a ceasefire, which is immediately enacted on screen. 

Unfortunately, this means that it's double or nothing. The Council families will each send a representative at a time to kill the young women, and they'll be replaced by their own reserves. It's shockingly bleak for our heroines, one of whom is still quite injured from the previous day's exploits, the other of whom has to suddenly believe all this capitalistic, satanic insanity and simultaneously try to survive it. One imagines with agony the kind of physical stress these women underwent to make this film; they capably pull off what was surely a grueling shoot of goopy, sticky, slimy special effects and tons of fight choreography, to say nothing of all the running they do. 

Their deadly game board this time is a sizable, rural estate of many acres. What, in the first film, was a sort of flip on the Gothic whodunnit, is here a Grand Guignol vision of The Most Dangerous Game or The Hunt from a few years ago. Things seem even less fair this time around, even lorded over as they are by a delightfully perky Elijah Wood as a sort of cabal secretary or consigliere to these evil families. Their representatives are bizarre and hilarious as they arm themselves and prepare for the chase, especially Kevin Durand doing what he does and Nestor Carbonell with a caricatured Spanish accent through what seem to be exaggeratedly false teeth. 

While the filmmakers are never less than inventive, engrossing, and wildly entertaining, they do expand the scope of what's happening in a big way. That's normal for sequels, of course, and in a lot of ways this literally doubles the good stuff from before. But if you, like me, liked the restrictions in the first film with its limited cast and setting, you might find yourself both overwhelmed and numb to the much-expanded proceedings. There are too many characters for any to have much presence beyond an initial impression or superlative characteristic. Each has a spectacular death as well, which begin to feel camp as things get messy. Spontaneous bloody combustions happen fairly frequently this time around. The expanded mythology, too, is well-designed and sure to lead to yet more installments, but the lack of mystery does make things less intellectually stimulating. We already know Mr. Le Bail is not to be trifled with and that all the conspiracy is true, and so apparently does everyone else; whereas the Le Domases were torn on their belief, everyone in this film knows what's at stake.

Yet the film takes a few steps that are so intense and upsetting that I hesitate labeling it camp or even macabre satire. First, there's the rather shocking treatment of violence against women. Obviously that was a central theme in the first film -- the iconic bloody wedding dress is evidence enough -- but here, for the first time, I got uncomfortable to the point of squirming distraction as the two leading women were so viciously tortured on screen. There's one scene in particular when Faith (a wonderful Kathryn Newton, by the by) is beaten so brutally I had to avert my eyes, something I almost never do, because the camera and edit just lingers on it so long. The other is the wicked twin pair of Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar, who are lovably nasty and almost sympathetic until a crucial climactic moment when Hatosy reveals that his evil is real. Without spoilers, suffice to say that his Patrick Bateman-like quirks are indeed fueled by hellish motivation, and when he shows his true face, he's quite scary.

While I'm still angry they haven't yet followed up with more Scream, I guess I can be happy that they chose to continue work on this material over something like Abigail. 

The Invite (2026)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The surprise of the summer! 

An unhappy married couple host their upstairs neighbors for a dinner party that devolves into a nightmarish spiral of social and sexual anxieties. This is exactly my kind of story, its roots deep in theatrical chamber pieces like God of Carnage and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in a certain absurdist lambasting of bourgeois niceties. 

Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen play the primary couple, and their winsomeness is carefully calculated to fracture and tear at key early moments. Each plays their part with energetic conviction, adding rich layers to characters that could be played quite straight. Trapped at home for years in a life that clearly doesn't satisfy, she's been buying expensive (and, frankly, a bit gaudy) materials to spruce up their large and expensive apartment while walking naked by her single-pane window on her community courtyard to catch the eye of a neighbor. He's a miserable band teacher who has lost touch with any inspiration (he was once a promising musician) and hides from the world at home while complaining about a bad back and doing nothing to help himself. They live in wholly separate worlds, and have clearly each attempted therapy without following through; within moments of him returning home on this day, they're hurling passive-aggressive jabs while deflecting with half-baked psychobabble. As they scream at each other in the kitchen, one wonders if their upstairs neighbors who are expected momentarily can hear them.

Which is funny, because half of the fight is about them. Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz, a sexy, worldly couple who have caught the eyes of both Wilde and Rogen separately, are apparently not quiet about their sex life. As the main couple fester in a sexless, loveless hell of their own making, Norton and Cruz have vivacious and very loud sex regularly in the dead of night. Rogen wants to confront them about the noise and establish some sort of dominance; Wilde seems eager to know more about what's happening up there and maybe compete or join. Once the dinner party commences -- which is an unmitigated disaster, for several increasingly hilarious reasons including dietary restrictions, a lack of wine, and the ultimate carnal purpose for the entire evening -- it's clear that the bohemians upstairs are in fact a little too perfect an opportunity for their repressed downstairs neighbors. Not all is well in their world of seemingly unbridled pleasure. 

Without having seen the 2020 Spanish film on which this is based, I admire writers Will McCormack and Rashida Jones for their incisive, kinetic screenplay that keenly and knowingly dives into the darker and more graphic subtext found in most sex-adjacent sitcoms. These jokes aren't salacious in nature or mean-spirited about who deserves pleasure and fulfillment in any kind of puritanical schema; rather, they take a frank look at people being genuinely curious while also being riddled with anxiety and demonstrate the inherent humor of being forced to reckon with oneself while trying something new in a nonjudgmental way. This refreshing approach is bolstered by four top-notch performances, each of which deserves an award.

Wilde herself directs this venture, which is saying a lot because her performance was the standout for me, with an aesthetic visually more in line with a thriller. Somewhat drab lighting in frames upon frames -- doorways and windows constantly restrict movement of these characters in their starkly artificial world -- makes the film appear a little jaundiced in its sickly amber pools of light. Her pacing is fast and I found myself cackling aloud in the cinema while sometimes chiding myself for laughing at certain moments of insults and cruelties. It's apparent that this is originally based on a play, and I'd love to see it live. Wilde succeeds, in making it a film, by deftly and artfully controlling the scope of our reactions to every beat -- awkward, horny, and hilarious -- as they come. The first act might throw some viewers off because of the forceful directorial approach (by which I mean the cinematography and editing, both firing on all cylinders from the first scene), but once you settle in to her style, you can start collecting boons. When the music starts interjecting slasher-movie stings in the middle of a particularly funny and tense scene, I found myself thinking that Wilde was parodying Hitchcock in a clever blend of Psycho and The Trouble with Harry. 

By the second half, things calm down a bit visually and aurally, and the actors rise to the occasion to carry us through the climax and denouement with some career-best work. Where she started the film encouraging us to judge the characters, she opens up in the final act with a more mature approach, allowing the film and actors to breathe, and us by extension. This is a slice of life; strange, funny, and earnest, meant to remind us that what connects us all isn't necessarily money or sex but something a bit more mysterious and satisfying. Purpose and communication, negotiation and patience, kindness and hospitality; these things should matter more than they do in 2026 America, and films like this help us cut through the confusion to find our profound shared humanity. The laughter and sex just help us swallow the pill.

Scream 7 (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

"What's your favorite scary movie?" Kevin Williamson, the brilliant writer behind my favorite horror franchise, returns this time in double duty as both writer and director to a series foundering in the wake of some awful producing decisions. Without going into the muck of the business, suffice to say that the exciting plots and characters of Scream 5 and Scream 6 are on a bit of a hiatus (let us hope not abandoned permanently). Given his thankless job of taking the reins from what was clearly a planned trilogy and trying something different, independent, and ultimately safe, Williamson performs a Herculean task here to mostly successful results. While this will almost certainly rank lowly among fan favorites, I do think it's important to always take the art on its own terms; as such, we'll not be discussing the casting/directing/writing upsets that led us to this point, and rather focusing on the film itself and its place within its series.

Unlikely as it might seem after so very much crime there, the Macher house yet stands in Woodsboro, California. Drawn to the "true crime" setting of his own favorite serial killers -- and enthusiastically aware of the long-festering rumors of Stu's possible survival -- a young man and his girlfriend book the large estate as a sort of AirBnb for a spooky night. Given the material's tendency to blur the lines between history and reality, trauma and reckoning, heroism and cruelty, it's a bit surprising that we haven't really seen this yet; usually, it's Gale profiting off the fictionalized lives of others, yet here (and in our digital age) we see a potential nobody profiting off the tragedies that have occurred in this storied house. Who owns the Macher residence now? Who knows? Like the inevitable killer lurking in plain sight in the decked-out Halloween-esque attraction, it could be anyone.

Chandelier-related kill and all, the opening is effective and had me thrilled to be back in the world of Scream. We immediately shift to our protagonist: Neve Campbell back again in the spotlight as Sidney Prescott, of course. And while it makes sense -- indeed, easily could have been the character's development far sooner -- it's pretty damn cool to see her as a mother whose daughter is now being threatened by the horrors plaguing her life. Sid is a bit too strict and cold for my preference, but Campbell plays mama bear with a firm rigidity that hearkens to Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode in her final three Halloween titles. The difference is that Sid seems to not want to deal with Tatum as a burgeoning adult; she won't talk about sex with her daughter specifically, though she's aware of Tatum sneaking boys into her room. Even Tatum's name suggests a curious choice from her mother; similarly, Williams kept Mark as the name of Sid's husband (after being mentioned briefly before), but for some inexplicable and infuriating reason, it's not Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) but rather Mark Evans (Joel McHale), who is coincidentally the police chief. It's just an insulting switch for fans, not least because McHale plays Mark as kind of creepy.

Thankfully, Williams seems aware that, if we're not continuing the same story from Scream 6, we probably don't care about the plot. So he doesn't focus on character development for legacy folks. Instead, he launches into a series of solidly entertaining kills with enough intrigue around each to propel the whodunnit mystery forward. There's a stylish and memorable theatre kill, though one any theatre artist will decry as being outrageous; it's gotta be one of the most unsafe tech rehearsals ever, with a terrible teacher and stage manager. Soon after, there's a brutal, intense Ghostface attack in Sid's home. By this point, the film has revealed that it's playing things safe: this is a run-of-the-mill slasher whodunnit with characters we love. I don't hate that; frankly, if the worst this franchise can do is spin an entertaining variation on familiar ideas, I'll take it any day over more than half the shlock pumped direct to streaming. Yet, as a fan who knows what Williamson and this series is capable of, it's disappointing to see them not taking bigger risks. Even the cinematography feels more like something out of the classic Weinstein Company catalog than something from Dimension; bland, amber lighting and too much unnecessary editing sap what should be a dynamic vision of shadow and LED while forcing us to exist in real time and space with visceral kills.

Unfortunately, the cast of characters assembled here feel both rote and archetypal at this point, and none are given much opportunity to shine. Their collective energy simply doesn't electrify us, even as they discuss Important Themes like AI and societal collapse; unfortunately, it all feels a bit "too little, too late," not unlike listening to an old man complain about his 2020 election results six years after the fact. When Gale finally shows up -- looking fabulous, as usual -- she's joined by the two Meekses, Chad and Mindy, who are a breath of fresh air in this film. Weird as it is to see them without the other half of their "Core Four," Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding are as likable and endearing as ever, even if their reasoning for working with Gale is murky at best. All together, the heroes set the metafictional stage for us: Trauma is their life. Actually, once the killers are revealed, one of them literally says that to Sid, in the film's most glaring move into metafiction. And what trauma! Much like in the previous two films, these kids are brutalized in this film; Mark, who I would have been fine to see go in favor of the real Mark coming back into Sid's life, inexplicably survives.

While I liked the killer's use of AI to literalize "ghost faces" of previous Ghostfaces, I wish Williamson had leaned into it more. These films work because they are timely and state-of-the-art, bound by the technology of their setting. But Williamson shies away from it, instead trying to make a connection between new tech and old memories; I don't think it works to have nostalgia be a driving force for a film in this franchise. Yet moments of nostalgia that could only speak to real fans do land well. I'm thinking of Sid finally allowing Gale to interview her, including Roman in the lineup of killers, and the legitimately terrifying slow-mo reveal of the second killer, all of which are not really meant to gain new fans but are very much geared to satisfy longtime fans.

Yet the idea of self-help being a gateway to insanity and murder is so tasty that I cannot deny loving this movie. I love the fun whodunnit, the occasional grisly spectacle, the genuinely scary knives-behind-every-door suspense. And I love that this franchise just keeps going.

Eddington (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Have you ever got the feeling that a movie was made just for you? Eddington, Ari Aster's directorial project last year, has not so much left a mark on me as just fit into the grooves I already have. It won't be for everyone; it's too uncomfortable, expansive yet shallow, and quaintly recent for that. Yet in tackling this subject matter with so much humor and absurdism, Aster spins a tightly wound nightmare and ensnares his attentive viewer. He has no intention of explaining or even offering insight into the social phenomena that plague our current age. Anyone hoping him to make a clear statement about politics, technology, big tech, masculinity, whiteness, etc., will be confused and disappointed. But, by putting a mirror up to the audience and forcing us to watch the insanity unfold, he makes a strong metafictional case for art imitating life.

Just the opening scene is a masterclass in exposition dumping. In less than thirty seconds, we're shown a long man, shoeless and in grungy jeans, walking down a desert road while yelling obscenities and non-sequiturs without taking a breath; as we're trying to parse his vicious-sounding but hollow monologue, and figure out if he's under the influence of substances or experiencing a mental health crisis, the camera pans up and stops to see, in the distance, a sign for a new, incoming data center. This movie clearly has a lot on its mind, and this ain't even the half of it. It helps that we get veteran A-list crew: cinematographer Darius Khondji and editor Lucian Johnston together immerse us into the story while keeping us at an intentional remove.

Do you remember May in 2020? When we were told that things would fully open up again when summer finally it, maybe at latest July 4. After we had been told things would be open by Easter, a few weeks prior. When George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and waves of protests erupted across the country. When we all became even more dependent on our phones than we had been six months prior. When we became more polarized, more isolated, more rude, more paranoid. If you, like I, choose to forget many of those scary, frustrating days, Aster is determined to shake us out of our stupor. Almost every line of dialogue sounds familiar, as if ripped from our memories and forced back into our waking eyes and ears. I had a similar experience while watching Sick, which is the other Covid-set film I highly recommend to anyone.

And he doesn't say anything about them. Piling on references to policies vs. laws, viral crime videos, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, stolen land, AI, viral media, Trumpism, mask mandates, conspiracy theories, rape and abortion, and more, Aster seems determined merely to overwhelm us with the unpleasant, discomfiting experience of hearing and seeing it all again in real time. There's a case to be made that society fractured during those months in 2020, and Aster here lays out the evidence for us to survey. Why is this satisfying for me? I'm still not wholly sure, because a mirror in and of itself isn't artful. But my conclusion is that Aster isn't after us to rethink any of those viral social movements or to get fired up about these issues again; Aster wants to show us how easily we lose ourselves.

Remember the constant confusion, anxiety, guardedness, defensiveness, mistrust, and division that we felt? That's what Aster's reproducing here. Much as he made Beau is Afraid to function as an extended anxiety attack, he basically repeats the formula here. The arguable difference is that he's being deliberately provocative for anyone who might see the film. None of his characters are sympathetic or likable, and they're all so complex and, frankly, realistic, that it's hard to label any. Thankfully, many of them label themselves -- and each other -- with political and ideological words meant to convey meaning but which, by film's end, feel as superfluous as the energy with which they are hurled. It's like he wants people, after the film, to discuss and argue hot button topics not because they are hot but because they're so much more complicated than we ever say on social media.

And amidst all this chaos I'm describing, Aster crafts a gorgeous film for cinephiles. His tendency for playing with genre reaches a high point here, shifting effortlessly from a Western structure to a political thriller, a crime drama, a black comedy, and back again. Joaquin Phoenix plays the weary, put-upon sheriff like an aging John Wayne of a small New Mexico town. His antagonist is the incumbent mayor, played by Pedro Pascal, on roughly the opposite side of the political spectrum. They have family issues -- some of which intertwines, to their lasting resentment -- yet going head-to-head in the coming election destabilizes an already shaky community to the point that it's all-out war. The secondary and tertiary characters provide a lot of context despite not having much screen time, and the ensemble cast are messily overplaying at exactly the necessary pitch: Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Deirdre O'Connell, Michael Ward, Luke Grimes. 

Social media ruins the race. Protests become riots. Police brutality approaches marshal law. Outside influences arrive to add fuel to the fire. Shadowy gunmen assassinate leaders. There's a version of this very same script that could have been penned by Tom Stoppard or Samuel Beckett, so absurd and bleak is its depiction of civilization collapsing on itself. I was also reminded starkly of Don't Look Up, which used anxiety to create comedy rather than the other way around as Aster does. It should be noted that the characters aren't depicted sympathetically: they jump to conclusions and do strange things, so don't go in to this film expecting psychological realism. Go in expecting to feel a little guilt about things you yourself did during those hellish months.

Two-and-a-half hours as it is, I still don't think it's long enough. The final act devolves into a bit of a silly chase sequence and a lack of climax for any but its primary characters. Thrilling though it still is, part of what makes the first half of the film so riveting is the moving parts of its ensemble. When Phoenix enters a store without a mask, we know it's going to be bad, and then his nemesis the mayor is revealed to be behind him in line! When a viral media darling arrives at a private dinner with the sheriff's wife in starry-eyed tow, we know he's trouble, but then he starts talking about getting abducted and raped by an Epstein-like figure and then hunted down like The Most Dangerous Game -- and eventually revealing himself to be an evangelical Christian! It can be a bit tonally tough to swallow, and I imagine some viewers will balk at the screenplay's relatively equal treatment of issues. I don't mean conservative versus progressive so much as I mean effectively giving equal side-eye to protesters of George Floyd's murder as to those who stubbornly refused to wear a mask in public. While we may be laughing at the absurdity on display, it's admittedly difficult to swallow making fun of teens screaming about how they as white people shouldn't even be speaking about the problems of racism in one scene, while the next scene has the lone Black cop in the precinct being framed for the sheriff's crimes. However, because this isn't formally an "issue" story, I don't see how these elements could have been any more reasonably and artfully balanced.

Aster remains one of the best in his craft, and this production feels like an unpredictable turn in his career. I'm eager to see what he turns his attentions to next.

Crime 101 (2026)

Score: 4 / 5

When a career thief (Chris Hemsworth) gets a little rattled by a grazing bullet, he calls off his next hit. More than successful, he doesn't think it's an issue nearly as much as his fence (Nick Nolte) does; hired to carry out the next job is an unhinged, dangerous young thug (Barry Keoghan). Meanwhile, an insurance broker (Halle Berry) who works to help pay settlements for the thief's victims, is frustrated with being denied promotion in her company and so decides to help the charming thief in order to get a hefty cut. Oh, and the scheme has been obsessed over by an LAPD detective (Mark Ruffalo) whose theory is ignored by his precinct, sending him on a rogue mission because he refuses to "find a theory that works for the whole building."

Though its title seems to indicate a beginner's foray into cinematic capers, there's nothing elementary about the sleek yet grim presentation of Crime 101. The number instead refers to the 101 Freeway in sunny southern California, the primary setting of Hemsworth's crime spree and his means of reaching his targets and escaping pursuit. But this isn't the Los Angeles of La La Land; dark and warm, the city reads as richly layered in the dusk between its twinkling lights and chrome-plated vehicles. There's more than an air of noir to this material, and cinematographer Erik Wilson (of the Paddington films) seems intent on milking the visual dynamics of the oft-filmed cityscape for every drop of its shadowy beauty. 

I'm not sure I could repeat more of the plot reliably, nor the character names, so we'll stick with general impressions here. That's not to say this film is forgettable, at all, but rather that I was more entertained by seeing recognizable stars playing together in this mysterious world of greed, pride, and crime. Writer and director Bart Layton, adapting this material from a fairly recent novella of the same title, pulls from his inspirational sources with knowing and satisfying results; more than once, I leaned to my friend and muttered things like "Michael Mann," not because Layton felt redundant but because he so clearly was building off visual flair and thematic tensions familiar to fans of Thief and Heat. Take the protagonist as a case study: Hemsworth apparently grew up poor (and we see several shots throughout of homeless camps around LA) and, in one scene of emotional vulnerability, shares that his goal in stealing is to make enough money to stop working and enjoy life. Enjoyment, something he's apparently never really experienced, comes at a price, but one he never explicitly states. It's a cool move in a screenplay with serious messages to proclaim about class, earned wealth, privilege, and the divisions between desperate people.

Film noir and especially organized crime aren't my usual cinematic happy place, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Crime 101. Its likable cast does a lot of that heavy lifting, even those with smaller parts, like Corey Hawkins and Jennifer Jason Leigh. My favorite was probably Nick Nolte, whose brief screentime indicates that he's a Fagin-meets-King Saul type, whose paternal energy toward Hemsworth and Keoghan suggest that he's groomed these young men into hardened criminals (specifically, ones willing and able to become his personal soldiers in their urban battlefield). Everybody owns their time in front of the camera, which makes us care for these complex, wicked people expediently. That way, by the time Layton tosses not one but two excellent car chase sequences at us, we actually care about their outcomes (something I've never said before).

Other flourishes abound, and I eagerly anticipate a second screening, if only to pay closer attention to the stylistic choices in crafting this dramatic Gordian Knot. I recall that the opening sequence is a montage -- not wholly unlike the start of The Devil Wears Prada, an admittedly strange reference here, but it's what I thought of -- as Hemsworth, Berry, and Ruffalo all prepare for the day. We're listening to one of Berry's self-help audio recordings, which speaks vaguely about our interconnectedness with other people and how community should be our basic focus, and it made me think of Crash (2004) and the onslaught of huge ensemble dramas in the years surrounding it that didn't boast singular plots so much as slices of life of many plots that were all loosely and contrivedly bound together.

The film also skillfully avoids some of the more obnoxious clichés in movies of this ilk. Perhaps most tellingly, Berry's character is not defined by the male characters around her, and she has a vivid internal life shared freely with her audience. As she tells her jerk of a boss off, people audibly cheered. We don't usually get moments like that in a genre about men for men. Speaking of which, Hemsworth himself proves yet again his underused skills as a bona fide leading man, injecting such nuance into his character that it's easy to forget his superhero status among A-listers. Somewhat shy and awkward, he bears an aura of haunted gravity when he's unable to maintain eye contact, brooding behind the wheel, and it's largely left to us to interpret his silence. It's a risky move from Layton, but one that pays off in dividends thanks to this alchemical blend of acting and directing.

And, as a final note, it ends with something like hope. Or, rather, a surprisingly moving, emotional denouement. I stopped taking notes about twenty minutes into the film because I was so absorbed by the understated and unexpected craft of this fiercely intelligent and artful thriller, so another screening will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I can't recommend this title enough.

Wuthering Heights (2026)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Sometimes even the best filmmakers stumble. 

There's no denying Emerald Fennell's craft, here or elsewhere, but I simply can't understand what she was thinking about while attempting to adapt this material. Wuthering Heights is one of those mythic "unfilmable" titles that never fails to disappoint when removed from Emily Brontë's glorious prose. And yes, despite my personal affection for Peter Kominsky's 1992 adaptation for its Gothic intensity and steamy young stars Juliette Binoche, Janet McTeer, Jeremy Northam, and Ralph Fiennes in his feature film debut, it too struggles to bear up under the sheer weight of its ambitious task of adapting the entire plot. 

A quick note: for whatever reasons, this film has generated more online hubbub than most in recent memory, often accompanied by lengthy claims to knowing what the novel is "about." It's about classism. It's about trauma. It's about star-crossed lovers. It's about necrophilia. And, usually, these claims of enlightenment also claim to be the only one with that special insight. My pro tip for you is to ignore such claims. Anyone who wants to boil down a work as complex and vast in scope as Wuthering Heights to being "about" one thing is a fool who ignores much to aggrandize a limited perspective.

Surely, said I, surely Fennell will be up to her usual subversive tricks. When handling what I consider to be a story in the form of a highly organized nightmare -- a labyrinth of internecine cruelties enacted by stupid rich sociopaths on the only people they could enjoy life with -- Fennell will surely approach from a unique angle. Perhaps the resident servant of the Heights, Nelly Dean (played here by always thrilling Hong Chau), could be our protagonist: after all, she maneuvers her way into positions of influence and thus power in the mad power-plays happening around her. As a more antiheroic lens through which we could view the story in a new light, Nelly Dean could have been Fennell's inlet into an inspiring take on the endlessly reproduced tale. That's what Fennell did in Promising Young Woman and Saltburn alike, the latter even including more than a hint of Gothic aesthetic, which would have been all the more appropriate in this actual Gothic material.

Yet here we are, presented with this mess of anachronistic pop culture narcissism, glorying in its own trashy cheapening of the material while failing to provide us with anything it promised. Like a fever dream of horny high school fantasy, we're told a mere fraction of the story of Heathcliff and Cathy as if by AI-filtered summary of the novel. Narratively taking its structure from the famed 1939 film (with Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, and David Niven), which only told the first half of the story and set a dangerous precedent for most adaptations that have followed, the internal logic of the story collapses along with any pretense it has for thematic completion. At our screening, my friend frustratedly said something to the effect of "that was it?", to which I could only nod in annoyed sympathy. If you're going to retell such a classic, at least do it in an interesting way.

Which is the other problem I had with this film: the film itself. We could talk for pages about casting, but not about the tired online hullabaloo that needs to collectively do its historical homework on race and racial identifiers. We could talk for pages about acting: Chau is worth watching here, but Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are deeply uncomfortable to watch for their flat, breathy performances, which was really disappointing given this operatic opportunity. But the spectacle of rural, Gothic Yorkshire is undone time and again by confounding production design and lackluster cinematography (so. much. fog. And this was actually filmed in Yorkshire!). The Heights appears to be entombed in a protrusion of obsidian rising from a rocky moor, which would be maybe interesting if there were volcanoes nearby. Come to think of it, let's just move the setting to the rim of a volcano -- at least there could be interesting visual parallels to the existential precariousness between barren wilderness and boiling, seething, destructive passion -- but there's nothing so interesting here. Apart from a laughably candy-colored red hue repeated as the single visual motif so often it even appears in the Heights dining room. As the entire waxed floor.

Worse, the film promised us sex. This was meant to be the most erotically explicit, even explicitly kinky version of the story. I was down for that; who needs faithfulness to yet another retread of this story? If we're going to dive into the story's eroticism -- which is completely valid -- let's stop tiptoeing and go for it! There is an argument to be made for no explicit sex in the novel: if you want to believe (frankly unrealistically, but you do you) Cathy and Heathcliff and various other characters around them are chaste and abstinent the whole time, you may do so without dishonoring the original text, perhaps allowing that to inform their desperation, madness, and the ultimate tragedy of the whole saga. But that's been done to death. Fennell, rather than giving us a new hard-R vision of the tragedy, plays things distractingly safely. Other than a little skin in a couple scenes and some partially clothed thrusting -- mostly Elordi's, mind -- the only time we see real sex is as a voyeur from above, as two nameless servants (farm hands?) use a horse's bridle while having otherwise completely normal sex. The whole wretched moment is only barely glimpsed, and heard faintly, and it's so wildly unsatisfying that multiple people literally laughed out loud in our screening.

It's mystifying. Fennell has tackled much more transgressive stuff in her other work, approached familiar stories in unique ways, and subverted genre and form conventions all the while. But in this, her most overtly sexually-charged title so far, she fumbles in the sex of it all? What she's giving us isn't even good sex! It's the same issue I have with so much modern romantic fantasy novels, clearly written for middle class white women with a conservative upbringing, in that while they purport to be dirty and scintillating, what they actually describe in prose isn't even good sex so much as horny foreplay for readers with a fetish for frustration and problematic communication.

I'm probably harping on this breakdown of internal logic because Fennell herself seems to be aware of this problem. The film opens with what sounds like orgasmic breathing and rhythmic creaking before we're visually cued into the fact of the scene: a man being hanged publicly. It reminded me of the opening of Quills, and I just... if you know, you know, but that's my favorite film. Anyway, this moment primed me with optimism from the outset due to its explicit tying of sex with death and the complex ritual of violence as entertainment. Those are exactly the themes I'd like to see in a new version of Wuthering Heights, and it was clearly an option in Fennell's mind. She just chose to do the safest and silliest option instead.

Which is saying a lot when even that is at best a middling product on screen. The dialogue is as anachronistic as the costumes, the former being grating and the latter being at least interesting, which could have worked well. Given the modern pop music by Charli XCX, I wondered at times if we were about to lurch into a full Baz Luhrmann and have a ravey postmodern ball (a la The Great Gatsby). That would have been awesome. Alas, the whole thing gave me the strange sensation of being slowly submerged in water. The thing felt shadowy and bleak, strangely artless despite its artificially garish presentation, and even synth droning started to sound unfocused and hazy after a while. As if she knows she's lulling us into a stupor, Fennell takes pains to hammer us over the head with sensory information, less to keep us awake than to force us to Feel Things. What Things? Who knows? We're left adrift as waves of Intended Feelings crash into our eyes and ears, sent by a filmmaker whose boldness and ingenuity simply didn't synthesize with the material.