Project Hail Mary (2026)

  This is the first film I've watched in theaters this year.  Once again, people are the worst thing about going to the movies.  

Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there or why.  Slowly, he pieces together his memories of being an elementary school teacher approached by a woman (Sandra Hüller) leading a team to discover why the sun is dimming.  A swarm of  tiny interstellar organisms is moving through the cosmos, eating stars except for one called Tau Ceti.  Grace is sent to find out why but discovers that he's not the only one looking.  An alien from a planet in the Tau Ceti system is also trying to find out how to stop the astrophage from destroying his sun.  Grace and "Rocky" (John Ortiz) must overcome a number of obstacles, including an inability to share an atmosphere, to work together to save both of their worlds.

My ex listened to the audiobook in the car so I knew enough about the story to be interested in the movie.  I thought it was really well done.  Like if Interstellar was a buddy comedy.  Gosling continues to be a great comedic actor while Hüller is also great at being awkward and German.  It's also a deeply emotional and optimistic movie, something that I didn't realize I needed to see.  Rocky has A+ cute character design, which is really difficult without paradoilia.  Major shout out to the voice actor and puppeteer, John Ortiz, for being able to convey emotions vocally.

Big fan of movies being fun just to be fun!

Diane Warren: Relentless (2025)

Nominated for Best Original Song.  I mean, of course it is.  It would be so funny if this had been nominated for Best Documentary and won.  Like, that would have been the biggest slap in the face.    Content warning:  discussion of sexual assault, animal death (off-screen, cat)

Diane Warren has been writing songs for over fifty years.  Even if you had never heard of her, you know her.  She has #1 singles in every decade, sung by dozens of artists.  She has her own production company, platinum records, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  But the one thing she did not have was an Oscar.  She has the dubious distinction of being the only woman nominated 15 times (16 this year) without a competitive* win.  She is loud, single-minded, and not particularly personable.  And in an award competition based in no small part on how well your peers like you, that's a major disadvantage.  

The documentary is kind of a puff piece; a look inside the often chaotic world of a neurodivergent creative professional.  It's interesting to see her process and the interviews with her very famous music clients are charming but unless you're super invested in songwriting or a big Oscar fan, there's really nothing else here.  It's streaming on Kanopy.

*She got an honorary one in 2022.

Wuthering Heights (2026)

 CW:  blood, dead animals (pig, taxidermy), medical horror? (leeches)

Catherine (Margot Robbie) grew up with Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) in that weird, English caste system where she had status and he did not.  Upon learning that her father (Martin Clunes) has wasted all the family money on alcohol, Catherine sets her eyes on her rich neighbor, Edgar (Shazad Latif), which infuriates Heathcliff in that mediocre-white-dude-who-has-never-had-to-reckon-with-social-status kind of way.  He disappears for multiple years, has a glow-up, and comes back specifically to terrorize and punish Cathy for her perceived lack of regard.  

These are the most toxic people you have ever seen and they are exhausting.  Emerald Fennell has been on my shitlist ever since she tripped over her dick with Promising Young Woman and this has not redeemed her.  I don't mind loose adaptations of literature, but this is Cliff's Notes turned fan fiction.  You, madam, are no Guillermo del Toro.  I said good day.  

It somehow manages to be both incredibly horny and the most deeply unsexy thing I have ever seen.  Horrendous.  Granted, I don't think Elordi is particularly attractive as a human specimen but he is done no favors as a petulant stalker.  Robbie actually enjoys "uglying" beautiful women and that's fine.

Costumes, production design, cinematography are all gorgeous, which only throws the godawful script into sharper focus.  Also, there are only two POC actors in this and one is played as a total sap and the other a spiteful jade.  This does not feel like "color-blind" casting; more like "I don't see color" racism.

I didn't even like Crimson Peak all that much but I'd watch it every day and twice on Sundays before I'd even walk by this movie again.  Avoid.

Butterfly (2025)/Forevergreen (2025)/Retirement Plan (2025)

  These are all of the animated shorts I managed to see before the ceremony.  They were all pretty good but I didn't get to see the winner so I don't know how they actually stack up.

Butterfly (Papillon) - A man recounts a lifetime through swimming, from growing up in North Africa, competing for France in the 1936 Olympics, being detained in a concentration camp, marriage, death, liberation, and always, the water.

This was based on the life of Alfred Nakache, a French-Algerian Olympian swimmer.  It's inspiring, sure, but also depressing as fuck.  The animation looks like a series of oil paintings.  It's available on YouTube.

Forevergreen - An abandoned bear cub is taken in by a sentient pine tree.  The cub grows into an adolescent bear and is happy for a while until it sees a crow eating a bag of chips.  It follows the crow to an abandoned campsite over the wishes of the tree and gorges itself on trash, accidentally starting a forest fire. 

This was pretty but it did feel a little like a rejected Pixar idea.  Like it needed to be fleshed out to feature-length, because otherwise the bear comes off as kind of a dick.  Also available on YouTube.

Retirement Plan - A man (Domhnall Gleeson) recounts all the things he's going to do when he retires that he never had time for when he was working.

This was very cute and genuinely funny but also seriously depressing when you think about how much time you waste while you tell yourself you'll do it in the future.  Available on YouTube.

Zootopia 2 (2025)

  Another Oscar nominee that I didn't get to post about in time.  

Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are feeling the pressure to once again save the city.  Well, one of them is.  When their conflicting styles bungle a chase, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) threatens to assign them to different partners and also sends them to therapy.  But Judy had found a piece of shed snakeskin during the disastrous pursuit and is convinced that the sudden reemergence of snakes in Zootopia is tied to the anniversary of the founding of the city.  She convinces Nick to infiltrate a gala hosted by Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn), the billionaire whose grandfather created the weather walls that allow Zootopia's animals to live in compatible climates.  Sure enough, a snake interrupts the proceedings and steals the Lynxley Journal, which contains the patent for the wall designs.  Judy and Nick pursue but Gary De'Snake (Ke Huy Quan) pleads with them to let him go because he needs the journal to save his family.  During a scuffle, Bogo is accidentally envenomed by Gary's broken fang and the Lynxley's blame Judy and Nick, mobilizing the rest of the ZPD to hunt them down.

For a legacy sequel, this could have been a lot worse.  It feels like a solid continuation of the first film and if it doesn't raise the bar, it at least doesn't drop it.  The world feels lived-in and real; the characters' problems feel organic and thus, satisfying to resolve.  There are enough Easter eggs to make repeat viewings fun, including an absolutely stacked voice cast that only Disney's deep pockets could facilitate.  And most importantly of all, it's fun.  It's a fun movie.  Who doesn't need more fun in their lives?  Zebros!

 

98th Annual Academy Awards Winners

We had tornado warnings yesterday and that's my excuse for not posting.  

I didn't love this telecast.  I've never found Conan O'Brien all that funny so he was a middling host for me.  It felt like ABC went out of its way to make sure no one could possibly be offended and it made for a weak show.  There were sound problems, camera problems, and they kept cutting people off for their speeches in a way that felt needlessly aggressive.  I understand you have time constraints on your broadcast but people wait their entire lives for this kind of award.  That being said, the Academy did manage to get a few things right, even if they ultimately fumbled the biggest one.

Best Supporting Actress went to Amy Madigan for Weapons.  This is the first time since 1992 that it has gone to a horror movie.

Best Live Action Short had a tie for The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva.  It's not completely unheard of but it is pretty rare.

Best Casting went to Cassandra Kulukundis for One Battle After Another, beginning a depressing trend.

Best Supporting Actor went to Sean Penn for One Battle After Another.  He didn't show so Kieran Culkin accepted on his behalf.  Just going to pretend somehow Kieran won and be happy about that.

Best Adapted Screenplay went to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, breaking his 14-loss streak.

Best Original Screenplay went to Ryan Coogler for Sinners.

Best Animated Feature went to K-Pop Demon Hunters, as expected.

Best Animated Short went to The Girl Who Cried Pearls, which I unfortunately didn't get to see.

Best Costume Design went to Frankenstein.

Best Hair and Makeup went to Frankenstein.

Best Production Design went to Frankenstein.

Best Sound went to F1: the Movie.

Best Original Score went to Sinners.

Best Original Song went to K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Best Film Editing went to One Battle After Another.

Best Visual Effects went to Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Best Documentary Short went to All the Empty Rooms.

Best Documentary Feature went to Mr. Nobody Against Putin.

Best International Feature went to Sentimental Value.

Best Cinematography went to Autumn Durald Arkapow for Sinners, the first woman to ever win this category.

Best Actress went to Jessie Buckley for Hamnet.

Best Actor went to Michael B. Jordan for Sinners.

Best Director went to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another.

And finally, Best Picture went to One Battle After Another.  This is Green Book levels of safety picks.  I think there's going to be a major revisit of this movie in about 5 years and it's not going to survive well.  Somebody on social media called it "liberal fantasy porn" and they're not wrong.  But hey, could have been worse.  Could have been Marty Supreme.

Jane Austen's Period Drama (2025)/The Singers (2025)/Two People Exchanging Saliva (2025)/A Friend of Dorothy (2025)

Nominated for Best Live Action Short    For expediency's sake, I'm lumping all the shorts together.

Jane Austen's Period Drama - Kanopy - a very funny short that people online have likened to a better class of SNL skit.  I think that's setting the bar too low but I don't like SNL.  

Miss Estrognia Talbot (Julia Aks) is in the middle of being proposed to by handsome bachelor Mr. Dickley (Ta'imua) when she unexpectedly gets her period.  Confused and alarmed, Dickley rushes her home where she argues with her sisters over how much she should educate him on women's biology.

Honestly, it's 2026.  If we cannot as a society be over the "ew, girls have cooties" factor about periods, what are we even doing?

The Singers - Netflix-  almost the polar opposite of Jane Austen, this doesn't have a single woman on screen and is four times as emotional.

A bar full of men is energized by a late-night bet:  whoever is the best singer wins a free beer and $100.

Absolutely magical performances.

Two People Exchanging Saliva - YouTube - what if Carol had been directed by Yorgos Lanthimos?

A shopgirl (Luàna Bajrami) and a wealthy housewife (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) try to suppress their desire in a world that criminalizes kissing as disgusting.

Only the French would think that the fastest way to show a dystopia is to make kissing illegal.  The garlic gum is going to give me nightmares, though.

A Friend of Dorothy - Kanopy - And we're back to being wholesome and cute.

A teen (Alistair Nwachukwu) trying to retrieve an errant soccer ball from a garden befriends an elderly lady named Dorothy (Miriam Margolyes) who encourages him to pursue his dreams.  All of them.

So sweet.