The Prince of Egypt (1997)

  Happy belated Passover!

Moses (Val Kilmer) is raised alongside Rameses (Ralph Fiennes) in the Pharoah's palace but discovers that he was actually adopted and is Hebrew, not Egyptian.  He flees into the desert after accidentally killing a slave overseer and has a religious awakening, returning to Egypt in order to free all the slaves, now under his former brother's control.

This is the Old Testament story of the Exodus, complete with 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.  If you grew up in a Christian or Jewish household, you are familiar with this.  If you did not, the movie might be a little more inaccessible.  It isn't really interested in telling you why Moses does anything; more just assumes you already know, so it presents a version with a high-gloss finish.  It is a musical and the soundtrack is very good, which covers a lot of the narrative shortcuts.  Also, the animation is top-notch.  There are some really beautiful scenes in this, and it looks mostly hand-drawn with only a few CGI elements.  

I remember when this came out, but I don't think I watched it until it was on video.  I listened to the Whitney Huston/Mariah Carey end credits song probably a thousand times though.  If you don't do anything else, give the soundtrack a shot.  Unfortunately, the movie isn't available on streaming except for rental.  Might be worth it to you; but I'd suggest trying to find a copy at the library first.

Scream 2 (1997)

Happy Easter!  Here's a completely unrelated movie.    Content warning:  blood

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) survived a pair of serial killers in high school only to be met by a worse fate: being played by Tori Spelling in the movie adaptation.  But when a copycat begins recreating the Woodsboro murders, Sidney must face her traumas head-on.

This has never been my favorite franchise.  I wasn't blown away by the original and I never really felt the need to go back to it, but considering it's on its 7th entry with an eighth on the way, I thought it might be time to give it a second look.

It's definitely funnier than the first one.  It leans into the meta aspects of being a sequel and I actually liked the dramatic recreations of the first movie with an entirely different cast.  (LOL, Luke Wilson with floppy emo hair.) The line delivery was the weakest part for me.  It felt like every actor was waiting for a dramatic musical sting after every line.  Maybe that's Wes Craven, maybe that's just the 90s style, but it sucked a lot of the fun out.  Still, I had a pretty good time overall.  

The whole collection is streaming on Paramount+ right now, if you're so inclined.

No Other Choice (2025)

  This did not get nominated for the Oscars this year and people called it a snub, but I think there were just a lot of really strong contenders.

Yoo Man-Su (Lee Byung-hun) gets laid off from his job at a paper factory after 25 years of service.  At first, he's hopeful but as the months pass, he grows increasingly desperate to reclaim his position.  He decides that the only way to get the job he wants at a rival paper company is to kill off the competition.

I was expecting this to be the Korean Kind Hearts & Coronets, and I wasn't wrong.  It's probably the funniest Park Chan-Wook film I've seen, but it could have used a shorter run time.  Also, surprisingly wholesome for a movie about murder.  And not just Lucy-wholesome, which is a totally different metric, but by normal people in Movie Club!

It's still only available for rent or to buy so give it another couple of weeks to hit one of the streaming services, but keep an eye out for it.  It's worth the watch.

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.