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.  

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature   Content warning: child endangerment (drowning)

Amélie (Loïse Charpentier) is a Belgian toddler living in Japan with her diplomat family.  She spends the first two years of her life in a vegetative state, believing that she is a god.  An earthquake "awakens" her and allows her to finally begin interacting, but being limited to a squishy human form is very frustrating, so her family hires a nanny, Nishio (Victoria Grosbois), based on the recommendation of their austere landlady (Yumi Fujimori).  Amélie and Nishio bond, which angers the landlady, who still blames all foreigners for the war that killed her husband and son.  Geopolitical resentments are tough to navigate when you are only three-years-old.  

This was a little jarring at first because the animation is like MS Paint-style pixelation.  It wasn't what I was expecting but it was certainly eye-catching.  I don't think it will win but it's still absolutely worth supporting independent animation.  

Sirat (2025)

Nominated for Best International Film and Best Sound    Content warning: dog in distress, animal death (dog, off-screen), child death (off-screen), violence, mild gore

Luis (Sergi Lopez) has traveled to a rave in southern Morocco with his son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), in the hopes of finding his missing daughter, Mar.  He shows her photo around and manages to inspire some pity in a small group of ravers, who tell him there is a second rave planned even deeper in the desert, close to Mauritania.  Against their advice, Luis and Esteban follow the group into the desert, slowly becoming closer as a group until unimaginable tragedy strikes.

If I had to count all the ways this movie wasn't for me, we'd be here all day.  It's well-made.  That's about all the praise I can spare.  I hated the music.  I don't like house, techno, EDM, or trance.  I don't like concerts or live music, really, at all so the idea of going to the middle of nowhere to hear super-loud repetitive music gives me a full-body shudder.  I got the found family thing.  I got the "trial by faith" thing.  It wasn't enough to make me like the movie.

However, a lot of people really do like it and maybe you'll be one of them.  It's currently not available for streaming so fire up that VPN.

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

Nominated for Best International Feature and Best Original Screenplay    Content warning:  animal death (dog, off-screen but you hear it), descriptions of torture.    Biggest surprise of the season for me, so far.

Vahid (Vahid Mobassari) is having a normal day trying to get stuff ready for his sister's wedding when a customer comes into his repair shop.  Vahid recognizes the sound of the man's prosthetic leg squeaking as belonging to the interrogator Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), who tortured him in prison.  But Vahid was always blindfolded, so he can't be sure.  Impulsively, he kidnaps the customer and seeks out Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a former journalist who was also imprisoned and tortured by Eghbal, to see if she can positively identify him.  Shiva is now doing wedding photography for Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), another torture victim, and when Goli hears they might have Eghbal, she demands to be included in the decisions.  Shiva only knows one person who could make a positive ID, Hamid (Mohammed Ali Elyasmehr), but he is volatile and bitter, and Vahid doesn't necessarily trust that Hamid would tell the truth.

Okay, so all of that is an accurate synopsis of the movie that does not in any way tell you how funny it is.  Yes, very serious, kidnapping, moral quandary, wrestling demons, but also (!) goofy bureaucratic nonsense, cartoonish levels of graft, and five good people who are trying to do the right thing for justice that had been denied to them.

Don't sleep on this one because it looks too heavy.  I promise you, it is handled so well.  It's streaming on Hulu.

Arco (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    

Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi) lives in the far future where time travel is possible thanks to rainbow-colored capes and diamonds that break down light.  His parents and sister travel to the past to retrieve rare or extinct plants but all Arco wants is to see real dinosaurs.  One night, he steals his sister's flying suit and goes to the past, but shorts it and ends up in the near future of 2075 instead.  After a crash landing, he meets Iris (Romy Fay), a ten-year-old girl desperate for connection since her parents work all week and leave her and her baby brother in the care of Mikki, a robot.  Arco lost his traveling diamond in the woods where he landed and Iris agrees to help him look for it despite the pending threat of wildfires.

This is a very pretty movie.  That's about all I can say about it.  It's fine.  It feels like an anime but is French.  I tried to get the French language track on Amazon but it wouldn't take, for some reason, so I watched the English dub.  I found the three brothers super annoying but otherwise, it's not bad.  It's at least an original.  Currently only available for rent.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects    All right, we are in the homestretch.  The ceremony is tonight so I'm going to push out as many posts as I managed to get drafted during the week.

Zora (Scarlett Johansson) is a mercenary hired by a pharmaceutical company to get blood samples from some of the largest dinosaurs produced during the ill-fated Jurassic World theme park expansions.  She is assisted by Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a paleontologist eager to see specimens up close.  But when they hear a mayday from a family whose sailboat was capsized by a mosasaur, the objectives change.

Talk about a series with diminishing returns.  This has an A-list cast spouting the most wooden, cliche-ridden dialogue, zero thrills, bland humor, and nowhere near enough gore to make up for all the above.  Unless you are seriously into the franchise, skip this one entirely.  It's basically Jurassic Park 3 but without the charm of Michael Jeter.

It does make a good point about how quickly we become inured to miracles but it's not worth sitting through just to hear that.  Also, it's part of the villain's monologue because of course it is.  When I watched it, it was streaming on Peacock but it has since moved to Netflix if you can't heed warnings and want to watch it anyway.

The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025)

Nominated for Best International Feature   Content warning: war violence, child death

Six-year-old Hind Rajab Hamada is trapped in a car in the West Bank, pinned down by Israeli soldiers.  Over an hour away, a team of Red Crescent emergency call workers try desperately to navigate the bureaucratic red tape to send an ambulance to rescue her.

This docu-drama uses actor portrayals for the emergency team but the real, actual emergency calls as audio.  You will hear real people die.  DO NOT feel like you have to watch this movie.  You are not "bearing witness"; you are traumatizing yourself.  Trust me.  You don't need to hear a six-year-old crying while she is being shot at.  The only people who need to hear that are ones on a jury at the ICJ.  

That being said, the film itself isn't that great.  It probably should have just been a straight documentary.  Competition is really stiff in this category, as well, so I'm not giving it good odds.  I watched this on Amazon so you don't have to.  

Song Sung Blue (2025)

Nominated for Best Actress   Welcome to this year's A Star is Born.

Mike "Lightning" Sardina (Hugh Jackman) is a musician struggling to make his mark.  He quits a gig of impersonators but meets Claire (Kate Hudson), a singer and single mom, who encourages him to start his own tribute to Neil Diamond.  The pair grow romantically but seem to falter right on the edge of success as tragedy on top of tragedy strikes.

I was surprised by how many Neil Diamond songs I recognized, despite never really paying attention.  Jackman and Hudson are both trained singers and this is probably one of the most fun nominees this year.  There's still a lot of death and tragedy in it, because the Academy hates joy, but nevertheless.  It's a musical biopic that you can sit and watch with your mom while she reminisces about bands from before you were born.  It verges on a little too sympathetic at times, especially with Mike but I understood why they did it that way.  Also, shoutout to Jim Belushi, who I did not even recognize as Tom.

There's also a documentary on the real couple, if you're interested in that. Song Sung Blue is currently streaming on Peacock.

Butcher's Stain (2025)

Nominated for Best Live Action Short    Catching at least one of the shorts this year.

Samir (Omar Sameer) works as a butcher in an Israeli grocery store until he is accused of tearing down posters of hostages in the breakroom.  He is told by the store manager (Roma Toledano) that someone saw him do it, and if he confesses they can move on with disciplinary actions.  Except Samir knows that he didn't do it and he's being unfairly targeted for being Palestinian.

This is less about Israel-Palestine than it is about toxic workplace cultures and the everpresent threat of poverty.  Samir gets by on the fringes but any kind of issue jeopardizes his entire life.  That's pretty universal.  

This is a moderately long short at 26 minutes and it's streaming on Kanopy with a library card.  It reminds me of the short about a stolen bicycle from a few years back (White Eye).

Elio (2025)

Nominated for Best Animated Feature    

Elio (Yonus Kibreab) is sent to live with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) after the death of his parents.  He becomes fixated on escaping on an alien ship and gets his wish when the Air Force base Aunt Olga works on intercepts a signal responding to the Voyager probe.  Elio is transported to the Communiverse, an intergalactic U.N. where he is mistaken for the supreme leader of Earth and offered the role of ambassador.  But the offer is contingent on removing the threat of the Hylurgians, a warlike race of aliens angry at being denied admission.  Elio is sent to negotiate but ends up kidnapping Glordon (Remy Edgerly), the son of the Hylurgian leader (Brad Garrett).  

This felt a little too much like a Lilo & Stitch clone for me, but it's at least a new character and not a reboot or sequel.  The animation is beautiful and the voice cast is great, as expected from a Pixar film.  I don't know if it's a winner because I haven't seen the competition yet but it's not my favorite.  It's currently streaming on Disney+

The Perfect Neighbor (2025)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature  Content warning:  racial slurs, gun violence

Susan Lorencs described herself as a perfect neighbor in one of her numerous nuisance calls to police.  She constantly complained about the neighbor kids playing near her apartment, escalating her verbal rhetoric over the course of a year until it reached an inevitably violent end, documented painstakingly through body cam footage of the police responding to her calls.

This was absolutely infuriating to watch.  It is a portrait of entitlement and racism.  Like, I get being an antisocial curmudgeon.  The sound of children's laughter also grates on my nerves.  Do I feel like the Grinch looking down over Whoville every time children scream with joy as they sled down the embankment behind my house?  Yes.  Do I go out and threaten them or yell racial slurs?  No.  Because I am an adult who recognizes that they are CHILDREN and that it is a fucking privilege to have them feel safe enough to play.  And this bitch destroyed a group of children's safety because they were Playing While Black.

This is streaming on Netflix but I am honestly cautioning you if you are sensitive to children being threatened.  It felt a little exploitative when it lingered on the grieving relatives, but I get it.  They're trying to show the extent of the impact.

Blue Moon (2025)

Nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay    Lyracist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) prepares to congratulate his former writing partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), on the latter's smash success on Broadway.  

I was really skeptical but this might be Hawke's best performance in 30 years.  This is everything Maestro tried to be and couldn't.  Hawke is pitch-perfect as Hart, desperate to be loved but terrified of being seen, hiding his aching vulnerabilities under a mask of sarcasm and flippancy.  There are other people in the movie, sure, but none of them hold a candle.   As much as I would love to see Michael B. Jordan win, if there's any justice in the world, Best Actor goes to Hawke.  

I think there are stronger contenders for Original Screenplay but I'm not on the Academy.

Production design is great, but the costumes do most of the work establishing a setting and time period.  Especially good is the way they used forced perspective and set design to make 5'10" Hawke into 5'0" Hart.  Best of all, most of it looked practical.

This is not going to be for everyone.  There's a weird Venn diagram of theater diehards and Linklater fans.  But if that's your bag, you are in for a phenomenal performance.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.