Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Father Jud is assigned to a parish with a shrinking congregation. It's soon clear to him what the issue is: Monsignor Wicks is deliberately abrasive, aiming for at least one "walk-out" per Sunday sermon so that those who endure will feel superior and even more dedicated. What's left is a tight group of seven parishioners who are fiercely loyal to Wicks and skeptical of Jud's agenda. But then Wicks is murdered in a "locked room mystery" and Benoit Blanc is called in to solve the crime.

It's more of the same and that's just fine.

B-

Never Let Me Go (2010)

The first time I watched this, I suspected it suffered from the fact that I'd so recently read the novel. Seeing it 14+ years later, I can confirm this was, indeed, the case. Now that the story's particulars have faded from memory, I was free to experience this without comparison it to the source material. What I saw was incredibly haunting and beautiful.

Generally, when a film has an oppressive mood that refuses to lift, I can get a little antsy and feel like screaming "LIGHTEN UP FOR JUST A MINUTE COULDJA??" but I never felt that here. Maybe because the melancholy felt honest rather than like a device -- like that's just how these isolated children would feel. It's gorgeously quiet, desperately sad and every single actor knocks it out of the park.

A-

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)

Bridget Jones is, once again, single. This time, however, it's due to the death of her beloved Mark, leaving her to raise children Billy and Mabel alone. Though her family is doing alright, it's definitely time for her to get back into the world: both professionally and romantically. The first is easy enough as her former employer is eager to have her back producing television segments. The second is also surprisingly easy when sparks fly between her and a much younger man.

It's a sweet wrap-up to the franchise, even if Bridget's childishness seems rather long-in-the-tooth now -- she may have even regressed a bit since the last installment.

C+

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

Without a doubt, the weakest of the franchise. Yes, there are some thrilling sequences, but the actual plot is a big muddle and there's so much exposition, way too much of which is written in that annoying "single speech but several people are taking turns saying the sentences that comprise it" thing. No one talks like that, especially not without stumbling over each other at some point.

It just felt like a big "this is your life, Tom Cruise Ethan Hunt." Such a disappointment.

C-

Annie (1982)

I know most of the songs by heart, thanks to a fuzzy cassette tape of the Broadway cast from my childhood, but I'd not seen this before. And, frankly, I kind of wish I hadn't bothered! While I enjoyed the 1999 television film, this just left me cold.

Mrs. Hannigan was definitely not G-rated: she's drunk, threatening, and weirdly sexual. The childrens' musical numbers had so much choreography that the lyrics almost got lost (though most of the kids could BELT). And then there's just so much unnecessary filler. The only explanation I can think of for that trip to the theater and showing a lengthy clip of Camille -- definitely not a child-friendly movie -- is that it was to give the movie audience an unofficial intermission.

Without the wonderful songbook, this would be a D, but the numbers pull it up.

C