Anaconda (2025)

Jack Black and Paul Rudd as lifelong friends separately experiencing disillusionment in their careers deciding to revisit their love for the movie Anaconda by making a "spiritual sequel" together? Yes, yes, yes, yes!!

But then I actually saw the thing and it is an absolute nonsensical jumble. The acting abilities of Thandiwe Newton and Rudd seem to fly out of the window and into the realm of "desperate sitcom actors who know they've lost the studio crowd so are going broader and LOUDER in hopes that will win them back." But, as evidenced by Jack Black (giving it his all), it doesn't matter how seriously you take the material, when it's this shit there's no disguising it.

I don't even understand how a movie can be this terrible when it has these actors and this premise. Mind-blowingly disappointing.

D

The Forgiven (2022)

When a young man is hit and killed by a couple on their way to a lavish party in the middle of an impoverished area of the Moroccan Sahara, it's treated like an annoying inconvenience by the host, the other attendees, and even the at-fault couple. It's only when the boy's father arrives to claim his son's body that it becomes apparent that it won't be possible to resolve the situation without an act of contrition. The driver reluctantly agrees to accompany the father back to his home more than a day's drive away. 

We go back and forth between his experience in the stark environment of those native to the land and the bacchanalian excesses of the estate party. While he's learning that he's taken something from a community that had little to spare, the partiers are consuming many times their fair share of pleasure in every form. Can he ever return? 

Though it took me a little bit to acclimate, the driver is the perfect avatar here. Even though he lives a life much more privileged than mine (and probably most viewers'), my easy life is much closer to his than those he'd wronged. Ralph Fiennes inhabits it perfectly and helped me feel the journey.

B+

F1: The Movie (2025)

Brad Pitt plays an aging driver known for his out-of-the-box risky style who's brought in as a last-ditch attempt to turn around a failing F1 team. It's extremely predictable and would've been a complete waste of time if it weren't for a handful of driver's-view race segments.

C-

Bugonia (2025)

Michelle (Emma Stone) is CEO of a high-profile biomedical company: rich, demanding, materialistic. Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a low-level laborer in that company, is convinced she's not what she seems to be. To stop her plans, Teddy ropes his trusting cousin into abducting her and holding her hostage until she admits the truth.

Yorgos Lanthimos movies are hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes I am annoyed by what feels like a deliberately false style while, in other films, the weirdness just works. Bugonia is one of hits, right up there with The Favourite and Poor Things. I really liked the slow reveal of Teddy's backstory and how trauma could have driven him to seek a concrete target to slay. I was also really into Michelle's savvy manipulations -- her refusal to admit the upper hand may no longer be hers.

This one's a winner.

B+

Donnie Brasco (1997)

Lefty (Pacino) is a longtime earner in the New York mafia who notices, vets, and vouches for Donnie Brasco (Depp), who is actually undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone. Lefty is a true mentor to Donnie. He's almost always going out of his way to explain how things work -- both to ensure that Donnie doesn't embarrass him, but also because he seems to really care about the younger man.

Instead of enriching the story, the peeks into Joe's "real" life, consisting of a wife and three young daughters in suburbia, felt inconsequential. I didn't care about them in the same way that I cared about Lefty -- which seemed to mirror Pistone's own evolving feelings. Obviously those scenes were supposed to show us how brutal undercover work is on the family and the agent, but a flashback to Pistone in happier times might've helped us feel that.

This really hangs on Pacino's performance, and he delivers. We see him as a man whose every hope has been dashed, who would love to just escape but knows it's not a possibility. Brasco breathes new life into him -- Lefty dares to dream again -- but those dreams are short-lived. His final scene is a heart-breaker.

B+

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025)

The gang's mostly here, but only to briefly rehash old plotlines, wave Mrs. Patmore and Mr. Carson into retirement, install Mary as the head of Downton while shuffling the elder Granthams off into an apartment. It's basically a tying up of all storylines. 

I wouldn't call it satisfying, but at least it's finally over.

C-

Murphy's Romance (1985)

Emma and her son are going it alone after her divorce, working hard to turn their ramshackle farm in a new town into a horse boarding/training business. Murphy (popular widower and owner of the local drugstore) takes an interest and his no-nonsense advice and support turn out to be just what she needs. After buying a horse, he starts spending a lot of time with Emma, her son, and her freeloading ex, who has blown into town and is making himself at home.

It's pretty dang charming. Usually an age gap of this size would annoy me, but it's undeniable that these two good people deserve happiness and they're well-suited. Who am I to say otherwise?

A-

Romancing the Stone (1984)

Successful romance novelist Joan lives a solitary life -- her idea of a celebration is opening a bottle of wine and chatting with her cat. When she has to be out in public, she's ill-at-ease and uninterested in the men who are obviously interested in her. But, when her sister needs her urgent help down in Colombia, Joan doesn't hesitate even though she is ill-equipped for the adventure. Good thing the dashing Jack Colton shows up to take things in hand.

It's a fun, lightweight adventure -- I mean, Danny DeVito's one of the bad guys, so we're never truly worried that anything bad will happen. It's just silly fun with Douglas and Turner at their sexiest.

B

Pat and Mike (1952)

Pat, a natural athlete, has some success once she starts working with a manager -- but she's still getting the yips when her fiancee is around. Though there are some fun bits with mobsters and a jealous boxer working under the same manager, it's rather thin and very dated. Not one of the better Tracy & Hepburn outings.

C+