In Toy Story 5 the beloved characters of Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the crew have to protect precious playtime with their beloved Bonnie against the advances of big tech, while the franchise itself has to answer the question whether it’s still relevant.

Toy Story is, of course, one of the defining titles of the animated genre. The first two movies (released in 1995 and 1999) are absolute gems, brimming with joy and vitality.

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After the somewhat overly sentimental third installment (2010) wrapped up the trilogy in a still mostly satisfying way - and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature as well as Best Song for Randy Newman’s We Belong Together - it was generally assumed that the series had run its course.

Nine years later, though, the surprisingly good Toy Story 4 arrived, which grossed over a billion dollars and went on to win another Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

I’m assuming the box office for Toy Story 5 will be equally fine, but the movie itself asks the pertinent question: how relevant are toys in a time when playtime has been replaced with all the possibilities that big tech has to offer?

Turns out, though, that tech can be replaced too, as various gadgets, like the electronic potty trainer Smarty Pants (voiced by a rather hilarious Conan O’Brien) find themselves discarded over the course of the movie.

Just as the toys that were once used to fire up the imagination, over time find themselves withering away in a box in the garage.

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So Toy Story 5 offers up the possibility that toys and tech can work together to help now nine year old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) and new heroine slash possible best pal Blaze (Mykolaiv-Michelle Harris) grow up in the best possible way.

But before that, there are a lot of charming and often funny adventures to enjoy, in a movie that at times feels a little overstuffed.

There are now so many characters in the Toy Story universe that it becomes nigh on impossible to follow them all with the attention they deserve.

Case in point: the character of Forky (Tony Hale), who was so prominent in Toy Story 4 is now reduced to a small role with hardly any impact.

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So could (or should) the movie have been longer to give all the toys their due?

No, I don’t think so.

In fact, the running time of around 95 minutes before the credits start, is absolutely one of the movie’s strong points.

The mostly excellent first hour is followed by a somewhat more formulaic last half hour, needed to tie the different story strands together in a more or less satisfying whole.

It’s not a dealbreaker, though.

The by now expected high quality of the colorful animation is absolutely there, as is the perennial theme of the toys’ fear of becoming obsolete.

A theme, that if you extrapolate it to what humanity is going through right now, feels extremely apt and timely in the age of AI threatening to take away human jobs without the promise of giving very much back in return.

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Woody, overweight and with a shiny bald patch on his head, is still voiced by Tom Hanks, who’s become something of an evergreen himself, old but never redundant.

Tim Allen voices not one but actually a whole bataljon of Buzz Lightyears, who come to the rescue of the other toys when the story requires them to.

Cowgirl Jessie (voiced by the always excellent Joan Cusack) is now the most prominent Toy in the house of Bonnie (and her sparingly used parents).

It’s actually Jessie’s insecurity and fear of losing Bonnie’s attention to a new tablet called Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee) that functions as the engine of the story.

There is a sub thread about the dangers of online bullying running through the movie, but rest assured, over time even the initially loathed Lilypad turns out not to be so bad when it comes right to it.

I’m pretty sure that people who enjoy the anthropomorphism of it all will once again have a whale of a time with this Toy Story.

For myself, it’s the first Toy Story movie that makes me feel like Pixar is now serving up more of the same with this franchise, even if the quality of the movie still justifies a trip to the cinema, preferably with a few little family members in tow.

I give it 3 1/2 stars!

Note: Toy Story 5 is released this week in most of the world.

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The Garfield Movie (Marc Dindal, 2024)

The new Garfield movie is a broad but mostly fine animated romp, that will probably please most kids and (at least some of) their accompanying adults.

Mileage may vary, of course, cause the movie feels almost aggressively paced, while the soundscape is at times obnoxiously loud. There are some cringey moments, too, both when the movie is trying too hard to be funny, and when the story beats of this ‘one last heist’ movie get just a little too predictable.

Still, the fun outweighs the fluff in this Marc Dindal directed caper - based on the characters by Jim Davis - in which the orange fat cat, who loves lasagna but hates Mondays, is taken out of his comfort zone and thrown into the real world where he gets knocked around quite a bit until he learns to adapt and hone his skills, before ultimately becoming his own man annex action hero.

Fortunately, Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) has his loyal pet dog Odie (Harvey Guillén) by his side, as well as - perhaps at first unluckily- his long lost criminal father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson).

Garfield is convinced he can’t stand his dad but as these things go, he has more in common with this cunning alley cat than he would like to admit.

Also, Vic is being blackmailed by a former associate, Jinx (Hannah Waddington), and to pay her off he has to get right what he got wrong in the past: a massive milk heist on Lactose Farms, which will make all their problems go away.

It’s not the most original set-up but the writers - Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds - mostly make it work, as a vehicle for a lot of pranks and Pratt-falls, aided by all-round excellent voice work, a lot of references to other movies - like Ving Rhames voicing a bullish character called Otto and inspired by his work in the Mission Impossible films - and a visual style that’s as broad as the sky is wide.

There is a wonderful scene early on that shows how young Garfield, abandoned as a kitten in the rain, was adopted by lonely cartoonist Jon (Nicholas Hoult, sidelined for large parts of the movie) in a pizza restaurant, and how the kitten subsequently took over his life, and you kind of wish there were more of those.

The movie has a lot of stamina, but it could have used a bit more heart, even though eventually there are some scenes between Garfield and Vic on the one hand, and Otto and his beloved cow Ethel on the other, that do a fair amount of the required emotional heavy lifting.

There is also a character that’s a little too directly inspired by Frances McDormand in Fargo, while fun fact alert: this is the second movie in a row that I’ve seen (after The Fall Guy) in which there is a reference to Tom Cruise and doing one’s own stunts. We’re really living in a monoculture, aren’t we?

Still, there is no reason to go on grumbling, cause at the very least the creators get their main objective right: a Garfield movie that doesn’t suck balls, made me laugh a number of times and has undeniably commercial appeal in a marketplace that desperately needs some kids slash family movies with legs much longer than the animals they are portraying.

I give it 3 stars!

Note: This review was first published at the time of the movie’s theatrical release. The Garfield Movie is currently available to stream through various platforms like Google Play Films, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video and Rakuten TV.

This science fiction drama, written by David Koepp from a story by Spielberg, is one of those movies about which you should know as little as possible going in, so I’ll try to keep this capsule review as spoiler free as possible.

Set in and around Kansas City, lead actors Emily Blunt (as weather presenter Margaret Fairchild) and Josh O’Connor (as Dr. Daniel Kellner) play characters worth rooting for, as they try to disclose a government cover-up concerning the existence of alien life.

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Meanwhile, Eve Hewson (as Daniel’s gf) and Colman Domingo (as the movie’s mystery man) offer valuable support on the side of the good guys and a still charming Colin Firth is cast against type as the movie’s main villain.

The new movie may never achieve the classic status of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978) and E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial (1982), the two films it most obviously draws inspiration from.

But hey, four star Spielberg is not the enemy of five star Spielberg!

In true blockbuster style, yet one with major human stakes, 140 minutes seem to fly by in the blink of an eye.

The signature directorial verve of The Beard is matched by Janusz Kaminski’s beautiful cinematography and the editing skills of Sarah Broshar, which lends a sense of effortlessness to the movie as a whole.

(Something for which I’m particularly grateful, as I have a problem with movies of that length that are sloppily edited and have no sense of rhythm, but I digress).

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As expected, the score by Spielberg’s favorite composer John Williams’ adds an extra dose of luminous gravitas to the movie.

Emily Blunt has hardly ever been better, she gets to show off her wide range and versatility as an actress, as her character goes through many different moods and strange occurrences.

For a mainstream audience Disclosure Day might actually be the proper introduction to the talent and charisma of Josh O’Connor, who has always been so reliably great in arthouse gems like The Mastermind and La Chimera as well as in a more commercial movie like Challengers.

Over the years we’ve seen many science fiction movies or television shows like The X-Files.

That kind of familiarity may somewhat lessen the impact of a movie like this.

Still, Disclosure Day takes the audience along for an irresistible ride.

And in these troubled times we all need something to believe in.

I’ve already given you my rating, so let’s finish with a well meant: Hats of to the maestro!

Note: Disclosure Day is now in cinemas around the world.

WHISTLE (Corin Hardy, 2026)

Dafne Keen and Sophie Nélisse make for an appealing couple in Whistle, an entertaining supernatural horror thriller in the vein of Final Destination.

It won’t win any awards for originality, but it’s definitely possible to root for the characters in this movie, as they try to cheat seemingly unavoidable death.

Directed by Corin Hardy (The Nun), from a screenplay by Owen Egerton, it starts out on the basketball court, near the end of a tightly fought high school game.

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After a young player called Horse (Stephen Kalyn) secures an impressive win in the dying seconds of the game, he suddenly escapes the celebration and flees to the showers cause he has seen a horrible apparition.

Three months later, Chrys (Keen) takes over Horse’s locker room at her new high school.

Inside she finds a skull-shaped Aztec death whistle, meant to summon the dead, or at least that’s what her teacher tells her.

That’s the point where you want to scream: whatever you do, don’t blow that whistle!

But it wouldn’t be much of a horror movie if nobody did.

Chrys has come to live with her cousin Rel (Sky Yang), in an anonymous steel town, after a tragedy in her own private life.

In a nod to the Breakfast Club, she ends up in detention on her first day, together with some other misfits.

There is the well-meaning Ellie (Nelisse), a traumatized jock called Dean (Jhaleil Swaby) and his beautiful blonde girlfriend Grace (Ali Skovbye).

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Their teacher is called Mr. Craven (Nick Frost), the first reference to a bunch of famous horror filmmakers, including William Friedkin, Paul Verhoeven and Andy Muschietti, while the gothic looking Rel is modeled after Brandon Lee in The Crow.

The movie as a whole also wears its influences on its sleeve, running the gamut from (most obviously) Final Destination to It Follows, Talk To Me and even Flatliners.

Whistle is clearly derivative, but tension runs high pretty quickly - and not just between the characters.

Most of the kills in the movie are both gruesome and inventive, and the pacing is brisk enough to keep you (or at least: scaredy cat me) glued to the screen.

Not everything works: some of the dialogue either feels flat or on the nose and some of the plot points are pretty predictable.

Not all of the characters’ actions make sense and the character of preacher slash drugsdealer Noah (Percy Hynes White) is a little too obviously created to simply serve the plot at the right moment.

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Then again, I did care for the imperiled teens, no matter how thinly sketched some of them were.

Strongest point is the chemistry between Dafne Keen (Logan), who looks like a dead ringer for Winona Ryder, and Sophie Nélisse (The Book Thief).

Their blossoming romance lends emotional heart to what otherwise might have been a routine genre exercise.

I give it 3 stars!

Note: Whistle had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas in September 2025, before being released theatrically around the world in the early months of this year. The movie now streams on Prime Video, while it’s also available through platforms like Apple TV and Google Play Films.

SCREAM 7 (Kevin Williamson, 2026)

Former final girl Neve Campbell returns as final badass mom Sidney Prescott in Scream 7, a by the numbers sequel that nevertheless tries to find a way forward for the successful but much maligned franchise.

Originally I wasn’t going to see Scream 7, because I heard and read it was really bad. But Scream is one of my favorite film series, so when curiosity got the better of me, I wanted to find out where the franchise is heading.

Cause after years in the wilderness following the success of the first couple of movies, the fifth Scream (2022) and Scream 6 (2024) put the franchise in the right direction again.

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Both were directed with remarkable verve by the Radio Silence duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (also responsible for the Ready or Not movies), with Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera as the appealing new leads who put some snark and passion back into the series.

And even though the stories remained somewhat interchangeable, well, that’s kinda part of the appeal.

The tried and trusted mix of dark humor and light scares has always been exactly right for someone like me.

In a world filled with the horrors of war, entertainment like this can still work both as an escape and an antidote.

But just when everything seemed to go right, Melissa Barrera got fired over pro-Palestine comments that production company Spyglass considered to be anti-semitic (I don’t think they were and I also think that sometimes people should just agree to disagree), and in quick succession both co-star Jenna Ortega and new director Christopher Landon also left the project.

So it was up to original screenwriter (and now also director) Kevin Williamson to keep the series afloat and I guess that’s what he did with Scream 7, seeing that the movie has been commercially successful and will probably/inevitably lead to The Screamful Eight, or something like that.

(Maybe this is also good time to admit that, even though I love original movies, I don’t mind franchises. They are like comfort food, and at times that’s simply irresistible.)

So, on to the movie. Neve Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott, living in the idyllic Pine Grove with husband Mark (Joel McHale) and teenage daughter Tatum (Isabella May).

This after sitting out the last one, due to a financial dispute - something that is actually referred to by tv-journalist Gale Weathers, once again played by Courteney Cox, who literally says something like: ‘You were right to sit the last one out.’

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Now, the Scream movies were always self referential meta commentaries, both on the horror genre in general, and on the Scream movies themselves, and this one is no exception.

In fact, it’s probably the most self referential of all, and even though on the whole I enjoy meta-movies it all becomes a bit much in this one, to the point that I began to think we had entered the Sidney Prescott cinematic universe, seeing that everything that she has ever said, done, felt and experienced has not only transformed her from ultimate final girl to battle hardened mother, but also led her to this point: one more round with one or more versions of Ghostface. It’s kinda exhausting.

Williamson also retcons everything that happened in the last two movies to create the idea of a back to the beginning Scream and set up a template for the future.

And yes, without getting into spoilers, at the end of the movie we have a young Sidney, a potential new Gale and even a substitute for Dewey, the likable sidekick who in the past was played by David Arquette.

Whether that means the series is heading in the right or wrong direction, remains to be seen, I kinda feel that by now the franchise is so iconic, that people (like more fool me) will keep showing up regardless.

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Scream 7 boasts a talented young cast, most of whom won’t as per usual make it to the end credits, while there are also cameos from actors playing characters from previous entries we presumed to be dead.

Are they real or created by AI? Other themes include survivor’s guilt, the notoriety that comes from being involved in true crime and the passing of violence from one generation to the next, as Sidney at some point is forced to teach her daughter how to fire a gun.

The story, by Williamson with Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt, is completely by the numbers, but the movie does have some decent thrills and kills, so there’s that to consider.

I can’t in good conscience give it a passing grade, but Scream 7 is not unwatchable, so I give it 2 1/2 stars!

Note: Scream 7 was released theatrically at the beginning of the year. It is now available to stream on various platforms like Google Play Films, Apple TV, Rakuten TV and Prime Video.

Some friendships last a lifetime. Others, not so much. Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleason) seem to be halfway there, but then the latter quite suddenly pulls the plug.

‘I just don’t like you anymore,’ Colm answers truthfully when Padraic presses him for an answer.

And if Padraic would have been able to accept the outcome, and move on, well, that would have been that.

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Set on a fictional island off the Irish west coast, The Banshees of Inisherin - I guess ‘the wailing female spirits of the island of Ireland’ was a bit too on the nose - takes place in 1923, in the shadow of the war between the Protestants and Catholics on the mainland.

On Inisherin people hear the sound of guns on the mainland but otherwise they mostly seem to go on about their daily lives.

Padraic is a dairy farmer, who loves both his sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) and his small donkey Jenny very much, while he has been best friends with Colm since as long as he can remember.

Every day at two o’clock they go to the pub together, where the straightforward Padraic tries to entertain Colm with (boring) stories about what he found in Jenny’s shite this time round. But they also drink a lot of beer, so who cares?

Colm, however, is a more complicated character. He is an amateur fiddler and composer, who worries that he only has a limited amount of time left to live and he would like to compose some lasting piece of music that will lend him a kind of immortality.

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There is some evidence throughout the movie that Colm is suffering from a rather severe bout of depression. He quite literally wants to cut himself off from the mundane Padraic, but in doing so he risks to lose the thing he loves doing most: making music.

Colm threatens to cut off his fingers one by one if Padraic won’t stop bothering him. This could be a reference to the famous painter Vincent van Gogh, who cut off part of his left ear after a heated argument with fellow artist Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh was, of course, also suffering from severe depression.

Padraic, for his sins, suffers from fear of abandonment and can’t stop bothering Colm, with predictably awful results, which plunges Padraic into his own form of depression.

To say that Irish-English playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh (who also made In Bruges, which also starred Farrell and Gleason) enjoys torturing his characters is putting it mildly, even if there is, as per usual, a lot of dark humor to enliven proceedings and make the medicine go down smoother.

And although, The Banshees of Inisherin is basically set up as a two-hander between Farrell and Gleeson, it’s the supporting characters that lend extra gravitas to the movie.

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Most tragic, perhaps, is Barry Keoghan as Dominic, the island idiot who is abused by his policeman father, Peadar (Gary Kirby), who likes to smack people about, especially the ones who try to stand up for his unloved son.

Then there is Siobhan (Kerry Condon), who not only plays a pivotal role, but also brings a much needed female perspective in between all the (toxic) masculinity. She dreams of leaving the island and trading it in for a life of more diversity in a city on the mainland.

At its heart I think The Banshees is about the human inability to deal with our sense of isolation in the face of the universe’s vastness, but I might be over stretching it a little.

The movie is also, quite obviously, a metaphor for civil war and the way that people, who have lived together for generations, can suddenly turn on each other and almost unexplainably sink into an almost everlasting hate.

Beautifully shot in splendid wide screen, the movie takes in a lot of natural beauty, as an imposing but ultimately non-judgemental background to the folly of human nature.

The Banshees from the title are represented by another supporting character, Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), whose sudden appearances become more threatening as the movie progresses, until she becomes an unmissable part of the movie’s final haunting image.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a modern masterpiece.

I give it five stars!

Note: The Banshees of Inisherin is available on streaming services like Disney+, HBO Max, Google Play, Apple TV and Rakuten TV.

In July 1992, 23 year old Rachel Nickell (Eleanor Williams) was brutally murdered while taking her young son Alex (Jahsaiah Williams) for a walk on Wimbledon Common in Southwest London.

Out of nowhere she w…

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Shelter, is of course a total dad movie. It doesn’t even matter whether Michael Mason (Statham) and Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach)) are actually related or not, the man is t…

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Parsons is only the latest addition to the growing list of (sometimes very young) YouTubers who are currently making the transition to feature filmmakers.

It’s a list that includes people like Curry Barker (Obsession), Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach (Iron Lung), Chris Stuckmann (Shelby Oaks) and Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk To Me, Bring Her Back).

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As the son of a VFX artist and a therapist, the British-American Parsons was still a kid when he started making little movies.

In 2022 Parsons uploaded his first computer animated Backrooms short to YouTube, where over the years it has amassed more over 80 million views.

The ‘creepypasta’ concept centers on a terrifying alternate dimension, with people accidentally getting trapped in endless maze-like liminal spaces that are devoid of life and characterized by yellow rooms with fluorescent lights.

After that initial success of the first Backrooms, another 22 episodes followed, before A24 saw the potential and approached Parsons.

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The acclaimed production company gave him the chance to turn the concept into a live action film, starring such acclaimed actors as Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) and Reinate Reinsve (Sentimental Value).

Directed by Parsons, from a screenplay by Will Soodik, the movie is set in 1990 in Silicon Valley.

The story follows Clark (Ejiofor), a once promising architect who is now reduced to running a cheap furniture warehouse, while he recently broke up with his girlfriend, the main reason he is seeing a therapist called Mary Kline (Reinsve).

If Clark doesn’t come across as completely sympathetic, well, as he explains, that’s just the way he is wired.

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By chance the complicated Clark (a juicy role for the excellent Ejiofor) discovers a doorway in the basement of the office building his store is in, which leads him into the Backrooms (of his mind?), which quickly turns out to be a labyrinthine maze.

Every night after work Clark begins to explore the Backrooms, until he becomes completely absorbed by it and he brings along his two employees to film everything and convince Mary (who for some reason is very important to him) that he is telling the truth.

Reinsve is fine too, as always, but I did wonder if Clark couldn’t just call someone from Building Control first, or even the Fire Department, to check out what’s going on.

But then again I understand the need to create the appropriate tension, even if as a result my suspension of disbelief suffered a little.

Also, at times the movie drags a little (at 111 minutes it could have ) and that made me wonder even more. Parsons has claimed to have only a limited knowledge of film history, and I’m willing to believe him.

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But intentional or not, Backrooms does wear its influences on its sleeve: it’s made in the time of Black Mirror and Severance, by way of The Blair Witch Project (found footage and shaky camera, check!), and directed by the possible love child of David Lynch and Spike Jonze.

Which is high praise and enough in itself, even if my own main takeaway would be that Parsons hasn’t really found his own voice yet.

Which at his young age is absolutely fine, and I hope that Parsons gets the chance, should he choose to become a full time filmmaker, to develop that voice in his own time and at his own speed.

So to get back to the story: after Clark & co disappear, Mary realizes she has to get involved and decides to venture into the unknown all by herself, in an effort to save the missing and solve the mystery.

So far, so (pretty) good, and the movie does get even weirder as it goes along, but I’m afraid that for my taste it all felt just a little bit manufactured and didn’t go quite far enough.

Thematically, sure, it’s about how our mind distorts our memories and how we continue to make the same mistakes again and again, which gets us exactly nowhere.

In the end, though, Backrooms is much more a study of toxic masculinity then I thought it would be, which is fine, even if it doesn’t offer a lot of new insight into those serious matters.

And yes, there is a twist at the end, to explain the unexplained or even unexplainable, but it felt mostly like a set up for a possible sequel.

So to me the set up is a bit more interesting than the pay-off. But the talent is absolutely there.

I give it a 7 1/2 out of ten!

Note: Backrooms is released this week in most territories, with notable exceptions like Spain and Norway to follow on June 5, Hongkong on June 6 and France on June 17.

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA (Jane Schoenbrun, 2026)

Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder make for a great couple in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a wild and wonderful ode to slasher movies from writer and director Jane Schoenbrun.

Einbinder (the breakout star from the HBO Max series Hacks) plays Kris, a young queer filmmaker, who is given the chance by Hollywood to revive her favorite slasher horror franchise Camp Miasma, which is loosely based on the Friday the 13th movies.

Anderson plays Billy Presley, who was the Final Girl in the first Camp Miasma movie before retiring from acting and becoming a recluse in true Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard Style.

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When Kris discovers that Billy has taken up permanent residence at the abandoned camp site in the Pacific North West, which was used as the set for the first movie, she seeks her out, prepared to offer her a part in the reboot, but ultimately falling madly and deeply in love with her.

Pretty soon, however, it turns out that they are not alone, as Little Death (Jack Haven), the trans villain from the Camp Miasma movies, may or may not reside in a hole at the bottom of the nearby lake, waiting to make his next appearance in the franchise.

‘But he’s not real,’ Kris says, with a question mark in her eyes. After which it is clear that all bets are off and reality and fantasy will slowly but surely blend into one.

Jane Schoenbrun is a non-binary and transfeminine filmmaker, who first made a name for themselves with the digital horror movie We’re All Going To The World’s Fair (2022) and especially the psychological horror drama I Saw The TV Glow (2024).

Schoenbrun has a penchant for mixing pop culture nostalgia with an exploration of queer identity and other gender related issues.

Now matter how acclaimed both those movies were, nothing quite prepared me for her Camp Miasma movie, which recently premiered at Cannes where it won the Queer Palm, and which feels like both a highly original and deeply personal breath of fresh air.

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It’s also one of the most light hearted horror movies ever made, even when there are fountains of blood erupting on the screen.

The movie dives deep into themes about female psychology, intimacy and sexuality, while also poking fun at the woke cliches that Hollywood studios use to inject new life in forgotten franchises.

Schoenbrun also has fun with some of Kris’ personality traits, like the tendency she has to start a sentence by first apologizing for what she is going to say, in case she offends Billy, who is actually more the type to bluntly say whatever she wants whenever she wants to say it.

Both Anderson and Einbinder are amazing in their roles - the movie is basically a two hander for most of its running time - and after a while you want nothing more for them than to be together.

There are also funny supporting roles from Sarah Sherman as Kris’ agent, Dylan Baker as a ridiculous studio head - the kind who is late for a meeting cause he was on the phone with Jason Blum - and the great Patrick Fischler (Mulholland Drive), who basically through his physical presence embodies the link between David Lynch and Schoenbrun.

Visually, the movie is totally resplendent and a joy to behold, while there are some choice needle drops to further enhance the mood.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma truly is one of the most satisfying movies I’ve seen in quite a while.

I give it 4 1/2 stars!

Note: Teenage Sex and Death Camp is currently playing the festival circuit and will be released theatrically in most countries later this summer.

Created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, The Boroughs blends alien SF with (dark) humor and (at times) hea…

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It follows in the footsteps of Paul Michael Glaser and Steven E. de Souza’s uneven but grittier 1987 movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who apparently gave Powell his…

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For me, Star Wars has always been about the movies. I have seen all eleven of them, the three trilogies plus Rogue One and Solo, but I’m no expert on the animated stuff and have seen very little of all the Star Wars-series on Disney+, including the much lauded Andor.

Still, I was very much looking forward to all 133 minutes of The Mandalorian and Grogu, especially as I understood you don’t need to be up to speed to enjoy the movie as a stand alone flick.

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Cause, of course, the old Star Wars habit is still there, of telling the uninitiated what the movie is about right at the beginning.

Directed by Jon Favreau, from a script he wrote with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, The Mandalorian and Grogu takes place after the fall of the Galactic empire and the rise of the New Republic.

In this period the remaining Imperial Warlords still pose a threat, so the New Republic enlists bounty hunters like Djin Darin (Pedro Pascal) and his apprentice Grogu (voiced by Dave Acord) to capture them for information or outright kill them.

How they operate is shown in the spectacular opening sequence, which after the first fifteen minutes segues into the opening credits, a first for the Star Wars franchise.

After that the real work begins.

Mando and Grogu are tasked with finding the mysterious Commander Coin and to that end they have to work together with criminal overlords the Hutt Twins and rescue their nephew Rotta the Hutt (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), who is apparently being held captive by Captain Coin.

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This to the chagrin of Mando, who considers the Hutt Twins his mortal enemies. Finding Rotta, who turns out to be a fun character, proves to be surprisingly simple, especially since Mando and Grogu get all the information they need from a sympathetic street food vendor.

A character voiced by no other than legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who has always found it difficult to resist a bit of acting, be it a small arthouse movie or a big budget blockbuster.

It’s no Marvel movie, so I’m sure his conscience let him off the hook, and I’m sure he had fun with this small but surprisingly funny and endearing role.

After Mando and Grogu set out on their mission, I temporarily found the movie to be less enjoyable. That’s mainly due to some mediocre storytelling, in which every twist is telegraphed and makes the first half feel unnecessary episodic.

Still, the movie never outright collapses.

That’s mainly due to two things: the highly effective action scenes and an overload of creatures, some instantly forgettable but others quite formidable, like the underwater monster used by the Hutt Twins, that threatens the life of more than one prominent cast member.

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It’s almost like Lucas Film looked at the Jurassic World franchise, and thought: hey, maybe we can push the series into creature feature territory and produce movies that don’t have to make one billion all the time.

I did have some other qualms. The special effects are alright, but visually, I thought the movie looked a bit flat and dull, with the colors never really popping out, which I thought was a bit of a shame.

My other problem is with Ludwig Göransson‘s score. I know the guy has won three Oscars, this time out there is simply too much rousing electronic folk, and it just becomes overbearing, as if director Jon Favreau knew he had to paper over the weaker stuff.

In the second half Pedro Pascal gets to show his face for about ten minutes, before he can hide again behind his Mandalorian mask, so it’s still basically a voice role, with most of the physical labor done by two other actors.

Sigourney Weaver is also there as Mando’s taskmaster Colonel Ward, but I’m not sure how much she enjoyed acting with a masked actor (or before a green screen) as I thought I saw a rather dull look in her eyes.

Arguably the best or at least most meditative part of the movie happens around the ninety minutes mark when Mando is temporarily off screen, and Grogu is left to his own devices wandering around a dark and dangerous forest, in search of something that will help his ailing master.

It’s a Warner Bros. Lord of the Rings moment in a Star Wars movie, while the four little pit droids who accompany Grogu in the second part of the movie almost sound like the Minions from another successful Universal franchise.

All in all, it’s a mixed bag, but even though The Mandalorian and Grogu will probably be enjoyed most by fans of the tv show, it won’t be as controversial as either The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, in that it’s only concerned with being ‘just a Star Wars movie’.

And in that it absolutely succeeds.

I give it 3 1/2 stars!

Note: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is released this week.

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It’s also the rare family movie that tries to please its older and younger audience in equal measures. (I must admit though that i have a soft spot for movies in which humans interact with talking animals so I suppose your mileage may vary.)

The Sheep Detectives is based on the novel Three Bags Full (2005) by German author Louise Swann, which became an unexpected international bestseller in the cozy crime genre.

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Directed by Kyle Balda (Despicable Me 3), from a script by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), the movie, set in the fictional British village of Denbrook, plays like a mixture of Babe and Paddington, with, of course, large helpings of Agatha Christie and a spoonful of Knives Out.

But before anyone yells ‘foul play’, let me give you some introduction first.

At first, the story seems to be about farmer George Hardy, who is played by Hugh Jackman, so it’s not hard to believe that he would be every sheep’s favorite shepherd.

George, for his part, loves his flock right back, and even reads them detective stories to pass the time, not unnaturally assuming they like to hear the sound of his voice, without really understanding a word he says.

But even though the sheep, generally speaking, aren’t the sharpest tools in the box, they’re not as dumb as they look.

So when George is found dead one day, and the local policeman, Tim Derry (Nicholas Braun), assumes a natural death, it’s up to his flock to wise up and (yes) suspect foul play.

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The flock is led by Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), while some of the other sheep are voiced by the likes of Regina King, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, Chris O’Dowd, with a world weary older ram voiced by Bryan Cranston and two younger ones, who just want to smash into things, by Brett Goldstein.

Visually, the sheep look fine, but perhaps not as exceptional as one might have hoped for.

Still, a little personality goes a long way and both sheep and rams have plenty to spare.

Lily was normally the one who would solve all mysteries before George got to reading the end of a particular book, but solving a crime in real life proves to be a lot harder.

Eventually she finds a way to guide Constable Derry - who starts off as a right doofus - and clue him in on some important, eh, clues.

Lily gets the most help from the at times rather cynical Sebastian - he has his reasons - and an older (and sadder) sheep called Mopple (O’Dowd), who has the (for sheep) rare ability to remember everything, while the other sheep are in the habit of just wanting to forget everything that doesn’t suit them.

Along the way a little unloved winter lamb, who is the outcast of the flock, becomes more and more important, and rightly so, I mean, aren’t we all little winter lambs deep in our hearts? (okay, I’m the guy who really enjoys it when our cat falls asleep against my legs).

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The Sheep Detectives also benefits from its game live-action cast, including but not limited to Emma Thompson (as George’s lawyer), Molly Gordon (as George’s daughter Rebecca), Hong Chau (as someone George used to know), and Nicholas Galitzine as budding reporter Elliot Matthews.

And as these things go in commercial productions, top-billed Hugh Jackman also shows up a few times, after his unfortunate demise.

The local village boasts enough suspects to keep the audience entertained until the mystery is solved in a rather on the nose sequence on the village square, perhaps not the movie’s most inspired moment.

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Still, for most of its running time The Sheep Detectives is both charming and funny, and also sweet without getting overtly sentimental, while still emphasizing the importance of grief and remembrance.

With a satisfying ending to boot, The Sheep Detectives delivers a healthy dose of good, relaxed fun for the whole family to enjoy.

I give it 4 stars!

Note: The Sheep Detectives is released next week in most parts of the world, while already enjoying preview screenings in quite a few countries.

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Created by Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin, this eight part series is a loving ode to the world of theater, and art in general, that doubles as comfort viewing in a slightly old fashioned but nourishing kind of way that’s quite welcome in these hectic times.

Charismatic as always, Kline plays Richard Bean, who’s about to go on stage to play King Lear when we first meet him.

He’s clearly a man at the end of his tether, though, as needs a push and a shove to actually go on stage and relies on his ear piece to make it through the performance.

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Yet Richard craves the adulation from his ex-wife, who tells him after the show that even New York Times-critic Xander Young (Stephen Spinella), who hasn’t been kind to him over the last decade, apparently adored him as Lear.

Still, when a happily drunk Richard encounters said critic and his husband Troy (Aaron Tveit), it quickly turns into a very funny bust-up, which inevitably goes viral and leads to Richard being suspended from the play.

That’s not all, cause moments after being given the bad news by his agent Alvy (Tony Shalhoub), Richard receives a call from his brother Jon (Jon Tenney) that their mother Ethel (Jane Alexander) has died.

So Richard has no other option than to go back to Millersburg, where he grew up and learned everything about the theater at the family-run Millersburg Festival Theater.

As these things go, this will give him time to reconnect with his estranged family, while also giving him the possibility to recharge his creative batteries by taking over the MFT.

Not only has it lost most of its luster, it has also been reduced to dinner theater status, with good-natured Jon as its well-meaning chef.

Still, it’s a situation that Richard hopes to rectify by putting on (and perhaps starring in) a new version of Thornton Wilder’s classic American stage play Our Town.

The arc of American Classic may be pretty predictable, but this series is so warm and inviting that it’s hard to resist.

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The inimitable Laura Linney plays Jon’s wife Kristen, who used to be in both a personal and professional relationship with Richard, which lends an edge to their current understanding.

Richard himself is as self-absorbed as any actor you could meet, but that doesn’t stop his father Linus (Lou Cariou), who is in the early stages of dementia, from adoring him.

Richard’s niece Miranda (Nell Verlaque) would love nothing more than to move to New York and follow in his footsteps, but as her uncle is persona non grata (at least for now) maybe she should go to Penn State and aim for a stable career. Or stay in Millersburg a little longer and hone her craft in her hometown first.

As Millerburg’s mayor, Kristen has to deal with a property developer called Connor Boyle (Billy Carter), who has big plans for a casino complex that will basically take over Millersburg and turn it into some kind of tourist town.

There is a distinct sense of nostalgia that runs through American Classic, but both the writing and performances are so rich and winning that I heartily recommend it.

I give it four stars!

Wagner Moura is completely magnetic in this political thriller drama from Kleber Mendonça
Filho (Aquarius), that takes place in 1977 in Brazil, suffering under the same autocratic rule as portrayed in the equally brilliant though very different I’m Still Here (2024).

One of the things they have in common, though, is a leap from the past into… well, you will have to find out for yourself, I guess.

Wagner Moura, who co-starred in Alex Garland’s also excellent Civil War (2024), is a great actor who is now also a compelling lead.

Moura plays Marcelo, a former university professor and researcher on the run. We soon find out that Marcelo is perhaps not his real name, it may be part of his secret identity.

I think that’s what’s implied by the movie’s title. In this oppressive society, he may not be a real secret agent, but he has to act like one.

Marcel has to keep his identity hidden to avoid certain death.

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Marcelo finds shelter in Recife, in a small community of left-leaning activists, minorities and intellectuals, led by 77-year Dona Sebastiana (Tania Maria), who takes good care of her flock.

Being in Recife also gives Marcelo the chance to reconnect with his son Fernando (Enzo Nunes), who has been staying with his grandparents, after the sudden death of Marcelo’s wife. Fernando is old enough to want to see Jaws, but too young to be allowed entrance.

Situated on the East Coast, Recife is portrayed as a beautiful but dangerous city, suffering from a lot of unsolved murders and a police department so corrupt that even reporting a crime can be a way of putting your own life at stake.

The movie actually opens with Marcelo, in his striking yellow Volkswagen Beetle, stopping for gas at a lonely gas station. The first thing he sees is a corpse lying under a newspaper, with a rock keeping the paper in its place. The next thing he notices is the horrible smell.

The owner explains that the poor bastard tried to steal fuel over the weekend and the night guard shot him - and he didn’t get up. He has contacted the police who have yet to show an interest. ‘But,’ he assures Marcelo, ‘you’re a customer, it’s got nothing to do with you.’

Pretty soon, however, a police car enters the frame. The two agents aren’t interested in the corpse either. Instead, one of them interrogates Marcelo, obviously hoping he will catch him in the act of doing something illegal, like smoking weed or even possessing a gun, so they can put him in jail or force him to pay extortion money.

It’s a superb scene that ends with Marcelo being allowed to continue his journey, even though, from that moment on, we can never be sure how things will play out.

That opening sequence, and I cannot stress this enough, sets exactly the right tone for the movie, which completely earns its 161 minutes running time.

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I don’t want to become too spoiler-ish, so trust me when I say there is a lot of stuff going on both above and under the surface, and The Secret Agent absolutely deserves to be viewed more than once.

But in short: it’s about the trials and tribulations of living in a society in which a human life is worth less than nothing.

Yes, there is violence, and sometimes a lot of it, cause there are hit men and corrupt police officers doing the kind of bad things you expect them to do in a movie that’s inspired by Martin Scorsese, though not in the pale kind of imitation way that you sometimes see.

That The Secret Agent also manages to be in love with life makes it an even more impressive achievement.

It’s full of great Brazilian music (and Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now), there are flashes of dark humor, warm scenes of friendship and solidarity, and there is even a surrealist slant to the story two thirds in that’s so imaginative that the mind actually boggles.

It’s also full of references to movies (like the aforementioned Jaws) and cinemas, so that aspect of the cinephile’s dream is also covered.

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Visually, it’s absolutely stunning to watch. The camera work is superb, and so is the editing.

In fact, the whole movie is a masterclass in filmmaking. The matching of various color schemes, for instance, is simply out of this world.

The casting of an amazing line-up of supporting characters is also incredibly well done - it was one of its four Oscar-nominations, together with Best Picture, Best International Feature Film and Best Actor for the charismatic Wagner Moura, who is incredibly worth watching in a role that will be remembered for years to come.

The Secret Agent is brilliantly made and also emotionally touching. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and dive in deep.

I give it five stars!

Note: The Secret Agent had its world premiere in Cannes, where it won various awards, including Best Actor and Best Director.

Since then it’s been released theatrically around the world. It’s available to stream through various platforms like Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.

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