Buddy works best as a satire on Barney and other children’s shows. Its overall construction is a jumble, but when the movie hits, its black comedy gold. Cristin Milioti gifts her fans with another engaging performance in her increasingly eclectic career. Recommended. Continue reading Buddy
Being a dental hygienist is a thankless job. They diligently scrape off the gunk build-up on our teeth, fully aware that they’re going to do the same thing in six months. Which is why I would advise that anyone interested in this career avoid Insidious: Out of the Further. Not only is the kindly hygienist in this movie forced to clean the worst set of teeth I’ve ever seen, he has a second pair like a geriatric Zenomorph! Maybe that Starbucks barista job would be a better option after all.
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Since 1993, almost every movie released that featured dinosaurs had “Jurassic” in the title. This is strange, given how often Hollywood studios copy off of each other’s homework. The End of Oak Street is the first serious attempt at a dinosaur movie outside of that franchise, and it made me wonder why it took so long. There’s plenty of action involving humans either running away from or being eaten by elaborate CGI dinosaurs, which is precisely what we want from a movie like this. If anything, it should inspire those behind the Jurassic films to make better sequels.
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Everyone knows that “helicopter parenting” is bad, right? Apparently not, since the good folks at Pixar have revisited the topic again, seven years after Toy Story 4 made it clear that toys need to know their place. Don’t they have a “prime directive” to guide them in situations like this? Anyhow, in Toy Story 5 it’s Jessie instead of Woody who decides to take matters into her own hands with current owner Bonnie, and things turn out about as you’d expect. There’s also a platoon of newly-awakened Buzz Lightyears that find their way into the story, and who doesn’t love more Buzz?
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During a quiet moment in Pressure, Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott) poignantly asks a colleague, “What is wind?” His question is rhetorical but it reflects the philosophical differences he has with a rival who bases his optimal D-Day forecast upon historical charts. In the face of unrelenting pressure from everyone around him to change his pessimistic weather forecast, Stagg stays true to his convictions, because he knows that predicting the weather requires more than pattern-matching. It requires curiosity and insight, two things that ultimately won out in what was proven to be the most consequential weather forecast in history.
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At one point in Passenger, the heroine uses her van’s camera system to find the ghost that’s been following her. I’ve seen dash cams and backup cams before, but this was cooler. It gave her a 360 degree view outside of the van, which eventually revealed the ghost. While the scene played out exactly as I expected, it was a clever way of using modern technology so that for once, the poor girl can finally look around without her head on a swivel. This and other little details showed that the filmmakers wanted to make an interesting “stalking ghost” movie, and I was entertained by the results.
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Getting your wish is the worst thing imaginable in Obsession, a twisted take on love and romance that horrifies before going full-on horror. I appreciated the movie’s darkly comedic take on desire and relationships more than its gruesome endgame, but it’s a wild ride either way. Recommended. Continue reading Obsession (2026)
If you’ve seen a big budget disaster movie before, you know what to expect from Deep Water. Every disaster trope you can think of makes an appearance. What distinguishes this movie from the rest is that it’s not just an airplane crash movie, it’s also a shark attack movie! That’s right, it’s a genre mash-up, which turns out to be a brilliant move because both halves compliment each other perfectly, like a burger with a side of fries. The movie isn’t a masterpiece, but as far as genre fare goes, it’s exciting and entertaining.
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To say that a lot has changed in the past twenty years would be putting it mildly. Take journalism, for example. In The Devil Wears Prada, journalism graduates had career options. Fast forward to today and I doubt any student would seriously consider being a reporter. Print media has been supplanted by social media as the source of news for many people, making traditional journalists obsolete. How Andrea “Andy” Sachs handles this shifting landscape is the basis of The Devil Wears Prada 2, a funny and thoroughly enjoyable sequel that manages to take a few well-earned swipes at the downsize-afflicted corporate environment of 2026.
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For a while now, the role of the “one man wrecking crew” who takes on a corrupt town, corporation or what have you has been the cinematic domain of Jason Statham. As an established badass, we know that anybody who gets in his way are idiots who will soon be lying in a pool of their own blood. Which is what makes Bob Odenkirk’s encroachment on Statham’s territory so interesting. No one would ever mistake Odenkirk for Statham, who looks more like a kindly grandpa than a killing machine. Odenkirk’s a square peg that’s wedged himself into the action/revenge genre hole, and the mismatch is what makes Normal so much fun. Odenkirk may look like a kindly old man, but watch out when he gets riled up.
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Detroit Cineaste 