The Drama (2026) ****

 

“What is the worst thing you have ever done?” The question is a conversational gambit that seems engaging and daring, but carries a high degree of risk. When Emma (Zendaya) and her fiance Charlie (Robert Pattinson) get goaded into answering the question by their friends (Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie), Emma reveals something more outre than anyone was expecting. Her secret shocks her friends and makes Charlie question their relationship, just days before their wedding.

Written and directed by Norwegian auteur Kristoffer Borgli, “The Drama” is funny, entertaining, dark, and transgressive. I was particularly impressed by the way he plays with time and reality, jumping back and forth between days and eras and between fantasy and reality. You have to stay on your toes to watch this film!

I tend to be skeptical of single-name actors, but Zendaya has won me over, first in "Challengers" and now here. Borgli uses her and Jordyn Curet, who plays the teen Emma, to explore the paradox that Emma is no longer that lonely, alienated young girl, but there is still a through-line connecting the two identities. She both is and isn't that person. Emma still carries within herself that scared child, looking for love, but she should not be defined by her worst day.

Meanwhile Robert Pattinson continues to build his reputation as an actor who likes to subvert his handsomeness by taking on challenging, quirky, even confounding roles. Here he brilliantly portrays Charlie, spiraling out of control as he wrestles with his doubts.

Borgli demonstrates tremendous boldness in going places most filmmakers would not, but in the end his film is not about Emma's big secret. It is about judgment and acceptance, about living with who you are and who you were. It's about the messiness of relationships, where you have to ultimately be vulnerable and accept your partner's vulnerability. It's about whether love is worth the drama.

4 stars out of 5

Normal (2025) ***

 

It's nice to watch a movie that isn't trying too hard.

Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”) is working as interim sheriff in the small, Minnesota town of Normal. It is meant to be a quiet, easy few weeks, but a botched bank robbery reveals that Normal is corrupt and rotten to its core. Sheriff Ulysses winds up taking on the whole town and a bunch of Japanese gangsters just to survive.

Odenkirk gets help from a solid supporting cast including Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, and Billy MacLellan. The film is written by Derek Kolstad (the “Nobody” and “John Wick” films) with assistance from Odenkirk. It's a silly story, but overall a pretty fun, dark, action-comedy. It is only an hour and a half long, so you can enjoy it as the light entertainment that it is.

3 stars out of 5

Power Ballad (2026) ***

 

In the latest from writer/director John Carney ("Once" "Sing Street" "Begin Again" ), Paul Rudd plays Rick, an aging, frustrated rocker fronting a wedding band. Rick still writes songs, but the wedding gig demands he only perform covers. One wedding, Rick meets an ex-boy-band star (Nick Jonas, of The Jonas Brothers) whose own career is flailing, and the two have a magical night of jamming and working out songs.

What happens next? This film doesn't have enough surprises for me to give any of them away. Suffice to say that “Power Ballad” is the usual John Carney love letter to the song-writing process. Paul Rudd doesn't have a memorable voice, and neither does Nick Jonas, in my opinion, but the two have great chemistry acting together and jamming on various instruments. Peter McDonald is charming and funny as Rick's best friend and lead guitarist, and newcomer Beth Fallon plays Rick's teen daughter with just right amount of bored surliness. This is not the most inspired John Carney movie, but if you like his films, it's reasonably entertaining.

3 stars out of 5

Rumble Fish (1983) ****

 

If I asked if you remember that Francis Ford Coppola movie based on an S.E. Hinton novel about poor youths running wild, the one starring Matt Dillon and Diane Lane, you would almost certainly think of 1983's “The Outsiders.” The movie is a classic, and it kick-started the careers of several of its young stars. It turns out, though, that Coppola and Hinton teamed up on a second movie. While filming “The Outsiders,” the two wrote a screen adaptation of Hinton's novel Rumble Fish. After they wrapped “The Outsiders,” they stuck around Tulsa, OK, where that film was set, to film “Rumble Fish.” They used some of the same cast and crew, but filmed this one in a much more experimental style, using black-and-white film and techniques borrowed from French New Wave and German Expressionist directors. The movie was a commercial flop, but it has lived on as a cult classic that, in my mind, outstrips “The Outsiders.”

Matt Dillon plays Rusty James, a two-fisted teen gang leader who longs to live up to the legend of his older brother, Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Motorcycle Boy once brokered peace between the gangs, but then left town. In his absence, heroin has taken over the streets, which have become a lot meaner. When Motorcycle Boy returns, everyone wonders what will happen. Rusty James wants to bring the old gang glory days back while hooking up with his girlfriend (Diane Lane), but it's unclear whether Motorcycle Boy wants to do much of anything. He seems to have lost interest in using his considerable street cred, and he becomes obsessed with the Siamese Fighting Fish down at the pet store. He refers to them as Rumble Fish, and he develops a conviction that if the fish were in open water with plenty of room to wander, instead of penned up in tiny bowls, they wouldn't always try to kill each other.

This is an excellent movie, and I can't believe it took me this long to hear about it. Rourke, Dillon, and Lane are outstanding, and they benefit from a supporting cast of stars (Dennis Hopper), future stars (Chris Penn, Laurence Fishburne, Nicolas Cage), and oddballs (Tom Waits). The black-and-white cinematography is beautiful, casting the grubby outskirts of Tulsa in stark contrast to the beauty of the film's stars. Diane Lane, in particular, looks like a million bucks in this movie.

It's been a while since I watched “The Outsiders.” I recall it being a good movie, but very melodramatic. I mean, all that “Stay gold, Pony Boy” stuff is practically self-satire. All the themes are clearly explained, which is probably why the movie was such a hit. “Rumble Fish” is slightly more subtle. It's a pretty obvious metaphor that Motorcycle Boy sees himself and his fellow youths in those angry, penned-up fighting fish, but at least Francis Ford Coppola lets you make the connection for yourself. That, combined with the percussive, anxiety-inducing soundtrack (by Stuart Copeland of The Police) and the movie being in black-and-white, probably explains why it failed at the box office. There was no general audience for this film in 1983, and honestly, there probably isn't today. The good news is that unlike in 1983, when movies had to live or die by what they made in the cinema, movies today can thrive on video and streaming, finding their audience over time.

4 stars out of 5

Cleaner (2007) **

 

What happens when someone dies in a house? After the body is taken away, someone has to clean up. If the person was murdered, that can be an especially dirty job. If you aren't up for doing it yourself, you can call a guy like Tom Cutler (Samuel L. Jackson). A former police detective, Tom now has a cleaning business specializing in this sort of thing. Business is good until one of his jobs starts to smell off to him. When he goes to return a house key, the wife of the deceased (Eva Mendes) knows nothing about the cleaning or even the death. Tom starts sniffing around and gets caught up in a web of murder and police corruption.

It's a good noir setup, with a great cast that includes Ed Harris, Luis Guzman, and the legendary Robert Forster. I liked it, but I couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that “Cleaner” should be better than it is. The plot doesn't quite gel. Every time the story gets interesting, it grinds to a halt so we can have a hard-to-watch father-daughter scene between Tom and his kid. The story builds to a ridiculous climax that includes a “child-in-danger” scene that you see coming a mile away. If they had left out the entire family subplot, I think “Cleaner” could have been a very serviceable neo-noir.

2 stars out of 5

Arizona (2018) ***

 

There are 2 kinds of people: Those who like Danny McBride, and those who don't. I happen to like the guy. It has to be admitted, though, that he has very little range. He pretty much plays the same character in everything he does. In this one, that character happens to be a murderer.

When the housing/financial crisis of 2008 hit, Arizona was hit as hard as anywhere. They had the perfect setup for a crash – tons of suburban and exurban communities full of cookie-cutter houses decked out with granite countertops and Italian tile floors. The prices for these homes had been rising astronomically, but people kept buying, taking on more debt than they could afford, convinced that prices would only ever go up.

McBride plays Sonny, pressured on one side by an adjustable-rate mortgage that is becoming unaffordable and on the other side by a divorce, which puts him in the position of needing to sell a home that is worth less than what he owes on it. Sonny blames his realtor, Gary (Seth Rogen), and when an argument with Gary turns deadly, Sonny kidnaps the only witness (Rosemarie DeWitt).

As dark comedies go, “Arizona” is fairly fun if you are the kind of person who likes Danny McBride. The movie is unapologetically violent, and it should come with a trigger warning for people who lost their shirts during the 2008 housing crash.

3 stars out of 5

Song Sung Blue (2025) ****

 

Hey Kids! Want to see a movie based on the real-life story of a Neil Diamond tribute band?! Yeah, I didn't think I would either, but it turns out “Song Sung Blue” is a pretty good time, with some winning performances and a rousing soundtrack.

Hugh Jackman plays Mike Sardina, a musician and recovering alcoholic struggling to make a living with his guitar. The thing about the music industry is that so many people want to be in it that you wind up with loads of truly talented musicians living hand-to-mouth, playing whatever small gigs they can get. Mike seems destined to remain in this tier. Then, in 1987, he meets a fellow struggling singer named Claire (Kate Hudson), who points out that he looks and sounds a bit like Neil Diamond. The two put together a Neil Diamond tribute act that, with their charm and talent, eventually wins them some regional success, although life continues to throw challenges their way.

Mike and Claire are real, and this is their real story, with the usual artistic liberties taken. The film is actually based on a similarly-titled 2008 documentary about the couple. While the timeline is compressed, the most bonkers parts of the film are all true. For example, Mike and Claire did open for Pearl Jam and play with Eddie Vedder, and in fact it was Vedder who later lobbied Neil Diamond to allow the use of Diamond's music in the documentary. Directed by Craig Brewer ("Hustle & Flow"), “Song Sung Blue” is a big-hearted tribute to Diamond's amazing musical catalog and to people who keep getting back up when life knocks them down.

4 stars out of 5

Is This Thing On? (2025) ***1/2

 

Written by Will Arnett, directed by Bradley Cooper, and based on the life of a British comic named John Bishop, “Is This Thing On?” is a quiet, funny dramedy about a failing marriage, a failing life, and turning it all around.

Arnett stars as Alex, who is splitting up with his wife Tess (Laura Dern). Alex and Tess try to make the separation as easy as possible on their kids and their friend group. It isn't easy, as people have a tendency to take sides in these situations. Meanwhile, their bickering friends Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Bradley Cooper) seem like the ones who should really be splitting up.

One night, on a whim, Alex signs up to do open-mike comedy, and he turns out to be good at it. His new hobby allows him to talk about his life, and the thrill of doing something creative gives him a newfound confidence and perspective. At the same time, Tess, who was once an Olympic volleyball player, is wondering if she peaked too soon.

“Is This Thing On?” is something we need more of: an unassuming, empathetic story about grown-up relationships. The emotions are real, the performances are excellent, and the comedy is actually funny.

3.5 stars out of 5

Joy Ride (2023) ***

 

When Audrey (Ashley Park) gets the chance to visit China to close a business deal, she takes along her friend Lolo (Sherry Cola), who invites her weird, K-pop-obsessed cousin DeadEye (Sabrina Wu). In China, the girls meet up with Audrey's college friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu), formerly a horny wild-girl, but now an actress famous in China for playing good girls and saving herself for marriage. The four wind up on an Odyssey to find Audrey's Chinese birth mother, and there you go.

It's not a bad setup for a raunchy, road-trip comedy, featuring Asian women instead of black women, college guys, or middle-aged dudes. I guess everyone needs their own road-trip movie, and now Asian girls have theirs. I found it distracting how focused on race the characters were, but maybe that's how it is when you're a minority. As a white dude in a place that is mostly white, it's easy for me not to think about race. Audrey and Lolo, as the only Asians in their small, Ohio town, were probably never allowed to forget that they look different from everyone else. As Audrey says in Beijing, “If I lived here, I wouldn't always be the 'Asian girl'. I could be the 'smart girl' or the 'funny, nice girl'”.

As road-trip comedies go, “Joy Ride” is reasonably watchable. Director Adele Lim is best known as a writer on “Crazy Rich Asians”, but here, in her directorial debut, she shows promise behind the camera. She gets decent performances from a talented group of comediennes, and she keeps the story humming along, bringing it together in an hour and a half, which is remarkably concise for a movie these days. “Joy Ride” is not going to change your life, but if you want an uncomplicated laugh, take the ride.

3 stars out of 5

Send Help (2026) ****1/2

 

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this film. I never saw a trailer for it, and the posters just featured Rachel McAdams on an island, covered in blood. Then I learned it is directed by Sam Raimi, who has done some truly great, original films (“Darkman”, The “Evil Dead” movies), but has also signed on for some Marvel Comics movies, so I had no idea which Sam Raimi would be showing up here. Turns out, “Send Help” is old-school Raimi – original, hilarious, in-your-face horror-comedy with a very sly sense of humor.

Rachel McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a nerdy office drone who is truly great at her job, but gets passed over for a promotion in favor of her boss's incompetent frat-buddy. Linda doesn't let it get her down. She talks to her pet bird, puts her nose to the grindstone, and vows to work even harder to earn her place. Then the company plane goes down, leaving Linda and said boss (Dylan O'Brien) as the only survivors on a tropical island. One other thing about Linda: she has aspirations to be on the show “Survivor.” Turns out she has made herself an expert on desert island survival. Even as she saves his life, though, her boss Bradley has trouble giving Linda the credit she deserves. The longer they are stranded, the more friction arises.

I won't give away any more than that. “Send Help” is full of surprises that I don't want to ruin. Raimi gets outstanding performances from both his stars, and McAdams ought to get an Oscar nomination. “Send Help” is funny, oddly-dark, and the best new movie I've seen so far this year.

4.5 stars out of 5