Anniversary

My View:  Anniversary  (2025)  R  Anniversary follows the story of Ellen and Paul (Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler), whose lives start to fall apart when Liz (Phoebe Dynevor) starts dating their son (Dylan O’Brien). It seems that not only is Liz a former student of Ellen, but has a secret that could unravel everything they hoped and dreamed for their son. Anniversary is a film where a few of the performances outweigh the quality of the direction and the script. Kyle Chandler gives one of his best performances of his career as a husband who wants everyone to get along and is convinced that things will work out, until they don’t, and then he becomes the last holdout when almost everyone else has given in. I don’t want to give too much away about the plot, but it’s about a world where a particular ideology threatens to take over everyone’s world. The film keeps adding plot twists to a movie that already has too many in its first 30 minutes. The ending is heavy-handed, and there is a scene in the final minutes that just made me mad because it was such an obvious callback to an early moment in the film. Anniversary wastes a strong cast by giving them parts that are either too clownish to be believable or too thin to understand their actions. I don’t think I will be celebrating this film’s anniversary anytime soon. My Rating: Cable  Anniversary Website  Now playing in theaters. 

Familyfaire:  Stitch Head  (2025)  PG  Stitch Head follows the story of a small, forgotten creature named Stitch Head, living in a castle. A Mad Professor keeps bringing strange put-together monsters to life and gives Stitch Head, his first creation, the job of protecting the professor’s newest creations from the suspicious townspeople of Grubber Nubbin. Stitch Head is if Tim Burton got together with the team that created The Greatest Showman and decided to do a new take on Frankenstein. Instead of scary monsters, we get a group of creatures that are deathly afraid of venturing out of the castle, worried that an angry mob of villagers is going to attack at any minute. Into the town comes a circus sideshow that is failing, and its ringmaster discovers Stitch Head is his sure-fire ticket to success. I had a great time watching this fun and charming film, a combination of a Hollywood musical and a Buster Keaton comedy. The animation is lively, and the storyline will please both parents and kids, who will fall in love with the adorable Stitch Head. So grab some popcorn and sit down to see a bunch of lovable monsters, a strange town, and a very sad sideshow combine to make an enjoyable time in the theater.  My Rating: Full Price  Stitch Head Website  Now playing in theaters.

My View:  Hedda  (2025)  R  Hedda takes place during a lavish party at the mansion that Hedda (Tessa Thompson) and her husband, George (Tom Bateman), a college professor, live at. Things get dicey when Hedda’s former lover, Eileen (Nina Hoss), arrives with her girlfriend, Thea (Imogen Poots). Hedda takes this as a challenge to turn the tables and the spotlight on herself. It’s going to be an interesting party. Ever been to a party that you thought you were going to have a great time at, but wanted to leave after just a few minutes? That is how I felt watching this film. My biggest problem with the film is that it’s about Hedda, and I left feeling I knew less about her than any guest at the party. Tessa Thompson plays Hedda, who is unhappy unless she is creating problems for everyone, including her husband, her former lovers, and anyone else that she sets her sights on. Based on Henrik Ibsen’s play, but set in more modern times, Hedda is a woman who delights in pushing people’s buttons and in having everyone lust after her. Thompson’s performance lacks the charisma the role requires, and I never felt invested in her character. Unfortunately (for the film’s sake), I found the former lover of Hedda’s, Eileen, to be a far more interesting and rounded character than Hedda. Nina Hoss steals the movie as a determined woman who ventures into Hedda’s party with the intent of showing Hedda how much she has changed and that she no longer needs or wants Hedda’s attention. It’s a marvelous performance, so good that you wish her character was the main focus of the story. By the time the film ended, I didn’t really care what happened to Hedda, and I hope I never get invited to one of her parties again.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  Hedda Website  Now playing on Amazon Prime

Indiefest:  Nouvelle Vague  (2025)  R Nouvelle Vague tells the story of the birth of the New Wave era in French cinema. In 1959, Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), a former film critic, directed a groundbreaking film called Breathless that ignited the cinema world. I am not a big fan of the French “New Wave” films of the late 50s and early 60s, which took a new perspective on filmmaking, including using jump cuts, hand-held cameras, and dialogue created in the moment. The film is director Richard Linklater’s love letter to the New Wave movement and its filmmakers and film critics. The film follows Jean-Luc Godard as he films a movie, seemingly with little regard for anything beyond his conviction that he is making a great movie. For filmgoers who aren’t knowledgeable about the movement, the constant introduction of filmmakers and writers in the film will get old very fast. I think what is missing from the film is the excitement and passion these filmmakers brought to moviemaking, in their gorilla-style of shooting first and taking names later. I thoroughly enjoyed the performances of Zoey Deutch as American actress Jean Seberg and Aubry Dullin as French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Deutch makes us fall in love with beautiful and talented Seberg, showing us why Seberg had that screen presence and charm that filmmakers fell in love with. And Dullin gives us the boyish charm of Belmondo that made him an instant international star. I just wish I had enjoyed the film more, but I felt it was trying to teach me rather than letting me enjoy the moment. Kind of like the New Wave movement wanted us to experience film, just enjoy the moment.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  Nouvelle Vague Website      In select theaters on Friday, October 31, 2025, and on Netflix on Friday, November 14, 2025. 

Indiefest:  Queens of the Dead (2025)  R  Queens of the Dead takes place when a zombie apocalypse breaks out in Brooklyn. As the undead emerge on the night of a major warehouse party, a group of drag queens, club kids, and even a few frenemies must put aside their differences to take on the danger. Together, they will harness their unique skills to fight against the horde of zombies. Queens of the Dead is fun and funny for about the first fifteen minutes. Sadly, it starts to run out of steam when the zombies start showing up in force. Which is quite strange, given that the daughter of legendary George Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead), Tina Romero, co-wrote and directed this film. The jokes become increasingly forced, and the acting begins to falter when the characters are pushed to react more intensely. By the end of the film, which concludes quite unconvincingly, I felt ready to sashay my way out of the theater.   My Rating: Cable  Queens of the Dead Website    Now playing in select theaters

Indiefest:  Bugonia  (2025) R Bugonia unfolds when two conspiracy-obsessed young men (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) kidnap a high-powered CEO (Emma Stone), convinced that not only is she an alien, but she is planning on destroying the planet. Another in a long line of strange but enjoyable films for five-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia is part comedy, part drama, with a bunch of absolutely bonkers scenes thrown into the mix. It is so much fun to watch Plemons and Stone on the screen together. Plemons plays a man who is convinced he must save the earth by forcing this alien to take him to her leader for a meeting to save the planet. Stone, playing a CEO who thinks, no, knows she is smarter than Plemons’ character and needs to find a weakness to get him to see that it would be in his best interest to let her go. If you didn’t enjoy films like Poor Things or The Favourite, then don’t see this film, as it is more of the same Lanthimos touch of wackiness with scenes that can go quickly from humor to horror in a matter of seconds. Stone and Plemons show why they are two of our finest actors, who have finely tuned their craft to make any scene work, no matter how off-the-wall nuts it is. My Rating: Full Price  Bugonia Website  Now playing in theaters

Forgotten Film:  A Walk on the Moon  (1999)  R  In 1969, things are changing in the world, especially in a small town where a bored housewife named Pearl (Diane Lane) meets a traveling dress-seller (Viggo Mortensen). Soon, Pearl succumbs to desire, and her life becomes more meaningful than it ever has been before. While A Walk on the Moon isn’t great, it’s always a delight to watch Diane Lane work. I wish the story had been more centered on Pearl’s daughter, Allison, played by Anna Paquin, who commands the screen in every scene she is in, so much so that you can’t take your eyes off her. There is a better film hiding somewhere in the script about Allison than this one, centering on Pearl.   My Rating: Bargain Matinee   A Walk on the Moon Info Available to rent/buy on Amazon Prime

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Bugonia: Air Management

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Wicked: For Good  (2025)  PG  As Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the future Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda (Ariana Grande), the Good Witch of the North begin to embrace their roles, a rift begins to develop between the two friends, as their lives move down a path of confrontation. Oh, and a certain young woman from Kansas is about to come onto the scene.  Wicked: For Good Website The sequel to last year’s hit musical comes to theaters on Friday, November 21, 2025. 

Until Next Time!