A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Posted on September 16, 2025 at 3:35 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	F word used many times
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad off-screen death of a parent, medical issue for an infant
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 19, 2025

Two strangers meet at a wedding, and the next day find themselves — in both senses of the term — on a car trip, guided by a mysterious GPS, through apparently endless unoccupied rural landscapes, stopping at doors that appear unconnected to any structure but turn out to be portals to the past. The journey, with a script by “The Menu’s” Seth Reiss and directed by Kogonada is romantic in the dictionary meaning of the term, “characterized by themes of love, emotion, imagination, and nature.”

Margot Robbie plays Sarah, and Colin Farrell, who starred in Kogonada’s “After Yang,” plays David. They both arrive at the wedding unaccompanied. And, as we will learn, they both arrive in vehicles provided by a very quirky firm simply called The Car Rental Agency, “specializing in emergencies.” The agency, which operates in a gigantic warehouse with just two cars, 1990s Saturns. Its two proprietors (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) sit behind a table and, when David shows up having found his car with a boot for unpaid tickets, a flier for the rental company conveniently nearby, they have a file on him. He initially turns down their GPS, insisting that he can just use his phone. But they warn him that phones can fail, and it is clear they won’t let him go without the GPS, so he takes it.

The GPS works normally on the way to the wedding, where David and Sarah meet, drawn to one another but hesitant. It seems like a missed connection. The next morning, the GPS (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith, Farrell’s co-star in “After Yang”) invites David on an adventure and then directs him to get a “fast food cheeseburger.” Sarah is there, also eating a cheeseburger. As they leave, her car won’t start and the GPS tells him to give her a ride. The big, bold, beautiful journey begins.

The first doorway is mostly to get them used to the idea, and then each successive doorway takes them to more complicated and painful memories. Two of particular impact show us separate past encounters that intersect in meaningful ways. Others allow David and Sarah to understand their parents (sensitive performances by real-life couple Lily Rabe as Sarah’s mother and Hamish Linklater as David’s father). They get to glimpse how their time at the wedding could have been different. The one audience may respond to the most viscerally, because it’s high school, takes David back to his performance at age 15 in the lead role of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” The details of these encounters are wisely chosen and performed with the delicacy and authenticity of Kogonada’s previous films. The affection for theater kids (notice the posters in Sarah’s high school bedroom and the song David sings in the car) underscores the importance of finding the truth in stories.

Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb (also of “After Yang”) brings a poetic sensibility to the images, enhancing the fantasy element of the story but grounding it (literally) in the landscape. The shape and bright primary colors of the umbrellas are striking, and overhead shots evoke a heroic adventure. The story’s encouragement for those who have the courage to take a risk and change old patterns has a quiet optimism that may send some of us to open a few bold and beautiful doors ourselves.

Parents should know that this movie includes many uses of the f-word, some sexual references, and a brief, non-explicit sexual situation, a sad death of a parent, and a medical issue involving an infant.

Family discussion: How are Sarah and David alike? How are they different? How did what they learn about themselves change the way they thought about each other? What moment in your life would you want to go back to in order to learn from it?

If you like this, try: “9 Days” and “All of Us Strangers”

Ne Zha II

Posted on August 21, 2025 at 5:26 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters take magic pills
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, sad deaths of parents and brother, images of a destroyed village with charred remains, scary monsters
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

I’m not going to spend much time on the storyline of “Ne Zha !!” because it is extremely convoluted and because it is not really that important. “Ne Zha II” is a sequel, continuing the saga based on the Investiture of the Gods book written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), itself based on folklore, myth, and real-life historical characters. The first film is now on Netflix. I’m not sure it will clear things up for you, though, unless you already have some familiarity with the underlying stories told over generations. I overheard some older Chinese-Americans in the audience laughing as they admitted they remembered hearing the stories as children but had a hard time muddling through the first film.

That doesn’t matter too much, as long as you can figure out who the good guys are and why they are fighting the bad guys, because you will be spending most of the time looking at what’s best in this film, the spectacular and stunning background and secondary character visuals, especially the monsters. The design of the main characters is not close to that level, the voice talent other than Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, is lackluster, and the convoluted storyline becomes more distraction than narrative.

The two characters at the heart of the story are the impish child demon Nezha (Yanting Lü) and the more mature Ao Bing (Mo Han). They were created together as a Chaos Pearl, birthed from the primordial essences of heaven and earth. In the first movie, they joined forces and their bodies were dissolved. As this one begins, Nezha’s teacher, the immortal Taoist deity Taiyi Zhenren (Jiaming Zhang), portrayed here as a foolish but devoted character, is creating new bodies for them from the petals of the sacred lotus, a difficult process that almost immediately goes wrong when Ao Bing’s still very fragile body is destroyed. Because it takes a while to re-create the lotus petal material for bodies, Ao Bing’s soul will dissolve unless he can find a temporary host, so Taiyi puts him inside Nezha’s body.

This leads to some complications as Taiyi takes the combined boys to get the potion needed to give Ao Bing a new body. The boy(s) will have to pass a series of tests to be given the potion by Wuliang (Deshun Wang), Taiyi’s brother. Brother and father-son relationships are very important in this story.

Taiyi gives Nezha pills to put him to sleep and let Ao Bing’s powers take over to pass the tests. Meanwhile, various conflicts and reunions happen with many other characters. And many, many fight scenes, one with a funny exchange involving characters disguising themselves as each other and — an issue everyone can relate to — the inability to remember a password.

NOTE: Stay for the credits for an extended extra scene that is one of the film’s best moments.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy-style peril, action, and violence, with monsters. Characters are injured and some are killed, including beloved parents and a beloved young brother and family members who sacrifice themselves and an entire village burned down, with dead bodies turned to ashes. There are a few schoolyard-style bad words and some graphic potty humor and gross-out moments. Characters take pills to manipulate their powers.

Family discussion: Nezha is given an impossible choice. What should he have done? Were you surprised at who the villain turned out to be?

If you like this, try: the first film

Freakier Friday

Posted on August 5, 2025 at 7:17 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 8, 2025

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back for another big body switch in “Freakier Friday,” the sequel to their 2003 film, based on the 1973 book by Mary Rodgers that has inspired not only several films but many imitations and variations. It’s an irresistible premise, taking two characters at a moment of maximum frustration in their relationship and making them literally walk in each other’s shoes to achieve greater connection and understanding. It also provides many opportunities for wild comedy along the way.

Anna (Lohan), a rebellious young teenager in the original film, is an adult now, the single mother of an equally rebellious teenage daughter named Harper (Julia Butters of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”). Harper is at the “please drive away like you don’t know me” stage. And Anna, like all of us, no matter how hard we try not to, is channeling her mother, calling after Harper hopefully as she goes to school, “Make good choices!” (A line Curtis improvised in the first film.)

Anna’s mother, Tess (Curtis), still a therapist and still happily married to Ryan (Mark Harmon), provides a lot of support. Just to let us know how up to date they are, Tess has a podcast and a new book coming out, Rebellion With Respect. She plays pickleball. And she’s still talking about reframing.

When Harper and a new classmate from London create a mess in science class, Anna and the classmate’s father meet in the principal’s office, and there’s an immediate spark. Eric (“The Good Place’s” Manny Jacinto) is a chef, and his daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons) is very unhappy about the move. In a quick but cute montage Eric and Anna fall in love and get engaged. As their parents get closer, the animosity between surfer girl Harper and aspiring fashion designer Lily gets frostier, especially because it means Lily will be stuck in California.

At Anna’s bachelorette party on a Thursday night, a wacky fortune teller slash every other possible job played by “Saturday Night Live’s” Vanessa Bayer reads the palms of our four leads, and the next morning…is Friday. A freakier one. Twice as freaky, in fact. The Anna and Tess now find themselves in the bodies of Harper and Lily.

So Anna-now-Harper and Tess-now-Lily find themselves in high school, where they plot to stop the wedding and very much enjoy the young bodies, so good at bending without any aches or pains and with “metabolisms at the speed of light” to enable them to enjoy so much junk food. They also have to suffer through detention presided over by none other than Mr. Bates (Stephen Tobolowsky re-creating his character from the earlier film). Also returning: the other members of Anna’s old rock group, Pink Slip. Christina Vidal (Maddie), and Haley Hudson (Peg) and Chad Michael Murray as Anna’s high school crush, Jake. Rosalind Chao, Pei-Pei in the earlier film, appears as Mama P. There are references to Lohan’s other most memorable roles, including Elaine Hendrix from “The Parent Trap” as Anna’s assistant. And there’s a joke at the end about Jake’s interest in Tess from the first film.

Harper-now-Anna and Lily-now-Tess go out into the adult world where they enjoy the freedom of driving a car and wearing some wild outfits. Harper-now-Anna has to comfort Anna’s client, a pop star named Ella (an engaging Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who has just been dumped by her boyfriend as she is about to introduce her new album. And Lily-now-Tess has to puzzle her way through the Senior aisle in the drug store.

Whew. The four-way switch and lots of new characters and complications — I haven’t even gotten to Eric’s family and Santina Muha as an immigration official) — clutter up the storyline. But it is still great fun to see Lohan and Curtis throw themselves (sometimes literally) into the younger characters. Their chemistry is still sky high and they are clearly having a blast. The surrounding chaos (a food fight! makeovers! a crazy car ride!) is very entertaining.

Curtis and Lohan are also producers and they know what the fans and newcomers to the story want, including a Pink Slip reunion so rousing that it might make us look forward to a Freakiest Friday some day.

NOTE: Stay for the credits to enjoy some behind-the-scenes clips.

Parents should know that this movie includes some mild language, references to bodily functions, and some family issues, including teenagers unhappy about their parents’ marriage.

Family discussion: If you switched with your parent or child, what do you think you would learn? What’s the best thing about getting older? What’s the best thing about being younger?

If you like this, try: The original Freaky Friday book and the many movie versions and variations, including “17 Again,” the other “17 Again,” “Family Switch,” and “Vice Versa“

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Posted on July 22, 2025 at 12:19 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for action/violence and some language
Profanity:	Brief mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action-style peril and violence, some graphic images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 25, 2025

Four seems to be the magic number. After three unsatisfactory tries at getting Marvel’s cosmic ray-enhanced superheroes on screen, Marvel Studios got it right, gorgeously produced, well cast, gracefully relegating the origin story to a few “archival” clips, and putting our quartet and us right in the middle of the action.

It is set in a fantasy version of the 1960s, inspired by the visual style, not the history or pop culture. In the first scene, Reed is looking for iodine, the painful antiseptic used for minor cuts in the 50s, and Sue Storm uses something that was not invented in our reality until the 1980s. There is a Calder mobile in their headquarters living room and the men we see in the outdoor scenes all wear hats, so handsome this movie just might bring back the fedora. The production design from “Loki’s” Kasra Farahani is dazzling and endlessly inviting, a heightened version of a mid-century concept of the future. The cerulean blue and white accents of the retro F4 uniforms designed by Alexandra Byrne (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) place us in a time and a world that is like but not the same as ours.

The Four are Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), a brilliant scientist whose body stretches, his wife Sue (Vanessa Kirby) who has the power of invisibility, including creating invisible shields, Sue’s impetuous and very single brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn), who can burst into flames and fly, and Ben Grimm, known as The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who looks like he is made from mountain rock and is very, very strong.

As the movie begins, the world is celebrating them as heroes and protectors. It has been four years since the space expedition exposed them to the cosmic rays, they have defeated or, in the case of the subterranean Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser), negotiated a peace agreement, and established a United Nations-type organization called the Future Foundation.

The superheroes and the people they protect believe F4 and their adorable robot, Herbie, will always keep them safe. And then they face their biggest and most terrifying challenge. Sue is pregnant. While Reed and Sue know that the molecular changes from the cosmic rays may affect the baby, they believe, with some reassurance from Sue’s ability to make her abdomen invisible so they can see the fetus, the baby will be fine.

Big and terrifying challenge #2: the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives to announce that Earth is about to be consumed by Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a planet devourer. F4 tracks the Silver Surfer to find Galactus, confident they can defeat him. And this leads to the first Marvel action sequence that features a very pregnant superhero. Galactus offers them a terrible choice, and when they refuse, the people on earth quickly go from fans to haters.

The film moves briskly, with one of the shortest run times in the MCU, under two hours. But it creates a fully-realized world, with small details like the Mole Man’s dad jokes, Ben Grimm’s “beard” and copy of 50s classic child care bible Dr. Spock, and a sweet brief appearance by Natasha Lyonne as the teacher of students who are big fans of The Thing. Fans will enjoy some glimpses of popular villains from the comic books. Director Matt Shakman (the similarly retro fantasies “Game of Thrones” and “Wandavision” and “The Great”) understands that the action scenes and the family dynamic are central to the storyline and he has fun with scale when Galactus arrives. While the stakes are dire, he stays away from gratuitous carnage. The film has good-natured humor, impressive special effects, some tender moments, and even a light gloss of commentary on what we expect from our heroes, and how we approach moral dilemmas and life-threatening challenges. I’m iffy about one twist, but overall, this is a film that respects comic book characters and what we love about them.

Parents should know that this movie features extended comic book/action-style peril and violence, with some scary creatures and disturbing and graphic images. There are mild references to reproductive biology and a woman goes into labor (discreetly filmed). Characters use some mild language.

Family discussion: Philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued that all decisions should be based on the greatest good for the largest number of people. How does that idea appear in this film and do you agree? What do you think will happen to Franklin? What is the law of levers and how do you see it around you?

If you like this, try: “Superman,” The Fantastic Four comics, and maybe just for fun watch the earlier films so you can compare them.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for one extra scene indicating where the story is going and, at the very end, a nostalgic moment.

KPop Demon Hunters

Posted on July 3, 2025 at 10:19 am

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended fantasy-style violence, sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 3, 2025

Let me be the first to suggest that “Golden” be nominated for a Best Song Oscar. This animated story of a Korean pop trio who battle demons to save humanity has a bunch of bangers, but “Golden” is not only the best on the soundtrack but better than several recent Oscar winners.

“KPop Demon Hunters” is an unexpectedly entertaining mash-up of two seemingly unrelated genres. It works because it is colorful, funny, imaginative, and above all heartfelt and sincere.

Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zooey (Ji-young Yoo) are the pop trio Huntrix. They are not only musical superstars and demon hunters; they are the best of friends. They are the inheritors of the skills and responsibilities of demon hunters through the ages, protecting the world with mad fighting skills and the magic of music and its connection to the fans, which spreads a protective shield called the Honmoon over the earth, woven from their music. (There is a charming glimpse of their forebears, trios through the decades.) If they can eradicate the demons completely, the Honmoon will turn gold.

This has a personal importance for Rumi. She has not told Mira and Zooey that she is half demon, as revealed by the “patterns,” markings on her arms and neck. Turning the Honmoon golden will make her fully human.

The demons are ruled by Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun). When he becomes angry at the failures of his demons to defeat Huntrix, a centuries-old demon named Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) makes a proposal. If Gwi-Ma will erase the memories that haunt him, he will fight Huntrix on their own turf: he will form a boy band, the Saja Boys. Their first song, “Soda Pop,” is an instant hit. The battle is on — musically and with weapons. A devastating diss track is as important as the swords. But so is the the power of telling hidden truths.

The voice talent includes Ken Jeong as Huntrix’s manager Bobby, and Joel Kim Booster and Daniel Dae Kim as multiple characters. There is some silly humor but there are also are intense fight scenes and a sad death as a character who sacrifices himself to save others. There’s also a six-eyed bird wearing a hat and pajama pants with teddy bears and “choo-choo trains.” And, as noted, some excellent songs.

Parents should know that this film includes a lot of fantasy-style violence and a sad death. There are references to despotism and evil.

Family discussion: Why did Rumi think she could not tell Zoey and Mira the truth? Why did she trust Juni? Why did he trust her?

If you like this, try: the music and videos of BTS