Thunderbolts*

Posted on May 1, 2025 at 2:06 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Non-stop action-style peril and violence, child is killed, automatic weapons, military weapons, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, mental illness sympathetically portrayed
Date Released to Theaters:	May 2, 2025

I liked “Thunderbolts* (note the asterisk) a lot, but it will be divisive. Some people don’t want to delve into the mental health struggles of anyone, including a superhero or supervillain. They’re just there for the punches, powers, explosions, and special effects. But as I watched the film, I thought about how many superheroes experienced devastating trauma before gaining their powers and/or dedication to saving the world. Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed by a mugger when he was a child. Superman lost his family and his whole planet. Spidey was living with his aunt and uncle, so had already lost his parents before Uncle Ben was killed. Tony Stark had dad issues. Black Widow was trained to be a child assassin.

“Thunderbolts*” is a “Suicide Squad”/”Guardians of the Galaxy”-style superhero story about a group of damaged, distrustful loners with superpowers who have to do more than just band together for all the punching and explosions. They have to begin to heal themselves. And I am completely here for it, plus for finding out the meaning of the asterisk, which I enjoyed very much. And yes, you do need to stay all the way through the credits for a final scene that teases what’s coming next.

Before I get to the superheroes, I want to talk about the villain(s). I always say that it is the villains more than the heroes that matter most in a comic book movie (and in some other places as well, as Milton showed us in Paradise Lost). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the all-time great villains as Valentina, the ultra-wealthy corporate CEO turned Director of the CIA (though with current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s streak of silver hair, just a coincidence, I’m sure). Some villains have great evil smiles. Louis-Dreyfus has a great social smile exuding the supreme confidence and power of the .001% while all-but-hiding the voracious all-consuming drive for power and utter disregard of the rights or value of anyone in her way.

We first see Yelena (Florence Pugh), still in mourning for her sister, Natasha (The Black Widow) and almost by rote working as an operative for Valentina. She is numb and lonely and lacks purpose. She tells Valentina she wants out, but agrees to one last job, in a remote lab where Valentina’s company once performed experiments, trying to find a formula to give superpowers to her subjects.

She ends up fighting Captain America (Wyatt Russell as John Walker), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and another super-character who doesn’t last long, before they figure out that they are all there for the same reason, to die, because they have become problems for Valentina. At this point, a guy who seems to be the opposite of super in any way wanders in wearing pajamas, with no memory of pretty much anything except his name. He is Bob (Lewis Pullman, in his second “just Bob” role after “Top Gun: Maverick”).

Yelena, John, and Ava do not trust each other, but the only way to stay alive is to work together. The escape works well in moving the plot and character development forward as well as being fun to watch. And that’s pretty much the vibe for the rest of the film.

Valentina thought her program to turn humans into supers failed, meaning they all died. But somehow Bob survived and that changes her plan. And the people she describes as “defective losers, anti-social tragedy in human form” may not have the cool powers and (mostly) good manners of the Avengers, but they are all struggling toward being something better. That means dealing with sad and scary feelings like loss and trauma, with the characters catapulted into immersive re-creations of their most painful moments. Will they finally find a way to become, a, what’s the word, team? The good news is that by the end of the film, we hope so.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for a mid-credit scene and a teaser at the end for what’s coming next.

Parents should know that this is a superhero movie with non-stop peril and action-style violence including automatic weapons and fantasy powers. Characters are injured and killed, including a child. Mental health and trauma are themes of the film. Characters use some strong language and there are drug references and alcohol.

Family discussion: What is the best way to discover your purpose? How did the childhood experiences of Yelena and Bob affect the way they saw themselves? How is Valentina different from other villains in superhero movies?

If you like this, try: “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the Avengers movies

The Wedding Banquet

Posted on April 17, 2025 at 5:16 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, some sexual material, and nudity
Profanity:	Constant f-words, strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Family issues
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 18, 2025

“The Wedding Banquet,” more an adaptation than a direct remake of the Ang Lee film of the same name, may appear from the marketing to be a comedy, even an outright farce. But it is a bittersweet, tender-hearted story about the families we are born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Of course, both kinds of families can hurt our feelings and drive us crazy.

Lee (“Killers of the Flower Moon’s” Lily Gladstone) and Angela (Kelly Marie Tran from “The Last Jedi”) live in Seattle, in a home Lee inherited from her father, on land that was once the home of the indigenous Duwamish people who were her ancestors. Their closest friends Min (Han Gi-Chan) and Chris (“SNL’s” Bowen Yang live in a guest house on the property.

Both couples are devoted and very much in love, but each has a difficult problem. Lee and Angela have just had a second very expensive failed attempt at IVF and are struggling emotionally and financially about taking a chance on one more try. Angela’s mother May Chen (the always-ravishing Joan Chen) is very supportive but also intrusive and self-centered, enjoying her involvement in a Pride group for Asian-Americans and their families.

Min is Korean. His student visa has run out and he is under a lot of pressure from his wealthy grandmother (Youn Yuh-Jung as Ja-Young) to return home and take a job in the family business. He proposes to Chris, but Chris does not want to feel that Min only wants to get married so he can stay in the US.

Min thinks he can solve everyone’s problems by marrying Angela so he won’t have to leave the country and in return paying for the next IVF treatment for Lee. But he will learn what Sir Walter Scott said so accurately: “Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive.” Every lie leads to another complication, including the arrival of Ja-Young and her insistence that they have a full-on Korean ceremony, which includes many photographs and a banquet.

There is at least one plot development that may be convenient but stretches credulity a few steps too far. But it avoids being predictable and sit-com-ish, with the four characters racing around to prevent Ja-Young from learning the truth and overly predictable twists. It is a much gentler film, and as appealing as the actors playing the two couples are, the heart of the film is the two women in the older generations. Yuh-Jung is spectacularly moving as the grandmother who wants for her grandson what she never had, a loving marriage. It turns out she is enmeshed in her own performative effort and that she is wiser and more compassionate than Min allowed himself to see. Chen gets a chance to show off some crack comic timing as well as a touching scene with her daughter. It is the performances that carry the day here, with everyone involved clearly having a wonderful time revisiting a film that meant a lot to them.

Parents should know that this film includes strong language, drinking and drunkenness, and a non-explicit sexual situation with brief nudity.

Family discussion: Why did Angela’s mother annoy her so much? Were you surprised by Ja-Young’s reaction to meeting Angela? The story reflects many changes in society since the 1993 original that inspired it. What changes do you think we will see if they do another version in 30 years?

If you like this, try: the Ang Lee original film that inspired this one

The Italians

Posted on April 10, 2025 at 5:58 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	A scuffle, sad death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 11, 2025

“The Italians” is a messy movie about a messy family. It begins as farce and ends as, well, no spoilers but it ends as something more serious.

Director Michelle Danner stars as Angelina, a middle-aged mother of Nico (Matthew Daddario) and wife of Vincenzo (Rob Estes). She is very Italian. Exaggeratedly Italian. Meaning that she has very strong views and is very open about expressing them: everyone should be Italian, Italians should only marry church-going, previously unmarried Italians who are eager to have babies, and feeding everyone Italian food is much more important than having conversations about feelings or finding compromise. Even her husband calls Angelina sterotypical.

The movie begins with Nico, Angelina, and Vincenzo going to confession with Father Joe (Luca Riemma). They begin to tell him the story we will soon see unfolding, about two family dinners.

The first is when Nico brings his girlfriend, Lily (Abigail Breslin) to meet his parents. She is not what Angelina had in mind. She is not Italian. She is an atheist. More disturbing, she does not eat meat, she has been married before, and she is not sure whether she wants to have children. All of a sudden, a previous girlfriend of Nico’s, known in the family as Geena the Hyena (Olivia Luccardi) for her loud, honking laugh, is looking better. At least, she is Italian. Angelina invites her to the second dinner without telling Nico. Things go even more badly, and Lily leaves in the middle of the meal.

The Italians trailer

We think we know where we are at this point, a relatable romantic comedy about culture clash and family pressure. But even with the flashback from the confession booth structure and the heightened tone, it never captures the rhythms of comedy and lurches when it should zip. The actors seems to be in different movies; their performances are tonally out of synch.

And then the movie shifts in subject and tone to focus on marital issues between Angelina and Vincenzo and then shifts abruptly into sentimental drama. Somehow by that point we still feel connected to the family and the conclusion is genuinely touching.

Parents should know that this film includes discussions of infidelity, family conflict, and illness and a sad death.

Family discussion: Does your family blend more than one culture? If so, did it create any conflicts, big or small? If not, do family members feel pressure to stay within the culture?

If you like this, try: “Moonstruck”

The Amateur

Posted on April 8, 2025 at 1:50 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, and language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, fights, guns, explosions, car chase and car crash, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 11, 2025

Two powerful, enduring fantasies combine in “The Amateur,” the story of a nerdy computer guy who becomes an assassin to kill the four people responsible for murdering his wife. We all like to think that our Clark Kent selves, underestimated by pretty much everyone are just the secret identity of a powerful superhero. Indeed, being underestimated is its own kind of superpower. And we all wish we were capable of bringing justice, even rough justice, to those who cause harm. It is a remake of a 1982 film starring John Savage and Marthe Keller, based on the novel by Robert Littell.

Rami Malek stars as Charlie Heller, a computer guy (“decription and analysis” and apparently also some programming) who literally works in the five-stories-below-ground basement of the CIA, spending all day looking at screens. We see him at home with his beautiful, devoted wife Sarah, played by Rachel Brosnahan, perfectly fulfilling her responsibility to make enough of an impression for us to share Charlie’s sense of devastating loss. (Side note, as someone who well remembers the Aldrich Ames spy scandal, that a computer guy at the CIA who lives in what is clearly a multi-million dollar house in the country, on a huge piece of land with a barn big enough to hold a plane would be a big red flag as a likely double agent no matter how successful his wife is. )

Sarah is leaving on a five-day business trip to London. She asks him to come with her, knowing that he will not travel because he is set in his ways and also because he says he is untangling a puzzle at work. They exchange affectionate goodbyes, and then just to show us what a shy loner Charlie is, we see him going into the CIA office in Langley, Virginia, where he is greeted by someone there to be the opposite: Jon Bernthal as “The Bear,” a field agent (spy) who is confident, personable, and good at wheedling some IT support out of Charlie.

We also see Charlie receiving information from an anonymous contact in an undisclosed location. And then, a couple of days later, we see Charlie informed by his boss that Sarah has been killed in a terrorist attack. The CIA is not going to go after them because they are mercenaries and they want to go after the people who hired them. (At least that’s what they tell Charlie.)

And that is when our humble guy decides to leave the basement and his reluctance to travel behind so he can personally kill the four men who were involved. His boss (burly Holt McCallany as Director Moore) agrees to provide him with field agent training and sends him off to learn from sensei Colonel Henderson (Laurence Fishburne), not because he supports what Charlie wants to do but to get him away from home and the office so they can find out where he has hidden the documentation of the rogue black ops he has threatened to release if they do not give him what he wants.

Apparently all the training a spy gets takes place in a couple of days, so after we and the Colonel see what Charlie is good at (making IEDs) and not good at (shooting or killing), Charlie is off to track down the four mercenary bad guys. Charlie takes a backpack of fake passports and starts jet-setting around Europe (we obligingly are given not just the names of the cities where these various encounters take place but also their longitude and latitude). At this point it’s just counting down the culprits with a series of cleverly designed traps. If you guess that the anonymous person Charlie knew online, the apparently amiable spy, and the Colonel will show up again, plus the obligatory graffiti-covered bathroom in a nightclub scene for any spy movie that doesn’t have a swanky black tie gala scene, you are correct.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’re probably there for the pool scene, and it is a lulu, especially in IMAX. Nice to have Charlie say “It’s all about integrity” with a double meaning. There are a few good twists, plus the always-welcome Julianne Nicholson as the newly-appointed head of the CIA who has her own concerns about what Moore is up to, and the always-superb Michael Stuhlbarg, who elevates everything he is in and here make a near-ridiculous scene almost make sense. “The Amateur” may not be memorable or make sense, but it benefits from a strong cast, it looks glossy (outstanding work on the settings), the action scenes move along well and that pool scene really is pretty special.

Parents should know that this film includes a brutal capture and murder of a beloved wife followed by the murder of the people involved. Characters are injured and killed. Characters drink alcohol and use some strong language.

Family discussion: How did Charlie make the most of what he was good at? What did we learn from the lunch scene with O’Brien and Moore? (And how likely is it that they would be discussing CIA business in a restaurant?)

If you like this, try: “Three Days of the Condor” and the Bourne movies

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Posted on April 3, 2025 at 5:40 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 28, 2025

Come on, admit it. Somewhere secretly stored away in your heart, you know what you would do if you won the lottery. “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is a wonderfully warm and touching film about a male nurse who won the lottery twice. The first time, he and his wife travelled all over the world. The second time, now a widower, he decided to spend it all on a concert for an audience of one, reuniting his all-time favorite musical duo for a performance on a very remote island.

That duo is McGwyer & Mortimer, who last performed together 15 years earlier. Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden, also co-screenwriter and composer of the songs) is cynical and detached. He has no idea what he is getting into, even when it turns out he has to disembark from the small boat bringing him to the island by wading to the shore. He assumes that Charles Heath (co-screenwriter Tim Key) is something like a bell boy come to carry his bags. And Charles’ natural awkwardness, compounded by five years of near-complete solitude and being overwhelmed by the presence of his idol, is no help in clarifying the situation.

Furthermore, Charles has not told Herb that Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) is coming and the performance will be the songs they recorded together. Also, she is married and living in America, where she now sells chutney at the farmer’s market.

Herb needs the £500,000 Charles is paying to make his next solo record. So, even though each new piece of information he learns about the gig is increasingly distressing, he agrees to stick it out, with the exception of the time he tries to leave and finds out that the one boat that takes people to the mainland does not come in bad weather. He is stuck. And then Nell arrives, with her husband, Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen), an easygoing American who spends just long enough at Charles’ house to unsettle Herb and then departs for a birding tour.

This gives Herb and Nell a chance to practice for the upcoming performance. And it gives Charles a chance to go from extremely annoying to less annoying to endearingly annoying.

That’s a tricky challenge for any actor, but Key and Basden created these characters to play to their strengths as performers and it works beautifully. Key shows us that Charles is shy, lonely, sad, and vulnerable. He is not good at showing how much he cares. Basden shows us that Herb is lonely, too, and his songs are everything a character with Herb’s level of success should have in his set list. Mulligan harmonizes beautifully and we see what her experience after the break-up has been when she says what she misses is the music, allowing Herb and us to fill in what she leaves out: she does not miss him. Seeing each other does, though, allow them both to go forward with a better sense of what they have and what they want.

Sian Clifford is terrific as the proprietor of the tiny local store on the island, which never has anything the mainlanders want, like rice to cure a phone that fell in the water (“We have pasta?” she asks hopefully) or a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. We may all wish for a visit to Wallis Island when the movie ends.

Parents should know that this movie has strong language, smoking and drinking, and some mild sexual references.

Family discussion: If you won the lottery, what would you spend the money on? Why is the music so important to Charles? Herb left two things for Charles — what was the reason for each of them? What will Herb do next?

If you like this, try: “Once” and “Sing Street”