Anaconda

Posted on December 24, 2025 at 6:15 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence/action, strong language, some drug use and suggestive references
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drug use (played for comedy)
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, guns, explosions, scary giant snakes
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 25, 2025

If you are in the mood for a movie that is self-aware but still cheerfully and unapologetically stupid but in a very funny way, I’ve got good news. “Anaconda” is here.

You may wonder if this is a remake of a legendarily cheesey 1997 creature film called “Anaconda,” and the answer is, sort of, part reboot, part meta-commentary. If you have no idea that there even was a movie starring Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Danny Trejo, and Eric Stoltz, consider yourself lucky and don’t worry about it because everything you need to know to appreciate this film will be recapped for you as the four main characters talk about why they want to do a remake/update. And by the way, if you have never seen the 1997 version, this one might just inspire you to give it a try.

The four main characters, friends since childhood, are Doug, a wedding video photographer who would rather be making something more challenging (Jack Black), Griff, a Hollywood actor better described as unsuccessful rather than struggling, though he was in three episodes of “SWAT” (Paul Rudd), Kenny, once fired by Doug as a videographer because he was high (Steve Zahn), and Claire, a recently divorced lawyer looking for something to feel excited about (Thandiwe Newton, sadly underused as essentially the Wendy to the Lost Boys of the group). Griff tells the group he has obtained the rights to the 1997 “Anaconda” and proposes a 3-week shoot in the Amazon rainforest with him as star and Doug as director.

All four are at that mid-life point where they need to feel that they have not given up their dreams and so, with a screenplay by Doug and some modest financing from Claire, they are off to the rainforest. There they meet up with a snake wrangler named Santiago and his beloved anaconda, Heitor, and set off to film, having no idea that Ana, the person driving the boat (Daniela Melchior), is on the run from some scary-looking guys.

That’s the set up for a lot of meta-jokes about filmmaking, the process and the business, as well as various antics as many things go wrong in making their film, Ana’s pursuers keep pursing, and, perhaps needless to say, there are actual anacondas, well, CGI, but in the world of the movie, these are what Jon Voight called in the first film, “perfect killing machines” that “hold you tighter than your true love. And you get the privilege, of hearing your bones break before the power of embrace causes your veins to explode.”

The action and comedy, much of it extremely silly, are well balanced and keep things moving briskly. I might come down on the side of a little less carnage, but perhaps that is taking this more seriously than it is fair to expect of us. And some surprises near the end and during the credits are genuine delights.

Parents should know that this movie includes extended peril and violence including scary giant snakes, guns, and explosions. Characters are injured and killed. It also includes alcohol, drugs (portrayed for humor), and some strong language.

Family discussion: What project would you like to do with your friends? If you made a movie together, what would it be about?

If you like this, try: the original “Anaconda” film and “Tropic Thunder”

Song Sung Blue

Posted on December 24, 2025 at 9:27 am

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for Rated PG-13 for thematic material, some strong language, some sexual material and brief drug use
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Pharmaseutical abuse, character is a recovering alcoholic
Violence/ Scariness:	Offscreen serious injury and recovery
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	December 24, 2025

First there was Neil Diamond, one of the foremost singer-songwriters of the 1970s-90s. And then there was a Milwaukee couple billed as Lightning and Thunder who described their act not as a Neil Diamond tribute act, but a Neil Diamond experience. (“Experience” in this case meaning a fog machine and a leaf blower to blow back their hair.) Then there was a documentary named “Song Sung Blue” about Lightning and Thunder (real names, Mike and Claire Sardina, about the success of their act but also about their setbacks and challenges, about the music and about their love story. And now, like the infinite regression of the girl on the ketchup bottle we have two huge Hollywood stars, very slightly dimming their imperishable glamour to star in a feature film of the same name, and it is one of the most purely enjoyable films of the year, with heartfelt performances and joyous music.

Jackman plays Mike, a divorced Vietnam veteran in recovery from alcoholism who has a teenage daughter. He is passionate about performing (a character astutely observes that a recovering alcoholic will find something else to be addicted to and his is music), and he is very specific about what he wants to do. His stage name is Lightning.

He first sees Claire (Hudson), a divorced mother of a teenage daughter and a younger son, when she is performing in a curly black wig as Patsy Cline. Back at her house, they start singing together and it is instant magic. Their chemistry as performers and as a romantic couple shines from the screen. Soon they get married (at the Wisconsin State Fair) and blend their families. One particularly nice scene is when the two teenage girls get together and form their own instant connection over their family upheavals and some weed.

There are some setbacks along the way, including a mistake in booking that has them performing their first gig not, as they thought, for a motor home convention but for a motorcycle club gathering. But soon, with the help of friends, their crowd-pleasing appearances lead to an enthusiastic local following. Those friends include characters played by Jim Belushi, as the gentle, very sincere tour bus driver who signs on to book their gigs, Michael Imperioli as a devoted friend and Buddy Holly impersonator who is thirty years older than Holly ever got to be, and Fisher Stevens as a dentist so on board he gets Lightning a replacement tooth with a bolt of lightning on it. All three give endearingly open-hearted performances. Lightning and Thunder sing the Neil Diamond songs like they are brand new, with superb musicality. We can see that they are most alive when they are on stage.

“I just want to sing and be happy and feel loved!” Claire tells her daughter. “I will be Neil Diamond, but I’ll also be me,” Mike promises. “He’s…artistic,” says Mike’s daughter to Claire’s daughter, meaningfully. “Most alcoholics trade one addiction for another. Music is that for Dad.” Those comments, along with impeccable work by production designer Clay A. Griffith and costume designer Ernesto Martinez tell us what we need to know about Mike and Claire. But writer/director Craig Brewer is also telling us a deeper story about the healing power of performing music to lift the spirits, bring people together, create a sense of meaning and purpose, and just make us feel good.

Claire is badly injured in a freak accident. Mike has heart problems. But they love each other and the audiences love them. And then they get a call from Eddie Vedder, who wants them to open for Pearl Jam when they play at a huge music festival in Wisconsin. (A terrific performance by John Beckwith as a slightly laconic but enormously decent Vedder and be sure to check out the footage of that real-life performance.)

Thanks to Brewer, the movie never condescends to Mike, Claire, or their friends. It takes the same joy in their performances that their fans do. Jackson is excellent as Mike and Hudson is a revelation here, never better, with a perfect Wisconsin broad A, exquisite harmonies, and so much joy on stage we cannot help but bask in it. As Claire recovering from her injury, depressed and knocked out on painkillers, she is raw and heartbreakingly vulnerable. We know she cannot give up the music, and seeing her back on stage, reconnecting with the pure joy of the music and the audience, connects us with all of that and with the love story, too.

Parents should know that this film has strong language, a recovering alcoholic, a serious injury and painkillers, and a teen pregnancy.

Family discussion: What’s the best Neil Diamond song? Were you surprised that Eddie Vedder invited Mike and Claire to open for Pearl Jam? If you were in the audience, how would you have responded?

If you like this, try: The documentary of the same name and of course the music of Neil Diamond

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Posted on December 18, 2025 at 5:43 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 intense violence, bloody images, strong language, thematic elements, and suggestive material
Profanity:	MIld language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, guns, fire, bombs, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	December 19, 2025

A quick recap: long blue people mostly good, human people mostly not good. Humans from Earth want the resources of the blue people’s planet. The blue people (Na’vi) want to keep it peaceful and pristine. And sometimes the blue people fight with each other. And it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes.

You don’t need to remember every detail of the earlier films; if you have a vague recollection that you liked them, you will be fine because, like its predecessors, the visuals are stunning, the action is dynamic, the story is thin, and the dialogue is painfully basic, just barely enough to let you know who you’re supposed to root for. Cameron, who has said that he makes movies to finance his ocean adventures, loves water, and the water in this movie is simply gorgeous. The long blue people are, too. They all look like supermodels crossed with Mr. Fantastic. So if you did enjoy the earlier films, you will enjoy this one, too.

Next to the visual splendor, the other reason to watch the film is the villain. James Cameron emphasizes that the technique is not motion capture, but performance capture. Every actor playing one of the blue creatures performs every minute on screen, each one’s face covered with dots to guide the CGI. So, all credit to Oona Chaplin, the grand-daughter of Charlie Chaplin and great granddaughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill, for playing Varang, a ruthless bandit queen with magnetically sinuous menace. And with a head like a frilled-neck lizard. She wants to destroy the peaceful community where the hero of the first movie, human turned Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is settled with his wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and children, sons Neteyam (killed in the second film) and Lo’ak and a daughter called Tuk. They also adopted Kiri, mysteriously born from a human in an avatar body (the laws of biology as we know it don’t apply here), and they care for a loyal and limber human teenager called Spider (Jack Champion), the son of one of Jake’s most important foes, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

Like Jake, Spider is completely at home in the world of the Na’vi, though he has to use a mask to enable him to breathe on the planet. He has no relationship with his biological father. Both of those elements will change over the course of the film, as Jake, Neytiri, and their family have to find a way to defend their community, even after Varang forms an alliance with Quaritch, meaning access to guns.

As this movie begins, Lo’ak and Neteyam are swimming together, at least in a dream of repeated goodbyes. Lo’ak is still suffering from survivor guilt and has a strained relationship with Jake beyond the typical teenage push for independence. Everyone in the family feels guilt along with grief.

There are some powerful emotional themes but they are explored in a not very powerful way. The issue of an outsider giving more powerful weapons to shift the balance of a conflict was explored with more insight in its episodes about the prime directive. Before the next one comes out, maybe they could spend some of the zillion dollar budget on dialogue better than “All this time and you still don’t get it. The world is much deeper than you imagine.” This film is less deep than it imagines. But very beautiful.

Parents should know that this film has extended peril and violence, including arrows, knives, guns, and explosives. Characters are injured and killed. There is a lot of intense family drama, with issues of biological and adoptive families. The military-industrial complex from Earth is represented by rapacious, murderous business employees and soldiers. Scientists are more compassionate. There is a non-explicit sexual situation and some sensual touching.

Family discussion: What are the options for a community being attacked by enemies with vastly superior weapons? What makes Spider feel accepted and what makes him feel like an outsider?

If you like this, try: the previous “Avatar” movies

Rental Family

Posted on November 20, 2025 at 8:54 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some strong language, and suggestive material
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death, family conflicts
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	November 21, 2025

“Rental Family” written and directed by a Japanese woman who goes by the mononym Hikiri, is one of the most heartwarming and humane films of the year, with wise and touching insights into the connections that make life meaningful and the fear of being hurt that holds us back from trusting each other. It is a festival favorite, with audience awards that include a narrative feature award at the Middleburg Film Festival.

Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, an American actor who is adrift in Japan, still living there years after his most popular role in a toothpaste commercial. His most recent role was a tree. He lives in a tiny apartment, eating take-out dinner and looking at the neighbors in the high rise across the street, “Rear Window”-style and has occasional encounters with a sex worker, to have some semblance of human contact.

His agent calls him with an offer. All he knows about the part he is to play is “sad American.” He discovers that it is not the kind of performance he is used to. He is a fake mourner at a fake funeral the fake corpse has purchased to see if the affection and respect he might get after his death is enough to make him want to continue to live.

In the US, if someone is having suicidal thoughts, we would expect them to see a psychotherapist or other counselor. But in Japan, where cognitive therapy and other psychological resources are not as accepted or available, an alternative has served the same purpose: “rental” family members to do what their customers wish they could get from the people in their lives. It’s not as different as we might think, especially in the emerging opportunities of parasocial and AI “relationships.”

Just as a therapist can sometimes be a stand-in for characters who create conflicts in the life of a patient, the rental family can be a way of accessing the support or even the conversations that a struggling person wishes for.

At first, Phillip turns down an offer to join a rental family company. But the money is good and it is kind of an acting job. His first “role” is fiancé to a young woman who needs a Caucasian man from North America she will call Brian to go through a wedding ceremony with her so she does not have to tell her parents the real reason she is moving to Canada. Then he has to pretend to be the father of a young girl who needs both parents to apply to a special school.

Each of his jobs begins to open up a part of him that he did not realize he had closed off. The sympathetic sex worker (who makes a delightful surprise appearance in another context later on), is only half teasing when she tells him they have the same job, paid intimacy. Phillip cannot help first being interested, then concerned, then invested, and then committed to the people he is being paid by. This is ideal casting for Fraser, uncomfortably large among the much smaller Japanese, his deep, expressive eyes showing us the way he slips from closely observing for “yes, and” improv-style purposes to finding depths of compassion and connection. His scenes with the little girl are endearingly natural, and the look on his face when the initially hostile and wary child falls asleep with her head on his shoulder is infinitely moving. This is a lovely tribute to the people who pretend to be part of someone’s family and an even lovelier one to the people who take the risk of letting themselves truly connect.

Parents should know that this film includes a sad death, some strong language, a non-explicit sexual situation with a sex worker, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: Which job was the most difficult for Phillip and why? What do people get from renting someone to be their family or friend?

If you like this, try: the Japanese film “Departures” and “Local Hero”

Wicked: For Good

Posted on November 20, 2025 at 5:37 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG action/violence, some suggestive material, and thematic material
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Brief alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Fantasy peril and violence, character killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	November 21, 2025

I liked “Wicked: For Good” a lot. But before I tell you why, let me warn anyone out there who is hoping that part two of the movie based on the Broadway musical, based on the book, inspired by the classic L. Frank Baum story will be a lot like part one that the second half of the story is much darker and less hummable than the first. If you want to revisit the magical college for teenagers, gorgeous songs and dance numbers, and ode to opening your hearts to friendship with those who you might initially consider to be too different, then watch the first one again.

“Wicked: For Good” picks up 12 Ozian years later, long past the days of the dorms, classes, and parties at Shiz University. But Galinda, now known as Glinda (Ariana Grande), is finally something of a teacher’s pet, though in this case she is more of an operative for the powerful Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the top advisor for the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). So, she’s less “pet” as in favorite as “pet” as in being a convenient (not asking questions) and attractive (yes, popular) spokesperson. As a student, Glinda was unable to get Madame Morrible to teach her. Indeed, she was blunt in telling her would-be apprentice that she had no talent for magic. As an adult, Madame Morrible found her to be an ideal focus of attention for the population, reassuring them that all was well.

Glinda loves being adored by the population and does not think too hard about the cruelty of the Wizard’s reign, even when her one-time friend Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is now public enemy number one, with wanted posters all over Oz declaring her a threat. Fiero (Jonathan Bailey) is now an officer in the Wizard’s guard, feeling conflicted about Elphaba. But when Glinda announces to the crowd, that they are engaged, Madam Morrible’s idea as the latest entertaining distraction, Fiero goes along with it.

Nessarose (Narissa Bode) has now taken over the position of her late father and is governor of Munchkinland. She is still in love with Bob (Ethan Slater), not knowing that he only asked her to the school dance because Glinda told him to and he only stayed by her side after her father died because he still wanted to be a support for her. When he tells her he thinks it is time for him to leave, she impulsively imposes travel restrictions to keep him from going. Both Bok and Fiero do not want to let down the women who love them, though they long to be with someone else.

Glinda tries to get Elphaba to join the Wizard, and she almost agrees, after he promises to release the flying monkeys and allow the animals to return. When she learns he has not been honest, she resolves to become his enemy.

We know where this is going. While some of the details of the very familiar story are changed, including the origin stories of the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow, the little girl in the checked dress from Kansas and her dog arrive in a storm (the origin story of the storm is well handled) and most of the consequences for the characters remain the same. There are even touches from the MGM movie, for example, when Madame Morrible says a line Margaret Hamilton delivers so memorably about what “must be done delicately.”

Almost all of the now-iconic musical numbers are in the first movie. Despite the best efforts of two powerhouse singers, the songs from the play’s second act and a couple of new ones do not reach those soaring heights. Some reprises come as a relief. The new songs are less tied to defining character developments or crowds performing lively dances. The storyline nearly tips over into making unrequited love the motive for the main characters’ anger, hurt, and motivation for bad behavior, before remembering that the real heart of the story is about choosing trust, kindness, and inclusion over fear and grabs for power.

Production design by Nathan Crowley remains stunning, from the most intricate details to the grandest visions. The same goes for Paul Tazewell’s fabulous costumes. Erivo and Grande sing, never less than transcendently spectacular. Jonathan Bailey gives Fiyero a quiet smolder as he goes from dancing through life to thinking about choices to following his heart. It is subtle, not a term that comes to mind when considering the joyful maximalism of the “Wicked” film and therefore exceptionally moving. And, with credit to director John M. Chu and his outstanding cast, somewhere in all of the eye candy and bombast there are some meaningful comments on the path to power through spreading fear and making the population distrust one another. And there is a tender-hearted story of love and loss, of selfishness and the courage to oppose it, and of the people we love because they see our best selves even before we do.

Parents should know that this film has fantasy peril and violence, and a character is killed. There are brief references to paternity/adultery and a non-explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Pick a favorite story and see if you can imagine it from the point of view of one of the other characters. Why were Glinda and Elpheba friends? What did they learn from each other?

If you like this, try: “Wicked” and “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Wiz,” and the books by L. Frank Baum, and join the Oz Club!