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”

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Posted on September 11, 2025 at 5:17 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual references
Profanity:	Strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 12, 2025

Remember that iconic moment in “Amadeus” when Salieri composes a simple little piece in honor of Mozart’s arrival, and then, the greatest composer of all time, only 25 years old and incapable of imagining Salieri’s bitter jealousy, sits down to play the piece and cannot help turning it into something magical. I could not help thinking of that moment when the real-life Sir Paul McCartney, after a flawless faux interview where he, seemingly sincere, describes a very crude lyric from one of fictional metal group Spinal Tap’s songs as “lit-ra-tchure.” It is followed by the genuine look on his face when he struggles to appear to enjoy their rehearsal performance. Then he sits down at a piano to show them some suggested tweaks, which they immediately reject.

I did not expect a sequel to exceed or even meet the level of the original Spinal Tap movie, which ushered in the era of the mockumentary and remains, to my mind, in the top ten funniest and most quotable feature films of all time. But whether you are a fan who has seen the original multiple times or are coming to these characters with no preconceived notions (but come on, watch the original!), you will have a lot of fun at this one, like the first a take that perfectly balances comedy with authenticity down to the details and a deep, unqualified affection for the souls who just want to share their music with an audience. Hey, Ozzie Osborne said he didn’t laugh at the original because it was too close to the truth.

I’m not going to spoil the surprises, the visits with characters from the first film and cameos from real-life legends. I’ll just say that it is extremely funny and point out that on the poster the number 2 is represented by a close-up of one of the megaliths from Stonehenge.

“The End Continues” begins with the classic premise: getting the band back together. They have not spoken in years and all seem settled with projects they like. But when the daughter of their late manager discovers that she has inherited their contract, she books them for one last performance, in New Orleans.

As fans well know, the band has lost a number of drummers over the years, apparently 11 of them, so one of their first tasks, after three star drummers turn them down, is to audition prospects, find one brave enough to take the job (Valerie Franco) and then rehearse to get ready for the show.

That’s pretty much it, but we do not need anything else except to revisit some of our favorite moments from the first film. It’s great fun to get a reprise of “Listen to the Flower People,” and yes, Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) is still captivated by the possibilities of music technology. I hope the end does continue forever. Rock on, Nigel, David, and Derek, rock on!

Parent should know that this film has strong language, crude humor, sexual references, and bawdy lyrics.

Family discussion: What do the occupations of the musicians at the beginning of the film tell us about them? What real-life musicians do they resemble?

If you like this, try: the Christopher Guest films featuring many of these performers, including “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show,” and “A Mighty Wind”

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Posted on September 11, 2025 at 5:09 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for smoking, suggestive material, some thematic elements
Profanity:	Mile language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and cigarettes, characters get tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	Class issues
Date Released to Theaters:	September 12, 2025

You could have a very successful drinking game if you took a swig every time someone in “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” talks about change, coping with it, changing with it, or trying to ignore or prevent it. But you’d be far too tipsy to enjoy this movie’s many pleasures for those who have watched the characters in the title estate for the past 15 years, through five television seasons and two previous feature films. Beginning with the death of the heir to the estate in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, through world events and domestic developments, the series explored social norms, family dramas, both of the titled family and their servants, and the impact of world events. It was romantic and glamorous. (Those clothes! Those dinners! Those romances!) It had everyone’s favorite, Dame Maggie Smith as Lord Grantham’s mother, the acid-tongued Violet, Dowager Countess. It was often thoughtful and endearing, as characters adapted and matured and relationships reconciled. This film will be of greatest interest to those who have followed the story, though you need not have seen or remembered every detail. But for those who have come to care about these characters, it is a very satisfying conclusion.

This film takes place in 1930, and as it begins the family and some of the servants are attending a glittery performance of Noel Coward’s operetta, Bittersweet. After the show, Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), his wife (Elizabeth McGovern), their daughter, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery), and Lady Edith Hexham (Laura Carmichael) and her husband (Harry Hadden-Paton) go backstage to congratulate the play’s star, Guy Dexter (Dominic West), who became a family friend after appearing in a movie filmed on the estate. The Grantham’s former footman, Thomas Barrow, is there as well because he is now Dexter’s companion/manager. As Lord Grantham says, their relationship appears “hearty.” Dexter introduces them to Coward (a louche and very charming Arty Froushan).

Lady Mary is unaccompanied because she and her husband are getting divorced, at the time so scandalous she will become a “social pariah,” thrown out of a fancy party by the hostess (Joely Richardson) because members of the royal family are about to arrive and it would be unthinkable for them to be in the same room with someone who is divorced.

Lord and Lady Grantham have both lost their mothers. The memory of Violet and Smith lofts above the story, with Violet’s portrait in the hall and frequent references, and hopes for the disposition of the American estate of Lady Grantham’s mother because Downton always needs money. Lady Grantham’s brother, Harold (Paul Giamatti) arrives to tell her it is not what she hoped, and he brings with him an associate named Gus Sambrook (the always- excellent Alessandro Nivola).

“Downton Abbey” creator and screenwriter Julian Fellowes has a gift for melding drama with an exquisite sensitivity to social hierarchies. He understands the smallest details and the way they reflect the emotional and social upheavals. When Lady Mary is shunned by even those they thought of as close friends, her sister, Lady Edith, who has perhaps come the longest way of the characters in the show, is wise and sophisticated enough to know that the world has changed (there that word is again) enough so that there is one path to putting her back in the social world, and it is not about the old hierarchies of noble titles but about another kind of social currency.

As always, the lives of the servants are of equal importance. Two of the key figures are retiring, in a parallel to the difficulties Lord Grantham has in letting Mary take control of the estate. That means two others in the downstairs community have new responsibilities, underscored by Lady Merton (Penelope Wilton), whose more populist views come into play as she brings two members of the downstairs staff into a prominent role in community affairs.

And, as always, it is gorgeous to look at and revel in. The tiaras! The Royal Enclosure at the Ascot races! The sumptuousness of the surroundings and the empathy for the characters bring this saga to most a satisfying conclusion. If Fellowes cannot resist a wink at the audience by giving a character a speech about the importance of screenwriters, what can we do but wink back at him?

Parents should know that this movie includes sexual references and non-explicit situations as well as family difficulties.

Family discussion: How do we decide when to change and when to hold on to traditions? Which of the characters is best at adapting?

If you like this, try: the “Downton Abbey” series and earlier films and Fellowes “Belgravia,” “The Gilded Age,” and “Dr. Thorne.”

Splitsville

Posted on August 28, 2025 at 12:08 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language, sexual content, and graphic nudity
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic scuffles
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 29, 2025

Writer-director-star Michael Angelo Covino and his co-screenwriter and co-star Kyle Marvin have now made a second movie about a man who has sex with his friend’s romantic partner. In their last film, “The Climb,” a character confesses he has slept with his friend’s fiancée. In “Splitsville,” Carey (Covino) confesses he has slept with his friend’s wife. In both films, the focus is on the impact this has on the friendship of the two men, and it is mostly played for goofy comedy based on the cluelessness of the characters in various categories of adulting.

Carey and Ashley (Adria Arjona), his wife of 14 months, are driving to the beach house owned by Paul (Marvin) and his wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson). They are happily singing along to “What a Fool Believes” by the Doobie Brothers when they witness a terrible accident. This prompts Ashley to reach for a letter she has been working on (as she reads it aloud, she has to correct herself from the text’s “13 months”) telling Carey she wants a divorce and that she has repeatedly been unfaithful.

He is devastated. Paul and Julie do their best to comfort him. And they tell him they have an open marriage and allow each other to have sex with anyone they want, and Paul casually says he’d even be all right with it if Carey and Julie had sex. The next night, when Paul is away, Carey and Julie do. The next morning, Carey confesses and Paul is not all right with it. They get into a ridiculously chaotic scuffle, getting hurt and causing a lot of damage in the house.

Like the earlier film, “Splitsville” separates its chapters with mildly arch title cards, which occur over some indeterminate but apparently years-long period. Russ (Simon Webster), the son of Paul and Julie and a student at the private school where Casey is a PE teacher, does not get any older during this period, but this is not a movie where details like this matter. It’s more a “you know what would be funny?” kind of film, sketchy in both senses of the word.

Casey and Paul have been friends since childhood apparently out of inertia and the inability to make any other friends. Casey is good-hearted, considerate, honorable, and kind to a fault. Paul is none of those things. When Russ gets in trouble, his father tells him to lie and Casey advises him to tell the truth, then lies himself to take the blame. A lot of the humor in the film comes from the oddball slacker quality of the two leads. One example is that fight scene, which goes from slaps to low-level martial arts to a pause to rescue Russ’ fish after they crash the tank. They are very low key about situations most people would consider very high-intensity. The female characters are under-written, really there just to provide something for the men to react to.

Carey persuades Ashley not to get divorced, but continue to live together, with him sleeping on the sofa, she in the bed with a series of sexual partners. Casey is so agreeable, he invites them all to stay on in the house, scheduling movie nights (“Lorenzo’s Oil” is popular). While Ashley is a life coach and has a life coach of her own, it is Casey who is becoming something of a mentor to the discarded lovers. There are a bunch of very funny situations and comments. It just does not amount to much.

Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, explicit sexual references and non-explicit situations, graphic nudity, drinking, adultery, crimes, bullying, and adult themes.

Family discussion: What will happen to the couples after the movie? If you wrote a script with your best friend, what would it be about?

If you like this, try: “The Climb” and “Oh, Hello”

The Roses

Posted on August 25, 2025 at 5:57 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content
Profanity:	Constant very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs, drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic, cartoon-style peril, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 28, 2025

There’s a reason romantic fairy tales end with the wedding, assuring us that the couple lived happily ever after but not taking on the difficult task of showing us what that looks like. Very few movies attempt to show what happens after love is declared and the wedding cake has been served to the guests, when the couple has to figure out how to hold onto the stardust while sharing the grubbier and surprisingly controversial tasks of operating a household and, for many, raising children.

“The Roses,” like the 1989 Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner “War of the Roses,” is based on a book by Warren Adler. Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn calls that book “Terrifying, black-humored, black-hearted and bristling,” a description many people might apply to her own work. The book and the two movies are about a once-loving marriage that curdles into scabrous loathing.

This lightly adapted version, changing some details but retaining the vitriol, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Theo, an architect, and Olivia Colman as Ivy, a chef. The movie opens in a disastrous session with a counselor, as the couple tries to come up with what they love about each other but cannot resist the temptation to insult each other as viciously as possible instead. The counselor tells them there may not be a way to move forward and we get a glimpse of the underlying connection between them. They cannot help laughing at the brutality of the insults. You know the song lyric, “too hot not to cool down?” This is “too hot to ever get irretrievably icy.”

We go back in time to see their meeting in London, both of them unhappy because their ideas are not appreciated by their employers. Their immediate attracting is electric and speaking of too hot not to cool down, minutes after meeting they are having sex in the refrigerator closet.

A few years later, they are in California, parents of twins. Theo is excited about the unveiling of his dream project, a maritime museum and Ivy enjoys her barely-breaking-even crab restaurant near the water. They disagree about some parenting choices; Ivy loves to give them sugary treats and Theo is all about eating healthy and working out. But they are endearingly supportive of one another.

And then, their fortunes turn upside down. Theo’s building collapses, along with his future in the profession, the same night Ivy’s 30 covers a day restaurant instantly becomes impossible to get a reservation following one rave review. Ivy takes over as breadwinner, and Theo takes over as full-time dad, housekeeper, and physical trainer for the twins, who are as into it as he is. This is when Theo and Ivy begin to resent and then feel like they loathe each other. They separate

Colman and Cumberbatch are so endlessly watchable that it’s almost easy to overlook that this is essentially a one-joke movie, the same one over and over as Ivy and Noah get increasingly more frustrated and hurt and lash out in increasingly more lacerating ways. Comedy often comes from seeing someone burn bridges we do not dare to. The brilliant supporting cast is woefully underused, except for Allison Janney, transcending the limits of the script as Ivy’s divorce lawyer, and it just gets exhausting. The ending tries to have it both ways, likely to leave audiences saying, “Wait, what?” On the way there, depending on your tolerance for people saying terrible things to their spouses, you may find it funny.

Parents should know that this movie includes very crude and graphic language and sexual references, extreme insults and pranks, and drinking, drunkenness, and drug use. While presented in a heightened comic tone, the underlying hostility may disturb some audience members.

Family discussion: Did you find yourself taking sides over the course of the film? Whose side? Did you switch sides?

If you like this, try; “The War of the Roses” and the book by Warren Adler and, for a more dramatic and romantic look at marital discord over the years, “Two for the Road”