Forgotten Island

Posted on September 24, 2026 at 10:52 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, rude humor, language, brief tobacco Imagery, scary action, and some violence
Profanity:	Some strong and crude language for a PG
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended animation-style peril, action, and some violence, no one badly hurt, sad death (offscreen) of grandmother, parental abandonment
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 25, 2026

“Forgotten Island” is a colorful story about friendship and memory, inspired by Filipino folklore. Jo and Raissa meet as children in the waiting area for the principal’s office. They are very different, Jo (H.E.R.), a fierce, impulsive chaos agent and Raissa (Liza Soberano), deliberate, thoughtful, and academically-oriented. Jo lives with her beloved grandmother, Lola (Dolly De Leon) but feels abandoned by her parents, who have moved to the US. Raissa has a more comfortable life with devoted parents. But they have something in common, a passion for Lola’s stories about visiting the magical island of Nakali through a portal from an enchanted sun dollar.

They have both been sent to the principal’s office for getting in trouble in the classroom by insisting that Nakali is real. But they decide not to wait, leaving behind a post-it note that simply says BRB (Be Right Back), and pledge to be best friends forever, exchanging string friendship bracelets. In a charming and joyous montage, we see their adventures as they grow up, including accidentally driving a bus to the beach where it gets stuck in the sand and becomes something of a clubhouse/art project. Many special memories get added to that friendship bracelet, and many more BRB notes are left behind. And then, as the girls are near high school graduation, we see them with Lola in a hospital bed hooked up to monitors, and then she is gone.

Jo is working (and sometimes getting fired) in fast food restaurants and Raissa is getting ready to go to America to attend Caltech. The night before Raissa is to leave, Jo persuades her to go on one last adventure. They discover an enchanged sand dollar and soon they are transported to Nakali. They wake up the next morning with no memory of what happened the night before and find that the sand dollar is missing so there is no way for them to get home in time for Raissa’s flight to California. They try to figure out how Raissa lost one whole side of her hair and how she got wings. Jo is wearing a jeweled crown but has no idea where it is from. And both girls and a strange new companion named Raww (Dave Franco) have some angry-looking, possibly infected tattoos that read: Wild Pack.

They meet a series of magical creatures. Raww is a were-dog who sometimes assumes full dog form, sometimes almost turns back into a boy, and most times is a bit of both. Batiba (Jenny Slate) is an agoraphobic cave-dweller who collects the memories of visitors to the island and keeps them for herself. Merhman (Manny Jacinto) is a preening mer-man, Bungi is a 200-year-old baby whose mother finally cuts his umbilical cord so he can travel with the group, and the Manananggal (Lea Salonga) is a fierce and angry winged creature whose upper and lower halfs can separate at the torso and operate independently.

As Jo and Raissa try to locate the sand dollar, remember the night before, and hold onto the memories of their past that Batiba wants for herself, the exciting and colorful adventures help them to understand their past and learn, sometimes painfully, how to be better friends.

The Filipino folklore contributes new characters that in the Joseph Campbell or Jungian sense each represent parts of an integrated human spirit, all the parts that make up the id, ego, and superego. The visuals are dynamic, with has great, strong, colors, some luminous, and imaginative and telling character design. The pacing is very energetic, sometimes overly so, as though worried about losing the attention of the hyped up of the TikTok generation. As is the current fashion (“Spider-Verse,” “KPop Demon Hunters,” etc.), moments of particular intensity of emotion or action switch to an exaggerated, flat, anime style, which may reduce the tension by adding some self-aware humor to reassure young audience members. There are some nice tributes to the pleasures of karaoke and some good pop songs (“Don’t Stop Believin'”, “Don’t You Forget About Me”) that fit the storyline. The discussion of memories is well handled, but what’s best is the relationship of the two heroines, very different in temperament and outlook but appreciating each other and the way their differences are a strength. A sweet concluding scene is more magical than even the most fanciful character.

Parents should know that this film has some disturbing material for a PG including scary images, peril, and violence (no one badly hurt), very risky behavior shown as fun and adventurous, as well as crude language, potty humor, and jokes about crotch hits and the “Predator” movie.

Family discussion: Who have been your best friends and what memories of your time together mean the most to you? Which is your favorite of the magical characters and why?

If you like this, try: “In Your Dreams”

The Deb

Posted on August 24, 2026 at 5:56 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Extremely strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking, teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some scuffles, no one badly hurt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 25, 2026

Rebel Wilson’s “Pitch Perfect” experience and love of classic Hollywood shows in her first film as director, “The Deb,” with vibrant, ebullient musical numbers featuring an outstanding cast of young performers. It was released in Wilson’s home country of Australia in 2024 but is just now coming to the US on demand.

The basic plot is a classic city mouse and country mouse with one teenage cousin expelled from a posh private school in Sydney and sent to live with her rancher uncle and cousin in a remote rural community. On the surface it is brash and raunchy — the opening musical number with girls in plaid skirt and navy blazer school uniforms is a song about much they suffer from rich girl problems, with the repeated phrase often abbreviated as “FML.” But it is also heartwarming and refreshingly shrewd about cancel culture and teenage identity struggles. While the characters are exaggerated for comic purposes, the film is sympathetic to everyone.

The city cousin is Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) and we are introduced to her via her podcast, where she disingenuously pretends that showing herself in a tiny bikini is fighting the patriarchy. It is clear that spouting aphorisms about heteronormativity and claiming to be the feminist voice of her generation are just click-bait expressions of teenage angst. As the school principal, who is also her mother, tells her, “You are not Malala. You don’t want change; you want attention.”

After Maeve rips open her shirt to flash the entire school she is sent to a rural community called Dunburn. She is picked up at the bus stop by her cousin Taylah (Natalie Abbott), via riding mower. Maeve’s uncle is Rick (Shane Jacobson), a widower who loves his daughter but relies on her to do farm chores and considers ramen a suitable dinner. Rick is also Dunburn’s mayor, which mostly means applying to the government for relief after a three-year drought that threatens the town’s economic viability.

The town’s most beloved tradition is The Deb, a throwback coming-out (to society, not out of a closet) gala where the girls wear poofy white dresses and are presented via a giant plaster clamshell. Taylah is looking forward to it. Maeve sees it as a juicy topic for a disdainful podcast about an “antiquated heteronormative s***show from hell…uniquely preserved from rural isolation.”

Wilson plays Janette, the owner of a beauty salon called Curl Up N Dye and the mother of Annabelle (Stevie Jean), leader of the trio of Dunburn mean girls, who perform as the Pixie Cups. Janette is grooming Annabelle to be a pop star and Wilson plays her as over-the-top outrageous, including insulting and being cruelly dismissive to her other daughter, who “identifies as a koala.”

Thankfully, the traditional makeover scene is subverted, everyone grows up a little (stay past the beginning of the credits for some reassurance along those lines) and Maeve’s savvy about creating viral content is used for good. What works best in the film are those musical numbers, with a lot of variety from pop to country to hip-hip. The stand-out a duet ballad with Maeve and Taylah singing separately about the impact of a spotlight, brought back later in a reprise. The screenplay is credited to Hannah Reilly, who wrote the play it is based on, with “additional writing by Rebel Wilson,” and it is pretty easy to figure out what Wilson added, mostly for her own character. This makes for some unevenness of tone that makes less accessible for the likely audience most interested in a story of young women trying to establish their identity and direction in a world that has a lot of unrealistic expectations.

Parents should know that this movie has extremely crude humor and very strong language. A character is persuaded by a boy to let him take a picture of her with her shirt off, which he shows off to other boys. There is some teen kissing and a teen who comes out as gay to a parent. There is smoking and teen drinking, and some scuffles (no one badly hurt).

Family discussion: Why is Maeve so angry and impatient? What makes her change her mind about Dunburn? What would you say to Jeanette?

If you like this, try: “Grease,” “Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueburger,” the “Mean Girls” musical, and the “Pitch Perfect” series

Tony

Posted on August 12, 2026 at 4:48 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for pervasive language, drug use, and sexual content/nudity.
Profanity:	Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drug use, casual and to excess
Violence/ Scariness:	Scuffles, fire
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 14, 2026

“Tony” begins with a quote from the late author and chef Anthony Bourdain describing himself at age 19: “a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” Add in depressed, arrogant, angry, terrified, and desperately crushing on a girl he has no possible capacity to attract, and you’ve got the anti-hero in this, I have to say, delicious new film about a pivotal summer when Bourdain was 19.

Dominic Sessa (“The Holdovers“) gives one of the best performances of the year as Bourdain, still called “Tony.” As the film opens, he is explaining with great confidence but very little substance to an academic committee why he should receive a writing grant for the summer. He is so certain his proposal cannot lose that he tells everyone, including his family, that he has won it. But he has not. With no money, no plans, and no idea what to do, he decides to follow a girl who has shown pretty definitively that she is even less impressed with him than the committee. She mentioned she was spending the summer in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, so that is where he goes, with no job, no place to say, and very soon, no money.

I really appreciate the new style of biographical films that pick one pitival moment instead of trying to cram an entire lifetime into two hours, skipping from some trauma in childhood to meeting a series of significant people to being discovered to letting down people who care about him, etc. etc. Here, Sessa keeps us on the side of Bourdain, still being called by the diminutive “Tony,” behaving very badly, making many mistakes, hurting other people, but, in truly thrilling fashion, getting a glimpse of a future where he will become fully himself, fully “Anthony.”

Screenwriters Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, Matthew Miller, and dirctor Matt Johnson sensitively adapted from just a few dozen pages in Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, capturing the reality of the emotions and reactions instead of being overly didactic about the details. This means that three years are encapsulated into one summer and the characters other than Bourdin are composites adjusted for dramatic purposes. In the film and in reality Bourdin worked at a low-end Provincetown restaurant called The Flagship. In the movie, he gets drunk, insults the waitress, gets thrown out, and gets robbed. Then the owner (Anonthy Banderas as Chef) takes pity on him, and lets him sleep on his hammock — waking him up every morning by throwing cold ocean water on his head, and then gives him a dishwashing job in his kitchen. It is unlikely any of that really happened.

But that set-up is just a way of making palpable what is going on internally. Leo Woodall, fast becoming one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, gives another outstanding performance as Sal, the louche, amoral sous-chef who carves a chip out of the doorway every time he has sex with a woman so he can keep them as souvenirs of his conquests. Chef is someone the Bourdin we meet at the beginning of the film would have dismissed as simple and uninteresting. But like a cartoon character with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, Sal and Chef present two choices that Bourdin will continue to struggle with until his sad death at his own hand in 2018. It is a tribute to the screenwriters and the performers that the film hits the usual notes of a three-act coming of age story and yet every minute is fresh and specific. So it is fitting that the movie ends with one of Bourdain’s real-life friends from the restaurant world, Eric Ripert, playing an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. We know what happens next. But the part of Bourdain’s story he dismissed in his book as “the less said about that part of my life, the better, believe me,” makes a very fine film.

Parents should know that this film has a lot of adult material and bad behavior including nudity and sexual references and situations, alcohol and drugs used casually and to excess, and very strong language.

Family discussion: How did Tony’s ideas about what he needed to be happy change over the course of the summer? Why? What food tastes like the future to you? If not food, what does feel like future to you?

If you like this, try: Bourdain’s books and television series and “Julie & Julia”

Driver’s Ed

Posted on May 14, 2026 at 5:54 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	MPAA for sexual references, alcohol use, language throughout, brief graphic nudity, and teen drinking
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking, drugs and drug dealing
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, crotch hits, car crash
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 15, 2026

Four high school seniors impulsively “borrow” a driver’s ed car from their school and go off on a journey to Chapel Hill in a movie from director Bobby Farrelly that just about makes up for its predictability with its unpretentiousness. This is a “just go with it” movie, with paper-thin characters and contrived situations, but it invites us to go along for the ride.

Sam Niviola (“White Lotus,” and son of Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola) plays aspiring film-maker Jeremy, who desperately misses his girlfriend, Sam (Lilah Pate), already in college. In French class, the teacher catches him texting her and makes his classmate Evie (Sophie Telegadis) read it aloud. The earnest but ineffectual principal (Molly Shannon), more concerned about her job security than educating students or molding their characters, gives him a week’s detention.

An ineffectual but not earnest substitute driver’s ed teacher with both arms in casts (Kumail Nanjiani) takes Jeremy, Evie, and two other students out for a driving lesson. Don’t bother with the explanation of why four 18-year-olds don’t already have their licenses or how contrived it is that they are four ethnically diverse non-overlapping stereotypes who apparently have been watching each other closely since elementary school and have bite-sized story arcs to resolve their issues. Just go with it.

The other two students are Aparna (Mohana Krishnan), the study-all-the-time girl and Yoshi (Aidan Laprete), the apathetic slacker drug dealer. The appealing young actors all do their best to give some life to these paper-thin characters, but struggle with the lightly sketched emotional scenes. Inexplicably, both in terms of narrative and character, the one person who does not get a moment of confession leading to understanding and connection is Evie, whose reason for not having a driver’s license two years after eligibility is that she used to have friends drive her around but she “divorced” them all. This seems ripe for further examination, and failing to give her any kind of depth except for a palpable long-simmering crush on Jeremy might create more of a sag in the storyline if it wasn’t primarily focused on the incidents along the way.

Those include hitching a ride with a high-spirited couple, transporting a refrigerated truck filled with expensive furs they keep insisting have aphrodisiacal qualities, being chased by a determined cop (Bri Giger) who happens to be the former partner of the high school’s thrown off the force ineffectual (do we see a theme about the grown-ups here?) security guard, an encounter with an armed robber/drug dealer, and, in the film’s brightest performance, a. pre-med student (Marley Aliah) bringing an emotional support dog to comfort some sick kids.

It’s difficult to judge this film harshly because it is so soft-hearted that it is even sympathetic to a gun-toting drug dealer and even gives Jeremy a soft landing when he finally makes it to the campus and gets to talk to Sam. If it shifts his obsession with Sam into another relationship as ridiculously quick as Duckie at the end of “Pretty In Pink,” we cannot help but think a happy ending for everyone is just right.

Parents should know that this movie has teen drinking and drug use and two characters are drug dealers. Characters use very strong and crude language, peril and violence includes an armed robber and car chases and crashes and several crotch punches (no one badly hurt), sexual references and brief nudity and a lot of irresponsible behavior.

Family discussion: How did you/will you learn to drive? Why do you think Evie broke up with her friend group?

If you like this, try: a much better teens taking off for a road trip movie, “Paper Towns” and some of the movies Jeremy is inspired by

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Posted on June 15, 2025 at 9:32 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
Date Released to Theaters:	June 13, 2025
Date Released to DVD:	August 13, 2025

It may be completely unnecessary but this live action version of the terrific 2010 animated “How to Train Your Dragon” is still a great story. The story is heartwarming, the visuals are exciting, and the themes of courage used for a deeper understanding are still worthy.

I object to the idea that an animated film is just a lesser version until technology develops to create a “live action” remake (the dragons are CGI). Animation has its own artistry, vibrance, and expressiveness. This version is almost a shot-for-shot remake, emphasizing the original’s unsurpassability, yet somehow it is nearly half an hour longer. The original – and its sequels and spin-offs – are so memorable that this remake is like enjoying a cover band version of a classic song more for the memories it evokes of the original than for its own merits.

Our young hero is Hiccup (Mason Thames), the son of single dad and chief Stoick (Gerard Butler, who voiced the same character in the original). They live in Berk, a craggy, stark, unforgiving, and remote Scandinavian community beset by dragons who steal their food. Status is based on killing dragons and many people in the community proudly sport scars and prosthetics to demonstrate their courage in these battles. Stoick, disappointed by his son’s lack of warrior spirit, reminds Hiccup that his mother was killed by a dragon (though those of us who have seen the animated sequels know that she is still alive). Hiccup is apprenticed to Stoick’s best friend Gobber (Nick Frost), whose prosthetic hand and foot are the result of fighting dragons, and who now provides weapons and teaches those teenagers who, unlike Hiccup, are going to be trained to be dragonslayers.

As in the original, the dragons here are wonderfully imagined, with many fascinating species. Each looks different and poses different kinds of threats. While Stoick has taken all of the warriors in search of the dragons’ nest, Hiccup finds and befriends a wounded Night Fury he names Toothless, hiding their relationship from everyone else until they are discovered by Astrid (Nico Parker), the best young warrior trainee. He takes her for a ride on Toothless and she is convinced that dragons are worthy of respect and affection.

Very little has changed in the storyline, as noted. But perhaps 15 years distance has brought some changes in our atmosphere and understanding. For me at least, Stoick’s harsh judgment of Hiccup as weak and fearful because he does not want to cut the heads off of dragons felt like a slightly broader statement about masculinity, hierarchies based on community standards, and fear of the unknown than a father’s distorted but genuine wish to protect his son from creatures that were responsible for so much loss. Perhaps that was just because I know the story so well and thought the padding dragged a little.

Thames portrayal of Hiccup is sincere and he allows us to see the teenager sort through his feelings as he allows curiosity to triumph over tradition. Parker, the daughter of Thandiwe Newton and Ol Parker, is excellent, showing us Astrid’s fierceness and, like Hiccup, the curiosity that leads her to question her community’s assumptions, even though by the standards she was raised with, she is at the top.

Production designer Dominic Watkins skillfully translates the animated world with intricate, textured, settings filled with intriguing details. The ships, the landscape, the workshop, even the doors in the arena that open up to allow dragons to enter for the training sessions area are all gorgeously imagined to bring us into the world. Lindsay Pugh’s costumes and the hair designs by a talented group of artists help define the characters, who dress for battle but show a lot of personality and intention in the way they present themselves. The flying scenes are dynamic, fun to watch, and I’m sure a glimpse at what the new ride at Universal Studios will be like.

Parents should know that this movie has extended peril and violence, though human and dragon deaths are off-screen. We hear about injuries and deaths, including the death of Hiccup’s mother. It also includes a very positive portrayal of people (and a dragon) with disabilities.

Family discussion: Why was Hiccup the first to see that the dragons could be friendly? Why was it hard for his father to accept that?

If you like this try: the animated movies, the books, and the television series