Don't Say Good Luck (2026)

There was an awful lot to cry about in this recently released Happy Gilmore film. The opening scene is Sophie just before her big audition for her school play, for which she’s been practicing and rehearsing diligently while occasionally eyeing a boy of interest and being supported by her best friend. She gets called back, which is deserved but she didn't knock it out of the park either, but while she is waiting her turn, her forever butt dialing her father does so unknowingly while they are receiving the devestating news that Sophie's mom's cancer has come back. Sophie pours all that pathos into her audition, and she lands the lead role, much to everyone's surprise. Having battled a cancer personally that I had not good reason to think I would beat, all the while trying to be a parent to my much older than Sophie's mom's kids I totally get trying to hold back the terrible news that this is the end while supporting Sophie spending long hours rehearsing the role of her young life. I also really feel for Sophie's daad as he tries to face losing his wife and balancing that with being the sole parent to his kids going forward. They try to bring in the grandparents briefly and while they offer a few helping hands, overall their grief at losing their daughter overwhelms their ability to be a plus and they have to leave--it is all so beleivable and while these are not the steps that I ultimately walked in my cancer journey, I shed a lot of tears then and when reliving it watching this. At this point, as my spouse occasionally says, we are too old to die young, at the time I was thinking I had something unbeatable, I had had a good lie, but I was too young for it to be over. Bring a handkerchief if you check this Netflix presnetation out.

Love By The Tenth Date (2017)

As is so often the case in a romantic comedy, the premise is what can be a combination of annoying and what drives the plot. There are four black female co-workers of an online, upscale magazine who all have various issues within the relationship department, and it is the advice column of their boss that sets them into a dating challenge to prove to themselves and each other who can handle a real relationship. Gabby is plagued by a hurtful breakup in the past that she never completely let go. Her circle of influence that consists of three other women and two males in questionable relationships themselves, constantly give her controversial advice about how to go about building a successful relationship. All bets are on the table when Gabby is challenged to make it to ten dates with the same person. Not only is she eligible to win cash money, but she also gets to keep her job by providing a storyline that her boss, as well as the magazine’s readers will fall in love with. With renewed excitement, Gabby comes up with a plan to up her game and little does she realize that her longtime roadie, Dante, who has secretly been in love with her forever, silently wishes he wasn’t her confidant having to listen to every cringe-worthy detail of her dates. As the movie progresses all the women have various issues with preconceived ideas about love and relationships that get in the way of happiness until they are able to let go of them and let their heads take a back seat to their hearts.

Goat (2026)

Ok, so the animation in this movie has been called stunning and dizzying—I would agree with the later assessment, in that the action moves so fast I had trouble keeping up. One reviewer liked it to the Spider verse animation, which I also found to be too much, and I would agree. Will Harris (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) is a goat who has grown up dreaming of playing professional “roarball”, a fiercer and faster version of basketball. But Will is a “small” and roar players are all “bigs” – powerful beasts such as rhinos and horses. Will’s hero and the star of his favorite team, the Thorns, is a panther called Jet, a champ close to retirement but determined to win the league. When Will gets a shot at joining the Thorns, he is laughed at, underrated but undeterred. The rest of the plot unfolds in an entirely predictable manner. The movie has real-life inspiration: basketball star Stephen Curry, who was repeatedly told at the start of his career that he was too skinny and too small to make it as a pro. Curry is a producer here, and has a performing role. But in spite of this connection, Goat comes up lacking.

His, Hers, and Ours (2026)

The hook for me to watch this romantic dramedy over any other was that it is adapted from a Terry McMillan is invovled. I haven't read anything by her since the 1980's but very much enjoyed Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, so when my spouse is on call and I watch a movie that wouldn't be on his top 10 list, this got me interested. The things I like about this, which are features of the author's work, is that it focuses on the lives of creative successful black people who are family oriented. In other words, normal brown skinned people and the whole cast is black and brown people. The story is that a divorced woman and a widower have children who are in love with each other--which neither of them is quite ready to face their kids growing up and having adult feelings and relationships that might invovle sex. So they are doing a terrible job with that transition AND they fall for each other, which mortifies their children in a way that is predictable but also kind of hilarious--the teens are close relatives of their parents and so it stands to reason that they might also get along--I know that doesn't happen all that often in real life, but it certainly seems like it could, what with shared gene pools and all. The story is competently told, but while the teens have some ease and chemistry with each other, the adults are a bit stilted--we never really get to their inner thoughts and plans--so it is is a movie that skims along the surface rather than doing a deeper dive.

Voicemails For Isabelle (2026)

Is texting or calling and leaving voicemails on your dead loved ones phone a thing? This is the second movie that I have watched where the bereaved woman has lost the love of her life, and the person who now has that phone number--in both cases a work phone that is newly issued to them, because no one would believe a grown up would not already have a personal phone--receives the messages and proceeds to not just fall for the person, but pursue them romantically. So then there is the tricky part--how do you break it to them that this is not an accident, that they fell for you based on what you said to a person no longer with us and searched for you without it sounding creepy? For me it seems no more creepy than lots of other ways that people meet and hook up, but that's just me. I very much liked this-- Zoey Deutch as Jill is a fun, mouthy, talented woman who grew up with a sister with cystic fibrosis. She was deeply attached to her and their relationship was home-based and yet very rich. They have a tradition of leaving each other irreverant voicemails that are endearing and hilarious. When Izzie dies, Jill is devestated and to help with her grieving, she keeps it up, only now instead of Izzie, Wes is listening to them. He falls hard for her and goes about finding her and getting to know her, and it is a fun story about how Jill gets both her career and her love life back on track.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

It turns out that I am not much for spectagular CGI pomp and circumstance, and that I need less in the way of family dramas and more in the way of a story, even for a movie that is all about the visual. I read several reviews, and I can see that I am in the minority when it comes to this, and while I thought the first movie was good and also visually stunning, I am not one for dragging the story out, and there seemed to be a lot of that her. For example, while this is the final installment in a trilogy, it would surprise me not if there was another one in the works. So why did I even bother? That is an excellent question, and it is really a matter of filling out my bingo card--there were only four movies that were nominated for the 2026 Oscars that I had not seen (Cutting Though Rocks, Children No More, and THe Ugle Stepsister remain), and it was available on a long flight that got me to the table, and while I am not sorry I saw it, it probably deserved the win in Visual Effects (although a little sad about that), and no, I would not seek out another, but would probably watch if it were again nominated--which is how I ended up seeing the first two. My favorite for visual effects was Sinners, with The Lost Bus as my second choice. So in summary, if you like lush visuals with lots of action, this is a good one.

Cold Storage (2026)

My spouse and I have developed a ritual of watching very light weight action moview when we are starting an international vacation. We are usually going over water and facing a significant time change, which also involves cocktails and trying to get some sleep--not so this time however. We were Mexico City bound and not a drop of intoxicating liquid on board. In our defence, while this is a very silly movie that leans into horror heavily, it stars a favored action hero (Liam Neeson--although his last movie I was also not a fan of, so maybe not) and it has a good IMDB rating (go figure). What I did not know in advance of this is that it is adapted from a 2019 novel and is based on a real-life event. The breakup and descent of the NASA space station Skylab in 1979 and the space agency’s diligent recovery of the orbiter’s debris did happen. What did not happen is that starting in Western Australia, the movie depicts an uncollected piece of debris emitting the aforementioned gnarly, green, tendrilly fungus, which almost instantly infects all the humans in the immediate vicinity and causes their bodies to explode. Gross. After a small NASA contingent (led by Neeson and the incompable Lesley Manville) manages to trap, freeze, and contain the rampaging green stuff, we cut to the government warehouse where the fungus lies dormant in, yes, cold storage. Only the government warehouse is shut down, the building goes up for sale, and decades later, in the present day, it’s a self-storage emporium. So there are some excellent actors, but this is basically a gory film with a thin plot line and nothing can save it.

Enola Holmes 3 (2026)

Let me start off by saying that this is more good clean fun than it is pristine cinema, and I enjoyed this one as much as the prvious two installments in the series that is about fictional Sherlock Holmes' fictional sister. The film opens on the island of Malta where Enola is about to marry Lord Tewkesbury. However, the ceremony is quickly derailed when Enola’s brother, Sherlock Holmes, is kidnapped. The film pivots from a wedding into a swashbuckling rescue mission, weaving in overarching themes of British colonialism, sunken treasure, and the return of the formidable villain Moriarty. The style of storytelling style is energetic, with quick cutaways to headlines both real and imagined. There is a lot of breaking the fourth wall and if you don't care for that, skip this, because it really is part of the charm. The action scenes are dynamic and exciting, the puzzles are clever, the romance is endearing, and Enola’s commitment to fairness is gratifying. Enola is true-hearted, passionate, determined, and fearlessand we can see that her betrothed appreciates all that and more about her. When she speaks directly to us, it feels good to be part of her story.

Wrecking Crew (2026)

My spouse and I have a penchant for watching extremely llght movies when we are on our way to a vacation. We have leaned toward action movies that lack much in the way of depth or message, and then on the way home we might dip our toes into more meaningful and message driven fare. This is definitely of the going on vacation genre. The two stars of this are quite likable actors playing at odds siblings. Dave Bautista plays the rock-solid family man, James Hale, a former Navy SEAL turned drill instructor who has a house near Honolulu, a beautiful and charming child psychologist wife, Leila (Roimata Fox), and two adorable kids. Jason Momoa plays the loose cannon partner, James’ half-brother Jonny, a long-haired, hard-drinking, impetuous cop on an Oklahoma reservation. hey’ve been estranged for more than 20 years. But when their father, Walter, a sleazy private eye, gets killed in a hit-and-run accident while working a case in Honolulu, Jonny swallows his pride and flies to Hawaii for the funeral, setting up the inevitable reconciliation, plus lots of skillfully choreographed, sometimes slyly funny action sequences. They untangle the demise of their parents as well as some rampant corruption, all the while looking like they spend way more time in the gym than their characters spend throwing their weight around.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Kate Quinn is the master of historical fiction when it comes to under appreciated stories about the valor of women. Igenerally prefer a story that captures an era in history rather than the specific details of that event or time period as told in nonfictional works and the story of the women who ran networks during Resistance in France is no exception. I read Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson after reading about it in The Economist, and while it was factually correct and told about a a young French mother who led the "Alliance," the largest and most effective intelligence network in occupied France, this book, which is essentially a parallel story in an earlier war, was more riveting and in many ways more memorable that that. This tells two stories, that of women who spied in WWI and that of women who spied in WWII,and we swing back and forth between their stories. Underlying them is the bleak outlook for talented women in the first half of the twentieth century. In any case,while I wouldn't hold this up as great literature, I very much enjoyed it and it is great story telling.

You People (2023)

I hesitate to admit that I watched this moive because it was so atrociously bad, but watch it I did. There are a lot of good quality actors in this, which is why I kept trying it--on three seperate occasions before I could get all the way through it. I just kept thinking it might get better, but it didn't. The set up is kind of a modern Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, with Jonas Hill as the love interest and Eddie Murphy the Black Muslim dad. The twist is that his wife had a white grandfather, who Murphy thinks poisoned the well--so race and religion are a bit more nuanced in portrayal but that is where it stops. Full stop. This has nearly every stereotype about black people and Jewish people that you can imagine, and maybe it is supposed to be funny or make you think, but all it did was make me cringe, and I hope I save you from having to watch it.

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

This is unabashedly romantic and more of a rmoantic drama than a comedy. It is based on a book of the same title by Jo Jo Moyes, and while I do not read much of her work, this seems more sentimental than even she usually goes. There are two times here--which is easier to see than it is to write about, at least here it is. There are also two different love stories here. In the present day, Ellie, a journalist who has no interest in romance, is assigned to write about an editor who has recently died. She has to get past a rather frosty and formal archivist named Rory to get access to the editor’s archive, and there she finds a swooningly That part of the story is set in 1965 London: there’s the wealthy and gorgeous young couple, Jennifer and Lawrence Stirling--he's a bit distant and she's a bit young. Through a series of flashbacks we learn of her passionate affair with a journalist that her husband introduced her to, and the series of near misses that they have at happiness. In the present day Ellie is busy unraveling the story in the present day, hunting down who they were and what happened to them, and then it all comes together in the end. This was surprisingly tense to watch and surprisingly sweet in the end.

Hoppers (2026)

This is a good one--maybe even nomination worthy. It is a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community. It has charm and a touch of magic, but it is grounded—literally. The conflict at the center of the story is between Mabel Tanaka, who loves a stretch of pristine land populated by wildlife, and Jerry Generazzo, the town’s energetic and glad-handing mayor, who wants to build a Beaverton Beltway through the property. There is an equally compelling conflict within Mabel. This is where Pixar’s signature compassion for our most human vulnerabilities really shines. They understand that anger tries to fool us into thinking it comes from a place of strength and will help get us what we want. But more often, it comes from fear, and it doesn’t help at all, this time at Mayor Jerry and the planned destruction of the glade. He says he can proceed because it is no longer an animal habitat. All the animals are gone. Which is true--Mabel needs a bewver to return to the glade to make a healthy water source and a place for the animals to come back to--through a series of events Mabel herself becomes that beaver--literally--and fights the good fight against cheating politicians. Heart warming eco-animation for the whole family .

A Private Life (2026)

I watched this on a plane en rout home from a very restful vacation. I had just had a joint replacement in my dominant arm, which was boring and painful and a little scary because there was so much I could not do that is important to me. I could not cook, write, or sew, and it was hard to type. While I love to read and watch movies, when that is all you can do it quickly wears thin. So the trip was as much about getting out of my house as it was about exploring a new place, and it was very successful indeed. This is is a 2025 French mystery thriller Jodie Foster in her first French-language acting role. She plays renowned and vaguely arrogant psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, who has an old school psychoanalytic approach to the profession, complete with the couch. When she is informed that her patient Paula has taken her own life, she refuses to accept the official ruling. Convinced that foul play is involved, Lilian launches her own quirky, private investigation into the circumstances of Paula's death. Along the way, she enlists the reluctant help of her affectionate ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), and navigates the absurdities of her own unraveling personal and professional life. It is odd, slightly bizarre and completely out of step with modern psychiatry but in the end, I enjoyed it.

The Lost Bus (2025)

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that this movie was nominated in the area of special effects for the 2026 Academy Awards and it certainly fits that bill. It is a "telling the story of a disaster" movie, which adheres largely to the facts even if some of the people and their circumstances are changed. This is about the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, which went from a small fire to a devestating fire in no time at all, aided and abetted by dry conditions and very high wind. Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) is a relatively new school bus driver, back in Paradise for a number of reasons and struggling. He answers a call from his dispatcher to pick up 23 kids at an elementary school and get them to safety. At first, it doesn’t seem that difficult, but everyone in the area of Paradise, California, underestimated how quickly this blaze would move and how hard it would be to evacuate as it did. Stuck in traffic with enough smoke in the air to block the sun, Kevin and a teacher named Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) do their best to keep the kids calm, even as their own panic rises. Cutting through traffic, trying shortcuts, and blocking the children from seeing people literally on fire. The actual action of is white-knuckle riveting. It’s powerfully immersive stuff, so much so that while there isn’t a bus of children actually avoiding a deadly blaze, the viewer gets so caught up in the immediacy of what they are facing that it is hard to watch and hard to look away. There’s a scene where Mary actually gets off the bus to find water that will had me wanting to yell at her to get back to the bus--NOW. THe bad news is that the beginning of the movie is completely unnecessary and clunky. We do not need to know Kevin's backstory to care about whether he gets these kids, himslef and the teacher to safety. Instead of glossing over that we spend quite a bit of time learning Kevin recently underwent a bitter divorce, his teenage son hates him, his mother is cognitively declining, and icing on the life stressor cake, his dog died. Ugh, really? Maybe it even describes the real story but wow, not needed. Overall this was a good edge of your seat action movie, and if you haven't seen it, you should watch the short documentary, Campfire, which shows actual footage of the Camp Fire and how it unfolded in real life to see just hoe true to form this rendition is.

Anaconda (2026)

Let's start off by acknowledging that this movie is really awful. I watched it on a Transatlantic flight, which is the ideal setting for slightly less than spectacular movies whose main goal is to pass the time--so even in an ideal detting the end result is that this movie was terrible. It is billed as a meta-reboot of the original Anaconda, and aims to trade earnest horror for goofy self-aware comedy. It stars Jack Black as Doug and Paul Rudd as Griff and with their down-on-their-luck friends who set out to make an indie reboot of the 1997 classic, only to get trapped in the jungle with a real, giant CGI snake. Their partners in this endeavor are film making friends from their high school days, also with star power (Thandie Newton and Steve Zahn) and nothing, not even them, can save this. The original was (reportedly) a silly movie that knew it was silly. This new Anaconda begins life as a silly movie but then turns less silly and more absurd, and that’s when it becomes even less compelling than wehre is started. When the focus is on the scrappy movie within the movie, it’s good for the occasional laugh. However, throughout the movie the dialogue is terrible, and the acting is unable to save it, despite the presense of actors that I usually find entertaining.

Solo Mio (2026)

We watched this romantic comedy on a Transatlantic flight, and if for no other reason, it should be seen because Andrea Bocelli, the celebrated Italian tenor, performs in it. As far as I can tell, this is his first appearance in a movie that is not about him or his life. Matt, played by Kevin James, is left at the alter at his destination wedding in Rome. As so often happens in a romantic comedy, even one that involves middle aged heartbreak, he goes on the honeymoon solo mio, and as luck would have it, one of the locals who is determined to salvage it for him is a relative of the famous opera singer. This is a kind of run of the mill movie for this genre, but like another movie I watched this year, the appearance of a world class musical performer helps to transform the story to another level.

The Accountant (2016)

My spouse and I watched the most recent interation of this character, a combination wizard of an accountant combined with a highly skilled killer. Luckily you do not need to see this one first, but we were on a Transatlantic flight and watched it with dinner and before trying to get a few winks in before landing. There are quite a few threads at work here, one of which is the back story on why a combination of autism and a pretty sadistic father might have combined to bring him to who he is today, and why his brother, who had to both suffer with the same parent and watch his brother struggle might have gone into security work for the bad guys. As alluded to, there’s quite a bit of stuff going on here, and for a good while the moviepercolates on its multiplicity of plot threads even as it keeps adding to them. As it happens, the “accountant” that Treasury agents are looking for is up to quite a bit more than providing tax relief for rural dwellers (which is the opening scene). He uncooks the books for a slew of deadly bad guys. Deadly bad guys who aresubsequently busted by the Treasury Department. Despite his proximity to some of the most dangerous criminals in the known universe, this man of dozens of aliases stays alive. How? Part of the answer is provided by the recurring flashbacks, in whichhis father provides young Christian with his more militaristic cure, which later manifests itself in sharpshooting and martial arts skills. While some of the material seems a bit insensitive and not altogether in keeping with mental health awareness, and does not characterize autism as an illness in any way accurately, it is a very decent action movie.

You, Always (2026)

This is pretty straight ahead fare in the romantic comedy genre. A reviewer described it as disposable, which I guess I agree with, in that it is very light, very predctable, and there is nothing to strain your brain here. It is also completely unrealistic, but this is not a genre where the brain is much engaged, and I like it for that. It is a sun-drenched, predictable "friends-to-lovers" story set in Far North Queensland, Australia--so undeniably gorgeous, and not your standard back drop. The film follows Dr. Jen Bell, a local doctor and marine rescue volunteer who has come home after some time away, amarriage that ended acrimoniously, and a daughter, and her high-school best friend Ethan, who has inherited a house in his part time home town after his fahter's death. They work together on marine rescues as well as a lot of co-parenting of Jen's daughter, who they are both quite attached to--this is the point at which any parent sees where this is going. Finding someone who can care for your child at approximately the same level of commitment that you have is a winning hand. Both have sworn off dating following rough divorces. Just as Ethan realizes he has been in love with Jen all along, her life is upended by the arrival of Patrick, a charismatic romance novelist who literally sweeps Jen off her feet--but notably more or less ignores her daughter. He is not weird or difficult about it, and definitely not creepy, but, well, they are a package deal and he is placing Jen in a romance novel and wants to close the deal on it. Nothing surprising happens-- It offers a comforting, feel-good escape with beautiful coastal scenery.

Swapped (2026)

My youngest son and I watched this one evening when my spouse was on call and we both really enjoyed it. To be fair, we like animation, even when the story is a bit weak, so long as the animation is strong, but with this one, we enjoyed it as a whole. The animation is lush and gorgeous, and since it is an action movie that spans a whole magical environment, with one of the main characters able to fly, there is a lot to be awed by when it comes to that. The story takes place in an imaginary place called the Valley, where different types of woodland creatures don’t live together harmoniously. Ollie is a Pookoo, who looks like a sea otter, and is afraid of Javans. They are a hybrid version of owls and parrots. Ollie has always been a curious Pookoo, willing to help others and see beyond what the Valley offers. Things take a turn for the worse for Pookoos when Ollie helpsIvy, a tired, young Javan find food, which happens to be Pookoo’s only source of food. Ollie teaches the young Javan to open a seed. This puts the Pookoo’s in danger as the Javans take the seeds, leaving the Pookoo’s with very little for their survival and they go underground for safety. Fast forward and Ollie gets changed in a Java when he stumbles upon some miracle pods, and he gets taken in by Ivy and her sisters, who team up to restore him to his original Pookoo self. This is a movie about perspective and empathy, most importantly, the latter. It’s a story that revolves around two beings and learning to understand their worlds when the roles are switched. But the twist is that the two central characters swap bodies and team up to save their homes before an evil creature destroys them. It’s not just about empathy; it’s also about survival.