In the wake of COVID-19, some changes…
Everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19 and the entertainment industry, in particular movie studios and theaters, have been dramatically affected. I will be continuing to review new films when I can, albeit many will likely be smaller indies unless Hollywood embraces Video on Demand. I’m also going to make a real effort to continue seeking out Ohio-made indies and providing reviews for them. I will continue what I did for my huge 1999 in Rewind article and look back at my original teenage reviews and assess my current feelings on the movies and my old writing, for the year 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and now 2004. I’ll be on the lookout for amazingly new so-bad-it’s-gotta-be-seen movies (have you seen Love on a Leash?). In short, I’m going to keep writing. I hope you keep reading.
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Melania (2026)
Let’s tackle the reality that reviewing a documentary like Melania is practically beyond the point. This movie wasn’t created by artists who felt they had a compelling and insightful story to tell, a revelatory depiction of the human condition that would cause us all to sit back and reflect on ourselves. No, this movie was created to appease and suck up to one important orange-hued ticket-buyer. Amazon bought the rights to the movie for a staggering $40 million dollars, pledged an additional $35 million in marketing, and put out all the stops to open the documentary on the residing First Lady in 1700 screens nationwide. For those not in the know, documentaries are not big moneymakers; the highest-grossing doc of 2025 was Becoming Led Zeppelin at $16 million. Only thirteen documentaries have ever grossed over $70 million worldwide and only 39 have grossed more than $30 million. It’s hard to fathom that Amazon imagined this would become a runaway hit. They’re not that deluded. Think less of Melania as a documentary and more as a transparent corporate bribe by Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, who sure would like favorable consideration from the current administration that interferes in every facet of media to better protect the ego of a soon-to-be octogenarian who needs everyone to constantly be showering him with effusive adoration (le sigh). Welcome to our new American ecosystem, where all corporations are expected to bend the knee in fealty so as to procure favorable dispensation from a mad king always in need.
What is even the point of reviewing something like this? It’s so obviously manufactured in bad faith. Well, dear reader, I guess it comes back to my own martyr complex: I suffer so that you may be spared the same fate. Unless you’re a diehard MAGA member, Melania will be a torturously facile example of unserious people elevating other unserious people for an audience of the unserious to be patronizingly pat on the head and told that, yes, theirs is the true voice of America’s solemn destiny.
The film follows the 20 days before the second inauguration of Donald Trump as the American president. For those of you, especially in endangered minority communities, wondering what Melania Trump was going through when it came to designing the drapes and White House color patterns, fear not! Most of the movie is listening to Melania’s strained narration while we watch handlers and assistants flit about and primp the soon-to-be First Lady while handing her samples. Never has insider access felt so tedious!
Did I mention that this movie is directed by none other than Brett Ratner, disgraced filmmaker who was jettisoned from Hollywood as a Me Too reckoning following decades of harassment? Ratner has never directed a documentary before and it shows. Opening the doc with the Scorsese-esque notes from the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” feels like sacrilege. It’s even worse when played over the start of Melania strutting through her Mar-a-Lago mansion to a fleet of cars. It plays like self-parody but you know nobody has the awareness for that. Ratner asks her such incisive questions like, “What is your favorite recording artist?” like it’s a Tiger Beat interview. Late in the film, he’s heard on camera wishing the president “sweet dreams” in the most sycophantic voice. Really Ratner’s here like everyone else, seeing the craven opportunity to get into the good graces of the president. Ratner has been pushing to get Rush Hour 4 greenlit, a sequel that I don’t even think Chris Tucker (current age: 54) and Jackie Chan (current age: 72) are eager to launch. Not that it matters to Ratner, but it’s been almost TWENTY YEARS since 2007’s Rush Hour 3, which also featured a cameo by notorious sex pest Roman Polanski. Sure enough, in the wake of Melania’s release, Trump was pushing for a Rush Hour 4, as clearly the man whose brain is always stuck in the 1980s has his finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist. All Ratner had to do was make a 100-minute fluff piece about the president’s third wife and, voila, one sexual predator in the highest office in the land can ensure that another sexual predator can get his dream project, which I repeat is depressingly Rush Hour 4, off the ground. Also recall that Ratner was literally seen canoodling on a couch with pal Jeffrey Epstein and a group of young women who were certainly there by choice. Ugh.
I actually think a figure like Melania could be an interesting subject for a hard-hitting documentary. The Slovenian model becomes the third wife to a notorious philanderer and crook, enough that he was famously having sex with adult film actress Stormy Daniels while Melania was recovering from the birth of their son. From the outside, this relationship appears entirely transactional, with Trump getting a new, younger, more desirable wife, though not desirable enough to stop having affairs with other women (note: this is a condemnation of Trump, not on any perceived shortcoming of Melania). For her, she gets the security of a man of riches and with that security is the tacit understanding that he can do whatever he wants and she will have to accept it. Getting an insider’s account of all the debauchery and debasement of being Trump’s current wife could be extremely insightful and would make Melania genuinely empathetic for one of the rare times in public life. Granted, she’s made her calculation and stood silent while her husband’s regime has terrorized millions at home and endangered the lives of millions abroad, so let’s cap that degree of empathy. Still, she has a perspective that could be very illuminating under the right circumstances. It’s just that we’ll never see that kind of perspective. It’s too off-brand. It goes against her agreement with the money-man. I don’t fault her for wanting to stay in her echelon of riches and comfort any more than I would, say, a duchess who prefers a pampered life to starving on the streets. I get it, but it doesn’t excuse the lasting damage of being the pursed-lip silent partner to a degenerate with total power. Imagine a documentary about Eva Braun but it’s all about her favorite throw pillows. Not exactly the most interesting angle to take for someone so close to such disruptive and systemic abuses of power.
I take particular umbrage with one angle the documentary takes, setting Melania up as a celebration of immigration, a reflection of the American Dream. It’s more than a little hypocritical for this movie to elevate the immigrant story of Melania while the administration of her husband is targeting anyone it deems insufficiently American, namely people of color regardless of their actual citizenship. When the government’s special masked police are rounding up indigenous people to deport to adhere to an unrealistic and damningly racist daily quota, you know they’re not targeting the “worst of the worst.” Are the “worst of the worse” the day care workers? The family-owned pizzeria? The spouses of American soldiers? Those seeking asylum from persecution and death from hostile governments? The immigrants who have navigated the byzantine system of immigration to become official citizens and who are abducted by ICE for appearing at their court appointments? To manufacture Melania as a symbol of the celebration of an immigrant’s journey is farcical when the Trump Administration is built upon the elimination of immigrants from every facet of society. It isn’t a coincidence that the administration has lowered immigration numbers to a paltry 7500 in 2025 and most of those are white South Africans. She’s quoted as saying, “No matter where we come from, we are bound by the same humanity.” Uh huh. Tell that to Stephen Miller and his dogged desire to Make America as Alabaster as Possible Again.
There’s just not enough material here to cover a feature film, which is why the shallow movie often feels like an overly padded infomercial propping up its star. There are long stretches where you’re just watching people walk or listen to performances. It’s filling time. The whole enterprise feels like you’re watching someone else’s lackadaisical wedding video. There are perhaps two or three memorable moments caught on camera. The first is Trump complaining that the college football championship game being held the same day as his presidential inauguration is a conspiracy against him. His reasoning is that they’ve had the inaugural date for “centuries.” The next is Melania turning the funeral of President Jimmy Carter into her own grief about losing her mother. Melania takes reverence walking through the halls of the Capitol, remarking about the military defending the rights of the Constitution, which is quite ironic considering Donald Trump fomented an insurrection that gleefully attacked police officers to try and overturn an election in defiance of the Constitution. There’s also the line from his inaugural speech that is particularly galling in 2026: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peace-maker and unifier.” Yes, surely history will remember Trump as an instrument of peace when he’s not bombing girls’ schools and pledging to annihilate civilizations as well as other blatant war crimes.
Rather than continue to tell you about the many creative and moral shortcomings of this enterprise, why not provide a sampling of some of the best critical hits on this movie? Here you go:
“I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.” – Xan Brooks, The Guardian
“To say that Melania is a hagiography would be an insult to hagiographies.” – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
“Melania the movie isn’t a documentary; it’s a protection racket.” -Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic
“A soothingly looped AI screensaver.” -Amy Noicholson, Los Angeles Times
“Call it a document, instead, of 20 days in the First Lady’s life circa January 2025, with all the weight and depth of a Post-it.” -Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence
“Ratner’s film plays like a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest in which a button-eyed Cinderella points at gold baubles and designer dresses, cunningly distracting us while her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the Constitution and asset-strip the federal government.” -Xan Brooks cooking again, The Guardian
Anyway, don’t watch Melania. I was never going to appreciate this movie. It was not made for me. It wasn’t made for you either. It wasn’t made for anyone but the First Lady, who had editorial control over the movie, so why would you expect anything other than a stage-managed image-consulted propaganda puff piece on her air of dignified grace and style? Hearing her somnambulant narration over her gilded life and the pageantry of a second inauguration of the most destructive president in American history, it’s enough to make you zone out. While wars are being waged, prices are soaring, neighbors are being rounded up into camps of concentration by masked goons, and corruption and graft reign supreme in a government run by the worst people imaginable, it’s hard not to find a soft-pedaled vanity project like Melania as an offense to the senses. If there are bigger wastes of time at the movies in 2026, it will be a truly hellacious year. This is not being best. This is not being best at all.
Nate’s Grade: F
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Project Hail Mary (2026)
Being stranded for two hours in tight quarters with Ryan Gosling sounds like a dream come true for many. Something tells me I made this same joke except using Matt Damon’s name for the 2015 release of The Martian, another winning mixture of nuts-and-bolts scientific problem-solving and sci-fi exploration from best-selling author Andy Weir. Project Hail Mary is one of those big screen adventures that nourishes your imagination and heart. In short, it’s a rare full-package blockbuster, something to excite the senses as well as appeal to your intelligence to leave you fully satisfied. If you enjoyed the book like myself, then breathe easy, because the film has done this story a great justice. Best of all, it’s the rousing, heart-warming buddy movie you never knew you needed, and it all starts at the end of the world.
In the near future, science discovers an alien microbe that is literally eating the sun. The estimates are that our sun will dim over decades, causing widespread cooling and threatening the lives of billions. The world needs a hero. It got middle school science teacher and disgraced molecular biologist Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) instead, who awakens on a spaceship in a different stretch of the galaxy far, far away from Earth and its dimming sun. He has little memory of what transpired before and must piece together not just his understanding of who he is but also his world-saving mission that he now, unfortunately, is the only one who can accomplish. He’s very literally tasked with saving the world, so no pressure.
I’m going to avoid major spoilers but there is one plot development I feel needs to be discussed as it gets to the core appeal of the movie, so if you want to go into Project Hail Mary completely unspoiled, and I would advise it if you could, then end this review and come back once you’ve enjoyed the movie. For everyone else, let’s proceed ahead. Thankfully, the amnesia setup isn’t dragged out long. The film is structured to alternate between present-day problem-solving in space and flashbacks to Earth when Ryland was contacted by the top levels of the U.S. government to determine the extent of the unusual problem with water-molecule microbes somehow living and consuming the sun. The microbes are termed “astrophage” and release tremendous amounts of energy, enough so that they become the unexpected fuel for this long-shot space mission that Ryland finds himself the only survivor. He was never supposed to be mankind’s only hope (the other astronauts, the professionals, died from the induced comas for travel).
However, Ryland isn’t alone for long in the movie, and that’s where Project Hail Mary reaches a new level of entertainment and imagination. Our sun isn’t the only one affected by the astrophage, and Ryland is greeted by an alien spacecraft that has also traveled the long journey to figure out why this one sun is unaffected by the astrophage. The sense of discovery is greatly entertaining and I appreciated that there is something remarkably alien about our alien. Our intrepid alien will be nick-named “Rocky” because he best resembles a spider made out of rocks. That’s different. It’s not the old Star Trek school of slapping a forehead ridge onto somebody’s head and calling it a day. A significant and very gratifying sequence of the movie is just watching these two different lifeforms interacting and learning from one another. The language barrier has been explored before, most effectively in 2016’s grounded and somber Arrival. If Arrival was more the contemplative indie about conquering the linguistic challenges of first contact, then Project Hail Mary is the feel-good Spielbergian popcorn spectacle about saving the day and having fun. That doesn’t mean it’s a dumbed-down version; it just has different priorities, and chief among them is the winning buddy comedy of Gosling and a cuddly alien, two humble representatives of distant worlds in shared desperation for saviors. The relationship that blossoms between Ryland and our plucky, curious little space spider is naturally funny but also refreshingly serious too. Rocky is treated like an actual character, not some glorified pet or something to sell toys and Happy meals. He has a distinct perspective, learning curve, peculiarities, and determination that makes him feel more fully-developed than many human characters in terrestrial cinema. If you don’t walk away from the movie wanting your own personal huggable rock spider, then you watched a different movie than I did and, frankly, I pity you.
In my review for The Martian, I wrote, “There is an inherent enjoyment watching intelligent people tackle and persevere over daunting challenges, and this sets up The Martian for lots of payoffs and satisfaction. We see both sides of the problem and it provides even more opportunities for challenges and payoffs.” It’s tremendously enjoyable to watch Ryland and Rocky resolve serious scientific problems, whether it be studying the astrophage, the alien sun and its immunity to astrophage, or even just how to interact with one another when there are different systems for breathing and eating. It’s heady without being weighed down by too much scientific jargon, making the analytical discussions accessible and thus engaging. The conflict of Project Hail Mary isn’t quite as realistic as The Martian, given to more convenient cheats with “alien technology,” though the resulting resolutions still felt well-earned and satisfying thanks to the setups and payoffs that screenwriter Drew Goddard (Bad Times at the El Royale, The Martian) has layered throughout. The source material’s author, Andy Weir, has found himself a very profitable and marketable niche, dropping science whiz everymans into impossible scenarios and having them think their way out of them. At least this time the entire world is working in tandem, and spending likely trillions of dollars, to save the entire solar system instead of just retrieving one misplaced American astronaut. Weir will likely be throwing darts at what new setting someone could be stranded in next.
Now, as a film adaptation, Project Hail Mary goes the distance. This is the first live-action movie directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller since 2014’s 22 Jump Street (granted, they were notoriously fired from finishing 2018’s Han Solo prequel). For those worried that the movie might be more anarchic or yuk-heavy like the duo’s animated oeuvre, such as The Lego Movie and the Spider-Verse films, they have adapted their style to best suit the material. There’s plenty of humor in this movie because of the ridiculously high stakes and general odd couple nature of our buddy dynamic, but the movie never feels like it loses its focus on the bigger world-saving picture. For Ryland, he knows this mission is a one-way trip, as the capsule doesn’t have enough fuel to make the return trip to Earth. He knows this is a sacrifice, but the entirety of all living things on the planet are holding out hope that his sacrifice is successful. Lord and Miller are able to balance the comedy and dramatic elements, as well as finding appropriate spaces for the viewer, as well as Ryland, to take in the natural majesty of space in another star system. The cinematography by Greg Frasier (Dune Parts One and Two) is grand and visually sumptuous, mixing in aspect ratios and focus depth to distinguish between timelines and emotional states. The musical score by Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) is remarkably pleasing to the ears, finding room to be rousing and immersive and awe-inspiring, perfectly aiding the gorgeous visuals. At 150 minutes long, there’s the concern about pacing, especially with a movie that has so much to explain on the go as well devoting nearly half its runtime to flashback morsels doled throughout. I never felt lag. I also never felt crushed with the exposition, as the key details are expertly elevated, then as we progress from one challenge to the next, the screenplay keeps us keyed in on what matters in that moment.
And lastly, where this movie really hinges upon is on the relationship and performances of its two leads. I’m not talking about Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall) as the head of the Project Hail Mary mission, assembling cooperation among the world’s countries and experts for this longest of long-shots. Gosling (Barbie, The Fall Guy) is an immensely charming actor, self-effacing and relatably overwhelmed by the faith entrusted to him. Gosling makes us instantly connect with the protagonist, feeling the same nagging pull of his curiosity and excitement when studying something as uniquely fascinating as alien microbes, as well as the mounting trepidation of being out of your depth and having to adapt quickly or else. The film is taken to another level of entertainment thanks to Rocky, who is the clear MVP of the movie. He’s brought to vibrant life through puppeteer James Ortiz, who also provides the computer translation voice, and through the magic of empathy, we’re shedding tears for a creature without a discernible face. The dynamic between the two characters is so enjoyable, so funny, and ultimately so poignant, that it warms your heart while making you feel full by its perfect closing image.
Project Hail Mary is a crowd-pleaser to its very DNA, big yet accessible, brainy but still capable of popcorn thrills and visual fireworks, heartfelt but mordantly funny and even goofy at points, and always engaging and rewarding. It’s also a hopeful movie, something the present world could use more of. In the face of epoch-ending cataclysm, human beings are capable of working together to solve impossible problems, and heroes can emerge from the least likely places. It’s inspirational without falling into sappier, inauthentic maudlin drama, and it’s a celebration not just of teamwork but interstellar teamwork, working across enormous barriers for a common good. It’s invigorating to watch human decency and noble sacrifices prevail but also just an enviable demonstration of competency. What a wonderful world where experts are given deference and praise for their expertise and professionalism (if only this didn’t feel so tragically the stuff of “fiction” in present-day America). Project Hail Mary is a superbly made adventure movie that has a little of everything we’re looking for in mass-appeal blockbusters, and there’s a considerable skill to hold all these parts together into a movie that feels complete and enriching. Fans of heady sci-fi, buddy comedies, disaster movies, and space operas should find plenty to enjoy, but really Project Hail Mary is the kind of movie that all you need is eyes and ears to understand the appeal.
Nate’s Grade: A
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If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025)
I have been told by numerous friends and other critics that If I Had Legs I’d Kick You falls in that dreaded entertainment zone of the “difficult watch.” These are usually made up of admired movies tackling challenging subjects in unflinching ways, movies that are easier to admire than love. I was girding myself to finally watch If I Had Legs (this will be the reference for the title from here out because, frankly, I’m too lazy to type out an extra three words every reference), I found it pretty despairing, especially for women, especially for parents of young children, and especially for those suffering or who have suffered through some degree of post-partum depression. This movie is a sensory immersion into the frazzled, anxious, and punishing existence of our heroine, just trying to catch her breath or get a break in a universe that seems cruelly engineered to only provide stressors. It’s a truly phenomenal movie giving bristling life to the perspective of writer/director Mary Bronstein (Yeast), with stylistic and surreal touches that reminded me of Charlie Kaufman or even Franz Kafka. The tragi-comic absurdity, as well as the unrelenting existential anxiety, is meant to provoke a primal, wince-inducing response, eliciting sympathy for the countless mothers coasting hour-to-hour looking for a little oasis of relief. If I Had Legs is one of those rare feel-bad experiences that I not only admire but I think I actually love.
Rose Byrne plays Linda, a forty-something woman being pulled in every direction. Her young daughter is suffering from a physical malady that requires her to have a feeding tube, and she needs to gain weight in order to have the tube removed, but the child can’t gain weight because she doesn’t want to eat, and this obstacle is compounded by the hospital telling Linda if the child doesn’t meet her goal weight, then it’s a reflection of neglect, and Linda herself will have to attend parenting classes. The child is also, let’s put this nicely, very high-maintenance and attention-demanding. There’s also Linda’s husband who is away at sea and generally unhelpful and curt whenever caught on the phone. Linda also has a therapist (Conan O’Brien) who is likewise generally unhelpful and seems disdainful even talking to her. Then the roof of her apartment explodes with a torrent of water, and now Linda and her daughter have to live out of a local motel, further exacerbating all of their personal problems. It’s forty minutes in when the movie reveals Linda’s profession and I genuinely gasped: she’s a psychiatrist with her own very demanding clients to counsel. It’s not easy being Linda, but then again, there are plenty of Lindas in the world just waiting to catch a break.
This movie is a lot. It’s a lot to process, and it’s very deliberately using disorienting creative decisions to test your limits. The sound design is an especially effective dynamic that raises anxiety. Bronstein never shows you the face of Linda’s daughter, at least not until the very end of the movie, and there’s a stark reason for this. Our identity is Linda, and this voice that keeps coming in, frequently interrupting, occasionally screaming, and often compounding the stress of her mom, is designed to be viewed as a primary source of agitation. We don’t see the daughter because in this vision she doesn’t exist as a character but more as a burden. We view the child as Linda perceives her. There’s a trying sequence where Linda’s client leaves her baby behind and vanishes, forcing Linda to cart around a crying baby while frantically looking for the mother. The soundtrack of a crying baby is like a direct line to your nervous system that something is wrong and all you want is for the child to be soothed, but it keeps going for nearly five minutes straight, with that screechy wailing eating away at you one cry at a time. I can readily imagine my wife watching this movie and just turning it off after ten minutes.
The movie is packed with these creative decisions, all designed to make Linda’s perspective that much more empathetic and exhausting. For those tut-tuting Linda viewing her daughter as a burden, I’d ask for some grace, but also the movie doesn’t withhold criticism from its protagonist. She can be selfish as she’s spiraling, even seeking comfort in bad places. It would be harder to endure if the perspective was purely Job-like, wherein Linda relentlessly suffers because the universe is indifferent, or God is unhappy and spitefully targeting this poor woman. It does feel like everything is going wrong, but that’s also because we’re anchored in Linda’s perspective. Seeing things from her daughter’s perspective would make for a fairly different movie, but that’s not what this movie aspires to be. It’s not meant to be balanced, it’s meant to convey a very specific viewpoint, and that perspective feels like everything is stacked against you. In one key moment, what my pal Eric Muller dubbed Byrne’s “Oscar clip moment,” she unloads on her therapist and desperately pleads for someone to just tell her exactly what to do, to have responsibility and uncertainty stripped from her life. She wants a clear direction and the relief of knowing what to do, something that is rarely so clear in the adult world. It’s hard not to feel for Linda in the movie unless you’re actively trying to reject the vision of the director. If I Had Legs is a movie deliberately designed to be overstimulating and upsetting, so it’s going to be a select audience willing to wallow in the discomfort for the insight offered. I can see plenty saying, “Yeah, I live this, so no thanks.” I get it. After becoming a parent myself, my tolerance for emotionally-draining media certainly lowered. However, I think there’s ample artistic accomplishment to be savored with If I Had Legs that is worth treading the discomfort.
Byrne has been playing around the world of comedies since 2010’s Get Him to the Greek (a peak candidate for “most canceled cast” of the modern era, Byrne excluded) that I forgot how great she can also be in dramas. This is my favorite female performance of 2025. She is astounding. It’s smart to hire an actress of Byrne’s caliber, someone capable of finding the dark humor and exasperated guffaws of a life that feels like an assembly line of slaps to the face. The camera also rarely leaves her orbit, tacitly tying our sympathies, and it takes a lot to command the screen knowing your face is often going to be the measured focal point of every reaction to every slight and surprise and shock. She is the face of beleaguered motherhood, and it’s hard not to relate to at least a dozen moments of this nuanced and transcendent performance.
I don’t believe that If I Had Legs is unforgivably bleak; it’s certainly intense and agitating, but in order to make my finer point I need to spoil the end of the movie. However, dear reader, I truly don’t believe this is a movie that can be ruined through spoilers. So much of its appeal is the execution of such a specific vision, and to give one’s self over to that voice and its effect cannot be diminished through prior knowledge. It’s about the experience. Consider yourself warned, folks. Throughout the movie, the hole in Linda’s apartment ceiling becomes a sort of metaphor for her experience, an empty void. She dreams about losing herself inside the void, giving herself to the emptiness, and it’s easy to make a connection to darker impulses of self-destruction. This comes to a head at the very end, when Linda literally tries to run into the ocean to escape the troubles of her life, and the sea won’t have it, repeatedly throwing her back onto the shore. Even her attempt to escape ends up in tragic-comic slapstick. But it’s here where the movie switches gears, and we now see Linda’s daughter for the first time just as Linda is promising to be better for her. This changing of perspective effectively communicates Linda seeing her daughter, actually seeing her as a person rather than a nuisance, a peripheral voice of need and stress. The movie ends not on the harried breathing of Linda trying to calm down but on the hopeful smile of her daughter, and it might be misplaced optimism after a movie that feels plenty pessimistic, but I viewed this as a meaningful change. Even after all her struggles, even after her mistakes, there’s still the desire to do right for your loved ones, to improve.
I originally wanted to do a double review, pairing If I Had Legs with Die My Love, the newest Lynn Ramsey movie that explores the inexplicable loneliness of post-partum depression with Jennifer Lawrence trying to reconnect with her body, her sense of self, and the world as it was and is. I felt beforehand that the movies would have the connecting themes of the difficulties of motherhood, and they do, but I feel both movies are so tonally different in approach and execution that they deserve to be judged separately. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You might just be that hard-to-stomach film-experience so many have warned about (don’t expect the hamster to last long), but it’s such a transporting, exhilarating, and deeply humane vision executed to a remarkable degree of vibrant life. It’s personal and yet easily empathetic. It’s an unflinching and unsentimental portrayal not just of motherhood but of the difficulties of maintaining sanity in a world that often feels indifferent to your needs. It’s a difficult movie to watch, yes, but that doesn’t mean it lacks value and impact. If you’re brave and willing to wade through the deliberate discomfort, If I Had Legs is a remarkably good bad time at the movies.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Oh, Hi! (2025)
This feels like a charming rom-com by way of a 2010s no-budget mumblecore character-centric dramedy. Oh, Hi! follows a couple (Logan Lerman, Molly Hopkins) on a small vacation to the country to stay at an Air B&B farmhouse. They discover a closet full of bondage gear and get silly with it, strapping Lerman to the bed post. After their fun, it becomes clear there’s a dramatic misunderstanding between the couple. She thought they were an official exclusive couple. He thought they were non-exclusive and he says he’s not ready for any commitment. She leaves him in cuffs attached to the bed and promises that, in 24 hours, she can convince him to agree to be official boyfriend and girlfriend. I thought Oh, Hi! was going to be one kind of movie, maybe a kinky sex comedy (the comedic version of Gerald’s Game?), but it’s really more of a quirky relationship drama by way of kidnapping. The tone is balanced so you never feel the characters are at great risk, but it’s also hard to fathom how this turn of events will be an unorthodox relationship-builder (definitely a scenario that would play very differently if the genders were reversed). Oh, Hi! becomes more of a vehicle to reveal whether this couple should stay together or not, with Hopkins unleashing all of her romantic neuroses as a cathartic deluge. There is an organic escalation as more characters get drawn into this anxious scenario, but the movie loses its comic momentum in the last 20-30 minutes. There really is only so far you can go with this scenario, and when characters are reaching out to witchy spells to instill memory loss, we’re probably tapped out of ideas. Hopkins, who also co-wrote the script with director Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs), is a charismatic find who elevates the comedy while still finding room to ground it in emotional vulnerability. Lerman can only do so much tied to a bed for most of the movie. It’s a fun little movie that finds some natural and effective comedy from its absurd kidnap-for-the-sake-of-the-relationship premise but it ultimately stalls out. Still, Oh, Hi! is full of small pleasures for a good while, from its ensemble, to its surprises, to the ever-shifting dynamic between the couple, and may prove worthwhile even for the commitment-phobic.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Die My Love (2025)
A new Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) movie should be a cause of celebration. She’s only directed three movies since 2002 and each is worth every ounce of your consideration. They’re typically genre-defying triptych character studies of people with deep reservoirs of pain and isolation, and so her latest, Die My Love, is a natural fit as it explores one woman’s headfirst descent into post-partum depression. Jennifer Lawrence plays our lead character Grace, a vaguely defined “writer” transplanted to rural Montana, living in her husband’s (Robert Pattinson) family’s old home, but in reality confined is the better term. Ever since her child’s birth, Grace has felt disconnected; from her body, from her feelings, from her husband, from her sense of self. This is a showcase for Lawrence to unravel in a stylistic manner that could feel deeply authentic to millions of women post-birth. She’s struggling to feel something as strongly as she used to, to lift her head above the stormy waters of depression that has engulfed her, and this can lead to some dangerous and impulsive outbursts, like throwing herself through a glass door just to feel something. Her husband is no help, who leaves for long stretches of time on business and tries to act like nothing’s wrong (example of reading the situation entirely wrong: thinking this woman needs a puppy – note, it will not end well for the dog). He also may or may not be having affairs with other women, it’s hard to say what exactly is literal reality here. Ramsay and her co-screenwriters have elected to make a movie more about evoking the feeling of our lead’s alienation and confusion. It’s less about plotting, which unfortunately also hampers the characterization, keeping Grace more of a symbol for accessibility. What she’s going through feels vivid and authentic but she rarely feels like a fleshed-out character rather than an archetype to examine. The same with the supporting roles, including Lakeith Stanfield as her neighbor who she may be fantasizing about or more, it’s hard to say. There’s plenty of unspoken commentary on mental illness and the unfair expectations thrust upon women, especially new mothers, but much of Die My Love feels like winding up Lawrence and setting her loose to make a scene. Make no mistake, she is very very good at being disconnected and angry and raw. There are some bold artistic choices throughout but ultimately, because I didn’t feel connected to the characters, by the end I felt more exhausted by the emotional tumult rather than gaining better awareness of her plight.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Blue Moon (2025)
Ethan Hawke is transcendent in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, a glorified play set on the opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! on Broadway, except our star is Lorenz Hart (Hawke), the former lyricist and creative partner of twenty-five years for Rodgers (Andrew Scott). He’s nursing his gripes and hard-won insights at Sardi’s, commiserating with whomever might listen. This is a man who would talk himself hoarse. It’s a great showcase for Hart to expound upon his life, perspective, and desperation, whether it’s re-teaming with his former partner, hoping to get ahead of his alcoholism, the reason for Rodgers’ split, or the hope for love from a college girl (Maragret Qualley) who he’s so clearly projecting confused infatuation upon. Hawke is sensational as the troubled, egotistical, catty, funny, and clearly flailing musical genius who has accomplished so much but is so restless. There is so much to this performance, and each new conversation with someone at this bar feels like it’s unveiling a new dimension to our understanding of Hart, who can be convivial one moment and lacerating the next. I could listen to him prattle for hours. The subplot with the college girl infatuation has some obvious Lolita overtures, though it’s less lecherous middle-aged lust than an over-the-hill artist trying to feel important and wanted by somebody, even if he’s abusing his teacher-student relationship to achieve this (Hart was dealing with his repressed sexuality on top of everything). I found it illuminating in how someone as creative and cutting and incisive as Hart could be taken by his own self-delusions. Linklater lets the story take center stage and gives his stars the needed room to shine. This is that rare character study that finds its perfect lead and the best creative team to bring it to life. Blue Moon is one of the best movies of 2025 and I feel that Hawke’s career-best turn is the best male acting of the year.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Nuremberg (2025)
Taking an Oscar-winning courtroom classic and eliminating 40 minutes sounds like a surefire gamble, and while Nuremberg has its heart in the right place, bringing Nazis to justice, it cannot help but feel like a more shallow and rushed version of 1961’s Judgement at Nuremberg. That’s not to say different movies cannot exist from the same source material or true story, even in the shadow of famous stories. However, this version feels strangely perfunctory, condensing the worldwide judicial response to the horrors of the Holocaust into a simplified buddy movie about a psychologist (Rami Malek) who has to learn the hard way that maybe, just maybe, Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe) might not be trustworthy. It’s frustrating that the depth of this story and the plight of so many is reduced to one guy getting too close to his subject as well as having to learn the most obvious lessons about applied evil. Also, the culminating courtroom showdown, where so much hangs in the balance and Goring has been hyped as the most of challenging of cross-examination opponents, and it all resolves so easily, with a different prosecutor essentially using a cheat code to undo Goring’s pseudo-intellectual front. It’s quite a lot of buildup for a, “Wait, that’s it?” response, and much of the movie follows this same disappointing route. The acting is relatively good all around, with Crowe especially good as a chummy narcissist, and the production quality is sufficient to recreate its post-war period, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing out on a richer story. It’s so flattened out and self-important with its limited details to actually satisfy. The ending tries to draw a direct line to Trump today and I don’t quite know if it’s done the work. Nuremberg is one of those Important Movies that garners early Oscar buzz on paper, and then when people actually see it, falls away as an also-ran, mostly because it was missing a few too many important elements to resonate. It takes 130 minutes for Malik to learn that Nazis might not make good friends. You’ll probably know that already.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Mercy (2026)
Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) wakes up strapped to a chair. An A.I. judge (Rebecca Ferguson) informs him that he has been changed with the murder of his wife, and thanks to the new Mercy program instituted by the Los Angeles justice system, he will have 90 minutes to prove his innocence to a “reasonable doubt” level of 91% guilty (is that all a “reasonable doubt” is going for these days?). If he fails to convince the A.I. judge, then he will be terminated at the end of those 90 minutes. Start the clock.
Mercy is essentially a screen life movie with a high-concept twist, but at no time was I captivated with the mystery or intellectually satisfied by the application of its storytelling angle. We’ve seen similar movies recently, notably 2018’s Searching and far far less notably the 2025 War of the Worlds, where the movie screen is an extension of a computer screen that holds the borders and tools of our storytelling. In a way it reminds me of the found footage boom of the early 2010s, a hot gimmick that could get studio execs to say yes to projects that they would otherwise have passed on. However, there still needs to be careful ingenuity about how to incorporate these elements and, even more importantly, how to work within the limitations of your gimmick. With Mercy, our main character is basically trying to prove his innocence in real time with an A.I. judge who really functions more like an A.I. assistant, granting him access to people and databases even his police position would not have immediate access to. The recreation of the crime scene with the clues and evidence has a very Detroit Become Human feel (that’s a sci-fi video game that plays more like a movie). The A.I. judge is willing to help out this convicted man as long as he doesn’t admit guilt, because then it’s straight to execution time. For ninety minutes, Chris Raven has to crack his own murder case. The real-time element is meant to provide a sense of urgency, a literal ticking clock, but it’s also quite the misstep when your movie isn’t very good. This allows the audience to mentally count down how much time is left before your movie is finally over. The screen life aspects are pretty superficial and visually dull even if the graphics as being pulled around like interactive three-dimensional objects. The fact that this movie was shot for IMAX is astounding.
The problem is that the plot is too predictable at every turn. We have a future criminal justice system made for automation and expediency, so it’s not going to be too much of a leap to suspect it might not be operating at the level of success its proponents profess. There’s a long history of stories presenting a new technological leap that is meant to be fool-proof that, shocker, is proven to be anything but. Right away, the audience is already going to be suspecting that the Mercy system is compromised or at least prone to errors like our present criminal justice system. We can safely assume that our protagonist is innocent, and if that’s the case then the implicit question is how many others who were tried and convicted were also ultimately innocent? Some might call it a death row metaphor but it’s literally the same thing just with a high-tech A.I. spin. The next question becomes is the potential error a sign of the limitations of assigning such power to seemingly infallible computers, or is it being deliberately compromised and manipulated? Are certain powers-that-be using this as an excuse to eliminate undesirable peoples and populations? The case of Chris Raven is meant to unveil a larger, systemic problem of justice not being served. And yet, the movie doesn’t exactly explore this obvious implication.
I’m going to dive into spoilers with this next paragraph because I think it’s worthwhile and also I don’t think you’re missing anything with Mercy. If you already assume that Chris is innocent or set up, there’s only so many other places you can go as a story. So with that warning addressed, the Mercy system is really easy to trick, as evidenced by our eventual culprit who has the know-how to digitally erase and alter security footage. Didn’t know this guy had those kinds of skills but, hey, people can surprise you or, more accurately, when the screenplay calls upon enough coincidences. However, there’s another layer of conspiracy afoot. This one guy is responsible for setting Chris Raven up because his own brother was accused and executed by Mercy even after he gave the police an alibi that was ignored. He wants vengeance for the injustice done to his family. This means there’s also the unraveling of who was responsible for this other guy’s wrongful arrest and execution, and wouldn’t you know it happens to be Chris Raven’s own partner, who needed the Mercy program to be seen as trustworthy. The movie never deals with the implications of this. It doesn’t really confront the moral turpitude of killing an innocent man, and it doesn’t think big picture to ask how many other innocent people have been sacrificed as cover. Amazingly, the last line of the movie involves Chris Raven saying, “Humans and A.I., we all make mistakes. And we learn.” What? Technology shouldn’t make mistakes. Alexander Pope didn’t say, “To err is human, and also these new contraptions. Have you seen these textile factories? Wild.” We don’t expect technology to fail us, especially if we are putting judgement over life and death as one of its tasks. This sounds like dubious excuse-making for a system literally killing innocents in the name of the law, and yet our hero treats the whole revelation like, “Well, you gotta break some eggs for an omelette.” It’s such a callous, incompetent response to an immediate problem that his own police force is exploiting. Yet the movie doesn’t blame the faulty A.I. system, which I repeat even some random guy was able to hack and manipulate, and instead looks at it as a tool, like when people try to separate guns from gun violence. However, in this case, the gun is making its own calculations on who deserves to die, and, again, being manipulated by randos. This gets a little more unseemly when you realize that the movie studio’s release is from Amazon, which would very much like you, dear citizen, to stop villainizing A.I. and accept its omnipresence in your new digital life.
Mercifully, Mercy holds to its countdown, though there’s an extra period of “stoppage time” with an action sequence outside of the chair as climax. The mystery is dull, the plot is predictable (if you don’t suspect who the real killer is after 30 minutes, this might be your first movie, so I’ll tell you now – they get better), the world building is underwritten (who needs an exploration of the large-ranging moral implications of this system when we get police on drone cycles!), and the fun of its creative ingenuity is gasping. It’s forever going to be the Chris-Pratt-stuck-in-a-death-chair movie. This concept could have worked but there needed to be significant revisions, especially unpacking the larger implications for this new system of justice outsourcing justice to all-knowing machines. That’s not this movie. Mercy isn’t even overtly critical of artificial intelligence, instead excusing its faults as “user error” from bad actors. It’s a film too afraid to have any strong sentiments, which makes for a pretty lifeless time at the movies. The machines have won.
Nate’s Grade: D+
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Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025)
The pop star vanity project is a dubious film enterprise, though it’s been quite a while since we had a theatrically released bauble from one of the most popular singers in the world. Typically, if musicians want to get experimental and “arty” with a visual medium, they turn to longer-form music videos for even the entirety of a new album release, like what Beyonce and Halsey have done. That wasn’t good enough for The Weeknd, a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye, as he co-wrote a starring vehicle for himself that could be filmed alongside his world tour where he essentially plays an enigmatic version of himself that Jenna Ortega is obsessed with. At this rate, I’m surprised he didn’t write a scene where a bunch of women congratulate him on being the world’s best lover. Hurry Up Tomorrow is a glorified longer-form music video collection of extended musical performances and some more trippy experimental videos in the second half. It’s also a low-rent Misery with Ortega being a crazy fan who eventually takes her target of obsession hostage. She thinks she can help the troubled singer confront his past through her extreme therapy. If this was the whole dynamic, this could have been the movie rather than the final twenty minutes of it. It’s gob-smacking that Tesfaye is able to spare his life through the unquestioned power of song and his talent (“You had it in you all along, most talented superstar”). By the end, I don’t think anyone has learned anything after all the kidnapping and murders and arson except that Tesfaye has a pretty high opinion of himself. Unless you’re the biggest Weeknd fan, you’ll be left blinded by the meandering artistic hubris of Hurry Up Tomorrow. There’s just nothing here to grapple with besides the self-serious self-indulgence. What to expect from two of the three credited creators of HBO’s abysmal and cringe-inducing canceled-after-one-season show, The Idol?
Nate’s Grade: D
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Send Help (2026)
I am grateful for Sam Raimi and I’m even more grateful for Sam Raimi movies. The director began in low-budget gore-fests with a dash of goofy slapstick to balance the gross-out gratuity, and these sensibilities have never left the man. He enlivens any genre he works in, from Western (The Quick and the Dead), to superhero (original Spider-Man trilogy, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness), and the occasional awards-drama crime tragedy (A Simple Plan). But the man is at his best on his home turf of horror/thrillers with his gonzo style and devilish sense of humor. Send Help is the most unabashedly “Sam Raimi movie” since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell, which already makes it worth your time. It’s basically the schlockier, more condensed and focused version of Triangle of Sadness, even borrowing a similar premise of a put-upon corporate subordinate (Rachel McAdams) and her fussy, misogynist, blowhard of a boss (Dylan O’Brien) stranded on a deserted island and the power dynamics flip. Now she’s the one in charge because she has leaned survivalist skills thanks to her aspirations to being a contestant on the reality TV show Survivor. As the movie progresses, what I really appreciated was the level of nuance given to both of these stranded characters. It would be all-too easy to make her character impossibly noble, and the screenplay adds some intriguing dimensions that make you question some of her motives. It would be all-too easy to make his character irredeemably evil, and while you’re never going to be in danger of switching loyalties, the screenplay provides shades of empathy to him too. I also appreciated how nasty the movie gets, both in lurches of horror comedy zaniness, but also in how nasty the characters get to one another. McAdams is wonderful, though the concerted effort to “ugly up” a Hollywood starlet amounts to frumpy sweaters and a dash of tuna fish at the corner of her mouth. There was no point I wasn’t entertained, especially from the shifting dynamic between the two leads. I may be in a minority here but Send Help is a better developed and more satisfying version of Best Picture-nominee Triangle of Sadness. It made me laugh and cower. May we never be without new Sam Raimi movies.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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