At a time when everything here on Earth is just a little too much, the new movie Project Hail Mary arrives as pure, unapologetic escapism.
And not the empty kind, either. The smart kind.
The kind where the stakes are enormous, the science is weirdly fascinating (though not always accurate), and the jokes land hard enough that you forget for two-and-a-half hours that the news exists.
The kind that’s literally and figuratively out of this world.
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There’s something almost admirable about The Bride! — a movie so aggressively weird that you can’t accuse it of playing things safe. Unfortunately, admiration isn’t the same thing as enjoyment.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein riff definitely shows vision. And Jessie Buckley once again proves she’s one of the most interesting actors working today. But the movie itself? It’s a chaotic, overcooked take that’s ultimately more exhausting than entertaining.
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Between Everybody Wants Some!!, Top Gun: Maverick, and Hit Man — okay, fine, and Twisters, too — it seemed like Glen Powell was finally, deservedly, breaking through with mainstream audiences, and a bright future lay ahead for him.
Alas, between last year’s The Running Man and the new How to Make a Killing, it’s looking like the actor’s star may have already burned out.
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Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the new “Wuthering Heights” adaptation comes in like a cold wind off the moors so strong that it immediately rips your shirt or bodice wide open. Writer/director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel is a hot take on a story that has always been about obsession, repression, and desire curdling into something feral, only now it’s a bit more dangerous.
In other words, if you’ve ever read the novel and thought, “I wish this story was hornier,” congratulations: This movie is for you.
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Every December, frequent moviegoers like me fall into the same familiar ritual: looking back at the movies we saw and ranking the ones that made an impact — for better or for worse.
There’s no real science to this; it isn’t about “the best films according to an algorithm” or awards-season prognosticating. It’s just about calling attention to the movies that stuck with me, the ones I couldn’t wait to discuss afterwards, that I’m still thinking about weeks or months later.
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Here is a list of every new movie I saw this year, along with the grade I gave it. Films are listed in the order in which I saw them.
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With so many movies released in any given year, there are bound to be a few gems that slip through the cracks.
Eephus is one of those films you probably didn’t hear much about when it played in theaters earlier this year (if it even made it to your town). But it’s available to watch digitally, and you should do yourself a favor and check it out. Especially if you ever played little league or on a town team (at any age), or you’ve ever considered yourself a baseball fan.
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Song Sung Blue is a movie for anyone who thought Deliver Me from Nowhere needed a few more hit songs. While the film about a Neil Diamond tribute band isn’t exactly a downer, like the Bruce Springsteen film is, it’s not entirely the upbeat entertainment the trailers and commercials promise, either.
It’s got a soundtrack that’ll make you sing like a guitar hummin’, though. And that’ll be more than enough for some viewers.
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Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? is good, but not great, and it feels a bit disappointing after A Star Is Born and especially Maestro (one of my favorite movies of 2023). Both of those films exhibited the confidence of a director fully in command of his vision, but this latest one feels looser and a bit unsure of itself.
Cooper’s latest has moments of real insight and emotion, but it also meanders and is occasionally frustrating. You can see what he’s going for — something raw and human about creativity and connection — but the final product just doesn’t quite get there.
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If you’re like me, and you never did get around to seeing the recent Tony Award-winning revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, or you did see it and you wish you could see it again (and again), director Maria Friedman has given audiences a time machine that goes right back to the Hudson Theatre, preserving her buzzy Broadway production for future generations.
Friedman, a British actress and director making her cinematic debut, didn’t just park a camera in the aisle during an actual performance. Rather, she’s produced a film that’s a bit of a hybrid, one that effectively captures the electricity of live theater and gives you the kind of intimacy you can’t quite get even from the best seats in the house. Yes, that means the film is stagey. But that’s exactly the point.
Merrily is in theaters now as a special-event release, and for musical-theater fans, it’s a genuine holiday gift.
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Martin's Musings 