Blue Moon: Movie Review

Lorenz Hart's creativity and failures in one perfectly written movie.

Poignant and funny, Blue Moon re-teams filmmaker Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke for a highlight of both of their illustrious careers. Set during just one night in March 1943, Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is at a bar drinking his troubles away while right across the street is opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! before all the dignitaries pour into the bar for the afterparty. And, oh boy, does Hart have a lot to say about that.		2025 Directed by: Richard Linklater Screenplay by: Robert Kaplow Inspired by the letters of Lorenz Hart and Elizabeth Weiland Starring: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott, Bobby Cannavale

The Penguin Lessons: Movie Review

A quietly powerful tale about facing fascism with a penguin by your side.

Set in 1976 in Argentina, The Penguin Lessons is indeed about a penguin, but quietly and also subtly, it’s also about living within a dictatorship. Tom (Steve Coogan) is an English teacher originally from Britain but in recent years has been working in South America. He arrives at St. George’s in Buenos Aires with armed guards pointing their guns at him, so it’s easy to see why they would be desperate for teachers.		2024 Directed by: Peter Cattaneo Based on the book by Tom Michell Screenplay by: Jeff Pope Starring: Steve Coogan

The Secret Agent: Movie Review

Quietly powerful, dark, tragic and uncomfortably funny.

There’s a great meme going around with side by side screenshots of Leonardo DiCaprio from One Battle After Another and Wager Moura from The Secret Agent both on a pay phone captioned, “I’m calling from the future. Fascism is still around.” Our protagonist from The Secret Agent will be disappointed to hear that, a man who was unable to stay on the sidelines when his country was engulfed in a dictatorship.		2025 Directed by: Kleber Mendonça Filho Screenplay by: Kleber Mendonça Filho Starring: Wagner Moura

Single on the 25th: Movie Review

A movie obsessed with being single but still needing a traditional rom-com.

With Single on the 25th, Hallmark is trying to get more of the single world. After all, younger generations are staying single more and more, so there is probably a bigger market here to reach. However, turning a singles movie into a romance is odd, and there is a fundamental problem here. In general, all Hallmark romances boil down to two single people who meet each other and fall in love. That’s also the same movie here, just with less of a plot.		2025 Directed by: Jonathan Wright Screenplay by: Joie Botkin Starring: Lyndsy Fonseca, Daniel Lissing

A Christmas Murder Mystery: Movie Review

A Christmas Murder Mystery is a poor man’s version of Lifetime murder-of-the-week movie. Most people don’t think that there is a lower production of a movie but this is it. Lighting and filming are soap opera level, editing is worse, and dialogue and acting which naturally go hand-in-hand are atrociously bad and unnatural. This could have been directed by a computer in addition to being written by one.		2025 Directed by: Peter Sullivan Screenplay by: Jeffrey Schenck, Peter Sullivan Starring: Morgan Bradley, Vivica A. Fox

My Secret Santa: Movie Review

Utterly charming in the silliest of ways.

My Secret Santa plays up the finding love at a Christmas ski resort by combining it with a She’s the Man type of gender swap. The plot of a single mom pretending to be a man to get a job as Santa Claus may sound implausible or even stupid, and yet there’s a genuineness to Alexandra Breckenridge’s performance and the heart shining beneath all of it that makes this silly movie utterly charming.		2025 Directed by: Mike Rohl Screenplay by: Ron Oliver, Carly Smale Starring: Alexandra Breckenridge, Ryan Eggold

Oh. What. Fun.: Movie Review

A family of chaos without the comedy.

Oh. What. Fun. is for the unsung moms as stated in the opening scene highlighting all the many classic Christmas movies led by men with barely a mention of the wife/mother. But what undermines this point is that this is directed by a man, and they conveniently left out the (admittedly) few female-led Christmas movies like The Family Stone or the more recent The Best Christmas Pageant Ever both of which are better than this.		2025 Directed by: Michael Showalter Screenplay by: Chandler Baker, Michael Showalter Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Denis Leary