Author: Amy Diaz

A heretofore-mid TSA agent gets tangled up in a terrorist attack in Carry-On, Netflix’s attempt at a “Die Hard is a Christmas movie”-style Christmas movie.

It’s Christmas Eve and Ethan (Taron Egerton) has just learned that girlfriend Nora (Sofia Carson) is pregnant. For the first time since failing to get into the police academy, he’s suddenly motivated to make more of himself at his TSA job at LAX. And lucky him, he gets a chance at working the carry-on bag X-ray machine on a busy Christmas Eve. Unlucky for him, his sudden show of ambition messes with the plans of Jason Bateman (his character is just called “Traveler” on IMDb), who is running some kind of terrorism operation. He had planned to kidnap Ethan’s buddy Jason’s (Sinqua Walls) family to force Jason to let through a bag carrying some clearly dangerous thing but when Jason gives Ethan a shot at the X-ray, suddenly Ethan is the one getting a mysterious ear bud and having a conversation about not calling the cops. Jason Bateman threatens Ethan’s girlfriend and demonstrates his abilities by hurting one of Ethan’s coworkers so Ethan feels like he has no choice but to follow his instructions, while also trying his best to find ways to stop Jason Bateman’s ultimately convoluted-but-who-cares plan.

Carry-On is goofy and I am here for it! “More silly holiday action” is my special Christmas wish; it’s an excellent bit of “goes-with” programming to the holiday rom-coms. Egerton is completely serviceable as a guy forced to step up and be heroic — his abilities are believable enough. Bateman is good fun as a smarmy villain. And Danielle Deadwyler, playing the one cop who knows the score, is a delight; give this woman her own Reacher. She also gets to participate in the movie’s funnest/dumbest action sequence; it’s silly and great. B Streaming on Netflix.

That Christmas (PG)

Santa Brian Cox Claus tells us the story of the English town of Wellington-on-Sea during That Christmas, a sweet animated tale co-written by Richard Love Actually Curtis.

Kids and their families navigate the days before Christmas with an assortment of concerns. Bernadette McNutt (voice of India Brown), of mid-teen-ish age, is eager to break free from the traditions of the season — from zhuzhing up the school nativity pageant to finding something other than the boring turkey dinner for Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, she’s left to care for her younger sister Eve (voice of Bronte Smith) and neighbor kids Teddy (voice of Freddie Spry), Scarlett (voice of Ava Talbot) and Nisha (voice of Kuhu Agarwal) when Bernie and Eve’s parents (voices of Rosie Cavaliero and Rhys Darby), Teddy and Scarlett’s parents (voice of Alex Macqueen and Lolly Adefope) and Nisha’s mom (voice of Sindhu Vee) head to a wedding for the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Sam (voice of Zazie Hayhurst) is worried that her twin sister Charlie (voice of Sienna Sayer) won’t get anything from Father Christmas because Sam is certain Charlie is on the naughty list. Sam doesn’t fully appreciate that some of Charlie’s pranks are meant to help her get together with Danny Williams (voice of Jack Wisniewski), a new kid who is smitten with Sam as well. Danny, when he isn’t struggling with his new school, is struggling at home with being mostly alone — his hard-working nurse mom (voice of Jodie Whittaker) is often at her job and he hasn’t seen much of his dad since their divorce. When a snow day is called on what would have been the last day of school, Danny winds up spending all of it at the school being one-on-one tutored by the imposing Mrs. Trapper (voice of Fiona Shaw), a teacher who still scares adults she once taught and doesn’t like to show how otherwise alone she is.

When a blizzard rolls in on Christmas Eve, all of these townsfolk — plus Lighthouse Bill (voice of Bill Nighy) and Santa — work together to help the kids have a good Christmas in spite of various suboptimal circumstances and find joy in community. It’s all very good-natured British, very Call the Midwife Christmas special but without the horrifying medical emergencies.

My younger kids were occasionally bored with some of the ramp up to the big day and its blizzard but the last 60 percent or so of the movie held their attention. And it has a nice mix of kid wackiness, silliness involving a flock of turkeys that runs loose and just a touch of snark to help balance out some truly heartwarming Christmas-y-ness. B+ Streaming on Netflix.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (PG-13)

A big, largely-Italian-American family comes together on Christmas Eve for a night of food, light bickering, kid antics and general merriment in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.

Someone on Bluesky described this movie as feeling like if Robert Altman made a holiday movie and that is a pretty clean way to explain what you’re getting here. A group of adult siblings and others — cousins, and/or “cousins” in the sense of people who are part of a big family even if it’s not entirely clear how — gather at the home where they grew up, with all of their children, ranging in age from small to adult themselves. The mother (Mary Reistetter) still lives in the house with one of the siblings — who now wants to sell the house and put her in a facility that can better care for her. We get hints at how far along this plan is throughout the movie, putting a general sense over the movie (one that we in the audience might be more aware of than the characters all are) that this could be the last Christmas Eve of this kind for this family.

This is, however, kind of background. Mostly we are just mingling, poking in on conversations between different relatives. We get to the party with Kathleen (Maria Dizzia) and her teenage daughter Emily (Matilda Fleming), her younger son and her husband Lenny (Ben Shenkman). We see some of Kathleen complaining about her prickly relationship with Emily and some of Emily’s “eyeroll, Mom” at Kathleen and at times follow Emily when she and other cousins sneak out and drive around. They meet up with other kids, hang out at a diner, hang out at a place where teens go to make out, try to convince someone to sell them booze. Nothing “happens” in the big-event sense. We get family members reliving annual traditions, we get spreads of food and a big meal, we get teens teen-ing around. We are just spending Christmas Eve with them and experiencing the overheated togetherness of a joyful/obligatory family gathering. Solid performances (including by Francesca Scorsese, Sawyer Spielberg — yes, the kids of that Scorsese and that Spielberg — and Elsie Fisher of Eighth Grade fame) make this a solid hang movie. B Streaming on AMC+ and available for rent or purchase.

Red One (PG-13)

Santa Claus is kidnapped and Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans have to save Christmas in Red One, the unnecessarily CGI-heavy, grimly quippy, unfun holiday action adventure.

Nick a.k.a. Red a.k.a. Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons, continuing this season’s widely commented on “ripped and/or hot Santa” trend) is kidnapped. An investigation by Callum Drift (Johnson), head of security, and Zoe (Lucy Liu), head of some organization that protects mythological creatures, leads them to Jack O’Malley (Evans), a con artist and hacker. He was paid to sneak into a government office and find the location of what he was told was a weapons test. He didn’t realize that what he was actually tracking was the location of Santa’s cloaked North Pole metropolis. Jack has long been a “no beliefs, no loyalty” guy and agrees to help Callum hunt down his employer (for money).

Eventually, Santa’s brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) and a Christmas witch (a real Icelandic thing, according to Wikipedia) called Gryla (Kieran Shipka) are in the mix. Also, Jack finds that the investigation is getting in his way of being even a C-minus dad to his young teen son Dylan (Wesley Kimmel). Mary Elizabeth Ellis plays Dylan’s mom and mostly she just plays a person who delivers exposition on what a crummy parent Jack has been. I mention this because she is often a really fun actress, as in her recent role playing Ted Danson’s daughter on the Netflix series A Man on the Inside, which is a truly funny, sweet show about aging, life phases, family relationships and more and you could watch about of half the season in the time it takes to watch this movie, which I think is a better use of your two hours.

Here, we get a chase through the streets of the North Pole, a Santa’s workshop staffed by penguins and bears, magic portals and other Santa lore stuff that probably could be fun but here just feels like mid-quality CGI for the sake of CGI. This is particularly noticeable with Krampus, a character that is given a Hulky-Thanosy outsized demonic body, which actually gets in the way of what could have been a personable performance by Hivju, who you may remember as Tormund Giantsbane on Game of Thrones. He is a fun actor playing a fun character but it’s so buried in nonsense that you don’t get to get a real sense of him or his relationship with Santa.

This movie feels very much “Marvel but Christmas” in the worst sense of that description (unlike The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, an actual Marvel holiday product which is goofy and delightful and is available on Disney+). It also straddles a weird line of being more violent and creature-scary than you’d want your kid movie to be but doesn’t offer much for adults. C- In theaters and streaming on Prime Video.

Hot Frosty (TV-PG)

A sad widow falls in love with a ripped snowman in Hot Frosty, the delightfully bonkers but not winky holiday rom-com from Netflix.

Kathy Barrett (Lacey Chabert), who runs the diner in downtown Hope Springs, is mourning the loss of her husband and doesn’t have the mental energy for things like fixing her house’s many repair issues or looking for new romance. Her friend at the local consignment store gives her a good-luck red scarf to encourage her to get back out there. But sad Kathy just ends up putting the scarf on a snowman in the town square, one who has a well-chiseled set of abs. Later that night — through the Magic of Christmas!, probably — the snowman becomes a human, though one with a very cold resting temperature and a tendency to sweat profusely when exposed to even minor warmth. Jack (Dustin Milligan, Josh the podcaster from the excellent Rutherford Falls), as this “man” is eventually called, isn’t sure about much — like, if he can melt or how clothes work or how eating works — but he is certain he is very fond of Kathy. Not exactly sure what Jack’s deal is, Kathy just sort of goes with the whole “I used to be a snowman” thing and lets Jack crash at her house, in part to hide him from the sheriff (Craig Robinson). When Jack came alive, he accidentally streaked in front of an older couple, broke a window in the consignment store and took some coveralls — a crime spree the sheriff and his deputy (Joe Lo Trugilo) just can’t countenance.

There are a lot of little goofy moments in and aspects of this movie that are played perfectly straight in a way that made me truly enjoy this bit of holiday fluff: Jack excitedly telling the other (non-alive) snowmen in the town square that maybe “it could happen” for them too. Craig Robinson’s increasingly Inspector Javert-like obsession with finding the man who crimed up his one-street town. Joe Lo Trugilo, still basically Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Charles Boyle, answering “how does some soup sound?” literally. Lacy Chabert never once winking at the audience. Dustin Milligan giving “beautiful dummy” without playing his character as too witless. Either you’re going to buy into “lady falls for ripped snowman” or you can’t. But if you do, you’ll be rewarded by this movie that has fun with, without making fun of, its silly premise. B Streaming on Netflix.

The Merry Gentlemen (PG)

Chad Michael Murray PG-ily The Full Montys (“full” in this case being “shirtless in jeans, sometimes Speedos”) to save Britt Robertson’s family’s nightclub in The Merry Gentlemen.

After being fired from her Rockettes-like Broadway show in New York City, Ashley (Robertson) returns to her hometown to find that her parents (Michael Gross and Beth Broderick) are behind on their rent for their nightclub, the Rhythm Room — which is also not exactly mobbed with customers. Ashley comes up with an idea to quickly earn the $30K her parents owe and save their business: a male revue of sexy men sexy dancing. She enlists/enforces Luke (Murray), the club’s volunteer handyman who is also a woodworking artisan, to join along with a few other guys. Using her dancer skills, she helps teach the boys routines that bring in the crowds of local ladies, politely whooping it up from their seats as the men enchant them from the stage only, no touching.

This is a totally solid and watchable cast and the premise had the promise of some Hot Frosty fun, but this movie is missing the daffiness that made that movie such a treat. It is also, like many of this genre of movie, quite sexless — a thing that just is what it is for these children-of-Hallmark but which really sticks out with this movie’s premise. Also, despite its just under 90-minute runtime, the movie drags a bit and feels like it would be best enjoyed as a thing on in the background while you’re doing something else. C+ Streaming on Netflix.

The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland (7+)

Santa Claus attempts to make a delivery to Wonderland and runs into the very anti-Christmas Queen of Hearts in The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, a prettily-animated sweetness-with-a-hint-of-tart animated adaptation of the book by Carys Bexington and illustrated by Kate Hindley.

Just as he’s about to set out on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus (voice of Gerard Butler) gets a last-minute letter from a young princess in Wonderland asking for a Bandersnatch. He decides to rework his flight plan to make a little stop in Wonderland — over the objection of the skeptical reindeer — but, Wonderland being Wonderland, he and the reindeer and an elf who tagged along are quickly waylaid in their task. In addition to mazes with rooms that seem to defy physics and potions that make you big or small, Santa and company find their present-delivering task made harder by the Queen of Hearts (voice of Emilia Clarke), who hates Christmas and every tinsel and pudding and (because this is the United Kingdom) Christmas cracker that reminds her of the holiday.

Also because it’s the U.K., the movie has nice notes of acid through all the holiday sweetness — the reindeer who are a bit cynical office workers for a somewhat scatterbrained boss, the silliness of the Wonderland characters like the March Hare (voice of Asim Chaudhry) and the Mad Hatter (Mawaan Rizwan), the elf band that pops up everywhere to add mood music to scenes. Clark makes for a fun mad Queen and Gerard Butler is a surprising Santa choice but he works. And throughout the movie has lovely storybook animation that adds notes of humor to the full-color prettiness. B+ Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Dear Santa (PG-13)

An 11-year-old with a tendency toward misspelling accidentally sends his letter with his fondest wish to Satan in Dear Santa.

Liam (Robert Timothy Smith) is having a hard time with life — he’s not really fitting in at his new school, his parents are constantly fighting and the family is still struggling with a recent tragedy. He does have a good friend, Gibby (Jaden Carson Baker), and a crush — Emma (Kai Cech), who is nice but who Liam can’t figure out how to be normal around. He writes to Santa, really just because the ritual gives his mom a bit of cheer, but due to some spelling difficulties it’s addressed “To: Satan, North Lope” and is received in the hot place by Jack Black. Tickled that a kid has written to him, Satan appears, all devil horns and stinkiness, to grant Liam’s wishes. It takes Liam a bit to realize he’s dealing with Old Nick, not Saint Nick, but eventually he learns the terms of the deal: he makes three wishes, the devil gets his soul. No, thank you, Liam says. But without realizing who he was dealing with, he already made one wish — for Emma to give him a chance. The wish is a pretty deluxe package deal — VIP tickets to a Post Malone concert, with sweet transportation and even a ticket for Gibby. But Liam is loath to make another wish and lose his soul.

Dear Santa is a bit of a Farrelly Brothers joint — Bobby directs, Peter has a screenplay co-writing credit and both have producer credits. Though this movie is PG-13, it has moments of R-rated-seeming comedy that are more in line with their early R movies than a more family-friendly comedy. The movie also has some real lesser-quality Disney-sitcom vibes — the kids and the material are largely not a good fit. The young actors oftentimes can not sell the comedy they’re given and/or aren’t given comedy that they can make work, leading to some very tinny, artificial scenes. Add in yikes-some acting by Brianne Howey and Hayes MacArthur as Liam’s parents, and this feels more toss-off TV movie than the Farrelly Brothers presence and Jack Black’s leading role would suggest. The movie’s main problem, I think, is that it’s not solidly a family comedy or solidly a Bad Santa-esque R-rated comedy. Either could have worked but this middle way leaves the movie mushy and underbaked. C- Streaming on Paramount+ and available for rent or purchase.

Nutcrackers (PG-13)

Businessman Ben Stiller finds himself caring for his four semi-feral nephews in the mournful but sweet Nutcrackers.

Michael (Stiller) feels like a stock 1980s comedy character, with his “Big Presentation” deadline looming and his big-city ways and his inability to cope without wi-fi (which would have been, what, a fax machine in a 1980s movie?). When his sister and her husband died, he sent an Edible Arrangement to the funeral for his four young-teen-through-young-elementary -age nephews (Homer Janson, Arlo Janson, Ulysses Janson and Atlas Janson). Now he is headed to their rural working family farm to sign some papers and get them adopted or something — it’s not clear what he thinks is happening with the kids and the farm but “not it” is very clearly his position. Social worker Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) tells him that she doesn’t have a family willing to take all four boys yet and Michael needs to stick around to care for them for what he clearly thinks will be more days than weeks. With their long hair, their home-schooled farm-focused lives and their general brotherness, the Kicklighter boys are known as sort of a handful. Their mom/Michael’s sister was, however, beloved in the town for her dance studio. Eventually, Michael hits on the idea of them putting on a kid-penned variation on the Nutcracker to show everyone how adorable and adoptable the boys are.

Stiller here is fine — the right amount of prickly for a guy who doesn’t have child experience and had been estranged from his sister but not cartoonishly heartless. But it’s the Janson boys, real-life brothers, who give the movie heart. They play the boyness of their characters — a constant whirl of wrestling, bad decisions, general messiness, loyalty and surprising moments of kindness — in a way that feels genuine and will be instantly recognizable to anybody who has parented or taught or otherwise attempted to corral more than one boy. B- Streaming on Hulu.

Mary (TV-14)

The Christmas story is the focus of Mary, a biography of the early years of Jesus’ mom.

The standard nativity pageant story is not generally feature-length so this movie starts with the difficulties Mary’s parents Joachim (Ori Pfeffer) and Anne (Hilla Vidor) have conceiving in 18 B.C. Nazareth. Blue-robed Archangel Gabriel (Dudley O’Shaughnessy) shows up to Joachim and Anne to tell them that God will give them a daughter, with conditions. Years later, their daughter Mary (Mila Harris) is elementary-aged and when Gabriel shows up again mom and dad know it’s time to take Mary to the temple where she will serve God, as they’ve agreed. Mary spends years at the temple (long enough to age up into actress Noa Cohen), mostly doing housekeeping stuff with a similarly aged group of girls and under the mentorship of Anna (Susan Brown), who feels a bit like she’s on loan from the Bene Gesserit. One day, stoneworker Joseph (Ido Tako), with a little heavenly nudging, sees Mary doing the laundry at a nearby river. Their interaction includes only Mary telling him the name of her father and also calling him crazy for wading into the river to get her shawl. But Joseph decides she’s the one for him and asks Joachim for her hand in marriage. Mary’s parents aren’t sure but then he mentions getting some directions from the blue-robed guy and they give him the thumbs up. Mary is more-or-less OK with the engagement but then she gets her own visit from Gabriel and is told that she is “with child.” The wider community is really jerky about Mary’s single mom-to-be status and Joseph has to decide what he wants to do about it.

Extremely meanwhile, King Herod (Anthony Hopkins, very “angry Odin” but bigger and louder and more bonkers) is busy restoring the temple, murdering his wife, acting twitchy about his place in the Roman power structure and just generally being a pretty unhinged guy. When he crosses paths with Mary, he has a sort of prophetic-vision-reaction, leading his main bodyguard (Gudmundur Thorvaldsson) to get all obsessed with hunting down this random teen who gave the stink-eye to his boss.

I enjoy a good Bible story movie, particularly if the movie takes a Ridley-Scott-with-the-Gladiator-movies “sure, whatever” approach to historical accuracy and has at least one character who decides to go full Shakespeare-at-top-volume theatrical. This movie has all of those things: the costuming here feels more galaxy far, far away than Earth a long, long time ago; Anthony Hopkins goes All In as Herod, and I do not remember the Bible having as many action scenes for Mary and Joseph as we see here. Are Mary’s eyebrows way too on point for a pregnant lady in antiquity? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a fun watch. B- Streaming on Netflix.

An Almost Christmas Story (PG)

A young owl ends up in the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center in An Almost Christmas Story, a visually lovely animated movie.

According to Wikipedia, this is actually computer-generated animation but the visuals suggest paper craft (cars and buildings that seem to be made of cardboard, puffs of steam that look drawn on paper) and characters with a wooden puppet or papier mache look. Their movements suggest stop-motion animation and puppetry — it’s all very well done and helps give a kind of tactile warmth to the story.

Little owl Moon (voice of Cary Christopher) does not, as his father, Papa (voice of Jim Gaffigan), tells him, stay put while his father flies off to look for shelter and instead flies out to look for sticks to fix the family nest. A hawk chases Moon, who falls and hurts his wing, and Papa hurries Moon into a random tree and says to wait for him. Before Papa can get back, though, the tree is cut down and winds up at Rockefeller Center, decorated for Christmas and sitting next to the ice rink. When Moon ventures out of the tree, he winds up falling into Luna (voice of Estella Madrigal) a young girl with a prosthetic leg attempting to relearn to ice skate. After some adventures through the subway while being chased by pigeons (voices of Mamoudou Athie, Philip Rosenthal and Natasha Lyonne) who think Moon is trying to steal their garbage food, Moon and Luna end up wandering around, each lost and trying to seek their family.

The movie (which clocks in at 21 minutes) is a celebration of human (and animal) kindness. Its real highlights are the beautiful animation style and the very fun and fitting voice work, with standouts being Lyonne and John C. Reilly as a narrator of sorts. B+ Streaming on Disney+.

Juror #2 (PG-13)

A juror realizes he has a pretty significant connection to the case he’s on in the Clint Eastwood-directed courtroom thriller Juror #2, a competent, enjoyable movie.

Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) attempts to get out of jury duty by explaining that his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is in the final weeks of a high-risk pregnancy, but the judge (Amy Aquino) says nice try and thus Justin becomes juror #2 on what he learns is the trial of James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), accused of murdering his girlfriend Kendall (Francesca Eastwood). As prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collete) starts to describe the crime in her opening arguments, Justin realizes that Kendall was killed at roughly the same time, in the same general area, where he “hit a deer” (a deer, he assumes) with his car on a rainy night after leaving a bar. Several years sober, Justin didn’t drink at the bar, but just stared down the drink he bought while wrapped up in grief over his and Allison’s previous pregnancy loss. But still, as his AA sponsor and lawyer Larry (Kiefer Sutherland) explains, his history of DUIs and the politics of the case, coming as Faith is running for district attorney, means there will be no going easy on Justin should he turn himself in. Will Justin let the jury convict James? Will anyone figure out that this guy acting squirrely during the whole trial is more involved than he lets on?

Chris Messina plays the defense attorney and the jury members include characters played by J.K. Simmons, Cedric Yarbrough and Leslie Bibb, all bringing nice character notes to their relatively minor roles. Juror #2 across the board has a John Grisham-lite sheen and does a good job balancing a few serious thoughts with character drama. It is takes itself just seriously enough but not too seriously and is neither too clever nor too silly. It is an interesting story, with good performances — an entertaining movie even if it isn’t setting the world on fire. Which makes the most unsettling aspect of this suspense film the movie itself. If you’ve heard anything about it, you’ve probably heard about its half-hearted theatrical release, quick move to VOD (where it seems to be doing well) and its scheduled Dec. 20 release on Max. I’m not sure what this movie’s weird release trajectory means for the future of solid, non-awards-seeking dramas but, I guess, enjoy ’em while we’ve still got ’em? B

Available for rent or purchase.

Conclave (PG)

The pope-picking process is filled with intrigue and a fun amount of cattiness in Conclave.

An old (fictional) pope dies and the Vatican machinery gears up for the election by the cardinals of a new pope. Even as the pope’s close associates — such as cardinals Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and Tremblay (John Lithgow) — pray over his very recently deceased body there is political jockeying. Three weeks later when the cardinals from all around the world arrive to be sequestered in conclave to pick a new pope, all the men standing in clumps outside, getting in a smoke, have a real Tammany Hall vibe. An Italian cardinal, Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), seems to be working hard for the top spot, letting anyone who will listen know what a conservative, traditional guy he is, looking to make Latin great again and whatnot. Also a frontrunner is Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), an African cardinal who seems friendly and popular and has very hardline social views. Bellini doesn’t want to be pope — and tells everybody that doesn’t want to be pope, while also letting fly his opinions about openness and tolerance and, gasp, the involvement of women. And then there’s Tremblay, who seems to be a consensus candidate for the “least worst choice.” As everybody tries to Nate Silver about whose support will go where, a mystery cardinal shows up, Benitez (Carlos Diehz). Born in Mexico, Benitez has served in hot spots — Congo, Iraq — and was recently named the Cardinal of Kabul. He is the new kid everyone in this very clique-y lunch room is whispering about.

A “woo-hoo!” from me came during one of the too-few scenes with Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), a nun from the order of Our Lady of Mess Around and Find Out. Shortly after Benitez arrives, Lawrence asks him to say grace before the meal and when he gives a shout out to the Sisters who prepared the food Agnes gives a little snort-chuckle, which feels like it just wraps up all sorts of things about her relationship with the church and the priests. It was a well-crafted moment (and not even the one I woo-hoo-ed about).

Maybe you’re sick of anything election-y, but Conclave is an engaging dishy drama, particularly if you have some CCD in your past. Stanley Tucci may not be at full speed here but he’s fully compelling as a man wrestling with how much he wants this job he knows he has only a slim chance at getting. Fiennes is also fun to watch as he has to deal with one person and their problems after another while seemingly getting sucked in deeper to his own crisis of faith and maybe just a little bit giving into ambition. And all over, the air is thick with side-eyes, enjoyable soap-opera-esque close-ups and little nuggets of the driest humor. I don’t know that this is necessarily a great movie but I had a great time watching it. A Available for rent or purchase.

Megalopolis (R)

Put the TV show Succession, Julie Tambor’s 1999 film Titus and Baz Luhrman’s Red Curtain movie trilogy in a blender and sprinkle that glittery, stilted-dialogue smoothie with vibes from the old Emo Kylo Ren Twitter account and you get the general idea of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, just a weirdo trip of an “I’m using my own money, nobody can say ‘no’ to me” visual project.

New York City is here called New Rome, ruled by Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who I think is supposed to represent the tired status quo. Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is sort of a tech bro-ish inventor of a Vibranium-esque does-everything material called Megalon. Cesar is also an architect type who is part of the Design Authority that is building/seeking to build a bunch of Dr. Seuss twisty nonsense that somehow represents society’s improvement. Party girl Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) takes a shine to Cesar but, like, shouldn’t — it feels like one of those “he’s a genius, I can fix him” situations that just makes you sad for women in film. (This whole movie is filled with female characters that seem to only exist in relation to the male characters, with no independent motivations or thoughts.) Cesar’s uncle Hamilton Crassus (Jon Voight) is the richest man in the, let’s say, world and helps to fund Cesar’s vision. Also a Crassus nephew is Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), a weaselly fail-son with an interest in fascism. And then you have Aubrey Plaza as a TV money honey with gold digger ambitions, Grace VanderWaal as a pop girlie vestal virgin, Jason Schwartzman I think still playing his Hunger Games character, Laurence Fishburne as a narrator and, why not, Talia Shire and Dustin Hoffman. Plus Cesar and Julia can sometimes stop time — figuratively or literally, you decide!

If all that sounds like a bunch of unconnected words, that is a pretty good sense of what it’s like to watch Megalopolis. The most consistent element of the movie is the visuals, in particular the way the clothes are designed to sell a “Rome but make it modern” fashion aesthetic. Lotta belted drapiness — but I’m not mad at it! The movie’s costume designer (Milena Canonero, according to IMDb, who has done some costume design in Wes Anderson movies) seems to be having fun with the idea of, for example, translating Rome senate robes to male business looks. It may even be worth a costume design Oscar nomination.

Then there’s the Adam Driver of it all — taking this whole thing very seriously. Maybe a little too seriously? But occasionally you get moments of him making the whole ridiculous Shakespearean vibe legitimately funny (Google “Adam Driver back to the club”) or making it feel like an actual human is involved (a few but not all of his scenes with Emmanuel), which feels like a real accomplishment for a movie this turned-up-to-11 at all times.

Megalopolis is long and rambling, though you get the sense that Coppola would tell you every minute is intensely necessary. I don’t feel like it’s intensely necessary for anyone to watch it but, some day when its rental price comes way down or it shows up on some streaming network, this experiment in an almost comic book movie approach to Ideas-based filmmaking is worth a viewing as a curiosity. C+ Available for rent.

Spellbound (PG)

A 15-year-old princess is trying to keep up family appearances after her parents, the king and queen, turn into giant destructive monsters in the animated musical Spellbound.

I’m going to spoil the end of the movie because the “what it’s all about” might hit some families harder than others: “My parents are monsters” is clearly fairy tale metaphor territory. In this case, it’s a couple that have stopped operating successfully as a couple or even a team of co-parents but have become, literally, trapped in their own anger. The movie does a good job of addressing what that means for adults and how parents who don’t have the same love they once had for each other can still work together to make their child feel unconditionally loved and supported. And how kids can trust that love as a forever thing, even if their parents’ marriage isn’t. All of this is I think pretty well told but I can also imagine that for families going through it this might not be a fun movie night.

With the help of royal advisers like Nazara (voice of Jennifer Lewis) and Bolinar (voice of John Lithgow), Princess Ellian (voice of Rachel Zegler) has done a good job of making sure the right things get signed and the right people get enough proof of life that the kingdom generally thinks the royal couple are alive, well and in charge. And while they’re alive, King Solon (voice of Javier Bardem) and Queen Ellsmere (voice of Nicole Kidman) are not well or in charge. They are giant, brightly colored fuzzy-and-feathery monsters who don’t recognize Ellian or anyone else and who crash through the palace knocking things over and smashing holes in walls. This can’t go on, Nazara and Bolinar say, and convince Ellian that if they can’t change her parents back then she will become queen.

Ellian agrees because she has a plan that involves a pair of Squishmallow-esque oracles — Luno Oracle of the Moon (voice of Nathan Lane) and Sunny Oracle of the Sun (voice of Titus Burgess). The Oracles are sort of horrified that the royals are literal monsters but eventually explain the quest Ellian must take her parents on to turn them human again.

Along the way, Bolinar accidentally trades bodies with Ellian’s pet rat, the palace guards chase the family in order to catch the monsters they don’t believe are the king and queen and there’s a lot of completely acceptable singing that I don’t remember a single tune from.

Spellbound is a perfectly cromulent example of the mid-level animated feature. Spellbound doesn’t break new ground but it does tell a story with well-crafted emotional beats and enough fuzzy creature goofiness to satisfy kid viewers. B- Streaming on Netflix.

Piece by Piece (PG)

The life and musical career of Pharrell Williams gets the autobiography documentary treatment in the animated Lego movie Piece by Piece.

In some ways this is a fairly straightforward look at Williams’ life and impact on music, with discussion of his longtime love of music and talking heads telling their parts. Except that everybody here, from his parents to Snoop Dog and Gwen Stefani, is rendered as Legos in a Lego world. This animated element allows for a nice visual exploration of Williams’ discussion of his relationship to music — how it makes him feel, what he sees and thinks about when he’s listening to music and creating music. And his Behind the Music-style “dark period” is about what sounds like basically a creative block, which he talks about working through.

The Lego of it all makes the movie perhaps appear on its face to be a kids’ movie. While the songs have been, as far as I can remember, largely edited to only their PG parts and a “PG Spray” fogs up the room for Snoop’s scenes, it is a movie that is probably of more interest to adults or older kids who are familiar with the music. I could see the movie appealing to musically or creatively inclined kids — but again, probably an older audience than the bigger-tent The Lego Movie-style Lego movies.

But for adults and those older kids, Piece by Piece is a fun and visually exciting charmer. A Available for rent or purchase.

Gifts for movie-lovers

• Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tearsby Michael Schulman. This 2023 book is a delight for movie history fans. It looks at different periods of Oscar races, from the silent film years through a coda on The Slap, and uses Oscar campaigns as a way to look at the movie industry and wider culture. My current read is November 2024 release Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey, an interesting examination of eras in movies through the lens of box office bombs.

• This Had Oscar BuzzNow that Patreon allows you to gift memberships, you can give a fellow movie lover a subscription to this podcast hosted by Joe Reid (who does the Cinematrix game and Movie Fantasy League, both over at Vulture.com) and Chris Feil (an excellent freelance writer and thinker about movies). The show produces one regular episode a week plus bonus episodes for subscribers, which in this award season include quick-hit looks at award nominations. Make it a deluxe gift by also giving a subscription to Demi, Myself and I, a Patreon-subscription podcast where Joe Reid looks at the films of Demi Moore.

• Movies at Red River Theatres This downtown Concord theater sells gift certificates, gift memberships (which, depending on the level, can come with discounts, movie passes, free popcorn and more) and Dinner and a Movie packages, which feature two movie passes plus a $25 gift certificate to a participating restaurant for $40, according to redrivertheatres.org.

• Movies at O’neil Cinemas The O’neil Cinemas at Brickyard Square in Epping sells gift cards, which can be purchased online at oneilcinemas.com.

• Movies at Chunky’s If you like to give a physical thing with your gift card, Chunky’s Cinema Pub in Manchester offers gift boxes (with a gift card, movie pass and popcorn pass) themed to look like movie candy and gift baskets (with a gift card, admissions and popcorn passes and theater candy, all in a popcorn bag or bucket, depending on the size). See chunkys.com.

• Movies and more at Smitty’s Cinema Gift cards to Tilton’s Smitty’s Cinema also cover purchases in the GameLAB with its arcade and other attractions. See smittyscinema.com.

• MUBI You can gift the streaming service that offers a changing roster of independent, international and other not-your-standard blockbuster films. A big deal film currently streaming is this year’s Demi Moore stand-out The Substance — you can even get a “We are sorry you didn’t appreciate your experience with The Substance” T-shirt (that’s a particularly chilling phrase from the movie) to level up your gift.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande make for a winning pair in the thoroughly charming Wicked.

As you probably know from the book, the play, the cast album, etc., Wicked offers the backstory of The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, here called Elphaba (Erivo), the role first played on Broadway by Idina Menzel. After a rough childhood due to her green skin and her father and the townspeople’s horrible treatment of her, a grown Elphaba finds slightly more acceptance at Shiz University, a Hogwarts-y school where her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) has enrolled. Their father tells Elphaba to stay to take care of Nessarose, who uses a wheelchair and is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she tries unsuccessfully to tell people. Elphaba soon finds her own spot there when Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) spots Elphaba’s extraordinary magic abilities. Galinda (Grande), the pink-wardrobe-wearing blonde who was originated by Kristin Chenoweth, accidentally agrees to be Elphaba’s roommate in an attempt to suck up to Morrible. Galinda’s grand ambition is to become a sorceress — and to marry Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), a super handsome party boy who transfers to Shiz. Elphaba’s plan is to become skilled enough at magic to meet and work with the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). She wants to be cheered not feared by her fellow Ozians and if he maybe wants to make her not-green, that would be OK too.

Beneath all these hopes and dreams is a darker political undercurrent. Once upon a time, Oz used to be a place where humans and animals, who could talk, worked and lived side by side. But now there are only two animal professors left at Shiz and Elphaba overhears a kind of animal resistance meeting where they discuss animals who have disappeared and other well-known animal orators who have lost their ability to speak.

That aspect to the story and a later scene where some animals undergo a transformation packs a surprisingly emotional (and dark) punch and maybe makes the movie scarier than your standard PG movie. Odd to say about talking animals but it grounded all the magic and the pink fluff of Galinda in something unexpectedly real. This is fairy tale land, but not a perfect sugary one, which makes for a more nuanced story.

But that is probably not why we’re all here. The movie does right by the music — sure, Grande can feel a little “doing a Kristin Chenoweth” at times, but she creates a fully formed character who can match the heft her songs require. Erivo is likewise absolutely great. If there’s any knock (not really) on her performance, it’s that she is so absolutely stunning at all times that the “ew, she’s green!” stuff is a hard sell. Her “Defying Gravity” is chills-inducing and she is equally at ease with both the intensity and comedy elements of her character. The look of the movie is a delight — a fantastical explosion of color and production design that manages to make Oz look, mostly, like a physical setting rather than just images on a green screen. The costumes are also quite lovely, with wit and thoughtfulness about what they’re trying to convey about the characters. You know, a fun movie that is a joy to watch on a big screen — what a nice holiday treat! B+

Rated PG for some scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jon M. Chu with a screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, Wicked is two hours and 40 minutes long (worth it for the fun Menzel and Chenoweth cameo) and distributed in theaters (which ask you to please not sing, like, there was a sign and everything; a singalong version will be released on Dec. 25) by Universal Studios.

Gladiator II (R)

Gladiator II Maximus-es so hard, even though the character died in the now-24-year-old original film, that I’m hoping Russell Crowe got royalties.

The movie is set some 16 or so years after the action of the first movie, with Rome still being a corrupt empire and Connie Nielsen, who is now 59 years old in real life, still looking fabulous. We meet simple non-Roman guy Hanno (Paul Mescal) and his wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen), who are just two crazy kids in love, doing chores, but then having to suit up in armor when the “suit up” horn sounds. It seems the Roman navy is nearly at the walls of their city in Numidia. The Romans, led by general Acacius (Pedro Pascal), attack. Arishat is a good archer but Acacius himself calls for her to be killed when she kills one of the Roman soldiers fighting next to him, thus Making It Personal for Hanno, who wants not just revenge against the whole Roman army, which quickly defeats the city, but specific revenge against Acacius.

Hanno is enslaved and sold to Macrinus (Denzel Washington), who sees the spark of a promising gladiator in him. He brings Hanno into his training school, promising him that if he is successful, Macrinus will see that Hanno gets a chance to kill Acacius.

Meanwhile, Acacius returns to Rome and the very petulant club kids who are the twin Emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). They tell him to buckle up for their big plans to conquer India and Persia. When Acacius gets home, he sighs to his wife that these doofuses are the worst (paraphrasing). Surprise! — his wife is Lucilla (Nielsen), sister to Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus in the first movie, who is still trying to be the adult in the room for addled emperors and regain the “dream of Rome.” Never once will you think to yourself “hey, what became of Lucilla’s kid from the first movie” because the movie makes it instantly pretty clear what became of him and retcons some extra action for his character that felt very The Rise of Skywalker (not complimentary).

Lucilla and her dumb plans (has she been playing the long game for 16 years through how many emperors?) and Acacius and the various senators (including one played by Derek Jacobi, the other one of the I think only two actors to return from the first movie) and even Hanno and his revenge are all very small potatoes compared to the big, velvet-covered ham-ery of Denzel Washington. His character is all-singing, all-dancing robes and jewelry awesomeness. At first he’s presented as just another guy on the come-up, trying to take money from the elite of Rome. But then we find out that he has — successfully, way more so than Lucilla — been playing a much longer, somewhat lunatic game. And Washington is eating all of this up with absolute relish, having a total blast whether he’s trying to sell Hanno on the benefits of the gladiator career path or waving around a severed head in front of a horrified senate. Washington doing his Denzel Washington laugh while shmoozing the movers and shakers — chef’s kiss. The movie when he’s not around: a bunch of “thinking about the Roman Empire” mush that doesn’t even keep its logic together with itself, much less actual Roman history. To be clear, I am not looking for accuracy with the timeline here, but I am looking for characters’ motivations to make sense from scene to scene. It’s like in this two-and-a-half-hour meander around the greater Rome metropolitan area the movie itself forgets who is on whose side and why. And through it all, characters — from the gladiators in the coliseum green rooms to Lucilla’s whole personal drama — will not shut up about the long dead Maximus, which helps (along with some lackluster battles and general “I’ve got your echoes in eternity” retreading of story details) to make everything feel like a flatter, duller copy of the first movie. A for Washington, C for everything else, so, like B-?

Rated R for strong bloody violence including one very silly laugh-out-loud moment during the end, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Ridley Scott with a screenplay by David Scarpa, Gladiator II is two hours and 30 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures

Martha Stewart is a hoot in Martha, the documentary from R.J. Cutler that she apparently has some issues with.

I’ve read that she thinks the documentary spends too much time on her legal woes, she felt some shots made her look old lady-ish, she wishes there was more hip-hop — which, delightful. But the sum total is that she comes off as someone who would be a blast to three-martini-lunch with, who could talk lousy relationships and Wall Street (where she briefly worked) and media and have some cutting remarks about everybody. Her complaints about the doc feel very on brand with the woman we meet in the film, someone who is exacting, who wants things done her way and is usually right about why and who had to fight through the 1980s and 1990s to get people (often men) to see her very successful vision. The doc gives her brand extensions (her Kmart line, for example), magazines and media empire in general as an example of Stewart understanding the marketplace and finding ways to capitalize on that understanding. I even think the section of the documentary that focuses on her prosecution puts the whole situation in a relatively positive light, highlighting the James Comey of it all, who was at the time the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the lead prosecutor of her case. The movie leaves it for you to make of all that what you will but Martha doesn’t shy away from giving her eyebrow-raised, unimpressed response to the whole ordeal and the people involved.

Martha is frank, frequently fun and a fascinating time capsule of a certain era of America, and New York City, that shows a woman continuing to roll on and have fun well past the age even famous and wealthy women are usually allowed to do that in public. B+ Streaming on Netflix.

The Apprentice (R)

At roughly the same time Martha was on the come-up, turning a catering business into cookbooks and wider fame, the son of a local landlord begins his quest to break free of his demanding father’s business shadow and make a name for himself in The Apprentice, a feature film that is basically the Donald Trump comic book character origin story.

The movie’s whole arc shows Trump going from a young-ish man in the 1970s who is somewhat unformed but still with Easter eggs of future personality and appearance elements to the late 1980s when he is basically the guy who any one of us could sketch or impersonate with at least some recognizability. The movie has a very “hey it’s Arkham Asylum” and “look, an Infinity Stone” feel to scenes of Sebastian Stan, as Trump, learning from Roy Cohn (a no-effort-spared Jeremy Strong) how to sell something as the best in the world, like you’ve never seen before, or wave away a problem as being very unfair. It’s Strong whose performance really stands out whereas Stan’s Trump, while not an SNL impersonation per se, is probably not going to escape whatever you come to the movie with regarding Trump. Strong’s performance is not, like, a study in Cohn’s psychology or anything but the coiled rage he brings to Cohn does make for interesting watching.

Maria Bakalova as Ivana is a choice — perhaps it’s because the actress first emerged in a Borat movie but there is some kind of inherent comedy vibe she brings to this movie, which is very dark in its humor and in how it portrays the Trumps’ marriage. She works, on balance, but it’s never not odd.

“Never not odd” might be a good descriptor for the movie as a whole. This is a movie about a person and era in the past, true but also fictionalized (as title cards explain), but also the movie itself is only a movie anybody bothered making because it has so much connection to our real-world present. That may be a more immersive experience than you’re looking for in your relax-on-the-couch movie-watching, but with its interesting performances and point of view about this time and place, I wasn’t bored and wasn’t sorry I watched it. B- Available for rent or purchase.

Saturday Night (R)

The public personas of both Donald Trump and Martha Stewart are embedded in American culture in part because of Saturday Night Live, the first episode of which is the focus of Saturday Night.

Actually, the movie’s focus is the 90 minutes before that first showtime in 1975, when showrunner Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) attempts to pull together a mess of sketches, music and comedy that ran three hours (twice as long as it should) in rehearsal and all of its differently persnickety personalities into a live show that will be allowed back on air next week. The network — as personified by Dave Tebet (Willem Dafoe) — is perhaps actively rooting for him to fail, says Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), one of the few executives supporting the Saturday Night concept. John Belushi (Matt Wood) thinks he’s an artist. Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) is gunning for Johnny Carson’s job. Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) isn’t sure exactly why he’s there. The women — Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Laraine Newman (Emiky Fairn) and Jane Curtin (Kim Matula) — don’t seem to be given the same weight as the men (either on the show or in this movie). And Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page is just trying to get live humans in the building to be an audience for this whatever-it-is show.

I’ve seen this movie, which was directed by Jason Reitman and written by Reitman and Gil Kenan, called Aaron Sorkin-y and I see why. There is a little bit of the “my TV show will save America” vibe that Sorkin brought to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip here. And the movie allows Lorne Michaels to compare himself to Thomas Edison without giving it the eyeroll that I did. But there are also process elements here that I enjoyed, like their attempting to figure out the lighting and how to accomplish a five-second wardrobe change. Particularly if you have some kind of memory of those years, either live as they happened or in Comedy Central reruns decades later, Saturday Night is a slight but mostly fun look at a moment. B- Available for rent or purchase.

A newly minted 18-year-old is suddenly confronted with her 39-year-old self in My Old Ass, a very sweet coming-of-age comedy.

Elliot (Maisy Stella) has gone to the woods with her two best buddies to celebrate her birthday by taking mushrooms. Her friends seem to be seeing euphoric discos; Elliot is stuck sitting by the campfire complaining nothing is happening. And then Elliot (Aubrey Plaza) shows up. Old Elliot is bemused by Young Elliot, who is initially shocked but then wants to know, like, what stocks to buy so they can be rich in 20 years and what awesome things might happen to her. Old Elliot is wary of messing with the future too much but she does tell Young Elliot to spend more time with her family, to please wear her retainer and to stay away from anyone named Chad. Elliot doesn’t know a Chad — until she meets her dad’s summer worker on the family cranberry farm and he is, of course, Chad (Percy Hynes White).

Elliot, who has always been attracted to women, is shocked to learn she’s attracted to the potentially troublesome Chad. While dealing with this confusion, she is also approaching the big life change of heading to college. She has always been eager to leave her family’s farm and small town but now that it is a reality she finds herself full of conflicting emotions.

My Old Ass thinks a lot about last times — the last time you do a thing and whether you know when you’re doing it that it is the end of something. Some lasts sneak up on you — the last time Elliot’s mom (Maria Dizzia) rocked a toddler Elliot to sleep. Some, like the last times Elliot is suddenly encountering as she prepares to leave for college and have her “life start,” as she says, are clearly last times and she has to deal with all the bittersweetness of them while in the middle of them. My Old Ass approaches this — life transitions, what we miss and how we deal with it all — with genuine emotion and melancholy-tinged sweetness while also being funny and having just the right touch when it comes to the older-self-talks-to-younger-self aspect of the story. Great performances all around help sell the realness of this world, with special kudos to Stella. A

Rated R for language throughout, drug use and sexual material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Megan Park, My Old Ass is an hour and 29 minutes long and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios. It is available for rent or purchase and is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The Substance (R)

Demi Moore gives a very good, frequently quite funny performance in the goofy body horror The Substance.

Aging star Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) attempts to recapture the “best version” of herself with an underground treatment called the Substance. The neon green serum does not lift and tighten — it pushes a whole new younger, flawless version of yourself out of you, violently, creating a seam down the back that this new person has to sew up. The operating rule of the Substance is seven days on, seven days off — the perfect Substance-created version of yourself gets to be for seven days while the older you sleeps. In seven days, you must switch back. Both versions are “you” and the younger version needs a “stabilizer” (fluid syringed out of the older version’s back) to continue existing.

Sue (Margaret Qualley), Elisabeth’s “best version,” is able to win a spot as the host of the exercise show Elisabeth was just fired from and is quickly getting spots on billboards. When Elisabeth reawakens she is both proud of what her alter has accomplished and, very quickly, jealous. Later Sue’s carelessness with the seven-day-switch rule has immediate and disturbing consequences for Elisabeth.

The Substance has lots of tight shots gleefully highlighting the grossness of the human body even before the movie’s final third, when what feels like a tidy dark comedy horror about beauty, age and media takes a hard left turn into total bonkers territory. Like so bonkers that the movie pushes past where you think it will stop, enters a new realm of absolute lunacy and then keeps going, so that actually by the end I kinda respected the whole crazy circus of gore the movie became. What holds it together throughout is Moore, who really does some solid work here with both the desperation Elisabeth feels (and that the Substance exacerbates) and the movie’s comedy. B+

Available for rent or purchase and streaming on Mubi.

The 4:30 Movie (R)

Kevin Smith makes his The Fabelmans with The 4:30 Movie, a nostalgia-rich tale of teenage friendship and love and ye old 1980s pre-stadium-seating movie theaters.

Ben David (Austin Zajur) gets up the courage to ask Melody Barnegat (Siena Agudong), a girl he likes but ghosted after he got nervous when they kissed, to the 4:30 screening of what sounds like a middling detective movie — their local theater in suburban New Jersey isn’t playing Poltergeist II, the current hot ticket. The screening will come in the middle of a day of movies Ben has planned with his friends, dork Belly (Reed Northup) and dork-who-wants-so-badly-to-seem-greaser-cool Burny (Nicholas Cirillo). Belly seems perfectly happy for Ben but Burny is clearly nervous about how it will change the friendship dynamic. In addition to friend friction, obstacles to Ben’s romantic movie moment include a power-drunk cineplex owner (Ken Jeong), assorted burnout theater employees and Ben’s and Melody’s parents.

From the lingering shots of the post-rotary push-button desk phone to jokes about the surely-finished-forever Star Wars trilogy, The 4:30 Movie is all about the gooey nostalgia for a very specific late 1980s time and place and for the impact it had on Smith’s life. Actually, just how Fabelmans-y this movie is becomes ever more apparent as the movie goes on, culminating in a fun little credits scene. This much Kevin Smith-itude might not be for everyone but I thoroughly enjoyed it. B

Available for rent or purchase.