Roofman (2025)

Jack and I quite enjoyed this based-on-a-true-story about a North Carolina thief who breaks into stores through their roofs after hours and later has to hide out in a Toys R Us in 2004. Channing Tatum is charming (name change?) in the title role, and Kirsten Dunst is also adorable as his love interest in the second act. Support comes from Peter Dinklage as the detestable store manager and Lakeith Stanfield and Juno Temple as the roofman's friends.

Director Derek Cianfrance spent many hours interviewing the actual roofman Jeffrey Manchester to contribute to the script Cianfrance co-wrote with Kirt Gunn.

The music by Christopher Bear, available on Apple Music, swings between soothing and mildly unsettling.

Tatum was last blogged for Fly Me to the Moon, Dunst for The Power of the Dog, Dinklage for Wicked, Stanfield for Judas and the Black Messiah, Temple for Wonder Wheel (three years before her 34 episodes of Ted Lasso as Keely), Cianfrance for Sound of Metal, and Bear for Past Lives. This is the second feature for Gunn, sixteen years after his first.

28 producers is no longer enough to land a spot on my Producers Plethora Prize list, but I thought I'd mention the number anyway. Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences aren't raising the ceiling at 86 and 85% averages, but they're still pretty high. We rented it on November 20.

Bugonia (2025)

We were captivated by this intense story of a madman and his autistic cousin who kidnap a pharmaceutical company CEO, convinced that she is an evil alien. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone are terrific as brainy Teddy and shrewd Michelle, and Aiden Delbis is quite good as cousin Don. Alicia Silverstone has a cameo as Teddy's mother (I had to look her up because I knew she looked familiar).

Yorgos Lanthimos directs from a script by Will Tracy, based on the movie Save the Green Planet! (Jigureul jikyeora! - 2003), written by Jang Joon-Hwan. There is some violence and blood. Do not let anyone give you spoilers--the end was quite a twist for Jack and me. Apple Music describes Jerskin Fendrix's soundtrack as haunting, and they're not wrong.

Turns out that bugonia was an ancient Greek belief that bees spontaneously generated from the carcasses of cows. The character Teddy is a beekeeper.

You may have seen photos of Stone with a shaved head. She really did consent to that and said having a bald head was freeing, as well as feeling "amazing" in the shower. That explains her cute pixie cut early this year.

Plemons, Stone, Lanthimos, and Fendrix were all last blogged for Kinds of Kindness, Tracy for The Menu, and Silverstone for Book Club. Delbis, who chooses to be described as autistic, makes his acting debut after an open casting call.

Rotten Tomatoes critics are somewhat sweet on this, with averages of 87 and 84%, respectively. We rented it yesterday, December 4.