Sacramento (2024)

Jack and I liked this indie story of two man-boys on a road trip from LA to the title city. It has some laughs and a lot of cringe (we do like cringe) as Michael Cera's Glenn gets more and anxious dealing with his free-spirited pushy friend Rickey, played by director/co-writer Michael Angarano. Kristen Stewart is Glenn's pregnant but patient wife Rosie and Maya Erskine is Rickey's hookup in the first act.

Trivia: Stewart dated Angarano briefly, years before she married her current wife, and Erskine is now married to him since 2023. Watch for brief shots of their actual kids in act three. A yellow 1966 Mustang makes more than a cameo.

Angarano's co-writer is Christopher Nicholas Smith, credited here as Chris Smith, and the composer is Erskine's father Peter Erskine. The soundtrack isn't streaming but I'm enjoying one of his jazz albums on Apple Music as I type.

Angarano, last blogged for acting in Haywire, was also in Lords of Dogtown (2005), Oppenheimer, and seven episodes of This Is Us (Emmy nominated), among his many credits. He directed one other feature, which he starred in and wrote solo. Cera was most recently in these pages for Barbie and Stewart for Spencer. Maya Erskine was wonderful in all 25 episodes of Mr & Mrs Smith. This is Chris Smith's feature debut after working as a staff writer on eight episodes of Friends from College (I liked that series on Netflix), and it's Peter Erskine's first feature as a composer, though he's recorded dozens of albums as a drummer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics have driven their average up to 84%, while its audiences stayed at the rest stop with only 61. We rented it on June 20.

Bob Trevino Likes It (2024)

Jack and I loved this story about a young woman who befriends on social media someone with the same name as her narcissistic father. Director Tracie Laymon based her screenplay on her own experience. 

Barbie Ferreira is wonderful as Lily, French Stewart is so good that I absolutely hated him as her dad, and John Leguizamo is warm as the other Bob Trevino. Strong support comes from Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer, who is in a wheelchair with ALS, as Lily's employer.

Some of the score by Jacques Brautbar is on his site, and Apple Music has a playlist of songs featured in the movie.

This got on my radar because I met two of its 35 producers last year at a baseball game. One of them said, "You'll laugh, you'll cry," and he was right! The other explained to me today that Laymon's mentor is special effects manager Bob Trevino, and she decided to name the character after him, rather than her own father Bob Laymon.

35 producers ties the movie for ninth on the Producers Plethora Prize list. All the filmmakers have earned many wins and nominations, including the Grand Jury and Audience awards from the SXSW Film Festival.

Leguizamo was last blogged for The Menu. This is Laymon's feature debut after a handful of shorts and TV series. Ferreira has been in three other features and more. I know Stewart best for 139 episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun and 37 of Mom, among his dozens and dozens of credits. I didn't see Spencer's other movie but I did see her in 15 episodes of The Sex Lives of College Girls. Brautbar is new to me, despite his 73 credits as composer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences heart <3 it, averaging 94 and 98%, respectively. We rented it on June 15.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

We liked the other Deadpool movies a lot as well as others in the Marvel Comics Universe and this was fine, as far as I can recall after almost two months. Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool is his typically talky and snarky self and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is grumpy, as usual. Some highlights of the large cast include Emma Corrin, Chris Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Morena Baccarin, Dafne Keen, Jon Favreau, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, and voices provided by Matthew McConaughey as Cowboypool and Reynolds' real-life wife Blake Lively as Ladypool.

Shawn Levy directs from a script by him, Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells. I did jot down at the time that the movie is about 50% fighting. Which inspires me to quote once again the brilliant cartoonist Nicole Hollander, who wrote in her comic strip Sylvia that a chick flick (which this definitely isn't) has "too much talking and not enough hitting." Note that the link takes you to what looks like daily new strips, but they are archival.

Rob Simonsen's original score can be streamed on Apple Music, as well as this playlist of many pop songs featured.

During one of those battles, a poster on the side of the bus pays the anticipated homage to Stan Lee (1922-2018), who created many of the Marvel characters. Viewers will also be rewarded with the customary post-credits scene.

Reynolds, Reese, and Wernick were last blogged for Deadpool 2, Corrin and Simonsen for Good Grief, Evans for Knives Out, Macfadyen for The Assistant, Baccarin for Millers in Marriage, Keen for Logan, Favreau for Elf, Delaney for Love at First Sight, Uggams for American Fiction, McConaughey for Interstellar, Lively for A Simple Favor, and Levy for This Is Where I Leave You. Wells has co-written one other feature and several other things.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't fighting too hard, with an average of 78%, while its audiences are ready for battle at 95%. We streamed it May 30 with our subscription to Disney+.

Nonnas (2025)

Jack and I quite enjoyed this movie which is based on the true story of an Italian-American man who creates a Staten Island restaurant in honor of his late mother and grandmother, hiring a quartet of random grandmothers (nonna means grandma in Italian) to cook. Vince Vaughn is the restaurateur, and the nonnas are Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, and Lorraine Bracco. Because I care, I have sorted the actresses by age above, respectively 85, 81, 78, and 70. I think Bracco makes a remark about 70 being old (I can't find it now) but I do remember our laughing out loud at it, considering that we're a bit older than that and she is the baby of the group!

Also supporting are Linda Cardellini, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo, and Michael Rispoli. And the real Joe (Jody) Scaravella, whose story this is, has an uncredited cameo as the guy with the cloud of chin length curly gray hair.

Steven Chbosky directs from the script by his wife Liz Maccie and Scaravella has story credit. Everyone named above, except Chbosky, has some Italian blood. 

I'm streaming Marcelo Zarvos's score on Apple Music and the movie has plenty of other music, especially Italian. 

The real restaurant, Enoteca Maria, has this story on its website. And, presumably because Enoteca Maria is still up and running, the movie was shot at Spirito's in Elizabeth New Jersey, which apparently was famous before it closed.

Vaughn was last blogged for Hacksaw Ridge, Sarandon for another movie about four boomer women: The Fabulous Four (this is better), Shire for Megalopolis (this is better), Cardellini for Green Book, de Matteo for New York, I Love You, Rispoli for The Rum Diary (this is better), Chbosky for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Zarvos for May December.

Vaccaro is best known for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and dozens of credits in TV and film and Bracco for Goodfellas (1990) and 71 episodes of The Sopranos. I wasn't familiar with Manganiello, despite his long resume. And this is Maccie's third screenplay.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are mostly savoring this one with an average of 83%, while its critics, at 71, are pushing it around their plates. We watched it on Netflix on May 26.

This will be #34 on my list of food movies.

Sinners (2025), The Substance (2024), and Death Becomes Her (1992)

I don't like horror but we saw these due to critical acclaim and more. Because I'm so far behind in blogging, I'm combining them. Read on...

I didn't really know what we were getting into with Sinners. We liked it a lot in the beginning. It started with identical twins Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, returning home to 1932 Mississippi to start a juke joint. Good story of Black people getting by in the racist pre-WWII south, with wonderful music. Jordan does a great job, though the only way I could tell apart the two characters was by their hats. Kudos also to actor Delroy Lindo, actor-singers Miles Caton, Jayme Lawson, Hailee Steinfeld, Lola Kirke, and more.

About halfway through, it turns extremely gory and my enjoyment waned. Jack was eagerly waiting for bluesman Buddy Guy to appear, which he does after the two hour mark (the movie is 2:17 long) in a pivotal role. And Jack liked the whole thing better than I did.

Ryan Coogler directs from his original screenplay.

I'm currently streaming Ludwig Göransson's instrumental score on Apple Music, which is terrific, as is the playlist of songs. We also greatly appreciated the cinematography by Autumn Durald Arkapaw as well as the special effects throughout. Isn't it a miracle that one actor can play identical twins in the same scenes?

After we watched it, Amy and Travis did, too. They like horror movies a lot but proclaimed this the worst movie they ever saw! Later she said it "didn't go off the rails enough."

Jordan was last blogged for Just Mercy, Lindo for Da 5 Bloods, Steinfeld for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Kirke for the TV series Mozart in the Jungle, which I wrote about in two posts (one, two), Coogler and Arkapaw for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Göransson for Oppenheimer. This is Caton's screen debut and Lawson's first mention in these pages, though she was in The Woman King, among others in her brief resume.

Speaking of acclaim, Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are blessing it with averages of 97 and 96%, respectively. We rented it on June 8.

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After Amy repeatedly urged us to watch The Substance, we did. She loved it and said it's funny. We did have some laughs at the ridiculous exploitation of it all: Demi Moore plays an aging TV aerobics star who uses a drug to create a younger version of herself played by Margaret Qualley. Dennis Quaid is the over-the-top producer of the TV show. 

With so many close-ups of tits and ass (sorry, did I offend you there?), I assumed the director and/or writer to be a man. I was wrong. The movie was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and Coralie Fargeat was nominated both for Directing and Original Screenplay.

The score by Raffertie is available to stream on Apple Music and is putting me in the mood to write about the parts I liked. Like Sinners, I was with it until one particularly violent scene in act three and it did, indeed, go off the rails after that. Just not my cup of tea (remember Get Out? That cup of tea was just fine).

Moore was last blogged for Another Happy Day, Qualley for Kinds of Kindness, and Quaid for Truth. Fargeat has directed one other feature and Raffertie has scored four.

Not quite as hooked as the Oscar voters, Rotten Tomatoes' critics are averaging 89% and its audiences 75. We rented it on July 8

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In the spring, after buying tickets to see the Broadway musical adaptation of Death Becomes Her, we rented the movie on May 10 and enjoyed it. It's a slapstick tale of a narcissistic actress and her envious writer friend, and their ingesting a drug to halt their aging. Uh-huh. This is another reason I was inspired to pack these three movies into one post. 

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn are the combatants, with Streep hamming it up to the max as the actress, and Bruce Willis as the man they both want.

Robert Zemeckis directs from a screenplay by Martin Donovan and David Koepp. Unlike The Substance, there's no blood--it's all very cartoonish, with heads turning backwards and holes in torsos (as shown in one poster). Alan Silvestri's soundtrack is available on Apple Music.

Streep was last blogged for Don't Look Up, Hawn for Snatched, Willis for Rock the Kasbah, Zemeckis and Silvestri for Welcome to Marwen, and Koepp for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Donovan wrote or co-wrote six other features and a bunch of TV episodes.

The musical stage show, which we saw in June, is good fun, with at least one stunt double getting her own curtain call after a priceless interpretive dance of falling down the stairs. The show won the Tony for Costume Design and was nominated for seven more.

Despite being somewhat of a cult favorite, the movie did not do well in theatres, dying at Rotten Tomatoes' critics' 58% average and only slightly breathing with audiences' 62.

The Penguin Lessons (2024)

Jack and I are Steve Coogan fans and this based-on-a-true story of Tom Michell, a disaffected, cynical English teacher in 1976 Argentina who adopts a Penguin, checks many boxes with its humor, heart, and history. Good support comes from Jonathan Pryce as the strict headmaster, Vivian El Jaber as the sweet housekeeper Maria, and Alfonsina Carrocio as Maria's grown granddaughter Sofia, among others.

Director Peter Cattaneo works from a script that Jeff Pope adapted from the 2015 memoir of the same name by the real Michell (Michell was in his 20s when the events happened and Coogan is almost 60 so it's far from a documentary). I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the middle act had me thinking of the lyrics to the nursery song Mary Had a Little Lamb. And here's a fun bit of trivia: the penguin is named Juan Salvador Gaviota, which is the Spanish translation of the 1970 novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Federico Jusid is listed as the composer but I found only this short suite of his score on YouTube (sorry about the ad). There are a lot of songs in the movie, though, compiled in this playlist on Apple Music.

This YouTube video (with multiple ads) is fascinating and I recommend it for after you watch the movie. I learned from it (not a spoiler) that there were two penguin actors, who are mated in real life, plus one animatronic penguin and one puppet penguin.

With 31 producers, this movie earns a spot about halfway down my Producers Plethora Prize list.

Coogan was last blogged for two pictures in my list of Random food movies plus Stan & Ollie the following year, Pryce for The Two Popes, Pope for Stan & Ollie, and Jusid for The Last Suit. El Jaber and Carrocio are new to me. Cattaneo has worked a lot since he was much lauded for The Full Monty (1997) but I haven't seen any.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics give it only a C+ with their 78% average, while we and its viewers award it a solid A at 95. On Kathleen's hearty recommendation we rented it on Apple TV on May 21.

Sea Lions of the Galapagos (2025)

Jack and I always love the Disneynature animal documentaries and this year's Earth Day release is no exception. The magnificent pictures and the writing that typically anthropomorphizes the creatures overcome Brendan Fraser's less-than-lively narration.

Add to our delight the fact that we visited Galapagos (we were taught not to say "the Galapagos," unless saying "the Galapagos Islands," but I guess the Disney folks didn't get that memo) in 2022.

Co-directors Keith Scholey and Hugh Wilson work from the work by co-writers David Fowler (narration), Richard Wollocombe, Wilson, and Scholey (those three are credited with the original story).

I'm streaming composer Raphaelle Thibaut's lovely soundtrack on Apple Music and remembering the beautiful work by cinematographers Paul Stewart and Wollocombe.

As far as I know this is the 18th Disneynature documentary. We have seen almost all and I've listed them in this post.

Fraser was last blogged for his Oscar-winning performance in The Whale and Scholey and Fowler for Dolphin Reef and Diving with Dolphins. This is Wilson's directorial and writing debut but he has worked as producer on a few other nature documentaries. Wollocombe has shot a number of nature documentaries and Thibaut has over two dozen credits. Stewart also has over two dozen credits, including the Disneynature Born in China.

This movie (actually listed on imdb as a TV Special) has no Rotten Tomatoes averages, although four out of the five reviewers listed liked it and the single audience member who weighed in gave it 5/5 stars. At the moment, it's available to stream on on Disney+ with a subscription, which we did on May 2.