Miss You, Love You (2026)

Allison Janney is terrific as a prickly widow who has to plan her husband's funeral with a stranger because her son sent his personal assistant instead of showing up. Andrew Rannells is also very good as the assistant. Director Jim Rash was inspired to write the screenplay by his sister's having done the same: sent her assistant to plan their father's funeral instead of coming herself. Bonnie Hunt apparently did some improvising as the amusing busybody choir leader. 

The only part of the score by Mark Orton I can find online is this 2 minute 11 second suite on YouTube, Then there are two things, related to a song, that I wish had been done differently, but I won't print them here as I deem them spoilers. Write me at babetteflix at gmail if you really want to know.

Apparently, due to a short shooting schedule, the actors memorized all their lines in advance as if they were performing a play. In fact, it was originally going to be a stage play. That makes sense, because, though it takes place and was shot in New Mexico, there are few locations.

Janney was last blogged for The People We Hate at the Wedding, Rannells for The Intern, Rash for co-directing and co-writing Downhill, and Orton for Somewhere in Queens. Before I gave Hunt short shrift for I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, I saw her in Jerry Maguire (1996), The Green Mile (1999), Return to Me (2000), and others of her dozens of credits. It should be noted that she also directed and co-wrote Return to Me.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics like this one a lot, as shown by their 88% average, while its audiences aren't sure if they want a commitment at 77. Jack and I streamed this on HBO on October 9.

Here (2024)

I wanted to like director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis' latest, but didn't. It's a non-linear exploration of a plot of land, in what would become New Jersey, from prehistoric times to the future, centering on a house built there. The first reunion since Forrest Gump (1994) of Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Zemeckis, co-writer Eric Roth, cinematographer Don Burgess, and composer Alan Silvestri, it jumps around in time, due, no doubt, to its basis on a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire.

My biggest issue was that I didn't like the main characters. Hanks and Wright play the central couple, with Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly as Hanks' parents. Hanks' and Wright's characters are not nice and Bettany's is angry and mean. Copious computer effects helped the actors play older and younger. My favorite characters are an inventor and a pin-up model who lived in the house in the 1940s, played by David Flynn and Ophelia Lovibond.

Here's Silvestri's score on Apple Music.

Zemeckis and Silvestri were last blogged for Death Becomes Her, Hanks for Asteroid City, Wright for Blade Runner 2049, Roth for Killers of the Flower Moon, Burgess for Allied, Bettany for Avengers: Infinity War, Reilly for Calvary. Flynn and Lovibond have dozens of credits, the latter having starred in all 18 episodes of Minx.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics also want to be somewhere else with their 35% average, while its audiences are almost as remote at 59. I downloaded it from Hulu and watched it October 6 on a plane ride.

Tony (2026)

I loved this bio-pic about chef Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018), taking place in the summer of 1975. Dominic Sessa is very good in the title role, and ably supported by Antonio Banderas as the Brazilian Chef of a local restaurant, Emilia Jones as Tony's crush Nancy, and Leo Woodall as his bad influencing friend Sal.

Matt Johnson directs and co-wrote the script, based on early parts of Bourdain's 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential, with Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, and Matthew Miller, and it moves along very well. The screenplay was on the 2024 Black List of notable unproduced scripts.

Eighteen minutes of the lovely and moody score by Jay McCarrol is available on Apple Music and imdb lists many songs, some from the mid-70s. The one that sticks with me, however, is the classic Old Cape Cod by Patti Page.

The location shots in Provincetown lend authenticity. It should be noted that the Canadian crew has some trouble getting there but they finally did.

Sessa was last blogged for The Holdovers, Banderas for Babygirl, Jones for CODA which earned her a bunch of nominations and wins, and Johnson, Miller, and McCarrol for BlackBerry. Woodall is familiar to me for the title role of the series Vladimir and all of season two of The White Lotus. This is Bartels' first screenplay and Howe's second.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are eating it up, averaging 93 and 92%. I saw it in a bricks and mortar theatre with a captions device as usual, on September 27, but you can now rent it.

I'm going to put this on my list of Random food movies. Though there isn't as much cooking in this as in the other entries, it needs to represent.

Verity (2026)

This thriller about a woman hired to ghost write the end of a novel series by a best-selling author boasts a location to die for (more in a moment), but I didn't care much for it, despite Anne Hathaway's sleek title character. Dakota Johnson as the younger writer and Josh Hartnett as Verity's husband didn't do it for me. 

Nick Antosca adapted Colleen Hoover's 2018 novel for director Michael Showalter and there are many twists throughout. Volker Bertelmann provides the evocative score. Plus there are at least nine songs.

Most of the movie was shot in a stunning mid-century modern house in upstate New York, standing in for Maine. Read this for more on that place. 

Hathaway was last blogged for The Devil Wears Prada 2, Johnson for Materialists, Showalter for Oh. What. Fun., and Bertelmann for Conclave. Hartnett is not new to the business, having appeared in The Virgin Suicides (1999), Black Hawk Down (2001), and Oppenheimer, among his dozens of credits. This is Antosca's fourth feature after a number of TV series and shorts.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics have written it off with a 31% average, while its audiences found it slightly more noteworthy at 71. I saw it October 3 in a theatre, where it wasn't my first choice but there was an error in the published schedule. The estimate for streaming is late November or early December on Amazon Prime Video.

Blue Sun Palace (2024)

I was distracted--a lot--while watching this well-reviewed, moody story of massage therapists in Chinatown in Queens, New York, so it's not fair for me to admit that I wasn't particularly drawn in. Yes, critics have loved it (see below) and they were probably way more focused than I. Most of the dialogue is in Mandarin so it's almost surprising that it takes place in this country. The main characters are Didi, played by Haipeng Xu, Cheung, played by Kang-sheng Lee, and Amy, played by Ke-Xi Wu.

This is, after three shorts, the feature debut of director/writer Constance Tsang. Sami Jano's score is not available online, but some of his other scores are on Apple Music and Tsang created a Spotify playlist, which I assume is comprised of songs from the movie.

Xu has been in four other features, Lee forty-one, Wu fifteen, and Jano has scored seven others.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are royally impressed, with a perfect score of 100%, but the site doesn't have enough audience scores to give an average.

I originally rented it for a long haul plane ride but forgot a vital step before we were in the air. Write me if you need instructions on how to watch a rented movie in airplane mode. If you follow all the steps it'll work just fine!

I watched it in segments, finishing on September 12, on a couple of bad days, in a room that didn't get dark enough. Not sure if I've addressed this in the blog, but I prefer to watch movies in the afternoon, and am away from my home theatre (which has blackout shades) as Jack holds down the fort.

Finding Emily (2026)

I loved this rom-com about a Gen Z musician trying to locate his dream girl at her college in England. Spike Fearn stars as Owen and Angourie Rice plays a different Emily who helps Owen in his quest. I particularly enjoyed Prasanna Puwanarajah as a snarky professor, Minnie Driver as the beleaguered dean, and Kat Ronney as a pink-haired Emily.

Alicia MacDonald makes her feature debut directing from the sweet script by Rachel Hirons. Music is important here and, even though we don't learn that Owen is a musician until the second act, there are 28 songs, according to this site. The Apple Music soundtrack lists only thirteen, with five of them by the movie's composer Morgan Kibby and not included in the 28.

Interesting trivia factoids include that it was originally set at UCLA but Hirons moved it to Manchester, England, a half hour from her home, where it was almost entirely shot; and that Fearn had a lot of training to perform as a musician.

This movie had been on my radar for a long time. As my long-time followers know, since lockdown I have only streamed movies, almost always in the afternoon. But now I am away from my home theatre for a few months, and my current apartment's windows are very sunny in the afternoon. So I went to my second movie in a bricks-and-mortar theatre since Tenet, when eleven of us rented a screening room in November of 2020. This time I forgot to ask for the caption device and, wow, did I need it. Owen's Manchester accent is thick and his brother's is even thicker. That said, it is now available for rent and you should turn on the captions. I may even watch it again sometime to see what I missed.

Rice was last blogged for Mean Girls and Driver for Millers in Marriage. Fearn has a handful of credits, including Aftersun, though I failed to mention him. Puwanarajah looked familiar because he was in seven episodes of Too Much and two of The Crown. Ronney is new to me. This is Hirons' fourth feature and Kibby's twelfth.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences have found this project very enjoyable, averaging 89 and 90%. I watched it September 5. Don't walk away when the credits roll, because there's a major "where are they now" bonus.

The Dink (2026)

Jack and I had a few laughs with this lightweight story of a failed tennis prodigy now country club tennis instructor who turns to pickleball after an injury. It stars Jake Johnson, Mary Steenburgen as his pickleball partner, Ed Harris as his mean dad who owns the club, Ben Stiller as a doctor, Aaron Chen as Dustin's tennis assistant, Fortune Feimster as another pickleball player, Patton Oswalt as a vocal member of the club, and former, but not failed, tennis pros Andy Roddick and John McEnroe as themselves. 

Josh Greenbaum directs from the script by Sean Clements. The original score by Dara Taylor is available online only as a two minute suite on YouTube, but you're much more likely to remember the great songs.

Dink is a kind of pickleball shot: a soft return. And Johnson and others trained so that they could actually play on screen.

Johnson was last blogged for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Steenburgen for Happiest Season, Harris for The Lost Daughter, Stiller for The Meyerowitz Stories, Feimster for Social Animals, Oswalt for I Love My Dad, Greenbaum for Will & Harper, and Taylor for Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar (which was directed by Greenbaum). I mention Chen primarily as a plug for the hilarious series Fisk, set in his native Australia, and this is Clements' feature screenwriting debut after writing for several TV series.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 76%, are scoring higher than its audiences at 58. After seeing many ads for this movie on Apple TV, we streamed it on August 14.