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.

The Invite (2026)

Jack and I loved this cringey, profane story of a tense couple, whose marriage is on the rocks, and their dinner party with a couple in their building. Several others of our friends loved it, too. Olivia Wilde directs and stars as the tightly wound wife in couple #1 with Seth Rogen as her baffled husband. When gorgeous couple #2, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, enters the picture it gets even more crazy.

Will McCormack and Rashida Jones adapted the screenplay from the Spanish movie 2020 movie Sentimental AKA The People Upstairs. Devonté Hynes' jittery original score can be streamed on Apple Music. Wikipedia says he plays cello, among other instruments, and that is primary in this score.

A few fun trivia tidbits: Wilde dedicated the movie to her mentor Diane Keaton, who died three months before the movie's Sundance Film Festival release; it opens with a quotation from Oscar Wilde, who is no relation to the director (her birth name is Olivia Jane Cockburn); and this is the seventh adaptation of Sentimental (I counted more than the imdb trivia), all in other languages.

Wilde was last blogged for directing and acting in Don't Worry Darling, Rogen for Dumb Money, Cruz for Ferrari, Norton for A Complete Unknown, the writing team of McCormack and Jones for Celeste and Jesse Forever, and Hynes for Passing. 

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences have RSVPed yes, please, with averages of 96 and 89%, respectively. We rented it on August 11.