I've reviewed films for more than 35 years. Current movie reviews of new theatrical releases and streaming films are added weekly to the Silver Screen Capture movie news site. Many capsule critiques originally appeared in expanded form in my syndicated Lights Camera Reaction column.
Viewed as part of Virtual Sundance Film Festival 2026
Talk about men with a mission! J.M. Harper’s Soul Patrol (B+) is a moving documentary about a valiant recon team in Vietnam comprised of Black soldiers reuniting a half century later. It is enlightening and therapeutic for all involved, including this elite team’s wives endeavoring to pierce the veneer of bygone and often troubling memories. It is all the more poignant leveraging Super 8 camera footage captured by the Company F, 51st Infantry soldiers in action, many of them teenage innocents abroad facing adversity and experiencing a singular solidarity bonding them forever. The flashbacks are effective and in some cases quite tense as viewers learn the origins of the men and the challenges they faced on a variety of battlefields. Harper chronicles an abundance of history with craft and cunning, collapsing the past and modern day subjectively and with mastery. By the time the Blind Boys of Alabama’s “I Shall Not Walk Alone” plays as the heroes appear in modern day in the aisle of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, it’s truly a stand up and cheer event.
Viewed as part of Virtual Sundance Film Festival 2026
There’s never an optimal time to make tough decisions affecting one’s personal destiny, and for the female protagonist in the Lithuanian film How to Divorce During the War (B+) directed by Andrius Blaževičius, separating from her partner on the eve before the Russian invasion of Ukraine is just the beginning. Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė stars as steely corporate breadwinner Marija opposite Marius Repšys as faux-hipster homemaker husband Vytas, and the crumbling couple shares a precocious pre-teen daughter Dovilė, convincingly played by Amelija Adomaitytė. Set in Vilnius in 2022 in the Baltic state adjacent to a simmering war territory, the characters occupy a clinical and sometimes lightly satirical world as they maneuver through complacency about shifts to the status quo and soul search to be properly performative about life in flux on both domestic and geopolitical fronts. Jakštaitė is particularly effective, from an iconic early sequence told almost entirely through a windshield to her fluid interactions with corporate colleagues, refugees and even her own rebellious offspring. The elegant, classical composition of sequences by cinematographer Narvydas Naujalis against unsettling and insistent music by Jakub Rataj places the players in this ensemble as fascinating pawns in a zone of interest. Examining both the propaganda and realities of politics and war in their extended families tightens the psychological lens. From home life and corporate settings to the art scene and schoolyards where protests large and small start conjuring, a meditation on messiness plays out in interesting ways, even though the film feels like a pilot episode of an even more interesting plot to come. While those next milestones don’t fully manifest within the boundaries of this movie, its makers provoke a deep sense of introspection and conversation about identity in an interconnected world.
Let these lyrics wash over you as the latest examination of office toxicity plays out in a modern milieu: “They just use your mind and they never give you credit / It’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it.” Sam Raimi’s buoyant horror/comedy Send Help (A-) functions as both a delirious deserted island escapade and also a twisted battle of the sexes, with pulp friction aplenty to scratch the itch, feed the beast and satisfy the gods of carnage attuned to his particular directorial sensibilities. Rachel McAdams brilliantly creates a singular character: an undervalued cubicle denizen with mad coping skills who finds herself on shipwrecked shores with a boss most boorish, played with a dashing grimace by the ever-more-fascinating Dylan O’Brien. This deeply entertaining two-hander traces the peculiar power dynamics of two incredibly committed actors, all the while steeped in the tropes of a survival story. This adventurous allegory offers continuous fresh takes and mixed genres, with plentiful splashes of giddiness and gore. Bill Pope’s crystalline cinematography and Danny Elfman’s understated score add zest to the demented dynamics. It’s watercolor meets watercooler as corporate culture get an epic seaside skewering.
Lee Byung-hun lends a delicious lead performance of dark desperation as a father and gardener who finds himself on the outs in a career crossroads in Park Chan-wook’s sneaky satire No Other Choice (B+). The antihero at the film’s center sets violent targets on his competitors for a coveted job, and the movie keeps upping the ante with zany episodes. As his spouse, Son Ye-jin is the film’s unsung MVP, lending diabolical support to the story’s central conflicts. Chan-wook’s mastery of tone, pace and picturesque cinematic frames help carry a very dark premise over the finish line. Expect nothing short of relentless.
Anyone with kids will understand how stubborn they can be to get what they want. Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea (B+) explores the very fraught geopolitical complexities in Israel through the eyes of a tween Palestinian boy named Khaled who just wants to wade in the waters of the Mediterranean while he’s young. Unfortunately the beach is out of his reach as he’s singled out on a field trip and denied entry at a checkpoint, so he sneaks into Israel, sparking a journey for freedom and a desperate search by his father. Young actor Muhammad Gazawi is magnificent as the 12-year-old at the film’s center, and his mature, emotive abilities keep audiences locked in on his unlikely plight, in the style of a Hope and Glory or Empire of the Sun. Khalifa Natour plays his father Ribhi, an undocumented laborer working in Israel, and his quest to reunite with his runaway son adds poignant layers to the story. The film was Israel’s submission for the 98th Academy Awards. It is noted for its portrayal of Israeli occupation, drawing both acclaim and controversy within Israel for its depiction of soldiers and policies at large. Carmeli-Pollak keeps the journey moving, even though its plot and pace meanders in the middle. All in all, it’s a movie of both ideas and action, a tender tale with tense underpinnings . The child’s viewpoint on justice and the nature of borders will surely spark conversation.
Here are the dates to book an in-person viewing of this landmark film at the 2026 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival:
Jodie Foster plays an idiosyncratic American psychiatrist in Paris and flexes her remarkable language skills in Rebecca Zlotowski’s largely unremarkable dramatic thriller A Private Life (C). While the protagonist’s tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient, the viewer can’t help but contemplate the lead actress in full French-speaking mode attempting to also emote within the confines of a fairly flimsy and meandering mystery. Her character is seen alternately puffing cigs, gulping wine or muttering “merde” while en route to each subsequent scene. Zlotowski doesn’t give Foster much to work with in terms of story, ensemble or even relics of modernity. For every reference to long Covid grounding the tale in modern times, there are countless conversations about missing cassettes and a tense trip to the card catalogue. The drab cinematography and dreary atmosphere fail to give the film the pick-me-up that might have helped hasten the pace. I kept waiting for my seventh grade French class teacher to invite us all to a “surprise-partie.” There’s one sequence of hypnosis that almost takes viewers to an alternate otherworld, but the film largely remains steeped in potboiler tropes without that veritable pot ever boiling. One sexy subplot goes absolutely nowhere; another goes further than one would wish. Thankfully there are a few anticipated moments of joie de vivre in the final act.
Strap onto your seats, not out of a promise of actual cinematic intensity, but because only literal harnesses or handcuffs will keep anticipatory viewers sufficiently locked in for this misbegotten A.I. justice thriller. Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy (F) tethers career-worst performances by both Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson to a belabored plot, accompanied by a constant countdown which incessantly reminds viewers it’s almost over. The story places Pratt in a literal chair from which he must defend himself against a crime of passion before Ferguson’s monotone cyber judge with the assistance of computer files, municipal cloud recordings, location records and phone-a-friend technologies. This data dump boasts all the thrills of overnight mainframe maintenance. None of the film’s preposterous characters bears resemblance to any found naturally in reality, and the stakes are rotten from the get-go. The film’s format robs a generally charismatic actor of his charm and the actress of her nuance. Even a final act showdown is thwarted by mind-numbing dialogue and baffling answers to an already shaky thesis. This hour and a half of cheesy effects and weasely affectations is akin to an escape room where every participant simply wants out. It redefines “edge of your seat” in that you’ll find yourself rearing to slither away to any other place.
What happens when a battle-tested boy, an isolated physician, a naked and sedated alpha zombie and a gang of miscreants encounter one another for the second part of an inventive film trilogy in a long-running series? It’s bloody interesting, when that film installment is Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (B). Ralph Fiennes’ kindly physician character takes center stage, and his “bone temple” memorial to lost lives in an uncertain future becomes a veritable amphitheater for this movie’s showdown with some unlikely villains. This film amps up the gore, brutality and existential dread about true evil in the world, and Fiennes anchors the film with grace notes of humanity mixed with a hint of the unhinged. As the teen who came of age in the previous installment, Alfie Williams is again wonderfully emotive but a little sidelined in a majority of the story. Jack O’Connell is dynamite as a menacing leader of a band of renegades including an effective Erin Kellyman. Even Chi Lewis-Parry brings humanity to his hulking infected character. This latest trilogy upends many of the tropes of the undead genre, with conversation and contemplation featured more often than straightforward action. It’s still very engrossing, even if the myth-making in Danny Boyle’s previous movie was more revelatory than the religious angles of DaCosta’s. This is a delightful and delicate mash-up of genres and one of the most offbeat Hollywood tentpole films to be released in some time. Again, it’s exciting and insightful.
We are on the precipice of a very early Golden Globes weekend this Sunday (before Oscars, months away on 3/15/26 – and oh, do we have a viewing party in the works down at Trilith come the ides of March!) Expect parental anxiety and monsters (both literal and human!) to reign supreme for the wins! Timothee Chalamet as a ping pong champion (“Marty Supreme” now a hit in theatres), Michael B. Jordan as twin gangsters fighting the supernatural (“Sinners”), Rose Byrne and Jesse Buckley as parents facing unbearable crucibles (“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” and “Hamnet”), Jacob Elordi as a patchwork creature (“Frankenstein” on Netflix) and Amy Madigan wielding witchery and micro-bangs (one of my faves, “Weapons” now on HBO Max) are my predictions to triumph. Brazil’s “Secret Agent” could also be an acting spoiler, with big fans in the international voting wing. Expect “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners,” both now on HBO Max for those catching up, to clinch top prizes. Nikki Glaser hosts Sunday night on CBS and Paramount+. Expect it all to be as “Golden” as The Outsiders in their heyday or the ubiquitous “K Pop Demon Hunters” song.
Dueling piano players, hit makers of the karaoke leaderboard and all-out tribute bands rarely get their proper due in the limelight. But get ready for the latter musical misfits to enjoy cinematic comeuppance. The true life story of two down-on-their-luck musicians who perform in a Neil Diamond cover band in grunge-era Milwaukee, Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue (B+) is one of those movies they just don’t make anymore, the idealistic tale of two good but imperfect souls overcoming incredible odds to make amazing music and life together. A jubilant Hugh Jackman and a resplendent Kate Hudson co-star as Lightning & Thunder, two halves of a novelty act that doubles as an excuse for mutual burgeoning love interests. The film is unabashedly melodramatic and formulaic, and yet it still hits all the right notes to keep viewers deeply engaged. Hudson in particular is wonderful in her role, acting and singing her way through a crucible of challenges as a salt-of-the-earth everywoman. It’s a triumph for this popular actress. Brewer stages montages such as “Sweet Caroline,” “Play Me” and “Holly Holy” with gregarious gusto, with several standout montages mirroring stage life and behind the scenes travails. The film is the genuine article, with legitimately nice people being good to one another and lifting each other up in community. This is an enjoyable crowd pleaser successfully turning on the heart lights of communal multiplex patrons everywhere.
There goes Disney again with the preposterous notion that all should be equal; that’s right, follow-up features generally aren’t. Jared Bush and Byron Howard’s Zootopia 2 (B-) poses the premise that second-class citizen reptiles should be regarded equally in the pantheon of all-animal new urbanism. The spry duo of Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman returns as undercover cops in bunny and fox form, respectively, joined in the fun and puns by the amusing voice talents of Quinta Brunson, Fortune Feimster and Ke Huy Quan. The fast-paced action is fairly nonstop with few amazing animations or detours to distinguish the sequel from the original. Still, as global blockbusters go, this proves pretty entertaining for both kids and adults (including the overall Chinatown vibe and The Shining references) and gets a marginal recommendation as a family outing.
Those wondering if the third film in the saga about clashes between humans and blue alien creatures would live up to the epic stature of its predecessors can hold their collective Pandora breath. Despite a lush rendered environment, James Cameron’s latest opus Avatar: Fire and Ash (C) is just as head-scratching in its mediocrity as the two films before it. In some ways this one’s a little worse as it flagrantly rehashes many of the themes in the last bloated entry. Rarely has so much meticulous craft been invented at the service of such benign characters and pedantic a storyline. Riffs on loss, conflicts with warring tribes and meddling humans, meditations on the nobility of sea creatures and even Biblical parables about fathers and surrogate sons don’t make this entry any better. The soggy story and screenplay extinguish most of the intrigue here, with flickers of action sequences filling the ample running time between the senseless sermonizing. None of the CGI-coated actors get much of a showcase as this glorified screen saver parades before us.
