Now Playing

 It’s been a big week for releases, including one of the most anticipated animated films of the year. But was it worth your time to check the films out? I give my take on the week’s new movies below. You can keep up with everything I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd @knighthawk7734.

The Drama (Theaters)
Starring: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya
Synopsis: For most, their wedding day is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. It’s the happiest day of your life. You’ve found love and are ready to make a commitment and build a life with someone you know deeply. But what happens when all those feelings and plans get derailed? In the new film The Drama, we have a couple that are faced with that exact question. The film from writer/director Kristoffer Borgli is about a couple embarking on their wedding week when a simple question and game among friends throws everything out of balance. We meet Charlie (Pattinson) as he’s writing his wedding speech and toast. He’s about to marry Emma (Zendaya), and he’s deeply in love. Through the process of his speech, we see how they met. We see their awkward first date. And we see how the fire of passion has bloomed between them. And Emma feels the same. As we see her talking with friends, she’s smitten with Charlie and excited about their future. He’s her first great love and she’s ready to be married. But they still have to nail some of the details. So, Charlie and Emma gather with their best friends—Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim)—to finalize the catering menu. As they kick back with a bottle of wine, it turns to a bit of a game. Mike and Rachel, before they were married, shared the worse thing they’d ever done with each other. They suggest that Charlie and Emma do the same, offering to share their own deep, dark secret first. It starts as an awkward game of revelations as Mike, then Rachel, and then Charlie share their story. Finally, it gets to Emma, who digs deep and offers up a secret that shakes all those at the table to their core. Will it derail her relationship with Charlie and their upcoming wedding? I’ll be honest, I don’t do well sitting in discomfort with shows and movies. Famously, when watching The Office, there were times I had to leave the room when Michael Scott got going. I squirm, I struggle, and I want to be anywhere else. But you can only get me to that point if you’ve executed a deeply uncomfortable narrative at a high level. I don’t say that as a criticism, but rather as a nod to Borgli and his work here. This film is deeply unsettling and deeply uncomfortable. It forces you to sit in that discomfort for a long time, then turns it up to 11 in the Third Act at what has to be the wildest wedding I’ve ever seen. That is a credit to him as a writer and director. It’s also a credit to his cast. The supporting work is strong, with Haim definitely making her presence felt. So, too, does Hailey Gates, who is having a great 2026 so far. But this is about our leads. Pattinson is solid in the lead role and seems to launch himself into these difficult and awkward situations with a flourish. But I was captivated by Zendaya. Her facial expressions and performance is so commanding you can’t look away, even if you can’t stand what’s going on in the narrative. This isn’t an easy film, and it won’t be for everyone. The secret that Emma reveals is a narrative choice that won’t sit well with some. I won’t give away the secret here, but for those who are sensitive you may want to see it out. There will also be those that won’t want to sit in the discomfort required to get through this narrative. But if you do, you’ll be rewarded with a well-crafted tale that has a closing scene that ties things together in a somewhat beautiful way.
Rating: Rated R for sexual content, some violent/bloody images, language throughout, and brief drug use.
Verdict: Three and a half out of five

Miroirs No. 3 (Theaters)
Starring: Paula Beer
Synopsis: When we suffer a loss, it hits us in different ways. And, often, it can take a long time to heal. But the hope is that we find a way to deal with the loss and move forward. It’s not about forgetting; it’s about accepting and finding a path forward. Sometimes that path forward takes an unexpected route. That’s certainly the case for Miroirs No. 3, a new film from writer/director Christian Petzold that expands to more theaters Friday. The German film, which played festivals in 2025 and is getting a wider look now, focuses on four people who need help moving forward. But that help comes from each other forged through a coincidental meeting. At the outset, Laura (Beer) is a music student in a rocky relationship. She’s due to go away with her boyfriend, but something doesn’t sit right. So, he agrees to take her back. Along the way, they nearly collide with Betty (Barbara Auer) on a country road outside her home. As the car speeds away shortly after, it veers off the road and flips. Miraculously Laura is lightly injured, but her boyfriend is killed. When the paramedics arrive after Betty helped Laura to her house from the accident scene, Laura doesn’t want to go to the hospital. She doesn’t want to go anywhere. So, she asks Betty to stay in the country house. Betty, feeling a connection to the woman, agrees. They spend a few days getting to know each other before Betty suggests a dinner party with her estranged husband (Matthias Brandt) and adult son Max (Enno Trebs). At first, it’s an awkward pairing. But soon, the four seem to get on well and spend days seemingly isolated from the demands of the real world. It turns out Betty and her family are dealing with their own grief, and the presence of Laura helps them to finally address those old wounds and move forward. Petzold is a unique director that has offered some quietly beautiful and emotional stories. And he’s found a frequent collaborator in Beer, who has starred in four films for him including this one. They work well together, which enables her to slide into the role and seemingly dominate all the time she’s on the screen. I was caught off guard at first because this seems like such a strange start to the journey. A stranger allows another stranger who is fresh off an accident to stay at her home. But as we move forward the twist of what’s to come becomes more obvious. And soon, it becomes more obvious why these people need each other. As so often happens with independent films from overseas, this doesn’t have any concrete resolution. We see these characters move forward. It ends in a happy enough place. But it lacks defined shape. That will be difficult for some, especially American audiences that are used to more of a closed loop. Still, this is a film about a vibe. It’s about dealing with grief. It’s about finding a connection. And it’s about starting to live again. I enjoyed the journey for what it is, and I think others will enjoy it too.
Rating: NA
Verdict: Three stars out of five

Pizza Movie (Hulu)
Starring: Gaten Matarazzo, Sean Giambrone, and Lulu Wilson
Synopsis: Every once in a while, we get these over-the-top, drug-fueled comedies. That’s certainly the case with Pizza Movie, which follows a pair of college roommates who are looking to escape their tortured position on the pecking order in their college. They stumble across a tin of mints that fell out of the ceiling in their dorm room. Accept, these aren’t mints. As the YouTube video they find quickly tells them, they are drugs made by a chemistry major who used to occupy their room. Quickly these two—and their friend Lizzy (Wilson)—end up going on a wild ride that could end in disaster if they don’t get some pizza quickly. Of course, the quest for pizza ends up being more fraught than they first imagined. This film has some wild moments and some wild sequences that are a lot of fun. These kind of movies live and die based on how you feel about the characters and the journey. This has an unexpected journey that ends up being a lot of fun and some really great characters. I had a lot of fun with this one and I’d imagine that those that take the journey will have fun too.
Rating: NA
Verdict: Three stars out of five

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (Theaters)
Starring: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Brie Larson, Charlie Day, and Jack Black
Synopsis: I remember when I got my first Nintendo growing up. I was a child of the 1980s, and the Nintendo was magical. Especially when we got to play a Mario Bros. game. For decades the games in many forms have entertained audiences. In 2023, Mario made the leap to the big screen. That film featured a famous voice cast, a brightly colored world, and made a boatload of money at the Box Office. But it was just OK as a film, despite some fun moments and songs from Jack Black as Bowser. But unsurprisingly, that film’s success has led to more. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, out now, seeks to build on the legacy of the first. It has the same brightly colored animation, adding characters like Rosalina (Larson), Yoshi (Donald Glover), and Fox McCloud (Glen Powell). All of them are joined by Mario (Pratt), Luigi (Day), and Princess Peach (Taylor-Joy) as they try to fight for good in the universe. But there’s a new threat—from Bowser, Jr. (Bennie Safdie)—who is determined to free his father, imprisoned and shrunk down during the events of the first film. He also has even larger aims to realize one of his father’s dreams about ruling the galaxy. The plot here doesn’t really matter. There is a story and a plot that exists, but it’s mostly to set things in motion and drive us to the big set pieces. There are battles meant to be both engaging, entertaining, and amusing. But whereas the first film felt like it had something of a sense of humor, the jokes didn’t really land here. That could be because this sequel doesn’t let Black cook. He has a few sequences, but it’s not quite the unleashed performance we got in the first film that was my favorite part of an otherwise unspectacular film. Don’t get me wrong, this still has a nice, animated style and brightly colored worlds and characters that will entertain and engage young viewers. It’s the young viewers that are the target here. This will likely work well enough for them, as it did in the first film. In the screening I attended, those under 10 were enamored of it all, cheering and clapping at the fight sequences. For older viewers, there remains pieces of nostalgia. There are some creative sequences that feel culled straight out of the old video games. That made me smile. As did the musical riffs on the iconic soundtrack that’s always accompanied Mario in video game form.The problem here is even at 98 minutes, the film feels long. It feels long because there is little narrative to hold it all together. Often, it feels like watching an overly long cut sequence from a video game. In part that’s by design. But I couldn’t help but think that the filmmakers and this talented voice cast were capable of more.
Rating: Rated PG for action, mild violence and rude humor.
Verdict: One and a half stars out of five

Your Attention Please (Limited)
Synopsis:  With the advent of the Internet and the Smart Phone, the world has radically changed. While these devices feel like they’ve been part of the fabric of society forever, it’s been just shy of 20 years. The Smart Phone debuted in 2007, and since that time has made connection with those around us and around the world easier than ever. But the flip side of every virtue is a fault, and the Internet, Smart Phones, and Social Media have certainly proved problematic for many. Most heavily impacted are teens, who’ve grown up in a different world and become subject to different problems. The new documentary Your Attention Please, which debuted at the SXSW Film Festival last month, seeks to focus on the dangerous impact these apps are making on the mental health of our nation’s teens. The film dives deep into the issues and into those who are trying to find a way to combat the struggles. This includes following Kristin, a grieving mother whose son took his own life after constant cyberbullying. She spends her time educating and advocating for changes to the platforms to protect others, like her son, who are at risk. It also follows Trisha, a digital native who thinks the Internet can be something different. She’s dedicated her talent and her career toward creating a different kind of online experience, and to raising awareness to the pitfalls of Social Media. And the film looks at others who’ve tried to free themselves of the online trap. Some have adopted technology free days or weeks. Some have made school a Smart Phone free space to better protect the development and mental health of young people. It’s about everyone recognizing the issues and seeking to come up with a creative and lasting solution. I remember when I was in college things like AOL Instant Messenger, and even Facebook, were just coming into existence. It was a fun way to connect, but it also began to change communication. In the more than 20 years since, we’ve seen technology rapidly evolve, as have the problems and addictions that come from having a computer in the palm of your hand more powerful than many had previously ever seen. I’ve seen the impact the online world can have first-hand. I appreciated the approach of this film that tries to outline the problems but doesn’t leave in a hopeless place. It’s not an easy problem to solve, as is born out in this documentary. Many people are fighting hard to come up with solutions, but it rarely goes as planned. And we’re a long way from achieving the end goal of keeping young people safe and healthy. There aren’t easy answers, but this film probes the questions and looks at those fighting for change. It’s a good reminder of the importance of this fight for the future, and a compelling look at those who have a vision of a better future. It’s worth checking out to learn more about what’s happening and what you can do to help get involved. To learn more about this film and its subjects, visit the official site at https://www.yourattentionplz.com/
Rating: NA
Verdict: Three and a half stars out of five