Restrain (2024)

The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.

If you mix religious rituals with dark mythology, the result will be effective, and the story powerful in 90% of the cases. That is exactly what happens at the beginning of The Vigil.

Yeah, sure, the movie’s about Carnage. But it’s really about love. A love that defies all odds: the love between a man and his man-eating alien symbiote.

Disney movies have taken a bit of a downward turn recently. How come?

Netflix’s new comedy drama, Don’t Say Good Luck, is a heartwarming tearjerker as well as a love letter to the transformative power of being a theater kid. Directed by Julia Hart, Don’t Say Good Luck follows Sophie (Sunny Sandler), a theater kid who finally gets the lead role in her school’s production of Waitress - just as she finds out her mom Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) is dying of cancer. While the singing is by no means spectacular and Sandler’s acting is stiff, the film is grounded in the moving performance of Lynskey as a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to achieve her dreams, even if she can’t be there to see them.

"Come Play" was entertaining and had some great ideas about how to scare children away from playing with facial recognition settings.