Oh, Hi, ‘Oh, Hi!,’ I’m So Glad I’ve Met You

August 1, 2025

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Oh, hi, Logan. Oh, hi, Molly. (CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot)

Starring: Molly Gordon, Logan Lerman, Geraldine Viswanathan, John Reynolds, David Cross, Polly Draper, Desmin Borges

Director: Sophie Brooks

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: July 25, 2025 (Theaters)

The first line of the 2025 movie Oh, Hi! is the title itself. And that immediately got things right in my favor, both because I appreciated how it fulfilled an implicit promise and because one of my favorite films of all time is famous for its frequency of characters greeting each other.

Anyway, in case you haven’t seen it, Oh, Hi! stars Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as Iris and Isaac, a couple of fresh-eyed lovebugs on a romantic weekend getaway in a rental house. Everything seems to be going perfectly, especially when they stumble upon the owners’ S&M gear and decide to have some kinky sex. But then Isaac reveals that he doesn’t want to actually be exclusive, so Iris keeps him handcuffed to the bed indefinitely until she can make him definitively fall in love with her.

I bet a lot of modern daters have found themselves in a situation a lot like this one! Maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration from reality, but the clear and immediate stakes nevertheless paint a template for anyone to practice how they might handle this scenario. Important things to keep in mind: Iris certainly takes things too far, but Isaac does do plenty of things that would seem to indicate he’s ready for a committed relationship. It’s a good idea to be prepared, and Oh, Hi! is here to help you get there.

Grade: 12.5 Miscommunications out of 15.5 Lovemaking Sessions

This One Weird Trick Helped Me Watch ‘Lilo & Stitch’ (2025), ‘Thunderbolts*,’ and ‘Bring Her Back’

June 3, 2025

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They brought Stitch back! And he brought the Thunder (CREDIT: Ingvar Kenne/A24; Disney/Screenshot; Marvel/Screenshot)

Lilo & Stitch (2025)

Starring: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizabeth Agudong, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Magnussen, Courtney B. Vance, Hannah Waddingham, Kaipo Dudoit, Tia Carrere, Amy Hill

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date: May 23, 2025 (Theaters)

Thunderbolts*

Starring: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce

Director: Jake Schreier

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: May 2, 2025 (Theaters)

Bring Her Back

Starring: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Stephen Phillips, Mischa Heywood

Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: May 30, 2025 (Theaters)

Okay, wow, I just noticed something weird. Or maybe not that weird. And maybe millions of other folks have already noticed this before me. But that doesn’t mean it’s not weird!

More

It’s a Gay Old Time with the ‘Drive-Away Dolls’!

February 21, 2024

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What’s in the box?! (CREDIT: Wilson Webb/Working Title/Focus Features)

Starring: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Colman Domingo, Beanie Feldstein, Bill Camp, Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson, Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon, Miley Cyrus

Director: Ethan Coen

Running Time: 84 Minutes

Rating: R for Unabashed Sexuality and Sucker Punch-Style Violence

Release Date: February 23, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s 1999, and good friends Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) decide to take an impromptu road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Florida. Jamie is slipping out of yet another messy relationship, while Marian is too buttoned-up to have ever made a move on anybody. They’re both gay, but they’ve never considered each other as serious prospects. But perhaps that could change over the course of the next few days, as vacationing and stress both tend to make people closer. And this is certainly going to be a stressful ride, as a couple of criminal goons (Joey Slotnick, C.J. Wilson) are hot on their tails when the car rental joint mistakenly loans them a vehicle with a very valuable piece of luggage in its trunk.

What Made an Impression?: Those Old Reliable Yuks: After making some of the most beloved movies of the past few decades, brotherly filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen have taken a creative break from each other. If their first solo directorial efforts are any indication, then it was Joel who specialized in the dark and probing drama, and Ethan who drifted towards their unique brand of wacky yet droll comedy. With Drive-Away Dolls, Ethan has teamed up with his wife Tricia Cooke for screenwriting duties, and the result very much sits on a continuum of Raising Arizona, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski, with a series of Jenga-like misunderstandings leading to comically violent escalation.
Out and Loud: Speaking of continuums, Jamie and Marian are part of the Coen-esque tradition of protagonists who don’t quite realize what type of movie they’re in before it’s too late to do anything about it. That’s mainly because they’re too busy being their unapologetically gay selves. Marian is certainly a lot more reserved than Jamie, but that doesn’t mean she’s ashamed in any way about her sexual orientation. Interestingly enough, though, they never really encounter any homophobia. That’s partly because they spend most of their time in defiantly gay spaces, but also because the straight people they stumble across just couldn’t be bothered to be bigoted. (Will & Grace did premiere in 1998, after all, so maybe those folks have been watching it.)
Secrets But No Shame: I don’t want to give away the truth about the package, partly because it would be rude to be a spoiler, but also because I want my review to be as family-friendly as possible. Let’s just say then that it involves a politician and a very personal form of pleasure. And when you have public ambitions bumping up against private escapades like that, it often leads to over-the-top shenanigans. That’s certainly the case in Drive-Away Dolls, much to our demented delight.

Drive-Away Dolls is Recommended If You Like: The comedy half of the Coens

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Makeout Sessions

‘Beanie Bubble,’ Toil and Trouble

July 25, 2023

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A couple of Beanie Babies (CREDIT: Apple TV+)

Starring: Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, Geraldine Viswanathan

Directors: Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: July 21, 2023 (Limited Theaters)/July 28, 2023 (Apple TV+)

Behind every great Beanie Baby, there are at least three great women. Would I like to spend time in The Beanie Bubble? Frankly, I think I already did for quite a while back in the 90s. So do I recommend it? I must say, it’s a wonderful, colorful realm, so long as you can emerge unscathed.

Grade: 3 out of 4 Poems

This Is a Movie Review: Three Teenage Girls Make a Sex Pact, But It is the Parents of ‘Blockers’ Who Are Behaving Badly

April 5, 2018

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CREDIT: Quantrell D. Colbert/Universal Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon

Director: Kay Cannon

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: R for Girls Talking About Sex Without Any Shame, Butt Chugging and the Like, and a Concerning Amount of Drug Use

Release Date: April 6, 2018

What to do with a movie that has a really great message but that plays fast-and-loose with any sense of realism? You take the good, you take the bad – the facts of life! I didn’t go into this meaning to name-check a classic ’80s TV theme song, but as it popped into my head, it just felt remarkably right. At its core, and at its best, Blockers emphasizes the fact that teenage girls have sexual desires and treats that truth as matter-of-factly as it deserves to be treated. This isn’t some “girls can be gross, too!” twist on a “boys will be boys” classic. The sex here approached with maturity and it is often romantic. Any grossness in Blockers is due to insecurity or lapses in plausibility.

Have sex pacts ever occurred in real life? If so, I hope they are as supportive and sweetly motivated as the one in Blockers. On the occasion of her senior prom, Julie (Kathryn Newton) announces to her lifelong friends Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) her intention to lose her virginity tonight to her boyfriend. Sensing an opportunity for a shared anniversary, Kayla and Sam declare that they are in as well. They may not be in as serious a relationship as Julie is, but they’ve got guys who they like well enough and who have the necessary equipment. But when Julie’s mom Lisa (Leslie Mann), Kayla’s dad Mitch (John Cena), and Sam’s dad Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) catch wind of the pact, they are not going to stand idly by as their girls become women.

It is distressing that these parents have such regressively protective attitudes, though it is encouraging that they are presented as the ones so clearly in the wrong. And what’s more, their motivations are more complicated than not trusting their daughters. Lisa is a single mom who has raised Julie alone her whole life. She is struggling through deep-seated separation anxiety, worrying that Julie getting closer to her boyfriend means she will attend college thousands of miles away, which means that she could disappear forever. Director Kay Cannon and her team of screenwriters handle this unflinchingly, and I wish they would have devoted even more time to it. Hunter, meanwhile, knows that Sam is gay and is worried that her friends are forcing her to do something she doesn’t really want to do. Originally introduced as a deadbeat screw-up, he ends up coming off as the most open-minded of the trio, though the film does lose focus a bit on that tack for the sake of gags. Mitch is really the only one who comes as the stereotypically overprotective parent, and though Cena does imbue him with a fair amount of sweetness, he feels out of place in what the film is ultimately saying.

Blockers’ message that teenage girls should be allowed to make their own sexual decisions, especially if they are with boys (or otherwise) who they like and respect, is indisputably valuable. While it may be underlined a little too obviously, perhaps it is a message that needs to be repeated. It is also heartening to see a group of supportive teenage female friends on screen. Julie, Kayla, and Sam have their stark differences, but their loyalty runs deep. That well of positivity offsets a bit the parents’ surplus of bad behavior, which stretches the bounds of credulity a bit too much. Seriously, Blockers, you’re plenty funny without having to resort to butt chugging beer. That is to say, this is a movie that is much more sure-footed when it comes to romance (somehow making licorice the perfect food for declaring love) than when it swerves into the territory of illegal behavior.

Blockers is Recommended If You Like: Superbad and other Judd Apatow productions, particularly if they feature insecure parents, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Clueless

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Sex Pacts