Thank you to the movies! (CREDIT (Clockwise from left): Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features; Walt Disney Animation Studios/Screenshot; A24)
Zootopia 2
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Andy Samberg, Fortune Feimster, Idris Elba, Patrick Warburton, Shakira, Quinta Brunson, Danny Trejo, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Jenny Slate
Directors: Jared Bush and Byron Howard
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Rating: PG
Release Date: November 26, 2025 (Theaters)
Hamnet
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Jacobi Jupe, David Wilmot, Olivia Lynes, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Freya Hannan-Mills, Dainton Anderson, Elliot Baxter, Noah Jupe
Director: Chloé Zhao
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 26, 2025 (Theaters)
Eternity
Starring: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Olga Merediz, Betty Buckley, Barry Primus
Director: David Freyne
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 26, 2025 (Theaters)
And now, I’m going to discuss my reaction to three films that came out in time for Thanksgiving but that I didn’t get around to seeing until December. Nevertheless, I shall reveal what I am thankful for regarding each of them, because it’s important to practice gratitude throughout the year.
Good Boy, Good Times at the Movies (CREDIT: Ben Leonberg/Independent Film Company and Shudder)
Okay, here we go. It’s time for me to release my thoughts about the new movies that I saw in the month known as October 2025 that I haven’t explicated until now. Trick-or-treat furever!
This is not Sonic, even though it kind of looks like him (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America, Inc.)
Starring: Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Idris Elba, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Krysten Ritter, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, Lee Majdoub, Tom Butler, Alyla Browne, James Wolk, Sofia Pernas, Cristo Fernández, Adam Pally, Jorma Taccone
Director: Jeff Fowler
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: PG for All the Silly Cartoony Action Nonsense
Release Date: December 20, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Our true-blue, Ben Schwartz-voiced shiny speedster is enjoying his happy family life with his adoptive parents and his fox and echidna friends. But some secrets in the halls of power threaten to get in the way of that blissful domesticity. You see, back in the 1970s, a clandestine government program created Shadow the Hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves), who is basically, naturally enough, a shadow version of Sonic. He’s on the loose now, and that of course threatens the stability of the entire world. So Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles form an uneasy alliance with their archnemesis Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and Robotnik’s long-lost grandfather (also Carrey) to get Shadow back into the shadows.
What Made an Impression?: How Can You Say No to This Guy?: I never played the Sonic video games all that much while growing up, and I only kind of like the firsttwo movies, but whenever there’s a new cinematic adventure with the most famous hedgehog in the world, I find myself getting inexplicably excited. A lot of that has to do with Schwartz’s effervescent, incorrigible vocal performance. And it also probably has something to do with the fact that no matter how convoluted these plots get, it’s clear that everyone is having tons of fun. This franchise is no marvel of storytelling, but it is kind of impressive how wholesome it’s managed to remain amidst all the chaos. Keep Punching It Up: For the most part, the most complimentary I can be about Sonic 3 is that it’s a pleasant enough diversion for a couple of hours. But occasionally it really comes alive with some especially punchy dialogue, like when one character is mistaken for Detective Pikachu, or when Robotnik describes himself as “undesirable to all possible genders.” Those probably don’t sound as funny typed out as they do in context, but they definitely got some laughs at my screening. Anyway, I most certainly wish that the script had focused on being clever like that more often. The requisite goofiness is certainly there, but it gets distracted by this little thing called saving the world, which isn’t what I’m coming to Sonic movies for. But maybe that’s just me!
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is Recommended If You Like: The possibility that there could be a new Sonic movie every two years for the foreseeable future
Look at all that longing! (CREDIT: Elise Lockwood/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba
Director: George Miller
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Rating: R for Getting It On With a Magical Creature
Release Date: August 26, 2022 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: What if Aladdin starred Idris Elba instead of Robin Williams and Tilda Swinton instead of Steve from Full House. And also, what if it took place almost entirely in a hotel room? That’s pretty much Three Thousand Years of Longing in a nutshell. Alithea Binnie (Swinton) is a professor attending a conference in Istanbul, where she’s treated to the discovery of a djinn who had previously been trapped for millennia. And so, he is obliged to grant her – you guessed it! – that classic trio of wishes. But here’s the catch: Alithea’s not exactly the kind of person who would like to suddenly change her life by conjuring what’s in her heart of hearts. So it looks like we’re going to be her for a while. In the meantime, the djinn takes it upon himself to tell Alithea his life story.
What Made an Impression?:Three Thousand Years of Longing is basically just Pure Intoxication, thoroughly distilled. Who could possibly resist being an audience of one to a magical creature played by Idris Elba? As it turns out, Alithea Binnie almost can resist that. Almost. She’s always been a little different than everyone else, and she’s perfectly happy being her own independent self who doesn’t have to rely on anybody. (Which is to say, Tilda Swinton is the perfect person to play her.) But there’s something about somebody opening up to you so full and nakedly by revealing their life story. Let’s call it intimacy. And the power of that intimacy is multiplied about a thousandfold when that story spans millennia.
I’m not going to get too much into the details of the events of the Djinn’s life, mainly because they didn’t make much of an impression on me one way or the other. But that’s not a problem, because with the Djinn telling it, I’m enraptured even if the details mean nothing to me. This movie is a testament to the power of storytelling, specifically its ability to make you fall in love. That’s how Alithea falls in love with the Djinn, it’s how I fell in love with Three Thousand Years of Longing, and it’s how I imagine its spell will be cast on many more viewers to come.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is Recommended If You Like: Cracking open a good book, Gathering around the fire, Waking up only to fall back into a deep slumber
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Sega of America)
Starring: Ben Schwartz, James Marsden, Jim Carrey, Tika Sumpter, Idris Elba, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Natasha Rothwell, Adam Pally, Shemar Moore, Lee Majdoub, Tom Butler
Director: Jeff Fowler
Running Time: 122 Minutes
Rating: PG
Release Date: April 8, 2022 (Theaters)
Early on in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the little spiky blue guy has the house all to himself. So he and Ozzy the golden retriever just kick back and PAR-TAAAAAAY!!!! That’s the kind of Sonic movie I want. Just a CGI hedgehog and a chill pooch hanging out and having fun. And there’s no reason to have any anxiety about the mess they make, because thanks to Sonic’s super-speed, he can just clean everything up in a literal second! Why not take advantage of that? Anyway, that’s only a small portion of this sequel. I guess I’m totally fine with the decision to have Sonic team up with the Fox Fellow and the Echidna Dude to take down the Wacky Mustache Man, but it would have been a lot nicer if the dog had also been there the whole while. That’s all I’m saying.
The Suicide Squad (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot)
Starring: Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Michael Rooker, Alice Braga, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, Flula Borg, Steve Agee, Storm Reid, Taika Waititi
Director: James Gunn
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Rating: R for Various Body Parts Getting Torn Apart, a Full Roster of Potty Mouths, and a Little Bit of Nudity
Release Date: August 5, 2021 (Theaters and HBO Max)
The Suicide Squad feels like it came from another dimension. It shares a few characters with 2016’s (no “the”) Suicide Squad and has essentially the same premise. It’s ostensibly a sequel to that earlier effort, but it’s effectively a do-over. There are plenty of reboots every year at the multiplex, but rarely do we have such an unabashed mulligan. The multiverse theory posits that there is an infinite number of realities with any number of minor or major variations, and it seems that we’ve somehow been visited by the one in which James Gunn directed a Suicide Squad movie instead of David Ayer. Adding to this surreal state of affairs was the fact that I was in a bit of a fugue state while watching The Suicide Squad. It was a 10:00 AM screening, my first morning trip to a movie theater post-pandemic. My body was confused by the lack of sunlight at the early hour and thus my brain was unsure if it should be waking or dreaming. Either way, heads were always fated to explode.
The Suicide Squad takes a cue from Suicide Squad by having multiple beginnings, but this time it’s a cheeky bit of purposeful misdirection instead of stinky studio manipulation. Suicide squads are famously expendable, and it turns out that there are degrees of expendability, as one squad is introduced with plenty of fanfare only to serve as a diversion. Everyone involved clearly wanted to feature as many characters as possible to essentially say, “Can you believe all of the colorful ridiculousness that has actually appeared in DC Comics?” The team that we spend most of our time with consists of the ever-popular Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a couple of sharpshooters (Idris Elba, John Cena), a queen of rodents (Daniela Melchior), and a guy who shoots polka dots out of his mouth (David Dastmalchian). They’re sent to the fictional South American island nation of Corto Maltese for some top secret political meddling, but a date with the fantastical awaits them.
I wasn’t prepared for the Big Bad in The Suicide Squad to be a giant starfish, but that is indeed what awaited me. And quite frankly, I’m glad that that’s what we got. I can take or leave the gleeful over-the-top violence; it’s good for a few laughs, but after a couple of hours, I’m exhausted by the fact that I’m not really meant to care about any of these characters (although a few do manage to find a small place in my heart). So I’m grateful that there’s a surplus of visual imagination to appreciate. Way too many extraterrestrial cinematic CGI creatures of the past 15 years or so are some variation on big bad bugs, so a massive starfish that squirts out hundreds of smaller starfish is a relief. I’d be happy to see Starro rolling around every future corner of the big-screen DC universe, whether or not the reject crew is around.
So in conclusion, if you like kooky superpowers at their absolute kookiest and rats getting their time in the spotlight, you’ll probably have a decent time with the Suicide Squad.
The Suicide Squad is Recommended If You Like: The trailers for 2016’s Suicide Squad, bodily mutilation played for laughs, Mouse Hunt
Starring: Francesca Hayward, James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Ray Winstone
Director: Tom Hooper
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: PG for CGI’d Cat-People Lifting Their Legs Up Suggestively
Release Date: December 20, 2019
I admire the people who have made Cats, including all versions of the musical and this here film adaptation. The whole premise is thoroughly ridiculous, and all the little details only make it more so. So anyone who has given it their all at the Jellicle Ball has no time for the shame that such an enterprise might convey. That sort of pluck and resilience will get you far in life. It doesn’t necessarily make for good filmmaking, though. In this case, at least, it just transfers something truly baffling in one iteration into something just as baffling, in the same ways and more, in another medium.
The plot, such as it is, is immensely inconsequential, but it has something to do with new cat in town Victoria (Francesca Hayward) trying to find her place in cat society while devious cat Macavity (Idris Elba) plucks away his competition for the Jellicle Ball, which I’m pretty sure is some sort of talent show. Meanwhile, all the other cats prance about and sing their signature songs to let us know who they are. So far, so phantasmagorical. This could be appreciated as a bizarre theatrical extravaganza if the staging and choreography were decent. But director Tom Hooper has a way of shooting every scene that makes it feel like everything is so far away, even the close-ups. It confers an elusive nature that is the opposite of the extreme intimacy of high-frame rate, and thus it is difficult to connect with whatever emotional resonance the actors are able to summon. If something is going to be as unbelievable as this, it ought to also be unforgettable. Alas, Cats is just a piffle that my subconscious doesn’t even want to bother with.
Cats is Recommended If You Like: Thorough nonsense
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Eddie Marsan, Eiza González, Helen Mirren
Director: David Leitch
Running Time: 136 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Big Vehicles and Big Egos Slamming Into Each Other
Release Date: August 2, 2019
Spin-offs should offer something that the original couldn’t. Hobbs & Shaw immediately feels off in that regard, considering that Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) have already been a couple of the biggest characters in the last few Fast & Furious movies. Although, they aren’t quite members of the core family, so that leaves them enough wiggle room to break out on their own. But it can’t be too different! This franchise has a sterling stunt reputation it needs to maintain, and while director David Leitch and company do not try to be as relentlessly mind-blowing as Fast Five or Furious 7, there is at least one memorable moment when a motorcycle slinks between some truck tires.
The separation, then, mostly comes in Hobbs & Shaw being at its core an odd couple buddy comedy, and in this case, that means a few celebrity cameos who inject their own particular brands of impishness. These moments feel out of place in this world, but they might also be the best parts? Their charms cannot be denied. Honestly, though, I think we would have been better off spending more time with Hobbs’ daughter (Eliana Sua), as her scenes are both delightful AND internally consistent.
As wonderfully corny as Hobbs & Shaw is willing to be, it can’t change the fact that most of the plot is convoluted high-tech, globetrotting nonsense. Idris Elba is the cybernetically enhanced big bad, and we get a few genuinely disturbing shots of how he is becoming a superhuman or something beyond human. There is a hint of a larger conspiracy at play here, but only a hint. Meanwhile Vanessa Kirby plays Deckard’s sister Hattie, an MI6 agent who has been infected with a virus that’s going to kill her and apparently everyone around her also. The explanation for how the virus is supposed to spread is either glossed over or not emphasized enough, which is a problem because the race to cure Hattie is what drives most of the action.
Thankfully, the reward for dithering through all that is a surefire demonstration that we must, in true F&F fashion, celebrate the importance of family. It’s not as flat-out heartwarming as the series proper, but Hobbs takes us all along to Samoa to meet his mom and brothers, and Helen Mirren totally rocks her prison jumpsuit in her return as Mama Shaw. I could do without all the derivative action flick gobbledygook, but I’m grateful for the good vibes.
Hobbs & Shaw is Recommended If You Like: James Bond, but with a goofy postmodern (though not quite parody) sensibility
TV
–Arrested Development Season 5 Part 2 (Premieres March 15 on Netflix) – The final (?) episodes!
–Shrill Season 1 (Premieres March 15 on Hulu) – Starring Aidy Bryant!
–Turn Up Charlie Season 1 (Premieres March 15 on Netflix)
Comedy
–Amy Schumer Growing (Premieres March 19 on Netflix)
Sports on TV
-March Madness (March 19-April 8 on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV)
Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.
Love It
Can I Play That? – The push to avoid having actors of one identity group play characters of any other identity group is, I believe, generally well-intentioned, and it has done real good in terms of achieving better representation in the entertainment industry. But it can also be taken to ridiculous lengths that forget that the point of acting is to (typically) play someone other than yourself. But at least the tying-oneself-in-knots and constriction that result from that ridiculousness are, we now know, a great formula for an SNL game show parody. This could make for a decent recurring sketch, considering that, even though the joke has already been fully established, these controversies and conundrums tend to keep cropping up.
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