‘Primetime’ is a Singular Mix of Can’t-Look-Away and Don’t-Look-Now

September 24, 2026

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Deion Sanders does NOT appear in this movie. (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, Anna Faris, Jonathan Lipnicki, Tony Revolori, Alex Winter, Eric Rahill, Sean Bridgers, Jeff Zucker, Creed Bratton, Caroline Hebert, Jessica Hecht

Director: Lance Oppenheim

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Graphic Nudity, Violence, and Language, All Within the Milieu of a Disturbingly Graphic Premise

Release Date: September 25, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s the mid-aughts, and Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) is dead-set on making television history. His NBC true crime reality show To Catch a Predator is a bit of a phenomenon, but it’s also controversial, not to mention stressful for everyone involved. His producer Andie (Merritt Wever) remains steely while working around Chris’s mercurial nature, and everyone else on the crew makes their own compromises to survive a show whose premise is luring into sting operations men who are trying to have sex with minors. Emerging into this scenario is aspiring actor Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), who’s hired to play decoy underage boys in the stings. He just wants to kickstart his showbiz career, but he clearly hasn’t fully registered what he’s signed up for. Indeed, with Chris as the increasingly obsessive ringleader, a looming disaster threatens to become more and more inevitable.

What Made an Impression?: The Impression That I Get: The main attraction in Primetime is of course Pattinson’s compelling performance, which feels like an alien pretending to be a human, or maybe a human purposefully trying to be off by acting like an alien pretending to be a human. And yet, he clearly wants to be authoritative, so it doesn’t make sense for him to be so off like that. I’ve never watched a full episode of To Catch a Predator, so I’ve only caught the real Hansen in bits and glances. But no matter what your familiarity with the Real McCoy, this is still a fascinating feature-length case study of “What’s this guy’s deal?” (Just as compelling is one scene when Gisondo impersonates Pattinson as Dan finds himself slipping into Chris’s persona.)
Caught in the Maelstrom: Director Lance Oppenheim was definitely happy to put his auteurial stamp on this effort. He leans into the harshest visual aspects of the technology of the era, favoring close-ups of AIM chats and hidden camera feeds, as well as the reflections on the faces of the characters poring over those screens. There’s also a recurring motif of a web of a red laser-like display. It all combines to create the effect that the TCaP tean is caught in their own personal Twilight Zone, an aberration within an aberration of Hollyweird.
Way Back Yesterday: You know you’re starting to get old when 20 years ago feels like a completely different era. But part of the fun of Primetime is that we get to revisit the messiness of the 2000s with a fresh set of peepers. It’s certainly a hoot to see former NBC President and CEO Jeff Zucker as himself sorting out where To Catch a Predator belongs on his network’s schedule. That moment also hits so sweetly because it’s nice to encounter someone who has a sense of humor about himself, which is decidedly not the case with Hansen and his cohorts. And let’s not let go of that levity, because this movie ultimately delivers us to a pretty dark place and leaves us to our own devices to figure out what to do with that.

Primetime is Recommended If You Like: To Catch a Predator but feel conflicted about that

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Stings

In 2025, Superman Once Again Takes to the Skies and Grapple with His Human Dilemmas

July 10, 2025

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He doesn’t look like a bird or a plane from this angle (CREDIT: DC/Screenshot)

Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Pruitt Taylor Vance, Neva Howell, Wendell Pierce, Skyler Gisondo, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Christopher McDonald, Sara Sampaio, Alan Tudyk, Terence Rosemore, Frank Grillo, María Gabriela de Faría, Michael Ian Black, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan

Director: James Gunn

Running Time: 129 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Bloody Blows and Foul-Mouthed Critics

Release Date: July 11, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: The Big Blue Boy Scout, aka Superman (David Corenswet), aka Supes, aka Clark Kent, aka the Man of Steel, believes deeply that he’s been sent to Earth to protect the human race. That idealism is a big part of why his Daily Planet colleague/girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and so many of his fans have fallen for him. But not everyone is so sure that an alien from Krypton should be their guardian. Especially not Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), who’s waging a disinformation campaign to erode the public’s trust and orchestrate a war-profiteering scheme. His evil plan also includes imprisoning Supes in a pocket universe, a risky move that threatens to tear the entire fabric of Earth apart. Fortunately there are already some other superpowered folks in this world who might just be willing to help Clark out.

What Made an Impression?: Can Clark Kent Afford Therapy?: With James Gunn behind the camera and the screenplay, it appears that the biggest threat to Superman in 2025 is … social media troll bots! And not even particularly clever trolls. The biggest difference between this Clark Kent and all other previous big screen versions is surely his fragile ego.  It’s more than a little jarring seeing him so petty and vulnerable when his predecessors have been so unfailingly upright. But it’s also kind of endearing.
Clark Wants to Be a Punk Rocker: Assuming that this Clark Kent is about the same age as the guy playing him (David Corenswet is 32), then he definitely feels like a millennial whose personality was shaped by the Gen Xers driving culture in the 90s and early 2000s. People like James Gunn, perhaps! (Or people like The State alum Michael Ian Black, who plays a just-asking-questions-style “journalist.”) Corenswet Clark is like the guy who tries to be cool by emulating the indie rock crowd from when he was a kid and doesn’t get it quite right. But Lois still loves him anyway!
Gizmos and Galaxies Galore: In addition to being the most short-circuited and vaguely punk rock version of the character, Gunn’s Superman is also easily the nerdiest big screen iteration we’ve ever seen. This movie is filled to the brim with the sorts of gadgets and phenomena that sound like they’re based on a kernel of real science but are stretched out to ridiculous comic book sensibilities. Nanites, hypno-glasses, antiproton rivers: imaginations have certainly been let loose.
A Promising Forecast: Superman 2025 features some spirited acting, a cast of colorful characters, kinetic action sequences, a clear and unapologetic sense of its own identity, and a super-duper canine. And it also features some fantastically pleasant weather. There are several moments throughout the movie of a news broadcast with a forecast on the ticker informing us that the temperatures in Metropolis range between 62 and 65 degrees (presumably Fahrenheit) for the entire week. No wonder everyone’s in a good enough mood to fulfill their heroic destinies!

Superman is Recommended If You Like: Comic Books; Or, Your Loved Ones Who Enthusiastically Tell You Everything That Happens in Their Favorite Comic Books

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Justice Gangs

‘Licorice Pizza’ Invites Us to Come of Age, P.T. Anderson-Style

November 24, 2021

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Licorice Pizza (CREDIT: Paul Thomas Anderson/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures)

Starring: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, John Michael Higgins, Skyler Gisondo, Este Haim, Danielle Haim, Moti Haim, Donna Haim, Christine Ebersole, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Joseph Cross, Maya Rudolph

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Indelicate Language

Release Date: November 26, 2021 (Theaters)/Expands December 25, 2021

When I hear the title “Licorice Pizza,” it makes me think of that classic Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen song about putting every conceivable topping you can think of on the top of the crust. I can’t help but shout, “Licorice? Put it on the pizza!” But as it turns out, the directorial approach of Paul Thomas Anderson vis-a-vis Licorice Pizza has basically nothing in common with the Olsen twins. That’s okay, though!

Instead, this movie has me feeling like Linda Richman, which is to say, “Licorice Pizza is neither licorice, nor pizza: discuss.” So discuss I will! A couple of kiddos named Alana (Alana Haim) and Gary (Cooper Hoffman) cross paths in 1973 in the San Fernando Valley and then strike up a sorta-friendship, maybe-romance, partnership-in-hustling. Gary’s an accomplished child actor, but when he meets up with Alana, they switch their focus to selling waterbeds. They eventually splinter off into their own interests, as they get involved with the likes of politics and pinball legalization, contend with a gas crisis, and meet a bunch of memorable characters along the way. It feels like Anderson wanted to make a movie about some of the touchstone moments of his youth (or toddlerhood – he was born in 1970) and created a couple of central characters who could Forrest Gump their way through it all. Not a bad idea if you have a knack for populating an ensemble cast full of an endless stream of oddballs and eccentrics.

One question I had throughout watching Licorice Pizza was:just how old are Alana and Gary really? She says she’s 25, and he says he’s 15, which sounds perfectly plausible at first. But it’s of course more than a little concerning that a twentysomething would be hanging out so much with a teenager. Although it doesn’t come across as creepy as it could, mostly because Gary feels a lot older than he ostensibly is. I suppose that’s the lot of the child actor, to mature faster than everyone else (in some ways). Furthermore, when you consider all the various business ventures that are launched and folded over the course of the runtime, it feels like multiple years must be passing. So I started to surmise that maybe Gary was a little older by the end of it all anyway. But actually, I’m pretty sure all this action somehow takes place within one year (or less!). Latchkey kids apparently could get away with a lot way back when. Or in Gary’s case, teenage adults could do pretty much whatever they wanted in the 70s. These are the discombobulating thoughts I had while watching this movie!

In conclusion, Licorice Pizza is more or less a series of chuckle-inducing zesty vignettes with a bent-but-bighearted emotional throughline. Worth checking out!

Licorice Pizza is Recommended If You Like: Old sitcom bits and other pop culture ephemera, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Sisters yelling at each other

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Waterbeds

Movie Review: Nerds Realize That Good Grades and Partying Aren’t Mutually Exclusive in the Goofy and Sweet ‘Booksmart’

May 23, 2019

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CREDIT: Francois Duhamel/Annapurna Pictures

Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Noah Galvin, Billie Lourd, Skyler Gisondo, Jessica Williams, Jason Sudeikis, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, Mike O’Brien, Diana Silvers, Molly Gordon, Mason Gooding, Victoria Ruesga, Austin Crute, Eduardo Franco, Nico Haraga, Stephanie Styles

Director: Olivia Wilde

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Halting and Manic Attempts at Sex and Drug Use

Release Date: May 24, 2019

Here’s what I’ve learned from Booksmart and other recent high school-set movies and TV shows: all teenagers are smart these days. Maybe there are still some lazy slackers out there, but the conventional wisdom is that they’re the exceptions, and the new normal is that it’s cool to be a good student. This comes as a bit of a shock to Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) on the eve of their graduation, who have spent four years buckling down, nose to textbook, only to look up and discover that their partying classmates also have decent enough transcripts to get into prestigious schools, including one who will be attending Yale alongside Molly. Now, I can buy that partying kids are smart, but two kids from the same high school both going to the same Ivy League institution? That might be a bridge too far. Although, the elite college admissions process can feel so random that just saying “[insert Ivy League school here]” works as shorthand to get the point across for Molly’s worldview to suddenly come tumbling down.

So with that setup, Molly and Amy decide that they’ve got to make up for all the fun they’ve unnecessarily been missing out the past four years by fitting in as much partying as possible the night before their graduation ceremony. It’s a somewhat novel setup for a fairly typical plot, as much of the night is spent getting to the party instead of actually being at the party (Molly and Amy, naturally enough, don’t know their classmate’s address). As is usually the case, the plot shenanigans are quite shaggy, which is sometimes amusing and sometimes a little too random (one drug-fueled animated sequence really comes out of nowhere). The differences come in the perspectives, with a decidedly female (and nerdy) perspective in front of and behind the camera (it’s Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut). But the typical emotional climax is still what you would expect (and be satisfied by). These movies so often steadily build to codependent friends screaming at each other, and we’ve got a doozy of a blowout here. It’s effective, but it also makes me want to see that rare high school party movie about teenage friends with a perfectly healthy relationship.

Booksmart is Recommended If You Like: Superbad, Blockers, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 2000s SNL alumni

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Caps and Gowns