Movie Review Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy 

Directed by Michael Morris

Written by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazar, Abi Morgan

Starring Renee Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Hugh Grant, Leo Woodall 

Release Date February 13th, 2025

Published February 15th, 2025 

Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy is shockingly good. Admittedly, I had extremely low expectations for this late period sequel about Bridget as a single mom, several years into grieving the loss of her beloved husband, Mark Darcy. What a wonderful surprise then to find that the film felt remarkably authentic, warm hearted, and highly reminiscent of the charming first chapter of this film series. Renee Zellweger has such a remarkable handle on this character today that even two decades later, instead of feeling like a perfunctory attempt to further capitalize a well known property, Zellweger's performance in Mad About the Boy is one I can’t help but fall in love with. 

Five years ago as this story begins, Mark Darcy died while on a humanitarian trip in Africa. He leaves behind Bridget and their two lovely children, Billy (Casper Knopf) and Mabel (Mila Jankovic). As a trio, they are doing okay. Bridget may rarely get out of her PJ’s but she is a wonderful, supportive, and loving mom. But, it has been five years, perhaps it is time for Bridget to get back into the world. Perhaps she needs to go back to work? Perhaps it’s time for her to start dating again.

Click here for my full length review. 

Movie Review You, Me & Her

You, Me, and Her 

Directed by Dan Levy Degerman

Written by Selina Ringel 

Starring Selina Ringel, Graham Sibley, Sydney Park 

Release Date February 14th, 2025 

Published February 16th, 2025 

You, Me and Her stars Selina Ringel and Ritesh Rajan as a married couple, Mags and Ash. Mags is the breadwinner, working a high powered job for her demanding father. Ash meanwhile is a stay at home dad and budding marijuana entrepreneur. The couple is struggling with Mags having to carry most of the load while Ash plays video games and shirks what few responsibilities he has. He’s a good dad but for Mags, he’s often like having another kid to raise as he is often hiding from his long term, unsuccessful attempts to get his business off the ground.

After a series of scenes demonstrate the various ways that Mags and Ash aren’t communicating and the ways their marriage is suffering, Ash hatches a plan. Ash has booked them a vacation at a Mexican resort where Mags’ parents had taken her as a child. It’s a costly trip and Mags is quite curious how Ash is able to afford it, but she really needs to get away for a bit, so she tries her best to go with the flow. Once in Mexico, their problems communicating follow them with Ash distracted by trying to find weed to buy and Mags growing further frustrated by his inattention to her.

Click here for my full length review. 

Classic Movie Review Heavyweights

Heavyweights 

Directed by Steven Brill 

Written by Judd Apatow, Steven Brill

Starring Ben Stiller, Paul Feig, Tom McGowan

Release Date February 17th, 1995 

Published February 17th, 2025 

Heavyweights is an oft-forgotten entry in the canon of live action Disney features. The film was made possible by the surprise success of The Mighty Ducks and used members of the cast of that film, already under contract to Disney, as a way to further capitalize on that success. The film centers on a camp for overweight kids who will have to overcome a needless obstacle on the way to a simpleminded conclusion that involves learning to ‘be yourself’ or some other such nonsense platitude. 

Despite seeing names like Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, and Paul Feig involved in Heavyweights, I was skeptical of the film. The 90s weren’t exactly known for being sensitive and jokes about overweight children were not off limits by any stretch. Thus, I set the bar pretty low at just hoping the young actors in Heavyweights would not be repeatedly humiliated, shamed, or otherwise bullied for comic effect. What a surprise then to find a film that was genuinely sensitive, cared deeply for these young characters and their struggle, and was not simply a series of humiliations intended as comedy.

Click here for my full length review. 

Movie Review Little Miss Sociopath

Little Miss Sociopath 

Directed by Miv Evans 

Written by Miv Evans 

Starring Jenny Tran, Brendan Michael Coughlin, Pamela Shaw, Lisa Scott

Release Date March 15th, 2025 

Published February 19th, 2025 

Little Miss Sociopath is a scrappy little indie dark comedy about a meek young woman who discovers her inner sociopath as she copes with the death of her father and suffers under the tyrannical demands of her ailing stepmother. Jenny Tran stars as the title character, better known as Clementine or Clem in the movie. Clem works at a shady pharmacy in the Valley in California and is generally overlooked by the world. A new co-worker however, Adam, played by Brendan Michael Coughlin, takes an immediate notice of her, though Clem is too anxious to act on the attention. 

The sudden death of Clem’s father is the catalyst for the story. Clem lives with her dad and his new wife, Bella (Victoria Goodhart). Bella has been a source of Clem’s anxiety for some time now when we join the story and after Clem;’s father dies, things get even worse when Bella falls ill and becomes dependent on Clem. Bella seems to make it her mission to make Clem’s life a living hell, running off one caretaker after another while demanding that Clem stay home and take care of her.

Click here for my full length review. 

Classic Movie Review Meet the Parents

Meet the Parents 

Directed by Jay Roach 

Written by Jim Herzfeld, John Hamburg

Starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Tier Polo, Blythe Danner

Release Date October 6th, 2000 

Published February 20th, 2025 

2025 marks a quarter century since the release of the blockbuster comedy Meet the Parents, a film that showed audiences an entirely new comedic side to legendary tough guy actor Robert De Niro while solidifying the blockbuster stardom of Ben Stiller as a leading man. 25 years later, both De Niro and Stiller remain high profile and beloved stars with major projects still making waves. In 2025 Stiller has mostly moved behind the scenes where he’s got a hit Apple TV series, Severance. As for Mr. De Niro, he’s also gone to television with the new Netflix series, Zero Day. Thus, now seems a good time to reflect on the movie that changed both of their careers 25 years ago. 

The 2000 comedy  Meet the Parents was directed by Jay Roach and stars Ben Stiller as Gaylord "Greg" Focker, a nurse who is eager to propose to his girlfriend, Pam Byrnes, played by Teri Polo. However, before he can pop the question, he must first navigate the formidable obstacle of gaining the approval of Pam's father, Jack Byrnes (De Niro). Jack, a retired CIA operative, harbors a deep-seated suspicion of anyone outside the family circle, and begins using his CIA training to investigate his daughter’s new boyfriend.

Click here for my full length review 

Classic Movie Review Three Days of the Condor

Three Days of the Condor

Directed by Sydney Pollack

Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., David Rayfiel

Starring Robert Redford, Cliff Robertson, Faye Dunaway, Max Von Sydow

Release Date September 25th, 1975

Published February 18th, 2025 

Three Days of the Condor was released 50 years ago as I write this and yet it feels as alive, relevant, and prescient as ever. This spy thriller from the brilliant director Sydney Pollack posits a form of espionage based solely on wits and guts rather than bullets and explosions and it’s so much stronger for that. Centering the story around the mind of a savvy genius with a knack for code breaking, Three Days of the Condor uses the best traits of star Robert Redford, his wise eyes and movie star looks, and combines that with a premise that was straight out of a real life American thought experiment to create a spy thriller that remains a trenchant critique of American geo-politics to this day. 

Robert Redford stars in Three Days of the Condor as Joe Turner, a normal enough guy who happens to work for an agency that is a cover for a CIA outpost. Turner is not a spy however, he’s just a genius who is capable of seeing patterns where others cannot. His job is to read books, articles, everything really, and look for potential plots that could affect global politics. His most recent discovery appears to be an ingenious way to destabilize a Middle Eastern government while stealing its valuable resources, specifically oil.

Click here for my full length review. 

Movie Review Vampire Academy

Vampire Academy 

Directed by Mark Water 

Written by Daniel Waters 

Starring Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Joely Richardson, Gabriel Byrne 

Release Date February 7th, 2014 

Budget $30 million dollars 

Box Office $15 million dollars 

Rotten Tomatoes 17% 

Vampire Academy exists simply as a marketing concern. Sure, the film is based on a series of successful young adult novels, but the reality is much crasser in nature. The makers of Vampire Academy have no real interest in the books; they're inherent appeal or doing justice to why the books became successful. No, Vampire Academy exists because somewhere in Hollywood someone saw the books, heard they were set in a school for Vampires, and got the idea for the awful tagline "They 'Suck' at School." Hey-o!

Vampire Academy supposedly tells the story of two best friends who attend a school where one is trained to protect the Vampire high class, and the other is part of the Vampire high class. Zoey Deutch stars as Rose, a Dhampir, and a protector of the Vampire high class known as the Moroi. Rose's best friend is the future Moroi Queen, Lissa (Lucy Fry). Together the two have formed a psychic bond that allows Rose to read Lissa's thoughts and even see through her eyes as narratively convenient a talent as I've ever heard one.

There is a third class of Vampire called the Strigoi, a race of killers who briefly give the film a dangerous life. Unfortunately, the Strigoi don't really matter unless there is a sequel. Yes, Vampire Academy is so wildly, cluelessly, market-driven that the most interesting narrative complication is one built solely to create the chance of another cluelessly market driven idiot movie.

There isn't a single genuine moment in Vampire Academy. Every empty scene evokes an attempt to appeal to a fictional youth market devoid of the conscience needed to know they are being marketed to without consideration of taste or intelligence. And in case you don't believe me, just check out the brooding Robert Pattinson look-alike, Dominic Sherwood, the filmmaker, cast in the role of one of the girls' love interests and tell me that wasn't a calculated decision.

Vampire Academy isn't a movie; it's a 90 plus minute commercial for itself. Each scene is trailer ready; every line of dialogue intended to explain things you should be able to understand out of sheer scene construction. Maybe the filmmakers are assuming you're not very bright simply because you decided to see this movie. Maybe they're right.