An odd thought occurred to me today. We’re fully two months into 2026, and I still haven’t seen a “new” movie yet this year. Sure, I’ve taken in a bunch as part of the Blitz, but nothing for the official 2026 canon yet. And I’m still working my way through the review backlog, with nine films still to go before it’s all said and done on Oscar Night in a couple of weeks. I ended up taking in 116 features for 2025, which is lower than my usual numbers. In fact, it might be my lowest since the pandemic. Yet here I am, still catching up. I wonder if there’s anything worth seeing this weekend…
*sees yet another Scream sequel and Baz Luhrmann continuing to fellate Elvis Presley’s 50-year-old corpse*
Okay, now I don’t feel so bad.
Yeah, I’ve still got a bunch to get to, but given everything going on in the world, including the sorry state of the entertainment industry (Warner Bros. selling to Paramount feels like Nintendo selling to Sega at this point), I’m not too fussed that I haven’t taken in anything new just yet. January and February tend to be studio dumping grounds, but even by those standards it looks like one dud after another. Really, what’s there been so far? A cartoon goat trying to play basketball and Emerald Fennell continuing to think she’s “shocking” people by making films where rich people fuck? Not exactly leading with strength at the moment.
There are some hints on the horizon that things might be turning around. March is usually when films start getting good, and in my personal life, I have hope of righting the ship for the first time in months. Nothing is confirmed, but it feels like the worst might be over, at least for a little while.
*Trump and Bibi bomb Iran, setting off yet another illegal Middle East war*
Okay, fuck it. Let’s just get to some reviews before I make myself sick.
Jurassic World Rebirth
I said I didn’t want to make myself sick! Ugh. The fact that this is nominated for Visual Effects just goes to show how shallow the pool is this year, with Hollywood essentially conceding that they weren’t even going to try to compete with Avatar: Fire and Ash, which sucks copious blue balls outside of the effects. The Academy just needed to fill out the category with something, anything, that might qualify, so this got lumped in, even though the visuals are so lame that if this somehow won, the biggest noise you’d hear in the Dolby Theatre is Stan Winston spinning in his grave at light speed.
It seems with every subsequent sequel, the makers of the Jurassic franchise are taking bets on how much they can piss off the audience yet still bilk them out of their money. For years now, fans have been saying that they want two basic things: dinosaurs doing cool dinosaur shit, and for the series to quit teasing us about dinosaurs in human society and just DO that. So how does this film start? A repeat of the raptor incident scene from the first movie, only it’s triggered by an errant Snickers wrapper (you have GOT to be shitting me), and then we get an exposition dump about how the dinosaurs are dying out in human society because they can’t handle our climate, so now they only live in the tropics and jungles. As the evil businessman du jour (Rupert Friend; literally no one cares what his character’s name is) pulls yet another stupid con to get mercenaries into said jungle, he smirks that no one cares about dinosaurs anymore. THEN WHY ARE WE FUCKING HERE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Anyway, Scarlett Johansson gets paid a bunch of money to go through this nonsense… and also her character Zora gets a hefty payday for the expedition. She’s joined by Jonathan Bailey as a paleontologist named Dr. Loomis (how do you name anyone that after Halloween?), an old covert ops friend named Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and three other mercs who might as well be named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (Ed Skrein, Bechir Sylvain, and Philippine Velge, the latter two of whom don’t even have Wikipedia pages), their roles so empty and their deaths so casual as to not even warrant attention. They’re going to yet another dino island that InGen previously told no one about (you could fill Indonesia with the number of fake islands in these flicks) to extract blood from three big, big species, in hopes that their DNA could someday be used to… cure heart disease? The fuck? How the hell do you get from “dinosaur blood” to “cure heart disease”? You’d have better luck avoiding heart attacks by not accepting product placement money from Snickers.
Meanwhile, for reasons known but to the god that clearly doesn’t exist if these movies keep getting made, there’s a family sailing in the restricted waters. There’s dad Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), younger daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda), elder daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), and Teresa’s dipshit stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono). They’re basically in this film to a) put children in danger because somehow all of these films have to have that, b) sell merchandise (Isabella adopts the most adorable baby triceratops thing available on Amazon for $49.95), and c) to make you confused as to which character you most want to die, with every instance of Xavier’s survival becoming an infuriating disappointment.
The entire adventure is full of shitty logic, terrible writing (Friend literally says, “I’m too smart to die” at one point), and shameful CGI. The so-called “thrill” of this film is that InGen was using this island to make mutant dinosaur hybrids, tying into the larger series by saying that the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World was their big success story. Everything else is rejected fan art from an AI programmed to hate you. The big baddie of the film, the D-Rex (yes, it’s that stupid), is just the Rancor from Return of the Jedi with an extra pair of arms. Yeah, the monster they build up for the entire affair is just a ripoff of a Muppet. Oscar-worthy effects, everyone!
This movie has exactly four things going for it, which sadly still raises it above the last two outings, and even then, two of them I have to sort of qualify. One, there are some legitimately funny moments, like how Xavier gets saved in embarrassing fashion midway through, or Johansson straight up admitting through her character that everyone involved is only doing this for money. Even the tossed off redshirt deaths are kind of silly in how bad they are. Two, this film comes the closest to having an exciting T-Rex sequence for the first time in over a decade, mostly because the scene in question is actually adapted from Michael Crichton’s original novel.
Three, and this is only a half-win, the sound team seems to have finally made a decision on whether or not dinosaurs make noise when they walk. For every other entry (including the first), it was basically at the director’s whim if the T-Rex or anyone else actually made sounds, mostly so they can trigger jump scares. This film just dispenses with that and commits to all the giant dinosaurs being stealth as fuck. It makes no sense whatsoever, and it leads to one of the dumbest moments in the whole film (Teresa stupidly inflates a raft in front of a waking T-Rex, but when she topples it over the dinosaur is literally gone from the shot without making a single sound), but at least they finally picked a lane. This leads into the fourth high point (relatively speaking), in that the opening scene gives us the first death since The Lost World that had any pathos to it. The idiot worker with the Snickers bar ends up trapped in the pen with the D-Rex when his wrapper causes a full security breakdown (to think, raptors had to solve problems at one point). As the lab staff is evacuating, the woman who has one of the two keys to open the pen gets scared and slowly backs away, dooming the worker as he begs for his life. He’s a meaningless character, like all Park/InGen staff who’ve died over the course of this series, but at least we got to know him for a couple minutes and see the fear in his eyes as he met his end, not unlike the paddock worker in the original who got eaten by the raptor. It’s a small moment, and it’s a pure copy of the first movie, but at least we were allowed to give a shit about someone dying in these movies for the first time in nearly 30 years. I’ll take what I can get.
Apart from that, this is just trash. Half the scenes are rehashes of the previous bad movies, and the other half are just more bait-and-switch jobs where the franchise continues to double down on everything that fans hate about them. It’s beyond rich that the movie attempts to preach about greed and capitalism in its messaging, when Universal’s underlings continue to lie right to your face as they steal your cash.
Grade: D+
Diane Warren: Relentless
Okay, cards on the table. You know I don’t care for Diane Warren or the shenanigans that result in her getting nominated every single year. It’s telling that the summation track for this documentary, “Dear Me,” was not nominated in any other major awards ceremony, yet it’s one of the finalists for the Oscar yet again. The only accolade it’s gotten is the Best Original Song in a Documentary prize at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, an outlet that has placated Warren many a time. But I can set that aside and judge this film honestly, because that’s what I do, even though I knew from the moment it debuted last January that it would somehow be shoehorned into this year’s Oscars. The only reason I didn’t see it then was because I knew it’d be cheaper to wait for VOD.
The best thing I can say about Diane Warren: Relentless is that, if you’re curious about her and her career, you’ll get a good fill of information, and the film does go a long way to humanize her (her love of cats is endearing, and at times adorable). However, if you’re already aware of her and the chicanery that she engages in every year, then this is just a more successful version of Halftime, which was Jennifer Lopez’s self-aggrandizing “documentary” about how unfair it is that the world hasn’t recognized just how much better she is than you.
Even if you’re not as triggered by the bullshit as I am, you can tell the problem with this movie in the first five minutes. The opening montage is basically a bunch of singers talking about how great Warren is, a few lines of false modesty, then clips of her not winning an Oscar, and how unjust that all is, followed by some sound bites from her more famous songs. The entire 90 minutes can be reduced to that microcosm. I’m awesome, my songs are hits, and it’s a crime that I don’t have ALL the Oscars. So here’s a movie specifically set up so I can try again. What more do you need to know?
After the titles, the film follows the basic music biography formula. It talks about her childhood, how her father was supportive but her mother wasn’t, and how she was just different from everyone else. She writes songs, but she doesn’t sing them herself, because she’s self-conscious about her own singing voice. Okay, I guess that’s a little insightful, but it’s nothing I haven’t heard before. We then get into her big break in the industry and the first string of hits she wrote, including her first Oscar nomination, for “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” from Mannequin.
There’s an odd cognitive dissonance in presenting these songs, because some of them are cringeworthy, if not outright controversial, but she and the filmmakers don’t care, because they hit the top 10 on the Billboard chart, so they have to be good, right? I mean, why would you brag about “Blame it on the Rain”? Milli Vanilli represented one of the biggest scandals in music history. Why would you intentionally attach yourself to them as a POSITIVE 35 years later? Similarly, Warren shares the story of how Steven Tyler agreed to have Aerosmith perform “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” after watching footage of his daughter Liv in the movie Armageddon as it was being edited. The film boasts that it was Aerosmith’s first (and so far only) #1 hit, as if Diane Warren and Michael Bay saved their careers, but diehard fans of the band hate the song and hate that Tyler sold out for it. It’s a very sore spot with Aerosmith fans. Then there’s the fact that she basically had LeAnn Rimes and Trisha Yearwood record competing versions of “How Do I Live,” with Yearwood’s rendition being shoved into Con Air for another fraudulent nomination. These were all bad moments in music history, so why in God’s name are you treating them like wins?
Worst of all, though, is the self-pity with regards to the Academy itself. A full 15 minutes of this film are dedicated to her quixotic mission to win an Oscar (she eventually got an honorary one as a sort of “please stop already” message, but the Music Branch continues to break its own rules for her). There are several clips where she treats her losses as personal slights, like it was an insult to music that she lost to Randy Newman in 2002 (“If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters Inc. versus the insipid country-pop ballad “There You’ll Be” from Pearl Harbor; it’s no contest, and I’m most decidedly NOT a Randy Newman fan), or Sam Smith and Billie Eilish for their respective Bond themes. Again, I didn’t care for those songs, either. In fact, I’d argue “Til it Happens to You” is far better than “The Writing’s on the Wall” while still being fairly mediocre, but she treats NOT WINNING AN OSCAR as a metaphorical slap in the face to all rape victims. It’s not the losing streak that matters. It’s the sense of entitlement, the attitude of “How dare they not give it to me?” that pervades the entire block of the movie. That’s what I resent. She is First World Problems made flesh!
Look, my hat’s off to Diane Warren. Just like so many others, I’m in awe that she can do something that I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I’ve never been able to write a song. I’m not saying I could do any of this better than her. My issue is that the documentary is self-indulgent tripe, her sense of privilege and claims of a personal right to an Oscar are disgusting, and she comports herself with this unearned sense of superiority just because her songs made money. Well guess what? Popular doesn’t always mean good (and I do like some of her songs, mind you). Just because something is profitable doesn’t mean it’s quality. Her songs sell millions? So did Lawn Darts. That’s not a basis for a compelling documentary, and if there was any intent of dispelling rumors about her ego, the movie failed miserably.
Grade: C-
The Lost Bus
Finishing off the Visual Effects field is The Lost Bus, directed by Paul Greengrass, who gave us the Bourne series and the brilliant United 93. The latter entry was clearly front of mind while making this film, because Greengrass has a way of making compelling drama out of what are essentially reenactments of tragic events. The Lost Bus is a dramatization of one of the most disastrous moments of the last decade, and there are times when the film is appropriately thrilling. Unfortunately, unlike United 93, it’s also mostly bullshit.
A little background in case you aren’t aware of the recent history. In 2018, a wildfire broke out in Butte County, in northern California. Later dubbed the “Camp Fire,” it devastated the town of Paradise, killing 85 people, displacing some 50,000, and causing over $18 billion in damages. The fire was caused by poorly-maintained electrical equipment from the local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Donald Trump blamed it on Democrats not raking the woods. Anyway, in a moment of pure good news in the midst of tragedy, a bus driver named Kevin McKay successfully evacuated a group of elementary school students and their teacher, helping them reach safety when the kids’ parents couldn’t make it to pick them up. It was a genuinely heroic and risky deed, and it definitely falls under the heading of going above and beyond the call of duty.
That, however, is not what this movie is. Yes, eventually Kevin, played by Matthew McConaughey, does get to the school, picking up the kids, as well as their teacher Mary (America Ferrera), and gets them to the muster point out of the blaze zone. But first we have to get through a bunch of nonsense about him being somewhat less than perfect at his job, earning the ire of his boss (Ashlie Atkinson) and threats of being terminated. Oh, and we also have to spin this like the god-awful War of the Worlds movie (the 2005 one, because thanks to Ice Cube and Amazon I now have to specify), where the real story is about how bad of a divorced dad he is. Far more time is devoted to Kevin’s sick/moody teen son Shaun (played by McConaughey’s real-life son Levi) and Kevin’s associated guilt over not being a better father than, say, THE BUS FULL OF KIDS THAT HAVE TO GET THROUGH A GODDAMN FIRE!
As for the actual trek through the flames, it’s all made up. There’s a scene early in the evacuation where the bus is caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic, as everyone is trying to get out of the city per the safety orders. After a couple of minutes, Kevin makes a hasty decision and pulls out of the line to go the other way, trusting his instincts and his familiarity with his hometown to find a better route, rather than just being stuck for about three hours. Here’s the thing, though. In real life, Kevin did just sit in traffic for three hours. He took the prescribed route, because that was what was safest. Some of the kids dealt with some mild smoke inhalation and there were some scattered burns from the heat and floating ash, but that was it. In short, Kevin did his job, what he was supposed to do. But that doesn’t make for an exciting enough movie, so cue DragonForce!
Yeah, the bulk of this is pure lies. This isn’t exaggerating for dramatic effect, it’s straight up lying. Kevin sends the bus through miles of mountain passes and back roads while the fire continues encroaching, to the point where he literally has to drive through a wall of flame in the final act. None of that happened, and when you know that, the scenes lose whatever emotional effect and tension they might have had. I mean, not that there was any tension in this to begin with. Do you honestly think Greengrass, or anyone, would have been allowed to make this movie if the bus failed and the kids died? Yeah, no. As for the VFX, it looks fine. The fire looks like a real fire, and the various aircraft fighting it don’t look too fake.
That’s pretty much all it took to get the film nominated due to a lack of options, but beyond that, the movie doesn’t have much going for it. The acting is hammy, the plot is almost entirely false, and given the breadth of this disaster, I’m sure there was a better story to tell about how wildfires like the “Camp” get started in the first place. Whatever. Cue Billy Joel.
Grade: C
The Smashing Machine
Nominated for Makeup & Hairstyling, I legitimately wondered if it would get the nod when I first saw the trailer, given that the focal point is Dwayne Johnson looking slightly not like the Rock, mostly by giving him an odd crop of curly hair. There wasn’t anything else that offered intrigue, so I skipped it when it first came out. Having now seen it, I can confirm a complete lack of intrigue.
In The Smashing Machine, yet another dramatic film based on a documentary of the same name, Johnson plays Mark Kerr, one of the early superstars of mixed martial arts and the UFC, back when the fighting promotion consisted of one-day, single-elimination tournaments with little to no rules, very much the “human cockfighting” that detractors like the late Senator John McCain once decried. Back then the sport really was a way to test various disciplines against each other for superiority. Kerr was a collegiate wrestler, so most of his moves follow Greco-Roman style. The film begins in 1997 with a montage of his first bouts in the UFC, where he easily dispatches his opponents while narration fades to an in-person interview with a journalist, played by Jonathan Corbblah, which just makes me giddy because a) he’s something of a friend; I worked with him on the game show Master Minds, and b) he’s a chess master, about as far from the physicality of MMA as you can get.
The big thing for Kerr is that he’s never lost a fight, and an upcoming Pride event in Japan is set to be his biggest purse yet. He trains relentlessly with his best friend, Mark Coleman (played by MMA fighter Ryan Bader, even though he looks more like Kerr and Johnson looks more like Coleman in real life), lives a somewhat happy life with his girlfriend Dawn (a tragically misused Emily Blunt; she’s reduced to little more than a trailer park sex object), and is addicted to painkillers and steroids. At the pivotal event, he initially takes the first loss of his career thanks to a knee to the forehead. The bout is later ruled a no-contest because that move was specifically singled out as illegal before the tournament.
Most of the rest of the film is devoted to Kerr’s sadness at losing, coping with his addiction, and eventually getting himself ready for another shot, this time at a six-figure payday. Everything we see leading up to it is basically your standard sports movie clichĆ© mixed with Jerry Springer-esque histrionics. There’s even some bullshit about throwing and breaking things, but it being part of the healing process to glue it all back together. It’s all nonsense. The only enjoyment you get is ironically, laughing at Johnson’s pathetic attempt to cry on camera.
It’s weird that the Safdie brothers, upon splitting up, both chose to make “gritty” sports movies in their first solo efforts. Josh did Marty Supreme, which was really good but formulaic and overrated (at least going by its Academy profile – no way did it deserve nine nominations), while Benny made The Smashing Machine, which is just formulaic without being good enough to be overrated. Even the makeup job isn’t that convincing. Blue Moon did a better job at turning Ethan Hawke into Lorenz Hart by accidentally making him look like Martin Short, and that wasn’t even shortlisted in the category. Honestly, the most impressive thing about this movie is that we were able to get an exception to Dwayne Johnson’s usual contract rider. In case you didn’t know, among the more asinine things in Hollywood, Johnson apparently has a clause that he has written into every film contract that he’s not allowed to lose a fight or take significant damage, as I guess he thinks that might dilute his tough guy image. Here, he plays a guy who eventually lost multiple times in his career, and we do get to see him take knocks. Progress, I guess.
Grade: C+
***
I wish I had better films to offer, as nothing here rates above a C+ on my board. Unfortunately, this is just what happens in such a concentrated, top-heavy Oscars field where several categories (in this case Makeup, Original Song, and Visual Effects) have to be padded out to five nominees with something resembling variety. However, the next installment, finishing up our look at feature documentaries, does have a lot better to offer.
Join the conversation in the comments below! Have you seen these films? Were any of them enjoyable to you? Would you make a movie just to complain about not winning awards? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me onĀ TwitterĀ (fuck āXā) as well asĀ Bluesky, subscribe to myĀ YouTubeĀ channelĀ for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network atĀ btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 