Culture Representation: The documentary film “Natchez” features an African American and white group of people discussing the history of Natchez, Mississippi, as well as their personal connections to the city.
Culture Clash: The history stories told the white people tend to focus on glamor and prosperity, while the history stories told by the African Americans include the realities of slavery.
Culture Audience: “Natchez” will appeal primarily to people who are interested documentaries about communities in the U.S. South and how people’s racial identities affect their family histories and personal experiences.
Tracy McCartney in “Natchez” (Photo by Noah Collier/Oscilloscope Laboratories)
The documentary “Natchez” skillfully shows the contrasts in how white historians and African American historians describe how racism affected Natchez, Mississippi. This film mostly shows perspectives of local tour guides instead of media-trained experts. Some of the people in the documentary seem to be aware of the cameras at all times, while others let their guards down and give unfiltered opinions.
Directed by Suzannah Herbert, “Natchez” had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival, where it won the grand jury prize for Best Documentary Feature. The National Board of Review also named “Natchez” one of the top five documentaries of 2025. “Natchez” has some sit-down interviews where people are talking directly to the camera, but the rest of the documentary has a cinéma vérité style that shows what was filmed, without narration or re-enactments.
Natchez (located in Mississippi’s Adams County) is a city with a population of about 14,500 people, according to the 2020 U.S. census. The city has several plantation-styled antebellum mansions that give open-house tours. Black people are about 63% of Natchez’s population. White people are about 33% of Natchez’s population. The median annual household income in Natchez is $33,000 to $35,000.
The two people who stand out the most in “Natchez” just happen to have the same first name. Tracy “Rev” Collins (an African American man) is the owner and operator of Rev’s Country Tours, a small business where Collins is a tour guide of the Natchez area. Tracy McCartney (a white woman) is a volunteer at Choctaw Hall, one of the antebellum mansions that gives open-hour tours. Collins and McCartney represent the different ways that they discuss Natchez being part of the United States’ shameful history of enslavement of black people.
Collins is shown giving walking tours and driving the vans where he transports his customers from location to location. He greets his customers (most of whom are white) with a friendly Southern style and gives his tour narrations a charming, storytelling tone. However, Collins doesn’t sugarcoat the type of degradation and abuse that enslaved people were subjected to in different historic locations of Natchez. For example, when Collins reaches the location that used to be the Forks of the Road market, where enslaved people were bought and sold like livestock on the streets, he gives a detailed description of what that horror was like.
His tour narrations aren’t all “gloom and doom,” because Collins also talks about the city’s landmarks, historical architecture and the positive community cultures that exist in Natchez. Collins, who is a Baptist pastor and a former county supervisor, has a “larger than life” personality with no shortage of confidence. He calls himself “the best tour guide in America.” Collins says although he doesn’t live in Natchez (he lives in nearby Jefferson County), he is very familiar with the city because of all the time he spends in Natchez giving tours of Natchez and interacting with Natchez residents.
Choctaw Hall volunteer McCartney doesn’t really want to talk about the history of slavery and racism in the United States, where slavery was legal until 1863. She would rather show and discuss her passion for wearing antebellum-era gowns and going to Natchez pilgrimages, which are costumed events held every spring and autumn. McCartney says that the open-hour tours saved the Natchez economy when a boll weevil invasion destroyed crops throughout Mississippi in the early 1900s.
McCartney doesn’t like to mention that much of Natchez’s population has a much lower income than the average American. She would rather present the “upscale” part of Natchez, by showing or talking about antique collections in mansions, cotillions that showcase debutantes, or preservations of the Old South way of living. McCartney also discusses at length the different types of vintage dresses that are on display and the intricate challenges of wearing hoop dresses and corsets.
Choctaw Hall co-owner David Garner Jr. (a white man) is seen proudly giving tours of Choctaw Hall, which operates as a bed-and-breakfast inn and is listed as a “historic house” in Natchez. According to various descriptions of Choctaw Hall, the four-story mansion was built in 1836 and features a blend of Greek Revival and Federal styles. The “Natchez” documentary was made before Garner and Choctaw Hall co-owner Lee Glover (who both bought Choctaw Hall in 2014) put the house up for sale in the autumn of 2025. Glover is shown briefly in the documentary, but he is not a featured participant.
“Natchez” begins with a scene taking place at a Garden Club luncheon in Natchez. The Garden Club is a preservation society that was the first of its kind in Mississippi. Natchez mayor Dan Gibson is in attendance and talks in an overly smiling, rehearsed way that is similar to a televangelist such as Joel Osteen. Gibson makes a speech where he says he’s excited for the “new Natchez.”
Gibson elaborates, “It is a Natchez that appreciates our history—all of it—even the bad. But it is our history. And it is also a city that believes in coming together for love. And if we ever needed it in America, we need it today.” Gibson concludes his speech by taking the hands of two women (one white, one black), who are service employee positions at this event, and joining their hands together, as if he’s conducting a peace summit. Gibson says, “This is what Natchez is right here.” Gibson then plays a piano in the room, as he warbles Louis Armstrong’s signature song “What a Wonderful World.”
Although the tour guides and a politician such as Gibson are friendly and smiling in public, there are indications of racial tension and racism throughout the film. There’s a lot of talk about Southern pride in the documentary, but that “Southern pride” can mean different things to different people. Symbols and historical figures on the Confederate side of the U.S. Civil war (which lasted from 1861 to 1865) can represent Southern pride for some and racism for others, because the Confederates fought to keep slavery legal in the United States.
When a tour guide dresses up as a Confederate soldier (as seen in the documentary), people can have conflicting feelings and opinions about it. In another scene in the documentary, a white tour guide struggles to find the “politically correct” words to say when describing how there’s been a movement to remove Confederate statues and other Confederate artifacts from public spaces. He is obviously uncomfortable with these removals but doesn’t want to say so out loud because he admittedly doesn’t want to “offend” anyone.
Tour guide Collins doesn’t mince words when he calls the Garden Club “the blue-haired mafia” because “they run the city.” Although the majority of Natchez residents are black, nearly all of the Garden Club members are white. Collins tersely says, “My interactions with the Garden Club are surface-level.”
Collins also mentions on his tours that in the days when slavery was legal, the enslavers often toned down their barbarism by calling their enslaved employees “servants” or “the help.” That tendency to want to sideline or downplay the inhumanity of slavery can be seen in how certain people give historical tours in areas that greatly profited from slavery. The “Natchez” documentary shows the stark contrast in how white tour guides tend to focus on depicting the pre-Civil War plantation lifestyle as glamorous, while the African American tour guides don’t let people forget that any prosperity came at the expense of degrading, exploiting, and abusing people who were enslaved for being black.
Also featured in the documentary is Deborah “Debbie” Cosey, the first African American member of the Garden Club and owner of the Concord Quarters, a former house where enslaved people lived and is now converted to a bed-and-breakfast inn. In her tours of Concord Quarters, Cosey discusses how colorism affected enslaved people, as those with lighter skin usually got easier work and lived in better living conditions than the enslaved people with darker skin. A white woman on one of Cosey’s tours gets teary-eyed when Cosey gives a reminder that white women married to plantation owners in the South when slavery was legal usually knew about their husbands raping the enslaved women (and often impregnanting their rape victims), but the wives couldn’t do anything about it.
Other people featured in the documentary include National Park Service ranger Barney Schoby; historian Ser Boxley, who is credited with being one of the top people in Natchez who preserves enslavement history in Natchez; Natchez National Historical Park superintendent Kathleen Bond; and Gene Williams, owner of an auto body/mechanic shop called Natchez Exhaust, which is located across the street from where a slave market used to be. Williams, who owns the land where Natchez Exhaust is, says the state of Mississippi made him an offer to sell the land, but he rejected the offer because the amount of money being offered was “a joke.” Schoby says the Forks in the Road project “literally has our [enslaved ancestors’] blood in it.”
Later in the documentary, the racial tensions and racism become blatant. In a scene where Collins is giving an outdoor tour not too far from Natchez Exhaust, Williams shouts at Collins and the tourists by saying about Collins’ Natchez history narration: “That boy is lying!” Collins keeps his composure and somewhat laughs it off by telling Williams to mind his own business, but there’s noticeable discomfort between Collins and Williams.
Toward the end of the documentary, Choctaw Hall’s co-owner Garner is caught on video saying the “n” word racial slur when he makes a racist remark to two white customers (a man and a woman), who laugh along with him. Garner seems to be unaware that he’s being filmed because he tells the customers that someone recently asked him about Choctaw Hall’s winding staircase: “Somebody said, ‘When you get older, how [are] you going to get up the stairs?’ I said, ‘I’ll get a couple of [“n” word] boys to carry me up.'”
This racist comment is an example of how many bigots really talk when they don’t think that what they’re saying is going to be recorded and made public. “Natchez” presents this “true nature” exposé as a stark contrast to the “polite Southern gentleman” image that Garner put forth earlier. Although slavery is no longer legal in the United States, “Natchez” shines a light on the harsh reality that racism against black people is still being spread by bigots, and real history (not a glossy version) should not be forgotten, no matter how often people try to mask the generational poison of racism with smiles and public-relations spins.
Oscilloscope Laboratories released “Natchez” in New York City on January 30, 2026, with an expansion to more U.S. cities in subsequent weeks.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Mexico, the dramatic film “Dreams” features a predominantly white and Latin cast of characters (with some Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A rich middle-aged socialite and an undocumented immigrant dancer, who’s about 10 to 15 years younger than she is, have a torrid and scandalous affair, which is affected by their differences in socioeconomic status, racial identities, ages and U.S. citizenship status and their conflicting expectations of what they want out of this relationship.
Culture Audience: “Dreams” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas about age-gap sexual relationships that show some of life’s harsh realities.
Isaac Hernández, Rupert Friend and Jessica Chastain in “Dreams” (Photo courtesy of Teorema/Greenwich Entertainment)
Flawed but well-acted and very compelling, “Dreams” subverts expectations on stories about two obsessive lovers who come from very different worlds. People who want this drama to be an underdog romance or a “Fatal Attraction”-type movie will be disappointed. “Dreams” has a lot to say about the central couple’s differences in their socioeconomic status, racial identities, ages and U.S. citizenship status. However, when the story takes a very dark turn in the last third of the movie, the intent is to show how similar these two people are when they make certain decisions to get what they want.
Written and directed by Michel Franco, “Dreams” had its world premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. The movie takes place in various parts of the United States and in Mexico, but most of the story happens in San Francisco and in Mexico City. “Dreams” was filmed on location in San Francisco.
“Dreams” begins in a remote outdoor field in San Antonio Texas. A group of undocumented Latin American immigrants are locked inside a large truck overnight by the traffickers who illegally transported them there and have temporarily left the immigrants in the truck. The immigrants are panicking and shouting to be let out of the truck.
Eventually, the traffickers open the back door of the truck and order the immigrants to get into another vehicle. However, one of these immigrants—a Mexican man in his early-to-mid 30s named Fernando Rodríguez (played by Isaac Hernández)—decides he’s had enough of being treated like cattle. Fernando walks away by himself, into the field and toward the highway, where he hopes to find motorists who are willing to take him to San Francisco.
Fernando ends up getting several rides until he reaches his destination: an upscale San Francisco townhouse, which he enters. Fernando slips into a bedroom, takes off his clothes, and goes to sleep in the bed. The townhouse’s owner—Jennifer McCarthy (played by Jessica Chastain), a wealthy philanthropist bachelorette in her mid-to-late 40s—arrives home at night and sees Fernando sleeping in her bed. Jennifer calmly asks Fernando how he got there, and he tells her. Jennifer and Fernando then have sex, in one of the movie’s sex scenes that are erotic but not overly graphic.
Who is Fernando and why did he go through the risks of coming to the United States illegally? Bits and pieces of information are revealed in conversations throughout the movie. Fernando is an aspiring professional ballet dancer from Mexico City. He met Jennifer in Mexico City, when he was a student at one of the dance schools and arts programs that get funding from the non-profit foundation that Jennifer co-founded with her younger brother Jake McCarthy (played by Rupert Friend), who is also lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Jennifer and Jake are the children of a powerful San Francisco-based business mogul named Michael McCarthy (played by Marshall Bell), a widower whose fortune is the backbone of his children’s philanthropic efforts. Jake and Jennifer take pride in helping young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Jennifer and Jake also work for the family’s company, whose specialty is in property development.
Jake is married with children. Jennifer is a divorced loner who is medically infertile. Jake and Jennifer have a cordial sibling relationship. However, there are indications that they’ve had a long-term sibling rivalry over who will get their father’s approval the most. This rivalry is seen when Jennifer and Jake have their occasional bickering.
“Dreams” does not have flashbacks showing how Jennifer’s affair with Fernando began. However, the relationship is passionate enough where Fernando decided to leave his life behind in Mexico to become an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco. It seems as if Jennifer casually told Fernando that he could stay with her if he was ever in San Francisco, but she didn’t think he would take up this offer by illegally crossing the U.S. border to live in San Francisco.
Although Jennifer offers to give Fernando money for financial support, Fernando (who comes from a middle-class family) has no intention of being Jennifer’s “kept man” because he wants to make his own money as a professional dancer. He’s willing to take menial jobs to support himself as he works toward this goal. Later in the movie, Fernando reveals that he was deported from the U.S. years before he knew Jennifer.
A few scenes in the movie show Fernando’s unnamed parents have different reactions to Fernando and Jennifer’s unorthodox relationship. Fernando’s father (played by Eligio Meléndez) is mostly neutral and doesn’t really tell Fernando what to do with his life. Fernando’s mother (played by Mercedes Hernández) is very outspoken in telling Fernando and Jennifer that she disapproves of their relationship because Fernando’s mother says that Jennifer has hurt Fernando before. Needless to say, Fernando’s mother wants him to break up with Jennifer and come back to Mexico City.
At first, Jennifer and Fernando spend a blissful few weeks in each other’s company after he arrives in San Francisco. But then, Fernando sees indications that Jennifer is not ready to fully let Fernando inside her high-society world. Fernando asks Jennifer if she’s embarrassed by him. Jennifer denies it, but Fernando feels continuously disrespected by Jennifer and feels growing resentment toward her that she’s treating him like a “boy toy” or plaything.
This review won’t reveal what happens in this relationship except to say it’s volatile and goes through some twists and turns. The trailer for “Dreams” shows Jennifer stalking Fernando after a breakup. But that’s only part of what happens in the movie.
Jennifer and Fernando care about each other, but is it love? That’s highly debatable. And what do they want out of their relationship besides sex? The movie tends to wander in some scenes, but “Dreams” should maintain the interest of viewers who are curious about what will happen next in this story that can be considered a psychological thriller.
Chastain gives a nuanced and complex performance as Jennifer, who has dual sides to her personality. Jennifer is level-headed and professional in the workplace, but when it comes to her personal life, Jennifer is impulsive and deeply insecure. Hernández’s performance is a little rough around the edges (and so is Fernando’s personality), but he has a naturalistic style that makes Fernando a believable character. The other cast members’ performances are serviceable.
“Dreams” isn’t really a movie about sex or love. It’s about power, control, and what people might do to get, take or hold on to power and control. “Dreams” shows the perspectives of Jennifer and Fernando, as they get caught up in a toxic relationship where their differences both fuel and defy the power struggles in the relationship. It’s a movie that’s intended to make people uncomfortable because it doesn’t follow a typical formula and it doesn’t take a morality stance on some of the awful things that happen in the story.
The movie’s direction and tone skillfully convey the anxieties that each person in the relationship feels. Fernando lives in fear of being reported to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and becomes alarmed when Jennifer refuses to accept a breakup that Fernando initiates. Jennifer lives in fear of losing control of her double life that she enjoys having (Fernando in one part of her life, and her family in another) and becomes alarmed when she feels that her power is being challenged or taken away.
“Dreams” also depicts the different forms of bigotry that can occur when two people in this type of relationship come from very different backgrounds and demographics. Jennifer and her family have a subtle type of racism, where they think they’re not racists because they do a lot of charity work that benefits a lot of people of color. However, the McCarthy family’s white supremacist racism is shown by how the McCarthys are only comfortable being around people who aren’t white if the people who aren’t white are in subservient or inferior positions to white people such as the McCarthys.
“Dreams” is a divisive movie that will frustrate or annoy people who expect the story to go a certain way, based on how this type of relationship is depicted in many other films. The movie asks provocative questions about how much trust people can have in sex partners whom they might not know very well. There are also disturbing depictions on what certain people will do if they think someone has destroyed that trust or threatens to upend their ideas of how they want their lives to be. Far from being a safe and romantic story, “Dreams” could have this adage as a subtitle: “Life is not a fairytale.”
Greenwich Entertainment released “Dreams” in select U.S. cinemas on February 27, 2026. The movie was released in Mexico on September 11, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the horror comedy “Night Patrol” features a predominantly African American and white cast of characters (with some Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Members of the Crips gang and the Bloods gang are targets of white racist cops, who are vampires trying to get the Crips and Bloods to kill each other.
Culture Audience: “Night Patrol” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and horror comedies that aren’t scary or funny when making social commentaries about racism and violence from gangs and cops.
RJ Cyler in “Night Patrol” (Photo courtesy of RLJE Films and Shudder)
The truly awful horror comedy “Night Patrol” is as horribly racist as the racism it’s trying to lampoon, in this wretched story about gang members versus white supremacist cops. The movie is filled with atrocious dialogue, cringeworthy acting and a weak plot with more gore than scares. The movie’s social satire falls flat in every single way.
Directed by Ryan Prows, “Night Patrol” was written by Prows, Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson and Shaye Ogbonna. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest and subsequently screened at the 2025 edition of Beyond Fest. “Night Patrol” takes place in the Los Angeles area, where the movie was filmed on location.
Normally, it’s not necessary in movie reviews to mention the racial demographics of the movies’ directors and screenwriters. However, regarding this terrible “Night Patrol” movie about white supremacist racism against African Americans, it’s important to mention that Prows, Cairo and Gibson are white, and Ogbonna is African American. “Night Patrol” is extremely tone-deaf when it comes to racism and how the movie depicts African Americans.
“Night Patrol” also has the outdated tone of a subpar 1990s gangbanger movie. The trailer for “Night Patrol” already gives away about 80% of the movie’s flimsy plot. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) patrol officers Xavier Carr (played by Jermaine Fowler) and Ethan Hawkins (played by Justin Long) work in a tough, crime-ridden area of the city. Unbeknownst to Xavier, Ethan wants to join a secret sect of the LAPD: white supremacist cops who are vampires. Xavier eventually finds out Ethan’s secret.
These vampires are led by Ethan’s deceased/undead father Sarge (played by Dermot Mulroney), who was a “legend” in the LAPD. Sarge’s chief henchman, who does most of the dirty work on the streets, is an unnamed deputy (played by Phil Brooks, also known as CM Punk), who is a stereotypical menacing thug. Ethan has to go through an initiation process, in order to be accepted into this secret sect of racist vampire cops. The racist vampire cops want to blame their murders on the gangs, so the rival gangs can kill each other in revenge murders.
In the beginning of the movie, this sadistic deputy and his cohorts (who all work at night) stop and question a young African American couple in a car that’s parked in a remote area. The man’s name is Wazi (played by RJ Cyler), the woman’s name is Primo (played by Zuri Reed), and they are having a forbidden romance because Wazi is a member of the Crips gang, while Primo is affiliated with the rival Bloods gang. Before the cops arrived, Wazi has proposed marriage to Primo, who declined the offer because of this gang rivalry. When the vampire cops arrive, they murder Primo, while a terrified Wazi escapes and runs away.
Wazi also happens to be the younger brother of Xavier, who used to be in the Crips, but Xavier turned his life around and became a cop. It doesn’t take long for the gang members to find out about the vampire cops and fight back. The gang-affiliated people who get involved include Wazi; Ayanda (played by Nicki Micheaux), the mother of Wazi and Xavier; Primo’s older brother Bornelius (played by Freddie Gibbs), the leader of this faction of the Bloods; and Bloods members Three Deuce (played by Flying Lotus) and Tripp (played by Keenon Dequan Ray Jackson, also known as rapper YG).
The rest of “Night Patrol” is just a series of violent chase scenes, sloppily staged fights and shootouts, bad jokes and an over-use of the “n” word racial slur. The visual effects are not impressive and often look tacky. And the movie’s ending looks very lazy and unfinished. “Night Patrol” misses the mark on every single level. Worst of all, the movie’s social satire wrapped in a vampire horror comedy doesn’t have any bite. It just has the stink of a rotting corpse.
RLJE Films and Shudder released “Night Patrol” in U.S. cinemas on January 16, 2026. The movie was released on digital and VOD on February 10, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place in England, the dramatic film “H Is for Hawk” (based on the memoir of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Middle Eastern people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An academic researcher/scholar is grieving over the sudden death of her father, when she decides to get a goshawk that is somewhat difficult to train.
Culture Audience: “H Is for Hawk” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramas about grieving people and their pets.
Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson in “H Is for Hawk” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions)
“H Is for Hawk” features commendable performances, but this drama about a grieving woman and her pet goshawk might be too slow-paced for some viewers. It’s still a good story about how animals and people can help each other through tough times. The movie “H Is for Hawk” is based on a true story, and the movie doesn’t have a false note that looks overly contrived for the sake of being in a movie.
Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, “H Is for Hawk” was written by Emma Donoghue and Lowthorpe. The movie’s screenplay is adapted from Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir “H Is for Hawk.” “H Is for Hawk” takes place in England and was filmed in various parts of the United Kingdom, including Cambridge, Clevedon, and Wales. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival and subsequently screened at other film festivals in 2025, including the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest.
The protagonist in “H Is for Hawk” is Helen Macdonald (played by Claire Foy), who is a research scholar and a former lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science. The movie’s very first scene shows that Helen has a very close relationship with her father Alisdair Macdonald (played by Brendan Gleeson), an acclaimed photojournalist. Helen and Alisdair are both avid birdwatchers. The first scene in the movie shows Helen excitedly calling Alisdair to tell him that she saw a goshawk.
Helen’s mother/Alisdair’s wife (played by Lindsay Duncan), whose name is not mentioned in the movie, is retired and thinks Alisdair should also retire because he has a demanding job. Helen’s mother is loving and supportive of Helen, but Helen is definitely a “daddy’s girl.” Helen has a brother named James (played by Josh Dylan), who is briefly seen in the movie.
Helen is a bachelorette with no kids, just like her best friend Christine (played by Denise Gough), who has a lively personality. Helen likes to spend a lot of her free time outdoors with Alisdair. There are multiple scenes in the movie where Helen and Alisdair are out in fields doing bird watching or enjoying nature. Alisdair often takes photos during these get-togethers.
Helen’s tranquil life is shattered when Alisdair suddenly dies after collapsing on a street. His cause of death is not mentioned in the movie, but in real life Alisdair Macdonald died of a suspected heart attack. Most of the movie is about Helen coping with her grief. “H Is for Hawk” has several flashbacks that are memories of Helen’s happy memories of her father/daughter time with Alisdair.
Alisdair’s death happens during a crossroads in Helen’s life: She has recently resigned from the University of Cambridge and has been deciding whether or not she should apply for a fellowship at the Max Planck Institutes in Berlin. Helen has been living on the University of Cambridge campus, so she needs to find another place to live after she finishes out her last semester and her University of Cambridge employment ends.
At first, Helen tries to have an outward appearance that she has a lot of strength in coping with her grief. On the day that her father dies, she insists on keeping a dinner reservation that she had with Christine. She also reads a lot of self-help books on grief.
But as time goes on, it’s obvious that Helen is not coping with her grief very well. The first indication is when she spends the night with an art dealer/Ph.D. student named Amar (played by Arty Froushan), whom she has recently met, and she asks him to move to Berlin with her the morning after their first sexual encounter at her place. Amar quickly leaves, and Helen never hears from him again.
Helen has a married platonic friend named Stuart (played by Sam Spruell), who is an experienced falconer. Helen has always admired goshawks, so she decides to get a goshawk of her own. She names the goshawk Mabel, who has a fiercely independent personality. Stuart helps Helen with much of Mabel’s training, but Helen also learns a lot by herself.
As expected in stories like this one, Helen grows very emotionally attached to Mabel, who is quite the challenge when it comes to training. Helen treats Mabel as a constant companion, so there are multiple scenes in the movie where Helen often defies “no pets” policies at certain places, just so she can take Mabel somewhere. And you can almost do a countdown to a scene where members of the community are going to have a complaint about Mabel, so Helen has some type of confrontation with people who want some sort of punishment.
“H Is for Hawk” hits a lot of familiar and somewhat formulaic beats in the story. People who know how much work and care go into training pet animals are most likely to appreciate “H Is for Hawk,” which has lovely cinematography by Charlotte Bruus Christensen. Foy carries the movie with emotional authenticity in her role as Helen, who discovers that having a pet animal is not a cure for depression. “H Is for Hawk” has an ending that is open to interpretation, but it shows enough glimmers of hope, so the movie does not end in a depressing way.
Roadside Attractions released “H Is for Hawk” in select U.S. cinemas and in the United Kingdom on January 23, 2026. The movie was released on digital and VOD on February 24, 2026.
Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña, Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Georgia Goodman and Asim Chaudhry in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” (Photo courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment)
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States during various time dimensions, the sci-fi action comedy film “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people, Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A disheveled time traveler arrives from the future to recruit people to stop an artificial intelligence (A.I.) apocalypse.
Culture Audience: “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and wacky apocalyptic comedies that might be too convoluted for some people.
Pictured from left to right: Asim Chaudhry, Juno Temple, Michael Peña, Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beetz and Haley Lu Richardson in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” (Photo courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment)
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” seems to be going for a similar wacky dimension-traveling vibe that was in the Oscar-winning 2022 movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” isn’t an Oscar-worthy movie, but this sci-fi action comedy has some impressive creativity in its story about a time traveler who recruits people to stop an A.I. apocalypse. This overstuffed movie falls short of greatness when it gets preachy about technology addiction. Some of the movie’s main characters are compelling, while other main characters are woefully underdeveloped.
Directed by Gore Verbinski and written by Matthew Robinson, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in the United States in various time dimensions. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” was actually filmed in Cape Town, South Africa.
The concept of “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” is quite basic (people try to stop an apocalypse from happening), but this 134-minute movie puffs up the concept with long chase scenes and backstory flashbacks for some of the characters. The visual effects are very good for a relatively low-budget independent film. Some of the cast members’ performances can hold viewer interest when the movie zigs and zags before it hurtles to an action-packed conclusion.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” begins by showing what looks like just another night at Norms, a kitschy-looking Los Angeles diner that wasn’t created for this movie but exists in real life. A disheveled man (played by Sam Rockwell), who’s wearing a bomb strapped to his tattered clothing, suddenly bursts into the diner and announces to everyone there that he is from the future. The movie never reveals what this man’s name is. In the movie’s end credits, he’s listed only as the Man From the Future.
The Man from the Future says, “This isn’t a robbery. I am from the future. And all of this has gone horribly wrong.” The Man From the Future then starts rambling: “Social media has eroded your dignity.” He says that in the future, too many people became addicted to looking at their phones in the morning, so they became bedridden and didn’t want to do anything else, so society collapsed.
“How many of you know any phone numbers?,” asks the Man from the Future, in reference to people not having to remember phone numbers that can be programmed in phones for automatic dialing and caller ID. The Man From the Future takes some people’s phones out of their hands and tosses the phones into some drinking glasses. “I’m looking for recruits,” he says. “Humanity can be saved. This is where the revolution begins.”
At first, customers in the diner mostly ignore the Man From the Future because he appears to be a mentally ill homeless person. But he starts to get more aggressive when he takes out a knife, which prompts concern among the diner’s customers and employees. The Man From the Future also announces that he has a bomb strapped to his clothes.
The Man From the Future further explains that this is the 117th time that he’s traveled to this diner at this exact same moment, with the exact same people inside the diner. He says he needs the right combination of people. He also mentions that he already knows which people in the diner have failed to be useful in this mission. The Man From the Future is aware that someone in the diner has called police to report him, so he knows his time is limited before the police arrive.
The Man From the Future chooses seven people to go on this mission with him: children’s party entertainer Ingrid (played by Haley Lu Richardson), homemaker Susan (played by Juno Temple), schoolteacher Mark (played by Michael Peña), schoolteacher Janet (played by Zazie Beetz), rideshare driver Scott (played by Asim Chaudhry) and two other people whose occupations are unknown: Marie (played by Georgia Goodman) and Bob (played by Daniel Barnett). Mark and Janet are a couple who work at the same high school, where Mark is a substitute teacher, and Janet is a member of the school’s permanent faculty.
Ingrid and Susan are the only ones in this group who volunteered. The rest of these “recruits” are being forced to participate in whatever the Man From the Future has in mind. The Man From the Future really didn’t want Ingrid to be part of this group and initially rejected her, but he reluctantly decided she could be one of the “recruits.” The movie eventually reveals why the Man From the Future is standoffish to Ingrid, who is dressed in a fairytale princess costume that she usually wears as part of her job.
The rest of the plot in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” won’t be described in this review because it would give away too many details. However, it’s enough to say that some of the group’s adversaries include phone-addicted teenagers who become zombies; giant mutant cats; and a 9-year-old boy (played by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt) whom the Man From the Future says is the person who will be responsible for creating the A.I. that causes the apocalypse. And not everyone in this group of seven recruits makes it out alive.
The backstories of the Man From the Future, Ingrid and Susan have the most significance to what happens in the movie. Susan is grieving over the tragic loss of a family member. Ingrid, who has mysterious nosebleeds, is also recovering from heartbreak. Temple and Richardson bring a certain depth to their performances that make Susan and Ingrid stand out from the other recruits.
Rockwell’s performance as the Man From the Future is effective but somewhat of a rehash of the types of sarcastic eccentrics that he tends to portray in action movies. Chaudhry’s depiction of Scott should gets some laughs from viewers, since Scott is the token goofball of the group. Mark and Susan are a couple with opposite personalities—he’s insecure; she’s confident—but their characters are so underdeveloped, their backstory isn’t very interesting.
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” has a lot of technology shaming and lays on this shaming very thick. Smartphones, computer tablets and virtual reality headsets are depicted as the paraphernalia that are the most common gateways to technology addiction. People under the age of 30 are especially portrayed as the worst offenders in spreading technology addiction. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” could’ve done a better job at lampooning the older adults who financially benefit from technology addiction.
The movie also skirts the issue that the technology addiction portrayed in the movie isn’t so much about the technology but about the way technology is being used for the addiction’s underlying motivation: an escape from reality to a world that the user thinks is better than the real world. With all the running around that the movie’s characters do to “save the world,” one big issue is ignored: Even if A.I. and other technology were erased, this erasure wouldn’t guarantee that people would be happier with their lives, and it wouldn’t guarantee that people couldn’t find other ways to escape from reality. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” somewhat fumbles its intended messaging about technology, but the movie is entertaining enough to watch for people who just want to see a sci-fi action spectacle that isn’t as clever as it wants to be.
Briarcliff Entertainment released “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” in U.S. cinemas on February 13, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on February 2 and February 10, 2026.
Culture Representation: The music documentary film “Man on the Run” features singer/songwriter Paul McCartney and a predominantly white group of people (with one biracial person) discussing what happened in his life and career from 1970 to 1981.
Culture Clash: By his own admission, McCartney was depressed and had an identity crisis after the 1970 breakup of his former band The Beatles, but he was able to reclaim his place as an influential icon in music, by becoming a solo artist and a member of the band Wings, with a mixed bag of big hit singles, a few critically panned albums, successful tours and widely praised releases.
Culture Audience: “Man on the Run” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of McCartney and celebrity documentaries that explore but don’t delve too deeply into the down sides of fame.
A 1971 photo of the original Wings lineup in “Man on the Run.” Pictured from left to right: Denny Laine, Denny Seiwell, Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney. (Photo courtesy of Amazon Content Services)
“Man on the Run” is a comprehensive but not groundbreaking documentary about Paul McCartney’s life and career from 1970 to 1981. Knowledgeable fans of McCartney won’t learn anything new, but the movie is a crowd-pleasing delight. The people interviewed for the documentary (including McCartney) are not seen on camera for these interviews, which are heard only as audio voiceovers. Other than these interviews, the documentary’s new content includes some previously unreleased film/video footage of rehearsals and touring.
Directed by Morgan Neville, “Man on the Run” had its world premiere at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival. People who’ve seen other authorized McCartney documentaries (especially the 2001 documentary “Wingspan”) will see a lot of the same familiar footage in “Man on the Run.” People who’ve read most or all of the biographies (authorized or unauthorized) on McCartney will hear a lot of the same familiar stories. One of those biographies is McCartney’s 2025 memoir “Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run,” which can be considered a companion book to this “Man on the Run” documentary.
However, “Man on the Run” has its unique charms, including some whimsical animation to enhance the archival footage. The documentary’s sound editing and film editing are also excellent. The movie makes a good (but not great) effort to not be a completely white-washed biography, by giving a fair and balanced perspective of the criticism that McCartney received during this period of time in his life.
But make no mistake: Neville’s direction has the tone of being a fan first, which means “Man on the Run” doesn’t really pry too close to topics that could possibly alienate McCartney because of how unflattering the information would be. It’s a characteristic of almost all authorized documentaries or biographies of celebrities: Access to the celebrity and rare archival material comes with a literal or figurative agreement to not do an exposé of the celebrity’s deepest, darkest secrets.
McCartney was born on June 18, 1942, in Liverpool, England. “Man on the Run” is told in chronological order, beginning with the well-known tale of how, in early 1970, McCartney was at a crossroads in his life after the breakup of the Beatles, the band that he co-founded in 1960, with singer/rhythm guitarist John Lennon and singer/lead guitarist George Harrison in their hometown of Liverpool. The last member to join the Beatles was drummer Ringo Starr. McCartney sang and played bass guitar (and occasionally played piano/keyboards) in the band.
The Beatles began as a nightclub band and steadily built a fan base through live performances, including a stint in Hamburg, Germany. The Beatles were famously rejected by every major record company, until EMI Records reversed an initial rejection and signed the Beatles. (In the United States, the Beatles were signed to EMI-owned Capitol Records.) The Beatles’ first single (“Love Me Do”) was released in 1962, and it was the first of numerous hit singles for the band. The Beatles had unprecedented success and are still considered by many to be the greatest and most influential rock band of all time, with the songwriting partnership of Lennon and McCartney as the driving force of this influence.
By the beginning of 1970, the Beatles had disbanded, but the breakup wouldn’t be officially announced until months later. McCartney had become a recluse at a remote farm in Scotland with his wife Linda McCartney, whom he married in 1969; her daughter Heather from Linda’s previous marriage; and Paul and Linda’s biological daughter Mary, who was born in 1969. Heather, who was born in 1962, would eventually be adopted by Paul. Mary was named after Paul’s mother Mary, who died of cancer when he was 14.
For business and publicity reasons, Paul says in the documentary (as he already said in other interviews), the Beatles were told to publicly deny the Beatles’ breakup for several months until they could no longer deny it. Paul officially announced the breakup when he released a written self-interview in April 1970. The world didn’t know it at the time, but it was revealed many years later that the reason why the Beatles had broken up was because (according to Paul), Lennon had quit the group. A great deal of “Man on the Run” discusses the rivalry and on-again/off-again brotherly friendship that Paul had with Lennon, who had known each other since they were teenagers.
Because Paul was the first in the band to announce the Beatles’ breakup, he was perceived as the Beatles member who most wanted the band to break up. Paul says the reality was the opposite: Paul says he wanted to keep the Beatles going for as long as possible. He knew the band had problems, but he says in this documentary and in other interviews that his preference was to have the Beatles take a hiatus instead of completely breaking up.
“Man on the Run” completely ignores the fact that Lennon’s second wife Yoko Ono got much harsher blame and worse criticism than Paul for being the main person who supposedly broke up the Beatles. It’s an example of how “Man on the Run” tends to go with what Paul says without taking into complete account the entire well-documented history of the Beatles’ breakup and its aftermath. By most reliable accounts, Ono was unfairly blamed for breaking up the Beatles.
In the documentary, Paul discusses the widely known fact that was also kept from the public at the time of the breakup: Paul disagreed with the other members of the band on who would manage the Beatles. After the 1967 drug-overdose death of the Beatles’ original manager Brian Epstein (at age 32), the Beatles managed themselves. Paul had always been the most business-minded member of the Beatles, so he became the de facto business leader of the group.
By 1969, while the Beatles were recording their last studio albums “Let It Be” and “Abbey Road,” Lennon was pushing to have Allen Klein become the Beatles’ manager because Klein (who also managed the Rolling Stones at the time) had promised to get better music royalty deals for the Beatles, just like Klein did with the Rolling Stones. Harrison and Starr agreed with Lennon. Paul wanted his father-in-law Lee Eastman (who was also Paul’s attorney) to become the Beatles’ next manager. The other Beatles members disagreed because they believed Paul would have an unfair advantage if the Beatles’ manager was also Paul’s father-in-law/attorney.
Klein briefly managed the Beatles and the Beatles company Apple Corps before the band broke up. “Man on the Run” presents this business dispute as Paul being correct all along about Klein being an untrustworthy snake. While it’s true that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones regretted doing business with Klein (who awarded himself the copyrights to many of these bands’ songs), we’ll never know how things would’ve gone for the Beatles if Eastman had become the Beatles’ manager.
Based on how McCartney and others have described the Beatles in 1969, the band breakup was inevitable because Lennon and Harrison wanted to leave the band for solo careers. The personal turmoil and legal conflicts over the Beatles’ business partnership continued until the Beatles’ business partnership was officially dissolved in 1974. Paul sued to dissolve the partnership. He says in the documentary he was unfairly depicted as the villain, especially for people who held out hope that he, Lennon, Harrison and Starr would reunite to make music or perform as the Beatles. That hoped-for Beatles reunion never happened.
During the reclusive period of time in McCartney’s life in 1970, he was drinking a lot of alcohol, by his own admission (this story about his alcohol abuse has been known for decades), but he also embraced family life and reconnected with what it meant to be a person without the usual celebrity comforts. During this time on the farm, the McCartney family did not have cooks, nannies or housemaids. They lived on a self-sufficient farm.
McCartney never stopped making music, but the music he made from 1970 to 1972 got mixed reactions from fans and critics. The albums weren’t sales flops, but they were far from the blockbuster hitmaking that he had with the Beatles. His first solo album, 1970’s “McCartney,” was mostly critically panned. So was his 1971 album “Ram,” which had Linda McCartney sharing credit as the album’s artist.
Linda was known as a photographer, but she was also an animal rights activist who was one of the people who convinced Paul to become a vegetarian. Paul says it was his idea for Linda to make music with him. He describes her initially questioning the idea but saying yes in a casual and accepting way. She became a keyboardist and a backup vocalist for Paul during the 1970s and the early 1980s. Their band Wings existed from 1971 to 1981.
Linda also received co-songwriting credit on Wings songs, although it’s widely known that Paul was always the band’s chief songwriter. Did she contribute to some of the lyrics and melodies of Wings songs? Probably. However, Paul has always been the mastermind of all his albums that have been released since the Beatles broke up. Several biographies of Paul have noted that Linda getting Wings co-songwriting credit was probably for tax reasons, but that type of information wouldn’t be in this documentary, which doesn’t mention any songwriting that Linda might have done.
Paul has discussed in many interviews, including in “Man on the Run,” how Linda was the main person who helped him out of his depression after the Beatles broke up. Paul’s song “Maybe I’m Amazed” (from his 1970 “McCartney” album) was a love song for Linda and is widely considered to be his first great single released after the Beatles disbanded. Years later in their marriage, Linda (who is described as introverted and less comfortable with fame, compared to extroverted Paul) didn’t really want to tour anymore because she wanted to focus on raising their children.
Paul and Linda would have two other children together: Stella (born in 1971) and James (born in 1977). Mary and Stella are the only children of Paul who are interviewed in the documentary. Stella (who would go on to become a famous fashion designer as an adult) is fiercely defensive of Linda, who got a lot of criticism for her singing and fashion style, which can generously be called quirky and offbeat. Mary shares memories that describe how her childhood had of the contrasts of living a “normal” life on the family’s remote farm and experiencing the celebrity life with her parents on tour.
Linda died of breast cancer in 1998, but her death is not mentioned in the documentary. The documentary includes voiceovers of separate archival interviews of Linda; Wings co-founder/guitarist Denny Laine, who died from complications of interstitial lung disease in 2023; and guitarist Henry McCullough, who was in Wings from 1972 to 1973, and who died after a long illness in 2016. The deaths of Laine and McCullough are also not mentioned in the documentary.
By 1971, Paul was ready to be part of a new band. That band was Wings (often billed as Paul McCartney and Wings), a Grammy-winning group that released seven studio albums and had a string of hit songs until the band’s breakup in 1981. Hit songs from Wings included “My Love,” “Live and Let Die,” “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Listen to What the Man Said,” “Silly Love Songs,” “Let ‘Em In,” “Mull of Kintyre,” “With a Little Luck” and “Goodnight Tonight.” All these Wings songs (as well as some solo Paul McCartney songs) are in the documentary, either in their recorded versions and/or as live performances. Wings’ 1979 album “Back to the Egg” (the band’s last studio album) is briefly mentioned in the documentary as the band’s only major flop.
Paul, Linda and Laine remained the core members of Wings, as the lineup changed through the years. “Man on the Run” has interviews with these former Wings members: drummer Denny Seiwell, who was in Wings from 1971 to 1973; drummer Joe English, who was in Wings from 1975 to 1978; and guitarist Laurence Juber and drummer Steve Holley, who were in Wings from 1978 to 1981.
Seiwell is candid about why he and McCollough quit Wings: They were getting paid a “meager” salary that was far below what backup musicians for a superstar like Paul McCartney should be making. McCullough and Seiwell abruptly leaving the band caused Paul, Linda and Laine to temporarily carry on with Wings as a trio.
The result was Wings’ most commercially successful and most critically acclaimed album: 1973’s “Band on the Run,” which was recorded under difficult circumstances in Lagos, Nigeria. The most harrowing incident was when Paul and other people in his entourage were robbed by street thieves, who stole demo recordings of the album. Paul says the way he deals with setbacks and disappointment is to get angry, and then get over it and do the best under the circumstances. In the documentary, Paul also mentions multiple times that when people doubt him, it often motivates him to prove his doubters wrong.
Although Seiwell and McCollough describe being grateful for the opportunity to work with Paul, Seiwell’s description of his Wings salary as “meager” and barely a living wage sounds like employee exploitation. Paul’s response in the documentary is flippant and doesn’t sound entirely honest. Paul says that he wasn’t aware of the band’s financial accounting at the time. That comment is hard to believe, considering Paul’s reputation for being very business-minded, and considering he was the one who signed off on how much money his band members were getting paid.
Paul also says that if any of his band members were dissatisfied with their salaries, they had the option to leave and write their own songs. This remark doesn’t take into account that (1) not every musician wants to be a songwriter and (2) not every songwriter has the extraordinary talent and fame that Paul McCartney has. Seiwell doesn’t sound bitter about his split from Wings, but he’s one of the few people interviewed in the documentary who has a criticism about his work experience with Paul.
The documentary also includes the expected high points of Wings’ successful tours. Paul went from refusing to performing any Beatles songs during the early years of Wings concerts to including Beatles songs in Wings’ later live performances. The documentary includes Paul performing the Beatles’ “Yesterday” during a concert from the Wings Over the World tour, which took place from 1975 to 1976. Paul says a concert low point for Wings was the band’s performance at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, on December 29, 1979, for the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea. Paul says in the documentary it was the worst live performance he ever did because he sang off-key and the sound engineering was subpar.
Paul also says in the documentary that the best Wings lineup was the Wings lineup from 1975 to 1977. American drummer English and Scottish guitarist James “Jimmy” McCulloch were in Wings during those years. At age 26, McCulloch died of a morphine overdose in 1979, two years after he quit Wings. Paul gives a brief comment on McCulloch in the documentary, by saying that McCulloch was very talented but lived dangerously.
“Man on the Run” gives some screen time to discuss the two drug busts for marijuana that Paul experienced during the time period covered in the movie. The first drug bust was in 1972, when Paul, Linda and drummer Seiwell were arrested for possession of marijuana plants, which they claimed were grown from seeds they received from a fan in the mail. They received a relatively small fine as a penalty.
Paul’s more serious drug bust was in 1980, when customs officials at Narita International Airport in Tokyo found 219 grams (7.7 ounces) of marijuana in a plastic bag inside Paul’s suitcase. Paul spent nine days in a Tokyo jail before being deported from Japan, which was a much lighter punishment than what a non-famous person would have received. Wings’ 1980 tour of Japan was canceled because of this arrest. Paul takes full responsibility for this drug bust and says that he didn’t heed warnings not to bring marijuana to Japan. “I was an idiot,” Paul says of getting caught with marijuana in Japan.
The year 1980 also marked the release of Paul’s solo album “McCartney II.” Just like on 1970’s “McCartney,” Paul wrote all the songs himself and played all the instruments on the album. “Coming Up” was the big hit single from “McCartney II.” Because Paul’s recording career as a solo artist had reignited, and because Linda had lost interest in touring, Wings officially disbanded. McCartney comments in the documentary about the decision to end Wings: “The enthusiasm had peaked.” Paul did not tour again until 1989.
John Lennon’s son Sean Ono Lennon (who was born in 1975) says of the feuding that his father and Paul had for most of the 1970s: “My father was tough, but so was Paul.” And even though John Lennon publicly insulted some of the music that Paul made after the Beatles’ breakup, Sean says that John often listened to Paul’s music in private. Sean describes the “Ram” album as a “masterpiece,” and says the John Lennon household had a “well-worn” vinyl copy of the album.
Paul says in the documentary that he believes Klein (who managed John Lennon’s early solo career) was an instigator of much of the feuding because Paul believes Klein planted divisive and negative ideas in John Lennon’s head. Paul gets emotional and a bit choked up when he says that one of the greatest blessings in his life is knowing that he and John had started to become friends again in the few years before John died. As most people already know, John was tragically murdered by a lone shooter in front of John’s New York City home on December 8, 1980. (John’s murderer was sentenced to life in prison.)
Paul’s reaction to John’s murder is also discussed in the documentary. Stella remembers the day that Paul heard the news and seeing his reaction. He was at home in London when he got the phone call. She doesn’t go into details, out of respect for her father, but the tone in her voice leaves no doubt it was a traumatic experience. The documentary includes the archival footage of Paul being interviewed by a British TV reporter on a street, not long after Paul heard the news that John had been murdered. Stella says that Paul got a lot of criticism for not being emotional enough in the interview, but she says Paul was still in shock.
Other people interviewed in the documentary are Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, Paul’s brother Michael “Mike” McCartney, The Pretenders lead singer Chrissie Hynde, author Peter Doggett, music producer Chris Thomas, journalist Chris Welch, singer Nick Lowe (who was an opening act for Wings), sound engineer Geoff Emerick, Paul’s longtime creative director Aubrey Powell, Paul’s touring/instrument manager John Hammel, and musician Jimmy McGeachy, who was only 15 when he played drums (as part of a Scottish pipe band) on the 1978 hit “Mull of Kintyre.”
A story mentioned in the beginning of the documentary is how McGeachy also took a photo of Paul angrily throwing a book at him because McGeachy invaded his privacy while Paul was being a recluse in Scotland in 1970. Paul then made a deal with McGeachy: In exchange for McGeachy giving the negative of the unflattering photo for Paul to keep, Paul agreed to pose for a few photos for McGeachy. Those photos ended up being sold and published as proof that Paul was still alive and well, during a time when Paul continued to be dogged by false stories that he secretly died.
“Man on the Run” also has an almost-comical montage of the frequent questions that Paul got during the 1970s about whether or not the Beatles would reunite. The former members of the Beatles received offers worth millions to reunite as the Beatles, but the former Beatles members had all clearly moved on to other interests. In the documentary, Paul repeats the famous story about how he was visiting John in New York City in 1976, when they briefly toyed with the idea of doing an impromptu reunion on “Saturday Night Live,” after “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels went on the show that year for a comedy sketch to plead for a Beatles reunion. Paul and John ultimately decided that this semi-Beatles reunion would not be a benefit to themselves, so they chose not to do it.
The theatrical release of “Man on the Run” includes an approximately 10-minute featurette (shown after the movie) of director Neville talking with Paul in a room with some Wings-era memorabilia. Neville shows these items to Paul to get his reactions. These items include Robo the Robot, a small robot that Wings had on stage during a 1979 concert; some of Paul’s tour jackets, one of which Paul tries on at Neville’s suggestion, and it fits snugly on Paul; and the passport that Paul had during his 1980 marijuana bust in Japan.
Neville points out to Paul that the passport doesn’t have a Japanese customs stamp on it because Paul was arrested and jailed before he could pass through customs. Neville also comments that because Paul did not pass through customs on that trip to Japan, the Japanese government technically didn’t consider Paul’s trip as officially entering Japan. It was a loophole that allowed Paul to get a much lighter punishment for the marijuana bust than if government records had shown he had passed through Japan’s borders before the marijuana had been found. Paul chuckles and says it was a smart decision for the Japanese government to use this loophole.
Paul also plays a snippet of “All of You” on a piano in the room, at Neville’s request. It’s a nod to the documentary featuring rare early 1970s archival footage of Paul also playing “All of You” at home on his piano before he’s interrupted by a phone call. Neville seems a little star-struck by Paul during this “behind the scenes” conversation, which doesn’t have any meaningful discussion about the making of this documentary. This “bonus content” featurette is cute, but it’s not particularly enlightening.
Because so much has already been reported, examined, and dissected about the Beatles and former members of the Beatles, “Man on the Run” stands as an above-average but not outstanding documentary. The existence of the 2001 “Wingspan” documentary makes “Man on the Run” a bit redundant. “Man on the Run” is still a worthy time capsule of Paul in the 1970s. It will be very informative for those who are unfamiliar with this period of Paul’s life. For people who already know all the major details in the documentary, “Man on the Run” is an entertaining reminder in a well-edited package.
Amazon Studios and Trafalgar Releasing released “Man on the Run” in U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement on February 19 and February 22, 2026. Prime Video will premiere “Man on the Run” on February 27, 2026.
Culture Representation: The music documentary film “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans) in archival footage of singer Elvis Presley on stage and off stage in North America, mostly between 1969 and 1972.
Culture Clash: The footage in this documentary shows Presley embarking on a new phase in his career of performing a Las Vegas residency, amid indications that his personal problems (such as drug addiction) were affecting him.
Culture Audience: “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Presley and music documentaries that expertly capture famous entertainers during certain eras in their lives.
Elvis Presley in “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” is a vibrant compilation of Elvis Presley concert performances and off-stage footage, some of it previously unreleased. This tribute-styled documentary exemplifies how Presley’s personal problems and endless parodies couldn’t overshadow his indisputable talent. It’s a very self-contained movie where the only commentary comes from archival interviews that Presley did and are used as voiceover narration.
Directed by Baz Luhrmann (who also directed and co-wrote the 2022 Oscar-nominated drama “Elvis”), “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” could easily be considered a companion film to Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” Luhrmann’s “Elvis” is a comprehensive biography that tells a glossy version of Presley’s story from his childhood to death. (Presley died of a heart attack in 1977, when he was 42.) “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” focuses mostly on Presley’s live performances and rehearsals from 1969 to 1972, with some of his earlier performances from the 1950s, including his appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and a 1957 concert in Hawaii. “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
In the production notes for “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” Luhrmann made this statement, which reads, in part: “During the making of ‘Elvis’ (2022), we went on a search for rumored unseen footage from the iconic 1970s concert films ‘Elvis: That’s the Way It Is’ and ‘Elvis on Tour’ that had reportedly been lost. My initial thought was that, if we could find it, we may be able to restore the unused footage and use it in our Elvis feature, starring Austin Butler. I had researchers go into the Warners Bros. film vaults buried in underground salt mines in Kansas and, to the astonishment of all, we uncovered 69 boxes (59 hours) of film negative that hadn’t been seen.”
Luhrmann’s statement continues, “In addition to this, Angie Marchese (VP of Archives and Exhibits, and curator at Graceland) was able to unearth some never-before-seen Super8 from the Graceland Archives. It has taken over two years to restore the footage to a quality that it has never been projected at previously. Whilst some of the negatives had of these cuts were out in the public realm, they were generally poor-quality bootlegs. The team had to meticulously restore sound from the many unconventional sources that were also unearthed.”
The restorations of the color footage in “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” make the movie look fresh and lively, even though it’s obvious from the fashion and hairstyles, the footage is from a bygone era. The voiceover narration from the archival audio features Presley talking about various aspects and opinions of his life. As stated by Presley and as seen in this documentary, he got the most joy as an artist from performing in concert, where he could interact with and get direct reactions from his fans.
Much of the concert footage in “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” is from Presley’s landmark residency at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, now known as the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. The residency began in 1969 and ended in 1976. Presley became the first major rock performer to do a Vegas residency. At the time, some critics thought the Vegas residency was a tacky career move for Presley. Nowadays, it’s not unusual and it’s often considered a smart business decision for rock artists to do Vegas residencies instead of incurring the expenses of touring.
The songs that Presley performs in the movie’s concert scenes include “Hound Dog,” “That’s All Right Mama,” “Little Sister,” a cover version of the Beatles’ “Get Back,” “Burning Love,” “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” a cover version of Three Dog Night’s “Never Been to Spain,” a cover version of Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “Love Me,” the religious song “How Great Thou Art,” a cover version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “In the Ghetto,” “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” and “Suspicious Minds.”
In rehearsal footage, Presley is seen performing “I Miss You,” “Always on My Mind,” as well as cover versions of Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “Oh Happy Day” and the Beatles classics “Yesterday” and “Something.” Although Presley was known as a legend in rock’n’roll, he had a love of gospel and country music that seeps through in a lot of his performances in this movie. His soulful versions of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (one of the performance highlights of the movie) and “Oh Happy Day” would be right at home at home in a church. “That’s All Right Mama,” one of Presley’s earliest hits, has an infectious bounce that is heavily influenced by Hank Williams-styled country music.
In the audio commentary, Presley candidly admits that he decided to return to touring and other live performances to get back to his music roots and more authenticity, after starring in a string of formulaic and forgettable Hollywood movies. In these movies, Presley was typecast as a ladies’ man stuck in unrealistic situations, as he sang his way to a happy ending. In the audio clips, he comments that the “Hollywood image of me was wrong … and I couldn’t do anything about it. I have nobody but myself to blame.”
“EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” is certainly a laudatory movie about Presley. However, the movie briefly includes some archival footage of people giving criticism about Presley, who was controversial for many reasons during his rise to superstardom in the 1950s. One of the early sequences in the documentary is a montage of Presley performing during this peak era of his popularity, intercut with people critiquing or outright insulting his music and his performances. Most of the critics in this footage are middle-aged and elderly people, who think Presley represents a vulgar form of entertainment. Because most of Presley’s fans were young people when he became a breakout star, his phenomenal rise to fame was an example of the growing generation gap in pop culture.
Presley’s 1970s era is the one where he gets lampooned the most in pop culture because of the way he dressed (sequin-covered outfits) and performed (martial-arts moves) on stage and because of his increasingly erratic actions. In one scene in the movie, Presley (who looks, sounds, and acts very intoxicated on unnamed substances) lies down on his back on stage, half-crosses his legs, and rambles about the stage lights that he can see above him. And there are numerous scenes where his constant sweating doesn’t look like it’s just because he’s moving around a lot on stage.
As much as critics, comedians and other people disrespectfully mock the 1970s-era Presley, there’s no denying that he had a certain magnetic charisma, both on stage and off stage. The behind-the-scenes footage shows him to be an amiable jokester. During rehearsals, he’s the leader of the band, but not a stern dictator. His backup musicians and backup vocalists seem relaxed but attentive around him and show obvious admiration of him. His notorious clique of friends/hangers-on, nicknamed the Memphis Mafia, are seen occasionally in the movie, but no one in the Memphis Mafia is singled out in the movie because they are presented as nameless members of Presley’s entourage.
“EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” also shows how Presley interacted with his fans and other admirers. He had a well-known habit of quickly kissing many female fans on the lips during his concerts. He would either single them out to go on stage with him, or he would go in the audiences and kiss the female fans who eagerly hugged him or showed that they wanted some display of affection from him.
Most of the female fans he kisses in the concert footage are women, but there are some who look like underage teenage girls. It’s a sign of the times when this type of fan interaction was acceptable. Nowadays, entertainers can get an enormous amount of backlash and career damage if they kissed underage fans this way in such a public forum, where numerous people use phones to record what happens when they’re around famous people.
In the movie’s off-stage footage, some people appear star-struck by Presley, but there isn’t the fan frenzy surrounding him like there was in the 1950s. Sammy Davis Jr. is seen in backstage footage as a celebrity admirer who compliments Presley on his Las Vegas performance after a show, as Presley graciously accepts the compliment. Presley was known as someone who didn’t hang out with a lot of other celebrities and preferred the company of his Memphis Mafia pals.
It’s been public information for years that Presley had multiple addictions during this time in his life. His energy level and sweating during his live performances and rehearsals seem to be manifestations of his amphetamine addiction. The movie’s later footage, circa 1972, shows indications that his addiction to painkiller drugs were taking a toll on his physical appearance, as Presley looks puffier and seems lethargic. In public, Presley said he didn’t drink alcohol or smoke. Behind the scenes, enabler doctors and hangers-on kept him supplied with prescribed medication that became his main addictions.
Colonel Tom Parker—Presley’s famously controlling manager whose real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk—is briefly seen and mentioned in the documentary in a way that’s not very flattering. Although Presley gives credit to Parker for launching Presley’s career, there are references to the exploitation that Presley experienced due to signing lousy contracts with Parker. In one of the audio clips, an interviewer asks Presley if Presley gets a percentage of the enormous amount of money generated from Elvis Presley merchandise. Presley candidly answers, “I don’t know.”
It’s now widely known that Parker (who died in 1997, at age 87) was a con artist who pretended to be born and raised in the United States, but he was really an undocumented immigrant from the Netherlands. His illegal immigrant status would have been exposed if he traveled outside the United States, which is why Parker limited Presley’s tours and other live performances to the United States. The only exceptions were when Presley performed five times in Canada (in 1957), and Parker presumably did not accompany him to those Canadian shows because of Parker’s secret immigration status. Although “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” briefly mentions in the movie’s epilogue that Elvis never performed outside of North America, the movie never says why. Parker’s secret immigration status is included in Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic and many other biographies about Presley.
Presley expresses the most vulnerability in the movie’s audio commentary when he talks about how deeply he was affected by the death of his mother Gladys Presley, who died of a heart attack in 1958, when she was 46 years old. The movie shows Elvis performing “I Miss You” in rehearsals after a montage is shown of Elvis and Gladys. Elvis’ doomed marriage to his first and only wife Priscilla (they separated in 1972 and got divorced in 1973) is not detailed in the documentary. However, his rehearsal performance of “Always on My Mind” is shown with a montage of some family home movies and photos of Elvis, Priscilla and their daughter Lisa Marie (born in 1968) in happier times.
“EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” is not meant to be an exposé of the negative aspects of Elvis Presley’s life but instead is a celebration of what made him an iconic artist. It’s a visual and aural feast for Elvis fans. Other people who don’t consider themselves to be Elvis fans might be impressed by how well the movie captures the spirit of Elvis during this pivotal time in his career. Regardless of the size of a screen where someone might see “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” it’s easy to see why he is often described as “larger than life.”
Neon will release “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” in U.S. cinemas (exclusively on IMAX screens) on February 20, 2026, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on February 27, 2026. A sneak preview was shown in U.S. cinemas on February 18, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1990, in Baghdad, the dramatic film “The President’s Cake” features an all-Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A financially disadvantaged 9-year-old girl gets a classroom assignment to bring a cake to the next day’s class to celebrate President Saddam Hussein’s birthday, and she and a classmate embark on a sometimes-dangerous race against time on the streets of Baghdad to find a way to get a cake when they have limited resources.
Culture Audience: “The President’s Cake” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted dramas about a politically oppressed nation, as seen through the perspectives of children.
Pictured in front: Baneen Ahmed Nayyef and Waheeda Thabet in “The President’s Cake” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
The riveting drama “The President’s Cake” takes an unforgettable journey through Baghdad in 1990. In a politically oppressed society, a 9-year-old girl is under deadline pressure to present a cake at her school to celebrate Saddam Hussein’s birthday. The movie is told from a child’s perspective, but she experiences many things along the way that take away her innocence and give her lessons on many of life’s harsh realities.
Written and directed by Hasan Hadi, “The President’s Cake” is Hadi’s feature-film directorial debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Golden Camera Award (for first-time feature-film directors) and the Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award. “The President’s Cake” subsequently made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2025, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest.
“The President’s Cake” was filmed on location in Baghdad. The movie was Iraq’s official selection for Best International Feature Film for the 2026 Academy Awards. “The President’s Cake” made the shortlist for the category but didn’t get nominated. With or without an Oscar nomination, “The President’s Cake” is outstanding in depicting how everyday life is affected in a nation controlled by a dictator.
“The President’s Cake” (which has a total run time of 105 minutes) starts off with a slow pace, but the movie’s pace and the tension increase in the last half of the film. The story begins with a caption saying: “In 1990, Iraq faced strict U.N.-backed sanctions, leading to extreme poverty, food shortages and limited access to medicine. Despite this, Saddam Hussein required all Iraqis to celebrate his birthday.”
The movie, which takes place over three days, begins on April 26, 1990—two days before Hussein’s birthday that year. Lamia Ahmed Nayyef (played by Baneen Ahmed Nayyef), the 9-year-old girl who is the movie’s protagonist, is shown helping her grandmother Bibi (played by Waheeda Thabet, also known as Waheed Thabet Khreibat) carry gallons of water before they travel somewhere by gondola. The word “Bibi” is an Arabic term of endearment for a grandmother or a respected older woman. The grandmother’s real first name is not mentioned in the movie.
Lamia’s parents are apparently deceased. As Lamia and Bibi prepare for this journey, Lamia notices other people in their neighborhood are leaving the area too. Lamia asks Bibi why other people are leaving. Bibi doesn’t answer and wants Lamia to focus on finishing her schoolwork. What isn’t said out loud and what Bibi is probably afraid to tell Lamia is that they’ve lost their home due to poverty and/or threat of an imminent attack, and they have to move somewhere else.
Lamia’s closest companion is her pet rooster Hindi, whom she takes with her wherever Lami can take this rooster. Hindi has a distinct extroverted personality that makes him a memorable character in the movie. While docked on the boat, Lamia is approached by a classmate named Saeed Muhammed Qasim (played by Sajad Mohamad Qasem), who has a reputation for being irresponsible and someone who occasionally causes mischief. Saeed asks Lami if she’s doing her math homework. She says yes.
Saeed then asks, “Do you think the president eats all the cakes himself?” Lamia answers, “Shh. The walls have ears.” Saeed responds, “I wish I was president.” Lami asks, “Why?” Saeed says, “Then, I would eat all the cakes in the world.” Lamia comments, “I would drink all the cola in the world.”
Saeed mentions that his father is taking Saeed to the amusement park the next day to sell tickets. Later in the movie, it’s revealed that Saeed’s father is actually destitute and missing. It’s probable that Saeed’s father was locked up by police for being a vagrant, or Saeed’s father suffered an even worse fate.
Saeed tells lies to himself and other people about his father as a way of coping with a lot of the trauma that people are experiencing because of the oppressive government led by Hussein. Children and adults are often snatched off of the streets and arrested by the military-controlled police or other government officials for any reason or no reason at all. It’s under these circumstances that Saeed and Lamia will soon go on a frantic race against time to meet the deadline for a classroom assignment.
At their school, students are required to pledge allegiance to Hussein and frequently say chants of praise to Hussein, like members of a political cult. The classroom teacher Mr. Musa (played by Ahmad Qasem Saywan) is strict and doesn’t hestitate to insult his students. He also uses the threat of political punishment if he thinks anyone is being disrespectful.
It’s an annual requirement for the students to bring assigned items to celebrate Hussein’s upcoming birthday. Mr. Musa randomly chooses names that will be assigned to bring various items to the classroom. Saeed’s assignment to bring fruit. Lamia’s assignment is the most demanding: She has to make a birthday cake with specific ingredients for the cake’s flour, sugar and filling.
Mr. Musa repeatedly says that all the assigned items must be fit for a president. Students who don’t complete the assignment will be punished. Mr. Musa warns the students that they don’t want to end up like a student named Rasool and Rasool’s family, who were reported to authorities for political disobedience, which is a serious crime in Iraq. The punishment for this type of crime can result in imprisonment or death.
The problem is that Bibi can’t afford the ingredients to make the cake. It costs even more to buy a cake. Most of “The President’s Cake” is about Lamia on a quest on the streets of Baghdad, to find what she needs for this class assignment. Bibi tries to help when she and Lamia get a ride from a friendly mailman named Jasim (played by Rahim AlHaj) into the marketplace part of the city. Pet rooster Hindi is along for the ride and is carried by Lamia in a sling.
Bibi doesn’t seem to understand the urgency of Lamia’s assignment and doesn’t seem very worried when they can’t get the ingredients that Lamia needs for the cake. Lamia gets impatient and runs away to complete the task on her own, without telling Bibi where Lamia is going. Lamia eventually meets up with Saeed, who goes with Lamia to help get the cake ingredients and the fruit that he needs for his assignment.
Meanwhile, Bibi experiences a lot of stress in trying to find Lamia. When Bibi goes to a police station to report Lamia missing and to ask for help in finding Lamia, Bibi is treated with disrespect or indifference. Bibi eventually gets help in her search from Jasim, but things definitely don’t go smoothly.
Bibi has sheltered Lamia from many things, but Lamia proves to be resourceful and comes up with various ideas on how to get money. And even though Saeed is more street-smart than Lamia, both children are still naïve enough to fall victim to a swindler. Lamia is so determined to get what she needs for this cake, she doesn’t think about what Bibi might be going through in trying to find Lamia.
Some of the situations that the Lamia and Saeed experience are comical, such as when Lamia and Saeed end up rushing to a hospital in a car with a shop owner named Izzat (played by Mohammed Rheimeh) and a pregnant woman named Hiyam (played by Rokia Alwadi), who might or might not be Izzat’s wife and who is about to give birth. Other situations are harrowing, such as when a seemingly helpful butcher (played by Tayseer Ibrahim Radi) has predatory intentions targeting Lamia.
Throughout the movie, there are scenes showing that portraits (photos and illustrated) of Hussein are everywhere. It’s the movie’s way of showing how pervasive his controlling presence is and the type of massive ego this leader must have to demand pictures of himself displayed in as many places as possible. It’s also a silent reminder that at this point in time, there’s no escape from Hussein’s power in Iraq.
Even in this environment of tyranny and desperation, “The President’s Cake” never lets viewers forget that children find ways to still amuse or distract themselves. During anxious moments, Lamia and Saeed like to play a staring contest game, where they stare at each other without blinking. The person who blinks first loses the game.
Hadi’s impressive writing and directing for “The President’s Cake” make this movie an excellent feature-film debut. However, the movie would not have as much resonance if not for the impactful and realistic performance of Nayyef as Lamia, who is plucky, strong-willed and a little bit bratty, without losing her vulnerability as a child. Many movies with children as main characters often make the children talk like adults, but “The President’s Cake” resists having that gimmick.
“The President’s Cake” supporting cast members all give capable performances. However, the heart and soul of the story can be found in Nayyef’s noteworthy performance. Lamia represents the resilience of people who persist in the face of obstacles and an uncertain future.
Sony Pictures Classics released “The President’s Cake” in select U.S. cinemas on December 12, 2025, and re-released the movie in select U.S. cinemas February 6, 2026, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on February 27, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Pellington, New York, the horror film “Whistle” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A troubled misfit teenager relocates to a new high school, where she finds a mysterious skull-shaped whistle that causes death and destruction to those who blow the whistle.
Culture Audience: “Whistle” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of predictable but competently made horror movies about deadly curses that are hard to stop.
Sophie Nélisse, Dafne Keen, Ali Skovbye, Jhaleil Swaby, Nick Frost and Sky Yang in “Whistle” (Photo by Michael Gibson/Independent Film Company/Shudder)
“Whistle” is sufficiently entertaining, as it follows a typical horror movie formula about a curse that kills people. (In this case, it’s a cursed whistle.) The movie’s big showdown is jumbled, but the overall story delivers scares and some unique visuals. No one seeing this movie should expect a masterpiece. However, there are some genuinely creepy moments that should satisfy most horror fans who are looking for a movie about supernatural curses that get passed along to unwitting people.
Directed by Corin Hardy and written by Owen Egerton, “Whistle” had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in the fictional city of Pellington, New York. “Whistle” was actually filmed in the Canadian cities of Toronto and Hamilton.
“Whistle” doesn’t waste time in showing the movie’s carnage. The movie’s first scene takes place during a basketball game at Pellington High School. The school’s team, the Steel Wolves, has a star player named Mason “Horse” Raymore (played by Stephen Kalyn), who has just made the winning dunk for the team. However, before making this dunk, Horse sees a frightening vision of a burning man in front of him. The burning man’s entire body is covered in black ashy scales.
After the game, Horse runs into the locker room before his teammates arrive. He’s too scared to tell anyone what he’s seen and avoids talking to his teammates. Horse goes into the locker room and takes an urn out of his locker. The burning man follows him.
“Please, please. Not yet,” Horse tells this burning man, who remains silent. Horse throws the urn down on the floor. The urn breaks into pieces. “See, it’s gone!” Horse shouts at the burning man. “Leave it alone!”
Thinking that he has solved the problem, Horse takes a shower in the locker room, as his jubilant teammates start arriving in the room. But the burning man appears in the shower and shoves his arm down Horse’s mouth. Horse screams in pain and terror. His teammates rush into the shower area to see Horse engulfed in flames.
Six months later, a new student has enrolled in Pellington High School and gets the hallway locker that Horse used to have. Her name is Chrysanthemum “Chrys” Willet (played by Dafne Keen), who has a troubled past that some of the students know about already and have made Chrys the target of malicious gossip. Chrys’ widower father died in a car accident that people have speculated was caused by Chrys. Chrys is also a recovering from an opioid addiction where she used needles.
Now that Chrys is an orphan, she has relocated from Chicago to Pellington to live with her cousin Rel Taylor (played by Sky Yang), who is about the same age as Chrys. Rel and Chrys are both in their senior year at Pellington High School. Rel is a quirky and somewhat goofy character who likes horror movies.
Rel is accepting of Chrys but also mildly teases her about certain things, such as her taste in music. Chrys has a collection of old vinyl records that used to be owned by her father. She listens to mostly music from the 1980s and 1990s. Chrys is also a lesbian, but she’s not completely open about it except to certain people who are close to her, such as Rel.
During her first day at school, Chrys finds two strange objects in her locker: a skull-shaped whistle and Horse’s urn, which has now been put back together. Strange whispers can be heard in the movie, as Chrys almost puts the whistle in her mouth, but she doesn’t go through with blowing the whistle. These whispers are heard every time the whistle is picked up, and it looks like someone could blow the whistle.
In the school hallway, Chrys makes eye contact with a red-haired student named Ellie (played by Sophie Nélisse), and they look at each other in a way that indicates mutual attraction. Much later, Chrys asks Rel if he knows if Ellie is straight or queer. Rel says he doesn’t know, but he suggests that Chrys find out for herself.
While having a conversation with Rel in the hallway near her locker, Chrys has an unpleasant encounter with an arrogant bully named Dean Jackson (played by Jhaleil Swaby), who is a star on the school’s football team. Dean is with his pretty blonde girlfriend Grace (played by Ali Skovbye) when he asks Chrys if it’s true that Chrys is a “psycho junkie” who killed her father. Chrys gets angry and kicks Dean in his genital area.
A fight breaks out and is stopped by a teacher in the hallway named Mr. Craven (played by Nick Frost), who happens to be the history teacher for all the students involved in the fight. Mr. Craven orders Chrys, Dean, Rel and Grace into detention. Ellie intervenes and says she witnessed the entire conflict and says Dean was the one who instigated it. Mr. Craven doesn’t appreciate Ellie butting into this dispute, so he gives her detention punishment too.
During the detention that Mr. Craven is overseeing, Chrys shows Mr. Craven the whistle that she found in her locker. Mr. Craven looks up the whistle on the Internet and finds out that it’s an Aztec death whistle. He keeps the whistle. Later, after the students are gone, Mr. Craven goes on the Internet to find out how much the whistle is worth and sees that it’s worth about $35,000. A delighted Mr. Craven then blows the whistle.
The rest of the movie is about what happens when someone blows the whistle: The person is killed by another version of that person, who would have died another way if the whistle hadn’t been blown. If a person was supposed to die in a fire (such as Horse), then that person is killed by a version of that person with a burned body. It’s a creative twist and change of pace from the usual “mysterious demon” killer that these horror movies about supernatural curses tend to have.
In “Whistle,” the parents of the non-orphan teen characters are rarely seen. Instead, the teenagers who are at the center of the story have to contend with a local youth pastor in his 20s named Noah Hagerty (played by Percy Hynes White), who is a sleazy hypocrite because he sells drugs to the teenage kids of the parents who think Noah is a wholesome role model. One of these teenagers died in a drug overdose.
Rel despises Noah and doesn’t hesitate to show it. Meanwhile, there’s some other interpersonal drama because Rel has had a longtime crush on Grace, who only sees him as a platonic friend. And although mopey Chrys and cheerful Ellie might seem like opposites, they both have a troubled past in common, which Ellie eventually reveals to Chrys. Ellie also happens to have diabetes and works at a local hospital, which is a job that comes in handy at one point in the story.
“Whistle” does exactly what most viewers expect it to do in telling this horror story. The characters of Rel, Chrys and Ellie manage to rise slightly above teen stereotypes, with all the cast members giving fairly good performances. “Whistle” has a creative way of showing people’s fears about knowing in advance how they are going to die while also facing the possibility that they could die in a much more horrific way from the whistle curse.
Independent Film Company and Shudder released “Whistle” in U.S. cinemas on February 6, 2026. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 3, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Toronto, in 2025 and in 2008, the comedy film “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (based on the 2016-2018 TV series “Nirvanna the Band the Show”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Two musicians who perform as Nirvanna try book a gig at the Rivoli nightclub and find themselves transported from the year 2025 to 2008, the year they were supposed to play at the Rivoli, but the show was canceled.
Culture Audience: “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and mockumentaries that have a lot of improvisation.
Jay McCarrol and Matt Johnson in “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
You’ll know within the first 15 minutes of watching “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” if you want to stay for the rest of this wacky and hilarious ride. Part mockumentary, part “Back to the Future” tribute, this comedy follows two hapless musicians stuck in 2008, while trying to book a gig in Toronto, with their camper van as an unexpected time machine. Fans of comedy films directed by Christopher Guest or Sacha Baron Cohen will probably like “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.” Everyone else might find the movie unappealing or an acquired taste.
Directed by Matt Johnson, “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” was co-written by Johnson and Jay McCarrol, who both star as versions of themselves in the movie. “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie takes place in 2025 and in 2008 in Toronto, where “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” was filmed on location. “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” is based on the 2016-2018 Viceland TV series “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” which was created by Johnson and McCarrol.
For the purposes of this review, the characters that Johnson and McCarrol play in the movie will be referred to by their first names, while the real Johnson and McCarrol will be referred to by their last names. “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” begins in 2008, when Matt and Jay (a musical duo called Nirvanna) are seen rehearsing in their living room. Matt is the vocalist who does improvised spoken word performances. Jay (nicknamed Bird) is a pianist/keyboardist. Their style of music can be described as indie pop/rock performance art.
Matt and Jay are excited because they’ve booked a gig at the Trivoli, a nightclub in Toronto. Matt is the hyper “ideas guy,” who writes a lot of his schemes on a whiteboard. Jay is more laid-back and sensible musical partner/best friend. Matt says excitedly, “I have a feeling things are going to work out for us.”
Seventeen years later, it’s revealed that Matt and Jay never did play at the Rivoli. Matt suddenly gets inspired to try booking a gig at the Rivoli again. He digs up an old idea, called Seventh Inning Skydive, a publicity stunt that would have Matt and Jay skydive from the CN Tower into Toronto’s SkyDome stadium during the seventh inning of a baseball game.
Jay is somewhat reluctant but goes along with this plan, which involves a lot of fast-talking and sneaking around to turn this plan into reality. Matt and Jay are all set to take the leap from the CN Tower when they see the SkyDome’s top start to close, making it impossible for Matt to skydive into the SkyDome during the seventh inning of the baseball game. It’s another failed attempt at Nirvanna’s 15 minutes of fame.
Back in their camper van, driver Matt crashes into a magazine dispenser. When Jay and Matt get out of the van, they see the 2008 versions of themselves hanging up Nirvanna flyers on street poles. Matt and Jay also see indications everywhere that it’s 2008, including a photo of Bill Cosby on a magazine and a movie theater playing “Hancock” and “The Hangover.” (This is a trivial mistake because “The Hangover” actually was released in 2009, not 2008.)
When Jay and Matt go back to their apartment, they see they have bottles of Orbitz, a non-carbonated drink brand that launched in 1996 and was discontinued in 1998. Jay and Matt are now convinced that it’s really 2008. They also find out that their camper van is a time machine. Matt wants to seize the opportunity to rewrite history and the fortunes of Nirvanna. But what does rewriting history mean if they can’t get back to 2025? Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Matt, Jay secretly booked a solo gig for himself.
This review won’t describe what happens in the rest of “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” because that would give away a lot of the movie’s jokes and comedic scenarios. It’s enough to say that Johnson and McCarrol do justice to the TV series with this movie, although some of the jokes start to wear a bit thin toward the end. Even with some flaws, “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” is worth watching for anyone who roots for underdogs and enjoys comedies that are made like absurd documentaries.
Neon released “Nirvannna the Band the Show the Movie” in select U.S. cinemas on February 13, 2026. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on February 9, 2026.
