“Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” Review

Year: 2026, Director: Jon Favreau

OP-ROB RATING: BENCH

I’ve seen only one season of “The Mandalorian” TV series and stopped watching the movies after “The Last Jedi” (so no “Solo” or “Rise of Skywalker”). Should any of that matter as a viewer? I don’t think it should. The OG Trilogy, the critical peak of “Star Wars” as a whole, was entry level. “Mandalorian and Grogu” feels like two or three episodes of the show strung together and relies on a fair amount of background knowledge from the jump. May the force be with whoever sees this movie as their first Star Wars experience, and therein lies the problem.

“Black Bag” Review

Year: 2025, Director: Steven Soderbergh

OP-ROB RATING: ALL-STAR

As clean, calculated, and efficient as its main character study - an embattled MI6 Agent played by Micahel Fassbender - “Black Bag” is a gem. Steven Soderbergh’s fast-paced style meshes nicely with the maze-like “le Carré-esque” plot. The film also assumes a certain level of intelligence from the viewer, which is refreshing. It has some of that “Thin Man” pace of dialogue and doesn’t stop to dumb things down. Cate Blanchett is fantastic alongside Fassbender in the lead supporting role. While the movie is not necessarily “knock-your-socks-off” amazing, it is certainly worth the watch as a surgically executed spy thriller.

“Warfare” Review

Year: 2025, Director: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland

OP-ROB RATING: ALL-STAR

Is a movie any good if you can’t name a single character from it? Most of the time I’d say no. But then, “Warfare” is not a typical film. The matter-of-fact plot portrays a span of several hours endured by a joint platoon of US troops while they were pinned down by insurgents in the aftermath of the Battle of Ramadi in 2006. The movie feels joltingly real, with the assured joint direction of a guy who was actually there in ex-SEAL Ray Mendoza and a guy who knows how to build suspense on screen in Alex Garland.

“The Love That Remains” Review

Year: 2025, Director: Hlynur Pálmason

OP-ROB RATING: BENCH

Plenty of commendable qualities shine in this Icelandic feature that examines a marriage breakdown: acting, scenery, score, and college-essay-primed motifs. It’s also a wholly unapproachable movie. For one, I was lost for the first hour of runtime. The plot is an afterthought. And when the pieces do start coming together, Pálmason starts throwing in bizzaro montages and distracting dream sequences. Hyper-realism family dramas can be quite excellent, and TLTR bears some of the elements shared by the greats, but the extra stuff makes the overall movie a pain to keep up with.

“Dumb Money” Review

Year: 2023, Director: Craig Gillespie

OP-ROB RATING: STARTER

The great Quentin Tarantino pretty famously despises Paul Dano, calling him “the weakest f****ing actor in SAG”. I don’t agree… “Dumb Money” is a decent example of why I love Paul Dano. He portrays characters that are kind of jellified, their physical and/or mental fragility worn on their sleeves. Such is the case in this highly exaggerated account of 2021’s “GameStop Short Squeeze”. Most of the film is goofy comedy. But Dano’s lead character, Keith Gill or “Roaring Kitty”, has enough depth and arc to make the movie worthwhile beyond the bevvy of cheap laughs.