THE END OF OAK STREET is the perfect popcorn flick.
After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
Set in 1982, THE END OF OAK STREET is a suspenseful and action-packed film full of ravenous dinosaurs and murderous creatures that try to hunt down the family and their neighbors the entire time. When the neighborhood gets transported into a prehistoric world full of murderous dinosaurs it all happens in the blink of an eye.
Even with their flaws, you like the Platt’s. Denise Platt, played by Anne Hathaway, has two children. She has Audrey, who has a love for astronomy and science, played by Maisy Stella, and teenage son, Brian, who’s a good kid and played by Christian Convery. She’s married to Greg Platt, played by Ewan McGregor. And they have their dog, Starbuck. They’re a very normal family. They live in a small suburb. They eat dinner together. They go to block parties. They take part in potato sack races. The kids have secrets. Greg has a secret. Denise has a secret.
One day, the Platts and their entire neighborhood wake up, and everything looks the same, but it’s different. It’s their street, but the power’s not working and the water’s not working and suddenly they start to hear screams, and everything feels very strange. And then things get really, really weird. So, it’s a story about a family, when suddenly these supernatural things happen.
Unlike many dinosaur films, THE END OF OAK STREET intentionally features species from different prehistoric eras. Rather than striving for strict chronological accuracy, Mitchell embraced a mix of dinosaurs to heighten the mystery surrounding the film’s supernatural time-travel portal, reinforcing the idea that creatures from across millions of years of Earth’s history have been pulled into the same neighborhood. The giant snake-worm that slithers through the house is the stuff of nightmares.
There will be much discussion amongst viewers about the entire plot. The family, the singular cause of the time displacement, the nature of time travel, paradoxes, the difference between the people who step up in extreme circumstances, and those that succumb to to fear and panic. It’s not just about the when and where, but about the who, and how they react. Nobody is safe, but the relationships they cling to can be the difference between survival and death. Don’t judge anyone in this movie by your first glance. Sometimes fire destroys, but sometimes it tempers the hardest steel.
Audiences are brought into this total thrill ride by Mitchell’s team that includes director of photography Michael Gioulakis, production designer Maya Shimoguchi, editor John Axelrad, music supervisor George Drakoulias, composer Michael Giacchino’s score and costume designer Erin Benach.
THE END OF OAK STREET is an amazing Summer romp, a family story, and adventure, with terror, and fire and peril, but also a lot of humor, a thought-provoking time travel tale, and a darned good investment of your Summer movie money.
THE END OF OAK STREET is in theaters and IMAX August 14.
A scene from DO US PART. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment
For this review of DO US PART, let’s open with some perspective. I’ve lived too many years and seen too many rom coms to be in the target demo for more of them. I’ve gotten too annoyed by how long it takes for the lead couple to figure out what we all knew would happen while we were still in line at the ticket window. Too many failures to say the right thing at the right moment, or clear up misunderstandings that dragged out the inevitable for 90 minutes – or much longer if written by Judd Apatow. By the time they finally seal the deal, I usually hope they won’t have children, because the world doesn’t need another generation of such doofuses.
When I saw the description of this one – an old girlfriend shows up on her college pal’s wedding day to finally declare her NON-platonic love for the guy – I wondered how could this measure up to Julia Roberts’ MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING? It was possibly the last one I really enjoyed – and that was almost 30 years ago. Or, to put it another way, around the time Meg Ryan aged out of starring in these things, I aged out of patience for them.
I can now report to being glad that I overcame my skepticism. This was truly well-written and efficiently directed by Reed Arnold, who also co-starred as the Best Man in his spare time. It’s even more impressive for being his debut wearing the first two hats, after a dozen, or so, acting credits.
Groom Ryan (Travis Laughlin), best man Mark (Arnold) and Rose (Kelly Russo) were besties all the way through college, about 10 years earlier. Ryan was in love with Rose but too timid to say so; she had him firmly embedded in the accursed Friend Zone throughout a series of other boyfriends. They drifted apart after graduation, allowing Ryan the physical distance and emotional room to fall in love with Julia (Laura Elizabeth Delhauer).
The wedding is fixed in a lovely pastoral venue, with the sun shining brightly on those who are gathering for the festivities. Rose decides to show up uninvited, courage bolstered by a couple of drinks, to make her last-ditch pitch before Ryan made his vows. The movie covers events occurring about an hour before the ceremony is due to start, with a slew of flashbacks filling in backstories.
Arnold filled his pages with likable characters who had relatable flaws and impediments that brought them to that situation. No idiots or villains in sight, minimizing my aforesaid annoyance triggers. All the principal actors do quite well with their roles. Arnold wrote the juiciest part for himself, playing Mark as the perennial playboy who is still capable of truly caring for his friends and having some moments of surprising insight to share, considering the gadfly persona most of the world sees from him. His character also delivers more laughs than all the others combined. The bride only gets limited screen time but shines in one of the film’s most noteworthy scenes.
The comedy comes mainly from character development and dialog, with relatively little physical action, steering quite clear of madcap farce territory. And the ending makes sense without descending into the syrupy wrap-ups of so many others in the genre.
If this old curmudgeon could like it enough to bestow this rating, those of you who savor rom coms should enjoy it even more.
DO US PART opens in select theaters nationally on Friday, Aug. 14, and on demand streaming on Friday, Aug. 14, 2026.
Dakota Gorman in writer/director Brock Bodell's HELLCAT. Courtesy of Shudder
The low-budget, minimalist feature HELLCAT starts strong with a young woman trapped in a moving camper with no knowledge of how or why she got there. The faceless driver tells her she’s been infected with something awful, and he’s taking her to a doc who can save her if they get there fast enough. She sees evidence of having been wounded but doesn’t know whether to believe the guy, as her fear and anger escalate through that dark night on a lonely road.
The rest plays out with a small cast and a lot of dialog – much of which veered into philosophical blather, seemingly inserted to stretch the running time. Of course, she tries to escape, and there are some clashes throughout the long journey before she and the viewers learn anything solid. We all have our suspicions but answers remain elusive.
Almost all the running time is just between damsel in distress, Lena (Dakota Gorman), and her savior/captor Clive (Todd Terry), and both do well with their parts. The camera stays mostly on her, while Clive’s soothing voice and input seem consistent with his claim of having good intentions. But no one on screen or in front of it can be sure if she’s on the verge of morphing into a monster or demon; or if he’s just a psycho or criminal spinning a yarn to keep her under control until they reach wherever he’s really taking her. Gorman does a fine job of creating a believable and sympathetic protagonist in claustrophobic, mysterious circumstances. She has less room to maneuver than the victims in any of the SAW movies.
Writer/director Brock Bodell shows some skills in his first time wearing either hat for a full-length feature. But I assume the bare-bones set and dim lighting were as much due to financial constraints as artistic choices. This production was less than I’d hoped for, though it engaged me enough to be curious about what Bodell and Gorman could deliver with more substantial funding.
HELLCAT becomes available to stream on Shudder as of Friday, Aug. 14, 2026.
In MUTINY, after witnessing his billionaire boss’s murder and being framed for the crime, Cole Reed (Jason Statham) boards a cargo ship on a one-man crusade to avenge his boss’ death only to discover an international conspiracy.
Directed by Jean-François Riche, the film also stars Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, and Adrian Lester.
Hitting theaters on August 28 is director Dave Green’s film COYOTE VS ACME.
After decades of being blown to bits by bombs, demolished by dynamite, mangled by magnets, battered by boulders, trampled by trains, tricked by tunnels, sprung by springs, steamrolled by steamrollers, maligned by misfires, bedeviled by bungees, rattled by rockets, backstabbed by bat suits, rocked by rocket skates, upended by unicycles, quaked by quake pills, rubberized by rogue bands, and hurled headlong off every cliff in the Southwest, Wile E. Coyote (Genius) finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote’s chaotic catastrophes.
The early reviews are praising the long-awaited film:
The Wrap says: “It’s all very intelligent and moving, but is “Coyote vs. Acme” funny? Yes. “Coyote vs. Acme” is gut-bustlingly hilarious. Dave Green knows these Tunes by heart, and the comic timing on this film’s countless sight gags is on par with some of the best Looney Tunes shorts.”
The Hollywood Reporter says: “It’s a pleasure to report that the film is a hilarious delight, one of the best live-action/animation films ever, and will be treasured by Looney Tunes fans (and who isn’t one?) who will be thrilled seeing their favorite cartoon characters return to the big screen.”
Pete Hammond at Deadline writes: “I can tell you this delightful gem of a movie is, for me at least, ironically not only the best Warner Bros. film released so far this year, it also is, hands down, the best animated/live action ‘toon since Robert Zemeckis’ classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit hit screens four decades ago (sorry Space Jam). I laughed out loud throughout this terrific concoction that is smart, funny, heartwarming, and winning in every way.”
For 30 years Steven Price has been composing soundtracks for lauded movies in diverse genres. From the space opera of Alfonso Cuaron’s GRAVITY to the war-torn battlefields of the Brad Pitt-starring FURY, not to mention a four-time action-comedy collaboration with Edgar Wright dating back to 2013’s THE WORLD’S END, his work has amplified stories, loading them with thrills and emotion.
But in Coyote vs. Acme, Price faced perhaps his greatest ever challenge. “I remember our director, Dave Green, first describing the project to me as ‘a children’s legal thriller,’” Price laughs. “Where the hell do you start with that?”
The Coyote vs. Acme (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is scheduled to release on August 20, 2026, just ahead of the movie’s theatrical release on August 28, 2026. You can currently pre-save the album on the Coyote vs. Acme Spotify Pre-Release Page.
As it happens, where Price found his start-point was in the character of Wile E. Coyote himself; how he has always existed as part of a famous collective and was now, in this feature-length story, going to essentially branch out on his own.
“Sure, this movie has many cameos from other characters in it, but fundamentally, it boiled down to this idea that we were going to focus on Wile E. and take him on his own adventure. And that along the way you as an audience would find out about, and feel for, this character in a way you never had,” Price recalls of his eureka moment.
So it was that the composer researched classic tracks from the Looney Tunes universe, “all those guitars and hints at Americana” and infused them with an added fragility, to echo the coyote’s plight. “Let’s face it, poor old Wile E. has had a shocker for years and years,” Price chuckles. “All those awful pieces of ACME kit he’s bought have always let him down. It was such fun to take that running joke and get under the covers of it, to bring it to life, musically.”
Like so many of the Coyote vs. Acme creative team, Price grew up on Looney Tunes, just as his own kids are doing now. “What I realized when I watched my kids watching him was that we’ve always seen him as this hapless idiot who just keeps doing the same thing over and over, believing the hype all the time. This time it was nice to see him reach the end of his tether and be a bit broken. One of my favorite scenes in the film comes really early on, when he’s sitting in his cave, reflecting on all the disasters he’s had, and just looking utterly despondent. That’s a side to him you’ve never seen.”
And then there were the two distinct worlds that had to coexist, the collision of the Looney Tunes world with our own, which gave Price “some really interesting places to go to” – two approaches to scoring that would coalesce into a singular soundscape.
“The two musical worlds happening in this movie at once are firstly the Looney Tunes approach, which is to hit every single detail that you’re seeing on screen. If something’s descending, the music’s descending. If something’s shooting up in the air, the music’s following it. And it’s all very, very tightly scored to picture,” Price explains.
“The second is this more emotional, almost serious side, which comes out in Will Forte’s character and in the courtroom, where we wanted to be more stirring and have the score playing different tricks. It was a rare treat, in that I could play with those two very different styles and turn them into one special thing.”
Carsten Kurpanek, the editor of Coyote vs. Acme, is particularly evangelical about what Price ultimately achieved, crediting his score as being perhaps the most critical part of making the movie the success it is; for giving Wile E. Coyote the story and soundtrack he has always deserved.
It’s a compliment that Price doesn’t take lightly, not least as he is aware that Coyote vs. Acme is a movie that Kurpanek took so seriously he even went out one day shortly after he had finished editing to have his own Wile E. Coyote tattoo. “This was a two-and-a-half-year process for me, so by the end of it I felt so connected to the character that I wanted to memorialize him on my skin,” Kurpanek reveals.
The acclaimed editor, who has worked on everything from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to World War Z, has enjoyed a fruitful working relationship with Dave Green, ever since the director came out of college and he started editing his shorts. And Kurpanek says he’s never been more impressed with a score than the one Price created.
“I must give a huge shout out to Steven because I can’t stress enough what a fantastic job he did. When you’re first starting to edit a movie, before the score’s been done, you use scores from previous movies, as a temp track. It was so difficult to find any pre-existing music that walked the fine line that this movie had to,” Kurpanek says.
“If you go super serious, you undercut the humor. If you go too bouncy, you undercut the drama. The orchestrations that Steven created tread this wonderful line, this whimsicality that supports the serious moments but is never not fun. He knocked it out of the park.”
Of all Price’s achievements, however, his greatest undoubtedly involved a 40-piece choir doing something remarkably silly, at arguably the most legendary studio on the planet. A brainwave that would define the unmistakable sound of Coyote vs. Acme – and pretty much break the internet in the process.
“I got obsessed with the idea of having this professional choir singing an array of the Road Runner’s signature ‘Meep Meeps!’ all the way through the recording sessions, in Studio One at Abbey Road, of all places,” Price chuckles.
“It came to me because I got to thinking how the Road Runner is constantly in Wile E. Coyote’s head, driving him mad all day long with this stream of mocking ‘Meep Meeps!’ And the silliest version of that I could imagine going on in his head was one sung by a full classical choir, taking it all incredibly seriously, ‘Meep Meeping’ their way through things like Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.”
From Star Trek to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to Spider- Man: Brand New Day and War for the Planet of the Apes, composer Michael Giacchino has brought audiences right into the movies with his rousing scores!
WaterTower Music has announced the release of The End of Oak Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), featuring original music by the award-winning composer. The soundtrack is available now on all major digital streaming platforms. In partnership with WaterTower Music, Made By Mutant Records will be releasing the soundtrack on 2x LP colored vinyl with original artwork by Nicholas Moegly. Preorders will be available starting 8/14.
Michael Giacchino shares:
“Working on The End of Oak Street has been an incredible experience. I’ve been a fan of David Robert Mitchell ever since seeing It Follows, so getting to collaborate with a filmmaker whose work consistently surprises and challenges audiences was a real privilege. David has a remarkable ability to build dread in a way that feels effortless, balancing quiet tension with moments that genuinely get under your skin. It’s a rare combination, and I’m grateful to have been a part of this one.”
Producer JJ Abrams shares:
“Michael Giacchino is such a storyteller and he identifies, like any great composer does, a heartbeat of a scene and he will excavate or emphasize something and suddenly everything gets elevated, and in many ways, it’s what you’re hearing and not seeing is what activates our imagination”
You've done it again, @m_giacchino 👏👏👏 Get tickets now for The End of Oak Street, only in theaters and IMAX August 14. https://t.co/4ILbB31Yye
Soundtrack coming this Friday – pre-save on Spotify now.
After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
Starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, The End of Oak Street also stars Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. The film is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper. The executive producers are Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Joanne Lee and Leeann Stonebreaker.
Mitchell’s team behind the camera includes director of photography Michael Gioulakis, production designer Maya Shimoguchi, editor John Axelrad, music supervisor George Drakoulias, composer Michael Giacchino and costume designer Erin Benach.
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Bad Robot Production, A Jackson Pictures Production, A David Robert Mitchell Film, The End of Oak Street. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in theaters and IMAX® in North America on August 14, 2026, and internationally beginning 12 August 2026.
Opening in select theaters October 30 and on Netflix November 18 is the film GENTLE MONSTER.
From director and writer Marie Kreutzer (Corsage, Austria’s entry for the 95th Academy Awards), Gentle Monster tells the story of concert pianist Lucy (Léa Seydoux), who has just relocated her family to a country house hoping to ease her husband Philip’s (Laurence Rupp) severe burnout. Before they have a chance to set up their new home, an early morning police visit tears their life apart. Trapped between the man she loves and the fear of what he may have done, Lucy must face the situation alone as her world unravels.
With a cast that includes Jella Haase alongside the legendary, Academy Award nominee Catherine Deneuve, Gentle Monster asks what we do when someone we love turns out to be someone we never really knew.
GENTLE MONSTER premiered in competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and will screen in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
A fishing boat that vanished 30 years ago mysteriously returns to the harbor of a Cornish fishing village, launching the haunting supernatural drama ROSE OF NEVADA. George MacKay and Callum Turner star in this British tale, directed and written by BAFTA-winner Mark Jenkin. The supernatural mystery, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival and played the Toronto Film Festival last year, is the third in the auteur director’s Cornwall trilogy.
“So, it’s back” says local villager Mike (Edward Rowe) when he discovers the long-missing boat bobbing at the pier. The remark is said with mild surprise rather than the shock you might expect to greet the reappearance of a boat gone for three decades, leaving us with the feeling that the word “again” might be added.
Mike, an older man, balding, with longish blonde hair, is a former businessman who once owned this boat, the Rose of Nevada, which was lost a sea with all hands long ago. He takes its reappearance a sign, and soon after he spots it, discusses it’s return with another villager, a middle-aged woman named Tina (Rosalind Eleazar), as they stand on the pier gazing down at the old boat. These two are are among the few remaining who remember the lost boat, and their mysterious discussion focuses on that, and the prospect of sending the boat back out to sea, which requires finding a crew to do that.
Unsurprisingly, the boat is in poor shape, with broken, with faded red paint and tangled rusty cable strewn on its deck, looking like something that has been adrift in the ocean for a long time. The nearby village on the Cornwall coast also has clearly seen better days. Everything is faded and decaying, with rusting fishing equipment abandoned along streets and a village pub with a barely-readable sign and with few patrons inside. The sense is that the once-prosperous fishing village has fallen on hard times, and has been abandoned by many of its former residents.
In the run-down village, Nick (George MacKay) is a young husband and father, with a leaky roof and little money. Nick is a good person, who helps his elderly neighbors, the Richards (Adrian Rawlins and Mary Woodvine), who is kind to Mrs. Richards who is confused and still mourning her dead son. Meanwhile, a drifter named Liam (Callum Turner) arrives in the village, visits the nearly-empty local pub and chats with Tina’s daughter (Yana Penrose).
As Mike is cleaning up and restoring the boat, a grizzled man (Francis Magee) walks up and asks if he needs a skipper. There are hints that they have met before but little is clear. Later, Mike calls the man Murgey but we never hear the skipper say his name. Shortly after, the drifter Liam (Callum Turner) joins the skipper aboard as crew. Mike and Tina worry about completing the crew, which cannot leave with a short-handed, but then Nick turns up, and signs on to take the last spot on the crew, hoping to earn enough to fix his roof.
When leaving home, Nick told his wife he’ll only be gone three days, but as he heads to the boat, he is stopped by his neighbor, confused old Mrs. Richards, who seems to mistake him for her dead son and tells him she will see him soon, leaving Nick with an uneasy feeling.
There are other strange, foreboding signs but with the crew complete, the fishing boat prepares to depart. On board, more strange signs appear, like a message carved into the woodwork and a faded red cap off the old boat, but the crew ignore them and set to work fishing.
After three days of hard work fishing, the boat returns to the village, where the crew are shocked to hear they have been gone three years, not three days. Things look different in the little fishing village, better in fact. Signs are freshly painted, streets are clean and there is an air of prosperity. The crumbling pub is now bright and filled with people and life. When the young family man, headed for home, is pulled into the pub, he encounters people he knows, including his old neighbors, who, oddly, look much younger now. In the pub, Nick discovers the boat has returned to the time when it first left, traveling back in time thirty years. Even more unsettling, now everyone greets him and his crew mate Liam by the names of that original crew.
This strange time-traveling puzzle confounds and shocks both Liam and Nick, but MacKay’s Nick is particularly disturbed. Liam is surprised to be greeted at the dock by a younger version of the middle-aged Tina, now younger and with her little daughter in tow, who treats him as if they have a relationship, Nick is dismayed to find himself mistaken for the lost son of his old neighbors, now younger, and with no sign of his own little family. Horrified, Nick struggles to figure out how to understand, and correct, this weird situation, and focuses on returning to sea as a way to get back to the present.
Despite the foreshadowing, the time-travel comes as an unsettling twist, in part because everything appears so grounded in the real aboard the boat at sea. The story is a mystery with a ghostly, supernatural aspect but it is also about profoundly human things, about loss and grief, second chances, personal sacrifice and community, with what is owed to that community. Tragedy and heartbreak vie with a sense of hope and restoration in this thought-provoking supernatural drama.
Director Mark Jenkin does a masterful job building eerie tension and a sense of ghostly mystery right from the start. From the beginning, we sense that something supernatural, even ghostly, is afoot, although details about what that is come out slowly.
Jenkin is greatly aided by a strong cast, led by George MacKay, who gives a superb performance as Nick, the young family man who only wanted to earn some quick money but now finds himself in an intractable dilemma. The film touches on complex emotions, of loss and grief, of fear and frustration, many of which play out marvelously on MacKay’s expressive face.
The themes of loss and grief extend to other characters, but other feelings emerge for the other people in this supernatural tale, of hope and second chances. While MacKay’s Nick is desperate to return to the present and his family, the drifter Liam, played by Callum Turner, finds a chance for a new beginning in this new world and time. For Tina and the Richards, and the village as a whole, the mysterious changes bring a restoration of hope.
ROSE OF NEVADA is full of atmospheric unease and knotty choices but also is filled with visual beauty, with striking, artfully-composed images that a visual grace that is sometimes gasp-inducing. Jenkin shot the film on 16mm with a handheld camera which gives the film a distinctive, painterly look in many shots, but also suggests archival footage in other shots, with camera flare, scratches and other filmic effects. The skillful photography captures the wild beauty of the sea, the stately stone walls and gentle decay of old fisherman’s tools. Jenkin also shot the film without sound, adding sound and dialog later in post-production, with seamless effect.
MacKay’s character is rattled when he is mistaken for his neighbors’ lost son and tries desperately to find a way to reach out to his own family. As Nick works to unravel the mystery, a sense of horror grows about the true nature of what is taking place. He is thrown into emotional turmoil as he peels back layers of this complexity. Meanwhile, Turner’s once-homeless fellow crew member seems invigorated to find a second chance at life, embraced by a younger version of the woman who planned the trip, and her now-small daughter, as the man who went to sea thirty years earlier.
The ending of this British supernatural mystery is both disturbing and open-ended, and happens without explaining everything or tying things up neatly. It is the kind of ending more common in British films than American ones, and may leave some American audiences uncomfortable.
ROSE OF NEVADA opens Friday, Aug. 7, at the Hi Pointe Cinema and other select theaters.
The last gasps of the Summer movie season are increasing with the arrival of August. However, the box office is booming thanks to a hero in red and blue tights. After his phenomenal and record-breaking ticket power last weekend, Spidey can’t swing through every auditorium in the multiplex. Mind you, that epic ancient adventure is also hanging in, but there’s got to be space for a little romance, and, as they sang in the 1920’s, “makin’ whoopee”. There’s plenty of both in this weekend’s release of a “rom-com” with a futuristic satiric “twist”. So what if the “single-set” could only mix it up on one day? It’s a long evening, actually, as we follow the madcap travails of a duo over ONE NIGHT ONLY.
The story actually begins a couple of hours earlier. The opening prologue text gives us the setting. It is the not-so-distant future in the much more “straight-laced” USA. Three years previous, the feds have instituted “The Mandate”. This is a sweeping “law of the land” that prohibits the unmarried from engaging in all sexual activity except for one night, this very day, from 7 PM to 7 AM. And… they have to use “protection”. Everyone now is marked with a small tattoo (a bat, a lighthouse, etc.) on their wrist that changes from red to green, for “go at it”. We first meet “session ” singer Allie (Monica Barbaro) as she finishes up a commercial “jingle” gig prior to meeting up with her gal pal to meet a nice nighttime “hook-up”. Well, Jacinta (King Princess) hooks up early, so Allie trudges back to the NYC apartment she shares with Arja (Quintessa Swindell). She’s babysitting for some buddies, so she loans her most sparkly, revealing party dress to Allie. Meanwhile, pizza shop owner Owen (Callum Turner) is bringing in the married “night shift” so he can thoroughly “enjoy” the night with his longtime girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke). Their early fancy dinner doesn’t go as planned when she drops a “bombshell”. She wants to spend the night with someone else, their neighbor, saying that being with others will “strengthen” their bond (um…yeah). So he can’t return to their building. He embarks on a frantic search that appears successful with a sultry bartender, until it seems that no condoms are to be had anywhere. Eventually he has a “meet gross” with Allie, and they soon end up vying for the city’s last bit of latex. That’s just the start of their odyssey through the wee hours as they continue to cross paths. Could the universe be telling them something, or is it just bad, dumb luck? And the clock clicks down to dawn…
The biggest casting surprise here may be the versatile and very photogenic Ms. Barbaro, who was a superb Joan Baez in the Dylan biopic a couple of years ago. Happily, we get another treat from her polished “pipes” in two sequences. She combines those skills with a deft comic touch while still giving Allie a determined “edge” and an endearing charm, even as she nearly pops out of that teeny-tiny “almost” dress. Of course, it helps that she has formidable chemistry with the affable Turner, who is given better material than in his last foray into fantasy rom-coms in last year’s ETERNITY. He immediately has us rooting for Owen as his plans for romance blow up in his face when he is “blindsided” by his “bae” (Ms. Hawke continues to impress, even with this most unsympathetic character). Turner tempers his “action hero” physique with a snarky “wiseguy” everyman vibe. But this dynamic duo doesn’t provide all the laughs, as the flick is peppered with comic vets and newcomers. Owen’s no-filter mother is the iconic Molly Ringwald, who is paired with another 1980s fave, LeVar Burton, as her frisky paramour. Yes, there are lots of “hey, that’s…” moments that I’ll refrain from spoiling, but I’ll single out two big “scene-stealers”. As Allie’s pop music superstar “dream”, Ezra Stone, Charlie Gillespie composes a memorably awkward “love song” (this horny dimwit wants you to remember, it’s not a duet), while Mateo Ray charms as Arja’s ‘charge” Troy, who so wants to be a “playa'” during this long wild evening.
Helming this carnal chaos is movie comedy vet Will Gluck, who last gave us the silly star-fueled rom-com ANYONE BUT YOU (a big surprise hit), though I’m more of a fan of EASY A (and he inexplicably made the 2014 ANNIE and the PETER RABBIT kid-flicks). He keeps the pace flowing as he emulates AFTER HOURS (boy, that movie is so influential), occasionally pulling on the heartstrings just before a nice bit of slapstick (gotta’ get that “glove”). Now, he doesn’t “soft pedal” the political satire in this, as “The Mandate” is mocked in several TV news segments. Perhaps this is the “hook” that put this script from Travis Braun on the 2024 screenplay “Black List”, though it might just have been the concept of a sex-mad riff on THE PURGE (more filthy fun and a lot less gore). Sure, we are hoping that Allie and Owen finally “hook up”, but this trip has lots of unexpected detours and side tracks, with a final stop that doesn’t feel contrived. Even though it’s hard to fathom that these two cross paths in the Big Apple (the location work is stellar, making the city as much a character as with Spidey) so often in this twelve-hour fornicating frenzy. Certainly, its 100-plus minutes needed a good trimming (ten off the “top”), but those filmgoers into some really raunchy R-rated (a deserving rating) ribaldry should find plenty during this ONE NIGHT ONLY.
3 Out of 4
ONE NIGHT ONLY is now playing exclusively in theatres
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted 16 students as winners of the 53rd Student Academy Awards® competition. This year, the Student Academy Awards competition received 2,972 entries from 894 colleges and universities worldwide. The 2026 winners join the ranks of such past Student Academy Award® winners as Patricia Cardoso, Pete Docter, Spike Lee, Patricia Riggen and Robert Zemeckis.
The presentation ceremony for the annual international student film awards will be held at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) inside TIFF Lightbox at Reitman Square on Monday, September 14, 2026, at 6pm ET, in partnership with Rolex.
The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title:
Alternative/Experimental Lei He, “Drifting,” Duke University, United States Viktorie Štěpánová, “Volklore,” Filmová a Televizní Fakulta Akademie Múzických Umění v Praze (FAMU), Czech Republic Nina Broers, “Where Is My Sex Drive?” St. Joost School of Art & Design, Netherlands
Animation Jonathan Lally, Elio Molinaro & Nicolás Acevedo Ferraté, “COWS,” École Supérieure de Métiers Artistiques (ESMA), France Noran Fikri Alezabi, Xinyue Ma & Yulin Yue, “Gauze,” Gobelins, France Matthias Strasser, “The Panic Inside,” Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Documentary Arjun Fischer, “Artificial Love,” University of Southern California, United States Jason Elliott, “I Want to Live,” National Film and Television School, United Kingdom Lara Dihmis, “The Last People of Petra,” New York University, United States
Narrative Stanzin Jigmet, “The Dragon Letter,” Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC), Spain Leon Korzyński, “Kamathipura Express,” Warsaw Film School, Poland Antoine Boulanger, “The Pichenotte,” Concordia University, Canada
First-time honors go to students from Concordia University, Duke University, École Supérieure de Métiers Artistiques (ESMA), Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC), St. Joost School of Art and Design and Warsaw Film School.
Gold, silver and bronze placements in the four award categories will be announced at the ceremony. In addition, winners will have a robust weekend of education programing, networking opportunities and exclusive access to Academy members to support their career advancement.
All Student Academy Award-winning films will be eligible to compete for the 99th Oscars® in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Film category. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 70 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared 15 awards.
Rolex is supporting the Student Academy Awards through its partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, reflecting its ongoing commitment to fostering excellence, achievement and the transfer of cinematic knowledge to the next generation.
The Student Academy Awards were established in 1972 to provide a platform for emerging global talent by creating opportunities within the film industry to showcase their work.
