10 Aug 2026

Traum-Com: “One Night Only,” “I Want Your Sex,” and “Ice Cream Man”

By Mike Schulz

There's nothing much wrong with director Will Gluck's romantic comedy One Night Only that couldn't have been fixed by ditching its leading man, leaning into its premise about 10 times harder, and turning it into a musical. Granted, we're talking about it being a different movie altogether. But I'd certainly have been on-board with those changes, because the movie we're stuck with largely sucks.

10 Aug 2026

Kids Spell the Darnedest Things: “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre through August 16

By Mike Schulz

Under the music direction of Rachel Young (who also conducts and plays keys in the superb five-person orchestra), and with the performers' individual vocal prowess unmistakable, the Showboat's acting ensemble sounds tremendous – easily matching, and occasionally bettering, the vocals of the Broadway cast.

03 Aug 2026

Peter, Principled: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”

By Mike Schulz

There are essentially three plotlines fighting for space in director Destin Daniel Cretton's Spider-Man: Brand New Day – even though, given its generous 145-minute running length, you wouldn't think any in-fighting was necessary.

27 Jul 2026

He Unsaid, She Unsaid: “Motor City,” “Hadestown: The Musical,” and “Her Private Hell”

By Mike Schulz

It's not that the characters can't talk. They just don't, or do without our being able to hear them, and that makes many of the goings-on here silly to the point of absurdity.

20 Jul 2026

Greece Lightning: “The Odyssey”

By Mike Schulz

Christopher Nolan appears seriously invested in our enjoyment, and there are many, many sequences in this grandly scaled adventure as thrilling, juicy, and ticklish as any that 2026 has thus-far produced. Those demanding fidelity to Homer are likely gonna hate it.

13 Jul 2026

Hawk and Piña and Joe and Angie: “The Invite,” “Evil Dead Burn,” “Gail Daughtry & the Celebrity Sex Pass,” and “Moana”

By Mike Schulz

Watching romantic relationships crack and crumble can be enormous, if nerve-racking, fun – just so long as those breakdowns are viewed from the perspective of an auditorium, and not a mirror.

06 Jul 2026

They're Ready for Their Closeups, Mr. DeMinion: “Minions & Monsters” and “Young Washington”

By Mike Schulz

It's hard to think of a more ticklish recent ode to cinema than Minions & Monsters, which would've been just about perfect if its monsters were ditched entirely.

29 Jun 2026

Kara Package: “Supergirl” and “Jackass: Best & Last”

By Mike Schulz

Given how bored I've been at so many cinematic superhero origin stories over the decades, I feel silly for actually feeling and writing this. But I really wish director Craig Gillespie's Supergirl had merely been a superhero origin story.

22 Jun 2026

Device and Conquer: “Toy Story 5,” “The Death of Robin Hood,” and “Leviticus”

By Mike Schulz

Thirty-one years after the franchise's debut, Disney/Pixar's latest animated comedy adventure is unusual in at least one regard: It's the first Toy Story that might be more fun to think about, and argue about, than actually watch.

15 Jun 2026

Closer Encounters: “Disclosure Day,” “Tuner,” and “Stop! That! Train!”

By Mike Schulz

Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day is many things:but most of all, it's an excellent self-test determining just how jaded you've become.

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