The Only Living Pickpocket in New York - 4 Stars - October 30, 2026 - THEATERS

John Turturro plays an old school guys in a new school world.  An aging pickpocket, he scrounges what he can, regularly visiting his long-time fence Steve Buscemi, and outfoxing aging police detective Giancarlo Esposite.  The old school cast of The Only Living Pickpocket in New York give the story a great 1970's gritty feel.  The world grows darker when our hero picks the wrong pocket, that belonging to young crime family prince Will Price.  Using new age tools, the kid quickly finds our man's weak spot, his desperately ill younger wife.  Can the old guy outsmart the new generation?  The answer is yes and no, leading to a great ending of both highs and lows.  The Only Living Pickpocket in New York answers the cry for the kind of movie they used to make.  Rest easy, they made this one.  

A Talent for Murder - 2 1/2 Stars - October 23, 2026 - THEATERS

The great Helen Mirren channels crime novelist Patricia Highsmith in her dying days in Switzerland in A Talent for Murder.   A publisher's representative sends messenger after messenger to talk her into a new contract.  Aldren Ehrenreich accepts her challenge to dream up a new plot.  I've always liked Ehrenreich.  He successfully morphs into the subject of the new work, based on his meeting on a train (! Highsmith wrote Strangers on a Train, remember?) with lovely Olivia Cooke as an heiress waiting for an inheritance.  How to get the pesky relatives out of the way?  I liked the feisty portrait of Highsmith.  I liked the story within the story.  A Talent for Murder almost got me, until a dud of an ending.  Patricia Highsmith is frowning, and I've got a half frown myself.  2 1/2 stars.   

Movie Guide

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York - 4 Stars - THEATERS - October 30, 2026 

The great John Turturro delights as an old school guy in new school New York.  Gritty 70s style character study and a thrill to watch, even as the stury turns darker and darker. 

You can see Everything - 4 Stars - THEATERS - October 16, 2026 - Comic/Internet Host Nathan Fielder imbeds with disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her family in the days before 

she begins her eleven-year prison sentence for fraud.  The jaw dropping results include reenactments and an A list actress.  

 
The Rivals of Amziah King - 4 Stars - APPLE - August 14, 2026 - Delightful modern noir with Matthew McConaughey as a beekeeper/musician/town character and newcomer Angelina LookingGlass as Matthew's foster daughter who takes over the business and avenges those who sabotaged  McConaughey.   

The Odyssey - 4 Stars - THEATERS- July 24, 2026 - Director Christopher Nolan goes big in the epic of the year.  Battles, monsters, and musings on civilization give viewers a lifetime's worth of food for thought.  Pee before you go.  Three hours.  (really doesn't feel like it.)  

The Invite - 4 Stars - PRIME - June 26, 2026 - Stunningly funny parable of modern marriage.  Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogan, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton never miss a beat.  Edgy R rated and fascinating.  

Tuner - 4 Stars - APPLE - May 28, 2026 --- A piano tuner turns safe cracker and balances a life of crime and music. Classic thriller with jaw dropping twists toward the end. 

Life is Short - 4 Stars - NETFLIX - May 12, 2026 - A surprisingly inspiring review of actor Martin Short's life, his talent, his joy, and the deep grief of love and loss.  

Norm - The Tale of Norm Macdonald. - 4 Stars - Netflix - October 16, 2026 - Thoughtful documentary on gifted stand-up Norm Macdonald - famously fired for his O.J. Simpson jokes on Saturday Night Live.  

The Pitt - 4 Stars - MAX - January 9, 2025 - Season Two - April 16, 2026  - One of the great medical series, with Noah Wyle as head of emergency medicine in a struggling Pittsburgh hospital.  The Pitt far surpasses Wyle's work in ER.  This one's the real deal. 

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA - 3 1/2 Stars - PRIME - August 7, 2026 - Delightful send up of slasher flicks and the movie business with Hannah Einbinder as Gen X filmmaker hired to reboot a tired slasher series.  Gillian Anderson channels her campiest Gloria Swanson in a jaw dropping guilty pleasure.  Don't take grandma.   

Obsession- 3 1/2 Stars - May 15, 2026 - PEACOCK - Socially awkward boy gets his wish for cute girl to love him obsessively.  Boy does this turn out bad.  Creative psychological thriller with a great performance from Inde Navarrette. Gets ready for shocks, jolts, and an unnervingly good time.

Remarkably Bright Creatures - 3 1/2 Stars - May 8, 2026 - NETFLIX - An Octopus observes Sally Field's friendship with a young drifter.  Delightful, creative and touching.  

The Sheep Detectives ---3 Stars --- PRIME - June 25,2026 - Delightful mix of animation and live action.  Shepherd Hugh Jackson is murdered.  His flock solves the who-done-it.   

Project Hail Mary - 31/2 Stars - PRIME - Ryan Gosling as a science nerd shot into space to save the world.  Optimistic and winning tonic for our times.  

The Devil Wears Prada 2 - 3 Stars - May 1, 2026 - STREAMING - Meryl Streep returns for a twenty year update of the iconic comedy.  Nothing new here, but still fun.  

A Talent for Murder - 2 1/2 Stars - October 23, 2026 - THEATERS - Helen Mirren, as crime novelist Patricia Highsmith spars with publishing representee Aldren Ehrenreich to create a new crime story.  The story within is fun but the ending disappoints. 

Coyote vs. Acme - 2 1/2 stars - APPLE - August 28, 2026 - Wile E. Coyote has his day in court, with the cartoon characters you love as well as Will Forte as Wile E's hapless lawyer.  

Verity - 2 Stars - October 2, 2026 - THEATERS - Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and a hot husband match wit in a formula thriller.   Johnson's hired to ghost write for the new paralyzed Hathaway, who can no longer move or speak.  OR CAN SHE?  This kind of story pops up every fall.  

The Housemaid - 2 Stars - HBO MAX - 2/3/26 - See Verity above.  Same kind of movie --- Amanda Seyfried, Sydney Sweeney, a hot husband and a twist.  What a formula. 

Primetime - 2 Stars - THEATERS - September 25, 2026 - Robert Pattinson oozes tension as Chris Hanson, creator of "To Catch a Predator." No heroes in this story of humiliation as entertainment.  I left with a headache.   

Disclosure Day - 2 Stars - STREAMING - June 12, 2026 - Steven Spielberg's still chasing space aliens.  This one's long, loud, and loaded with crash scenes.  Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor feel right, even if the project comes off like something from 30 years ago.  Nothing new to see here.   

  

 

 

YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING --- 4 Stars - THEATERS - October 16, 2026

Comic Nathan Fielder calls his film You Can see Everything a pseudo-documentary. For several weeks, disgraced technology company founder Elizabeth Holmes and her husband allow Fielder and his crew to embed with her and her family as she prepares to serve a federal prison sentence for defrauding investors.  In case you've forgotten --- Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, a company promising to diagnose and prevent serious illness by analyzing a single drop of blood.  Investors provided millions for the idea, which promised to take the place of the sometimes-painful blood draws medicine requires today.  Fielder is known for his cutting-edge comedy.  Some time ago I watched several episodes of Nathan for You which I found sometimes funny and sometimes so cringeworthy I signed off.  I consider Fielder an actor/comic in the mold of Sachia Baron-Cohen and his Borat character. As the story unfolds, we meet Elizabeth Holmes' partner/husband (not sure) and father of her two children Billy Evans.  The story casts Evans as the villain of the piece, holding power of attorney over Holmes and speaking on her behalf, even licensing her image.  After a while I began to wonder why Holmes and Evans agreed to this.  Those thoughts increased as Holmes enters prison and Fielder recreates scenes and phone conversations with the help of an A list actress.  I find it interesting Lance Oppenheim directs this project.  Oppenheim just produced Primetime - the story of Robert Hanson and his To Catch a Predator series on NBC. Taken together, I wonder if the point is to show we have entered a world where people will do anything for attention.  I found You can See Everything (and by the way, you can't --- in fact you don't even come close) quite an experience --- creative, cringeworthy, and brilliant.  I wonder what this will look like in twenty years when everyone's forgotten about Elizabeth Holmes and maybe medicine actually can diagnose disease with a drop of blood.  Till then, this qualifies as a must see.  

If you really get hooked find the series The Dropout on HULU, with Amanda Seyfried.  Also, Netflix offers a great documentary on the Theranos rise and fall titled Out for Blood.

VERITY - 2 Stars - THEATERS - October 2, 2026 & THE HOUSEMAID ---- 2 Stars - HBO Max - October 9, 2026

Verity takes another go at the sexy thriller with the hot husband in the middle.  In Verity, Anne Hathaway plays a fabulously successful writer who can no longer speak or move after a terrible car crash.  Hot husband Michael Showalter needs a ghost writer.  Of course he finds sexy, in need of work writer Dakota Johnson.  And of course, Dakota has to move in with the couple and their young son.  Pretty soon Dakota and hottie husband start canoodling. What's the harm, after all, Anne can't move or speak ---OR CAN SHE?  Verity is more of a type than a movie.  

The Housemaid - HBO MAX - one week later on a main streamer --- October 9, 2026.  2 Stars. Same movie except it's Sydney Sweeny and Amanda Seyfried and another hot guy I've never heard of --- Brandon Sklenar.  Nice twists end both movies.  Both belong to a long line of sexy thrillersplayed off season for decades. 

Lorne - October 5, 2026-1 Star/Who is Martin Mull - October 7,2026-1 Star/Norm-The Tale of NOrm Macdonald-October 16,2026-4 Stars/All NETFLIX

Norm-The Tale of Norm Macdonald establishes the late standup comic as a comic's comic.  A mix of Macdonald's life and behind the scenes interviews with clips from various appearances paints a picture of a strange man beloved by his peers.  Macdonald is best known for his biting jokes about O.J. Simpson during his time as the Weekend Update News Reader on Saturday Night Live.  Simpson friend Don Ohlmeyer - head of NBC at the time - fired Macdonald for being "not funny."  Macdonald possessed a dry drool sense of humor and a talent for stretching a joke to a side-splitting punch line.   The documentary captures a unique talent deserving of appreciation.  4 Stars 

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Who is Martin Mull? tells the story of another very funny comic.  Mull won my heart as the host of Fernwood Tonight, a local late night talk show purposely done on the cheap, poking fun at small towns and television in general.  Earlier Mull produced Dueling Tubas, a lampoon of Dueling  Banjos.  The documentary reveals Mull really liked to paint.  Wish I could tell you I found that interesting, but I didn't.  1 star. 

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Lorne - follows Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels as he produced the long running comedy show.  Lorne clearly despises the camera.  Other people talk about him.  One bright spot captures a pep talk before a live performance.  The clips are nice.  Lorne Michaels is 81 years old.  The show he founded has turned generic.  This documentary feels like an NBC infomercial.  1 Star.