Unlike any other franchise, Star Wars has taken the idea of canon and continuity to places no others have. What started in a series of feature films has blossomed to novels, comics, video games, animated and live-action television. And all of it interconnected through the same sprawling epic timeline. It’s true that Star Wars has hit some recent rough patches. But the overall world is still precious to fans like me, and one area where it continues to thrive is in its animation.
“The Clone Wars,” “Rebels,” and “The Bad Batch” have expanded Star Wars lore in exciting ways. That trend looks to continue with “Maul – Shadow Lord”. Set in the aftermath of the Clone Wars, this new series follows one of the franchise’s most compelling characters, Maul, as he builds his underworld syndicate, trains a new apprentice, and keeps his vengeful eye on the power-mad Empire. The first trailer gives us a thrilling look at what may be the darkest animated series yet. Even more, the show will feature the voice work of a returning Sam Witwer and recent Oscar nominee Wagner Moura. This looks amazing.
“Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord” will premiere April 6th exclusively on Disney+. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
My earliest encounters with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe came in my brother’s bedroom where he and I fought countless action figure battles against Skeletor and his evil forces. That was followed by a popular animated series and eventually a corny 1987 live-action feature film starring Dolph Lundgren. Who knew that decades later, well after its heyday, the franchise would be back on the big screen with a brand-new big-budgeted adaptation.
The new “Masters of the Universe” film is directed by Travis Knight (“Bumblebee”) and stars Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Adam aka He-Man. Mixing classic sword and sorcery with science-fiction, the film follows Prince Adam who was transported to our modern day as a young boy after his world was ravaged by a civil war. Once grown, he discovers the legendary Sword of Power which turns him into the mighty He-Man. He then returns to his home world to reclaim it from the clutches of the evil Skeletor. Idris Elba, Jared Leto, Alison Brie, Camila Mendes, Morena Baccarin, and Kristen Wiig also star.
“Masters of the Universe” hits theaters June 5th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
The last stop on the lengthy awards season grind is the Academy Awards. It’s an event that I once adored. Yet in recent years I’ve slowly but steadily been losing interest. Awards season has gotten so homogenized with the same tiny group of nominees appearing everywhere. That’s made it extremely predictable, and never has that been more true than this year.
The 2026 Oscar nominations offered no real surprise to anyone who has even casually followed awards season. Sure, there was a handful of snubs (or surprises, depending on your perspective), but nothing that would indicate an actual diversity of thought or taste in the whole process. Yet still, as I always do, here are a few random thoughts from this year’s Academy Award nominations.
To no one’s surprise, the Academy accomplished its goal of cramming “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” into every category possible. It was expected, but it also led to several of the ‘snubs’ that I’ll talk about shortly.
Mission accomplished. “Sinners” broke a record by earning 16 Oscar nominations this morning. It was something that had started circulating a few days ago. Look, “Sinners” is a good movie. But it’s not THAT good.
Of course “One Battle After Another” remains the awards season darling and is the clear Best Picture frontrunner. Overall it earned 13 Oscar nominations and is on track to be the third subpar movie to win BP in the last four years. Congrats.
To their credit, nine out of the Academy’s ten nominees for Best Picture are good films. And they did include the year’s best film, “Train Dreams”. It doesn’t stand a chance at winning, but it’s nice to see it rightfully included.
It’s hard to believe “Frankenstein” received so many nominations yet nothing for Guillermo del Toro in directing. It’s a tremendous film that doesn’t get off the ground without his vision and craftsmanship. He should be the frontrunner. Instead he’s not even nominated.
Instead Josh Safdie gets a directing nod for “Marty Supreme”, an entertaining movie but a noticeably flawed one, in large part due to Safdie’s breakneck direction.
The Best Actress category belongs to Jessie Buckley and rightfully so. Of course the Academy remains smitten with Emma Stone so she gobbles up the last slot. But to her credit, she’s very good in “Bugonia”. Much better than her last Yorgos Lanthimos collaboration.
Staying with Best Actress, Chase Infiniti is the absolute best thing in “One Battle After Another” by MILES yet she doesn’t get nominated. You can’t make this stuff up.
Best Actor seems to be between Timothee Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”) and Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”). It’s good to see Michael B. Jordan nominated for “Sinners” but a shame that Joel Edgerton is snubbed for “Train Dreams”. Both deserve the win ahead of the frontrunners.
It wasn’t a good morning for “Wicked: For Good”. Unlike its predecessor, this mess of a sequel was completely shut out, receiving no nominations whatsoever. File this under something the Academy got right.
It was also great seeing “F1” among the Best Picture nominees. Again, it has no chance of winning, but the recognition is nice.
This is hard to believe, but Stellan Skarsgard is the very first international nominee to be included in the Supporting Actor category. Either way he deserves to win. His performance in “Sentimental Value” was one of the year’s very best.
The rest of the Supporting Actor category wasn’t as impressive. The Academy insisted on clogging it up with both Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro from “One Battle After Another”. They threw in Delroy Lindo from “Sinners” which sadly means no Paul Mescal (“Hamnet”) and no Adam Sandler (“Jay Kelley”). Whatever.
Best Casting is the first new competitive category at the Oscars in 25 years. Meanwhile stunt performers are still asking, “What about us?”
It’s hard to put much into this year’s awards when I think of the glaring omissions that have plagued the whole season. No Daniel Day-Lewis or Sean Bean for “Anemone”. No love for Josh O’Connor after the year he had. Nothing for “Nouvelle Vague”. Only one nomination for “Weapons”. No Russell Crowe for “Nuremberg”. Barely a mention of great films like “Warfare”, “Black Bag”, and “Eddington”. Again, there is no diversity of tastes or opinions. It’s mostly the same small pool of nominees at every stop.
And those are a few random thoughts from this year’s Oscar nominations. The 98th Academy Awards will be held Sunday, March 15th. What are your thoughts on the Academy’s crop of nominees?
It has been nearly thirty years since childhood friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck collaborated to write the screenplay for “Good Will Hunting”. The film would go on to be a box office smash, grossing over $225 million. Even more, the two buddies from Cambridge, Massachusetts would win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Soon after, both Damon and Affleck were catapulted into full leading man status. Yet despite their individual successes, their friendship remains strong to this day.
Damon and Affleck share the screen together again in Netflix’s “The Rip”, a pulse-pounding action thriller written and directed by Joe Carnahan. While they sit firmly as the film’s leads, Carnahan surrounds them with a compelling supporting cast that includes Steven Yeun, recent Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sasha Calle, Néstor Carbonell, and the always great Kyle Chandler.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
“The Rip” tells a gritty, street-level crime story set in Miami. It begins with the violent murder of Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco), the leader of the police department’s Tactical Narcotics Team. With the tight-knit squad still reeling from Jackie’s death, the FBI begin an Internal Affairs investigation to see if the murder was pulled off by someone within the department. Meanwhile Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon) is promoted to team leader. But his job won’t be easy with the division falling apart and morale at rock-bottom.
After receiving a Crime Stoppers tip identifying a stash house belonging to the Hialeah cartel, Dane rounds up his frustrated and disillusioned team of detectives. They consist of his his best friend and a long-time cop, Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Affleck), Detective Mike Ro (Yeun), Detective Numa Baptiste (Taylor), and Detective Lolo Salazar (Moreno). The team arrives at the house which sits at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. With his tone set and pieces in place, Carnahan then begins tightening the screws.
Image Courtesy of Netflix
The team is met at the door by a young woman named Desi (Calle) who claims the house belongs to her grandmother. But inside tells a much different story. While searching the rooms they discover fifteen buckets filled with cartel cash hidden in the walls of an attic. The team expected the “rip” to be from $150k to $300k. But they quickly realize they’re sitting on an estimated $20 million. Procedure states they count the money at the site of the seizure. But that much money comes with an extra layer of danger, which they soon learn after a mysterious phone call gives them 30 minutes to leave or else.
Carnahan drops his team in a pressure cooker as the detectives scramble to figure out the best course of action. Or are there other motivations in play? As the external threat mounts, it’s the internal fractures that drive the suspense. The real tension kicks in once the team members begin losing trust in each other. And as trust erodes, loyalties shift and paranoia sets in. Who’s dirty? Who’s clean? Carnahan masterfully keeps us guessing as he digs deep into corruption and betrayal.
The film’s mystery is a key reason it works so well. Carnahan plants seeds of suspicion everywhere without ever tipping his hand. And whenever we think we have things figured out, he proves to be one step ahead of us. At the same time, he and DP Juan Miguel Azpiroz use their camera to give the world a gritty and visceral texture. The striking visuals not only keep us on the edges of our seats, they also energize the action sequences, grounding them in realism and putting us in the middle of the violence. It’s exhilarating.
“The Rip” is Joe Carnahan’s best film since “The Grey” and it’s a killer start of the year for Netflix. Inspired by true events, the story and storytelling grips you from the opening scene to the closing credits. The conscious barrage of f-bombs dumbs things down a bit. But otherwise the script is razor-sharp, giving the intensely focused cast some rich material to work with. Of course it helps to have actors working at such strong comfort levels as Damon snd Affleck. They really do have a natural chemistry that comes through on screen. And that’s one of many reasons this enthralling action thriller hits with such force.
Searchlight Pictures is bringing the heartwarming “Rental Family” to home video. Directed and co-written by Hikari, the film sees Brendan Fraser in a role he was meant to play. The touching yet warmly comical premise has Fraser playing a struggling American actor living in Japan who gets a peculiar job that gives him a new outlook on himself and life. Fraser is joined by a terrific cast who give dramatic weight to this quirky yet deeply moving comedy-drama.
“Rental Family” is available NOW in 4K Ultra HD on digital platforms. It will release physically on Blu-ray on February 17th. See below for a full synopsis of the film as well as a list of the special features from both the digital and physical releases.
Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, some strong language, and suggestive material
Set in modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an American actor (Brendan Fraser) who struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the quiet beauty of human connection.
Special Features:
Bonus Features
Featurette: Rental Family Revealed — Go behind the scenes with Brendan Fraser, director HIKARI and the Japanese cast as they explore friendship, culture, found family, and filming in Japan in this intimate look at the making of Rental Family.
Deleted/Extended Scenes: o Columbus o Crying Session o Apology o Aiko’s First Client o Clearbright o Tickets o Audition o Phone Call o Final Montage
Last night the Hollywood Foreign Press brought us the 83rd Golden Globes Awards. 2025 was a peculiar year for movies and that translated to the Globes broadcast. Sadly, we once again have one invincible movie being pushed through every awards show. Along with it comes several winners that were just as easy to predict. But thankfully the show wasn’t without a few big surprises to go along with its more obvious moments. And that’s how these things often go.
As I do every year, here are a few random thoughts on this year’s Golden Globes awards...
When it comes to the big winner of the night, there was no drama at all. The frustratingly flawed yet wildly revered “One Battle After Another” has been ushered through awards season as this year’s darling. So it’s no surprise it won Best Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Globes. Unfortunate but predictable.
As for the best movie of the year, “Train Dreams”, the Hollywood Foreign Press couldn’t even bring themselves to nominate it for Best Picture or much of anything else. Whatever.
The first award of the night was Best Supporting Actress which went to Teyana Taylor for “One Battle After Another”. It was unexpected, but knowing the fashionable adoration for the movie, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Taylor’s win means Amy Madigan went home empty-handed. It’s a shame considering how tremendous (and deserving) she was in “Weapons”. Suddenly her Oscar chances have dipped.
Speaking of no surprise, Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director for “One Battle After Another”. Like Best Picture above, it was one of the most sure-thing wins of the night. PTA winning had been etched in stone since the movie first released.
“One Battle After Another” also won Best Screenplay despite easily being the weakest of the six nominees. But OBAA love knows no bounds. And the more deserving nominees this year were simply out of luck.
Then there’s “Hamnet” which won the final award of the evening, Beat Picture – Drama. I really thought “Sinners” had it in the bag. But it was “Hamnet” getting the big win that I wasn’t expecting. It now stands as a legit contender for second place in the Oscar Best Picture race.
Jessie Buckley appears to be in the driver’s seat for Best Actress after winning the award at The Critic’s Choice and now the Golden Globes. She was phenomenal in “Hamnet” delivering a performance that is 100% worthy. It’s great seeing her win and equally great seeing her reactions.
It wasn’t an especially great night for “Sinners”. While it did take home a couple of statues including the worthless Box Office Achievement award, it lost out on the biggies. I wonder why? Was it the rabid OBAA obsession? Or was it the age-old bias against horror movies which has long plagued these awards shows?
When announcing the nominees, couldn’t the Globes have shown actual clips from the movies or shows instead of just pinning where they were sitting in the room? It was such a bizarre and uneventful choice.
Nikki Glaser returned to host and she opened the show with several strong jokes. She basically followed the routine from her many celebrity roasts which means everybody was fair game.
Possibly my favorite from Glaser: “Sean Penn, you’re such an original. Everyone in this town is obsessed with looking younger; meanwhile, Sean Penn is like, “What if I slowly morph into a sexy leather handbag?“
Playing Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack” as Macaulay Culkin came out to present was kind of hilarious.
The very best moment of the night came in the Best Supporting Actor category. Stellan Skarsgård gave the best supporting performance of the year in “Sentimental Value” and it was great to see him win. It’s especially satisfying considering SAG didn’t even nominate him for their upcoming Actor Awards.
Sadly, “Sentimental Value” wouldn’t win another award. It’s such a shame and a big miss for the Hollywood Foreign Press.
“The Secret Agent” wins Best Non-English Language Motion Picture. It’s a good choice although “Sentimental Value” would have been my pick. Especially with the unfortunate absence of “Nouvelle Vague” from the nominees.
Timothée Chalamet wins Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy Film for “Marty Supreme”. It was certainly one of the biggest performances of the year. Nevertheless, Chalamet will be entering Oscar night in a really good position.
Ludwig Göransson wins Best Score for “Sinners” and it was very well deserved. Frustratingly, for some reason the Globes chose to cut it from their broadcast.
If the producers really wanted to show Göransson’s win they could have cut Judd Apatow’s rambling never-ending presentation of Best Director in half and had plenty of room. Unfortunately…
Wagner Moura wins Best Actor – Drama for “The Secret Agent”. He gave an a terrific performance, no doubt. But of these nominees, it should have went to Michael B. Jordan. What he did in “Sinners” was next level.
Side Rant: The fact that Daniel Day-Lewis hasn’t been nominated ANYWHERE for Best Actor this entire awards season puts a big asterisk next to this entire category.
Rose Byrne winning Best Actress – Musical or Comedy for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” was a nice moment and it was great to see her so appreciative. It was a powerful performance.
Glaser closing out the show wearing a Spinal Tap cap was a nice tribute to the late Rob Reiner. RIP.
And those are a few Random Thoughts from this year’s Golden Globes awards. Overall it was a fun enough show, although it’s hard to get too excited when there’s such a lack of drama in key categories. Now it’s onto Oscar night.
Keith & the Movies 