Saccharine

• Director: Natalie Erika James
• Writer: Natalie Erika James
• Starring: Midori Francis, Danielle MacDonald, Madeleine Madden

Grade: C-

Saccharine is the third feature from Writer/Director Natalie Erika James, following her pandemic-era breakthrough Relic and 2024’s Rosemary’s Baby prequel, Apartment 7A.  The film follows Hana (Midori Francis), a medical student suffering from body dysmorphia who experiments with a new weight-loss pill that promises to slim her down in next to no time. With GLP-1 medications now commonplace in our society, this may feel like a familiar and timely premise. But of course, there’s more to it, as Hana finds that what seems like a simple solution to her struggles may come tied to sinister consequences.

Swapped

• Director: Nathan Greno
• Writer: Robert Machoian
• Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Juno Temple, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Justina Machado

Grade: C-

My hackles immediately go up at any film which opens with a “yeah, that’s me, I bet you’re wondering how I got here”-style voiceover, and Swapped – which trafficks in a similar kind of flash-forward – never really recovers from rote familiarity at nearly every turn. Director Nathan Greno, and screenwriters Christian Magalhaes, Robert Snow, and John Whittington, show some originality through the creative character designs, but the film mostly feels emblematic of what’s plagued Netflix original films and modern animation overall.

Omaha

• Director: Cole Webley
• Writer: Robert Machoian
• Starring: John Magaro, Molly Bell Wright, Wyatt Solis, Talia Balsam, Emma Keifer, Teo Santos

Grade: B

Those who follow the Sundance Film Festival regularly know that it attracts a certain type of indie film with recurring sensibilities. I’d never profess to be a long-standing expert on this phenomenon, but Cole Webley’s Omaha (which premiered at Sundance in 2025 and will soon be in theaters nationwide) plays as an emblematic example of what the festival does best, for better or worse. That is, a portrait of a hard-up family or individual scraping by, probably somewhere in rural or small-town America, as they’re faced with external or existential adversities – with some sad indie guitar music peppered in for flavor. Webley’s film is exactly that, a road trip focused on a family as they move from their foreclosed home to the titular Nebraska city.

Blue Heron

• Director: Sophy Romvari
• Writer: Sophy Romvari
• Starring: Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble, Lucy Turnbull, Jecca Beauchamp

Grade: B+

How could this have been prevented? It’s frequently one of the first questions asked once tragedy strikes, and it’s one that Blue Heron, the stunningly assured debut feature from writer-director Sophy Romvari, wrestles with. There are elements of the film that are autobiographical to Romvari’s life, accentuated by specificities which feel like they were plucked from her memories. But its greatest triumph is in not feeling so isolated, as if anyone can find something relatable within its story.

Thrash

• Director: Tommy Wirkola
• Writer: Tommy Wirkola
• Starring: Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Dart, Alyla Browne, Dante Ubaldi, Stacy Clausen, Elijah Ungvary, Amy Mathews

Grade: C-

From its opening introductory text regarding the increasing frequency of intense hurricanes, Thrash – now streaming on Netflix – presents its thesis as a grand metaphor for climate change and its potentially unintended consequences. Of course, it’s nothing new for horror/thriller films to throw in a political or social message through varying degrees of subtlety, but writer-director Tommy Wirkola clues us in right off the bat regarding where his film’s priorities lie. Fortunately the film doesn’t always feel like a glorified PSA throughout its entire runtime, a la Don’t Look Up. Rather, as the film goes on, the climate change metaphor takes a back seat to shark mayhem, to varying degrees of success.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

• Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
• Writer: Matthew Fogel
• Starring: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Benny Safdie, Charlie Day, Brie Larson, Glen Powell

Grade: D

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie serves as more proof that, according to the Hollywood machine, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In 2023, when The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed over 1 billion dollars worldwide in spite of mostly negative critical reactions, the folks at Universal, Illumination, and Nintendo decided not to look inward and seek to find the beating hearts of its titular plumber-heroes. Rather, its sequel gives fans more of the same empty calories they so desperately crave.