Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

The first time I had heard of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (GLHFDD) was a trailer for it in front of my theatrical screening of Return to Silent Hill. Its concept and style of humor immediately piqued my interest, and my own familiarity with some of director Gore Verbinski’s previous work certainly helped. Although I didn’t end up seeing it in a theater, I was able to eventually watch it through streaming, however I had to rent it through Amazon Prime due to the Hulu/Disney+ option hitching up only on the device I intended to watch it on. Not only was I thoroughly entertained by the execution of its premise, it also provided some interesting commentary on the state of technology that made me think about my own usage of it.

Stubs - Toy Story 5

Toy Story 5 (2026) voices Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Conan O'Brien, Scarlett Spears, Greta Lee, Shelby Rabara, Mykal-Michelle Harris, Craig Robinson, Frank Welker. Directed by Andrew Stanton. Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Kenna Harris Produced by Lindsey Collins, Jessica Choi Run Time: 102 minutes. Color. USA Animated, Adventure, Comedy

The toys are back in town and it’s good to see them.

Honestly, I was a little nervous about this film, based on fears that the Toy Story franchise would eventually run out of steam. But after 31 years, I’m happy to say that it can still make me cry.

Toy Story 3 (Film)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3.

While a third entry to the popular Toy Story franchise would seem inevitable due to high box office returns, Toy Story 3 had quite a rough development. The short version is that, due to the distribution contract Pixar had signed, Disney owned the rights to all of their characters and could make sequels for any of their films, which strained the relationship between the two companies. Disney would push forward with their own Toy Story 3, to be produced by new studio Circle Seven Animation, for a 2008 release. Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, however, placed Disney Animation under new management, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, with Circle Seven shutting down shortly after and sequel production transferred to Pixar. Pixar would craft a whole new story, which would eventually see the light of day as the final version of Toy Story 3 in 2010. Although the film would cost about $200 million to create, making it one of the most expensive films ever made at the time, it was the first animated film to make over $1 billion, even becoming the highest-grossing animated film ever until Frozen, and would receive numerous nominations and awards, including an Oscar for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (“We Belong Together”).

At the time the film came out, when I was in high school, I felt cautious optimism going in; optimism from Pixar’s flawless track record up to then and caution from how the third film in a series usually isn’t as good as the first two. Fortunately, it stuck the landing as perhaps the perfect ending to the trilogy (with not a dry eye in the audience by the time the credits rolled). Admittedly, I hadn’t seen this entry as much in the interim, partly due to the devastating emotional core and some rather heavy imagery, but by the time I finished watching it now, over 15 years later, I remembered why it had left an impact at the time it had come out. However, I had also forgotten how intense it could be at the same time.

Second Opinion - Toy Story

Note: This review contains spoilers for Toy Story.

Back in 1995, years before the studio tied the knot with Disney, Pixar made history with Toy Story, the first ever completely CGI animated film. Its impact on the animation industry, for better or worse, cannot be understated, as it revolutionized the medium and opened up more of its potential. The most impressive thing about the film, however, isn’t that it spawned an ongoing multimedia franchise or made a lasting mark on pop culture through iconic characters and moments, but that even over 30 years later, despite the animation showing its age, it still holds up as one of the studio’s best films and among the best that the medium has to offer.

Stubs - The Sheep Detectives

The Sheep Detectives (2026) starring Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Galitzine, Molly Gordon, Hong Chau, Emma Thompson; voices: Brett Goldstein, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart. Directed by Kyle Balda. Screenplay by Craig Mazin. Based on Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. Produced by Lindsay Doran, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner. Run Time: 109 minutes. Color. USA/UK Comedy, Mystery.

I’m a big fan of mysteries, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one in which a flock of sheep help solve a murder. But that’s the plot of The Sheep Detectives, a new film that’s currently in release. And, while it may sound far-fetched, the film is very much worth watching, and in fact, I’m looking forward to seeing it again.

The Devil Wears Prada 2

In a more risk-averse post-pandemic Hollywood climate, decades-long gaps between movie sequels are more common. This is especially true for films under the Disney umbrella, with The Devil Wears Prada 2 (distributed by 20th Century Studios) strutting down the runway 20 years after the original The Devil Wears Prada from 2006. Despite the passage of time between productions affecting both the returning cast and the world that their characters inhabit, this is one case where the using the same passionate crew results in a follow-up that manages to stand with the original as a natural next step rather than fall painfully short.

Stubs - The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada (2006) starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Simon Baker. Directed by David Frankel. Screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna. Based on The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger.  Produced by Wendy Finerman. Run time: 109 minutes. Color. USA. Comedy, Drama

Lauren Weisberger was 26 when she turned her experience as an assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour into a book. The best-selling novel, The Devil Wears Prada, spent six months on New York Times's bestseller list. Fox bought the rights to the novel even before it was finished. Carla Hacken, then the studio's executive vice president, had only seen the first hundred pages of the manuscript and an outline for the rest of the plot.

As is common practice in Hollywood, four screenwriters worked on the property. Peter Hedges wrote the first draft; another writer passed. Paul Rudnick did some work on Miranda's scenes, followed by a Don Roos rewrite. Aline Brosh McKenna produced a draft that struck a balance for Finerman and Frankel, whose notes were incorporated into a final version, rearranging the plot significantly, and focusing the story on the conflict between Andy and Miranda.

Meryl Streep was not the first choice for Miranda. She was initially not considered because no one knew she could be funny. Before her, Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close, and Catherine Zeta-Jones were considered before her. Signing Streep allowed Fox to greenlight the project.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Note: This review contains spoilers for The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The success of 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, grossing over $1 billion on a $100 million budget, would naturally justify a sequel, announced one year later and released in 2026. Despite animation studio Illumination’s track record for the inconsistent quality of their output, I still enjoyed The Super Mario Bros. Movie (in spite of its flaws) and felt growing hype as the sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, drew closer, enough that I finally played the original game that it was based on, Super Mario Galaxy. Although some skepticism and negative critic reviews popped up during the lead-in to the film’s release, I felt that I should see first-hand how it shaped up compared to the original. Unfortunately, for every enjoyable element, there is something that holds it back from greatness.

George of the Jungle

Back in 1967, ABC aired George of the Jungle, one of Jay Ward’s most famous creations, which lasted 17 episodes (thanks to the animators regularly going over budget) and spawned some legacy media of its own. One of these was a film adaptation, George of the Jungle (GOTJ), which started life as a spec script called Gorilla Boy that parodied Tarzan. Disney would buy this spec script and have it rewritten into GOTJ (fitting, since the original cartoon was itself a parody of Tarzan). The final film released in 1997 and, in spite of the mixed reception, would more than earn its $55 million budget back with a final box office tally of about $174.4 million. I myself had vague memories of watching it as a kid, though not in a theater, and recently found myself curious about it again while revisiting the original cartoon. One stream through Disney+ later and while I can see how many children of the 90s would have more familiarity with this incarnation than the original, as well as fond memories, I found it less than stellar watching for the first time through adult eyes.

Hoppers

As I said in my review of Elio, Pixar’s track record has proven rather hit and miss in the 2020s, complete with Elio itself finishing its theatrical run as a box office bomb that maybe made its $150 million budget back. This made me less enthusiastic about their follow-up film, Hoppers, at least at first. The more I saw the trailers, however, the more my curiosity got the better of me and I ended up watching it on opening weekend. Although I didn’t have high expectations going in, I had a genuinely good time and walked away with a willingness to actually rewatch a recent Pixar film later, which rekindled some hope for the studio’s future.

Stubs - Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner. Directed by Rob Reiner. Screenplay by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner. Based on characters created by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner. Produced by Rob Reiner, Michele Singer Reiner, Matthew George. Run time: 84 minutes. Color. USA. Mockumentary, Comedy

Perhaps proving that you can wait too long between sequels, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, the sequel to This is Spinal Tap (1984), came and went at the box office so fast that if you waited more than a week or so, it was already out of theaters. Budgeted at $22.6 million, the film earned only $3.2 million upon release on September 12, 2025. While commercially a failure, the film has apparently found a second life on HBO Max.

Stubs - O. Henry’s Full House

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)  Starring (in alphabetical order): Fred Allen, Anne Baxter, Jeanne Crain, Farley Granger, Charles Laughton, Oscar Levant, Marilyn Monroe, Jean Peters, Gregory Ratoff, Dale Robertson, David Wayne, Richard Widmark. Directed by Henry Koster, Henry Hathaway, Jean Negulesco, Howard Hawks, Henry King. Screenplay by Richard L. Breen, Walter Bullock, Ivan Goff, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson, Charles Lederer, Ben Roberts, Lamar Trotti. Based on the short stories "The Cop and the Anthem" in New York World (Dec 4, 1904); "The Clarion Call" in New York World (Oct 29, 1905); "The Last Leaf" in New York World (Oct 15, 1905); "The Ransom of Red Chief" in The Saturday Evening Post (Jul 6, 1906); and "The Gift of the Magi" in New York World (Dec 10, 1905) by O. Henry. Produced by André Hakim. Run time: 117 minutes. Black and White. USA Comedy, Drama, Anthology, Christmas.

While it wasn’t common practice for studios to make a series of short stories into movies, 20^th Century-Fox thought that the writings of William Sydney Porter, also known as O. Henry, were worthy of such a treatment. That is not to say anthology films were not made; they have been made frequently in India, Italy, and Great Britain, to name a few. Anthology films had been made prior to this one in Hollywood, most notably If I Had a Million (1932), produced by Paramount and including a segment directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

That said, it is thought that three films produced in the UK were the inspiration for O. Henry’s Full House: Quartet (1948) was based on stories by Somerset Maugham, who also personally introduced each one. Quartet was such a success, two sequels were made Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), also based on Maugham short stories. Paramount picked up the sequels for distribution in the U.S and the films were both critical and commercial successes.

Seeing as each segment was written, directed and starred different people, we’ll take each segment of the film one at a time.

Stubs - Larceny, Inc.

Larceny, Inc. (1942) starring Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson, Anthony Quinn, Edward Brophy. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Screenplay by Everett Freeman, Edwin Gilbert. Based on the play The Night Before Christmas by Laura and S. J. Perelman (New York, 10 Apr 1941). Executive Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Run time: 95 minutes. Black and White. USA. Comedy, Drama, Christmas

Towards the end of his career at Warner Bros., Edward G. Robinson made movies that spoofed the hard-nosed gangster roles that had made him a star; comedies, like A Slight Case of Murder (1938) and Brother Orchid (1940). Both of these films were directed by Lloyd Bacon, so it is no surprise that Bacon would be chosen to direct Robinson’s final film at the studio, the comedy Larceny, Inc.

A Minecraft Movie

Note: This review contains spoilers for A Minecraft Movie.

What happens when you make a movie based on a video game with no story? Markus “Notch” Persson tried to find out in 2014 when his company, Mojang, struck with a deal with Warner Bros. to develop Minecraft, Persson’s creation and currently the best-selling video game of all time. As with many Hollywood projects, however, the project went through development hell for nearly a decade, surviving several personnel changes both at Warner Bros. and at Mojang, including Microsoft purchasing the company and Persson subsequently stepping down. Finally, in 2022, production finally went into full swing, with filming conducted in 2024 and the final release in 2025. Although the film received mixed reception from critics, with a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, it still earned just shy of $1 billion at the box office against a budget of $150 million. A rather impressive feat.

Although I had some experience with Minecraft, I didn’t really watch it out of any genuine excitement. The first trailer left a bad impression between its use of The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” and editing that didn’t contain a single trace of sincerity. The following trailers did a better job with showing the actual plot and comedic tone, but did little to wash out the sour taste left by the initial reveal. Of course, when the movie succeeded despite expectations, it gained awareness not for any indication of quality, but from the memes that spawned from it, including the infamous “Chicken Jockey” trend that caused headaches for theaters and the employees who had to clean up huge messes, not helped by how director Jared Hess didn’t really discourage the behavior (he did benefit from the increased ticket sales, after all). The non-zero possibility of witnessing such chaos firsthand discouraged me from seeing in the theater, even if I really wanted to, so I didn’t consider it until I could stream it on HBO Max, free from spills, live chickens or rowdy theatergoers, if only to see what all the fuss was about. About 100 minutes later, I walked away fully convinced that such an average film’s success came entirely from memes, for better or worse.

Stubs - Caveman

Caveman (1981) starring Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long, John Matuszak. Directed by Carl Gottlieb. Screenplay by Rudy De Luca, Carl Gottlieb. Produced by Lawrence Turman, David Foster. Run time: 91 minutes. Color.  Mexico, US. Comedy, Adventure

To quote the late character actor Edmund Gwenn, who on is deathbed supposedly said, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” That might have been a clue for Lawrence Turman, one of the producers of Caveman. Around 1978, Turman saw comedian Buddy Hackett in a caveman loincloth in a sketch on the ''Tonight Show'' and thought: ''Wouldn't it be a great idea to do a prehistoric comedy?''. He said: ''As a kid, I loved the film 'One Million Years B.C.' [1966] and the thought of doing a picture like that, using the same wardrobe and the same language, but played for laughs, seemed like a great idea.''

Kronk's New Groove

In the mid-90s and throughout most of the 2000s, Disney released a number of direct-to-video sequels for some of their films, regardless of box office performance. Some, like Atlantis: Milo’s Return, are actually three episodes of a canned TV series stapled together. One such DTV sequel was Kronk’s New Groove (titled onscreen as The Emperor's New Groove 2: Kronk's New Groove), which released in 2005 despite its parent film, The Emperor’s New Groove, not turning a profit in its initial release. Considering that the spinoff series The Emperor’s New School lasted two seasons with 52 episodes, however, post-release popularity must have come into play. In any case, Kronk’s New Groove notably scored a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, but considering that it only has seven critic reviews, I didn’t consider that an accurate barometer of its quality. Since I owned the film on a Blu-ray with both installments, I thought it best to watch it for myself, though I did go in with already low expectations (Tony Leondis, best known for The Emoji Movie, even had a story credit, for what it’s worth). I found it better than I was originally led to believe, although it’s (unsurprisingly) still a step down from the original film.

Stubs - The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024) voices by Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Wayne Knight, Laraine Newman Directed by Pete Browngardt. Screenplay by Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Amdrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, Eddie Trigueros. Produced by Michael Baum. Run time: 91 minutes. Color. USA. Animated, Comedy

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck are back on the big screen in The Day the Earth Blew Up, a Warner Bros., animation film released by Ketchup Entertainment. If you’re expecting the old Looney Tunes from your childhood, this is a good facsimile but doesn’t quite live up to expectations. Some of that may have to do with the fact that there are 11 writers on the film and while the style is reminiscent of the past, the humor is a little cruder.

Stubs - Waitress

Waitress (2007) starring: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Adrienne Shelly, Eddie Jemison, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith. Directed by Adrienne Shelly. Screenplay by Adrienne Shelly. Produced by Michael Roiff. Run time: 104 minutes. Color. USA. Comedy.

Every holiday seems to have related films, take Groundhog Day, or even a genre of films, Christmas with the holiday film. But some holidays don’t have films that come to mind. For Pi(e) Day, can we recommend Waitress directed by Adrienne Shelly?

Stubs - Anora

Anora (2024) starring Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Aleksei Serebryakov. Directed by Sean Baker. Screenplay by Sean Baker. Produced by Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, Sean Baker. Run time: 239 minutes. Color. USA Comedy, Drama

Sometimes the hype hits the road and it’s not a pretty sight. You hear over and over again how good a film is and how many awards its won and you think you need to watch it to keep up. A few years ago, it was Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and this year it’s Anora. But after watching, you wonder why it’s being hailed as a possible Academy Award Best Picture winner.

Black Dynamite

While we’ve reviewed cult films on this blog before, we’ve never reviewed one quite like Black Dynamite. Back in 2009, this parody of, and homage to, 1970s blaxploitation films hit theaters to great reviews, but bombed at the box office, making only $296,557 against a $2.9 million budget, thanks to its rather limited release in a mere 70 theaters over just two weeks. Despite this, however, the Black Dynamite franchise expanded to include a two-season animated series on [adult swim] and a handful of comic book issues. My first exposure to Black Dynamite actually came from the cartoon, which I loved, but never finished watching as other life events got in the way. Once Max started removing even more content, however, with the Black Dynamite cartoon on the chopping block, I started revisiting it and thought that I should finally give the original film its due. Even without having seen any of the blaxploitation films that had inspired it, I’m glad that we can enjoy such an underrated gem.