So, where was I before everything turned into pure chaos around here? Yeah, it’s been a while, so long story short, The Great East Coast Snowstorm of 2026 kept me away from the writing desk for over a week, which knocked me off of my routine which is why I’m still trying to catch up on 2025 movies right up until the end of February. Don’t worry, we’ll finish things up around here soon; I’ve just gotta find my groove again by watching a bunch of streaming movies, and I don’t even need to leave the house! Will these prove to be artistically significant and critically interesting feature films, or am I just looking for a way to justify barely getting off the couch for several weeks? Let’s find out!!
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Jay Kelly
Jay Kelly is owned by Netflix
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Hollywood superstar Jay Kelly (George Clooney) was living his best life until his mentor (Jim Broadbent) has just died which has put him in a melancholic and nostalgic mood, so instead of going straight to his next project, he convinces his manager Ron (Adam Sandler) to let him travel across Europe in the hopes of seeing his youngest daughter (Grace Edwards), and spending some time with here before she’s too cool for her dad. It won’t be an easy luxury vacation, however, Jay will have to confront the decisions he’s made and the people he’s hurt to get where he is today. Will he come out the other side with a better idea of who he is and who he wishes to be, or is too late for an old show-dog to learn new tricks?
Our first feature comes from the redoubtable workhorse of the streaming world, Netflix, and certainly seems to have the most aspirations of anything we’ll be talking about today. Big name stars, an award winning director, a story that’s about Hollywood itself, there is little doubt that Netflix is once again throwing a lot of money at the wall to see what awards it can garner, and while that sense of calculation is coldly persistent throughout the movie, it finds enough of a genuine heart for the cynicism to stay firmly in check. It’s a tale as old as cinema itself, from Sunset Boulevard all the way to Clerks III, but there’s a reason that this premise gets trotted out every few years as it appeals to the lived experiences of the people making it, and it’s fun for audiences to feel like we’re getting a peek behind the curtain; helped in no small part by Clooney’s performance as he makes a game effort at making Jay Kelly work as both a fully realized person and a commentary on his own life and career. It remains light and easy going with its plot, but Baumbach makes some sharp creative decisions with the editing and cinematography that gives it enough spark to be more than just a showcase for the actors; all of whom are giving solid performances, but aside from Clooney and Sandler, feel more like extended cameos than genuine characters. There’s a general uneasiness to the whole affair as it seems unwilling to confront its own Big Hollywood energy while turning its nose up at the industry. As much as George Clooney is getting credit for his performance in this, and for how much the movie seemingly revolves around his real world persona, he’s not listed as a writer or producer, and the low-key vibe to the whole thing means you could have slipped any number of aging actors into this role without having to change much at all. It’s not that the movie is inauthentic, because every movie is inauthentic. It’s that it tries to nudge us towards thinking that it has more to say than it ultimately does; failing to live up to the emotional impact that it’s trying to sell us on. Outside of a heartbreaking performance by the venerable Stacy Keach, it’s mostly just a fun ride with Clooney and Sandler who have affable chemistry but not much to say. It’s a movie that wants to be about the phoniness of Hollywood and the way it sucks people into a world of fantasy before spitting them back out, but its commentary can only be so biting given how deeply it’s embedded in the system it wants to critique.
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Heads of State
Heads of State is owned by Amazon MGM Studios
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
Prime Minster Same Clarke (Idris Elba) has had to overcome a lot to get where he is today, but his greatest challenge of all might just be dealing with the actor turned US President Will Derringer (John Cena) who is coming to England on a diplomatic tour. Things only get worse when their plane is attacked by bad guys and the two are forced to bail out in the middle of who-knows-where Europe with only their wits and training to keep them alive. Will the two find some common ground and work together for the good of both their nations, or will Clarke’s stubbornness and Derringer’s inexperience make them easy targets for whoever has put a target on their backs?
It’s been interesting to see how certain types of mid-range movies have changed in the current media landscape. Action movies are in the awkward position of being in the same genre as the biggest money makers out there, but not every movie can be based on a popular franchise, so those that can’t sell toys or soap brand sponsorships get relegated to the streaming services. Prime has been churning these out like nobody’s business, and for the most part they’ve been rather underwhelming. This recent effort from them doesn’t exactly break from that mold as it does feel very budget conscious at points and never seems to have much ambition with its story or characters, but it does just enough with its big name stars to stay enjoyable. It’s certainly better than G20 which had a similar premise but felt very artificial and cobbled together from spare parts. This… well it’s an Amazon movie, so it still feels a bit like the IKEA version of a movie, but at least it benefits from having a solid action director behind it. Ilya Naishuller has made a name for himself with some genuine action chops and an eye for fun details, and while Hardcore Henry and Nobody are certainly better, he still gets to have his moments of cheeky fun and creative violence that keeps this from being a slog. It’s also held up by our two lead actors who aren’t exactly in the upper tier of buddy-action duos, but get the job done with what they are given. John Cena is fun playing a self-conscious parody of himself, and while Idris Elba doesn’t have nearly as interesting a character to play, his intensity and greater depth of emotional range provide a fun contrast to Cena’s flatter caricature and elevates the bog-standard material a tiny bit. The current strata of mid-range action movies in the streaming world occupy an uncomfortable space between theatrical films and the straight-to-video market of the 2000s; the area between Jarhead and the Jarhead sequels. It hasn’t been a great transition for anyone as the majority of these streaming action films have the stink of SEO all over them, but I think this movie is one of the better examples and perhaps a positive trend towards better at-home action flicks. Then again, Amazon has already roped this guy into making the Roadhouse sequel, so maybe we’ll hold off on praising them until they can put out more than one halfway decent movie a year.
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Mountainhead
Mountainhead is owned by HBO Films
Directed by Jesse Armstrong
On a lonely mountaintop compound are four of the richest tech nerds on the planet who find themselves in the middle of a worldwide crisis. Venis (Cory Michael Smith), owner of a social media app, has launched an ill-conceived AI feature that is pumping out fake news faster than governments can overreact to, and his fellow rich guys (Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, and Ramy Youssef) give him advise on how to manage it; not necessarily to fix the problem, but to maximize profits and power in a bid to take over the world, so long as they can divide it up fairly. Of course, sticking four megalomaniacs in a house together with little access to the outside world is bound to cause some friction, and it’s only a matter of time before these titans of industry take things to the furthest possible extremes.
Whatever you want to say about Warner Bros Discovery and the baffling business decisions they make on a daily basis, HBO Max is a darn fine streaming service with a rich catalog and some excellent original content. With that in mind, I let myself indulge in a little hype in hoping that this would be one of the better films of the year. I was certainly enjoying the hell out of this movie while I was watching it, but at the same time, my brain kept nagging at me about how little was actually going on despite the great performances and fun dialogue. It’s intentionally on a slow boil so that the performances can take center stage, but it never really reaches higher than a simmer. The situations do escalate as their egos butt up against each other, but nothing that feels like a change to the status quo; nothing that redefines their relationships or introduces an outside consequence. That’s clearly intended to be the point, however; that these people are so insulated from reality that literally nothing they do to each other or the rest of the world will affect them. You really get the sense of emptiness that permeates every facet of their lives, and hearing them bounce terrible idea after terrible idea off of one another without ever feeling doubt or shame is part of the fun. They are beyond changing, and beyond caring, which, fair enough, I suppose, as we are all well aware of what empty lives the rich and powerful have, but if you’re going to make a movie about that, there should be something to keep us hooked in. Even if the bubble never bursting for these guys is the point, a bubble should burst for the sake of a compelling narrative as there truly isn’t an inflection point of no return; a moment in the script where things get irrevocably changed in how these characters see themselves and their relationship to one another. The movie teases us with that, but again, the empty lives these people lead mean that no matter how much they decide to do to the world or to one another, it never feels like a meaningful action to these people who live outside the realm of consequences. A plot that was more exciting or audacious would have gone against the message this movie is trying to impart, and I can respect the discipline with which the filmmakers crafted this ludicrous situation, but being intentionally tedious with awful people still runs the risk of being tedious and off-putting, and while this movie manages to get all the way to the end without ever truly dropping the ball, I was left frustrated with how little catharsis there was to be found. Perhaps I’ve just moved past being horrified at Late-Stage Capitalism and don’t need a primer on its failings; at least one that doesn’t end with the billionaires getting flung from a catapult straight into a pit of spikes. That would certainly be a market disruption that I can believe in!
The Reviewers Unite 