one more story movie review

• Sat. Jun 1st, 2024

The Observatorial

WorldWide News Outlet

“One more story”: Finally an Israeli romantic comedy that gives up kitsch

And these are the days of millennials. Love has become shorter than the Tishrei holidays, dating apps have long since entered their golden age, and romantic comedies, well, in the fall. For years. But precisely because of the cloak of cynicism, and the realization that the knight on the white horse, or the cooperative scooter, will no longer come, “one more story” hits the spot.

The film, created by Guri Alfi based on Omar Barak’s bestseller ‘Pressed Wedding’, tells the story of Jordan Gat (Dina Sanderson in the lead role), a successful, young and sharp journalist who dreams of holding her book with her own hands, and is willing to do anything for it. Even turning her best friend, Adam Lapid (Maayan Blum), a frustrated bachelor and hopeless romantic, into a guinea pig.

It all starts with a dim Indian restaurant. Gat meets an anonymous stranger (thousands) for an awkward, sweaty blind date and once again awkward. On his advice, she decides to crack a story that explains why she is actually a horrible, ‘shit’ entity as she defines it. So far it sounds promising, no? From this moment the plot begins to revolve around a person, seeking love as in stories, one that is almost irrelevant in our terms.

On the way to happiness, or bitter disappointment, you will also meet Jordan’s smug boss and lover, Amos (Lior Ashkenazi), in the bright corridors of the newspaper’s editorial office. Together they send a man every day on a date with another woman for a month, to marry him and get with ratings, and prove that you can fall in love anyway. No birdsong and no wandering butterflies.

Jordan and Amos thought it was the perfect crime. But then Adam, ceased to be a graceful personality by all accounts, falls in love with Maya Shaked (Daniel Gal), a brain researcher who has grown tired of men and has chosen rats. The name of the story gets complicated, and not as predictably as I thought.

Although most of us have already lost all glimmer of hope of encountering our objects of love in the hallway with hands full of books, the film managed to penetrate, even if for a moment, the steel armor. At least mine. Between the dark walls of Jordan, which tries to maintain itself even if you step on some hearts along the way, and the almost robotic naivety of a man, there will probably be love. And here, she totally wins. Without the slightest hint of squalor.

Throughout the film you will also see Adi Khabshush and Gia Beer Gurevitch in the role of the stockists who will make a man attractive to women, at least on social media. Behind the scenes are director Avi Nesher, who stars at the top of the credits under the mysterious nickname “The Man for Special Missions,” and Galit Hugi and Noa Ehrenberg, creators of the series “My Successful Sisters,” who must have added to the comedy cauldron.

Whether “One More Story” succeeds at the box office or not, this is the first romantic comedy I have felt that gives up kitsch, replacing it with a stinging roughness that gives a punch in the stomach. It will make you embarrassed, move uncomfortably in a chair and also remind you of the gaps between men and women in the job market. But there will also be catharsis, and it’s worth it all.

In conclusion – even if I was happy to see a slightly more detailed ending, still – want to see. Guri Alfi did it again.

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One more story, עוד סיפור אחד.

Directed by Guri Alfi

Yarden Gat is young, brilliant, creative and doesn't really believe in love. However when she decides to go on a date anyway, she soon dicovers herself telling about the time she worked for a newspaper, slept with her married boss and following his order ruined her single romanticist best friend's life, when she sends him on many dates only to write about it humiliatingly in the paper. Maybe not the best story for a first date? depends on the date...

Guri Alfi Dina Sanderson Mayan Bloom Lior Ashkenazi

Director Director

United King Films

Hebrew (modern)

Alternative Title

Od Sipur Echad

Romance Comedy

Releases by Date

23 sep 2021, releases by country.

90 mins   More at TMDb Report this page

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girlboss things lol

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• New Release
• One More Story

Yarden Gat is a young and brilliant journalist, on a mission: to find true love, for her best friend, and for herself. She convinces him to go out on a daily date, for a month, each evening with a different woman, until he finds the right one. Like a reality - but for her newspaper. Who will get there first? This is Guri Alfi’s new romantic comedy.

• Description

Main Cast:  Dina Sanderson, Lior Ashkenazi, Guri Alfi, Maayan Blum, Daniel Gal, Shani Klein, Gaya Beer Gurevich, Adi Havshush, Aviv Alush, Kobi Farag 

“One More Story” is Guri Alfi’s directorial debut. The script was inspired by the book “Wedding Rush” and written by the book’s author, Omer Barak together with Dror Weidman, Galit Hoogi, Noa Arenberg (“My Successful Sisters”), and Guri Alfi.

Yarden Gat, (Played by Dina Sanderson) is a young and brilliant journalist working on a famous newspaper, who does not believe in love. When she eventually decides to go on a date, she reveals all her cards to the person she meets (Guri Alfi). She tells him that she slept with her boss (Lior Ashkenazi) and ruined her friend’s (Maayan Blum) chance of having true love (Daniel Gal) when she made him go out on a date each day of the month with a different woman, only to get a humiliating scoop for the newspaper.

Maybe not the best story for a first date… Will any of them eventually find true love? All the answers can be found in Guri Alfi’s new romantic comedy.

AWARDS, FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS  

East Bay JFF 2022

Boston JFF 2022

JCC Chicago 2022

Philadelphia Israeli FF 2022

Dayton OH JFF 2022

Montreal Israeli FF 2022

Sonoma JFF 2022

Jewish Film Club Vienna 2022

Seret London 2022

Pittsburgh JFF 2022

Windsor JFF 2022

Silicon Valley JFF 2022

Detroit JFF

Ottawa Israeli FF

Toronto JFF

American Airlines

Silicon Valley JFF

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‘One Shot’ Review: Defending a High-Security U.S. Military Base in Gimmicky Single-Take Stunt

A Navy SEAL squad on a top-security mission faces off against attacking insurgents in director James Nunn and star Scott Adkins’ latest action collaboration.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

Film Critic

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There’s a whole lot of ammo going blammo over the course of “ One Shot ,” an action movie couched as a battle in real time between Navy SEALs and insurgents on a U.S.-controlled, Guantanamo-style island detention facility, presented in what appears to be a single, continuous shot.

Of course, as in other recent films like “Birdman” and “1917,” the “real time” is an illusion created by hard-to-detect editing together of several long, elaborately blocked individual shots — this movie was shot in 20 days, not 90 minutes. Still, director James Nunn ’s reunion with star Scott Adkins does effectively use that device to heighten immediacy in an effort that may not transcend their usual B-grade, adrenaline-fueled macho fare, but does bring some welcome novelty to the genre.

SEAL Lieutenant Jake Harris (Scott Harris) has been emergency-tasked with flying a CIA representative to an ambiguously located high-security isle whose unwilling guests represent a “United Nations of terror,” as ground staffer Shields (Terence Maynard) informs. With her superior temporarily stranded somewhere overseas, the default CIA rep is junior analyst Zoe Anderson (Ashley Greene Khoury), who’s green enough never to have ridden in a helicopter before. Nevertheless, she has her mission: to retrieve a prisoner here, one Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi). The reason for that isn’t something she’s at liberty to share immediately with the facility’s displeased chief officer Yorke ( Ryan Phillippe ), let alone with Jake, or the men in his squad: Whit (Emmanuel Imani), Danny (Dino Kelly) and Ash (Jack Parr).

It soon emerges, however, that while he protests his innocence, Mansur — first met in a state of brutalized interrogative distress — is suspected of knowing details about a planned dirty-bomb attack that could take out all three branches of U.S. government. To prevent “another 9/11,” he needs to be airlifted out immediately. But before that can happen, the well-guarded base is completely overrun by armed insurgents under the command of ruthless Charef (Jess Liaudin). Freeing the other detainees here in order to increase his forces, that notorious mercenary’s own mission is simply to kill Mansur before the intel he presumably holds can be used to stop the D.C. attack.

Popular on Variety

Hectic from the get-go, “One Shot” kicks into full-on crisis mode at the 20-minute mark, never letting up until closing credits arrive. Those 70 solid minutes of siege may not have much in the way of character depth, plot ingenuity or higher meaning; nor do they reach the top rank of visceral combat depiction most recently achieved by last year’s streaming sleeper “The Outpost.” But within the movie’s tight conceptual bounds, they are energetic, reasonably tense and fairly credible, allowing for the suspension of disbelief such movies require for their near-superhuman protagonists.

If the seemingly never-ending pileup of dead extras sometimes makes this feel like a first-person-shooter videogame (the filmmakers admit their influence), we nonetheless get strong-enough central figures to identify with. And the action is at its best when Adkins is being an army of one, whether in a long midsection set-piece quietly dispatching many perps via knife, or in several late mano-a-mano fights that finally tap some of the star’s martial arts skills.

A self-proclaimed “king of the low-budget sequel” who’s played support roles in big movies while headlining a lot of smaller ones with titles like “Jarhead 3,” Adkins is well-served in those sequences by his frequent fight choreographer Tim Man, as well as stunt coordinator Dan Styles. DP Jonathan Iles’ handheld camera is a floating free agent, weaving in and out of skirmishes, representing the perspective of one side, then switching to the other. While obviously much planning and rehearsal went into his never-still images, “One Shot” manages to avoid seeming an overly schematic technical stunt. The mayhem depicted isn’t always fully convincing, but it does have a certain live-wire edge.

There is not a great deal to say about the performances, given that only Elgadi is asked to convey any complexity, in ways that hit some of newbie screenwriter Jamie Russell’s more pedestrian notes. Still, all acquit themselves capably, with minor caveats for Khoury and Phillippe, who seem a bit mismatched to this type of material. Shot on a military base in Suffolk, “One Shot” is a British production about American military might vs. foreign hostiles that does its best to sidestep politics and rhetoric, focusing solely on ducking shrapnel in the moment. Austin Wintory’s original score is effective, but takes care not to intrude overmuch on the conceit of in-ya-face realism.

Reviewed online, Nov. 4, 2021. Running time: 97 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Screen Media release of a Signature Films production, in association with Lipsync, Fiction Films, Amet Entertainment, Blue Box International. Producers: Marc Goldberg, Ben Jacques. Executive producers: Sarah Gabriel, David Haring, Roman Viaris, Seth Needle, Tamara Birkemoe, Conor McAdam, David Nagelberg, Norman Merry, Peter Hampden, Gareth Williams, Simon Baxter, Evangelo Kioussis.
• Crew: Director: James Nunn. Screenplay: Jamie Russell, based on a story by Nunn. Camera: Jonathan Iles. Editor: Liviu Jipescu. Music: Austin Wintory.
• With: Scott Adkins, Ashley Greene Khoury, Ryan Phillippe, Emmanuel Imani, Dino Kelly, Jack Parr, Waleed Elgadi, Terence Maynard, Jess Liaudin, Andrei Maniata, Lee Charles. (English, French dialogue)

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Movie Review : One question for `One More Try'

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One more shot ending explained.

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Michael Jai White On Reuniting With Scott Adkins For One More Shot & Believable Action Scenes In Hollywood

Scott adkins’ popular new action movie on netflix wildly flips his $1 billion franchise role from last year, 9 twin peaks easter eggs, references & influences in a24's hit new horror movie.

Warning: Major spoilers for One More Shot below!

• Scott Adkins' Harris stops the bomb in One More Shot's ending, but Lomax's sinister plan still succeeds, creating a cliffhanger ending.
• Harris refuses to let Mansur become a pawn in Lomax's scheme, deleting the forced confession he gave and honoring Mansur's dying wish.
• The lack of resolution in One More Shot may frustrate some viewers, as the sequel sets up a potential third entry that has yet to be confirmed.

One More Shot sees Scott Adkins having to take down an airport full of mercenaries, but does he win the day? Picking up shortly after the events of One Shot , the sequel sees Harris (Adkins) completing his mission of escorting terrorist Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi) into CIA custody. They land in an evacuated airport, which is quickly overtaken by a team of mercenaries, with One More Shot casting action legend Michael Jai White as the leader, Jackson. This mysterious group wants Mansur alive, so Harris has to protect the terrorist and his estranged, pregnant wife Niesha (Meena Rayann).

One More Shot's final act unleashes a flurry of twists, with Harris learning the nuclear bomb Mansur built is hidden somewhere in the airport and its endless cargo crates. Homeland Security agent Lomax (Alexis Knapp) is revealed to be Mansur's handler and plans to use the bomb to attack the State of the Union address. After Lomax executes Mansur, Harris is forced to take on the remaining mercenaries alone. The Scott Adkins movie ends with Harris stopping the bomb from leaving the airport, but the shadowy forces backing Lomax still have a plan in motion.

One More Shot actor Michael Jair White discusses reuniting with Scott Adkins, Hollywood action sequences, and his thoughts on the new DC Universe.

Harris Stopped The Bomb But Lomax's Plan Still Worked

One more shot ends on a big cliffhanger.

In a break from action movie protocol, the main villains aren't killed during One More Shot's ending . Adkins and White's characters have a bruising fight, which ends with the former handcuffing the latter. Harris then pursues the escaping Lomax onto a plane, and while she surrenders to him, he is informed her plan of getting the President and the other government heads evacuated to a single location has succeeded. As Lomax is taken into custody, Harris has a moment to reflect that his fight is far from over.

While not exactly a downer ending, One More Shot's lack of resolution might irritate some viewers . A third entry is far from guaranteed, and the sequel leaves several plot threads unresolved. Harris may have stopped the radiation device from detonating, but his deflated look in the final scene underlines that he faces an even bigger battle ahead.

Scott Adkins and Waleed Elgadi are the only actors to return from 2021's One Shot .

Why Harris Deletes Mansur's Confession

Harris' hatred for mansur didn't overcome his humanity.

One intriguing element of One More Shot and the original is that Harris never becomes friends with Mansur. Amin's anger over the death of his son in an American drone attack drove him to become a terrorist, and while both films depict him as somewhat sympathetic, they never try to redeem him either. In the sequel's third act, Amin learns that Lomax was his secret handler, twisting his grief to her ends while planning to frame him for the upcoming Washington attack .

Harris may have detested Amin for his actions, but he refuses to let the man become a pawn in Lomax's scheme.

Part of this involves forcing Mansur to deliver a confession claiming responsibility for the bomb. Under threat of Niesha being executed, Mansur delivers Lomax's rehearsed speech to camera. Lomax then shoots Amin in cold blood, but when Harris later recovers Lomax's phone, he promptly deletes Mansur's forced confession . Harris may have detested Amin for his actions, but he refuses to let the man become a pawn in Lomax's scheme. He also honors Mansur's dying wish that his unborn son wouldn't someday see the confession and believe he was a total monster.

Why Is The Airport Empty?

One more shot's unique location explained.

One More Shot continues the proud tradition of action movies that take the Die Hard formula and move it to a new location. In this case, the entire film takes place in Washington Baltimore airport, which is eerily deserted while the CIA awaits Mansur's plane. In an exposition dump featuring Tom Berenger's CIA agent Mike Marshall, One More Shot explains that Mansur's plane was re-routed from landing at a military base to the Washington Baltimore airport. To make sure the location was secure, the CIA faked a news story about a gas leak at the airport to keep civilians away .

One More Shot was actually filmed in the UK's Stansted Airport.

This is the surface-level explanation, but Lomax really had the plane rerouted there because Mansur's bomb is hidden among the airport's cargo . Since One More Shot takes place in real-time, the mercenaries are in a race to capture Mansur, recover the bomb and drive it right into the heart of Washington. Due to Harris' interference, they fail in the final objective.

Lomax's Conspiracy Explained

One more shot's big villain twist reframes the story.

Lomax and her private military backers at Farbridge intend to infiltrate the President's bunker and force the officials gathered to give up key information about the country's defenses. This info would, of course, fetch a high price to the highest bidder.

One More Shot opens with Knapp's Lomax leading a failed raid on a shipping yard to recover the bomb, and she seemingly works with Harris to keep Mansur safe when the airport is attacked. Marshall later suspects Lomax is the one leaking information to the mercenaries, all of which leads to a confrontation where Marshall and his remaining men are killed. After Mansur is captured, Lomax reveals the whole siege is part of an elaborate heist .

Scott Adkins' latest action movie just arrived on Netflix and his role completely flips his previous performance from a $1 billion franchise.

A credible bomb threat in Washington would see the President and all the key government heads sent to the same, "secure" location. Once there, Lomax and her private military backers at Farbridge intend to infiltrate the President's bunker and force the officials gathered to give up key information about the country's defenses. This info would, of course, fetch a high price to the highest bidder.

Mansur built the bomb out of ideology, but is horrified to discover he was just a pawn in Lomax's convoluted scheme. She and her team have no morals or ideologies to speak of, and are simply in it for the money. One More Shot paints Lomax as the true monster, having betrayed her own people and country , not to mention having no issue threatening a pregnant woman. Assuming a third film happens, the character will need to face her comeuppance.

How Long After The Original One Shot Does The Sequel Begin?

Harris didn't get much rest after one shot.

One Shot is an action-thriller film that follows a team of Navy SEALs led by Lt. Blake Harris (Scott Adkins) and a junior CIA analyst Zoe Anderson (Ashley Greene), who must retrieve a prisoner from a CIA black site island prison. With the prison refusing to turn him over, things become more contentious when a team of unknown assailants breaks in to find the same prisoner.

The sequel is more expansive than the 2021 original in terms of scope and action. One Shot was a siege movie, while the follow-up is essentially a Die Hard clone. One More Shot doesn't spell out how much time has passed, but in an interview with Collider , Adkins revealed about 12 to 15 hours had elapsed since the original. This means Harris didn't get much time to sleep or even mourn the loss of his team before he had to dive right back into action.

Does Niesha Survive One More Shot's Finale?

Niesha gives one more shot's some heart.

One of the more engaging elements of One More Shot is the relationship between Mansur and Niesha. She is heavily pregnant with their child, and while she has love for Amin, she can't forgive his actions. Mansur ultimately sacrifices himself trying to keep her safe, with Harris stepping in to stop Lomax's men from executing Niesha too. She and Mansur make some peace before he dies, but with Harris' priority being to stop the bomb, he is forced to leave her.

Niesha isn't seen beyond this point, but given that the mercenaries were already withdrawing from the airport, it's assumed she got out safely. One More Shot closes with Navy SEALs taking back the airport too, who would have rescued Niesha while sweeping the building for survivors.

Will A Third One Shot Happen?

One last shot is waiting to happen.

One More Shot lays the groundwork for a trilogy, but a third movie has not been confirmed just yet.

There are a few Scott Adkins movie franchises in existence, with One More Shot adding to that list. The sequel ends with a brazen setup for one last chapter, with Harris having to protect the POTUS and other government heads from Farbridge's evil plans. The movie also kept White's evil mercenary Jackson alive, while hiding the identity of Lomax's boss , whose distorted voice is heard on her phone. One More Shot lays the groundwork for a trilogy, but a third movie has not been confirmed just yet.

The filmmakers behind the sequel clearly want it to happen, but given the real-time nature of the One Shot saga, they can't afford to wait years since their lead actors will age out of their roles. It would be a shame if One More Shot's cliffhanger was left unresolved, while Adkins' exhausted hero deserves the chance to avenge his fallen men.

Source: Collider

One More Shot

Directed by James Nunn, One More Shot is the sequel to the 2021 action thriller One Shot and continues following Navy Seal Jake Harris. Following an attack on a military black site in Poland, Harris is tasked with delivering the suspected terrorist to Washington, D.C. However, the mission goes awry when a team of skilled mercenaries arrive stateside and attempt to retrieve the suspect, leaving it up to Harris to stop them.

Review: ‘In Our Day’ sees a master returning to his usual elements — in endless variation

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Hong Sang-soo’s ability to transform the ordinary into something reaching toward ecstasy makes him one of the most exhilarating filmmakers working today. In his 30th feature, the prolific South Korean director revisits familiar themes (artists in crisis) and narrative frameworks (a two-story structure) to continue examining the questions that are central to his work. What is the meaning of life? How does one pursue a pure artistic vision?

The film follows two seemingly unrelated storylines. In the first, Sangwon ( Kim Min-hee , Hong’s real-life partner), a retired actress, returns to Korea and stays with her friend Jung-soo (Song Sun-mi) as she contemplates her next moves. Sangwon’s younger cousin Jisoo (Park Mi-so) visits her, seeking advice on becoming an actress. In the second, an aging poet, Uiju (Ki Joo-bong), is visited by two young admirers, Kijoo (Kim Seung-yun) a documentary student, and Jaewon (Ha Seong-guk) an ardent fan who is himself an aspiring actor.

As the film alternates between the two arcs, the similarities appear superficial at first: gatherings of three, guitars given as presents, a younger generation seeking counsel from their elders. There are hints of a shared past — the idiosyncratic way some of them eat their noodles, with a spoonful of gochujang (hot pepper paste). But the two storylines never converge. Hong invites us to look beyond story parallels into something simultaneously deeper and more quotidian.

One of the great pleasures of experiencing Hong’s films comes in the anticipation of encountering some of his well-worn tropes, then watching him scramble them anew. There are familiar scenes involving bottles of soju, moments of awkward conversation and garbled philosophizing in this film. They unfurl in Hong’s long, leisurely takes and through his particular gift for coaxing enthrallingly natural performances from his actors. (He also produced, shot and edited the film and composed the music.)

Review: Hong Sang-soo has made a lot of terrific movies. ‘Walk Up’ is among his best

Three stories unfold over three stories in this ingeniously constructed comedy-drama from prolific South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo.

March 30, 2023

The key to unlocking the film is found in Jung-soo’s cat, named Woori, meaning “we” or “us” in Korean. A paragon of purity (“Animals are angels, truly,” remarks a character), Woori reflects the desires of the protagonists and the auteur himself. When Sangwon introduces the cat to her cousin, it sounds like she’s talking about herself: “Isn’t he pretty? This is us.” Even the title of the film can be read as both “In Our Day” or “Woori’s Day.” Whose day are we watching unfold, exactly? Is it the cat’s, the poet’s or Hong’s?

Jung-soo worries that the cat eats too much. But Sangwon is more sanguine. “What’s the point of living anyway? Eat your fill,” she tells Woori as she hands down treats. It’s as much a prescription for the cat as it is for herself. Later, when the cat goes missing, Sangwon wonders why it would jump from the balcony to escape. “It’s their instinct to jump,” says Jungsoo.

Sometimes the film’s wisdom takes on a homespun quality. Sangwon’s advice to her cousin starts off as a rant about the necessity of honesty in acting and how she was never able to achieve that herself. But when she crouches down to look at the planters lining the balcony, she shares something closer to truth. She tells Jisoo that she likes to commune with plants. A small flower once spoke to her, reassuring her that “everything’s OK,” and that “however much I’m blown, I believe.” This story moves Jisoo to tears.

“In Our Day” also alludes to some biographical details about Hong, who first collaborated with Kim Min-hee on 2015’s “Right Now, Wrong Then” and subsequently began an affair with her, leading to the end of his marriage, a Korean media scandal at the time. (“It’s an old story. Let’s not talk about it,” says the poet Uiju, also surnamed Hong.) Jisoo abruptly brings up the first time she had sex. (“It’s no big deal now, but thinking back on it, it was the first I came to know guilt,” she says.) Hong’s early work showed a lot of ugly, shameful sex; these days, there’s hardly any sex in it at all.

It’s a quietly revelatory film from an auteur who never stops looking. “Maintaining a clear vision might be the hardest thing in the world,” Uiju tells his visitors. “You must devote your life to it for a chance of keeping it.” That might be the closest we’ll get to an artist’s statement.

'In Our Day'

Not rated In Korean, with subtitles Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes Playing: Lumiere Cinema, West Los Angeles; Vidiots, Eagle Rock

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Just one more story, common sense media reviewers.

Story recording in easy-to-use format, but few features.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

Kids may discover some new stories and build a lov

It's super easy to choose a story and tap through

All stories must be purchased before access any fe

Parents need to know that Just One More Story! allows users to create an audio recording of themselves reading well known kids' stories. Users can download the app for free and browse the available titles. It then costs $2.99 to read and record one story. Once the recording is finished, send it as an mp3 file through…

Educational Value

Kids may discover some new stories and build a love of literature. Or, they may develop a new relationship with a story that now has a special recording of a loved one reading it to them. Recordings may help maintain a connection with far away loved ones.

Ease of Play

It's super easy to choose a story and tap through it as you record yourself reading.

Products & Purchases

All stories must be purchased before access any features. Each purchased story includes a link to Amazon where users can also buy a hard copy.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Just One More Story! allows users to create an audio recording of themselves reading well known kids' stories. Users can download the app for free and browse the available titles. It then costs $2.99 to read and record one story. Once the recording is finished, send it as an mp3 file through any of your device's sharing options. Once the reader sends their recording and exits out of the app, they can't access the story again. Parents should note that Just One More Story! purchases include the text only, and the recordings are audio only. Kids need to own a hard copy of the book to follow along as they listen to the recording. Each story includes a link to Amazon where parents can purchase the book if they want. Available titles span a range of highly popular kids' literature such as classics like Corduroy and Good Night Moon as well as modern favorites like Skippyjon Jones . Note: At the time of this review, there was no privacy policy available.

Where to Download

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What’s It About?

Take a quick video tutorial to learn how the app works, or tap Find a Story to start browsing available titles in JUST ONE MORE STORY! Choose a story to buy for $2.99 and then begin reading. Tap the red button to record as you read the text at the top of the screen, and then tap again to stop. You can record the page again or tap done to move on to the next page. At the end of the book, you can record your own personal message. Your recordings are then put together, set to music, and formatted into an mp3 file, which you can send through your device's share menu. When listening to the recording, a special tone sounds when it's time to turn the page so kids can follow along with the actual book in their hands.

Is It Any Good?

This story-recording app is fun and easy to use, but doesn't offer much that you can't do on your own. Creating recordings of far away loved ones reading well-loved stories is a great way to keep a connection alive for little ones. But Just One More Story! doesn't do a whole lot extra to help facilitate that. There aren't many stories available in the Just One More Story! library: At the time of this review there were 19. But, the stories they do have are highly recognizable titles that kids are quite likely to know. Recordings are audio files only, meant to be paired with a kid reading along with a hard copy of the book. That's great if you already own the book but doesn't work as well if you don't. And other than some background music and a tone to tell kids when to turn the page, there's nothing special about the audio recordings. It would be just as easy to use your device's recording feature to make a video or audio recording. Also, once you purchase a title and send off your recording, you can't go back to access the book again without re-purchasing it. On the other hand, because the recording you send is a standard mp3 file, it's yours forever to use in whatever music playing app you prefer to use. If you happen to own one of the books in the Just One More Story! library, it may be fun to try purchasing the app's recording capability. But don’t expect many bells and whistles.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the stories they read together with Just One More Story! Which one do you like best? Why? How would you continue the story if you were writing it? What do you think could happen next?

Is it appealing to listen to stories read by people you love? Why or why not? What's it like to read a story together? What would you like to tell your loved one?

Talk about the importance of reading together. Check out our guide on reading with kids for tips.

App Details

• Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
• Subjects : Language & Reading : reading
• Skills : Communication : listening
• Pricing structure : Paid (Free to download and browse available stories. To read and record, buy each book separately for $2.99 each)
• Release date : May 1, 2020
• Category : Entertainment
• Topics : Book Characters
• Publisher : Just One More Story, LLC
• Version : 2.1
• Minimum software requirements : iOS 10.0 or later
• Last updated : September 21, 2020

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'The Dead Don’t Hurt' is a tender love story and a subversive Western

Justin Chang

Viggo Mortensen plays Holger Olsen in The Dead Don't Hurt. Marcel-Zyskind/Shout! Studios hide caption

One of the many charms of The Dead Don’t Hurt is that you can’t immediately tell whether it’s trying to be an old-fashioned Western or a revisionist one. It has a lot of familiar genre signposts: men riding horses across rugged landscapes, a bloody shootout in a saloon, and two actors, Viggo Mortensen and Vicky Krieps , who bring traditional movie-star charisma to a tender love story.

But at times the film feels casually subversive. The first of those horsemen we see is not a cowboy but a knight in shining armor — a figure out of a child’s fantastical dream. And then there’s the way the movie plays with time: That shootout, which technically happens at the end of the story, is instead shown at the very beginning.

Author Interviews

What a classic '50s western can teach us about the hollywood blacklist.

Mortensen, who wrote and directed the movie, trusts us to know the Western well enough by now that he can play around with the form without losing our attention. He isn’t attempting a radical reinvention of the genre, but he is using its conventions to tell a different and politically resonant kind of story.

It’s especially significant that the two lead characters are both immigrants. Mortensen stars as Holger Olsen, a wandering Danish-born carpenter who finds himself in San Francisco in the 1860s. That’s where he meets Vivienne, a French Canadian florist, played by Krieps, who’s every bit as independent-minded as he is.

Vicky Krieps is a French Canadian florist in The Dead Don't Hurt. Marcel Zyskind/Shout! Studios hide caption

The two fall in love, and Vivienne moves with Olsen to a dusty Nevada town called Elk Flats. Because the story is told out of sequence, we already know some bad things are headed their way, but for now, the mood is light and even comical as Vivienne grouchily sets about tidying their wooden shack of a home.

Vivienne isn’t one for domestic confinement, and she soon gets a job bartending at the saloon, where she catches the eye of one of the nastiest customers in town: Weston Jeffries, played by Solly McLeod, the brutish son of a wealthy rancher. Meanwhile, with the Civil War under way, Olsen decides to join the Union Army, to Vivienne’s fury.

One of the best things about The Dead Don’t Hurt is that it honors Vivienne’s grit and capability while also acknowledging how alone and vulnerable she is in this hostile, male-dominated environment. Several months after Olsen leaves, Vivienne gives birth to a baby boy under circumstances that are shrouded in some mystery. Years later, Olsen returns to Vivienne and the child, but it isn’t an entirely happy reunion, and they face a grim reckoning with the town and some of its most corrupt individuals.

Mortensen made his feature directing debut with the 2020 drama Falling , in which he played a gay man trying to take care of his ailing, bigoted father. With The Dead Don’t Hurt , he uses a story set in the past to comment on issues that are still with us in the present, from male violence against women to the complexity of immigrant relationships with their adopted country. Even as Vivienne embraces her life as an American settler, she proudly clings to her French Canadian roots, sometimes dreamily recalling the stories her mother told her about Joan of Arc — an obvious hero for a woman trying to forge her own unorthodox path through life.

As a director, Mortensen handles the material with quiet assurance; even when he cuts back and forth through time, he never loses the narrative thread. He also gives a gently grounded performance as Olsen, a decent man who sometimes makes impulsive, reckless decisions.

But this is ultimately Krieps’ movie. She’s often played women chafing against their proscribed stations in life, in dramas like Phantom Thread and Corsage . Here, she captures the indomitable spirit of a woman who’s making her way in a strange land and is determined to find and nurture beauty in even the harshest circumstances.

‘Young Woman and the Sea’ finds Daisy Ridley Struggling to Stay Afloat

Joachim Rønning directs the inspirational based-on-truth story of Trudy Ederle, who, in 1926, was the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

(L to R) Kim Bodnia as Henry Ederle and Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney's live-action 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo by Elena Nenkova. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Opening in theaters on Friday, May 31st, ‘ Young Woman and the Sea ’ follows the impressive true story of Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle , who overcame enormous odds and struggles to become the first woman to swim the English channel.

Fitting firmly into the wannabe inspirational biopic mold, it has a fantastic story at its core, but sometimes falls into the traps of juicing an already solid tale with some serious tropes of the genre.

Related Article: Daisy Ridley and Tilda Cobham-Hervey Talk 'Young Woman and the Sea'

Does ‘young woman and the sea’ fight the tide.

Daisy Ridley during production of 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo courtesy of Joachim Rønning. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The story of Trudy Ederle, who overcame incredible challenges –– measles at a young age, which in the 1900s was much more of fatal issue –– and incredible sexism in society to achieve what many considered impossible.

Taken on face value, it’s not hard to see why producer Jerry Bruckheimer would leap on this one, and why Disney would consider it worth turning into a movie. Yet it’s such a good yarn, with the benefit of being true, that it doesn’t need the slightly syrupy treatment that writer Jeff Nathanson and director Joachim Rønning lavish on it, as if not trusting the cast to bring the worthiness of the story to life without gilding the lily.

Script and Direction

'Young Woman and the Sea' director Joachim Rønning.

Nathanson isn’t exactly known for based real-life work (‘ Catch Me if You Can ’ excepted) –– he’s more been found in the territory of big-budget blockbusters including ‘ Indiana Jones ’ and Jon Favreau ’s ‘ The Lion King ’ (not to mention many movies for which he’s been an uncredited script doctor). But here, he brings his sensibilities to the story of Ederle. Yet for all his experience, what Nathanson produces feels like a hundred other emotional, inspirational stories.

Admittedly, he and the whole team are guided by what happened to the real-life woman, but there are elements you can’t help but feel are invented. That said, the actual story is even more dramatic than the movie, a massive storm impacting Ederle at one point in a way this portrayal skips over (not to mention another woman who was going to be competing but had to drop out due to injury).

As for Rønning, he certainly seems more comfortable in the water sections than on dry land. Given his experience with the likes of ‘ Kon-Tiki ’ and his ‘ Pirates of the Caribbean ’ entry, that’s certainly understandable. The sea-set scenes, particularly in the last third of the movie, are the stand-outs, and Ederle’s story certainly offers enough drama on that front –– between chilling tides and jellyfish, she definitely faced struggles.

The main issue that Rønning and his team don’t always let the story simply play out without feeling the need to jazz it up –– composer Amelia Warner ’s score appears to borrow from the likes of ‘ Titanic ’ and often tips over into cliché in terms of its triumphalism.

Performances: Daisy Ridley as Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle

Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney’s live-action 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2024 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Daisy Ridley has been looking for projects that will break her away from her ‘ Star Wars ’ days, and here she finds a compelling character to bring to life. Ederle was an impassioned, driven young woman (brought to life in her younger days by Olive Abercrombie ), and Ridley certainly brings all the spirit the role requires.

Trudy’s life was never easy –– between measles, the grumpy disbelief of her father in her abilities or ambition and the baked-in misogyny of 1900s society towards women doing anything outside the usual home chores (and certainly when it comes to swimming) –– but thanks to Ridley, we always root for her.

Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Margaret Ederle

Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Meg Ederle in Disney’s live-action 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2024 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The key relationship in Trudy’s life, and her biggest supporter, older sister Meg is a constant in keeping her going. As played by Tilda Cobham-Hervey , she’s a good match for Ridley’s energy, pushing as her sister does against the strictures of the time.

Jeanette Hain as Gertrud Ederle

(L to R) Kim Bodnia as Henry Ederle, Jeanette Hain as Gertrud Ederle, Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle in Disney's live-action 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo by Elena Nenkova. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Another huge influence in Trudy’s life was her imperious mother, who encouraged her daughter from a young age and always stood up for her. Jeanette Hain is fantastic as Gertrude, who takes no nonsense from anyone in her pursuit of her family’s needs.

Christopher Eccleston Jabez Wolffe

(L to R) Christopher Eccleston and Daisy Ridley during production of 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo courtesy of Joachim Rønning. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Christopher Eccleston has a smaller role as Wolffe, the rough, dismissive and frustrated swimmer who is assigned to Trudy, and sabotages her first attempt. The actor makes the eminently punchable man more understandable but doesn’t shave off his sharper edges.

• Stephen Graham as Bill Burgess

(L to R) Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle and Stephen Graham as Bill Burgess in Disney’s live-action 'Young Woman and the Sea'. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2024 Disney Enterprises Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Stephen Graham brings typical charm to Burgess, the second man to swim the Channel, and a forthright supporter of Trudy. He makes an impact from the start, emerging naked from the ocean following an exhibition swim in New York and ends up becoming one of the more inspirational people in Trudy’s efforts.

Final Thoughts

Despite belaboring its heroic point to a degree that the story itself doesn’t truly need, the new movie manages to overcome one of the biggest hurdles facing such a film –– the fact that the outcome is never truly in doubt. That’s partly helped by Trudy’s story being one that not many people really know.

It won’t change the game when it comes to true-life stories, but ‘Young Woman and the Sea’ has enough spirit to carry it across the finish line.

‘Young Woman and the Sea’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.

Young Woman and the Sea

Daisy Ridley stars as the accomplished swimmer who was born to immigrant parents in New York City in 1905. Through the steadfast support of her older sister and... Read the Plot

What is the plot of ‘Young Woman and the Sea’?

‘Young Woman and the Sea’ tells the story of Gertrude Ederle (Daisy Ridley), an American swimming champion, who first won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympic Games. In 1926, Ederle became the first woman to swim 21 miles across the English Channel.

Who is in the cast of ‘Young Woman and the Sea’?

• Daisy Ridley as Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle
• Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Margaret "Meg" Ederle
• Kim Bodnia as Henry Ederle
• Christopher Eccleston as Jabez Wolffe
• Glenn Fleshler as James Sullivan
• Jeanette Hain as Gertrude Anna Ederle
• Sian Clifford as Charlotte

'Young Woman and the Sea'. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Other Movies Similar to ‘Young Woman and the Sea:’

• ' The Swimmer ' (1968)
• ‘ Hoosiers ' (1986)
• ' Prefontaine ' (1997)
• ' Without Limits ' (1998)
• ' The Hurricane ' (1999)
• ' Remember the Titans ' (2000)
• ' Ali ' (2001)
• ' Invictus ' (2009)
• ' The Fighter ' (2010)
• ' Moneyball ' (2011)
• ' Rush ' (2013)
• ' Unbroken ' (2014)
• ' Ford v Ferrari ' (2019)
• ' The Way Back ' (2020)
• ' King Richard ' (2021)
• ' The Swimmers ' (2022)
• ' Big George Foreman ' (2023)
• ' NYAD ' (2023)
• ' Ferrari ' (2023)
• ' The Iron Claw ' (2023)
• ' The Hill ' (2023)

Buy Tickets: 'Young Woman and the Sea' Movie Showtimes

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Review: Jessica Lange gives one of her best performances in 'The Great Lillian Hall'

"The Great Lillian Hall" stars Jessica Lange in one of her finest performances.

Starring the great Jessica Lange in one of her best performances—and that's really saying something— "The Great Lillian Hall," now on HBO/Max, is essential viewing for those eager to see what acting can be at its transcendent, transfixing finest.

Lange plays Lillian Hall, an acclaimed stage actress now in rehearsal for the Broadway opening of "The Cherry Orchard," the 1904 Chekvov play about Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya, a Russian aristocrat forced to sell her family estate before it's auctioned off to pay her debts.

What Chekhov considered a comedy, audiences saw as tragic. What you'll see in "The Great Lillian Hall" is both. In rehearsal, Lillian laughs about forgetting a few lines until X-rays from a mandatory medical visit reveal what looks like sugar sprinkled over her brain.

The sprinkles are Lewy bodies, proteins that build up in areas of the brain, resulting in a form of dementia that will cause memory loss, functional decline, tremors and hallucinations that quickly move from temporary to permanent. No cure. Even denial can only last so long.

Lillian's support system includes a daughter (Lily Rabe) she's neglected since childhood, the living memory of her late theater director husband (Michael Rose), a neighbor (Pierce Brosnan) she flirts with on her Manhattan terrace, and her long-time, long suffering assistant Edith (Oscar winner Kathy Bates, magnificent as usual) whose tough love she truly needs.

MORE: Review: 'In the Heights' pure unleashed joy grabs you and never lets go

Of course, the lifeline Lillian needs most is the theater. She gets sympathy from her young Turk director (Jesse Williams), but only cold impatience from her producer (Cindy Hogan), who'd fire Lillian in a heartbeat if the play's box office wouldn't crater instantly.

Until sappiness invades, there's a bitchy "All About Eve" snap to the dialogue by Elisabeth Seldes Annacone, whose late aunt, the stage legend Marian Seldes, also suffered from Lewy body dementia but never lost the courage to look truth straight in the face.

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It's lucky that skilled director Michael Cristofer, the Pulitzer-winning playwright of "The Shadow Box," has a welcome allergy to mawkish sentiment. Self pity does nothing for Lillian's life and Cristofer follows her path with bracing grit and grace.

Better yet, Cristofer has Oscar-Emmy-Tony winner Lange, radiant and riveting at 75, giving her all to a film that sees acting as a selfish but still noble profession. From Blanche in "Streetcar" to the drug-addicted Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," Lange has acted in many of the classic parts attributed to Lillian, a role Lange wears like a second skin.

MORE: Review: 'Things Heard and Seen': What a story! What actors! What a hot mess!

With an earpiece connected to a microphone Lillian wears on stage, Bates finds humor and heart in the way Edith hides backstage to whisper a forgotten line. No happy ending is promised or delivered. The earpiece is a short-term fix at best. But Lange makes sure the nurturing spirit of theater to create "eternity in a moment" resonates from first scene to last.

Unlike the fallen noble woman in "The Cherry Orchard," who looks greedily on the past that represents her lost youth, Lange lives gloriously in the present. She's now on Broadway giving a Tony nominated tour de force in "The Mother Play," ever eager for the next challenge to catch eternity in a moment.

"The Great Lillian Hall" is Lange's latest master class. Sit back and behold.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, rogue one: a star wars story.

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Early trailers for "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" promised a work in the vein of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," " The Magnificent Seven " and " The Dirty Dozen "—impossible mission movies that weren't afraid to kill off the vivid characters they created. This film about a band of misfits stealing the plans to the first Death Star is that kind of work. It culminates in a thunderous final act that weaves together the most impressive space battle in the series with a prolonged ground assault on an Imperial fortress in which casualties have both physical and emotional weight (which is something " Star Wars " was never big on). But it also bridges the fairy-tale despair of the prequels to the rah-rah idealism of the original trilogy, spackling decades-old logic holes as it goes along. ( Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy's script even retro-engineers an answer to the question of why the Galactic Empire would build a super-weapon that could be vaporized with a single well-placed shot.) "Rogue One" is a letdown in other areas, and there are creative decisions so ill-conceived they take you out of the story. But somehow these aren't enough to sink the movie, which manages to succeed as both super-nerdy fan service and the first entry since the 1977 original that will satisfy people who have never seen a "Star Wars" film.

Felicity Jones stars as Jyn Erso, the lone child of Imperial scientist Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) who invented the Death Star. She joins a band of misfits that includes a cold-blooded Rebel assassin named Cassian Andor ( Diego Luna ); a blind but still lethal warrior-priest named Chirrut Îmwe ( Donnie Yen ); Chirrut's stoic, cranky but loyal best friend Baze Malbus ( Jiang Wen ), a legendary marksman; former Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook ( Riz Ahmed ), who claims he defected to the Rebels after realizing the Death Star's power; and Clone Wars veteran Saw Gerrera ( Forest Whitaker ), a revolutionary whose cyborg legs and assisted breathing make him a light-side-of-the-Force answer to baddies like Darth Vader and General Grievous. The movie's undisputed scene stealer, though, is K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk ), a reprogrammed Imperial enforcer droid who can break Stormtroopers' necks with a flick of his fist but is as peevish and pouty as C-3PO and tends to blurt out the least reassuring thing at the worst possible moment. (When his human colleagues fret that they won't survive being ejected into space, he says,"I will.") 

"Rogue One" was directed by Gareth Edwards, whose 2014 "Godzilla" was one of the most daringly conceived blockbusters of recent years, so much so that some viewers found it frustrating and pretentious. This one is more conventional, from its clockwork storytelling to its relentless, brutal postscript (which I bet is where a lot of Disney's reshoot money went). But the film still has enough moments of beauty and terror to mark it as the work of an artist rather than a glorified craftsman. A Death Star "test" on a single city is more horrifying than any similar attack in the franchise because we see how the battle station's green rays tear up the land, creating tidal waves of earth: a cross between an earthquake and a tsunami. The space battles make the odd physics of "Star Wars" seem as comprehensible as 18th century flotillas clashing in a bay near a port; there's even a combination tugboat-torpedo that can drill into the hulls of enemy starships and push them to one side. Smaller, more intimate action scenes have a tactile sensibility as well. Rain, fire and wind have a fullness and weight rarely seen in CGI-heavy fantasies. When characters scamper up ladders or navigate wet, crumbling cliffs, you flinch, because Edwards makes you fear minor cuts and bruises as keenly as maiming and incineration.

Darth Vader makes a couple of appearances—both chilling; and how grand it is to hear James Earl Jones' rumbling baritone once more—and there's a rubbery digital Grand Moff Tarkin puttering around the Death Star bridge as well (I don't know if I should say he's played by Peter Cushing ; how to refer to a bunch of ones and zeroes badly imitating a dead man?). But the main heavy is a bureaucrat: Orson Krennic ( Ben Mendelsohn ), Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Imperial Military, which is a fancy way of saying "the guy who bosses around the scientists actually creating the Death Star." Krennic, played with a bitter, resentful edge by Mendelsohn, has a long-ago connection to Jyn that turns "Rogue One" into a slow-fuse revenge flick once all the details are laid out.

But most of the film is conceived as a galaxy-spanning chess match in which individuals, groups and whole fleets either move themselves or are moved against their will. In observing these movements, "Rogue One" conjures a spiritual vibe that makes its action sequences feel like more than a collection of spectacular moments. "Star Wars" always had a bit of this quality—it probably announced itself when Luke lowered the blast shield on his helmet in "A New Hope," and reached its peak with Luke shaming his father in " Return of the Jedi "—but it has never been woven throughout any of the films as consistently as it is here. Characters are constantly being asked to take physical or figurative leaps of faith, whether they're jumping from one side of a metal abyss to another or deciding to believe a character that says he's on their side but might be a spy. Chirrut's Jedi incantations during moments of jeopardy ("I'm one with the Force, and the Force is with me") define him as a holy man who keeps picking up and reassembling the shattered pieces of his faith no matter what occurs. His pal Baze mocks him, but never too harshly, because he envies the blind monk's devotion to higher powers that he literally cannot see.

Some overly familiar character motifs get a workout as well, including the cynical antihero's secret desire to join a crusade and the wounded child's wish to redeem a corrupt or neglectful parent. The latter aren't foregrounded in a self-conscious way, as they were in " Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens ," a movie that transferred its anxiety about rebooting a 38-year old franchise onto new characters who were all obsessed with outdoing the icons that preceded them or fixing their mistakes. The "Rogue One" characters' personal issues take a backseat to the mission, which happens at such a grim point in the galaxy's history that, to paraphrase " Casablanca ," the problems of any one being don't amount to a hill of beans.

That sounds like a wise strategy, and in some ways it is. But it also ensures that "Rogue One" fails to define its liveliest characters in ways that would make them pop. This is one area in which "The Force Awakens" is a better movie. Even when J.J. Abrams' plotting in "The Force Awakens" was haphazard, or too blatantly leaning on recycling or nostalgia, Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo Ren were written and acted with such affection and wit that they seemed like worthy, or at least promising, additions to the series' overstuffed pantheon of characters. "Rogue One" is so devoted to its multilayered, fast-moving plot that it can't afford to give its characters the breathing space they need to come across as a great team, as opposed to a bunch of strangers who work pretty well together despite ungodly pressure.

And the two most important members of the group, Jyn and Cassian, are the least defined, which means that their emotional peaks near the end of the tale are merely affecting when they ought to be deeply moving. (This is a rare all-things-to-all-people blockbuster that might've benefited from being a few minutes longer, provided the time was spent fleshing out relationships.) Nevertheless, the sense of all these individuals struggling to assert their values in a cruel universe comes through loud and clear. That so many characters have been pushed to the margins of galactic life or banished themselves there after a soul-crushing disappointment gives their decisions a grave, poignant quality that's lacking in other "Star Wars" movies, even the good ones. "We've all done terrible things in the name of the rebellion," a character says.

The film adds much-needed shading to the the Rebel Alliance, which has both moderate and "militant" elements that don't trust each other and often work at cross-purposes. The military leadership argues about whether it's better to be aggressive or cautious; the Imperial generals and bureaucrats debate tactics as well, and the question of whether it's better to ask forgiveness or permission comes up more than once.

George Lucas and his collaborators were always aces at world building even when their storytelling failed, but this is the first entry in the saga that convinces us that its characters live in an actual civilization, with rules and traditions and a sense of history (and a religion) that they measure themselves against. ("The force moves darkly around a creature that's about to kill," one character informs another, anticipating a betrayal.) "Rogue One" also gets into the question of whether it's morally acceptable to surrender or simply give up when you're too tired or broken to fight. Its conclusions are more nuanced than you might expect. The Force may be with you always, but there are times when its weight feels like too much to carry.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of sci-fi violence and action.

133 minutes

Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso

Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso

Diego Luna as Captain Cassian Andor

Riz Ahmed as Bodhi Rook

Donnie Yen as Chirrut Imwe

Jiang Wen as Baze Malbus

Alan Tudyk as K-2SO

Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera

James Earl Jones as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader (voice)

Ben Mendelsohn as Director Orson Krennic

Jonathan Aris as Senator Jebel

Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothma

Warwick Davis as Bistan

• Gareth Edwards
• Chris Weitz
• Tony Gilroy

Writer (story by)

• Gary Whitta

Writer (based on the characters created by)

• George Lucas

Cinematographer

• Greig Fraser
• John Gilroy
• Colin Goudie
• Jabez Olssen
• Michael Giacchino

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‘MoviePass, MovieCrash’ Review: When They Take Your Company Away

An illuminating documentary about the ill-fated (though now-revived) subscription service finds an unexpected story.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

As a reporter, I spent the better part of 2018 puzzling over the meteoric rise and sensational nosedive of MoviePass, the brief beautiful dream of a subscription service that’s the subject of Muta’Ali’s new documentary “MoviePass, MovieCrash.” Perhaps you remember those halcyon days. For about $10 a month, you could see any movie in any theater on any day. You received a debit card that you’d use to “purchase” the ticket, and then the company would reimburse the theater for the ticket’s full cost. It worked, for a while, and it was amazing. But it made positively zero sense.

Anyone who passed third grade math can see why. If I pay $10 this month, and see only one movie, the company’s probably already in the hole. (A normal, non-matinee ticket in New York City, where there were a whole lot of MoviePass subscribers, hovered around $15.) If I see two, the hole gets deeper. Now consider the people who go to two movies a week, or four, or seven, and you start to see the problem.

There was some speculation that MoviePass was working on the gym membership model — lots of people subscribe, but few people actually use it, and they balance each other out. But that also makes very little sense. People, on the whole, tend to enjoy watching movies more than they enjoy slogging away on the StairMaster.

The only answer was that MoviePass was either trying to cut deals with studios and theaters, or selling and utilizing user data, or both — especially since Helios and Matheson, MoviePass’s publicly traded owner, was a data analytics firm. The answer is both, and the company’s leadership was convinced that the bigger their user base, the more likely they’d be able to monetize audiences. After all, data showed that MoviePass drastically increased people’s willingness to go to the movies, where they’d presumably spend money on concessions, too — and that might translate to eagerness from theaters to keep the service alive. The company’s chief executive, Mitchell Lowe, who was at Netflix in its early days, was certain that if they could reach five million users, they’d be operating in the black.

MoviePass didn’t reach five million users, but for a while it seemed as though there would be no stopping it. Under the leadership of Lowe and Theodore Farnsworth, the chief executive of Helios and Matheson, the new subsidiary MoviePass Ventures produced the abysmal movie “ Gotti ” and threw a lot of very expensive parties in mid-2018. At the same time, if you were trying to actually use the service, it went from bad to worse to baffling: random blackout periods, strange requirements for purchasing tickets (like uploading photos of stubs) and near-constant changes to the terms and conditions. Eventually the Federal Trade Commission made accusations that MoviePass fraudulently deceived its customers to prevent power users from getting what they’d paid for. That era of MoviePass did not end well.

My friends and I still wistfully speak of those days, wondering what exactly happened there. Luckily, “MoviePass, MovieCrash” answers a lot of those questions, with the participation of the company’s put-upon customer service agents, engineers, employees, investors and Lowe himself. But surprisingly, the film goes much further than expected. Streaming services are loaded with documentaries about scammy internet-era companies, but “MoviePass, MovieCrash” finds the barely told story in all the juicy facts.

That story is, in a sense, a tale as old as time. MoviePass in fact existed all the way back in 2011, co-founded by Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt. The story they tell in the documentary is one of spotting a need in the market — a threat to theatrical exhibition of films posed, in part, by the slow growth of streaming services — and of figuring out a sustainable way to fill it. The answer was MoviePass, which cost more at the time (I believe I paid $49.99 per month in 2013, which was still a bargain) and seemed poised for success.

But as Spikes and Watt explain it, MoviePass is another story of Black entrepreneurs who, along with other underrepresented demographics, struggle to find investment capital and investor confidence in the market, creating something groundbreaking and then losing it to overconfident white men. There’s no doubt that, under Lowe and Farnsworth, a promising service was run directly into the ground. The frustration that Spikes and Watt felt as they were pushed out of the company is palpable. And when Lowe opines on camera that Spikes “wasn’t being a productive member of the team” when he voiced his concerns, you can feel that frustration, too.

All of this makes for an eye-opening documentary about a lot more than just MoviePass, worth watching whether you’re nostalgic for the service or bitter about how it turned out — or if you just think the whole thing was kind of hilarious. But there is a happy ending. In 2022, Spikes bought back the company, tweaked the service and relaunched MoviePass. And in 2023, it reported its first-ever year of profitability.

MoviePass, MovieCrash Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Max.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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'Stopmotion' Review: This Hand-Crafted Shudder Horror Film Is One of a Kind

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The Big Picture

• Stopmotion is a unique horror film that blends stop-motion animation with a dark narrative.
• Aisling Franciosi's performance as Ella adds depth and humanity to the chilling story.
• The film explores the blurred lines between reality and artistry, culminating in a violent yet mesmerizing finale.

Though horror is often a place to discover movies that you’ve never seen before , it is hard to think of one that is quite like Robert Morgan 's intriguing feature debut Stopmotion . Namely, this is because it draws upon the beauty of stop-motion animation to create something frequently terrifying . While there have certainly been prior works that make use of this technique to explore horror elements, whether it is the magnificent descent into darkness Mad God or the underrated more family-friendly flick Wendell & Wild , this one feels truly original in its presentation. Even as its narrative can be a bit derivative and familiar, the hand-crafted artistry on display is undeniable. Merge it with a spectacular performance from the great Aisling Franciosi , and you've got a darkly delightful yet still sinister work of horror.

Stopmotion (2024)

A stop-motion animator struggles to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother.

What Is 'Stopmotion' About?

This all begins with the talented stop-motion filmmaker Ella Blake (Franciosi) who is working on a project for her ailing mother Suzanne ( Stella Gonet ) as she can’t do so herself. The stress of having the menacing matriarch looking over her shoulder, directing and critiquing her every move, is exhausting for both of them. Considering how intensive and tedious stop-motion already is, the way Suzanne puts pressure on her daughter makes it almost unbearable. Whether this comes out of fear that she will never be able to make something herself or something darker is something Stopmotion frequently alludes to without fully diving headfirst into it . When Suzanne has a medical episode in the middle of one of their days of shooting and falls into a coma, Ella now has a chance to make a stop-motion film of her own. She then moves into an apartment to focus all of her time on her work. However, the building seems almost abandoned. That is, save for one little girl ( Caoilinn Springall ) who begins helping Ella with the story that she is struggling with. As she begins to use…let’s just say other materials for the project that she finds to be rather useful, the film and her own life start to blur together. With each segment of the grim stop-motion creation she makes, it feels like the Ella who started it may be at risk of being locked away in the story she’s creating.

Initially, there is something liberatory to the experience as she no longer has to contend with her mother being there controlling her every move. The blunt reading of this is that it was Ella who was more of a puppet than anything. What makes this work is that, rather crucially, Morgan and his co-writer Robin King don’t go for easy metaphors about trauma. For what is essentially the entirety of the film, Ella seems to be dealing with some sort of greater pain that she is never quite able to articulate. It is as if she is trying to speak through the film that she is working on, but doesn’t quite know how to. She struggles with the story, though seems to work best when doing so subconsciously, as the darker ideas and imagery come pouring out. Stopmotion is best when we are watching these stop-motion bits as they are both well-constructed and generally creepy . The excellent use of sound, more than some on-the-nose dialogue that is scattered throughout, speaks volumes about what this film is becoming.

When they bleed into the real world, with one striking sequence seeing Ella briefly become one of her creations while running from a figure that is chasing her down, Stopmotion delicately taps into something disquieting. It feels most in conversation with something like 2021’s Censor in terms of how it observes someone starting to lose their grasp on the line between the artifice of cinema and what is going on in the making of it . Though it isn’t always as confident in how it does this, too frequently cutting away rather abruptly rather than lingering in the fear, moments like a scene where Ella is frozen with fear on a bed cuts right to the bone.

Aisling Franciosi Is Spectacular In 'Stopmotion'

Just as importantly, the central performance from Franciosi is what helps give the story a more cutting edge. Seeing her go from being the reserved daughter trying to quietly do right by her mother to someone creating for herself, no matter the cost to herself or others, is just as frequently brilliant to behold as the stop-motion creations. This should come as no surprise to all who’ve seen Franciosi in Jennifer Kent ’s staggering The Nightingale , but it also is nice to see her being given more to work with after being wasted in last year’s The Voyage of the Last Demeter . Just as the conclusion of the film worms its way into your mind in an often terrifying fashion, it is her performance that maintains its hold over your heart. For all the ways Ella is getting lost in her creations, Franciosi never does. She gives the character a real humanity just as we feel her grasp on it slipping away the longer she spends throwing herself into her art.

The film doesn’t skimp on the blood and violence in the finale, with Morgan pushing it as far as he can, but Franciosi remains just as much a force to reckon with. Even a simple scene in a hospital where her face takes on a more sinister expression as she delivers a cathartically cruel line with relish is mesmerizing. Immediately following this, when Ella says she is the one who needs to end this, we feel just how true this is in Franciosi's voice. That the final shot lingering on her face is where it leaves its greatest impact proves quite poetically fitting. In the end, Ella may be at risk of being swallowed up by her art, yet it is Franciosi who gives it shape and form to provide it with one final blow before it all comes to a painful close .

Stopmotion is a one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted horror film with a great performance from Aisling Franciosi.

• The stop-motion sequences are all beautifully well-made even as they lean into increasing depths of brutality.
• Aisling Franciosi is as great as ever, holding the heart of the film in her hands with ease.
• The ending ties this all together, lingering when it counts on the film's most quietly haunting shot.
• Elements of the story are a little familiar and blunt in the beginning.
• It frequently lacks confidence, cutting away in moments where the fear could linger for a bit longer.

Stopmotion is now available to stream on Shudder in the U.S.

WATCH ON SHUDDER

• Movie Reviews
• Aisling Franciosi

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‘Summer Camp’: S’more servings of Diane Keaton and friends

With a cast that includes Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard and Eugene Levy, this slight comedy is all about the vibes.

Diane Keaton can act — her best actress Oscar is proof — but lately, she’s favored movie roles that capitalize on how much people just want to lounge around with her or, at least, the vest-wearing, space-cadet charmer we’ve imagined her to be since “Annie Hall.”

Let her male contemporaries like Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington and Sylvester Stallone exhaust themselves battling goon squads to rescue their granddaughter’s neighbor’s cat. Keaton has enjoyed a big-screen resurgence just from hangout movies like the Book Club franchise and now Castille Landon’s “Summer Camp,” a film as pleasant and fleeting as a cheap ice pop, which simply watches Keaton dither about whether to go river rafting.

Keaton plays Nora, a workaholic scientist dragged on a girls’ trip to her 50-year camp reunion with her childhood bunk mates, big-mouthed Ginny (Kathy Bates in a ferocious red bob) and Mary (Alfre Woodard), an unhappily married nurse. Once, Nora, Ginny and Mary (played in their youth by Taylor Madeline Hand, Kensington Tallman and Audrianna Lico) were the losers exiled to the Sassafras cabin. Now, Ginny is a celebrity self-help guru with serious clout and the former popular girls are headed up by a beautifully maintained Pilates addict named Jane (Beverly D’Angelo, funny and game) who happens to be Ginny’s biggest fan.

Whether you believe that summer camp reunions are even real in the first place, Landon makes it clear she’s trafficking in fantasy as soon as wealthy Ginny revamps their cobwebby bunk into a luxury cabin complete with a wine fridge, customized riding boots and vibrators for souvenirs. The story is as predictable as a campfire song. Each of the friends has one core problem to fix, but the film is really about the meandering path to enlightenment, which takes frequent detours for food fights, pillow fights and pottery classes with a lot of awkwardly erotic squelching.

Meanwhile, the seniors tussle with young and wacky camp counselors (Betsy Sodaro and Josh Peck, both great) who struggle to assert their authority. The soundtrack plays as many on-the-nose needle drops as it can afford. (Yes, we hear Bryan Adams’s “Summer of ’69.”)

The throwback vibe invites the cast to straddle two ages simultaneously. The women claim to be old and overworked and exhausted, but once back in a mess hall — even a mess hall where a bartender serves martinis — they revert to teenagers giggling over who’s going to sneak out for a midnight kiss.

Keaton’s character is as Keaton-esque as ever. It’s a narrative rule that her characters suddenly realize that — gasp — they look incredible in a wide belt. The rest of the cast is set loose to do whatever they want with their parts, which results in a colorful mess akin to the scrawl on a shared stall, which is where a lot of the jokes come from, too, including a tampon gag so startling that it’s relegated to the end credits.

Bates has a blast playing a cartoonish attention hog constantly filing away quips for her TikTok followers, while the comic Eugene Levy, taking off his trademark glasses to play the girls’ crush Stevie D, struts around with the confidence of a heartthrob. “That name sounded a lot more edgy when we were 14,” Nora jokes.

Yet Woodard often seems to be in a movie of her own. She gives her smothered wife character such gravitas that you could plop her whole performance into a serious drama. In her first scene, Mary is pestered over the phone by her husband (Tom Wright), a mostly off-screen presence, who wants help finding a snack while she’s giving a patient chest compressions at the hospital. It’s a ridiculous moment delivered with unusual conviction.

Woodard’s scenes shouldn’t mesh with the slapstick, but we find ourselves caught up in rooting for Mary to leave the louse and fall for an impossibly perfect doctor (Dennis Haysbert) who jetted to the reunion from his charity clinic in Myanmar. What happens next is frothy, forgettable wish fulfillment — but, hey, that’s why anyone’s watching in the first place.

PG-13. At area theaters. Contains sexual material, strong language and some underage smoking. 96 minutes.