Movie Review: Voicemails for Isabelle

August 10, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Voicemails for Isabelle written and directed by Leah McKendrick
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Nick Robinson, and Ciara Bravo
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars (8 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

Jill leaves voice messages to her deceased sister telling her about her chaotic life in San Francisco. Unwittingly, a mysterious Austin TX real estate agent begins to receive their confessions.

Love has many faces.

Chronic illness isn’t a topic I‘ve seen covered in the romance genre very often, so I was immediately intrigued by Jill’s relationship with her sister who had a life-threatening health condition. While I don’t want to give away too many spoilers in this review, I can say that I loved the early segments that showed how their relationship had developed from childhood on through to adulthood and how the uncertainty and unfairness of life had shaped both of their personalities.

The final act did feel a little rushed to me, especially given how upset Jill had been with Wes earlier on. While this conflict between them was absolutely necessary in order for certain plot twists to play out later on, I would have liked to see a few more scenes showing how they worked things out so that the ending could have a few more layers to it and be even more satisfying for this viewer than it already was.

With that being said, I loved the chemistry between the two main characters. They had a lot in common and I enjoyed the slow burning romance that ignited between them as they got to know each other better while also juggling some serious life issues along the way. There was a nice mixture of themes included like complicated family relationships, grief, and the stress that comes from being in the wrong job that only made the romantic scenes all that much sweeter.

Voicemails for Isabelle was heartwarming and romantic.

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TV Review: Widow’s Bay (Season 1)

August 3, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Widow’s Bay (Season 1) created by Katie Dippold
Directors: Hiro Murai, Ti West, Sam Donovan, and Andrew DeYoung
Starring: Matthew Rhys, Kate O’Flynn, Kevin Carroll, and Dale Dickey
Publisher: Apple TV
Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Horror, Paranormal, Historical, Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A New England mayor trying to boost tourism on his island must navigate strange events suggesting it might be cursed.

It may be a small town, but it’s anything but sleepy.

The plot twists in this show were fantastic, and I was surprised by them on more than one occasion. What made them even better was how much effort the creator put into not only giving the audience fantastic clues but also making plenty of space for alternative interpretations of them as well. This meant that even when I was wrong about where the plot was headed, I still felt satisfied by my attempts to predict the ending of season one as my theories were perfectly reasonably at the time.

Horror and mystery are even more enticing to me when mixed together, and I loved digging into the history of Widow’s Bay as secrets were slowly revealed and a few explanations as to why this small community had such terrible luck were put forward by various characters. The paranormal themes only made everything scarier and more thrilling, and I’m hoping that these types of scenes are given even more screen time in the future as they provided ample opportunities not only for frights but also for some memorable character and plot development as well.

Speaking of small towns, I thought this was an honest portrayal of both what it’s like to live in a rural community as well as what it feels like to move to one and interact with people who have all known each other for their entire lives and may not always be that interested in getting to know outsiders. The tensions between various groups of people including newcomers, lifelong residents who wanted to see their community grow, and those who strongly preferred for things to remain the same forever were well written, fair, and sometimes downright hilarious. Honestly, I could understand everyone’s perspectives even if I didn’t necessarily agree with all of them, and I thought this added some nice conflict as well early on when the paranormal antagonists weren’t as active yet.

This first season of Widow’s Bay has me eagerly anticipating what might happen next. What a wild ride!

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TV Review: The Quilters

July 27, 2026 By Leave a Comment

Title: The Quilters
Director: Jenifer McShane
Producer: Jenifer McShane
Starring: Joe Satterfield
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars (10 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

In this award-winning short documentary, men in a Missouri maximum-security prison design and sew beautiful, personalized quilts for foster children.

Rehabilitation begins with empathy.

I adored the sensitive and kind framing of this documentary, especially given the fact that many of the men who sew these quilts have been incarcerated for decades or even for the rest of their lies for what were in a few cases hinted to be terrible crimes. It’s not always easy for filmmakers or audiences to see the humanity in people with these kinds of violent pasts, so I appreciated the fact that as little time as possible was spent exploring what, exactly, they did to end up in a level 5 facility. Those details, while obviously important in other contexts, were not relevant to work these inmates were doing for children living in foster care or with disabilities like autism.

As someone who knows little about sewing, I was fascinated by the many detailed steps it requires in order to sew a quilt, weighted vest, or weighted blanket. For example, I didn’t know that cloth needs to be ironed and stretched out before being sewn together or what happens if those steps aren’t done properly. The inmates were trained carefully on their craft, and the items they produced were incredible. It was especially interesting to see how every inch of an item was inspected methodically before being shipped out to the children who were waiting for their gifts.

Regret and forgiveness were two of the deeper themes of this documentary that played out quietly in the background. A few of the men featured will probably never leave the maximum-security prison in Missouri where they have already lived for decades, so hearing their thoughts on the many years they’ve had to consider their life choices was especially poignant. I don’t want to share too many spoilers about what they’ve learned along the way, but I will say that they have had a lot of time to work through their feelings and I liked the way they expressed them.

The Quilters was a beautiful and heartwarming look at how dramatically people can change for the better when given the chance.

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Movie Review: Dragon Striker

July 6, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Dragon Striker
Writer: Paul McKeown
Directed by: Charles Lefebvre
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Rebecca LaChance, Waylon Jacobs, Evanna Lynch
Distributed by: Disney
Genre: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.)
Rating: 3 Stars (6 stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Dicentra

Follows Key, a twelve-year-old farm boy who discovers he may be the legendary “Dragon Striker” and joins a team of underdogs to take on the school champions, while fighting to prevent an ancient evil from resurfacing.

Disney’s Dragon Striker was such a fun release, coinciding with the start of the World Cup in North America this year and combining fantasy and sports into one cartoon. The show did a great job highlighting the sport of Gorotama and the powers of the different players, but suffered from plot holes and the length of the show not allowing enough time to go in depth.

Gorotama is such a cool sport, very reminiscent of a more fantastical version of Shaolin Soccer. I loved the different powers that the players had, and I think the writers did an excellent job providing unique ways for some of them to ‘level up’ over the course of the show. It was also cool to see how some of the powers, or Tamas, were able to make use of the arenas to their advantage (i.e. twins with magnetic tamas being able to run on the ceiling). It was unclear how Key’s powers were so unique when it seemed like Ragno had very similar ones, but that leads more into some of the plot holes issues the show faced.

Dragon Striker was composed of multiple episodes that were about 20 minutes in length, but there was defniitely potential for them to go much longer. For example, Kal Asterock is supposed to be an academy of sorts but we never really see any of the students in classes (it is unclear if all they do is learn to control their Tamas for the sake of playing Gorotama). It is also a little weird that for a school that big, there seems to be only four professors (or Goyen) that ever make an appearance. I was kind of hoping that with the start of the team of Underdogs (the Knights), there would be some kooky professor coming out of nowhere to be their coach but it never happened. There’s also a scene towards the end of the show where one of the players on another team gets attacked, but they never really go deeper into what attacked him (it’s limited to three out of four of the Goyen complaining that Key coming to the school is bad news, as though he’s somehow related to the issue). I recognize though that I’m likely older than the target audience for this show, and expecting more complex shows as a result might be related to most of my complaints.

Overall, this was an entertaining cartoon and I’m glad I took the time to watch it. The show has a lot of potential, especially if they go into more of the history of the school and what happened with Key’s mom (we really only get told that she was a former Dragon Striker, and bits and pieces of what happened when she died). I really hope Disney gives this show another season, as there’s so much more to explore (and many more games of Gorotama to be played).

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TV Review: One Piece: Into the Grand Line (Season 2)

June 29, 2026 By Leave a Comment


ONE PIECE: Into the Grand Line (Season 2)
Showrunners/Developed By: Matt Owens and Steven Maeda
Starring: Iñaki Godoy, Emily Rudd, Mackenyu, Jacob Romero, Taz Skylar, Charithra Chandran, Mikaela Hoover
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure
Rating: 5 Stars (Ten stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Dicentra

With his straw hat and ragtag crew, young pirate Monkey D. Luffy goes on an epic voyage for treasure.

Netflix’s ONE PIECE: Into the Grand Line is a jolly good time and entertaining for both those familiar with the original manga/anime and those new to the world. A series based on the manga by Eiichuro Oda and led by Iñaki Godoy, playing the fearless leader of the Straw Hat Pirates Monkey D. Luffy, there is lots of adventure and new places to explore as they work towards finding the One Piece.

The Straw Hats are the centerpiece of the story, but in Season 2 they both gain new crewmates and new adversaries. With the new crewmates, there is Miss Wednesday (played by Charithra Chandran from Bridgerton) as well as the most adorable medical professional I’ve ever seen – Tony Tony Chopper (voice and facial motion capture by Mikaela Hoover). The adversaries come in pairs, in the form of the many Baroque Works agents trying to kill them. I snorted out loud when Roranoa Zoro (played by Mackenyu) made a comment about them plundering other pirate’s treasure to pay for their costume budget, as it’s a very fair and valid point with how elaborate almost all of them are dressed. The amount of wax required to style Mr. 3’s hair (played by David Dastmalchian) is exorbitant. While journeying through the Grand Line, they also take on the voracious and exiled former King Wapol (played by Rob Colletti) who has come back to reclaim his kingdom. There are so many other cool side characters that I can’t name them all (especially without spoilers), but I thought the team at Netflix did a great job bringing the CGI parts to life as well as making very realistic and immersive sets. In going down a YouTube rabbit hole, I found out that they made a full size Going Merry to film on, and I think that’s totally awesome.

Overall, this was an excellent season and I think that it has real potential to be one of Netflix’s lead titles since Stranger Things had its series finale last year. It’s super exciting that Season 3 is already in production, and I’m eager to see how the Straw Hats fare against Joe Manganiello’s Mr 0 and the rest of Baroque Works.

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Movie Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures

June 8, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Title: Remarkably Bright Creatures
Writers: Olivia Newman and John Whittington
Director: Olivia Newman
Starring: Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, and Colm Meaney
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars (6 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

A widow who works at a local aquarium finds joy again when she forms an unlikely bond with a giant Pacific octopus and a wayward young man who comes to town in search of family. Together, they uncover a mystery that will lead them to a life-changing discovery and restore their sense of wonder.

Loneliness is a heavy burden to carry.

Some of the best scenes were the ones that explored how quickly news can spread in a small town and what happens when gossip doesn’t match what actually occurred. It rang true to life in my experience, and I enjoyed watching the characters react to the stories that were either being spread about them or that they were spreading about their friends and neighbors. Some of them liked this process far more than others did, and my opinions of all of them shifted for the better or the worse depending on how they handled this topic.

I did find the character development flat, especially when it came to the protagonists. Even given the tragic backstories of certain characters, I struggled to connect to them due to the limited amount of information that was shared about them outside of the painful events they were processing. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, I wasn’t able to do so thanks to this issue.

The magical realism was handled nicely. While the vast majority of the storyline was rooted in realistic conflicts and events, there were a few moments that were slightly outside of the realm of possibility in our world. These scenes were handled so sensitivity and creatively that I could easily imagine them really occurring which is exactly what I love to see in this sub-genre. The ordinary experiences of the characters in the vast majority of their lives only made those rare deviations from the norm all the more spectacular.

Remarkably Bright Creatures made me smile.

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TV Review: This is a Gardening Show

May 18, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Title: This Is a Gardening Show (Season 1)
Director: Brook Linder
Starring: Zach Galifianakis
Producer: Chris Kim
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars (6 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

Follows Zach Galifianakis as he approaches gardening with curiosity and self-effacing humor, blending comedy with appreciation for the planet while providing accessible tools and tips.

The future is filled with plants of all sizes, shapes, and colors.

I loved Zack’s sense of humor in this series. Whether he was asking kids about whether tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable or joking about placing bets about what color certain potatoes would be before they were dug up, he brought so much laughter to topics like climate change and sustainable farming that wouldn’t generally be thought of as funny. Some of the points he made about what our future will look like if we don’t change how we grow our food were quite serious, so it was helpful to have those moments bookmarked by plenty of laughs along the way.

Each episode was about fifteen minutes long which unfortunately didn’t leave much space for exploring their topics in depth. I think twenty-five to thirty minutes would have been a better length, especially when Zach and his guests began talking about the history of agriculture and how certain wild foods have changed over the millennia thanks to selective breeding that are difficult to distill into a few short sentences.

Speaking of the historical segments, they were by far my favorite portions of these episodes. For example, wealthy Victorians thought that tomatoes were poisonous, and their reasoning for that was as logical as it was surprising. I also enjoyed the moments in later episodes that talked about how ancient civilizations like the Egyptians used composting not only to enrich their crops but also to reinforce some of their cultural beliefs as well.

This Is a Gardening Show was educational and amusing.

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Movie Review: BTS – The Return

April 20, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Title: BTS – The Return
Director: Bao Nguyen
Producer: Bao Nguyen
Starring: Kim “RM” Nam-joon, Min “Suga” Yoon-gi, Jung “J-Hope” Ho-seok, Kim “Jin” Seok-jin, Jeon “Jung Kook” Jung-kook, and Kim “V” Tae-hyung
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Nonfiction, Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars (10 on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

Follows BTS as they reunite in Los Angeles after completing military service, confronting how to begin again, honor their past, and move forward together as they return to making music.

Boy bands generally don’t last this long. Can BTS make their big comeback in 2026?

Due to South Korea’s mandatory military service, the members of the K-Pop band BTS have been absent from modern music since 2022. This documentary showed their readjustment to life as civilians and the work they put into their new album, Arirang. I was surprised to learn that these performers were not exempt from military service and was curious to see what their time away from the spotlight had taught them. Without sharing spoilers, this topic was covered thoroughly and satisfactorily!

The scenes that explored how all seven members have matured over the past thirteen years or so were the ones that propelled this to a perfect rating for me. Most people change quite a bit between their teens or early twenties and their thirties, and BTS wanted this evolution to be included in their new music. When combined with what is a fairly long hiatus for a genre that is famous for having young fans that can rapidly outgrow their favourite artists, the question of how their audience would respond to this growth hung in the air both in the studio and in the meetings with music executives about which songs should or should not make the cut. It was especially interesting to me to find out how they chose the name for their album and what that represented to them now that they are all well into adulthood.

Viewers who are already part of the Army, which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth and is how some fans of BTS refer to themselves, will have a few fun surprises along the way, but this was still a good watch for those of us who maybe weren’t so familiar with their work. I appreciated the fact that this was filmed in a way that could appeal to a wide variety of people and didn’t make any assumptions about what we did or didn’t already know about them. It’s not always easy to accomplish something like that, but it sure makes for a good viewing experience.

BTS – The Return was heartwarming and made me wonder what is in store for them next!

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Movie Review: Lead Children

April 6, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Lead Children
Writers: Michal Jedryka and Jakub Korolczuk
Director: Maciej Pieprzyca
Starring: Joanna Kulig, Agata Kulesza, Kinga Preis, and Michal Zurawski
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Non-Fiction, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars (8 Stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

A young doctor uncovers lead poisoning in children near a steelworks. Despite state opposition, she strives to treat the sick kids.

Success is never guaranteed.

I appreciated how much time was spent exploring the effects of lead poisoning and why so many people in the 1970s were unaware of how it can disable and even kill children. This wasn’t something I knew much about before watching this series, but knowing the stakes the inhabitants of Silesia were facing was critical in order to understand why Dr. Wadowska-Król’s campaign was of utmost importance. Some of the best scenes in my opinion were the ones showing children playing in the dirt, going swimming, eating vegetables from their mother’s gardens, or doing other innocent things that took on a much darker meaning once the audience understood how polluted this community was and the many ways lead can enter the human body.

There were times when I found this mini-series to be a little uneven in its pacing and repetitive, especially when it came to Dr. Wadowska-Król’s conflicts with various Communist party members about how much information the general public should have about how lead poisoning was affecting the children of Silesia. These scenes were powerful the first few times but began to lose their effectiveness a little for this viewer by the time I reached the last two episodes and had seen them play out multiple times.

Understanding the culture of this time and place was necessary in order for the later episodes to make the most sense. Silesia was a complex town that relied on everyone following orders and not asking questions about what they were instructed to do. Normally, of course, this can be a good thing, but there are cases when obedience can have tragic unintended consequences when those in power may not have the best interests of the common person at heart. The scenes that dug into the discrepancies between what the leaders said and what they actually did behind closed doors were among the most powerful ones for me, and they were a big part of what kept me going despite my gentle critique of certain scenes.

Lead Children was an illuminating look at a chapter of history I’d never heard of before.

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Movie Review: One Life

March 30, 2026 By Leave a Comment


One Life
Writers: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake, and Barbara Winton
Director: James Hawes
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin, and Johnny Flynn
Publisher: BBC Film, Warner Bros. Pictures
Genre: Nonfiction, Historical
Rating: 5 Stars (10 Stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton, a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued over 600 children from Nazi-occupied Czechia (then called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia).

How a society treats refugees is of utmost importance.

The dual storyline worked really nicely, especially later on as Sir Nicholas Winton began to open up about what he was doing at the beginning of World War II as Jewish people were being demonized by the Nazis and helping them required taking great personal risks. I knew only a few basic facts about the trains filled with children that were evacuated from German-occupied Czechoslovakia back then, and I was eager to learn more about how those rescue missions worked and what might have happened to the kids who were sent to England for safety during that war.

One of my favorite things about this film was how much attention it paid to the men and women who worked alongside Sir Winton to save 669 predominantly Jewish children from near certain death. He couldn’t have done such a massive job alone even if it was originally his idea due to the many hours of work involved in every case, so I was glad to see so much teamwork being portrayed as they all raised funds, arranged transportation, found foster families, and otherwise spread the word about this humanitarian crisis.

I loved the complex portrayal of the protagonist, especially in the scenes set in the 1980s as he reflected on both his successes as well as what he considered his failures to be. Other viewers should discover for themselves exactly what he regretted, but seeing how hard he was on himself only made me like him even more. He was a kind and gentle man who struggled to accept the term hero despite all that he had accomplished on what honestly appeared to be a shoestring budget and a schedule that never left enough time for all he wanted to do.

One Life was a beautiful and sobering snapshot of a critical mission and the man who made it happen.

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