The End of Oak Street
Let’s begin by heading to a Michigan suburb set in the year 1982. That’s where and when we meet the Platt family, parents Denice and Greg (played respectively by Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor) and their teenage children Audrey and Brian (played respectively by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery). Times are tough, even if the Platts strive to make a go of it. Brian, we’ll discover, has lost his day job and is delivering pizzas to earn some much-needed cash. Denice is discontent and spends most of her time in the basement writing an autobiographical novel, a roman à clef, while the kids engage in the standard sorts of things that all movie version of kids do. But then what seems start out as just another sort of Ordinary People meets Eighth Grade storyline suddenly switches tones … when, unaccountably, the dinosaurs arrive. The End of Oak Street is capably directed by writer-director David Robert Mitchell, even if he never gives us a satisfactory reason for what goes on. But it’s entertaining enough, even given various gruesome scenes, and is bound to lead to a sequel.
The Samurai and the Prisoner
Set in the year 1578, during a time of warring clans, a clan leader named Murashige (played by Masahiro Motoki) rebels against the region’s brutal war lord. Safe behind the walls of his seemingly impregnable castle, Murashige finds himself confronted by a series of mysteries. One involves the sudden and strange death of the son of a defector, while it and others involving battle strategies are complicated by the riddle-like advice given to Murashige by Kanbei (played by Masaki Suda), a clever but perhaps devious emissary from the regional war lord whom Murahige – against all samurai custom – has imprisoned. Much of what goes on in The Samurai and the Prisoner likely speaks more to Japanese audiences, based as it is on a prize-winning novel. But it is a pleasure to watch, even if it does run on to 2 hours and 27 minutes and if writer-director Kyoshi Kurosawa – whose previous film 2024’s Cloud serves as a modern cautionary tale – is, try as he might, no Akira Kurosawa.