Cooking up an origin story: Tony (2026, director Matt Johnson)
Review by Connor McLaughlin

The film opens with the title card ripped straight from Chapter 2 of Kitchen Confidential, "I was—to be frank—a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking."

This message is quickly realized when we are introduced to a cocky, fake-it-till-you-make-it, 19-year-old Anthony “Tony” Bourdain. As a student at Vassar College, he aspires to be a writer and applies for a writing fellowship in New York. He confidently tells everyone, including his family and his college crush Nancy Putkoski, he got it. He did not get it.

Aimless and embarrassed, he impulsively follows Nancy to Provincetown, Massachusetts for the summer. He has no money, no writing fellowship, and no plan - except to work at a local seafood restaurant, The Flagship, in exchange for a place to stay at the head chef/owner’s house. To make matters worse, Tony Bourdain has no restaurant experience either.

What follows is a delectable and briny bildungsroman that feels effortlessly charming and self-contained for a genre so overcooked. It would be an understatement to say that Anthony Bourdain holds a special place in the zeitgeist and perhaps only 'providence' could explain what he meant to the world at large. Thankfully, writer-director Matt Johnson can also explain it.

Coming straight off the success of this year’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Johnson withholds and strips down the usual chaotic tendencies of his previous work, but still he maintains an astute eye for character and tone. Johnson is not interested in telling the story of Bourdain becoming a maverick, the young Elvis of bad-boy chefs. or his mythos. Instead, the filmmaker treats this young lout as a practically complete unknown, whose mouthiness and angsty essence could be anybody’s.

As for casting Dominic Sessa: man, he is truly great. From the chain smoking to his frizzled look, reminiscent of a young Elliot Gould, Sessa continues to deliver dynamically interesting performances that seem to walk straight out of the 1970s. His role as Bourdain is not so dissimilar from his breakout role in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, but there are more than enough idiosyncrasies to differentiate the roles.

Emilia Jones as Nancy continues to impress with her versatility, as does Leo Woodall. However, the real heart and scene-stealer of the film is Antonio Banderas as the owner of The Flagship. His role as “Chef” is heartbreaking, hilarious, and never showy, but he reminds the audience why he's one of the most underrated actors working today.

In short, Tony is a chef’s kiss of a movie. The film’s structure is straightforward, satisfying fare. It's akin to a meal that you’ve had plenty of times before, but the recipe goes off script just enough to make you feel something truly special by the end... and, not least, hungry for some raw oysters.

Tony is playing in theaters across the city

Review by Conor McLaughlin

Have you ever wanted to go back in time? Back to when things were simpler? If the answer is yes, you might want to take a step back with The End of Oak Street.
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The year is 1982, and the Platt family wants things to go back to the way they were. Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor) has lost his job, now secretly working as a pizza delivery driver and sleeping on the couch. His wife and aspiring novelist Denise (Anne Hathaway) secludes herself in the basement writing a book about leaving her family. Their kids Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery) just want their old parents back...or to divorce already.

Everyone wants to go back, even the family dog Starbuck. So when the troubled Platt family and all the residents of their suburban town are inexplicably transported back to a prehistoric age of feathered dinosaurs and terrifying pterosaurs - everyone needs to get back home; back, if you will, to the future.

On the surface, director David Robert Mitchell’s (It Follows, Under the Silver Lake) newest is a lean, mean-as-hell machine that turns suburbia into a prehistoric killing field, pushing its PG-13 rating to a vicious extreme. The outlandish premise of “what if your family home was suddenly surrounded by dinosaurs” is cinematic catnip. It is a true-blue summer blockbuster with exciting visuals, great acting and rock-solid directing.

For all its split-diopter shots, the film can be compared affectionately to the Amblin Entertainment-produced movies of the 1980s (eg. E.T and The Goonies), and it's specifically a fun homage to original, high concept, mid-budget thrillers that used to get made constantly.

The movie is on one hand a violent dinosaur romp, but it is also an ironic investigation of nostalgia. It opens with an unmistakably Reaganesque flavour, a big neighborhood block party with Michael Giachinno’s glossy music underscoring an idyllic time. It begins as a fantasy of a supposedly happier time, when the nuclear family was the center of American life. However, Oak Street and the Platt family are merely an advertisement for this illusion of American beauty. Similar to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, The End of Oak Street understands the appeal of that fantasy while quietly exposing its absurdity: the past is never actually safe or ideal.

In short, you can romanticize the old neighborhood, but you can't romanticize extinction times. This is where Mitchell's Spielberg homage becomes more than imitation. The End of Oak Street reproduces the grammar of the Amblin movies of old, namely the ordinary American family encountering something extraordinary, but it places that story in a self-reflective lens. It's awesome to see Anne Hathaway shotgun blast an Allosaurus, and the family dog Starbuck attack a pterosaur, but Mitchell understands that going back isn't necessarily the same thing as going home.

The End of Oak Street is playing on screens across the city

​Get The Greek To Me: The Odyssey (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2026)
Review by Connor McLaughlin

By the time you're reading this, I will have seen Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey four times in the theater. You might ask why. I would answer by pointing out the film opens with the text “An age of apparent magic,” and that is exactly what this feels like… movie magic. The Odyssey is the true meaning of the cinematic experience.

Based on Homer’s epic saga, Nolan transports audiences back to the foundational, source code of his oeuvre, namely a complicated man, full of sorrow, attempting to get home. In this era of the director’s career, one might think that the pre-Christian text would drone on, as it might have in a high school English class. However, just as Homer's tales of Odysseus, this film burns with urgency and satisfying pathos.

Filmed entirely in IMAX 70mm and across seven countries, Matt Damon headlines an impressive ensemble cast. He is Odysseus, beset by many challenges on the two-decade-long voyage home to his kingdom of Ithaca. Damon delivers career-best work by combining the character’s hubris with his own everyman quality to poignant effect. His co-stars showcase equally impressive work, notably Samantha Morton’s Circe, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, and Himesh Patel as second-in-command Eurylochus.

It is true, of course, that this is a Christopher Nolan film, so his signature of nonlinear, densely layered storytelling remains intact. What separates this film from his others is how straightforward and digestible the narrative feels. By crosscutting between Odysseus’ son Telemachus, his wife Penelope and her suitors, and the adventures of Odysseus and his crew, the story never feels as lost as the legendary hero of the Trojan War himself.

Nolan’s vision for a swords and sandals epic is utterly distinct, at once grounded and grotesque, but with enough changes to tell this story through a modern lens. Though we never see the gods Zeus and Poseidon, their wrath is real, their monsters are real, and humans are the fodder of their choices.

The most striking takeaway of this film is how much it thematically riffs off on Oppenheimer. If Nolan’s previous work was concerned with the final nail in the coffin of modern civilization, The Odyssey examines the rot at the core. “To the burn the walls of Troy was to burn the world entire,” laments Odysseus. This is a deeply human and potently anti-war story about the failure of humanity and the hope to make our world resemble home again.

The film is heavy and bleak, and although it reckons with our inhumanity, it is also classically entertaining and satisfying. From the infamous Cyclops to the slaughter of the suitors, the film features one incredible sequence after another. And no matter how many times I see it, there's one particular cue from Ludwig Göransson’s thunderous score that will never cease to give me goosebumps.

*If you're seeing one movie this year, make it this. Run, don’t walk to see it, especially on its beautiful 70mm film print at the Prytania Uptown, the best screen in New Orleans. Nothing can stand between you and this movie. Not even the gods… or the bathroom.

​Shifting sands: Macbeth @ The Lupin Theatre, part of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival
Review by Lauren Malara

The Lupin's black box theatre is set in the round. Audience members sit on all sides of the stage like a sporting arena, projectors wrapped around the theatre and above the audience. At the center of the stage sits a large sandbox.

​Within it, Director Graham Burk conceptualizes Shakespeare's classic story about absolute power. Some characters tiptoe around it, while others aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. Those who enter draw lines and plant flags, yet the ground is constantly shifting beneath their feet. Those who grasp for power find it slipping through their hands like so many grains of sand.

In the modern age, a sandbox is more than a playground fixture. In gaming, it allows players to choose their own path. In software development, it provides a space for trial runs. In cybersecurity, it isolates and eliminates threats. Burk's sandbox similarly becomes a place where Macbeth's ambition is developed, tested, and ultimately eliminated.

The production is spectacular. Throughout the performance, the box transforms through multimedia projections and LED lighting. At the same time, arena-style projectors encase the audience in a virtual box of their own. These projections allow for minimal scenery, quickly transporting the audience from Birnam Wood to the halls of Inverness. They also conjure eerie apparitions, illustrating Macbeth's descent into madness.

As Macbeth, David Lind (previously reviewed here in last year's The Lehman Trilogy) maintains a compelling connection with the audience. During his asides, he invites us into his dangerous game. The costumes by Kaci Thomassie are stunning. Lady Macbeth, played by Jana Mestecky, is especially striking, at one point wrapped regally in a down comforter.

Ryan Hayes brings a warm affability to Banquo, making his return at the banquet all the more ghastly. The witches (James Bartelle, Georgia Morgan, and Zarah Hōkūleʻa Spalding) are real strange, y'all. Honestly, they remind me of the girl from (horror movie)The Ring. They acrobatically collaborate to create a supernatural being.

The warmth and playfulness between Anja Avsharian and Lucien Grace, as Lady Macduff and Macduff's child, is filled with love. It makes the tragedy that follows all the more devastating. Edward Carter Simon's Macduff delivers grief so raw that his thirst for vengeance feels inevitable.

Of note, Robert A. Mitchell's performance remains grounded despite the constantly shifting terrain, his Duncan exuding ease and grace. Similarly, Robinson J. Cyprian has a commanding stage presence with his silk-smooth voice. Sofia Severson (Fleance) delivers a bright, spirited performance full of fight, and stage manager Jenny L. Billot deserves special recognition for the production's extensive integration of technology.

Macbeth runs through July 12 at the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane. Click here for show information and ticketing