Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/ canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy “had a laser eye!” Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love…
— Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) May 6, 2026
Movie Reviews
‘The Freshly Cut Grass’ Review: A Keenly Observed if Familiar Portrait of Marital Malaise in Argentina
Argentinian director Celina Murga’s new feature The Freshly Cut Grass (El aroma del pasto recién cortado) probably should have been called The Grass Is Greener, so much is it about adults desperately searching for happiness outside their married lives, only to realize they may have been better off staying home in bed and throwing on Netflix.
Following a pair of 40-something professors who teach at the same university, and who both start affairs with younger students that wind up blowing up in their faces, the film’s rather original structure tells two parallel stories that mirror each other without ever once intersecting. That novelty, as well as strong performances from a cast of six, help boost a movie that says nothing entirely new about adultery, marriage, or midlife crises, resulting in a relatively pedestrian if keenly observed ensemble drama.
The Freshly Cut Grass
The Bottom Line It takes more than two to tango.
Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (International Narrative Competition)
Cast: Joaquín Furriel, Marina de Tavira, Alfonso Tort, Romina Peluffo, Emanuel Parga, Verónica Gerez
Director: Celina Murga
Screenwriters: Celina Murga, Juan Villegas, Lucía Osorio
1 hour 54 minutes
Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, who held the same credit on Murga’s previous features The Third Side of the River and A Week Alone, the film follows a similar modus operandi by focusing on the turmoils of Argentina’s professional class. But Grass is also chattier and more openly romantic than the director’s other work, chronicling the sexual longings and deceptions of Generation Xers looking for love in all the wrong places.
The set-up is somewhat reminiscent of Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, although the location is Buenos Aires and the characters are all educated members of the country’s bourgeoisie: Natalia (Marina de Tavira) and Pablo (Joaquín Furriel) teach agronomics in the same college, are each married with two children and are both flirting heavily with one of their students.
In Natalia’s case, that student is the helpful, hunky Gonzalo (Emanuel Parga), while in Pablo’s case it’s the free-spirited, punkish Luciana (Verónica Gerez). Things aren’t going great at home for either professor, whose significant others — Hernán (Alfonso Tort) and Carla (Romina Peluffo), respectively — are unemployed and unhappy, leaving the two teachers to gradually wander into the arms of their very apt pupils.
Nothing feels altogether surprising in Muraga’s scenario (co-written with Juan Villegas and Lucía Osorio), except for the fact that Natalia and Pablo are basically living through the same exact story without either of them knowing it. From scene to scene, we cut between the two as they simultaneously cheat on their spouses, get better acquainted with their young lovers and try to conceal things on the home front. They both eventually realize that such things are much easier said than done, especially when photos of them in revealing poses with their students are leaked onto social media.
Despite the narrative redundancy, there are some subtle differences between the plotlines: Natalia experiences a kind of sexual awakening with Gonzalo, while Pablo seems to be rediscovering his youth alongside Luciana. Natalia’s husband, Hernán, reacts to the news of his wife’s cheating by temporarily walking out on her, while Carla decides to remain at home and suffer in secret when she finds out about Pablo’s affair. Gonzalo seems to be genuinely smitten with the older Natalia, while Luciana’s tryst with Pablo is just another facet of her carefree life, even if she clearly has real feelings for him.
The Freshly Cut Grass pinpoints all these minor differences without stressing them too much, resulting in a drama that feels authentic but also far too subdued. The film is carried less by its somewhat familiar plot — or rather, its two matching plots — than by solid turns from the ensemble cast. De Tavira, who memorably played the mother in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, is a standout as a middle-aged woman who comes to realize the limits of her own happiness, as well as the hard sacrifices required to obtain it.
Murga ultimately presents adultery as a necessary step for married couples looking to rekindle their romances and re-evaluate their commitments — an idea that seems slightly archaic at a time when open relationships and polyamory are all the rage, at least in lots of contemporary movies and TV series. The director’s vision of Argentina’s downtrodden modern love lives is nonetheless not without hope, showing how it may take a trial by fire, and a little bedroom action on the side, to keep things afloat.
Full credits
Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (International Narrative Competition)
Production companies: Tresmilmundos Cine, Mostra Cine, Infinity Hill, Dopamine, Nadador Cine, Weydemann Bros.
Cast: Joaquín Furriel, Marina de Tavira, Alfonso Tort, Romina Peluffo, Emanuel Parga, Verónica Gerez
Director: Celina Murga
Screenwriters: Celina Murga, Juan Villegas, Lucía Osorio
Producers: Juan Villegas, Celina Murga, Valeria Bistagnino, Tomás Eloy Muñoz, Axel Kuschevatzky, Cindy Teperman
Executive producers: Martin Scorsese, Valeria Bistagnino, Tomás Eloy Muñoz, Juan Villegas, Phin Glynn, Delfina Montecchia, Juan José López, Pedro Barcia, Jakob Weydemann, Jonas Weydemann, Paulette Bresson, Benjamín Salinas Sada, Fidela Navarro, María García Castrillón
Cinematographer: Lucio Bonelli
Production designer: Maria Eugenia Montero
Costume designer: Mariana Dosil
Editor: Manuel Ferrari
Composers: Luciano Supervielle, Gabriel Chwojnik
Casting director: María Laura Berch
Sales: TDO Media
In Spanish
1 hour 54 minutes
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
Movie Reviews
Mortal Kombat 2 film producer asks ‘why the f**k’ critics who ‘have never played the game’ were allowed to review it | VGC
The producer of the Mortal Kombat 2 movie has called out critics who gave it a negative review.
At the time of writing, Mortal Kombat 2 has a score of 73% on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 48 on Metacritic.
While this means reviews have generally been mixed, the film’s producer Todd Garner took to X to criticise those who wrote negative reviews, suggesting that some of them were written by critics who aren’t familiar with the source material.
“Some of these reviews are cracking me up,” Garner wrote. “It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or any of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat.
“One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye’! Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”
When questioned on this viewpoint by some followers, Garner explained that while he doesn’t have an issue with negative reviews in general, his problem is specifically reviewers who don’t appear to be familiar with Mortal Kombat.
“My comment was very squarely directed at a couple of reviewers that did not like the ‘zombies’ and the fact that there was a ‘guy with a laser eye’, etc,” he said. “Those are elements that are baked into the Mortal Kombat IP and therefore we were dead in the water going in.
“There is no way for that person to review how it functioned as a film, because they did not like the foundational elements of the IP. I just wish when something is so obviously fan leaning in its DNA, that critics would take that into consideration.”
One follower then countered Garner’s complaint by arguing that he shouldn’t be criticising people who don’t know the games, when the films themselves take creative license with the IP.
“Bro to be fair, you invented Cole Young, Arcana and couldn’t even get the simple lore of Mileena and Kitana correct,” said user Dudeguy29. “I’d say you shouldn’t be tossing any stones here.”
“Fair,” Garner replied.
Garner previously criticised the cast of the Street Fighter movie when, during The Game Awards last year, comedian Andrew Schulz – who plays Dan in the Street Fighter film – claimed that the Mortal Kombat 2 movie cast were also in attendance, before joking: “I’m just kidding, they didn’t come, they don’t care about you, they only care about money.”
The jibe didn’t go down well with Garner, who stated on X at the time: “I don’t climb over others to get ahead”. When recently asked how he felt about the cast vs cast rivalry, however, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon laughed and said he had no issue with it at all.
Mortal Kombat 2 is released in cinemas this Friday, May 8, while Street Fighter arrives later in the year on October 16.
Within the family at the center of Blue Heron, the black sheep is a blond. Fair-skinned teenager Jeremy (Edik Beddoes) is an outlier among his siblings, two jostling preteen boys and watchful, 8-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven), who are all darkly featured and take after their Hungarian parents (Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa). Jeremy’s hair color doesn’t really matter, of course, but the contrast makes a useful shorthand for Jeremy’s otherness.
If “other” sounds inexact, that’s the point. To the frustration of his devoted but exhausted parents, there’s been no straightforward diagnosis for what ails Jeremy – for the mood swings, the “acting out.” A move at the beginning of the film to a new home is hopeful but short-lived: The mystery of Jeremy, to himself and to others, persists.
Much of Blue Heron is set over the course of one summer on Vancouver Island in the late Nineties, mirroring filmmaker Sophy Romvari’s own backstory, though the film shouldn’t be confused for straight autobiography. (Her 2020 short film, “Still Processing,” explored her family’s struggles with mental health through first-person documentary.) Still, the remarkable texture of these family scenes and how they favor Sasha’s childlike perspective – her small hands as they handle a potato peeler for the first time, the easy smiles as her mother dabs sunscreen on her face – feels intensely personal. There’s a hushed, dreamy quality to these scenes, mimicking memory itself, that plays into Blue Heron’s remarkable ability to hold two seemingly contradictory things to be true. Sasha can resent her brother and love him. Jeremy can be terrifying and in pain. A film can be whisper-quiet and still trip the wires in your brain that scream “danger.”
With very little dialogue and no cookie-cutter story beats, this fraught family life is vividly, tenderly rendered by Romvari and her naturalistic cast. That makes it all the more disorienting when, at arguably the moment of highest drama, Romvari shifts to a different vantage point. Boldly, she is asking the audience to look anew at what we’ve seen: to acknowledge what we saw was not the whole picture (how could it be, from an 8-year-old’s eye line?). The effect for me – and I suspect for you too, if you’re the kind of person who likes to take a movie apart and understand how it ticks – is exhilarating.
But not entirely effective – and in this reservation I gather I’m the outlier; Blue Heron has been rapturously received at festivals and by critics. This second half (of which I’m loath to spoil the specifics) becomes at once more experimental and more documentary-like, and revolves around a muted performance stranded in the in-between of drama and docudrama. Nothing ruinous, but a hangnail nonetheless on a film that otherwise had me in its thrall.
Blue Heron
2026, NR, 90 min. Directed by Sophy Romvari. Starring Eylul Guven, Edik Beddoes, Amy Zimmer, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Liam Serg, Preston Drabble.
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This article appears in May 8 • 2026.
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