Snack time: Running from dino in ‘The End of Oak Street’.
THE END OF OAK STREET *** (99 minutes) M
It’s tempting to describe to The End of Oak Street as Jurassic Park vs The Suburbs until you recall that – hey – Jurassic Park did, indeed, wreak havoc in suburbia in the fabulous final reel of Jurassic Park: The Lost World.
Remember? When the freighter crashed and the T-Rex escaped, created mayhem before going walkabout down a quiet street and snacking on a kid’s pet pooch? That was cool.
The End of Oak Street is basically a creature feature riffing on that idea.
But how best to swing it?
Well, after a brief domestic set-up, how’s about simply transplanting an entire neighborhood, holus-bolus, from 1982 middle America and plonking it right there in the middle of a hot dino-era jungle?
Wisely, writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) leaves the elaborate, Carl Sagan-assisted explanation as a tantilizing mystery for much of the film, allowing parents Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor and their two kids to slowly learn that they ain’t in Kansas anymore.
Dinos stomp on citizens and flying lizards swoop through the streets, feeding upon the slow and those stupid enough to leave their houses even though they’ve realised their postcode has changed.
Look, we’ve been watching dinosaurs harassing humans on a very regular basis for more than 30 years in the modern era, and for over 90 years if we go way back to King Kong (1933) when those poor sailors got totalled by that angry brontosaurus.
So, in all honesty, there’s not much here we haven’t seen before, with the gait of an approaching T-Rex looking all-too-familiar – testament, surely, to just how deeply embedded into our consciousness the first JP fillum is.
That said, The End of Oak Street is still lots of fun, a good, time-killing B-movie matinee popcorn-seller that manages to boast a few truly memorable sequences.
One involves a giant snake – an exceptionally well-done, crowd-pleasing sequence – and another shows what amorous dinosaurs do when the mood takes them.
Oldies will especially enjoy all the wily period references to the ‘80s, the most plot-pertinent being pop astronomer Carl Sagan and his landmark series Cosmos.
Also, the soundtrack is full of pop gems, including hits from Pat Benetar, The Cars, The Vapours (Come on. You know the song and what it was about) and Kiwi rockers Mi-Sex. Yes, Mi-Sex.
Makes you glad to have lived this long.
ONE NIGHT ONLY *** (103 minutes) M
For all its bawdy carry-on, One Night Only ultimately turns out to be a sweet, adult-oriented romantic comedy driven by a novel twist in the standard rom-com template.
Set in a single-change parallel universe, young New Yorkers prepare to seize the one night in the year when sex before marriage is permitted during a 12-hour window.
Amidst all the rushing hormones, two highly attractive lonely hearts are adrift – freshly-dumped handsome pizza shop owner Owen (nicely played by Brit Callum Turner) and Allie (Monica Barbaro), a highly photogenic singer who, as rom-com law dictates, somehow doesn’t have a long line of suitors wanting to buy her a house.
In a clear reference to When Harry Met Sally – but one of the romcom classics referenced – the pair keep bumping into each other in anti-meet cutes before sort of hooking up but not really as they both get entwined in their own fairly amusing entanglements.
A funny scene in which they join forces to procure the city’s last available condom is typical of the film’s raucous comedy, though concerns over deeper things play into the proceedings too, such as the true value of securing a speedy tryst before the nookie time limit expires.
Boasting lots of salty language and a surprisingly sweet ending, this likeable love lark, directed by Will Gluck (Easy A; Friends With Benefits; Anyone But You) seems on its surface to be a raunchy comedy, yet what makes it satisfying is what bubbles beneath the facades of the two gorgeous leads.
All up, a nice bit of romcom fluff with just enough substance and an unusual, playful premise.
TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA **1/2 (112 minutes) MA
The important thing to consider when a movie swerves all over the road is whether it stays more on the right side than the side with all the oncoming traffic.
Thankfully in the case of the playfully titled Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma the movie spends much of its time on the proper side, scoring more hits than misses in a fun, meandering yarn that is definitely a hit-and-miss affair.
More a satire on the movie biz than an out-and-out horror outing, we follow newbie filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) who has been cynically hired to reignite an aged Friday the 13-type franchise called Camp Miasma.
Fully aware of being used to help cleanse the “problematic” history of the films with a brief to wokeify the brand, Kris believes a fresh approach can be introduced by recruiting original star Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), an ageing retired actress living as a recluse in the very locale where the films were set, having withdrawn from acting after appearing in the first three films.
Alone in the remote house, Kris and Billy grow close as they discuss a possible collaboration, with Billy showing an odd case of movie-based cabin fever while Kris becomes spellbound by her idol’s proximity.
Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun – registering a marked improvement on I Saw the TV Glow) – has a lot of fun with all the mock movie referencing as a pretty sound movie-within-a-movie premise is established.
The highlight comes in a pre-production Zoom meeting where the participants begin wondering if Kris has lost her grip.
It’s very funny and namedrops genre masterpiece Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the ultimate meta horror film. Heather Langenkamp, the original Nightmare on Elm Street actress, also warrants a salute. So, the movie has class by showing respect.
Regrettably, the film veers away from its original premise and makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously as it tries selling a half-baked idea raised in the second act that makes no sense, even in this heightened setting. It often feels like two different films colliding.
Still, enough of the jokes, story-building and stylistic touches (characters moving against painted backdrops) work sufficiently well to satisfy genre fans.
Fun fact: Having missed the media preview, your humble reviewer leisurely ingested the film at the beautiful Sun Theatre in an otherwise empty cinema (perhaps reflecting the film’s puny box office), arriving 30 seconds before the film commenced, the ads and trailers having unspooled to a vacant house.
So, what happens if nobody shows? Afterwards, a staffer said the film would still run while staff members did a “deep clean”.
To quote Ruth Gordon from Rosemary’s Baby: Ain’t that innarestin’?
CATVIDEOFEST 2026 **1/2 (73 minutes) G
The eighth compilation of cat videos screened in support of cat welfare – a good cause, no question – contains the usual array of cats being mischievous, funny, stupid, adventurous, defiant, lazy, curious and, most of all, cute.
The picks in this reel includes ceiling cats, the Cataympics, kidnapping kittens (to take them to a shelter – why else?) and, best of all, the house cats mysteriously fascinated for days by an illuminated wall fitting. Even the owner doesn’t know why they’re so spellbound the felines rip the thing out of the wall.
There’s even one clip of cats playing the piano, perhaps an unintended tribute to the first cat video to appear on YouTube, now with 19 million views and its own website and merch, for the crying out loud.
It’s all innocent fun, sure, though it would be nice if director Will Braden developed the idea a bit more by exploring why people love and pamper and dote on these things so much, perhaps interviewing a psychologist or two about what accounts for this pervasive mental disorder. (Put the pitchforks down. Joking.)
The CatVideoFest 2026 has the usual short run in theatres (till Wednesday) to raise money for the betterment of distressed cats. Still, apart from being cute and cuddly, cats also cause big problems, usually because of irresponsible owners and local government mismanagement.
Indeed, controlling their numbers is a huge issue given how many indigenous creatures cats kill and feed on, sometimes pushing a species to the brink of extinction. What’s needed are more cat detector vans.
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