The End of Oak Street

Dinner With Dinosaurs … But We’re On the Menu

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

          The End of Oak Street (David Robert Mitchell)

                                  rated PG-13   100 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 This movie will push your willing suspension of disbelief to the limit; hopefully if you decide to watch it you’ll be OK with that as it does provide an effective cinematic thrill ride despite some inexplicable plot aspects.  One night in 1982 in the quiet suburban town of Flowervale, MI a wormhole suddenly appears that transports an entire neighborhood (but not any surrounding ones) back into the long-ago era of “thunder lizards” so dinosaurs now co-exist with the streets, houses, and people of the movie-set present, providing a reversal of the Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) situation of resurrected ancient beasts trying to kill contemporary humans to such humans now suddenly stuck in an inescapable prehistoric region (dense vegetation prevents an exit from the transported neighborhood) where the beasts are living in their own time, the people desperately trying to avoid being a next meal.  The primary characters in this oppressive quandary are aspiring-novelist Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway), her secretly-out-of-work (surviving on his “passion” for part-time jobs such as pizza delivery) husband, Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor), and their teenagers Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convey); however, this family’s already in trouble before the dinosaurs arrive as Denise is ready to file for divorce, Brian’s trying to avoid being beaten up by a gang after he accidently broke the arm of one of their members, while Audrey’s ready to move on to college in hopes of finding a more interesting life (though the time-dislocation portal’s provided plenty of that).  

 

 From this setup the movie follows with extreme tension scenes of people trying to escape the dinosaurs (some not successfully) as we wonder along with the Platts how liberation from this sudden-hell could happen (for an extensive rendering of the plot, along with Spoilers, please go here).  Comparisons to the long-running Jurassic Park franchise are inevitable here, but once you stop trying to make sense of the wormholes and Denise’s actions in the conclusion … Oak Street flows nicely as mostly-mindless escapism with Hathaway effectively carrying the action from start to finish as her fictional family learns to work together.  You may not be able to fully embrace what she does when all seems hopelessly lost, yet what viability do you really expect from an intentionally-wacky story such as this?  I’d say just let it ramble where it needs to, hang on for whatever’s next.

The End of Oak Street opened in 3,446 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on August 14, 2026 (still in 461), has made $54 million so far ($120.6 million worldwide) with support from the CCAL where Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 86%, the usually less-enthusiastic Metacritic average score is 69%.  Overall, I thought it worked quite well as a fantasy-thriller as does Megan McCluskey of TIME (MC 90): “Outside the Jurassic universe, there haven't been many successful attempts to reinvent the dinosaur wheel, so to speak. […] Once the carnage gets going, Mitchell never really take his foot off the gas. And while the film's ending ultimately requires some logic-bending buy-in, the journey to get there is equal parts thrilling, fun, emotional, and ferocious. Harking back to its Jurassic forbear, The End of Oak Street channels everyone's favorite '80s Amblin classics, but with a far more vicious bite.”  Not everyone in the critical establishment’s so enthusiastic, though, as with Odie Henderson of The Boston Globe (MC 50): “[…] sounds like ‘Land of the Lost,’ the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show from 1974 that had pretty much the same plot. Carl Sagan, host of the 1980s show ‘Cosmos,’ also gets namechecked enough to make the late scientist spin in his grave ‘billions and billions’ of times. […] I’m no longer 12 years old with nothing but time on my hands. There’s no denying that Mitchell has made a credible facsimile of the films kids would have encountered back then. Your enjoyment will depend upon the limits of your nostalgia.”  Yikes!

 

 Whatever your tastes may be for this sort of fare I’ll leave to you as I’ll also leave with a Musical Metaphor (I'll admit this song's not the greatest connection to this movie, as some of my choices sometimes are, but nothing better emerged [Maybe Billy Joel’s "My Life" from the trailer?]), the Rolling Stones’ "Out of Time" (1966 Aftermath album) to reflect how these humans “don’t know what’s going on / You’ve been away for far too long / You can’t come back and think you are still there,” yet Denise, unlike the song’s woman, shows she can “come back and be the first in line,” even if we’re not fully sure how she does it.  So, if this story interests you and you’re not near one of its theaters there’s streaming where you can rent for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

(In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.) If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

            

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

        

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 127,519.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Maddie’s Secret

Purging the Past as an Aid to the Present

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

   Maddie's Secret (John Early)  Not Rated  100 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 This film’s about Maddie Ralph (Early playing this woman [I don’t know why]), a dishwasher in a trendy L.A. restaurant, Gourmaybe, with dreams of being a chef which start to come true when supportive husband Jake (Eric Rahill) shoots a video of her preparing a Philippine vegetarian dish that goes viral; soon she’s the eatery’s video face replacing huffy, snotty Emily (Claudia O’Doherty) who secretly makes fun of Maddie with their boss, Zack (Conner O’Malley), that Maddie overhears resurrecting childhood traumas she’s tried to put aside.  More tension comes when producers of the food-based TV show, The Boar, want to hire either her or Emily, setting them in competition.  Ultimately, it’s all too much for Maddie who reverts to her problem with bulimia, confiding only in her co-worker friend, Deena Michaels (Kate Berlant [on the left above]), lying to Jake that she vomits due to pregnancy.  When she collapses from cardiac arrest in an exercise class she’s admitted to a 6-week food-problem program at a local hospital, but Deena helps her escape so she can audition for The Boar folks which results in another medical episode landing her back in the hospital.  That’s all the time and space for me in this posting for plot details, but you can find plenty more at this site (with Spoilers of course).   This is a very different rendering of a story about a person with talent/drive to be happily successful, yet is held back by a severe emotional/physical situation (initiated by useless-parent Beverly Ralph [Kristen Johnston] when Maddie was just a young girl being harassed by schoolmates due to her plus-size) that’s not treated for comic effect as much of the rest of the story is (although whether there’s supposed to anything funny about notably-male Early in drag is something that eludes me; at least he plays Maddie as a decent, sympathetic character, not some kind of transvestite joke).  Your interest might be further enhanced by a tasteful sex scene early on between Maddie and muscular Jake, as well as some tasty shots of Maddie’s yummy food, but overall it’s mostly a series of unpredictable events tied together nicely at resolution.

 Maddie’s Secret was released in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on June 19, 2026, still seems to be in some of them, has so far made $1.2 million (apparently no international showings yet), can now be found on streaming where it rents for $4.99 on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV.  Despite some dismissals (example coming up soon) the CCAL’s quite strong on it with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 85%, the Metacritic average score at 74%, which is higher than they’ve been lately on things both they and I have reviewed.  Here’s testimony from someone who liked it even more than I did, Natalia Winkelman of The New York Times (MC 100): “[…] an audaciously sunny psychological drama that is also a perfectly calibrated comedy. [...] the movie has proved weirdly difficult to characterize, variously called a satire, a homage, a critique, even a horror film. Most simply, it is a pastiche of the made-for-TV melodrama, a moribund style jolted back to life with waxy visual polish and a liberal infusion of clever gags.”  However, I’ll always try to find an objecting voice for you, so I’ve gone to the other extreme with a guy from my old Texas hometown, Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle, who wants his 100 min. back: “The very idea of making a spoof of 1980s movies-of-the-week is so incredibly misguided that it’s not even punching down. It’s punching at empty air, and yet that’s exactly what writer/director/star John Early does in Maddie’s Secret. […] Instead of his seeming intention to create something that’s both funny and yet very demure, very mindful, he’s churned out a barely-congealed dish that’s the thinnest of gruel.”  So, Mr. Whittaker and I reside on different planets regarding this quirky film.  With that, I’ll leave you with a Musical Metaphor, Paul Simon’s "Slip Slidin' Away" (1977 Greatest Hits, etc. album), which I pondered for a long time before choosing, mainly based on the lines “ ‘A bad day’s when I lie in bed / And think of things that might have been,’ ” a statement that seems to fit Maddie’s problems as well.  However, I think the song as a whole also fits her deteriorating situation, as it does for many of us.

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on eight,)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys "wisdom" in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

              

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

           

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 127,519.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

More Two Guys Stuff, Just So You'll Know

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

You can visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke).  Overall notations for this blog are found at Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  You can also visit our Facebook page. Please note to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you might have to somehow register with us at that site.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

Mayday plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

A Meaningful Thaw in the Cold War

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

 

   Mayday (Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley)

          rated PG-13    110 min. 

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 Mayday is set back in 1987 when the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (predominantly Russia) were actively antagonistic to each other (a situation we’ve now largely returned to) in what was called the Cold War.  Hot-shot Navy pilot Troy Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) is sent on a spy mission high above/deep within Russia, but his plane is shot down leaving him injured, unconscious; when he comes to he finds himself in the remote abode of Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), an ex-KGB operative who quit his job in support of his lesbian daughter, Anna (Maria Bakalova), because of the harsh Soviet laws against homosexuals; Nikolai also has a great fondness for what he knows of the USA, especially Tom Cruise’s role in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).  Traveling together, involved in a lot of physical violence along the way, they head over thousands of miles to Moscow where Troy will depend on the US Embassy to fly both of them out of the country, even as they’re being pursued by rabid-anti-American KGB officer Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński).  That’s all the plot I’ve got time for, so to get the other massive details (and Spoilers of course) please visit this site.  I found this movie to be a very entertaining blend of well-choreographed action scenes (don’t mess with Nikolai; he’s a martial-arts warrior) and comedy (often based on intercultural misunderstandings, as well as the story behind Troy’s nickname), with the title doing double duty as it refers to both Troy’s intercom call for help as his jet’s hurtling toward the ground and the massive Soviet military parade on May 1 which our heroes ultimately use to their advantage with a commandeered missile vehicle.  Acting by the male leads is superb as they negotiate various levels of trust with each other while Dorociński  makes for a marvelous, determined villain.  I recommend this unless you’re put off by hand-to-hand combat: you’ll find plenty of it here.

 Mayday came to streaming via Apple TV on September 4, 2026 (free to subscribers or you can get 7 days free then decide if you want to invest $14.99 on a by-the-month basis) with CCAL support as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 82% while the normally-noticeably-lower number comes from Metacritic with a 60% average score (my 3½ stars of 5 is 70%, but I rarely go above 4 so I’m notably-supportive as well).  As an example of someone who was pleased with what he saw we have Todd Gilchrist of Variety (MC 80): “[…] it’s a smart, inventive, well-directed action comedy. Bereft of theatrical distribution, it seems slightly doomed to be relegated to the ‘streaming content’ trash heap, even as it shows the kind of filmmaking personality that should be showcased on the biggest screen possible.”  But you can usually find dissention to anything, as with Roger Moore of Movie Nation (MC 38) who says: “Let’s go with ‘adorably awful,’ because ‘delightfully dumb’ seems like a stretch. […] Just remember, the title has two meanings and Reynolds turns 50 in October and Branagh is 65 and no Liam Neeson, so it’s all kind of a stunt man/makeup team/CGI assisted lark. [¶] And ‘dumb’ becomes a given, right from the start.”  Clearly, I liked it better than that, but the choice is yours.  However, my choice for the usual posting-closure of a Musical Metaphor seemed destined from the start to be The Beatles’ "Back in the U.S.S.R." (1968 The Beatles album [often known as The White Album]) with this version from May 24, 2003 as Paul McCartney (the chief songwriter) and some other guys perform live in Moscow’s Red Square, when Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost (more open government) for a time led to much better relations between Russia and the West (I doubt Paul would try this again under the Putin regime though this fierce dictator might not understand the irony/satire in a song that seems to praise imperial Vladimir’s best Soviet memories).

SHORT TAKES

               

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

You can visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke).  Overall notations for this blog are found at Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  You can also visit our Facebook page. Please note to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you might have to somehow register with us at that site.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 127,519.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):