Quick Hits: February 2026

It's time for the second installment of my monthly round up of new releases I saw but did not review!

Those I did included a couple of gems, including my two favorite movies of the year so far. Those I didn't included a handful of Oscar nominees as I caught up on every movie nominated for any Oscar for the third year in a row. A mixed bag, but that's what makes it so much fun.

So let's catch up with February.

The Voice of Hind Rajab

The story at its core is tragic and powerful, even before considering that it's not "based on a true story" - the titular voice is the actual audio from an emergency call to the Palestinian Red Crescent. Hind Rajab is a real five-year-old girl, whose family was murdered by Israeli soldiers in front of her eyes for the grave crime of "driving their van". She spent hours wounded, surrounded by the dead bodies of her loved ones, unable to move for fear of being killed herself. Few incidents better encapsulate the insanity of Israel's slaughter of the Palestinian people in their own land.

Unfortunately, that harrowing tale wasn't enough for director Kaouther Ben Hania. We spend the entire runtime with the Red Crescent workers, so she injected it with trite, over the top, grating melodrama. It's cliched and obnoxious, fabricated to dial up the tension, but which undermines it with broad characters types whose actions make them more frustrating than heroic. It's a shame, because all the heightened fiction does is detract from the very real horror.

Arco

I had the misfortune of only realizing this was the dubbed version after sitting down. Not that the dub was bad, but I always prefer subtitles.

In any case, this was emblematic of relative weakness of recent buzzy animation titles. The worldbuilding of Arco is great, and the animation itself is gorgeous. But the narrative is middling, pushing away attempts to be engaging with each concession to the tropes of the "fish out of water" tale. Add in the old hat of the good guys racing the bumbling bad guys to find some MacGuffin, and it's just not a compelling film.

How to Make a Killing

Unfortunately, Kind Hearts and Coronets remains on my watchlist. But this remake failed to move me to finally see it.

The premise is great: the son of a woman cut out of her family's inheritance for petty reasons realizes it will still fall to him if the rest of the family dies. So what if he...helps that along?

But the inherent humor is largely bland, and not as prevalent as you would expect: it's all too subdued and lazily presented. Glenn Powell has gotten too comfortable playing movie star roles, failing to recapture the kooky fun of Hit Man, and few of the other heirs are memorable. Outside of a few clever kills, the only time the movie comes alive is when Margaret Qualley is on screen, her role as outside observer allowing her to be more relaxed and in her element.

Kokuho

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: at its best, the Oscars elevates the profiles of its nominees. Without its influence, I cannot imagine this kind of movie playing at multiplexes, despite being Japan's highest grossing live-action film (and fifth highest grossing film, period).

And what a wonderful experience! It's a three-hour Japanese melodrama about kabuki theater. Specifically, the art of onnagata, where a male actor plays a female role, a practice that began due to historical pearl clutching, and extends to today because of tradition. Even more specifically, it tells the (fictional) story of Kikuo (Ryo Yoshizawa), an orphan taken under the wing of Japan's most gifted onnagata (Min Tanaka), and his ever evolving relationship with that man's biological son (Ryusei Yokohama). It's the rare film that manages to span an entire life yet not feel rushed, even as I occasionally wish it dove deeper. It's a celebration of a uniquely Japanese art form, and it is stunning and moving to witness.

The President's Cake

This feels like a remake of Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon, albeit with a bit more propulsion. Not much more, mind you. And I certainly found it just as compelling. Which is to say, not very. It's just a miserabilist manifesto, following a child in 1992 who's been assigned the unfortunate task of baking President Sadaam Hussein a cake, but who encounters every obstacle you can imagine in attempting to procure the ingredients, largely imposed by a world cartoonishly hostile to her. Tragedies of various severities befall her, from being swindled by a sugar salesman to being separated from her grandmother, and more. It takes eons to unfold, and you can just feel writer/director Hasan Hadi sitting back and saying "Life is one misfortune after another, no?"