Mike Schulz, Dave Levora, and Darren Pitra sound alarmed about the possibility of another mic having fritzed out, leaving Pitra to shout out his contributions from the bleachers. Not this time, baby! Schulz was happy with the Oscar production and the films that won (mostly). Ryan Gosling’s “Ken” song? Who could resist that? And he was happy with his rate of Oscar predictions, having missed only five of them, having tied for last year.

Here, now, the movies:

• The animated martial-arts comedy film Kung Fu Panda 4, directed by Mike Mitchell with Stephanie Ma Stine. The film is voiced by mainstays Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, and Ian McShane, and joined by Awkwafina, Ke Huy Quan, Ronny Chieng, Lori Tan Chinn, and Viola Davis. What’s it say about a movie, animated or otherwise, where the main character spends the first few minutes essentially apologizing for the absence this time around of characters from the previous films? Despite this, Kung Fu Panda 4 was the N° 1 movie at the box office this past week. Apparently, the kids needed their cinematic fix, and Kung Fu Panda 4 was the nearest drug for them within reach. Generation Zed is doomed, isn’t it?
  
• Imaginary, directed by Jeff Wadlow and starring DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Matthew Sato, Pyper Braun, Veronica Falcón, Betty Buckley, and the voice Dane DiLiegro, the film is a supernatural horror film that features a sinister teddy bear. The film was advertised as “From the studio that brought you M3GAN, and Five Nights at Freddy’s, and The Invisible Man, and The Black Phone” — and little did Blumhouse Productions realize, Schulz says, that Imaginary is essentially all of those films put into a blender. Watching Betty Buckley going bugsy might have salvaged the evening for Schulz.
  
• Cabrini, directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde and starring Cristiana Dell’Anna, David Morse, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Federico Ielapi, Virginia Bocelli, Rolando Villazón, Giancarlo Giannini, and John Lithgow, the film involves the life of Catholic missionary Francesca Cabrini (Dell’Anna) in late-Nineteenth-Century New York City. Well-acted and subtle, and Lithgow is still nuts, still very much an alumnus of the Big Actor School of Performances.
  
• 20 Days in Mariupol, a 2023 documentary about the first weeks of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, directed by Mstyslav Andriiovych Chernov, is as brutal as the title subject suggests. 20 Days won the Best Documentary Feature Film, and it’s streaming on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAyykRvPBo).
  

As concerns the previews:

• Arthur the King, directed by Simon Cellan Jones and starring Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet van Kampen Rylance, and Nathalie Emmanuel. Basically, it’s Mark Wahlberg and a dog. Did you ever see the running sketch on Saturday Night Live of Mark Wahlberg talking to animals? No one who’s seen it will be able to get that out of their head (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjpUfdjYR6s). You’re welcome. Saw hello to your mother for us. . .
  
• One Life, a 2023 bio-drama directed by James Hawes and starring Anthony Hopkins, Johnny Flynn, Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Jonathan Pryce, and Helena Bonham Carter. Hopkins portrays Nicholas Winston, a London stockbroker who rescued 664 Jewish children from the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and spent nearly fifty years thereafter lamenting the children he could not save. In 1988, the British program That’s Life reunited Sir Winston with the children who were placed with foster families successfully, thanks to Sir Winston (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqqbM1B-mPY) — and (hopefully) salved his conscience for the remaining 27 years of his life, dying at age 106.
  
• Love Lies Bleeding, directed by Rose Glass and starring Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, and Ed Harris. Schulz wasn’t sure which film this was, and neither did Levora or Pitra, it seems — though it would seem that saying any combination of “Kristen Stewart” and “Rolling Stone magazine cover” should have cleared up the cobwebs, particularly after the Colbert interview with Stewart aired (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ2wLJWIOn8). You go, Stew!
  
• The American Society of Magical Negroes, directed by Kobi Libii and starring Justice Smith, David Alan Grier, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver, Michaela Watkins, Aisha Hinds, Tim Baltz, Rupert Friend, and Nicole Byer, this looks like good, satirical fun, with the characters part of a magical society of African Americans whose mission is to make the lives of white people easier.
  
• Snack Shack, directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier and starring Conor Sherry, Gabriel LaBelle, Mika Abdalla, Gillian Vigman, David Costabile, Nick Robinson, and JD Evermore, sounds like Wet Hot American Summer with an age-appropriate cast. The New York Times has praised this film, so — there’s that.