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John Carney's movies have a certain schtick.
They're usually about down at heel musicians struggling to make their mark.
They tend to be set in Dublin - although occasionally they take place in the US.
Carney's films often blend live music with elements of light comedy and relationship drama.
And whether it's 'Once' or 'Sing Street,' 'Begin Again' or 'Flora and Son,' he proves every time be has a formula that clearly works.
Carney's films are tremendously entertaining.
They're also very funny, heartwarming and very authentic.
As someone who played bass in Glen Hansard's The Frames, he instinctively understands the struggles of musicians and the dynamics of what it's like to be in a band.
His ninth film to hit the big screen is 'Power Ballad' - a low budget $10 million tale about a singer in a wedding band and his betrayal by a former boyband star.
Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a former up and coming US grunge star who turned his back on fame in the 1990s to settle down in Dublin with his Irish sweetheart, Marcella Plunkett's Rachel.
Married with a teenage daughter, Beth Fallon's Aja, Rick earns a living as the frontman of a wedding band The Bride and Groove - singing covers.
The band includes Peter McDonald's loyal but slightly unhinged bassist Sandy, Paul Reid's keyboard player Bernie, Keith McErlean's Kyle and Rory Keenan's drummer Binzer.
Landing a swanky wedding in Wicklow, they discover one of the happy couple's guests is a former boyband star Nick Jonas' Danny Wilson who's solo career is stuttering.
Asked by the couple if Danny could jam with them, Rick reluctantly gives in and they end up performing Stevie Wonder's 'I Wish'.
Impressed by each other's performance, Rick and Danny immediately hit it off and spend the evening drinking, sharing music industry talea and bouncing material off each other.
Danny is particularly taken with a half formed song that Rick strums on a guitar called 'How To Write A Song Without You'.
Returning to the States, he presents some tracks he has recorded in Ireland to his manager Jack Reynor's Mac who tells him there's not one song that would leap out to his record label as a hit.
Tinkering about on his piano at home, Danny remembers Rick's half formed song and when his girlfriend, Havqna Rose Liu's Marcia wells up listening to it, he passes it off as his.
'How To Write A Song Without You' becomes a major smash hit, with Rick first hearing Danny's version in a Dublin shopping centre.
Determined to prove the song is his, Danny struggles to find any evidence he wrote it.
But with Danny refusing to acknowledge Rick wrote the bulk of the song and Mac threatening legal action against him, the Irish based musician becomes increasingly obsessed with proving he was responsible.
Carney once again delivers a smart, amiable musical comedy that makes good use of a top notch cast.
Rudd is very well cast as a likeable wedding band frontman, while Jonas does a surprisingly good job as the shallow boyband stat who seems to have few qualms about betraying someone to further his career.
The supporting cast of Keenan, Reid, McErlean, Liu, Plunkett and Fallon all play their part, while Reynor is strong as the protective manager of Danny.
Amy Huberman and Emma Doran pop up in cameos as a lawyer who Rick and Sandy consultant and as a flight attendant.
But it is Carney's fellow screenwriter Peter McDonald who arguably outshines everyone with a hilarious performance as Sandy.
Collaborating once again with Gary Clark, the former lead singer of the band Danny Wilson whose big hit sing 'Mary's Prayer' features in one scene, 'Power Ballad' has a winning mix of original songs and pop classics.
While it's not quite on the same level as 'Once' or 'Sing Street,' it will nonetheless still have you leaving the cinema with a spring in your step.
And in times like these, that's definitely a good reason to go.
If John Carney specialises in "happy sad" tales, as one of his characters in 'Sing Street' talks about, it's nice to see a Far Eastern version of that type of story on our screens.
Osaka born filmmaker Hikari's 'Rental Family's is a nicely judged, comedy drama about an American actor in Tokyo struggling to find work.
Brendan Fraser's Phillip Vanderploeg is best known for his work on a popular Japanese toothpaste commercial and is scraping a living in minor TV roles
However he starts to earn money through a company called Rental Family run by Takehiro Hira's Shinji whose clients want an actor to pretend to be real people to please their relatives.
This includes pretending to be the Canadian husband of one half of a lesbian couple to hide Misato Morido's character Yoshie Ikeda's secret from her family.
It also sees him also engaging with Akira Emoto's ageing movie star Kikuo Hadegawa, at the request of his daughter, Sei Matubo's Madami who wants him to pretend to be a biographer.
Phillip is also hired by Shino Shinozaki's single mum Hitomi to pose as the father of Shannon Mahina Norman's Mia Kawasaki, a young girl who hopes to gain entry to an exclusive school.
This means convincing the school authorities and Mia that he is her dad and in spite of a bumpy first encounter, Phillip and the young girl strike a close bond without her realising it's all a pretence.
Of course, something's eventually going to give in Hikari's film.
The question is how will Phillip and those he deceives deal with the consequences.
After the Best Actor Academy Award winning histrionics of 'The Whale,' it's lovely to see Fraser in a more understated role and he really rises to the occasion.
He's very good at conveying a real sense of loneliness when we see Phillip at home, away from his working life and that infuses the scenes when he is inserting himself through his work for Rental Family into other people's lives with a hint of desperation.
Gorman is also terrific as the young girl that brings out a paternalistic side that is his missing from Phillip's life, as is Emoto as the elderly actor who also deeply affects him.
Beautifully shot by Takuro Ishizaka, Hikari and her fellow screenwriter Stephen Blahut polish up a real gem of a movie and in truth, the entire cast also play their part.
Overlooked during awards season, you feel 'Rental Family's should have fared better - especially as Fraser has never been better onscreen.
('Rental Family' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on January 16, 2026 and was made available for streaming on Disney+ on April 15, 2026)
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