by ·Comments Off on Power Ballad (2026, John Carney)

I was already a sucker for this movie, another “song can save your life” narrative from Carney with winning actors and actually good songs and a cute Glen Hansard tribute, then Glen died suddenly, and now I’m ready to declare this the most important film of the year. The Odyssey wasn’t any better!

Wedding band frontman Paul Rudd has a good relationship with his wife(!) and daughter(!) until he gets depressed and obsessed after his one-night bromance with a Jonas brother ends with Nick stealing Paul’s song and making it a massive hit. On the long road to predictable redemption we get to spend time with Rudd, his buddy Peter McDonald (the film’s cowriter giving himself a plum role), and Jack Reynor as the music producer villain.

by ·Comments Off on The Drama (2026, Kristoffer Borgli)

Series of Bad Decisions in the lead-up to Zendaya-Pattinson wedding. Maid of honor Alana Haim does not forgive Z for claiming to have plotted mass murder in her bullied teen years. Alana’s man Mamoudou Athie (Kinds of Kindness) fails to make peace, and Rob starts to spiral, as the accusations (and vomit) fly and people say more things they can’t take back, either stupidly or drunkenly. Pretty decent writing and performances, for every scene where an actor is impressive there’s another where they’re flailing. Borgli’s follow-up to that one where everyone dreams of Nic Cage.

by ·Comments Off on I Love Boosters (2026, Boots Riley)

The boosters (Zola, Nasha, Emerald) are ripping off clothes from Demi Moore’s fashion empire, belatedly joined by a Chinese garment worker with a stolen teleporter and a vendetta.

Don Cheadle runs a pyramid scheme called Friends Being Friendly

“Our lunch is 30 seconds”

LaKeith Stanfield (not pictured) plays a guy so cool the camera can’t look at him without blurring and shaking.

by ·Comments Off on Disclosure Day (2026, Steven Spielberg)

Former alien abductees Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor have to avoid the evil murderous secrecy corporation run by mastermind Colin Firth and hitman Henry Lloyd-Hughes and deal with their doubtful spouses (traitorous Wyatt Russell and loyal Flora) then journey to meet Colman Domingo at his Rehearsal house and deliver an extraterrestrial message to humanity.

Heavy influences from Steven’s other films: the alien ones plus A.I. and Minority Report, I am not kidding about The Rehearsal, the final moments of Lost in Translation, maybe some Arrival or Midnight Special in there. Nuns (led by Old Mattie of True Grit) take pains to tell us that alien existence is no big deal to Christianity. The first Hollywood movie I’ve seen in theaters this year, felt great to fall into the big screen and get caught up in adventure. But thirty years after Jurassic Park, it’s shocking to see the state of the CG creatures in this movie. I’m not talking about the aliens, but the fox and moose and especially the horrible cardinal who silently visits Emily, kickstarting her hidden alien memories/powers. I’ve seen the opening title sequence of Sparrow four or six times – don’t tell me it’s impossible to film a bird flying into a room, standing on a table, then flying out again (across multiple edits, no less), that it’s worth the time and expense and horrid visual outcomes to create a computer bird instead.

by ·Comments Off on Normal (2025, Ben Wheatley)

Somehow when I wasn’t paying attention to the drug TV shows and the Russian-made genre flicks, Bob Odenkirk became an action star in his sixties. Here he’s a traveling fill-in lawman, and while halfheartedly playing sheriff for some Minnesota town a lot of shit goes down – a bank robbery brings the yakuza-payrolled townsfolk to armed warfare. “That’s not where I was aiming” – Bob’s first return shot blows apart Evil Mayor Fonz. The dead ex-sheriff’s daughter Jess McLeod teams up with him. It’s all shooting and ‘splosives until the two sides team up to con the Japanese into not murdering them all, then the ruse is exposed and it’s all shooting and ‘sploves some more. A pretty good time, more generic than Free Fire but also better.

Fukasaku Fest:

by ·Comments Off on Return to Silent Hill (2026, Christophe Gans)

Opening scene is so lousy, but the colors are bright, I remember liking the first movie (and that’s all I remember about it) and there’s promise of a Pyramid Head monster (which is also what I’ve been calling the pileated woodpeckers buzzing around the cabin), so, keeping an open mind.

Ivor Novello (Benediction) meets the lovely Mary (a horror regular, of various Saws and Purges). Flash-forward, she is dead because he’s such a bad driver (this is his defining character trait), but still sends him a letter to return to their home, which is an increasingly dodgy-digi-fx place. I think he has Trauma, and his personal Silent Hill is inside the mind – an ash-covered town, the local duplex playing Jacob’s Ladder and The Tenant. It’s one of those Shutter Island (or Jacob’s Ladder) stories where an empty man gradually figures out who he is/was.

Love at the bottom of the sea:

Some people attempted to write a normal movie review, focusing on what is actually in the movie, most of which sucks, while people with internet madness are predictably calling it a perfect film from a master stylist, or the most affecting onscreen portrait of grief ever filmed. Me, I am postponing plans to rewatch part one this SHOCKtober.

Me, going out to tape Smashing Pumpkins at the Metro:

Metro security, spotting my gear:

by ·Comments Off on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026, Nia DaCosta)

This one is set 28 days later than 28 Years Later. Our kid Spike has been kidnapped by the Jimmy Gang run by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, spends most of the movie semi-panicking since his new friends have a kill-or-die policy and they like to torture local homeowners to death for no apparent reason. They plan to grow in numbers and take over the land, but their plan seems mathematically challenging, since you have to kill a Jimmy in combat to become one. Spike Jimmy does make friends with Girl Jimmy (Erin Kellyman, a ghost in The Green Knight), who finds out about Ralph Fiennes and thinks he might be Crystal’s dad Satan.

Fiennes, meanwhile, spends his days hanging out with anesthetized alpha-zombie Samson, and spends his nights dancing to Duran Duran in his bunker. He makes a deal with Crystal to put on a show and impress the others. But things start to turn sour in Jimmyland, with loyalties in doubt, then Jimmy kills the Jimmy who was gonna kill our Jimmy.

Dr. Ralph and the Jimmys destroy each other, leaving zen zombie Samson partially dezombified, and Jimmy Spike running off with Jimmy Kelly. Being an immediate sequel with no new characters, DaCosta (Candyman 3) goes through the motions of setting up part three part three, which is apparently gonna star the ur-Jimmy Cillian Murphy.

by ·Comments Off on Alpha (2025, Julia Ducournau)

After a flashback scene with her drugged-out dad uncle, stoned teenage Alpha gets a tattoo at a drug party, then it won’t stop bleeding. She inevitably will catch the medusa virus going around that’s turning people to stone, but first she’s gonna become unstuck in time and live her past/present life with her troubled uncle.

I liked the range of weird tones in Titane, the dark humor in Raw – this one is all grim all the way, following lives of pure misery, and whenever something almost positive happens it gets interrupted. Didn’t I see another movie recently where the final shot was the poster image? Only Alpha and boyfriend Adrien and uncle Amin (Tahar Rahim of A Prophet) have character names, none for mom Golshifteh Farahani or nurse Ella McCay.

Sometimes the world vibrates and assaults Alpha. Her teacher (a Nocturama lead, above) has a boyfriend with the stone disease. Uncle Amin takes the girl for a dreamed night on the town to Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat,” but even in the dream he has fits, then vanishes. Mom tries to deal with Amin, helping him to live or to die. The boyfriend got the same tattoo (minus the constant bleeding) and didn’t tell anyone. Despite the big fantasy epidemic, the movie is mostly handheld-cam family/teen drama, and feels long.

by ·Comments Off on BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (2025, Kahlil Joseph)

Multimedia hyperlink cinema done right. A reporter boards a futuristic superyacht, hears various stories and maybe becomes unstuck in time and experiences some of them.

Guest directors/writers/DPs take on different sections, Joseph acting as curator, with the cinematographer of Arrival and editor of Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Reminded us of Adam Curtis and Dahomey and a hundred other things. It’s very difficult to explain – fortunately, Robert Daniels is on the case.