What I've Caught Up With, April 2026 Part 1

I watched 33 movies in April, which means that in terms of the goal of 400 movies on the year, I was exactly on track—one movie per day, plus three movies. So, while I didn’t fall behind on that goal in April, I also didn’t catch up any. Baby steps, though, right? Treading water is better than falling further behind.

What I’ve Caught Up With, April 2026 Part 1
Film: Valhalla Rising (2009)

A one-eyed Viking warrior (Mads Mikkelsen) is a thrall forced to fight for his survival. Finding a stone arrowhead, he effects his escape, killing his captors and heading out on his own, followed by a young thrall (Maarten Stevenson). They eventually fall in with a group of Christian Norsemen who are planning on a crusade of sorts and decide to go to the Holy Land. Their navigation is a bit off, though, and they end up somewhere in North America. It’s bleak and nihilistic, the way any film that is ultimately about some sort of colonialism should be. This feels like it was made in the heart of Nicolas Winding Refn’s peak period, and it also seems to fit with his standard vision.

Film: Dalek’s Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)

There are plenty of classic Dr. Who villains, but perhaps none are more iconic than the Daleks. This film has the Doctor played by Peter Cushing (who would have been a great Doctor in the show) traveling to 2150 with his niece Louise (Jill Curzon) and his granddaughter Susan (Roberta Tovey) only to discover that the Earth has been conquered by the Daleks. Hilarity ensues. Aside from having a character called The Doctor who travels through time in a T.A.R.D.I.S. and fighting against Daleks, this doesn’t really fit with any continuity of the show that I can see. It’s mildly entertaining but feels necessary only for the most die-hard completist.

Film: A Taste of Honey (1961)

The world may be filled with angry young men, but there are also plenty of angry young women. Most of them, though, don’t have Rita Tushingham’s huge eyes or oddly-shaped face. Jo (Tushingham) is a rebellious teen who has an uncomfortable relationship with her wanton and narcissistic mother Helen (Dora Bryan). Jo has a brief affair with a Black sailor named Jimmy (Paul Danquah). When she is predictably abandoned, she ends up teaming up with a gay man named Geoffrey (Murray Melvin). Nothing good happens to anyone in A Taste of Honey. It’s a bleak film, but it also feels very current in a lot of ways. Tushingham is an unusual screen presence—she looks oddly elfin but sounds like a dockworker.

Film: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

The success of the original Planet of the Apes movie made sequels inevitable. Beneath the Planet of the Apes gives us a new astronaut in Brent (James Franciscus), sent to see what happened to the original set of astronauts. What he finds is a society of humans living underground. These humans have developed telepathy but are otherwise helpless. They also happen to worship a fully functional atomic bomb. This is a fun continuation of the story, and honestly not much more ridiculous than the first story. It’s difficult to call it “good,” though—but it certainly fits in with the Cold War era feeling of eventual destruction by atomic power. I’m certain I’ve seen this before, but it’s probably been almost literally a half-century. Glory be to The Bomb!

Film: Chi-Raq (2015)

In my experience, when Spike Lee relies too heavily on other material, we get films we don’t need like Da Sweet Blood of Jesus or Oldboy. Chi-Raq is the exception here. Lee uses the outrageous gun violence in the U.S. stand as his backdrop for a modern updating of Lysistrata. Essentially, the wives and girlfriends of the gang members in the tougher neighborhoods of Chicago decide that the way to get their men to the table for a cease fire is to stop sex completely. The cast is eclectic and solid, with Teyonah Parris in the title role. The fact that a lot of this is delivered in verse is surprising, as is the casting of John Cusak as a preacher in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Samuel L. Jackson as the Greek chorus is worth the price of admission. It’s preachier than Lee usually is, though…and that’s a lot.

Film: Bicentennial Man (1999)

Based loosely on a story from Isaac Asimov, Bicentennial Man is an unusual film in a lot of respects, but ultimately one that isn’t everything it could be. An android dubbed Andrew (Robin Williams) develops a personality and over the course of a couple of centuries, tries to become human. The problem is that this is a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a Pinocchio story? Is it ultimately a romance? Is it about free will or what it means to be human? It desperately wants to be all of these things at the same time. The cast is good—lots of people show up for a bit or a scene or two—but this is a showcase for Williams, who frankly has been better.

Film: The Safety of Objects (2001)

Based on a series of short stories, The Safety of Objects shows us the interconnected lives of several families in a neighborhood, each with their own problems and pains that move them. In a lot of ways, this feels like it wants to be a new version of American Beauty but it dips into strange territory with the abduction of a child, although fortunately not for anything disturbing. This is another movie where you show up for the cast—Glenn Close, Kristen Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Klein, Timothy Olyphant, and more. It’s good, but it feels a bit like it wants to be a modern Peyton Place, where we’re supposed to be shocked by what goes on behind closed doors.