What I've Caught Up With, May 2026 Part 2

I finished two big shows and two smaller shows in May. I’m continuing to work my way through the MCU shows, rewatching the first season of Iron Fist and then the second season for the first time. I also watched the four-episode Eyes of Wakanda, which was fine, but ultimately forgettable. I completed The Good Fight as well and am currently between legal shows. The biggest completion was Babylon 5, and I’m now working my way through the related movies, several of which are highlighted below. I’m still watching The Sopranos as my workout show, and am just at the halfway point. Beyond that, I’m a few seasons deep into The Americans, which is good, but I find impossible to binge.

What I’ve Caught Up With, May 2026 Part 2
Film: Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)

Another classic silent from Louise Brooks’s career in Germany, Diary of a Lost Girl is yet another film that helped cement her reputation as a wanton woman. Young Thymian (Brooks) winds up pregnant after what might be considered a rape and is subsequently sent to a very strict reformatory for girls. Naturally, she rebels. There’s some definite social commentary going on here—while Thymian is reviled for her pregnancy and labelled a wanton, her father regularly impregnates the cleaning staff and eventually marries the housekeeper. Brooks, of course, is the reason to watch this. She was always years ahead of her time, always looking far more modern than the films she is in. We’ll get some uplift at the end (of course), and while this isn’t essentially viewing, you’re never wrong choosing to watch Louise in action.

Film: Beautiful Girls (1996)

Willie Conway (Timothy Hutton) returns to his small Massachusetts town for his 10-year high school reunion. He reunites with his friends, who have not moved out of town. The common denominator for all of them aside from alcohol is relationship problems. Willie is worried about his own relationship and finds himself oddly attracted to a precocious 13-year-old girl (Natalie Portman—don’t worry, the film doesn’t go there) and Andera (Uma Thurman), the cousin of one of his friends. This is another one of those movies where the selling point is the cast: Noah Emmerich, Matt Dillon, Lauren Holly, Rosie O’Donnell, Annabeth Gish, Martha Plimpton, Mira Sorvino, Pruitt Taylor Vince, John Carroll Lynch, and more. The movie is fine, but it would have to be with this cast, wouldn’t it?

Film: The 10th Victim (1965)

There’s a history of stories that involve hunting people for sport. The Most Dangerous Game is perhaps the earliest, but these days, Battle Royale and The Hunger Games are better known. The 10th Victim might be the first to turn this sort of hunter/hunted story that pays off the winner. In the future, war is no more, but people still have a violent streak. Those who want can join the Big Game, where they will play 10 times, five as hunter, five as victim. The game is always to the death. Caroline (Ursula Andress) has nine wins. Her final target is Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni), who has six wins. Will they kill each other or fall in love? A surprising amount of this shows up in the Austin Powers movies, including Andress shooting a guy with bra-mounted weapons, and a company named Ming Tea, the name of the band Myers/Austin Powers fronted in the movies.

Film: The Major and the Minor (1942)

Susan Applegate (Ginger Rogers) has had enough of New York and decides to return home to Iowa for a simpler life, but learns that the train fair has increased and now she doesn’t have enough to get home. She dresses up as a child and gets someone to purchase her a half-price ticket, but she can’t pull off the act for the conductors. She does manage to fool Major Kirby (Ray Milland), though, and he takes care of her. Hilarity ensues. What sticks out here is that people alternately treat the alleged 12-year-old Susan is impersonating as a complete idiot, baby talking her like she’s four, and simultaneously throwing her to a collection of cadets at a military school who all take it upon themselves to make a play for her. This is not a film that has aged well, although I assume that in 1942 it was considered charming.

Film: Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998)

I finished Babylon 5 this month (see the initial paragraph above), so it makes sense to get through all of the associated movies, which I’ll be doing for a bit. If you know the show, this is essentially a precursor, but not one to watch before watching the full show. Basically, this is the history of the Human/Minbari war as told by Emperor Molari to a couple of young children. The day this happens is hinted at in the show toward the end of Season 3. This is a bleak film, one that deals with the potential extermination of the human race, and while this is discussed in Babylon 5, we’re never really told just how close the humans came to extermination in the show’s universe. Obviously, if you’ve never watched the show, none of this will make sense. If you do watch the show, though, this is necessary viewing.

Film: Paid (1930)

Films that were created just after talkies became a thing are always kind of interesting to me. Studios and actors were still figuring out how to do things and how to handle the inclusion of sound in movies. Paid is pure melodrama, the sort that was common in the silent era and those pre-Code years. Mary (Joan Crawford) works at a shop for $16/week and is accused of stealing from her employer, the wealthy and arrogant Edward Gilder (Purnell Pratt). She serves three years in the pen, and when she gets out, she has concocted a scheme of luring men into promises of marriage and then having them break those promises…and pay out to avoid the scandal. Her real goal, though, and one she accomplishes, is revenge on Gilder by romancing and eventually marrying his son, Bob (Douglass Montgomery). It’s drippy, but the overacting is fun to watch, but really, it’s all about watching a young Joan Crawford.

Film: Babylon 5: Thirdspace (1998)

Another in the collection of Babylon 5 movies, Babylon 5: Thirdspace is a must-watch if you’re a fan of the show and completely incomprehensible if you haven’t. An artifact is found in hyperspace that is roughly a million years old that opens a way to a new dimension (hence “Thirdspace”). What isn’t obvious until the way is opened is that the creators of that artifact want to destroy all life in the universe that isn’t them. All hell breaks loose. The knock on Babylon 5 is that large portions of it look like cheap computer graphics—decent for the time, but hopelessly dated today. That’s the main problem here. The writing, though, is always solid. It’s also nice that we get more time with Lyta Alexander (Barbara Tallman) and Vir Cotto (Stephen Furst), two characters who were always underused in the show.

Film: Babylon 5: The River of Souls (1998)

Yet another Babylon 5 movie from 1998, The River of Souls is a much weirder one in a lot of ways than the others. An archaeologist (Ian McShane!) arrives on the station with an ancient artifact that contains the souls of a long-dead alien race. Weird things start happening, including the arrival of a Soul Hunter (Martin Goddam Sheen), who collects the souls of important beings just about to die. All of this coincides with a holographic brothel operating on the edge of the law, and with holograms that might actually end up being hosts of those long-dead souls. It’s an odd film, and if you’re not a Babylon 5 viewer, there’s nothing here for you, but seeing Martin Sheen in alien big-head costume is absolutely worth the price of admission.