Shearers Out

Film: The Sheep Detectives
Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!

When I first saw the poster for The Sheep Detectives, I figured it was an obvious miss. I liked Babe well enough, but talking animal movies aren’t really something I seek out, and there’s always a sense of CGI talking animals hitting that uncanny valley area that I find disturbing. And then the reviews started coming in and they were almost entirely positive. So when it showed up on streaming, I figured it was time to take a more serious look at it.

There are certainly some initial similarities to Babe, of course. It takes place on a farm, there are plenty of sheep, and all of the animals talk. But, The Sheep Detectives is a murder mystery, and it’s the sheep who need to try to figure out who killed their shepherd, because the local police are not specifically inept, but completely inexperienced in dealing with any serious crime like murder.

Grim(m), Indeed

Film: The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

I genuinely appreciate the fact that horror movies are starting to get attention when it comes to award season. In the past, a horror movie getting a nomination for anything was a shock, and a lot of those nominations were for categories like special effects. There’s been more respect for the genre, especially in the last couple of years, and that respect has shown up in nominations across the spectrum. Such a case is the nomination for Makeup and Hairstyling for The Ugly Stepsister (or Den stygge stesøsteren if you want the Norwegian title).

And don’t get it twisted; The Ugly Stepsister is very much a horror movie. It’s also a sort of fantasy romance and a very dark comedy, but this is body horror before it’s anything else, and it goes to some very uncomfortable places. The fact that this comes from a tradition of a classic fairy tale only makes this that much more effective.

Emergency Broadcast System?

Film: This is Not a Test
Format: Streaming video from AMC on Fire!

Is the zombie subgenre played out? I think you can make a pretty good case for that even if I don’t specifically agree with it. The problem with zombie movies is that it’s very difficult to distinguish one movie from another after a while. A movie needs to either be really innovative and do something different or it needs to be made so well that it can’t be ignored. The Girl with All the Gifts presented very different zombies and an interesting version of the zombie plague. Train to Busan was simply pure, high-octane action. Both work because of that. Since This is Not a Test doesn’t have the wall-to-wall insanity of Busan, it’s going to need to do something new.

Sadly, it does not. Zombies and high school kids is something that has been explored before and in interesting ways. Dance of the Dead (zombies at prom) and Anna and the Apocalypse (zombie Christmas musical) did something new. Kids trapped in a high school while zombies rage outside was definitively handled by the Korean show All of Us Are Dead. This is Not a Test follows a lot of the same path. There is a difference here, but it’s not a notable or interesting one.

Back to the Drawing Board

Film: Sketch
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

I genuinely try to go into movies that I watch wanting things to be good, and I always try to approach every film as neutrally as possible. I admit that I went into Sketch with some real reservations. Sketch was produced by Angel Studios, which is run by the Mormon church. These are the same people who made Sound of Freedom, and who generally make movies that are available in theaters as “special events” on a random Tuesday. To that point, the “Special Features” section of the DVD has a promo for the Tuttle Twins; if you’re not familiar, they are libertarian cartoons for kids, or more appropriately, right-wing propaganda for children in grade school.

But, I watched it anyway, and it does seem to be evidence of the idea that even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut. Sketch is inventive, fun, and actually feels in a lot of ways healthy in terms of the psychology of the kids involved and the family situation. This was far better than I expected. Sometimes, you just have to take a flyer on something and it pays off.

The Devil You Don't Know

Film: They Will Kill You
Format: Streaming video from HBO on various players.

Tropes and basic plots exist for a reason: they work. They serve as a sort of shorthand for character and plot. We can pick up a lot of basic truths about a story or a character quickly, and this also serves as a way for creators to subvert those tropes. Haunted house stories work the same basic way—people are trapped in a house and are unable to leave and are pursued and often killed by the thing (or things) haunting the house. Alien and Event Horizon are really just haunted house movies in space. Ready or Not subverted the genre by giving us a single victim being pursued by everyone else. They Will Kill You does the same basic thing.

I mean that sincerely. They Will Kill You is an almost spiritual sequel of Ready or Not, and it’s not much of a coincidence that they came out at virtually the same time. We’re going to have one motivated person against a crew that wants to get rid of her and there’s going to be plenty of Satan along for the ride.

They Blew It

Film: Whistle
Format: Streaming video from AMC on various players.

I had hopes for Whistle, but admittedly, those hopes were based on the poster and what I gathered from a short synopsis. What the story looks like is that some kids find an Aztec death whistle. Shaped like a skull, when blown, it releases a horrible screeching noise. In the film, though, this causes the people who blow the whistle (actually, anyone who hears it) to die horribly. It’s a cool idea, even though it hits the same tropes that we tend to see in movies like this, but just original enough to perhaps give us something new.

The reality is that Whistle is almost certainly a movie that you’ve seen before if you’re at all a fan of horror, and I mean that in no positive way. What we learn is that the whistle doesn’t cause those who hear it to die horribly; it literally summons their death. So, if you were destined to die at 85 of a pulmonary embolism, you die of an embolism essentially now, and if an autopsy is performed, your body will essentially read as being 85. The whistle accelerates your death, and you die in the way you were destined to die. In other words, it’s Final Destination with a bit of a twist. Sure the deaths are essentially pre-ordained, but capital-D Death is the antagonist.

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 1

With the stated goal of 400 movies viewed for the year, I needed to see 34 in May to break even. I watched 35, so I caught up a single movie, putting me seven off the pace. Honestly, that's pretty good for me. Normally at this point, I'm a couple of dozen behind where I want to be. It was a pretty normal month. Nothing too bizarre, aside from a week where, due to circumstances, I didn't watch much of anything. Had I been a bit more dilligent, I might have caught up all the way.

No One Hurts You Like Family

Film: Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

As I slowly make my way through the latest crop of Oscar movies, I’ve found myself struggling at times to want to pull the trigger on them. All of the ones I haven’t seen are currently streaming at this point; I could finish this in less than a week if I had a mind to, but right now, what I want to watch is going in different directions. So, while Sentimental Value (or Affeksjonsverdi in the Norwegian) has gotten mountains of acclaim, I’ve found it difficult to want to watch it. But sometimes you just have to force yourself into doing those things that you know you need to do. I’d like to knock out one of the remaining Oscar films ever week—I’d be done late June/early July, and that would absolutely be a record for me.

Anyway, Sentimental Value on its surface is one of those movies that is about making a movie, but it’s really about the relationships of the people involved. Hollywood always likes movies about movies, but this is not a movie that at all feels like it’s glamorizing the business. In fact, it does the opposite, and it takes some very obvious digs at NetFlix to the point where it will clearly never be shown on that streaming platform.

Easier Said Than Done

Film: Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

Gore Verbinksi has a surprisingly good track record as a director. Not many people could create an entertaining movie out of a Disney ride, after all. Verbinski’s latest, Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die, is a similar sort of project. This is a movie that shouldn’t work in a lot of ways, but does in spite of itself. It’s also a movie that you can point to when people complain that all movies are the same or that Hollywood is just producing remakes and sequels.

That said, there are certainly going to be people who will tell you that Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die is in many ways a very long episode of Black Mirror, and there are certainly times when that seems to fit. There are also moments where it is far too surreal for Black Mirror, but much of it has the same feel. It’s darkly comic like many episodes and is very much a warning against technology, AI in specific. And there are strong connections to other movies and stories. There’s a lot of 12 Monkeys here just for a start, and the opening sequence is reminiscent in many ways of Pulp Fiction.

She's Got Those Baby Blues

Film: Die My Love
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

Remember a few years ago when Jennifer Lawrence was the flavor of the month? It was right around 2012 when she was in both The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, even though her real coming out party in Hollywood was her role in Winter’s Bone. She’s not that anymore, which is probably a good thing. In a sense, she has the ability to do what actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Kristen Stewart have—she can basically do what she wants and take whatever roles she feels like. That brings us to Die My Love, which is essentially a movie about post-partum depression.

Another person who has that same ability to pick projects that they want because they don’t really have to worry about their career is Lawrence’s co-star for this film, Robert Pattinson. Why am I talking about this? Because it’s important to have these people in the industry so that films like this get made. Die My Love was never going to be a box office smash. You need people who don’t care about how much money a film will make, who might even be willing to take scale for a film that has less big hit appeal but much more artistic credibility.

New List, Who Dis?

Film: Predator 2
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

Just like almost every May, the They Shoot Zombies list of 1000 most highly acclaimed horror movies has been revamped and retooled. This year, the list returned six films previously cut and added another 26, many of them from the last couple of years. There were a few older brand new additions, though, including Predator 2. This seems like an odd addition. It’s much more a science fiction/action movie than a horror movie, although there are certainly some clear horror elements. Anyway, I figured this would be a good way to herald in the new version of the list.

The original Predator was released in 1987 and presumably took place in 1987. The sequel, released three years later, takes place in that far distant future for the time of 1997. In this world, Los Angeles (and presumably other parts of the country and world) has become a war zone of criminal gangs fighting each other and the police in broad daylight. Into this rides our good cop Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover). Our opening sequence will show him taking out a number of criminal thugs, not realizing that there’s also our title character in the mix.

Koi Pond

Film: Little Amélie or the Character of Rain ( Amélie et la métaphysique des tubes )
Format: Blu-Ray from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

Ray Bradbury said in interviews that he has distinct memories of being not merely an infant, but of being days old despite being told that this is essentially impossible. I say this because it’s going to be relevant to Little Amélie or the Character of Rain ( Amélie et la métaphysique detubes in the original French). This is a story a very young child, essentially in utero until 3, from that child’s perspective. Little kids have been in movies before, and have even been main characters in movies before, but this feels like the first time that a film has been narrated from this perspective.

What this means is that our title character, Amélie, is going to have an adult vocabulary, but a child’s version of the world around her. Specifically, this means that she is going to be a solipsist for the bulk of the film, which takes place between her second and third birthdays. Amélie is difficult to like initially because of this. It’s not inaccurate, but it is frustrating. Amélie is entirely self-absorbed, which makes her a difficult narrator.

Last Rites

Film: We Bury the Dead
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

There are times when I look at a film that a lot of the world outside of the film needs to be addressed. That’s definitely the case with We Bury the Dead, and it has nothing to do with the plot of the movie (although having the U.S. kill everything on the island of Tasmania certainly feels relevant). No, this is about the star of the film, Daisy Ridley. We need to take into account the toxicity of many an average Star Wars fan, who will reflexively hate anything Ridley touches for years specifically because they object to the character she played in some movies. We Bury the Dead is a great example of this—critic approval is almost double that of average viewers on Rotten Tomatoes, and while that does happen, many times it happens because of people who have an agenda.

The idea of We Bury the Dead isn’t going to be immediately obvious, but we’re going to figure it out as the audience in the first few minutes. After seeing a bit of the relationship of Ava (Ridley) and her husband Mitch (Matt Whelan), we find out about the inciting incident of the film. The U.S. has accidentally tested a new weapon on Tasmania, destroying the city of Hobart and killing everything else on the island. Clean up teams are sent in, and Ava volunteers, because her husband was on a work trip on the southern end of the island. In her orientation, we learn that some of the brain dead bodies are waking up—while disturbing, most of them are peaceful.

Dennis Miller? Really?

Film: Bordello of Blood (Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood)
Format: DVD from Manteno Public Library through interlibrary loan on gigantic television.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, and honestly, it’s been a few days since I’ve watched anything. I’ve been out of town for a bit and have not really had the opportunity to do much but yardwork and grading papers for the last week. May has really gotten away from me, and all of the progress I made last month catching up on the goal of 400 movies/year has melted away. So I’m trying to get back to it, and a short, goofy horror movie seems the best way to do it. And so we have Bordello of Blood. To give you an idea of exactly how goofy this is, it’s also known as Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood. Yep, it’s an extension of the Tales from the Crypt show.

There is something that you’re going to have to get prepared to deal with right off the top. There was a short period of time where Dennis Miller was post-SNL Weekend Update and pre-right wing conservative clown and Bordello of Blood falls right in the middle of that. What that means for you if you’re going to watch this is that Dennis Miller is going to be the good guy. Honestly, that fact played a lot better 30 years ago when this was new than it does now.

Welcome to the Loony Labyrinth

Film: Dave Made a Maze
Format: Streaming video from Tubi on Fire!

You have to love it when someone comes up with a completely bonkers premise for a story and then pulls it off about as well as it could be done. Dave Made a Maze is a film that shouldn’t work. It’s marginally a horror movie, although the violence is clearly cartoonish and the blood is literally replaced with yarn and glitter. It’s a comedy because there is a lot of humor here, but it’s not really a horror comedy. The closest genre that it fits in is magical realism. We have characters who live in the real world but have an experience that cannot really be explained as anything other than magic. It’s just a hell of a lot weirder than the more standard magical realism films like Field of Dreams, Life of Pi, or Midnight in Paris.

Annie (Meera Rohit Kumbhani) comes home from a weekend to discover that her artist boyfriend Dave (Nick Thune) has built a small maze out of cardboard in the middle of their living room. Dave has a history of not completing projects, and the maze that he has created for him feels like a genuine breakthrough. The problem is, as he tells Annie, that he hasn’t finished the maze and he’s lost inside it. This seems patently ridiculous, as the maze appear to be about 20 square feet of cardboard boxes. When Annie tells him to just come out, he refuses to destroy the work, and also tells her that he’s lost inside the maze and can’t get out. Adding to the confusion, when Annie shakes the cardboard exterior of the maze, she can hear machinery and more rattling inside.

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

I finished three shows in April. The first was just catching back up on The Lincoln Lawyer, one of those rare cases where the show is better than the movie (although, to be fair, both are based off a series of books). I also finished Luke Cage, after rewatching the first season. My minor physical issues have cleared up, so I managed to complete Evil (aka: Catholic X-Files) a couple of weeks after initially intended. The new workout show is The Sopranos, which I’m finally getting to a mere three decades or so late.

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.

Life Happens

Film: If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You
Format: Streaming video from HBO on various players.

I’ve talked a little bit about what my life was like in 2025, but I haven’t really gone into a great deal of detail. It was the worst year of my life by a pretty good margin. When I had a conversation with my boss about what I had accomplished in 2025 with a look toward 2026, my answer was that my biggest accomplishment was that I hit all of my deadlines—all of my students’ papers and projects got back to them on time. There were a lot of times during the year where it felt like I was always on the edge of a complete breakdown—it was a combination of the events happening around me and the reactions of other people to those events in some cases. All of this brings me to If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, a movie I don’t think I could have made it through had I attempted to watch it last year.

If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You (I’m going to shorten this to just the pre-comma part of the title for the rest of this) feels like a modern update of Diary of a Mad Housewife combined with the white anger film Falling Down. Linda (Rose Byrne, who was Oscar-nominated for this role and the reason I watched it) is a woman whose life is falling apart on every front. My situation last year was plenty bad, but I have nothing on Linda.

Appomattox

Film: Civil War
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

It was only a matter of time before someone decided to project a new civil war onto the United States. The level of division is maddening and disturbing—there are states I’d rather not drive through right now, and some that I have driven through recently where I wasn’t exactly worried, but where I definitely felt out of place. Alex Garland’s Civil War feels like a worst-case scenario, but also feels unfortunately real.

We don’t actually get a great deal of background on the war that is being fought. We see the unnamed president (Nick Offerman) practicing a speech that feels a bit overblown and hyperbolic, especially since we soon learn that there are multiple successionist movements of varying strength and success, and the group commonly referred to as the Western Forces are rapidly approaching Washington D.C.

Zom-Rom-Com

Film: Life After Beth
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

I went into Life After Beth with a couple of clear reservations. The first is that I’ve never been entirely sold on Aubrey Plaza. I know I’m supposed to like her; she’s been marketed as someone who is emotionally detached in a cool way, sort of the live-action version of Daria. The second issue is Dane DeHaan, an actor who has one of the most slapable faces I have seen. DeHaan reeks of smugness to me. That might be unfair, but it’s also true that the first couple of movies I saw him in, I disliked, so my dislike of him is at least there for a reason.

And yet, Life After Beth beckoned. It’s a zombie movie, one of my favorite subgenres, especially considering how much has been done with it over the years (I see you shaking your head; we’ll get there). It’s also clearly a romance that is going to end badly, something else I tend to appreciate. Finally, it’s a movie that clearly wants to have fun with the premise. This is a horror movie with a cast of comic actors. So, while the two stars are actors I don’t tend to like as much as I’m supposed to, there was a lot here that drew me in.

Drilling Down

Film: The Loved Ones
Format: DVD from Rock Island Public Library through interlibrary loan on gigantic television.

I don’t enjoy the torture porn subgenre of horror, and I don’t seek out gore for the sake of gore. My preferences in the horror genre are more psychological than anything else, and while I don’t tend to shy away from gore, for me, it works when it’s plot-necessary. I think it works better when it’s used in small amounts and when it’s implied. So movies that involve any amount of torture are always going to be ones that I hesitate to watch. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve waited this long to see highly acclaimed Aussie horror film The Loved Ones. I knew enough of what I was getting into to wonder if this was going to be extremely troubling.

The Loved Ones is a film that contains some gore elements but also tends to keep the most brutal aspects off camera. It’s also a film where the torture is extremely plot-relevant. In fact, that torture is very much the point of the film. Normally, this would be a reason for me to wonder what I was doing through the entire short run time, but in this case, what happens is surprisingly tasteful for a horror movie from a first-time feature-length director.

The Title is the Review

Film: Honey Don’t
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

Someone needs to tell me what the hell happened to Ethan Coen. I consider myself a fan of the Coen Brothers. I’m not any kind of superfan—I haven’t seen their entire catalog, but I’ve seen more than I haven’t. When the Coens decided to separate artistically for a bit, Joel made The Tragedy of Macbeth, a film that earned three Oscar nominations. Ethan Coen made Drive-Away Dolls and then Honey Don’t, which are the two lowest-rated movies of his career. Like I said, I haven’t seen everything attached to Ethan Coen’s name, but I certainly understand why Honey Don’t sits under everything else of his I’ve seen, and in fact below pretty much everything he’s directed.

Honey Don’t was written by Coen with his wife, Tricia Cooke. It’s their second writing collaboration, and also the second in a proposed “lesbian B-movie trilogy.” Since neither of the two movies in the trilogy have been well-received, it does bring up the question of whether or not this will be completed.

Cold as Ice

Film: Dead of Winter
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on gigantic television.

Every now and then, an actor who has made their bones in traditional roles starts making action movies. It happened with Liam Neeson did Taken and it happened when Colin Firth did Kingsmen. It happens to comedians sometimes, too—Bob Odenkirk and the Nobody films, for instance. With Dead of Winter, it appears that it is now Emma Thompson’s turn. And let me tell you, if Emma Thompson is now going to be doing thrillers and action movies, I am 100% here for it.

Dead of Winter is a high concept movie in the sense that you can run down the plot in a couple of sentences. Barb (Thompson) is a recent widow who is traveling to a remote lake in northern Minnesota to scatter her husband’s ashes. On her way to the lake, she discovers that a couple has kidnapped a young woman (Laurel Marsden) for some unknown reason. Since the area is incredibly remote, has just survived a blizzard, and there is no good cell phone service, Barb realizes she is the only hope the young woman’s survival.

Hombre Secreto

Film: The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

There were times when I was watching The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto in the original Portuguese) when I felt like I had seen this movie before. The reason is that it feels like it covers a lot of the same territory as I’m Still Here from the previous year. Both films deal with the military dictatorship in Brazil in the 1970s and with the lives that were devastated or lost under that regime. I’m Still Here deals with a woman looking for what happened to her husband. The Secret Agent deals much more with the direct victim of the violence. The stories are different but similar, and feel united even though they take place years apart and concern different people.

Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura) is a dissident in a Brazil that has been under military rule for more a decade. He travels to Recife where his in-laws are taking care of his son Fernando (Enzo Nunes) ever since Armando’s wife Fátima died. He finds his way to a sort of commune of dissidents and takes the name Marcelo as an alias. He is placed by the group in a job at the city office that creates identity cards. This allows him the opportunity to look for information on his mother, who he knows very little about.

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

I had planned to finish the show Evil by the end of the month as my workout show, but an injury kept me out of the gym for a couple of weeks, so I’m still a week or so away from finishing. I did cross off a few large shows in March, though. I got through The Ray Bradbury Theater, a show that had some significant high points and a few low points. I also finished The Good Wife, all 156 episodes, a show I’ve been watching for months. And, on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of speed, I burned through The Dragon Prince on NetFlix—a show that has some interesting similarities to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Strong recommend.

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

My stated goal every year is to watch 400 movies, and every month I fall a little more behind on that goal. Hitting that goal looks like 34 movies in March and I watched 30, which puts me at an average of a movie per day exactly right now. It seems like fate that I set that goal and always fall a little short of it. Still, it was a good month and I watched a lot of pretty good films and a few real stinkers.

Apex Predator

Film: Predator: Badlands
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

The original Predator movie is a classic and the second one is at least interesting, if not that great. And from there, the franchise tanked and it stayed tanked until it was handed to Dan Trachtenberg with Prey. Since this film, the franchise is on an upswing. The animated Predator: Killer of Killers was a great addition to the series, and then came Predator” Badlands. And while it’s not quite at the level of Prey, it really feels like the third movie in the franchise in a row that really gets it.

What’s different this time is that for the first time in the franchise, the film in the main will come from the perspective of the predator (the species refers to itself as “Yautja”) rather than the hunted prey. A young Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the runt of his family, and because of this, desperate to prove himself. For his hunt to bring him fully into the clan, he decides to travel to the hell world of Genna and hunt a creature known as the Kalisk, thought to be unkillable.

Let's Make a Baby

Film: The Assessment
Format: Streaming video from Hulu on Fire!

I’ve said before that horror movies are going to be more and more about environmental issues. The same is true of science fiction. Some science fiction will be specifically about environmental issues, and then there will be films like The Assessment, where the environmental problems are tangential.

We’re looking at a world in this case where some environmental disaster has happened. The environment has collapsed and resources have become rare, which means that the powers that be have put huge restrictions on parenthood. This is not just because of the scarcity of resources but also because human life expectancy has been dramatically increased through a variety of pharmaceuticals, drugs that also prevent fertility. In this world, people who want to be parents must be assessed for fitness.

"Nightmare" is Right

Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on gigantic television.

There’s an idea that circulates online every now and then is that filmmakers should remake movies that had good premises but turned out badly. Imagine, if you will, a version of Army of the Dead that didn’t suck. Sadly, though, we live in a world where the good and great movies get remade or rebooted, and nowhere does that appear to be more prevalent than in the horror genre. Tons of the classics have been remade with varying levels of skill. And while there have been some real trainwrecks, perhaps nothing has been more egregious than the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Honestly, it seems inevitable. Most of the best work of Wes Craven has been remade (The Hills Have Eyes, Last House on the Left) or rebooted (Scream), so why not his absolute masterwork? This feels like a venal cash grab, something so completely soulless that there’s a whiff of brimstone when one opens the DVD case. And, since the film was produced by Michael Bay, that fits completely.

Good Times Never Seemed so Good

Film: Song Sung Blue
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

I’m extremely white. A few years ago, when it was the thing to do, I had my DNA run on 23 and Me and the results were than 99.9% of my DNA is from the British Isles, northern Europe, and Scandanavia. A substantial amount of my ancestry could chuck a rock into the Arctic Circle. What this means is that there are a few things I can count myself an expert in. One of those is white people music. The whitest music ever made isn’t country or bluegrass or polka. It’s Neil Diamond. That being the case, it was only a matter of time before we got a movie that featured Diamond’s music, and thus we have Song Sung Blue.

Song Sung Blue is a biopic, but it’s not a biopic of Neil Diamond himself. Instead, it’s about Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) and his wife Claire (Kate Hudson, who was Oscar-nominated for this role). The two made a living in part as tribute musicians, with Claire specializing as Patsy Cline. They realize that Mike, who calls himself “Lightning,” could probably pull off a Neil Diamond tribute band (what he styles instead as a Neil Diamond experience).

I'm a Snake When We Disagree

Film: Zootopia 2
Format: Streaming video from Disney Plus on Fire!

I had issues with Zootopia when it was released. It’s a movie whose heart is in the right place when it comes to things like racism, but it gets so much wrong that it’s hard to connect it to the way that racism actually works in the real world. Essentially, the ultimate message of Zootopia is that the way to defeat racism is to just stop being racist. That being the case, I didn’t have a lot of hope for an improvement in this when it comes to Zootopia 2, which gives us a much more obvious racism plot.

The reason it’s more obvious in this case is that we’re bringing in an entire class or two of animals into the story. The original Zootopia concerned itself entirely with mammals. For the sequel, we’re bringing in reptiles. I looked for amphibians—I didn’t see any, so they may be reserving them for a future sequel (but you can expect based on the short scene in the credits that if there is a Zootopia 3, it will center on birds).

Germany's Most Wanted

Film: Nuremberg
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

Every year, there’s an Oscar bait movie or two that fails to secure a single nomination. Sometimes, it’s a good to great film that is simply overlooked, like The Woman King from 2022 or The Iron Claw from the subsequent year. Sometimes, it’s a movie that has gone hilariously bad, like Cats from 2019. And then there are the movies that have big ambitions, but fail to gain any traction. By all rights, Nuremberg was created for a run at the Oscars, and it goose egged.

It had to have had a shot, though. It’s a movie that is clearly relevant, discussing the Nuremberg trials at the end of WWII, making clear comparisons to the rise of fascism in the U.S. today. It’s headlined by two Oscar winners (Russell Crowe and Rami Malek) and a two-time nominee (Michael Shannon) and a one-time nominee (Richard E. Grant). This was clearly a film that wanted to take a swing for the top prize, and probably a few others (Best Actor, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay for a start).

Save the Green Planet (Trade it with Friends)

Film: Bugonia
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

Of all the Best Picture nominees, Bugonia is the one that I’ve been putting off. Before you correct me and say that there’s at least one available streaming that I haven’t seen, I acknowledge that, but Bugonia has been available for a long time. The truth is that I don’t like Yorgos Lanthimos films as a rule. In fact, of the four I have seen prior to this one, The Favourite is the only one I can say I’ve actually enjoyed. Honestly, I think that’s a fair justification for why I’ve waited this long.

I also knew that this is a remake of a Korean film called Save the Green Planet! There was a part of me that thought I should watch the original before I watched the remake. But, at some point, you just need to get the work done, and what that means here is getting through Oscar films. Surprisingly (for me), this gives me 7 out of 10 for Best Picture before the ceremony starts, and it completes me on Best Adapted Screenplay. That’s got to be a record for me.

Vroooooooooooom!

Film: F1 (F1: The Movie)
Format: Streaming video from Apple TV on rockin’ flatscreen.

There is a huge problem at the heart of F1 (sometimes called F1: The Movie). The problem is that because we know we are watching a movie, the endgame is played out for us once we know the premise of the film. Once you know what the plot is, the ending, while not guaranteed, is shuttled into a couple of possibilities with slight variation. It makes about 90 minutes or so of the film not meaningless, but having nothing really at stake. We know where we have to get.

We’re going to start not with F1 cars but racing at Daytona in the 24 hours at Daytona event. The person we are focusing on is Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a one-time F1 prodigy gone from that world for 30 years. Hayes now lives in his van, moving from driving gig to driving gig, essentially working for hire. His team wins the race, but he refuses to touch the trophy, or even really to celebrate. He collects his bonus check and drives off.

Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction

Film: One Battle After Another
Format: Streaming video from HBOMax on Fire!

We need a regular reminder that the Oscars are political and rarely correct. I say this because Paul Thomas Anderson is almost certainly going to win Best Director on Sunday and One Battle After Another seems likely to take Best Picture. The reason this is upsetting is that this is clearly not the best movie of this year and not the best directorial performance. However, Paul Thomas Anderson is a top director and much like the year that Christopher Nolan won for Oppenheimer, people have decided that it’s Anderson’s year.

That’s frustrating. Paul Thomas Anderson, to be fair, does have 14 nominations and no wins, so I understand the sentiment that he is due for a win. The problem is that One Battle After Another, while a fine movie, is not anything close to Anderson’s best work. This feels like Pacino winning an Oscar for Scent of a Woman or Paul Newman finally winning for The Color of Money. But, that’s where we are, and in a couple of days, it’s likely that that’s where we’ll remain.

Too Too Solid Flesh

Film: Hamnet
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

My undergrad degree is in English literature. What this means is that there are times when I know at least some of what is going to happen in a movie. You can’t be much of an English student without knowing something of the life of William Shakespeare. Because of this, while I didn’t know exactly where we were going with Hamnet, I at least knew one or two of the major plot points. In this case, that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the film, but it does mean that there will be people who are shocked at a particular moment that I spent a large part of the film expecting.

With Hamnet, named after Shakespeare’s son (both the movie and the play), we’re not getting a new filmed version of Hamlet, but sort of the story of its creation. This is much more the story of Shakespeare’s (Paul Mescal) tumultuous family life and his tormented relationship with his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley). This was something that surprised me—traditionally, Shakespeare’s wife is recorded as Anne, but no matter.

Take a Ride on the Reading

Film: Train Dreams
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on gigantic television.

At this point, I think the Best Picture race is pretty much limited to One Battle After Another and Sinners with an outside chance of Marty Supreme. Honestly, even Sinners feels like an outsider at this point, with oddsmakers giving OBAA a better-than 60% chance. Train Dreams has virtually no chance of winning, and that has essentially been the case from the moment the nominations dropped. It doesn’t have much of a chance, but I am pleased that it was nominated. Oscar should go out of its way to nominate films like Train Dreams more often, if only to call out more attention to them.

Train Dreams is not the kind of movie that is normally going to get a great deal of attention from the average movie watcher. It is slow to a fault. Not a great deal happens in it. Even the massive forest fire, something that could easily become something like an action sequence is slow. I don’t have a problem with this, but I imagine that some people will.

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

Television-wise, I didn't finish a lot of shows. I completed Jessica Jones. I had watched the first season years ago but never completed the series. I rewatched Season 1 and then the rest of the show. I also caught up with the second season of Hazbin Hotel. My current workout show is Evil, which is essentially the X-Files if it were Catholic. I'm also most of the way through The Good Wife. Interestingly, Mike Colter has a few appearances on Jessica Jones, is a regular on The Good Wife, and a main character on Evil. Other than that, I'm slowly getting through Babylon 5.

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

My yearly goal for movies is 400, which is less than it sounds. To be on pace, I should be at 64 movies at the end of February. I'm a touch behind at 60, but not terribly behind. I'm hoping to catch up a few in March. If I get 34 movies, I'm keeping pace; more than that and I'm catching up. This was a month where I got a lot done in terms of taking movies off the various lists. In the next few months, there may be less, because I'll be looking more at Oscar movies, at least for a bit.

At Least It Wasn't an HOA

Film: The Perfect Neighbor
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

There are too many stories where people of color who are not a threat or acting in a threatening manner are nonetheless gunned down by the police. What we don’t hear about as much, aside from particularly celebrated cases, is the people who are shot as a result of “stand your ground” laws. By some estimates, 700 or more people are killed using this law every year, and particularly in the cases of white people shooting Black people, they get away with it. The Perfect Neighbor explores one such case.

This doesn’t merely explore the situation in question, though. Rather than interview the children of the woman who was killed, or have a roundtable discussion with the neighbors, The Perfect Neighbor uses bodycam and police interrogation room footage to tell the story. This is literally a story told in the words of the people who experienced it, filtered only by what is included in the edit. There’s nothing cleaned up here—no language or action, no matter how ugly or unsettling.

Love for Sale

Film: Rental Family
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

Brendan Fraser seems like one of those people who is genuinely a nice person. He’s the kind of person who I want to see succeed; he seems like someone who would be fun to hang out with, or have dinner with. When I first saw the trailer for Rental Family, I was of two minds. First, I thought it looked like the sort of film that Fraser should be doing—a drama with a great deal of heart, but it also looked like a film designed to capitalize on Fraser’s recent resurgence and Oscar win. But I also knew that I would be unable to resist watching it.

This is important for Rental Family, because this is a film that only works if we like Brendan Fraser. Well, we need to like his character. This is very much a film about empathy, and getting to that is going to be hampered if we have none for the main character.

You Saw Me Standin' Alone

Film: Blue Moon
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

When people talk about very talented actors, people who are genuinely and consistently good at the craft, Ethan Hawke doesn’t get mentioned enough. Hawke feels (to me) like one of those actors who goes into every job like it’s the one that’s going to make his career. He commits, and he’s good to great in pretty much everything he’s been in, at least that I’ve seen (and I even forgive him for The Purge). I was happy to see that he was nominated for an Oscar, his third acting nomination and first for lead. Blue Moon hinges entirely on Ethan Hawke’s performance. This film is him, and he is the film, even with a good supporting cast.

Blue Moon is a memoir of sorts of Lorenz “Larry” Hart (Hawke), the lyricist half of Rodgers and Hart, who wrote a number of Broadway musicals over the course of a couple of decades. Hart’s decline came about not from rumors of his sexuality (he was what we would today probably call pansexual), but his copious drinking. Rodgers, needing a more consistent partner for his music, teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein to make the greatest musical composition team ever, starting with their first collaboration, Oklahoma!

A Boy and His...Zombie?

Film: Fido
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

The movie Fido tanked at the box office in 2006, and I think there’s a specific reason for it that has nothing to do with the actual quality of the film. The problem is that Fido is a spoof of a type of movie that is no longer made. This is a zombie film, which puts it firmly in the horror camp, but much more than that, this is a parody of Lassie movies, just with a zombie instead of a collie. The kid in this is even named Timmy.

Fido takes place in an alternate timeline in what looks like the 1950s. Because of space radiation, the dead come back to life as flesh-eating ghouls, which caused a worldwide war against the undead. The radiation still plagues the planet, and the newly dead also return as zombies unless they are quickly cremated or decapitated. Many people, though, are neither decapitated nor cremated—they are collared and become zombie servants tasked with menial jobs. All of this is controlled by a company called ZomCon, which also maintains fences around town, keeping folks safe from the zombie-infested wild zones.

BTS, Eat Your Heart Out

Film: KPop Demon Hunters
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

Based on the film’s almost immediate cultural impact, I suppose I wasn’t really surprised at the Oscar nomination for KPop Demon Hunters. When this hit NetFlix, it became a huge sensation. What better place to start going through Oscar movies than this, I thought. It’s not a movie I would normally choose to watch and I’ll knock it out quickly and move on. Honestly, my original plan was to watch One Battle After Another, but by the time I had a chance to sit down with a movie, it would have taken my past midnight to finish. And so, KPop Demon Hunters it is.

This is a film where I want to spend a lot of time on what it is and less on the plot, so I’m going to speedrun the story in three paragraphs. Years ago, demons plagued the Earth, collecting souls and feeding them to Gwi-Ma (Byung-hun Lee), the demon king. A trio of women rose up to stop the demons, and pushed them back both with fighting skill and with the power of song, which created a magical barrier called the Honmoon. As time progressed, new signing trios emerged to maintain the Honmoon and fight against the demons who managed to break through.

More Like a Bad Dream

Film: Sleepwalkers
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

We have got to talk about Sleepwalkers. Once upon a time, Stephen King, who wrote this screenplay, had a serious drug problem. There’s evidence of that in some of his projects, like the ridiculous Maximum Overdrive (the only movie he directed), and this one. Sleepwalkers has a premise that is at least mildly interesting, if a bit derivative. But once you get past the premise, this movie is complete nonsense. What it has going for it is that it’s the ridiculous kind of nonsense that eventually gets beyond silly and kind of becomes entertaining again.

You should be aware right from the start that we are going to go in some nasty places here—not nasty in the sense of blood and gore, but nasty in the sense of the habits of our two main characters. We start with police in California investigating a house that is surrounded by the bodies of dead, often mutilated cats. There’s also the desiccated body of a young girl in the house as well, but no sign of the occupants.

Infect Me With Your Love

Film: 28 Years Later
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

28 Days Later is not just one of my favorite horror movies; it’s one of my favorite movies. I was wildly disappointed in the sequel, 28 Weeks Later. The first 10-15 minutes are brutal and fantastic, and then it becomes a series of plot holes. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have returned to the series, though, and have inexplicably skipped having 28 Months Later, going instead for years. I was guardedly optimistic going into this one. I adore the first movie, but I’ve been burned by a sequel before.

The lore is something that definitely needs to be addressed here. The second movie ends with what seems to be the Rage virus being released on the European mainland, a fact that would quickly lead to the virus spreading across all of Europe, into the Middle East and Asia, and potentially into Africa as well. We get a snippet at the start of the virus spreading in the Scottish highlands, with a young boy named Jimmy Crystal (Rocco Haynes initially) escaping, and also watching his minister father willingly give himself over to the infected in what he believes to be something like the Rapture.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 2024

The Contenders:

Anora (winner)
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked

...But No Mule

Film: 40 Acres
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on gigantic television.

I’ve said a couple of times in the past that one of the subgenres we’re going to start seeing more and more of is environmental-based horror. Environmental disaster science fiction is going to be just as much a thing in coming years. 40 Acres is absolutely a film in that subgenre. While this is an action movie in a lot of respects, the entirety of the film turns on climate catastrophe and famine.

We are in the new future, and the world has experienced a massive catastrophe. A fungal blight has destroyed crops the world over, plunging the entire planet into a massive famine. While food is a prized commodity, it is arable farmland that is the true prize. Any place where actual crops can be grown is more valuable than anything else.

Let it Rot

Film: The Shrouds
Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!

David Cronenberg makes movies that are upsetting. He took a break from overt horror movies for a bit, but the movies he made were still upsetting in real ways (and I remain convinced that Eastern Promises is the most depressing movie with a happy ending I have ever seen). Lately, he’s slid back into horror films. The Shrouds is a film that touches on horror, but only in the sense that there are clear body horror elements to it, which is par for the course with Cronenberg. This is much more a science fiction drama with disturbing romance elements, but since it’s Cronenberg, horror is certainly going to be an element.

The Shrouds is also a film that has a suitably bizarre premise to get things going, something that Cronenberg is no stranger to. That’s not a necessity for Cronenberg, but it is pretty common. The central premise of The Shrouds is that there are people who, so distraught in grief by the loss of a loved one that they would want to be able to see the body of the body of that loved one decaying in the grave.

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

I watched some television in January as well. I finished a show from Shudder called Horror's Greatest, and it was a decent look at different aspects of the horror genre. I also finished the Fargo television show as my workout show, and I cannot recommend the show enough. Even if the stories weren't great (and they are), the cast list is one of the most impressive ever put together. The most out-of-the-norm show I watched was the She-Ra cartoon series that is soon being removed from NetFlix. Normally, that's not really my speed, but when an openly pro-gay, pro-trans, pro-feminist show that is not completely transferred to discs is about to disappear, potentially forever, I think it's important to watch.

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

My stated goal—usually one that I fall very short on—is to watch 400 movies every year. That sounds like a lot, but it’s a movie a day plus three movies per month (2 in February). That being the case, I need to watch 34 movies in January to be on pace. I watched 31, so I’m a touch behind, but not terribly so, and it feels like something easily surmountable. I did watch a ton of movies off the big list of stuff to catch up on, so that’s a help.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Director 2024

The Contenders:

Sean Baker: Anora (winner)
Brady Corbet: The Brutalist
James Mangold: A Complete Unknown
Jaques Audiard: Emilia Perez
Coralie Fargeat: The Substance

Ever Since I Was a Young Boy, I've Played the Silver Ball

Film: Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead
Format: Streaming video from Peacock on Fire!

The first Phantasm movie is a weird horror classic—the sort of movie that invites you into the mind of Don Coscarelli, who clearly has more ideas than he knows what to do with. The Phantasm movies are famous for the flying chrome spheres that reveal head-stabbing blades and drills that drain people of blood and for the presence of the undertaker-adjacent Tall Man (Angus Scrimm). The first movie is a fever dream of murder and aliens, as is the second. By the time we’ve reached Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead, Coscarelli has lost the plot in a lot of ways.

That’s the thing about the Phantasm movies: they don’t make a great deal of sense. Are they supernatural horror movies? Is the Tall Man actually connected to aliens on some distant planet? If so, why resurrect the dead? The reality is that you either buy into the insanity of the films and the series or you don’t. If you buy in, you’re going to see some things that don’t make a lot of sense but will stick with you.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 2024

The Contenders:

Sebastian Stan: The Apprentice
Adrien Brody: The Brutalist (winner)
Timothée Chalamet: A Complete Unknown
Ralph Fiennes: Conclave
Colman Domingo: Sing Sing

Not That Kind of Bone

Film: Bone Lake
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

When I saw that there was a movie called Bone Lake, I did immediately think that it was going to be a porn parody. Perhaps of Swan Lake? It’s not, of course, but that name is certainly sounds more like erotic thriller (in a crude way) than the horror movie it is. To be fair, it is equal parts horror and erotic thriller, so the name is doing double duty. “Bone” in this case is both the actual physical bones of victims as well as the more prurient use of the word as a verb. This fact is even lampshaded in the trailer.

What is interesting to me about Bone Lake initially is that the premise is one that is obvious. There’s a twist moment here that, if you don’t see it coming, you need to get off your phone and actually watch the movie. That first twist is followed by a second one that lands solidly. It’s not one that is necessary for the movie to work, but it comes as a surprise, and it genuinely does raise the film a bit in my estimation at least.

Herbert West Returns

Film: Beyond Re-Animator
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

For horror fans, the first time you see Re-Animator is one of those pivotal moments. It either solidifies exactly why you are a horror fan or you start to question your decisions. Needless to say, as a horror fan, it’s a film that I genuinely love. It’s disgusting, disturbing, transgressive, and funny. It’s clearly a horror film that is happy to have comedic moments without really being a horror comedy. So it’s not surprising that there’s actually a Re-Animator trilogy. Most people know Bride of Re-Animator (the natural name for a sequel to a Frankenstein-esque story), but Beyond Re-Animator is far less known.

Sadly, that’s probably for a good reason. Of the three movies in the series, this is clearly the least of the three, and not merely because it’s the third film in the trilogy, which is traditionally where a series tanks. The issue here is that it deviates from some of the established rules of the franchise.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 2024

The Contenders:

Mikey Madison: Anora (winner)
Karla Sofia Gascón: Emilia Pérez
Fernanda Torres: I’m Still Here
Demi Moore: The Substance
Cynthia Erivo: Wicked

Stay Tuned!

Film: The Running Man (2025)
Format: Streaming video from Paramount on Fire!

I don’t pay a lot of attention to new releases, although I do pay a little attention to them. In 2025, of all of the coming movies, the two I was the most excited about were The Long Walk and The Running Man, both based on books written by Stephen King under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman. The Long Walk made some clear changes to the book, but it kept the story generally the same, and it was generally a successful adaptation. But I was just as excited for The Running Man, which looked to be a legitimately accurate adaptation of the original book.

I need to stress this, because when I mention the book The Running Man, people get visions of Arnold Schwartzenegger and Richard Dawson. It’s a fun movie, but it’s not anything like the original story, which was transgressive, dystopian, and sweeping in a way that the first movie couldn’t approach. But sadly, The Running Man was getting lackluster reviews and didn’t stay in theaters long enough for me to see it there. I’ve seen it now, and there is a problem at the heart of it. To talk about it, though, we need to put this whole thing under a spoiler tag for both the movie and the original Bachman/King book. Consider yourself warned.

Deadbeat Dad

Film: Frankenstein (2025)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

I am not shy about my love of the work of Guillermo del Toro on this blog. I don’t often go to the theater, but Frankenstein is the first live-action del Toro film in a bit that I haven’t seen on its release. GdT has a reputation of loving his monsters. He’s also someone who, if you go through his films carefully, always makes humans worse than the monsters he shows us (or makes the standard vampires worse than the mutant vampires in Blade II). This is a running theme for him, so Frankenstein was an inevitability.

The running wisdom of the original Mary Shelley novel is that smart people realize that Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster; wise people realize that Dr. Frankenstein is the monster. Del Toro is going to stay true to this. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is absolutely the villain of this story, while the creature (Jacob Elordi), while monstrous in appearance and sometimes in action, is clearly being depicted as an innocent.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2024

The Contenders:

A Complete Unknown
Conclave (winner)
Emilia Perez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing

Jane's Addiction Approves

Film: Caught Stealing
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on gigantic television.

Long-time readers of this blog will know of my constant enjoyment of film noir, including neo-noir. I also tend to like Darren Aronofsky, although he is frequently hit-or-miss. Aronofsky doing noir has a lot of potential, so Caught Stealing is a film that certainly had a great deal of potential. I feel the same way about Austin Butler. I haven’t made my mind up about him completely as an actor, although he certainly has the look. Say what you will about him, he’s certainly pretty.

Caught Stealing takes place a couple of years before the turn of the last century in New York. Former baseball standout, San Francisco Giants fan, and dive bar bartender Hank Thompson (Butler) has his life not so much together as built the way he wants it. He works at night, drinks too much, and spends his nights after work with his nurse girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). Everything is fine until his British punk neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat while he goes back to London to visit his ailing father.