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

I’m still watching The Sopranos as my workout show, and should be just about finished (but possibly not quite) by the end of July. I’m very close on finishing The Americans as well. On the MCU front, I rewatched The Defenders, which feels like a huge lost opportunity. I also watched The Inhumans, the easiest MCU show to skip and in which every single character is a miserable ass. I watched the last season of High Potential, which continues to be a great show, and also watched Hilda, which is great and should be watched by any kids interested in anything. Finally, I finished Gen V, and am now finishing The Boys so I can be done with that universe completely.

What I’ve Caught Up With, June 2026
Film: Marie Antoinette (2006)

Sofia Coppola took endless grief for her performance in The Godfather Part III and also for the gonzo casting and modern rock soundtrack for Marie Antoinette. The film paints Marie (Kirsten Dunst) as something of a naïve, unaware of her own privilege and lost in a world of petty rivalries and splendor. While the film was unfairly maligned on its release, sympathy for the hideously wealthy is a hard sell these days, and this one hasn’t aged that well. The casting is interesting—Rip Torn as Louis XV and Jason Schwartzman as his son, with Molly Shannon as an attendant of the queen. Parts of this still work, but again, asking me to feel sorry for royalty is going to be a hard pass.

Film: Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers (2002)

I genuinely enjoyed Babylon 5 and I’ve liked the movies that have added something to the entire mythos. Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers is the first time where I feel you could legitimately skip it and lose nothing. The biggest reason for this is that with the exception of G’Kar (the always impressive Andreas Katsulas), all of the characters here are new. This has the shape of a Babylon 5 story and a lot of the same feel and background, but it feels like the store brand version, Kirkland or Great Value 5 instead of Babylon 5. The story is fine, but after spending 100 hours or more with the crew of B5, it’s genuinely difficult to find the will to care that much about a bunch of newbies. Even if you’ve watched all of Babylon 5 up to this point, you would be hard pressed to call this one necessary.

Film: A Damsel in Distress (1937)

Innocuous ‘30s screwball rom-com with a plot that could have been solved with a two-minute conversation. Mistaken identity forces a love story between Lady Alyce Marshmorton (Joan Fontaine) and American entertainer Jerry Halliday (Fred Astaire) while Lady Alyce’s family servants place bets on who she will eventually marry. Remove the singing and dancing numbers, and this becomes a two-reel short. There’s one number at a carnival that feels like half the running time. The plot is nothing special. The real prize here is the comedic talents of Gracie Allen and straight man George Burns. Every comic persona in a comedic duo from the Vaudeville days pales to how smart/stupid Gracie is and her perfect delivery. This film is forgettable aside from her, but she is enough.

Film: Destination Moon (1950)

The 1950s were rife with space exploration science fiction films. Destination Moon is one that tried to be as based in actual science. After a series of failed rocket tests, government funding for Dr. Charles Cargraves (Warner Anderson) dries up. Under the direction of General Thayer (Tom Powers) and business magnate Jim Barnes (John Archer), a plan is hatched to launch an atomic rocket to go to the moon. There are plenty of hiccups along the way. This feels like a fictional version of Apollo 13, including someone who misses out on being a part of the crew because of an illness. It’s filled with pro-capitalism propaganda, sort of like Ayn Rand wrote a space story—the fact that it was Robert Heinlein doesn’t change this feeling a bit. It’s a compelling story despite this.

Film: Cherry 2000 (1987)

In the distant future of 2017(!), human interaction has become something litigated, with one-night stands happening only after the parties come to terms through their lawyers. It’s not a huge shock, then, that guys like Sam Treadwell (David Andrews) pursue romance with robots instead. His robot, the titular Cherry 2000 (Pamela Gidley) has gone on the fritz, and is no longer manufactured. The solution? Hire a tracker named E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith) to lead him into a savage wasteland where unused robots have been dumped. This is predictable and camp, and Griffith playing a hardened bounty hunter is about as silly as it sounds. Honestly, if you want this basic plot of human/robot romance, look for Circuitry Man from a few years later.

Film; Cinderella (1950)

After watching The Ugly Stepsister, it made sense to take a look at Cinderella itself, one of the classics of Disney animation. This is clearly a sanitized version of the original tale, which involves the sisters mutilating their feet and having their eyes pecked out by birds, but that’s not going to fly in a kids’ movie from 1950. It’s hard not to like it, even if the story is pretty paper-thin. The animation is beautiful and the songs are good. I would like for them to get her name right, though. Cinderella’s name is Ella, and she was forced by her stepmother to live in the cinders. It’s not my favorite classic Disney, but it's an easy watch and pretty harmless.