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.

That's a Killer Dress

Films: Last Night in Soho
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I don’t love all of the movies of Edgar Wright (I absolutely hated Scott Pilgrim), but I do tend to like them. I heard a lot of good about Last Night in Soho. It’s also worth saying that Wright doesn’t direct nearly enough; this was his first non-documentary, feature-length film in four years (thank you for the correction). So what did four years away from the director’s chair give us? I was curious to find out.

It's not immediately obvious what decade we’re going to be in at the start. We’re introduced to Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), who is enamored of the 1960s in all things—the music and fashion especially. It’s fashion that is her passion, though, and we soon see that she has been accepted to study at the London College of Fashion. She bids farewell to her grandmother (Rita Tushingham) and heads to the big city.

Ten Days of Terror!: Grindhouse

Film: Grindhouse
Format: Bluray from Somonauk Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are problems with reviewing Grindhouse on this blog. The primary problem is that on the They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They list, both of the two major parts of Grindhouse (Planet Terror and Death Proof) appear as separate listings. What’s a blogger to do in this case? If I write about the two movies here, I have nothing to write about when it comes to those reviews. Do I simply call this a triple feature? Do I review them here and review the missing scenes replaced in the full versions of the films? Instead, I figured I’d look at the part that links the two films: the fake (kinda) trailers.

There are four of them, and evidently there might be a fifth that was tapped in at some point, even if it wasn’t on the disc that I got. At the very least, it wasn’t on the version of the film(s) that came from the library, and it wasn’t in the version that I saw in the theater. That being the case, I’ll look at the four that are in the theatrical version. On the disc, they are in this order: Machete, directed by Robert Rodriguez; Werewolf Women of the SS, directed by Rob Zombie; Don’t, directed by Edgar Wright; and Thanksgiving, directed by Eli Roth. On the disc, Machete comes before Planet Terror and the other three come between the two movies.

Columbus Has Red on Him

Film: Zombieland; Shaun of the Dead
Format: DVDs from personal collection on basement television.

As mentioned recently, I collected a bunch of movies to watch during the stay-at-home order. It was more than 50 movies from my collection and from libraries. I’m nearing the end of that initial stack of movies and realized that there were two that would make a great double feature: Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. I mean, how often do you get to watch two genuinely classic zombie comedies together? Other than every day, I suppose—I do own them both. Anyway, it seemed like a great opportunity for a double, and I hadn’t done one of those in quite some time.

Zombieland in many ways is the American answer to Shaun of the Dead in that it’s clearly a zombie movie and clearly a comedy. The two are otherwise vastly different; Zombieland is an entirely American movie in every aspect of it. The character archetypes are fully American, the storyline, the goals of these characters, all of them scream that this was a film meant to very much be America’s response to the British film.

Your Face Picks Movies (Nolahn): The World's End

Film: The World’s End
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

This is the eleventh in a series of twelve movies selected by the guys at YourFace. This is Nolahn’s fourth and final pick.

Third movies in a trilogy are often a disappointment. Think of all the trilogies where things punk out in the third film: X-Men, Spider-Man, Alien, The Godfather…the list goes on. So it is that I avoided The World’s End, the third film of Edgar Wright’s unofficial Cornetto Trilogy, for fear that it wouldn’t live up to the cinematic joys of Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. Nolahn wouldn’t let me get away with that, though, so here we are.

Gary King (Simon Pegg) is working on a career as a wastrel and alcoholic finishes what looks like a 12-step meeting where he relates the story of the best night of his life—an attempt to have a pint at all 12 pubs in his home town. This feat, known as the Golden Mile, was abandoned. In an attempt to reclaim that past glory, Gary decides to track down his four estranged high school friends and reattempt the feat.

Nick's Pick: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Film: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Format: DVD from Johnsburg Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

This is the sixth in a series of monthly reviews suggested by Nick Jobe at YourFace.

I know that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a favorite of Nick’s, so of all of the films on his list, this is the one that made me the most nervous. I also thought I should give Nick a chance to defend it. Here is the Instant Messenger conversation I had with Nick while watching and after watching Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.