Ella McCay (James L. Brooks, 2025): 2/5

This is why I never trust adult male blondes. They are suspicious and almost always evil.

Is God Is (Alesha Harris, 2026): 3.5/5

Deeply spiritual, stylish, charming southern gothic about vengeance and its demons. Can someone bring William Faulkner back from the dead so he can see this film?

Backrooms (Kane Parsons, 2026): 4/5

Fractured, demolished homes, inside and out. It is the American Dream which is dead. It was buried before you got here. No amount of self-reflection, in those plunges to the depths of your psyche, or Sisyphean attempts to break your personal patterns, will save you. Materialism will not fill that void. Instead, we will find ourselves trapped in the abstract pointlessness of a place where comfort can kill you under a blinding fluorescent light. The best that we can do now is book the window seat and hope that the blue sky is really there.

Mother Mary (David Lowery, 2026): 3/5

Great chemistry from Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway as their characters revisit lost time. Lowery lends his great eye for visual poetry to complement a supernatural concept. With Lowery though, I keep having the gripe of not completely connecting to what he goes for. In my view, he writes his screenplays, and they seem to go in circles, to the point of getting muddled. By the time he arrives at his point, you feel lost. It was my same issue with The Green Knight. Full command of visual language, hit-or-miss with story execution.

Obsession (Curry Baker, 2026): 3.5/5

Oh my oh my, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions.

Quite good! An unexpected relief, really. We need more of these films - anything to stop the Star Wars corposlop machine.

Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier, 2025): 3.5/5

After not being a big Worst Person in the World fan, I was trepidatious, but this quietly shook me. Might have rated it higher if there hadn't been so many folk songs.

Faces of Death (Daniel Goldhaber, 2026): 2/5

Weird shit going down in Florida? Groundbreaking.

Project Hail Mary (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2026): 2.5/5

The endpoint of Spielberg admirers making their own films. Sentimentality through brute force because Lord and Miller are nowhere near capable enough filmmakers to handle those emotional stakes. They must undercut themselves constantly in the name of not being too serious or pretentious. Also, it is downright embarrassing just how much the filmmaking approximates Interstellar. A man on a mission to save the Earth, but this time he’s free of Earthly ties. What if he didn’t matter? Well, you’d have a film that’s profoundly empty.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy (Lee Cronin, 2026): 1.5/5

This included an eight year time jump and STILL came in at 2hrs 15.

The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli, 2026): 4/5

When I found out what the drama was I paused the movie and texted three people “do you know what the titular drama is in The Drama??”

The Wizard of the Kremlin (Olivier Assayas, 2026): 2/5

Putin became Putin because a very resentful guy got cheated on, is that what you are telling me?

In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison, 1967): 3.5/5

Yep this is a beauty. Poitier and Steiger are both phenomenal, the supporting cast is buzzing with raw talent, and every frame is a sweaty, saturated work of art.

We used to make FILMS, dammit.

They Will Kill You (Kirill Sokolov, 2026): 1.5/5

They Will Kill You? more like I Will Kill Myself. how about that?

Hokum (Damian McCarthy, 2026): 3/5

Hey you know how I know horrible things are going to happen to you here? There is a functional dumbwaiter.

rewatched The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher, 1987): 3/5

Peak Schumacher - no question. And a great example of 80s homoeroticism and queer-coding. And Leigh and I saw it with an excellent crowd!

Also: when I saw this for the first time as a teenager I was drooling over Jami Gertz and now as a 40 year old I’m like “hello there 39 year old Dianne Wiest.”

Growth. Maturity.