My Top 25 of the Last 25: Reviews

This was by far the toughest of these lists to write, and not just because the research took so much longer than I anticipated.  Many of these reviews are challenging to access now, and I spent a lot of time cursing at paywalls as I dug through old archives and hit a lot of dead links.  A few reviews are not on this list simply because the podcast or publication in which it originally existed has been lost to time.  This feature would not have been possible without the Wayback Machine, for which I am eternally grateful.  Frankly, serious critical reviews of any kind are getting much too rare.  Most of the entries below are movie reviews, but there are reviews for a few other things as well, including a fictional review of a fictional restaurant.  

I tried to keep a balance between the positive reviews and negative ones, putting more emphasis on the thoughtful longform pieces.  Some of these reviews were chosen by the critics themselves, because in a few cases I knew I wanted the reviewer on the list but had trouble picking a specific piece.  David Ehrlich, for example, has claimed his favorite review that he's written is the one for "Personal Shopper," and I can't find any reason to disagree with him.

As with all the lists in this series, there are 25 entries, but only the top ten get writeups.   In the interests of keeping this list more navigable, I'm simply listing the critic and what they reviewed, and leaving off the actual titles of the reviews as some of them get confusing.  I'm also leaving off the publications in most cases, as a few went through name changes or got sold off to other companies, and untangling those webs is not something I'm keen on spending more time doing.  

Justin Chang, "Oppenheimer" - I didn't particularly like "Oppenheimer," and I didn't see what Justin Chang saw in the film - and more importantly what he and others didn't see in the film.  However, I came to appreciate what Christopher Nolan was doing more after reading Chang's passionate analysis of "the radical subjectivity" of "Oppenheimer" and the complicated cultural and historical waters that a biography of this kind has to navigate.  

Manohla Dargis, "The Dark Knight" - I had the hardest time picking a review for Dargis, but I finally settled on her meticulously constructed positive review of "The Dark Knight," because it does such a thorough and thoughtful job of articulating all the reasons why the film stood out from the blockbuster crowd.  While I enjoy the critics with entertaining writing, it's the ones who can really put together a strong argument that I find indispensable.    

David Erhlich, "Personal Shopper" - It's a brave reviewer who puts so much of themselves in their reviews, and it doesn't get more personal than this.  Ehrlich grapples with the death of a loved one while writing about "Personal Shopper," a singular ghost story.  Along the way, he also interviews star Kristen Stewart and filmmaker Olivier Assayas and contributes his own musings on the nature of film, interpersonal connections, and modern technology.  

Roger Ebert, "Synecdoche, New York" - I planned to write about Ebert's fantastic "Grave of the Fireflies" review, only to discover it was published a few months too early for this list.  I also considered some of his legendary pans, such as the ones for "Pearl Harbor" or "The Human Centipede."  But I went with the "Synecdoche, New York" review, because it is a film we both loved, and Ebert was always at his best championing the movies that he loved.

Film Crit Hulk, "The Last Jedi" - There have been so many writeups on what happened with "The Last Jedi" and the "Star Wars" fandom, but Film Crit Hulk's reasonably-sized rave about "The Last Jedi" and the very, very, very long follow-up piece he wrote for The Observer about the fan backlash are really all you need to understand what happened.  The length is typical for Film Crit Hulk, a critic who could not have existed in his current form pre-internet.  

Hbomberguy's review of The Nostalgia Critic's review of "The Wall" - The video essay is sometimes a very good vehicle for reviews, and Hbomberguy's takedown of The Nostalgia Critic's musical parody of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" has become one of the most notorious.  It's not just a review of a review, but a review of a reviewer's entire modus operandi, and it's a scathing one.  In fact, it bears a few similarities to the next entry on the list, which brings up to…

Andrea Long Chu, A Little Life and other works by Hanya Yanagihara - As someone who hasn't been much of a reader, particularly of prestigious modern literature, Andrea Long Chu's description of the misery-porn plot of A Little Life sounded too tasteless and ridiculous to be real.  The accompanying critique is lengthy, merciless, very well written, and I'd feel sorry for Yanagihara if it weren't for her book's evisceration clearly being so richly deserved.  

Emily St. James, "Mad Men" - To be specific, these are the AV Club reviews that St. James wrote as the show was airing weekly in the 2010s.  Long form television recapping and reviews really only happened with the advent of the internet, and I knew I had to represent them on this list somehow.  So, I'm picking St James's "Mad Men" reviews, because I read them as I binged the show, and I find that I can't mentally separate the two experiences.  I know I'm not alone.

Pete Wells, Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar in Midtown Times Square - I don't know anything about food, but this is a very entertaining piece of writing and well worth revisiting.

Stephanie Zacharek, "Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door" - Finally, I think this is the only major negative review I've found of Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," a film that Zacharek uses to contrast against in her rave for Shiniciro Watanabe's "Cowboy Bebop" feature - an obscure science-fiction anime romp aimed at adults.  I disagree with her conclusions, but agree with most of her arguments and deeply appreciate her willingness to make them.

The next fifteen:

David Denby, "Ida" and "Detropia"

Phil Hoad, Yoshitaro Nomura's "The Demon"

Charlie Jane Anders "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen"

Noah Antwiler "Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge"

Anthony Lane "Air"

Wesley Morris, "The Help" and "The Fast and Furious" movies

Jenny Nicholson, Star Wars Galaxy's Edge hotel

The Oatmeal, Twilight

Nathan Rabin, "Megalopolis"

Alan Sepinwall "The Sopranos" and "Atlanta"

A.O. Scott, "Joker"

Lindy West, "Sex and the City 2"

Mark Kermode,"Sex and the City 2"

and 

"Top Gear," a green Ford Fiesta

Anton Ego, Gusteau's Restaurant

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"The Christophers" Charms

I would not have guessed that Steven Soderberg directed "The Christophers," but I'm not surprised that he did.  This is a small, playful, twisty film about two stubborn people who are smarter than they're letting on, and that's right up his alley.  There has been a certain showy experimentation with Soderberg's recent films, like "Presence" and "Black Bag," where the visual style makes itself very apparent.  Here the camera is much more subdued, and in service of an excellent original script from Ed Solomon.

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellan play a pair of artists, Lori Butler and Julian Sklar.  Sklar is a famous, aging painter who is decades past his prime, but still celebrated, especially for two series of portraits of a male lover he completed in the '90s, known as The Christophers.  Spurred by one of these paintings selling for millions at auction, Sklar's unscrupulous adult children, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and Barnaby (James Corden) hatch a scheme to have Sklar's unfinished and abandoned third series of Christophers completed by a forger, so they can be sold after Sklar's death.  They turn to Sallie's old art school classmate Lori Butler, now an art restorer, who is intrigued by the challenge, and comes to work for Sklar under the pretense of being a new assistant, so she can access his abandoned work and materials.

"The Christophers" is largely a two-hander where Sklar and Butler debate art and authorship, while gradually revealing more and more about themselves.  This is the best performance I've seen from McKellan in a very long time.  Julian Sklar is a complex, wonderfully talkative old rascal, who is dealing with a lot of regrets and unfinished business as the end of his life approaches.  He's introduced in a fantastic scene where Butler is starting her first day in his employ, and he barely lets her get a word in edgewise as he regales her with a torrent of commentary about life, art, the artistic establishment, and records a Cameo message for a fan too.  He's elderly, but still sharp, witty, and technologically proficient.  However, soon enough Butler starts talking back, lobbing back her own opinions and observations about Sklar, his work, and his career.  Coel does a lot with long silences, and her character is the one who withholds more information that has to be sussed out a little at a time.  The two are very well matched, and wonderful to listen to as they match wits and inevitably become fond of one another.  I initially assumed "The Christophers" was based on a stage play, given the limited cast and settings.

I appreciate that the film deals seriously with its themes, discussing major issues in the art world related to who can claim credit for a painting, how the financial stakes affect the art, and the price of fame.  Sklar rails against art schools and art critics, but can quote every review he's gotten.  He disdains the people who buy his paintings, but seems to take every opportunity to monetize his dimming celebrity. His personal life is a shambles, but it's also not hard to see where the terrible Sklar children learned their bad behavior from.  As for the forgery scheme, it's not a black and white situation.  The film rightly points out that everyone stands to gain from her deception, including the artist, depending how Butler plays it.  This isn't a film for those who have to be convinced that the fine arts have value - that's a given.  It's a film for those who know not to root for Sklar or Butler, but for the artwork itself.

"The Christophers" is a small film, and I fear it will be easily overlooked when awards season rolls around.  And since Stever Soderbergh is such a prolific filmmaker, there's a danger that those familiar with his work might be tempted to skip it, assuming it's another in his ever-growing collection of offbeat formal experiments and small scale genre exercises.  "The Christophers" is neither.  It is a refreshingly earnest and heartfelt film about art and artists that has a lot on its mind.  And at the time of writing, it's my favorite film of the year to date. 

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Into "The Amazing Digital Circus"

I watched "The Amazing Digital Circus" web series, which made waves a few months ago for premiering its final episodes in movie theaters for two weeks and collecting a tidy sum at the box office.  There are only nine episodes in total, which are all free on Youtube, so this didn't require much effort.  I previously wrote up a few thoughts on the pilot episode a few years ago, as part of a post on independent web animation.  My opinion was initially mixed, and is now a little more positive after watching the whole series, but only a little.  Keep in mind that the show is for a young adult audience, and I am old and jaded.

"The Amazing Digital Circus" is about a collection of characters who discover themselves in a VR circus environment, under the control of a hyperactive AI ringmaster named Caine (Alex Rochon), who insists on making them all participate in a series of random adventures.  It's loosely based on Harlan Ellison's horror short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," but the AI is more misguided and whimsical than psychopathic.  The other main characters, including the newcomer Ponmi (Lizzie Freeman), are all humans who remember their former lives outside the circus, but can't figure out how to escape back to their real lives.  They've all been given cartoonish digital avatars and silly new names, which contrast against the nightmarish reality of being trapped in a place where they have no control.  Ponmi learns that the humans who become too unstable will "abstract" into corrupted forms, never to be recovered.   

"The Amazing Digital Circus" looks like a low-budget children's program from the 2000s, the kind that used early CGI animation with high polygon counts.  I do not find this visually appealing, but I got used to the style quickly.  It makes sense aesthetically, given what we learn about Caine at the origins of the Circus.  I was less happy to discover that the trapped humans are mostly a bunch of depressed young adults who have a tendency to broadcast their personality flaws and mental health issues.  Ponmi, a jester doll, is meek and anxious.  Jax (Michael Kovach) the purple rabbit is a bully and asshole.  Ragatha (Amanda Hufford), the distinct-enough-from-Raggedy-Ann doll, is kindly but neurotic.  Zooble (Ashley Nichols) is a collection of mismatched pieces who prefers to be uninvolved and blase.  Gangle (Marissa Lenti) is an easily bullied sad-sack who looks like a theater mask and a tangle of ribbons.  Finally there's the oldest member of the gang, Kinger (Sean Chiplock), a chess piece with a scrambled mind.  

Most of the episodes follow some arbitrary task or adventure set out by Caine, and the characters' larger goal is to learn more about the Circus.  However, it soon becomes apparent that the real point of the series is to make friends and become a found family in the face of adversity.  Like many recent cartoons for older children and teenagers, "Digital Circus" features darker, emotionally fraught subject matter in (mostly) kid-friendly packaging, and ultimately it all boils down to examinations of self esteem and mental health.  So, anyone trying to figure out how the Circus came about, or who's pulling the strings behind the scenes, or if there's some greater mystery to getting out of the characters' existential nightmare, will get a few answers but none that are very satisfying, because the show fundamentally isn't that interested in any of this.  The edgy horror premise delivers a few fun shocks in the early going, but fizzles out as the stories get more character-based and touchy-feely.  It doesn't help that the worldbuilding is basic, the narrative is arbitrary (the finale depends heavily on a villain just deciding not to be bad anymore), and the tropey characters spend most of their time caught up in internal rather than external problems.  Only about half of the main characters get real arcs that allow for any development, and the storytelling is consistently very clumsy and self-indulgent. 

And for an independently created web series, this is pretty common.  Frankly, it's extremely impressive that Gooseworx and Glitch Studios managed to turn out a series this ambitious with the limited resources they had.  And that it has achieved so much success and found such a rabid audience is very heartening, for those of us who want more independent productions in this vein.  However, you can't get away from the production feeling very amateurish and uneven.  I suspect that none of the major creatives involved have ever made anything on this scale before.  The best thing I can say about "Digital Circus" is that it noticeably improves in quality over its nine episodes, even if it doesn't quite manage to pull off its transformation from an absurdist horrorshow that pushes edgy shocks in the pilot, to a more sincere melodrama that prioritizes wholesome feels by the finale.  But it was good enough to leave me wanting more.

That's a pretty strong indicator that whatever Gooseworx does next will be worth watching.     

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"Buffet Infinity" Invites Your Worship

I'm not much of a horror fan, and I'm not the type to get obsessed over weird little indie movies.  However, once in a while a weird little indie horror film comes along that is so original and so exactly to my tastes, that I have no choice but to sing its praises.  So today, I invite you to behold the Canadian horror satire "Buffet Infinity," a horror film told entirely through chintzy local television commercials for businesses located in the fictional Westridge County, Alberta, plus a few local news broadcasts, and some sinister public service announcements.  

90% of the effectiveness of the film, written and directed by Simon Glassman, is just getting the aesthetics right.  I spent a lot of my childhood watching the local television stations, and especially the foreign language programming that would air these low budget ads for my very specific community, featuring the kind of people who would never be on television otherwise.  Some were creative and well-produced enough to turn a few of the spokespeople and business owners into minor celebrities.  Most, however, were just strange little curiosities that were very much of their time.  And with the advent of the digital age and the great migration of viewers to the internet, I don't think I've seen ads like this in a decade.  At least, not the kind featured in "Buffet Infinity" with the wonky video quality, the over-bright color schemes, chunky onscreen text, and directions to the location nearest you.  "Buffet Infinity" was shot entirely in Edmonton, and most of the actors came from the local stand-up comedy scene.  It does not surprise me at all that some of the fake ads are directly spoofing real ads for Edmonton businesses.

Adult Swim explored similar ground with some of their originals, like the infomercial spoof "Broomshakalaka," and the immortal sitcom-skewering "Too Many Cooks," which both combined old linear television ephemera with dissonant horror elements.  "Tim and Eric" and "SCTV" sketches  have also been cited as influences.  In order to make "Buffet Infinity" feature length, however, it offers a much more involved story.  We channel-surf through several rounds of ads for a shopping center near a worrisome sinkhole, gradually learni that the new buffet restaurant  is evil, and responsible for a large number of disappearances in the area.  Nearby businesses, like the rival sandwich shop run by Jennifer Joy Avery (Allison Bench), are systematically targeted with negative ads by Buffet Infinity, and eventually taken over.  Other recurring characters include lawyer Mostley Rosin (Kevin Singh), promoting his firm's legal services, Ahmed Ahmed (as himself) offering deals at a nearby pawn shop, Captain Savings (Brandon Vanderwall) who wants to sell you a car, a man in a series of black and white self help ads (Donovan Workun), a woman (Clare Theobald) peddling insurance, and a science-fiction author, Reverence Langdon B. Hershey (Dino Primo), who seems to be running a cult.

You would think that sitting through ninety minutes of fake ads, no matter how well done, would get old quickly.  However, "Buffet Infinity" uses the same techniques that real television ads do to keep the audience's attention, and the pleasant, lulling quality of the marketing pitches has a similar hypnotic effect.  Even without the darker, lurking forces of the larger plot, the filmmakers capture the slightly off-putting nature of the fake smiles, exaggerated claims, and passive-aggressive attempts to engage with the viewers.  Maybe that's why I didn't feel too bad about watching these television creatures become corrupted and overtaken by whatever evil force is controlling Buffet Infinity.  The production values are so shoestring throughout that the horror frequently edges into camp anyhow.

As with most wonderfully ambitious microbudget indie films like this, "Buffet Infinity" is very uneven.  I thought the first half was great, but once the plot took a turn toward more conventional horror, it started to come apart.  It probably would have turned out better if Glassman had resisted the urge to give us an explanation of what was actually going on, and leave things more ambiguous.  I'm still thoroughly impressed with what he accomplished, but I think "Buffet Infinity" will work best for those who already love weird and obscure films like this.  Frankly, it doesn't get much weirder than this.     

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"The Terror," Year Three

There's a mystery that I went into the third installment of "The Terror" intent on solving, but I never came up with a satisfying answer.  I'd read the Victor LaValle book that this new miniseries is based on, The Devil in Silver and I couldn't figure out why it was decided that this was good source material for a series of "The Terror."  The first two were historical fiction as well as being supernatural thrillers.  The Devil in Silver takes place in the present day.  It does feature some flashbacks, but I wouldn't characterize it as a big part of the book or the new season.  

Pepper (Dan Stevens) is arrested for assaulting his girlfriend's ex, and the cops decide to dump him at New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital for a few days to avoid paperwork.  Under the care of Dr. Anand (Aasif Mandvi) and Head Nurse Miss Chris (CCH Pounder), Pepper quickly discovers that he's trapped in an administrative Catch-22, unable to keep his behavior in check long enough to get out of the facility on his own, and with no one able to intercede for him on the outside.  He eventually makes friends with the other patients, including his roommate Coffee (Chinaza Uche), long time resident Dorry (Judith Light), and aggressive youngster Loochie (b).  From them he learns about the mysterious presence in the hospital, apparently connected to a room behind a silver door that's off limits.  Other members of the cast include Stephen Root, John Benjamin Hickey, and Maureen Sebastian.

"The Devil in Silver" is all around a puzzling creation.  I found it very difficult to follow the story, even though I'd read the source novel.  Unlike the previous seasons of "The Terror," "The Devil in Silver" is only six episodes, and feels extremely rushed.  The plotting is messy and haphazard, and my guess is that the episode order was cut down at least once.  I liked many of the individual performances, and I thought that the premise was very well set up, but a lot of the dramatic potential was squandered.  Worse, it was rarely very scary.  In fact, the more we knew about the supernatural forces behind the bad things happening at the hospital, the less scary it got.  

Where the series is strongest is when it focuses on the plight of the patients, who are a vulnerable population unable to properly advocate themselves, stuck in a dysfunctional, understaffed, underfunded institution where they've been all but forgotten.  The staff shows moments of kindness, but have their own problems to worry about.  Coffee and Dorry both get spotlight episodes, which are among the strongest of the season.  Dr. Anand is often put in the part of petty tyrant, but his concerns over New Hyde being shut down are reasonable.  If the place goes down, will the patients have anywhere to go?  My favorite parts of the book were likewise the examinations of systemic and social issues.

Conversely, the series is at its weakest when it's trying to be a genre piece.  The show runs into the same trouble with its supernatural elements that so many weaker horror thrillers do, which is that it spends too much time trying to answer questions that nobody asked.  Do we really need to get into a convoluted backstory to understand that there's something bad in the hospital preying on everyone?  Why do the phenomena associated with it seem so inconsistent from appearance to appearance?  Even though we have Pepper on heavy medication being an unreliable narrator to account for some of the inconsistencies, the writing is downright sloppy.  Worse, it's not nearly as much fun to watch as it should be. 

Still, the production values are excellent, and the talent involved is strong - directing duties are handled by Karyn Kusama, Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr., and Craig William Macneill.  The ensemble is consistently very good, though Dan Stevens often feels hampered by weak material.  Judith Light as the dotty Dorry is my pick for MVP.  It feels ungenerous to say this, but I wish I'd seen the dumbed down, two hour version of this story that simply focused on the scares and the thrills, instead of the more ambitious miniseries version that never seems to quite know what it wants to be.      

  

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My Favorite James Cameron Film

James Cameron has a pretty short filmography, but most of his films have made so much money that his reputation as a filmmaker and hitmaker looms larger than almost any of his contemporaries.  The only reason that it's taken me this long to feature him is because he didn't make his tenth narrative film until "Avatar: Fire and Ash."  I could've used some of his documentary work to fill the gap, the way I have with other directors, but here it didn't feel right.  James Cameron will never be famous for being a nature documentarian.  He will always be known for the gigantic blockbusters that blew everyone's minds, and raised our expectations for cinema spectacle.  His influence has been unmissable in the modern film landscape, and this entry is definitely overdue. 

So, let's go back to the summer of 1991 when every kid's favorite movie was the R-rated Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick with the awesome chase scenes and brain-bending CGI special effects that let the bad guy look like liquid metal.  The hype was inescapable.  I remember watching the edited version of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"  multiple times on television, and discovering the gnarlier original years later, with all the swearing and more disturbing kills, plus a whole nuclear annihilation sequence I hadn't known about.  But to be honest, the edits didn't make much of a difference to me.  What caught my attention from the beginning were the effects and action sequences directly related to Robert Patrick's T-1000 Terminator character, which were so much cooler than what anybody else was doing at the time.  

Cameron has always been known as a technological innovator, and has made this part of his public persona.  There was an upswing in interest about the "movie magic" of special effects during this era, and Cameron's movies were often the primary examples of the use of new technologies like computer generated imagery, advanced prosthetics, and novel creature effects.  "Terminator 2" was sold on the appeal of all this shiny maximalist spectacle, with a larger-than-life movie star fighting an impossible science-fiction monster that could only exist on the silver screen.  However, the film was also full of old fashioned filmmaking tricks like the use of doubles, models, clever editing, and skillful stunt work.  I always watched the behind-the-scenes features about the making of Cameron films whenever I could, to marvel at all the effort that went into  visuals that might appear onscreen for only a few seconds.   

"Terminator 2" was a hit in spite of several things working against it.  It was a sequel to a horror film that was switching genres to action-adventure, in order to accommodate the rising stardom of Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The marketing completely spoiled what was supposed to be the big surprise of his T-800 Terminator being the good guy in this movie, where he'd previously been the bad guy in the original.  Watching the movie as a child, however, the story was easy for me to grasp.  You had a good Terminator helping Edward Furlong and Linda Hamilton, and a bad Terminator who was trying to kill them.  Arnold's difficulties with the English language were solved by having him speak entirely in catchphrases, which young Xennials quickly adopted into their own lexicons.  I also salute the decision to let Linda Hamilton become a full-fledged badass action hero in this movie, paving the way for more female action stars in the years ahead.      

It's the simple, uncomplicated nature of "Terminator 2" that still appeals to me, and why I never attempted to write this post about any of James Cameron's other films.  In "Titanic" and "Avatar" you have to contend with middling melodrama and tepid romance before you get to the fun parts.  "Terminator" is just one set piece after another - chase scenes, escape scenes, infiltrations, showdowns, and eruptions of beautifully orchestrated cinema carnage.  Arnold Schwarzenegger was so impossibly cool onscreen, we were all on a first name basis with him after this.  If you believe that blockbuster films are worthy of being treated as art, and I do, then you have to give the work of James Cameron its due.  In terms of pure spectacle, I don't think any film has ever surpassed "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" for me.  

And I watch a lot of movies.    

What I've Seen - James Cameron

Piranha II: The Spawning (1982)

The Terminator (1984)

Aliens (1986)

The Abyss (1989)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

True Lies (1994)

Titanic (1997)

Avatar (2009)

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

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"The Institute," Year One

Here's a Stephen King supernatural series that flew under the radar last year.  "The Institute," based on the 2019 novel, strikes me as King putting his own spin on some well-worn tropes, but if you're genre savvy at all, it's going to seem pretty humdrum.  This is the kind of show that plays a gloomy, slowed-down cover of Tears For Fears' "Shout" over an opening credits sequence that has a lot of spoilers in it.  Still, we're not all genre savvy, and I like that "The Institute" plays a lot of this material straight.  There are some talented people involved, and a few good performances to take in.  This often feels like a gateway Stephen King title for younger viewers who need a little more hand-holding, and that's not a bad thing.  

Created by Benjamin Cavell and largely directed by Jack Bender, "The Institute" follows two main protagonists.  One is Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes), a drifter ex-cop who takes up the position of "night knocker" in the small, remote town of DuPray.  The other is Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman), a bright fourteen year-old who wakes up one day in the Institute, a foreboding facility where a group of kids have been recruited to help "save the world," according to the sinister director, Mrs. Sigsby (Mary Louise Parker).  There is no contact with the outside world and everyone is clearly lying to them.  It turns out that the kids all have telepathic or telekinetic abilities that the staff is going to help them access, whether they like it or not.  

I like the early episodes of the show when it's about the kids - Luke, Kalisha (Simone Miller), Nick (Fionn Laird), George (Arlen So), and Avery (Viggo Hanvelt) - slowly exploring the Institute and learning a little more about what's going on from episode to episode.  Luke gradually works out what all the casually dropped acronyms mean, and where the kids go when they're moved to the "Back Half" of the Institute, while getting familiar with the staff - the sadistic guard Tony (Jason Diaz), the sympathetic housekeeper Maureen (Jane Luk), and Dr. Hendricks (Robert Joy), who is in charge of all the testing.  The audience is also privy to scenes of Sigsby and her underling Stackhouse (Julian Richings) running other operations to shield The Institute from prying eyes, and keeping their mysterious unseen bosses happy.  

The trouble really comes from the show also being obligated to also follow Tim Jamieson in DuPray, as he gets to know the people of the town and starts wondering about that mysterious research facility nearby that may be related to a few unexplained deaths.  Ben Barnes has no trouble keeping my attention, but watching his interactions with the initially hostile police officer Wendy (Hannah Galway), a reporter (Jordan Alexander), and the local bag lady (Mary Walsh) gets dull in a hurry, especially when it takes time away from what's going on with the kids in the Institute.  I think the show generally does a good job with pacing though.  Very few of the reveals come as a surprise, but they aren't dragged out either.  From what I can tell, the entire King novel was adapted in these eight episodes, so we get a perfectly decent ending, and this season of the show can be treated like a miniseries.

Keeping in mind that Stephen King has been writing about kids with telepathic powers since "Carrie" and "Firestarter," I wasn't expecting much in the way of actual thrills.  However, I was surprised at how much "The Institute" eschews traditional horror and plays out like a typical crime or prison drama.  The villains are normal human beings empowered by a faceless authority to do terrible things.  The kids are portrayed as pretty normal kids, and are no match for them at all.  The best parts of the show are focused on Luke and his friends trying to deal with their horribly constrained existence in the Institute itself.  This is the first time I've seen Joe Freeman in anything.  He's good at making Luke seem like the smartest person in the room, yet still completely out of his depth.  I also enjoy Mary Louise Parker as a baddie, and hope she does it more often.  However, a couple of the other actors are on the shaky side, and I'm not talking about the kids.  

So, while "The Institute" is not one of the better Stephen King shows I've seen, it's a perfectly decent watch and I'm not surprised that a second season has been announced.  

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"Heartburn" and "Postcards Form the Edge"

I tracked down two of Mike Nichols's films that he made with Meryl Streep, both of them based on the memoirs of famous women who wrote for the movies.  One is "Heartburn," a loosely fictionalized account of Nora Ephron's marriage to Carl Bernstein, and the very public subsequent divorce.  The other is "Postcards From the Edge," a loosely fictionalized account of Carrie Fisher's recovery from drug addiction and her relationship with her mother, Debbie Reynolds.  "Postcards" got much better reviews when it was initially released, but I liked "Heartburn" better. 

I don't necessarily think that "Heartburn" is the better film, but it's far more to my tastes.  Rachel (Streep) is a divorcee who falls for Mark (Jack Nicholson), also divorced, but has strong misgivings about marrying him.  Nonetheless, she goes all in on a new life together, navigating housing woes and motherhood, before infidelity throws a wrench in the works.  Streep's performance here is from that early part of her career when she was able to just disappear into the characters she played without a trace.  I found it so easy to empathize with her, and share the ups and downs of the relationship.  And a big strength of "Heartburn" is that the highs are as strong as the lows.  When the marriage is good, it's good.  Nicholson is terribly charming, and there are scenes of bonding and intimacy that are truly heartwarming and uplifting, while also being very ordinary in the best way.  It also helps that Ephron wrote the script, and I've loved her writing for decades.   

"Postcards From the Edge," written by Carrie Fisher, features a Meryl Streep that I instantly recognized as the Meryl Streep who has been a movie star for the last thirty-odd years.  She plays Suzanne Vale, an actress and the daughter of screen legend Doris Mann (Shirley MacLaine).  We start with Suzanne at a low point, ODing during a film shoot, and being sent to rehab.  After checking out, she discovers that the only way she'll be allowed to work again is if she moves back in with her mother, who she finds overbearing and impossible.  Also involved are a new love interest (Dennis Quaid), a fed-up director (Gene Hackman), and a very nice doctor (Richard Dreyfuss).  There are some excellent individual scenes, and just about everything involving Streep and MacLaine sings (sometimes literally).  However, the struggles with addiction and the jabs at the fakery of Hollywood didn't do much for me.  I have a history of being less interested in movies about actors, though this one was perfectly fine.  I just never got as invested as I did with "Heartburn."

The two films are so different in subject matter and tone that comparing them feels ungenerous.  "Postcards From the Edge" was made four years after "Heartburn," when Streep was deliberately moving into more commercial fare.  Though both ensemble casts feature a lot of well-known actors, "Postcards" is more self-consciously star-studded, and is very much a Hollywood story.  The comedy is broader and the melodrama more theatrical, though there are a few wry moments of honesty too.  "Heartburn," though it's about a pair of famous writers, feels like it could be about any couple trying to navigate a bad   marriage.  There are some nods toward the East Coast milieu where Ephron was based in the late '70s, but most of the narrative keeps the focus on Rachel and Mark's fairly mundane day-to-day lives.  Rachel's writing is used as a framing device, but has little to do with the plot, while Suzanne's career struggles are central to her movie.   

And in the end I'm very glad that I saw both.  Both movies offered a wealth of surprises, from Annette Bening's brief but winning appearance as a rival actress in "Postcards From the Edge," to Jack Nicholson breaking out the showtunes in "Heartburn."  It's been so long since I've seen a good Jack Nicholson movie.  And it's been a few years since we lost Carrie Fisher, Nora Ephron, and Mike Nichols, and I miss them all.        

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Deep In "The Drama"

To understand what kind of film "The Drama" is, and whether you're likely or not to enjoy it, you've got to ignore the stars for a minute.  We'll get back to them soon, I promise.  Right now, let's note that the film was written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, a Norwegian filmmaker whose one previous English language film was "Dream Scenario" with Nicholas Cage.  It was an A24 film that got good reviews, but almost no mainstream attention.  Borgli's American films have been produced by Ari Aster, and they have the same sort of bleak, pitch-black comedic tone as Aster's films like "Eddington" and "Beau is Afraid."  Borgli's films aren't as nihilistic or anxiety-inducing, fortunately, but I still found "Dream Scenario" a tough watch because the main character was so alienating, the story was a downer, and the worldbuilding felt a little off.  Fortunately, "The Drama" manages to move away from this, to its benefit. 

Firstly, "The Drama" is working off of a much more audience-friendly premise, with a cast of charismatic young actors.  Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are a young couple in love and deep in the process of wedding planning.  One night, when they're out with their married friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamadou Athie), they all have too much to drink and confess to the worst things that they've ever done.  Emma's confession is so unexpected and disturbing that Charlie starts rethinking their whole relationship.  The reaction of their friends also prompts soul-searching and paranoia on Emma's part, and she's determined to keep the damage of the revelation from spreading.  I'm not going to spoil what the revelation is or the various twists and turns that happen as a result, but I caution that the characters are often difficult, and the anxiety ramps up to uncomfortable levels at times.  Borgli's filmmaking approach is still pretty astringent.  The character reactions and dynamics occasionally feel off, possibly because Borgli's a European filmmaker making a movie about mostly American characters, and doesn't quite seem to grasp how Americans deal with this kind of controversial subject matter.  It's similar to how Luca Guadagnino's take on sexual harassment in "After the Hunt" didn't quite ring true, with the whole situation coming off as very contrived.  

Fortunately, Borgli does manage to get the tone of the picture right, and the actors make up for any weaknesses in the writing with their performances.  Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are both very good, share reasonable amounts of screen chemistry together as a couple, and manage to make all the conflicting aspects of their characters make sense onscreen.  Zendaya has the tougher part as Emma, who we also see as a teenager played by Jordyn Curet.  This is supposed to be somebody who has been hiding a deep, dark, awful part of herself for years, whose little idiosyncrasies could be totally innocent, but maybe they aren't so innocent.  Zendaya's screen persona is perfect for this, as she's frequently playing unimpressed girlfriends and love interests who are a little smarter and a little cooler than the heroes trying to keep up with her, behavior that can read as abrasive with a few adjustments.  Pattinson is in everyman mode, endearingly ruffled during the meet-cute scenes, and using what appears to be his real accent.  His job is to let his suspicions get the better of him and spiral in a believable, entertaining way, and spiral he does. 

And what's more, the humor worked for me.  It helps to keep in mind that every single one of the characters are being absolute hypocrites about the behavior they do and don't find acceptable.  The film isn't making light of the terrible things that are discussed, but targeting the attitudes and the assumptions of the people involved.  I also love the portrayal of the absolute hell of trying to put together a big wedding, with wonderfully awkward encounters with a photographer played by Zoe Winters, and DJs played by Sydney Lemmons and Jeremy Levick.  Borgli's also not treading in territory that's nearly as dark or as nihilistic as I was expecting.  Yes, bad things happen to Emma and Charlie, but they're kept at a reasonable scale.  There's always the threat that something really outrageous and life-ruining is going to occur, but all the events of "The Drama" turn out to be something that you could reasonably see happening in real life.  

Because this isn't a horror or thriller film, and the comedy is not very broad.  "The Drama" is what it says on the poster - a pretty solid dramedy.  And that's rarer these days on the silver screen than it should be.   

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And What Didn't Make My Top Ten Episodes of 2025-2026

Boy, there was a lot of television this year.  I have a list of honorable mentions that's the same length as my actual Top Ten list, which isn't something that's happened before.  Like last year, I want to focus on the more notable shows and episodes I watched instead of trying to be comprehensive. 

Let's start with the big finales - "Stranger Things" and "The Boys," which got the most press.  There was an outsized amount of wailing and carrying on from certain parts of their fanbases, who felt let down that the big finales didn't live up to their expectations.  Frankly, my expectations for both shows were never that high, given the nature of the programs, and I found both endings reasonably enjoyable.  "The Boys" finale was probably the best episode of its season, with Homelander finally getting what was coming to him.   Apologies to "The Righteous Gemstones,""Hacks," "Outlander," and "Euphoria," but these were never in my rotation, and I'll have to catch up on them at a later time.

Some buzzed-about new shows that didn't make the list include "Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," which is a much smaller scale "Game of Thrones" spinoff with an excellent cast.  However, the limited scale and lower stakes means that it hasn't really had the opportunity to hit the dramatic highs of the other Westeros shows.  It's very charming, but I'm waiting to see what it will grow into.  "Alien: Earth" got some love, especially for its episode that homages the original "Alien," but I liked watching the hybrids and the recovered aliens week-to-week a lot better.  There's a ton of potential here that I hope "Alien: Earth" gets a chance to build on.  "Spider-Noir" is a weird curiosity that I'm glad got made, and it works better than I ever would have expected.  "Wonder Man" was a fun break from the MCU norm, but not really my thing.  Also, "Ironheart," "Smoke," "Margo's Got Money Troubles," and "Starfleet Academy" were uneven and got mixed responses, but I enjoyed them all..

Lots of returning shows had good seasons, but most didn't quite have the highs they had in the past, including "Slow Horses," "The Pitt," "Invincible,"  "Foundation," "The Artful Dodger," "The Diplomat," "Only Murders in the Building," and "The Night Manager."  As a former '90s kid, I also enjoyed the nostalgic returns of "King of the Hill" and "South Park" after long hiatuses, and the newest season of "Futurama."  "Gary," the surprise prequel episode to "The Bear" from this spring got more attention than the previous season from the summer of 2025.  "Gary" was fine, but I preferred the season finale episode "Goodbye."  I think the return of "Beef" also belongs in this category, even though the show is an anthology.   "Oh the Comfort, the Inexpressible Comfort" was my favorite installment, a sort-of evil mirror universe version of an episode of "The Pitt."

Two of the episodes that came closest to making the list were released at the tail end of May - the finale of the second season of "The Four Seasons," an episode called "Maratona" set in Italy, and an excellent "Rick and Morty" spin on the premise of "Severance," where we're introduced to the horror of Vacation Rick.  "Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake's" Karmic worm episode was also a contender for a long time, one of the weirdest and yet most comforting half hours I've seen in a while.

Finally, all my best to "The Late Show" crew for putting on several wonderful episodes in the closing weeks of the program, and everyone over at "Last Week Tonight" and "The Daily Show" for continuing the good fight.  I'm very aware that the most significant television episode of the past year was the
"60 Minutes" CECOT episode, which probably marked the true ending of the venerable news program for all intents and purposes.  It doesn't feel right to put it on a list like this, but I at least want to acknowledge it here.  

And while it's looking less and less likely that we'll get the full revival of "The Muppet Show," the special event version with Sabrina Carpenter was a wonderful trip down memory lane.  Seth Rogen, all is forgiven.  

That was my 2025-2026 season in television.  See you around.  

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2025-2026

The amount of new shows on this list is very high compared to previous years.  Maybe it's because this feels like a transitional year in a lot of ways.  Maybe it's because a lot of the returning shows hit some bumps.  In any case, it was a good year for television and I have a lot to talk about.

A quick reminder before we start that I watch a lot of genre television, I'm notoriously bad with comedies, and I have a neverending "To Watch" list.  I use the Emmy rules for cutoff dates, which means that this list covers everything from the start of June, 2025 to the end of May, 2026.   Entries below are unranked, and I'm limiting myself to one episode per show or miniseries. 

I will endeavor to keep spoilers to a minimum, but please watch your step.  

Dexter: Resurrection, "Call Me Red" - Let's start with some fanservice.  The first few episodes of "Dexter; Resurrection" do a nice job of setting up a new status quo for Dexter and son in New York.  However, it's when the past rears up unexpectedly in the fourth episode that the series feels like it's really sliding back into a familiar groove and hits its stride.  Peter Dinklage as a rich eccentric is also one of the highlights of a wonderfully macabre, pulpy season.  

Death By Lightning, "The Man From Ohio" - This miniseries about the election and assassination of President James Garfield in the 1880s feels wonderfully immediate for a historical drama, thanks to a bumper crop of excellent performances.  The opening episode introduces us to all the main players, and sees Garfield win the nomination at the Republican convention - depicted as a chaotic, unpredictable event where political fortunes are made.

Pluribus, "Grenade" - I love science-fiction shows that really think about the consequences of the world-changing "what if" scenarios they create.  "Pluribus" is about nearly all humans becoming a collective consciousness, the ramifications of which are explored over the whole season.  "Grenade" is the first episode where we really get a dialogue between our heroine and the "Others," leading to so many, many more questions.  And a grenade!

Paradise, "Graceland" - The season two opener is one of the show's exceptional character deep-dives, this one about a Graceland tour guide, played by Shailene Woodley, and how she spent the apocalypse.  With barely any connection to the rest of "Paradise" until the very end, the episode does a great job of creating new stakes and goals while introducing us to the heretofore unseen world of the post-Apocalypse United States outside of Paradise.  

Task, "Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing, There is a River" - "Task" is a crime miniseries carefully written to balance two stories on opposing sides of the law, and here's where they finally collide.  Though the ending feels inevitable, it turns out that our antihero figure, Robbie Prendergrast still has a few aces up his sleeve.  And I appreciate that the show's finale gives the surviving characters a measure of grace in spite of all of their losses.   

Widow's Bay, "Beach Reads" - Honestly, I wasn't really feeling "Widow's Bay" until this episode, where the perspective shifts to the character of Patricia, and we get a fantastic parody of folkloric horror media.  It's executed so beautifully, with all these little visual details and hints as to what's actually happening, plus the scary bits are actually pretty scary.  This and Patricia's later faceoff with the local serial killer were easily the best parts of a great first season.

The Lowdown, "The Sensitive Kind,"  - This episode wraps up all of the season's mysteries, and delivers a surprising amount of justice.  It could even be mistaken for a happy ending, thanks to Ethan Hawke's scrappy journalist character finally accepting that the best way to tell the truth about a dead man is to honor his wishes.  Of course, this still takes some work.  I have this in my notes as the one where Keith David's put upon PI ends up on bovine muscle relaxers. 

Heated Rivalry, "The Cottage" - If you want a feel-good ending, however, there was none better than the capper to the first season of "Heated Rivalry."  The show started out with steamy secret hookups, and ended with Shane and Ilya tentatively acknowledging that they're in a full-blown romantic relationship.  And the unexpected thrills and laughs that come with finally admitting this to themselves (and a few others) made for some absolutely sublime television. 

DTF St. Louis, "Missouri Mutual Life & Health Insurance Company" - How do I describe this episode or this show?  Let's just say it's about three middle aged people and their complicated relationships.  This one focuses on Linda Cardellini's Carol, whose efforts to save her husband from his own worst impulses seem to be doomed, possibly giving her a motive to kill him.  It also features the most unlikely and instantly iconic musical moment of the year.

Only in Monroe, "May 22 202" - The last episode of "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert interviewing a Beatle was fine.  However, it feels like his return to hosting the "Only in Monroe" public television talk show, less than 24 hours later, was where he really got to let loose.  Featuring Jeff Daniels as guest, and Jack White as sidekick/musical director, Colbert spent an hour doing much more absurdist and free-form comedy than his old job ever allowed for.  And it was fantastic.

Honorable mention: The "Lord of the Flies" miniseries

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"Project Hail Mary" Scores

"Project Hail Mary" is the closest thing to a movie that I was guaranteed to enjoy.  It's comedic science-fiction, a genre I adore.  It's Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directing, with a Drew Goddard script based on the Andy Weir novel.  It stars Ryan Gosling as a perpetually scruffy middle school science teacher named Ryland Grace, who got himself kicked out of the scientific establishment years ago, but is now being recruited to help save the world.  A bunch of microscopic space critters called astrophage are feeding on the sun, you see, and causing it to dim.  The loss of energy spells doom for life on Earth unless they can figure out how to stop it.  But though the stakes are high, the movie is anything but glum, making great use of Gosling's comedic talents, and a boatload of fancy special effects.  And if you don't want any spoilers for the movie, you should probably stop reading here and go watch it.

Still with me?  I read Weir's Project Hail Mary a year ago in anticipation for the film, and enjoyed it.  The movie is a very good adaptation that left out a lot of the science, but surprisingly kept in almost everything else.  This means that the pacing is a little rough, particularly the sped-up ending, but there are also a few nice additions, like humanizing Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller), the implacable task force leader in charge of Project Hail Mary.  The biggest change is that the movie focuses more on the relationship between Grace and the alien he meets light years away from home, a faceless rock-creature that Grace names Rocky (James Ortiz).  The narrative is split between Grace in the present day on the Hail Mary spaceship, and his muddled but gradually returning memories of his work on Earth, and how he ended up on this mission.  Smartly, the filmmakers decide to skip most of the early introductory stuff in the book and just get straight to Grace and Rocky meeting, learning to communicate, and becoming best cross-species science bros.  

The Golden Globes got a lot of guff for classifying the last movie based on an Andy Weir book, "The Martian," as a comedy.   I don't want to hear any of those complaints about "Project Hail Mary" when this inevitably happens again, because it is absolutely a buddy comedy, without question.  The movie has its moments of spacefaring awe and wonder, but what keeps it so engaging is watching Grace and Rocky interacting on a personal level, and figuring out how to help each other in their shared missions.  Gosling's Ryland Grace leans heavily on goofy humor as a defense mechanism, which Lord and Miller enable wherever they can.  The slapstick is fun, but it's the subtler stuff that really got to me.  Grace's collection of dorky knitwear and thematically appropriate T-shirts is perfect.  

Rocky is already iconic, a cinematic alien that looks like no other.  He is essentially a mobile pile of rocks that is configured like a five-legged spider.  Rocky has no face, but is very articulate with his multiple arms, insectoid digits, and musical vocalizations.  Eventually he is given a human voice via Grace's translation program, but the most important part of his performance is physical.  He gestures.  He dances.  He mimics.  He gets across a wide range of emotions from happiness to fear to deadpan exasperation simply with body language.  Rocky was reportedly mostly performed with puppets and animatronics, which likely contributed to the very effective screen chemistry that Rocky shares with Ryan Gosling onscreen.  

"Project Hail Mary" works great as an optimistic, feel-good space adventure, and arrives at a time when audiences are very receptive to it.  And I think it's the optimism that's the important part, as someone who loves science-fiction but has been weary of the overabundance of dystopian fiction in recent years.  The more cerebral parts of the book mostly end up in the margins of the movie, which is probably for the best.  One thing about the film that caught my attention was that its pop culture references were pretty dated - "Rocky," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and the Beatles.  But then again, that is also fitting, as "Project Hail Mary" successfully evokes the spirit of that age of space exploration where we didn't automatically believe that the aliens were bad, or the mission was hopeless.  And we could certainly use more movies with that mindset going forward.         

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The 2025-2026 Television I Didn't Watch

In advance of my top ten episodes list for the 2025-2026 season (I use the Emmy eligibility calendar), I want to talk about some of the shows that I didn't watch this year.  There seem to be more and more every year, so the titles discussed below are only the most high-profile ones that I actually have something to say about.  I reserve the right to revisit these choices in the future, but I still haven't seen anything from last year's list.

"Bait" - This is the Riz Ahmed series about a British Pakistani actor who is auditioning for James Bond.  And that's one of the most interesting and daring ideas for a show that I've heard about in a long while, and kudos to Amazon Prime for letting him do it.  However, I've long had an aversion to shows about actors and showbiz satires (still haven't gotten around to "Hacks") and "Bait" was putting up a lot of red flags on that front.  So despite the good notices, it's getting a pass for now.  

"Chief of War" - Here's another ambitious passion project, a historical drama about the clashes among the various tribes of the Hawaiian islands.  Jason Momoa stars as a warrior chief in the late 18th century who would play an instrumental role in the unification of Hawaii.  The dialogue is largely native Hawaiian, and the cast features an impressive collection of Pacific Islander actors.  And do I like epic war stories enough to watch nine episodes of this?  Not really, no.  

"I Love LA"  I really like Rachel Sennott in everything that I've seen her in.   However, I'm still at that age where comedies about attractive young people trying to get their post-graduate lives together don't have much appeal for me.  I think I lasted all of three episodes of "Girls," and with "I Love LA" I already knew it wasn't going to happen.  The cast also features Odessa A'Zion who was so great in "Marty Supreme," Josh Hutcherson, and a ton of celebrity cameos. 

"IT: Welcome to Derry" - This should have been right up my alley.  I love Stephen King.  However, this is a prequel to the Andy Muschietti "IT" movies, and one of those was okay and the other was pretty bad.  I'm also wary of the shared universe style spinoff shows that aren't directly based on King's work, so I've put this one and the Hulu show "Castle Rock" aside for now, to possibly come back to after I've finished all the other King series I haven't gotten around to yet.  

"The Chair Company" - Well, I watched the Tim Robinson film "Friendship," and I didn't connect with it at all, so I don't think I'm going to do any better with his latest television series, which has been described as a paranoid thriller and absurdist black comedy about a guy who becomes obsessed with a chair manufacturing company.  I think I'd probably start with episodes of "I Think You Should Leave" if I want to dip my toes into the Tim Robinson universe again.

"Half Man" - I have heard some fantastic things about this series, which is Richard Gadd' follow-up to "Baby Reindeer."  Gadd is playing a completely different character here, one of two brothers who share an intense and troubling relationship.   The other lead is Jamie Bell, who has always been good in everything I've seen him in.  The trouble here is the sheer intensity of the content.  Just reading some of the episode synopses had me cringing, so I'm going to keep my distance.

"Rooster" - Bill Lawrence has created a lot of good shows, and Steve Carrell is a dependable leading man.  The ensemble, which includes Danielle Deadwyler, Phil Dunster, and John C. McGinley, is also very tempting.  However, this came out around the same time as the college campus romance "Vladimir," and not too long after I finished the college episodes of "Man on the Inside," and more middle-aged campus hijinks were just not something I had the mental space for.

"Young Sherlock" - I like Sherlock Holmes media.  But Guy Ritchie doing Sherlock Holmes?  A young, cocky, arrogant Sherlock Holmes whose intellect is submerged under about a mile of bravado?  Yeah, no thanks.

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"Wuthering Heights" and "The Bride!"

Emerald Fennell made a new version of "Wuthering Heights," and Maggie Gyllenhaal did a new take on "The Bride of Frankenstein" called "The Bride!" and I need to talk about these two together.  Both take the original stories and rework them into something different, using anachronistic elements, a lot of camp, and a lot of emphasis on style over substance.  Both function as star vehicles for their leading ladies - Margot Robbie and Jessie Buckley respectively.  I think one movie mostly works and one mostly doesn't, but both are so bold and display so much ambition that I have to offer my sincerest appreciation to everyone involved for getting the 2026 "Wuthering Heights" and "The Bride!" to the big screen in their current forms.  If nothing else, these movies are big, uninhibited, and more than a little bit bonkers.  And I love that.  

"Wuthering Heights" starts out mostly following the plot of the Emily Bronte novel, with the impoverished but headstrong Catherine Earnshaw (Margot Robbie) growing up with her foundling adopted brother Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) under the questionable care or Cathy's dissolute father (Martin Clunes).  To improve her family's fortunes Cathy marries a rich neighbor, Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), though she really loves Heathcliff.  He disappears and returns many years later, unexpectedly rich, and Cathy finds her feelings for him have only increased.  And then the movie ditches Bronte and never looks back.  Cathy and Heathcliff's love affair is the centerpiece of the film, full of torrid imagery and scandalous behavior, but little actual sex.  Some of their encounters feel anticipatory of magazine photo spreads, with over-the-top costuming, dramatic color palettes, and increasingly campy, horny, and downright bizarre expressions of desire.  

And this all would have probably gone over a lot better if the movie wasn't called "Wuthering Heights," (the quotation marks are not optional) and the characters weren't called Cathy and Heathcliff.  As an adaptation, frankly the movie isn't even trying.  It tones down the notoriously cruel and damaged characters to the point of toothlessness.  It tacks on a hurried and compromised new ending that kneecaps any sense of the larger themes of the original novel.  If you have no familiarity with the original "Wuthering Heights," the new adaptation comes across as a messy, but fairly harmless bodice-ripper pastiche with a nice Charlie XCX score, inventive production design, and some amusingly trashy plot twists.  Robbie and Elordi do have some chemistry with each other, and understand the assignment - playing at a heightened, unhinged version of romance that doesn't need to make any kind of sense.  It would have probably been more entertaining if Fennell had fully embraced the darker, more sexually deviant elements that kept being hinted at, but alas this isn't "Saltburn," and nobody gets to be truly nasty in this universe.

On to "The Bride!" which is definitely guilty of trying to do too much.  Set in 1930s Chicago, Jessie Buckley plays a dual role as gun moll named Ida, and the spirit of Mary Shelley who possesses Ida one evening, full of rage and unfulfilled creative need.  This leads to Ida's tragic death and subsequent resurrection by Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening), who is working at the behest of a curious newcomer to the city named "Frank" (Christian Bale).  And I suppose it's not really a spoiler that "Frank" turns out to be the monster created by Dr. Frankenstein over a century ago, which means that both the monster and his creator, Mary Shelley, are characters in this movie.  The resurrected Ida, who I will now refer to as The Bride, goes on a journey of discovery exploring her identity, monstrosity, and capability for love and violence.  

"The Bride!" strikes out in a totally original direction from its very first frames, so we don't have to worry much about the source material here.  However, it's a very chaotic film that combines horror, gangster, camp, romance, and even musical elements with a big dose of metatextual commentary.  Trying to follow the "Bonnie and Clyde" plot feels like an exercise in futility, especially when a pair of detectives played by Peter Skarsgaard and Penelope Cruz show up to be boring.  However, when the movie is following Frank and The Bride, it's very watchable.  The performances are good - very good, even.  It's worth seeing the movie just to watch Jessie Buckley play The Bride with so much exuberant freakishness.  I've seen mixed reactions to the inclusion of Mary Shelley, who keeps breaking into the narrative with her rambling interjections, but I thought she was great, especially after I turned on the closed captioning so I could better parse what she was saying.      

However, the movie is simply too scattered and underdeveloped to leave much impact.  "Poor Things" was a much more subversive, more coherent take on a feminist "Frankenstein" narrative.  By comparison, "The Bride!" feels far too slick and surface level.  It's also often preoccupied with its references to Herman Melville, Mel Brooks, and 1930s movies, which are all jumbled up in increasingly obscure configurations.  I don't feel like "The Bride!" wasted my time, but I don't feel I got much out of it either, beyond a few good scenes in isolation and the most WTF needle drop of the year.  It's one of those movies that is so singular and strange that I'm happy it exists to be puzzled over, like "Megalopolis," even though I didn't vibe with it.   I also find it encouraging that Maggie Gyllenhaal got to make this at a major studio, which means that riskier films, made on this scale, are still occasionally possible.  

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