Viewing Journal: 9/9/2026

366) IDIOTS

(2026 dir. Macon Blair) Date Seen: September 8 2026

365) NIGHT OF THE DEMON

(1980 dir. Wasson / Ball) Date Seen: September 8 2026

Viewing Journal: 9/8/2026

364) FUZE

(2026 dir. David Mackenzie) Date Seen: September 8 2026

Viewing Journal: 9/7/2026

363) THE SALT PATH

(2026 dir. Marianne Elliott) Date Seen: September 7 2026

For a live theatre person, Marianne Elliott's got a surprisingly voluptuous eye for the camera. I was completely carried along by these two & the chaotic little journey they were going on --and then it just sort of evaporates into nothing in its last stretch. Maybe that’s how the book also ends or maybe there was some deep existential point that I completely missed.. 2026 is shaping up to be a great year for Gillian Anderson.

362) THE SUN NEVER SETS

(2026 dir. Joe Swanberg) Date Seen: September 7 2026

Normally Jake Johnson is Joe Swanberg's secret weapon, but this time it's Dakota Fanning who's his saving grace. It's some of the most thoughtful & believable work she's ever done i.m.o. & I wish her part wasn't stuck in such a mid-tier Swanberg film. He's not formally as bad as he used to be in the early days, but Jesus Christ, could someone remind him films are usually a visual medium.. As a youngster when one of his movies didn't work for me I'd always say he was like if Éric Rohmer had been a bad dramatist. Now when he plops his work just feels like "prestige tv" filler (w/ great under-the-radar performances).

Viewing Journal: 9/6/2026

361) BY ANY MEANS

(2026 dir. Elegance Bratton) Date Seen: September 6 2026

It thankfully doesn't have that "Only White Cops Can Fix Racism" aftertaste that MISSISSIPPI BURNING had, but at least that movie tonally knew what the hell it was! this one gets very goofy in the midst of being about one of the most fucked up times in U.S. history.. Not a complete drop-off for director Bratton (post THE INSPECTION), he is doing some cool stylistic shit here --I just wish the material was handled differently considering all the talent involved.

Mark's Bulb Nose > Mark's Bald Cap

360) A USEFUL GHOST

(2026 dir. R. Boonbunchachoke) Date Seen: September 6 2026

this takes some very big risky thematic & storytelling leaps & didn't feel like it always landed them. But I'm just glad anyone is trying to make paranormal non-horror like this in 2026 that is contemplative in any way.

Viewing Journal: 9/5/2026

359) THE DOG STARS

(2026 dir. Ridley Scott) Date Seen: September 5 2026

In 2011 I remember reading a Game Informer article on The Last of Us PS3 while it was still in-production & the piece completely tiptoed around mentioning zombies being in the game & mostly emphasized that a huge portion of gameplay was going to be about scavenging materials in a wasteland while trying to evade other humans. That's kinda what this movie was like. & my stupid Horror-centric brain kept chiming in, "so when them zombies show up?".. I definitely need to give this one another go when it eventually comes out on video

Viewing Journal: 9/4/2026

358) AMERICAN DOCTOR

(2026 dir. Poh Si Teng) Date Seen: September 4 2026

this has to cease.. It can't go on forever, right? b.d.s. doesn't feel like it's doing anything.

Viewing Journal: 9/3/2026

357) ICEFALL

(2026 dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky) Date Seen: September 3 2026

When this movie commits fully to action it becomes remarkably effective: the crew of villains are colorful like comic-book goons & Joel Kinnaman and Danny Huston remain reliably persuasive as (respectively) classical leading man and heavy. But I keep noticing this weird thing happening in many action movies lately where the editing only pops awake whenever people start firing guns & then gets positively clunky when characters actually have to talk. You can almost smell a meddling producer in the cutting room snapping & repeating “pick up the pace." ICEFALL also has a glaring visual smudge on what would've otherwise been it's main action centerpiece. They spent all this money to put actors on an enormous sound stage so the frozen Montana lake could end in an artificial blurry blue-screen mess. It’s just ice and snow. That's a white floor & a horizon. With a fraction of this budget FALL (2022) was able to at least give off the illusion that characters might be at the mercy of outdoor elements (Anyone remember TREMORS 6's natural light desert-in-a-snow-wig trick?). I know I’m being obsessive & annoying about this, but I had been watching a visually gritty wilderness thriller & then all of a sudden ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002) was trying to sneak up in the background.. It's not a realism thing; It's a tonal & optical consistency thing.

Viewing Journal: 9/2/2026

356) FINDING EMILY 

(2026 dir. Alicia MacDonald) Date Seen: September 2 2026

& here only a week ago I was lamenting there weren't enough good rom-coms anymore. This was admittedly charming & harmless.. After our screening though, Dickie Dunn remarked that Angourie Rice is starting to resemble the early Aughts young Amy Adams; & I was confused about why he would say such things when she's clearly the Swiss Miss logo come to life

Viewing Journal: 9/1/2026

355) THE YETI

(2026 dir. Gallerano / Pisciotta) Date Seen: September 1 2026

Brittany Allen & Jim Cummings give this movie its pulse (Sadler too, he's just barely in it) + there’s some real ingenuity to the wintry soundstage artifice & all the glacial blue color-correcting.. But darn it --in terms of screenwriting, I really wish this movie wasn't trying so hard to be the Moby-Dick of Sasquatch pictures. It's very overwritten while being curiously under-directed. The supporting cast all look their parts for sure but most of them are surprisingly wooden & forced to speak very tortured theatrical dialogue. I can always easily forgive that latter aspect of any film were its directing on a whole other level elevating everything; But too many scenes in THE YETI have remarkably conventional blocking (No hyperbole: there's parts that reminded me of a ’90s Goosebumps episode).. Fortunately the title monster's design & fx are pretty kick-ass.

Viewing Journal: 8/31/2026

354) BUDDY

(2026 dir. Casper Kelly) Date Seen: August 31 2026

Undeniably amusing + I admired its total commitment to the conceit of being an authentic VHS artifact. Casper Kelly's become something of a legend in the world of short-form absurdism (see also Todd Rohal & Nick DenBoer) & his recent segment “Fun Size” was easily the highlight of last year's V/H/S HALLOWEEN. What are people colloquially referring to this cutesified sub-genre of nostalgia horror as? Kindertrauma? maybe Analog mascot? Whatever it's getting coined, I think this movie's probably a better example of it than something like MR. CROCKET or even Vigalondo’s surprisingly dull POOKA (though I personally worry this aesthetic may have peaked already with that “Clown Café” number in TERRIFIER 2).. Unfortunately, BUDDY has a short film’s worth of material stretched to feature length. The conceit is good, it just went on so long and I kinda wanted it to hurry things up.

353) THE PUNISHER: 

          ONE LAST KILL

(2026 dir. Reinaldo Marcus Green) Date Seen: August 31 2026

With the exception of one surprisingly moving visual passage —inventive first-person shots of Punisher’s departed family within his inner despair —loads of this movie's melodrama is just too overwrought. I know I was supposed to feel his sadness but there were lots of times where I held back giggles. Reinaldo Marcus Green (who normally does drama) got decent at staging action out of the blue & this movie's finale is pretty fun when all the fury finally boils over. The rampage Castle goes on during the climax has got physicality & a gratifying sense of impact to it, I just wish it didn't take forever to get there & maybe had some dramatic weight behind it. Honestly if you remove its ending & all the little umbilical cords attaching it to the larger Marvel universe, ONE LAST KILL's essentially a lesser DEATH WISH entry. + there's some astonishingly sloppy editing in dialogue scenes; parts that don't flow as much as clunk into each other. 

ALSO,

this isn't really a gripe against the actual film 

but just more of a baby bitch rant:

I wish someone would finally let Punisher wear his true costume! Must he always look like a hungover dude returning a lawn mower to Home Depot.. spare me the lecture about how the classic flamboyant costume would be “too comic-book” for his gritty universe, 'cause this world's got a green giant & a witch thumping around down the street. The horse of realism bolted from its stable years ago, so there's no reason he can't chase after it wearing them white gloves, boots, & teeth belt.