Viewing Journal: 8/29/2026

351) LEGEND 

OF THE WHITE DRAGON 

(2026 dir. Aaron Schoenke) Date Seen: August 29 2026

unfortunately the vast majority of this felt like a bunch of pre-vis rehearsal & camera tests frantically cut together in After Effects —less crafted than piled upward. & It’s especially painful seeing the late JD Frank trapped in a character with so much brooding gloom, knowing what he was actually carrying in real life. He was an actor of genuine warmth & charisma, + more range than anyone bothered to discover (I personally wish he'd been BLOODSHOT instead of Diesel)

WHITE DRAGON is thankfully never awful, but it is approaching mediocrity in a directorial sense; To the point where it almost makes the 2017 POWER RANGERS look hyper-competent. I do feel i need to say that it does feature some quality work being done in the costuming department. As a kid I always hated when Tommy the Green Ranger became the White Tiger-themed hero, solely because I hated the new costume that wasn't badass lizard green anymore. But the "White Dragon" suit in this had a pretty dreamy retro tokusatsu look, on par with designs like G1 Ken's (minus the cape).

[watch Joseph Kahn's POWER / RANGERS short, if you haven't already]

Viewing Journal: 8/28/2026

350) COLONY 군체

(2026 dir. Yeon Sang-ho) Date Seen: August 28 2026

It turns out Umbrella really was behind everything.. I'm just here for all the gooey & the nasty. This will probably be the gnarliest zombie film of 2026 until Cregger's "you know what" comes out

Viewing Journal: 8/27/2026

349) INSIDIOUS: 

OUT OF THE FURTHER

(2026 dir. Jacob Chase) Date Seen: August 27 2026

just 'cause you get out of the Further, doesn't mean you go into the stinker.

btw that CAVEAT homage didn't work for me. Kinda reduced the original imagery's inventiveness to a cheap carnival scare.. Hopefully with the bread this thing makes over the weekend Jacob Chase can do something more personal again. 

Viewing Journal: 8/26/2026

 

348) 

THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD

(2026 dir. Michael Sarnoski) Date Seen: August 26 2026

action scenes aside, this felt like

Bergman doing UNFORGIVEN (1992).

I was deeply mesmerized by most of it,
+ easily Sarnoski's best film to date

Viewing Journal: 8/25/2026

347) PEOPLE 

  WE MEET ON VACATION

(2026 dir. Brett Haley) Date Seen: August 25 2026

Proof a charming cast alone cannot carry an entire film.. Writing kinda plays like if Nora Ephron started a promising outline but then suffered a series of small strokes (Especially lousy 3rd). America continues to be starved of good rom-coms i.m.o.. which is weird 'cause the genre used to be our bread & butter.

346) PLEASE

(2026 dir. Anna Mantzaris) Date Seen: August 25 2026

Captures a specific ennui about modern loneliness, where everybody’s so desperate to connect --but then also (annoyingly) how all of our antennae feelers keep obliviously brushing passed each other right when it seems we're about to connect. [my first Anna Mantzaris film! Socks are properly knocked off, similar to when i first saw an Emma de Swaef]

345) CLOAK & DAGGER

(1984 dir. Richard Franklin) Date Seen: August 25 2026

Would make a awesome double-feature with BMX BANDITS. A pretty solid case study in visually economic storytelling.. That San Antonio River Walk sequence is superbly Hitchcockian. (I remember as kids my cousin Alex rented this dvd for our sleepover but my bitch-ass fell the fuck asleep)

Viewing Journal: 8/24/2026

344) TONY

(2026 dir. Matt Johnson) Date Seen: August 24 2026

YMMV obviously, but I thought this was a surprisingly stock coming-of-age movie considering the talent involved.. Banderas & the guy from HOLDOVERS are pretty good in it though. Why does it feel like Matt Johnson's visually more inspired when directing pseudo-doc/ found footage things? 

Viewing Journal: 8/23/2026

343) MUTINY

(2026 dir. Jean-François Richet) Date Seen: August 23 2026

Aside from a few inventive kills this was mostly a disappointment for me. Shame too, because I've enjoyed a lot of Richet's english language actioneers in the past.. SHELTER from earlier this year is a much smoother Statham flick.

342)

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS

(2001 dir. Rob Cohen) 3rd Viewing: August 23 2026

25th Anniversary @ Cinemark

Always surprised when people still cry shot-theft over Joseph Kahn having the same 3D CG bit in TORQUE of nitrous & petrol flying through the engine combustion chamber. Cohen lifted the idea directly from Kahn's own 90s VW "Turbonium" commercial. + every other oil company duplocated that one ad nauseam still to this day.. (even if Kahn had borrowed the idea, I don't really see what the problem is. Especially within movies built entirely around images of vehicles) Shots like that are fun for a reason = why people reproduce 'em.

Viewing Journal: 8/22/2026

341) 

THE RIVALS OF AMZIAH KING

(2026 dir. Andrew Patterson) Date Seen: August 22 2026

Patterson finally following up his excellent debut THE VAST OF NIGHT with something! & it's a great one too --alive and assured in a way not too many films have been for me this year.. The opening hour of RIVALS especially were a strong storytelling thunderclap for me. (Also features McConaughey's best performance since KILLER JOE)

Viewing Journal: 8/21/2026

340) 

THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE 

(2026 dir. Ben Gregor) Date Seen: August 21 2026

based on some of the promotional stills I'd seen for this, I was worried it was going to look like wall-to-wall mismatched lighting & chromakey blurred edges for the majority runtime, like the 2010s Disney ALICE movies or OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL. Loads of that ambient occlusion is thankfully missing. & just also as an overall family fantasy story, MAGIC FARAWAY TREE is a pretty swell time at the movies. British humor compensates for a lot too.

Viewing Journal: 8/20/2026

339) SUPER TROOPERS 3

(2026 dir. Jay Chandrasekhar) Date Seen: August 20 2026

Was hoping one of these POLICE ACADEMY movies would eventually climax with a Waco like standoff between these chuds & an armed sovereign citizen type group.. an all-out "War of the Imbeciles" bloodbath. That's the lowbrow EDDINGTON counterpart the country deserves.

338) MANHUNTER

(1986 dir. Michael Mann) Date Seen: August 20 2026

"The Final Cut"

4K and 40th Anniversary

Just to be clear, Mann's 1986 cut of MANHUNTER is a flawless 5 out of 5 star masterpiece in my eyes --it's specifically this new cut i'm giving 4 point 5 to.. I do love the overall better sound mix, new dialogue, & especially love the longer moments with Hannibal, but I am not a fan of the modernized colorist changes to almost every other frame. They're fascinating to look at but aesthetically unnecessary imo.. I hope the eventual blurays also have a 4K of the theatrical cut included & not just this version.. And who drops their neon credits?! Come on!

Viewing Journal: 8/19/2026

337) THE LAST HOUSE 

(2026 dir. Louis Leterrier) Date Seen: August 19 2026

So many studios right now want their own A QUIET PLACE-type family in supernatural jeopardy hit & Netflix in particular releases like one of these per year. THE LAST HOUSE does have quite cool world-building things throughout & an atypical central threat as the antagonist; but all the melodrama is way too overwrought & obvious. It's a very hammy film. I eventually just didn't care what happened to the family either way.. It at least has some fun creature VFX. 

I'm glad AQUAMAN's brother finally got his revenge on all us surface dwellers.

Viewing Journal: 8/18/2026

336) 

BOORMAN AND THE DEVIL

(2026 dir. David Kittredge) Date Seen: August 18 2026

a fascinating autopsy of one of the biggest critical bombs in film history, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC. & John Boorman essentially confesses here that he believes he overly intellectualized the themes of the book to the point where the material no longer resembled the type of possession horror audiences had come to expect. I've always found PT. II to be sonically & visually a beautiful piece of work, it just has a load of dramatically goofy stuff crammed into it that ruins the overall tone (hence why I always filed it under the "Close But No Cigar" section on my Favorite Horror Movies of the 70s list, because it's just too unique of a mess to dismiss as completely lusterless). Imagine a film being a beautiful string composition & it's being performed live at a symphony house, but a percussionist on stage keeps accidentally knocking crap over and distracting everyone -- That's kinda what THE HERETIC is like.. But brothers & sisters, I’d take a sincere, gorgeous, Morricone-scored wreck over all the soulless focus-grouped franchise things that come out now.

Viewing Journal: 8/17/2026

335) THE BRINK OF WAR

(2026 dir. Michael Russell Gunn) Date Seen: August 17 2026

Historical dishonesty aside, this thing is one uninspired movie to look at. The actors are doing everything in their power to elevate a stuffy script.. It's just another nostalgic myth made to comfort aging neo-cons & shit-libs who miss having some semblance of leadership in the Oval Office. Reagan only looks competent now compared to the molten porta potty we're trapped with.

Score one for the Gipper !

Viewing Journal: 8/16/2026

334) PAW PATROL: 

        THE DINO MOVIE 

(2026 dir. Cal Brunker) Date Seen: August 16 2026

Rex & his little wheels are the dog's bollocks;

in fact, he & a few dinosaur concepts in this were probably the only rays of light within the whole dud. (FLEAK might be more nuanced disability representation for 2026's children's films) I'm just having trouble articulating exactly what it is that irks me about part 3's veneer & overall atmosphere w/o using caca words.

PP DINO DUMP is like that annoying kid that used to barge into the nursery playroom with his own set of toys, cut from a completely different color scheme & school of design than your toys. And then he'd insist his toys fit inside our Power Rangers MegaZord & then his toy broke getting crammed into the MegaZord's ass & playtime became a big stupid mess. + that kid went home crying anyways -- In a visual sense THAT'S THIS MOVIE. Wall-to-wall ugliness.. And I'm still mad at these bootlicking canines anyway, because I feel like their newer flashier 3D look stole the Wonder Pets rightful thunder @ Nick Jr. (puts fists together "& I will have my vengeance"). Why is the base design model of all these dogs sculpted to look like a smirking wise-ass? Dinosaurs would be fully justified wanting to eat these cutesified jerks. (just busting balls. no one get all bent outta shape)

I'm also "grumpy projecting" onto this movie because our poor senior pup Loula is suffering from bad anxiety fits at night. & it feels like nothing we do can calm her.

even on gabapentin + other meds, she at random paces the house in a spooked panic like this. As if she'd seen a ghost :-(

333) WHAT WAS IN THE HAT?

[CO BYLO V KLOBOUKU?]

(1963 dir. Ludvík Kadleček) Date Seen: August 16 2026

Scarecrow & his hat clearly represent Czechoslovakia as a whole. but what about all them meddling jerks? well it was 1963, so.. you do the math

Viewing Journal: 8/15/2026

332) THE WRONG GIRLS

(2026 dir. Dylan Meyer) Date Seen: August 15 2026

Pedro & Man have some serious new competition \m/

Viewing Journal: 8/14/2026

Adult Swim's

331) THE ELEPHANT 

(2025 dir. many peeps) Date Seen: August 14 2026

this was something of a revelation for me personally, & i can't believe I hadn't even heard of it until now. I've been kinda out of the Adult Swim loop since Mike Lazzo's departure. Thank you to my sister & brother in-law for exposing me to it because I loved it & thought it was uniquely hypnotizing. & because it's anthology-style directed by four current titans of animation (respectively; Pendleton, Rebecca Sugar, Jones-Quartey, & Patrick McHale), it's got a rare visual imagination that morphs from moment to moment. It even reminded me of Masaaki Yuasa’s MIND GAME マインド・ゲーム  (yes it's THAT great) only more occupied with themes of self-actualization. "To thine own self be true" & whatnot.

330) TIPA THE ANT

[SKUDRIŅA TIPA]

(1976 dir. Ansis Bērziņš) Date Seen: August 14 2026

let's get one thing straight; Tipa was a public menace that needed to be taken down a peg or two.

Viewing Journal: 8/13/2026

329) AMERICAN PACHUCO: 

THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ

(2026 dir. David Alvarado) Date Seen: August 13 2026

truly fascinating & thoughtful stuff about the underrated American treasure & all-around chicano GOAT Luis Valdez.. Helmed & assembled by my badass former mentor at Texas Filmmakers Coalition denton.