The Odyssey (2026)

Two things:

1) This is the best version of Homer's Odyssey ever committed to film.

2) This is far from the best telling of this story.

No one was less excited about this movie than me. Even with Chris Nolan at the helm, a 3-hour epic based on a 3,000-year-old text is a big ask. I'm glad to be proven wrong. Matt Damon leads the big budget, all-star cast as Odysseus. Following a 10-year battle in Troy, it details his 10-year journey to get back home to Ithaca, told confusingly out of order. It's Greek mythology conveyed through grounded realism, captured practically for the most part on real-life locations. In order to emphasize its epic scale, it's also the first feature to be shot entirely on 70mm IMAX film, which comes with its own set of caveats. I found the colors on screen to be a bit drab and the sound mixing is absolutely horrendous. I watched it in IMAX, and for half the film the entire theater was rumbling, making it even harder to decipher dialogue. It's an all-out assault on the senses, although it makes the quieter moments stand out. No one would ever accuse Nolan of being a bad director, but he tends to be a little self-indulgent at times. However, there are moments here where you are held at rapt attention. As a fan of cinema, you owe it to yourself to check it out on the biggest screen possible, even though I still maintain it's far from perfect. 

4 gods defied out of 5

Note: If you enjoyed this modern retelling, I highly recommend The Return, which focuses on the final part of this story. 

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

Following the big spoiler at the end of No Way Home, Peter Parker is going through some pretty dramatic ch-ch-ch-changes. Meanwhile, he faces off against a powerful adversary who appears to be able to jump into different human hosts at will. It's your traditional comic book story involving heroes struggling to fulfill their purpose while overcoming great adversity, except this time everyone is firing on all cylinders (Punisher included). As always, humanity defines these characters, and at the heart of it, it's a warm, gentle story. I have nothing cynical to add. This is just a great Spider-Man adventure.

4 premature webshots out of 5

Note: Next up for our crew? Avengers: Doomsday, in time for Christmas 2026.

The Punisher: One Last Kill (2026)

Frank Castle wrestles with demons of his past and forced to go on a violent spree set to some heavy metal needle drops in this one-shot, standalone, hour-long Marvel Television Special Presentation. Mostly satisfying, after sitting through the lackluster second season of Daredevil: Born Again. Jon Bernthal is compelling to watch as the PTSD-addled veteran with nothing left to lose. Funny that he also co-wrote and starred in a thematically similar one-off episode of The Bear that unfolds in much the same gritty, guerilla-style fashion (which makes it especially bizarre that they were both released within a week of each other). It's a very simple story and I appreciated that it wasn't moralistic or preachy in any way, although it does make me feel about as empty as Frank Castle. It neither moves the needle nor overstays its welcome, but mostly functions as a bridge to The Punisher's appearance in the MCU.

3 headshots out of 5

The Amateur (2025)

A bookish CIA code breaker takes the law into his own hands as he seeks revenge for his wife's murder in this increasingly convoluted conspiracy thriller. Rami Malek was excellent in Mr. Robot, one of my favorite TV shows, but his performance lacks in this standard, formulaic action flick that quickly wears out its welcome and lags in the second half. While the initial premise is intriguing, it feels curiously low stakes and I just kept waiting for it to be over.

A remake of the 1981 film, based on Robert Littell's novel of the same name.

2½ Inquilines out of 5

The Accountant² (2025)

8 years later, Christian Wolff is still a loner accountant with A Beautiful Mind powers and secret service skills who launders money for dangerous agencies while maintaining a low profile. This time, he's joined by his estranged brother (played by John Bernthal in a wonderfully unhinged performance) and it's instantly an improvement over the first film because of their buddy dynamic. Together, they set out to bust up a human trafficking ring and recover a missing Salvadorean family. Despite the more generic elements at play, it's an above average thriller, and a third film is already (woefully) in development.

3 speed dating rounds out of 5

The Accountant (2016)

An autistic man (the Hollywood variety, who is both a jacked expert assassin and also Mensa-level genius) works as a forensic accountant for dangerous criminals while moonlighting as an avenger of justice during daylight hours.

It's basically a neurodivergent superhero flick, which translates to a painfully average action thriller. Nothing too memorable you'll recall by the next day.

2½ stimming techniques out of 5

SICARIO [2015]

It's funny to think that a film as brutally violent as Sicario is, it's still Canadian director Denis Villeneuve's most widely accessible and lightest to date.
Emily Blunt does a tremendous job as a rule-abiding FBI agent who is enlisted by a shady American government task force to help take down a vicious leader of a Mexican drug cartel.
The plot is quite simple but it's the characters that complicate it with white-knuckle tension and unsettling unpredictability with each new riveting reveal.
It's visually stunning with a grisly realism and nerve-wracking intimacy that is beautifully merged with a ominous and pulse-pounding score from Jóhann Jóhannsson.  I enjoyed it quite a bit while watching it but it kept coming back and haunting me for days afterwards, only heightening the anticipation of viewing it again.

4½ hitmen out of 5

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL [2015]

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's teen drama, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, is one the most pleasant unexpected surprises of the year.
High-schooler Greg is an awkward movie-loving outsider, afraid of intimate social interaction, that has his outlook on life changed when he accidentally befriends Rachel, a classmate recently diagnosed with leukemia.
It's too easy to compare it to The Fault in Our Stars but the film (and the Jesse Andrews novel it's based on) is completely different in tone, mood and themes.  There's no love story to be found but a coming-of-age story about friendship, finding one's purpose and the stark pain of reality.  There's moments of gut-busting hilarity to compliment the mature heartbreak.  It's rare that each character, major & minor, chew up each scene they're in but that's the case here.  They're all interesting and entertaining to come familiar with.  The photography is both beautiful and startlingly creative with it's dizzying camerawork and snippets of stop-action animation.

4 Big Ships out of 5

FURY [2014]

Writer/director David Ayer steps away from his usual crooked cop tales with Fury, the fictional World War II story of a five-man tank crew travelling behind enemy lines during final days of the war.
All in all, the film is beautifully shot as grim as it may look, superbly acted, well written war film that is grisly and thoroughly unpleasant.  The film aims to pack a punch but for some reason it never quite hits you where it should, while it also has problems bringing anything new to the table in it's genre.  With that being said, it might not point out anything new to the viewer but certainly does a fantastic job at putting you right in the seat of that tank.  There's no real heroism or glory here, it's just plain violent, senseless and quite frightening.

3½ horse butts out of 5

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET [2013]

Martin Scorsese directs Wall Street stockbroker/fraudster Jordan Belfort's memoir in the debaucherous The Wolf Of Wall Street.
It's a tongue-in-cheek view of the lifestyle of the spoiled and overly greedy culture that you'll either see as glorified or completely disgusting, depending on what sort of approach you take to the film.  Scorsese applies the exact same style he would to one of his gangster films, like time period music, voice-over narration, breaking down the fourth wall and it all works seamlessly.  The only difference is it's laced with a wicked sense of humor and there's next to no violence but made up for with 569 f-bombs dropped over the 3 hour running time.  It's got a fantastic cast playing some of the most scummiest people to grace the screen in quite awhile and if done right, it can make for a fascinating and head-shaking watch.

4 bad hairpieces out of 5

SNITCH [2013]

Ric Roman Waugh, director of Felon, lets Dwayne Johnson carry the tense crime drama Snitch on his shoulders and he does so in a very convincing performance.
I honestly went into this film expecting brainless, excessively violent fun but instead got a pleasant surprise with something dark, broody and emotionally high-strung with very minimal violence.  Not only is Johnson great but he's joined by a strong supporting cast that knows their place and plays it well.  The only real drawback is the generic purpose of the film seems to get lost around the halfway mark and we're suddenly reminded at the very end why all this went down in the first place.

3 special deliveries out of 5