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.

Fright Night (1985)

An 80s vampire flick that many genre fans feel is a cult classic... You can probably already guess where this is going: I'm in the opposite camp, identifying with the folks that feel it's overrated and mostly not very good.
It's about seventeen-year-old Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), who believes that his new neighbour (Chris Sarandon) is a blood-sucking creature of the night, but Charley's friends and family doubt his suspicions.
The comedy's weak and the characters limp. Roddy McDowall's late night TV horror host, the genre-referencing Peter Vincent, had emotive potential, but the script failed him, too. Where the film triumphs is in its special effects, courtesy of the team from Ghostbusters (1984). Unfortunately, you'll have to sit though a lot of crap to get to their best contribution, which is the finale.

2½ sundown chimes out of 5

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING [2017]

Clown director Jon Watts is curiously given the big order of bringing Spidey fully into the MCU with the John Hughes inspired Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Wasting no time with an origin story, the film dives right into the action with a band of criminals use the alien wreckage from The Avengers' New York battle to become a threat that might be too big for Spidey to handle on his own.
By ignoring the Uncle Ben story there's little tragedy to flesh out the character of Peter Parker and instead it opts to focus more on his struggles a "normal" teenager.  Apart from this major flaw the film is purely entertaining popcorn escapism in fine form with one of the MCU's best villains to date.

3½ Cappy America Public Service Announcements out of 5

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR [2016]

The MCU kicks off Phase 3 with The Russo Brothers' Captain America: Civil War, which is basically the third (and best) Avengers movie yet.
Heavily inspired by Mark Millar's mini-series, the final part of the Cappy America/Bucky Barnes trilogy sees The Avengers' comradery turn sour when the United Nations wants complete control of the team of superheroes.
Kudos to the Russos for managing to keep the film a wild romp of a superhero smackdown but never sacrificing thoughtful subtext or a healthy helping of interesting character arcs.  It's also impressive at how well they manage to juggle such a large ensemble and never once leaving us feel as if we didn't get enough of one character and not the other.  A perfect example of how you can have your costumed characters duke it out something fierce, without getting ridiculously dark, while still keeping it smart and exciting.

4 Bluth stair-cars out of 5

DIGGING UP THE MARROW [2014]

Writer/director Adam Green lets his horror-hound flag fly high with the wildly entertaining mockumentary Digging Up The Marrow.
Green plays himself (amongst a gaggle of other B-movie cult-horror icons) as he shoots a documentary about a crazy man (Ray Wise) who's begged him to make a film about the discovery of an underground place where the monsters live.  Wise is the only actor not playing himself and as always, he looks like he's having a humdinger of a good time being a nutjob resulting in just as much fun for the audience to watch.  The film ends up being pretty spirited with Green's enthusiasm for the subject matter (and Nightbreed) but unfortunately the script could have used A LOT of fine-tuning so it doesn't wander over the same tracks over and over again.

2½ Oderus Urungus' out of 5

LOCKE [2013]

Steven Knight has a knack for gritty character study thrillers, so I was eager to see how he'd handle a single setting/single actor film with Locke.
We're given a glimpse into Ivan Locke's entire life from within the seat of his car, as his whole world falls apart through a series of distressing phone calls.  I wasn't sure Tom Hardy could carry an entire film on his own, nevermind not having the luxury of changing backdrops, but he surprisingly pulls it off with intimate grace.  Knight's camera work is lit by the stark street night lights and bypassing cars which paints a feeling of depression and despair onto the increasingly daunting atmosphere.
It's the type of film that's most effective in a solitary environment to make best of the film's lonely atmosphere and from there you'll find yourself wanting to scream as Locke does.

3 invisible fathers out of 5

Thinner (1996)

An unscrupulous, overweight lawyer gets cursed by a bitter gypsy hell-bent on extracting vengeance. It’s a serving of just deserts; the bowl in which the serving sits is functional but lacks style.
There’s some black humour scattered but not enough to detract from the detestable nature of everyone involved or spice up the blandness.

2 killer diets out of 5

HOW I LIVE NOW [2013]

Based of the young adult novel by Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now is a terrifyingly bleak World War III film, directed by Kevin MacDonald, that's carried by the always wonderful Saoirse Ronan.
There's some wonderful acting, beautiful tones of a bi-polar nature, great scenes of tension & emotion and never tries to be smarter than most films like this would attempt to do.  There is however some brief moments of horrendous dialogue curiously scattered throughout the film, which is suspect might be last second rewrites.  I had some problems with a lot of aimless plot points that really served no purpose to the story and couldn't help but question the sexual relationship between the cousins.  What?  It's written as if the viewer is to accept as any other sort of relationship in a film.
All in all, it's an beautifully enjoyable hit and miss experience.

3 water tablets out of 5

THE IMPOSSIBLE [2012]

Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and newcomer Tom Holland deliver some powerful performances in The Orphanage director Juan Antonio Bayona's The Impossible.

Following the story of a family separated during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the film never tugs at the heartstrings for the sake of drama but grounds itself in a reality that is all too frightening and emotionally draining.  A realistic retelling of a story about family, the will to survive, glimmers of hope and life & death that's tastefully done.

4 loose pages from a book out of 5

Child's Play (1988)

We all know the story by now…Lakeshore Stranger Charles Lee Ray is trapped and cornered in a toy shop after being fatally wounded and invokes a voodoo incantation to transpose his soul into that of a “Good Guys” doll. 8-year-old Andy inherits said doll and creepy shit starts to hit the fan (everyone blames the kid, of course). You can probably tell by now that I really love these kinds of movies; whether it’s living dolls, animated puppets or little creatures, I eat all that shit up. This is probably one of the most competently made of the genre and actually holds up better than I thought it would.

4 friends ‘til the end out of 5