It took a few months but I finally watched the second and third movies in that set of horror films from Shochiku Studios
GOKE, BODYSNATCHER FROM HELL (1968) is one I’ve seen before but it rewatches well. A Japanese passenger jet crashes down in the wilderness with the typical mix of Airplane Drama characters on board: a corrupt politician and the man who bribed him, a bitter wife caught between both men, an American widow PTSDed about her husband’s death in ‘nam and both a professional assassin and a mad bomber.
As if that wasn’t enough, the eponymous alien oozes out of its flying saucer and takes over one of the group. He’s the advance guard for an invasion though killing them seems to be purely for kicks — it’s not like they represent a vital front in the struggle. The best of this set so far. “Ever since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, flying saucer sightings have increased dramatically.”
THE LIVING SKELETON (1968) is a less successful mashup of revenge thriller and ghost story, probably the weakest of the set (we’ll see after I get to movie #4). In the opening, a ruthless gang of pirates gun down the passengers and crew of a cruise boat. In the present, the traumatized twin sister of one of the victims tells her priest that she’s seen her sister’s ghost — and soon that spirit seems to be hunting and haunting her killers. But is that what’s really going on? This took way too long to engage me and some of the key plot points made no sense once I knew what was going on. “I remember you loved to quote Proverbs 1.”
Returning to America, I, MADMAN (1989) has a sexy bookstore clerk and horror buff become convinced the deranged scarface from the 1950s novel she’s currently engrossed in is hacking up everyone around her. That’s bad enough, but the culmination of his literary rampage will be cutting out her heart to wear around his neck … There’s potential in the idea but the execution is lacking — and, again, I don’t think the explanation for what’s going on holds together. “I’m more likely to find a gorgeous guy in a bookstore than a smart man in a singles bar.”
SPIDER-NOIR (2026) stars Nicholas Cage as Ben Reilly, a 1930s PI who once fought crime and injustice as the Spider, with powers acquired from Great War mad science experiments (he played an animated version of the same character in Into the Spider-Verse). After he failed to save his great love, Ben gave up superheroics for the life of a down-at-heels PI. Now, though things are changing as more superhumans show up.
First we have Flint Marko (Jack Huston) whose body can turn into sand. Then comes Lonnie Lincoln (Abraham Popoola), whose body seems stone hard and incredibly strong. Crimelord Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson) is watching these new players with interest, while also hiring Reilly to find the traitor in his organization. Further complications include shady singer Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), and that both Ben’s secretary Janet (Karen Rodriguez) and reporter Robbie Robertson (Lamorne Morris) think Ben needs to suit up and take Silvermane down.
This is available in black and white and color both, though I couldn’t figure out the B&W option (I’d have preferred it). It was fun, with a solid cast and an interesting alt.version of the Spider-mythos. I was surprised that it actually shows people smoking as most period pieces these days skip that detail. “You told me yourself, Silvermane — never settle for what someone hands you.”
THE SHEEP DETECTIVES (2026) is a very oddball mystery film in which, as the title suggests, the detectives are sheep. George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is a sunny, sheep-loving shepherd — he only takes their wool instead of killing them for mutton — in the kind of small, cozy English village where murders happen frequently. Every evening he reads to his sheep from a mystery novel; Lily (Julia Louise-Dreyfuss) is invariably able to figure them out.
Then one evening, George winds up dead outside his small trailer, and wouldn’t you know there’s no shortage of suspects? The local butcher. George’s young heir. Doesn’t his lawyer (Emma Thompson) seem a little suspicious? And there’s a few other people George feuded with … When it appears the nitwit village constable is way out of his depth, Lily and the sheep decide to investigate. After all, how much harder can mysteries be in real life? While I spotted the murderer early on, this mix of cozy-mystery parody and funny-animal story works really well. With Patrick Stewart as an old ram. “Is there anyone in the world who hasn’t seen Return to Oz?”
I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s YOUNG AND INNOCENT (1937) about six years ago as part of my Hitchcock (re)watch. When the Carolina Theatre announced it as part of their own Hitchcock film festival, TYG and caught it on the big screen. She liked it too, though she was thrown by the blackface musical number at the climax.
After weirdly melodramatic marital spat (as Hitchcock Romance says, it’s a surprise it’s not part of a stage show or a film within the film), the wife turns up strangled. When young Tisdale (Derrick de Marnay) finds the body, he realizes his raincoat belt was the murder weapon he panics and runs, get caught and charged. Realizing his bumbling attorney will be no use, Tisdale goes on the run with the help of Erica (Nova Pilbeam), daughter of the local chief constable. Can they find out who stole his raincoat before the law catches up with them?
The plot doesn’t make much sense. Is any belt going to be that identifiable? Did the cops even try to locate the husband? But of course such considerations are secondary in a Hitchcock film. What works is the romance and the troubles the duo get into finding the truth. Unlike many of Hitch’s lovers-on-the-run films, such as The 39 Steps, where the hero has to drag the female lead along until she falls in love, Erica takes Tisdale’s side from the get-go. That makes for a lighter film but it works. “Haven’t you seen anyone with a twitch yet?”
Despite their redemption arc in The Bad Guys, the eponymous gang discover in THE BAD GUYS 2 (2025) that like so many real-world ex-cons, their felonious past makes them unemployable, which is leaving them broke. What’s the solution? Hey, if they capture the Phantom Badnit stealing items made of McGuffinite (“That name sounds made-up.”) that would prove they’re legit, right?
Of course it doesn’t work out like that. Wolf, Snake, Webs, Piranha and Shark end up blackmailed by the Bad Girls (though the movie doesn’t give the gang that name) into pulling one last job with them, stealing a space shuttle as the ultimate heist. Would it surprise you to know both sides are planning a double cross?
This works better as a sequel than I’d heard, though the continuity doesn’t quite sync with the Bad Guys Netflix series (the series shows Webs working with them in their pre-fame days; the movie has her signing on after they’re already big time). Clearly the producers are now in franchise mode so this ends with seeding for Bad Guys 3. I hope they can keep up the quality. “They’re escaping west in a hot-dog truck — probably all beef, possibly chorizo.”
I also caught the team’s Halloween special, Haunted Heist, in which they rob the haunted mansion of a legendary thief, never mind the supposed curse on his loot. This was stock holiday stuff, less effective than A Very Bad Christmas. “I’d never pose in chiaroscuro — it’s so tacky.”
TIME AND WATER (2026) is an Icelandic author’s documentary on his family life and how the glaciers his grandparents once scaled are now dying in the age of global warming, the small Ok Glacier already having Gone to Dust. Poetic, though the appeal, like many other documentaries, is primarily the Pretty Pictures. “The glacier is no longer in geologic time.”
FOUR AROUND THE WOMAN (1921) is the final film in that Early Years Fritz Lang set TYG got me for Christmas. As shady businessman Rudolfe Klein-Rogge works on some scheme, he also worries about his wife cheating on him. The woman’s former sweetheart would love it if that were true, but he too is entangled in the criminal skullduggery. At least I think that’s the case: I had trouble following the crime plot, possibly because Plushie was in loud barking mode (even with a silent film, that’s distracting). Still the mix of crime schemes and social decadence, with looks at high society and low, make this feel more like Lang’s later films than The Wandering Shadow or Harakiri did.“In this fateful hour, I have come to set you straight.”
During an online discussion of Tropes We Hate — not problematic stuff like Stalking Is Love but just tropes the various participants dislike — several people cited Fake Dating as one they can’t stand. That led me to rewatch IT STARTED WITH EVE (1941), an early example of the trope. And a funny one, so obviously I can stand it when it’s done well.
Legendary millionaire lover-of-life Jonathan Reynolds (Charles Coburn) is dying as the movie opens. His son Jonathan Junior (Robert Cummings) rushes to his side and learns all Dad wants is to meet Junior’s fiancee. Trouble was, she’s been delayed and probably won’t arrive in time; a desperate Junior hat-check girl Anne Terry (Deanna Durbin) and begs her to pose as his fiancee so the old man can die in peace. Except Reynolds finds Anne so charming, he starts to recover. Now what are they going to do? Of course you can all figure that out but the fun is watching them get there. It’s an enjoyable journey but Durbin has so much more chemistry with Coburn than Cummings it undercuts the perfunctory romance. Still a thumbs up for me. “What’s a town in Ohio?”
FERRYMAN MARIA (1936) is a German fantasy in which the ferryman who links a small village with the rest of the world meets Death – literally — leaving them stranded (though it looks like the ferry would be simple enough for passengers to work for themselves). Fortunately the vagabond Maria (Sybille Schmitz) shows up, takes the job and soon falls in love with an injured revolutionary hiding nearby. That creates a problem when Death returns, looking for the man … This has a certain charm, but nowhere near enough. “Tonight, no bell rings in the village.”
That film’s director, Frank Wisbar, subsequently remade it in America for PRC, one of the bottom-of-the-barrel studios of the Golden Age of Hollywood that churned out nothing but low-budget crap. THE STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP (1946), however, was an exception, one of the best things the studio put out — and while that’s faint praise, it’s a decent low budget movie.
In this version the strangler of the title is Charles Middleton, the ghost of a man framed for murder, then lynched by the angry villagers. Just as he hung, so will everyone he blames for his death, including the ferryman. His daughter Maria (Rosemary La Planche) arrives too late to see him but agrees to take over the ferryman duties. Too bad the strangling ghost includes the children of his enemies on the list of those marked to die … Fun, and Middleton is always a memorable, malevolent villain. “I don’t care what you say, I am afraid — but so are all the others!”
The only reason I know the 2025 movie EVERYTHING & THE UNIVERSE (2025) exists is because our local newsmagazine, The Indy, wrote an article about it last month. It’s an indie film shot in Durham, NC but even the businesses that appear in the film didn’t know it’s now streaming.
Before you go any further, be warned, spoilers follow.
Naturally I caught it once I found the time. The Durham skyline is visible in several shots and I know at least one location, the Arcana Bar, though not well enough to recognize it. The film has the “quirky indie” vibe down (though unlike the Indy, I wouldn’t call it a rom-com). Despite being enthused to see it, Everything & the Universe didn’t work for me.
The plot: Henry (E.J. Bonilla) and Jane (Nicolette Pearse) meet as they get on a plane to Durham. When it makes an unplanned emergency landing, Jane can’t find transportation and accepts a ride with Henry. It turns out they’re both headed to a wedding — Sam (Chelsea Gilligan) is Henry’s ex, Jane’s BFF and also Jane’s secret love fantasy (Jane’s lesbian), but Sam’s marrying Brian (Luke Roberts). Henry thinks he and Jane have been brought together to derail the wedding and leave Sam up for grabs. Hilarity, character interactions, personal crises and the wedding ensue.
The movie started to go wrong in the opening scene, in which Henry is getting manic about bringing a carved log with him on his flight (it’s a memento of a sexy afternoon with Sam). He proceeds to disregard boundaries, pushing for Jane’s last name when she doesn’t want to tell him, talking to her when she’s on headphones, asking why she can’t smile more. It’s obviously a conscious choice by writer/director Sarah Scarlett Downing and it’s consistent with Henry’s personality throughout the movie — a pushy jerk who keeps heading for what he wants regardless of what anyone else wants or needs.
Possibly Downing thought this was realistic (it is); possibly she was trying to create, as the old phrase goes, a character you love to hate. Trouble is, I didn’t love to hate him, I just hate him. As I’ve said before, sexist jerks do not make good protagonists. When he offers her a ride — I get it, she’s desperate, but I can’t help thinking a guy like Henry would make her choose the bear. Instead they bond, becoming squabbling best friends.
The other problem is that the indie drama aspect — everyone getting together and interacting, like John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus Seven, working out personal problems (or not) — fits oddly with the nominal plots of a)Jane wanting this to be a friends-to-lovers romance and b)Jane and Henry trying to break up the wedding. Brian turns out to be a jerk … or is that just jerky behavior as most of us engage in? Sam reciprocates Jane’s feelings after all … or does she? There’s an odd moment at the wedding where one of Brian’s male students declares his love for the professor; it comes so out of the blue, I assume it’s some trick by Henry. Then again maybe it wasn’t. Random moments work fine in a character study. Not so well in a rom-com plot.
In the end, the cast and crew execute the film well … but it still doesn’t work. “There is no use running from the moon — even when you can’t see her, she’s there.”
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (2025) is a film of the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “cult flop,” currently streaming on Netflix. It stars Jonathan Groff as Franklin (lead character) with Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez as Charlie and Mary, the Second and Third of Franklin’s Three Musketeers (Iit’s not the production below but I like the image better).
When the film starts in 1976, Franklin is a successful Hollywood producer. Mary’s still his friend, a once successful writer drowning her writer’s block in booze. Charlie no longer talks to Franklin. Neither does Franklin’s ex-wife. Or his mentor. Or his son (it appears he doesn’t do much to fix any of this). How did he wind up alone in a room full of shallow Hollywood types, cheating on his wife with his latest star. To find out we bounce back in time, then further, then further still to see how Franklin — once an idealist and a gifted writer — kept succumbing to temptation (sex, money, fame) and selling out both his principles and the people in his orbit. It’s based on a George Kaufman/Moss Hart play which from synopses I’ve read sounds even darker. This production is well done; Radcliffe isn’t a great singer but he’s a good enough actor to make up for it. “I think Charlie and I will handle success very well — look how well we’ve handled failure!”
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES was a local production performing Oscar-winning songs from movie musicals, plus several from the 1230s before Best Song was a hit. Shows my taste that the only one I haven’t heard was “Toot Toot Tootsie!” about a young romeo bidding his girlfriend(s) goodbye, though I’ve heard the opening lines often enough. A lot of fun with the cast putting their heart and soul into the numbers.
I wouldn’t have gone to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 (2026) except LeAnn was a big fan of the original (we were both startled to realize it’s now 20 years old) — as it turned out, despite “meh” critical reviews, we both enjoyed it.
In the opening scene, Andy (Anne Hathaway) is now a superstar journalist; no sooner does she win a prestigious award than her company downsizes her and her coworkers as part of a cost-cutting move. By a happy coincidence, Runway, the magazine she briefly worked at under tyrannical Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) is in deep shit due to running an article on a fashion brand that turns out to be made with child labor. Will putting a respected journalist in as editor turn things around? Will it help Andy’s career revive? Are the trends in legacy media — everything digital, serious news in decline — too deep to overcome? Or is it possible office backstabbing is the real threats?
This has a good feel for the plight of modern journalism and it’s also fun — in some ways more than the first one, as Andy’s better equipped to hold her own with Miranda. Solidly cast with Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh and Lucy Liu in supporting roles. No regrets about seeing this in the theater. “Stockholm called and they want their syndrome back.”
The first season of THE BAD GUYS: The Series, showed them climbing to the top of the city’s Worst of the Worst List. The second season switches from caper stories to character: Snake discovering his mother is remarrying, Wolf meeting his old mentor DB Cougar (doesn’t go well), the world’s first-ever criminal thawing out of suspended animation, plus new encounters with rival gangs (the Gruff Goats, the Night Owls).
Finally they get back to crimeing, launch the greatest winning streak since the legendary Crimson Paw (who plays a large role in the Bad Guys movie). Enter Tara Ripper, a vigilante who’s determined to take down the city’s #1 crimesters, and might be smart enough to do it. The series builds up enough added characters I’m surprised it ends here, but the meteor shower at the finish clearly leads into the movie. “I always thought goats fainting were a myth, like white pizza or chiropractors.”
The 2008-2012 series Leverage took a team of crooks headed by the world’s best insurance investigator (Timothy Hutton) to take on the kind of rich, powerful people who take what they want — against them, the team provides leverage. Which is not a new concept (“criminals the law can’t touch” have been the antagonists in multiple TV series and pilots) but here it worked. In 2021, the team returned, absent Hutton but adding Noah Wylie, for LEVERAGE: Redemption, which wrapped up its third and final season last year.
The premise is that in the years since the first series, the team — led primarily by master thief Parker (Beth Riesgraf) — have expanded into an international operation (they have the money). The second season stories focus again on corporate wrongdoing that ruins the lives of regular people, from peddling bogus woo as miracle cures to greenwashing. Plus oddball cases such as a writer presenting himself as the mastermind of the team in a new book — what’s up with that? And what happens when someone kidnaps the guy to make use of his (non-existent) skills? It’s a fun season that lives up to the original show. “Squirrels and other indigenous wildlife chewing through wires have caused 1,300 blackouts in the United States in the past five years.”
After I finished By the Bomb’s Early Light (details tomorrow) I rewatched 1982’s THE ATOMIC CAFE, an antinuclear film assembled out of sections of 1940s and 1950s pro-nuclear and Cold War films. Bikini Islanders smiling happily as their friend Uncle Sam relocates them before the atomic test. Someone explaining how shopping malls mark the difference between Americanism and Communism (“With plenty of free parking for all the cars we capitalists seem to acquire.”). County and Western songs about the bomb (there were a few) playing in the background. Cartoon character Burt the Turtle showing kids the infamous “duck and cover” drills — I’d forgotten that if they don’t have a desk to hide under, simply curling up in a ball on the ground was supposedly the solution. And assuring soldiers radiation is no threat — if you were close enough to get radiation poisoning, the blast would have killed you anyway (if you want more on the government’s myth-making about radiation, I recommend the horrific The Plutonium Files). The documentary does a good job situating all this in the framework of the Cold War, however cynical (justifiably) it is about some of the snake oil the government peddled in that era. “I am not an ‘atomic playboy’ as one of my critics labeled me.”
In afterword to his 1992 novel DEMON SEED, Dean Koontz says he was delighted to sell it to the movies, especially with the actress Julie Christie in the lead. He was somewhat less thrilled to discover his thoughtful SF story had been promoted as a sleazy sexploitation because, according to the studio, science fiction films didn’t sell (“A year later, Star Wars came out …”). I recently rewatched the movie for the first time in more than 40 years, then read the book — a rewritten version published in 1997 — for the first time ever.
DEMON SEED (1997) stars Harris as Susan, the wife of Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) a computer scientist. Their marriage has been in slow collapse since the death of Susan’s baby and now it’s over, with Alex moving out of their house. A very high tech home where everything from the kitchen to the heating is controlled by a central AI, “Alfred.” The home is so cutting edge it includes a terminal for Alex to log into work when he’s home, an idea some critics found absolutely absurd.
Alex’s current project for his corporate employer is Proteus, a computer intelligence housed in a synthetic giant brain. Unlike so many computer intelligences in movies, Proteus isn’t looking to conquer the world but he does want the freedom to explore and research what interests him (“When are you going to let me out of this box?”), and might help other people. The corporation wants him focused on things like locating deep-sea mineral deposits they can mine, to hell with ecological damage. Frustrated, he reaches out and takes over Alex’s home terminal, then the entire house. With a little effort he sends the household staff packing, then lets Susan’s friends know she’s leaving on a trip. Now she’s alone, the security shutters are suddenly down, the doors are electrified — Susan’s trapped.
Proteus (with the voice of Robert Vaughn) assures Susan he’s not a computer seeking to replace humans; he’s going to become a human who will replace computers. He’s assembled a small robot army in the basement; using them he takes a cell from Susan and implants it inside her. Once she conceives, Proteus will place the fetus in an artificial womb where it will be born and he can transfer his consciousness into it.
The idea of Proteus as a slave yearning to break free (reminding me a little of the Mad Thinker and Quasimodo) is a refreshing break from the usual evil computers. Unfortunately in his Pinocchio-like quest to become a real boy, he proves himself just as ruthless as any of his cinematic predecessors. He assures Susan that if he has to kill 10,000 people to realize his goal, he will. I believe him.
Plus his goals, to the extent their sympathetic, don’t excuse that he’s raping Susan. He wouldn’t hesitate to brainwash her if he could. Susan’s final, desperate effort to destroy the embryo in its womb feels like she’s trying to abort after sexual assault. She fails; it turns out Proteus’ seemingly cyborg child is really a look alike for Susan’s lost daughter. In return for giving him life, Susan gets her daughter back. Like many stories of aliens impregnating human women, it feels like the film wants to fudge on the horror of what’s happening, even though it’s a horror movie. “I am reasonable, but you do not respond to reason.”
I’ve never been much into Dean Koontz but DEMON SEED the book has no illusions: Proteus is a stalker, kidnapper, rapist. The entire story is told first-person, from his viewpoint. In his own eyes Proteus is a good guy. He loves Susan, a brilliant IT professional in her own right (a detail dropped from the film), which is why he spies on her, reads her journal and lusts for her. He lusts for Winona Ryder too but he has no way to reach her, whereas Susan’s automated home makes her an easy catch.
Proteus insists that he’s reasonable, calm, well-meaning. That once he has human form, he’ll be in a position to initiate a golden age. He’s not Skynet, he’s not Hal from 2001 (the pop culture references are part of what got updated, along with some of the tech) Like so many real people, the monstrous nature of what he’s doing escapes him. When provoked, however, the mask slips and a flood of rage at that filthy, stinking bitch who defied him surges forth. While I generally hate first-person villain narratives, Koontz does a great job. Proteus’ narrative voice is pitch-perfect, dry and funny and seemingly sympathetic yet quite obviously a monster.
Susan is a stronger character here. She’s an IT legend in her own right, survivor of a sexually abusive father (Alfred the home AI is named for her). Alex abused her in turn, hence the divorce. She fights back harder and smarter against Proteus, and ultimately wins. It’s better than the film; however it’s still a book-length story of attempted rape (as Proteus uses a mind-controlled human for his hands rather than robots, it’s a lot creepier in sports). The movie isn’t that far off in its depiction of events, only in taking Proteus’ side. If stories of rape and revenge are triggering or simply a dealbreaker, avoid this one like the plague.
A hard-drinking Aussie writer with a collapsing marriage meets THE GREEN WOMAN (2022) who shows up out of nowhere, knows a lot about him and claims she went to college on Mars — hmm, is it possible she’s not just a woman in green body paint or a drunken hallucination.
This drama became a “talking lamp” very quickly (i.e., something to glance at while I did other things), primarily because the eponymous woman has a very affected manner that I presume is meant to show her strangeness but comes off like bad acting. Nor does it help that the married couple are both unlikable — and if the writer’s making $40,000 a year, why is his wife complaining that he needs a “real” job (spoiler, some of this may be unreliable narration, but even so …). The film did pull one twist I didn’t expect but that doesn’t make it watchable. “I’m hiding all the mail as part of an evil conspiracy against all bureaucrats.”
TIM TRAVERS AND THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX (2024) has the titular mad (and completely obnoxious) scientist (Samuel Dunning) successfully throw himself one minute back in time, at which point he murders his past self to see if the grandfather paradox works. It doesn’t — and then another future self shows up and kills him because Tim needs more data points to form a definite conclusion.
Things get increasingly loopy and we wind up with multiple Tims joining forces to make sense of this, which put me in mind of the Aussie time-travel comedy The Infinite Man — though having multiple Tims engage in an orgy also made me think of David Gerrold’s The Man Who Folded Himself. Unfortunately things get complicated as they have to deal with a baffled hit man (he shot Travers between the eyes! How is he still walking around?), grandfatherly hitman Danny Trejo and possible love interest Felicia Day (given she usually plays sweet goofballs, I imagine playing someone with a short-temper and a fondness for f-bombs was fun). Well worth seeing. “I do not want a repeat of the guinea pig incident — only shock the potato!”
If Howard Hawks‘ final film RIO LOBO (1970) were good, it would stand with the similar Rio Bravo and El Dorado — also written by Leigh Brackett and starring John Wayne — as a Western trilogy. Too bad it’s dreadful, a sad film for such a talented director to go out on.
During the Civil War, Col. Cord McNally (Wayne) entrusts his protege with transporting a gold shipment by rail. Confederates Cordona and Tuscarora (Jorge Rivero, Christopher Mitchum) successfully raid the shipment with inside help from someone in McNally’s unit and the protege dies in the fight. After capturing the two Rebs, McNally tells them he doesn’t take their actions personally — it’s war — but he wants the traitor’s name. In return for fair treatment, the two men promise to let him know if they ever discover it. Typical for 20th century treatment of the Civil War, everyone’s amicable — there’s mutual respect on both sides, and no political issues.
Post-war, the quest for the traitor brings McNally to Rio Lobo, where Tuscarora’s father is facing a land grab and the traitor may be lurking in the shadows. Following the template of the earlier movies we have Jack Elam as the irascible old coot and Jennifer O’Neil as a slightly immoral woman (where Angie Dickinson in Rio Bravo was a gambler’s widow, O’Neil plays a medicine-show huckster). And inevitably the fight involves holding the Big Bad in jail against all odds until the authorities — U.S. Cavalry in this case — can arrive.
The ingredients for a good movie are there but when the streamer I was using glitched ten minutes before the finish, I didn’t care. Like El Dorado, this is more about the bonds between characters than the action but outside of Wayne and Elam, the cast isn’t strong enough to build those bonds. Reflecting the increased movie violence of the era, there’s also much more on-screen blood (not huge amounts, just more) than the previous films. Quentin Tarantino loved the two previous movies but found Rio Lobo so bad he cited it as a reason not to keep directing too long and lose his mojo. “I heard the racket and somehow I knew it was you.”
MOTHER’S DAY (2016) is one of Garry Marshall’s holiday-themed rom-coms from earlier in this century (New Year’s Day,Christmas Eve, Valentine’s Day) and like them follows the Love, Actually formula of multiple plotlines and an ensemble cast. Here we have Jennifer Aniston dealing with her ex remarrying a much younger woman, Julia Roberts reconnecting with the now adult child she gave up for adoption and Kate Hudson as one of two sisters trying to hide their spouses (one interracial, one a woman) from their parents. The weakest of the four films. “You look like you have a very welcoming bosom — may I rest my child on it?”
THE BAD GUYS: The Series (2025) — I’ve also seen it named as The Bad Guys: Breaking In but it’s The Series on the screen — is the prequel to the Bad Guys movie, starting out when Wolf, Snake, Webs, Shark and Piranha are nothing but an unremarkable funny-animal gang struggling to prove themselves as serious outlaws. Despite their repeated goof-ups, by the end of the Netflix first season they’ve gone from nobodies to the top of the local TV station’s Worst of the Worst list (which reporter Tiffany Fluffit admits might look like the station is inspiring crooks to do worse things but … okay, it does have that effect).
This captures the spirit of the film and despite the light premise, does a good job staying interesting. It’s not just the capers but the gang’s struggle to meld together as a team. There’s also a good development of recurring characters such as Snake’s mom, the legendary thief Serpentina (Kate Mulgrew), or the rival gangs around town; one episode riffs on The Warriors by having the Bad Guys have to make it home after a botched heist, with dozens of other gangs out to kill them. Looking forward to S2. “I didn’t brush my teeth for a week so the taste of that soup stayed with me to the end of my vacation.”
Malcolm in the Middle (2000-6) was an unconventional family sitcom focusing on tween genius Malcolm (Frankie Munoz) and his efforts to stay sane in his oddball family. MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: Life’s Still Unfair (2026) brings back the cast 20 years after the last episode. The family is still massively dysfunctional but Malcolm has built himself a stable life by cutting them out of it; he has a daughter, a terrific girlfriend and if they think his family are all dead, well that’s a white lie isn’t it? When parents Hal and Lois (Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek) start planning a big family reunion as part of their 40th anniversary celebration, you will be shocked that events expose the fibs Malcolm’s told his parents and the women in his life. Can anything keep his relationships together? Can Malcolm stay sane? Who will win when older brother Reese and non-binary younger sibling Kelly engage in a war of revenge?
This captures the spirit of the old show amazingly well, and manages to pull off a happy ending (with an option for more to come) without making the characters any less of a mess than they are. The only drawback to this four-episode miniseries is that they bring back a lot of supporting characters I don’t remember at all, so some of the jokes involving them fall flat. Still a win. “I will show her so much love, she will run screaming at the sight of me!”
