2026 has been a slumping, slumbering, soporific year so far…three and a half months of “who really cares?” Except, that is, for two excellent foreign-made flicks I’ve seen, reviewed and derived significant pleasure from: Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake and Francois Ozon‘s The Stranger
Otherwise things have basically been bad, droopy and debilitating, although the pace will start to perk up during April’s second half — Kirk Jones‘ I Swear (4.24), Antoine Fuqua‘s Michael (4.24), Peter Farrelly‘s Balls Up (debuting today on Amazon…4.15…Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Sacha Baron Cohen), David Frankel‘s The Devil Wears Prada 2 (5.1)…what else?
I hated the idea of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie existing as a feature. I spat upon it. Emerald Fennell‘s Wuthering Heights…nope. Gore Verbinski‘s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die…never saw it, don’t care. (Maybe I should have.) I didn’t “hate” Project Hail Mary but it made me feel badly…it brought me down, left me feeling alienated, vaguely put off. I thought Maggie Gylllenhaal‘s The Bride! was mostly appalling. Nothing got to me except for Cake and Stranger. Everything else either stunk or meh’ed me to death.
I still haven’t seen Steven Soderbergh‘s The Christophers.
I actually quite loved Season #2 of The Pitt….forgot to mention that.