Has Netflix made rom-coms afraid of conflict more aggressive than a cute misunderstanding? More specifically: Wouldn't it make SO much more sense if Halle Bailey was playing a genuine scammer in YOU, ME & TUSCANY? I sure think so. (THE LADY EVE forever!) decider.com/2026/04/09/y...

Unsurprisingly, THE INVITATION holds up quite well now that death cults are just like, a faction of people you know on Facebook www.polygon.com/the-invitati...

Latest episode of THE NEW FLESH has a rare pre-release review (of FACES OF DEATH), plus horror news, plus jokes, plus some random talk about very occasionally getting recognized in public! Someone clocked me from my Letterboxd account!! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

E asked us to play Weezer in the car. When I put on the White Album, she clarified she wanted to hear the ones she knows......the ones from VAN WEEZER.

!!!!!!!

Rather sporting SNL UK to follow up US-shaming bookings of top-tier rock acts Wet Leg and Wolf Alice with Kasabian, just so we Americans know it's not all roses over there.

Traditional Delaware Night Live stiff drink

In our recent two-day double feature of movies about old-timey kids using illicit substances and slurs, E's appreciation of THE BAD NEWS BEARS has edged out STAND BY ME, to which she already desginated "quite good." I am KILLING it with my movie choices and I can't WAIT to see how I blow it!

The NYT, a paper devoted to spreading the propaganda of rich “centrists” and right wing Trump apologists, isn’t critiquing the wealthy or defending the needy; it’s just trying to stigmatize public services and evangelize for means testing to undermine a socialist mayor. Just my opinion!

If THE DRAMA is "just" a funhouse-mirrored rom-com and not a serious, probing exploration of [redacted], it's an awfully good one, I thought. Reviewed-ish here: decider.com/2026/04/03/t...

This is a solipsistic reaction to good news but this continues the rich A.V. Club tradition of hires that make me feel more legit by having my byline anywhere near them as a freelancer. Welcome Monica!

Has Deadpool been doctoring scripts lately? For the Guardian, I INVESTIGATE www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ap...

I remain absolutely stunned that the guys in charge of TEEN TITANS GO! haven't made a funnier, sillier, or less blandly sincere version of the Mario Brothers. On THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE: www.avclub.com/the-super-ma...

Everyone say Dark Universe

15 years after I reviewed SUCKER PUNCH, I wrote about SUCKER PUNCH again. Sorry/not sorry. www.polygon.com/sucker-punch...

Why must we all be maxxing everything all the time? From now on, I'm minning. I'm doing the minimum amount possible.

I also liked Julia Ducournau's ALPHA. The Cannes people were wrong mostly! The first Gen Alpha body horror movie?? www.polygon.com/gen-alpha-fi...

I liked this movie a lot! A nice NYC night out if you're free!

Oh no Weezer is playing Barclays on my birthday

You know what, I have to give it up: THEY WILL KILL YOU also has Ain't It Cool vibes, and this time, I managed to enjoy myself. The Zazie Beetz difference? The #horrorlifestyle at work? Whatever it was, I had a good time. www.avclub.com/they-will-ki...

Ain't It Cool News Cinema continues unabated with the inexplicably acclaimed MIKE & NICK & NICK & ALICE, about which I have corrected the record here: www.avclub.com/mike-and-nic...

I'm glad a decade of parenthood hasn't dulled my ability to laugh at Andrew Garfield beating the shit out of those kids in UNDER THE SILVER LAKE

I don't know why Bluesky gets such a bad rap; it's got such a wealth of resources for posts angrily explaining who is automatically a bad person based on different types of media consumption

On PROJECT HAIL MARY and what it lacks that INTERSTELLAR has. decider.com/2026/03/24/p...

Something I have a hard time getting over is that for the spring/summer after E was born, I made her wear this little jaunty cap and she mostly refrained from grabbing it and tossing it away

I didn't keep up with Sam Kieth's work as closely as I should have, but THE MAXX was such a big deal in my comics-reading. A title I checked the comic shop weekly for (because its schedule was erratic), bought all the back issues, read the full run multiple times... RIP to a singular artist.

We went to Uniqlo and I got what I described to Marisa as a nice shirt, something one could wear to a job interview

Tonight she specifically got past 9PM when I remembered that Old Glory Robot Insurance existed

Quick q if you die in the metaverse do you die in real life

Magnolia There Will Be Blood Licorice Pizza The Master One Battle After Another

Most interesting aspect of Paul Thomas Anderson's win tonight, for me, is that he's one of the few directors in his peer group to actually win for directing. Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Alexander Payne all have screenwriting Oscars. Wes Anderson won for a short.

For my adult life, I've thought of "older movies" as ones released before I was born (1980). That's still my marker in trying to watch 50+ "older" movies/year, but: weird to think that, given that most of what I watch is from the past 100 years, 1980 is now almost halfway back. 54/46 split.

Going on like 35 years of not really knowing what Owen Gleiberman means when he calls a movie "flaky," a word whose versatility he judges as way more vast than I do.

This is my pet Oscar cause now (I am not an Oscar voter)

This is the first weekend of the year where I just do not have a review of a new-release movie going up somewhere. While my self-worth craters over this, then craters again over being affected by it at all, here are some recent things I wrote that are not reviews of new releases.

As usual, this was a fun and spirited discussion w/thoughtful insights and spicy opinions, though my favorite part was when I noted that Becca was unusually attuned to Jacob Elordi’s comings & goings and she responded, “I am and I hate it, I hate being alive!” www.sportsalcohol.com/the-sportsal...

Wrote a bit about the Oscars driving everyone insane this year, with a bonus sideswipe at how like 70% of my movie-person feed treated TRAIN DREAMS, FRANKENSTEIN, and HAMNET like a GREEN BOOK/CRASH/CODA triple feature. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

I have an occasional podcast with my friends where we talk about culture stuff and one of our best annual episodes is our OSCAR SPECIAL which you better hurry up and listen to now before it expires on Sunday! Me and Marisa and Sara and Jeremy and Becca and Ben! www.sportsalcohol.com/the-sportsal...

Traversing the decades to bring you the Best Best Pictures! www.gq.com/story/the-be...

In addition to this being a shitty sentiment from Docter, his quote about how they're making movies not therapy sessions sounds like something a coward would parrot from the jackass higher-up serving as his corporate mentor. Depressing as hell.

If you'd like to wish a happy 30th anniversary to FARGO, my old editor Mark and I have done you one better and paid tribute (of sorts) to each of the 22 movies directed by Joel and/or Ethan Coen. RANKED! if you care about that sort of thing. www.insidehook.com/film/every-c...

I went and saw Ratboys tonight and the lead gal and one of the guitarists played back to back at one point and then she referred to that as going "the full Emperor's New Groove" and after a beat I knew exactly what she meant and forever thus I will think of it that way

Screaming

I've liked all of the big Lord/Miller movies but I get the distinct impression they spent the pandemic era memorizing all the praise they ever received on social media. That would explain both the self-important sprawl of PROJECT HAIL MARY and the third SPIDER-VERSE movie they plum forgot to make.

HOPPERS is out this week! Cute stuff, not as Silicon Valley-brained as Andrew Stanton's live-action movie (but a little Silicon Valley-brained). Maybe the best Pixar since TURNING RED? (It's not as great as TURNING RED.) www.avclub.com/hoppers-revew

People seem excited by a new SCARY MOVIE and I'm sorry, I know there are tons of horror movies that can be richly parodied but the basic framework of "let's do a SPOOF of SCREAM!!!" will never not be stupid to me!

Another day of sun

Hoooo boy, Andrew Stanton! I was not transported by the TED Talk (and honestly kinda Musk-coded) millennia-spanning sci-fi of IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE. www.avclub.com/in-the-blink...

I know it's reductive to say "Team Netflix!" but when the other option is rapacious consolidation by a studio cozying up to Trump and excited about their upcoming Rush Hour and Angry Birds sequels...... yeah sorry Team Netflix. Team nobody buys WB, really, but... www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

After a decent opening stretch, SCREAM 7 lands somewhere between a yikes and a sigh. Didn't this series used to be about horror movies? www.polygon.com/scream-7-nev...