Author: msobczak1138

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Resident Evil 2026

Resident Evil (2026)

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Having not played the video games that Resident Evil is based upon, I wonder what its fans make of the heavily obfuscated world where everything takes place.  Do they wonder why the main city is named “Racoon City”?  Or why the evil corporation responsible for all the trouble is cleverly named “Umbrella Corporation”?  Or why so many different mutations originate from the same drug?  I suspect they don’t care and focus on surviving the horrific landscape their character finds themselves in.  This is basically the approach that the movie takes, which minimizes exposition in favor of keeping the horror pedal to the metal.  The resulting movie made little sense to an outsider like me but worked as a scary-funny horror montage.

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Wicker

Wicker

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Since their inception, movies have brought to life things we could only imagine.  A man flying through the air under his own power.  Epic battles in outer space.  Gigantic monsters destroying entire cities.  Realistic reenactments of famous historical battles.  Now here comes Wicker, a movie that does something I would have considered to be impossible.  It makes the concept of wicker sexy.  For someone like me who refuses to sit on wicker chairs and considers a wicker anything to be more hassle than its worth, this was something.  The movie itself is bawdy fun, and if you see it, I guarantee you’ll never look at wicker the same way again.

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Sense and Sensibility (2026)

Sense and Sensibility

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Looking back on 1995, I was incredibly fortunate to have been introduced to Jane Austen through Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, which remains one of the best adaptations of her work.  Thirty years later, fans of Austen can rejoice in having two exceptional cinematic versions of Austen’s novel to savor.  While I’m usually reluctant to proclaim a movie that’s just been released to be a classic, describing Georgia Oakley’s passionately acted and evocatively shot film any other way would sell it short.  This is undeniably masterful filmmaking on every level and a joyful work of art.

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Other Mommy

Other Mommy

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Nothing makes a demon feel welcome like a child experiencing trouble at home.  If mom and dad aren’t getting along, a demon always comes calling for that child.  This is the setup for Other Mommy, where the demon appears in the form of the child’s mother–who is alive and well.  Playing the role of both mommies is Jessica Chastain, and her performance in the dual role elevates the movie above its modest jump-scare aspirations.

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Verity

Verity

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“The sexiest thing is the mind.”  Although this quote has been misattributed to Sigmund Freud, it rings true anyway, because the mind is the source of our desires.  I thought of this while watching Verity, the latest cinematic adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel.  As a sexy thriller, it curiously never generates heat despite providing the requisite glimpses of skin and a few sexual encounters.  What does the trick is the dialog, which proves that talking about wickedness can be just as exciting as seeing it in action..  Freud would have been proud.

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Primetime

Primetime

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In hindsight, the idea behind Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator was brilliant.  Take one part reality TV, one part investigative journalism, one part voyeurism, season with righteous anger and presto–out comes huge ratings.  The sensationalistic pull of the show was hard to resist.  Who wouldn’t want to watch child predators humiliated, handcuffed and dragged away by cops?  The show delivered as promised, regardless of the ethical and legal concerns raised along the way.  But what effect did the show have on those behind it, who compromised their morals in exchange for success?  That’s the question the movie addresses, in the most audacious way possible.

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The Weight

The Weight

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As a parent, I know all about the weight of parental responsibility.  Every decision I make takes that responsibility into consideration, because a bad one can have disastrous repercussions for myself and my child.  The Weight is about the worst possible outcome, where a father’s child is unfairly taken away from him because of his heat-of-the-moment reaction.  The movie uses that setup to delve into other forms of societal injustice, highlighting how little has changed from one hundred years ago to today.  It’s an angry movie at its core, but with good reason.

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Runner

Runner

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One thing I’ve learned from watching action movies is to never let a ridiculous plot get in the way of being entertained.  Runner is such a movie, which involves a donated liver that can only be transplanted into someone with the extremely rare RH- blood type, or as they say in this movie, “RH null”.  How rare?  The internet tells me that only fifty living people are estimated to have this blood type.  This means that the odds of a donor suddenly becoming available are extremely high.  So when it’s revealed that two people with that same blood type both need the liver, well, I shrugged and rolled with it.

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Fall 2: Deadpoint

Fall 2: Deadpoint

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Having watched 2022’s Fall and its sequel, the curiously titled Fall 2: Deadpoint, I’m convinced that I would never survive the contrived scenarios of either film.  It’s not because I would get confused over when to clip-in and clip-out, or how to climb a rusty centuries-old ladder.  It’s because when I needed to get some sleep while stranded on a platform or wooden plank overlooking a tremendous drop, I would roll over and plunge to my death.  Tossing and turning would be my downfall, so to speak.

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