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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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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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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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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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Insidious: Out of the Further

Insidious: Out of the Further

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Being a dental hygienist is a thankless job.  They diligently scrape off the gunk build-up on our teeth, fully aware that they’re going to do the same thing in six months.  Which is why I would advise that anyone interested in this career avoid Insidious: Out of the Further.  Not only is the kindly hygienist in this movie forced to clean the worst set of teeth I’ve ever seen, he has a second pair like a geriatric Zenomorph!  Maybe that Starbucks barista job would be a better option after all.

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The End of Oak Street

The End of Oak Street

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Since 1993, almost every movie released that featured dinosaurs had “Jurassic” in the title.  This is strange, given how often Hollywood studios copy off of each other’s homework.  The End of Oak Street is the first serious attempt at a dinosaur movie outside of that franchise, and it made me wonder why it took so long.  There’s plenty of action involving humans either running away from or being eaten by elaborate CGI dinosaurs, which is precisely what we want from a movie like this.  If anything, it should inspire those behind the Jurassic films to make better sequels.

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Toy Story 5

Toy Story 5

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Everyone knows that “helicopter parenting” is bad, right?  Apparently not, since the good folks at Pixar have revisited the topic again, seven years after Toy Story 4 made it clear that toys need to know their place.  Don’t they have a “prime directive” to guide them in situations like this?  Anyhow, in Toy Story 5 it’s Jessie instead of Woody who decides to take matters into her own hands with current owner Bonnie, and things turn out about as you’d expect.  There’s also a platoon of newly-awakened Buzz Lightyears that find their way into the story, and who doesn’t love more Buzz?

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Pressure

Pressure

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During a quiet moment in Pressure, Group Captain James Stagg (Andrew Scott) poignantly asks a colleague, “What is wind?”  His question is rhetorical but it reflects the philosophical differences he has with a rival who bases his optimal D-Day forecast upon historical charts.  In the face of unrelenting pressure from everyone around him to change his pessimistic weather forecast, Stagg stays true to his convictions, because he knows that predicting the weather requires more than pattern-matching.  It requires curiosity and insight, two things that ultimately won out in what was proven to be the most consequential weather forecast in history.

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