Look, I’m not one of those people who brags about their ignorance like it’s some badge of working class authenticity. I’m mostly a smart guy, and would love to be smarter. But I’m honestly admitting here that I’m not all that qualified for the works of William Shakespeare. I’ve enjoyed some of the adaptations, mostly the more stylistically adventurous ones like TITUS or ROMEO + JULIET or even THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH. But the language (beautiful as it may be) is a real obstacle for me. I always struggle with following what anyone is talking about, and you mostly gotta know what they’re talking about to know what’s happening.
Even the ones I can get a grip on I barely retain memory of afterwards. Sometimes I can’t even remember if it’s Macbeth or Hamlet that has the Ghost Dad. I really have to go into my brain and do the following math: oh yeah, in THE NORTHMAN his name is Amleth, so that’s inspired by the same story that Hamlet is inspired by, so Hamlet is the one where his uncle killed his dad. And that was also the one that STRANGE BREW was riffing on and that had the Ghost Dad. Okay, got it. I know all about Hamlet.
If you are the type of person who would buy UNDER SIEGE in 
AFTERBURN is one of the two post-apocalyptic Dave Bautista vehicles that played theaters in 2025, but it’s the one I missed. I saw 
You may remember that I recently saw 
There are a couple reasons why BRONCO BILLY isn’t one of the better aged Clint Eastwood pictures. First of all, it’s part of that phenomenon that he was so enamored of Sondra Locke that he kept putting her in movies, but playing his most obnoxious love interests (here a comically snide and uptight heiress whose upper crust accent exaggerates more with each cowboy she comes in contact with). These days that also means you might be reminded that after they broke up he reportedly used his clout to sabotage her career.
Yesterday I reviewed 
SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Affeksjonsverdi) is the beginning of my awards season viewing ritual of seeing movies that I know almost nothing about except they’re supposedly good. It’s on all the lists of predicted best picture nominees, but also my friend Matt Lynch told me to see it, so I was planning to.
THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE BARN is a 2023 horror comedy that I watched because it was one of the very few Christmas movies on Shudder that I hadn’t seen yet. It’s pretty middle-of-the-road, but definitely watchable, kept me entertained, gave me a few laughs.
I’m not gonna waste your time pretending you need my opinion whether to see AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH or not. If you don’t like these movies, no, don’t bother. If you do, obviously you’re gonna see it, it’s a new AVATAR! A new James Cameron! You’re not a heathen. And he’s still pretty much undefeated. The streak continues.
