Some of my favorite movies this year so far. But i want to address Supergirl first though it’s not one of my favorites.
Supergirl: don’t know why this is getting so much hate. I thought it was good. For me, Supergirl is a gen-z protagonist. This is why she doesnt seem to care about anything. And her superhero character arch was pretty good in that sense. And she isnt superman with his constant positivity. Plus superman grew up on earth and they have very different childhoods so all the comparisons aren’t valid imo.
The Invite: deep and hilarious comedy. Everything in this movie is perfect. Cinematography, score, acting, writing, directing. I went in having only seen the movie poster and was super impressed.
Disclosure Day: very fun adventure! The way the story is told is perfect for me. It reminds me of ET for adults. While this movie asls a lot of the audience, i think when you give it the benefit of the doubt then it works very well. Has incredible visual scenes. Emily Blunt is really good in this.
Ballad of Wallis Island: beautiful heart warming film. About some musicians being hired to a remote island to perform a small concert. I think its very funny and a tad bittersweet.
Late Shift: amazing film about a late shift hospital nurse. I cried through the whole thing. Really loved this one.
Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie: funny time travel movie. Out a couple friends doing impossible things, shot like a reality documentary.
I'll try and go this weekend myself. Its crazy to me that out of all of Southern California, theres only 2 REAL imax screens? Are the faux imax screens really that bad or is that just film nerds being dramatic?
On July 17 2026 13:29 lestye wrote: I'll try and go this weekend myself. Its crazy to me that out of all of Southern California, theres only 2 REAL imax screens? Are the faux imax screens really that bad or is that just film nerds being dramatic?
There are less than 100 true IMAX screen in the world, with 1.43:1 aspect ratio. It gets even worse when you consider they are further broken down into the digital (laser) vs analogue (film) I have watched smaller imax screens in 3 different theatres, I would say they are decent enough tbh.
i'm kinda shocked my wife has not forced me to watch this movie. i'm a big fan of Sam Rockwell's work.
On July 14 2026 09:20 kakaru42 wrote: Supergirl: don’t know why this is getting so much hate. I thought it was good. For me, Supergirl is a gen-z protagonist. This is why she doesnt seem to care about anything. And her superhero character arch was pretty good in that sense. And she isnt superman with his constant positivity. Plus superman grew up on earth and they have very different childhoods so all the comparisons aren’t valid imo.
Superman is not constantly positive though. When they've tried experimenting with negativity it bombs.
People have a preset image of how both Superman and Supergirl should be. So when Christopher Reeve staggers around drunk with a 4 day beard in Superman 3 it gets rejected no matter how skilled he is as an actor. Man, that was bad. Superman 3 shoulda been a money printing machine.
If you want to contrast Superman's optimism this is how you do it...
Lois then briefly laughs about something that took away her attention saying "i don't believe this" and Superman replies "I never lie".
Supergirl failed to pull that off. In fairness to the producers: it is not an easy thing to do.
How many times since 2006 has Superman said "Truth, Justice, and the American Way"? are they scared?
On July 05 2026 04:47 Manit0u wrote: And if you want to do the whole girlboss thing then you don't need a superhero, you need a proper woman villain because it's usually villains who make the movie and are remembered more. Vader has 1000x more fans and is 1000x cooler than Luke. Maul is the most recognizable and considered the most iconic character of the SW prequels despite having very little screen time.
You need a proper heroic character arc. Hollywood is so gunshy from the sex scandals and obvious casting couch hiring processes of the past 50+ years they've forgotten how to create a female character arc. This criticism comes from my wife: "they need to stop treating women like smaller sized men."
Before Hollywood will be able to create a great female heroine story the industry needs to answer the question: "What Is A Woman?". It is a question they've been stumbling over for some time now. Once they have that answer they can create a proper female hero.
Just off the top of my head... a great heroic female character arc could be an Ayn Rand biopic. She escapes the commie revolution where her family has their business confiscated by the state; she then turns herself into a screenwriter and author in a language she did not start to learn until she was 21, She was the screenwriter for the Night of January 16th at a time when only 15% of screenwriters were female while she was never part of the Hollywood inner circle. Read a couple of pages of "We The Living" while keeping in the back of your mind that this woman did not starting learning to speak English until she was 21. She pretty much lied about being able to speak english in 1926 to help her get into the USA.
That is an heroic female character arc. Hollywood does not have the balls to do it though.
I do feel like superman choses to be positive. In such a way as he tries to find the good in people and has a lot of empathy. So i guess i meant that he’s constantly optimistic. Whereas supergirl is very cynical until the end of the movie.
Funny pun that you said that hollywood doesn’t have the balls to do a heroic female arch. Can’t tell if you’re trolling. Recently Send Help, Toy Story 5, Supergirl, Forbidden Fruits, & Apex come to mind with good hollywood heroic female archs.
Finally gotta say that 2019s Rose The Hat in Dr. Sleep is one of the best villains in any movie imo
On July 21 2026 03:13 kakaru42 wrote: I do feel like superman choses to be positive. In such a way as he tries to find the good in people and has a lot of empathy. So i guess i meant that he’s constantly optimistic. Whereas supergirl is very cynical until the end of the movie.
Funny pun that you said that hollywood doesn’t have the balls to do a heroic female arch. Can’t tell if you’re trolling. Recently Send Help, Toy Story 5, Supergirl, Forbidden Fruits, & Apex come to mind with good hollywood heroic female archs.
Finally gotta say that 2019s Rose The Hat in Dr. Sleep is one of the best villains in any movie imo
ignore him. hes the biggest troll and grifter on this site.
look no further than him calling Matt Walsh a comedian.
Interesting how the hours they decide to air movies sets which ones I randomly watch at the cinema. Supergirl is targeted at a younger audience than Obsession, so when I have a few hours over in the middle of the day when in the city I end up watching Supergirl.
The movie wasn't as bad as the rating says it is. The movie isn't great but it is a fine movie. (It does one thing great, not being 3+ hours long.) Honestly felt it was a very average action movie with some confused scripting on what scenes and what they put import on but I only got bored for one short stretch which was a backstory arc.
Disney stock is right where it was in December 2014. LOL. So the Star Wars purchase was useless. Since the end of the prequels in ... what 2005 ... this the best Star Wars content I've seen.
www.youtube.com It is hilarious that Iger and Kennedy parachuted out of the disaster they created just before the Hindenburg caught on fire.
Regarding the Vader/Luke trilogy. My favourite estranged father/son story of that era was not Star Wars. It was Bad News Bears Breaking Training. That got me in the feels. "no one talks to me like that! you can't do this to me!", Kelly Leake shrieking at his dad as he storms off the baseball field with his dad hitting fly balls to the outfielders.
Earlier on in the movie, he and his father have a confrontion where the dad says "if you didn't need a coach for this team would you have bothered to look me up? you need to think about that"
None of this awesome stuff is on youtube though. anyhow, Bad News Bears Breaking Training > Star Wars.
Backrooms I enjoyed it a lot. Surprisingly scary, the atmosphere it built is really well-done.
I also liked the theme quite a bit, MRI scanning to replicate the body and the brain, and the backroom scanning and replicating the human mind and trauma.
Sinners Weird movie. The visual is stunning but I am just not sure whether the message really carried through all the different layers of themes.
Hokum I was quite disappointed. A lot of it are too in your face, and overall it's just subpar, especially when comparing it to heretic
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by now I think I have watched all the more recent highly rated horror movies, my ranking would be :
1. Bring her back 2. Smile 2 3. Obsession 4. Long Legs 5. Backrooms 6. Heretic 7. late night with the devil 8. The Substance 9. Weapons 11. Bring her back 12. Hokum 13. Sinners (nosferatu would be above obsession, but I just don't see it as much of a horror)
I am really liking how the genre is being explored around, what a great couple of years as a horror genre fan
On July 26 2026 04:15 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Disney stock is right where it was in December 2014. LOL. So the Star Wars purchase was useless. Since the end of the prequels in ... what 2005 ... this the best Star Wars content I've seen.
www.youtube.com It is hilarious that Iger and Kennedy parachuted out of the disaster they created just before the Hindenburg caught on fire.
Regarding the Vader/Luke trilogy. My favourite estranged father/son story of that era was not Star Wars. It was Bad News Bears Breaking Training. That got me in the feels. "no one talks to me like that! you can't do this to me!", Kelly Leake shrieking at his dad as he storms off the baseball field with his dad hitting fly balls to the outfielders.
Earlier on in the movie, he and his father have a confrontion where the dad says "if you didn't need a coach for this team would you have bothered to look me up? you need to think about that"
None of this awesome stuff is on youtube though. anyhow, Bad News Bears Breaking Training > Star Wars.
It's breathtaking how little you actually know about things you like to talk about:
Disney has paid out roughly $28 billion to $30 billion in total cash dividends to common stock shareholders since the end of 2012.
And another one:
At least $12 billion in total financial value has been generated by the Star Wars franchise for Disney, resulting in roughly $8 billion in net profit since they acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in 2012.
This is from 2024 and it's not taking into consideration all the money they make from people subscribing to Disney + so they can watch things like Mandalorian or Andor.
Not being able to understand that stock price doesn't necessarily correlate with a company doing well is very weird for someone who likes to post about money and economy a lot.
But Disney is such a massive corporate entity, this whole discussion is moot. I wouldn't be surprised if SW as a whole only accounts for 1% of its total portfolio. Between the cross integration of SW into all of its products it's probably impossible to put an actual number on this anyway, but in any case it fades away in the vastness of Disney as a whole.
On July 28 2026 03:31 Smorrie wrote: That's an awkwardly intense response lol.
Nah, someone just needs to check his bs once in a while lol. I share the sentiment tho, never was a fan of the acquisition and probably never will be (andor was cool tbh)
On July 28 2026 03:31 Smorrie wrote: That's an awkwardly intense response lol.
Nah, someone just needs to check his bs once in a while lol. I share the sentiment tho, never was a fan of the acquisition and probably never will be (andor was cool tbh)
We also got Rogue One out of it, the only good one out of the 6 new movies.
We got some cool stuff, Lucas wasn't going to do it anymore anyway and looking at other studios I'm not sure who would have done a swell job with Star Wars.
The main trilogy was fucked up in a pretty spectacular way and I firmly believe that the reason behind that is Disney management being too receptive of criticism.
People poo pooed Force Awakens for being too nostalgic and generic, so they gave it to someone who's going to do something crazy with it, then they went all in and meddled with it to a point where a whole huge pile of shit was added as filler, and when people whined and rebelled again against it they dropped all plans and did a 180, again.
If they either let JJ or Rain do the whole trilogy I'm sure it would have been much better, I didn't hate either of those 2 movies, but the 3rd one was an abomination.
Thoughts of The Odyssey? I used to hold Nolan in high regard and some of his older films are my all time favourites but I would say ever since Tenet or even Dunkirk his films have been incoherent and somewhat disappointing to me. Huge production value but missing that special something he used to have.
Edit: not to shit on Nolan tho, if he stopped making films after Interstellar he would still be one of the all time greats in my eyes.
On July 29 2026 22:11 TropicalHaze wrote: Thoughts of The Odyssey? I used to hold Nolan in high regard and some of his older films are my all time favourites but I would say ever since Tenet or even Dunkirk his films have been incoherent and somewhat disappointing to me. Huge production value but missing that special something he used to have.
Edit: not to shit on Nolan tho, if he stopped making films after Interstellar he would still be one of the all time greats in my eyes.
Dunkirk was great. I'm skipping Odyssey though. The trailers don't really sell me on it and the reviews so far seem to be mixed.
On July 29 2026 22:11 TropicalHaze wrote: Thoughts of The Odyssey? I used to hold Nolan in high regard and some of his older films are my all time favourites but I would say ever since Tenet or even Dunkirk his films have been incoherent and somewhat disappointing to me. Huge production value but missing that special something he used to have.
Edit: not to shit on Nolan tho, if he stopped making films after Interstellar he would still be one of the all time greats in my eyes.
Dunkirk was great. I'm skipping Odyssey though. The trailers don't really sell me on it and the reviews so far seem to be mixed.
As far as I have seen in reviews they think it is great. The only ones disliking it do it because of the name. It isn't the Odyssey but it is called that on the title. If the movie had another name and claimed to be inspired by instead of being an adaptation I see many of those reviews flipping. Though some complain about the acting where stars were picked instead of more suitable picks.
That said I havn't watched it myself either and likely won't. Nolan has burnt all his goodwill with me on previous titles. That combined with not liking the Odyssey as a source material means there is little pull.
I think The Odyssey movie is awesome. I read the book in college. The movie hits a bunch of adventures bang bang bang one after another. So it’s fairly epic. And one would imagine that a bard reciting an epic would have lots of exciting moments rotating in and out of their performance.
Like the Dark Knight, Nolan takes a fantastic story and modernizes it as if it was something that really happened and how someone today would be a character in it. This was apparent to me with the dialogue choices and the way that the gods are portrayed. And i liked it.
I didn’t like how heavily patriarchy is centered. Like it literally wasn’t woke enough for me. It was also too loud. And logistically like wtf the Greeks are stuck on a beach for ten years and this trojan horse plan is the best they came up with for breaching a 30ft wall?
I did like the themes of ‘zeus law’ and the recognition of the devastation that the armies created.
EPT
