[Get the exclusive video  version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review seven new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, February 20th, 2026. 1) I CAN ONLY IMAGINE 2 I should probably begin this by saying I am not the target audience for I Can Only Imagine 2 . Not even close. I didn’t see the first I Can Only Imagine  from 2018.

The TV theme song. Just saying those words makes me smile. Or sigh. Or get a little pissed off. Or all three at once. Because once upon a time, the TV theme song mattered. It wasn’t just background noise. It wasn’t something you skipped past so you could shave ten seconds off your binge-watch session. It was an event. It was a statement. It was mood, tone, personality, storytelling, and sometimes the entire damn plot of the show, delivered in under a minute. And now? It’s pre

Sam Rockwell is one of those actors who feels like he’s always been there. You know his face. You know his voice. You know that sideways grin, that jittery energy, that dangerous intelligence behind the eyes. And yet somehow, for a very long time, people didn’t quite know what to do with him. He was “that guy.” The guy who shows up, steals scenes, elevates mediocre material, and leaves you thinking, wait a minute… who was  that? And then you realize it was Sam Rockwell again

My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review six new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, February 13th, 2026. 1) WUTHERING HEIGHTS Here’s the thing I want to make absolutely clear right up front, because I know how these things tend to get framed: my hatred of Emerald Fennell ’s Wuthering Heights  has absolutely nothing to do with some sacred-cow reverence for Emily Brontë ’s novel. I don’t worship

Alright… this one’s personal. And when I say personal, I mean right down to the bone. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are brutal, relentless, heartbreaking afflictions. There’s no poetry in them. There’s no “silver lining.” They do enormous damage not only to the person who is suffering, but to everyone orbiting around that person—family, friends, caregivers, loved ones who slowly watch someone they recognize disappear in front of them. I’ve lived this. Dementia runs in my f

Renny Harlin (born Renny Lauri Mauritz Harjola in Riihimäki, Finland in March of 1959) is one of those filmmakers who somehow managed to be huge, influential, wildly successful, catastrophically unsuccessful, critically dismissed, financially celebrated, totally misunderstood, and relentlessly productive all at the same time. And I mean that as the highest possible compliment. This is a guy who has worked in Hollywood, Europe, Finland, Bulgaria, and China, who has directed g

My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, February 6th, 2026. 1) THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 3 Here we go again. I honestly never would have guessed back in 2024, when The Strangers: Chapter 1  limped into theaters, that it would take three full movies to tell a story that barely justified one. And yet here we are in 2026 with The Strangers: Chapter 3 , the

What is there to say about Sam Raimi except that I love him. I love him as a filmmaker, I love him as a human being, and I love the fact that he is one of those rare directors whose personality is stamped on every single frame. You watch a Raimi movie and you don’t need the opening credits, you don’t need the title card, you don’t need somebody leaning over and whispering “this is a Sam Raimi movie.” You know. You can feel it. It’s in the camera movement, it’s in the editing

There are movies that entertain you, movies that move you, movies that scare you, and then there are movies that crawl under your skin, set up permanent residence, and refuse to let you off the hook. David Cronenberg ’s Crash  is absolutely one of those movies. This is not the terrible 2004 Oscar-winning embarrassment with Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon . No, no, no. This is the real Crash . The 1996 David Cronenberg adaptation of J. G. Ballard ’s profoundly disturbing, deep

My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, January 30th, 2026. 1) SEND HELP I get to say something I haven't been able to say in a long time with this level of enthusiasm: Sam Raimi is back. Like really back. Bloody, twisted, funny, unhinged, fully himself back. And Send Help  is the proof. Sam Raimi has been one of my favorite filmmakers for a very lo