I go through ebbs and flows of watching a lot of movies. The last couple of months have been slow. I only surfaced from my unrelenting binges of Bravo slop and medical dramas a couple of times, but always feel better when I’ve taken the time to watch a film—even when the movie is just as mindless as the last episode of Summer House. In the interest of being less precious with my reviews, I’m trying out a quicker style of discussion for the blog where I throw out a few of my recent watches that stuck out most to me and talk about my main takeaways without feeling the pressure to go long on them.
Without further ado, here are some rapid fire reviews from my past months of movie nights! Beware, some spoilers lie ahead.
Project Hail Mary (2026) dir. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
I had a fun time at Project Hail Mary, but felt that a full-length review would have mostly rehashed the points I made when I wrote about Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die back in February. While there were times where I found a stray plot element or line a little corny, I was blown away by the ambitious realization of some space sequences that in isolation go toe-to-toe with the greatest space movies of all time. While they obviously employed VFX beautifully, one interesting point was that they apparently didn’t use green or blue screens at all, with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller telling Comicbook that they pursued practical effects in many areas, including by building Grace’s ship as a full set.
Ryan Gosling was a great leading man as always, and I was floored that they made a faceless spidery boulder puppet as lovable as they did with the alien Rocky (yet another example of amazing practical effects work—paired with a great voice performance from James Ortiz). Also, Sandra Hüller’s karaoke scene was a perfect blend of silly and legitimately moving, a sweet human moment amid all the frantic sci-fi shenanigans.
Piranha (1978) dir. Joe Dante
Is it a cultural recession indicator to say I’d like to see more parody movies again? The Naked Gun remake from 2025 ended up being one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of the year, just because I’ve missed howling with laughter at a dumb movie in a packed theater so much. I threw on the original Piranha during some evening downtime on a family vacation and had way more fun than I was expecting! This movie follows a comedy rule I love, which is that the characters in the movie take the ridiculous stakes deathly seriously.
There was gore, cheesy line reads, ham-fisted social commentary, and I enjoyed learning that Phil Tippett, a stop motion animator and VFX supervisor now known for the incredible stop motion film Mad God, created the rubber piranha puppets for the film. I couldn’t help but chortle at the strange warbling sound effect they chose for when we see the killer fish underwater, and Barbara Steele’s pronunciation of “piranha” always got a laugh from me too. I may have to see what tomfoolery these freaky fish get up to in the litany of sequels.
Ready or Not (2019) dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
Another vacation watch, I put this on because of the sequel that dropped this year (which I admittedly haven’t even gotten around to yet). While the concept isn’t terribly original, the execution of the writing and performances elevate it to a memorable comedy-horror outing. Samara Weaving’s Grace charts a convincing progression from a scared shitless newlywed to a badass fighting bride, showing she’s a formidable horror star in the making.
Despite the occasional halt in momentum when characters do some egregious telling-not-showing of rules and history of the family’s fiendish bargain at play, Ready or Not moves at a good pace. They put Grace (and all those poor maids, RIP) through hell with a solid variety of set pieces, using the sprawling estate location fully. The same way Grace becomes more badass through the film, it’s fun to see the cracks form between the various flavors of insufferable rich in-laws as they slowly become more whiny and petulant that she doesn’t just submit willingly to being sacrificed to the Devil. How dare she have a problem with that!
Thrash (2026) dir. Tommy Wirkola
I’m definitely okay with turning my brain off and enjoying a survival creature feature, and always loved sharks, so this should have been made for me. Unfortunately, the new Netflix thriller Thrash just flopped through the motions like a fish slowly suffocating on the line. The film follows several people who are either stuck, or stubbornly remain at, a South Caroline town when a Category 5 hurricane hits, flooding the town and exposing the survivors to a shiver of hungry bull sharks. Yes, that’s what groups of sharks are called, it’s badass. There are a few solidly tense scenes here and there, but the film somehow felt like a slog to watch even though the running time was under 90 minutes.
As a shark nut, it was fun to see bull sharks in the mix as the threats here, since they’re known for being able to swim in fresh, brackish, and saltwater. They also flipped the script with a sympathetic pregnant great white shark named Nellie, who ends up saving a mother and her baby from the final bull shark. Wow, the power of motherhood transcends the food chain! But why not go for an even deeper cut shark threat than just bull sharks and great whites? I want to see humans parry whip-tailed thresher sharks, or see Lovecraftian horrors in the serene giant eyes of blue sharks. Damn, maybe I have to write a shark movie…
Image Credits
Project Hail Mary – Amazon MGM Studios
Piranha – New World Pictures
Ready or Not – Searchlight Pictures
Thrash – Netflix
Leave a Reply