Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

I haven't been a fan of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. That's not due to the actor. I think he makes a great Spider-Man. It's that the movies have constantly had to dance around the rest of the MCU and these often leads to overstuffed films with plots that feel packaged around other ideas tied to other characters and movies. They mostly feel like they are trying to tell a Spider-Man story but keep getting derailed. I had hoped that Brand New Day, a film that purports to reset Peter Parker's life, might be a straight up Spider-Man story. It's not. It is at its best when his story is what is being focused on, but it ends up being just another Marvel team up film this time with *redacted* (I don't want to spoil that yet. So like his other films, there is a lot being worked through here and it doesn't all come together cohesively. 

What I liked? Well Holland is a great, charismatic everyman which is just who Parker should be. I felt his pull towards his old life and how isolated he felt. I liked the film had him "evolving" or "mutating" (oops! sssshhhhhhh) and dealing with becoming something new. I didn't really appreciate how they packed in The Punisher, The Hulk, the new Black Widow, and... others cause all those little bits felt like they got short shrift due to the sheer amount of the appearances that needed to be packed in. 

Spider-Man may be the only movie character (other than Batman) who can carry a film just on his name alone. People want to see Spider-Man and will see him in pretty much anything. The film isn't bad and it has enough going for it to really satisfy audiences. So if you desire to see it, go for it, and more power to you. You'll likely enjoy it. If you aren't in a hurry waiting for it's inevitable streaming release wouldn't be a bad choice. 

But for me to really get into my thoughts I do have to spoil the film's big reveal so stop reading here if you don't want to know...

*Spoilers*

Since Disney bought Fox, they have been itching to bring us the X-Men and they have been working towards that in numerous ways through their various movies and series. Some of the Fox cast have been appearing here and there in MCU movies and Deadpoool and Wolverine made a spectacle of bringing that world around for another go. But this may be (I could be wrong) the first time that a major X-Men character has been introduced into this MCU's main universe in the MCU version. And they started with Jean Grey, the character the Fox universe never seemed to be able to get right. That's a bold move, starting with one of the most challenging areas, and if it pays off for them that will be a big win. 

I'll give Sink credit, she does a great job with the character. Like this version of Spider-Man, the MCU version will have significant variations on her origin to help fit her (and I assume the other Mutants) into this world. I also liked how this tied into Peter's own "mutating" making the classic X-Men analogies for discrimination. Peter's attempts to shrink who he is out of fear is a good "in" for the concepts and that part mostly works. 

But I felt the script sort of fumbles her intro. She is brought to us as an "antagonist" at first so they can do a switcheroo and have her become an anti-hero later. But they lean into this a little too much making her more evil than she needs to be. I'm not sure the redemption arc they then require her to go through works, especially after the film goes to great lengths to make her seem evil (even having Peter describe her actions as unforgivable at one point) before they reveal who she is. 

So for me the intro feels a little forced and also complicated by all the other baggage these films tend to have as I discussed above. Also it leaves a lot of questions which may or may not be answered later. Is she the only mutant? If not how come another powerful mutant isn't also attempting to address her as she is making herself known (you know who I mean)? The film takes a lot of short cuts dealing with Spider-Man's secret identity issues in the plot and it kinds does the same with Jean. 

So while I know Brand New Day will be a huge movie I still find it an awkward watch. It has a lot of pros and cons and didn't resolve it all for me. But for me Marvel's best characters by far are the X-Men and if this means we're getting new versions, and not just the legacy actors coming back to play alternate universe visitors, than that is promising. 

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Liza Colón-Zayas, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh, Keith David, Michael Mando, Naomi Watts, Marisa Tomei 

Director:  Destin Daniel Cretton

Writers: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers

I Want Your Sex (2026)

After more than 12 years away from making a feature film, legendary New Queer Cinema Movement director Gregg Araki has come back with what turns out to be a somewhat mainstream Hollywood film that plays with our expectations about where desires meet comfortable limits. It is a fairly funny and rather accessible comedy about a boss who begins a BDSM relationship with her awkward young employee but underneath there is a lot of things the film asks us to think about which remain uncomfortable despite the film's rather candy coated aesthetic. 

Araki appears to be wrestling with the tension between being a sexual rebel in a time which has shifted the goalposts around puritanism. Remember he began making underground films in the late 80s and early 90s pushing back against the AIDS panic and Lavender Scare in the age of the Regan/Thatcher social control. Jump forward to the 2020s and the western world sees itself as having been liberated through mainstream LGTBQIA+ and feminist movements. What Araki seems to be suggesting here is how little has changed, how much puritanism remains embedded in our cultures, and how we continue to embrace the shame and social control of sexual repression. 

I Want Your Sex centres a straight relationship and heavily critiques the two involved, often making both of them the butt of the joke while also making you like them both, albeit in different ways. Hoffman's everyman doofusness is deliciously relatable while Wilde's manufactured confidence is appealing in its own way whether we want to admit it or not. But they are both making terrible choices and the film appears to be sympathetic to them, showing us just how much the constraints of our so-called modern sensibilities keep them from having the connections and the fucking that they both want without paying a price for it. Hoffman's girlfriend and his best friend are both unhealthily unable to connect with sex in a meaningful way and the cops interviewing Hoffman in the film's framing sequence can't focus on anything but the inappropriateness of what turns out to be a big nothing-burger. Araki is showing just how modern values on sexuality have simply found new ways of limiting and controlling us no matter how far we think we've come. Araki juxtaposes this with the Gooding's queer character who appears to be the only character living their best life who is constantly having sex exactly how we wants without any hang ups or limits. 

And that what makes I Want Your Sex so fascinating. Araki remains a sexual liberator, arguing for the necessity of carnality in our lives while exposing and laughing at how fumbling mainstream culture can be with it. He sugarcoats this by making a fairly mainstream comedy about it but that might just be a little Trojan Horse. He plays with it. His sex scenes are fun and silly and yet oddly compelling. He doesn't make his characters pay a real price for their "deviance". If anything the movie suggests they are both better off for what went down. I'd argue both had fairly pathetic lives, relationships, friendships prior to their relationship. And yet they both remain weirdly obsessed and transfixed on that connection.

Araki is embracing sexuality, with all its joyous absurdity, especially when it doesn't fit into a neat box or acceptable standards, and offering a charming little olive branch to those convinced they need to feel ashamed to experience what they want in this life. 

I Want Your Sex

Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs

Director: Gregg Araki

Writers: Karley Sciortino, Gregg Araki

Rosebush Pruning (2026)

If you're going to make a mess of a movie, why not make it a big mess? Rosebush Pruning, inspired by the Italian film Fists in the Pocket, is a darkly comic tragedy featuring a toxic rich family who end up killing each other (oops... spoilers) after sexualizing each other. It is often random in its plotting, rather nonsensical, and thinly drawn. But it is visually and narratively bold, taking big audacious swings that often don't amount to much. I was surprised at how much of it managed to be funny while also finding myself bored a lot. Rosebush Pruning might be the sort of film that you are glad to have seen so you can talk about it but never want to have to sit through again. 

But the film can't be dismissed entirely. The performances by Keough and Anderson are delightful. They seem to be on board with how absurd a story they are telling. None of the characters make sense or act like real human beings. They articulate their inner thoughts in their dialogue and no background is provided which explain their bizarre behaviour. But those two actors really embrace the ludicrisness of what they are doing and just go for it. I wasn't convinced by the rest of the cast but these two were saving graces. 

The movie is blessedly short. Perhaps that leads to some of what makes the film feel so thin, no time to really develop any of what is going on. But it also means less to endure. It also shortens the time between the moments of real hilarity which often come out of nowhere (as does most of the plot points). So while it would not be accurate to say that Rosebush Pruning is a good movie, it certainly is not, I actually had fun watching the nonsense, mostly. 

Rosebush Pruning

Starring: Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, Pamela Anderson

Director: Karim Aïnouz

Writer: Efthimis Filippou

Her Private Hell (2026)

Refn makes incredibly beautiful films. Imagine if he ever got his hands on a story that was worth telling. Instead we get this hollow, rather tedious story which he seems to love to tell. Her Private Hell might be one of his most painfully boring stories yet. It's complete lack of emotional investment makes it a tedious slog no matter how gorgeously he crafts his art direction, costumes, cinematography. Movies are very much a visual medium and I love when a director understands this. But they also need to resonate emotionally or intellectually and so far I have seen little evidence Refn gets this part. 

Her Private Hell feels like an AI verson of a David Lynch film. Minimalist yet stunning sets, slow moving pans, lingering shots of the cast being reflective. But it's missing all of the underlying tension, horror, and emotion that Lynch captures. I'd rather have flipped through a photo book of stills from this film than had to sit through its plot. 

I feel for the cast who are doing their best with what they are given. This pretty much falls at Refn's feet for creating something with so little substance. This is reportedly a horror story in a way, yet it evokes no horror of any kind, not even an coldly intellectual existential horror. The only horror is that I sat all the way through it. 

Her Private Hell

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Hidetoshi Nishijima

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Writers: Esti Giordani, Nicolas Winding Refn

Steal Away (2026)

I’m a big fan of Virgo and his way of telling his stories visually. With Steal Away, he has crafted a hyper-stylized world for his characters which mirrors ours but feels slightly elevated to make his points. The combo of Rice and Johnson really pops off the screen and brings this almost fantastical world into focus. 

The strength here is how his somewhat factionalized narrative exposes the real world and its fantastical story feels grounded in a reality. Visually Steal Away is stunning but its narrative packs a punch as well that is as strong as its look. The story feels a bit forced at points, especially in the second act, but most of this is overcome by the strong performances and emotional resonance. 

Virgo has cemented his status as one of the most exciting film makers working today. 

Steal Away

Starring: Angourie Rice, Mallori Johnson

Director:  Clement Virgo

Writer: Tamara Faith Berger

The Odyssey (2026)

Nolan has pulled off a bit of a miracle with his adaptation of The Odyssey. It is a rollicking adventure that sticks pretty faithfully to the source material while packing in a plethora of narrative threads without making them feel too tangled. For a film with an almost three hour runtime, it is very entertaining and engaging. Audiences won't feel bored or strung along at any point. It is also gorgeous to watch with its massive Imax camera filled set pieces and mostly practical effects. Technically The Odyssey is an impressive achievement. However I didn't find it to be emotionally inspiring and so much of its many threads are so thinly woven in that I didn't find it overly impactful. Even its final message, which it takes its time getting to then sort of hits us over the head with, feels a bit tacked on at the end.

Don't get me wrong. Overall I enjoyed The Odyssey very much and I know I will be able to rewatch it and enjoy it again. I loved how Nolan managed to pack into this film everything he wanted to and did so with both a flare that made it artful but also a practicality which made it accessible. This is one for the masses for sure and it deserves it. I believe The Odyssey is a good film that does what it sets out to do so I am not faulting it. 

What keeps me from loving it is that it is sort of a victim of its success. It does such a good job of putting so much of this story in it that it often feels rushed. I know... it's an almost 3 hour movie. But whether its the cyclops, Circe, the dying dog, or the sirens, these come and go and then sort of get forgotten. Worse I think is the way that few characters get fleshed out into anything more than 2-dimensions. How can you build them all out when there are this many? I was willing to forgive a bunch of this but my biggest disappointment was Pattinson's Antinous who often felt like a moustache twirling villain more than any real threat to anyone. His character was paper thin (as were the characters played by Marshall-Green, Goth, Hawkins, Patel, Lee) but it was his character than needed the heft to truly pull off his role. The film just didn't have the time to truly do him justice. Also completely wasted was Travis Scott whose fleeting moments on screen were some of the most electric. I had hoped we'd see him narrating or scoring the adventure but he was in and out in a blink of an eye. 

And this is in contrast to other characters who do manage, with little screen time to be truly fascinating. Despite all the controversy around her casting, Nyong'o is brilliant in her duel roles and her characters do so much heavy lifting for how little screen time she gets. I found Theron's Calypso truly interesting as well. But the real standout is Page's Sinon. His scenes were often the ones that managed to pull on my heartstrings and get me feeling. Really its the internet's most hated casting which save this movie. 

And again I want to point out I felt the movie was really good. Good. Goransson's score is lovely and unobtrusive. It takes its time before it comes to anything resembling a "theme" that audiences will associate with the movie (think Lord of the Rings) so we're not overwhelmed by it over what we're experiencing on screen. 

There is so much plot hopping that it isn't until the end that Nolan gets around to his narrative theme. As Odysseus prepares to confront the suiters and "return home" he begins to wrestle with all that he has done. His story is less about surviving the wrath of the Gods and more about the Gods' punishments being his own wrestling with his acts. He has to confront what he has done before he can be the King, the Husband, the Father, that he wants to be. His return is less about cosmic intervention and more about personal demons. There is a moment where we see Athena's form is taken from one of her priestesses for whose death Odysseus is responsible. I connected to Nolan's perspective here. While I recognize that he builds this on the foundation of so much of what has come before in his film it also feels like a bit of an afterthought perhaps less organically tied to what we have seen but stitched overtop. 

Still, once again, the film is very good. And I recommend it. And I will rewatch it and continue to enjoy it. In many ways, what Nolan does here is remarkable, tackling something this gargantuan at all and pulling it off. So there are thin spots and weaknesses. They aren't bad and it didn't ruin the movie for me. I recognize that if one is going to attempt to make this movie this is a pretty amazing achievement just in itself. 

The Odyssey

Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Bennie Safdie, John Lequizamo, Bill Irwin, Himesh Patel, Will Yun Lee, Corey Hawkins, Mia Goth, Logan Marshall-Green, Travis Scott, Elliot Page, James Remar

Writer/Director: Christopher Nolan 

Heartstopper Forever (2026)

Ending a series, especially one that has a strong following and means so much to its fans, can be an herculean challenge. Add to that the choice to do so in a 2 hour movie instead of a final season, limiting the time available to wrap up story lines and develop characters. But perhaps the biggest challenge is how to end the story of the romance of a young queer (fictional) couple which has come to be an emotional support story for both young queers and older ones that didn't live in a time when this sort of relationship tended to happen. How do you wrap all of this up in a way that is honest both narratively and emotionally for those who have invested so much into this story and these characters? 

Writing at a time when gay love stories just didn't exist, gay writer EM Forster talked about the importance of having a happy ending for his gay love story Maurice, how gay men like him deserved the happily ever after so much straight literature offers its audiences. Today is a very different time, but is the need for the promise of love enduring still as relevant for modern audiences, both the young and those who remember being young? Alternatively how you do realistically deal with the likelihood of teenage relationships lasting. Life after highschool pulls people in different directions and burgeoning adults grow into different people. Is it honest to have the multitude of couples who formed over the course of this story ride off happily into the sunset together?

Okay so I've asked a lot of this little movie... but I think it mostly found its way through this quagmire to deliver for both fans and those who may have come into this film fresh alike. It is about teens in love, and all the hyper drama that comes with that. It is about queer and trans kids not only existing but finding love and community, and all the drama that comes with that. It wrestles with some of these questions and delivers a fairly satisfying set of resolutions. Yes you can watch this as someone unfamiliar with the Heartstopper series and walk away with a positive movie experience. And for those fans who have followed these characters through all the seasons, Forever will offer you the closure that you need. And will likely illicit a few tears. 

Heartstopper Forever finds a lovely way to being affirming for its audiences while also feeling honest and true. There is a scene in the middle with Derek Jacobi which is short and very quiet in what it is doing, but profound in so many ways. Time and again this film reinforces that love stories aren't rote, aren't about destiny or soul mates, but are about finding connection in whatever ways those come, healthy connections that make people happy. 

Forever is easily the most secure chapter in the Heartstopper saga. It tackles the characters growing up. From their being more sex (although still fairly PG-13) to some drinking, it is more about how the film treats its subjects as coming of age finally. They get to start having the sort of agency that only adults get to start to have. Yes they are just starting out on this journey but they are finally taking it on. 

Heartstopper Forever

Starring: Kit Connor, Joe Locke, Yasmin Finney, William Gao, Tobie Donovan, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, Rhea Norwood, Derek Jacobi

Director: Wash Westmoreland

Writer: Alice Oseman