Thanks to films like Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Missing Link, Oregon’s LAIKA Studios have established themselves as arguably the world’s premiere stop-motion animation studio (with the possible exception of Aardman). Which, given the preponderance of CGI and computer animation, is all the more impressive. LAIKA’s films have always been characterized by incredible attention to detail, but their latest feature, the fantasy epic Wildwood, looks to be on an entirely different level.

Based on Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis’s 2011 novel, Wildwood chronicles the adventures of a young girl named Prue who must journey into a dark, fantastical world to save her younger brother after he’s kidnapped by an evil queen. Featuring the voices of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, and Jemaine Clement, Wildwood boasts incredible visuals and epic storytelling.

Is Wildwood a new fantasy classic just waiting to be discovered? Does LAIKA’s latest work continue the studio’s legacy? Read on for a selection of critical reactions to the Travis Knight-directed film.

👍 William Bibbiani, ​“A rapturous experience” 

Wildwood would be one of the best movies of the year even if the story was mediocre, but it’s an emotionally-charged narrative with intriguing, multilayered protagonists and villains, and a vast ensemble of supporting characters who have unique and wonderful qualities. It’s a story, in the end, about everything we would endure for the people we love, which makes it genuinely beautiful that Travis Knight and Laika did all this for their audience.

👍 Peter Bradshaw, ​“An engaging family movie” 

The stop-motion animation style has, as with Coraline, a robust and pleasing directness, and results in, for me, a more organic character and physical immediacy than Pixar’s ubiquitous digital look, to which it makes a welcome change. I wasn’t sure that the narrative delivered a satisfyingly clear motive for the governess’s reprehensible plan, and in fact the story itself did not have the scary punch of Coraline, except in the uncanny opening sequence. Then again, it’s not that kind of story.

👍 Hoai-Tran Bui, ​“A soaring achievement of animation” 

How can one possibly make it novel in a landscape crowded with high-concept, high-speed animated movies? LAIKA, the stop-motion animation studio behind such acclaimed films as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, has wisely decided that, instead of chasing the tide, it will create its own waves. And its latest film from Kubo director Travis Knight, the breathtaking new fantasy epic Wildwood, is a triumphant tidal wave for the medium.

👍 Walter Chaw, ​“Filled me with awe” 

Wildwood is an astonishment, a gift, an instant classic with a delirious sense of wonder and enough heft to become the defining film of a child’s lifetime. It will be someone’s The Secret of NIMH or Watership Down. Someone’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It may be better than all of those.

👍 Shannon Connellan, ​“Magnificent and brutal” 

This is LAIKA, one of the most lauded studios working in animation today, so if you’re expecting Wildwood to be visually magnificent, you won’t be disappointed (and Dario Marianelli’s soaring score seals the emotional deal).

👎 David Ehrlich, ​“Gets lost somewhere in the wilderness” 

On the one hand, Travis Knight’s Wildwood is an epic, eye-popping, and almost unfathomably well-crafted celebration of everything that makes Laika special — of everything that makes the Oregon-based stop-motion studio a singular force for good in a film industry where most companies are less interested in savoring the magic of animation than they are in seeing how many shortcuts they can take without breaking its spell. On the other hand, the remarkable time and care that went into “Wildwood” doesn’t prevent it from being the least enchanting of Laika’s films, even if its flaws help to reinforce the power of a story about how magic can persist in spite of itself.

👍 Aidan Kelley, ​“Laika’s masterpiece” 

The visuals of Wildwood simply cannot be understated. The actual artistry on display, plus the scale that the movie is aiming for, make for a combination that really hasn’t been seen in a stop-motion movie before. Everything from the character designs, to the art direction, to the cinematography is just masterfully done, and it absolutely deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

👎 Mark Kennedy, ​“The technology outstrips the story” 

Everything about Wildwood is ambitious. It’s a stop-motion animated movie that stretches over two hours, with 230 hand-controlled puppets across 132 sets, shot frame by frame by frame by frame. It sounds exhausting to make and that’s also sometimes what it feels like to watch it.

👍 Jen Lennon, ​“Will take your breath away” 

The feats of stop-motion animation Wildwood pulls off are breathtaking, mystifying; it is, without a doubt, a new standard-bearer for the art form. It’s such a joy to watch that even minor quibbles about its overstuffed plot and abundance of themes — not all of which get enough attention — fall into the background because you simply don’t want to leave its world.

👍 Guy Lodge, ​“Laika’s Most Ambitious Feature to Date” 

The sixth feature from independent animation studio Laika is a stunner, a lovingly tactile and thumbprinted feat of stop-motion artistry on a scale rarely seen in the medium, that stands out by a mile in a cartoon marketplace ruled by sheeny, uncanny digital graphics.

👍 Wenlei Ma, ​“Grabs you by the heart” 

[T]here’s nothing drab about this film, it pulses with energy, fuelled by love and righteousness, not just in its story but as a work which deeply respects and adores hand-crafted animation as an artform. In this age of rising AI use, that counts for a lot.

👍 Keith Phipps, ​“An ambitious animated epic” 

We’re in the midst of a moment in which computer-created slop threatens to overwhelm art made by human imaginations and hands. Wildwood works as a stunning rebuke to the former and a towering example of the possibilities offered by the latter.

Wildwood arrives in theaters on October 23, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

My 16yo is the LEGO fan in our family, and their room is filled from floor to ceiling with sets that they’ve built over the years. But this time around, I think my LEGO nerdery might outweigh theirs: LEGO has announced an official Daft Punk set based on this fan-made “Daft Punk Concert” set, which in turn, was inspired by the robot duo’s Alive 2007 pyramid stage.

No release date for “Daft Punk Concert” set has been announced yet, but as Jay’s Brick Blog notes, it may just be the start. He writes: “What’s really interesting in the official LEGO press release, is that this is billed as a ‘brand new partnership,’ and the first partnership milestone greenlights LEGO Ideas submission of a LEGO Daft Punk set, based on the iconic 2007 Alive tour, that will now go into development.” Which suggests that there might be additional Daft Punk LEGO sets coming down the pipeline. Like, say, sets of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s famous helmets.

Between this and the recently announced Daft Punk-themed edition of Métal Hurlant, it’s clear that even though they’re no longer making music, Daft Punk’s legacy is still very much alive and well.

Almost two years have passed since I left X following Elon Musk’s Nazi salute incident. Doing so was far less painful than I thought it’d be, and over time, I feel that my decision has been fully vindicated. I wasn’t the only one who left X in the wake of Elon Musk’s acquisition. At the time, there seemed to be a mass exodus to alternative platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and for a brief moment in time, it seemed like X was on the ropes. Recent months, however, have seen a marked reversal.

High profile developers, journalists, and pundits like Marco Arment, Casey Newton, and John Gruber have all made their way back to Musk’s platform, mainly because that’s where a lot of the conversation relevant to their areas of interest and coverage (e.g., AI, technology) is occurring. But Gruber went one step further, claiming that X is different place now:

The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place. That cheerfulness is another differentiator. If you believe the world is falling apart and doomed only to get worse, that our obvious and real problems cannot be surmounted, X is not the platform for you. If you think the world is full of fun and amazing people and things, that humanity’s defining feature is our collective ability to solve any problem, that the only time better to be alive than today is tomorrow, it might be.

[…]

Without any fanfare — perhaps to avoid his ire — X has de-Musked its algorithm. I stopped visiting at all when the algorithm there was putting Musk’s own tweets into my timeline, every time I checked, despite the fact that I never followed him. But they don’t do that anymore. I don’t see much politics of any kind in my timeline, and what I do see is from accounts I chose to follow. I see tech (including a lot of interesting breaking news), sports (including a lot of interesting videos and stats), and stupid stuff that’s actually funny. My only problem with X now is that I do have to pay attention to avoid wasting time when I visit.

Not surprisingly, Gruber et al.‘s decision has sparked no small amount of pushback and criticism — something that Gruber, at least, has responded to with his trademark snark, even going so far as to claim that Bluesky and other X alternatives are “dominated by a fringe of unhinged kooks who want to be angry and want everyone else to be angry.”

It’s a bit tedious, to be honest, and oh so predictable. (Social media outrage cycles FTW!) I don’t necessarily begrudge folks returning to X, especially if, as in the case of Platformer’s Newton, it’s necessary for their job. If you’re covering AI, and most of the AI conversations are happening on X, then you gotta do what you gotta do. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Do X and Elon Musk deserve our attention?

My thanks to Robert Rackley, who directed me to Jonas Downey’s recent post about resisting platforms like X. Downey is much more critical of Gruber et al. than I am, but I wholeheartedly agree with his overall point: since social media platforms rely on our attention for their survival and success, we ought to think carefully about where we give our attention. As he puts it, “I am here to argue that your social media participation has impact, and chickening out on this issue is just cowardice wrapped up in excuses.”

He continues:

Think of every person on a social network as a little generator sending out bursts of electricity. Without all those generators, the network would be totally dark. The only real value is the people contributing and engaging! Social platforms have no intrinsic reason to exist without the rivers of content flowing through them.

You can see where I’m going with this. When influential people lend their hard-earned credibility to the junk-riddled toy of the world’s richest man, they are further empowering him with the one priceless thing his trillions in wealth can’t buy directly: more attention. Not that he needs it.

This aligns closely with my own personal view. I don’t want to give Elon Musk my time, energy, attention, and content because he doesn’t deserve those things. His values are antithetical to my own. Much like Trump, he revels in cruelty and arrogance, and no amount of flying cars can hide that. As Downey notes, we all have to make ethical compromises to get by in our capitalistic system, but further enriching Elon Musk even just a little bit — given my paltry X following, I’m under no illusions that it would be anything other than “a little bit” — is a pretty easy compromise to avoid.

And it’s even easier to avoid when you consider the current state of online publishing.

Building Our Own Platforms

The genius of social media platforms like X and Facebook is two-fold. First, they make it incredibly easy to publish online. You don’t need to know HTML or build your own website. You just sign up with your email address, and voila! You can start posting your thoughts online in a matter of minutes. Second, they make it easy to connect with your friends, family, and peers who are also on the platform, allowing you to share with them and see what they share.

However, all of that happens in walled gardens that X and Facebook control, and over time, it’s obvious that they’ve controlled them for their own profit and power. Which explains why you see more ads and recommendations on Facebook than real posts from the people you actually know and love.

There’s no doubt that social media platforms still make it easy to post online; they’ve spent untold millions trying to make that process as friction-less as possible. But as I’ve previously noted on several occasions, it’s easier than ever to create your own platform for sharing and publishing your content, if that’s something you truly care about. Thanks to services like Pagecord, Pika, Micro.blog, and yes, Substack, you don’t need to be a developer or programmer to create your own site for your own content, free from the confines of social media platforms and their algorithms.

Even as social media platforms have grown bigger and more powerful, I daresay they’ve become less necessary. If you’re concerned about the unchecked wealth and influence of people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, then perhaps the easiest path of resistance is to go independent, stake your own claim on the web, and build your own platform — a platform that’s under your control and doesn’t necessitate compromising your values.

Last month, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Cal Cashin’s article about the ongoing slowcore revival, which highlighted the genre’s unlikely popularity on social media. And I say unlikely, because few genres seem as aesthetically opposed to virality as slowcore.

As its name implies, slowcore is all about playing slower than slow, emphasizing sparse arrangements and rhythms, and most importantly, the space between the notes as much as the notes themselves. It’s a demanding genre, practically bordering on experimental at times, as artists stretch their songs to the breaking point. But it can be a deeply rewarding genre, as well, encouraging listeners to sit down and really pay attention to the dynamics — and anything that encourages us to slow down and take notice is a good thing in our current social and political climate.

This month’s playlist, titled “A Slowcore Revival,” contains 90+ minutes of slowcore classics from some of the genre’s foundational artists alongside more obscure acts and even some representatives from the genre’s newer generations.

Accompanying the playlist is the latest episode of my “Playlist Breakdown” podcast, in which I spotlight one of the playlist’s songs and why it’s so special, interesting, and/or meaningful. This month’s episode focuses on “To the Shore,” a stirring dream pop ballad from Sleep Experiments’ final (unfortunately) album, 2016’s Passages.

Both of these are little bonuses for subscribers who support Opus financially. If you’d like to get access to them (and more), subscribe to Opus for just $5.00/month or $50/year. (You can also subscribe for free and get my weekend newsletter.)

The title of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s 2018 EP, Sirimiri, is the word for “drizzle” in the Basque language. Fittingly, the four songs here unfurl gently, like a light rain caught up in a cool autumn breeze. As Irisarri described it in this 2024 interview with CLOT Magazine:

Sirimiri has always resonated with me — not only is it typical in the Basque country, but also in Seattle, where I lived at a pivotal time in my life. This subtle but continuous drizzle is like the passage of time itself. In this EP, I embraced this idea, allowing compositions to unfold naturally and without abrupt transitions. In fact, this cassette plays continuously, having the same exact material on both sides; the idea is that when it ends on one side, it automatically starts again on the other side. Just as sirimiri gently floats in the air, the idea was to create a flow that felt seamless and immersive. It’s reflective of how I’ve thought about time, memory, and the passage of many fleeting moments throughout my adult life.

At just under 15 minutes, “Sonder” is the EP’s longest track. Which means that it has plenty of time in which to embody the sort of “seamless and immersive” flow that Irisarri described, courtesy of vast greyscale drones and shimmering textures reminiscent of the more melancholy moments on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, like “Stone in Focus.”

Earlier this week, Irisarri announced that Sirimiri — originally a cassette-only release — is getting a vinyl reissue courtesy of the Umor Rex label. From his announcement:

This release closes out the 20th anniversary celebrations of Umor Rex, the wonderful Mexico City-based record label that’s been releasing my music for well over a decade. Beyond our longstanding friendship, Daniel Castrejón has also been an integral part of Black Knoll, designing nearly everything we’ve released on the label. His impeccable taste, dedication, and commitment to independent music are things I’ve always admired.

The vinyl edition of Sirimiri is currently available and limited to just 150 copies.

Five years have passed since the two robots in Daft Punk went their separate ways. But their music continues to inspire, something that Métal Hurlant — the French comics anthology that gave rise to Heavy Metal here in the States — is highlighting with a recently announced special issue devoted to Daft Punk.

The issue will contain 272 pages of comics and articles exploring the universe of Daft Punk, with contributions from 30 artists and writers including Laura Pérez (Nocturnos), Malachi Ward (Black Hammer, Citizen: Stardust), Matthew Sheean (Prophet), Édouard Cour (Herakles), Jonathan Djob Nkondo (Scavenger’s Reign, Wandering), Zep (Titeuf), and even the legendary Mœbius. (Randall Roberts has more information about the issue, including some sneak peaks at its artwork.)

The issue will be released as hardcover, softcover, and PDF, and will feature two different covers: the “Standard” edition by Anuj Shrestha and the “Exclusive” edition by Cédric Hervet and Warren Fu, the duo responsible for the artwork of Daft Punk’s final studio album, 2013’s Random Access Memories.

Métal Hurlant’s Daft Punk issue is now available for preorder, with an expected release sometime in mid-January 2027. The “Exclusive” edition will only be sold online and will not be available in bookstores.

I’ve been avoiding the hullabaloo surrounding Greta Gerwig’s upcoming adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, the sixth novel in C. S. Lewis’s beloved Chronicles of Narnia that serves as a prequel for all of the other stories. Gerwig’s selection as director was not without controversy, as was her decision to cast Meryl Streep as Aslan’s voice. But I wanted to hold off on any judgment until the first trailer dropped, and we got a glimpse of Gerwig’s adaptation in action.

Now that it’s here, though, I confess I’m a bit perplexed.

It doesn’t look bad, but I wasn’t expecting a Narnia film to look so, well, MCU-ish. The flashy style on display looks like something out of Thor: Love and Thunder, which is certainly an… interesting choice, especially for the scenes set on the dead city of Charn, the original home of Jadis (aka, the White Witch). And speaking of Jadis, who’s played by Emma Mackey, I don’t ever recall picturing her so glammed out when I last read Lewis’s novel.

After Barbie and Little Women, though, I’m inclined to give Gerwig the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, her unexpected ideas might turn out to be just the thing to capture the novel’s otherworldliness. (Case in point: The trailer’s final shot, of Aslan beginning to create Narnia, looks awesome.) As Steven Greydanus writes, we should never hold a beloved childhood classic so tight that we’re unwilling to accept any new ideas or concepts. Have we learned nothing from Star Wars?

The Magician’s Nephew will arrive in theaters on February 12, 2027 and begin streaming on Netflix on April 2, 2027.

The ’90s were a heyday for Christian industrial music, with labels like Intense Records, R.E.X. Records, and Wonderland releasing a non-stop blitz of albums from bands like Mortal, globalWAVEsystem, X-Propagation, Circle of Dust, Under Midnight, and Generation. Most of those albums fell squarely within the spectrum defined by the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Skinny Puppy, but one Christian industrial release carved out its own singular niche.

Following the dissolution of Chagall Guevara, guitarists Dave Perkins and Lynn Nichols teamed up with Dessau’s John Elliott and Afrikan Dreamland’s Michael Saleem and Mustafa Abdul-Aleem to create Passafist. Their self-titled (and only) album, released in 1994 by R.E.X. Records, took the typical industrial elements (e.g., distorted guitars and vocals, samples), mixed in some jazz, funk, and psychedelia, and employed a razor-sharp sense of humor to skewer topics like gun violence, modern views of sex, and Cold War-era paranoia.

Passafist sounded unlike anything else in the Christian market at the time and not surprisingly, it was widely dismissed. To this day, however, it remains a truly unique release from one of Christian music’s most interesting eras. And thanks to Retroactive Records, it’s finally getting its due, courtesy of a limited edition vinyl reissue that features a remastered recording, new artwork, and extensive liner notes by Perkins that delve into the album’s origins and production.

The remastered Passafist will also be released on CD, and both vinyl and CD editions will be released in January 2027.

When he died in 2024, Michael Knott left behind one of the most iconic — and mercurial — catalogs in the history of Christian music, consisting of dozens of titles released under both his own name and numerous monikers. Retroactive Records recently announced reissues of three of those titles, each one representing a different aspect of Knott’s music, and all three will be released on vinyl for the first time.

Lifesavers’ A Kiss of Life (1986, Frontline Records) is one of Knott’s earlier releases, and found him embracing a mix of post-punk and new wave on songs like “She’s On Fire.”

L.S.U.‘s Grace Shaker (1994, Alarma Records) was one of the first Knott albums that I ever heard, and it’s one of his most gut-wrenching, filled with sobering songs about depravity, addiction, self-destruction, and God’s boundless grace.

Finally, Fluid (1995, Alarma Records) was one of Knott’s rock operas (see also The Grape Prophet), this time about a young woman on a downward spiral.

All three albums will be released on both limited edition vinyl and CD, and will feature new artwork as well as extended liner notes written by Matt Crosslin. (Crosslin runs Knottheads, the unofficial Michael Knott/Blonde Vinyl archive, as well as Down the Line Magazine.)

The Kiss of Life vinyl will be released in November 2026 while the Grace Shaker and Fluid vinyls will be released in January 2027. All three CD reissues will be released in November 2026.

I’ve been fascinated by Japan for well over 30 years now; its history, art, and of course, its pop culture. As such, I can certainly be guilty of idealizing the nation. (Case in point: My wife and I still rave about the four weeks we spent there almost 20 years ago.)

Japan has many wonderful things about it, aspects that are rightly held up as an example for other countries to emulate. But Japan also has its own unique forms of brokenness and dysfunction, as revealed in ARTE.tv’s recent documentary about the street kids who congregate in Tokyo’s infamous Kabukichō district.

At only 30 minutes, the documentary doesn’t have the time to delve too deeply into the factors that cause thousands of kids to leave their families and subsequently fall through the cracks, where many of them subsequently resort to drug abuse, prostitution, and even suicide. Nevertheless, it’s a sobering look at a subculture that most in Tokyo would probably prefer to ignore. (I was reminded of Penelope Spheeris’s Decline of Western Civilization documentaries, and in particular, Part III and its focus on L.A.‘s gutter punks, which have some very clear parallels with the Toyoko kids.)

But the film also focuses on some people who aren’t ignoring the situation, and instead, trying to help: the rapper whose music taps into the Toyoko kids’ desperation; the youth worker who runs a small cafe where Toyoko kids can get a meal and experience some safety; and the father who, after losing his daughter to suicide, takes to the streets in order to better understand the Toyoko kids and their plight.

Following Futurism’s report, BBM effectively shut down and began disappearing from Google’s listings. Unfortunately, the Brown brothers are far from the only publisher employing such tactics these days. I’ve previously written about my own experience with AI slop blogs that specialize in churning out article after article of bland, AI-generated content that’s attributed to fake authors. Every single one of these blogs’ articles is intended to grab Google’s attention and generate traffic in a manner similar to “classic” SEO hacks like keyword stuffing, paid links, and doorway pages. And just like keyword stuffing, etc., the tactics employed by AI slop blogs could prove disastrous for them in the not-too-distant future.

This week, SEO expert Lily Ray published an extensive article about the various updates that Google has made to its search algorithm over the years, updates intended to improve its efficacy in part by combating shady SEO techniques. Google’s 2011 “Panda” update, for example, targeted “content farms” like eHow.com and Mahalo.com that generated lots of low-quality content (sound familiar?), and effectively crippled them by killing their search engine traffic. And if Ray’s correct about Google’s recent activity, then it’s likely that the search giant is prepping yet another update — and AI slop blogs are the intended target.

Specifically, Ray highlights some recent changes to “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content,” an article that outlines Google’s criteria for what constitutes good content. These changes seem to directly target slop purveyors like BBM and their ilk. One of Google’s criteria is the effort used to create content, which specifically calls out AI-generated content (emphasis mine):

The extent to which human work went into creating the content or the systems powering it. For example, writing original analysis, translating a poem manually, or building a custom interactive map for a game represents high effort. Conversely, automatically generating pages from feeds or using generative AI to produce large amounts of text without manual oversight or curation represents little to no effort. Attribution or giving credit to other sources doesn’t replace the need for original effort.

Google also places a high value on content created by authors with experience and expertise, which seems like an obvious response to content attributed to non-existent AI personas (again, emphasis mine):

We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it.

However, avoid using deceptive authorship information. Fabricating creator profiles (such as by using AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials to make content appear as if it was written by human experts) is a form of deception. Any form of deception makes a page untrustworthy to both users and our automated quality systems, and is a signal of a low-quality page.

Reading through their documentation, it’s clear that Google’s guidelines for what constitutes good and valuable content have remained basically unchanged over the years:

• Write about what you know.
• Be thoughtful, original, substantive, honest, and trustworthy.
• Avoid deception, factual errors, inconsistencies, and exaggeration.
• And above all else, create content that benefits your human audience and don’t try to game or manipulate Google.

Google’s algorithm is certainly advanced, but “enterprising” individuals will always find gaps and loopholes that can be exploited to juice their rankings. Such efforts may prove effective for a time, but Google’s own history makes it very clear that their utility will be short-lived, and will most likely hurt you in the long run. Manipulating Google — through AI-generated content, for example — might make your site rank higher, but when Google inevitably closes whatever loophole you’re exploiting, you could end up spending months attempting to salvage your site’s ranking and reputation, if not longer.

Of course, Google isn’t addressing the problem of AI slop simply out of the goodness of their heart. They have a vested interest in ensuring that the content that appears in their rankings, and more crucially, that’s used to generate their AI summaries, is good, substantive, and trustworthy. If all that Google’s AI summaries have to rely on is bland, shallow AI-generated slop, that serves only to harm Google’s services and make them less attractive to users, who might choose to go elsewhere. (On a sidenote, you can always disable AI summaries altogether if you want more of an old school Google experience.)

If and when Google releases an update specifically targeting AI slop, it will be to their benefit as much as anyone’s. Even so, their efforts to combat hacks and grifters like Brown Brothers Media can still represent a net positive for us all. It remains incumbent upon us as individuals, however, to avoid giving our time and attention to AI slop, so that if some of it does manage to slip past Google’s efforts, we’re savvy enough to recognize it for what it is and simply ignore it.

There are some albums that, as much as you might enjoy them year round, really only reveal themselves during certain times of the year. And for me, Hood’s Cold House can only be truly enjoyed when the mercury starts to drop, frost begins to form on the windows, and you can feel the first snow forming in the grey skies overhead.

Originally released in November 2001 by the Aesthetics label here in the States, Cold House found Christopher and Richard Adams, along with their various collaborators, expanding the pastoral post-rock of The Cycle of Days and Seasons and Rustic Houses, Forlorn Valleys to include glitch, IDM, and even hip-hop courtesy of guest vocalists Dose One and Why? (cLOUDDEAD). On paper, it doesn’t seem like all of that should work very well together, but in truth, Cold House is a fascinating and deeply affecting album (read my review) that perfectly captures the isolation and doldrums of winter on songs like “Branches Bare” and “Enemy of Time.”

To mark the album’s upcoming 25th anniversary, Domino — which previously reissued Cold House as part of 2011’s Recollected box set — have announced an expanded edition that includes new artwork, archival imagery, a new interview between Simon Reynolds and the band, and bonus recordings. The album will be released on “audiophile” double vinyl and CD, as well as digitally. Here’s the full track list:

1. They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Ever Happened Here
2. You Show No Emotion At All
3. Branches Bare
4. Enemy of Time
5. The Winter Hit Hard
6. I Can't Find My Brittle Youth
7. This Is What We Do to Sell Out(s)
8. The River Curls Around the Town
9. Lines Low to Frozen Ground
10. You're Worth the Whole World
11. Across the Lonely Writing Side
12. Painting the Town Dead
13. Ghosts By Japan
14. I Can't Find My Brittle Youth (Early Version)
15. The River Curls Round the Town (Early Version)
16. You Show No Emotion At All (BBC Mixing It)
17. Lines Low to Frozen Ground (BBC Mixing It)
18. You're Worth the Whole World (BBC Mixing It)

Tracks 11 – 18 will only be available on the CD and digital versions. Tracks 11 – 13 originally appeared on 2002’s You Show No Emotion At All EP. Tracks 16 – 18 can also be heard on the BBC Mixing It EP, which is currently available on all major streaming platforms.

The 25th anniversary edition of Cold House will be released on November 13, 2026 by Domino Recording Co. Watch the video for “You Show No Emotion At All” below:

Is anyone here surprised that American Football might be influenced by The Cure? Although the midwest emo icons’ brand of jazz-and-minimalism-inflected indie rock doesn’t sound much like the goth titans, there’s no denying that Robert Smith’s plaintive cries resound throughout Mike Kinsella et al.‘s heartfelt music.

Thus, it makes perfect sense for American Football to serve up an acoustic cover of “Boys Don’t Cry” during a recent trip to the SiriusXM studios. But it becomes a little something more than just a cover when the band starts weaving in some strains from “Never Meant,” arguably their signature tune, and the two songs meld perfectly. And as for that pensive trumpet solo, well, it’s just the icing on the cake.

In a statement to Pitchfork, Kinsella had this to say about their performance: “The Cure, and specifically ‘Boys Don’t Cry,’ has not only been fundamental to my growth as a songwriter but as much or more so on my development as a man. It just seemed like the perfect fit for a bunch of melodically driven, emotionally available grown men to deconstruct and try to make our own.”

American Football are currently on tour in support of their latest album, American Football (LP4), which was released this past May.

Upon discovering the World Wide Web in the mid ’90s, I immediately began using it for the same purpose that any other red-blooded heterosexual male in his late teens would: looking up anything and everything I could find about Christian industrial music. I had discovered bands like Mortal, Under Midnight, Circle of Dust, and globalWAVEsystem only just a few years prior, and I was hungry for more.

My search eventually led me to the Flaming Fish email list and its related label. Overseen by Carson Pierce, the Flaming Fish community served as one of my chief gateways into the world of Christian industrial and goth music via wide-ranging discussions and a growing archive of user-submitted reviews. When Pierce announced that he would no longer host the reviews on his site, I offered to host them on Opus, and he graciously agreed.

Those reviews remained on Opus for several years until they eventually disappeared from the site (for reasons that I can’t quite remember). For the last decade plus, they’ve only existed on the Internet Archive, but as part of my ongoing efforts to centralize all things Opus-related, I’ve reclaimed them and placed them in their own special collection.

Reading through and prepping the 40+ reviews that comprised the archives was certainly a trip down memory lane, bringing back names with whom I frequently interacted and discussed music. (And all over email, mind you. At the time, social media as we now know it was still years away.) Many of the artists and releases reviewed remain obscure even now, and some have all but vanished into the ether, these reviews being the only proof of their existence. Others have landed on YouTube and Bandcamp, and a few artists, like Circle of Dust and The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, are still active today.

Above all, these reviews serve as a reminder of a time, before Amazon, Spotify, and social media made finding music all-but-effortless, when you really had to hunt down the music that interested you — especially if you were interested in anything remotely on the fringe. But there was joy in the hunt, and community to be found along the way, and music felt less like a commodity than it so often does today.

As the guitarist for The Smiths, Johnny Marr established a six-string style that continues to influence countless guitarists, even decades after that band’s breakup. His latest solo album, The Age of Everything, continues that legacy. Mind you, I wouldn’t describe any of the album’s ten songs as particularly Smiths-esque, with the possible exception of “How Come,” but the moment you hear those jangly riffs and pristine melodies, there’s absolutely no mistaking them for anyone else’s work.

Case in point, “Ophelia,” one of the album’s initial singles, and one of its more uptempo tracks, thanks to Jack Mitchell’s propulsive drumming and the pulsing electronics. Marr’s riffs sound like they’re carved from silver, and he jumps back and forth between them and the song’s dreamy chorus with an ease that borders on the supernatural. There’s a reason why Marr’s name has become an adjective for guitar-playing, and “Ophelia” is yet more proof of it.

The Age of Everything is currently available via BMG.

I can think of few better experiences for a music lover than when you start listening to a new album by an unknown artist and, within the first few notes, you feel something click inside you, on an almost fundamental level. It doesn’t happen all that often — maybe a handful of times a year if you’re fortunate — but it’s undeniable, an instinctual sign that you’ve just discovered something special.

Such was my experience within the first ten seconds of “Bluebells,” the second song on Whisper Doll’s sophomore album, Lucky Clover. The breezy guitars and effortless melodic shifts unlocked something inside me, a sensation further confirmed when Fiona Tagami’s breathy voice made itself known. Along with her bandmates, Tagami taps into the same winsomeness that made The Cranberries and The Sundays so beloved, a winsomeness brought about by her efforts to capture and convey a sense of whimsy and magic with her music.

Thus the album’s title song finds her contemplating various possibilities: “Oh, if it wasn’t clear I hope it is now/I stand on the edge, I don’t know how… In the universe there’s only me and a lucky clover.” Meanwhile, the aforementioned “Bluebells” is filled with evocative imagery that captures various romantic and existential twists and turns before culminating in a plea for simple understanding. And if that wasn’t clear enough, album closer “So Sweet” finds Tagami musing “I don’t think like how I used to/I’m more alive, I’m more awake” before concluding that “So sweet is living life.”

If that was all that Lucky Clover had to offer, though, then the album might be accused of being sappy, even cloying. But all of the considerable dreaminess that washes over you from the speakers is tempered by some darker impulses and undercurrents.

“I Dream Next to You” certainly sounds as buoying and effervescent as the rest of the album, and then you realize the obsessive nature of Tagami’s seemingly romantic confessions (“I wanna taste his spit/I wanna sleep in his shirt”). And I must say, I did not expect to hear a critique of purity culture when I started listening to Lucky Clover, but that’s precisely what Tagami delivers with “Am I a Knife” when she sings “If all I am is sin, how can you look at me as real?/If all my words are temptation, what do you hear?” — and her critique is all the more pointed for the earnestness with which it’s delivered.

On their Bandcamp page, Whisper Doll calls themselves the “luckiest band in Brooklyn.” And in a very true sense they are, having developed such a rich and fleshed out sound for their sophomore album. But in the end, we listeners are the truly lucky ones, because we get to listen to and enjoy that sound as often as we like — and look forward to what’s next for Tagami and her bandmates.

You’ve probably noticed this, but my movie reviews as of late have been trending decidedly towards the sort of cinematic fare that I would’ve stared at with wonder whilst perusing the VHS rental shelves as a kid back in the ’80s and early ’90s. We’re talking low-budget post-apocalyptic titles, sci-fi knock-offs, and of course, Z-grade ninja flicks galore, all of which I’ve finally been able to enjoy as a mature and functional adult thanks to streaming services like Tubi.

One of the things that I’ve come to sincerely love about these movies are their posters, which are clearly meant to compensate for the movies’ clear lack of good cinematic taste. You know the producers of Overkill — a 1987 buddy cop flick about an LA detective who teams up with a Japanese cop (and goes undercover as a male stripper) to defend California from the yakuza — knew exactly what sort of movie they were making. And so they went all out for the poster artwork, which depicts our two heroes battling yakuza toughs whilst cruising down the street on the hood of a cherry red convertible. Similarly, the trashtastic posters that IFD Films produced for Godfrey Ho’s ninja movies are appropriately absurd and incomprehensible, and I want every single one of them framed and mounted on my walls.

That brings us to 1987’s Strike Commando, a “Namsploitation” flick from Italian director Bruno Mattei that stars Reb Brown, best known for his performance as Dave Ryder (aka, Blast Hardcheese) in the MST3K classic Space Mutiny. Much like Space Mutiny, Strike Commando finds Brown running around, punching and shooting bad guys, and yelling. A lot. Only this time, his character is Sergeant Michael Ransom, a Rambo-esque commando who’s battling both the Viet Cong and Russian soldiers who tortured and killed his friends as well as the Army brass who betrayed his unit. It’s terrible and unintentionally hilarious in almost every possible way, and I’m pretty sure that twelve-year-old Jason would’ve loved every single minute of it.

He also would’ve loved the movie’s poster, and thus, so do I. Strike Commando’s poster feels like several Platonic ideals of cinematic cheese colliding together to form a kaleidoscope of awful awesomeness. How else to explain Ransom’s mis-proportioned M-16, which sports not one, not two, but seven(!) barrels, all of which are spouting hot lead? Or the bad-ass cobra tattoo on his bulging, vein-riddled bicep? Meanwhile, the other side of the poster features a rogues’ gallery of all of the bad guys who Ransom will inevitably punch, stab, shoot, and/or blow up in his quest for vengeance, along with a flight of helicopters that would make Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore green with envy.

But the pièce de résistance absolutely has to be Ransom’s blood-soaked and sweat-covered face, which is twisted in fury as he yells in defiance. Which is quite apropos, since Ransom spends approximately one-third of Strike Commando simply yelling, sometimes at bad guys (“Jaaaaakooooodaaaaa!!!”) and sometimes simply into thin air. (Interestingly, the Norwegian VHS release of Strike Commando features the same basic artwork, only with a much younger Ransom who’s considerably calmer, and even looks to be a wee bit stricken by all of the violence he’s unleashing.)

Strike Commando’s poster is so ridiculous and over-the-top — indeed, Ransom’s grotesquely rendered M-16 looks so surreal the longer you look at it that it feels like it must be a metaphor for something — that it’s tempting to dismiss it altogether. Likewise, it’s tempting to dismiss the poster’s artist — whose name, alas, has faded away into the mists of “B” movie history — as a hack. And yet, the work they created is a dozen times more interesting, more dynamic, and more accurate a representation of the movie that it’s promoting than the vast majority of Hollywood posters you see today.

Movie posters have become a dying art-form that’s prone to recycled visual tropes and rehashed clichés. But then along comes Strike Commando to stick a seven-barreled machine gun in your face while screaming at the top of its lungs and remind you that movie posters can, in fact, be ridiculous and terrible and original and awful and awesome all at the same time.

In order to better track my various cultural experiences (e.g., movies, TV shows, books, restaurants), I’ve created the Cultural Diet. Think of it as my own personal Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Yelp, all rolled into one (more info here). Every month, I recap everything that I watched, read, etc., in the previous month.

I’m bummed that I didn’t hear Satantango’s — aka, Valentina Ottoboni and Gianmarco Soldi — debut self-titled album when it was released last December. If I had, then I’m fairly certain that “Strada Provinciale 6” would’ve figured prominently in my 2025 year-end mix.

The duo employs the sort of My Bloody Valentine-esque squall that speaks right to my soul, with warbling, Kevin Shields-style “glider” guitars bursting out of the speakers from the very get-go alongside their wispy, yearning vocals. And for most shoegazers, that’d be more than enough. However, Ottoboni and Soldi introduce other dynamics, peeling back the thick walls of noise to reveal delicately picked guitar melodies that serve as a gentle calm before the maelstrom comes sweeping back in.

Satantango — who take their name from Béla Tarr’s acclaimed seven-hour 1994 epic — use that approach throughout the album’s eight songs. Which means that while it’s all very easily filed under “shoegaze,” it’s also never a mere genre exercise. Ottoboni and Soldi are never content to simply retread the same musical tropes as countless other ‘gazers have done before them, which makes Satantango one of the more interesting shoegaze releases — and one of the more promising debuts — that I’ve heard in quite some time.

Satantango is currently available via Dischi Sotterranei.

As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. add more content, it can be difficult to know what to look for amidst all of the new titles. Every month, I compile a list of particularly noteworthy and interesting movies and TV shows to add to your streaming queues.

If you’d like to receive my streaming recommendations even sooner, become an Opus subscriber today.

Jump to a Streaming Service

• Amazon Prime Video
• The Criterion Channel
• Disney+
• HBO Max
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Amazon Prime Video

Blade Runner 2049 (Oct 1)

Over the years, news of a Blade Runner sequel has always been met with trepidation and skepticism. However, Blade Runner 2049 was about as perfect a sequel as fans could’ve hoped for. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 may not reach the original’s mythic-ness, but it’s certainly of a piece thanks to its contemplative pacing, gorgeous effects and world-building, and a storyline that builds on the original’s themes.

Casino Royale (Oct 1)

Daniel Craig started off his tenure as James Bond with a bang in this reboot of the venerable spy movie franchise. As a newly minted “00” agent, Bond is assigned to track down a wealth financier who has been helping terrorists. Throw in a femme fatale or two, some excellent tailoring, and a slew of clever gadgets — not to mention Craig’s icy-yet-sympathetic portrayal of Bond — and you have a 007 film par excellence (read my review).

GoldenEye (Oct 1)

Of all the James Bond movies, I have a special fondness for 1995’s GoldenEye, which was Pierce Brosnan’s first outing as 007. Brosnan’s 007 is the perfect blend of charm, élan, menace, and edge, all of which are put to good use as Bond tries to stop a deadly Russian satellite from falling into the wrong hands. GoldenEye has everything you could want in a Bond film: gadgets, femme fatales, thrilling action sequences (like the tank chase through downtown St. Petersburg), and a couple of twists and betrayals. (The fact that Goldeneye also inspired one of the greatest video games of all time doesn’t hurt, either.)

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Oct 1)

More than forty years after its release, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark remains one of the greatest action/adventure movies of all time, and introduced one of cinema’s most iconic heroes: Indiana Jones, globe-trotting Nazi-punching archaeologist extraordinaire. Heavily inspired by the serials of the ’40s and ’50s, Indy’s movie debut finds him traversing the globe to find the titular biblical artifact before Hitler’s forces do. Raiders of the Lost Ark is filled with thrilling action set pieces and culminates in a truly unforgettable showdown between the forces of good and evil (read my review).

John Wick (Oct 1)

On paper, John Wick’s premise is pretty silly: a retired assassin returns to a life of violence to avenge his dead puppy in spectacularly bloody fashion. But of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the film boasts some of the best action filmmaking of the last ten years and a sense of style that’s only enhanced by Keanu Reeve’s dedication and intensity. John Wick spawned three sequels, each more outrageous than the last, and a truly fascinating mythology.

Kung Fu Panda (Oct 1)

The casting of Jack Black as the voice of Po, a panda who dreams of being a martial arts legend, was clearly a stroke of genius. Set in an version of medieval China populated with anthropomorphized animals, Kung Fu Panda is a thoroughly entertaining action/comedy for the whole family that also packs some delightful depth beneath the martial arts hijinks. (And for what it’s worth, I contend that Tai Lung’s prison escape is one of the great cinematic action scenes of all time.)

Lone Wolf McQuade (Oct 1)

Chuck Norris is J.J. McQuade, a former Marine and Texas Ranger who walks softly and carries a really big gun — which will come in handy when he has to square off against an arms dealer (David Carradine). One of Norris’ most iconic and successful films, especially for its “buried alive” scene, Lone Wolf Mcquade would eventually serve as the inspiration for Walker, Texas Ranger a decade later (read my review).

Mystery Men (Oct 1)

Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is pretty cool and all. But does it feature a hero who’s really good at shoveling? When it was originally released in 1999, Mystery Men was something of a box office bomb, which is a shame. Its sendup of superhero tropes, as a team of misfit and wannabe superheroes try to take on their city’s arch-supervillain, is hilariously over-the-top. And it doesn’t hurt that the film boasts a truly awesome cast that includes the likes of Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Geoffrey Rush, and Janeane Garofalo.

Here’s everything arriving on Amazon Prime Video in October 2026.

The Criterion Channel

Bright Future (Oct 1)

Tadanobu Asano and Joe Odagiri — two of Japan’s biggest actors — star in this Kiyoshi Kurosawa-directed drama about a pair of factory workers who really want to strike back at their boss. But that just scratches the surface of this drama. Bright Future doesn’t take a very direct route in its storytelling, but it offers up some poignant images about the need for beauty and transcendence in the midst of modern apathy and lost, directionless youth.

The Others (Oct 1)

In this chilling ghost story set during World War II, Nicole Kidman plays a mother who lives in a remote house with her young children. But when otherworldly phenomena begin to occur, she must face the possibility that their house is haunted, and their souls in danger. Alejandro Amenábar knows how to build a sense of atmosphere and dread, and he uses it effectively. The Others is proof that you make generate solid scares without resorting to gore or crazy special effects.

The Social Network (Oct 1)

Based on Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, David Fincher’s The Social Network explores the founding of Facebook, from Mark Zuckerberg’s early days at Harvard University to the site’s meteoric rise in popularity and the resulting legal tribulations and broken friendships. Though it has been criticized for playing fast and loose with historical accuracy, The Social Network is regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s, thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s award-winning script and Jesse Eisenberg’s lead performance as Zuckerberg.

Terror in Resonance (Oct 1)

When Japan is rocked by an apparent terrorist attack by a mysterious group calling itself “Sphinx,” a demoted Tokyo detective is pulled back into service, only to discover an even bigger conspiracy than he could have possible imagined. Created and directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, best known for Cowboy Bebop, Terror in Resonance is a slick modern thriller that also boasts a stellar Yoko Kanno soundtrack. Fun trivia note: In 2015, the Chinese government banned 38 anime titles, including Terror in Resonance, claiming that they contained “scenes of violence, pornography, terrorism, and crimes against public morality” that could influence minors to commit similar acts.

The Wraith (Oct 1)

A mysterious stranger in a sleek, ominous sports car suddenly appears in the Arizona desert, and begins killing members of a gang of car thieves. At the same time, a new kid arrives in town on a motorcycle and starts causing trouble. Could the two events be related? Do you even need to ask? The Wraith is classic ’80s action/horror, and stars Charlie Sheen, Randy Quaid, Sherilyn Fenn, and Clint Howard.

Here’s everything arriving on The Criterion Channel in October 2026.

Disney+

VisionQuest, Season One (Oct 14)

Following the events of 2021’s WandaVision, the resurrected android Vision lives in isolation in order to figure out who or what he is. To help his journey of discovery, he consults the various AIs located in his programming, which includes the villainous Ultron. Meanwhile, he encounters a young man who might just be his reincarnated son. Paul Bettany and James Spader reprise their MCU roles of Vision and Ultron, respectively. VisionQuest was created by Terry Matalas, who previously worked on Star Trek: Picard and 12 Monkeys.

Here’s everything arriving on Disney+ in October 2026.

HBO Max

Coraline (Oct 1)

Neil Gaiman’s darkly fantastical storytelling and Henry Selick’s stop-motion animation are a match made in movie heaven. Coraline’s titular heroine dreams of a nicer, more magical home — which is exactly what she gets when she discovers a portal to another world. Of course, given that this is Neil Gaiman we’re talking about, things soon get dark and weird, and Selick’s clever visuals are a perfect tool for conveying that (read my review).

Corpse Bride (Oct 1)

Starring the voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Emily Watson, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is a fanciful fairy tale about a young man who accidentally finds himself married to, well, a corpse. It’s certainly macabre and spooky, but what else would you expect from a Tim Burton film?

Ocean’s Eleven (Oct 1)

Ocean’s Eleven is about as slick as heist movies come, as Danny Ocean (George Clooney at his most charming) assembles a team to knock over three Las Vegas casinos in one night. Directed with all assurance by Steven Soderbergh, Ocean’s Eleven is just a joy to watch, as the twists keep coming and the stakes keep getting higher (read my review).

The Royal Tenenbaums (Oct 1)

Arguably my favorite Wes Anderson film, The Royal Tenenbaums is a dark, drier-than-dry — and at times, quite poignant — comedy about a trio of genius siblings who must confront their deadbeat dad when he announces that he’s dying. The film stars the usual Anderson players, along with Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, and Gene Hackman as the conniving-yet-lovable father, Royal, who seeks to redeem himself after causing his family years of grief.

The Shining (Oct 1)

When Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker for a remote hotel, he looks forward to writing his new book. But malevolent forces in the hotel have other plans, and soon, Jack begins sliding into a madness that threatens the lives of his wife and son. Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the 1977 Stephen King novel contains some of the creepiest and most indelible images in all of film history.

Here’s everything arriving on HBO Max in October 2026.

Hulu

Die Hard (Oct 1)

One of the greatest action movies of all time, period (read my review). Bruce Willis stars as John McClane, a sardonic detective from New York who’s visiting his estranged wife in Los Angeles for a Christmas party at her office. And then, wouldn’t you know it, a bunch of terrorists break up the party and hold everyone hostage. It’s up to McClane to take on the terrorists — who are led by Alan Rickman at his most suave — armed with little more than some one-liners. Suffice to say, the terrorists don’t stand a chance.

Ghostbusters (Oct 1)

In this supernatural comedy classic from 1984, Bill Murray leads a group of intrepid paranormal investigators who quickly find themselves in over their heads when an ancient god of destruction threatens New York with eternal doom. Ghostbusters also stars Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, and Rick Moranis.

True Lies (Oct 1)

By all appearances, Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a mild-mannered computer salesman. In reality, though, he’s a secret agent living a double life. But a terrorist organization’s latest activities threaten to reveal Harry’s secrets, putting his loved ones in danger. Also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, and Bill Paxton (RIP), and directed by James Cameron, True Lies is peak ’90s action comedy.

Jamie Foxx: Take Care of Yourself (Oct 7)

Jamie Foxx returns with another standup special following the success of 2024’s excellent What Had Happened Was…. The special will also feature Foxx’s daughter Anelise as a musical guest.

Here’s everything arriving on Hulu in October 2026.

Netflix

The Bourne Identity (Oct 1)

Matt Damon stars in this thriller based on Robert Ludlum’s 1980 novel about a man who awakens with no memory but soon finds himself the target of the American intelligence community. Luckily, he possesses a set of deadly skills that will come in very handy. Also starring Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente, The Bourne Identity helped kick off the Bourne franchise, which delivered some of the best action/thriller films of the 2000s.

Psycho (Oct 1)

One of the greatest suspense films of all time, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is iconic, no doubt about it. After a young woman on the run disappears, her sister and a private investigator pick up the trail, which leads them to a remote motel in the middle of nowhere — and the creepy house overlooking it. From the famous shower scene to the final twists, Psycho is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films of all time.

The Sixth Sense (Oct 1)

With its story about a young boy who can see dead people, The Sixth Sense is the movie that put writer/director M. Night Shyamalan on the map. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the movie features Haley Joel Osment in one of the best child actor performances of all time, and a solid supporting cast that includes Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, and Olivia Williams. And of course, one heckuva twist ending that blew audiences’ minds back in 1999 — and is still pretty effective even after multiple viewings (read my review).

Cocaine Bear (Oct 13)

You don’t get a more accurate movie title than Cocaine Bear. Based on a true story from 1985, Elizabeth Banks’ film is about a bear that ingests a large amount of cocaine, and decides to go on a rampage. The horror comedy stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, and Ray Liotta in one of his final film appearances.

Sacrifice (Oct 16)

A movie star trying to salvage his image and career appears at an environmental fundraising gala, only to be kidnapped by a cult seeking three sacrificial victims to toss into a nearby volcano in order to prevent humanity’s extinction. Directed by Romain Gavras, Sacrifice stars Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, Salma Hayek, Charli XCX, and John Malkovich.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 (Oct 20)

The first Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was a rollicking and highly stylized cyberpunk action series (read my review). The second series is a completely new story set within the sordid streets of Night City, and a new set of characters seeking after revenge and redemption.

Lupin, Part Four (Oct 23)

Netflix’s gentleman thief returns, only this time he’s behind bars, where he’s just serving out his sentence until he can be reunited with his family. But when a series of heists are pulled off by someone claiming to be Lupin, all of the evidences points back to him. So now he must escape prison in order to clear his name and save his family. To date, Lupin has been one of Netflix’s most popular non-English titles, and for good reason: it’s filled with plenty of twists and turns, not to mention lead actor Omar Sy’s boundless charisma.

The One About Matthew Perry (Oct 27)

This three-part documentary series celebrates the life and career of actor Matthew Perry, best known for his performance as Chandler Bing in Friends. Perry died in 2023 from an accidental overdose, and the series, which includes contributions from the actor’s family, explores his struggles with addiction as well as his comedy legacy.

SCTV: The Greatest Show You’ve Never Heard Of (Oct 30)

Everyone’s heard of Saturday Night Live. But in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Canada’s SCTV delivered its own brand of sketch comedy, and in the process, gave us such beloved actors and comedians as John Candy, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, and Harold Ramis. This documentary, which includes footage from a 2018 cast reunion, reflects on SCTV’s production and comedy legacy.

Here’s everything arriving on Netflix in October 2026.

Tubi

28 Days Later (Oct 1)

A man wakes up in a hospital after a zombie plague has decimated England. Together with a ragtag group of survivors, he must find a way to safety even as they discover that human beings can be worse than zombies. On paper, 28 Days Later’s story doesn’t deviate too much from zombie movie tropes, but the vibrancy and immediacy of director Danny Boyle’s visuals elevate the material — and having Godspeed You Black Emperor! on the soundtrack doesn’t hurt either.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Oct 1)

This Steven Spielberg movie about a group of people whose chance encounters with extraterrestrials cause them to leave their lives behind for some unknown quest is a sci-fi classic, if ever there was one. And it still holds up after more than 40 years, thanks to its sense of awe and wonder, which culminates in an iconic scene where the aliens and humans finally learn to communicate with each other.

Commando (Oct 1)

If you’re looking for the ultimate over-the-top ’80s action flick, then you’d be hard-pressed to find a better candidate than Commando. Directed by Mark L. Lester, Arnold Schwarzenegger is at his musclebound ’80s-est as Colonel John Matrix, a retired Green Beret who’s forced back into action after mercenaries kidnap his young daughter (Alyssa Milano). Commando is utterly ridiculous as Matrix tears through wave after mercenary wave with machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and gardening tools.

The Foreigner (Oct 1)

In this suspenseful thriller set in London and Belfast, Jackie Chan plays a seemingly nondescript man seeking justice for his daughter after she dies in a terrorist bombing. Unfortunately for the bombers, he was a special forces soldier during the Vietnam War, and he’s not afraid to put his deadly skills to use in order to get vengeance. Grim and gritty, The Foreigner is a far cry from Chan’s usual action/comedy blend, but it’s also something of a revelation, and proof that Chan can carry purely dramatic fare.

Forrest Gump (Oct 1)

Tom Hanks won a “Best Actor” Oscar in 1995 for his portayal of the titular character, a simple man with low intelligence whose various life experiences end up shaping American culture without him ever realizing it. Utilizing cutting edge (at the time) visual effects, Forrest Gump places the character in the Vietnam War, on stage with John Lennon, and in the Oval Office with Nixon. The film also stars Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field, and a young Haley Joel Osment.

The Goonies (Oct 1)

Directed by Richard Donner and produced by Steven Spielberg, The Goonies is about as good as a classic kids adventure film can get. When a group of social misfits on the verge of being kicked out of their homes discover a pirate treasure map, they see it as the perfect solution to their problems — if they can survive the elaborate booby traps and vicious criminals on their tail.

The Social Network (Oct 1)

Based on Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, David Fincher’s The Social Network explores the founding of Facebook, from Mark Zuckerberg’s early days at Harvard University to the site’s meteoric rise in popularity and the resulting legal tribulations and broken friendships. Though it has been criticized for playing fast and loose with historical accuracy, The Social Network is regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s, thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s award-winning script and Jesse Eisenberg’s lead performance as Zuckerberg.

Spaceballs (Oct 1)

I still remember the first time I saw Spaceballs. I was in junior high at the time, and I had no idea what the movie was, but the moment I saw the “We brake for nobody” bumper sticker on Spaceball One, I knew my life would never be the same. One of the most quotable movies of all time — e.g., “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.” — Spaceballs is a true comedy classic.

Here’s everything arriving on Tubi in October 2026.

Lincoln’s very own Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center has announced its 2026 Fright Fest for the month of October. As with previous festivals, this year’s lineup features an eclectic blend of new and old horror films that run the gamut from zombie and vampire movies to ghost stories and murder mysteries.

View the complete lineup below, along with links for more info and tickets.

In addition to the Fright Fest, The Ross is also celebrating the 45th anniversary of Friends of The Ross with a selection of films from 1981, including Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits and Michael Mann’s Thief.

There’s a little something for everyone on Club 8’s latest album, the more-than-aptly titled Weeks of Golden Beats. There’s some New Order-underscored synth-pop (“Echoes of Our Time,” “Birthday”), a sprightly acoustic number (“Honestly”), and even some shoegaze shimmer (“Don’t Cry Baby, It’s Only a Film”). And of course, this being Club 8 we’re talking about, the album’s production is burnished to a glossy sheen while Karolina Komstedt’s vocals are as dreamy as ever.

As such, it’s hard to pick one standout song, but I’m going to go with “The Sweetness of Honey,” which blends the duo’s effortless Swedish pop sensibilities with some funk and soul. It’s packed with the sort of eclecticism we’ve come to expect from Komstedt and bandmate Johan Angergård, but no matter how much I hear it, it feels just as fresh and vibrant as ever.

Weeks of Golden Beats is currently available.

When people think of martial arts cinema icons who’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, the first names that come to mind are probably Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. Meanwhile, genre fans might mention Chang Cheh, Norman Chu, Cheng Pei-pei, Jimmy Wang Yu, Lau Kar-leung, Corey Yuen, and so on. Odds are, the recently deceased Richard Harrison — who died at the age of 90 earlier this month — probably won’t make such a list for most people, and understandably so.

Unlike Lee, Norris, et al., Harrison didn’t come from the world of martial arts. Rather, he got his start in body-building, which led to roles in Italian sword-and-sandal movies like 1961’s The Invincible Gladiator and 1963’s Medusa Against the Son of Hercules. He worked steadily in Europe throughout the ’60s and ’70s, and starred in everything from spy thrillers and war films to spaghetti westerns. (Fun fact: Harrison was the one who told Sergio Leone to hire a young unknown named Clint Eastwood for a little film called A Fistful of Dollars. Harrison would later joke that that was his biggest contribution to cinema.)

By the ’80s, though, Harrison had grown frustrated with the Italian film industry, and moved to Asia. There, perhaps unwittingly and much to his chagrin, he began his career as a Z-grade action movie icon. Working for the Silver Star Film Company in the Philippines, Harrison starred in stuff like Blood Debts, a riff on Death Wish that’s so disjointed, nonsensical, and poorly made that “low budget” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

However, it wasn’t until he arrived in Hong Kong and met director Godfrey Ho that Richard Harrison truly began carving out a unique niche in martial arts cinema — though he didn’t necessarily have a say in the matter.

I’ve written before about Ho’s (in)famous “cut and paste” approach to filmmaking. After shooting original footage with his own cast and crew, Ho would then splice it with footage from other films that his studio (IFD Films) owned the rights to, which allowed him to churn out lots of new films on the cheap. Needless to say, Ho’s films — many of which center around ninjas doing mystical ninja things — are coherent only in the loosest sense of the word, and yet that very quality imbues them with a bizarre-ness that some (including yours truly) find endlessly fascinating.

Harrison was one of Ho’s biggest stars, and appeared in such fantastically titled films as Ninja Terminator, Ninja the Protector, Golden Ninja Warrior, Ninja Operation: Licensed to Terminate, and Diamond Ninja Force. He typically played a secret ninja master who would just sort of amble through the film — thanks to Ho’s nonsensical editing — until the final act, where he’d then summon his mystical ninja powers to defeat the bad guy.

To Harrison’s credit, it’s clear, even with Ho’s slice n’ dice editing, that he was a professional doing his best, regardless of whether he was talking on a Garfield phone, receiving ninja threats from a toy robot, or wearing a bandana with the word “Ninja” emblazoned on it. Unfortunately, the films that Harrison is arguably best known for were a source of great embarrassment for him.

Speaking with Nanarland, Harrison revealed that he was essentially forced by producer Joseph Lai to keep working with Ho in order to pay off taxes resulting from a fraudulent contract. Furthermore, he had no idea at the time just how many films were being created with the footage he’d shot. Working with Ho and IFD left him feeling used and betrayed, and so Harrison returned to the States in 1986. (Not surprisingly, Ho kept using footage of Harrison for his films for several more years, as evidenced by 1988’s Ninja Strike Force and Ninja Powerforce.)

Harrison’s final films included Angel Eyes, a 1993 softcore thriller starring Erik Estrada (aka, Ponch from CHIPs), John Phillip Law, and former Penthouse Pet Monique Gabrielle, and 2000’s Jerks. In addition to acting, Harrison also directed several films, including 1980’s Challenge of the Tiger, which starred Bruce Le (one of the many imitators who capitalized on Bruce Lee’s death) and 1986’s Terror Force Commando, which he also co-wrote. (I have no interest in seeing Angel Eyes and Jerks, but you better believe I added Challenge of the Tiger to my Tubi queue.)

I don’t know that I can fully explain why I find Richard Harrison’s filmography so fascinating. I think it’s because Harrison, along with the other non-Asian actors who appeared in Godfrey Ho’s films (e.g., Kent Wills, Mike Abbott), represents a curious alternative to the more well-known martial arts worlds of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers.

Obviously, no one would ever mistake Ninja Terminator and Diamond Ninja Force for good films, or Godfrey Ho for a good (or even ethical) filmmaker. And yet, those films are so bizarre that they seem like artifacts from a parallel dimension. And yet, for all of their considerable awfulness, I appreciate the glimpse they provide because it’s truly unlike anything else. They’re certainly not for everyone, but for fans of cult cinema, it really doesn’t get much cult-ier than Richard Harrison as a mustachioed and eyeliner-wearing ninja.

I certainly don’t want to downplay or dismiss Richard Harrison’s embarrassment and frustration at how his film career turned out thanks to his association with Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai, and IFD Films. At the same time, though, there’s no denying that he was an instrumental part of a truly unique part of film history. As Mike Haberfelner wrote in his extensive Harrison biography, “it’s fair to say that [Harrison] wasn’t even too great an actor, but without him and his 100+ films output, the history of unusual, trashy and insane movies would be a whole lot poorer.”

My time for gaming is pretty limited these days, so I can only allow myself to get excited about a handful of times every year. For 2026, those titles included Halo: Campaign Evolved, a satisfying enough remake of the original Halo game, and Control Resonant, a sequel to 2019’s acclaimed Control.‘

I didn’t play Control until several years after its release, and immediately fell in love with almost everything about it. As I wrote in my review, the game’s mix of brutalist architecture, liminal space imagery, Cold War relics, and creepypasta hit a real sweet spot for me, and I couldn’t wait for a sequel.

Revealed last year, Control Resonant returns us to the world of the Federal Bureau of Control, the secretive government organization tasked with protecting humanity from paranatural threats. However, the otherworldly Hiss have escaped the confines of the Oldest House, and have begun remaking and rewriting Manhattan. It’s up Dylan Faden — brother of Jesse, the first game’s protagonist — to take on the Hiss with his own paranatural abilities, and undo their damage.

Everything I’ve seen of Control Resonant to date looks amazing, and I’m eagerly searching for some time in which to play it. In the meantime, critics have begun weighing in. So how well does Control Resonant stack up to its acclaimed predecessor? Is it worth the seven-year wait? Read on for a selection of critical reactions to Remedy Entertainment’s latest.

👍 David Burdette, ​“Ascends to new heights” 

Comfort zones don’t exist at Remedy Entertainment. The team has always been adamant about pushing their limits and expanding their horizons, whether it works or doesn’t. This has resulted in one of the most creative companies of our era, and even though that is welcome, it’s a scary conviction to hold in regard to Control Resonant. Here is a sequel to a game that was a critical darling, but that steps away from the original protagonist and genre to make something new. It’s a risky bet, and while Resonant has its issues, it pays off in ways I couldn’t have expected.

👍 Tay Garcia, ​“Not your typical sequel” 

Control Resonant is yet another piece of evidence that we need to protect Remedy Entertainment at all costs. The studio understands and openly embraces its identity, one that smells of coffee and creative weirdness, and this sequel proves they know how to reinvent themselves without losing an ounce of their soul.

👍 Michael Higham, ​“Dares to be bold where it counts” 

Where Control Resonant really shines is in the mind-bending, gravity-defying world Remedy built for it. You’re not going to find your local bodega in the Lower East Side or the 4-train to Harlem in this version of Manhattan. However, the way the design language of The Oldest House has spilled into the streets gives it a personality that’s so distinctly Control. The environment seamlessly guides you on what’s what and where to go, so even in the absence of a more detailed map, I was rarely ever lost as long as I paid attention to my surroundings. This strikes a delicate balance, letting the world itself take the lead rather than waypointing every little thing.

👍 Brent Koepp, ​“A mind-dending action masterpiece” 

When Control Resonant was first revealed in 2025, I was unsure how Remedy Entertainment would take on the action RPG genre. After spending nearly 60 hours with the sequel, I can thankfully say it’s not only one of the best action games this year, but it also has some of the best level design I’ve ever experienced in any game. Control Resonant might be Remedy’s most groundbreaking and genre-bending project to date.

👍 Cole Kronman, ​“Refreshingly original” 

Control Resonant can thus be taken as a pivotal moment for the studio, the first time its signature formal ambitions have been married with a design this rigorous and uncompromising (for player and developer alike). I’m very happy to report that they’ve stuck the landing: this is, without a doubt, the most demanding, most video-game-per-square-inch video game Remedy has ever made. Imperfect, but relentlessly, characteristically interesting.

👎 Michael Leri, ​“A terrible waste of Remedy’s talents” 

Whereas that 2019 title was a splendid synthesis of Remedy’s signature strengths, Control Resonant‘s many failures make it seem as though it came from a different studio altogether. Its melee combat is bafflingly hollow, relentlessly repetitive, and poorly balanced across the board… By failing to engage the fingers or brain, Resonant is not just a disappointing sequel; it betrays the very notion of what it means to be a Remedy game.

👎 Willa Rowe, ​“Misses the mark in nearly every way” 

Resonant may be a more technically perfect game than its third-person shooter predecessor — combat is sharper, the story is given more depth, and the expanded world has been designed with a perfectionist’s eye — but missing is that all-important Remedy magic that makes its games so compelling. Without it, Control Resonant completely falls apart.

👍 Chris Tapsell, ​“How video games should be done” 

There are parts of the demo I played that I don’t think would have made it into other triple-A games; creative decisions that would’ve either not been made or, maybe more likely, have been gradually whittled down and eroded over time. The result is something a little more rugged than even the first Control, that may not even always come together perfectly in the playing. But also something kind of fascinating.

👍 Paul Tassi, ​“Enjoyable and addictive, but sometimes roadblocked by frustrating design choices” 

It’s an interesting idea to switch genres to expand the world of Control with a radically different genre. It works, most of the time, though there are aspects that could use more polish and rethinking given that this is Remedy’s first stab at a large-scale brawler. For what it lacks in fleshed-out systems, it makes up in universe building and art direction. I do recommend you play Control first, as some have asked, and I do think that’s a clearly better game, but I imagine Resonant will find an audience as well. As for me, there’s still plenty more to do and see and smash with comically large paranatural hammers.

👍 Alan Wen, ​“Ambitious and visually unique” 

With a new protagonist and an expanded setting, Control Resonant morphs into a different, more ambitious beast of a game than its predecessor, all while building on its uniquely New Weird aesthetic. I’ve seen my share of apocalyptic virtual cities, but the unsettling sight of dead floating bodies, streets suddenly shifting upwards, or skyscrapers refracting into nothing is quite unlike anything else, while an even stranger phenomenon called ‘patterning’ might be the logical conclusion of genAI hallucinating a form into multiple uncanny versions of itself.

Control Resonant is currently available. Watch the trailer below: