1. Christy - I want to preface this with the fact that I actually like Sydney Sweeney, but her acting in this is atrocious. I thought it might be her worst performance to date, but then I watched
The Housemaid a few days later and Jesus Christ?! What happened to her? I'll talk more about that movie below, but I'm kind of in shock at how bad she is because I think she's great on
Euphoria (although I hate her character and the writing for that show), and gives really solid performances in
Immaculate,
The Voyeurs,
The White Lotus, and
Reality. There are a few things that I don't like her in (
Madam Webb,
Anyone But You), but I thought it was a product of miscasting. But now I'm just questioning whether she can act? I still appreciate that she seems to want to challenge herself, and I'm definitely not trying to hate on her. I think a lot of people, women in particular, hate on her because she has a banging body and that's just misogyny (and jealousy). Plain and simple. And I think she's assumed to be MAGA? But, sorry if this shocks you, a lot of rich white American women are (they just might be quieter about it). Also, on a side note, I was not prepared for the hairstyle switch to those braids. Anyway, I think the acting in this, in general, is quite bad - even Merritt Wever (and I'm a big Merritt Wever fan - still my favorite speech ever "gotta go, bye!"). Ben Foster can get in the bin (can't stand the whole method acting nonsense especially if it means treating your co-workers like shit). And Ethan Embry is playing her DAD?! I'm so old! Other than the acting, this is just a fairly basic biopic. It's from point A to point B, and it's all very dull. I don't know who this real life person is (I don't follow boxing), so I didn't realize how it was going to end - *spoiler* she tries to leave her husband so he stabs her several times and then shoots her. JESUS CHRIST! How awful. But I kind of hate how films about domestic abuse
end with the abuse, especially since Christy lived. I would have rather seen her overcoming this incident - the strength she had to find to survive, and how she became a role model for queer athletes, etc. would have been far more interesting. Instead this is all left as an after thought.
2. Send Help - *major spoilers ahead* I liked this movie even though I don't think it's as good as some reviews suggest. It's a solid revenge thriller though and Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien are brilliant in it. I think I've mentioned it before but O'Brien looks so much like my ex-boyfriend, it's actually kind of weird. As he gets older he looks more and more like him (although, I haven't seen my ex in over 15 years so I have no idea what he looks like now). Anyway, I think Sam Raimi made a very entertaining, somewhat original movie here that has some really funny parts, some intense moments, a good amount of gore etc., but it's also a bit stupid. And it's a film in which
both characters are so absolutely unlikeable that it's hard to root for the ending it gets. This whole revenge for women being treated like shit by their bosses (who is also nepo-baby dipshit in this) is supposed to feel empowering, but when your "girl power" character is also a murderer it's hard for me to root for her. The story about her letting her husband take his keys even though she knew he was drunk is absolutely gross. I don't care about her husband (I think he was abusive? I don't even remember), but he could have killed other people driving drunk. Innocent people shouldn't be collateral damage because you want your husband to die. That's psychotic! I just think they take the story
too far. She could have just been a completely normal person who was pushed over the edge by this asshole she now has to care for on an island and decides to torture him. I would have enjoyed that way more. There's some great stuff here though - the boar scene is hilarious and then she drops the head in front of him and blood splatters. I laughed hard. I love how prepared she was for being stranded on an island - people like this fascinate me because like I've said many times, I would just walk into the ocean. I have no energy for all that survival stuff.
3. Wuthering Heights (2026) - I was actually quite looking forward to this because I've enjoyed Emerald Fennell's previous films (
Promising Young Woman is my favorite film of 2020 and I think
Saltburn is a solid movie). And I love Margot Robbie. And I was under the impression that Fennell was going to make this quite steamy (I LOVE a good steamy sex scene!). I read the novel for the first time at the beginning of this year. I will give my full thoughts in my yearly book post, but I genuinely felt like I was reading it for my entire life. It's never-ending. But also quite surprising in where the story goes and I definitely wondered how the film was going to tackle it. And the film...just...doesn't? LOL. It's basically only the first part of the book, which is weird, but apparently that's how all of the adaptions are? I don't think I've seen any of them but from what I've read, it's common fashion to just focus on the romance and avoid the whole generational saga. That's SO weird to me. If you're going to adapt a book, you can't just ignore an entire part of the book??? There are also a LOT of changes to the supporting characters in this that annoyed the shit out of me. ANYWAY...while I don't think this will end up on my worst films of 2026 list, I might put it there out of pure spite because the worst part of this movie is that it is so fucking bland. The sex scenes? Among the blandest ever put to screen. The chemistry between the leads? Non-existent. I personally do not think Jacob Elordi is hot (he's attractive but not my type), and I know there was a lot of controversy when his casting in this was announced, but the miscasting here goes waaaay beyond him being white. The man can NOT act. His acting always bothered me on
Euphoria, but I thought it had to do with the accent. Like, he sounds like he's trying too hard to enunciate words and it seems like he's reading off of cue cards sometimes. I didn't mind him in
Saltburn, but I don't think a lot of acting was required. And I think he was really good in last year's
Frankenstein, but his performance was heavily aided by his wardrobe and makeup (and didn't deserve an Oscar nomination. WTF.). He was miscast as Elvis in
Priscilla. But
this is his first big leading man type of role and it's such a misfire for me. He has no charisma at all, he sounds so flat, and he looks like there is absolutely nothing going on in his brain. To be fair, I don't think Margot Robbie does a great job in this either - she's terribly flat too. There's a point when Elordi asks (in the most monotoned voice ever) "do you want me to stop?" and I literally yelled at the television "YES PLEASE STOP THIS IS SO FUCKING BORING". On a positive note - I like the girl who plays Isabella. She was also in the series
Task that I recently watched and she is GREAT in it! And, of course, I love seeing Owen Cooper as a young Heathcliff! He's so adorable. He's going to be a big star (I hope he has someone looking out for him!). And on a side note that's related to the terribly boring sex scenes. I recently rewatched
Lady Chatterley's Lover (2022) (because I'm doing a deep dive into Jack O'Connell's filmography. Obvi!) and if you want to see actual hot and steamy sex scenes in a period romance then
this is a great example.
4. Dust Bunny - My husband picked this movie and I'm glad that he did! I had never heard of it but as soon as I saw Mads Mikkelsen's name I certainly wasn't going to turn it down. And then we started watching it and I was really digging this whimsical horror fairytale vibe that felt extremely familiar so it made complete sense to me when I googled it to realize that it's a BRYAN FULLER FILM!!! The genius behind two of my all-time favorite series,
Pushing Daisies and
Dead Like Me (yes,
Hannibal is fantastic too, but not among my favorites). I had no idea he was making movies now! And reuniting with Mads?! How was this not a bigger story among film nerds? This is why I sometimes miss Twitter because I truly feel like I miss out on so much movie news even though I follow only film/tv people on Bluesky. It's just not the same. I still have to check Twitter a lot to find out what's happening in the film world and it sucks. Anyway, I also really love the little girl - she is so adorable and her jacket in the beginning is SO COOL. She has some incredible facial expressions in this - I truly felt her terror and I believed her from the very start of the movie! There IS A MONSTER UNDER HER BED! It's a really fun movie, and there are some great action scenes, and it looks incredible - vibrant and stylized, with unique characters (very similar to Fuller's show - if you are a fan then I highly recommend this!).
5. The Housemaid - This is another one that I thought I was going to like for various reasons - I typically like Paul Feig films (and I appreciate that he is bringing back the 90s style psychological thrillers starring women), I like both Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. And Brandon Sklenar (he's from NJ!). I know Freida McFadden is a very popular novelist right now, but I have yet to read any of her books, definitely curious though! I thought this would be a good introduction to see if I like this story and then maybe I would pick up one of her titles (I don't always trust the masses when it comes to books - Taylor Jenkins Reid is incredibly popular and I've read two of her books and they are among the worst books I've ever read). Unfortunately, I hated this. I rated it two stars, but one of those whole stars is just for Amanda Seyfried's performance. She's incredible. Literally acting circles around everyone - it's almost embarrassing. Aside from the fact that it's incredibly dull and boring and an entire hour too long, it's also just really stupid and obvious. *some spoilers ahead* It's obvious that the husband is the bad guy from the second he appears. It's also obvious that Seyfried's character is pretending to be crazy in order to gaslight Sweeney's character. I couldn't pinpoint why because the
why is actually deranged??? I truly hope that this doesn't inspire women in abusive relationships to try this as a way out? And then the end is her basically turning it into a business??? Like hire me to seduce your abusive husband, he'll leave you for me (reasons unclear? I guess because she's hot?), and then I'll kill him! Brilliant. *slams head into a wall over and over again*. This also features a few really boring sex scenes - just no passion or intensity at all. It's weird because this
is probably a film that I would think of casting Sweeney in - this sexy seductress who is somehow also very sweet and innocent. Seems like a perfect role - but she is absolutely horrific in this. The line delivery is so off it's almost hard to watch. She does get naked though - so that's a plus (although I guess that's not even a good enough reason to watch movies nowadays because, as my husband pointed out when I tried to get him to watch this with me and I used "Sydney Sweeney is in it and I *think* she gets naked", and his response was "why would I watch a movie for that? I have the internet". The internet really did ruin everything, huh?).
