On my way to see August movies (CREDIT: Ketchup Entertainment)
They keep making new movies, and some of them are even worth watching. Here’s what’s at the top of the slate for August 2026:
One Night Only: It’s like The Purge, but for sex. Which is to say, One Night Only is about a world in which pre-marital relations are legal for only a single night per year. Callum Turner (who’s everywhere right now) and Monica Barbaro (formerly of Lifetime’s UnREAL) play the leads.
You can see One Night Only as often as you want in movie theaters beginning on August 7.
TV
–ESPN Jeopardy! Series Premiere (July 31 on Disney+, Hulu, and the ESPN App) – Hosted by Joe Buck.
–Futurama Season 14 (or Season 11) Premiere (August 3 on Hulu)
Music
-Ariana Grande, petal
-Shaboozey, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales
Sports
-Little League Softball World Series (August 2-9 on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC)
A rose by any other bush… (CREDIT: MUBI/Screenshot)
Starring: Callum Turner, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, Riley Keough, Lukas Gage, Elle Fanning, Pamela Anderson, Elena Anaya
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: July 24, 2026 (Theaters)
Rosebush Pruning is a movie that does feature some literal rosebush pruning, but that titular gardening activity is also a metaphor for something else. Anyway, what you really gotta know about this flick is that Callum Turner, Jamie Bell, Riley Keough, and Lukas Gage play a quartet of adult siblings who still live with their father (Tracy Letts), and let’s just say that they’re a little bit too close to each other. Longtime readers of my reviews will surely know that I often like to ask myself if I would like to live in the world of the movie that I’m reviewing. In this case, that answer is: Oh, definitely not! Unless, that is, we zoom out a bit. While I certainly don’t want to be a member of this family, I wouldn’t mind spending a decent amount of time in beautiful Catalonia, which is where they currently live. So I guess the moral of the story is: when in Spain, don’t be these people
…Started up a Brand New Day! (CREDIT: Marvel/Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh, Liza Colón-Zayas, Marvin Jones III, Zabryna Guevara
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Running Time: 145 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Occasionally Gnarly Action Violence, and a Little Bit of Language
Release Date: July 31, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: It’s been a lonely life for the Tom Holland version of Peter Parker ever since his last big screen adventure. He’s still Spider-Man, and New Yorkers still love their arachnid guardian, but a spell has been cast that has made everyone forget the entire existence of the human being behind the mask. He’s inching towards re-introducing himself to his former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), but he’s got to be careful, since there are always new threats lurking around the corner. This time around, the primary threat is a mysterious newcomer (Sadie Sink) with the ability to jump her consciousness into other people who’s trying to expose a secret at the suspiciously friendly Department of Damage Control. Meanwhile, Peter seems to be going through a sort of second adolescence, as he develops new powers and then consults a relatively Hulk-free Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to help him get a grip on these emerging abilities.
What Made an Impression?: The Day After When?: To rewatch or not to rewatch? That’s always one of the big questions at the heart of the latest MCU release. With Brand New Day, I wondered if I ought to revisit 2021’s No Way Home to remind myself how we got to the point where nobody remembered Peter Parker anymore. But ultimately, I decided I would prefer not to and instead see how this chapter stands on its own (which is typically my prerogative in general). And I believe I made the right decision. While things started off feeling a little vague, I appreciated that this movie didn’t feel the need to recap itself to death and instead give off at least a hint of mystery. Criss-Cross:Brand New Day reaches towards the platonic ideal of a true low-key comic book crossover sensibility. We’ve seen Peter team up with all the major Avengers already, but what about the other rando Marvel heroes and villains we’ve yet to see him interact with before? Several of them are in this movie! But not all of them, as that would be too overwhelming. Sometimes superhero flicks have multiple antagonists combined with a whole host of friendly cameos, and it ends up feeling like three or four (or a thousand) different movies smashed together. But in this case, it feels natural enough that all these folks would be interacting with each other in this series of scenarios. They Had an Effect on Me: My biggest bummer with BND is that the visual effects are too slick in the way that our digitized and sanitized CGI era so often is. There’s just not much tactility as Spidey swings around the Big Apple. Nevertheless, there is a decent amount of emotional heft to the big set pieces. It helps when there are some close-up shots interspersed within those sequences, as Tom Holland’s eternally youthful visage immediately conveys plenty of vulnerability. Brand New Enough Indeed: Ultimately, I’m pleased to report that I was satisfied by Brand New Day because it didn’t feel like just more of the same once again in the way that so many Marvel movies have. While it didn’t quite blow me away like the most transcendent examples of this genre, I never quite knew where we headed. The reveals are clever, the ideas are sincere, and the enthusiasm is still real.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is Recommended If You Like: A mix of the old and the new
Starring: Cooper Hoffman, Olivia Wilde, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Charli XCX, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida
Director: Gregg Araki
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Rating: R for Strong Sexuality (Frequently Funny and Occasionally Scary)
Release Date: July 31, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: In I Want Your Sex, Cooper Hoffman plays a naive fellow named Elliot who truly never could have guessed what he was in for at his new job. (Even those of us who aren’t so gullible would have been surprised by all the twists and turns!) He’s hired as a new assistant for Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), an artist known for her sexually explicit pieces and her extreme skepticism towards her own profession. Soon enough, the assistant gig turns into a BDSM relationship. Elliot’s excited to be dominated by a powerful woman, whereas she seems to be motivated mostly by boredom. It’s all fated to take a bizarre dark turn, as indicated by flash-forwards of Elliot answering to a pair of detectives (Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho) about Erika’s disappearance and possible murder.
What Made an Impression?: “Contemporary Art is a Scam”: I’m no expert in the contemporary art scene, but I have seen plenty of movies that hilariously insist that the whole endeavor is patently ridiculous. And I Want Your Sex is particularly ruthless in that regard. It essentially asks: What if your whole life were just a nonsensical work of art provocation? Elliot’s experience suggests that it would be decently amusing at first but that it would inevitably become a little too anxiety-inducing. More Like “Ex-C-Ex”: This is a movie with a bunch of friendly faces in the supporting cast, including Daveed Diggs as Erika’s brusque manager, Mason Gooding as Elliot’s sort-of-friendly co-worker, and Chase Sui Wonders as Elliot’s roommate who’s also by far the least warped human being we encounter. But then there’s Charli XCX (continuing quite the onscreen year for herself) as Elliot’s girlfriend. And let’s put “girlfriend” in quotes because she doesn’t appear to love or like him in any measurable capacity. And let’s furthermore say that that whole gag is milked for all its worth in a handful of well-deployed scenes, including a screamer of a punch line I Guess That Was Worth It:I Want Your Sex hinges on a conclusion that offers a more-or-less happy ending for just about everybody. It’s definitely a relief, although it does feel like it kind of comes out of nowhere. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more it actually has felt paradoxically inevitable, while boldly underscoring the thesis that art is just a scam. But not in a way that is as cynical as you might suspect that message must be. Instead, we are assured that we can use that scam energy and be reborn in truth on the other side.
I Want Your Sex is Recommended If: You’ve always wanted to see The Usual Suspects crossed with Nocturnal Animals
Starring: Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada, André De Shields, Amber Gray, Patrick Page
Director: Brett Sullivan
Running Time: 141 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: July 24, 2026 (Theaters)
Well, hello there! Yes, the rumors are true, I did go see Hadestown: The Musical in a movie theater. I had never previously seen it on Broadway or any other live theatrical venue, though I did have a general idea of what to expect. Here are my biggest takeaways:
-I would’ve guessed ahead of time that André De Shields would be the main singer behind my favorite song, but no, that honor instead goes to Patrick Page as Mr. Hades himself going on about The Wall. What a bass!
-André was great, too, of course, and he did a fine job of ushering his co-stars into the spotlight.
-Let’s all start jumping like Amber Gray as Persephone!
-That “la la la” falsetto from Reeve Carney was kind of terrifying. (In a good way?)
-Eva Noblezada was delivering the sort of face acting that was making me go, “I hope everything works out okay!”
And now you know what I thought about Hadestown: The Musical.
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Hadestown: The Musical (Theaters) – A Broadway show comes to the big screen.
–Rosebush Pruning (Theaters)
TV
–President Curtis Series Premiere (July 26 on Adult Swim) – Rick and Morty spinoff with Keith David in the title role.
–Beat Shazam Season Premiere (July 28 on FOX)
Music
-Charli XCX, Music, Fashion, Film
-Robyn Hitchcock, The Confuser
-The Strokes, Reality Awaits
-Shania Twain, Little Miss Twain
-Tyla, A*Pop
-WILLOW, The Thread
-Pete Yorn, All the Beauty
Sports
-AIG Women’s Open (July 30-August 2 on Golf Channel and NBC)
You’re welcome! Why are you welcome, you may ask? Well, I assume that you would be thanking me at some point for getting to read this review of mine. Now why, you may also ask, am I being so presumptuous about my audience’s reaction? Well, I just felt compelled to mimic the same presumptuousness demonstrated by the Dwayne Johnson-portrayed demigod Maui, which is in turn the very same presumptuousness demonstrated by Walt Disney Pictures in releasing a live-action remake of Moana a mere decade after the animated original.
But you know what? I did feel welcome.
I’m sure that had quite a bit to do with my lowered expectations set by this questionable context. But this movie felt like a movie, and I guess it was just a day when I needed the silver screen to gently wash over me. (As it is most days.) So, well… thank you.
Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Parker Sawyers
Director: Nicholas Winding Refn
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: R for Stylized But Certainly Bloody Violence, and Some Sexual Content and Language Under a Similarly Stylized Veneer
Release Date: July 24, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: A veteran actress named Elle (Sophie Thatcher) meets an up-and-comer named Hunter (Kristine Froseth) who is set to co-star with her in an upcoming production. Hunter is eager to soak up everything Elle has to teach her, and she’s also enamored with Elle’s famous dad Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), who’s back in town with his new wife Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), who’s about the same age as Elle. They’re all staying in a luxury hotel in Tokyo that stretches into the clouds and seems to exist on another plane of existence entirely. It might sound like a lavish life of wonder, but they’re also right in the crosshairs of a mystical killer known as the Leather Man. Meanwhile, an investigator known as Private K (Charles Melton) fights his way through the city’s criminal underground.
What Made an Impression?: Return of the Winding: After breaking through in Hollywood with 2011’s acclaimed Drive, Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn’s output has been famously divisive. I actually found his 2016 bizarre nightmare horror flick The Neon Demon to be quite a hoot, but I could see why it didn’t work for everyone. Now that he’s returned to feature films a decade later with Her Private Hell, my reaction is, “Wait a minute, was I really ever a fan of Refn in the first place?” Now’s a good time to practice my compartmentalization skills. Turning on the Charm: In the first 20 minutes or so of HPH, I was kind of vibing along with the stylized faux-reality. Most of Elle and Hunter’s repartee is profoundly shallow, but there are a few lines that have a bit of a satirical edge to them or enough pseudo-philosophical heft to sufficiently amuse me. So yeah, I must admit that I laughed, and I cannot deny that Refn’s whole impish deal can still hold its sway over me, at least in spurts. It Was Nice Knowing Ya: At a certain point, though, my mind drifted about as far away from what was happening on the screen as possible. I lost the plot, and I wasn’t one bit interested in rediscovering it. But what is this plot that I speak of, when truly Her Private Hell can only boast of a facsimile of typical storytelling? This whole assemblage could have been pretty memorable as a music video. But as a feature length endeavor? It’s only memorable for how forgettable it is.
Her Private Hell is Recommended If: You’re still 100% in on NWR stock and nothing has ever convinced you otherwise
TV
–King of the Hill Season 15 (July 20 on Hulu)
–Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (July 22 on ABC)
–Stuart Fails to Save the Universe Series Premiere (July 23 on HBO Max) – The Sheldonverse expands.
Music
-Gracie Abrams, Daughter from Hell
-Steve Lacy, Oh yeah?
-Gin Wigmore, Beautiful Mess
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