Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Verity (Theaters)
TV
–Celebrity Wheel of Fortune Season Premiere (October 2 on ABC)
–The Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd Season 4 Premiere (October 2 on History)
–Family Guy: “Happy Hell-o-ween” (October 5 on Hulu) – Streaming-exclusive holiday special.
–Make Some Noise Season 4 Premiere (October 5 on Dropout)
–Abbott Elementary Season 6 Premiere (October 7 on ABC)
–Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 3 Premiere (October 8 on CBS)
–Eternally Yours Series Premiere (October 8 on CBS) – Vampire sitcom.
–Elsbeth Season 4 Premiere (October 8 on CBS)
–Cupertino Series Premiere (October 8 on CBS) – Created by the Kings; starring Mike Colter and Rachel Keller.
Music
-Meshell Ndegeocello, Synonym
-Johnny Marr, The Age of Everything
Starring: Kiana Madeira, Jessica Rothe, Logan Marshall-Green, Jackson Bews, Juan Pablo Shuk, Will Close, Vicente Peña, Mateo Moreno, Jaime Newball, Christophe de Geest, Nelson Camayo
Director: Mike P. Nelson
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Rating: R for Bloody Chomping, and Language
Release Date: October 2, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: A team of humanitarian medical workers are doing some fine life-saving work along the Colombian Amazon, but they should have brushed up on the area’s mythology before they headed down there. Maybe then they would have realized there would be other deadly dangers to deal with in addition to the diseases. In particular, there’s the giant serpent known as “Boiúna”, who stalks the river as she pleases, ready to slurp up whatever crosses her path. There’s also some human conflict between the medical team and a group of foresters after a frightening altercation turns irrevocably violent. But Boiúna doesn’t particularly care about any of that. Instead, she’s just hungry for anybody she encounters, no matter what’s going on in their personal lives.
What Made an Impression?: Nobody’s Safe: Part of the fun of creature features like Beware Boiúna is the moralizing nature of the deaths, as the biggest jerks among the characters tend to end up in the most pieces by the end. But that rule doesn’t seem to apply here. Sure, there are clear villains, and plenty of them do fall down the belly of the beast. But so do plenty of the more honorable folks. I’ll let you know that the three most prominent characters are wide-eyed doctor Alli (Scream Queen veteran Jessica Rothe), dirtbag colonizer Brennan (Logan Marshall-Green), and wily river guide Lena (Kiana Madeira). In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I’ll allow my readers to speculate which of that cohort you think will survive. As for how effective this approach is, it can certainly be bone-chilling to know that there’s basically no escape from the terror, but this is a movie that I think would have benefited from some rhyme and/or reason to its dispatching. What That Means?:Beware Boiúna opens with an epigraph that reads, “The forest makes good men great and bad men monsters.” I point this out not because it’s particularly profound. Sort of the opposite, really. The bad people’s monstrousness is quite clear from the get-go, and the good folks’ opportunities to be great are mostly stymied. So I guess I’m pointing this out because it’s rather silly. Spread Your Wings: I was mainly excited to see this movie thanks to the presence of Jessica Rothe. Alas, BB is nowhere near the level of the Happy Death Day flicks, or even Boy Kills World. But my favorite moment nevertheless did involve Rothe, as Alli extracts some insects from one of her fellow doctors after eggs have been implanted in him. I thought this might be foreshadowing about some secondary monsters in addition to Boiúna, but instead, this scene is ultimately most memorable for the other doc quipping, “I would like to note there’s a butterfly growing in my back.” So that was kind of amusing.
Beware Boiúna is Recommended If You Like: Straight-to-Video Anaconda Knockoffs
I go goo-goo for the movies (CREDIT: Universal/Screenshot)
They keep making new movies, and some of them are even worth watching. Here’s what’s at the top of the slate for October 2026:
Verity: Anne Hathaway plays the titular incapacitated writer, while Dakota Johnson plays another writer hired to help her finish a book series. Josh Hartnett also stars. It’s based on a Colleen Hoover novel, although the trailer is giving more Freida McFadden vibes.
Starring: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Robert John Burke, Emma D’Arcy, Burn Gorman, Sophia Wilde, Piper Torrens, Mercedes Hernández, Danny Kirrane, Corey Johnson
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Rating: R for A Bunch of Hot Air (I.e., Profanity)
Release Date: October 2, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is a wealthy oil tycoon and essentially the most powerful man in the world. He’s also a little eccentric, if you know what I mean. But that eccentricity is definitely not what the planet needs at the moment, as a drilling expedition he’s overseeing in Greenland is threatening to cause an apocalyptic climate disaster. But instead of focusing on preventing that, he’s much more concerned about indefinitely extending the life of his beloved, grotesquely ill cat. Eventually, though, he is convinced that he must work alongside the President (John Goodman) and his war room to actually propose some sort of solution. Meanwhile, another story is brewing underneath this catastrophe.
What Made an Impression?: Cover Up Those Holes: To paraphrase the Immortal Bard, Digger is a whole lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I’m happy to see Tom Cruise fully committing himself to a new role, but every calorie of energy he expends makes for a thoroughly exhausting viewing experience. On top of that, President Goodman has to make do with a terminal medical diagnosis in a sensitive area, which is worth a chuckle before it just adds to the tidal wave. Even the relatively restrained performances (emphasis on relatively) from the likes of Riz Ahmed (as Ganesh, a scientist running point for Digger) and Sandra Hüller (as Digger’s sister Emma) just get subsumed into the extremity. What Might Have Been: Starting around a half hour into the runtime, there are punctures in Digger’s world that reveal a parallel storyline. At my screening, we were requested not to spoil any major reveals, although I have seen other reviews go into detail about this element. So feel free to consult those takes if you want to sate your curiosity ahead of time, but I’ll keep things vague for my analysis. At first I thought this aspect was intriguing enough to pay attention to, but then it started to get about too cute by half. Ultimately when it all clicked into place, I appreciated the fuller picture it provided and wondered why it couldn’t have taken the place of Digger’s antics even earlier. What If It Were Called “Kenny” Instead?: The one piece of Digger that I’m willing to recommend without reservation is the performance of Jesse Plemons, who’s quickly becoming one of my favorite actors. He plays Kenny, an operator in the margins with a mysterious connection to Digger. With his scraggly, curly mop-top and oddly precise speaking voice, he cuts an inimitable figure, oddly disturbing but also sort of comforting. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the whole film should have been redesigned around him, because a big part of his success has to do with emerging from the shadows. But I do wish that much more of Digger had embodied his offbeat unpredictability.
Was that guy on the top There? (CREDIT: DreamWorks Animation; Greenwich Entertainment/Screenshot)
You Had to Be There
Starring: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, Jayne Eastwood, Paul Shaffer, Avril Chown, Gilda Radner
Director: Nick Davis
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: September 18, 2026 (Theaters)
Forgotten Island
Starring: H.E.R., Liza Soberano, Kailey Crawford, Kayla Teruel, Dave Franco, Manny Jacinto, Jenny Slate, Lea Salonga, Dolly de Leon, Jo Koy, Ronny Chieng, Kevin McCann
Jeff “jmunney” Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then reviews all the sketches and segments according to a “wacky” theme.
Let me let you in on a little secret (which is in fact not a secret at all, but rather publicly available information): reigning NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson was the official host of the Season 52 premiere of Saturday Night Live. It was an understandable booking, considering that 2026 was the first time that the New York Knickerbockers won the NBA championship since SNL has been on the air.
As for the musical guest that Brunson introduced, that’d be internationally flavored girl group KATSEYE. They don’t have any particular affiliation with the Knicks that I’m aware of, but they do seem to have achieved a noteworthy level of popularity.
Regarding the Review Gimmick for this episode, it will of course be Basketball-themed, so I’ll say things like “Baller,” “Slam Dunk”, or “4 out of 5 Basketballs.”
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Forgotten Island (Theaters)
–Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! (Theaters)
–Heart of the Beast (Theaters)
–Primetime (Theaters)
–The Stunt Driver (Theaters)
–Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (Theaters)
TV
–Bucks County, USA (Check your local PBS listings) – Docuseries about a purple county in a purple state.
–Saturday Night Live Season 52 Premiere (September 26 on NBC) – Jalen Brunson and KATSEYE will be their guests
-MTV Video Music Awards (September 27 on CBS, MTV, and Paramount+) – Hosted by Snoop Dogg.
–Grimsburg Season 3 Premiere (September 27 on FOX)
–The Simpsons Season 38 Premiere (September 28 on FOX)
–Scrubs Reboot Season 2 Premiere (September 30 on ABC)
Music
-Leon Bridges, Happiness Anytime
-M83, I Wrote You a Letter
-Mastodon, Marrow Deep – This dropped at the end of August but somehow I missed it.
-Tom Morello, Everyone Gets Everything They Want
-Nothing But Thieves, Stray Dogs
-Soft Cell, Danceteria – Reputedly their last album.
-Tinashe, Popstar
What would you do… if this happened to you? (CREDIT: Screenshot)
Starring: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Kate Harbour, Andy Nyman, Emma Tate, Simon Greenall, Dani Dyer, Roman Kemp, Nina Sosanya, Paul Whitehouse
Directors: Steve Cox and Matthew Walker
Running Time: 81 Minutes
Rating: PG
Release Date: September 18, 2026 (Theaters)
For my money, the most important lesson to be gleaned from Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is that baldness is no big deal. I’m saying this as someone who quite enjoys his facial hair and body hair, but has made peace with a recession on top. Although, not to undercut my point immediately, I actually think The Farmer’s adventure as an outrageously hirsute monster actually looks kinda fun. I can’t be the only one who would like to be a Sasquatch for a day! But he also needs to know that he didn’t need to feel like he had to grow back his hair to impress the veterinarian, as I think she was digging him anyway.
Deion Sanders does NOT appear in this movie. (CREDIT: A24)
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, Anna Faris, Jonathan Lipnicki, Tony Revolori, Alex Winter, Eric Rahill, Sean Bridgers, Jeff Zucker, Creed Bratton, Caroline Hebert, Jessica Hecht
Director: Lance Oppenheim
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: R for Some Graphic Nudity, Violence, and Language, All Within the Milieu of a Disturbingly Graphic Premise
Release Date: September 25, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: It’s the mid-aughts, and Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) is dead-set on making television history. His NBC true crime reality show To Catch a Predator is a bit of a phenomenon, but it’s also controversial, not to mention stressful for everyone involved. His producer Andie (Merritt Wever) remains steely while working around Chris’s mercurial nature, and everyone else on the crew makes their own compromises to survive a show whose premise is luring into sting operations men who are trying to have sex with minors. Emerging into this scenario is aspiring actor Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), who’s hired to play decoy underage boys in the stings. He just wants to kickstart his showbiz career, but he clearly hasn’t fully registered what he’s signed up for. Indeed, with Chris as the increasingly obsessive ringleader, a looming disaster threatens to become more and more inevitable.
What Made an Impression?: The Impression That I Get: The main attraction in Primetime is of course Pattinson’s compelling performance, which feels like an alien pretending to be a human, or maybe a human purposefully trying to be off by acting like an alien pretending to be a human. And yet, he clearly wants to be authoritative, so it doesn’t make sense for him to be so off like that. I’ve never watched a full episode of To Catch a Predator, so I’ve only caught the real Hansen in bits and glances. But no matter what your familiarity with the Real McCoy, this is still a fascinating feature-length case study of “What’s this guy’s deal?” (Just as compelling is one scene when Gisondo impersonates Pattinson as Dan finds himself slipping into Chris’s persona.) Caught in the Maelstrom: Director Lance Oppenheim was definitely happy to put his auteurial stamp on this effort. He leans into the harshest visual aspects of the technology of the era, favoring close-ups of AIM chats and hidden camera feeds, as well as the reflections on the faces of the characters poring over those screens. There’s also a recurring motif of a web of a red laser-like display. It all combines to create the effect that the TCaP tean is caught in their own personal Twilight Zone, an aberration within an aberration of Hollyweird. Way Back Yesterday: You know you’re starting to get old when 20 years ago feels like a completely different era. But part of the fun of Primetime is that we get to revisit the messiness of the 2000s with a fresh set of peepers. It’s certainly a hoot to see former NBC President and CEO Jeff Zucker as himself sorting out where To Catch a Predator belongs on his network’s schedule. That moment also hits so sweetly because it’s nice to encounter someone who has a sense of humor about himself, which is decidedly not the case with Hansen and his cohorts. And let’s not let go of that levity, because this movie ultimately delivers us to a pretty dark place and leaves us to our own devices to figure out what to do with that.
Primetime is Recommended If You Like:To Catch a Predator but feel conflicted about that
Rating: R for Stylish Bloody Violence Captured by Stunning Cinematography, and Some Sexual Content
Release Date: September 25, 2026 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: A Houston man named Latif (Mahershala Ali) has been able to support his family with his work as a hitman. But when his wife dies, his current situation immediately proves to be a lot more untenable than it used to be. That’s because he now actually has to be physically present for his teenage daughter Fathia (Adia), pre-teen son Kadir (Jahleel Kamara), and newborn baby, who urgently needs new breast milk as the supply that Mom left behind quickly dwindles away. He’s spiritually prepared to give up the killer-for-hire lifestyle, but his fellow mosque attendee Mike (Laith Nakli), the one who’s been giving him these deadly assignments, has another job for him, and this one is quite a doozy. The target is Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho), an anti-pornography crusader who is particularly offended by Mike’s influencer nephew (Abubakr Ali) and his brand of so-called “Habibi porn.” Latif isn’t really interested in any of that tangled mess, but it’s unavoidable while he’s hustling to feed his baby.
What Made an Impression?: Slicing and Dicing: If you’re still disappointed over the cancellation of the Mahershala Ali version of Blade, then Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is probably the closest we’ll ever get to that, what with a sword being Latif’s preferred weapon of choice. His combat style is so similar to that of Marvel’s Daywalker that I couldn’t help but wonder if writer-director Bassam Tariq was explicitly trying to make that connection. And then I found out that he was actually hired to direct Blade, so yeah, I imagine there was some intentionality. If you’re familiar with the Elevated Horror trend, then I guess we can call this Elevated Superheroics. Probably Unforgettable:Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is the kind of movie that makes me go, “Is this excellent, or just unusual?” What Tariq asks of his cast requires a lot of trust, and they certainly give it to him. One character declares that he’s “Team Butt”, while John Cho sports some gold grills. I mean, can you even imagine?! I witnessed the whole thing, and I still barely can. I have to give it up for the boldness, even though I’m not entirely sure that I’m stunned for the best reasons. He’ll Make You Believe: Let’s bring it back to Ali, because if this movie works at all, it’s thanks to his grounding central performance. That’s not to say that the veterans and newcomers surrounding him aren’t also worthy of praise, because they certainly are. But as everything in his world becomes more and more outrageous, he never lets go of making us see the recognizable human crisis that he’s enduring. That’s his acting superpower: he’s the calm in the storm that elevates it all with his steadiness.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is Recommended If You Like: Exploitation flicks, Religious yearning, The Righteous Gemstones
