July 2026 [13-19]
Das Boot: Director’s Cut, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Odyssey
- Das Boot: Director’s Cut [1981] - 86
It’s not often that one accidentally starts a three-and-a-half hour movie, but it’s even more rare that one does that and follows it all the way through because it’s so good… There’s even a 5-hour cut of this that I’m considering tracking down to get the “full” experience. While this exact version of the film was actually released in 1997, Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot rightfully holds the accolades it does. This film is gritty, intense, grueling, and incredibly well made. While there are some shots that feel a little hokey, the majority of Das Boot is on par with this year’s Project Hail Mary in terms of “how the hell did you do that”, and at no point did I feel the wild runtime of this director’s cut [something I can’t say about Project Hail Mary]. Nominated for 6 Oscars, Das Boot is a movie that you should definitely make the time for if either war or submarines interest you in even the slightest of passings.
- Thor: Love and Thunder [2022] - 66
I’m writing this 6-days after watching Thor: Love and Thunder and I’m struggling to remember a whole ton about it… The movie does some interesting things with reviving broken Mjolnir, does some confusing things with the exact same tool, throws away a very cool villain who — much like the Eternals — could have been the next build up after Thanos, and ultimately feels more like an off-brand version of Ragnarok than it does a sequel. It really just feels like the MCU did a ton of legwork to build up to Endgame, and then didn’t consider anything that was going to come next, so they just kept throwing spaghetti at the wall until something stuck… Which it still really hasn’t. Hell, the best thing to come out after Endgame was Shang Chi, and they’ve denied that a sequel for over 5-years at this point.
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever [2022] - 71
Another sequel in the sequelitis train that is the MCU, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a movie that struggles to find any sense of identity amid a real-world casting crisis after the death of T’Challa actor, Chadwick Boseman. While the film opens with a powerful in-universe ohmage, it never quite finds a way to free itself of whatever responsibility it feels towards the situation, and tries to use his death as both a catalyst for action and cause for delay over and over and over again, never quite letting any given character breathe or shine. While Namor and his water-based Talokani are interesting characters, the film is really inconsistent with how they’re handled, and spends so much time trying to convince you that this franchise’s foundations weren’t absolutely rocked by Boseman’s death, that they’re never really given an important enough place for you to really care. Though this does have an interesting conclusion when compared to the usual “good guys win” fare, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is more of an inoffensive “nothing waffle” than it is the “everything bagel” that it really had the opportunity to be.
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000] - 76
A movie I’ve never sat and watched as an adult, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an incredibly important film for a lot of reasons. Nominated for 10 Oscars and winning 4, this really is a spectacular movie in a lot of ways, and I’d love to get my hands on the book its based on at some point. Now, you do have to be into wuxia films to care about almost anything that happens here but, if you are, there’s a lot to love with this one. Excellent fight scenes, very engaging and smart cinematography, wonderfully moving music, and a story that’s at least 2/3rds wholly enthralling, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is well worth your time… Just skip the overly expositional middle section where you learn about homegirl’s desert loverboy, because that part is rough and very very boring when compared to the rest of this film’s really neato lore.
- The Odyssey [2026] - 77
The hype film of the summer, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is… Fun. What I’ll say about this right out of the gate is that: If you have any kind of interest in this, you should see it on the biggest, loudest screen you can. The Odyssey is a spectacle of a film, and one that’s going to absolutely clean up come awards season [R.I.P. Project Hail Mary]. What I’ll also say about it right out of the gate is that: The longer I sit with it, the less I like it. This journey is 2-hours and 52-minutes long, and it is painfully clear that there’s a 3+ hour cut out there that would likely solve most [if not all] of my narrative issues. It wouldn’t solve my performance or irritating hand-holding qualms, but there’s so much that’s just sort of 5/7ths told that I’m sure there’s more footage somewhere to round everything off. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like here, and the film’s three “twists” are all great, but this is a big, loud, bull of a film that largely forgets home is where the heart is, not just the ax to grind.
