R.I.P. Gene Hackman

I hate starting the blog with negative news, but the entertainment world lost one its biggest stars yesterday. Gene Hackman has sadly passed away at 95 years old along with his wife Betty Arakawa. While the cause of death is suspicious and questions are being asked, I don’t want to focus on that. I want to focus on the great career that Hackman had.

A two time Oscar winner, Hackman had a career that lasted over five decades and in that time he worked with directors like Clint Eastwood, William Friedkin, Wes Anderson, Richard Donner, Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Arthur Penn, Tony Scott, Mike Nichols, and Sydney Pollack. In those films, Hackman wasn’t just a piece being moved around by said directors. He enhanced every aspect of the films he starred in. Every scene you see him in, whether it’s Crimson Tide or Night Moves or Unforgiven, he is a force of divine nature that sucks you into the movie you’re watching.

There’s very few actors that when you ask someone what their favorite role is from them it will differ with almost every response. Gene Hackman is one of those actors. To me, Gene Hackman is the grumpy and crass Royal Tenenbaum. In the eyes of my dad, Gene Hackman is Bill Daggett. But it doesn’t stop there. Gene Hackman will live on as Lex Luthor, Popeye Doyle, Norman Dale, Jimmy McGinty, Rupert Anderson, and many more.

Rest in peace to an absolute legend. I think in the next week I’ll be diving into some new and familiar films from him. It only feels right.

Steven Spielberg’s Untitled UFO Film Has Begun Filming

Over the past five years of Steven Spielberg’s career, he’s been making films that are reflective and introspective on his career. In 2021 he remade one of his favorite films of all time, West Side Story. A year later, Spielberg made The Fabelman’s, a semi-biographical picture about Spielberg growing up in a complex family and developing his love for making movies. A year after that, Spielberg produced a remake of his 1985 film, The Color Purple.

For many filmmakers on this path, they wouldn’t veer. But when you gaze at the career that Spielberg’s paved for himself, he hasn’t become defined by one thing like his colleague George Lucas. Spielberg has zigged and zagged for over five decades with Jaws, E.T., Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Lincoln, and the list goes on. Again, Spielberg continues to zig and zag. He’s hopping from his career nostalgia kick and somewhat staying nostalgic by directing another alien film.

Spielberg’s 2026 alien flick, which I believe is still untitled, has begun filming. Written by David Koepp, the writer of Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and War of the Worlds, this alien film will star Josh O’Connor (Challengers), Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, Sicario), Colin Firth (Love Actually, The King’s Speech), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Lincoln), and Wyatt Russell (Everybody Wants Some!!). It’s tentatively planned to come out on July 12, 2026. If and when there’s any updates along the way, I will be writing about them in this blog.

Ayo Edebiri In Talks To Write And Star In A Live-Action Barney Film For A24

Now this is a weird one. Apparently, Ayo Edebiri, who is an Emmy winning actress for her performance in The Bear, may write and star in a live-action Barney film. Before I get into the nitty gritty of it all, I have a question and or nitpick. Isn’t Barney already live-action? When you watch the show all of the children in it are real and Barney is a purple dinosaur in a costume. It is, by every sense of the meaning live-action already. Unless the angle is that Ayo Edebiri is going to paint herself purple and become a dinosaur, the live-action aspect isn’t exactly groundbreaking. The “groundbreaking” aspect is that it’s a movie.

Circling back around, on top of Ayo Edebiri writing and starring, it’s reported that Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Nope) is attached as an executive producer. Weird? Bizarre? Genius? Who really knows. And to add on to that, the film would be for A24.

I personally don’t think this is an interesting or frankly good concept, and it also feels like a hodgepodge of entertainment buzzwords and names (A24, Ayo Edibiri), so at its core, I’m getting the feeling that this’ll turn out to be inauthentic slop. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to be wrong about that take. I think Ayo Edibiri is very funny as an actress, but how about her as a writer? I’m not sold. It still seems very early on in the process, but I don’t feel very confident.

What’d I Watch This Week?

The Monkey (2025) dir. Osgood Perkins

I saw that latest Osgood Perkins film, The Monkey, in theaters and I had fun. While the marketing campaign made it seem like a gruesome, creepy follow up to Long Legs, but it’s not that. What The Monkey is is a raucous good time of gory kills and dry comedic dialogue. At times it can get a tad repetitive in its death comes for us all message and it loses its way a bit in the third act, but I thought the first two thirds of it were a riot. Once you realized that this wasn’t Perkins wanting to spook the audience member, but instead laugh along with you at the macabre concept of death in a strange way, you can kick back and have multiple big laughs. I recommend you try to catch this while it’s still in theaters.

3.5/5 Stars

The Straight Story (1999) dir. David Lynch

Since Lynch’s passing, I’ve done a deeper into his filmography. I loved Lost Highway, but didn’t connect much with Eraserhead. The third one I saw was what he described as his most experimental film, The Straight Story. Following the true story of Iowa native Alvin Straight and his journey on his riding mover to see his brother, who recently suffered a stroke, who lives in Wisconsin. At face value this doesn’t seem like an uber interesting plot, but what Lynch does is he shows the great, slice-of-life aspects of America and the relationships that people can build so quickly. A lot of Lynch’s films (Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, you name it) show the worst of America. He flaunts the cesspool of human nature typically, but not in The Straight Story. It’s a complete change for Lynch and it’s the reason why it’s my favorite film from him.

5/5 Stars

Tootsie (1982) dir. Sydney Pollack

Sydney Pollack’s Tootsie is a movie I’ve wanted to watch for a while. I saw it was on Tubi (great streaming service with extreme depth) and finally got around to it and fell in love with it. While it plays at times like a cheesy sitcom, Pollack, Dustin Hoffman, and Jessica Lange account for a few huge laughs. And those huge laughs turned into heartfelt moments that border schlocky from time to time, but Hoffman and Pollack have insanely great chemistry that I immediately discount the potential schlock. There’s not much more I can say other than that you should go watch Tootsie while it’s still on streaming.

5/5 Stars