As I watched the first season of Apple TV’s Sugar, I kept thinking in the back of my mind that Colin Farrell would be perfect casting for a Carman biopic. I even mentioned that when I posted my review on social media.

Carman was one of the biggest Christian artists of all time, releasing a string of hit records and performing to packed venues around the world before his death in 2021. Indeed, if you grew up in church circles during the ’80s and ’90s, Carman’s music and influence was impossible to ignore, for better or worse. And shortly after cracking my joke about Farrell as Mr. Licciardello, I discovered that a film production company called Vale Vision is, in fact, making a movie about Carman’s music and career.

Carman: The Movie is currently in pre-production, with Joe Chambrello playing the titular role. Chambrello previously portrayed Carman in 2024’s Unsung Hero, a Christian biopic about the Smallbone family (For King & Country, Rebecca St. James), and his other credits include Euphoria, The Equalizer, and 9 – 1-1: Lone Star. The Carman film also stars Jeremy Luke as Carman’s older brother Mario and Quinton Aaron as Andraé Crouch, Carman’s musical mentor. Here’s the official synopsis:

A street-fighting Italian kid who grew up in New Jersey in the 1960s becomes Christian music’s biggest performer. This is the incredible true story of Carman Licciardello. From rough beginnings to sold-out arenas, from controversy to conviction, CARMAN: The Movie tells the story behind one of the most passionate and influential figures in Christian music history.

Being an ’80s church kid myself, I can’t help but be intrigued by this. The above trailer is clearly a pre-production teaser, though, so it’s still an open question as to how the film will capture Carman’s massive, theatrical concerts. I saw him perform on several occasions back in the day, and a Carman concert was decidedly not a small production. There’s no real sense of that in the teaser, though I did chuckle at the end bit concerning Carman’s… um… questionable lyrics.

Where Waves Begin to Collide is the twentieth album from Drifting in Silence, the long-running ambient/post-rock project by North Carolina’s Derrick Stembridge. With all of that music under his belt, you’d think that Stembridge’s production skills ought to be well-nigh immaculate by now — and that’s precisely the case on “Beneath the Current,” one of the album’s true highlights.

Stembridge’s brooding soundscapes are immediately compelling from the very first drone, and the haunting female vocals only add to the effect as she sings “Slowly moving inward/Not forward/Not away” over subtle notes and melodies. The song seems to exist within shadow for its entirety, and it’s equal parts alluring and ominous in a manner reminiscent of Demen’s 2017 masterpiece, Nektyr.

I’ve been meaning to write about Drifting in Silence for awhile now, but with his latest album and songs like “Beneath the Current,” I couldn’t put it off any longer. This is superb work from an artist who’s been refining their craft for two decades now.

Where Waves Begin to Collide is currently available on Labile Records.

Aside from Halo: Campaign Evolved, Remedy Entertainment’s Control Resonant is the video game I’m most looking forward to playing in 2026. The original Control, released in 2019, was a fascinating blend of brutalist architecture, government conspiracies, and Lovecraftian horror — read my review — and I’ve been looking forward to a return to the Oldest House for years.

This latest trailer focuses less on the game’s story and more on its incredible visuals, which depict a Manhattan completely twisted by a malevolent extra-dimensional force that is warping space and time in hideous patterns. All of which means that Control Resonant looks freakin’ awesome. And even more promising, Polygon’s Giovanni Colantonio got to play a early build of the game, which he calls “a bolder sequel than we ever could’ve expected.”

Control Resonant will be released on September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

If you’re of a certain age, then the words “By the power of Greyskull” is basically a core memory. Created in the early ’80s by Mattel to compete with Star Wars — after Mattel lost untold millions because they passed on a deal to make Star Wars toys — He-Man became one of the decade’s most popular toy lines. In 1983, the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series took to the airwaves with 130 episodes of sci-fantasy action.

A live-action adaptation titled Masters of the Universe followed in 1987, with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella starring as He-Man and Skeletor, respectively. The film was a critical and commercial disaster, but that did little to dull the franchise’s popularity. Other adaptations were released in the following years, including a Kevin Smith-produced animated series for Netflix that adopted a darker, more mature tone.

Which brings us to 2026’s Masters of the Universe, another live-action adaptation by director Travis Knight (Bumblebee, Kubo and the Two Strings) starring Nicholas Galitzine, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Idris Elba, and Jared Leto. This time around, a young Prince Adam (Galitzine) must find his way back to Eternia after being exiled on Earth for 15 years, and rescue his homeworld from the evil grasp of Skeletor (Leto). So, does the power of Greyskull reside within Knight’s film? Or should this franchise just remain a beloved childhood memory? Read on for a selection of critics’ reactions to Masters of the Universe.

👎 Lindsey Bahr, ​“Doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be” 

It’s cartoony and campy, which it is also constantly apologizing for. It’s also violent enough to probably rule out the under-10 crowd. It’s aiming for something in the vein of a Taika Waititi Thor or a Guardians of the Galaxy, but it doesn’t fully commit to the thing that the HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA video understood so well: He-Man is extremely silly. Not just the character. The whole thing: the look, the names, even the phrase “by the power of Greyskull, I have the power.”

👍 Ryan Britt, ​“Its magic simply works through sheer force of will” 

As much as one might appreciate the lore and world-building of the 2002 reboot animated series, or Kevin Smith’s more recent earnest attempts with the Netflix series Masters of the Universe: Revelation, one of the key things that Knight’s film seems to understand is that you have to make the silliness the entire point. At the same time, Masters of the Universe has a ton of heart, and might be one of the best feel-good summer blockbusters in years.

👎 Sonny Bunch, ​“A feature-length meme” 

I do not dispute that this is mildly amusing; there were people in my theater who laughed quite heartily at several of these gags. “Fisto” is, objectively, a very funny name for a character based on a children’s toy. But it really gets to the annoying, leering wink at the heart of Masters of the Universe, a movie that seems to exist entirely in the hopes of turning any discrete 45-second chunk of footage into a GIFable, memeable moment, something to amuse people on social media once this thing hits home video in six or seven weeks, if not sooner.

👍 David Crow, ​“A cute kids movie when it isn’t trying to be Barbie” 

The modest joys and bigger foundational issues inherent in Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe movie, out this weekend, is that it attempts to be both things: the cute (and relatively ancient) kids cartoon that many young kids today don’t even have parents young enough to remember, and the post-modern comedy aware of its own silliness. And whether you like him or not, Jared Leto gets the assignment brilliantly with Skeletor, who alongside Alison Brie’s mischievous Evil-Lyn sorceress, steals much of the movie.

👍 Eric Diaz, ​“A colorful retro adventure” 

Masters of the Universe is a movie that has no business being as delightful as it is. That’s partially because MOTU, as a property, has no business working as well as it always has, going back forty years. Mattel Toys originally conceived it as an action figure line to compete with Star Wars. Mattel employees Roger Sweet and Mark Taylor took 1970s-era Frank Frazetta fantasy artwork, Flash Gordon sci-fi, and the in-vogue bodybuilding mania of the Arnold Schwarzenegger era, and smashed it all together into something that obsessed kids in the ’80s. And all of those elements have now been translated miraculously onto the big screen into something so fun, one can’t resist it.

👎 Jesse Hassenger, ​“Fitfully amusing” 

Skeletor, high spirits, and the sheer volume of references to the old TV series (even in joke form) are signs that Knight and his crew do love this material — and with a sincerity the movie wants credit for without really justifying. They’ve simply made another likable kids’ movie secretly aimed at sentimental nostalgists.

👍 J Hurtado, ​“A giddy nostalgia bomb” 

It’s kind of insane that in the year of our lord, two thousand and twenty-six, there is a $200 million-dollar tentpole adaptation of a forty-four-year-old children’s cartoon that is expressly aimed at those of us who grew up in the last wave of Gen X cynicism. And yet, what Travis Knight has created in the new Masters of the Universe somehow manages to be both reverent and irreverent at the same time in a way that manages to slyly awaken and sate the eternal child in all of us.

👍 Jake Kleinman, ​“A nearly perfect sci-fi fantasy epic” 

From the colorful landscapes of Eternia to the vivid recreations of ’80s armored warriors to the crisp and clear action sequences enhanced by Industrial Light & Magic, everything about Masters of the Universe is stunning to behold. So before Hollywood learns the wrong lesson from this summer and starts pumping out dark, creepypasta adaptations instead, take advantage of what might be your last chance to experience the magic of big-budget maximalist sci-fi fantasy spectacle for a very long time.

👎 Germain Lussier, ​“Doesn’t have the power” 

[Travis Knight] aspired to make sure Masters of the Universe threaded a difficult needle: a movie that unabashedly loves this universe and its characters, but also makes it accessible to an audience who doesn’t. Something that’s exciting, emotional, and just campy enough. Unfortunately, he and the film mostly fail to hit that tiny bullseye of tone, resulting in a film that’s ambitious and beautiful, but ultimately a let down.

👍 Victoria Luxford, ​“The energy can be infectious” 

Far from a gritty reimagining, this new version of Masters of the Universe is determined to wink at the camera and appeal to your nostalgia. Not everything works, and it would have been nice to have a more menacing villain, but it’s a good time if you leave your cynicism at the door.

👍 Liz Shannon Miller, ​“The film is doing its best to have fun” 

There’s a deadpan approach to some of the movie’s most outlandish elements that works more often than not, provided He-Man isn’t something you hold sacred. This franchise has always felt like a little boy mashed all his favorite things together and called it a story: Robots and swords and magic and talking tigers and a scary villain with a skull for a face. Knight’s take leans hard into that, even coming up with a vaguely rational explanation for using some of the silliest character names, including Mekaneck and Ram-Man and Fisto.

👎 Rodrigo Perez, ​“Clunky and tonally messy” 

The old He-Man canon is preposterous, which is not fatal in itself, but Masters of the Universe wants devotion and adoration simply for checking off its dumbest tropes. The nods to the toys, the cartoons, and the 1980s live-action film are staged with the smugness of a movie treating basic recognition as emotional payoff. The callbacks do not deepen the world or sharpen the joke; they sit there, cloying and obvious, as if familiarity alone were enough.

Masters of the Universe arrives in theaters on June 5, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

In order to better track my various cultural experiences (e.g., movies, TV shows, books, restaurants), I’ve created the Cultural Diet. Think of it as my own personal Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Yelp, all rolled into one (more info here). Every month, I recap everything that I watched, read, etc., in the previous month.

As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. add more content, it can be difficult to know what to look for amidst all of the new titles. Every month, I compile a list of particularly noteworthy and interesting movies and TV shows to add to your streaming queues.

If you’d like to receive my streaming recommendations even sooner, become an Opus subscriber today.

Jump to a Streaming Service

• Amazon Prime Video
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Amazon Prime Video

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Jun 1)

You know the story: two rock n’ roll-obsessed burn-outs are destined to save the world with their band Wyld Stallyns, but only if they can successfully complete high school with a kick-ass history presentation. Enter a time-traveling phone booth from the future and, well, the rest is history. Featuring what is arguably Keanu Reeves’ greatest role, this is truly a most bodacious movie. Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes.

Bloodsport (Jun 1)

Bloodsport is the film that put Jean-Claude Van Damme’s name on the map. Supposedly inspired by a true story (which is total baloney), Van Damme plays Frank Dux, an army captain who also happens to be a ninja, as he battles his way through the Kumite, an illegal martial arts competition. Make no mistake: Bloodsport is not a great movie, but it is an entertaining one, especially if you’re looking for some mindless martial arts mayhem (read my review).

Hackers (Jun 1)

Hackers is completely unrealistic in its depiction of computers and technology. And yet, it’s one of the best computer movies ever made because of its over-the-top sense of style and joyful, anarchistic idealism. (I highly recommend reading this oral history of the film’s genesis and production.) Yeah, I can nitpick and mock its depiction of hacking and how computer networks and interfaces work. But secretly, I totally wish all of that stuff really did work (and look) like it does in Hackers.

Mad Max (Jun 1)

In the near future, Australia is a wasteland filled with roving motorcycle gangs. Law and order is maintained by the highway patrol, but just barely. Max Rockatansky is the patrol’s top officer, but when his family’s threatened by one of the gangs, he tosses aside the law for a rampage of revenge. Filmed in 1979 for a few hundred thousand dollars, Mad Max held the Guinness record for the world’s most profitable film — and helped reinvigorate Australia’s film industry. More importantly, though, it launched one of the most action-packed film franchises of all time.

Stargate (Jun 1)

What if the legends about aliens building the pyramids was true? Stargate takes that outlandish premise and spins it into a thoroughly entertaining sci-fi action/adventure movie. James Spader stars as an archaeologist and linguist whose unorthodox theories land him in a top secret military project, and eventually, half-way around the universe. Released in 1994, Stargate was box office success in part to its ground-breaking special effects, and would go on to inspire numerous spin-off TV series.

Here’s everything arriving on Amazon Prime Video in June 2026.

Hulu

Captain America: The First Avenger (Jun 1)

During World War II, young Steve Rogers is constantly rejected by the Army because of his small stature and poor health. But he finally gets a chance to serve as part of the Super Soldier program, which transforms him into the super-powered Captain America. And he’ll need all of those powers to battle the dastardly Red Skull, a Nazi scientist and occultist seeking to take over the world. One of the earliest Marvel movies, Captain America: The First Avenger is a lot of fun thanks to Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving’s performances and Joe Johnston’s (The Rocketeer) direction.

Gladiator (Jun 1)

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was one of 2000’s biggest and most successful films, thanks to an epic plot, incredible special effects, and thrilling action sequences (read my review). Russell Crowe stars as Maximus Decimus Meridius, a disgraced Roman general who is enslaved and forced to compete in Rome’s brutal gladiatorial exhibitions. Gladiator also stars Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed (in his final film appearance), Djimon Hounsou, Richard Harris, and Joaquin Phoenix as the corrupt Roman emperor.

Independence Day (Jun 1)

When it comes to over-the-top, special effects-filled, big screen spectacle, it doesn’t get much better than Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day. Yes, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum taking on an alien invasion may require you to suspend your disbelief higher and longer than you’d like to, especially if you’re concerned about, say, the science of the movie’s events. But if you do, you’re in for a whole lot of explosion-filled, world-saving, alien-busting fun.

Kung Fu Panda (Jun 1)

The casting of Jack Black as the voice of Po, a panda who dreams of being a martial arts legend, was clearly a stroke of genius. Set in an version of medieval China populated with anthropomorphized animals, Kung Fu Panda is a thoroughly entertaining action/comedy for the whole family that also packs some delightful depth beneath the martial arts hijinks. (And for what it’s worth, I contend that Tai Lung’s prison escape is one of the great cinematic action scenes of all time.)

The Raid: Redemption (Jun 1)

Gareth Evans’ The Raid caused a huge sensation amongst action cinema fans when it was released in 2011 thanks to brutal, non-stop action, which highlighted the Indonesian art of pencak silat. Iko Uwais stars as a rookie cop tasked with infiltrating an apartment building run by a local crime lord. But his mission will require him to use all of his fighting skills just to survive.

Here’s everything arriving on Hulu in June 2026.

Netflix

The Big Lebowski (Jun 1)

Make yourself a White Russian and get ready to spend some time with the Dude… I’ll admit, the first time I watched The Big Lebowski, I kind of hated it. It seemed so directionless and pointless. But then I realized that it’s more about the characters and their interactions then any standard plot (though one does exist). The movie boasts a number of classic scenes, from the discussion about the importance of rugs to a discussion about nihilism. Oh, and the trippiest bowling dream sequence in cinema history.

Father of the Bride (Jun 1)

Steve Martin and Diane Keaton star in this 1991 comedy about a father who discovers that his daughter is engaged, only he’s not quite ready to let her go. What ensues is a comedy of errors as Martin’s pride, ego, and fears land him in all manner of embarrassing and difficult situations, from a flamboyant and over-eager wedding coordinator (Martin Short) to a too-small tuxedo and a kerfuffle over hot dog buns.

Inside Man (Jun 1)

In this wonderfully executed heist movie by Spike Lee, an unorthodox hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) finds himself squaring off against an equally unorthodox thief (Clive Owen) in a bank robbery where nothing is what it seems. The film’s star-studded cast also includes Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The Karate Kid (Jun 1)

Wax on, wax off… If you’re a child of the ’80s then you know the plot by heart: a lonely kid gets picked on by some ruthless karate bullies, he’s taken in by an old Japanese man who teaches him karate in a rather unorthodox fashion, and he uses the crane kick to dispense justice. Oh, and there’s that awesome soundtrack featuring Survivor, Bananarama, Joe Esposito, and… Gang of Four?!

Pitch Black (Jun 1)

When a spaceship goes off course and crash lands, the survivors assume that the planet is barren and lifeless. Soon enough, they discover that the planet is filled with creatures who thrive in darkness — and there’s about to be a total eclipse. Their survival now rests in the hands of a vicious criminal named Riddick (Vin Diesel), whose augmented eyes and killer instincts may be their only hope. Pitch Black spawned several sequels — The Chronicles of Riddick and Riddick — with another one in the works.

Here’s everything arriving on Netflix in June 2026.

Peacock

Being John Malkovich (Jun 1)

How’s this for a premise: An unemployed puppeteer takes a job on a hidden floor in an office building where he discovers a door that transports him into the mind of actor John Malkovich. Make no mistake, Being John Malkovich is a bizarre film, and often quite disturbing in its tale of mental control, usurped identities, and immortality. But being the feature film debut of director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman, it’s quite unlike any other film you’ll see.

Jack Reacher (Jun 1)

I’ve never read any of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, so I have no idea how well this Christopher McQuarrie-directed adaptation holds up to the original material. In any case, I found the movie — which stars Tom Cruise as a former Military Police officer investigating a violent sniper attack and the conspiracy behind it — a serviceable action thriller. And as usual, Cruise acquits himself well as the titular antihero.

Miami Vice (Jun 1)

If you’re my age, then Miami Vice brings to mind pastel jackets, sports cars and speedboats, and big hair. But for his 2006 big screen adaptation, director Michael Mann went for a grittier, rawer feel — and it worked pretty well. A lot of that had to do with some great casting, especially Luis Tosar as a drug kingpin and Gong Li as his paramour. But Mann’s striking use of digital photography also played a big role, giving the film a very immediate and distinctive look.

Paddington (Jun 1)

A modern adaptation of Michael Bond’s stories about a marmalade-loving bear who travels from “darkest Peru” to live with the Brown family in England might seem a bit odd. But the truth is, Paddington is an absolute delight of movie. Starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, and Ben Whishaw as Paddington’s voice, it’s full of good-natured, big-hearted fun as the lovable bear gets into all sorts of adventures while trying to avoid capture by an unhinged taxidermist (Nicole Kidman). The film received widespread critical acclaim, winning “Best Feature” at the British Academy Children’s Awards.

Here’s everything arriving on Peacock in June 2026.

Tubi

The 13th Warrior (Jun 1)

Although it was widely panned by critics, and even drove legendary actor Omar Sharif into temporary retirement, The 13th Warrior is a lot more fun than most people probably realize. Based on Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead, itself a retelling of Beowulf, the film follows the exploits of a Muslim man who falls in with a bunch of Vikings who have been tasked with defeating an ancient evil.

After Yang (Jun 1)

In this melancholy and meditative sci-fi film by South Korean filmmaker Kogonada, a family grapples with the potential death of their robot Yang, who has become like a son and brother to them. As the father (Colin Farrell) seeks a fix for Yang, he discovers secrets from the robot’s past that reveal a much more complicated existence. Thanks to its deft handling of heady themes like the relationship between humans and technology, After Yang was widely acclaimed upon its release — read my review — and has been called one of the best sci-fi films of the 21st century.

Big Trouble in Little China (Jun 1)

Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a cocky, loud-mouthed trucker who finds himself in way over his head (though he won’t admit it) when he’s caught up in a war between rival Chinatown gangs, a war that soon becomes supernatural. One of John Carpenter’s best films, Big Trouble in Little China is a rowdy, hilarious ode to classic kung fu films (read my review). As Burton, Russell delivers one of his most iconic performances, with James Hong and Victor Wong stealing the show as rival Chinese sorcerers.

Changing Lanes (Jun 1)

What happens when a brash, hotshot attorney crosses paths with a down-on-his-luck father trying to make ends meet? Chaos and suspense, in this modern morality tale by director Roger Michell. Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson star as the two men, each from vastly different backgrounds and levels of privilege, who find themselves resorting to increasingly desperate measures to outsmart and outmaneuver each other.

Happy Gilmore (Jun 1)

This classic Adam Sandler comedy from 1996 stars Sandler as a wannabe hockey player who discovers a secret talent at playing golf — which comes in handy when he needs to save his grandmother’s house from foreclosure. Needless to say, Happy Gilmore’s unorthodox playing raises the ire of professional golfers, most notably Shooter McGavin (played with slimy glee by Christopher McDonald). Happy Gilmore also stars Carl Weathers as Happy’s one-handed coach and The Price Is Right’s Bob Barker in a truly glorious cameo.

Spaceballs (Jun 1)

I still remember the first time I saw Spaceballs. I was in junior high at the time, and I had no idea what the movie was, but the moment I saw the “We brake for nobody” bumper sticker on Spaceball One, I knew my life would never be the same. One of the most quotable movies of all time — e.g., “I am your father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.” — Spaceballs is a true comedy classic.

Speed (Jun 1)

Keanu Reeves officially became an action movie star in this thriller about a SWAT officer (Reeves) trying to stop a mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) threatening the Los Angeles. When the bomber’s latest ploy is a bus that will explode if it slows down below 50 miles/hour, Reeves must find a way to stop him and save the passengers. Thanks to its strong performances, taut set pieces, and thrilling twists, Speed was one of 1994’s most successful movies, commercially and critically, and its status has only grown over time (read my review).

Star Trek: First Contact (Jun 1)

One of the best Star Trek films, and certainly the best Star Trek film featuring the Next Generation cast, Star Trek: First Contact finds Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew traveling back in time to prevent the Borg from rewriting human history. First Contact has a little bit of everything: Space battles, fish out of water humor, and even some melodrama as Picard continues to process his post-Locutus trauma. Directed by Jonathan Frakes, First Contact stars all of the Next Generation regulars, as well as Alfre Woodard, James Cromwell, and Alice Krige as the Borg Queen.

Here’s everything arriving on Tubi in June 2026.

As it turns out, Google’s AI search still struggles with what seem like the most basic issues. Just last week, you couldn’t search for the word “disregard”; if you did, Google would take you literally, and patiently wait until you entered a “real” query. That bug has since been fixed, but now there’s one that’s even more nonsensical, and all you need to do to trigger it is ask a seemingly obvious question: How many days of the week have a fish in them?

I asked Google that question several times, and I got a different answer every single time. Only once did I get the right response, that no day of the week contains the word “fish” in its name. But other times, that question was apparently too much for Google’s billion-dollar algorithms, and they returned some real doozies.

For what it’s worth, a search for “Saturfish” returns no matches in Google’s traditional web search.

I’m pretty sure that every single one of my English teachers would disagree with you, Google.

Can someone tell Google the meaning of the word “literal”? Also, which “classic riddle” is Google talking about here? There are countless fish riddles, puns, and dad jokes — e.g., “What’s a fish’s least favorite day of the week? Fry Day!” — but I couldn’t find one that’s specifically about fish and days of the week. (Let me know if there is one.)

Here, I thought that Google might mean there’s a fish called “thurs” or “thur,” hence the bit about a “literal fish in its name.” But according to Google’s traditional search, there’s no fish with that name. However, a search for "thurs" fish did reveal that Thursday was a government-mandated “Fish Day” in Russia while a search for "thur" fish revealed that the Thur is a fishing spot in the Alsace region of France. So maybe that’s where Google gets some of this stuff.

But “Thursday” as “thirst-day,” which might make you want to drink like a fish? That’s a definite stretch.

Again with “literally” and the “classic” puns! The bit about eating fish on Friday (e.g., Lenten fish fries) is a nice try, though, and I appreciate the offer for restaurant recommendations and fish recipes. (On a side note, my wife has some fantastic salmon recipes that we enjoy throughout the summer.)

Don’t tell me that Google, creator of an extremely popular online calendar tool used by individuals and organizations around the world, forgot about Sunday and Saturday.

I’m sure Google will fix this particular glitch tout de suite. Even so, it’s both humorous and alarming that Google’s AI didn’t just return an absurd answer; it returned a different absurd answer every single time I asked my question. Which just goes to show that artificial intelligence is not actually intelligent. It doesn’t “comprehend,” “know,” or “understand” anything in the true sense of those words.

Rather, AI is just a really powerful and sophisticated pattern matching machine that only returns best guesses about what it “thinks” your query means. But AI doesn’t understand true meaning, not really. For all of its technical achievements, AI doesn’t understand that nonsense is still nonsense even if it happens to perfectly match a certain linguistic or information pattern.

It seems quite apropos to listen to OSC’s latest single, “Foul-Weather Friend,” on a rainy, overcast morning. Originally commissioned for an animated short by Danny Croland in which two strangers connect during a rainy day bus ride, the song is appropriately dreamy and reflective.

OSC eschews his trademark vaporwave and future funk tendencies (as heard on last year’s Sunrise Express) and instead, opts for gentle piano melodies and graceful synth textures. The resulting song is the perfect accompaniment for watching raindrops slide down the window as you contemplate your life’s current direction.

In 2022, amateur filmmaker Kane Parsons uploaded a nine-minute video to YouTube depicting someone “no-clipping” out of reality and landing in the Backrooms, a maze-like complex of flourescent-lit office hallways that proved ominous precisely because of their mundanity. Thanks to its lo-fi VHS aesthetic and embrace of liminal spaces, Parsons’ video went viral, amassing nearly 80 million views since its release. Parsons followed it up with a series of Backrooms-inspired videos, all of which also garnered millions of views, meaning it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling.

Four years later, Parsons is directing a feature-length version of his YouTube clip, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as a furniture store owner and failed architect who discovers an entrance to the Backrooms in his store. The film also stars Renate Reinsve as his therapist, who searches for him when he disappears, as well as Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell.

There’s no denying that Parsons’ original short is intriguing; there’s a reason why it so viral, and stuck around after all these years. But does it merit a feature-length Hollywood film? Or should Parsons have just stuck with YouTube? Read on for a selection of critics’ reactions to Backrooms.

👎 William Bibbiani, ​“Gets trapped in its own maze” 

Lots of movies have a limited grasp on psychology, that’s not unique to Backrooms, but Parsons’ film revolves around a psychologist and her patient and they talk about psychology all the time, so here it’s more like an albatross. Backrooms has a terrifying aesthetic, but it never assembles a coherent, meaningful narrative. The sad thing is it didn’t need one. If this movie was nothing but a sightseeing tour of disquieting office buildings Parsons probably could have gotten away with it. But the more Backrooms tries to have a point, the more pointless it feels.

👍 Lex Briscuso, ​“A mysterious and terrifying hidden world” 

The production design of this film, in a word, rocks. The Complex itself is stunning, and feels even more unsettling as a life-sized set, which hardly seems possible when Parsons is so good at building it virtually in Blender. That said, the Blender sequences — and there are several in the film for fans hoping that style would make its way to the big screen — do so much to anchor the movie’s horror foundation in a threat that feels both so far yet so close to our reality. They smartly reinforce the film’s ’90s timeline with a gritty shot-on-video texture that builds a layer of realism before becoming a vehicle to ramp up the horror elements to the max. Paired with smart camera angles and an innate sense of comfortability in crafting compelling images, Parsons shapes a visual language for the world of the Backrooms that feels both homey and horrifying in equal measure.

👎 David Crow, ​“Seems to lose its way” 

Parsons and screenwriter Will Soodik tease out a few intriguing ideas about what the backrooms could really be, but that’s all they are. Teases. When tasked with creating something that approaches a cohesive narrative — and a story that confirms tangible internal logic if not necessarily clear-cut explanations for the creepy imagery — Backrooms can only double down on a vague aloofness. The oppressive nature of this seems intentional. The exhaustion and faint tedium less so.

👎 Josh Korngut, ​“Frustrating”

Backrooms offers audiences a suite of bizarre and original horrors well worth experiencing in theaters, and there is no question that Ejiofor and Reinsve bring impressive, authentically human performances to the A24 adaptation. Unfortunately, the film’s traditional character arcs and plot structure work against the sinister meaninglessness and perversion of nostalgia that make its source material so uniquely unsettling. It is a strong film, but a safer one than it needed to be.

👍 Clarisse Loughrey, ​“Eerie, fascinating exploration of liminal spaces” 

It’s not the scariest, or even quite the smartest, horror you’ll see this year… Still, it’s mesmeric and wildly unique in a way I suspect will stand the test of time, since nothing else put to film feels this much like watching the collective Gen Z nightmare come to life — a half-confused grief over never having lived in the analogue era, an attraction to and fear of VHS infomercials, sofa stores, and TV dinner trays.

👍 Germain Lussier, ​“A total vibe” 

That Backrooms is so watchable, creepy, and memorable is kind of a miracle. That’s because, when you really break it down, the film doesn’t really have much of a story. Most movies need a good story to be good. However, in Backrooms, it doesn’t matter as much. The world that director Kane Parsons has created and lets us live in for two hours is so endlessly fascinating and terrifying, you’ll never want it to end. And that kind of hook is all you really need.

👍 Rodrigo Perez, ​“Turns internet creepypasta folklore into a suffocating horror film” 

What makes Backrooms compelling is the way Parsons reverse-engineers meaning into this landscape without reducing the film to trauma-horror cliché. Yes, the maze operates as a metaphor for psychological baggage, grief, depression, and stagnation, but Parsons approaches those ideas with restraint. Monsters aren’t a blunt symbol for repressed trauma. Instead, Backrooms explores the uglier reality of people trapped inside destructive reflexes they cannot escape.

👍 Keith Phipps, ​“A dark reflection of our present” 

Parsons’ film doesn’t play like an online phenomenon that’s been blown up to the big screen. It’s an intense, disturbing, and disorienting cinematic experience all its own, one that creates a disturbing vibe and then tweaks its frequency to create an unshakeable sense of dread.

👍 Katie Rife, ​“Brings liminal horror to the big screen — with mixed results” 

It may be smart to streamline the story when there’s so much going on aesthetically, but between the rote characters, barebones plot, and awkward exposition dumps, Backrooms fails to live up to its storytelling potential. A series of intense, claustrophobic chase scenes do make up for this by distracting viewers and keeping them on edge up until the sudden, cryptic ending. But it’s hard to deny that the Backrooms themselves are more interesting [than] what’s happening in them.

👍 Shelagh Rowan-Legg, ​“A truly unsettling film” 

The web series sensation of the past few years, Backrooms takes its YouTube stories of endless passageways that lead to echoes of the detritus of our material world, bizarre modern minotaurs, and nods to other spaces of strangeness that manifested in this dark timeline, and fashions an intriguing and disturbing story. Directed by Kane Parsons, and written by Parsons and Will Soodik, it proves that this young wunderkind has a lot more up his sleeve to move from the small to the big screen, and recruits the right talent to lead us all through this maze.

👍 Nick Schager, ​“A hallucinatory head-trip that’ll leave you shaken” 

A descent into an uncanny-valley netherworld that’s both a warped reflection and deconstruction of the modern world, 21-year-old Kane Parsons’ debut feature (May 29) is a waking nightmare that prioritizes atmosphere over jump scares, suggestion over explication. While it occasionally weighs itself down with excessive psychologizing, it casts a surrealistic spell that’s unlike anything else in contemporary cinema.

👍 Lindsay Traves, ​“A wicked liminal terror” 

Backrooms is the special kind of horror able to leave an audience shoulders up while they watch a man stomp around an empty space and anticipate what might happen. A manic Ejiofor and a stoic Reinsve give weight to the story, and the craft teams create a mind-bending visual spectacle you can’t look away from. I’m not sure it lived up to the challenge of filling itself out, but it’s nonetheless haunting and beautiful in its disgust.

Backrooms no-clips into theaters on May 29, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

The sessions that would eventually result in Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun, the second studio album from Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri, were recorded over a three-day period of improvisation during a Berlin residency. Those initial recordings were then further reworked and refined, with Mogard and Irisarri exchanging music and ideas back and forth across the Atlantic while, at the same time, weaving in contributions from Martina Bertoni and Andrea Burelli, both of whom are Italians living in Berlin.

There are certainly far easier and less demanding ways to record, produce, and mix an album. But in this case, all of that time and effort proved worthwhile, because I daresay that Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun is one of the most beautiful albums you’re likely to hear in 2026.

The album’s center-piece, “In a Quiet Radiance,” is a perfect example of Mogard and Irisarri’s thoughtful approach to ambient and drone music. Over the course of ten minutes, the song ably lives up to its contemplative title thanks to a gentle and evocative swirl of modular synths and guitar drones that’s so perfectly seamless, you can’t tell where one instrument ends and the other begins. Meanwhile, Bertoni and Burelli’s cello and violin arrangements imbue the song with additional grace, as do Burelli’s wordless vocals.

Stars of the Lid’s The Tired Sounds Of is an obvious point of comparison, but Mogard, Irisarri, Bertoni, and Burelli carve out a transcendent and rarefied sonic space that’s entirely their own.

Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun will be released by Black Knoll Editions on June 26, 2026.

The last few weeks have featured several instances of commencement speakers being soundly booed by their audiences for suggesting that AI is not only the next big thing but also something to be excited about — the next “industrial revolution,” as Gloria Caulfield told University of Central Florida students right before they loudly made their thoughts on the matter known. Given the extent that AI has eviscerated certain industries, thus making some students’ job prospects even more dire than they already were, such negative responses should come as no surprise.

Does this mean we’re witnessing a sea change, that we’re finally seeing a cultural backlash against AI? It’s probably too soon to tell for sure, but something does seem to be in the air these days, from audiences booing AI-positive commencement speakers to citizens pushing back against data centers being built in their communities. In any case, I do think it’s clear that more and more people are waking up to the fact that AI is not necessarily the unqualified good that Sam Altman and his fellow tech bros claim it to be, and more people are realizing the extent to which it can and will affect them.

It’s no shock to me, then, that some of the most popular posts I’ve ever written concern how to remove AI from your online experience, and specifically, your Google-mediated experience. But in Jürgen Geuter’s opinion, things are about to get even worse in light of the AI-centric announcements at Google’s recent I/O conference. Specifically, major updates to Google’s search that will replace traditional search results with an “AI-powered interactive experience.” Geuter sees that as nothing less than a declaration of war on the web itself as Google increasingly controls people’s experiences.

While [Google] packaged it as a lot of “AI” talk and “agentic” and whatnot, what their whole approach of decontextualizing information, of taking away links to sources and instead producing some LLM generated response means is that they want to establish a new abstraction layer on the web. Where Zuckerberg with his Metaverse failed Google is starting the next attack: Your website, your work no longer matters. The web is being fully hidden behind a Google-controlled surface. And I am not even talking about their browser monopoly.

This isn’t just bad for users, Geuter argues. It’s also bad for writers, artists, and everyone else — pop culture bloggers included — who generate the content that people search for via Google. “Your work, your writing or art do matter a bit still: As (unpaid) raw material for their synthetic text extruders,” he writes. “You get to work for free so Google can have tight control on the flow of information and make sure that the responses people get are in line with what they need them to be.”

Geuter’s article may strike some as alarmist given that he foresees “a slopified AOL kind of environment where your access to information is limited to what Google’s synthetic text extruders deem relevant.” Not surprisingly, Geuter recommends taking some pretty drastic measures, like de-Googlifying your online experience and switching to Google alternatives for search, email, cloud storage, etc., in order to regain some autonomy. That’s certainly an ambitious endeavor, though Geuter is quick to admit that the time and effort required may not make it feasible for everyone.

Still, it’s a far better approach to challenging AI’s hegemony than the approach that Stephen Moore recently wrote about: dumbing down your writing. Now that AI-generated content is getting good enough to fool people into believing that it’s the genuine article — a development that poses no small challenges for society at large — some are actually advocating that we write worse in order to prove the humanity of our work.

To show our writing isn’t AI-generated, we should now add some editorial flourish, not in the form of creative sentence structure or word choice, but in the form of random typos or completely nonsensical words and sentences, cutting punctuation even when it makes sense, adding in unnecessary punctuation when it doesn’t!!, and continuing to take such a hard stance on the em dash you’d think it was a swastika. This person used an em dash! Call the AI-police and have their damn keyboard incinerated before it can do any more damage to society.

We’ve got ourselves so worked up playing “is it AI” bingo, we’re clearly lost our minds. People are spending less time doing the writing and more time thinking “how do I make sure nobody thinks this is AI-generated?”, even if, in that process, they lower the quality of their work, or make it harder to read, or just make themselves look careless.

I’m with Moore: AI can have my em dashes when it can pry them from my cold, dead hands.

All joking aside, AI’s constantly improving capabilities and growing ubiquitousness should encourage all of us to consider how much is too much, and draw our own line in the sand. Where that line is, though, will be different for everyone. Maybe you’ll start using Firefox instead of Chrome, switch from Gmail to Proton or Tuta, and/or drop social media altogether to avoid AI-generated slop. Maybe you’ll choose to be more intentional and selective in your usage of AI chatbots. Or maybe you’ll choose to become an AI hater, plain and simple.

Any of those strategies, however, will be better than resorting to grammar that would make your 7th grade English teacher shake their head in shame and dismay.

For the last decade or so, New York’s SUSS has been one of the nation’s pre-eminent practitioners of “ambient country.” Which, as the genre’s name suggests, finds purchase in that unlikely liminal space between ambient music and country music. Not “country” in the Nashville sense of the word, mind you, but rather, in the sense of wide open spaces filled with dust devils, tumbleweeds, and endless desert vistas.

As it turns out, “endless” is a pretty apt descriptor for “Sunset VI,” which appears on the trio’s latest album, Counting Sunsets. The album’s title suggests the sort of activity one can only truly enjoy when they’re freed from the hustle and bustle of modernity and become more in-tune with the cycles and rhythms of nature.

Appropriately, the dulcet tones of Jonathan Gregg’s pedal steel stretch from one horizon to the other. Meanwhile, softly plucked guitar notes lend some structure to the song, as does some minimal percussion. For the most part, however, SUSS is content to let “Sunset VI” drift like the shifting desert sands and draw the listener into wide open spaces in which they can truly lose themselves.

Counting Sunsets is currently available from Northern Spy Records.

At first blush, Justin Chamberlain, who records and releases music as Soft Vein, sounds like yet another one of the countless ’80s revivalists making music these days. His music certainly bears all of the sonic hallmarks, from the crisp programming and ghostly guitars to a proclivity for woozy saxophone. His earliest material, like 2022’s “Giveuptheghost,” even bore a goth aspect for good measure.

His latest single, however, uses those ’80s trappings for an introspective look at the human condition. “I have all that I want, I have nothing I need/It is killing you, it is killing me,” Chamberlain intones in a sing-speak that’s part Paul Buchanan and part David Byrne. Meanwhile, the song’s immaculate synth programming bounces along behind him, evoking the futuristic environs that we imagined 40 years ago. And yes, there is, indeed, a sax solo.

“All We’ve Known of Heaven” is currently available from Artoffact Records, and serves as a lead-up for his upcoming album, which will be released later this year.

I’ve been following Bristol’s Night Swimming ever since last year’s ephemeral “Whispers on Argyle” single, which ended up being one of my favorite songs of 2025. Although the quintet has been releasing new music at a pretty steady pace, Melting, Sometimes Bleeding is only their second EP, and it reveals the band continuing to refine their sound.

Bands like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive are the most obvious touchstones for Night Swimming’s dreamy sonics, but “Nothing Safe Is Technicolour” finds them embracing a more detached — though no less atmospheric — sound that brings to mind Broadcast. Although Night Swimming don’t employ the same levels of hauntological trippiness, the song still veers into stranger territory thanks to Meg Jones’ layered vocals and surreal lyrics (“For some time, I was walking through treacle, trying not to crash/And the insects were trapped at my ankles as it turned to black”) while her bandmates conjure up an increasingly ominous backdrop.

Just to be clear, the rest of Melting, Sometimes Bleeding is also well worth checking out, particularly “Submarine,” which seems to more towards a more “traditional” dream pop sound before revealing some subtle twists and shifts of its own.

Melting, Sometimes Bleeding is currently available from Venn Records.

Spring is in full swing, more or less, here in Nebraska. And though I prefer the chilly days of autumn, I can’t deny the sense of relief and renewal at seeing the skies brighten, the temperatures go up, and the world turn green again.

Longtime Opus readers will know that I love all things shimmery and shoegaze-y in my music, so this month’s playlist, titled “Maygazers,” highlights 16 recently released songs that prove all is alive and well in the realms of dream pop and shoegaze. The playlist features veterans from the scene, like former Lush singer/guitarist Emma Anderson, whose voice is still as airy and ethereal as ever, and Autumn’s Grey Solace, who are still going strong after nearly 25 years. But it also features plenty of youngsters, as well, including deary, Yndling, and Night Swimming.

Accompanying the playlist is the latest episode of my “Playlist Breakdown” podcast, in which I spotlight one of the playlist’s songs and why it’s so special, interesting, and/or meaningful. This month’s episode focuses on deary’s “Seabird,” a wonderful slice of dream pop that ably carries on the Cocteau Twins legacy.

Both of these are little bonuses for subscribers who support Opus financially. If you’d like to get access to them (and more), subscribe to Opus for just $5.00/month or $50/year. (You can also subscribe for free and get my weekend newsletter.)

I could’ve sworn that I’d written something about Slow Crush over the years. Like, say, a review of their excellent debut album, 2018’s Aurora, which blends an MBV-esque wall of noise with some nice, grungy crunch. But a search of the Opus archives revealed nada for the Belgian band, so allow me to address that oversight right now.

Released earlier this year, Slow Crush’s “Que Du Noir” single finds Isa Holliday and her bandmates refining their heavy shoegaze sound to be slower, more dramatic, and dare I say gothier? The shadowy guitars, measured drumming, and tolling bells are certainly apropos for lyrics like “Without you/Without hope/Without you, the soul dies.” And those lyrics grow even more pained and angsty thanks to Holliday’s breathy voice — and being sung in French, of course.

Slow Crush’s most recent album, Thirst, was released last year by Nashville’s Pure Noise Records.

Let’s be honest: When you think of the Cannes Film Festival, you probably don’t think of sci-fi and other genre films. Everyone knows that Cannes is for arthouse cinema from around the world, the sort of hoity-toity cinematic fare that only pretentious snobs love. And yet, one of the biggest films to emerge from the first week of Cannes 2026 is Hope, an alien invasion flick by Na Hong-jin, who previously won accolades for his 2016 horror film The Wailing. As The Playlist’s Rafa Sales Ross writes,

Despite the mid-runtime ebb and an overlong runtime that works against the film’s firm grasp on the slippery tautness of good action, Hope still proves one hell of a time. Na’s ambitious sci-fi offering doesn’t reinvent the genre, but it does not need to. Sharply written and with impeccable comedic timing, this South Korean whopper is meticulously engineered to cater to the big screen, and those lucky enough to experience it in a packed screening room will be most privy to its blockbuster joys.

ScreenAnarchy’s Andrew Mack has compiled a list of several more Hope reviews, all of which are pretty positive.

I actually watched the above trailer before reading Ross’s review; I knew nothing of the movie and the only reason I started watching was because of the intriguing thumbnail. But the trailer is just about perfect, selling the film’s thrills and striking visuals, from the opening scenes of carnage and ruin to that incredible final shot — and everything in-between.

Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

In the remote South Korea village of Hope Harbor, police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) and officer Sung-ae (Hoyeon) are called to find a mysterious creature that has wreaked havoc on the village. In the nearby forest, a coterie of hunters, including Sung-ki (Zo In-Sung) set out to track the beast and find themselves hunted instead. But all is not as it seems, and perceptions can be misleading. What begins as ignorance plants the seed of disaster, escalating through human conflict into a tragedy of cosmic proportions.

Following the film’s festival run, Neon will release Hope into theaters this fall.

First popularized as an Appalachian folk ballad in the early 1900s, though almost certainly much older than that, “Black Is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair” has been covered by numerous artists, including Joan Baez, The Corrs, Rhiannon Giddens, Christy Moore, Pete Seeger, Nina Simone, The Smothers Brothers, and The Twilight Singers — to name but a few. Not surprisingly, the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus’s take on the song is particularly lovely, filled with striking vocal harmonies and slowly building arrangements comprised of drones, flutes, and thundering percussion.

At barely four minutes, the song is — quite frankly — over far too quickly. But hopefully, it’s a sign of more music to come from the still enigmatic outfit. In the meantime, the Army will be performing later this month in Leipzig, Germany at the 33rd annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen, one of the world’s largest gothic festivals.

Thanks to films like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, LAIKA Studios have earned a reputation as one of the finest stop motion studios working today. And if the first teaser for the upcoming Wildwood is any indication, they’re looking to cement that reputation for all time, because it looks to be absolutely gorgeous, not to mention deeply emotional and heart-wrenching. (The choice to score the trailer with M83’s “My Tears Are Becoming a Sea” certainly doesn’t hurt that impression.) Here’s the film’s premise:

After her baby brother is abducted by a murder of crows, headstrong teenager Prue McKeel launches a desperate rescue mission into the Impassable Wilderness, an enchanted forest hidden just beyond Portland, Oregon. Joined by her hapless but loyal classmate Curtis Mehlberg, Prue navigates a world of talking animals, bandits, and powerful figures driven by grief and ambition. As the pair is drawn into a conflict threatening the balance of the forest itself, Prue must discover strength and belief she never knew she possessed.

Adapted from Colin Meloy’s novel, Wildwood is directed by Travis Knight, who also helmed this summer’s Masters of the Universe live action film, and features the voices of Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, and more. I was already interested in seeing Wildwood — it occupies a spot on my list of 2026’s most anticipated movies — but this trailer completely sealed the deal for me.

Wildwood arrives in theaters on October 23, 2026.

Written and directed by Hal Needham (of Smokey and the Bandit fame), Megaforce occupies a legendary position in the “Bad Movies” pantheon. Focusing on the exploits of a top secret army that keeps the peace around the world, Megaforce explores its ridiculous premise to the hilt with cheesy effects, ridiculous costumes, and corny dialog.

Although it was critically panned upon release in 1982, Megaforce has since acquired a cult following. (For the record, I still have the VHS copy that I recorded off cable TV decades ago.) But it’s arguable that no one loves Megaforce more than Bob Lindenmayer, the man behind the Making Megaforce documentary.

He wanted to make a documentary about the making of Megaforce, one of 1982’s biggest box office failures. But when he met his hero, Megaforce star Barry “Ace Hunter” Bostwick, things started to get really out of hand. Hal Needham’s big budget epic Megaforce was one of the undisputed worst movies of 1982, and beyond — a box office flop that time would like to forget. But there is one man who remembers… Bob Lindenmayer, and he’s on a quest to convince the rest of the world just how awesome this stunt-filled spectacle is. As Bob delves into the movie’s history with cast and crew, he drags his childhood hero Barry Bostwick into his mission to relive the past. It’s a touching and hilarious tribute to the power of heroes, friendship, and flying motorcycles.

It looks like Making Megaforce is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit — it won “Best In Fest” at the 2025 Film Invasion L.A. festival — though Blu-ray copies are going out to folks who backed the movie’s Indiegogo campaign. As far as I know, there’s no word yet concerning a wider release for those of us who are just now learning of its existence, but Making Megaforce seems like the perfect thing to watch on Tubi.

Starflyer 59 has a long history of making dreamy sounds whose roots lie in shoegaze and British alternative rock, and even after 30+ years, they’re still going strong. (Look no further than 2024’s masterful Lust for Gold). But bandleader Jason Martin also knows how to kick out the jams, which is precisely what he does on “I’m Disappointed,” the title track and first single from his band’s upcoming EP.

The song opens with a riot of noise that’d make Jim and William Reid green with envy, while Martin — sounding a bit higher in the mix than usual — sings/intones “Do you wanna to make a big wave?/Yeah, I wanna make a big wave/Do you wanna see your name in lights?/Yeah, I wanna see my name in lights.” Once again, Martin seems to be singing about one of his favorite themes: being bored with making rock n’ roll. Which is ironic seeing as how Starflyer 59 has been making some pretty awesome rock ‘n roll for decades now.

The I’m Disappointed EP will be released by Velvet Blue Music on July 31, 2026; click here to preorder.

However much you might like The Cure, odds are you don’t like them even half as much as TRAITRS’ Sean-Patrick Nolan and Shawn Tucker do. On their latest album, POSSESSOR, the Toronto-based coldwave duo consistently evokes the specter of the world’s most beloved goth band with icy synths, spidery guitar figures, and Tucker’s plaintive wail and lyrics, which deal with desire, the vagaries of love, and in the case of “Prayertaker,” heavier topics like religious abuse.

That specter looms especially large on “Dream Drowning,” an existential nightmare of a song that begins with creeping synths and spectral guitars that distinctly recall “A Forest,” arguably the Cure song. But it’s to Nolan and Tucker’s credit that their song is no mere rip-off. Rather, as “Dream Drowning” builds in intensity, with Tucker crying out “I’m dreaming of you dying/Through your eyes/But I can’t heal myself/No, I can’t kill myself again,” it very much becomes its own thing, and obviously an incredibly personal tale based on Tucker’s own experiences.

The above is true for the rest of POSSESSOR, as well. Nolan and Tucker never ignore or downplay their obvious influences, or try to move past them. Instead, they evoke them completely, and use them as a language for telling their own affecting and deeply personal stories.

POSSESSOR is currently available.

Thanks to its inventive, and incredibly gory, action, Mortal Kombat is one of the most iconic and popular video game franchises of all time. Indeed, I have fond memories of pumping quarter after quarter into the Mortal Kombat machine at the local arcade as I tried to master the game’s various moves and fatalities. (I was partial to Sub-Zero’s spine-ripping, myself.)

Given the franchise’s popularity, several live-action Mortal Kombat movies have been released over the years, beginning with 1995’s Mortal Kombat by Paul W. S. Anderson, which has since become a cult favorite. In 2021, the Mortal Kombat movies rebooted with Simon McQuoid’s film, which featured some really great Scorpion vs. Sub-Zero ninja action… and not much else.

With Mortal Kombat II, McQuoid and screenwriter Jeremy Slater look to focus on the actual Mortal Kombat tournament, an extradimensional fighting competition that decides the fate of worlds. Karl Urban (The Boys, Lord of the Rings) joins the cast as Johnny Cage, a washed up Hollywood action star who must face his destiny when he’s selected for the competition. Tadanobu Asano, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada return as Lord Raiden, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion, respectively.

So, does Mortal Kombat II do right by the video games? Or does it deserve a fatality of its own? Read on for a selection of critical reactions to McQuoid’s movie.

👎 Simon Abrams, ​“Too hip to be sincere and too hacky to be moving” 

Mind you, Mortal Kombat II is still very much the kind of pandering entertainment where one guy yells “Get over here,” since that’s his catch phrase in the video games, right before he splits another colorfully dressed guy in two. Unfortunately, while some computer-animated set pieces look like they cost money, most are woefully nondescript and underdeveloped. I miss when stoner-friendly video game backgrounds, with acid moats and ominous-looking thunderstorms, were just window dressing and not the primary inspiration for a million-dollar movie.

👍 Chrishaun Baker, ​“What the first film should have been all Along” 

An adaptation of Mortal Kombat will never be high cinematic art, nor does it need to. Mortal Kombat 2 does precisely what a film based on the series should do best, which is provide staggering martial arts action and stomach-flipping gore set against the backdrop of a plot that is monumentally dumb and, nonetheless, entertaining.

👍 William Bibbiani, ​“Karl Urban livens up this enjoyably violent sequel” 

Karl Urban infuses the film with a welcome “why am I here” energy whenever the boring good guys are on screen, and since the boring bad guys get just as much screen time, they also have their own cocky ass, Kano (Josh Lawson), who doesn’t take the plot too seriously either. The drama would be unbearably self-serious without these characters, and these characters would be insufferable without some self-seriousness to bounce off of. It’s a delicate balance and sometimes it sloshes around a bit, but it works. Mostly.

👍 Travis Hopson, ​“A superior sequel that’s like an apology to fans” 

It delivers more of the fan-favorite characters fans of this iconic video game franchise want; it streamlines the story with a focus on brutal otherworldly battles, and, oh yeah, fatalities fatalities FATALITIES! In a year when the game’s eternal rival, Street Fighter, also has an anticipated high-profile movie on the way, Mortal Kombat II has dealt the first blow, and it’s a doozy.

👎 Jake Kleinman, ​“An extremely forgettable movie” 

Calling it a movie is actually pretty generous: It feels more like a series of well-choreographed fight scenes set against meticulously crafted backdrops, then strung together with a plot and dialogue that recreates the experience of watching a video game cutscene. Mortal Kombat 2 is also a full-throated apology for the 2021 movie, in response to fan criticism… If that’s what the Mortal Kombat fandom is looking for, more power to them. But if you’re expecting any of the hallmarks of quality storytelling, you won’t find them here.

👍 Germain Lussier, ​“Designed to make you smile” 

If you like action, violence, pop culture references, and seeing classic video game characters on screen, it’ll bring a very big smile. If you disliked 2021’s Mortal Kombat for having too much of a story, it’ll be an even bigger smile. And if all of those things are true, well, it might be your favorite movie ever. Just don’t expect much more than that.

👍 Liz Shannon Miller, ​“The right kind of stupid” 

To be blunt about it, Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage is a downright riot. Introduced first through a clip from his 1996-era action filmography, Urban leans hard into his natural swagger as well as a preening selfishness that fits Johnny’s washed-up star persona. It’s more than a little strange that despite 30 years passing, Johnny Cage hasn’t aged a minute since the 1990s, but maybe he also has access to Tom Cruise’s secret vat of youth juice. Or maybe it’s the frosted tips.

👎 Jacob Oller, ​“Combines direct-to-video schlock with blockbuster boredom” 

Mortal Kombat II is neither campy enough to revel in its violent bad taste, nor earnest enough to pull off its sprawling ambitions that it most resembles a late-stage Marvel entry. The film is filled with MacGuffins and plot bloat and a roster of awkward characters, dressed to perfectly match their inspirations because that surface similarity has been prioritized over anyone in the audience actually caring about them.

👎 Frank Scheck, ​“A tacky sequel that’s strictly for the fans” 

It doesn’t help that the whole thing comes off as low-rent, with underwhelming CGI effects and creature costuming and make-up that pales in comparison to a typical NYC Village Halloween Parade. When the chief villains look like rejects from Star Trek, and I mean the old TV series, you’ve got a problem.

👍 Amon Warmann, ​“At its best, it’s a lot of dumb fun” 

Any Mortal Kombat film knows its audience’s primary concern is the fighting tournament itself — which we actually get to see this time — and in that regard the sequel by and large delivers. The fatalities are pleasingly gory when they arrive, and though some of the CGI and excessive green-screen is off-putting, there’s just enough variety and inventiveness to keep each battle entertaining.

Mortal Kombat II arrives in theaters on May 8, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

To call Boards of Canada’s upcoming Inferno one of 2026’s most anticipated albums would be a gross understatement. Following last month’s surprise teaser, fans have been clamoring on social media about their expectations for the album. Expectations that surely won’t be lowered by the band’s decision to release the album’s opening songs, “Introit” and “Prophecy at 1420 MHz.”

Accompanied by a video laden with “Photo-Psychic Stimuli” — which mainly takes the form of surreal visuals combining religious and scientific imagery, as well as a heavily vocoderized voice intoning that God is “the ultimate resonance” — “Prophecy at 1420 MHz” is particularly enthralling. The song strikes the perfect balance of ominous and beguiling thanks to the band’s trademark analog synths, snappy beats, and some murky guitar melodies. In other words, if “Prophecy at 1420 MHz” is any indication, then Inferno will likely live up to the hype… and then some.

Inferno will be released by Warp Records on May 29, 2026.