The Truman Show (1998): All movies about reality TV and vicarious living hit harder in this age of anti-social media. Surely, there’s a certain naiveté about the way in which TTS approaches the subject, but that gives it more soul. Jim Carrey (or one of his many doubles) stars as Truman Burbank, whose whole life has, unbeknownst to him, been televised – meaning everyone he’s ever met has been an actor. It creates a reality that’s just a reflection of what the producers think makes good television, but which, once observed by the protagonist, becomes a haunting illusion. This is perhaps where some of the naivete comes in, as all the viewers clamor for Truman to break out, which seems optimistic to me. A sharp and witty conclusion brings it all back though, leaving an open ending that feels very much complete. 8
Relay (2024): Riz Ahmed and Lily James come together in this uneven thriller with a very unlikely premise. A guy offers “reverse whistleblower services” to people who need them, i.e. potential whistleblowers. Through an intricate system of communication, he liaises between the victim and the perpetrator so that everyone gets what they want – at a cost. All his safety boundaries get tested when he has to help out a seemingly helpless, lonely and attractive woman who knows too much about some potentially fatal cross-bred wheats. There are various conundrums and subplots going on while the main business is being disentangled: what about the people who might get killed by shelving this compromising data? why not just fall for said lonely, attractive woman? why not make the plot more complicated than it needs to be? While most of the movie holds it together reasonably well, it undoes a lot of that with a weak final act. It really lost me there. 6
Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter (2026): I had very much enjoyed Taylor as host for After Midnight, which became one of my weekly staples. As that ended and she now returns to the stage, I find myself missing those better days. Prodigal Daughter is a show focused on her experience of becoming un-religious and the un-straightening of her sexual orientation. It has some incisive moments and is generally agreeable, but never laugh out loud amusing. It’s closer to Have It All (2024) than her first two stand-up specials, suspended in time, in that it doesn’t break the mould or the mood. And the mood is existentially dark these days. 6
The Bluff (2026): A satisfying little genre fare, The Bluff makes a brazen attack to bring back pirates, and has violent fun doing it. Karl Urban plays the uncompromising villain, while Priyanka Chopra becomes an instrument of death when her family is targeted. It’s an age old story of buried treasure and revenge, with many a brutal death and a vibrant score, which bring this one probably as far as it could be brought. The script is otherwise pedestrian, but it doesn’t matter all too much. You get what you paid for, as they say, plus the first ever death by seashell. 6
Return to Silent Hill (2026): I didn’t hate the first SH movie, also directed by Christophe Gans, because it captured the atmosphere of the games rather well. It wasn’t a good movie, but it had something to work on, probably like Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). Then there was a sequel a few years later which, in spite of a very impressive cast, was absolutely atrocious. Now this is a reboot, loosely based on the remake of Silent Hill 2 (the game). Gans is back, but his approach doesn’t yield positive results this time around. It’s difficult to find any level on which RtSH is satisfactory. We follow James Sunderland, a painter who falls for Mary Crane, an unfortunate inhabitant of the eponymous town. The good times in the movie’s opening are followed by James confusingly and desperately trying to return to SH (hah) and find Mary. The story ticks a lot of what you would expect to see from the game, with various characters popping up and adding to the web of mental anguish that both James and the viewer have to cope with. The monsters are also there, but like so many other things throughout the world of SH, their look becomes generic and the visual effects are underwhelming. Even in scenes which do interesting things visually, their impact becomes underwhelming due to poor execution. Add to which that the story fails to generate any emotional impact and the movie is neither disquieting nor scary, and you have one big dud. Perhaps not as terrible as the 2012 sequel, but still bad. 4
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