The Alabama Solution (2025): I watched this a week ago and I’ve mentioned it to at least five people in random conversation since. Few documentaries are as hard-hitting in presenting a profoundly frustrating and, to some degree, irreconcilable situation of morality. Based around a substantial amount of “illicit footage” and commentary received from inmates in various Alabama prisons, Andrew Jarecki (The Jinx, Capturing the Friedman’s) and Charlotte Kaufman assemble a very strong case against the inhumane treatment they are subjected to. The duo examine the murders that plague the system, the political machinations feeding on exploitation and corruption, while also establishing distinctive personal cases to follow throughout their years-long production. It’s difficult to not feel appalled and moved by everything, even if you factor in the context of finding yourself in a prison environment. 8
Bodycam (2025): A small budget, found-footage cult-themed horror movie, Bodycam struggles to really break the confines of its first person shtick. We follow two cops who travel to the “bad” part of town and quickly get sucked into a dark underworld of trauma and hallucinations. The movie explores the tenuous relationship between police and, let’s say, independent communities, before it then dives into the plague of addiction. Fighting to be saved, in various ways, proves complicated. A strong final fifteen minutes then elevate what had been an hour of mishmash to something memorable. The minimalistic visuals, the eerie locations, the effective sound game, they come together and work well to make the bigger effects look good. So in spite of what I first thought, a worthwhile trip. 6
War Machine (2026): So, hear me out, what if Reacher, but fighting an alien transformer? That’s the question the people behind War Machine must have asked and they sure liked the answer they gave themselves. Alan Ritchson is a solid, emotionally stunted lead, in this otherwise basic Netflix sci-fi action movie. Clearly not released at the right time, unless you are a warmonger, it didn’t come easily for me to care about elite US military units. That said, it was even harder to take the antagonistic war machine seriously – think animatronic legs, on a big flat hat, with flashing red lights. Was this “villain” designed by AI? All in all, it works fine as an action flick with some beautiful scenery and cool, tense action, but it does shoot itself in the foot with some creative choices and the most generic military squad you can imagine. 5
John Tucker Must Die (2006): It feels late in the day to make movies like JTMD, wherein a group of currents/exes + a newcomer swear revenge upon the most popular boy in high school, who had secretly been triple-dipping. There isn’t much else to it, just ninety minutes of angling to punish a guy who turns out impossible to punish, which feels a bit like a missed opportunity to make a bigger statement about the way male/female transgressions are judged. Even as I thought it might conclude with a wholesome take, that people do change and can see the errors in their ways – it chooses not to. It is, however, an easy watch, mostly thanks to its cast, which includes Brittany Snow and Penn Badgley. 4
Never Been Kissed (1999): There’s a certain kind of 90s fluff that is really troubling to watch in the present day. NBK, starring Drew Barrymore, is one of them. Drew plays an undercover reporter who plays a student in an attempt to placate her eccentric boss and discover the many pitfalls then-day youths were faced with. She has her own struggles, as a) her time in high-school culminated with prom trauma and b) well, she has never been kissed before. At 25 going on 18, this walks a very thin line whichever way you look at it. If you’re going to hook up with students, ugh. If you’re hooking up with teachers, ugh. The movie goes with the latter and it’s not only the troublesome set-up that leads to its downfall, but rather the fact that there’s no chemistry to work with. The only interesting tidbits are how this whole adventure is followed as reality TV by fellow reporters, thanks to a camera so state of the art that it doesn’t even exist today. Not good, man, not good. 4
tributary stu 
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