The Small Screen Diaries: 05/30/26
Coming up next week… not much. There’s a new Mindy Kaling produced comedy at Hulu called Not Suitable For Work, Apple is dropping their high profile Cape Fear series with Amy Adams, Javier Bardem, and PAtrick Wilson, Netflix has a limited series in The Witness, and the documentary Michael Jackson” The Verdict, while NBC returns America’s Got Talent, and Amazon brings back The Legend Of Vox Machina. On the film front, Hoppers hits Disney Plus on Wednesday (oddly before Avatar 3), Pillion is your master starting on Friday on HBO MAX, Peacock has Lorne, and Netflix has the Jennifer Lopez … Continue reading The Small Screen Diaries: 05/30/26
Saw 5
I’m sure I’ve upset Saw fans by this point, but then again, so do most critics. These films have never exactly been critical darlings, and most of them struggle to stay above water. The fact that by the end of this franchise I’ll have handed out four Fresh scores feels generous enough. This won’t be one of them. I despise Hoffman. His version of Jigsaw feels like one of those misguided attempts to replace an iconic character with someone who completely misses the point. Jigsaw passing the torch to Amanda made sense because we actually watched her suffer, change, and … Continue reading Saw 5
Going In Blind: It’s Coming
Since joining Rotten Tomatoes, I’ve noticed that I get approached by a lot of smaller films looking for attention. I can’t always get to all of them, and honestly, I sometimes feel bad when a micro-budget filmmaker sends me something and I end up posting a rotten review, especially when the production didn’t have the resources to include audio description. So, I’ve tapped out on a few, because I look, and I’d either be the first or second review, and I’m not as convinced that audio description wouldn’t have changed my mind enough. Here, I found enough for that to … Continue reading Going In Blind: It’s Coming
The Strangers: Chapter 3
I never thought I’d be reviewing a film like The Strangers: Chapter 3, a film that exists only because a studio apparently had too much money and decided to fund an entire trilogy at the same time. They didn’t do it with the promise of a hot new horror filmmaker behind the camera either. They handed the keys to Renny Harlin. Now, has Harlin directed films I like? Absolutely. But not recently. The last film of his I genuinely enjoyed was Deep Blue Sea, and when you pair that with Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight, you’ve got a small … Continue reading The Strangers: Chapter 3
The Small Screen Diaries: 05/29/26
The Debate Is On. TV Shows Watched: Deli Boys: S2E1 (Disney Plus) with the legal minimum definition of audio description, Spider-Noir: S1E3 (Amazon) with audio description, Nemesis: S1E1 (Netflix) with audio description, The Miniature Wife: S1E3 (Peacock) with audio description, Can You Keep A Secret?: S1E? (Paramount) with audio description, Virgin River: S7E? (Netflix) with audio description, Running Point: S2E4 (Netflix) with audio description Deli Boys- I had a lot of thoughts, none about the series, which I like. First- we now have a robot doing AD. Second- The creators of Deli Boys should be concerned about the future of … Continue reading The Small Screen Diaries: 05/29/26
Saw 4
As I continue working my way through the Saw franchise, we’ve officially arrived at what I like to call the Tales of Hoffman era. If there has ever been a less inspired replacement killer in horror history, I’m struggling to think of one. One thing the Saw sequels absolutely love doing is circling back to previous films and pretending there were major revelations hiding in plain sight the entire time. Every sequel seems determined to convince us that events from earlier movies were secretly much more important than we realized. Saw IV leans heavily into that approach, but it does … Continue reading Saw 4
Send Help
Sam Raimi certainly has a voice and a style, and even if he’s not fully embracing his gory Evil Dead beginnings these days, there’s still a campy charm to his films. He understands what his audience expects and what they want from a Sam Raimi movie. Too many people weren’t fans of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but I enjoyed it largely because Raimi brought so much of his own flavor to the film. It felt like Marvel was dabbling in horror, and that willingness to lean into the strange helped it stand out. Of course, it wasn’t … Continue reading Send Help
The Small Screen Diaries: 05/28/26
Tomorrow, I’ll have more to say on the AI voice currently doing the second season of Deli Boys. TV Shows Watched: Spider-Noir: S1E2 (Amazon) with audio description, Legends: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, For All Mankind: S5E6 (Apple) with audio description, Top Chef: Top 8 (Peacock) with audio description, The Beauty: S1E8 (Disney Plus) with audio description, Love Story: S1E6 (Disney Plus) with audio description, and The Four Seasons: S2E1 (Netflix) with audio description Spider-Nor- I believe this is Zambie Page doing the audio description. I think there might have been some color in reference to Cat’s outfit, but I’m … Continue reading The Small Screen Diaries: 05/28/26
Saw 3
And now we’ve come to Saw III, which had so much promise to it, but also starts to show the cracks that would eventually split the Saw franchise wide open. Weirdly enough, this is the only one of the first seven films not done by Descriptive Video Works, so even the narrator changes. It’s strange how noticeable that is once you’ve settled into a rhythm with these movies. I’m not sure the writing itself suffered because of it, but the film definitely feels heavier. More cluttered. Like the franchise is starting to collapse under the weight of its own mythology. … Continue reading Saw 3
The Testaments: Season 1
When I first caught wind of The Testaments, it was a bag of mixed emotions. Part of me was excited that The Handmaid’s Tale would continue in some form, but the other part knew it couldn’t possibly hope to live up to the original. Then I got to the series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, where they had the audacity not to reunite June with Hannah, and suddenly this sequel series became less of an option and more of a necessity. What a casting boon it turned out to be when someone picked Chase Infinity to play Agnes MacKenzie, aka … Continue reading The Testaments: Season 1
Shelter
Jason Statham is starting to become like a Street Fighter character brought to life, with Hollywood directors just smashing buttons to get the right combinations of punch, kick, shoot, repeat. Amazingly, he’s still regularly getting films into theaters, which is more than most actors can claim these days. Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg, an Oscar nominee, seems trapped under the streaming curse, while Statham’s increasingly generic action movies almost always get theatrical releases. Thinking about two of his recent films, The Beekeeper and A Working Man, Shelter lands somewhere in the middle. It’s not nearly as fun or creative as The Beekeeper, … Continue reading Shelter
The Small Screen Diaries: 05/27/26 TV Shows Watched: With Hat Atelier: S1E8 (CrunchyRoll) with audio description, The Testaments: S1E10 (Disney Plus) with audio description, Spider-Nor: S1E1 (MGM Plus?) with audio description, Strip Law: S1E4 (Netflix) with audio description, Stumble: S1E11 (Peacock) with audio description, Breaking Bad: S4E1 (Netflix) with audio description Witch Hat Atelier- Kefi keeps Coco safe. The Knights have some unexplored beef with the Witches, and Kefi realizes there’s something wrong with Coco’s ink. The writing for the AD is exceptional, I’m enjoying the dub cast, and the AI voice isn’t that bad. Human narrators start working on … Continue reading
Wuthering Heights (2026)
Heading into Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell was one of the most promising young women I could think of behind the camera. Promising Young Woman and Saltburn were both top 10 films in their respective years for me, if memory serves me correctly. Yes, I was one of the few, the bold, who actually enjoyed the audacity of Saltburn. Fennell also has a terrific ear for music, and one of the best things about Wuthering Heights is the original soundtrack from Charli XCX. It’s the kind of thing that years ago would have been a bigger talking point, but no one … Continue reading Wuthering Heights (2026)
The Small Screen Diaries: 05/26/26
TV Shows Watched: Man On Fire: S1E2 (Netflix) with audio description, Scarpetta: S1E1 (Amazon) with audio description, Sunny Nihgts: S1E3 (Disney Plus) with audio description, St Dennis Medical: S2E8 (Peacock) with audio description, DMV: S1 E Christmas (Paramount) with audio description, SNL: Harry Styles (Peacock) with audio description, and Abbott Elementary: S5E17 (Disney Plus) with audio description Man On Fire- Really like this audio description. The action scenes are well described and it compliments the tension of the show. Like the piranha juice sequence, where we are waiting to see if it reaches the eye, it keeps the tension going. … Continue reading The Small Screen Diaries: 05/26/26
Saw 2
How do you make a sequel to something that wasn’t intended to have a sequel? Gaslight the hell out of your audience. That’s basically what the Saw franchise does. It makes it seem like the patchwork was always there, you just weren’t paying attention. The first Saw was indie glory, made for just 1.2 million, and obviously turning a profit.The sequel, coming from a studio, had more than double the budget. It also had a larger cast, instead of focusing on two men in a room, it had a bunch of strangers waking up together, learning they really need to … Continue reading Saw 2