A heart and a rose share a noirish evening of romance and betrayal in this claymation video for a Mark Laidlaw ditty.
Tag Archives: 2026
CAPSULE: DIGGER (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Alejandro González Iñárritu
FEATURING: Tom Cruise, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde, Sandra Hüller
PLOT: A narcissistic billionaire struggles to control the narrative after his oil drilling operation causes a global catastrophe.
COMMENTS: Digger is, nakedly, Tom Cruise’s bid to finally land that elusive Oscar. Give him a producer’s credit and an 8-figure budget. A script for an issue film, but not on a super-polarizing topic like transsexualism: instead, make it a comedy with a populist spin about the ultra-wealthy screwing the little guy. Pair him with a director with a reputation for shepherding highbrow concepts into accessible, Oscar-friendly cineplex experiences. Add a top-notch supporting cast willing to concede the limelight. Throw money at the screen, promising a Vista Vision spectacle like only real Hollywood can do it. Given these resources, Cruise certainly does his part: under what looks like pounds of makeup and a fat suit that makes him unrecognizable except for the occasional Cruisian glimmer in his eye, he blusters his way through the madness, hitting every mark.
And yet, for all of this liveliness, box office receipts and reviews have already dug Digger an early grave. Which may be appropriate for a ghoulish comedy featuring a dying planet, a dying President, and a dying cat.
One drawback is that the film isn’t that funny. Iñárritu has a knack for contrived absurdity, but not for the sort of rollicking comedy that feels unforced and organic. Consider a moment in a high-stakes war room meeting when a general makes an off-color sexist remark, and President Compson (a gaunt Goodman) admonishes him to watch his language because there are ladies present. After a beat where everyone looks around the room in confusion, Goodman chortles, unable to sustain a straight face. That line would have been a screamer in Dr. Strangelove‘s 1960s, but, although it gets a reflexive laugh here, you almost immediately realize it doesn’t reflect contemporary reality: today, there would have been a Susie Wiles in that meeting, or at the very least a Natalie Harp.
Which leads into the other major criticism of the film: it crams obvious messages into the shape of jokes, rather than finding the humor in the story’s situations. Digger is preachy, almost as hectoring as its caricature of a tycoon. And few enjoy being lectured at, even when they agree with the lesson. The script’s “meta” twist acknowledges this weakness, and comes close to apologizing for it; but in doing so, risks becoming even more condescending, explaining to the audience how satire is supposed to work and how you should process it. The tack the twist takes, however, ultimately serves a narrative purpose that is specific and surprising enough to avoid that pitfall. Still, the overall feeling that the film is talking down to the viewer is hard to shake.
Based on the sometimes brutal notices, that smug tone annoyed many critics. But in truth, it hardly ruins the film, which remains brisk and unpredictable. Digger is still strong when it focuses on uncomfortable truths. The centerpiece is a 10-minute (one take!) Cruise monologue where he speaks before some sort of court composed of a jury of ashen European extras from a Roy Andersson film. Having given up on deniability in the face of a tsunami of death and misery directly caused by his choices, Digger surrenders to the inevitable opprobrium and tries the tactic of truth as a Hail Mary. Yes, we wrecked the environment. But what did you expect us to do? Ignore your demands for heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, jet fuel for trips to Mallorca, and Doordashed Big Macs? Forego squeezing every short-term dollar of shareholder value? Not kick the can of catastrophe down the road? Did anyone ever actually believe there was any way we would not ruin the planet? The message is heavy-handed… but it’s not wrong.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
SATURDAY SHORT: ANONYMITY (2026)
366 UNDERGROUND: MY VEGAS EYES (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Xavier Terhorst
FEATURING: Kevin Ludowitz, Justin Cutler, Alyssa Duarte, Pamela Pace, Michael Vaughn
PLOT: Left behind with the riff-raff after the Rapture, Emo Superstar attempts to leave Sin City behind.
COMMENTS: “There she was: the only innocence left on Earth.” She is a naked woman, mouth pursed in anticipation, and limbs ready to accommodate any bend. Easy to hold, easy to lift, easy to caress, and easy to inflate. Amidst the dregs of humanity, a crude sex doll may be the apex of humanity after the better souls are wrenched from our sick plane. This rapture is shown simply: human silhouettes—dozens, hundreds of them—in still-form floating above the garbage remnants of Las Vegas where the rat-like survivors cling tenuously to an existence of violence and getting high. Emo Superstar (Kevin Ludowitz) wants something more, and with the reluctant acquiescence of his drug boss, Superstar attempts an impossible journey for salvation—or at the very least, something more than the mass damnation where he finds himself.
Early on, Emo Superstar remarks that “[l]ife became colorful when my parents died.” Xavier Terhorst is obviously working through some rough thoughts, and we ride alongside him over the course of My Vegas Eyes. Guerrilla filmmaking and exhaustive editing make for a visually compelling journey. Vegas has rarely looked so depressing, sparsely populated by made-up psychos clinging to a lust for kicks or hope in the Lord. A photorealistic face of a person fills the screen, its eyes carved out to reveal a flickering backdrop of trash and bright lights. Colors saturate and flip as Superstar navigates a dead city and an ominous tunnel guarded by the Trash Man. The protagonist’s thoughts play quietly from time to time, only for us to be jarred back into the harsh now with full-volume shouts from a psychotic matriarch or simpering Mormon preacher.
The experience is rough. Terhorst’s feature debut shows much promise, however, maintaining stylistic coherence and a just-followable-enough narrative, all despite the apparent restraints of him nearly being a one man band. Terhorst slots firmly into the informal collection of “curious what comes next” filmmakers. Putting that potential future aside, though, My Vegas Eyes is an interesting exploration of life after the apocalypse, and how we can still find value in life (or death?) at its worst.
You can buy My Vegas Eyes now on Blu-ray from the distributor; we’re informed it will show up streaming (free option available) on bloodstream.tv from September 20.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
No other critics quotes available at time of publication.
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average
CAPSULE: HOT SPOT (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Agnieszka Smoczynska
FEATURING: Andrzej Konopka, Reika Kirishima, Noomi Rapace
PLOT: A detective living in a city run by a totalitarian AI, surrounded by wastelands, investigates a murder at a refugee camp and a series of cyberattacks that are accelerating the rate at which citizen’s heads are exploding.
COMMENTS: Agnieszka Smoczynska‘s Hot Spot has been getting slaughtered at Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, but I’m happy to report that, while it’s no The Lure, it’s a perfectly enjoyable, if strenuously unserious, midnight movie, an experience sort of like getting heat stroke at drive-in triple feature of Mad Max, Ghost in the Shell, and David Lynch‘s version of Dune. Do not attempt to take it seriously as science fiction; just enjoy the unexpected insanity and oddball directorial decisions, and you should find it a perfectly acceptable meat-and-potatoes weird movie.
Hot Spot‘s world-building is impressive, if frequently frustrating in its refusal to follow up on details. It’s set in a wealthy city surrounded by an endless wasteland, whose residents depend on near-omnipotent AI “the Head” for their abundance. The Head requires its residents to eat a “jellybean” daily and hook themselves into its neural network in order to enjoy the benefits it brings, like telepathy and virtual reality surfing, and it strongly discourages voluntary disconnection (since disconnected citizens can engage in wasteful activities like free thought or masturbation). Aiding the city’s prosperity are a species of caterpillar-like creatures of various sizes, which feed on blood and recycle the dead into water and electricity. Oh, and every now and then citizen’s heads will spontaneously explode for unclear reasons (when not caused by cyberattacks on the Head’s infrastructure, it may to have something to do with bad mental hygiene, or possibly too much masturbation). The populace views random spontaneous decapitation as a small price to pay in exchange for the necessities of existence. It seems everyone is allowed to join the city as long as they submit to the Head and eat the jellybean, which may explain the large refugee camp outside the city gate. The plot begins when our hero, outrageously mulletted, Polish-accented detective Djonny, who married to a Japanese woman who can disconnect from the Head by singing, is assigned to investigate a murder at the refugee camp. There, he encounters a group of (mostly female) nomads who keep half their faces shrouded in hajib-like headdresses, refuse to connect to the Head, and have some kind of undefined, scarcely explored mystical powers. Djonny suspects one of the refugees, Rana (a second-billed but only marginally important Noomi Rapace) as the killer, and also suspects her of being a “cyber witch.” The real culprit will eventually be revealed (and will not be much of a surprise), but in the meantime Rana seems to put some sort of curse on Djonny, which, for reasons which are again entirely unexplained, results in him occasionally turning into a tiger.
There’s also an elf-eared assistant who hangs around in the background doing nothing, and a lot of gratuitous trippy stuff. For arbitrary reasons, the movie sports an 80s aesthetic, even beyond the star’s featured curly mullet, track suit, and smoked sunglasses. The soundtrack proudly features “The Final Countdown” and a cover of “Take My Breath Away,” and the rest of Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wrońska’s score oozes retro synth-pop. Overall, Hot Spot‘s post-apocalyptic vibe makes it seem like it was created according to Panos Cosmatos‘ “poisoned nostalgia” technique: a teenage boy’s flawed imagining of a story conveyed by a lurid 1981 VHS box cover.
Many complain that Hot Spot leaves genuinely promising sci-fi concepts by the wayside in favor of meaningless psychedelic trip sequences and showy nonsense. It’s a fair rap, and an easy case to make. But it seems like a serious examination of a dystopian AI-driven cyberfuture is not what Hot Spot aims at. This is still likely the most entertaining and unpredictable movie about a telepathic post-apocalyptic detective in a blond mullet slowly turning into a big cat after an encounter with a cyber witch that you will see all year, and that’s enough to justify a watch. It breezed through theaters like a sirocco, but should hit VOD/streaming soon.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I think this movie is weirder than average
I think this movie is better than average