The Films of 2026

[beamish14]

The convergence of Matchbox the Movie, Ben Affleck’s Animals, Other Mommy, and The Social Reckoning this weekend seems to indicate that October has become the new February with dumping critically excoriated films. Universal apparently wouldn’t even lift their critic embargo on Other Mommy until the day of its release.

[swo17]

How is this real?

Director: Václav Marhoul (The Painted Bird)
Cast: Colin Bates, Richard Brake, Brad Dourif, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rob Lowe, Nick Nolte, Dean Norris, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Spoiler

Writer: Ben Shapiro
Distributor: The Daily Wire

[beamish14]

How is this real?

Director: Václav Marhoul (The Painted Bird)
Cast: Colin Bates, Richard Brake, Brad Dourif, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rob Lowe, Nick Nolte, Dean Norris, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Spoiler

Writer: Ben Shapiro
Distributor: The Daily Wire

Lowe is supposedly MAGA, and Leigh might be as well (she completely lost her fucking mind after 10/7 and posted unbelievably awful anti-Palestinian garbage on social media). Hirsch and Franco are there because abuser they specialize in casting abusers.

Nolte…who knows. Graves wasn’t the hit he needed?

[Never Cursed]

I'm kinda surprised by how surprised everyone on social media is by this. I assume they all know about shitty direct-to-DVD/streaming movies full of name actors who for one reason or another (plain greed, legal issues, aged out of superstardom, made themselves toxic to mainstream audiences or filmmakers) have taken the money and attached themselves to an inferior product, so why can't they make the leap and assume this happens to noxious political material? This isn't even close to the first right-wing propaganda movie to do this; those Atlas Shrugged movies from forever ago are pretty good comparisons, but there were also a number of Jarhead sequels that leaned into the same pro-US-military, pro-Iraq-War politics that the first movie skewered. (Stephen Lang was in one of them after he did Avatar, and he was demonstrably neither hard up for cash, controversial, or outwardly conservative). That cast is definitely more high-profile than the conservative movies tend to be, but basically everyone involved is either old and hungry for cash, fighting rape accusations or other legal trouble, or is a proud right-winger. Kodi Smit-McPhee is the only exception among the names.

[Altair]

More surprising, surely, is that it's directed by Václav Marhoul, whose film The Painted Bird, played all the major film festivals and garnered a lot of strong critical attention.

[domino harvey]

There’s a good YouTube channel that explores the Daily Wire’s various outputs and controversies with quite a bit of depth, if anyone wants some context

[Big Ben]

What's particularly odd about this is that I'm under the impression that the The Daily Wire isn't exactly doing so hot at the moment and as a result Shapiro must be going for broke. His newest produced film, Run Fight Hide: Infidels is a smorgasbord of the most histrionic Islam related screeching in a film I've been exposed to in quite some time. I cannot even begin to fathom how utterly insane this shit, and I mean that as pejoratively as possible, is going to be.

[swo17]

There's also a pro-ICE movie in the works starring Harvey Keitel and Danny Trejo and directed by one of the Polish brothers. Trejo's son has publicly stated that his father was misled about what the movie was, and is now contractually forbidden from disparaging it

[hearthesilence]

I feel like Nora Dunn's judge in this SNL sketch: "I expect that kind of behavior from you people...but, not from you, Nick 'won't-applaud-for-Elia-Kazan' Nolte!"

[Mr Sausage]

There's also a pro-ICE movie in the works starring Harvey Keitel and Danny Trejo and directed by one of the Polish brothers. Trejo's son has publicly stated that his father was misled about what the movie was, and is now contractually forbidden from disparaging it

Michael Polish is doing that, too? Jesus. I thought him doing that Daily Wire western was weird, but it turned out not be particularly political or commercial. That said, looking at his filmography over the past few years, it’s packed with DTV action dreck rated generally between 1 and 2 on Letterboxd. Not at all the career I would’ve expected for the director of the lovely Northfork.

[therewillbeblus]

Wild Horse Nine is, finally, a film from Martin McDonagh that doesn't feel overwritten while retaining the best parts of his sense of humor. This is also his least-plotted hangout movie, and handily his best work since In Bruges, if not his best film period. But it's not really his film, is it? Because 95% of the reason this thing works at all is John Malkovich, delivering what must be the richest, most lived-in comic performance I've seen, that's somehow a career-best in a body of work full of gems. I don't know if the role was tailor-made for him, but it doesn't matter because Malkovich makes this character his own, using all his best attributes to serve as a perfect vehicle for McDonagh's acidic wit while elevating the character into someone wholly original and wonderful, even if at a cost and too late. Rockwell and Buscemi do their jobs, but this movie is completely carried on Malkovich's back and he deserves the Oscar for all of these reasons and more

[Captain Paranoia]

Insane to think how Shapiro (and The Daily Wire in general) has fallen from his peak, I remember when he was everywhere at the start of the 2020s and now his videos struggle to hit five figures of views.

To my knowledge of the cast, Norris is staunchly anti-Trump, Nolte has also criticized Trump, Lowe is apparently friends with Clarence Thomas, and I don't know about Dourif but it's interesting as he's semi-retired (beyond Chucky-related works as well as a cameo in The Pitt).

Leigh, ouy. I admit that i have a bit of a metric of sorts when it comes to people on politics, and as for those supportive of Israel; Leigh seems to be on the hard side of things (between her social media posts, being among the names condemning Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech, as well as writing her name on many other pro-Israel petitions) and if anything she's one of the few names on that side of the spectrum that I happened to liked as an actress so I found disappointing.

More surprising, surely, is that it's directed by Václav Marhoul, whose film The Painted Bird, played all the major film festivals and garnered a lot of strong critical attention.

Marhoul is reportedly pro-Israel as with Leigh (incidentally he was planning a biopic on Joseph McCarthy with Michael Shannon but it appears to have fallen in limbo)

There's also a pro-ICE movie in the works starring Harvey Keitel and Danny Trejo and directed by one of the Polish brothers. Trejo's son has publicly stated that his father was misled about what the movie was, and is now contractually forbidden from disparaging it

Trejo apparently was on the Daily Wire's show Mr. Birchum, which failed on all sides of the political spectrum (particularly their core audience). FWIW I think he had some tax issues back (and has worked on things politically on the opposite side of the spectrum) so he presumably takes any job offered and (particularly judging by his son's statement) I wonder on whether or not he should be given the benefit of doubt (as with some of the cast members)

Lastly, somehow this screened at the Warsaw Film Festival this year.

[swo17]

Actually I believe it's debuting there in a couple days. And rather than addressing Israel, I think it's supposed to show today's kids the dangers of socialism like open borders and men in women's sports

[Captain Paranoia]

Actually I believe it's debuting there in a couple days. And rather than addressing Israel, I think it's supposed to show today's kids the dangers of socialism like open borders and men in women's sports

As far as I know it's set in Stalin-era Russia and is about the interrogations of a professor, and instead of open borders or whatever of that it's likely Shapiro making an analogy of communist Russia for whatever he's spent his career bitching about.