Colin Wessman

I love those oldies and hoagies, give me some beefcakes and cheesesteaks

Shocktober: The Bride!

The Bride!

In years past, we’ve ended our Shocktobers with Sean reviewing movies that he deemed “horrorble”. I’m not entirely sure if I would put The Bride!, the last film I chose to review for this year’s Shocktober, in this category as we bid farewell to spooky season on this fair Halloweekend. I say that not because this is a good movie, since it’s not. There’s really very little about it that actually works. However, it’s still a movie that takes a ton of big swings and clearly has a ton of ideas behind it, courtesy of second-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal. But about half of those big swings and ideas are a little baffling, making for a movie that’s never boring but also feels like a waste of several Oscar winners.

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Shocktober: Hokum

Hokum

While haunted houses are a prime location for many a horror movie, haunted hotels are not quite as abundant. While there are a few iconic creepy movie hotels that come to mind, such as the Overlook Hotel or the Bates Motel (if we’re including motels), but after that, there’s… the hotel from 1408 I guess? Because of this, I didn’t mind checking in for a short stay at the hotel in the woods at the center of Hokum, even if there isn’t inherently anything that exciting or novel about a movie set in one location where a bunch of strange things happen. While I can’t vouch as much for the strange things that happen, I will say that the hotel at the center of the film is a top-notch creepy destination, even if I could’ve used a few more answers about what happened within its walls.

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Shocktober: Resident Evil

Resident Evil

Despite enjoying last year’s Weapons quite a bit, I was on the verge of skipping director Zach Creggar’s take on the Resident Evil franchise until the allure of a Shocktober review reared its head. This is probably due to the fact that my skepticism of video game movies pervades while my interest in video games in general is at an all-time low. Fortunately, this Resident Evil owes much of its premise to the games it takes inspiration from, but it also has plenty of appeal for lapsed gamers like myself as well as the franchise faithful. While it maybe runs into some limitations of being an adaptation that has already been milked dry by a critically derided film series and many video games, it still offers the kind of high-tension thrills that are still getting folks out to see horror movies these days.

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Colin’s Favorite Albums of Summer 2026

Summer is dead and gone, and after another particularly sweltering one where I squeezed all there was to get out of a good summer, I’m ready for Fall. But first, before we get the sweaters and plastic skeletons out of the closet, let’s take a look back at some of the best music to come out during the warmer months. Considering this post ended up being a lot longer than I was anticipating, this apparently was a pretty good summer for me music-wise, filled with both some enjoyable high profile releases as well as more under-the-radar stuff. Let’s dive in!

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Criterion Month Day 28: Flow

Flow (2024)

So I end my Criterion Month journey in a somewhat unfamiliar place, seeing as animation is not exactly the Criterion Collection’s forté. The only animated film I can remember ever reviewing for Criterion Month is the insane Fantastic Planet, but maybe there have been others. Either way, Flow was one of those rare cases where an international film crosses over to be a worldwide hit just because the amount of care put into it is undeniable. Also, it just has a built-in cross-over appeal because it’s not encumbered by a language barrier, seeing as all of the dialogue in the film comes in the form of meows, woofs, and squawks.

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Criterion Month Day 23: Dogfight

Dogfight (1991)

It’s not a super abundant genre, but I do love a movie where two young romantics spend a night together and slowly start to develop an irresistible bond. From Before Sunrise to My Night at Maud’s to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, it’s just a really charming genre and one that taps into the idea that anything is possible when you’re young and naive and the night offers no expectations but a good time. Granted, I don’t recall any films in this genre that begin with one of the two romantic leads doing something really shitty to the other person and then spending the rest of the movie learning to be less of a jerk. Continue reading →

Criterion Month Day 20: Working Girls

Working Girls (1986)

It’s always striking to see a film that holds up so well in terms of content and yet is so tied to its time period in terms of aesthetics. I’m hesitant to use the word “dated”, because I think a film like Working Girls is aiming to portray an authentic version of its own reality, even if that reality feels unmistakably born of the 1980s. But the guiding philosophy of Working Girls seems to be that “sex work is work”, a phrase I only remember popping up in the public consciousness in the last decade or so. So to see a film that portrays sex work in terms of labor and workplace politics feels pretty remarkable, even if the hair, make-up, and name brands used in the film feel like relics of the Reagan years.

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