This week everyone saw everything, so we start off with Park Chan-Wook's latest, the darkly comic thriller NO OTHER CHOICE (2:51), in which a 25-year veteran of a paper company is laid off and after a series of poor interviews, can't find another job. So he does the next logical thing: He decides to murder everyone in his field who may be more qualified than he is. Yikes! We all had our problems with this (it ain't THE HANDMAIDEN), but we did find things to like. But it seems we're outliers; NO OTHER CHOICE is getting critical raves but we all found it lukewarm for one reason or another. We follw up with Bradley Cooper's latest directorial effort, IS THIS THING ON? (28:44) Alex (Will Arnett, who's dynamite and also co-wrote the script) starts doing stand-up while sorting through the ditritus of his marriage. Tess (Laura Dern, who's dynamite) returns to her first (professional) love, and...things happen! (Sorry. It's 3 a.m.) Two of us really enjoyed this, and one of us did not. Over on Patreon, we talk about the 1985 Martin Scorsese comedy AFTER HOURS.

This week Megan, Evan, and Dave all saw all the movies on the list. Hot shit! We start with INFLUENCERS (1:37) (the aptly-titled sequel to INFLUENCER), and everyone is on board with the killin', though Evan and Dave don't love its pacing. We all agree that Cassandra Naud is dynamite in the lead, and Megan and Dave even feel sympathy for her murderous character (weird!). Then there's DUST BUNNY (24:28), a fantasy-horror about a young girl who thinks there's a monster under her bed that has eaten her family, so she hires her intriguing neighbor Mads Mikkelsen (playing a hitman) to off the monster. One of us hated this, two of us loved it. And we all like Sigourney Weaver and her gun shoes. Finally, there's WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (44:14), the latest in Rian Johnson's whodunit series. We're divided on this one again (two pro, one suuuuper con), but we all love Josh O'Connor's and Glenn Close's performances. Over on Patreon, we watch and yap about the 1946 noir BLACK ANGEL.

Evan is back! We're happy to have him. First up is Megan's solo turn on HAMNET (2:19), director Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel (with a screenplay by Zhao and O'Farrell), a historical drama about Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare's marriage following the tragic death of their 11-year-old son. Then Evan, Megan, and Dave talk about Paul Thomas Anderson's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (15:16), but Dave is called away mid-conversation by a child in need (one of his, not some rando who wandered in from the hinterlands). Evan and Megan pick up the conversation and then discuss writer-director Jafar Panahi's latest, the nakedly anti-authoritarian thriller IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (42:09), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and is France's submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2026 Academy Awards. Over on Patreon, we talk about our poll winner, the 2013 summer movie THE WAY WAY BACK.