"If you live long enough, you can see your dreams die a slow death. Young people don't know how good they have it. Not 'cause they can, uh, touch their toes and screw all night. They haven't learned that most things just don't work out. Most times, you just mess it up, so it's easier not to try. We're all just looking for some hope. But at my age, hope is hard. Hope's not enough."

Song Sung Blue is a remake, of sorts. The film was first made as a documentary on a couple who called themselves Lightning & Thunder, and they made a pretty big splash in the music business as a Neil Diamond tribute band. It was written and directed by Greg Kohs. What's ironic here is that he didn't want to do a documentary. He wanted to do a feature film, but no studio would take it because they thought the idea was a bit too crazy for fiction. He even had trouble getting Neil Diamond to allow him to use the music. He ended up going through Eddie Vedder, because Lightning & Thunder  once opened for Pearl Jam. The film was presented at a Memphis film festival, where Craig Brewer saw the film and immediately approached Kohs to option the rights for that feature film that was never made.  Brewer wrote the screenplay for the feature film, which shares it's name with the documentary, which was named after a Neil Diamond song: Song Sung Blue. Now you can check out the film everyone thought was too crazy except Craig Brewer, because it's out now on Blu-ray .

"This is a true story. Whenever possible the dialog has been based on official documents."

The very idea of a serial killer is very much an American one. Around the globe it's considered somewhat of an American affectation. While that may be the reputation, of course that's not true at all. One of the earliest and most documented cases of the serial killer is Jack the Ripper from London's 19th century. John Christie was also a British serial killer. He never received the kind of notoriety and lasting fame as Jack, but that's likely because Christie was caught and Jack never was. With Jack we can speculate and contrive all kinds of "truths" because there's no way to prove or more importantly disprove any of it. In 1971 director Richard Fleischer took on Christie's story in the thriller 10 Rillington Place. The film gets its name from the book about the case written 10 years earlier by Ludovic Kennedy. Kennedy also made himself available to the film as a technical advisor, as did London's long-time hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who did Christie's execution. The film had to wait a bit before it could be made, because English law prohibited films about real-life murders until 50 years after the events actually unfolded. Thanks in part to Kennedy's book, the death penalty was abolished in England, and the prohibition against such films was also abolished. All of this opened the way for Richard Fleischer to tackle his second film based on a real-life strangler.  Fleischer directed The Boston Strangler with Tony Curtis in the titular role just nine years prior. While 10 Rillington Place never gained the same kind of enduring classic status as several of his previous films, it remains one of the more interesting. Now the film is out on Blu-ray, and you have another chance to check out one of the better films you likely didn't see when it was first released.

I was kind of excited about this one. Starring Gene Wilder and directed by Sydney Poitier, plus it had a funny title. I thought this was going to be just the thing to kick off my weekend. However, after viewing, I have to say that I don’t think this film aged well. It didn’t hold my attention, and I found several of the character interactions to be subpar. The story took a while to fully form, as several events played out before Wilder’s character is even introduced. And it’s even longer before Gilda Radner’s character comes into play. I give the story credit for trying to establish an intricate plot, but in my opinion too much time in the beginning was dedicated to characters that aren’t are primary protagonists. To it’s credit, the plot did get slightly more interesting when  Wilder’s and Radner’s characters eventually meet, and we start to get some answers about the fine mess they find themselves in. It would have been nice to get that point quicker, as it seems we wasted valuable time investing in characters that were not crucial to the story.

Wilder stars as Michael Jordon, a architect in New York on business. When a beautiful stranger runs into the taxicab he's using, he volunteers to put a package into the mailbox for her after she hastily addresses the envelope. Unbeknownst to him, the woman is being watched, and that simple kind gesture lands him in in a whole heap of trouble with some very dangerous and mysterious types. When these dangerous and mysterious types catch up to the woman, she ends up dead, and he ends as suspect number one. His only ally is Kate Hellman (Radner), who has secrets of her own. To clear his name, they have to find out what was in the package, who wants it, and why.

"Take your voltage, coming in the main power station in Canoga Park. Now, the electric company will tell you that it's running smooth and steady. That's a lie. I mean, you put that thing under a magnifying scope, that smooth, steady line starts to look like King Kong's EKG. Ninety-volt drop-offs, 130 volt spikes. Pulses, they're called."

I'm old enough to have known relatives who were born before Thomas Edison started to wire America with his great new electric generators. In less than three generations we are completely dependent on that sweet 120-volt juice coming through our lines. When it's not there, we panic and complain about having to deal with things like darkness and uncomfortable temperatures, not to mention how the heck are we going to cook dinner? We need it. We want more of it, because we keep buying more things that require it. We not only let it into our homes, but we demand it stays on. Now what if that electric current we feed on like it's mother's milk, what if it were an evil force trying to kill us off? That's the premise behind director Paul Golding's 1988 thriller Pulse. It's now out on Blu-ray, so if you managed to miss this one, you have a chance to add it to your collection. Of course, you're going to need a steady supply of that current in order to watch it. On second thought ...

“From the studio that watched the first two seasons of Downton Abbey.”

Having never watched Downton Abbey, I can’t speak to any parallels between this film and the television series turned movie. However, the good thing about a parody is that you don’t have to be familiar with the source material to enjoy it. Which is exactly what I did with Fackham Hall. This aristocratic parody which showcased the comedic talents of Damian Lewis (Billions), Tom Felton (Harry Potter), Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts), and Ben Radcliffe (The Witcher) gave shades of iconic parodies such as Airplane and the Naked Gun. Even the title, which also serves as the setting of the film, is in on the joke (say it aloud and you’ll understand). Speaking of the classic mystery parody, Fackham Hall has a mystery of its own weaved into the plot, which serves as the main driving force of the film as a prominent member of the family is found murder and suspicion falls on everyone.

Going into 2026, Heated Rivalry (2026-) is probably the most talked-about series circulating on social media right now, with many fans already ascribing it as their favorite comfort show. It has proven to be a sensationalized hit among queers and wine moms alike. After all, it was renewed for a second season almost immediately following the finale. The HBO series is a gay hockey romance built on the enemies-to-lovers trope, loosely based on Rachel Reid’s novel Heated Rivalry (2019), and created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney. At its center are the two dreamboats, Illya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) and Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams), who play on opposing teams and are naturally positioned as rivals, hence the namesake.

One of the more striking, and probably distasteful, aspects of Heated Rivalry (2026-) is its use of progression and time jumps. However, I'd argue that the story does good to not rush intimacy, nor does it romanticize permanence too early. It breaks away from Hallmark-esque heteronormativity entirely with the grudging evolution of acceptance. Instead, the season unfolds across years, tracking a relationship that begins almost entirely in lust and secrecy. Early episodes feel impulsive and experimental, driven by tension, exploration, and desire rather than love and security. As the season progresses, the time jumps allow the audience to witness how repetition slowly turns into attachment, and how attachment becomes something far more fragile and frightening than hedonism alone. Love is not presented as a revelation, but as something that sneaks up on both characters despite their best efforts to bury it.

"You never know who your friends are until the ice breaks"

Apparently that's an indigenous peoples' proverb. I wonder if it applies to Siberian huskies? Mine is here in Florida where there is no ice or snow to be found, so I will not have the occasion to test the theory. The closest she gets to snow is the crushed ice setting on my freezer door. Of course she does belong to a snow dogs sled pulling club with other huskies, but they cheat and have wheels on the sled. So sitting here in sunny Tampa, Florida, we're about to have the longest stretch of 30 degree nights than I've encountered in a long time. So I thought this was the perfect time to invite Aurora (the husky) into my theater and settle down to watch Icefall, a film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and out on Blu-ray by Decal Releasing. I had to bribe Aurora with a premium treat, and she slept through many of the best parts of the film. I remained awake and alert throughout, with the pretty much perfect 96 minute running time. So now I'm in a position to give you guys some idea of what you might be in for, and if you should bother being in for it at all. So let's get going, shall we? Hike!