1. Director Sam Raimi is a filmmaker maestro, playing the audience's emotions like an instrument.
2. We were surprised to realize Dylan O'Brien has pretty good actor chops.
3. This is a wild ride chock full of plot twists... and copious amounts of body fluids from both man and animal.
4. Half our fun was looking to see the frequent looks of abject repulsion and horror on the 13-year-old Fry's face.
5. Yes, there will be eye gouging.
6. The set up of Rachel McAdams' (swoon!) mousy and cluelessly awkward cubicle worker is perhaps a bit over the top, but we get it. She's the heroine of the movie, yet that fact is totally undercut by the fact that we've all worked with weirdos like this. It's not fun.
7. This is a tight script, but also one that wholly relies on the contrivance that a hardcore fan of the show "Survivor" (with bookshelves full of survivor texts) winds up stranded on an island with the skills needed to survive. But was it Hitchcock who said audiences will buy one - and only one - dramatic coincidence?
8. It's a good point: none of your coworkers want to smell whatever it is you're eating for lunch.
9. "No help is coming."
10. Now that's what we call a heel turn. Totally understandable based on what we know about the character, but still 100% monstrous.
11. "Planning and strategy" isn't the same thing as "accounting."
12. What's your go-to karaoke song?
13. For a second there, we thought she was actually, really going to do it. When you see the movie, you'll know what we're talking about.
14. Bonus points for the old school, grainy 20th Century (now Studios, not Fox) logo and fanfare.
15. Is it a thriller? Is it a black comedy? Yes.
1.31.2026
Six months of books, Part II
Consider this a sequel post to last summer's rundown. Below are one-line reviews of books we read in the back half of 2025 (plus the first few weeks of 2026 - a couple of Christmas presents are in the mix).
Alright, Alright, Alright, Melissa Maerz - A gloriously exhaustive oral history of the making of one of the greatest coming-of-age movies of all time (and easily a top five movie for the Cheese Fry), Dazed and Confused.
The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt - Essential reading for any parent, curating a multitude of studies and cultural trends to create a focused, compelling argument about the urgent, addictive dangers of smartphones and social media on developing brains.
Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets, Chelsea Ichaso - A convoluted mess of a story that relies on irritating turns involving our high school student heroine again and again identifying the wrong culprit in her quest to find out who - wait for it - pushed her sister off a cliff.
Fire in the Hole, Elmore Leonoard - One of the Cheese Fry's favorite authors, this is a collection of Leonard's short stories, each one a hard-boiled gem of quirky characters, clever plot twists, and pitch-perfect dialogue.
A Flicker in the Dark, Stacey Willingham - A crazy Southern-fried Gothic family drama (girl's dad long ago confessed to killing teen girls but now that she's adult more teen girls are going missing, so What Exactly Is Going On?) is just soap-opera-loony enough to totally work.
Grunt, Mary Roach - Roach is a national treasure, whipping up amusing journalistic explorations in specific niche topics like - in this case - the intersection of science and soldiers (see also Stiff and Packing for Mars).
Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions, Ed Zwick - Perhaps not at the level of William Goldman's seminal Adventures in the Screen Trade, this show business memoir from one of Hollywood's more successful filmmakers (and TV showrunner) offers juicy behind-the-scenes angst and drama alongside practical advice for making TV shows and movies.
Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay - Long on the Cheese Fry's reading wish list, this book was ultimately a big disappointment, a bizarrely complicated and unpleasant meta story about the rebooting of an infamous underground horror movie and the ways the line between fiction and reality can blur. [This one and Dead Girls Can't Tell Secrets are the only books on this list currently exiled to the "give away" box in our garage.]
Lock Every Door, Riley Sager - A sharp, entertaining thriller about a down-on-her-luck woman agreeing to a too-good-to-be-true job housesitting a posh Central Avenue high-rise condo only to realize too late that there are creepy, possibly deadly shenanigans afoot among her wealthy neighbors.
Running with the Devil, Noel Monk - A fascinating glimpse into the rise of rock band Van Halen, as told by their tour manager, chronicling not just the band's extreme interpersonal dysfunction, but also the staggering amount of substance abuse and sexual conquests they pursued on the road in the late 1970s.
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