Remain: A Supernatural Love Story

Remain (film) will be released 2026, written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan

He wanted a change from his usual genre, this time a love story.

New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design a summer home for his best friend, seeking a fresh start after being treated for acute depression.

Still mourning his sister’s death, he meets Wren, a young woman who disrupts his carefully ordered world.

I lust for dead people, might be the tag line. 😀

Unique in this project is how the story was written.

It was developed simultaneously with author Nicholas Sparks, who separately wrote the novel version of the same story.

The book — Remain: A Supernatural Love Story — published 2025 — I found an OK read. Good, not great.

A Complete Unknown (2024 Bob Dylan biopic)

I was dubious when hearing that Timothée Chalamet would play Dylan. BUT he was excellent.

Won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Actor. Sang all those songs himself. Played the instruments, as well.

Supporting cast members, including Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, also sang their respective roles. The performances were recorded live on set to capture an authentic feel. 

Edward Norton is a great actor. One of the best.

A Complete Unknown is a 2024 American biographical film about the early career of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan

… the period of 1961-1965, beginning with Dylan’s start as an American folk singer, and ending with his controversial use of electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.  …

Surprisingly, Dylan was supportive of the project. The movie is not true to the strict historical record, but rather tries to portrait his rise to fame in the folk music genre and the move to electric instruments.

Like everyone my age, I thought I knew Dylan’s story. I thought of him as a street poet with a terrible singing voice. Another Leonard Cohen.

BUT I realize now that Bob Zimmerman was a wonderkind super talent. The only musician to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Well deserved.

A genius.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Wicked: For Good

Surprisingly, I quite enjoyed the first Wicked movie.

So went to see part 2 in the theatre.

Certainly the 2nd film is not as good. Not as surprising. Songs not as entertaining.

BUT if you liked the first, it’s worth seeing For Good.

The most important theme for me is friendship.

Freeing the animals. Romance with Fiyero. An angry Tin Man. All far less interesting.

Jeff Goldblum plays Jeff Goldblum, always entertaining.

The nine million colourful tulips are real. As is the Yellow Brick Road.  

Wicked: For Good … is a 2025 American musical fantasy … sequel to Wicked (2024) …

… explores the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda as they embrace their new identities as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

John Candy: I Like Me

John Candy was born 1950, seven years before me.

Like pretty much every Canadian, I was a huge fan of SCTV, the low budget, super hilarious, Canadian television sketch comedy show about a fictional TV station.

Many of those comics went on to have great careers, including John Candy.

John Candy: I Like Me is the 2025 documentary on Prime about his all too short life. He died age-43 while filming a movie in Mexico.

I saw most of his TV bits and films, but — looking back — it’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) that I remember best.

Some feel that Uncle Buck (1989) was even better at portraying John the man.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Cold Storage by David Koepp (Book & Movie)

Cold Storage is a 2019 science fiction novel written by one of the top screen writers of all time.

After decades underground in a forgotten sub-basement, a highly mutative organism – capable of extinction-level destruction – has found its way out.

Only Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz can stop it. With the help of two unwitting security guards, he has one night to quarantine this horror, before it destroys all of humanity.

Loser Teacake is hilarious.

It’s one of those end-of-the-world thrillers. Not too believable — but would make a good Hollywood film.

I did enjoy the humour. Some of the dialogue could be kept for the movie.

In fact, a film version is planned for 2026. Starring Joe KeeryGeorgina Campbell, and Liam Neeson

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

I’m one of millions who enjoyed all the Dan Brown books.

The Secret of Secrets (2025) is his latest.

If you liked the rest, you’ll probably like this one.

I do enjoy the many little scientific nuggets included.

But Brown is an infamously terrible writer:

At this stage, everything that needs to be said about Brown’s sentence-by-sentence ineptitude as a prose writer has been said.

Fear not: he’s still hopeless. It may be counted as a metafictional joke that in a novel where a favoured adjective like “elegant” can appear in two consecutive sentences, where bells are said to “blare” …

This is, in other words, a Dan Brown novel. It’s weapons-grade bollocks from beginning to end, none of it makes a lick of sense, and you’ll roar through it with entire enjoyment if you like this sort of thing. …

Guardian review

The Secret of Secrets (2025) by American author Dan Brown is the 6th instalment in the Robert Langdon series.

The Associated Press review described the novel as a 650-page thriller featuring Langdon on a dangerous quest through Prague, where he is caught up in an international race to unlock the mystery of what happens after death.

Brown once again blends suspense, philosophical themes, travelogues, codes, puzzles, and secret societies …

Too long. Tom Hanks must be exhausted.

Killers stop to join in long, philosophical discussions.

No doubt the movie will be better than the book.

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

First in the Kate Burkholder series. … I might continue on.

In Painters Mill, Ohio, the Amish and “English” residents have lived side by side for two centuries.

But sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community. A young Amish girl named Kate Burkholder survived the terror of the Slaughterhouse Killer . . . but ultimately decided to leave her community.

A wealth of experience later, Kate has been asked to return to Painters Mill as chief of police. Her Amish roots and big-city law enforcement background make her the perfect candidate. She’s certain she’s come to terms with her past―until the first body is discovered in a snowy field.

Kate vows to stop the killer before he strikes again. But to do so, she must betray both her family and her Amish past―and expose a dark secret that could destroy her.

Amazon – Sworn to Silence (2011)

It was adapted into a TV movie called An Amish Murder.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Visiting Ubud, Bali

You might recall Julia Roberts here in Eat, Pray, Love.

The small city of Ubud has developed a serious tourism industry, promoted as an arts and culture centre.

More than three million foreign tourists each year, many of those NOT YOUNG. (Youth are on some beach instead.) I saw many families with young kids, as well.

Ubud is inland amongst rice terraces.

Highlights for me were:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I twice went walking in the local rice paddies, as well.

My favourite restaurant there, Sweet Orange.

Even better was a splurge for steak and mushrooms at Funky Chunks. Cost about CAD $15.

Traffic is terrible. But I did like Ubud.

Gladiator II (2024)

I only saw the film because I was stuck on a plane.

BUT it’s worth watching if only for the incredible scenes of ancient Rome.

Cast is good. I liked Denzel Washington best as he felt so believable.

The plot is probably unnecessary if you are there for the action scenes and special effects.

Don’t worry about historical inaccuracies. There are many. And no record of a gladiator riding a rhinoceros. 😀

On Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of 394 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. That sounds about right to me.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden

Freida McFadden (born May 1, 1980) is the pen name of an American thriller author and practicing physician specializing in brain injury.

Her 2022 book The Housemaid was an international bestseller.

In recent years I’ve begun to tire of the endless line-up of psychological thrillers. But this one is better than average.

Millie is a young woman with troubled past, having recently been fired from her job after an incident which nearly sent her back to prison.

She is unable to find work due to her criminal record and spends a month living in her car.

She jumps at an opportunity as a live-in maid for the Winchester wealthy family: Nina, her husband Andrew, and their daughter, Cecelia, who live in a luxurious estate on Long Island.

Their seemingly perfect life unravels when Millie discovers that the Winchester household hides dark secrets beneath the surface.

To me the twist was predictable.

The husband character one of the most absurdly unlikely I’ve ever read.

The ending of the book was satisfying. BUT I’m unlikely to read on in the series.

I will probably end up watching the upcoming film.