MOVIES OF THE WEEK (5/25)
It was a week of big things in the Pipps’ household this week. But I can’t talk about that just yet. Instead, I will start with this. The first show I ever worked on was an “investigative” doc series with Chris Hansen called Onision: In Real Life. Chris had been tipped off by someone on the internet that there was a predatory YouTuber who went by the name Onision. His real name is Gregory James Daniel. Or Gregory James Jackson. Or maybe it’s Gregory James Avaroe. He changes it a lot so who really knows, or cares. The show featured numerous YouTubers who were familiar with Onision, including one named Dennis Feitosa, or DefNoodles. During his interview, he kept coming back to the same refrain: sunlight is the best disinfectant.
At the time, I was unfamiliar with the quote’s origin and quickly, I’d forgotten about both Dennis Feitosa and his refrain. That is until I was reading a New York Times morning email and I saw this quote from the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (though he wrote it before he was appointed to the court). It read, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." Finally, I knew where the line had come from. It made me think of Dennis, DefNoodles, and so I did a quick google to see what he’d been up to all these years, only to find that was still posting on YouTube… As was a mouthpiece for Trump’s GOP… And was running for Congress.
All that to say, life is weird. Now, onto the movies.
It was a week of big title movies and a lot of television shows. We are loving Widow’s Bay, Hiro Murai does an incredible job setting up the visual tone of the show, crafting these comedically spooky moments. Then you have Andrew DeYoung come in and just complement Murai so perfectly for episode 4. DeYoung is so good at finding the absurd through framing. We’re also into Spider Noir, a lovely show when viewed in black and white. Cage is the perfect actor to make you feel like you're watching a 1940s noir film.
I’ll start on the feature side with two that we watched on Saturday in a double feature, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. For some reason, and this might be a hot take, I am not connected to the Pirates fandom, but these are two movies that I can’t get behind anymore. I think I liked them when they first came out (I don’t actually recall because I have self-diagnosed early onset dementia), but now they're just an absolute slog. I don’t care that they’re not bad movies, for some reason they are just a tedious watch. And I don’t really have a definitive reason as to why. They do some things really well, the VFXwork incredibly well twenty years on. The movies honestly look better than some modern Marvel movies.
It might also have something to do with Johnny Depp. It’s a shame, I used to love Secret Window when I was younger, before I became an ardent Stephen King reader and supporter, but now Depp just comes across as buffonish. While he truly embodies the role of Jack Sparrow and I can’t think of anyone else who could pull off the nuanced psycho so well, it’s almost painful to watch.
Next up we have Amazon Prime’s The Wrecking Crew, a shockingly good movie that pits two estranged brothers, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa against the foes who murdered their father. Set in Hawaii, we’re entranced by gorgeous scenery as the duo traverses the Hawaiian islands. The dramedy kicks off quickly introducing a straight-edged US Navy Seal (Bautista) and a detective on an Oklahoma reservation (Momoa). They haven’t spoken in years but are brought back together when their father mails Momoa a package just before he dies from an apparent hit and run. Momoa isn’t convinced. It doesn’t help that his mother was killed by an unknown assailant, so he’s already got some scores to settle. The complicating factor is that Momoa and Bautista are only half brothers. Their father slept around and the boys had a complicated relationship at a young age trying to deal with the fact that their father loved both of their mothers.
These heady themes continue throughout, though in a surprising twist the comedy really comes through in the second half of the movie when both actors are able to flex a little bit more. Usually in a big studio movie such as this (Prime, and not released in theaters but the concept remains the same), you get a lot of the comedy up front and then everything gets serious about two thirds of the way through as the characters finally have to deal with their problems. Here, we get a welcome flip and as we get deeper into the conspiracy, everything just gets more fun.
In the final double feature of the weekend (yes, we watch a lot of movies), we watched Over Your Dead Body by Yorma Taccone starring Samara Weaving and Jason Segel. What a delight this movie was. We’re led to believe this is a simple thriller pitting husband and wife against each other, but then in an unexpected twist (because I didn’t read the synopsis which gives this away) three escaped convicts come into the mix and shake things up for our couple. It’s the thrust they need to work on themselves and their relationship instead of trying to kill each other. There’s not a ton of depth here, but sometimes, movies should just be enjoyable instead of trying to feed you some big virtuous message.
Scream 7 was the next up and the last movie of the weekend, and while I absolutely love this franchise, Scream 7 falls short. We’re graced by a slew of old faces, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, as well as the brother sister duo from the most recent remakes Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding. The set up is pretty simple, we are to believe that Stu Macher, Lillard, has come back from the dead, or was never really dead, to haunt Camplbell and her family. Or it's an AI plot that feels right at home in 2026. Either way, the old heads are back. But to start, in classic Scream fashion we are given some fantastic early cold open deaths.
Our two intrepid characters are staying the night in Stu Macher’s old home, a shrine to the Stab franchise. And of course, the animatronic GhostFace is soon swapped for a real Ghostface who intends to kill both of the vacationers. And he succeeds. I laughed crookedly when the woman fell from the second story onto the waiting knife of the killer.
Then we get into the core plot line and we’re introduced to Neve Campbell’s daughter, Isabel May, who just wants to get laid! Unbelievably, Campbell’s home has a trellis that her daughter’s boyfriend can use to sneak into the home. You’d think she would have thought that through a little more. But, she’s handling life a bit better from when we last saw her in Scream 4. She runs a coffee shop, comfortably understand that the threat is never gone, and ultimately just wants to protect her daughter and her husband (who is played by Joel McHale, in a very strange bit of casting). McHale also plays the police Chief in town, and it just doesn’t make any sense. We get some great early deaths including a surprise murder of McKenna Grace while she hangs from harness on her high school theater stage. I was shocked by such a big name getting the axe so early, usually a name like that has a bigger role, but it was clear that Grace was not coming back from that kill.
And then things start to unravel. Everyone who is the potential killer dies and we’re left with two characters who have had a grand total of less than a minute of screen time (approximately, I’m not going to go back and time it out because that seems pointless).
Who are these people? No names, that’s who. Characters who have nothing to do with the plot, but the writers probably wanted to branch out from the classic boyfriend or best friend trope and give us a swerve. Well swerve they did to the detriment of the film. And to rant for a moment, whatever happened to fights where a blow to the head actually knocks someone who isn’t The Rock, down. There’s no way Anna Camp (one of the killers) could just keep on trucking after some of the blows Campbell lands. Bring back some reality to these types of fights!
I digress. On to next week.
The Wrecking Crew, Scream 7, and Over Your Dead Body marked the 13th, 14th and 15th 2026 movies we have watched this year.