Month: March 2026

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of February 16, 2026

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Rated R for pervasive language, violence, some grisly images and brief sexual content
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%
In Theaters
I got a hold of this little gem the week after its release, but man am I glad I caught it. Brought to us by Pirates of The Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, the movie begins as a seemingly homeless crazy man, played by Sam Rockwell, shows up in a cafe, claiming to be a man from the future who is trying to save the world from a collapse brought about by unregulated AI. He claims to have been in this same cafe over a hundred times, and he knows for certain that the perfect combination of people joining him will help him change the world, but he doesn’t know what combo yet. Convincing enough people to join along, he sets off on an adventure to take out the creator of the world’s demise. At this point, the film tells the brief backstories of its cast, making sure we know just enough about them and the overall world around them, and enough to bring us back to the mission at hand and the consequences of its failing. With a solid cast, including Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple, Michael Peña and Zazie Beetz, the film quickly turns into a phrenetic but fun mess that is as entertaining as it is relevant. It reminds me of the 2026 film Idiocracy, which is incredibly important and prophetic, but has only achieved cult-classic status due to not being able to deliver a great movie, but rather a bucket of great ideas. This movie does that equally well and could possibly find the same audience. I’m not sure why it didn’t get a bigger release, but it’s certainly worthy of one. I can’t wait to turn people onto it, just for the nutty conversations that will obviously blossom. I found the film to be highly entertaining and engaging on a surface level but humorously frightening in a way that is both serious and not. It wants the audience to laugh out loud and yet still take the subject matter seriously. Maybe it’s too complicated and deep for most. Or maybe it’s too silly. That will be in the eye of the beholder. But I hope a lot of folks get to see it so that we can have those conversations for decades to come. B+

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of February 9, 2026

Crime 101
Rated R for sexual material/nudity, language throughout, and some violence
No Rotten Tomatoes Score at time of writing
In Theaters
Thor, Hulk, Catwoman and the new Joker (Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry and Barry Keoghan) team up in this new crime thriller about a criminal with a heart of gold (Hemsworth) who is stealing jewelry along the 101 Highway in California in order to make enough money to retire a rich young man. But when a cop (Ruffalo) begins to hunt him and a young, ambitious fellow criminal (Keoghan) begins to steal his future heist gigs, he is forced to make some big choices about his theft career. The first thing you’ll notice is that you couldn’t ask for a better cast. The ensemble here is solid and their characters are complex enough that you can understand why they wanted to play them. And they all do a good enough job. They are all believable and compelling. So the biggest question arises from why is the film so blah? Perhaps it’s the horrific title, which makes a little more sense once you understand that it’s named after U.S. Route 101 and not a crime class, but the very play on that is cheesy at best. Maybe it’s because the pacing is a bit of a bore. Maybe it’s because it wants so badly to be like other crime thrillers, that its overall familiarity hurts its likability. Whatever it is, the film just never comes together like it should, giving us a film that is not bad, but also not great. It falls right in the middle. You won’t hate that you spent the money on it, but you’ll wish you had waited until it was streaming. While I won’t give too much away here, the ending is a complete cop out and changing that could have fixed the entire project. Writer/director Bart Layton’s vision for his characters is so far out of reality that it throws you off, and not in a good, you-won’t-see-it-coming kind of way. C+

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of February 2, 2026

Dracula
Rated R for Violence, some gore and sexuality
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
In Theaters
The Fifth Element creator Luc Besson is back in action, taking on the legendary romantic story of Count Dracula. Originally called Dracula: A Love Tale when it was release in Europe last summer to a mediocre reception, the movie is finally getting its U.S. debut, where it hopes to do at least slightly better. Dallas area’s own Caleb Landry Jones plays Vlad, set against Christoph Waltz’s priest, who becomes the film’s Van Helsing character, in spirit, not by name. Production-wise the film is beautiful and flashy, fully reminiscent of a Luc Besson production. They went all out on costume, makeup and set design, and the score by Oscar-winning composer Danny Elfman is truly remarkable. It will be hitting my playlist regularly now that I have discovered it. Where the movie struggles is it feels like Besson got his inspiration far more from watching other Dracula movies and less so from the book. In this regard, it is almost too much like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula then it should have been. Sure, they embellished and changed some things up, but many of the elements are still there in full display. That being said, I really liked Caleb’s portrayal of the count, even if the actors around him were a bit boring for a film such as this. When he is on screen, you don’t really need much more. I like Christoph Waltz in nearly anything he does. Here he is a bit underused, but still strong. Having him play roles like this in Frankenstein and Dracula back-to-back is an odd choice for him to make, but technically this one did release first, at least for most of the movie-watching world. The most important requirement here is the film’s entertainment value, which fortunately the film manages to pull off. It was beautiful to watch and engaging from end to end, even if it had its problems here and there. I can easily see it as a decent date night movie, much more so than the other options showing in theaters right now. B

Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton

Week of January 19, 2026

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Rated R for graphic nudity, gore, brief drug use, language throughout, and strong bloody violence
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%
In Theaters
Most of us were very surprised to discover at the end of last year’s 28 Years Later, that the story was going to continue with two more films to come, the second which was filmed simultaneously with the first. While franchise creator Danny Boyle directed the first one, he and writer Alex Garland brought in Nia DaCosta (The Marvels, Candyman) to take care of the second. If you recall, and you should unless you haven’t seen it, the first film ended with the appearance of a group of blonde-wig donning, tracksuit wearing gang known as the Jimmies, who enjoy killing zombies with a showman’s touch. This second film begins in a really dark place with our hero, young Spike (played by Alfie Williams) who is forced to battle to the death with one of the other gang members, as dictated by their leader (Jack O’Connell of Sinners). Obviously, things work out for Spike as he is forced to go along with their cruelty or face certain death. Meanwhile, Doctor Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) has found a way to befriend the very naked Alpha zombie by drugging him. The two highly engaging stories progress until they cross paths. I really enjoyed the first film (and the original 28 Days Later is my favorite Zombie film of all time), so I was excited to see where Boyle and Garland would take the story, especially with the unexpected and crazy ending the first one gave us. I was relieved to find that they only took the nuttiness up a notch, giving us an incredibly complex and unpredictable adventure that has to be seen to be believed. Just like in most Zombie films, humans prove to be the scariest parts, and this is no different. The Jimmies are horrifying and disturbing, leading to most of the scary moments for the film. But while the movie is more violently dramatic than frightening, it is nonetheless a fantastic adventure that will leave a smile on your face from both the frequent tension relief and its wonderful sense of humor that is completely unexpected, yet very welcome. It is so rare to have a good January (or even February) theatrical release. But this one goes beyond good and straight to great, giving audiences a reason to head back to theaters in the heart of winter. A