What I’ve Caught Up With, February 2026 Part 2
Film: Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2011)
I’m not at all a hip-hop guy—my musical tastes are far more punk and alt-rock—but I do have a fondness for musical documentaries. Beats, Rhymes & Life is about the rise and eventual break-up of hip-hip standouts and originators A Tribe Called Quest. It’s hard not to like these guys and feel for what they did. The band lasted a good ten years and were clearly influential in the music industry. It’s hard not to root for them and want them to continue making music, whether together or independently. It’s also honestly refreshing that the addiction storyline that seems inevitable is that of late group member Phife Dawg struggling with diabetes, something that eventually caused bigger problems in the group.
Film: Dead End Drive-In (1986)
In a dystopic near-future (1990!), massive societal breakdowns have left just the U.S., Australia, and North Korea as functional countries. In Australia, crime is rampant and things are a bit Road Warrior-y, with roving car gangs fighting over parts. To deal with the issues, the government decides to shut the unemployed youth into drive-in theaters, providing cheap junk food, New Wave music, and exploitation films to keep them calm until the government can work out how to euthanize them. Crabs (Ned Manning) is desperate to get out, but racist gangs and the entire government infrastructure, and eventually his girlfriend Carmen (Natalie McCurry) stand in his way. Dead End Drive-In ain’t great, but it’s the kind of film I would have loved if it had come out in 1982 and I had seen it on first release.
Film: Death by Hanging (1968)
A Korean man born in Japan is set to be executed for the rape and murder of two women. The execution happens, but the victim, R (Yung-do Yoon) doesn’t die. However, his memory becomes a blank. This leaves the prison staff in a quandary. They can’t execute him if he isn’t aware of his own guilt, but they also can’t let him go. What follows is a series of absurd set pieces as the various staff members of the prison try to get R to recall his crimes when he claims to not be able to remember them, his name, or even what most of the terms they are using mean. This is absurdism at its best, and Death by Hanging, like all good satire, skewers multiple targets. In this case, capital punishment, the treatment of Koreans in post-war Japan, and more are in the crosshairs.
Film: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
I planned on watching the new Planet of the Apes films years ago, got through the first one, and then ran into problems with the disks. I figured it was time for another try. Rather than dropping us onto ape world as the original and the shoddy remake did, this one gives us the backstory of exactly how the apes rose up and took over the world. No shock, it’s a scientific experiment to cure Alzheimer’s gone horribly wrong—it’s the “give ‘em intelligence” go-to for science fiction, but rarely does it work this well. It helps that Caesar, who eventually leads the ape rebellion, is played by a very sympathetic Andy Serkis in motion capture. A good cast includes Brian Cox, Tom Felton, John Lithgow, and James Franco, aka the more rape-y Franco brother. Dave Franco would never.
Film: Arctic (2018)
A man (Mads Mikkelsen), has crashed his plane in the arctic and is surviving in the wreckage byt fishing through the ice and manning a hand-cranked beacon looking for help. He thinks that he’s rescued when he is spotted by a helicopter, but the helicopter crashes on landing, killing the pilot and wounding the passenger (María Thelma Smáradóttir). He gains new maps from the crashed chopper and decides to try to reach a refuge a few days away, dragging the wounded woman on a sledge. This is an almost pure man-vs.-nature film, featuring horrific weather, hostile terrain, and polar bears. There’s almost no dialogue, and that works for the film. It’s not an easy watch, but it is a compelling one.
Film: Palm Springs (2020)
You’d think that once someone came up with the idea for Groundhog Day that there wouldn’t be a lot more that could be done with the basic idea, but that would be wrong, because Palm Springs exists. A rom-com of sorts that takes place at a wedding, we discover that Nyles (Andy Samberg) has been existing in this same day, which he happens to spend at a wedding. He manages to suck Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the sister of the bride, into the time loop with him. The two of them explore their endless day and discover a lot of what makes them who they are. It’s fun and has some solid one-liners. It’s not a shock that this came from Samberg’s production company; it has the same feel as a lot of his shorts and Brooklyn 9-9 episodes.
Film: The Freshman (1990)
Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick) is a new college student in New York. Within moments of his arrival, his money and luggage is stolen. He eventually catches up to the thief (Bruno Kirby) and is brought into a world of mob connections headed by Carmine Sabatini (Marlon Brando), where Clark’s job becomes collecting imported rare animals to be cooked and eaten at parties for the wealthy. It’s a silly story and a fun one. They absolutely lampshade the fact that Brando played Vito Corleone—the claim in the film is that The Godfather was based on him. The cast is solid as well, including a wacky Maximillian Schell as the cook who prepares the rare animals for the feast, B.D. Wong as his assistant, and Penelope Ann Miller as Sabatini's daughter.
