This week on What The Hell Should I Watch? I run through a stacked group of new releases including Pixar’s latest animated adventure, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on a classic monster, a dark Canadian story about fandom and obsession, and an award-winning drama set in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era.
I also check out a new sci-fi action movie on streaming, while Chloe jumps in with another Butting In segment featuring a hockey remake, indie horror, and one truly spectacular rant.
Fresh For Your Eyeballs
First up is Hoppers, Pixar’s upcoming sci-fi adventure about technology that allows humans to transfer their consciousness into robotic animals so they can explore and study wildlife.
Next is The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s reimagining of the Bride of Frankenstein story, set in 1930s Chicago and starring Jessie Buckley.
Then there’s Protector, starring Milla Jovovich as a former soldier forced back into violence after her daughter is kidnapped by a trafficking ring. It sets itself up as a gritty revenge thriller, but unfortunately this one really didn’t work for me.
After that I check out Sweetness, a dark Canadian story about a teenage fan who becomes dangerously obsessed with helping — and eventually controlling — her troubled rock-star idol after discovering his addiction.
Finally there’s The President’s Cake, set during the Saddam Hussein era. The film follows a young girl tasked with baking a birthday cake for the president during a time of sanctions and food shortages, turning a simple school assignment into a risky journey.
Streaming Pile
This week I watched War Machine, starring Alan Ritchson and Dennis Quaid. The film follows a group of elite military recruits whose training exercise turns into a fight for survival when they encounter a deadly extraterrestrial machine.
Butting In
Chloe returns with another Butting In segment.
First up is Youngblood, a modern remake of the classic hockey story about a young player trying to prove himself in the brutal world of junior hockey.
Next is Anacoreta, an indie horror built around a film-within-a-film setup where a group heads to a remote location to shoot a horror project — only for things to begin unraveling.
And finally Chloe dives into NFT: Cursed Images, about a group of friends who buy into a supposedly cursed NFT collection only to discover the digital monsters tied to those NFTs begin appearing in the real world. Let’s just say Chloe really did not enjoy this one, and the rant that follows is one of the highlights of the episode.
New episodes of What The Hell Should I Watch? drop every week.
Steve Stebbing 