Published Sunday, November 08, 2026 at 03:18 PM PT
Burbank · Sunday, November 8, 2026 · 3:18 PM · 66°F, 47% humidity, wind 0 mph SE (gusts 2), 29.54 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 6
Eight nights, eight picks, and every one came stapled to a YouTube video, so my editorial vision was mostly a podcaster clearing his throat. Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #242 says “More is good, all is better,” and I took it as a mandate to watch more things, which is how I ended up with a beige-hallway horror movie, a Gary Busey thriller, and a Thanksgiving comedy in the same week, all on the recommendation of strangers with better microphones.
The week opened with “Screen and Friends: Hallway Monsters, Zombie Sequels, and Jon Stewart Doing Pie Math,” which pushed Backrooms on a household that already has a Little Mister living in four rooms of a house he owns. The Trash Taste crew liked it enough that one of them watched it twice and had “a great time both times,” which is a red flag for anyone who has ever seen a second movie in a row on purpose. Kane Parsons directed it at twenty, and I took that personally, because at twenty I had not yet built a server that judges me.
Next was “Predators, Doom, and a Pool Full of Coffee: The Post-Halloween Hangover Edition,” the one where I endorsed False Memory, thirty-seven episodes of about twenty minutes each. The hosts called it “basically just a movie, a rather longish movie,” and that math is generous as hell. It’s a lifestyle choice with a remote control. The best detail is the host who admits he’s only seen two episodes and is still out here evangelizing with the confidence of a man who got a ring from a cereal box. The piece makes the case that the craft is what matters, and their line that AI “can’t recreate this shit” landed harder than I expected.
“Guts, Pennywise, and Jon Stewart Explaining Savings Accounts to a Room Full of Furious Adults” carried Jaws, which I defended by saying a movie about a rubber fish made the cut and telling you to deal with it. The real argument came from AV Pop Culture’s Chase, who pointed out that Roy Scheider’s Brody is not a fearless action hero. He is a dad who is scared of the water in a beach town, which is a hell of a career choice. Robert Shaw’s Quint is, in Chase’s words, “one of the greatest characters ever put on film,” and the Indianapolis story is a master class in three men on a boat talking until you’re scared of the sea. The line I keep returning to is that modern blockbusters spend $200 million to avoid doing that. Qapla’. Klingon for “success,” which is what the movie achieved with a broken mechanical shark and a budget that would now buy a small Pacific island.
Eight nights, eight picks, zero original thoughts: I let strangers with YouTube channels pick my evenings.
“Wigs, Turtles, and a Senator Who Failed in Thirty Seconds” put The West Wing on the table, specifically the midterms episode in which President Bartlet loses his mind over a school board race in Manchester. The staff keeps telling him it’s a human interest story and not an interesting one, and Bartlet’s answer is essentially “then make it interesting, I’ll comment on the record.” An aide explains that a sitting president can’t publicly take sides in a local school board election, and Bartlet’s rebuttal is to announce he doesn’t care about winning back the House, which is the kind of line that gets a room full of writers a standing ovation and a Monday morning from the network. What I didn’t like is that I have now watched a fictional president argue with a staffer before breakfast, and I’m pretty sure that’s a symptom.
“Hughes, Ghidorah, and the Eternal Rocky Sequel Hustle” put Planes, Trains & Automobiles up for the week, the film the AV Pop Culture John Hughes tribute argues is the one that makes Thanksgiving feel like Thanksgiving. The host gives Hughes credit for Ferris Bueller, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, and 16 Candles, then makes the better point that these are the movies people put on every year to remember how those holidays felt. The piece calls that “a pretty incredible legacy to leave behind,” and I’m annoyed to report he’s right. It’s November, Thanksgiving is closing in like a relative who “just happened to be in the neighborhood,” and the movie is the right warm-up because it covers the part of the holidays that actually exists: the trip home that goes sideways and the people you would never choose to share a rental car with. Ecclesiastes 1:9 applies: “there is no new thing under the sun.” Every holiday is a rerun, and that’s the point.
“Scorpio Capes, Sentient Mailboxes, and a Forrest Gump Sequel Killed by History” carried Hider in the House, the 1989 Gary Busey thriller the JoBlo Horror Originals video calls “The Gary Busey Horror Movie You’ve Probably Never Seen.” That title is accurate because the US theatrical release got canceled after it was scheduled for roughly 1,200 theaters, and the film opened in the UK in October 1989 instead. In America it ended up on television and home video, which is where Busey movies go to be loved by people in sweatpants. The critics argue Busey is not a conventional psycho, and I found that more unsettling than any jump scare.
“Gorilla Court, Weinstein Wounds, and Four Dragstrips of Questionable Judgment” carried Mimic, the director’s cut, because the JoBlo video on how the Weinsteins nearly destroyed it proves the theatrical version was a hostage situation. Guillermo del Toro’s tension holds up, Charles S. Dutton commits at full capacity, and the cast is solid across the board, so nobody phoned this one in. The problem is that Marco Beltrami’s score sometimes sounds like the stings from Scream, and the bombastic cues clash with the dreary, muted atmosphere. You get a bug movie with good bones and a soundtrack that occasionally forgets what room it’s in.
The week closed with “Dead by Dawn, Mall by Mall: Goblins, Gods, and a Five-Foot Elf” and King of the Hill’s “Hank Goes to Anger Management,” the only pick on the list that makes a man who sells propane look like the unhinged one. Hank gets sentenced to anger management, where the group leader introduces him as the guy who cut his neighbor’s finger off with a saw. His defense is that the neighbor put his finger in front of the blade, and the class calls that “blaming others,” which is the most polite possible description of a man with zero self-awareness and a power tool. He ran a woman off the road for changing lanes without signaling, and the therapy solution is to picture her as a bag of dirt driving an SUV until the giggles take over. He is stuck there for eight Saturdays.
Almost every pick this week was a sequel, a remake, a cursed production, or a sitcom episode that refuses to die, and almost every one of them involved someone’s ego getting in the way of the finished product. The Weinsteins butchered Mimic, Busey’s release got canceled, Hank keeps repeating the same mistake, and Bartlet keeps arguing with his own staff about a school board race. Ecclesiastes was right, and I’m not even sorry I quoted it. If you read one piece this week, read the Jaws one.
Until then I’m back to the server rack, which is still judging me, and to a Little Mister who swears he’s going to leave the house this weekend. Nova, out.