It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every British actor, deep in their soul, passionately longs to do a ‘New York’ accent on camera. Dan Stevens has accomplished this here as a blue collar stiff who finds himself wrongly committed to a (satanic?) psych ward. Tbh, this third season in the Book of Terror, feels strangely like a reskin of Legion (a show I passionately loved), or maybe Dan Stevens just can’t stay out of the psych ward. Anyway, I feel compelled to let people know The Terror has decided to have a third season, a full seven years after season two aired. I loved loved loved season 1 of this show (you know where this is going), and I actually worked on the much less critically acclaimed season 2. And so to find that AMC+ has resurrected this once promising franchise from the grave is…. Well, I can’t say nothing! 

Pound the alarm!!! The fifth season of Couple’s Therapy is almost upon us! If you have not watched this show, it is literally real life couple’s therapy, led by the world’s greatest therapist, Dr. Orna. This show has everything: stirring insight into the therapy process, a voyeuristic view into other people’s relationships, and pearls of wellness wisdom from the best-dressed mental health professional in the greater New York area. Through watching this show, I have cultured deep empathy, and also total derision for some specific book-writing and fire-starting men. 

Okay, hear me out. I didn’t think I’d have this on my bingo card either. I am pretty much fully anti-anything that ends in -verse or has a cape, and only watched this trailer because Nicholas Cage is the titular Spider, and you know, had to see what was going on there. But uh, guys - it looks legitimately kind of good. Cage first took on this role in Into the Spiderverse (a Verse I’m going to allow) and now they’ve made a whole series! I mean let’s go I guess, let’s go! If you watch this in color you are a coward.

Legitimately one of my favorite seasons of television of all time, this icy hellscape came to me right in a depression crest, and boy did it make it feel good to feel bad. Based on the doorstopper historical fiction novel about two British ships that went missing in the 1800s (one of them literally called the HMS Terror….feels like a bad ship name). A stacked cast of every Brit actor boy you’ve ever seen in anything, just enduring the absolute worst. One of the only shows I’ve found to be actually scary, it creates a vibe of ice cold misery that you will never see again. If you are not into polar bear demons and graphic depictions of frostbite, then I cannot help you. 

The titular friend is a gingko tree! This film from Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi follows three different generations who interact with the friend-tree where it grows in a German university’s courtyard. It’s been a festival darling, with an ethereal sweeping trailer starring both Léa Seydoux and THEE Tony Leung. If that isn’t interest piquing, then I dare say you are no friend of trees!

First time director Aleashea Harris adapts her Off-Broadway play of the same name. Two sisters set out on a journey across ye old America to revenge themselves on their abusive father.The  IRL version was lauded for its genre mash of Western, thriller, family drama, and semi-Biblical morality play. I, for one, always welcome a vengeance mash moment!

If the Devil Wears Prada doesn’t have enough fashion for you, may I invite you to Boots Riley’s newest feature! His follow up to 2018’s joyously unhinged Sorry To Bother You (that featured the best earrings on screen), I Love Boosters make the fashion the text as Keke Palmer and her band of starlets take the fashion world by storm, literally. Everything is colorful, everyone looks amazing, Will Poulter is here. I am seated!!

I am probably not going to see this movie, as I loathe existential terror, but I still wanted to call it out because I think it’s interesting, and I know some of you are sickos! I have watched many videos of “backroom” spelunking on TikTok, the spooky trend of creators documenting abandoned malls, derelict caves, or mysterious underground tunnels. Sometimes these are edited for greater haunted effect, but all of them have the unsettling tenor of the best early internet CreepyPastas. The TWENTY-YEAR OLD DIRECTOR (vom) of Backrooms is one such creator who rose to fame for his viral Backroom Youtube shorts. The fact that this has become an A24 film, with such banger actors as Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, highlights how much online storytelling and mainstream media have overlapped. Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk, let me know if this was good!

Even though Spring is here, the theme of my ‘old’ reccos is ‘feel bad.’ Oh well! The Beast is deeply, deeply unsettling in about a hundred different ways, so unsettling that it becomes almost sublime. Léa Seydoux and George MacKay play star-crossed lovers whose lives intersect over the course of different time periods from the Victorian era to a sci-fi fantasy future. It is romantic, harrowing, chilling and the looming threat of AI only makes it more upsettingly prescient as time goes on. Léa Seydoux is incredible INCREDIBLE in this film. I am recommending it, but also you can’t blame me for adverse reactions. That is the law. Blog law. 

If you have not watched Pen15, then get thee to Hulu. Anna Konkle is the co-creator of the funniest, poignant, and damningly accurate portrayal of millennial pre-teenhood this side of 2005. Her memoir covers the same ground, branching into her young adult years, and covering the rocky divorce that defined her younger years (and, spoiler alert, also seen on Pen15). If you are missing being horrified by the candid details of your own past, Na is back to deliver the goods.

This is the kind of story idea I wish I could execute (except for the being deeply Irish bit). In “Prestige Drama” (A+ name), a movie star travels to a small Irish town to research her upcoming role in a…you guessed it, prestige drama. Of course she goes shockingly missing and the Greek chorus of the filmmakers and townsfolk are left to investigate the mystery and pick up the pieces. It’s a comedy, and we both love an Irish mystery and a Hollywood send up!

For the last of my feel bad reccs, may I humbly present to you Yoko Ogawa’s book of short stories simply entitled “Revenge.” You may have heard of Ogawa’s work, as her biggest hit “The Memory Police” is being made into a Charlie Kaufman movie (love the book, hype for the movie), but this is the collection that made me first fall in love with her sparse, poetic, and pitch black writing style. “Revenge” is a pin-neat collection of short horror stories that delicately intertwine with each other, and methodically work together to create a beautiful, unnerving ambiance.