Nicole’s Viewing Notes: January
What I watched (and podcasted about) this month
In theaters
Some major developments in my film-going habits have unfolded since my 2025 year-end list: I finally caved to peer pressure (i.e. my boyfriend Evan sweetly goading me over text about it) and upgraded to AMC A-List.
I’ve made my thoughts on AMC — specifically, the Boston Common AMC, née Loews Theatre — clear and explicit to everyone around me. As both a matter of preference and principle, I’d rather see my movies in local art house theaters than in big corporate multiplexes. The Boston Common AMC in particular suffers from a myriad of issues anyone who frequents it can tell you at length about: lack of staff training for underpaid employees, overpriced concessions, clogged/broken toilets, constant projection issues, and audiences with TikTok-induced attention deficit disorders who can’t resist second screening for a couple of hours despite paying to be there.
Putting aside that one very terrible rep screening of Possession at Brattle a few years back, my worst film-going experiences have always been at AMC Theaters for the reasons listed above. Unfortunately, most press screenings are held at the Boston Common AMC and it’s conveniently located a few T stops away from where I live and work. It’s an unavoidable occupational hazard if you’re part of Boston’s film scene, and going to the Boston Common AMC is easier than planning my day around a trip to Brookline or Cambridge to go to the Coolidge or Brattle. But convenience was secondary to why I finally made the $25 per month upgrade to spend even more time at the Boston Common (and really any) AMC theater.
To quote Courage the Cowardly Dog, “OHHHHH, the things I do for love!”
As much as I shit on the Boston Common AMC, it holds a privileged place in my life because it’s where Evan and I first met after a LieMAX screening of Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time three years ago. A List has proved especially useful in scheduling date nights; nothing hits for us quite like dinner and a show, and even if the show turns out shitty, it means I get to hold my boyfriend’s hand for a couple hours. I know that’s incredibly gooey, sappy, and sentimental reasoning, but being in a relationship has revealed I’m a disgustingly gooey, sappy, and sentimental person! Get used to the coupleslop by the way. I’m a woman in love and proud of it.
(Plus, seeing more new releases in theaters without having to do the mental calculation of whether it’s worth the time, effort, and money to see something that I’ll be at best ambivalent about is a good habit to get into as a working critic and cinephile. I need to see the lay of the land, and maybe I’ll even be taken by surprise by something! But don’t get your hopes up: this doesn’t mean I’ll be seeing any new Marvel movies in theaters. That’s a concern for future Nicole and against my written contract for Marvelous!.)
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, dir. Nia DaCosta
I’m just seeing now that The Bone Temple has a weighted Letterboxd average of 4.0 versus 28 Years Later’s 3.4. What the fuck? No! BZZZZT wrong! It’s just an objective fact that 28 Years Later is the better movie! That being said, I still liked The Bone Temple quite a bit. Continues the refreshingly humanizing approach to the zombie genre that makes this franchise reboot wholly unique, largely avoiding the lure of nostalgia that plagues every other IP until a clunky final scene that plays like an MCU mid-credit stinger. (Cillian Murphy WILL return in Doomsday.) On the one hand I feel the absence of Boyle’s quasi-experimental digital filmmaking and wish Nia DaCosta had gotten some more iPhone rigs in the mix. On the other hand, DaCosta finally gets to let her freak fly with a franchise entry unmolested by studio interference for goddamn once. Proud of her, looking forward to talking about her press run when we get to The Marvels.
The Testament of Ann Lee, dir. Mona Fastvold
Not as in love with this one as everyone else seems to be, mostly because the back half speeds through several passages in Ann Lee’s life I would have loved to spend more time with. But I’ll join in on the outrage that Ann Lee got snubbed this awards season. A sturdy and handsomely produced companion piece to The Brutalist about a woman choosing communal basket weaving and communing with higher powers over being 18th century breeding stock for Christopher Abbott. Seyfried’s great, as to be expected, though I prefer her performance in Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils. Wholeheartedly recommended Ann Lee to my Catholic communist sister Gillian, who I think will mostly enjoy it on the basis that it’s basically a Florence + the Machine visual album. Said as much to the Focus Feature representative who waved me down after the press screening scheduled a month after Year End lists were due to editors. Should have asked her if she knew why Focus dropped the ball so hard on a FYC campaign.
All You Need is Kill, dir. Kenichiro Akimoto
Cool visuals, lovely visuals, but lacks an emotional register or really any characterization to speak of. Realized I don’t give a shit about time loop stories unless there’s a doomed gay romance at the center of it, a’la your Rebuild Kawoshins or your Homumados. I’ve never seen Edge of Tomorrow, the other film adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s light novel starring Scientology and DoD mascot Tom “Mr. Movies” Cruise, of whom my contrarian opinion on is publicly known. I’m going to safely assume that even Cruise’s brand of manufactured charisma brings more depth to Sakurazaka’s story than this version’s visually and emotionally super-flat rendition. Putting this one down as 2026’s first disappointment. Great raw material for a HEALTH AMV though. Re-edit this shit to “SHRED ENVY” or “CRACKED METAL” and I’ll bump it up another half star.
Kokuho, dir. Lee Sang-il
The highest grossing live-action Japanese film of all time and Japan’s official submission to the Oscars (didn’t make the cut, but did snag a nom in the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category despite some really terrible old-age makeup) also could have benefitted from a gay angle! Has all the makings of a film epic about queer desire, gender performance, and losing years of your life to compulsory heterosexuality. Realizes absolutely none of it, or perhaps Japan’s culturally entrenched homophobia simply cannot allow such a narrative to unfold. It’s probably the latter. Reminded me that I should stake out a weekend to watch Farewell My Concubine sometime. I’ll probably get more out of it.
Return to Silent Hill, dir. Christophe Gans
All love to the vulgar auteurists, Gans-heads, and trans femme Silent Hill (2003) die-hards who’ve been in the trenches arguing on Return to Silent Hill’s behalf as a worthwhile adaptation of one of the greatest video games of all time. I see you, I hear you, and I want you to live your truths, but I simply cannot get behind the cause. I went in with an open mind and an open heart because of your passionate defenses, so know there’s no malice in my soul when I say that I thought the movie was just straight up bad as an adaptation, an interpretation, and a translation of Silent Hill 2 into a feature length film.
I went a little long on Letterboxd as to why I feel this way and where Return to Silent Hill fails for me, which all comes down to the cult. Turns out this disastrous change was at the behest of the producers and not a decision that rests with Gans. But I judge a film based on the final product, not what it could have been. Maybe a director’s cut will surface? I’d be willing to revisit it, but on the whole, this belies so much of what’s fundamental to Silent Hill 2. Besides, if there was ever a time to make a movie out of Silent Hill 2, it was right after Kiyoshi Kurosawa made Pulse. Or I could just rewatch Lost Highway again, the ur-text of Silent Hill 2 that makes much better use of wigs than Gans does.
Send Help, dir. Sam Raimi
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Ladies, gentlemen, and deadites of all ages, it is my pleasure to tell you that the Sam Raimi we all loved and mourned when he went missing after Drag Me to Hell has finally returned. For awhile there I was terrified Raimi would spend the later part of his career as a hired hand for IP franchises, a ghost of comic book movies’ past relegated to injecting diluted Evil Dead gags into another Doctor Strange movie and producing dog water like Boy Kills World. Whatever flaws you can find in either Send Help’s script (courtesy of the Freddy vs. Jason scribes) or its CGI-assisted viscera are more than made up for by Rachel McAdams’ go-for-broke performance as the instantly iconic Linda Liddle, a deliciously kooky send up of the kind of survivalist mentality that turns spurned female professionals into psychopathic girlbosses, getting revenge on our patriarchal overlords by becoming just like them when the tables have turned. It’s a real knee-slapper of a movie, appropriately mean spirited and ludicrous in a way that’s perfectly suited for Raimi’s signature blend of B-movie viscera and Three Stooges shenanigans. Good to have you back Sam. Don’t answer the phone for Kevin Feige again!
On the pod
A terrible vanity project and franchise non-starter for an embarrassing (ALLEGED) pedophile. Cole forbade me from saying “It’s Morbin time” so please respect the amount of restraint I practiced.
Speed Racer (with Esther Rosenfield)
No fact haunts me quite like knowing Speed Racer released within a week of Iron Man. We could have had things so much better. Second rewatch solidified this as my favorite Wachowskis. Up there with Inland Empire as a film that challenges the medium in a way that’s yet to be replicated.
Margot Robbie I have defended you so much in the past and between this and “Wuthering Heights” you’re making things very difficult for me!
Captain America: The First Avenger and Albert Pyun’s Captain America work-print cut
Fun assignment for fans of the pod: go back and listen to the original First Avenger episode (one of our first) then put on a newer episode like Spider-Man: No Way Home or Thor: Love and Thunder to hear how miserable watching every single MCU entry over the course of several years has made me. Thankfully First Avenger holds up and I am still a Chris Evans girl at heart. Pyun’s original cut of Captain America also mogs anything the Russos have ever done with Cap. Tell that to any MCU fan and watch the blood vessels in their temples bulge out.
