Monday External Dispatch: April 13, 2026
Published reviews outside of the newsletter.
Welcome to my Monday dispatch, a weekly recollection of my own writing outside of the newsletter.
Hoppers (2026, Daniel Chong) — ✯✯✯✯
Not in a very long time did I ever think I would be hearing a Bikini Kill needle drop in a Pixar film. That might just be a sign of things to come in Hoppers, the feature directorial debut from We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong. Pixar has been on a fairly rocky streak after Toy Story 3, but the occasional reminders of greatness have come by in films like Inside Out and Coco. Hoppers is another one of those reminders, perhaps because it’s taking wild swings that seemed unprecedented in Pixar’s recent output. Maybe a far cry from their peak period, but given their track record as of late, it feels like this might indeed be a step in the right direction for the studio.
Review continues at Cinema from the Spectrum.
In the Blink of an Eye (2026, Andrew Stanton) — ✯½
In 2012, Andrew Stanton branched out from his work at Pixar into live-action filmmaking with John Carter. Although said film was a notorious box office bomb upon release, losing Disney over $200 million adjusted for inflation, it still presented a sense of ambition that seemed rare in the blockbuster landscape. Said ambition was present in his work at Pixar, for it brought him to new heights when he directed WALL-E, which may very well be the best film the studio has produced since the first Toy Story. That’s more than enough to get you a sense of what he’s trying to channel with In the Blink of an Eye, but it feels like a very bizarre step backwards.
Review continues on Cinema from the Spectrum.
Faces of Death (1979, John Alan Schwartz) — ✯✯
If you are one of those people who were curious (and unbalanced) enough to dabble in the world of “extreme cinema” at way too young an age, you’ve probably come across the name Faces of Death at least once. This film’s reputation is an earned one: it’s a film built around the many appearances that death takes. At the very least, that’s exactly what “Conan La Cilaire” and “Alan Black” (both pseudonyms for John Alan Schwartz) claims this film is. He isn’t wrong; that’s what a movie titled Faces of Death would contain.
Review continues at Cinema from the Spectrum’s Patreon (paid exclusive).
Project Hail Mary (2026, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller) — ✯✯✯✯
Who’d have guessed that the same directing duo behind 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs could deliver a visual spectacle on this level? Maybe it didn’t seem too far out of reach, as they were originally hired to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story before Ron Howard replaced them. In adapting a hard science fiction novel written by Andy Weir, whose The Martian was turned into a film by the great Ridley Scott, Lord and Miller make the best case that they can that they’re up to the task. After all, if they were able to pull off a specific level of visual spectacle from their own work on the Spider-Verse films, surely one could hope that it translates to the medium of live-action.
Review continues on Cinema from the Spectrum.