My June / July 2026 Media Diet

I didn’t post in June because the month got away from me. Oh well. Lots going on around here, so this one’s a two-month recap.

We went to both a Mets game and a Yankees game with friends and family. Baseball in the spring and summer has basically become tradition at this point. Watching the Knicks make a run and ultimately succeed while living in New York was also a great experience, even if I’m still a little miffed that they knocked out the Cavaliers along the way.

I’ve also been tinkering with my Plex server, adding Kometa and integrating Letterboxd Showdowns with a bunch of custom scripts. I started subscribing to Tuesday Night Movie Night and, naturally, found a way to integrate that into the system too. Sometimes the infrastructure around watching movies becomes its own hobby.

My brother also got me hooked on the Bricks & Minifigs controversy. It’s ridiculous and has spiraled completely out of control. I’m rooting for the little guy, but I’m also increasingly convinced that everyone involved is at least a little shitty.

And finally, I’ve been working pretty hard on getting my new app, Leaf, out the door. Hopefully next month’s post includes a few more details about that. Cross your fingers.

Anyway, here’s what I watched, played, and read over the past two months:

🕹️ Titanfall 2. I’d read that the single-player campaign was second to none, and everyone was right! It’s amazing. I don’t play many first-person shooters anymore, but I would if we got more of them like this. The movement and the gameplay differences between being inside the mech and outside kept things fresh all the way to the end. The ending was a tad anticlimactic, but that’s a minor gripe.

📺 Game Changer. Dropout’s best show is back, and honestly, I think it’s better than ever. If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that to really enjoy this show to its fullest, you have to marinate in the Dropout universe for a while and understand the personalities that make it shine. I’m glad I did.

🍿 Backrooms. The mystery was better than the payoff, but I really enjoyed this horror movie from 20-year-old director Kane Parsons. I’m loving this new wave of YouTube directors. My only real note is that we didn’t need the entire scientist investigation element. Less is more in this case.

📺 Love Island. Garbage TV has returned to our household, and I watched every single episode. This isn’t the show’s strongest outing, though, and I’m starting to think it might be over the hill.

🍿 Havoc. Anne Hathaway plays a snotty rich girl who gets caught up in the dark underbelly of Los Angeles. There are a lot of celebrities in this one, and it absolutely SCREAMS 2005, but ultimately it falls flat. Good memes, though.

🍿 This Is Spinal Tap. Emily had never seen this and, up until actually watching the movie, thought Spinal Tap was a real band. I don’t blame her in the least. The movie is iconic, and it holds up.

🍿 Hokum. Adam Scott makes a great horror protagonist. I’m not sure this movie makes a ton of sense, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

🍿 Oculus. A Mike Flanagan production that I haven’t seen?! I loved this one, actually. The mirror is sinister, and the psychological unreliable narration is a great plot device. In another world, this would have spawned an entire franchise à la Insidious and those doll movies.

🍿 Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. How do these movies get made? The characters truly have superpowers and don’t even pretend to do real magic at this point. Wacky. If you like this franchise, I question your taste.

🍿 Natural Born Killers. I’ve always wanted to watch this, and I think my expectations were higher than what I got when I finally did. I just didn’t vibe with the visual style at all. I did learn that Trent Reznor did the soundtrack, though!

🕹️ Sektori. Geometry Wars in 2026? Yes, please. I’m going to be playing this a lot in the little moments between bigger games. It’s a breath of fresh air and has an incredible visual style.

🕹️ Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. I never played the original, but with the third and final installment of this remake trilogy coming in the fall, I decided to take the plunge. I’m so glad I did. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a AAA RPG since last year’s Expedition 33. I’m a bit skeptical of the sequel’s open-world approach since I really appreciated how direct and nearly linear this one was. The combat is so much fun, though, and I’m looking forward to going back.

📖 Super Nintendo by Keza Macdonald. I’ve been chipping away at this book for a while after picking it up in San Francisco earlier this year. Each chapter fleshes out a different iconic franchise in the Nintendo pantheon, and I’ve learned some really interesting things along the way. Highly recommended if you like video games.

🍿 The Player. I put this on my watchlist back when we watched Seth Rogen’s The Studio last year. I think it shares a lot of the same DNA, but it’s definitely going for something darker and more insidious. I loved getting a glimpse of ’90s Hollywood.

🍿 Love Lies Bleeding. An interesting premise and a few truly great performances make this thriller surprisingly action-packed, if maybe a tad too serious for its own good.

🍿 Grand Theft Hamlet. Not quite a documentary, not quite a Hamlet play—more of a commentary on online communities built in the strangest of places. If you’ve spent a lot of time in those kinds of communities, it’s definitely worth a watch.

🍿 Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. So forgettable that I can barely remember the plot as I type this. Skip it.

🍿 Maternal Instinct. Wild doc that I just had to look up again because I completely forgot I watched it and couldn’t remember a lick of what it was about. People are weird, and I’m forgetful.

🍿 Bound. The Wachowskis directed this before The Matrix, and it shows. I really, truly enjoyed this one, and it deserves a second watch sometime soon.

🍿 D(e)ad. Surprisingly fun and sweet movie from Izzy Roland of Dropout fame. It stars a bunch of the Dropout cast too! Definitely low-budget, but I think the choices they made really work. I especially loved all the background mirror shots with her (ghost) dad.

📺 X-Men ’97. Second season of this exceptional animated series. My only complaint is that the plotlines are a little all over the place. I’m just vibing with it and pretending each episode is a time capsule from my childhood. Working so far.

🍿 The Sheep Detectives. Might be the biggest surprise hit of the month? Twists and turns abound! It feels like a family-friendly version of Hot Fuzz with cute farm animals that talk.

🍿 The Devil Wears Prada 2. A great follow-up to the early-2000s classic. Anne Hathaway and the ensemble cast seem to really love their roles, and I loved seeing the Brooklyn Museum featured in the movie.

🍿 The Royal Tenenbaums. I completely forgot Ben Stiller was in this Wes Anderson classic. I haven’t really vibed with Anderson’s more recent filmography, though, and that kind of bums me out.

🍿 Power Ballad. I love Paul Rudd. Given that it stars a pop star and is literally named Power Ballad, I probably should have assumed it would be more of a musical than I typically like. That said, I kinda liked it a lot? Times they are a-changin’.

🕹️ Stray. Picked it up during the Steam Summer Sale. Puzzle-y walking simulators like this are kind of my jam. Perfect length too.

🕹️ Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I’d been putting this off because I wanted some distance from the first game. Feels the same! But in a good way! This franchise is just kind of comforting to me. The cinematics are great, the combat is fluid, and the traversal mechanics are so much fun. Now to wait for Spider-Man 2 to come down in price a bit.

🍿 Rope. Alfred Hitchcock classic I watched because it was part of the “Be Gay, Do Crime” Letterboxd Showdown. I probably never would have watched this otherwise, but I was intrigued and I’m glad I did. The single-room set is great, and I loved watching the city diorama change as time passed.

🍿 Faces of Death. We don’t get many slasher movies nowadays, and this one scratches that itch perfectly.

📺 The Westies. Started watching this because my dad was interested. I’m a sucker for crime shows, and this one is no exception. I’m finishing up Peaky Blinders on the side, so apparently I’m just swapping one Irish crime drama for another.

🍿 Over Your Dead Body. Samara Weaving kind of killed it in this role, and it was way bloodier than I expected. Strange movie, but worth a shot if you’re interested.

📺 Silo. I think I hate this show now? I’m enjoying the distant-past storyline much more than the schlocky (to me, at least) crap the rest of the show has turned into.

🍿 American Fiction. Jeffrey Wright is one of my favorite actors working in Hollywood today, and he was perfect in this heartfelt movie that I somehow never heard of until this month. It was nominated for Best Picture, though? Shows how much I pay attention to that sort of thing. The entire cast really nailed it, but Sterling K. Brown in particular was fantastic.

🍿 Good Will Hunting. Emily had never seen this! Still holds up. How do you like them apples?

🍿 Cool Hand Luke. I watch a classic every now and then, and despite this movie being absolutely beautiful to look at, I caught myself looking at my phone a few too many times.

📺 Adventure Time: Side Quests. They changed up the animation in this kinda-sorta reboot of the series, and I think it’s worse for it. It feels a bit more childish too? As someone who loves the original cartoon, I’ve been a tad disappointed.

📺 Ghost in the Shell. They rebooted this classic with the team from Dan Da Dan handling the animation. I’m a tad confused about what’s actually going on, but that’s OK—I felt the same way about the original.

🍿 Hercules. ’90s Disney classic. The animation is great, and James Woods as Hades is perfectly cast. I’d love for Disney to throw a little more classic animation into the mix, but alas, I think that era is gone forever.

🍿 Dark City. The parallels between this and the first Matrix film are wild. I found out that The Matrix even reused some of Dark City’s sets to save on costs. This doesn’t hold a candle to that other franchise, but it’s a fun two hours! (Watch the director’s cut if you’re interested.)

🍿 The Odyssey. Christopher Nolan nailed it. I wish I could have seen it in IMAX, but New Yorkers are apparently rabid for those screenings. The trip to Hades is haunting, and the narrative twist at the end is well-earned. I’m looking forward to watching this again sometime.

🍿 Masters of the Universe. I was never a fan (nor a hater) of the original cartoon. I think I was just a tad too young to be its target demographic. This movie had a few moments, but ultimately I think it just wasn’t for me.

📺 The Four Seasons. This show, along with The Odyssey, may be my favorite thing I watched all month. The comedy is on point, and Colman Domingo is a national treasure who must be protected at all costs.

🍿 Troy. I watched this in the wake of seeing The Odyssey, and it’s an entertaining enough romp. They obviously change quite a few things from the epic (as did Nolan), and Brad Pitt is borderline superhuman in it. I struggled to figure out who the protagonist of this movie was, though. Maybe that’s the point.

📺 A Toxic Love Story. I enjoyed this documentary, even though it feels like every other “oh my god, I can’t believe these people” documentary. I get it, it’s real life and it’s wild, buuuttttt… I don’t know. This genre is getting a little old for me.

🍿 Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. We love us some Avatar in our house. I’m not sure this movie moves the needle all that much, but it was fun seeing the Gaang together again. Future movies (maybe?) should spend a bit more time on the relationships between the characters, but I understand there’s a lot to do in an hour and a half and it’s not always so easy.

🍿 The Mandalorian and Grogu. This feels like two decent episodes of the show smashed together to form a two-hour movie. In that way, it was successful. Pedro Pascal and Grogu the puppet have great chemistry, but the entire Star Wars universe is struggling to keep my interest in 2026.

🍿 Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. I never watched the show, and that was a risk going into this. However, I think they achieved something really great here. Charming, funny, and heartwarming in all the best ways.

🍿 Mother Mary. I’m not sure what happened in this film. Like, I get it conceptually, but the ride was a bit all over the place. Meh.