Mostly Screen Time: July 2026
What I watched so you can watch it too.
This month: Ladies on vacation, Matt Damon on vacation, and the minions get no paid time off.
⭐️ I’ll be upset if you don’t check out starred items…
⭐️ 🥧 The Five-Star Weekend (Peacock) - Big Little Lies if you don’t like clouds or conflict! Nancy Meyers kitchens except remove the production design that conveys people live there! With a premise that could have been condensed into a movie runtime, I soon became so glad to have 6+ hours with this. In order to enjoy this series, you must do one thing: perfectly suspend your disbelief upon the premise that five adult women who are positioned as mostly busy can drop everything for a three-day weekend trip. What an amazing cast doing brainless work, and to be clear, all of the above is a compliment.
angels walk among us. ⭐️ 🤳🏼 Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (AppleTV) - Tatiana Maslany—Emmy-winner recall!!!—thrives as characters that are making chaotic decisions (with frizzy hair to match the part) and this bad-parenting lesson turned murder mystery was so fun and exciting when focused on the main character and case at hand. There are some side characters that felt like they got too much screen time, but I understand the alternative is to hear me complain that said side characters are just caricatures that are conveniently present to serve plot needs. Charlie Hall you are destined to be a star.
👩🏻💼 Not Suitable for Work (Hulu) - All Mindy Kaling comedies take time to find a footing; a pilot or second episode throws so much at the wall in terms of character archetypes, jokes, pop culture references, and outlandish situations, and I’ve learned after watching them all that it takes a few episodes to settle into its rhythm (yeah this is typical of most comedies but work with me here). By the midpoint of this first season (it has not yet been renewed as if me writing this) I finally got it. Sad that the way of the the streaming comedy has me cozying up to a Christmas episode in July.
🎀 Elle (Prime Video) - The pilot felt so shoehorned into “the world of Legally Blonde,” as the marketing puts it. “Happy birthday Elle, here’s a new chihuahua, what will you name him?” But aside from the glaring movie tie-ins, the series greatly ignores movie continuity! It wants to capitalize on the most memorable parts (Elle showing up to a party in the wrong attire, or having a court-like comeuppance when no one believes in her) while also not caring all the way through. When a character asks Elle if she’s ever considered becoming a lawyer… no she literally has not, that’s the inciting incident of Legally Blonde! I found the entire premise of the Woods family moving to a caricature of 90s-grunge-era Seattle wild, given that it never came up with Reese Witherspoon’s Elle. There was already such story potential regarding Elle Woods faring in Los Angeles as a teen, or going to college and discovering her Delta Nu sorority. Finding an area to compliment, Elle and her parents are well cast: June Diane Raphael had every funny line and I laughed at her delivery of some flat LA-stereotype jokes, and Lexi Minetree nailed the affect that Reese gave Elle way back when. If a prequel to Legally Blonde needed to exist at all, the bar is too high for what this was, and each episode should have been 30 minutes and not 50 minutes.
⭐️ 🎬 Minions & Monsters - I wholeheartedly and earnestly loved this movie. The power that a screenplay with little to no English dialogue from our two main characters… foreign language award eligibility when! Of COURSE the minions shaped cinema in 1920s Hollywood, it all makes SENSE that they marched for women’s voting rights, and of course they pioneered film techniques we use today in big summer blockbusters! I’ve been here the whole time, but welcome to the era where it’s not cool to hate on the minions anymore.
I’m legitimately inspired to make art ⭐️ 👩🏼🍳 Maddie’s Secret - In a completely non-elitist way, I feel like there are so many layers you have to have stored in your rotted brain to find this funny; chief among them is the willingness to drag your ass to a movie theater and see a comedy with a crowd!! Simultaneously a straight comedy, and a parody of melodramatic Lifetime movies, every line out of Kate Berlant’s mouth sent me to the moon, with just enough of a parody and earnestness balance that I was invested in the story. When the story takes a dip into a little more seriousness, it did lose me a little bit, but landed the plane overall.
🏛️ The Odyssey - The bare minimum is that it was going to be epic and large and THE RETURN OF CINEMA— which never left, by the way— but regarding the milestone and marketing line that it’s the first film shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, the thing I can’t get out of my head is Syndrome’s line from The Incredibles, “When everyone’s super, no one will be.” After settling into the IMAX aspect ratio, it disappeared for me, as opposed to huge IMAX sequences like in 2025’s Sinners. The only technical aspect that was on my mind was how LOUD it was. Cover my poor ears, hearing loss runs in my genes!!! In terms of the story and pacing, there are certainly reasons this could have lost 20+ minutes, so if you’re wondering if you can just wait for this to stream on Peacock or on a long-haul flight, baby the sell is the technical aspects, where it will get minimum 8 Oscar nominations. Matt Damon Oscar nom a lock, but interested to see which other roles spike interest from awards voting bodies. Go to the theaterrrr!
🧟♀️ Evil Dead Burn - Absolutely icky and I was watching with my eyes OPEN. As far as the modern rebooted franchise goes, this felt like the weakest entry, and I found it a bit of a letdown the the gnarliest and gratuitous violence was shown in the trailer, but Evil Dead still has some experimental surprises up its sleeve. Does MTV still give out an award for best movie kiss? Because there’s this one part…
🍃 Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender - This was fun! Animation will always provide more color and art direction than its live-action adapted counterparts! I am always a sucker for a plot that involves meeting a sage new mentor and then they turn out to be a villain. Catch me gasping at a theater when I don’t see it coming, Zootopia 2. This movie could have done huge numbers and yet it was bogged down by an unfortunate leaking months ahead of its release, and then was unceremoniously released on Paramount+, girl nobody has that. With personal context, I only caught up on this source series a few years ago, though many consider it to be an animated classic.
And another plug for The Invite because when I highlighted that one month ago, it was only in limited release. Also watched but sparing trying to review everything when I don’t have anything valuable to say: The Dink (AppleTV), Little Brother (Netflix), Hadestown: The Musical (West End Proshot), Heartstopper: Forever (Netflix)
Another great read, Ryan. All very helpful.
You are the BEST!