Drop: This is a modern day thriller utilizing a basic premise of a woman who is meeting someone on a First Meet online date in Chicago. The woman is played by Meghann Fahy, unknown to me before this. This is directed by Christopher Landon, also unknown to me, but is the son of Michael Landon from Little House on the Prairie fame. The more detailed story is that she is a woman who was married and she has a 9yo son. Her ex-husband is dead. They had an abusive relationship. Her job is as a therapist as she after her ordeal with her ex-husband has decided to focus her practice to assist other women in abusive relationships. Her younger sister encourages her to have a date, and enjoy a dinner out and try to have a little fun. Sister will watch over the son while she goes out with a guy that she has been texting with for months before this First Meet.

The intrigue becomes as she enters the high rise building bar downtown with a spectacular view and she begins receiving unwanted file transfer text requests.   Her date is running late and she sits at the bar.   After he arrives a good deal of time is spent trying to identify the persistent sender.  Eventually the texts escalate and the demand is that she needs to kill her date by poisoning him and if she doesn’t then her son (and sister) would be murdered instead. She is shown a video of someone inside her house with a ski mask on.  She can’t call police, she can’t leave the bar and she can’t even change tables.   So she is unsettled obviously by the circumstance all the while her date is incredibly patient and understanding.  Things progress to an expected conclusion but not without a few surprises.   

For me this was an hour and a half that I won’t get back.  I struggled with the technology aspects of how this perpetrator could be all knowing (all seeing and all hearing) within this smaller space.   It just wasn’t believable.  This came and went in the theatres and may be another reason for people to be hesitant about venturing forth into the world of online dating.    I cannot recommend. 

28 Days Later: In 2002 this movie was released, and it has spawned a couple of well known sequels with very well known actors. I had heard Alison talk about this series of movies. I think that the sequels were unintended when this original was released, but it got a following along with quality actors to participate. Time flies! I decided to check out this first installment on an airplane trip. The idea being that if I liked it, then I would check out the others. This original movie stars Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleason, Naomie Harris and Chris Ecclestone. I didn’t know what to expect, but fairly early on I recognized that this is a dystopian thriller about the end of the world through pandemic (in this case chimpanzees who were “infected” with “rage” by scientists and how it had gotten into their blood). People get infected by being bitten or by having the blood evter their system. The effect takes place within a few short seconds before they are turned into bloodthirsty savages.

Set in the UK and specifically London very early on the chimpanzees are freed by a radical group who were warned about negative consequences and the “rage”. Cillian Murphy then wakes up in a hospital bed to a London where it is deserted. All humans seem to be gone as he wanders the streets. He meets up by chance with a man and woman who help him escape from a hoard of infected people. They are zombie-like creatures. I realize that this is an earlier take on a Last of Us or Pluribus story, with greater similarities to Last of Us. This isn’t a horror and actually but for some early and late scenes is really not graphic at all. It is a tale about the human condition and how we as humans manage to one way or another find a way to kill one another. There are other side stories like a father and daughter story and whether just surviving is enough of an existence without hope of a better life. But in the end we follow Cillian Murphy and his group as they travel in this new world. It seems that it was only the UK that has been infected with this and so the rest of world seems to have isolated the country and let it fend for itself. Thus the sequels 28 Weeks Later and then 28 Months Later with all new casts that I will now need to check out. I have heard good things and they all seem to have good casts. I liked this better than I thought that I would, much like Last of Us (the first season for sure) and will check out more. Certainly this was worth some time on an airplane. I was intrigued about how they were able to get the scenes within London, and I heard that the cast and crew just had to get up very early in the morning. There are shots from well known bridges and other places in London.

Oscars 2026: I did not watch the Oscar ceremony this year as I was overseas. It was simply on too late for me to stay up. But I will comment that I was pleased generally with the acting selections. Jessie Buckley was a true lock, having won all the awards leading up to the Oscars. Her performance was simply excellent. Hamnet is worth watching for her performance alone. But Hamnet is so much more than that, and I believe was the best picture of the year, and will be watched and re-watched more years from now. Amy Madigan won for her creepy witch portrayal in Weapons and I support that. Add in Michael B Jordan for Sinners and the unforgettable Sean Penn in One Battle After Another, and I am pleased with this acting quartet. As mentioned, I don’t think One Battle After Another was the Best Picture and it follows not the Best Director. I have to admit to being pleased that Timothee Chalamet, and his film Marty Supreme was shut out one more time from any victories at the Oscars. The online social media chatter about this movie was over-the-top and I simply didn’t see it. Unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things to other people. No thanks. I was much more impressed with Ethan Hawke transforming himself for Blue Moon than Marty. I note some controversy with Barbra Striesand providing her tribute to Robert Redford, where she seemed to make it all about her, but she did sing a brief excerpt from The Way We Were. Billy Crystal provided a nice tribute as well to Rob Reiner and his wife, who were murdered this past year. Rob’s library of work is very impressive.