What Could Have Been: Obsession: A Taste for Fear

Already getting buzz as one of the top films of this past year and perhaps being in line for the Academy Award Best Picture next month, One Battle After Another (2025), written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (and inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineyard”), features big stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, and has everything going for it... meaning that it should wow and amaze. Yet, from a screenplay perspective, a lot is missing... despite being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay as well.

After director John Kosinski got the need for speed while making the big smash hit sequel Top Gun: Maverick back in 2022, he clearly wanted to stay in the fast track, deciding to co-write and direct what has become one of the 2026 Academy Award Best Picture nominees – F1: The Movie (2025). With racer Lewis Hamilton on board as a producer and the film making team getting permission from all of the actual F1 racing teams, they shot at real Grand Prix weekends throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with a faux garage set up between the Mercedes and Ferrari pits... making things look as accurate and impressive as possible. Following longtime driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt – who did most of his own racing), he has become a jack of all trades of sorts – driving everything from F1 and Daytona, to taxi in New York, he is basically a meandering racer-for-hire.

You know you’re in for a doozy of a caper when you’ve got dead bodies piling up, a mysterious black cat wandering around (with all that revolves around the creature and its unlucky curses), a disappearing wicker basket (simply suspicious), and a seemingly occultist person wandering around whilst wearing a striking white cape... remember what George Costanza once said in the comedy Seinfeld – “I bet you he is mixed up in this. I don't trust men in capes”. Without further ado, we look at co-writer/director Sergio Pastore’s Italian giallo The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972) – sometimes also known as Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk. Clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s 1970 hit The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and part of the massive gialli boom that happened soon after, things start off in Copenhagen, Denmark (it was actually shot there)

It is not too often that a mid or post-credit sequence leaves much of an impact as things come to a close. Usually meant to add a few final jokes to a comedy (think Airplance! or Old School), show some silly bloopers, or tease for a future film (Marvel has thrived thanks to these hints pointing towards coming storylines and movies), a rare example of something having a true impact on a narrative is Ryan Coogler’s period horror film Sinners (2025). A most dynamic feature melding many intriguing elements, the first thing that will be noticed is the time and setting – Clarksdale, Mississippi during the Great Depression (specifically 1932). Following twin brothers ‘Smoke’ and ‘Stack’ Moore (both played by Michael B. Jordan), and to a slightly lesser extent their cousin Sammie...

Sometimes a movie doesn’t fit nicely within a genre box. In today’s case, the film touches on bizarre sci-fi dialogue, brings forth some satirical dark comedy, plenty of drama and thrills, and centers on a crime... in other words, it’s another unique vision from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster; The Favourite) – titled Bugonia (2025). . . inspired by the 2003 South Korean motion picture Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan. Falling down the rabbit hole with Teddy (Jesse Plemons – Hostiles; Game Night) and his autistic cousin/helpful sidekick Don (Aidan Delbis – an excellent amateur casting of an autistic man), they have done copious amounts of research on the recesses of the internet into an alien species called the Andromedans – that are supposedly secretly residing amongst us while pulling the puppet strings.