This Film Is Not Yet Watchable – November 2025

I have to say, as we approach Thanksgiving, there are years where it gets really hard to find anything for which to be thankful, because what the sentiment actually means is an acknowledgement of the good things in your life. This has been an incredibly difficult year for my family and me. We’ve suffered a tragic loss. It took over a year to find work, and my position in that job is tenuous at best because I’m woefully out of my element. I’ve taken on a side gig to pad my coffers, but I’m still just barely keeping my head above water as I continue to accumulate debt, and the collective time and physical commitments for both leave me beyond exhausted. I haven’t been able to make a YouTube video since July because I’ve just had no free time and even less energy. My actual career is still on hold, going on 18 months without a proper job in my field.

So what is there to be thankful for? Well, it’s the little things, the small gestures that go a long way. I still got to cover AFI Fest last week, which is always the highlight of my year. That side gig I mentioned came courtesy of my friends in Brooklyn, and it’s very stimulating from a mental standpoint. Despite some health issues (my new job gave me sciatica from all the walking I have to do), I’m still on the right side of the dirt, and I’ve actually dropped a good deal of weight. I’m wearing 36-waist pants for the first time since high school. I somehow haven’t alienated the people I love with my constant whining about the shit hand I’ve been dealt. I finally got 100% completion on Tears of the Kingdom. I got to pet a couple of adorable pugs today.

And yes, the movies are still there. I can’t go as often as I’d like, and I’ve had to prioritize animation, documentaries, and foreign films over the last couple of months instead of mainstream releases, part of the reason why this blog hasn’t been as active as it would otherwise be. I’ve had to miss out on a lot of films I wanted to see. But I still get some time at the theatre in. I’d go insane otherwise.

A similar compromise I’ve had to make is that I just can’t devote the attention that I would normally to the stuff that makes me happy. This month’s column is a prime example. I’m literally watching the trailers as I’m typing this out, because I was unable to set aside the hour or so needed to just binge them all like I normally do. So as of this point, I don’t know how many previews I’m going to playfully mock in this space. It’ll pretty much be laid out as an instant knee-jerk reaction, with a few exceptions that I’ve seen in theatres over the past few weeks, including this month’s “Worst Trailer in the World” and “Redemption Reel.” Beyond that, though? Your guess is as good as mine. Fingers crossed it’s a short list. I’d be thankful for that. I need to sleep.

This is the November 2025 edition of “This Film Is Not Yet Watchable!”

Finding Joy – November 5

This has been out for two days now, but it’s a streaming movie on Amazon, so I feel no obligation to meet its release date. That’s been a rule of mine for a while now.

Anyway, I guess it shouldn’t shock me, given that we now live in a world where a literal Nazi is rewarded for his various atrocities with a $1 trillion pay package, but still, how many streamers are going to keep giving Tyler Perry money, especially after all the sexual harassment allegations? Because if we’re talking about our blessings in life, this is some bullshit.

As for the movie, it’s the same standard-issue Perry nonsense where a strong, independent black woman realizes what she really needs in life is a stronger man, preferably black, and Jesus. And as usual, the title character’s name is meant to slap you upside the head with the obvious metaphor.

I do chuckle a little bit, because this is unintentionally an example of how art imitates life and vice versa. The side job I’m doing right now involves proofreading books that are getting ready to be published. I won’t go into any details about what I’m reading, because that would be illegal (not to mention a huge breach of trust with my friends who helped me get this), but as I was working a few weeks ago, I did wonder to myself what it would look like if Tyler Perry wrote a romance novel. Lo and behold, here’s a Tyler Perry movie about a woman who tries to live a romance novel.

Can I just have, like, 1/1000 of his money?

Sarah’s Oil – November 7

Did you know that Jesus wanted to end racism by giving a young black girl an oil well? Well, that’s basically the message I got from the trailer for Sarah’s Oil, yet another Christian propaganda film that cares far more about the religious message than the history it’s depicting. The story is about Sarah Rector, who, under an 1866 treaty, inherited a plot of land as the black grandchild of Creek Indians. That land happened to sit on a rich oil well, making Rector quite wealthy. And wouldn’t you know it? All these white people in Oklahoma want to take it from her. I’m sure somehow God will save her and allow her to prosper… unlike all the other minorities and indigenous people in the area who were slaughtered for their oil.

Oh yeah, super strong message of faith there. I’d rather watch Lorenzo’s Oil again.

Christy – November 7

We’re firmly into Awards Season now, which means we’re to be inundated with naked Oscar bait. This is some of the most egregious, a straight ripoff of Million Dollar Baby meant to deliver a nomination for Sydney Sweeney, even though the makeup seems to be giving more of a performance. The same holds true for Ben Foster and Chad L. Coleman, the latter playing a version of Don King that looks like pure nightmare fuel, and King already looks that way normally.

Sweeney has a bit of career rehab to do after the disastrous “Good Jeans” campaign earlier this year, and allowing herself to look like less of a 10 probably isn’t the way to do it. The film currently holds a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with her performance being the highlight. This tells me she might get a nod next year, but the film will otherwise leave no impact whatsoever.

Stone Cold Fox – November 7

Back in 2013 American Dad! did a great episode called “Independent Movie,” in which all the characters, especially Steve and his friends, have stories and subplots that parody tropes in independent films, from coming-of-age drama to the manic pixie dream girl.

Stone Cold Fox‘s preview started out giving me those vibes, then spun itself into a parody of Quentin Tarantino flicks, and it looks like it’s going to suck at both. I like the cast, particularly Kiefer Sutherland, but this just has “too clever by half” written all over it.

Long Shadows – November 7

How many Western genre tropes can you cram into a two-minute trailer? Whatever the record was, Long Shadows is here to shatter it! We’ve got duels, murder, revenge, horses, a shit-ton of gun play, saving the prostitute from herself, overuse of the word “pa” to describe a character’s father. You name the cliché, this movie appears to have it.

But honestly, the most damning thing about this trailer comes at the very end. This film was originally intended to be released in late September, evidenced by the slate at the end. Instead, it’s coming out in the first week of November, a full six weeks later, where it will be buried under a mountain of prestige fare. Tells you all you need to know.

Playdate – November 12

Yet another tired action comedy where a dumpy middle-aged character (this time played by Kevin James) feels inadequate next to his hunky counterpart (Alan Ritchson) as they get into high-octane hijinks that would never happen in real life. You can tell it’s going to suck because the trailer even lists The Girl Next Door and Grown Ups as selling points for the creative team. Yeesh.

That said, I will give an ounce of credit for the fact that the target of all the assassins and various agents isn’t Ritchson, but the kid he’s supervising and pretending is his, and it turns out that kid also kicks all the ass. An interesting idea. I don’t think the execution will work, because this is on Amazon and not in theatres, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless.

The Perfect Gamble – November 14

I like Saban Films. They’re the ones willing to give smaller films a chance to reach a wide audience, and a lot of their output turns into limited release Fathom Events, which can be really fun. If nothing else, they’ve been the reason that Kevin Smith is still able to get anything resembling distribution.

But sometimes, a project deserves to die at the pitch, and The Perfect Gamble is one such case. This trailer is nothing but mobster tropes bathed in a sickly neon barf glow, with all the subtlety of explosive diarrhea. There’s a reason David Arquette stopped doing movies in the 90s. He’s just not that good an actor. In the right role he can be fun, but running an underground casino as a front for the Russian mafia? Get the fuck outta here! Even Lionsgate would scoff at this, and they’re the ones who kept putting out Bruce Willis movies after the dementia hit.

Trap House – November 14

So… a bunch of teenagers… decide to rob a major drug cartel… because the death benefits for Drug Enforcement Agency personnel is miniscule. Do I have that right?

Yeah, you didn’t need to put up a slate telling me that this is from the creators of the Fast and Furious franchise. I can already see the cocaine and penis envy on the wall.

I mean, who is this movie for? I don’t doubt that DEA agents get a terrible insurance policy for their survivors should anything go wrong, because our government just loves screwing people over. Remember, even great media like Breaking Bad could basically only exist in this country, because everywhere else in the civilized world, a cancer patient would just get the treatment they need instead of having to resort to cooking meth to pay hospital bills. I get the premise.

But in what universe do you then leap to a bunch of fucking teenagers robbing a cartel to create a nest egg, putting themselves and their DEA families in mortal peril? Make it make sense!

Also, I know I tend to single out someone for this line in nearly every column, but I never thought I’d have to do it here. Dave Bautista, YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS!

The final nail in the coffin here is on the YouTube page itself. This trailer, to date, has 1.3 million views. From those eyeballs, it has garnered a whopping 46 likes. 46… out of 1,300,000. Let that sink in.

The Carpenter’s Son – November 14

You guys! They made a horror movie where Nicolas Cage plays Joseph of Arimathea! And just for good measure, he was attacked by a swarm of bees during filming!

This may be the greatest disaster in mainstream cinema history. I can’t wait!

Murder at the Embassy – November 14

This is the Temu version of Agatha Christie, and it doesn’t look the least bit entertaining or fun. I mean, who in their right mind thought that Mischa Barton could be Hercule Poirot in any universe? This is especially egregious considering we have a new Benoit Blanc mystery coming out later in the month.

This is apparently a sequel to a film from two years ago called Invitation to a Murder. That movie only has five reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (three up, two down), but the audience rating is a woeful 17%. Yet somehow, Lionsgate saw fit to not only greenlight a sequel, but a trilogy.

I just… I just want to stand in their boardroom once while they’re deciding what to produce and just run laps around the room slapping them silly. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request.

The Family Plan 2 – November 21

So, two years ago, Apple put out The Family Plan, which garnered a 38% critical rating on RT, along with a barely passable 60% from audiences. It never released in theatres, so there’s no box office for it, though it was reportedly briefly the most-watched film on Apple’s platform. That data is almost impossible to verify, so we just have to take a company that uses child sweat shops to make their phones at their word.

It’s the only thing that can possibly justify greenlighting a sequel, and this time, IT’S A CHRISTMAS MOVIE! Yay, we can add Die Hard to the list of great action films this bullshit will unashamedly rip off. And look at this, they dragged poor Kit Harington into this! If there’s one actor from Game of Thrones that I feel bad for in the aftermath of the show, it’s Harington. The man can not get a decent role to save his life. His character became a meme, and this is what he’s reduced to as penance. Pretty much everyone else from the show that wanted a Hollywood career got one, but he’s left to be fourteenth fiddle in the worst Marvel movie ever made. Dude deserves so much better.

Just for good measure, I commented last time out that it felt really weird to have Mark Wahlberg rocking out to “Ice Ice Baby” in the trailer. This time around we’ve taken the side step into “Unbelievable.” First Vanilla Ice, now the Epsom Mad Funkers? I swear to all things holy if they have him do “Good Vibrations” on the next one, thereby having Marky Mark revive his own Funky Bunch, I think the universe might swallow itself.

Reverence – November 21

Saban Films actually does have one promising entry this month, the drug war action flick, King Ivory. Reverence is their third release for November, and it looks like the distribution house is only going to go 1-for-3. This just looks like a poor man’s Night of the Hunter with a villain doing a really bad crazy Jared Leto impersonation. Hard pass.

Altered – November 21

Tom Felton gained notoriety for his tenure as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films. Once they were done, he largely left acting on the back burner, taking some roles here and there, but nothing major. Even when he was playing Malfoy he often gave interviews where he talked about ambitions in fishing and golf rather than films.

Well, he’s back in a starring role now with Altered, and all I can say is… I hope he gets this as a mulligan. The flick looks to be a mishmash of superhero movies, Real Steel, and every dystopian Young Adult property. He plays a wheelchair-bound “special” in a future where genetic engineering has literally bred the elite into power. Taking a job to fix someone’s armored suit, he changes it into a super suit for himself, which conveniently allows an unseen stuntman to do all the action. Couldn’t be faker if they tried.

Also, while I love Felton as an actor and as just a cool dude, that attempt at an American accent? Oof.

***

Now it’s time to move to the real depths of cinematic despair, “The Worst Trailer in the World!” If you were keeping score at home, this brings the tally to 14 previews earning their dubious spots in the column. Not a great number, surely, but also not nearly the worst total we’ve had. I’ll call it a mild win, which is more than I can say for this month’s “honoree.”

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – November 14

The first Now You See Me film from 2013 got middling reviews (51% on RT) but made a buttload at the box office (over $350 million). For what it’s worth, I liked it okay. Jesse Eisenberg was funny in his own way and Isla Fisher was at her peak. It wasn’t a great movie by any means, but I enjoyed myself. The 2016 sequel was, by all accounts, utterly unwatchable, only managing a 36% rating and losing the audience (a drop from 70% to 53%), but somehow, it only made slightly less than its predecessor at the box office. You’d figure that a third installment would have been made right away, but for some reason, it took nearly a decade, to the point where this entry might almost be considered a legacy sequel, especially when you consider the “new generation” angle of casting Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, and Ariana Greenblatt.

The problem is that it appears no lessons have been learned from the last two underwhelming outings. The characters are still pretty much one-note, the line deliveries are wooden and bored, the plot is even more absurd than before, and worst of all, in a movie series where “magic” is the key to the heisting, all of the “tricks” are 100% digital effects. The fun of a magic show is the elegance of the movements and the subtle ways the performers divert your attention so that you can’t see the sleight of hand. When it’s all CGI, what’s the fucking point?

I’m starting to wonder if there even is one, seeing as how the selling point credits for the creative team in this preview are Zombieland (great), Venom (crap), and Uncharted (why God why). Spare a thought for Ariana Greenblatt, too. She’s a very talented young actress, but it appears she’s destined to only be cast in shitty IP fare. Sad. About as sad as this tag I’m about to write.

Now You See Me? No, I won’t.

I’m so, so sorry for that.

***

Okay, please, let’s end on a good note, and get to the “Redemption Reel.” I’m tired, I’m emotionally drained, and I feel like I just lost brain cells at a rapid pace. Who could possibly make all this seem okay? Well, I know a guy…

The Running Man – November 14

This might sound like a huge shock coming from me, but I am pre-endorsing a remake. There are always exceptions to my personal “Remake Rule,” and this one checks all the boxes when it comes to the core prerequisite of giving me a “compelling reason” to see it.

First of all, I love the original film. It’s still my favorite cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger flick to this day (Terminator 2 is the obvious winner overall). Weirdly, I was scared of the violence when I first tried to watch it as a kid, but as I grew and saw the whole thing, I thought it was a blast, especially because of the silly catchphrases and the casting of Richard Dawson as Killian. To me, that movie is the entire 1980s compressed to 101 minutes.

Second, despite all that, I know it’s not direct adaptation of Stephen King’s original novel (under his Richard Bachman pseudonym). By all accounts, this version is much more faithful to the source material. Now, if you’ve read this blog with any regularity, you know that such fidelity isn’t a paramount concern with me, so long as the finished product is entertaining, like the first flick was. What I’m saying is that while this is technically a remake, this is going to be a completely different interpretation, allowing both versions to be distinct from one another. This is a remake, but it probably won’t feel like one.

Third, while I’ve never read the book, I do know some details, like the fact that it’s set in 2025. You kind of just have to love the synergy with the production and release with that knowledge. The film also becomes unintentionally poignant, as we kind of are living in a quasi-dystopia where medical expenses are still a crippling financial concern, and they’re about to get worse thanks to Donald Trump and his ghouls. Violence, particularly vigilante and extrajudicial violence, is on the rise because of omnipresent hateful rhetoric and a tacit endorsement from the powers that be, so long as the violence is done in alignment with these monsters’ values (or lack thereof). I mean, we’re but a few months removed from the Secretary of Homeland Security seriously suggesting a Hunger Games-style reality show where immigrants compete in televised bloodsport for citizenship. Nothing in The Running Man‘s premise seems that far-fetched anymore.

Fourth, Glen Powell is an extremely talented and charismatic actor (let’s forget Chad Powers exists for the sake of this argument), who occupies that strange middle ground where he’s clearly a leading man, but he could also pass as an everyman type of character under the right circumstances. When I see the trailer, I believe he could be that guy who overcomes the odds. As fun as the original was, you never doubted that Arnold would win the day, because he was clearly an action star hunk of a man fighting against pro wrestlers. It was meant to be an over-the-top spectacle of muscle. You’d never buy his Ben Richards as a mild-mannered veteran for a second. Hell, you wouldn’t even buy that his name was actually Ben Richards with his accent.

Fifth, we have a very strong supporting cast, including Josh Brolin, William H. Macy, Michael Cera, and Colman Domingo looking like he’s having an absolute ball as the bombastic host of the show (Dawson’s version of Killian was apparently a composite of the show’s producer and host for the sake of the villain role, whereas here they’re separate).

Finally, and most importantly, Edgar Wright. I’ve been a fan of his for most of my adult life, and I still get flustered when I remember that he thanked me for my review of The Sparks Brothers. If I never write in this space again, I will consider my time here as a life victory for that moment alone. More importantly, though, this is a filmmaker perfectly suited for a story like this. He knows how to balance tones. He knows how to bring out the best in his actors. He knows when to go for a laugh and when to play something straight. He’s proven since all the way back with Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim that he knows how to shoot action (both the genre and just pure stage blocking) in highly creative ways, even when you wouldn’t necessarily expect it, and it only got better with the likes of Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho. He’s one of the few directors out there who can truly bend genre conventions to his will (Bong Joon-ho is another) and translate the fun he’s having directly to the audience. In an age where so many movies are tired rehashes that end up on streamers after three weeks, he’s among the select few that has earned the deference of the theatre-going crowd, to the point that it’s not only exciting, but essential, to see his work on the big screen.

So yeah, I’m in. I’m pretty psyched. Can you tell?

***

That’s all for this month. As always, I hope you enjoy yourselves at the cinema, no matter what you go see, and I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. This has been a year where there hasn’t been much to celebrate, but that makes the things we do have all the more important. Take care.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Do you plan on seeing any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? Would you risk your life for a billion dollars? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!