Author: Randy Meeks

113 kilos can look very different on different bodies. I don’t carry it the same way, since I spend most of my time sitting down, as on Dave Bautista’s, who, as he’s stated, has gained as much muscle as he possibly could to play Kratos in the new God of War series. With any luck, he won’t suffer the same fate as the previous actor, who’s still recovering from a brutal injury.

God of pounds

In his Instagram stories, Bautista posted a photo of himself wearing a God of War T-shirt with the caption “I’ve gained 9 kilos!”. Indeed, they’re not from eating bacon and playing video games, but from pure muscle and constant training. Keep in mind that he’s 57 years old, and he’s working out at levels many 20-year-old kids couldn’t even try.

God of War Download

For a few years, Bautista focused on his acting career, putting bodybuilding on the back burner, and also devoting himself to production work. However, God of War has reawakened a wild side in him, something obvious as you can see wearing the logo from the first games in the franchise instead of the ones the show will adapt. In 2027 we’ll also see him in Highlander, Road House 2 and Ally, Bong Joon Ho’s new animated film, which he’ll lend his voice to.

Dave Bautista reveals he has gained 20 more pounds of muscle for playing Kratos in ‘GOD OF WAR’.

He has now reached 250 pounds. pic.twitter.com/fUOr0P7EAB

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) November 1, 2026

Ryan Hurst, the original Kratos, suffered an injury and won’t fully recover until 2027, but fans are already want him to play Thor in season 2. You never know. For now, let’s raise the axe, because the fight between gods has only just begun, one kilo at a time.

In 1967, The Graduate became the highest-grossing film of the year in the United States, and became a worldwide hit. Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman starred in some of the most legendary sequences in the history of cinema over its 105-minute runtime, it received seven Oscar nominations (including acting nods for its leads) and to this day there are few who can see a shot without breaking into Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson. But, of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

The Graduate gets slapped

Now, Hoffman has recalled the experience of shooting The Graduate as something terrible: “I immediately felt uncomfortable, undeserving of what I was doing. There I was, playing the lead in a Mike Nichols film, the hottest director around, but I felt I had no right to be there. It was a horrible experience making the film that changed my life”. Imagine: the entire shoot thinking Nichols would realize he’d chosen the wrong leading man.

Although his performance went down in history as the insecure Benjamin Braddock, the truth is that it wasn’t so much a performance as real life: “I often felt I was about to be fired. When we shot some of the most famous sequences, I remember thinking I didn’t have a fucking clue what I was doing“. And the worst was still to come.

In particular, there was one scene that could be considered risky… that we didn’t even see: “It was the one where Katharine Ross had to slap me, and he made us repeat it 27 times. Mike kept telling Katharine over and over to hit me, to do it harder. She was afraid of hurting me and I’d tell her, ‘I’m fine, just don’t hit my ear’. Sadly, she did a couple of times. I was dizzy by the end of the day, and Mike didn’t even use the slap in the film”. Who said actors didn’t earn their pay?

On September 22, 2005, Criminal Minds began, one of those series that has kept police procedural fans hooked for 19 seasons, plus two spin-offs, a Korean adaptation, and several video games. I mean, it seems like the typical endless series… if it weren’t for the fact that Paramount has just killed it off.

Canceled Minds

Criminal Minds really ended in 2020, but two years later it was brought back for a continuation titled Criminal Minds: Evolution, which has lasted 5 seasons of 10 episodes each. We found out in the strangest way possible: AJ Cook, its star, dressed up for Halloween as a tombstone with the name Jennifer Jareau, her character for the last 21 years. Oof.

Paramount+ Download

That said, all the actors have said the same thing: there are more stories to tell, and Criminal Minds has only ended “for now”. “If we can tell these stories somewhere else, it would be incredible”, Kirsten Vangsness has said. For now, the only thing we know for sure is that the series’ second ending will air in 2027, and there are no spin-offs or sequels on the table. For now.

The odd thing is that Criminal Minds isn’t a failure: its latest episode has spent months in Paramount+‘s top 10… But of course, after Warner’s acquisition they have to save money somewhere, and they’ve decided to do it with one of their most iconic franchises. With any luck, they won’t have any problem finding another home. After more than 350 episodes, Criminal Minds, like grandparents, should live forever.

Times change and traditions, without a doubt, do too. If just a few years ago the normal thing for Halloween night was to go to a themed party or do a proper movie marathon, these days there are quite a few who prefer to stay home, play video games non-stop, and be scared until the sun comes up and can calm their nerves. And no, we’re not talking about Resident Evil or Silent Hill (although the remake of 2 could easily make this list), but about 6 games that, genuinely, are going to make you not want to (or not be able to) sleep on Halloween night itself…

Project Zero (Fatal Frame)

Project Zero (Fatal Frame) Download

There are quite a few people who’d recommend starting with the second part of this horror masterpiece, a game that in 2001 reinvented survival horror: its creators wanted to make the scariest video game in history, and in all honesty they came close to pulling it off. And you thought you were already too old to be scared of ghosts… Clearly you’ve never had to face the Japanese ones!

Forbidden Siren

Although being trapped in an old Japanese village for three days right now sounds like a first-rate tourist experience, in 2003 it terrified everyone who dared to go near Forbidden Siren, a PS2 game in which 10 characters must survive the living dead that constantly hound them. It has a sequel and a kind of reboot, so if you love being scared, you’re in luck.

Mouthwashing

Mouthwashing Download

Your spaceship has just had an accident in the middle of space, and supplies are starting to run short while doubt grows among the rest of the crew: What if the captain crashed it on purpose? How long until the decompression that kills us all for good? If you don’t like “walking simulators” you might hate Mouthwashing, but for everyone else it should be an experience that’s hard to forget.

Visage

Visage Download

You might think there’s no video game, at this point, that can terrify you. That’s probably because you don’t know Visage, in which you’ll discover the stories of the people who lived in a house before you, in the most terrifying way possible. Yes, it was inspired by the famous P.T., and it’s very hard to finish it in one sitting without having to stop to catch your breath.

Alien Isolation

Alien Isolation Download

If, like me, you’re one of those people who’d already had enough Alien after the fourth installment and everything else, from Prometheus to Alien: Romulus, leaves you wanting, it’s time to switch media, because Alien Isolation is pure terror with an old-school feel. That said, I recommend playing it with the best sound setup you can, because you’ll feel (literally) like the xenomorphs are right on top of you, off to one side, ready to attack at any moment if you so much as don’t have enough weapons to stand up to them. An absolute marvel.

Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: The Bunker Download

It’s been 16 years since the release of Amnesia, and since then it has spawned a series in which everyone points to The Bunker as the most suffocating game, where we’ll play as a French soldier trapped in a bunker with no way out. Naturally, he’ll be pursued by monsters, and he’ll have very little to fight them with. What’s more, it’s set in a semi-open world, so getting out of there will be much more complicated, twisted and terrifying than it seems. If you come out of this Halloween without feeling even the slightest bit of fear, it won’t be because of Amnesia.

“As any actor my age will tell you, there are fewer and fewer roles available as you get older. But I can’t imagine officially retiring. I will always and forever be an actor”, Patrick Stewart said just four months ago. Today we woke up to the terribly sad news of his death, and the film world is inconsolable, with the loss not only of a great actor, but of a fascinating person.

Disney+ Download

Farewell, professor

His passing has come just two months before what will now surely be his final film, Avengers: Doomsday, in which he will play Charles Xavier for the ninth time, after landing the role in 2000 for the first X-Men. This was his final farewell to the role, and it comes three years after saying goodbye to Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek. At least he was able to bring closure to the great characters of his career.

Hugh Jackman, who has played Wolverine alongside him on numerous occasions, has already said that “We’ve lost one of the greats of stage and screen today. And he was a tremendous friend and human being. I’ve learned so much from him. I’ll miss you, Patrick Stewart, every day of my life”. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Meanwhile, Marvel Studios paid tribute to him, saying “He embodied the poise, class, and wisdom of the beloved telepathic mutant and mentor of the X-Men. For more than 25 years, he brought depth to the character”. He will be missed so, so very much…

My God, Taika Waititi. After Thor: Love and Thunder was a resounding (and noisy) failure with critics and audiences, the director once called on to save Marvel and Star Wars has sunk hard. So much so that, after his last two films, it’s likely no one is ever going to give him a moderately high budget again until he proves he can deliver a hit. In particular, his latest film, Klara and the Sun, has been such a huge failure that they’ve decided to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Disney+ Download

Klara and the Flop

The film not only has just a 25% critics’ approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes right now, but, on top of that, it has grossed only $972,531 in the United States… against a budget of around $20 million. The flop has been so severe that much of its international release has been canceled to keep the blow from being even worse.

Although it did make it to theaters in Italy, Australia, and New Zealand (with no sign of success), Disney has canceled its release in Spain and, possibly, in other parts of Europe, where it wouldn’t be surprising if it showed up directly on streaming and under the radar. It’s certainly not a good sign for someone who, supposedly, already had a Star Wars film lined up.

It’s worth pointing out that it’s not as if he made the film as some shot in the dark with amateur actors: Jenna Ortega stars in it, and alongside her are Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, and Natasha Lyonne. The only thing these four stars have in common is being directed by someone who, right now, is a liability at the box office. Whether he’ll one day return to his roots and be able to prove he’s worth it, I’m afraid, remains to be seen.

You don’t even need to have a child: a nephew, a grandchild, a friend’s child or, in general, anyone between 3 and 7 years old is enough: PAW Patrol is a constant presence in their lives, just as Peppa Pig or Pocoyo were before. Obviously, few children will keep watching these adventures at 12 years old, but as long as new generations keep coming along, we’ll keep having Ryder and company up to their antics both on television and (gulp) in movie theaters.

Paramount+ Download

Chase knows more from being a dog than from being Chase

311 episodes spread across 14 seasons. That’s the absolute madness you’ll be up against if you decide to watch PAW Patrol from the beginning with your child, in addition to the 88 from its spin-off. And, of course, 3 movies, coming out every 2-3 years. The box office tops $150 million and they cost around $40 million to make, so there’s PAW Patrol for a while yet.

So, unsurprisingly, Paramount has already announced a fourth installment for 2027, which makes perfect sense considering that they make $18 billion a year from merchandise. Read the number again. Yes. Cal Brunker, who has directed the previous three installments, will direct this one too, which we know little about so far: so far the dogs have become superheroes and seen dinosaurs, so the gimmick can be anything.

The director of the franchise has said he hopes PAW Patrol will expand through “movies, series, specials, short-form video and interactive games to bring joy to the next generation, wherever they are. There are endless storytelling possibilities, this is only the beginning”. Parents, we’re in this together. Hang in there.

It’s an experience shared by almost all of us, right? You finally meet a celebrity, someone who’s spent years inspiring you to be a better person, who’s taught you a large part of what you know… And their reaction is disappointing: fed up after a hard day at work, they ignore you and go about their business. Well, that’s exactly what happened to Noah Wyle, the star and heart of The Pitt, and it changed his life forever.

Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies Download

Wyle you were doing that…

The story goes back to long before ER, when Wyle was just 9 years old and ran into Murphy by chance: “I met Eddie when I was a kid. I asked him for his autograph and I told him ‘I love you on Saturday Night Live.’ He told me ‘What are you doing up this late?’”. It’s not the reaction you’d expect, but then it gets worse. Much worse.

Little Wyle, as he tells it, asked him for his autograph, to which the comic simply replied “Go fuck yourself, man”. As kind as you’d expect with a young fan, as you can see. Luckily, it served as a life lesson: “I always sign an autograph. If a 9-year-old kid needs me to sign one, I do it as fast as I can”.

The good thing is that he can see the humor in it: “I told this story at home and last year, for my birthday, my daughter didn’t know what to get me. My 10-year-old daughter printed out a photo of Eddie Murphy and wrote ‘Dear Noah, you’re a good boy, Eddie Murphy’. And I have it framed in my office”. And that’s how you know you’re raising incredible people.

After the tremendous failure of Supergirl and Warner’s merger with Paramount, forming that absurd and pantagruelian giant that is Skydance, quite a few of us wondered what the hell was going to happen with the DC Universe from here on out. And the answer is… apparently, nothing. Lanterns was a success (a relative one, at least, but a success all the same) and Clayface, which had all the makings of a resounding flop, is holding up in theaters well enough to finance, at least, one more year of James Gunn’s universe. There is only one question: has Clayface succeeded because it’s DC… or because it’s a horror movie?

DClayface

I admit I was one of those who thought that a standalone movie about a random Batman villain and that was, on top of that, a horror movie for an audience normally thirsty for action, was basically commercial suicide. However, Clayface has gotten good reviews and it has done well at the box office: it has taken in $61.8 million and, for now, it’s only spent three days outside the No. 1 spot in the U.S., and could reclaim the top spot for another weekend.

Considering that it cost around 44 million dollars and that it still has a long run ahead of it, not only does it have every chance of surpassing Supergirl’s 126.5 million, but of turning a profit and proving that, indeed, DC movies have a lot to offer… So long as they hide the fact that they’re about superheroes and supervillains. Because, let’s be honest: how many people who went to see this movie near Halloween, drawn in by the body horror and disfigured faces, know that this character has already appeared in Creature Commandos and is a regular rival of the Caped Crusader?

I suppose they have to grasp at straws, but a large part of the general audience will have been surprised to see that this character lives in Gotham, or even that the DC logo appeared before the credits, since we’re used to only the biggest characters taking over their own movies. On top of that, this isn’t a superhero movie, but the proof that the concept “superheroes” is very broad and that many genres can fit within it, as if it were a container for all kinds of projects.

The problem is the same: Skydance is interested in creating brands and strengthening the ones it already has. That the audience has its Batman, its Wonder Woman, its Superman and its Green Lantern, and that if anyone new dares to enter this sacred quartet, at least everyone can instantly recognize that they share a universe with them. I’d really be interested in polling the audience as it leaves the theater asking them who they’d want to see Clayface doing a crossover with, especially considering that there are no references whatsoever throughout the film, and only the most informed know where he comes from.

It’s worth stressing that Clayface first appeared in Detective Comics in 1940, but he didn’t have any kind of power: he was simply a man in makeup and a mask ready to take revenge on those who wanted to do a remake of his movies (almost 90 years ago, and it’s still completely relevant). It took another two decades, until 1961, before we saw the current Clayface… And he’s nowhere near as iconic as Joker or Lex Luthor: he’s a second-tier villain, but, after all, weren’t the Guardians of the Galaxy second-tier heroes?

James Gunn is, deep down, using the same formula he used at Marvel: trying to popularize forgotten heroes (and villains, in this case), giving them a twist and upending everything the audience thought it knew about superhero movies. The gamble, to the surprise of all of us who thought this would be the end of his universe, has worked out for him so far. The question is… Does the audience realize it?

By this point, few things can truly scare me in a movie theater. And yet, Smile left me absolutely shaken thanks to its expertly crafted scares, imagery that’s simply perfect (the smile as a symbol of evil) and a plot that is, at the very least, original. I have to admit Smile 2 felt like more of the same to me, but seeing that it made $138 million on a budget of just $28 million… would you really resist making a third installment?

Paramount+ Download

Movies that leave you with a smile

However, Smile 3 will not have its creator, Parker Finn, in the director’s chair, as at 39 he is shooting the remake of Possession with an eye on its 2027 release. But, given that it’s not as if the franchise has much mystery left to it or is impossible to replicate, they’ll have no trouble replacing him with David Bruckner, known for the Hellraiser remake or The Ritual. Reliable, still fairly young, and an expert in horror: nothing can go wrong.

Although Finn left notes on what the premise for this third installment should be, the truth is that the script still hasn’t been written. It will be Nick Antosca, showrunner of Cape Fear or Channel Zero, who will be handling it. And things couldn’t look better: Antosca and Bruckner may not be as famous as some of their contemporaries, but they know how to keep things fresh enough to leave us asking for more.

We still don’t know what this new installment will be about, but since so far the first two have been standalone stories it’ll probably just be another story set in this universe. We’ll know before long: if they’ve just brought its creators on board, it’s likely that, at the earliest, we’ll have Smile 3 (Smil3? I’ll just leave that idea out there) in 2028. We’ll be waiting.