Movie and TV Reviews - July 2026

Short reviews of movies and TV shows I watched in July. 

Movies

• Remarkably Bright Creatures: A quirky romantic drama featuring Sally Field and octopuses. We liked it a lot. (Netflix)
• Enola Holmes (1 - 3): A wildly implausible but entertaining series of movies featuring a teenage sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Light but well made. (Netflix)
• Afterburn: Half the Earth gets hit by a super solar flare and the bad guys take control. B+ for the production values; B- for everything else. (Amazon Prime)

TV Shows

• Beyond Paradise (season 4): The Death in Paradise spinoff continues. Light but likeable. I like it that not all the plots involve murders. (BritBox)
• Criminal Record (season 2): A gritty British Police procedural. More intense than the first season but not quite as good, though Peter Capaldi is great, as usual. (Apple TV)
• One Piece (seasons 1 & 2): A live action remake of a long-running anime series. Not very deep but fun to watch. (Netflix)
• Widow's Bay: This series starts out as a comedy following the mayor of a small town in Maine trying to get more tourist visits and shifts into a horror mode. I thought the comedy element was more successful.  (Apple TV)
• Blue Lights (season 3): A police procedural set in Belfast. Gripping and intense. One of the best examples of the genre. (BritBox)
• Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed: A comedic drama featuring the wonderful Tatiana Maslany (star of Orphan Black) "as a divorced fact checker who falls into a web of murder, blackmail, and youth soccer." Fast moving, funny, and worth watching just for Maslany's performance. (Apple TV)

Off for the Long Weekend

It's another long weekend up here in the Great Green North; this one is known as Simcoe Day in Ontario. July wasn't as hot as last year but the episodes of wildfire smoke were worse, so enjoying the outside was difficult. This weekend looks more pleasant, at least when it won't be raining, so I'm taking the weekend off to enjoy it and give my yard some TLC. I'll be back here on Tuesday. 

In the meantime, here's a picture of a couple of sailboats on Frenchman's Bay. I wish I was out there with them. 

Boats on the bay

The US Versus Canada 16

It's time for another compilation of articles about the continuing frosty relationship between Canada and the US. At least the Gordie Howe bridge is finally open and the wildfire smoke has abated somehat, here at least. 

Trump’s New Tariffs Are Designed to Tear Canada Apart. "Washington can now reward some provinces and punish others. The political danger may be considerable."

Lessons We've Learned from Gordie Howe - Elbows Up and Beyond. "his new Canadian built and paid for Gordie Howe Bridge celebrates a Canadian icon who played all his hockey for American teams but was always one of ours."

As Wildfires Ravage Canada, A Trump Puppet From Michigan Is Now Threatening Canada To "Stop The Smoke" Or Else. LOL. "Toronto has the worst air on Earth this week. The north is burning, people are fleeing their homes by boat, and a Congressman from Michigan thinks the problem is that Canada won’t rake its forest."

Mark Carney won’t let Donald Trump see him sweat, but it comes at a cost (gift link). "Watch Mark Carney, not long ago thought to be a political novice, work a press scrum. We’re now used to the half-beat pause before the prime minister answers, the banker’s habit of restating the question in duller language, draining it of drama, and the refusal, almost physical, to take the bait. That composure can come across as a personality quirk but it’s more likely a construction. This week, a remarkable two-part Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation shows us what it was built to withstand."

Canada is taking an outsized role in the construction of the post-American world. "Mr. Carney is a continentalist, too – he just has a different continent in mind. But his ardent pursuit of the European connection is in the same counter-balancing mould, not only of Liberal leaders past, but of statesmen through the ages: calling the Old World back into our existence, to redress the balance of the New."

Trump's Threat to Canada is Deadly Serious. "A new report in the Daily Beast has revealed just how far the White House is willing to go to upend international law and to attack allies."

Midwestern Republicans blame Canada, level threats for drifting wildfire smoke. "'FINAL WARNING TO CANADA: Manage your forests to prevent these fires. American lungs are paying the price for Canadian inaction, year after year,' wrote a Michigan congressman running for governor."

Why this Toronto man is being flooded with requests from Americans about their Canadian ancestors (gift link). "The Canadian Citizenship Act has opened doors to foreign nationals who want to reclaim citizenship by descent. Archivists are suddenly in demand."

The Future File 3 - Will Putin's Russia Collapse?

Here's another predictive post from Dean Blundell, who does like predictions. This is from Russia Is Out Of Gas. Literally. And Trump Just Switched Teams Mid-Russian Collapse As Ukraine Overwhelms Russia EVERYWHERE posted on July 24. 

Why This Might Actually Be The Beginning Of The End In Moscow

Here’s the historical part, and I want to be careful: nobody can predict the end of a regime, and Putin has survived plenty. But Russian regimes don’t fall to elections. They fall to lost wars. The Russo-Japanese War gave you the 1905 revolution. World War I ended the Romanovs. Afghanistan helped bury the Soviet Union. The pattern is losing a war while the economy collapses and the elites lose faith — and check the scoreboard: growth stagnant at 1 percent, the deficit doubled, Putin reportedly passing the hat to oligarchs for “donations,” fuel rationing for 50 million people, an army losing more men than it can recruit, and Sberbank’s own CEO, German Gref, telling shareholders in June that nobody in Russia cares about anything except ending the war as fast as possible.

That’s the head of Russia’s biggest bank saying the quiet part into a microphone. When the money men start talking like that in public, it’s because they’ve already said worse in private.

It's a bit loose as a prediction, but I think the intent is clear. Let's check on this one on October 31. 

 

Photo of the Week - July 26, 2026

This week's photo is of our younger cat, CJ, who found the perfect spot to rest. Cats and boxes is a real thing. 

CJ in a box

Saturday Sounds - The Rolling Stones - Foreign Tongues

This week's musical treat is a new album from none other than The Rolling Stones: Foreign Tongues. It's a good one, as the last couple of their albums have been. It's not Exile on Main Street but it's a pretty decent effort for a group of 80-year-olds. Play it loud. 

 

The Future File 2

This is part of a series of posts to feature articles that make verifiable predictions. My intent is to review them at a later date to see how accurate they were. 

Today's post references an article by Dean Blundell published on July 21: Trump Just Declared Economic War on Canada. Again, and Mark Carney Just Eviscerated Him For It. "He did it on a Monday. Of course he did it on a Monday. Set your TACO timer for 30 days."

At the end of the article, he says:

Here’s the punchline, and you already know it: these tariffs don’t take effect for 30 days.

Thirty days. The standard Trump escalation window. The exact runway he always builds himself so he can strut, threaten, watch the markets gag, watch American consumers scream about prices, watch the lawsuits pile up — Section 338 is going to get shredded in court, just like the Supreme Court already shredded his emergency tariffs in February — and then “graciously” announce a pause, a deal, a framework, a beautiful letter from Mark. Trump Always Chickens Out. He did it after “Liberation Day” cratered the markets. He does it every single time the bill comes due.

Review on August 21.