Wicker (2026)

I loved this romantic fantasy, set in medieval times, starring Olivia Colman as the Fisherwoman who gets the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) to weave her a husband (Alexander Skarsgård in mountains of makeup and a practical costume), setting the village gossips abuzz when he acts like a human. Elizabeth Debicki plays the main "mean girl" in the village. To underscore the anti-feminism of the story, her character is alternatively called the Tailor's Wife and the Doctor's Daughter, and the Fisherwoman is the only woman in the village whose name isn't based on her relationship to a man. The early wedding necklace scene takes this to an extreme and I did laugh out loud. Richard E. Grant plays the Doctor.

Co-directors/co-writers Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson based their screenplay on the 2016 short story The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills. Dinklage's monologues are terrific. Anna Meredith's trippy score is streaming on Apple Music as I write.

Colman was last blogged for Wicked Little Letters, Dinklage for Roofman, Debicki for Widows (before she won an Emmy for playing Princess Diana in season 5 of The Crown), Grant for Saltburn, and Meredith for Eighth Grade. This is the second feature for Fischer and Wilson, who are married to each other.

I watched it, with proper closed captions in my seat's cupholder, on October 24, and it apparently will be available to rent beginning on November 24.

Digger (2026)

This story of a despicable billionaire causing ecological harm has magnificent sets and locations but is hard for me to recommend. It goes off the rails after a compelling first act with Tom Cruise, in a fat suit and makeup, in the lead/title role, all the more despicable because he's intelligent and cunning. The enormous cast includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jesse Plemons.

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu co-wrote the script with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, with the story credited to Berman, Iñárritu, and Jez Butterworth. It sort of felt like Iñárritu wants to be Wes Anderson. The movie has been labeled a satire and, as such, there are occasional laughs, including at the animatronic cat.

Composer Cosmo Sheldrake's stream of consciousness score can be streamed on Apple Music and there are a handful of songs, including two by The Ink Spots and one by Melanie.

Kudos to the production design team of Dennis Gassner and Richard Johnson as well as cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki.

Cruise was last blogged for Top Gun: Maverick, Ahmed for Sound of Metal, Goodman for 10 Cloverfield Lane before 112 episodes of the Roseanne reboot The Conners, Hüller for Project Hail Mary, Stuhlbarg for Shirley, Plemons for Bugonia, Iñárritu and Giacobone for Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Dinelaris for Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Butterworth for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Gassner for Blade Runner 2049, and Lubezki for Amsterdam.

Berman, a playwright, has written six other feature screenplays, and this is Sheldrake's third feature (the other two are documentaries) after a number of music videos and shorts. Johnson has dozens of credits as art director and production designer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are not digging this--their average is 52%--while its audiences are a kinder 77. I thought it would be much lower after hearing that the studio pulled it early from theatres. Taking advantage of my inability to stream at home, I watched it in an IMAX theatre on October 14 but, frustratingly, the cupholder closed caption device did not work in IMAX. The streaming date hasn't yet been announced, but some opine that it will be available in mid-December.