Happy Friday, [insert name here]!

There’s still time to send me suggestions for what I should call Premiere Party readers. Make your voice heard! [email protected]. Oh, also, you should send mailbag questions to that same address. I want to know your burning questions about fall movies, TV, and whatever else. I need content, so please help me. 

How are you? I hope you’ve had a productive but also relaxing week. Me, I saw a couple of movies about tech, of the Facebook and OpenAI varieties. I also talked about the motion picture Digger, starring Tom Cruise, on my podcast. And I guested on the wonderful TV podcast Extra Hot Great alongside my old pal Katey Rich, of The Ankler. We chatted about the fun new television series War, and played a game that I was embarrassingly bad at. Then on Thursday night, I reviewed the new horror picture Other Mommy for The Hollywood Reporter. 

I put all those links up there because a kind listener reached out last week to say that I should be less shameful about promoting my work outside of this newsletter, and I took their generous suggestion to heart. I know each and every one of you is deeply, parasocially obsessed with me, and so it has been cruel of me to deny you the full breadth of my presence in the world. I promise that from here on out, if I do some freelance writing or appear on a podcast or trip while walking up the subway stairs and embarrass myself, you will hear about it here. That is my solemn oath. 

But back to Other Mommy. I had really hoped to like that one, because its trailer was so good! Remember its trailer, with the crazy jump scare of Jessica Chastain all tangled up under the kitchen counter?

Fun stuff. But the movie itself is not so great, a Babadookian childhood-anxiety-as-monster story that doesn’t do enough with its conceit. Chastain is good, though, and I hope the movie makes a little money so she can keep that career chugging along. 

Can you believe her neo-Nazi show The Savant is finally coming out next year, after it was pulled from Apple’s slate in 2025 for mysterious reasons? I heard a rumor that then-head of Apple Tim Cook was never going to allow the show to be released because it would alienate Trump and his cabal, which, y’know, is awfully telling considering what the show is about. Who knows if that rumor was true, but I guess it doesn’t matter now that there’s a new guy leading things in Cupertino. So, we have that to look forward to, maybe. 

Anyway, yeah, Other Mommy is a letdown. But if you want to see it to get into the Spooky Season mood, have at it. There are effective moments, and it’s important to, at least every few years, watch Woman Walks Ahead star Jessica Chastain fall into a children’s ball pit. Chastain ball pit levels have been dangerously low recently, so Other Mommy is a vital and hearty infusion. 

But, if you just can’t justify spending the money and time to schlep out to the theater, having to place yet another call to your kids’ own Other Mommy to see if she can watch them for a few hours, that’s okay too. I have a couple other suggestions for things you can take in this weekend, though please note that I have not yet seen Musk or Misty Green (two of the bigger new releases), and I apologize for that. I’m only one person; I can only consume so much content before it starts cutting into my unending rewatch of Law & Order from the beginning.