Hello readers! We’ve made it to another week. 

Did you know that the dog days of summer have a formal start and end date? I long thought that the term was simply a poetic description of the period of the season when things feel their shaggiest, when we are all panting like household pets, hiding under chairs for shade, ready for fall. But no, it actually has to do with astronomy. “Dog days” refers to the celestial position of the star Sirius, the dog star (not Keanu Reeves’s band, nor the upcoming Ridley Scott film), and by the most standard definition, that ends tomorrow, August 11. Sirius is leaving the seventh house and the dog days are over. (Hit it, Florence.) So, we made it! 

Though, I’ve no idea what period we now pass into. Supposedly the hottest bit of the season is done, and now we will enjoy something of a cool-off as the days get shorter (say goodbye to post-8PM sunsets after today, New Yorkers) and all the kids get that look of hardening desperation in their eyes. Depending on where they live, they’ve only got a few more weeks to hit the home run or get their revenge on Bunk 3 or have their first kiss in a tire swing or whatever goal the children of this nation have set for themselves before yet another horrid school year begins. 

There are, at least, a few more things to look forward to this month, entertainment-wise. The End of Oak Street opens this week, and I’ll have a write-up of that for you on Friday. That’s the movie about that time Anne Hathaway experienced a whole Land of the Lost situation. Remember that? When Anne Hathaway was doing junket interviews for Ocean’s 8 and people asked what she’d been up to since The Intern and she replied that she actually had been transported back to dinosaur times for a while and had to fight for her life? Weird story. But yeah, they made a movie about it and it’s finally coming out and I would like to say I am cautiously optimistic, but the final trailer has a wonky look about it.

See what I mean? Though, there are reports (meaning, a friend told me) that early Letterboxd reviews are positive, which could mean good things. Either way, The End of Oak Street is necessary viewing, as it is leg four of the five-leg Great Anne Hathaway Marathon of 2026. Yes, it’s her fourth of five movies to come out this year! All that’s left after this one (which follows Mother Mary, Devil Wears Prada 2, and The Odyssey) is Verity, the new sex movie adapted from a Colleen Hoover book. (I guess it’s more of a domestic thriller, but Josh Hartnett is shirtless in the trailer so it does also count as a sex movie.) It’s been quite a year for the pride of the Paper Mill Playhouse, so let’s encourage her along as she approaches the final few miles. 

Let’s also take a look at some slightly more pressing matters. 

The weekend box office tallies are in, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the 12th-highest-grossing movie of all time. It will surely climb higher on that list in the coming days, sailing past Jurassic World and Inside Out 2. It’s got a slightly steeper climb to surpass its predecessor, No Way Home, but it’s certainly within striking distance. 

The question is, what happens when Marisa Tomei is officially in two of the ten most successful movies of all time? Is there a parade? Do we finally accept that she won that Oscar fair and square and that Jack Palance didn’t read the wrong name? Do we all go back and watch Only You and In the Bedroom and whatever else and, decades too late, declare her one of the best actors of her generation? I don’t know! But some honor must be paid. Which I guess also means that because Ginnifer Goodwin is the star of the current 9th-highest-grossing movie of all time, Zootopia 2, we’ll have to put episodes of Once Upon a Time in the Smithsonian. Or, He’s Just Not That Into You will be entered into the Library of Congress. These are simply the rules of history. 

Spider-Man aside, I want to talk about the box office performance of One Night Only, the new romantic comedy that opened on Friday and only grossed a sad little $5.7 million in North America. Some might point to that number and argue that it is quite similar to the opening haul for director Will Gluck’s last film, Anyone but You, which steadily grew into a big ol’ hit. But I just don’t see the same sleeper success happening here. There’s no Christmas holiday to buoy the One Night Only, like AbY had, and the film’s stars—Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner-Lipa—are nowhere near as grabby as Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweeney were when their film was released. 

Which is all to say, what the hell is wrong with people? All anyone’s done for the last ten years is bemoan the death of the romcom, gnashing their teeth and tearing at their garments as they writhe on the sidewalk outside Mann’s Chinese Theater. But then when a glossy-ish romcom actually does get a wide release by a major studio, they don’t show up to see it? I guess everyone’s happy with whatever junk the streamers slap a pop song onto and call a romantic comedy. 

I mean, sure, the trailer for One Night Only was widely mocked. And, okay, most people have no idea who its stars are. And, yeah, the reviews were pretty scathing (though NOT ALL OF THEM). But other than that, there is really no explanation for this movie’s likely failure other than a deep hypocrisy and inconsistency among the American electorate. 

Or, I guess, the romcom really has become fully enshrined as a streaming genre, with only the rarest of exceptions. The format does do quite well in home viewing, after all. Theatrically speaking, you’d basically need Tom Holland and Timothée Chalamet playing gay soccer players to have a hit. (Luca, I’m just kidding, don’t make that.) This spring’s The Drama (with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson) might suggest that an emerging mega movie star and an edgier premise (and a good marketing campaign) is what’s needed to get people to the theaters. But one can’t really call The Drama a romantic comedy in good faith, right? It’s a dark comedy that’s sort of about romance, which is not the same thing. 

Whatever the actual facts may be, studios will likely look at the performance of One Night Only, and of last fall’s Eternity, and reason that 1) Callum Turner maybe does not have “It” and 2) a high concept is not nearly enough to attract audiences. Nor, I guess, is a lower concept, if the receipts for this spring’s You, Me & Tuscany tell us anything. 

Hollywood has just not produced a new class of movie stars that can sell this particular genre on a theatrical level—Powell and Sweeney had it for one brief, glorious flash, but Powell’s profile near-immediately dimmed afterward. Which is a shame, because there are plenty of talented actors who are great at this stuff, or could be great at this stuff, but talent is by no means the main currency of the day. I hope people keep trying to make the wide-release romcom successful again, but now that Gluck has quickly burned through his AbY clout, I don’t know how the next hopeful will even get the opportunity to attempt it. 

Anyone watch the House of the Dragon season three finale on Sunday night? I did! I somehow have kept up with that show, even though I hardly have any idea who anyone is or whose side they’re fighting on. This season was a lot of anonymous bearded (or un-bearded) men talking about making this strategic movie, or that bold offensive, while the people in the castles fretted about their place in the royal ecosystem. It was quite repetitive, and the season had an oddly lopsided shape. Rather than steadily building, it opened with a major death and then sorta meandered after that. Sure, the finale had its requisite massive battle, during which some decisive things happened, but nothing in the episode felt sufficiently show-altering or plot-advancing. 

I know some people out there liked this season more than the past two, and indeed individual episodes were gripping (and always well-acted). But when I realized that last night’s episode was the finale, I was confused. Didn’t the season just start? It felt like we’d barely gotten anywhere; I kind of just assumed we were still in the preamble part of the season. Which is a troubling sign that I’ve lost the ability to count—how long did I think this season was going to be, exactly? But it’s also yet another indicator, to me, that House of the Dragon has always been stretching a little bit of story into a lot more time than it merits. 

The first two seasons were all about the lead up to war. War is coming, war is coming, etc. This season, the war actually was underway, but there were long stretches when everyone caught in that conflict seemed to be idling, merely biding their time until it was time to actually do something. Maybe that is reflective of how warfare actually worked back in the days of Game of Thrones (the original series takes place roughly from 1780-1815; Martin’s saga ends with Jon Snow moving into Napoleon’s house on Saint Helena, in an obvious setup for an Odd Couple-type spinoff that Martin has yet to write). But it makes for pretty static viewing, characters talking endlessly about what’s about to happen, edging us on that supposed inevitability for episode after episode. 

That said, I will keep watching the show, mostly because the next season is confirmed to be the last and I want to see how things wrap up. Now that season three has come and gone with a whimper, though, it’s plain to see why this series has not captured the zeitgeist the way its predecessor did. The characters, save for a few, are weaker, and the narrative is somehow even more prolonged and scattershot than GoT’s massive (and eventually unsustainable) sprawl. 

Emma D’Arcy is terrific as increasingly messianic would-be queen Rhaenyra; her half-crazed (but also half-true) speech to the commonfolk at the close of this episode was really something. Olivia Cooke had many effective moments this season as the conflicted, grieving mother of Rhaenyra’s rivals. Tom Glynn-Carney, as now badly burned king Aegon, enjoyed an amusingly bile-spewing scene in the finale. There is a lot of good here, and yet those strong elements have rarely coalesced into a truly propulsive whole. And now we have to wait two-ish more years for more. By then I will have once again forgotten who everyone is beyond the handful of easily identifiable leads. I’m sure some interesting things will happen in those last episodes, and a bloody, fiery conclusion will be reached. But how exciting will it really be? House of the Dragon, despite its opulence, has always felt like a minor event. It’s not really HBO. It’s kinda just TV. 

The first full trailer for Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime dropped a few days ago, giving us our best glimpse yet of Robert Pattinson—who became globally famous as the romantic lead of 2011’s Water for Elephants—as To Catch a Predator host and all-around weird guy Chris Hansen. 

Pattinson has diligently developed his acting portfolio in the years since he first tangled with Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz at the circus, often disappearing into heavy character roles. He played a haughty French dauphin in The King, a Brooklyn-inflected clone in Mickey 17, a croaky voiced heron in The Boy and the Heron, and of course emo Batman (among others). And now he’s doing an impression of the host of an infamous show that made a spectacle out of child sex abuse.

It’s gnarly subject matter which Oppenheim, an artsy documentarian making his narrative feature debut, will likely not tackle in the most straightforward way. In that way, the film could be something of a tough sell for more traditionalist Academy members. But I’d have to imagine that many people in that august and infallible body will be interested in seeing Pattinson make his first real run at their attention. Which I doubt was the actor’s intention when making the film, but that is how it is being framed nonetheless; Primetime’s spot on the Venice lineup places it firmly in that conversation. 

From my vantage point, Primetime seems like it could be this year’s The Apprentice: a gloomy behind-the-scenes story about a real figure from recent history (or current reality), featuring a transformative lead performance from a franchise-film actor who’s been making consistently interesting choices when not stuck in front of a green-screen. Best actor is a crowded field, but a general wave of Pattinson good will—he had two big movies of differing genres this year, after all—could easily position him above some of his competitors. I, for one, am heartily rooting for it, cheering Pattinson on just like the audiences did at the circus when they’d pour water on the elephants or whatever it is that happened in that widely beloved and remembered film.