Do you remember your first big screen lips? Getting pelted with toast? Learning “The Time Warp”? Then you’re the target demo for “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” a documentary currently making the film festival rounds. From filmmaker Linus O’Brien, son of
“Rocky Horror” creator Richard O’Brien, the doc wraps its arms around the weird history of the stage musical that became the movie musical that flopped that became the most enduring cult film in history. (It’s still in theaters 50 years later.) Participants include everyone you’re hoping for: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Nell Campbell and Patricia Quinn, and a few surprises like superfans Jack Black and Trixie Mattel. It hits UK movie theaters this fall, and North America eventually. Dressing up for a screening is optional but you know you want to.
A very not-exactly-merry Pedro Almodóvar Christmas
Does “Amarga Navidad,” aka “Bitter Christmas,” sound like your kind of arthouse offering for the holidays? Good, because that’s what you’re getting next from the legendary gay Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. It’s the follow-up to his English-language debut feature “The Room Next Door,” and he’s returning to Spain — specifically the Canary Islands, where it’s currently shooting — for the story of a woman who separates from her partner, and whose mother dies, during one unhappy December. Bárbara Lennie from Almodóvar’s “The Skin I Live In” stars alongside regulars from the director’s earlier films: Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Milena Smit (“Parallel Mothers”), and Victoria Luengo (“The Room Next Door”). The current release date is sometime – probably fall – of 2026, which gives you plenty of time to get in the mood by listening to Joni Mitchell’s “River” over and over.
‘Dog Day Afternoon’ looks for bank on Broadway
In the early 1970s in New York, a strange bank robbery took place, one where everything went wrong and all of it wound up on television. That moment became “Dog Day Afternoon,” the Oscar-winning 1975 Sidney Lumet crime thriller starring Al Pacino and the late John Cazale. Now the story — which was in part inspired by one of the robbers’ need to fund surgery for his trans girlfriend — is coming to Broadway in a new play from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis (“Between Riverside and Crazy”) and two-time Olivier Award winner Rupert Goold (“King Charles III”). Jon Bernthal (“The Punisher”) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (“The Bear”) will make their Broadway debuts in the production set to open spring of 2026. Do your homework first: watch the movie. Yes, that means spoilers, but it’s fantastic.
The telekinetic television series called ‘Carrie’
Filmmaker Mike Flanagan is deep in the Stephen King business these days. His new feature “The Life of Chuck” – based on an unusually heartwarming Stephen King story — has opened to positive reviews and good word of mouth, and his next project is going back to classic King material: “Carrie.” Prime Video is picking up Flanagans’ limited series television adaptation of King’s original novel, about an abused teenage girl with a psychotically religious mother, a rotten high school prom experience, and a special power that allows her to move objects with her mind. If you saw the enormously successful 1976 film with Sissy Spacek, then you know what happens next and it ain’t pretty. The eight-episode series features “Curse of Chucky” actress Summer Howell as Carrie and Samantha Sloyan (“The Fall of the House of Usher”) as the mad mother. It also co-stars Matthew Lillard, Amber Midthunder (“Legion”) and trans actor Josie Totah (“The Buccaneers”). We’re excited for this one, and as long as we’re daydreaming about it, we’d like to see Betty Buckley or maybe Amy Irving pop up in a cameo. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
Romeo San Vicente is gonna laugh at you.
