If you were to watch this clip, with its neon-soaked visuals, cheap suits, Uzis, and moody synthesizer soundtrack, you might conclude that it’s just a parody of ’80s action sequences. But in fact, it’s a clip from an actual episode of Miami Vice titled “Lend Me an Ear,” which originally aired on February 27, 1987.

I wasn’t allowed to watch Miami Vice as a kid, which was probably a good thing. But these lurid, teal-and-fushia-drenched sights hit a real sweep spot in my nostalgia, like peering into an alternate universe where Ferrari-driving cops are the norm.

The second teaser for the latest entry in the vaunted Ghost in the Shell franchise dropped this week, and it makes one thing very clear. The series, which is being produced by Science Saru (Dandadan, Tatami Time Machine Blues) rather than Production I.G, is moving away from the aesthetic of Mamoru Oshii’s landmark films, and instead, opting for something that hews more closely to Masamune Shirow’s original manga. And it looks pretty cool.

No story details have been officially announced, but presumably The Ghost in the Shell will feature Major Motoko Kusanagi, Batou, Togusa, and the rest of Public Security Section 9 battling hackers and other cyber-threats to near-future Japan. Albeit in a more colorful, cartoonish fashion, apparently. (At the very least, it can’t be any worse than Netflix’s Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045.)

The Ghost in the Shell begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video in July 2026.

Jackie Chan is one of the world’s biggest stars. There was a time, however, when he was relatively unknown here in the States. That is, until a string of movies in the ’90s brought his unique and iconic blend of physical comedy, martial arts action, and death-defying stunts to American audiences. Arrow Video is celebrating this breakthrough with a 10-disc collection highlighting six of Chan’s breakout hits, all of which have been remastered in 4K.

• Disc 1: Drunken Master II (1994, Lau Kar-leung)
• Disc 2: Rumble in the Bronx - Hong Kong Cut (1995, Stanley Tong)
• Disc 3: Rumble in the Bronx - International Cut
• Disc 4: Thunderbolt (1995, Gordon Chan)
• Disc 5: Police Story 4: First Strike - Hong Kong Cut (1996, Stanley Tong)
• Disc 6: Police Story 4: First Strike - International Cut
• Disc 7: Mr. Nice Guy - Japanese & Hong Kong Cuts (1997, Sammo Hung)
• Disc 8: Mr. Nice Guy - International Cut
• Disc 9: Who Am I? - Hong Kong Cut (1998, Jackie Chan and Benny Chan)
• Disc 10: Who Am I? - International Cut

I was in college when several of these films were released, and I have very fond memories of seeing Rumble in the Bronx, First Strike, and Mr. Nice Guy in the theater with my friends. Eventually, a new Jackie Chan theatrical release became a must-see event for all of us. And stumbling across Who Am I? — which I’ve always felt is a bit underrated in Chan’s filmography — on late night cable TV still feels like a delightful moment of cinematic serendipity.

This collection isn’t exactly cheap — preorders are currently $190.00 — nor is it a complete catalog of Chan’s ’90s work. (For example, it’s missing 1991’s Armour of God II: Operation Condor and 1992’s Police Story 3: Supercop, both of which I also saw in theaters back in the ’90s.) Nevertheless, it’s absolutely packed with commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, outtakes, and other special features as well as a 160-page book about Chan’s career and a vintage Drunken Master II poster.

The Jackie Chan’s Breakout Hits! collection will be released on June 29, 2026.

Since 2021, GitHub — which is owned by Microsoft — has been steadily incorporating AI features, and specifically, their GitHub Copilot coding assistant, which can be used to generate code with simple user prompts. Like all AI tools, though, Copilot needs to be trained on something in order to be useful. Which is why GitHub has announced that on April 24, they will begin training Copilot on user data and activity:

From April 24 onward, interaction data — specifically inputs, outputs, code snippets, and associated context — from Copilot Free, Pro, and Pro+ users will be used to train and improve our AI models unless they opt out. Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise users are not affected by this update.

In the related FAQ, GitHub clarifies that Copilot will only be trained on developers’ Copilot interactions, and not their code “at rest.” In other words, if you only use GitHub to archive your code in private repositories, then it won’t be touched. Regardless, it’s easy to opt out of this and keep your work to yourself.

1. Log in to your GitHub account.
2. Go to the “GitHub Copilot” settings.
3. Scroll down to “Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training” and set it to “Disabled.”

When you select “Disabled,” GitHub displays a little warning that you’ll no longer have access to this particular feature. Now, I fail to see how having my work gobbled up by an AI model for the benefit of a multi-billion-dollar company is a “feature,” but maybe that’s just me.

I didn’t know you could get a concussion from watching a movie trailer, but I think that might’ve happened the first time I watched this trailer for Kenji Tanigaki’s upcoming The Furious. Tanigaki might not be the most well-known martial arts filmmaker — his main claim to fame is arguably his action direction and choreography in the Rurouni Kenshin movies — but he’s definitely pulling out all the stops for The Furious.

When a man’s daughter is kidnapped, he teams up with a journalist whose wife is also missing, and the two of them take on the criminal underworld with fists, feet, hammers, motorcycles, and even a ladder for good measure. It’s a straightforward enough premise, and it sets up what looks like a true knock down, drag out of a film à la 2011’s The Raid. In truth, several moments in the trailer just had me wincing in pain, like that sledgehammer to the head, and I can’t wait to see the carnage on the big screen.

The Furious — which stars Xie Miao (Eye for an Eye, The New Legend of Shaolin) and Joe Taslim (Mortal Kombat, The Raid), along with Yayan Ruhian (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, The Raid), Jeeja Yanin (Triple Threat, Chocolate), and Brian Le (Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Paper Tigers) — arrives in theaters on May 29, 2026.

First Bandcamp, and now Wikipedia… The Verge reports that last week, the online encyclopedia adopted a new policy concerning articles written with AI large language models (LLMs). Noting that AI-generated content can violate the site’s core content policies (e.g., “all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source”), Wikipedia now officially prohibits “the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content.”

There are two important exceptions, however. First, editors can use LLMs to suggest and incorporate “basic copyedits” into their own writing, but those edits must be reviewed by a human to ensure that “the LLM does not introduce content of its own.” And second, LLMs can be used to translate non-English Wikipedia articles into English, but those changes must adhere to Wikipedia’s LLM-assisted translation policies (e.g., the editor must be “skilled enough in both the origin language and English to confirm the translation is accurate”).

It really has been fascinating to watch the evolution of Wikipedia over the years. I can still remember a time not too long ago when Wikipedia was viewed with no small amount of skepticism. Sure, you might use it for something trivial, but you’d never cite it as a reliable source. But to the credit of Wikipedia’s army of editors, they’ve stayed the course and stuck to their (sometimes byzantine) principles. Even with its flaws, the site now often feels like one of the last remaining bastions of truth in a world that’s increasingly awash in AI slop and hallucinations.

Today is Tolkien Reading Day, which celebrates when the One Ring was finally destroyed and the dark lord Sauron was defeated. To mark the occasion, filmmaker Peter Jackson posted a short video update concerning the latest Lord of the Rings film, titled The Hunt for Gollum, which is being directed by Andy Serkis. (Serkis famously provided Gollum’s voice and performance in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies.)

Jackson then announced that yet another Lord of the Rings film is in the works, which was introduced by special guest — and Tolkien uber-fan — Stephen Colbert. Colbert, whose knowledge and love of Tolkien is very well-established, pointed out that Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring adaptation skipped over six of Tolkien’s original chapters. That omission, much like the Secret Fire, sparked some inspiration in Colbert:

[T]he thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day. It’s basically the chapter “Three is Company” through “Fog on the Barrow-downs.” And I thought, “Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?”

Working with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, Colbert used those missing chapters as a framing device for a new film, titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past. Here’s the current synopsis, according to Variety:

Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.

Am I skeptical about a new Lord of the Rings film? Yes. But do I trust Stephen Colbert’s faithful zeal for Tolkien? Yes. Also, the fourteen-year gap after the events of The Return of the King does leave the door open for Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd to reprise their roles of Sam, Merry and Pippin in a way that maintains continuity with Jackson’s trilogy. And finally, this raises the question of whether Tom Bombadil, one of the most enigmatic characters in Tolkien’s legendarium, will finally make his big screen appearance, yellow boots and all. (Bombadil has previously appeared in video games and TV series like Amazon’s The Rings of Power.)

Although Colbert and McGee have finished the film’s script with screenwriter Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, no release date has been set for Shadows of the Past. As for Andy Serkis’s The Hunt for Gollum, it will arrive in theaters on December 17, 2027.

Last year’s I Felt Called wasn’t just one of my favorite albums of 2025. It’s also Fine China’s most ambitious album to date, taking their Smiths and New Order-influenced melodies and expanding them with haunting ambience that’s equal parts Hearts of Space, Windham Hill, and Talk Talk. But even at an hour in length, it turns out that I Felt Called still wasn’t quite complete.

Last week, Fine China and Velvet Blue Music released I Felt Called — The Complete Sessions, which, as its title suggests, features several outtakes and alternate versions that didn’t make it onto the original album. The five new songs are very much of a piece with their predecessors, and at times, lean even more heavily into the atmospherics. “Don’t Fight the Magic,” for example, is all mood and texture thanks to somber keys and coruscating guitars.

If I had to pick a favorite song from this new batch, though, it’d be closing number “Take the Pain,” which drifts by cool as an ocean breeze thanks to airy guitar melodies and shimmering synths. Like all of Fine China’s best songs, it’s a lush pop tune that can cut you to the quick with introspection. Here, Rob Withem seems to interrogate his own melancholy tendencies. “We never take the sunlight/We only take the pain/Why not try?/Find a place where we delight under sky,” he sings, his breathy voice imbuing the lyrics with a yearning quality.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Chuck Norris actually died 20 years ago, but Death was just too afraid to tell him. Norris — who did, in fact, die last week at the age of 86 — was the inspiration for countless jokes and memes (e.g., “After he was born, Chuck Norris drove his mom home from the hospital,” “The flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year,” “Sharks have a week about Chuck”) and of course, Conan O’Brien’s legendary Walker, Texas Ranger lever.

But long before all of the jokes and memes, Chuck Norris was a bonafide martial arts superstar who earned black belts in multiple disciplines including karate, taekwondo, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and won numerous national and world championships. Those accomplishments enabled Norris to open several karate schools that counted celebrities like Steve McQueen, Bob Barker, and the Osmonds as students. But more importantly, he leveraged his martial arts success into a film and TV career that lasted more than fifty years.

Norris’s first starring role was 1972’s The Way of the Dragon, where he battled Bruce Lee in the film’s climactic Colosseum duel. He followed that with a series of action films — including Good Guys Wear Black (1978), The Octagon (1980), Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and Missing in Action (1984) — that were produced by companies like American Cinema Productions and Cannon Films. These films established a very specific role that Norris stuck with for much of his career: the quiet, stoic loner who’s not afraid to bypass the law in order to bring bad guys to justice and who never misses an opportunity to drop a one-liner or kick everyone and everything in sight.

Mind you, none of Norris’s films are what’d you consider “great,” especially when compared to his Hong Kong contemporaries in the martial arts genre. Compared to the intricate and stylized choreography of Jackie Chan’s films from the same era (e.g., 1978’s Drunken Master, 1983’s Project A, 1985’s Police Story), Norris’s films can seem plain, even humdrum. He had nothing close to Chan’s agility or comedic chops.

Nevertheless, there’s something about those aforementioned films — a certain, ineffable Chuck Norris-ness, if you will — that makes even a portentous mess like 1985’s Invasion U.S.A. worth checking out. His best films, like The Octagon and Lone Wolf McQuade, work because they dip their toes into the murky waters of exploitation and grindhouse cinema — The Octagon features a secret ninja army, for example, while Lone Wolf McQuade is filled with sweat-stained desert violence — without plunging headlong into any truly explicit or gratuitous nastiness.

That probably explains why those films caught my attention on Omaha’s KPTM during my grade school and junior high years. They possessed a grittiness that was detectable even when I was a pre-teen, and set them apart from “normal” Hollywood fare. But even with all of the roundhouse kicks and bloody squibs, they were still relatively clean and morally uncomplicated. That aesthetic arguably achieved its purest form in Walker, Texas Ranger, which ran for nine seasons and 200+ episodes with Norris as the titular lead.

His films’ moral simplicity isn’t too surprising given Norris’s Christian beliefs and conservative politics. He didn’t just make films like Missing in Action, Invasion U.S.A., and 1986’s The Delta Force that are suffused with patriotic and pro-America themes. He also endorsed numerous Republican politicians, including Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump; penned patriotic books; and wrote columns for the far-right WorldNetDaily. He supported the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage, dabbled in Barack Obama “birther” conspiracy theories, and even went so far as to suggest that an Obama victory in 2012 could result in America being “lost forever.”

Many have latched onto those aspects of Norris’s life when commenting on his death, with the result being mockery, celebration, and a dismissal of Norris as bigoted MAGA scum. (On a side note, I have little doubt that many of those same people criticized Trump for celebrating Robert Mueller’s death, but that’s a topic for a whole ‘nother post.) Such easy dismissal, however, is complicated by tributes from people who actually knew and worked with Norris.

Norris’s fellow action stars, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme, all shared their praise and condolences while Danica McKellar shared a warm memory from the set of Walker, Texas Ranger. But perhaps my favorite Norris tribute comes from film critic Drew McWeeny, who wrote about the time he got to introduce his dad to Norris. An outspoken liberal, McWeeny no doubt opposed every single one of Norris’s political stances. Even so, his reminiscence celebrates Norris’s generosity:

Chuck Norris was definitely not my hero. My dad is. But getting to introduce your hero’s hero to them is one of those strange pleasures that this job afforded me, and I will always love Chuck for being so good to the man who means everything to me.

I don’t expect any such tributes to change the minds of those who’ve already chosen to celebrate Chuck Norris’s death. Look no further than the comments on Rainn Wilson’s tribute to Norris for proof of that. (Sample comments include “He was a Trump activist who went against everything you claim to stand for” and “He was nice to you bc you’re white.”) But this event serves as yet another stark reminder that (1) human beings, including our political opponents, can be surprisingly complicated; (2) demonization is really tempting and all-too-easy, especially in the rarefied air of social media; and (3) we quickly forget those first two when politics becomes the only lens through which we see people, even martial arts superstars.

As I’ve written before, I consider myself a tangential Huskers fan. (Unlike my wife, for example.) Regardless, I can’t deny that UNL athletics is hardcoded into my DNA. The same goes for the voice of Kent Pavelka, who’s been providing Husker sports radio commentary for decades now.

I grew up listening to Pavelka’s Husker football coverage in the ’90s and I’m pretty sure that hearing him scream “Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown” is a core memory of mine. And I’m just as sure that Pavelka’s crazed coverage of UNL’s historic March Madness win over Vanderbilt — which propelled the Huskers to the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history — will become a core memory for many Nebraska kids growing up today.

As an added bonus, be sure to read the comments on this Reddit thread concerning the game and Pavelka’s commentary.

The latest Dead Can Dance single is precisely what we’ve all come to expect from the iconic duo, with Brendan Perry’s rich and timeless voice intoning over somber strings and Lisa Gerrard’s bright dulcimer. It’s by turns haunting, reverent, and esoteric, but also rooted in the here and now: 50% of the song’s sales will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

“Our Day Will Come” also signals a change in how Dead Can Dance will be releasing their music moving forward. An announcement on the band’s website states that all future Dead Can Dance releases will “be sold exclusively via Bandcamp on our very own Holy Tongue Records label.” More:

We have decided to no longer support streaming platforms that continue to exploit artists and promote AI generated music. In future we will sell our music directly to the public via Bandcamp, a platform that continues to support independent artists and which has commendably banned all forms of AI generated music, a technology that threatens the very life and soul of our profession.

Dead Can Dance has promised to release new songs on a regular basis throughout 2026, each of which will be accompanied by a PDF containing lyrics and original artwork from Perry.

A lot has been said and written about Stranger Things, which concluded last year after five seasons. Its tale of psychic kids, government conspiracies, alternate dimensions, small town America, Dungeons & Dragons, and the power of friendship was sometimes too ambitious for its own good, and its reliance on ’80s nostalgia and vibes was both its greatest strength and greatest weakness.

That said, I can’t deny that Stranger Things’ first season is one of the best seasons of TV I’ve ever seen, and I’ve written at length about the effect the series has had on me. I also can’t deny that the upcoming physical release of the entire series from Netflix and Arrow Video is pretty tantalizing. Netflix has released previous seasons of Stranger Things on home video — I actually bought the first season on Blu-ray several years ago, which came in some retro VHS-style packaging — so a deluxe release of one of the streamer’s landmark series should come as no surprise… and neither should its extravagance.

Several Stranger Things editions are planned, but at the top of the list is the $230 deluxe 4K set (see above), which features all five seasons on 25 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs alongside a bunch of special features (e.g., cast and crew interviews, behind-the-scenes featurettes), as well as posters, maps, and a 148-page artbook with concept art and writing by the Duffer Brothers and others involved in the series’ production — and all of it contained within elaborate box packaging.

All of the Stranger Things editions are currently available for preorder, and will be released here in the States on July 28, 2026. (I am curious, though, as to why Netflix isn’t releasing these editions earlier that month, on July 15, which would coincide with the series premier’s 10th anniversary.)

In other Stranger Things news, the animated spin-off Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, which takes place between the second and third seasons of the live-action series, will premier on Netflix on April 23, 2026.

“Open Upon,” as it turns out, is a rather fitting title for the opening track of Deaf Center’s upcoming album. Listening to its dense, slowly spiraling drones and sparsely ominous piano melodies feels like you’re stepping through a portal into some otherworldly space filled with both mystery and danger.

Of course, Erik Skodvin and Otto Totland are no strangers to creating soundscapes that are both captivating and harrowing, as evidenced by dark ambient masterworks like 2011’s Owl Splinters and 2005’s Pale Ravine. The upcoming Through Time is the duo’s fourth studio album, and features the first guest musician of any Deaf Center title, with British composer Simon Goff lending his string arrangements to the album’s final song, “Further.”

Through Time will be released by Sonic Pieces on May 1, 2026. The album will be available as a digital download as well as limited CD and vinyl editions that feature handmade textile sleeves.

In my review of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, I noted that a movie adaptation was inevitable, especially given the success of 2015’s acclaimed adaptation of The Martian. And sure enough, here we are in 2026, and Weir’s Project Hail Mary is rocketing to the silver screen courtesy of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the mad geniuses behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie, and the Spider-Verse movies.

Needless to say, when Lord and Miller’s adaptation was announced, it immediately jumped to the top of my list of this year’s most anticipated movies, with Ryan Gosling stepping in as the unlikely astronaut who’s sent on a suicide mission to save the sun from a bizarre extraterrestrial threat — only to encounter something even stranger on his travels.

So, are Lord and Miller successful in translating Weir’s beloved sci-fi novel to the screen? Or does Project Hail Mary fail to lift off? Read on for a selection of critics’ reactions to the movie.

👍 Peter Bradshaw, ​“A bit silly, but Gosling’s charisma keeps it watchable” 

Gosling is an effortlessly charming screen player, and he keeps it watchable, though the film itself has moments of dullness and a sort of puppyish silliness, perhaps not surprising given the comedy track-record of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

👍 Hoai-Tran Bui, ​“The most crowdpleasing sci-fi blockbuster of the year” 

Project Hail Mary was never going to be a cerebral sci-fi movie, as many first-contact stories are, or even as many past Gosling sci-fi movies have been. But it is just content to be a crowdpleaser, and thankfully, it’s very good at that. All it takes to make the movie sing is Gosling befriending a little alien rock and being a little silly about it.

👎 Miranda Collinge, ​“Alien buddy movie fails to land” 

[E]ven with his magnetism set to hyperdrive, Gosling can’t make this wannabe-feel good film dazzle the way it wants to. It pains me — desperately pains me! — to say it, but in my eyes (sorry to rub it in, Rocky), Project Hail Mary is a well-intentioned miss.

👎 Owen Gleiberman, ​“Lavish but derivative” 

There’s certainly an abstract commercial grandeur to it. I saw it on an IMAX screen (it will open on many of those), where it becomes the kind of bedazzling warm bath your eyeballs can sink right into. But here’s the rub. Project Hail Mary is way too long (two hours and 36 minutes), because there’s not much variation to it. It’s baggy and incredibly derivative of movies you’ve seen before.

👍 Clarisse Loughrey, ​“Immensely likeable and technically impressive” 

Here’s a film that’s about as effervescently likeable as it can get. In it, Ryan Gosling becomes best buds with an alien, as they put aside all cultural and linguistic barriers to save their respective planets from a sun-gobbling threat. It’s an alchemically perfected blend of past sci-fi greats, with a good dose of Spielberg and Kubrick — familiar without feeling exhausted.

👍 Germain Lussier, ​“A potential sci-fi classic” 

All of which is to say, if you’re in the vast majority that hasn’t read Project Hail Mary and doesn’t know all the story specifics, the movie is going to be even better for you. So take everything you read in the rest of this review, dip it in gold, and prepare yourselves. As much as I adored the movie, someone coming to it fresh is going to love it that much more.

👍 Liz Shannon Miller, ​“Brings the wonder back to space” 

The directing team has made a name for themselves with their ability to make seemingly impossible projects work, from turning 21 Jump Street into a meta delight to finding the essential human bricks of The LEGO Movie. It’s a filmography that speaks to a certain level of fearlessness and buckets of imagination, and Hail Mary benefits from both, especially as the movie tackles the challenge of depicting a truly alien species (including its technology).

👍 Tasha Robinson, ​“A worthy companion to The Martian”

Anyone capable of seeing the winsome, heartstring-pulling capabilities of an alien rock is already coming from a place of radical imagination, empathy, and daring. The filmmakers’ ability to step beyond that and see the appeal of an E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial riff where Elliott is E.T.’s lab partner and co-worker as well as his friend… well, let’s just say it took some odd minds and some odd tastes to get this book to the screen. But the adaptation is all the better for it.

👍 David Rooney, ​“Thrilling space odyssey” 

Even if Project Hail Mary at times leans into the sentiment to an almost saccharine degree, the movie’s natural sweetness is disarming. And it’s impossible to imagine an actor more adept at striking that tricky balance than Gosling, whose low-key comic timing has never been better.

👍 Marshall Shaffer, ​“Cosmic crowd-pleaser” 

Project Hail Mary cycles through many phases, including a survival thriller, a buddy comedy, and a sci-fi adventure. Lord and Miller build appropriately toward this more serious pivot, even if there’s some herky-jerky motion amidst the transition. But that scrappy spirit of perseverance through imperfection feels in line with their hero’s own default operating mode.

👍 Mia Staub, ​“Completely charming” 

Project Hail Mary, an earnest science-fiction novel from Andy Weir, author of the hit book-turned-movie The Martian, captured hearts when it came out in 2021. The film will do the same, with a wholesome story, pitch-perfect casting, and gorgeous effects. And it emphasizes exactly what many people need in this moment: the courage to forge true, sacrificial friendships.

👍 Andrew Webster, ​“Popcorn sci-fi at its best” 

The hard sci-fi elements of Project Hail Mary are core to the story, but never get so overwhelming that you forget about the human (and alien) elements that give the film its emotional weight. It’s a difficult balancing act that Project Hail Mary handles deftly. It manages to have an epic scale thanks to its incredible stakes — but it also has a lot of heart through its story about a pair of unlikely buddies.

Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters on March 20, 2026. Watch the trailer below.

Last month’s playlist, titled “Bring on the Sun,” was intended to offset the incoming February chill. As it turns out, though, it might’ve worked a little too well. Here in Nebraska, at least, we experienced some decidedly un-February-like weather, with temperatures frequently in the 60s and even 70s — with one notable exception being a sudden snowstorm in the second-to-last week. But even that disappeared after just a few short days.

That surprise of a snowstorm notwithstanding, it just felt wrong to feel so warm in February of all months. So March’s playlist — titled “Bring Back the Chills” — aims for the opposite, with a dozen songs ranging from glitchy pop and chilled post-rock to iceber-sized drones, and all of them specifically chosen to lower the mercury and bring on some true chills before Spring lifts its pretty little head.

Accompanying the playlist is the latest episode of my “Playlist Breakdown” podcast, in which I spotlight one of the playlist’s songs and why it’s so special, interesting, and/or meaningful. This month’s episode focuses on Patrick Phelan’s “Icestorm,” a delicately brooding ballad from an under-appreciated singer/songwriter.

Both of these are little bonuses for subscribers who support Opus financially. If you’d like to get access to them (and more), subscribe to Opus for just $5.00/month or $50/year. (You can also subscribe for free and get my weekend newsletter.)

You know how the saying goes: Another year, another Unwed Sailor album. Which, of course, is far from a bad thing. Ever since resurrecting his instrumental post-rock project in 2019 with Heavy Age, bassist Johnathon Ford has been releasing music at a steady, workman-like pace.

Even so, it’s impossible to mistake an Unwed Sailor album for anyone else’s, thanks in large part to Ford’s own fluid bass lines. However, he always finds some new elements to keep things interesting. In the case of “West Coast Prism,” it’s those delightful melodic flourishes that shimmer forth on the bridge, infusing the song with a sense of light-filled, wide open spaces that’s immediately refreshing.

High Remembrance will be released by Ford’s own Current Taste label on May 8, 2026.

It’s a good time to be a fan of big screen sci-fi right now. Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters this week on a wave of positive reviews, and now Warner Bros. has dropped the first trailer for the final film in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy.

The first two Dune films are simply amazing achievements, filled with incredible production design and visual effects, solid performances, and a gripping adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel. And Dune: Part Three looks like a suitably epic conclusion, as Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) wrestles with both the war that he’s unleashed upon the known universe and the possibility of becoming a father himself.

To be sure, this first trailer is filled with stunning visuals — it’s a Denis Villeneuve film, after all — but also some scenes that strike at Paul’s messianic status as the Lisan al-Gaib. It also reveals that Duncan Idaho is back, despite being killed in the first Dune film. (Which will obviously come as no surprise to readers of Herbert’s books.) And it contains some new faces, most notably Robert Pattinson, who looks suitably creepy in his villainous role.

All of that’s to say, Dune: Part Three is my most anticipated movie of 2026, and this first look does nothing to change that.

Dune: Part Three arrives in theaters on December 18, 2026.

In their four-year existence, Minneapolis’s She’s Green has emerged as one of the leading lights of the modern shoegaze scene. The quintet have released seven acclaimed singles and EPs, including last year’s “Willow,” that highlight their dual-guitar approach and Zofia Smith’s dreamy voice — and “Mettle” is more of the same.

I mean that, of course, in the best possible way, especially when “Mettle” kicks in with some crunch and distortion, and Smith’s voice takes on an air of urgency as she sings “Sinking through this/Cruel world of progress/Tryin’ to not cave in.” Even so, the song still possesses that trademark She’s Green dreaminess, which becomes particularly affecting in its final seconds as Smith and her bandmates push back against the gloom and despair.

When Ben Easton and Dottie Cockram first met, they immediately bonded over a shared love of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive. All three are obvious touchstones for deary’s fetching brand of dream pop, but the Twins are especially apropos given Cockram’s own delicate, lilting voice. A voice that she sends floating across layers of chiming and glittering guitars on “Alfie,” one of the lead singles from the band’s upcoming debut full-length, Birding, which arrives on the heels of several well-received singles and EPs.

While the Heaven or Las Vegas comparisons go without saying, “Alfie“ ‘s dreamy depths also contain gentle piano figures that reflect Talk Talk’s final days, and thanks to Harry Catchpole’s crashing drums, the song culminates in a climax worthy of any good slow-burning post-rocker. Fortunately, at 7+ minutes, “Alfie” contains plenty of room to accommodate the band’s spacious sonics, and then some.

Birding will be released by Bella Union on April 3, 2026.

It’s my family’s tradition that when you celebrate a decade birthday, that’s how many gifts you receive. Which means that when I turned 50 last month, I had a nice little pile of presents waiting for me that morning. My wife really went above and beyond, and my presents included some great books, a childhood memento, several Criterion box sets, and best of all, my very own birthday compilation, titled The Jubilee of Opus.

In the months leading up to my birthday, Renae reached out to numerous friends, peers, and loved ones, and asked them to submit songs that reminded them of me or that they’d think I’d like. The resulting mix is eclectic, to say the least, and filled with equal parts nostalgia (some friends submitted shared favorites or songs that reminded them of our times together) and discovery (other friends submitted songs that were completely unfamiliar to me).

As an added bonus and delight, the compilation — all eight(!) discs of it — came in its own deluxe packaging courtesy of my friend Aaron, a talented designer and fellow music lover. He knows well my fondness for 4AD Records and the aesthetics of Vaughan Oliver and 23 Envelope/v23, as evidenced by the compilation’s packaging, typography, imagery, and delightful little details (see below).

The Jubilee of Opus was the 50th and final gift that I received, and after I opened it, Renae gave me a printout of the track listing, which I’ve included below, along with explanations from my friends as to why they submitted their particular songs. Some of the explanations, and the memories they include, are pretty personal, so I won’t share them here. Suffice to say, though, I was pretty emotional by the end, and I still get emotional whenever I read through them.

Disc 1

1. “1995” - Starflyer 59
2. “24 Turned 25” - Denison Witmer
3. “Talk to the Lord” - Natalie Bergman
4. “40” - U2
5. “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” - Ryuichi Sakamoto
6. “The Carnival Is Over” - Dead Can Dance
7. “Whip It” - Devo
8. “Just Like Honey” - The Jesus and Mary Chain
9. “Apocalypse” - Cigarettes After Sex
10. “The Angelic Appearance” - vidnaObmana
11. “What You Won’t Do for Love” - Bobby Caldwell
12. “The Places, Our Regrets” - DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ
13. “Recomposed” - Max Richter
14. “Boys Don’t Cry” - The Cure
15. “Words” - Low
16. “Intergalactic” - Beastie Boys
17. “Just As Was Told” - Lift to Experience

Disc 2

1. “Void” - The Mary Onettes
2. “A Line You Can Cross” - Lansing Drieden
3. “I Won’t Back Down” - Tom Petty
4. “Mint Car” - The Cure
5. “Before Redemption” - Gospel Gangstaz
6. “Ain’t No Reason” - Brett Dennen
7. “Blitzkrieg Bop” - Ramones
8. “Love Hurts” - Nazareth
9. “Psalm 115: 1” - Colin Buchanan
10. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” - Billy Joel
11. “Polyhymnal” - Makeup and Vanity Set
12. “Shine Your Light on Me” - Natalie Bergman
13. “Midnight City” - M83
14. “Sugar for the Pill” - Slowdive
15. “West End Girls” - Pet Shop Boys
16. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” - U2
17. “One More Time” - Daft Punk
18. “Voyager” - Daft Punk
19. “9 to 5” - Dolly Parton
20. “Mercy Mercy Me” - Marvin Gaye

Disc 3

1. “That’s Not My Name” - The Ting Tings
2. “Riptide” - Vance Joy
3. “The Littlest Birds” - The Be Good Tanyas
4. “Pensive, Doubting, Fearful Heart” - Red Mountain Church
5. “Jack and Jill, Pt. 2” - The Gray Havens
6. “Deep Mist” - Milous
7. “Another Point of View” - Wavy Lady
8. “Don’t Dream It’s Over” - Sixpence None the Richer
9. “The Prayer Cycle – A Choral Cycle in 9 Movements: I. Mercy”
10. “The Prayer Cycle – A Choral Cycle in 9 Movements: VI. Innocence”
11. “Oak Tree” - Desert Noises
12. “Les copains d’abord” - Georges Brassens
13. “Chan Chan” - Buena Vista Social Club
14. “Lakmé: Viens, Mallika” - Francois-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles, Marianne Crebassa, and Sabine Devielhe
15. “Until You” - AHI
16. “Bless This Morning Year” - Helios
17. “Tripoli” - Pinback
18. “The Plan” - Built to Spill

Disc 4

1. “Half Acres” - Louis Prince
2. “Magazine” - Pedro the Lion
3. “Way Back” - Manchester Orchestra
4. “Cumbia del Olvido” - Nicola Cruz
5. “Let Down” - Radiohead
6. “Cerca De Ti” - Hermanos Gutiérrez
7. “Curls” - Bibio
8. “Two Fish and an Elephant” - Khruangbin
9. “Keep Those Teardrops from Falling” - Natalie Bergman
10. “Of Up and Coming Monarchs” - Pedro the Lion
11. “I Never Wanted You” - Headphones
12. “Torches Together” - mewithoutYou
13. “Secret of the Easy Yoke” - Pedro the Lion

Disc 5

1. “Petrichor” - Keaton Henson (feat. Ron Ford)
2. “Agnus Dei” - Samuel Barber, VOCES8
3. “Satisfied (Ambient Reprise)” - Catching Flies
4. “The Moon Song” - beabadoobee, Oscar Lang
5. “My God Has a Telephone” - The Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY, Aaron Frazer
6. “Play It on My Radio” - Niki & the Dove
7. “Glory Hallelujah, I’m Gonna Fly Home Soon” - Natalie Bergman
8. “The Maker” - Willie Nelson
9. “Pressure Machine – Abridged” - The Killers
10. “anything” - Adrianne Lenker
11. “Cello Suite no. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I.Prélude” - Johann Sebastian Bach, Yo-Yo Ma
12. “40” (Live) - U2
13. “See Her Out (That’s Just Life)” - Francis and the Lights

Disc 6

1. “Airwalkers” - Scientific
2. “Metropolis” - Scientific
3. “People in Her Mind” - Poor Moon
4. “Holiday” - Poor Moon
5. “Pulling Me Down (Illusion)” - Poor Moon
6. “Lorelai” - Fleet Foxes
7. “If You Need To, Keep Time on Me” - Fleet Foxes
8. “Mono Synth” - Joy Electric
9. “The Hearttaker” - Starflyer 59
10. “Fried Out Broken Girl” - Eric Matthew
11. “Labor Saving Device” - Fine China
12. “Over the Ocean” - Low

Disc 7

1. “Roads” - Portishead
2. “Dissolved Girl” - Massive Attack, Sarah Jay Hawley
3. “Burn” - The Cure
4. “No Body” - Kaeto
5. “Heroes” - Peter Gabriel
6. “Friends” Remaster - Led Zeppelin
7. “Lips Like Sugar” - Echo and the Bunnymen
8. “Tinsel Town in the Rain” - The Blue Nile
9. “That Smiling Face” - Camouflage
10. “Your Eyes” - Flock 14
11. “Come Holy Spirit - Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Disc 8

1. “Space Age Love Song” - A Flock of Seagulls
2. “Don’t Change” - INXS
3. “Magic” - The Cars
4. “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” - Talking Heads
5. “Earn Enough for Us” - XTC
6. “Human Behaviour” - Björk
7. “Big in Japan” - Tom Waits
8. “White Riot” - The Clash
9. “Rusholme Ruffians” - The Smiths
10. “Disintegration” - The Cure

It’s a rare thing to have a tangible reminder of just how loved and known you are, and I’m both deeply humbled by, and deeply grateful to, everyone who participated in the birthday compilation, starting with my lovely wife. My life is blessed and immeasurably better for having each and every single one of them in it.

Last January, I wrote about Lost in Ohio’s plans to reissue the 1996 self-titled debut from Aunt Bettys, a rock group that Michael Knott fronted in a bid to break into the secular market. The effort was successful and the remastered album sounds fantastic, a true artifact from the bizarre alternate universe that was ’90s Christian alternative music.

As an added bonus, the Aunt Bettys — or at least half of them — reformed to play a reunion show last month, with Ryan Mead standing in for Knott, who died in 2024. Ping’s Jeff Elbel, a frequent collaborator with Knott back in the day, recorded the set and uploaded the first three songs: “Addict,” “Lush,“
and “Suicide Sex Doll.” The band’s performance is as raucous as you could hope for from anything Aunt Bettys-related, particularly on “Lush,” and serves as a fitting tribute to Michael Knott.

You can order your own copy of Aunt Bettys from Lost in Ohio’s store on vinyl, CD, or cassette.

The women in Blackwater Holylight make music that exists at the crossroads of metal, grunge, psychedelia, and shoegaze. Which means their latest album, Not Here Not Gone — which follows last year’s excellent If You Only Knew EP — is by turns heavy, intense, dreamy, haunting, and even sensual.

For proof of that, look no further than “Fade,” which opens with vaporous chords and Sunny Faris’s drifting vocals, suggesting a sort of Low meets Slowdive encounter. That is, until the distortion’s crunch kicks in and the drums begin pummeling away — though not in a manner that undoes the preceding lush-ness. Rather, the band finds a narrow ledge on which to stand, allowing them to keep the various extremes of their music coexistent, which only makes “Fade” — and by extension, the rest of Not Here Not Gone — all the more interesting.

Not Here Not Gone is now available on Suicide Squeeze Records.

Ambient/electronic outfit Seefeel has just announced Sol.Hz, their first full-length album since 2011’s self-titled release, which itself came after a fourteen-year-long hiatus following 1996’s (Ch-Vox). To mark the occasion, they’ve released a ghostly single from the album titled “Ever No Way” that evokes the otherworldly, dub-laced textures of their breakthrough debut, 1993’s Quique.

Although Sol.Hz is the band’s first album in quite some time, they’ve still been busy with other releases, including a 2025 remaster of Quique and a pair of mini-albums in 2024: Everything Squared and Squared Roots.

Sol.Hz will be released by Warp Records on May 1, 2026, which will coincide with the band’s European tour.

For over 20 years now, the duo of Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson — better known as Hammock — has been releasing acclaimed ambient music at a pretty steady pace. Along with the numerous albums and EPs in their catalog, they’ve also released a series of songs inspired by the lunar eclipse, often called the blood moon.

“Blood Moon 03.03.26” is the latest of these songs, and it ranks as one of my favorite Hammock works to date. Byrd and Thompson excel at coaxing all manner of effects-laden drones and atmospherica from their instruments, and send it gently unfurling across the listener’s ears in a truly cosmic manner. But the duo aren’t content to just let their drones, well, drone on. They also imbue the song with a real sense of motion and progress that serves to draw the listener in more and more.

In related news, Hammock is currently recording a followup to their 2025 album, Nevertheless.