Guest: Rick Forchuk - TV Week Magazine Columnist and CKNW Contributor

In theatres:

- The Monkey (2025): Based on a short story by Stephen King, the billing on this blood-soaked thriller is that of "horror," but "horror-comedy" might be more appropriate, being as there are many laughs along the way despite the gore and the terrible deaths at every turn. Set in the State of Maine, typical of many Stephen King stories, this one was actually shot in and around Maple Ridge, and in the Vancouver area. It's the story of two boys, twins, played by Christiane Convery ("Cocaine Bear") as early teens, and later by Theo James as adults. The boys, Hal and Bill respectively, live in an odd home environment, their father being a pilot and missing, their mother a homemaker who seems only capable of serving them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for supper. One boy, Hal, is quiet and picked-upon at school, while the other, Bill, born 15 minutes earlier, is a diabolical kid sworn to torment his brother for all time

- The Unbreakable Boy (2025): This is a faith-based movie from Jon Gunn, the same director responsible for "The Jesus Revolution" last year that starred Kelsey Grammer ("Frasier") as the real-life preacher Chuck Smith who opened to doors of his church to the Hippies in California in the last '60s and early '70s, thereby changing the look and the feel of what it meant to be a person of faith. This time Gunn directs and co-writes the script for another story based-on-actual-events with a much smaller focus. Based on the memoir by Scott Lerette, Gunn introduces us to Scott, a young man with a vision and a five-year-plan for his future that comes undone when he meets Teresa (Megan Fahy). Scott, played by Zachary Levi ("Shazam") falls for Teresa after meeting her in a retail store, soon they are an item, and almost as soon, she tells him that she is pregnant. That presents issues that the couple have to face as Teresa suffers from a genetic condition called "brittle bone disease" which makes her very prone to having her bones break from activities that would be safe for people without the affliction

On Netflix:

- Surviving Blackhawk Down (Mini-Series) (2025): This is not your father's "Blackhawk Down," the based-on-actual-events movie from 2001 that told the story of 160 elite American soldiers on a mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October of 1993. Instead, this three-part miniseries takes a clinical look at what actually happened, combining archive footage and interviews with those who survived the event. Ridley Scott directed the original, which starred Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Sizemore to name just a few, and his company plays a strong hand in the documentary which tells a story in graphic terms, and does not hesitate to do a lot of finger-pointing. I liked the way that those being interviewed in the present, were shown in the past, younger, fitter, and largely ready to go to war feeling indestructible and invulnerable