Tag Archives: Film

Spring 2026 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I completed my watch-through of the original Dirty Pair TV series, which has left me wallowing in those tragic post-series doldrums of just wanting to hang out with my animated buds again. Kei and Yuri are a delightful pair of rampaging rascals, and nearly every episode of the series offered a satisfying riff on spy, mystery, or space drama adventures. The series was simply top-notch popcorn entertainment, and though I’ve heard their further escapades offer somewhat diminishing returns, I’m at this point invested enough to run through the various other Dirty Pair adaptations and remakes. It’s frankly been a terrific year so far in terms of catching up on outstanding older productions; I’ve marched through Future Boy Conan, Moribito, Aura Battle Dunbine, and now Dirty Pair alongside my Turn A and Katanagatari rewatches, and have had a great time with all of them. I’ll have to figure out what older favorite is up next, but in the meantime, let’s burn down the week in film!

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Spring 2026 – Week 5 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I’ve been doing my service as a tertiary member of the Straw Hat Fleet, by inducting another friend into the cult of One Piece via the astonishingly well-executed live action series. It seems almost unfair to have such an easy on-ramp for engaging with One Piece; after grappling with low points like Captain Kuro’s Long Walk or Don Krieg in general, I can’t help but feel a tinge of battle-hardened pride relative to these newcomers’ easy stroll from Windmill Village right to Alabasta. Of course, that is always an instinct to be fought; more people getting to enjoy stories I love is an unquestionably good thing, and if that means I have to explain what’s up with Garth and Coby when they jump mediums, it is a duty I will embrace gladly. In the meantime, let’s burn down the week in films!

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Spring 2026 – Week 4 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week I concluded my rewatch of Turn A Gundam, which proved just as inventive, character-rich, and generally charming as on my first watch. The show has a dynamite cast, a delightfully novel premise, and some of the best art design of any Gundam, all with a kinder, more thoughtful Tomino at the helm – it’s a well-deserved classic, and a show I’d recommend to basically anyone. With that behind us, my house has since checked out Bleach’s Thousand Year Blood War, which has proven to so far be an excellent adaptation of a shapeless and derivative story. Kubo just completely ran out of ideas after Soul Society, but I do appreciate how this production is leaning heavily into the impactful individual compositions that are his greatest strength; the man was aura farming when the term’s creators were in diapers, and he has not slowed down in the years since. That covers my current anime journeys, so let’s dive into the Week in Review!

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Spring 2026 – Week 3 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week it’s somehow returned to the forties again, so I’m huddled up under a blanket with Eevee while we wait for my housemate to return from his sensibly timed vacation. With the apartment to myself, I’ve been continuing my journey through the enduring anime of the ‘80s, by munching through the extremely watchable Dirty Pair. The show has so far offered precisely the charms I was hoping for: a fun duo bouncing between energetic and lovingly illustrated space adventures, pulling off their secret agent shenanigans with such effortless confidence that they mostly just bicker about crushes and vacation time. A strong genre riff is a laudable thing, and Dirty Pair is an altogether accomplished slice of old-fashioned scifi adventure. That aside, I’ve of course continued my endless film screenings, so let’s talk movies!

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Spring 2026 – Week 2 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. It’s been a busy week for me, as I’ve been racing to maintain my lead on reader projects while also munching through films and some recent anime productions. Inspired by kViN’s fantastic breakdown of Souta Ueno’s adaptation of last season’s Shiboyugi, I ended up munching through the whole series in a couple of days, and was similarly impressed by Ueno’s economic yet distinctive, holistic approach to the material. In his hands, the series’ death games are rendered ethereal and elegiac, a perpetual synthesis of the freedom of a great leap and the solidity of the approaching ground. The actual source material seemed pretty mediocre, harboring pretensions of human insight that its character writing couldn’t really support, but this would be far from the first time an anime director spun straw into gold. Regardless, Ueno’s elevation of the material has me eager to check out whatever he directs next, and it’s always a thrill to be introduced to a distinctive, vital creative voice. That aside, we’ve got a fleet of movies to get through, so let’s bound right into the Week in Review!

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Spring 2026 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. This week we’ve been continuing our march through Turn A Gundam, which has proven just as delightful and idiosyncratic as on first viewing. It’s been an interesting experience seeing this as a culmination of Tomino’s Gundams, rather than an introduction to them – the man seems to have grown gentler in his later years, and more sympathetic to the idealism embodied by characters like Loran and Dianna. That aside, we’ve also screened most of Jujutsu Kaisen’s third season, which has proven to certainly be more Jujutsu Kaisen, and followed up the frustratingly unbalanced Monster Train with… Skyrim. Yep, it’s Back To The Ol’ Me again, but it’s just hard to play games that are not Skyrim when I could potentially be playing Skyrim. I’m sorry! I’m basic, I know it, but my comfort games are probably not shifting at this point in my life. We’ve got new movies, though! Yeah, let’s get to that.

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A Home For No One: Vive L’Amour

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We open with a shot of an apartment door, its key hanging expectantly in profile, forgotten by an inattentive real estate agent. An unintended invitation, a false offer of cohabitation – but in such a world as this, we take whatever intimacy we can get. A man briefly cradles, inspects the keychain, before loping down the hall at the call of another speaker. Neither are in focus; only the key is truly present. The man returns, his eye wandering back to the key, tempted time and again. He claims it, and the title drops: Vive L’Amour. Is the implication that this act, this thievery in service of curiosity or hoped-for connection, is the essence of love itself? Where does love reside?

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Winter 2026 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. The weather has finally shifted at this point, allowing me to drag my decrepit body into motion and actually get a few jogs in over the last week. To the surprise of no one, this has led to generally higher energy and better spirits, which have been further bolstered by my dramatic progress running through my outstanding reader projects. I’m currently down to just two articles I need to send to drafts, and have already hammered out a pile of notes for the first, leaving me potentially days away from being current for the first time in over a year. Granted, that list will soon be supplemented by all the incoming April bounties, but goddamnit, I’m taking my victories where I can find them. In the meantime, let’s see what treasures we uncovered in this week’s film excursions!

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Winter 2026 – Week 12 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. While waiting for Slay the Spire 2 to make its way to consoles, this week we picked up fellow roguelike deckbuilder Monster Train, which has proven exceedingly diverting in its own right. Drafting choices feel a bit more obviously correct or incorrect than in Slay the Spire, but I’m quite impressed with how the game essentially simulates “modern Magic the Gathering” (creature-based, direct card advantage is limited, commanders define decks), in contrast with Slay the Spire’s emulation of old-fashioned magic (spell slinging is encouraged, broken combos are rampant, storm builds occur frequently). I’m definitely more of an old fashioned Magic enthusiast myself, but it’s fun to see another take on this extremely me-coded subgenre. Aside from that, we also ran down our requisite pile of films, so let’s see what we’ve got on tap for the Week in Review!

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Winter 2026 – Week 11 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. We’ve been keeping busy this week, as we continued to munch through Aura Battler Dunbine, and also screened the entirety of the live-action One Piece’s second season. I think we’re all a little understandably hesitant about live-action anime adaptations, but god damnit, they’ve actually nailed this one. The tone, the energy, the costumes, the characters; this feels less like a pale imitation than a loving revision, drawing on thirty years of One Piece history to make a concise, cohesive version of the story that still hits and often even expands on the pleasures of the original. The casting remains superb, the Straw Hats have largely settled into their personalities, and the emotional gut-punches of the early Grand Line have been preserved in full. I’m frankly astonished by the production’s combination of trust in its base material and willingness to boldly reorganize; this is a real “whoa, two cakes” situation, and I am savoring the flavor.

One Piece aside, we of course munched through our usual assortment of cinematic spectacles. So let’s get right on that, as we run down the latest Week in Review!

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