5 Best Things I Watched and Read in April
April felt exceedingly long and light on movies, but I still have some recommends.
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I'm still in the first 48 hours of post-TCM Classic Film Festival malaise so forgive me if I'm still trying to get my bearings this week.
T.S. Eliot once said, "April is the cruelest month," but old T.S. failed to mention it also feels like it's the longest. In going back through my Letterboxd Diary to put this list together I was convinced I'd seen some of these movies months ago. Most of what I've watched are new releases, but one classic film manage to slip in above the rest, and it was one I did not expect at all. I also have a great music book worth giving your time to.
You'll find it all below, and be sure to drop your April recommendations in the comments below! Maybe they'll make the May list!
(Header links take you to my review or where to purchase. If you purchase through my affiliate link I get a little kickback to keep TFM running.)
You, Me & Tuscany (2026)
This one is still incredibly sweet and it was heartening to see so many people on social media champion it, especially audiences of color.
From my review: You, Me & Tuscany is another bright spot in the rom-com genre, shockingly more so for the fact that it's a wholly original idea heavily inspired by '90s rom-coms like Only You (1994) and While You Were Sleeping (1995). Stars Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page whip up something sweetly delicious for a story that find the magic in romance, while emphasizing the need for community and home during troubling times.
What screenwriter Ryan Engle does so well with You, Me & Tuscany is go all in on a premise that would just as easily work in 2026 as it would 1996 to 1946: the high concept premise of a young woman who travels to a foreign locale and, through shenanigans, is welcomed into a family as a future bride. There's just enough story to make everything plausible and, what's funnier, is that thinking about the story more doesn't make the house of cards collapse. Anna is a woman desperate to live any life but her own, right down to housesitting for a wealthy woman (Nia Vardalos) in the opening scene, wearing her clothes, and walking her dog. In the landscape of today, Anna is every person who wakes up wishing life was better.
You, Me & Tuscany is a deliciously charming throwback and a new step forward for the romantic comedy genre. It's also a showcase for Bailey, who'd do well to do several more of these movies as her affection and personality work so well with something frothy like this. Prepare to fall in love with life, with love, and the beauty of possibility which, can't we all use far more of that in the world right now?
Hokum (2026)
Damien McCarthy's latest was a stellar entrance into his body of work. There's another splashy horror movie coming out soon that I absolutely hated (look for that review this month), so I was happy to see this and remember why good horror works so well. Hokum did good business this last weekend so if you haven't seen it, now's the perfect time.
From my review: What it feeds off of is our current sense of melancholy and resignation, the guilt that permeates our days at the things we didn't do or say. The terror that comes from realizing we're living out a very isolating series of events, and that cruelty feels more casual than it's ever been. All of this in a haunted hotel room with more than a nod to Stephen King's 1408.
At its center is a solid performance from Adam Scott, taking his usual charming dickishness and using that as an entry point for a character desperate to push people away. And who must ultimately find a way to deal with the horrors within himself in order to defeat the horrors around him. It's all manner of dark, broody and, at times, epic.
When the terror is on screen it also covers up for the thin storytelling. Who is the bizarre, bug-eyed TV host Ohm keeps seeing? Is there some significance to him in Bauman's life or in the city they're in? Who knows. Has Bauman apparently just lived as a sad virgin for most of his life? There seems to be zero relationships he's ever had short of his parents. These moments aren't necessarily to enjoy the spookiness of the story, but Bauman becoming a detective, at this point in his life, would have more heft with a little bit more context short of: this person was nice to me, once.
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah to the Last Goodbye by Dave Lory
I'm still very much on a Jeff Buckley high, nearly a year after seeing the latest documentary, I Love You, Jeff Buckley (and talking to director Amy Berg). Yet if one's looking for any Buckley biographies they're in shockingly short supply, with Dave Lory's one of two that are commonly available.
Lory's tome is less a standard Jeff Buckley documentary and more a personal diary of working with the artist and traveling with him on the road during the album tour for his debut album Grace. This means Lory takes readers on divergences into his own life, and lacks any real insight into Buckley's life before the success or his personal issues. Compared to I Love You, Jeff Buckley, this does give a different view into the artist's life that, until a nuanced bio is actually written, crafts another avenue to his story. As Lory recounts, Buckley didn't have a strong relationship with his mother and openly battled heroin addiction, something the doc is intentionally cagey on. It's still a fun read but I really need an author to do a proper biography, asap.
Detective Story (1951)
Full disclosure, I hate Kirk Douglas. The guy was a bit of a scumbag and I won't hear anything to the contrary. However, he certainly knew how to pick directors and William Wyler's Detective Story might be my favorite movie that just happens to star Kirk Douglas.
Told over one day in a New York police precinct, the movie follows Det. James McLeod (Douglas, ugh) as he attempts to put away a man accused of "baby brokering," a thinly veiled cover-up for being an abortionist. Along the way, James's wife, Mary (Eleanor Parker) gets involved. The script is crackling and remarkably progressive for its time. There are three key female roles alongside Parker and all three women are presented as three-dimensional women struggling with their various decisions in a patriarchal society. The movie doesn't take the easy way out and, by the end, James isn't even the hero we presumed he'd be at the beginning. It's a brilliant movie!
Mother Mary (2026)
David Lowery's latest just barely squeaks onto this list, if only because I've been listening to the soundtrack on repeat. The movie is high on vibes, if light on story. Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway are great, the latter especially when she's in popstar mode.
As I said in my review for Fangoria: Mother Mary is a movie that runs on vibes, fueled by a bare modicum of story. The movie has been described as a “psychosexual pop opera thriller” and all of those elements are here, at some point, twisting and weaving into each other to make the sculptural piece on display. But those disparate elements can make for a piece that feels cold and empty despite everything that’s on the screen. There’s a similarity in composition and storytelling as Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, both dark stories of stardom where everything is outsized and doused in a heavy amount of diamonds and gore. (Ken Russell also feels like a major influence here.)
The movie could have coasted on being a two-hander between Hathaway and Coel arguing but Lowery ends up injecting something he has enjoyed doing with a few movies now: how much space ghosts and death inhabit in our minds and our physical spaces. Mother Mary’s ads say, “This is not a ghost story” and one could make that argument. Mother Mary and Sam both tell stories of engaging with an entity they can’t explain. Like any good Gothic story, it’s certainly possible to see the ghost angle as literal or metaphorical. In fact, the entire movie could be seen as a metaphor for everything from unresolved anger to purgatory itself. The inclusion of a ghost narrative turns the movie down a path that makes it feel like Ken Russell’s Gothic, in that bizarre things start happening and the audience just kind of has to sit back and go with it.
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