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- Hats off: Stranger Things
Happy new year and all that! Gawd what a bloomin’ riot the Stranger Things finale was. And indeed the whole series, right? Iconic moments, music and characters. I for one won’t ever be able to listen to Kate Bush the same way. I would like to take the briefest of moments to salute The Duffer Brothers, Netflix, 21 Laps, and all the execs and creatives involved some ten years ago, for taking a risk on Season 1. We know how hard it is to make compelling television in basically a new genre (80s-teenage-adventure-fantasy-with-a-little-comedy-and-some-horror?) especially with unknown cast. Well you also need executives willing to say yes to new talent and new risk. And executives probably worry about their bottom line. Never-acted-before children, inexperienced show runners, enormously ambitious scale, do not normally make them lights go green. And here we sit, an audience glued to Netflix for 5 epic seasons. Bravo. Well played. Let’s raise a glass. Here’s to risk taking in creativity, big budgets n all.
SUNDANCE 2026
So I found out recently our venue for RecDek House Sundance has a screening room, it would be down right rude of me not to take the opportunity to screen some films. Therefore, if you’re attending and have ever made a short film and would like it screened as part of RecDek House Sundance 2026, we invite you to submit it here. Here’s the criteria:
you will be attending Sundance 2026
Please submit your short for consideration using this link. Deadline will be 16th January so get your submissions in and tell your friends.
Musing on internet links just for a second:
2026 FILMS TO GET EXCITED ABOUT
Right so here we are, the start of a new year. If you’re like me you haven’t make any new years resolutions because you’ve spent too many January’s breaking them “read more” / “eat less sugar” / “definitely finish that script” / etc. So let’s just agree January can be a time to catch up on excellent stories. I imagine you’re already curating your RecDek watchlist as you read this, excited for some good ol’ fashioned sofa time and a sweet-as movies/tv. Here’s 5 flicks coming out in 2026 to whet your whistle.
1. The Bride! (March) Maggie Gyllenhaal's moving Frankenstein's bride to 1930s Chicago gangster territory. Jessie Buckley sports a platinum Jean Harlow bob as a murdered woman brought back to life, Christian Bale's the stitched-up monster who gets Dr Euphronius (Annette Bening) to build him a companion. Think Bonnie and Clyde meets classic horror, "Killer Monsters Wanted!" splashed across newspapers. Gyllenhaal noticed the bride in the 1935 original barely appears and never utters a word - this version gives her agency and massive personality. Buckley describes it as "the punkest love that's ever existed."
2. The Drama (April) Robert Pattinson plays a British art historian based in Massachusetts, Zendaya's his Louisiana-born fiancée. Seven days before the wedding, a devastating secret emerges - cut to her knocking back bourbon in her gown and him bleeding from the nose in his tux. Kristoffer Borgli wrote and directed this after making the brilliantly weird Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage. If there's a team that can turn romantic comedy into dark, twisted brilliance, it's these lot. Alana Haim rounds out the cast.
3. Mother Mary (April) Anne Hathaway's a pop star desperately asking her ex-costume designer Michaela Coel to make one more dress after ten years of silence. "You can't really hate me" / "Oh yes I can" - perfect setup for psychological thriller territory. David Lowery (A Ghost Story director) mixing supernatural dread with live performance, complete concert sequences featuring music from Jack Antonoff, FKA Twigs, Charli XCX. Musical revenge tale wrapped in haute couture. Properly strange in the best way.
4. Digger (October) Tom Cruise working with Alejandro G Iñárritu on something called "a comedy of catastrophic proportions" - genuinely mad combination. The Birdman and The Revenant director taking Hollywood's biggest star into strange comic territory alongside Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons. Details are scarce but the prospect of Cruise doing something this left-field is thrilling. DiCaprio got his Oscar in The Revenant - reckon Cruise might finally land his non-honorary statue in 2027?
5. “Wuthering Heights” (February) Emerald Fennell's tackling Emily Brontë and traditionalists are already furious - Margot Robbie's apparently too mature for teenage Cathy, Jacob Elordi too pale for Heathcliff. Fennell's recreating the visceral experience of reading it at 14: raw, erotic, intense. Bright crimson costumes against burnt orange skies, heavily stylised throughout. Hong Chau as loyal maid Nelly. After Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, we know Fennell thrives on being deliberately provocative.
Join us as Sundance.
Get your film, brand or project in front of the last Sundance Park City.
January will mark Sundance’s final year at Park City. RecDek House will be in town! If you’re interested to partner with us at the last Park City Sundance, give us a shout by filling in this form:
Partner form X RecDek House X Sundance 2026 X good times
Catch you soon.
Ed
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