Rewatched Cube. We were obsessed with this low-budget Canadian horror when I was a teenager. And it's still great now. So simple a premise that my 13-year-old daughter pretty much guessed the entire plot of the movie after being told "it's a horror movie about people stuck in a cube."

I watched Black Christmas - proto slasher movie from 1974. A sorority house is targeted by an unseen serial killer. Dark humour, lots of tension, mostly offscreen gore. The obscene phone calls were the creepiest thing. Clearly influential on the future of the genre.

There have been 1,312 submissions to Fiction on the Web in 2026 so far. Of which we've accepted about 90 (7%). Submissions will be closing for a while on 21 July! (Except for patrons who are always welcome to submit www.patreon.com/charliefish)

Saw Grosse Pointe Blank for the first time in decades. High concept rom com: A professional killer attends a high school reunion and tries to rekindle an old relationship while not getting assassinated himself. A very easy watch. Deadpan humour. Minnie Driver should be in more things.

Watched The Great Gatsby. The unpicking of the truth behind Gatsby was a compelling central mystery, the grandeur of the 1920s set pieces was very impressive, the gleefully anachronistic music lent a driving rhythm, and though it occasionally slid towards sentimentality, I enjoyed it.

Rewatched Death Becomes Her. It has held up well! Comedy about two women fighting over the same doormat of a man, until they discover an eternal youth potion. Pacy, surprising, fun - and it has something to say about the toxicity of obsessing over youth and beauty.

Saw Minions & Monsters at the cinema. Illumination's movies have been uneven at best, but their box office record is a testament to how much their wacky, colourful style appeals to kids. This film focussed on sheer fun, but felt more sophisticated than previous minion movies.

Watched The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On. Phenomenal doc about a traumatised Japanese WWII veteran who tracks down those responsible for killing 3 soldiers in his old unit. He literally beats up old men until they tell the truth about what happened, but ultimately it's his words that hit hardest.

Watched The Invite. Sex comedy with heaps of heart. Just 4 actors in 2 rooms, but it's a whole hero's journey. Best thing was, they were accepted in all their foolishness, anger, desperation, sadness - which is deeper intimacy than the sex they were angling for. Loved it.

Watched Charade. Light-hearted and twisty murder mystery that was good fun to watch, even if Grant and Hepburn didn't have much chemistry. Drinking game: take a shot every time Hepburn's character changes outfit.

Rewatched Sunshine. A pretty good sci-fi horror flick by Danny Boyle, about a group of astronauts on a last-ditch mission to reinvigorate our dying sun. I love the creeping sense of the sun as a hypnotic and not entirely benign cosmic power that's connected to humanity on a primal level.

Rewatched Pi - Darren Aronofsky's first feature film, this is a low-budget exploration of maths, mysticism and madness that holds up extremely well 20 years after its release. The choppy editing and driving music contribute to an exhilarating feeling of unease and tension. Excellent.

Rewatched Ichi the Killer. Tasteless gorefest crime flick presenting as an exploration of sadomaschism. Of the very few Takashi Miike movies I've seen, I prefer Audition.

I watched Toy Story 5. Glad to see them recapture some of the humour and heart of the original trilogy, after the forgettable fourth film. This time, iPads threaten to mesmerise children away from traditional toys forever. Which is thoroughly relevant, and very well-handled, if a little on-the-nose.

I got a cool email today. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, Canada wants to use my story "You Ok?" in an assessment for Saskatchewan students. I gave permission, of course. So validating to get those kinds of messages! Check out the story here: flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2025/11...

Watched The Raid 2. The action is just as relentless, and even more brutal, than the first movie - but instead of one building, our hero takes on Jakarta's entire criminal underworld. An incredible showcase for Indonesian martial art pencak silat, which is especially thrilling in a tight space.

I watched Rivals. Battling TV executives shag and sabotage their way to the top. Highly entertaining; utterly compelling cast of characters. Glamorises a kind of toxic masculinity that's regrettably once again on the rise, while also illustrating some of the values capable of countering it. Peak TV.

Watched Disclosure Day. Spielberg movie about two people shanghaied into being ambassadors for aliens that the government have been trying to keep under wraps. Entertaining as an action movie, but fell short in both credibility and sense of wonder.

Watched Big Fish. Tim Burton's meandering paean to storytelling. I found it neither as immersive nor as magical as some of his other movies, and yet it grew on me as the story unfolded, and by the end it plucked my heartstrings and left me with a vague urge for adventure.

Read Italo Calvino's Under the Jaguar Sun. Three stories that were intended to be part of a novel celebrating the senses. The themes are taste, sound, and smell respectively. Very evocative, but I didn't love these as much as Calvino’s "The Adventure of a Bather".

Saw Tuner at the cinema. Tense, quirky thriller about cash-strapped piano tuner who discovers that his ultra-sensitive hearing, which has caused him no end of woe, can be used to crack safes. What could possibly go wrong? Very satisfying movie, even if the ending was a little neat.

I watched The Raid (2011 movie). Kick-ass Indonesian action movie in which a team of cops is sent on a suicide mission to extract a gangster boss from his fortress-like apartment block. Recommended if you like your action relentless and brutal.

Watched Metropia. In a future where all Europe is connected by metro, a man discovers his life is being controlled by means of shampoo. Hard to follow. The weird animation style rendered the characters expressionless, which contributed to the eeriness, but also kept me at arm’s length.

Watched Devil Wears Prada: Comedy-drama about an aspiring journalist who gets a job for the unreasonably demanding editor of a fashion magazine. Pitch-perfect example of its genre, that actually makes you think about what it takes to be successful, and whether we're ok with that.

Watched Bringing Up Baby on BBC iPlayer. Madcap comedy from 1938 about an heiress trying to seduce an absent-minded palaeontologist by means of pure chaos. Lots of fun to watch. Katharine Hepburn's ADHD-riddled character steals the show, with Cary Grant's nice-guy providing the perfect foil.

Saw Backrooms at the cinema. Surreal horror based on an internet meme about an endless series of creepy corridors that exist just past the bounds of reality. The Backrooms themselves were the highlight - the eerie feeling of liminal spaces was well captured. But the story felt a little episodic.

I read The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan. Fascinating insights and analysis into the evolution of feminism, the intersection of sexual and racial politics, the moral numbing effect of porn, the pliability of desire and how patriarchal strictures constrain it, etc.

Saw Obsession at the cinema. Brilliantly horrifying take on entitlement and desire. Left me wrung out at the end. The best horror movie of the 2020s so far? This and The Backrooms feel like a revolution: native YouTubers are blasting into Hollywood, and there's no going back.

With these accolades, why *wouldn't* you submit your short story to Fiction on the Web? www.fictionontheweb.co.uk/p/submission...

Just posted my monthly Fiction on the Web newsletter for Patreon members, including an audiobook, a list of literary magazines that provide feedback on every submission, and a discussion of lit mag policies around generative AI. You can join here: www.patreon.com/charliefish