News What to Watch What to Read and Watch This Weekend: How Many Ways Can You Be Chaotic in Space? Seriously, though, Wake Up Dead Man should have at least gotten a nod in Adapted Screenplay… By Molly Templeton | Published on January 23, 2026 Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer/Paramount+. Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Brooke Palmer/Paramount+. Dear entire eastern half of the U.S., I’m sorry you’re facing Snowpocalypse 2000. (I’ve lost track of how many snowpocalypses we’ve had in the last few years alone.) I hope you’ve got snacks and groceries and books; I hope everyone comes through this okay, without burst pipes and broken branches and all the other winter chaos that has the potential to happen. I hope the snow is pretty for at least a little while before it becomes that terrible gray slush that soaks into your boots even when it shouldn’t. And all of this goes double for folks in Minnesota who are striking today to protest ICE. There are so many things to call your reps about these days. This is definitely one of them. Oh Captain! My Captain!: Starfleet Academy’s Nahla Ake Is the Leader I Want I am not fully sold on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy as a show, exactly. Some of the kids are great, some of them are terrible (must we have the put-upon pretty boy jock in every school show?); generally I wish they were not all vaguely twenty-four or so (but acting like high-schoolers), as people can join Starfleet at any age. What I wouldn’t give for an adult student with some Troublesome Life Experience under their belt! (Yes, Caleb Mir has a lot of life experience, but he is only written like he has said experience sometimes.) But I will never stop watching this show because of Holly Hunter. As Captain Nahla Ake and the chancellor of the academy, she is … nontraditional. She wears shoes (and her uniform) as little as possible. She does incredible things with her face. The way she sits in chairs—including the captain’s chair—can only be described as chaotic. When she curled up in that chair with her reading glasses and an actual print book, I thought, yes. This woman is four hundred years old. She found her hobbies in a different age. There are things she loves that are outdated. Her thinking isn’t—she’s sharp, she loves the kids’ hijinks even as she wants them to be better prankers, she cares, and she doesn’t buy into any tough love, distant-powerful-leader nonsense. She didn’t want the job, but she has it, and she’s going to do it her way. I love her. And I love when a show about young characters remembers that the adults shouldn’t all suck. Those kids need some adults to show them that growing up isn’t awful.  Sad Space Dad Bee Marine: The Best Jupiter Ascending Post Ever Everyone—I assume—has a post or three that truly rank as “things I read long ago and have thought about all the time for years on end.” Last week, I was reminded of one of mine: This brilliant, over-the-top, Comic-Sans-using Tumblr post about Jupiter Ascending, which tries very hard to explain the movie and absolutely fails. This is not a failing of the post itself; the move is simply un-explainable. Which does not mean that it is un-enjoyable. It’s a goddamn delight. It fully understands the assignment, which is to revel in Jupiter Ascending’s eyeball-punching glory while also laughing—lovingly!—about how over the top it all is. “This movie is what would happen if Labyrinth and The Fifth Element had a baby which later on watched Star Wars while really high and was like HEY I COULD TOTALLY MAKE THAT and then was given the multimillion dollar budget of The Matrix to make it happen. Please go see it,” the post says, and I agree. (Leah Schnelbach said something similar, in their own way, when reviewing the movie.) For what it’s worth, Jupiter Ascending was released on February 5, 2015, so it’s about to turn 11. Won’t anyone think of the 11-year-old movies? Give Sinners All the Awards—But Watch Some Other Movies, Too The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, and—as is right and proper—Sinners dominated, becoming the most nominated movie in Oscars history. The Oscar voters did pretty alright this year overall, but it was one hell of a year for movies, and there are an absolute pile of films that didn’t make the cut but are still worth your time. And my time, as I have been failing at going to movies for months now! But the nice thing is that many of these not-nominated films can now be watched from the comfort of your living room, including Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix; Leah will not stop shouting about it); Sorry, Baby (HBO; I promise nothing bad happens to the cat); Die My Love (MUBI); Hedda (Prime); Black Bag (Prime); The History of Sound (MUBI); The Mastermind (MUBI); Mickey 17 (HBO, Prime). I am dying to see A Useful Ghost, but it doesn’t appear to be available yet. Humph.  There are a few others that are still in theaters, depending on where you live, like No Other Choice and The Testament of Ann Lee. Are all of these SFF? Nope! But good movies are good movies. Or you could watch Sinners again. It’s entirely worth it.  Winter is Here, and So Is the Seasonally Appropriate Reading Material It’s cold out. The older I get, the more I find it hard to even joke about the weather; there are too many people living out in it at all times, and our cities and states and country are not great at taking care of them. I get mad a lot. But winter as a concept, as a season, gets a lot of literary attention. In recent years, we’ve had Nina MacLaughlin’s lovely Winter Solstice and Katharine May’s popular Wintering; this week, another winter book is out. Val McDermid’s Winter: The Story of a Season sounds as if it’s part memoir, part look at the traditions of winter. Which, personally, I could use a few more of—traditions beyond “cursing about how cold my hands are” and “drinking excessive amounts of hot chocolate,” anyway.  There are also, of course, plenty of wintry SFF novels, if that is more your speed at the moment. Stay warm out there![end-mark] The post What to Read and Watch This Weekend: How Many Ways Can You Be Chaotic in Space? appeared first on Reactor.