Alternate Ending - Movie Review Podcast · Alternate Ending

January 2026 Movie Preview

December 30, 2025·1 hr 15 min·5 clips

Brennan Klein opens the show for what he calls his last recording of 2025. He is joined by Caleb Wimble and Brian Fowler. The usual movie roundtable gets put aside right away. News has broken about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle Singer Reiner, and the hosts choose to spend time on Reiner’s career instead of jumping straight into whatever they watched most recently. That gives the episode a different shape from the start. The discussion feels less like a formal tribute and more like a few people sorting through a filmography they clearly respect. The tone stays conversational, and the hosts trade memories and standout titles without rushing past the moment. Once they are ready, the show moves into its January preview. The first title that gets real attention is Greenland 2. The panel treats it as a sequel that exists because the first movie found an audience, even if it was swallowed by the pandemic and never left much of a footprint. They note that the original was not a great film, but it had enough human appeal to make the sequel feel worth at least a little curiosity. The conversation stays practical rather than hype-driven. They talk about whether the follow-up can recapture the bunker-to-world energy of the first movie. They also acknowledge that no one is pretending this is some grand prestige return. The interest is in whether it can still be a decent time. From there they pivot to Primate, one of the other big January 9 releases. The setup sounds like a nightmare built from familiar parts. A group of college friends gathers in Hawaii after the death of one of their mothers, and the group’s pet chimp turns violent. The hosts linger on the animal itself because it does not seem to be acting like a simple rabid creature. There is a sense that something else is driving it, maybe something sci-fi or supernatural. The idea of the chimp operating the keys to open a van becomes part of the hook. That premise gives the panel enough room to joke while still taking the movie seriously as a genre object. They tease apart the ingredients and focus on the difference between a dumb setup and one that might be smarter than it first looks. Throughout the episode, the rhythm stays brisk. Brennan, Caleb, and Brian move easily between skepticism and interest, which keeps the preview from flattening into generic release chatter. The remembrance opening gives the episode some gravity. The January section gives it momentum. The closing stretches out into the show’s usual sign-offs, including a plug for the site and Patreon and a mention of the next Your Movie Rocks episode with Mandy Albert. The whole thing lands like a January reset: part remembrance, part preview, part film-people hangout.

As heard by us

A January preview that begins with a memorial and settles into relaxed, specific movie talk.

Alternate Ending opens its January preview with a pause for Rob Reiner, following the morning after his and Michelle Singer Reiner's murder, before settling into the usual back-and-forth among Brennan Klein, Caleb Wimble, and Brian Fowler.

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Why you'd press play

A January preview with a Rob Reiner remembrance and two very different January 9 releases.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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