Alan & Jono's Watching/Reading List: January 2026 (Patreon)

Alan:

Hello Heroes!

The warmest January in Utah’s history. Of course it’s the year I finally bought a snowboard.

What I’m reading!

I literally didn’t finish a book this month. I’m still working on Stormlight Archive #2. Man, it’s kind of a slog. Like, I appreciate all of you out there who are huge fans of it, but yeesh. It’s rough. Started a couple other books I’ll report on next month.

Before & Afters #45 - Sinners - It’s not a book, but this issue was over 100 pages and is chock-full of great stuff from the production and post of Sinners. I learned a lot! Before & Afters is a magazine about VFX, btw. It’s great. If there’s any you find interesting, there are digital and print copies available at the website: https://beforesandafters.com/magazine/. Highly recommend for the big movie nerd in your life.

What I’m watching!

Avatar: Fire & Ash - I love the Avatar movies. They f-ing RIP! I make no apologies for it.

BBC Pride & Prejudice miniseries! My 10-yr-old daughter had never seen it. My teenage boys watched too. We all loved it, of course, but man, my inner director was SCREAMING the whole time about lighting, framing, staging, and blocking. What a stiff, boringly shot show. 100% saved by the script and performances. 

I have a huge list of movies to watch that I’m actually excited to watch before the Oscars this year. Even though I think Sinners should probably win all 16 categories it got nominated for. Normally I’m pretty blah on Oscar-bait movies. But there are a bunch of noms this year that look really interesting!

What I’m playing!

Ace Combat 7. I grew up wanting to be a fighter pilot. My very first video games were flight sims (F-19 Stealth Fighter, then Falcon 3.0, for all you ancient nerds out there). This game has great graphics, an absolutely nonsense story, sorta middling arcadey gameplay, and I’m still digging it.

Portal 2. This is my third or fourth play-through. What a great game. Man I wish Valve still made games. They were really good at it. Though I’m glad they made me a Steam Deck.

Watch Movies! (And television, and read books, and play video games)

Jono:

Hey all! January has just FLOWN by. I've been enjoying The Flash (the CW show) from the beginning with my son. Super fun! I never had time to get into it when it was on, so I'm enjoying the binge-watch. Grant Gustin is perfect.My local theater is doing a Hunger Games marathon this month, so I've been catching that instead of new releases which, in January, historically aren't that great. Katniss on the big screen is pretty fantastic!Honestly, I've fallen behind on reading this month, but I aim to read Stephen King's Dr. Sleep since I enjoyed The Shining back in October.What have you all been watching and reading?