Fake Movies I Made With The Tentpole Game This Week, Ranked

How we got here, in brief:

• There is a new online movie-making game called Tentpole where you can build a fictional movie through a series of choices — lead actor, genre, director, etc. – and have it spit out a title, summary, and various fake blurbs and scores
• It is, for a warped-brain goofball like me, hopelessly addictive
• I spent hours this week clicking and howling and making the stupidest and/or best movies you can imagine
• I should have been writing during this time
• I realized that I count all that time spent clicking and howling as "work" if I turned it into a blog
• I blogged it

Below, please find the top 13 fake movies I made in this god-forsaken game — yes, I know it’s AI slop, but it's stupid enough to be fun and harmless, so we ride — when I was supposed to be typing paragraphs filled with sentences.

Off we go...

13. Exhibit 13

I need to see that damn mirror speech.

12. The Long Way To Tulsa

How we have gotten to the end of 2026 without casting Amy Poehler as a devious televangelist, I’ll never understand.

11. The Latchkey

This would have been top three if I had more confidence in Todd Phillips as a director.

10. Sudden Death Overtime

Shoutout Jennifer Tilly, man.

9. A Second Election

I’m sorry but I can’t stop thinking about the Russo Brothers directing – trying to direct??? – Barbra Streisand.

8. The Long Amen

RIP Dolly and Tim but this is incredible content.

7. The Wrath of Daytona

See, you think "Ryan Gosling and Joe Pesci in a Michael Bay movie” is the highlight and then you see “Kristen Wiig as a foul-mouthed bail-bond clerk.”

6. Felt Precinct

NIC CAGE MUPPET COP MOVIE

5. Sanguine

Do not for one goddamn second tell me you’re not intrigued by an NC-17 Wes Craven movie that stars Judi Dench as a New Orleans vampire madam who relies on Danny DeVito to bring her young studs to feed on.

4. Photo Finish: The Long Count

The last sentence of this plot summary combined with the director is the hardest I have laughed this week.

3. Countersong

Easily the greatest cast assembled for any musical ever committed to film.

2. Slay Ride

“Jason Statham as a burned-out mall Santa facing off with Jamie Lee Curtis for a shootout in a mall” seems impossible to top, but it turns out it’s not even the best Christmas movie on the list…

1. Swindle Club: A Palm Springs Christmas

If I can’t get another Nice Guys movie, I suppose I will settle for this.

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STUFF I CLICKED ON

— Erik Adams wrote about Keith David being awesome

— Alan Siegel wrote about fake 30 Rock shows

— Amanda Mull wrote an absolute banger about flag football

— Zach Lowe is writing again, thank the damn lord

— I have not seen Josh Hartnett’s squid show yet but the fact that he says this to this squid is tempting me

— really cannot recommend Sara Kate’s Bird Blog highly enough

— an Instagram glitch resulted in a massive influx of Creed songs 

— good blog about Slow Horses

— Vulture investigated Dua Lipa’s hot dog claims 

— Nic Cage is fed up

— Javier Bardem confirms that his character in Skyfall wanted to bone James Bond

— New Girl cast reunited for a lil charity roast

— Hollywood is coming for the tech bros

— wine heist 

— “‘Years of dog pee’ blamed for fallen street light in Little Italy”

— “'Sausage Smuggler' charged over thefts down trousers”

— the clip isn’t online but John Oliver went after my enemy Liberty Biberty at the end of this week’s show and it was very funny but now this image is seared into my brain forever

Okay, that’s it for this week. Please share and subscribe and spend an hour or two goofing around with the dumb movie game.