Stuff I watched in...the first half of July, 2026

I've seen so many movies this month, I'm doing another two-fer for July! In this blog post I'm pretty much exclusively covering movies that came out this year. Next blog post will focus on some older films.

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The Invite

I generally avoid movies where the plot seems to be "a couple hates each other". Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff is one of my least-favorite movies because I really can't stand to listen to couples argue and bicker. But The Invite, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack and directed by Olivia Wilde, tempers the irritating aspects of this kind of film with a hefty dose of humor and surprise.

Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen play Angela and Joe: a married couple living in a really dope San Francisco apartment and raising a 12 year old daughter. Despite a very comfortable life, Angela and Joe have more than lost their spark: they borderline hate each other. Joe comes home from the job he clearly hates one day to find that Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors over for dinner. Despite Joe's protestations, it's too late to cancel: Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) are at the door. 

The Invite walks this fine line between cringe and horny that I don't see a lot of movies do with finesse. Because, yes, Pina and Hawk are interested in Joe and Angela. And that interest, of course, flips everything on its head. Wilde gives an excellent performance as a woman overflowing with anxiety...and secretly filled with desire. Wilde pivots from anger to flirtation to embarrassment to resignation on a dime but in a way that feels really real. Because I know women like her: brimming with emotions and trying to keep them under control, but waiting for the right moment, or the right person, to free them.

Ed Norton is also great as the sensitive New Age guy. The type of guy who is soft-spoken and smart and deferential to women...but who is also kind of a fuck monster. I feel like Norton is uniquely perfect for this role because he embodies this version of masculinity that is a bit pretentious and annoying, but also...kinda hot? (hey, maybe it's just me). Hot in a way where you're annoyed about it and would be embarrassed to admit to your friends that you sat on his face all night long.

Rogen and Cruz are also great, though they do lean into their stereotypes (Cruz as a cool sex goddess and Rogen as a sarcastic, funny guy with a mean streak) a bit. But overall, the cast just works SO WELL together. I love it when actors are good at acting! 

The Invite is really, really hilarious with a clever script, great directing, excellent acting, and something to actually say about relationships. 

Grade: A

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Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

This delightful little comedy is the latest from David Wain, the director and writer of Wet Hot American Summer, Wanderlust, and They Came Together. I don't think I've seen a David Wain film I didn't like! His style of humor is this interesting mix of sweet and edgy. His movies also reward multiple views--they tend to grow on me more and more when I rewatch them.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is also a take on The Wizard of Oz, a fact I didn't pick up on until halfway through the movie! A hairdresser from rural Kansas, Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch), is about to marry her high school sweetheart, Tom (Michael Cassidy). But when Tom has an opportunity to use his "celebrity sex pass" and takes it (Gail catches him mid-act), Gail starts to doubt whether she should go through with the wedding.

While on a trip to Los Angeles with her best friend, Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), Gail visits a psychic who explains that to save her relationship she must even the score by sleeping with her celebrity sex pass: Jon Hamm. So begins an adventure to find Jon Hamm and, well, fuck him. There's also a parallel plot where Gail accidentally takes the wrong suitcase at the airport and some bad guys need to hunt her down to retrieve the classified documents she inadvertently stole. 

Gail Daughtry is goofy, dumb, and good-hearted. On their quest to meet Jon Hamm, Gail and Otto meet three men: Caleb (Ben Wang), who works at a creative agency and is a bit of a dummy; Vincent (Ken Marino, also the screenwriter of the movie), a former paparazzo who has lost his heart for his work; and John Slattery (John Slattery), Hamm's co-star from Mad Men who is a bit of a coward. GET IT?? 

It's cute. I'm looking forward to watching it again and revisiting Wain's previous films and also the ones I haven't seen yet. While I wasn't busting my gut laughing at this movie, I did laugh out loud a lot in the theatre. Check it out if you're in the mood for a loose, silly comedy.

Grade: B+

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The Sheep Detectives

Watch this movie immediately! Seriously, go watch it now!

Directed by Kyle Balda, who has a long career in animation, The Sheep Detectives is a family-friendly film about a group of sheep who need to figure out who murdered their shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman). The movie is basically an Agatha Christie novel, but with talking sheep. 

And if you think a PG-rated movie with talking sheep isn't for you--I thought that, too! And I was wrong. The story is absolutely heartrending at times and covers some pretty deep themes, including being a friend to the unloved, caring for your "flock" (and allowing them to care for you), and not avoiding painful feelings and memories. One interesting aspect of the sheep (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chris O'Dowd, Patrick Stewart, and Bryan Cranston, among others) is that they can choose to forget things. So if something bad happens, they can simply...forget it. All of the sheep, that is, except Mopple (O'Dowd), who can't forget and therefore is in a painful position to bear the burden of remembering all the bad things that happened to the flock. The lesson the sheep have to learn is that if a loved one dies, like George, it's worth it to remember him, as painful as it is, because remembering loved ones is how they stay with us. I'm not crying--you're crying!

The mystery itself is a bit silly, but it does introduce us to a colorful cast of (human) characters--each with a reason to do harm to George. A bumbling police officer (Nicholas Braun) is able to solve the case with the help of the sheep. And the sheep are able to solve the case because George read them murder mysteries before bed each night! 

If you've ever thought, "I'd love to watch a movie that is a combination of Babe and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery", well this is the movie for you! But it's probably also for you if you've never thought that, because everyone I know, from casual moviegoers to cinephiles, like The Sheep Detectives. 

Grade: A

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Faces of Death (2026)

The original Faces of Death is a 1978 horror film presented as a documentary claiming to show "real" executions, animal attacks, and war. Some of the footage was real, and some of it was fake, but it was presented as entirely real and became a sort of underground cult classic. I myself have not seen it and have no interest in seeing it.

The 2026 film Faces of Death is about a woman, Margot (Barbie Ferreira), hired to do content moderation for an app called Kino (basically, a fictional TikTok) and discovers what she believes are real murders filmed to look fake so they will pass moderation. The murders are recreations of scenes from--you guessed it--the 1978 film Faces of Death. Although Margot's coworkers tell her to let it go, she decides to solve the mystery before more people die.

This is just a bad movie. It's dumb as hell, and worse, it's boring. It's not violent or scary enough to be an entertaining horror film, and it's not tense enough to be a good thriller. What's bizarre, though, is that the director, Daniel Goldhaber, is a really good director! He directed Cam, which I really enjoyed, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which is an excellent movie. Likewise, Barbie Ferreira and Dacre Montgomery (who plays the killer) are talented actors. So this is just kind of a low point for everyone involved.

Faces of Death isn't the worst movie ever, but I really can't recommend it. There are better ways to spend 97 minutes.

Grade: C

Stuff I watched in...June, 2026

Leviticus

I had reasonably high hopes for Leviticus, a queer horror film directed by Adrian Chiarella. The film takes place in a religious community in Australia. Two teen boys, Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), take a liking to each other. There's something so uncomplicated about their relationship, which involves typical things boys like to do: explore abandoned mills, play-wrestle, and, uh, make out.

After being caught out, the boys are subjected to an exorcism-like experience from a "Deliverance Healer". This ritual attaches an evil entity to each boy that appears as the person the victim most desires. So for Ryan, this entity looks identical to Naim, and to Naim it looks like Ryan. But if you interact with this entity, it will kill you. The only way to protect yourself is to never be alone, because the entity only shows up when you're by yourself.

First of all, I had so many questions about the lore here. Like, I get that the "point" is to make gay teens terrified of their own desires. But this entity FOLLOWS you. So even if you reject your desires, the thing could still fucking kill you! How does that make any spiritual sense? Don't these religious loons want gay kids to become not-gay instead of not-alive? Also, since the entity leaves you alone if you're with other people...wouldn't that just be an excuse to stay attached to the hip of the (real) object of your desire? Once Naim and Ryan confirm that each other is the "real" person, they just need to be with each other at all times and the entity can't get them. I guess that's also the "point" of the movie: these religious nuts pushed the gay teen lovers into each other's arms! How ironic and romantic! Ehh...

So the lore of the film just doesn't make sense. Also, way religion is portrayed in the film didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Granted, it's Australia, so maybe I'm just used to good, ol' American religious fundamentalism and homophobia, but the community didn't seem homophobic enough to me in Leviticus. I know that sounds like a crazy thing to say, but if you're telling me that this community is SO religious and SO homophobic that they would bring in a "Deliverance Healer" to pray away the gay, I expect the community and especially the pastor to be brimming with disgust and hate towards teen male homosexuality and...that's not what I saw in this movie. Homosexuality is treated as more of a light annoyance or bit of teen foolishness (like smoking cigarettes) than an affront to God. None of it made sense to me!

Finally, the movie is too short. It's 88 minutes long, which is not enough time to let the audience get to know Naim and Ryan. It doesn't allow us time to get to know the community. It doesn't allow us time to fully understand the stakes. Instead it's just like: these kids are gay and now bad stuff is happening. Enjoy! 

I will say that the leads, Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, are excellent. There is some solid gore and the score is great. But I think Adrian Chiarella, who is a relatively new director, needs to hone his craft a bit more. 

Grade: B-

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Tuner

Tuner is a lowkey, character-driven thriller with a really interesting premise: a man with a sense of hearing so strong that it's debilitating realizes that he can crack safes by listening closely to them, thus leading him into some...er, not so legal situations.

Leo Woodall plays Niki White, a piano tuner who works under Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman). Niki used to play piano himself, but after developing hyperacusis, a sensory processing disorder which makes the sufferer extremely sensitive to loud noises, he had to give up his passion. Niki wears special earplugs all day every day and usually wears noise canceling headphones on top of that. Living in New York City can't be easy for someone who would fall to the ground in agonizing pain at the sound of a car siren.

After a situation where Harry forgets the combo to his safe, Niki researches how to break into one and learns that if you listen very closely, you can actually hear the parts of the combo lock click into place and thus crack the safe. Not long after this discovery, Niki is tuning a rich guy's piano in the evening when no one is home and he happens upon a group of guys breaking into the client's safe. Niki helps them open it, mostly to get them to leave, and the leader of this gang of criminals, Uri (Lior Raz), gives Niki his card and tells him to give him a call if he wants to make some real money.

You can probably guess where this is going. Niki isn't a bad guy, but he does need money--and for altruistic purposes. Harry is sick and doesn't have health insurance, so his medical bills are sky high. Harry is like a father to Niki, so Niki starts taking on safe-cracking jobs to pay Harry's bills.

One of the best things about Tuner is how naturalistic the performances feel, especially Leo Woodall as Niki and Havana Rose Liu as his love interest, Ruthie. The budding relationship, which is threatened by Niki's line of under-the-table work, feels really real and not overly cute. Ironically, one of the worst things about Tuner is how unrealistic the overall plot is, but especially a twist near the end that is almost laughable in how unlikely it is. The mix of natural dialogue and acting with the ridiculous plot elements is a bit jarring. But that said, Tuner is *very* entertaining. If you like thrillers that aren't showy or full of action and big stars, this one really is for you. 

Grade: B+

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To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Happy pride! The bizarrely titled film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, while not exactly in my top 50 queer films, is a movie with a big heart and some solid laughs. The film follows three drag queens, Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze), Noxeema Jackson (Wesley Snipes), and Chi-Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo), as they travel across the country in yellow Cadillac DeVille to participate in the "Drag Queen of America" pageant in Los Angeles. 

They are waylaid in the small rural town of Syndersville after the Cadillac breaks down and are forced to spend the weekend with the residents of this podunk hamlet. While there, they bring hope to the women of the town by giving them makeovers and helping them plan for the annual Strawberry Social. They also teach the hickish young men a lesson in manners and treating ladies right. The whole movie is so wholesome (in spite of thematic elements of domestic violence and rape) and feels old-fashioned. This is a 1990s film if I've ever seen one, with an uncomplicated message about accepting people who are different than you and how friendship and love will overcome hate and violence.

I will say that it's not quite as funny or entertaining as I hoped it would be. It's a warm, soft blanket of a film and a great watch if you're feeling down and you want something pleasant and not too challenging. The performances are all delightful, but the MVP is Patrick Swayze, a handsome man who makes for a beautiful, graceful woman. RIP Patrick, you were too good for this world.

Grade: B-

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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Another drag queen road trip movie, only this one is a little more boring and lot more depressing. Sorry! 

This time, it's Anthony "Tick" Belrose (Hugo Weaving) and Adam Whitely (Guy Pearce) traveling by bus across the Australian desert to perform at a casino managed by Tick's ex-wife, Marion (Sarah Chadwick). Along for the ride is Bernadette Bassenger (Terrance Stamp), a trans woman mourning the death of her younger boyfriend. 

Hijinks ensue, including the bus breaking down, homophobia/transphobia from bigots, a party with aboriginals which ends in an impromptu drag performance of "I Will Survive", secrets revealed, and life-long friends made.

Sadly, I found Priscilla to be dull and slow. Unlike To Wong Foo, in which the queens are on the right side of bitchy, the queens in Priscilla are just...bitches. Especially Guy Pearce, who is just a total cunt half the time (misgendering and badgering poor Bernadette, who did nothing to deserve it). Although there are some funny scenes, the overall vibe of Priscilla is...a drag (HAR HAR). This pride, watch something a little happier. 

Grade: C+

***

Half Man (TV series)

Created and written by Richard Gadd, who achieved acclaim with his heartrending miniseries Baby Reindeer in 2024, Half Man is...a lot. The 6 episode miniseries follows Niall Kennedy (played as an adult by Jamie Bell) and Ruben Pallister (played as an adult by Richard Gadd), two men who are not blood brothers, but grow up together since their mums lived together. Where Niall is a meek lad struggling with his sexuality and hiding almost everything about himself from everyone in his life, Ruben is a domineering, violent bully. Niall and Ruben have a fucked up, codependent relationship in which Niall worships and fears Ruben and Ruben menaces and protects Niall. 

On the day of Niall's wedding, Ruben shows up. He gets Niall alone in a barn to "talk". But what does Ruben want? A fight? Sex? We can't possibly guess. And from there, the show takes us back to the beginning of Ruben and Niall's traumatizing life together.

Half Man is not as good as Baby Reindeer, but Gadd partially succeeds in exploring the topic of people who can't help themselves from indulging in toxic relationships even after given multiple opportunities to move on.

Initially, the audience is primed to sympathize with Niall, a bullied kid dominated by everyone in his life: his classmates, his mum, and Ruben. But as time goes on, we see how Niall can't seem to get away from these toxic relationships even after given multiple fresh starts. We see that he is, in many ways, the architect of his own suffering. I really like this theme, which is also explored in Baby Reindeer, because this kind of nuance (essentially: victims who play a role their own victimization) seems almost taboo to explore in media. But Gadd walks this very fine line with precision and our sympathies keep moving back and forth between Niall and Ruben.

Gadd is clearly working through some deeply personal shit in Half Man and Baby Reindeer. Both shows feel vulnerable and honest in a way you don't always see in media, but they can also be deeply uncomfortable and even offensive at times. This vulnerability worked in Baby Reindeer, but just feels nihilistic in Half Man. The series leaves you asking what the point was. We watch these two men torment and betray one another and there seems to be no meaning behind it other than "toxic masculinity is bad". 

There is still something very compelling about Half Man. I wouldn't recommend it to many people, but if you're a fan of Baby Reindeer or into really intense, fucked up dramas, you could give it a spin and see what you think. Being a miniseries, it won't take up much of your time.

Grade: C+

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The Testaments (TV series)

The Testaments, based on the book by Margaret Atwood (which I do recommend reading), is a sequel of sorts to The Handmaid's Tale. Why in god's name I wanted to subject myself to more Handmaid's Tale IP is a puzzle for my therapist to figure out. But despite the fact that the show is a very masochistic watch, I did enjoy it! 

Because The Testaments focuses on the young women of Gilead, it feels more hopeful. I heard the show described as a dystopian version of Bridgerton, and that's not far off: much of the season focuses on preparing for a ball during which the Commanders will meet the latest crop of "Greens": young ladies who have gotten their period in the past year and are now ready to marry. But will they get to marry the younger, cuter Commanders who are closer to their age? HAHAHAHA! Of course not, silly! These 16 year old girls will be forced into marriage with men older than their fathers! It's the way God intended things to be!

The show follows two main girls: Agnes MacKenzie (Chase Infiniti, a very exciting up-and-coming actress), a girl born of a Handmaid and adopted by a Commander and his wife, and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a "Pearl Girl". Pearl Girls are young women who live outside of Gilead and are recruited to join Gilead's way of life. These girls are usually homeless and desperate--think of vulnerable people preyed upon by a cult. But in Daisy's case, she's actually an undercover Mayday operative sent in to spy on the young women of Gilead and report back.

Shifting between Agnes and Daisy's point of view, the girls get ready for their futures and navigate forbidden crushes, schoolyard gossip, and preparing to be sold as slaves to their 50-something year old suitors. Y'know, just girl stuff!

This is the kind of show that if you're going to watch it, you already have. Plenty of people are not interested in signing up to watch a show where a young man has his hand buzz-sawed off for the crime of masturbation in the first episode. And then there are the sickos like me who are strangely drawn to the horrifying world of Gilead. 

Grade: B

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Who Framed Roger Rabbit

This will shock you to your core, but I had never seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit it it's entirety until literally a couple days ago. I think I saw a few scenes of it as a kid and was too scared to watch the rest. Well, I finally got around to watching this stone-cold classic and, holy shit, it is so good. 

I'm guessing that every single person reading this review has seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit so no need to go too deeply into the plot. This is a film noir comedy directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, a hard-boiled detective trying to find out, well, who framed Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer). The crime? The murder of Marvin Acme, owner of Toon Town, and a man known to play "patty-cake" with Roger's wife, Jessica. 

This movie is pure delight. It's SO fucking funny and ridiculous. It's a PG movie back when PG really did mean "parental guidance" because watching it as an adult I can see how it would scare the absolute shit out of children. The mix of cartoons and live action is uncanny in the first place, but also any scenes with Judge Doom--played by the incomparable Christopher Lloyd--are truly terrifying.

I also just love film noir dialogue because there's something inherently funny about it ("The dame had legs for days and a body for nights" type stuff), and it's perfect for a PG movie because the writers can get really creative with the insults and innuendos without slipping into adult territory. If you have a kid in your life, around age 8-10, this is the perfect movie to show them to make them think you're not like other adults--you're a cool adult. Because it will feel like they're getting away with watching something they're not supposed to. Be a little bit of a bad influence. 😈

Grade: A

Disclosure Day (and a bonus review!)

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors in cinema history. But that doesn't mean that every single one of his films is a masterpiece. Disclosure Day is mid-tier Spielberg. This ain't no E.T. This ain't no Jaws. But not all movies can be E.T. or Jaws. 

Disclosure Day is a perfectly fine popcorn flick about a government conspiracy to cover up 80 years of evidence of aliens and the few people who know the truth and will go to any lengths to release that truth to the world because "people have a right to know".

Let me say this right off the bat: this movie doesn't make sense in 2026. It is exactly the wrong message and tone for what we know now about the government and about the amount (or lack thereof) that people care about "the truth". We live in a world where we KNOW that there are government conspiracies and that the existence of aliens is the least of our worries. We KNOW that people DON'T care about the truth and that the truth will NOT bring us together. So while Disclosure Day would have been an excellent and powerful film if it came out in 1990, it just feels like a joke in 2026. 

If you suspend your disbelief about the message of Disclosure Day, the plot is quite entertaining. A cybersecurity specialist, Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), steals not only video evidence of alien beings, but a device that allows the user to control other people's minds and actions. Daniel goes on the run with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), and the CEO of Wardex (a private security company tasked with hiding the evidence of aliens and other government secrets), Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), uses everything at his disposal to find them before Daniel can release the evidence to the world.

Meanwhile in Kansas City, weather reporter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) has what appears to be a breakdown on live TV where she begins making these throaty clicking sounds no one can understand. She's also able to speak basically any language and read minds. For reasons she can't understand, she is compelled to find Daniel (a complete stranger to her) and help him with his mission. 

As you can see, there is A LOT going on in Disclosure Day and, frankly, not a lot of it is explained. One of the overarching messages of the film is that the alien beings use empathy as a survival strategy and want to give us humans that level of empathy so we don't all kill each other in WWIII. But this idea isn't really elaborated on. This is a movie that would have excelled as a miniseries. If it had the time to really explore the technology and lore, it would have been that much more interesting. Instead, it throws everything at the wall and expects us, the audience, to care and understand. 

Defenders of the film are very insistent that we don't need all the answers, we don't need the lore explained, we should ignore plot holes and any questions we have about why and how. I'm sorry, but that's a load of BS! Sure, some suspension of disbelief is fine. But Disclosure Day wants to be "important". It takes itself very seriously while not delivering the emotional transcendence it promises. Like I said, it's the exact wrong movie for the exact wrong time period. It's not so much that I don't believe in aliens...it's that I don't believe in the humans in this film. 

However, there is one really good thing that come out of Disclosure Day: it encouraged me to re-watch Spielberg's 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. There are folks who are saying that Disclosure Day is comparable to A.I. (it's not. A.I. is a masterpiece and Disclosure Day is a popcorn flick) and saying that Disclosure Day will be looked back on as a misunderstood masterpiece (it will not. People won't think about Disclosure Day much at all 5 years from now and if they do, they will think of it as one of Spielberg's lesser works). ALL THIS SAID...it led me to rewatch A.I. for the first time in 20 years and gottdamn if it doesn't hold up!

A.I. was, famously, meant to be directed by Stanley Kubrick. When he died, Spielberg took over the project and made it into an homage to Kubrick while also giving it that Spielbergian touch of humanity. The result is a profoundly emotional film about the nature of love and humanity that still has that signature Kubrickian clinical coldness. 

The film takes place in a future where climate change has destroyed much of Earth and childbearing is tightly controlled. Also, humanoid robots are a thriving market. There are robot nannies, robot lovers, and robot workers. But Professor Allen Hobby (William Hurt) wants to create a child robot that can truly, actually love. This would fill a void for childless couples who cannot have children of their own (and not to mention, make bank!). 

It just so happens that the company making these robots has the perfect guinea pigs in mind: Henry and Monica Swinton (Sam Robards and Frances O'Connor). Henry works for the company making these child robots and he and Monica have a son who is ill and will likely never recover. They allow Henry to take home David (Haley Joel Osment), a prototype robot child. David is initially a kind and polite, if generic, robot. He follows Monica around all day. But his features are not yet put to full use. When Monica is ready, she can read a series of words to David that will make David truly love her the way a child unconditionally loves a mother. Monica eventually does this, and in doing so, damns David to an eternity of unrequited love. 

A.I. is a heartbreaking film that pulls no punches (well, maybe pulls more punches than it would have if Kubrick directed it). When Monica and Henry's son Martin miraculously recovers, it's only a matter of time before David is pushed out of the family unit. Monica simply cannot love David as much as she loves her own son, and when David innocently and accidentally hurts Martin, it's game over. At the same time, Monica is a moral coward. She can't bear the thought of David being destroyed by the robotics company, so she just abandons him in the woods! She loves his too much to allow him to "die", but not enough to keep him in the family. Frances O'Connor's performance is just SO good as a woman in an impossible situation.

The rest of the film follows David's journey to find the Blue Fairy, whom he heard about in Pinocchio. He thinks that if he finds this Blue Fairy, she will make him a real boy and Monica will love him. 

Watching A.I., even though it's a long movie and even though I've seen it before, I was enthralled. I wasn't goofing around on my phone or taking snack breaks. I was almost hypnotized by the movie and it hit even harder than it did when I first saw it in high school. It also brings up a lot of interesting questions about what humans owe artificial intelligence. We live in a world in which increasingly complex A.I. actually exists and there are even "slurs" directed at A.I. The idea that you could insult or hurt A.I. sounds stupid as hell...but what if the A.I. looked human? What if it COULD actually love? Would that change anything? In A.I. David ends up at a "Flesh Fair" -- a rally where people mutilate and kill robots in a "celebration of life". The people at this event are portrayed as white trash redneck types and the event feels like a monster truck rally. But I know some people who hate artificial intelligence so fucking much, I could see them going to something like this. Artificial intelligence is scary, but humans are scarier, eh? Never underestimate the power of human sadism when faced with something that threatens us.

Having people talk about Disclosure Day and A.I. Artificial Intelligence as if they're on the same level just feels laughable to me. The two films aren't even close in terms of style, script, acting, and profundity. Disclosure Day is a perfectly acceptable action film with some excellent sequences and solid acting (especially Emily Blunt). But if you're looking for a movie that will really challenge you and probably make you weep, give A.I. a watch. It's the more difficult film of the two, and by far the more rewarding one. 

Disclosure Day: B-

A.I. Artificial Intelligence: A+

I Love Boosters

Director Boots Riley makes films that make me literally bark with laughter. His mixture of audacity and absurdism hits my funny bone in a way many other comedies do not. In 2018 Riley's first film Sorry to Bother You came out and it was unlike anything I've seen before. Riley's films are satires poking fun at capitalism and racism in ways that would feel ridiculously on the nose coming from any other filmmaker, but in Riley's capable hands the over-the-top elements work perfectly.

Riley is back with another satire of capitalism, I Love Boosters. Boosters are people who steal from retail stores and sell the lifted wares at a discounted prices. Corvette (Keke Palmer) is our main character and is part of a group called the "Velvet Gang" alongside Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). They primarily lift from Metro Designers stores, which are run by Christie Smith (Demi Moore), a fashion designer whom Corvette--a budding designer herself--has admiration for (despite Smith being a horrible person).

The first third or so of I Love Boosters is pretty straightforward, with the Velvet Gang hatching a plan to get jobs at Metro Designers so they can loot the store of its inventory. The absurdist elements are in visual gags and corporate speak. However, an insane twist occurs at this point which sends the film into a whole new realm of absurdity (and science-fiction). So stop reading here if you want to be surprised!

*spoilers ahead*

One day while working at Metro Designers, the gang comes off a break to find that the entire store is empty. Someone else has come in and wiped out the store's entire inventory in the 5 minutes everyone was in the back room. CCTV footage reveals a woman opening her purse and all the clothes getting sucked into it. The Velvet Gang is set on finding the woman with the "magic bag". They hunt the woman--Jianhu (Poppy Liu)--down and it turns out that it's not the bag that is magic, but the device inside of the bag: a teleporter. 

Jianhu's family works at a sweatshop in China where all the Metro Designers clothes are made and they're paid shit wages and work in conditions that make them sick and even give them cancer. Jianhu and her cousin, Li Pan (Alan Z), discover that the sweatshop is experimenting with teleporters to cut down on shipping costs. They steal the teleporters and hatch a plan for Jianhu to go to the United States and teleport all the Metro Designers clothes back to China and hold the clothes until Christie Smith meets the workers' demands.

So the Velvet Gang and Jianhu team up, but for different reasons: Jianhu wants to help her family, Corvette wants to get back at Christie Smith for stealing one of Corvette's designs, and Sade just wants to keep selling the boosted clothes at a discounted price. Meanwhile, a coworker from Metro Designers, Violeta (Eiza Conzalez), keeps trying to get the gang to join her union efforts. The bigger message the film is trying to convey is that even when we have different reasons for fighting "the Man", we are more powerful together than we are separately. 

I Love Boosters is so packed, visually and thematically, that I have only scratched the surface on explaining the plot. If the film has a weakness it's that there is so much going on, especially in the final third of the movie, that it begins to feel incoherent. However, that's just how Boots Riley does things. The film is maximalist, with shit shoved into every corner of every frame and insane ideas bursting out like a snake bursting out of a can of mixed nuts. 

And I haven't even mentioned LaKeith Stanfield's role as a demon who sucks people's souls out while going down on them! 

In any case, I'm not going to run through the entire plot because we'd be here all night. I Love Boosters ends on a wildly optimistic note that will hit differently for different people. Some people see it as just another element of absurdism: the idea that everything can work out in the end is absurd! Others will perhaps see it as bad writing or a cop-out. 

I see the ending as one of many elements that makes I Love Boosters a very feminist/womanist film. Not only are all the main characters women (and most of them women of color), but I Love Boosters has this vibe of community, humor, joy, and care that feels very female activism coded. Something that really struck me is that when Christie Smith is defeated, nothing bad or violent happens to her. She just walks away, weary at the fact that she is forced to meet the workers' demands. This isn't a film about revenge and punishment (two things that play right back into individualism, capitalism, racism, and misogyny), it's about coming together as a group to care for one's community. Something horrific happening to Christie wouldn't have fit the overall tone of the movie which is playful and humorous. Even though the film is directed by a man, it felt more feminist to me than a lot of other social-political satires. Maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but that's the feeling I was left with after the film was over. 

I Love Boosters is great fun and will reward multiple viewings since it is stuffed full of eye-popping colors and visual gags. 

Grade: A

Stuff I watched in...May, 2026

Hokum

I rushed out to see the newest film from Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy. The director's last film, Oddity, was one of my favorites of 2024 and one of the most genuinely terrifying films I had seen in a while. McCarthy has a knack for building tension to the boiling point and then releasing that tension with jump scares that don't feel predictable. I just about jumped out of my skin multiple times while watching Oddity.

Hokum is perhaps not *quite* as effective or good as Oddity, but it's still incredibly solid and fun. Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, an author who travels to a hotel in rural Ireland where his parents honeymooned. Ohm is an absolutely miserable son of a bitch. He's rude, mean, and drinks too much. He also has a habit of butting into other people's business and sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. After making a connection with a hotel staff member, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), only to find out she went missing during the hotel's Halloween party, Ohm sneaks into a forbidden and cut-off part of the hotel: the honeymoon suite.

There, Ohm finds horrors beyond comprehension. I'm really holding back on the plot of Hokum so that you, dear reader, can discover it for yourself. But there are jump scares and disturbing imagery aplenty. Adam Scott is an interesting choice for a horror lead, but ultimately I enjoyed his performance. For most of the film, he comes off as unfazed by both supernatural horrors (he scoffs and says that the tales of the haunted honeymoon suite are "hokum") and natural horrors. But his tough exterior eventually breaks down and we see the deep well of pain underneath Ohm's curmudgeonly exterior. This is not unlike Scott's performance in Severance: a man repressing oceans of pain that eventually surge forth.

Hokum is one of my favorite horror combinations: scary AND cozy! I really enjoyed it and can't wait to check it out again.

Grade: A-

***

The Devil Wears Prada 2

I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Mother's Day with my mom and my brother-in-law's mom (who is very much like an aunt to me). While I didn't expect it to be as good as the original film, I have to admit I was deeply disappointed by this movie. 

First of all, it's complete fan service, which is to be expected. Most of the original characters are back, including Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), and Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci). And there are repetitions of scenes and jokes from the original. All of that would be fine if the movie itself was good or had something interesting to say. It does not.

After losing her job at a newspaper, Andy is hired to lead the features department at fashion magazine Runway. Although Miranda Priestly, the ice queen editor-in-chief of Runway, will be Andy's boss once again, Andy was actually hired by Miranda's boss, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), the owner of Runway's parent company. So Miranda and Andy are in a position to butt heads. Again.

Blah blah blah, there are these "almost" conversations the movie has about climate change and AI and sweatshops and billionaires. But The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn't interested in having these conversations for real. The movie feels completely out of touch both in the sense that we're talking about a magazine here, but also in the girl boss feminism of it all. Miranda and Andy have a conversation where Miranda says, "I just love working...don't you?" NO BITCH. WE DONT DREAM OF LABOR.

Look, it's fine to love your job or whatever, but let's face it: this movie is about wealthy, skinny, cunty people and as a society we're sick of that shit. Or, at least, I'm sick of that shit, unless it's going to genuinely make fun of these bougie shits. The original The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006 and was the perfect film for its time and I still really love it. This movie, 20 years later, feels like something out of a time capsule and not in a good way. 

Grade: C

***

WALL-E

Believe it or not, I have never seen Pixar's WALL-E before. But now that I have a 4 year old niece, I get a chance to catch up on all the kid's movies I ignored. What a delight WALL-E is! The story of a trash-collecting robot left to endlessly do his mindless tasks on a long-abandoned Earth, only to find love with EVE, a robot sent from somewhere else to scan Earth for signs of life, is a lovely and contemplative one. 

I think most people find the first 30-40 minutes, which are dialogue-free, to be the highlight of the film. When EVE is taken back to her mothership, which turns out to be a giant cruise ship for the descendants of humans who left Earth when it became uninhabitable, and WALL-E follows, the movie turns into a message movie about the dangers of overconsumption. It's the kind of movie people watch now, 20 years later, and are like "Oh my god, it came true!" (similar to Idiocracy). Still, I found the second half of the movie pretty entertaining, even if it wasn't as meditative and pure as the first half.

I'm glad I watched WALL-E. I think it's considered one of the best, if not the best, Pixar films and I wasn't that blown away by it...however, I also wasn't fully watching it since I was being aggressively cuddled by my niece the whole time. 

Grade: B+

***

Passenger

I've given director Andre Ovredal enough chances at this point. The Norwegian filmmaker directed Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a movie I gave a rare "D" rating to, as well as The Autopsy of Jane Doe, a movie I turned off halfway through. His latest, Passenger, is the best movie I've seen by him and it's still a bit of a stinker. The premise of the film is excellent: a couple sell their house to start a new "van life", traveling across the United States with a decked out van they sleep in. But after stopping to help the victim of a car accident, an entity latches onto them and begins following and tormenting them. 

This intriguing premise is wasted on a film that is poorly written, poorly acted, and poorly directed. Passenger isn't awful, it's just very meh. The lead actors, Jacob Scipio as Tyler and Lou Llobel as Maddie, are...fine. Melissa Leo at least brings some welcome campiness as a veteran Van Lifer who tries to warn Maddie. But Passenger takes itself too seriously to go full camp mode. 

One thing that annoyed me is that the movie initially treats the entity (the titular "Passenger") as an unknowable evil and has Maddie do research into the lore behind whatever this thing is. However, near the end of the movie, Maddie and Tyler meet up with Melissa Leo's character, Diane, again and she basically explains exactly how to fight the thing. It's just very unsatisfying. And the nature of the Passenger is very Conjuring Universe-esque. 

Feel free to skip this flat, uninteresting film. 

Grade: C

***

Training Day

I saw Antoine Fuqua's Training Day around the time it came out, over 20 years ago. I revisited it on a majestic screen smaller than an 8x11 piece of paper while on a 6 hour flight, sitting next to a woman who refused to put the window screen down and couldn't stop coughing.

What is there to say? It's Training Day. The story of a rookie cop, Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), and a complete psycho of an experienced narcotics officer, Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), who get involved in a number of life-threatening shenanigans on Jake's first day in the narcotics unit.

This is a film of its time. It's copaganda where the Good Cop (Jake) emerges with his morals and ethics in tact after being put through hell by the Bad Cop (Alonzo). Am I out of pocket to say this movie feels...racist? Or, at least, the racial politics of the film are weird. It really leans in to a lot of stereotypes of Black and Hispanic men and women. But also, I'm a white lady from the suburbs who has never been forced to smoke PCP at gunpoint like poor Jake. So what the fuck do I know?

Training Day is an entertaining film with the smiling, evil, psychotic Denzel at its center. It's kind of the perfect movie to watch on a plane since you don't really need to follow the plot of dialogue all that closely. 

Grade: B

Backrooms

Backrooms is so much bigger than the horror movie itself. In order to explain the movie, we need to explore the history of "Backrooms".

The concept of the Backrooms started as an online "creepypasta" (essentially, an internet folktale) where images of empty, abandoned spaces were posted online--initially on 4chan, but eventually on Reddit and other more mainstream social media sites. I personally first heard about "Backrooms" on the forum website Something Awful in a thread titled "Cursed Images". 

Backrooms is a simple concept--liminal spaces, with maybe a hint of nostalgia or familiarity. But also very creepy. The images make you want to explore the spaces but also run away from them. A 4chan user suggested that the way to get to them was to "noclip" out of reality--to jump or fall into another dimension. But once you're there, you can't find your way back out because the Backrooms are labyrinthian. 

In early 2022, YouTuber Kane Parsons, only 16 years old at the time, created a web series about the Backrooms that went viral and set the stage for the film. In the series, getting lost in the Backrooms isn't the only danger. There is something living down there as well. 

Now, at 20 years old, Parsons directs this feature-length film starring award-winning actors. To me, whether Backrooms is the perfect film or not (it's not) is besides the point. The fact that a young guy not old enough to drink legally created such a viral phenomenon and then directed a movie that is making more money at the box office than the Mandalorian and Grogu film is an achievement beyond most people's wildest dreams. 

What is even more astonishing is that Kane is good at directing! The directing and set design of Backrooms are the movie's strengths. The film takes place in 1990. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Clark, the owner of a furniture store who is also currently living in that store since his wife kicked him out of their house. The only humans Clark has any regular contact with are his employees, Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and Bobby (Finn Bennett), as well as his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve).

One night while fiddling with the store's breaker box, Clark sees a light shining through what should be a solid wall in the store's basement. When he goes to put his ear against the wall, he literally falls through it and into what looks like a massive, abandoned office building. He begins exploring and discovers room after room after room--some completely empty, some with random furniture or detritus. There are tiny doors to crawl through and doors on the ceiling. There's also the sense that someone--or something--is following Clark.

Clark tries to explain this to Mary, who understandably is confused and thinks Clark is suffering from alcoholic delusions. Clark then recruits Kat and Bobby to explore the space, bringing a camcorder and rope in case they have to scale a drop. Things go sideways almost immediately.

After Clark leaves a cryptic message for Mary, she goes to the store and sees the outline of tape indicating the "door" to the Backrooms. When she walks through it, she is astonished to see that Clark wasn't lying or delusional. 

This is where the movie became not so great. The film's weak points (in my opinion) are the script and the pacing. The movie tries to explain what the Backrooms are and add a layer of emotional meaning on top. Basically, the Backrooms are memories. Or rather "the space remembering things". This is why everything is just a little wrong--because memories are never crystal clear; they're always a little off and a little faded. But how the Backrooms came to be is never explained (which is a good thing!). 

There is a message layered on top of the mystery which is essentially: we get stuck in the Backrooms when we refuse to change. Clark decides he has never felt more "right" in the Backrooms. Because he doesn't want to change. He doesn't want to consider how he contributed to his divorce or his failed career. He wants to live in faded memories. And being unwilling to escape the "loops" of his life seals Clark's fate.

But we really didn't need this. I would get rid of all the scenes trying to make meaning of the Backrooms for more scenes of actually exploring the Backrooms. I would have preferred a slower build of dread. We have three scenes in the Backrooms (even though each one is lengthy): Clark's initial discovery and explorations; Clark returning with Kat and Bobby; and Mary's discovery. In each of these sequences, more and more is revealed and there are some goosebump-inducing moments, such as when Bobby enters a room, looks up, and sees a hallway running vertically, like some fucked up MC Escher painting. I wanted more of this and less therapy speak.

That said, Backrooms is a very unique horror film with a set design and cinematography that is unlike anything I've seen before. Even the scenes not shot on grainy videotape *feel* very 1990s. And the design of the Backrooms is the stuff of actual nightmares. 

For all its flaws, Backrooms is worth seeing. The film is crushing it at the box office, especially given its modest budget. It's making people want to go to the movies and see it on a big screen. It's always exciting to see a new voice in horror, especially a guy so young. I'm excited to see what he'll do next.

Grade: B+

Obsession

Don't read if you want to go into this film blind.

I had been eagerly awaiting the release of Curry Barker's feature length film Obsession since a favorite YouTuber of mine, spookyastronauts, uploaded her review of the film after it premiered at Fantastic Fest in September of last year. Her review of it made it sound like it was going to be one of the most intense horror films released in a while. While I had seen Barker's hour-long YouTube horror movie Milk & Serial and enjoyed it, nothing could have prepared me for the bloodcurdling roller coaster that is Obsession.

The premise of the film is a very familiar one: be careful what you wish for. Or, "the monkey's paw". Baron "Bear" Bailey (Michael Johnston) is a young man with a crush on his coworker Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette). While Bear is certainly a cutie, he is also unfortunately a bit of a passive wimp who is too afraid to just tell Nikki how he feels--even with given a clear and open opportunity. 

While visiting a New Age-y store to buy Nikki a necklace, Bear spots a novelty "One Wish Willow"--a piece of willow wood that purports to grant you one wish--and one wish only!--by breaking the willow stick. After once again failing to tell Nikki how he feels, Bear impulsively wishes that "Nikki Freeman would love me more than anyone in the world" and breaks the stick.

What surprised me is how Nikki expresses this love. She doesn't come to Bear all gooey and happy and lovey-dovey, as one might expect. Instead, she acts very, very off and erratic. She tells Bear that she's acting weird because her cat died...but actually, it was Bear's cat that died and when reminded of this, she corrects herself and immediately goes into sympathy mode. But then she tells Bear that her dad is dying and begs to come home with him. Later, in the middle of making out, Nikki seems to snap out of it and screams in horror--almost like she woke up from a coma to realize she was in a man's bed. But within two seconds, she's smiling and apologizing and saying "she thought she saw something".

Nikki's transformation is BEYOND creepy. And it becomes clear very quickly that perhaps this isn't even Nikki at all--but something wearing Nikki's face. *Full body shivers*

Bear's friends, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless), are concerned about this enormous change in Nikki. Ian reveals to Bear that he did a little research and Nikki's father is, in fact, not dying. And Bear is obviously put off by Nikki...but not so much that he won't take her home and fuck her even after finding out she lied and confronting her, only for her to act extremely scary in public until he backs down to pacify her. Does this man not know that you don't stick your dick in crazy?

Obsession is aware that Bear is not a good guy. While he's not aggressive, his inability to take ownership of his feelings not only hurts himself, but hurts others around him. It is pointed out multiple times by his friends that Nikki is not well and that Bear is taking advantage of whatever is happening to her. Bear protests that Nikki is throwing herself at him. But what Bear is not revealing is that what is happening is much, much scarier. It's hard not to have sympathy for the poor guy when he wakes up in the middle of the night to see Nikki standing in the shadows of his bedroom, watching him sleep. 

I can't convey how truly and genuinely terrifying Inde Navarrette's performance as Nikki is in this film. When I say that this is an Oscar worthy performance, I mean it. It's not just that she's a hot chick "acting creepy"...it's that the way she walks, the way she arranges her facial features, the way she screams when she doesn't get what she wants--but also how she switches on a dime--feels downright demonic. Going into Obsession I didn't expect to be truly scared by it. But there are scenes in this film that are among the scariest things I've seen on screen. A few movies that come to mind are The Ring (especially in certain scenes where Nikki walks in a strange way) and Talk to Me. Curry Barker has a knack for using shadow and darkness in exactly the right way to maximize terror. That combined with Navarrette's unhinged performance makes for a nerve-shredding and blood chilling film.

Another aspect of the movie that I thought added to the horror are the hints we get of the real Nikki, who appears to be in some kind of hellish purgatory or "sunken place" while whatever this thing that is pretending to be Nikki takes center stage. There are a couple scenes that are devastating when the real Nikki is allowed to peek out and beg for help, only to be ignored by Bear. 

My only criticism of Obsession is that it had a difficult time committing to how it wanted to end. A lot happens in the final 15 minutes of the film and there are multiple directions Barker clearly envisioned as possible endings. Instead of committing to one choice and going all in, Barker crams a couple endings in there at the last minute before finally landing on a resolution. It's hard to explain without just giving away what happens, but if you see the movie you'll know what I mean.

That criticism aside, Obsession is a near-perfect horror film. The cinematography, the acting, the misdirections and surprises---all of it works harmoniously to tell a that is truly nightmarish story. Obsession lived up to and exceeded my expectations. It surprised me, much to my delight. Any horror fan absolutely needs to see this film.

Grade: A+