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+

Stuff I watched in...April 2026

Sentimental Value

Directed by Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value is what I would call a very generous and humane film. It's a family drama about two adult sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), coming to terms with their relationship with their absentee father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgaard), after their mother passes away.

Gustav is a film director who divorced the girls' mother and left Norway to pursue his career when Nora and Agnes were fairly young. Nora grows up to be a stage actress and when Gustav returns to Norway for the funeral, he presents Nora with a manuscript of a film he wrote with her in mind. Nora is understandably pissed that her dad wants to make nice after all these years without showing genuine remorse. When Nora turns down the role, Gustav seeks out an American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), to be in the movie. 

The house that Agnes and Nora grow up in is a character itself, and we get to see the house's history. Gustav's mother grew up in the house and was a part of the Norwegian resistance against the Nazi occupation, which led to her arrest and torture in prison. It's implied that she passed her trauma to her son who then passed it to his daughters. The house bears witness to it all.

Sentimental Value treats all of its characters with empathy and humanity. Although Gustav is a selfish man who puts career above family, he's not a monster. The film doesn't make excuses for him, but it does show the context for his behavior. Similarly, Nora is deeply hurt by her father, but she also engages in selfish and self-destructive behaviors that, at her age, she can no longer blame on her father's absenteeism. I think the movie does a good job of holding space for how we are affected by our parents' issues while also pointing out that it's up to us as adults to actually deal with our own shit...regardless of whether or not our parents choose to deal with theirs.

This is a graceful, gracious, honest movie with a good heart and stellar acting. Highly recommended.

Grade: A+

***

The Rock

Here is a...less graceful film, but a damn fun one. The Rock is a Michael Bay film in which a Marine Corps General, Francis Hummel (Ed Harris), takes a group of tourists hostage at Alcatraz and threatens to release a chemical weapon which is lethal enough to basically take out all of San Francisco if his demands aren't met.

What are his demands? That the families of fallen soldiers received monetary compensation for the loss of their dead loved ones. So Hummel is one of those villains who is actually right (or at least righteous). However, in order to carry out his scheme, Hummel has hired mercenaries who are only committing treason for a large pay day. This turns out to be a mistake.

The Department of Defense brings two important men in to help with the rescue of the hostages: Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), a chemical weapons expert, and John Mason (Sean Connery), a former British MI6 operative who was actually imprisoned at Alcatraz when it was a functioning prison...and escaped from it. Mason has been locked up since his recapture, but he is offered a pardon in exchange for helping the Department of Defense map out and essentially break in to Alcatraz without Hummel and his men discovering them. And can you believe it? Plans go awry. 

The Rock is a ridiculous film treated very seriously. A lot of crazy shit happens and the acting is mostly straight-faced, with the exception of Nic Cage and (to a lesser extent) Connery.  The film has relatively little humor, but then randomly Cage will yell a line like "How in the name of ZEUS'S BUTTHOLE did you escape your cell!?" (that's a real line). 

I enjoyed The Rock a lot more than I expected to, mostly because of Nic Cage. It's not great cinema, but it's a good film to escape into if you just want to watch things blow up. 

Grade: B-

***

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen

I watched this new Netflix series in three days: one episode the first day, one episode the next day, and then six episodes on the third day. It was nice to surrender to getting so sucked into a story that I couldn't stop watching. 

Created by Haley Z. Boston and produced by the Duffer brothers, Something Very Bad is Going to Happen accurately captures the experience of anxiety and obsessive thoughts. Just the name of the series alone is something that, as someone with anxiety, I could relate to immensely. The idea that something horrible is going to happen is one all anxiety sufferers live with, to a greater and lesser extent. 

Rachel Harkin (Camila Morrone) is getting married to Nicky Cunningham (Adam DiMarco). While Rachel's mother died in childbirth and she is estranged from her father, Nicky is part of a large, close-knit, rich, and very weird family. The couple is traveling to the Cunningham family home in Upstate New York, where the wedding will take place. Also, this is the first time Rachel is meeting Nicky's family, so...it's a lot.

Without giving anything away, weird shit begins happening on the way to the house and it just doesn't let up. The Cunningham family come off as weird and aggressive to Rachel and, of course, Nicky either isn't there or doesn't really see what the issue is. Over the course of the eight episodes, information is revealed that ups the stakes of the nuptials and puts Rachel in a position to make some very difficult decisions. 

This show fucking slaps. It's very scary and creepy and is clearly inspired by David Lynch. It's not exactly Emmy-winning material, but it is so fun to watch and pore over the symbolism and details. My recommendation is to watch it more slowly than I did and let yourself revel in the mystery--don't blow your wad in three days like me.

Grade: A-

***

The Pitt, season 2

Last year, The Pitt came out of nowhere and impressed us all. The medical drama was the "competency porn" we all needed in a world filled with fucking idiots. Watching intelligent people make life-saving choices under pressure was just so satisfying. And it helped that the acting is across the board excellent, especially Noah Wyle's lead as troubled attending physician Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch.

Well, Dr. Robby and crew are back for more punishment in season 2 and I ate it the up. The overarching plot is that this is the last day before Robby takes a 3-month sabbatical to go on a lengthy motorcycle trip across the country. But Robby keeps making oblique references to "not coming back", raising eyebrows among the Pitt crew who are afraid that the man might be on the verge of a breakdown. 

Robby is guiding new attending physician Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) through her first day at the Pitt and the tension is high. Robby doesn't trust anyone with "his" emergency room, least of all this upstart doctor who is into using an AI app to help her take medical notes. 

Returning are our favorite young doctors, residents, and interns from last season: Mel King (Taylor Dearden), Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell), Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez), and Trinity Santos (Isa Briones). They're guiding two new interns, Joy Kwon (Irene Choi) and James Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson). 

And of course who could forget Mama Bear Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa), the charge nurse with the heart of gold and will of steel, who deserves to win an Emmy for her performance this season.

I could spend this entire review simply naming characters because this is nothing if not a character-driven show. And the beautiful thing is that the characters, no matter how small or large their parts, are three-dimensional human beings. The Pitt can admittedly be on the nose with its "woke" agenda, but it gets away with a bit of preaching because the characters are SO well-written. I pretty much avoid all discourse on this show because some of the fans are real weird about it, and that frees me up to just enjoy such a wonderful, compassionate, thrilling TV series where I give a shit about the characters--including the ones I don't particularly like!

If you've been sleeping on The Pitt, it's time to wake up: the show absolutely lives up to the hype.

Grade: A

***

Lee Cronin's The Mummy

Plenty of people have goofed on Lee Cronin for putting his name in the title of this film because it implies that Lee Cronin is a big name when he objectively is not. I think that he added his name to indicate that this mummy movie has little to nothing to do with other, more famous mummy movies.

And it's true that Lee Cronin's The Mummy isn't really about a mummy...although that brings up the question of "what IS a mummy?" In any case, the movie is about a young girl who is abducted and used as a vessel to contain a demon which has cursed a specific family for generations. When that girl is discovered, she appears to be...alive. Sort of. She looks and acts like someone who was kept bound in a sarcophagus for eight years and miraculously survived--in other words, she ugly. 

The unfortunate girl in question is Katie Cannon, the eight year old daughter of Charlie Cannon (Jack Reynor), a journalist living in Egypt with his wife, Larissa (Laia Costa), and son, Sebastian (Shylo Molina). Katie (played as a child by Emily Mitchell) is taken from her own backyard right under her father's nose. The authorities are useless. The film cuts to eight years later, when the Cannon family is living in New Mexico with Larissa's mother, Carmen (Veronica Falcon), and have a daughter, Maud (Billie Roy), who is about the age that Katie was when she went missing. The Cannons have preserved Katie's bedroom but generally seem to have moved on from the horrific tragedy of losing their daughter and never even having the closure of knowing if she is dead or alive.

Well, turns out that Katie is discovered--bound like a mummy in a lead-lined sarcophagus discovered in the aftermath of a plane crash. As I wrote above, she is "alive" (she has a strong pulse and is breathing), but she is all sorts of fucked up. The doctors send her home with Charlie and Larissa, who are horrified at Katie's state, but relieved to have their daughter back with them. That is, until Katie begins acting strange. 

By "acting strange", I mean crawling around the house at night and eating scorpions. I mean self-harming in disgusting and alarming ways. She's also super strong, which is WEIRD for someone who has been in a sarcophagus for nearly a decade. Clearly, something is wrong with Katie and it's not just that her brain is fried like the "Sloth" victim in Se7en. 

Katie wrecks insane, horrifying, and often very, very funny havoc on the Cannon family. Larissa's response is to mother Katie harder and Charlie's is to go into journalist mode to find out what happened to her. I will say that a really strong element of Lee Cronin's The Mummy is that the family acts like a real family--the actors have good chemistry together. I won't say that Lee Cronin's The Mummy has anything profound to say about family, or guilt, or grief. It's just a really gross movie about a possessed girl. 

Despite the fact that Lee Cronin's The Mummy ain't gonna win any awards, it was a hell of a lot of fun. I was screaming in delight at the grossest scenes and laughing my ass off during the mayhem (which was the director's intention, I'm pretty sure). As pure entertainment, it delivered. 

Grade: B-

***

Shelby Oaks

Shelby Oaks is the passion project of YouTube film reviewer Chris Stuckmann. It's a horror film about a group of paranormal investigators--the "Paranormal Paranoids"--who go missing while investigating the ghost town of Shelby Oaks. While the bodies of three of the four investigators are found, the body of Riley Brennan (Sarah Dunn) is never recovered, which means her sister, Mia (Camille Sullivan), never gets true closure.

That is, until a man shows up at Mia's house with a tape labeled "Shelby Oaks". Mia watches the tape and continues the investigation into what happened to her sister 12 years after she disappeared.

Shelby Oaks is pretty cheesy and derivative, but it's not unenjoyable. For a first time filmmaker, it's not terrible. But it definitely feels like a collection of horror tropes that Stuckmann has seen in other films more than a unique vision in and of itself. It has some genuinely chilling moments, but I was mostly left with a lot of questions about the timeline of events in the film. 

Shelby Oaks is worth checking out if you're a horror fanatic. For everyone else, you're not missing much if you skip this one.

Grade: C+

***

Language Lessons

Language Lessons is a screenlife film worthy of the medium. Taking place as a series of Zoom calls and video messages, the film follows Adam (Mark Duplass) and Cariño (Natalie Morales, who also co-wrote and directed the film). Adam's husband bought him 100 Spanish lessons from Cariño (a Cuban native who now lives in Costa Rica) as a surprise gift. Adam and Cariño get to know each other as they chat mostly in Spanish and occasionally in English.

A surprising turn of events deepens Adam and Cariño's relationship very quickly, and what begins as a student-teacher relationship morphs into a friendship based on mutual support (although not without its misunderstandings along the way). To say more would be saying too much, but suffice it to say that Language Lessons explores human connection and the idea that people come into our lives for "a reason, a season, or a lifetime". 

This movie is deeply moving due to the beautiful and empathetic performances of Morales and Duplass, actors who both excel at naturalism. The script is casual and loose and the emotions that play across both actors' faces are honest and subtle. Language Lessons truly feels like you're eavesdropping on Zoom conversations between two real people.

I highly recommend this life-affirming film about the power of platonic friendship.

Grade: A

Stuff I watched in...(the second half of ) March, 2026

Project Hail Mary

First of all, I kinda feel bad giving Project Hail Mary "only" a B+ rating since SO many people are finding it to be one of the best movies they've ever seen. And it is indeed a fun and beautiful movie. My rating is slightly lower only because I have not read the book and so much of the film felt like it was going way too fast and I wasn't fully comprehending the science of it all. The movie is 2 hours and 40 minutes long and felt like it could easily be another hour longer. So my "B+" is more about my experience watching the film as someone who was playing catch-up, if that makes any sense.

I shelled out the extra dough to watch Project Hail Mary in IMAX, which I think was the right choice. It's a film that deserves to be seen on a very large screen. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and based on the book by Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary is about a regular dude--a science teacher--who is sent to space to save the entire universe. No pressure! 

Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is recruited by a government agent Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller) to work on a project to save Earth. Or, more accurately, to save the sun from being "eaten" by microorganisms called "astrophages" that have been recently discovered. These astrophages are eating every star in the solar system except for one. The goal is to send a small crew to that one star so they can discover what properties it has to resist the astrophages and then the crew will send that info back to Earth. Because this small crew will only have enough energy to get to the star and not enough to get back to Earth, it's a suicide mission.

Grace is only a middle school teacher, but he used to be a molecular biologist. He was booted out of the serious scientific community because his theories were so controversial. But he is recruited back into the scientific community because of his unorthodox way of viewing things. 

Without getting into too much plot detail, Grace ends up on the mission to the star and is the only surviving crew member. He is profoundly lonely until he meets an alien life form, which he names "Rocky" because, well, the life form looks like a rock with arms and legs. Rocky and Grace figure out how to communicate and realize they are both on the same mission. Alone in the middle of space, Grace and Rocky become friends. Grace, who sees himself as someone who is not brave and not extraordinary, finds someone to be brave for--and that's literally the entire point of the movie. All the science, all the dense plot...it just boils down to a friendship between two entities that are so different from one another but are both capable of caring for the other one. I won't lie--Project Hail Mary almost made me cry. 

So, yeah, I had some issues with the movie just being too much--too fast, too rushed, too much info...but that's not because the movie is poorly made. It's only an issue because it's adapting a dense and, from what I've heard, excellent book (which, yes, I will be reading). But I would 100% recommend this film because people who have read the book love it and people who haven't...also love it. It's a crowd pleaser and real epic--totally worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

Grade: B+

***

The Plague

An absolutely brutal film about bullying and social isolation, The Plague is worth watching but is a very, very tough watch. It features some of the best child actors I've ever seen and it will uncomfortably remind you of your adolescence, whether you were a bully, the bullied, or a bystander who could have done more. 

The film takes place at a water polo camp in 2003. Ben (Everett Blunck) is new to the camp and quickly figures out the hierarchy. Jake (Kayo Martin) is the ringleader of a group of boys (these kids are all 12 or 13 years old) and he is downright Machiavellian in his ability to place the other boys exactly where he wants them on the social ladder. For example, he immediately picks up that Ben has a very small speech impediment where he can't pronounce the "st" sound--so "stop" sounds like "sop". Jake uses this to mock him, but never acts like it's more than just good fun with the guys.

Ben is lucky because there is a kid so low on the social ladder that the other boys don't even bother mocking him--they just completely avoid him. This is Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a weird kid (we would probably consider him neurodivergent today) with an unfortunate skin disorder. The boys say that Eli has "the plague" and that if you touch him, you'll get it too. This leads the boys to scramble away whenever Eli is close. 

Ben is a smart kid. Smart enough to know that "the plague" isn't really real. He's also kind enough to have sympathy for Eli. But he's also invested in not being a pariah, so after he starts trying to befriend Eli, he finds himself on the outs with the other boys...Ben has caught "the plague".

When I say that The Plague is an excellent film, I mean it. It was 100% worth watching. But goddamn. As a 13 year old myself, I was Ben. I wasn't the social ringleader or bully, but I witnessed other kids get bullied and I knew it was wrong and I wanted to be nice to them...but part of me knew that if I got too close, I would be next. And the anger Ben expresses at Eli for being weird...oh my god, shoot an arrow into my heart! Yes, I've been there too. Even if you're a grown ass adult, The Plague will expose your deepest fears and deepest shame. This movie is a masterpiece and it will break your heart.

Grade: A+

***

My Own Private Idaho

As a fan of Sad Gay White Boy Cinema (tm), it's hard to believe I've overlooked Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho for so long. In fact, I basically had no idea what the movie was about other than River Phoenix + Keanu Reeves + motorcycle. I assumed it was a road movie with a sprinkling of unrequited love. And it is that, but it's so much more. 

My Own Private Idaho is a much weirder film than I expected. Van Sant loosely based the movie on Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, and Henry V--plays I know next to nothing about. If I hadn't looked this detail up before watching the movie, I would have been extremely confused about the tonal shift that happens whenever a character named Bob Pigeon is on screen. Bob (played by William Richert) is an older man who, I guess, "mentors" street kids and hustlers. Scenes with Bob turn into Shakespearean rat-a-tat dialogue between Richert and Reeves. 

But once Bob isn't on screen, My Own Private Idaho goes back to being a normal movie, albeit with some interesting stylistic touches. River Phoenix plays Mike, a true and genuine hustler with a pack on his back and a fucked up brain (he suffers from narcolepsy, making him extremely vulnerable in an already vulnerable situation). His best friend is Scott Favor (Reeves), who is the son of the mayor of Portland and set to inherit a ton of money, but enjoys slumming it alongside actual desperate people. Scott fucks men for money, but he's not actually gay and believes that men can't love each other...a belief proven wrong by Mike's longing for Scott. 

My Own Private Idaho is about the intersection of class and sexuality. Scott can play at being poor and queer because he can return to money and heterosexuality at any time. Mike just is poor and queer. He has no safety net and even his best friend drops him the moment he meets a pretty girl he likes. River Phoenix gives a beautiful performance with almost painful vulnerability. It's sad to think about the art he could have given us if he hadn't died at the tragically young age of 23. 23 --just a baby. 

Really glad I finally got around to watching this sensitive and sad film.

Grade: A-

***

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

Ready or Not was an extremely fun horror-comedy about Grace (Samara Weaving), a woman with an impoverished background who marries into an insanely wealthy family, only to find herself hunted by the very same family on the night of her wedding. You see, the La Domas clan sold their souls to Satan for ultimate power. The only thing Satan...or "Mister Le Bail"...asks of this family is the occasional sacrifice. And on her wedding night, Grace's card came up. Literally. 

But Grace prevailed and the entire La Domas family, in-laws and children included, died. However, Grace's trials and tribulations are only just beginning because in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Grace has to fight all the remaining heads of the families who, along with the La Domas', control the entire world. With the La Domas' dead, the high seat of power belongs to Grace...unless one of the other members of the powerful families can kill her before dawn. And, unfortunately, Grace's sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton), is along for the ride this time. Ride or die, that is.

Look, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come did not need to be made. In my opinion, it adds nothing to the first film and--frankly--takes away from it by adding more lore. Convoluted lore, at that. First we had one family running the world, now we have five families. First we thought it was fight to the death, now we learn there is a hidden clause to get around the whole death thing. It's not that this movie doesn't have its fun moments--it absolutely does--it's just like...why?

Additionally, there are more plot holes than Swiss cheese in this movie. There were so many times where I was like "Ok, the gate is open--why don't they take the golf cart and drive away? Oh right, because then there wouldn't be a movie". "Oh, this person was nearly beaten to death an hour ago and now they have a single cut on their face--ok, I guess I'll suspend disbelief". Eh, I'm asking too much of a movie about devil worshippers, aren't I? 

If you're a huge fan of Ready or Not, you will probably at least have fun with the sequel. But for most folks, you can feel free to skip this one or just wait until it's on streaming. 

Grade: C+

***

Summer of Sam

Directed by Spike Lee, Summer of Sam is the definition of a "hot mess". The film is loose, lewd, fairly directionless, weird, and occasionally very entertaining. It takes place during the summer of 1977 in New York City (the summer that the serial killer David Berkowitz, aka "Son of Sam", was active). Even with a deranged lunatic on the loose, the sexy people of the Bronx still go disco-dancing, get coked up, and get laid.

The film mostly follows Vinny (John Leguizamo), a hairdresser who regularly cheats on his lovely wife, Dionna (Mira Sorvino). He cheats not because he doesn't love Dionna, but because he has a serious Madonna/whore complex. He can't bring himself to ask his wife to do stuff like anal sex and 69 because "you don't do that stuff with your wife"--you do it with your boss, and your wife's cousin, and a million other ladies instead! That's what we call respect. 

Another major player in the film is Ritchie (Adrien Brody), a guy who grew up in the Italian neighborhood along with Vinny and the others but starts affecting a punk look and it freaks out all the conservative men in the neighborhood. It doesn't help that Ritchie starts going out with "Ruby the Skank" (Jennifer Esposito). Ritchie and Ruby just want to dress weird and listen to punk rock, but their refusal to blend in causes a stir amongst the traditional men who used to be their friends. 

With a heat wave on and bodies piling up, the paranoia and tension begin to rise and reach a crisis point where violence is imminent. This is ground Lee has covered before, namely in the excellent Do the Right Thing. But Summer of Sam just ain't it. Where it should be weird it comes off as embarrassing and corny (check out the scene where Berkowitz's neighbor's dog directs him to "kill"--it's SO bad). Where it should should be sexy, it's decidedly unerotic (this actually might have been Lee's intention). Even the entertaining scenes are entertaining because they're bizarre, not because they're interesting. Google "Adrien Brody Baba O'Riley montage" if you want to see what I'm talking about.

I'm glad I watched Summer of Sam because I need to see more Spike Lee films, but this one was just not impressive--and it was overly long to boot.

Grade: C+

***

The Ice Storm

The Ice Storm was a favorite of mine in high school. So much so that I read the book it's based on and bought the soundtrack (which turned me on to this stone-cold classic). I found the movie titillating back then, but now I just see it as very sad. It's a suburban ennui film about how middle-class conformity leads to acting out, both for the teenagers and the adults.

Directed by Ang Lee, the film takes place over the Thanksgiving holiday in 1973 Connecticut. Two families are embroiled in each others' lives: the Hood family (father Ben (Kevin Kline), mother Elena (Joan Allen), son Paul (Tobey Maguire), and daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci)) and the Carver family (father Jim (Jamey Sheridan), mother Janey (Sigourney Weaver), son Mikey (Elijah Wood), and son Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd)). 

They're "embroiled" because Ben and Janey are having an affair and Elena knows something is up. Also, Wendy and Mikey are on the verge of fooling around every time they hang out, while Wendy also enjoys riling up the younger Sandy. Basically--they kids are mimicking the adults' behavior. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Things come to a head on the evening of Thanksgiving, when the adults all go to a boozy party that turns into a "key party" where the men put their keys in a bowl and then women pick them out and go home with whomever's keys they've chosen. Very 1970s. Ben, Elena, Jim, and Janey all have to face up to reality while their children get up to no good.

The Ice Storm is what American Beauty could have been if it had any subtlety. You can tell from the absolutely stacked cast that this is a well-acted movie, especially with regards to the younger folks. Christina Ricci is the perfect exemplar of pissed off, curious, smart, horny teenage girlhood here. She appears to give no fucks, stealing snacks from a convenience store and kissing one Carver brother while showing the other Carver brother her privates. But it's clear that she's not just rebelling, she's also dying for warmth and attention from the adults in her life. Not to boil all teenage rebellion down to a simple "need for attention", but the way she lets her dad carry her home after he catches her fooling around with Mikey is all we need to see to know that this is a young person who needs love and care in her life...and her parents are too busy with their own bullshit drama to notice.

Excellent film, and among Lee's best work. Highly recommended.

Grade: A