Possible Love's quietly moving aesthetic proves immensely and achingly captivating

Imposter Syndrome. Depression. Anxiety. Existential dread. These are some of the psychological afflictions shared by countless souls, yet rendering individuals convinced they’re the only ones in existence suffering these maladies. What a bizarre paradox. Our brains tell us we’re alone even while we’re decidedly not.

Often, it’s easier to push others away or confront our inner battles alone rather than opening ourselves to other people. What if they say I’m a “freak” or “broken” for feeling the way I do? Better just bottle up everything inside. In other cases, it’s impossible to imagine other people could feel the same way you do. Why, then, bring up your mental health struggles if it’ll inevitably sound like Latin to even your closest friends? These are the scenarios one’s mind (or at least mine) can come up with to keep arduous psychological turmoil close to the chest. Experiences and hardships potentially binding individuals together instead create further barriers.

Unsurprisingly, profoundly observational and insightful filmmaker Lee Chang-dong proves especially masterful painting a bittersweet portrait of this phenomenon in Possible Love. married couple Mi-ok (Jean Do-yeon) and Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu). They (along with their son Cheol) are grappling with a new, frustrating status quo involving Ho-seok's extended depression. His despondency stems from being laid off from his job after participating in a sit-in strike. Two years after losing this gig, Ho-seok’s anguish festers.

However, Mi-ok gets a renewed lease on life after striking up a conversation with documentary filmmaker Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong). This lady and her seemingly perfect husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) are making a feature about laid-off workers, so Mi-ok and her family are perfect interview subjects. Thus, Ye-ji becomes a regular fixture of this family's life. Mi-ok adores having someone to talk to, but Ho-seok remains silent and fixated on the past. Even when Ye-ji inquires about interviewing this man for her film, he refuses.

Possible Love’s central married couple are both licking their wounds from the past. Both, however, are taking radically different approaches to confronting those scars.

A pivotal Possible Love conversation sees Ye-ji recall a Singapore vacation that inspired her current fixation on proletariat-focused documentaries. Specifically, she was impacted by Sang-woo observing how the workers making their destination possible were rendered “invisible.” “Everyone’s comfort comes at the expense of someone else’s labor,” he pontificated. After that, Ye-ji dedicated herself to making documentaries centering oft-ignored lives. Lee Chang-dong’s filmmaking and script (the latter of which he co-penned with Oh Jung-mi) for Possible Love echoes this fascination with several memorable one-scene characters.

A meeting for laid-off workers to express their feelings, for instance, features a monologue from one male ex-employee recalling how his friends talked dirty about him behind his back because of his union activities. Told largely in one unbroken take, this riveting sequence is rich with memorable dialogue and naturalistic acting. Then there’s the groundskeeper tending to Ye-ji and Sang-woo’s beachside house. Without saying a word, he leaves an impression, especially with how he quietly makes Cheol feel at home during a trip largely centered around his parents' needs. A woman giving a speech at the strike and the daughter of Mi-ok’s boss similarly leave an enormous impression with minimal screentime.

Rich capitalists try with all their might to make working-class people see each other as enemies. The bourgeoisie especially demonizes efforts like unions that reinforce the rights and humanity of ordinary souls. Possible Love is a cinematic balm to these standards. Chang-dong offering room for single-scene characters to leave indelible impacts alone epitomizes this reality. Every character in this feature (from Ye-ji’s filmmaking crew to a currently employed worker Ho-seok briefly follows) is potently experiencing their own saga. Possible Love’s world doesn’t begin and end with Mi-ok and Ho-seok.

Chang-dong’s commitment to that subdued yet deeply human aesthetic makes Possible Love a 164-minute exercise you don’t want to end. Said commitment includes utilizing Jung Jae-il's original score sparingly (which accentuates the immersive naturalism) and refusing to barrel through even the most mundane conversations. Chang-dong and cinematographer Kim Ji-yong's craftsmanship extends to delivering memorable blocking without capsizing Possible Love’s verisimilitude. The sensation that we’re watching life organically unfold endures even with incredibly meticulous staging.

Possible Love’s palpable realism ensures that the most mundane sequences become intoxicating. As long as I live, I’ll never forget about inebriated Mi-ok joyfully singing a tune in an alleyway after her first dinner with Ye-ji and Sang-woo. When a new friendship starts blossoming, it inspires such radiance and excitement. You’re suddenly relishing not only the laughs and chatter shared moments ago, but also the social-based possibilities for the future. Jean Do-yeon’s portrayal of Mi-ok in this moment perfectly translates that internal experience to the silver screen in such endearing terms. How can you not adore someone who is so happy and free?

Similarly low-key yet endlessly compelling is a mid-movie scene concerning Mi-ok confronting her boss on starting a union. This segment reflects an unexpected but deeply welcome Possible Love focal point. Like an amazing Megan Thee Stallion song suddenly making room for an iconic Olivia Rodrigo guest verse, the already outstanding Possible Love offers viewers an extra gift in emphasizing worker rights. This material doesn’t just offer further opportunities for Chang-dong to examine this movies characters. It also informs one of Possible Love’s most achingly harrowing sequences concerning Ho-seok’s last day protesting.

Even before that glimpse into Ho-seok’s past, Sul Kyung-gu keeps this subdued character captivating. It’s always remarkable when actors take a repressed character and still render them consistently engaging. Kyang-gu does just that with his haunted Ho-seok portrayal. This actor’s portrayal of a man caked in layers of agony simultaneously echoes a more buttoned-up take on Cillian Murphy’s Dunkirk performance and the saddest basset hound ever. Kyang-gu’s deeply human manifestation of that persona, though, makes it clear there’s something more vulnerable underneath that repressed exterior.

In any other movie, Sul Kyung-gu’s work would unquestionably reign supreme over any other performances. However, the acting champion here is Jean Do-yeon. Reuniting with Chang-dong after their exceptional Possible Love collaboration, she thrives in these restrained confines. Conceptually simple moments like Mi-ok remarking the word “freedom” on the beach or observing a rainbow created by Cheol playing with a hose are so immensely affecting in her hands. You can practically reach out and touch wider interior worlds Do-yeon hints at in these tiny details. Plus, Do-yeon is so moving portraying Mi-ok coming more and more out of her shell as her friendship with Ye-ji and Sang-woo deepens.

Staggeringly impressive and unique specificities litter Sul Kyung-gu and Jean Do-yeon’s lead Possible Love performances. Yet each actor achingly reinforces one truth: Ho-seok and Mi-ok both suffer from loneliness. The latter character craves connections with others to break up her monotonous existence. Ho-seok, meanwhile, wistfully stares at his unused, handmade concrete social area (once planned for hangouts and BBQs with his co-workers) even while insisting on keeping his distance from others.

Their responses to past trauma and pervasive loneliness wildly vary. Yet similar psychological turmoil plagues these individuals who believe they’re growing apart. Possible Love’s intimate and subdued world potently realizes this melancholy reality. Once more, Lee Chang-dong has crafted sublime understated cinema speaking volumes about existence's most arduous experiences.

Possible Love begins playing in select theaters on October 23rd and hits Netflix worldwide on November 6th.

You Can See Everything challenges you to consider what's real in every reel

Nathan Fielder has spent years melting brains, inspiring GIFs, encountering wacky real-life people, and showing off those really good grades he got from one of Canada’s top business schools. Beyond inspiring unforgettable giggles, Fielder’s artistic M.O. has impressed through (among other accomplishments) pervasive rug-pulls revealing reality's immense malleability. A daycare location for a nighttime meeting between taxi drivers on Nathan For You, for instance, can suddenly be revealed as a set.

The outstanding Nathan For You series finale Finding Frances explored how much Fielder knew about and could trust elderly Bill Gates impersonator Bill Heath. This guy kept making Fielder question how much he really knew about a man who was constantly on his TV show.

Then there was The Rehearsal, which had Fielder diving through and intersecting so many layers of simulated realities. Throughout all these projects, jokes persist, but so does the sense that what you’re watching can upend itself at any moment. Who knows when Fielder will ratchet things up to the next level of insanity (like bringing a live alligator into an electronics store) or suddenly reveal that everything you’ve seen is a falsehood? Whether it’s a viral video of a pig saving a goat or recreations of Sully Sullenberger listening to Evanescence, Nathan Fielder’s comedy dares us to question what is real and what’s behind those modulations to reality.

That makes Fielder a perfect person to capture the world of Elizabeth Holmes, the former Theranos mastermind and Silicon Valley figurehead who has been convicted of fraud. This woman exists in her own labyrinthine approach to reality, one in which she maintains her innocence. You Can See Everything (which is helmed by Fielder and Primetime director Lance Oppenheimer) starts with Fielder capturing Holmes, her husband Billy Evans, and their two kids in a lavish beachside San Diego home. He arrives as this woman prepares for her imminent prison sentence starting in a month.

With every image captured in the Academy ratio (1.33:1) and the camera often resorting to close-ups echoing similarly cramped frames in Oppenheim’s Primetime, You Can See Everything starts with Fielder and his documentary subjects confined close together. Despite this intimate proximity, concrete answers elude him. Attempts to interview certain people (like Holmes’ father) only inspire ire from Evans. Holmes, meanwhile, speaks in odd statements that both seemingly only make sense to her and are weirdly devoid of malice. When she insists “I’ve never told a lie,” she says it with such assurance…even though it’s clearly false.

Even staring straight into her eyes and maintaining a conversation can’t quite part the curtains and deliver a clear-cut truth. It’s utterly fascinating watching Fielder scrounging for any kind of clarity from Holmes and Evans. He’s got to get creative trying to create a bridge between himself and these idiosyncratic souls, like using an Abbot & Costello routine to illustrate to Holmes how her communication style may create understanding gaps between herself and other people. Meanwhile, dry comedy ensues when Fielder tries cracking jokes (“I used to do a comedy show about business scams...but you actually did a business scam.”) around people who aren’t exactly joke-oriented.

Another later illuminating You Can See Everything conversation involves people talking about celebrity-based documentaries. When someone brings up a Meghan Markle doc made for Netflix, another person responds, “that’s…not really a documentary.” This comment speaks to a larger rot plaguing modern documentary movies. Streamers have saturated the market with celebrity-focused documentaries only existing to marvel at how big Eddie Murphy’s house is or provide cozy PR management for historical monsters.

Interesting visuals? Chronicling everyday people? Actually challenging viewers? These Hoop Dreams, The Gleaners and I, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed fixtures have no room in the new streaming-approved definition of documentary cinema. Features previously chastising the powerful are now another tool normalizing the bourgeoisie. Amazon’s Melania earlier this year was the blonde-haired, dead-eyed epitome of this disgusting trend.

You Can See Everything, like fellow excellent 2020s docs Time or Crip Camp, reclaims the documentary format back to actual filmmakers. Instead of just rehashing the familiar, Fielder and Oppenheim use documentary cinema to keep audiences on their toes. The camerawork isn’t what you might expect. Various twists and turns navigated through the 170-minute runtime are similarly shocking. Even Ari Balouzian's score (which apparently leans heavily on Bernard Hermann's compositions from Vertigo) doesn’t quite sound like typical orchestral music accompanying a movie about infamous Silicon Valley residents.

Then there’s You Can See Everything’s willingness to challenge its central subjects. Previously, Fielder had no problem pushing back on Boston-originating detectives or someone dropping anti-Semitic remarks in a recreation of a Raising Cane’s. Naturally then, he’s got no issue pushing the buttons of Elizabeth Holmes or Billy Holmes. The celebrity documentary has teeth and subversiveness again. Nathan Fielder rescued the format just in the nick of time.

As for further specifics of what You Can See Everything has to offer…far be it from me to spoil the mind-melting surprises waiting in store. Even Nathan Fielder veterans like myself will be left agog over what he pulls off here. One spoiler-free element I can praise here, though, is the way Fielder poses himself on camera here. Audiences first see Fielder staring at Holmes from behind a yellow-tinted door. Like so many shots of him looming over sets or conversations in The Rehearsal, he’s framed almost like a horror movie villain.

There’s something persistently amusing about just cutting to a shot of Fielder with that blank stare on his face just watching something from afar. Yet it’s also a neat visual detail laced with many potential meanings. Are we seeing Fielder from the perspective of the Holmes family, as an intrusive “monster”? Is this supposed to reinforce Fielder as being an “other” in a space full of Silicon Valley weirdos? This surface-level amusing image’s ambiguity once more forces audiences to question what we’re looking at.

He’s a pilot. He’s saved so many American businesses. He even appeared briefly in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Now Nathan Fielder adds another achievement to his repertoire: theatrical film director. With this documentary, he and Oppenheim balloon typical Fielder creative impulses to 170 minutes without straining in the slightest. It isn’t just that You Can See Everything avoids feeling like a bloated Nathan For You episode. Instead, a larger canvas brings out new highs in artistic proficiency from this master comedian. Trust me, You Can See Everything’s extraordinary; it may be the best movie of 2026. Why would I deceive you about that?

Ken Russell's The Devils is more of a holy triumph than ever

Matt Damon’s Odysseus spent years getting back home in The Odyssey. However, even he didn’t face as many obstacles as the original cut of Ken Russell’s The Devils endured. Warner Bros. executives, terrified of its religious commentary and extreme displays of sexuality, infamously butchered and censored The Devils. Since then, even a truncated cut of The Devils has been hard to procure. Save for one United Kingdom release in 2012, the title’s been nonexistent on 21st-century home video formats. Appearances on streaming platforms have been sporadic at best.

Then, in 2002, film critic Mark Kermode announced he’d uncovered the deleted Devils footage. It took 24 years, but that material's finally restored in The Devils proper. To boot, the entire motion picture has received a 4K restoration, a grand theatrical release, and no cuts (this one earns its NC-17 rating). Finally, this original creative vision, here titled Ken Russell’s The Devils, is available. Praise be!

The centerpiece of Ken Russell's The Devils (based on both Aldous Huxley's 1952 novel The Devils of Loudon and the John Whiting play adaptation The Devils) hinges on Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed). This real-life 1630s France figure is pivotal in the town of Loudun. Sturdy walls separate this domicile from the world. This yummy mustached religious figure is always secretly bedding women and quietly the object of lust for Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave). She yearns for his body like a parched human craves water. She wants a piece of that Lord with her always, if you catch my drift.

Anywho, Agnes isn't the only figure enamored with Grandier. Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) is seeking to assimilate all French territory under the Catholic Church's power (and ensure anyone of different religious persuasions won't have any sway). His loyal follower, Baron de Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton), begins plotting with jilted Loudun residents harboring grudges against Grandier to destroy this priest. Agnes claiming Satan has possessed her and other nuns at the behest of Grandier proves perfect for disposing this man of the cloth.

Ken Russell’s The Devils hasn’t aged a day since its 1971 release. Russell’s creative vision still radiates danger, gusto, and distinctive creativity. Suppressing it for so long has only ensured it hits theaters when it’s tragically so relevant. An opening scene where Richelieu sternly tells King Louis XIII of France (Graham Armitage) that he hopes they can finally abolish "the separation between church and state" might as well be verbiage plucked from any modern right-wing Christofacist leader dominating the global political scene. The decades have changed, but Russell’s cinematic Molotov cocktail is as needed as ever.

And oh, what a fiery burst of rebellious cinema this is. Ken Russell’s creative vision is a maximalist achievement, constantly tossing middle fingers at authority and “sacrosanct” religious institutions. Actual historical individuals (like Richelieu) are deployed and turned into villainous individuals without hesitation. Religious authority figures use their power and scripture just for selfish means, and there’s nary a trace of “it’s just a few bad apples!”-style dialogue.

Such rebukes of power stand out as excitingly taboo even today. Allegedly, in the late 2010s, Apple once asked the Servant creative team not to feature crucifixes lest theologically inclined viewers get mad. In contrast, Ken Russell’s The Devils features a riotous moment where a naked nun uses a gigantic cross to bonk "witch hunter" Father Pierre Barre (Michael Gothard) on the back. All the lust, sexual pleasure, and other “deviancies” demonized by Christian-based institutions appear here fully on the screen.

Anyone who gasps at the mere sight of bare asses on-screen or bemoans “pointless sex scenes”, avert your eyes at a mesmerizing fantasy sequence where Agnes traces her tongue across the crucifixion-originating wounds of Jesus/Grandier. The rest of us will watch engrossed at the phenomenal imagery and intoxicating atmosphere.

Throughout watching Ken Russell’s The Devils, the thought “is this one of my favorite movies of all time?” raced through my brain. Even beyond its rebelliousness, everything here is just so perfectly crafted. Russell’s dialogue, for one thing, commits wholeheartedly to making these characters speak and sound like they’re from the 17th century. This produces consistently distinctive dialogue. Especially juicy are Agnes’s earliest scenes where she uses dense verbiage to mask her more primal desires.  “Communities which ought to be furnaces where souls are forever on fire with the love of god are merely dead with the grey ashes of convenience,” she notes to a prospective nun in one especially unforgettable line.

Ironically, despite being such a criticism of Catholicism, Ken Russell’s The Devils is as ornately composed as great religious artworks like the Sistine Chapel. Take any frame from this feature, and it looks like a Renaissance painting. Derek Jarman’s sets, for instance, are breathtaking. The nunnery alone is a marvel. White colors, cramped ceilings, and persistent lines lend rich specificity to every room in this terrain. The coldness of the tiling is tangible. Meanwhile, the black nun habits and chilling rails of red blood stand out against the white. Then there's the beautifully constructed sets representing Loudon’s streets and buildings, the latter of which carry striking semi-Brutalist qualities in their appearances.

It's staggering to witness all these hand-crafted wonders on the big screen. Combining Jarman's set design with the deeply precise blocking makes for a transcendent visual experience. To boot, Ken Russell’s The Devils is awash in succulent colors. Establishing shots, like one showing King Louis on a bridge shooting “bird”, practically pop off the screen with their radiant reds and yellows. Ken Russell and company have so much to say about fascism, organized religion, and the demonization of sexuality. Yet headiness doesn’t come at the expense of vibrant hues. Instead, the two elements beautifully complement and enhance each other.

Just Ken Russell’s The Devils’ inherent maximalism opens the door for a barrage of tremendous images, so too does this aesthetic give the assorted actors a chance to deliver unforgettable outsized performances. What’s especially impressive about each of these turns is how they feel organic to the characters they’re inhabiting. Of course someone like Perre Barre would always be so over-the-top. He’s a conman mistakenly convinced of his own grandiose importance. He’s constantly reaffirming his own “God-anointed” stature through his pronounced behavior. Vanessa Redgrave, meanwhile, subverts societal expectations for how nuns “should” behave with her astonishing go-for-broke work.

This legendary performer has appeared in several momentous features (including Blow-Up and Howards End), yet this is her greatest work. How absorbing she is whenever she appears on-screen, fully committing to writhing sexually, screaming in tortured pain, or monologuing to herself without ever batting an eye. She does it all with flair and, in the middle of all the madness, rich humanity. Then there’s Oliver Reed, lending an appropriate level of believable gravitas to Grandier. His immediately arresting on-screen presence makes it clear why Loudon’s inhabitants treasure him. Reed’s similarly engrossing vocals also make scenes ranging from intimate conversations with his character’s wife, Madeleine (Gemma Jones), to big climactic speeches all equally captivating.

Everyone in Ken Russell’s The Devils giving 110% creatively includes composer Peter Maxwell Davies, who litters the sonic landscape with instruments and sounds you wouldn’t expect to hear in a 17th-century period piece (like atonal trumpets). His orchestral creations especially come alive and become hypnotic in the feature’s second half. Once the possession of Agnes and the other nuns becomes “fact,” sexual havoc, debauchery, and deceit dominate Loudon's church. Davies sets these images to tracks wailing with chaos and pain. Meanwhile, Russell and cinematographer David Watkin often capture this mayhem with intentionally disorienting camerawork. This includes sudden zooms littering the infamous “rape of Christ” set piece.

Technically, this was my second The Devils viewing (I watched the truncated Criterion Channel cut a few years back). However, witnessing everything spiraling out of control left me awestruck and my mouth agape, like it was my first time. That haunting sequence where Grandier is set ablaze and the camera cuts between his screams, Loudun citizens laughing at his pain, and images placing audiences in Grandier’s point of view? Good Lord, it’s all so blisteringly realized. In this agonizing segment, Ken Russell’s The Devils perfectly conveys madness and cruelty consuming the world like quicksand ensnaring a person. This is the hideous endpoint of succumbing to fascism.  

The folks behind this 4K restoration have commendably ensured all these grim atmospheric feats and the other glorious visual achievements in Ken Russell’s The Devils remain intact. Several 4K restorations of 20th-century movies (namely James Cameron directorial efforts) have been nightmares, excessively smoothing out the images and obliterating all the idiosyncrasies tied to older eras of filmmaking (the excellent Chris Person essay “They Want You to Forget What A Film Looks Like” delves into this). This Ken Russell’s The Devils restoration, though, achieves a perfect balance between the old and new.

Images and colors on-screen are crisp, but still maintain potent tactility. Everything still looks like a 1971 feature (rather than a 48 frames per second nightmare), just with extra spiff and shine. Such glorious care ensures it’s easier than ever to savor the endless artistic accomplishments in Ken Russell’s The Devils. We still need works like this taking powerful institutions to the woodchipper, speaking out on the dangers of nationalist movements, and demonstrating the wonders of hand-crafted filmmaking. See it on the big screen and bellow "HALLELJUAH!" over what Ken Russell's The Devils offers its disciples.

Ken Russell's The Devils is now playing in theaters for a limited time through October 22nd.

The documentary NAZA will shake you to your core

Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor capture everything in NAZA at night. This doesn’t just pertain to this documentary’s interviews with assorted Israeli citizens (working in jobs like drone strike operator, intelligence officer, or coding, among others) who’ve carried out the Palestinian genocide. It also extends to footage captured of various Tel Aviv citizens nonchalantly existing in apartments.

The faces of these inhabitants are often obscured, much like the interview subjects have their visages covered. However, viewers clearly witness these individuals doing yoga, folding laundry, cleaning tables. So many mundane tasks. Often their televisions blare propaganda justifying and normalizing the slaughter of Palestinians.

These cutaways from the assorted interviews depict a level of comfort Palestinian civilians can’t obtain. Sure, rockets can race overhead in Tel Aviv. Generally, though, this population goes about its business like any other major city. NAZA features wide shots of people eating and laughing at nice restaurants. Folks dance to trap music. People are catching a jog before dawn breaks. The dissonance between these banal images of normalcy and a genocide happening in Gaza just under 70 kilometers away is chilling.

Abraham and Szor don’t need intrusive music or narration to hammer home this eerie reality. Juxtaposing unspeakably horrifying anecdotes with these subdued images is enough. This is what normalized colonization looks like.

Those anecdotes, though, are NAZA’s primary focus. These accounts come from various Israeli’s recounting their work in killing Palestinians. The country’s government further ramped up this task after October 7, 2023. In matter-of-fact tones, they recall matters like using phones to track down the location of Palestinian citizens and nonchalant attitudes towards the death of children. These are the architects of mass slaughter. These are their stories. NAZA bears witness to how unthinkable war crimes become another nine-to-five job.

Or, as one interview subject puts it, "I know now how people can bomb a house and then return home to their clinical engineering degrees."

Abraham and Szor’s cameras and interviews reveal wildly varying forms of wiping out Palestinians. One person recalls various techniques used to set fire to homes. Another elaborates on how snipers were told to promptly kill starving Palestinians who scrambled towards aid. Then there’s the folks NAZA focuses on towards the end of its runtime. These were the souls responsible for curbing Palestinians from going to the International Criminal Court or other bodies that could hold Israeli forces accountable for their crimes.

One individual that they’d dig up dirt on whoever was planning to speak up (an extramarital affair, perhaps, or concealed homosexuality) and use that to ensure they’d never come forward. These particular people aren’t using drones or guns per se, but they’re still robbing Palestinians of their humanity and autonomy. That’s the binding force behind NAZA’s interview subjects. Dehumanizing the “other” and justifying unthinkable atrocities. Even when children are murdered, there’s always a rationale.

To say NAZA is a harrowing watch is an understatement. Abraham and Szor’s intentionally subdued visual aesthetic proves crucial in this regard. This includes the soundtrack, which largely consists of genocide-enabler testimonies accompanied by distant sounds of airplanes landing, car horns, or faint conversations. This auditory landscape keeps the focus squarely on horrific anecdotes often erased and suppressed (anti-Israel graffiti is a “hate crime” in certain parts of Texas). However, like those shots of apartment-dwelling Tel Aviv denizens, those faraway noises make it clear these interview subjects aren’t anomalous individuals or “a few bad apples.”

They inhabit a larger world, one in which the normalization of colonialism and genocide of Indigenous souls goes far beyond Israel’s borders. I’m typing this on unceded land from tribes like the Caddo, Wichita, Tawakoni, and Kiikaapoi people. Indigenous peoples in Brazil are constantly under threat from violence and exploitation. Justifying crimes against humanity and the elimination of Indigenous lives is everywhere. Abraham and Szor’s auditory and visual NAZA impulses reinforce this grander scope without distracting from the gut-wrenching testimonies at hand.

Such statements include stories about how drone strike operators took to processing these missions “like a video game.” Others recall how their co-workers cheered on these slayings. One interview subject, while expressing remorse for the past, openly admits feeling a unique and thrilling adrenaline surge carrying out killings. It’s staggering that the NAZA crew got these words on camera (even with the appearances and voices of the various military personnel changed). Then again, briefly seen news footage shows various Israeli politicians boasting about eliminating Palestinians from the face of the Earth. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising what genocide architects and enablers say once they’re shrouded in shadows.

NAZA only shifts away from its default visual scheme once for its final scene. This segment consists of footage captured on a phone by a Palestinian citizen. An IDF airstrike has just decimated civilian Gaza territory. Thus, this phone chronicles neighbors navigating the wreckage of their homes for their loved ones. One father calls to his children, now buried underneath rubble. As the realization of what’s happened to them sets in, the man moans, sobs, and recalls how he told his son to watch out for his sister. His agonizing cries are one of many wails and heart-shattering noises filling the screen.

Up to this point, NAZA has emphasized stories of people who make war crimes possible. Now audiences see the human cost of treating people “like a video game” from the point-of-view of a Palestinian citizen living through this genocide.

Once the lights went up at my NAZA screening, as the credits silently rolled on, an unusual thing happened. Nobody got up. We all sat silently, processing everything we’d just witnessed. So impactful was this filmmaking and overall movie that suddenly bolting from the premises felt insulting. Gradually, we all stood up and slowly ventured towards the exits. Outside the theater, it was only 12:30 PM. The sun was shining down. Yet NAZA’s harrowing nighttime interviews consumed my mind and, undoubtedly, everyone else in that auditorium that day.

Death comes for us all in the darkly hilarious Wild Horse Nine

 

Bittersweet dark comedies. Those three words neatly sum up playwright and feature film writer/director Martin McDonagh's cinematic exploits. Melancholy ambiances linger over his motion pictures like a storm cloud hovering above a picnic or U.S. government forces preparing to attack a democratically elected leftist leader. Titles like The Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges make that aesthetic apparent. McDonagh films feature bleak yuks (often derived from witty vulgar verbiage) within mournful, deeply vulnerable atmospheres.

Even his wacky Hollywood yukfest, Seven Psychopaths, ends with a mournful exchange in a phone booth where Colin Farrell’s protagonist quietly accepts that death will eventually come for him (“That's good,” his character remarks upon hearing when he’ll die, “I'm not doing anything Tuesday.”).

Now McDonagh’s aesthetic is back with his latest big screen venture, Wild Horse Nine. Here, he zeroes in on CIA officers and best friend Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell). After laying the groundwork for the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, Carlisle and Chesterfield head to an Easter Island vacation. The former member of this pair has killed 68 people in his life, destabilized countless governments, and left a legacy of America-sanctioned bloodshed. He’s also now succumbing to his older age. His memory isn’t working. Cancer ravages his body. The Grim Reaper’s preparing to visit someone used to dishing out death.

McDonagh shrewdly heightens the tension and places audiences closer to Carlisle’s perspective by slowly unfurling key Wild Horse Nine details as the story progresses rather than unveiling everything upfront. That includes key promises between Carlisle and Chesterfield that this older spy has forgotten all about, how long this cancer-ridden character has to live, as well as their boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi), demanding Chesterfield kill his best friend. Easter Island is one of the world’s most beautiful places. Glorious sights abound in this domicile. Yet even here spies can’t escape conspiracies and potentially fatal secrets.

Midway through Wild Horse Nine, Carlisle and Chesterfield are sitting on a hill and conversing. As they chat, one shot of Carlisle suddenly got darker. I was temporarily worried my theater's projector system wasn’t working. However, the subsequent image of Chesterfield wielded not only the same lighting, but suddenly returned to the initial brightness. McDonagh and cinematographer Ben Davis kept in images where clouds briefly obscured the sun. They couldn’t control that reality-based wrinkle, yet they rolled with it during their practical location shooting.

That might sound like a weird, superfluous detail to obsess over. Maybe it is. But after watching The Social Reckoning’s artificial rendering of exterior rainy spaces, I absolutely cherished these remnants of reality. Tiny elements like that make Wild Horse Nine’s world extra believable. These aren’t characters discernibly existing only on blue-screen simulacra of the outdoors. They’re outside, breathing the air and beholden to when clouds briefly overtake the sun. Embracing such visual elements accentuates the believability of Wild Horse Nine’s characters.

Nobody can dispute that McDonagh is a master of insults. Whether it's "you're an inanimate object!" or declaring someone "fecking mental," his films are littered with characters creatively lambasting one another. Wild Horse Nine happily continues that trend. Chesterfield’s intensely uttering "you dumb Iowa cunt" is especially sublime. McDonagh’s writing isn’t just rife with jeers. It’s also heavy on immensely engaging conversations between Carlise and Chesterfield that intriguingly evolve tonally as Wild Horse Nine progresses. At first, they’re mostly just amusing as Carlisle rambles on about his supposed “wisdom.” Monologues regarding the correlation between gayness and democracy, as well as how having a heroin addict for a wife is superior to being married to an alcoholic, are particularly memorable in this regard.

However, as the story marches on, more dramatic impulses begin seeping into their conversations. Carlisle isn’t sure he can trust his longtime friend while Chesterfield finds himself pulled between dueling alliances. Inevitably, their rapport gets more strained. This still produces amusing material, like in one scene where Carlisle comes clean about how much he really wanted to see Venice, Italy rather than Easter Island. However, McDonagh wrings impactful power out of contorting an initially comedic dynamic into something outright tragic. Wild Horse Nine is often a two-hander between Rockwell and Malkovich. Whatever mode that two-hander inhabits, it proves engrossing.

The only real problem in the script is that the women characters needed more dimensions. Cinema legend Parker Posey (Party Girl forever!) is just around for two scenes playing Chesterfield’s wife back in the States. Chilean college student Monica (Mariana di Girolamo), meanwhile, has an understandable bittersweet function in the plot with her friendship with Carlisle ("She's life and I'm departing it," Carlisle bemoans). However, her interior world remains surface-level. At least her screentime, though, lets Girolamo demonstrate her serious mastery of an instantly shattering crying face. Tears welling up in her eyes resonate as achingly soul and believable rather than manipulative.

Besides that screenwriting foible, though, Wild Horse Nine is another divine film script from the In Bruges writer. While a dialogue-driven affair, McDonagh gladly maintains sharp visual instincts beyond maintaining takes where clouds obscured the sun. That includes littering the screen with bright colors. Hotel room phone cords are bright blue. Chesterfield never goes anywhere without a vibrant shirt on his body. Key automobiles are decked out in sumptuous colors like red. Folks like production designer Denis Schnegg and costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh prove essential in draping the on-screen world in enough vivid hues to evoke a postcard for an island getaway.

Committing to those colors (not to mention Easter Island’s natural beauty) ensures that Wild Horse Nine’s melancholy elements hit extra hard. It’s like how a storm makes it easier to appreciate sunlight. An evocatively staged shot depicting Chesterfield drinking alone at the hotel bar, empty space surrounding him, is one of several memorable images conveying this bittersweet tone. Inhabiting these visuals are a bevy of immensely memorable performances, including John Malkovich as Wild Horse Nine’s deeply vulnerable protagonist.

It's been a long while since Malkovich appeared in a top-shelf movie. After a few years of attempting to liven up titles like Fool's Paradise and Opus, Malkovich finally excels in a sublime motion picture once more. Especially memorable is any instant where he portrays Carlisle silently sitting, ruminating on his impending demise. Malkovich’s eyes suggest caked-in resignation with just a hint of fear. His character’s motormouth comedic digressions may suggest otherwise, but this actor's quietest details poignantly convey how much mortality weighs on Carlisle.

Sam Rockwell, reuniting with McDonagh for the third time, meanwhile, is also tonally dexterous in his performance. He’s an absolute riot bouncing off his elderly companion. Plus, Rockwell’s the master of hysterical facial expressions, a talent informing Wild Horse Nine’s greatest scenes. However, when it’s time for Rockwell to sell Chesterfield’s emotionally conflicted sequences, he absolutely crushes it. He and Malkovich uncover discernible and engrossing humanity within two monsters. On paper, that sounds like a paradox. Given that Wild Horse Nine is yet another bittersweet dark comedy triumph from Martin McDonagh, though, conceptually contradictory endeavors are the name of the game here.

So Is David Ellison's 30+ Warner Bros./Paramount Movies a Year Plan Remotely Feasible?

This isn't a very upbeat piece, I'll admit, so how about an image from one of those Jim Henson Wilkin's Coffee commercials that always brings me joy?

First of all, here are some fun facts about Skydance head David Ellison, who now owns Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures:

David Ellison was paid $63.5 million in 2025. Every dollar had to go to him, as 1,000+  Paramount jobs for the proletariat were eliminated.

The royal families of Saudi Arabia will have a significant financial stake in the new Skydance that owns Warner Bros. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund that's pouring $10 billion into Skydance has been linked to allegations of human rights abuses. Appalling anti-Semitism has run rampant in government-approved school materials, while LGBTQIA+ human rights abuses are also normalized.

Hey, speaking of countries with human right violations, David Ellison made a big show (just under two months after Skydance bought Paramount) out of Paramount+ acquiring the October 7 miniseries Red Alert. David's father, Larry Ellison, is one of the most prolific supporters of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, along with countless other organizations, have concluded that Netanyahu and his IDF forces are committing a genocide against the Palestinian people.

As if that weren't enough corrupt world leaders to pal around with, David Ellison has also been incredibly chummy with US President Donald Trump. ICE custody deaths have ballooned under Trump's presidency. His implementation of Elon Musk to lead DOGE and gut USAID led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Millions of Americans have lost their healthcare under the Trump administration. Trump was also found liable for sexual abuse in court and has been accused countless times of sexual misconduct by women.

The qualifications for being in David Ellison's friend group are apparently (1) being powerful, (2) being rich, (3) having blood on your hands.

It's estimated that 4,500 Los Angeles jobs could be eliminated because of him buying Warner Bros.

Keep that in mind as Ellison blabbers on cable news shows about Skydance now being the king of "content" or various rich people like Tom Cruise and James Cameron bootlicking this corporate king.

Faith and fighting collide in the excellent Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

Existence is improv. We're all stumbling through life, struggling to figure out what to do. That's true even when you become a parent and are tasked with guiding young souls through this agonizing yet beautiful world. Latif (Mahershala Ali) knows this better than anyone. His life's been chaos since his wife passed away, leaving this deeply committed Muslim struggling to raise his three children, including a newborn baby, ten-year-old son Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia). Throwing an extra wrench into the proceedings is Latif’s job. He’s a hitman slicing throats by night and kneeling before Allah by day.

Writer/director Bassam Tariq's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows Latif on a quest to procure breastmilk for his youngest. This odyssey puts him in constant opposition to his boss, Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli), as well as local Christian icon Hwan Yoon (John Cho). Draped in cowboy gear, shimmering grills on his teeth, and an army of followers behind him, Yoon is Latif's latest target. All this man wants, though, is to feed his baby. Time for Latif to grab his sword and protect his family.

I love it when art combines glorious craftsmanship with sillier impulses. Beyoncé's 2022 tune "CUFF IT," for instance, is so perfectly made in its tiniest instrumentation intricacies. It's also a song where Beyoncé sings the word "thotty," a joyous use of internet verbiage sounding triumphant with her vocals. Meanwhile, my beloved Hundreds of Beavers demonstrates pervasive attention to detail in executing the most outlandish gags imaginable. There’s an artistry in how icicles plunge into the eyes of wolves or a puppet frog screams in terror.

Similarly, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is rich in powerful imagery and emotional potency. Tariq’s artistic command is towering. His creative vision, however, also makes this the first (that I’m aware of) movie featuring the phrase “halal jizz." Similarly, even though the story makes the consequences of violence achingly potent, there are still some great “here we goooooooo” fight scene beats putting countless lackluster 87North movies to shame.

Balance is crucial for carving out a fulfilling existence. It’s also an ingredient Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother masters to deeply impactful effect. Something else this feature has a strong command of is creativity. The first big face-to-face scene between Latif and Hwan, for instance, is already a tense set piece just based on the dialogue and performances. However, Tariq underpins this exchange with the sound of Latif’s youngest getting burped just off-screen. The constant “pat pat pat” noise on the soundtrack works sonically reminds audiences of what’s at stake here for Latif. His newborn child’s in danger even when she’s not on-screen.

Devoid of any context, though, the rhythmic pats excel in making your heart race as the conversation keeps going and Hwan’s words grow increasingly menacing and bigoted (“You’ve got that Ramadan smell on your breath,” he remarks to Latif). What a fantastically innovative and character-centric sound choice accentuating tension. Such profoundly specific achievements flow throughout Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother like water slipping through a creek bed. This includes Tariq and cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi’s richly moving imagery. The duo’s close-up shots, especially when utilized in flashbacks, beautifully place viewers in the memories of Latifa and Fatiha.

An especially evocative example of such visuals comes early in the film as Latif drives his family to a mosque. On their way, Fatiha stares outside, rain trickling down the window, and remembers her mother’s fingers adjusting and fine-tuning her hair. There’s no abrupt word or phrasing triggering this sudden digression to the past. Fatiha just suddenly dives into yesteryear. This vividly signals how the pain of missing her mother interrupts her life at any random moment. The immediately moving lighting and tender atmosphere Tariq and Arizmendi conjure up in these brief flashbacks both move the soul and make it clear why Fatiha years for the past.

In contrast to these tight, intimate shots, there’s also the grander Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother visual impulses. Certain images, like Latif standing on a balcony above Hwan’s congregation in a wide shot, evoke an outright mythic quality. The blocking and atmosphere evoke ancient religious paintings plopped into modern Houston, Texas. Whatever mode it’s operating in, Your Mother is a visual tour de force.

The various fight scenes are also impressively realized. Tariq leaps from his grounded, naturalistic directorial debut Mogul Mowgli to this gunfire and punch-heavy feature without breaking a sweat. Creative backdrops (like a ritzy mansion or a strip club being converted into a church) abound in these set pieces. Potent fight choreography and editing keep the hand-to-hand skirmishes visually coherent. Some of these scenes feature a handful of unforgettable “oh, shit!” crowdpleaser moments. Particularly impactful is Latif slathering Vaseline and then shards of glass on his gloves for one confrontation. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s action isn’t about spectacle.

Instead, the consequences of violence reverberate throughout this entire movie. When characters perish, there’s tangible weight to their passing. Tariq’s script shrewdly uses this reality to inspire new forms of compelling tension. After all, every punch has consequences and often brings Latif more trouble rather than resolving his woes. However, this pivotal aspect also accentuates Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s emotional and character details. Sure, it’s endlessly cool seeing Mahershala Ali wield a sword. However, the horrors of taking a life make it abundantly clear why Latif wants to leave this occupation behind. His greatest triumphs come from saving lives and helping his kids rather than being Charles Bronson in Death Wish.

Mahershala Ali beautifully communicates the psychological costs of this hitman life and so much more through his top-shelf performance. In only his second live-action theatrical movie appearance since 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel (following last year’s dismal Jurassic World Rebirth), Ali reaffirms why he was one of the great acting discoveries of the 2010s. For starters, he’s outstanding handling an understated character like Latif. Certain actors (like Brad Pitt in Heart of the Beast) just come off as vacant inhabiting subdued roles. Ali, meanwhile, deftly offers peeks into Latif’s inner world even though this character plays his cards so close to his chest.

That aforementioned initial Latif and Hwan conversation, for instance, sees Ali masterfully communicating flickers of intensity in his eyes even while Latif maintains seemingly perfect composure. Ali’s portrayal of a man keeping so much (his secret hitman life and his pain over losing his wife, namely) bottled up compels you to want to know more about him. It’s a magnificent performance rich with humanity and, when the time calls for it, momentousness.

The latter quality is especially impressive since Ali’s tremendous in communicating how Latif, like any person or parent, is making this up as he goes along. Ironically, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s moving portrait of people improvising their next moves is realized through meticulously crafted lyrical imagery. The canon of Texas cinema has received a phenomenal new entry, with this production making both Carl Theodor Dreyer (with its use of filmmaking contemplating theological matters) and Johnnie To (with its bone-crunching action you can feel) proud. All that plus “halal jizz” too.

If The Social Network Is Aaron Sorkin's Pet Sounds, The Tedious Social Reckoning Is His Summer In Paradise

MINOR SOCIAL RECKONING SPOILERS AHEAD

Aaron Sorkin must persistently hang out in laundry rooms because The Social Reckoning solidifies that he’s washed. This status quo becomes immediately clear with the film’s first on-screen words: “Prologue: White Girl Wasted.” What follows is a sloppily shot and edited prologue depicting a Caucasian lady going on a drunken tirade against two non-white cops. The scene is basically “we have Beth de Araújo’s Soft & Quiet at home.”

It’s also, unfortunately, a tragic distillation of the overall film's quality. Buckle up. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin isn’t done disappointing viewers. "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies"? More like, "You don't make a 2026 Aaron Sorkin movie without making countless mistakes."

That white lady was a casual friend of Facebook data engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison). She's concerned that the social platform she loves is actually corrupting people and making society worse. Wanting to sound the alarm, she reaches out to tech luddite and newly minted Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White). The duo meets in isolated parks or Puerto Rico locations, and Haugen grows increasingly more comfortable divulging dirty Facebook secrets. It’s all a lame All the President’s Men/The Insider/Spotlight pastiche occuring in 2019 and 2020.

Occasionally, the story cuts to January 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is training to act like a human in front of the U.S. Senate by Raya (Wunmi Mosaku). Occasionally, Zuckerberg's former cohort Charlie (Bill Burr) interrupts these efforts. He's the sole voice of reason amongst the billionaires' yes-men.

Sorkin scripts used to have such zest. Not only did they have incredibly memorable lines about “fuck you flip-flops”, "You can't handle the truth!", and "He gets on base a lot,” but it was also compelling to see how idiosyncratic filmmakers translated this verbiage to the screen. Mike Nichols, David Fincher, Rob Reiner, Danny Boyle, Bennett Miller- these geniuses could compellingly realize Sorkin’s vivid prose with equal levels of visual finesse. Combining two distinct artistic flavors (like Fincher and Sorkin) created something extraordinary.

Unfortunately, this West Wing veteran is now directing his own scripts. Not only are his images lame, but his Social Reckoning writing is even more of a snooze than his Being the Ricardos or Molly’s Game scripts. Perhaps Sorkin thinks this material is “weighty” enough to need a heavier touch, but The Social Reckoning is a flatline. Laughs are few and far between. Colorful verbiage is similarly scarce. Only some of Zuckerberg and Charlie's exchanges elicit chuckles or energy. Otherwise, the dialogue here is monotonous. The screenwriting faults also include the characters lacking dimensionality. In The Social Network, the on-screen characters had rich lives beyond just coding or accomplishing Facebook-centric historical events. Think of the scene where a young Zuckerberg pulls Eduardo Saverin away from a party to talk in the snow, or the unforgettable Winklevoss twins rowing scene.

Here, though, none of The Social Reckoning figures have personalities or larger lives. I couldn’t describe Jeff Horwitz beyond him liking musicals, hating technology, and being written like a 65-year-old. Frances Haugen similarly has no definition beyond arch details suggesting she’s a nerd and a Facebook devotee. There are no romantic relationships here, no larger friendships to add texture to the central players. All the President’s Men and The Insider were about ordinary people compellingly confronting larger institutional forces. The Social Reckoning is about tedious mannequins exchanging statistics and hints at early 2020s historical events (“have you kept track of the virus?”) at each other.

Beyond these flatly written characters and Sorkin being in “serious movie” mode, The Social Reckoning is a snooze-inducing affair. Sorkin’s writing only comes “alive” when he has a bone to pick with young people. Whilst describing her racist and under-30 acquaintance, Haugen remarks that this woman “used to be progressive” but got frustrated after “the presidential candidate she supported…she thought the DNC sabotaged him.” Sorkin’s still mad at Bernie Sanders supporters in 2026, in other words. Then there’s his weird seething contempt for young women, which he filters through “slams” Horwitz directs at Haugen.

The most irritating of these is him responding to Haugen’s accusation of him “mansplaining” by saying that he and all other men have decided “that’s just a word women use when they’re losing an argument.” Horwitz also chastises Haugen and his college-aged lady intern for not knowing enough about Frank Capra movies and old musicals, respectively. As a cherry on top of these frustrating gender-based problems, the films finale involves Horwitz's stern boss, Kris (Betty Gilpin), asking if all the men in the room can leave the room so she and Frances can have a chat. This could be an interesting exchange, even if only it'd allow two master performers like Madison and Gilpin to bounce off each other.

Sorkin, though, immediately cuts away from this room to Horwitz and his editor standing outside. We never see Kris and Frances talking. God forbid two women have a conversation in this movie. The Social Reckoning just swerves out of passing the Bechdel Test like Neo narrowly dodging bullets.

These comically stupid “old man yells at cloud” moments are the only really “memorable” thing about such a disposable feature. Sorkin certainly doesn’t give viewers anything to chew on visually. He and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth staunchly refuse to frame multiple characters in one shot. Instead, they persistently opt for static medium shots/reverse medium shots. The greatest visual flourish is draping briefly seen flashbacks to 2017 in black-and-white. Otherwise, The Social Reckoning further dilutes its already lifeless writing with tepid images.

Everyone here is in autopilot mode, alas. Composer Alexandre Desplat, for instance, conjures up various generic compositions so far removed artistically from his iconic tracks for movies like Fantastic Mr. Fox. Unfortunately, most of the actors are also just delivering what you’d expect. Jeremy Strong’s Mark Zuckerberg is what you’d expect Jeremy Strong playing Zuckerberg to look like. Intense. Surface-level. Not particularly specific. White is directed to play a hollow version of his Bear character. Similarly, Burr channels a more muted incarnation of his stand-up persona.

Only Mikey Madison steps outside of her comfort zone. In contrast to her phenomenally outsized Anora performance, her Frances Haugen is withdrawn, shy, always looking at the ground and fiddling with her fingers. She’s reasonably convincing exploring new territory as an actor, though Sorkin hands her the absolute worst Social Reckoning dialogue (including so many speeches about how her character “believes in Facebook!”). Not even Mikey Madison can salvage this capsized cinematic ship.

The Social Reckoning’s greatest transgression is how sleepy it is. This should be a movie bubbling with anger at tech oligarchs running rampant. Pervasive rage at the horrible status quo we’ve carved out for the next generation should permeate every second. Instead, Sorkin sleepwalks through a hollow regurgitation of journalism thriller storytelling touchstones. This includes an outright insulting happy ending concluding things on a fist-bump. How can Social Reckoning act like everything wrapped up all happy and hunky dory in 2021? Facebook and other tech companies are still ruining lives and exerting undue influence on society. Who would actually cheer and applaud this delusional revisionism of history?

When The Social Network came out, people worried it'd immediately age poorly. Instead, its performances, visuals, and score were so sublime they could work in any era. Its tale of toxic dudes building their own empires for petulant reasons, meanwhile, is also tragically relevant. In contrast, The Social Reckoning’s meditation on 2019-2021 history is immediately and hopelessly out of touch with reality.

From the “Prologue: White Girl Wasted” on-screen text to that closing fist-bump, The Social Reckoning combines groan-inducing creative choices with utter tedium. Those who manage to stay awake will be “rewarded” with Sorkin chastising young women and stunningly lame filmmaking. If you want an actually good 2026 investigative movie with potent rage at the status quo, watch Coyote vs. Acme instead. That Looney Tunes feature deserves your "full attention." The Social Reckoning deserves less than "the minimum amount" of your concentration.

The Social Reckoning begins playing in theaters on October 9.

Digger's admirable in concept, wobbly in execution

MASSIVE DIGGER SPOILERS

MASSIVE DIGGER SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

*******************

Dorothy is rife with excellent camerawork and pleasant surprises

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DOROTHY AHEAD

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I Saw Weird Al in Concert And My White & Nerdy Self Will Never Be The Same

Me just before the Weird Al concert began

You never know what art you experience as a teenager will profoundly alter your psyche. In these formative years, your eyeballs will catch a painting, your heart will be captured by a movie, or some music will transfix your dreams...and suddenly, you're never the same. "Weird Al" Yankovic's music was like that for me, though, funnily enough, I can't remember the first tune of his that I heard. I just know I was constantly listening to comedy-themed Pandora music stations in 2010 and 2011 and, inevitably, "Weird Al" Yankovic kept showing up (his album Alpocalypse dropping around this time undoubtedly bolstered his Pandora presence). Right away, I could tell this guy's music was something extraordinarily special.