Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land are lusciously romantic sides of one cinema-savvy coin

Major spoilers for La La Land and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma ahead

Seeing two unrelated movies in close proximity can inspire one to ponder connections between these titles. However, experiencing wildly different pieces of cinema in similar timeframes isn't a guarantee that overlapping qualities will materialize. For example: I saw The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and Suspiria on the same day back-to-back. Oscillating between two radically different aesthetics was fun, but I don't think of those as "ah yes, they're actually the same movie."  Similarly, me seeing Sound of Falling and Crime 101 back-to-back theatrically didn't unfurl some third eye capable of seeing the parallels between Chris Hemsworth's bank-robbing antics and that meditative French movie.

All that pretext is meant to make something clear: I'm not just saying Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land are kindred spirits because I saw them (or rewatched in the latter film's case) theatrically within the span of four days. I know this very conceit sounds like the set-up to some punchline on a movie nerd Instagram shitposting page.

Yet, stewing on the magic of witnessing director Jane Schoenbrun and Damien Chazelle's majestic visions on the big screen, I began to see that the two movies were like Green Goblin and Spider-Man: "not so different." More binds Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land beyond both being pop culture pastiches and making me cry multiple times. They're each masterclasses in making  homages to the past while carving out new, unforgettable pieces of visual storytelling. In this modern age of shallow fan-service and rigid regurgitations of yesteryear, titles like Camp Miasma and La La Land are more vital than ever.

"It's conflict and it's compromise, and it's just... it's new every time. It's brand new every night. It's very, very exciting!"

Let's get the obvious parallel between Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land out of the way: they're both motion pictures sumptuously rooted in older eras of genre cinema. Jane Schoenbrun's Camp Miasma is a full-throated homage to 20th century slasher cinema. La La Land, meanwhile, is a deeply committed pastiche of 50s/60s musical movies, complete with a 2.55:1 aspect ratio emulating (though not exactly emulating) the expansive canvases of CinemaScope musicals like Oklahoma! and 1954's A Star is Born. Both movies clearly know the vocabulary and artists that defined the cinema eras they're obsessed with. La La Land lead Mia's (Emma Stone) bedroom is draped in posters of classic movies. Camp Miasma protagonist Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder), meanwhile, can name the leading ladies of Sleepaway Camp movies as easily as she breathes.

However, neither movie is an exact carbon copy of what inspired it. Mid-20th century musicals and classic slashers are springboards for new visual schemes, deeply specific images, and unique tones. In both cases, that includes distinctly setting these titles in the modern world. La La Land characters tap-dance like they're in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, but they also exist in a decidedly 21st-century ecosystem of financial woes and cell phones. It's like the old-school musical aesthetic reflects the internal hopeful psyche of people like Mia, which is constantly punctured by iPhone ringtones reminding them of modern woes. Meanwhile, Zoom calls, struggles in finding a DVD player, and openness about polyamory firmly set Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma in the 2020s.

The dissonance between Kris finding so much solace in vintage slasher movies and her anxiety over sexual exploration in the here and now is a backbone for Schoenbrun's script. Yesteryear art is cozy. Yesteryear art is familiar. It's hard confronting sexual ennui of the present. Both La La Land and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma fascinatingly collide the past and present. They're not interested in just mechanically recreating what worked in 1977 or 1988 in 2016/2026. Instead, they dive headfirst into contrasts between older styles of storytelling and modern complexities. There's a love for "Another Day of Sun" and the sexual identification that slasher films can provide (among other hallmarks of both genres), as well as raw recognition of the challenges current audiences face on a grueling daily basis.

"All at once you look across a crowded room/To see the way that light attaches to a girl"

Also binding these two wildly disparate titles is a welcome sense of confidence. La La Land and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma are unabashedly colorful films embracing heightened flights of fancy. They each eschew constant senses of "grounded" reality in favor of following visuals that sweep you off your feet and lend tear-inducing insight into their respective luscious romances. For La La Land, this means eschewing the insecurities plaguing so many modern musicals. As Patrick Willems astutely noted in his Letterboxd review of Spirited, "the trope of characters in a musical going 'ugh please stop singing this is embarrassing' when a song starts needs to be punished with jail sentences." That's, unfortunately, a method so many modern movie musicals do. They try sanding down all the "weird" edges off their source material in the hopes of winning over folks who don't like musicals. In the process, they please nobody and exhibit creative cowardice.

La La Land, meanwhile, begins with a bunch of Los Angeles denizens harmonizing "Another Day of Sun" while stuck in highway traffic. From there, La La Land depicts a world where anybody can burst into song at any moment, and people are just seconds away from dancing their hearts out. There's so much love for old-school movie musical magic that Chazelle and company clearly have no patience for self-aware "urm, am I singing now?" quips. Even better, La La Land unblinkingly embraces the dream dance sequences that littered mid-20th century musical movies like Oklahoma! and Singin' in the Rain. 

That iconic Griffith Observatory dance sequence is mesmerizingly beautiful and wouldn't have been possible if La La Land slavishly devoted itself to self-conscious "gritty reality." Instead, it's a wondrous example of what happens when you lean into the heightened possibilities of musical storytelling.

Similar gloriousness involving eschewing reality permeates Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma's third act. Like so many great David Cronenberg movies, Shoenbrun makes Camp Miasma's home stretch a blurring of the lines between dreams and reality. There is no concrete basis for what "real life" is, and Camp Miasma's infinitely better for it. The focus is instead on using slasher movie hallmarks to depict the realization of Kris's sexual fantasies. Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finale, like that Griffith Observatory dance sequence amongst the stars, is a fiery rebuke to a moviegoing scene obsessed with "plot holes" and "why did that character not do [x "logical" act]".

Do not fixate on turning movies into math equations. Eschew turning scripts into vessels for expository dialogue "justifying" incoming plot detours. Just embrace overwhelming emotions and grandiose imagery you can't get when looking outside your window. "Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams," Federico Fellini once remarked. La La Land and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma take cinema's intertwining with dreams to create spellbinding deviations from reality. 

"If you get scared, you can just turn it off."

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land both occupy cinematic realms with typically firm endings. Camp Miasma's slasher films, for instance, typically with one lady (the singular "final girl") surviving all the grisly carnage. Meanwhile, in lesbian-centric art (whether it's films or TV shows), queer women don't get happy endings. Someone has to die. Someone must suddenly go AWOL. Lesbian cinema exceptions do exist (Carol, Saving Face, D.E.B.S., Bottoms, among others), but predominantly, media concerning lesbians refuse to give these characters upbeat conclusions that come naturally to cis-het couples.

Speaking of those traditional conclusions, La La Land is a tribute to Hays Code-era musical movies that almost always defaulted to having the main man and lady riding off into the sunset arm in arm. A key cornerstone of the Hays Code was that "the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing." Thus, musicals had to end with Debbie Reynolds jumping into Gene Kelly's arms, Gordon McRae and Shirley Jones joyfully riding in a wagon together, or the creepy marriage wrapping up Gigi.

Both of these deeply knowledgeable movies know every nook and cranny of their respective genres. Rather than just repeating what's worked in the past, Camp Miasma and La La Land profoundly impact viewers with exciting subversions of how these movies typically conclude.

For Camp Miasma, this means Kris and Billy (not just one of the leading ladies) survive Little Death's rampage. As they walk outside, drenched in blood and hankering for some convenience store snacks, they tenderly hold hands while pink and purple hues litter the sky. For starters, this unabashedly romantic sequence (which even includes the proudly sentimental ditty Donna Lewis's "I Love You Always Forever") is just the kind of "awwwww"-inducing set piece most tragedy-obsessed lesbian productions eschew. For another, this loveliness follows Kris and Billy having sex. Typically, 80s and 90s slasher movies used sex as a precursor to slaughtering people. Enjoying your body made you "evil" and "worthy" of perishing. 

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, though, is all about celebrating, not stigmatizing, sex. Physical intimacy and kinks are roads leading to personal fulfillment rather than the graveyard. Here again, Schoenbrun builds upon vintage slasher movie norms rather than just recycling them. In this case, the evolution of this genre's hallmarks ensures audiences leave the theater with their hearts full and a gooey smile on their faces.

La La Land, meanwhile, ends with Mia and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) failing to lead a happy life together. They actually do break up, go their separate ways (Mia even ends up living in New York City), and only briefly reunite when Mia and her husband stumble into Sebastian's jazz club. While Camp Miasma infused joyous wish-fulfilment romance into a domain often marked solely by tragedy, La La Land brings a dash of realism to the mid-20th-century musicals, which always had the leading man and lady end up together no matter what. However, not all relationships work out. Not every bond is eternal. La La Land commits to that all the way up to its bittersweet final shot, as Sebastian witnesses Mia leaving his club and (presumably) life forever.

With this moving conclusion (which involves a beautiful dream dance sequence where Sebastian and Mia imagine their lives together as a long-term couple), La La Land separates itself from many of the movies it's paying homage to. Damien Chazelle once more reaffirms that this feature is no rerun of An American in Paris, but rather a dazzling evolution of that form. Though they pursue opposite tonal ambitions, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land each commit to profoundly impactful endings subverting genre expectations. 

"Someone in the crowd could be the one you need to know/The someone who could lift you off the ground"

Something else binding Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land is how both could inspire lengthy dissertations on what makes them glorious artistic accomplishments. At the same time, though, each film inspires joys in wondrous, immediate pleasures. That includes a core element defining each motion picture: recognition of how soul-rejuvenating it feels to be in love and attracted to someone. Few things in this world are as wonderful as hands tenderly clasping in a darkened movie theater auditorium. Ditto feeling someone you've dreamed about running their fingers across your body. Or sharing previously concealed secrets with another human being. These intimate parts of existence make life so joyous.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land each use their maximalist visual approaches and vintage cinema aesthetics to vividly render the joys of falling in love or exploring your sexual identities. These features are not about using slasher movie trivia or old-school musical film homages just to flex the geekery of Schoenbrun or Chazelle, respectively. They're tools for probing profoundly intimate material. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, soaked in blood, walking hand-in-hand against a beautiful morning, or Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone being tiny dancing dots amongst the stars are the cruxes of these titles. Not just the nods to yesteryear art. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land are, above all else, masterclasses in cinema-savvy art that's richly human first and foremost.

That's such a welcome contrast to mainstream cinema's current obsession with "paying homage" to the past. Creepy CG renderings of deceased celebrities, rigid recreations of works once lauded for being dynamically unpredictable, endless callbacks eternally calcifying the world in 80s nostalgia...these are the cynical forms of the past dominating modern moviemaking. Such manifestations are all about name-dropping and references, but there's no heart to them nor an urgency to make something new from yesteryear's impactful art. The Flash, Tron: Ares, Deadpool & Wolverine, they're reruns, not cinematic evolutions.

The latter term beautifully applies to Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land, which share so many beautiful overlapping qualities, including gangbusters musical sequences ("Someone in the Crowd" in La La Land = "A Long December" Little Death slaughter scene in Camp Miasma). Their most important shared trait, though, is using cinema's past to weave odes to romantic connections. These are not hollow movies merely pointing at familiar movie titles. They use vintage musical movie and classic slasher film hallmarks as launchpads for sagas about the transportiveness of love, sex, and intertwining your soul with another human being. 

Both films are cognizant of how that's a messy process, whether it's in romances that don't last eternally or the awkwardness of being upfront about your sex-based hang-ups. Yet the possibility of enduring those awkward events or getting your heart shattered shouldn't prevent anyone from hoping for and pursuing the wondrous moments shared by Mia & Sebastian or Kris & Billy. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and La La Land utilize their deep knowledge of cinema's past to serve those human elements rather than the other way around. To be loved is to be vulnerable is to be alive. This is the truth fueling these modern classics and anyone who dares to keep their heart open. 

Lisa Laman's Bite Sized Reviews, August 2026 Edition (It Ends, The Rivals of Azmiah King, Mutiny, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion)

Howdy folks! Lisa Laman here! I've been spending basically the last week focusing just on moving into a new apartment, a process that's been exhausting (especially with this Texas heat) but is moving along nicely. However, because of that, I haven't had time or energy to write up traditional long-form reviews. I should be back on that this week with new The Spool reviews for The Dog Stars and Coyote vs. Acme, however, for now, how about some bite-sized mini-reviews of films I've managed to watch in the last week-ish? These are obviously much briefer than usual Lisa Laman movie write-ups, but let that not distract from the immense artistry of some of these motion pictures! 

It Ends

A quartet of mid-twenty-somethings, philosophical and buttoned-up James (Phinehas Yoon), the candid Tyler (Mitchell Cole), plucky Fisher (Noah Toth), and the witty Day (Akira Jackson), are on a seemingly normal car ride as It Ends begins. Writer/director Alexander Ullom quickly, though, shows that they've ended up on a road that won't end. No matter how far they drive, they always end up on a road surrounded on both sides by endless trees. All four of these captives never feel hunger or tiredness. The car never runs out of gas. They're all trapped in some sort of limbo, eluding easy explanations. 

It Ends joins other 2020s movies like Obsession, Anora, or even the wacky comedy One of Them Days, unflinchingly aware of the dire status quo young people must navigate now as everyday reality. "Is this all there is?" one It Ends character bemoans about their circumstances, a collection of words that could easily apply to anyone under 35 looking around at a world racked by Baby Boomer-instilled problems like no affordable housing, endless inflation, and inescapable climate change woes. The ceaseless It Ends road registered to me as a physical manifestation of enduring late-stage American capitalism. Happily, though, Ullom's confident writing and visual chops keep the proceedings ambiguous enough that viewers can draw their own conclusions on what this all means, if it even represents anything.

In the moment, It Ends works superbly as a claustrophobic thriller where the pervasively sunny exteriors compellingly mock the four despondent leads trapped inside a crusty automobile. Just watching these four idiosyncratic personalities clash in ways big and small is enough to keep one engrossed. James' increasingly committed passion for finding some meaning within this inexplicable phenomenon is especially compellingly realized. Ullom's refusal to either offer easy answers about what's happening or cut away from the four trapped characters is remarkable. Like another standout 2020s directorial debut, Fran Kranz's excellent Mass, It Ends knows the value of keeping your cast and scope limited. 

That approach informs several memorable scenes lending vivid insight into the heads of these people. Especially evocative is a sequence where Day and Fisher giggle over stupid memes, scream outside the car, then proceed to alternate between laughing and crying while hugging James. This whirlwind of emotions hauntingly captures the experience of coping with any kind of ongoing trauma. Surface-level "acceptance" one minute can crumble into profoundly raw resurfacing pain the next. Alexander Ullom has a sublime eye for such psychological facets that tremendously benefits It Ends.

Such feats are deftly woven into a well-paced 89-minute runtime that's just long enough to ensure audiences feel the scope of this entrapment without risking the central hook of It Ends wearing out its welcome. Misery for these four poor, crestfallen souls does at least translate into a memorably haunting cinematic experience for viewers.

The Rivals of Azmiah King

There's one plot point late in The Rivals of Azmiah King that...I'm not sure quite works in execution. No spoilers here, but it's a darker narrative beat that, on paper, fits in with the film's larger themes regarding people's moral complexity. It also feels consistent with the "tall tale" vibes that the entire feature evokes. Conceptually, writer/director Andrew Patterson going down this road makes sense. The delivery of that narrative detour, though, needed an extra polish. However, the existence of this element in Azmiah King reflects welcome creative audacity. The Vast of Night helmer Patterson is here to deliver something unique that keeps you guessing rather than a motion picture that's been "focus group"-ed to death.

The film's titular character Azmiah King (Matthew McConaughey) is a relaxed and wise beekeeper. King loves his friends, harvesting honey, appreciating nature, and playing music. He's also delighted to reunite with Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), a now-grown woman he previously cared for when she was an eight-year-old in foster care. Kateri's often navigated the world alone, but now she's got the gregarious Azmiah King happily introducing her to his world. Her passion for beekeeping is rekindled as this father figure keeps pushing her into new situations that let her grow as a person. 

For The Rivals of Azmiah King's first half, Patterson leans on hangout movie vibes (kind of like the aesthetic of McConaughey's breakout feature Dazed & Confused). Save for one set piece involving an inadvertent scalping and some beekeeping equipment, there's no ticking clock or antagonists here. This is just a film about savoring the outdoors and good friends.

Then the second half arrives, and the whole proceedings get turned on their head. If you ever wondered what a Mark Twain heist movie would look like, it'd likely resemble this Rivals of Azmiah King section. In both modes, the feature works quite well. This laid-back storytelling mode especially plays to McConaughey's acting strengths, including giving him lots of explanatory dialogue for his beautiful voice to deliver. The real standout, though, is Angelina LookingGlass. Many viewers will come to this movie for McConaughey, but everyone leaving Azmiah King will be buzzing (no pun intended) about her chops. Her gift for conveying conviction just through a single facial expression or her moving depictions of Kateri coming out of her shell, are just some of the many great traits defining this performance.

It's also great how The Rivals of Azmiah King has visual flourishes I don't normally associate with modern movies set in the American South. A visual motif where the camera briefly speeds up, gets "snapshots" of actions like somebody cooking, and then abruptly cuts to something else, for instance, radiates specificity to this movie. This element reflects editor Patrick J. Smith's terrific precision throughout the movie (including in montage scenes where he's dating around various locations and points in time). Given that Smith only has three prior feature film editing credits to his name, he epitomizes how The Rivals of Azmiah King is a great showcase for up-and-coming artists. Composers Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer also capture this, ditto Angelina LookingGlass. These fresher faces imbue plenty of craftsmanship into The Rivals of Azmiah King, which crackles and engrosses even despite that one questionable third-act plot point.

Mutiny

In his latest star vehicle, Mutiny, Jason Statham says “6 7” (albeit as part of a larger code of words) At one point, Annabelle Wallis tells Statham, “we can go through the ventilation shaft”, then it cuts to the main deck of a Navy vessel, and I swear to God, I thought one of the people at the sonar screens was gonna go, “sir! They’ve gone up the ventilation shaft!” I also initially just took it as a matter of fact that a photo of a bald guy on an ID Statham was using to get around the cargo ship was a picture of Doug Walker.

These being the default elements on my mind whilst exiting Mutiny speaks to how little impact this production had on me. Here, Statham plays Cole Reed, a former British cop who now works as a bodyguard for a rich guy. Once that wealthy fellow is murdered, Reed sneaks aboard a cargo ship to get some answers and revenge related to the murder. It actually takes a good while before Statham is actually out on the high seas in Mutiny. Having recently watched exquisite genre films like John Woo's The Killer and Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, both of which plunge audiences right away into entertaining spectacle, Mutiny's plodding pacing is a bore. Who needs all this set-up? Just get Statham aboard the ship!

Despite being a Statham action vehicle largely set on just a cargo ship that runs under 95 minutes, director Jean-François Richet and screenwriters Lindsay Michel and J.P. Davis weirdly overcomplicate Mutiny. Once Reed's aboard the vessel, he discovers the baddies are human traffickers, because killing innocent people wasn't enough of a motivation for the hero to pursue the villains. These victims float in and out of the movie, which renders any attempts to wring tension out of their safety inert. There's also a frustrating death of either fun baddies (Roland Møller is phoning it in as the nasty ship captain) or distinctively realized fight sequences.

Any extra opportunities for fun keep getting eschewed. What hand-to-hand skirmishes do materialize are competently realized, but in a summer when The Furious reached the big screen, why settle for "just okay"? There are so many more energetic, specifically realized, and propulsive action films out there. Statham's even headlined loopier, more enjoyable outings like The Beekeeper. Go watch The Furious instead; don't waste your time on something so slow and generic. 

Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion

Watching all of Neon Genesis Evangelion in the last month has been a tremendous experience. Even after years of hype, actually witnessing this show's glorious animation and evolving tone (which quickly detours into something so grim and harrowing) has been mighty impactful. Part of what's been exciting about watching this show has been knowing, in the back of my mind, that the movie Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion was waiting for me. This alternate ending to the original show has been universally acclaimed, and I can totally see why now. This is a go-for-broke production leaving absolutely everything on the floor.

Part of that creative ambition means taking the dystopian vibes of Neon Genesis Evangelion to their natural conclusion. Throughout the show, these characters have existed in a world ravaged by The Second Impact or found themselves chilling against decimated cities. Wreckage is just part of the backdrop for Shinji and company. The End of Evangelion takes that core detail, ramps it up to the nth degree, and makes an entire movie about it. This is essentially the world ending as bullets fly, advanced Evas jump-start the Third Impact, and not even Shinji's most skillful robot-fighting skills can stop the impending apocalypse. This is less a film built on the tension of "can the end of the world be stopped?" and more about "what will that end look like?" and "how will this affect the minds of people like Shinji?"

I'd be the first to admit that The End of Evangelion suffers a bit from "too much of a good thing" vibes. Occasionally, the intentionally excessive imagery is exhausting instead of awe-inspiring. However, more often than not, the gusto maximalism dominating the feature is appropriately staggering. The final 30 minutes alone are a towering achievement in nightmarish chaos that goes anywhere and everywhere (including a brief detour into the real world). These heightened images and details like Asuka's vivid facial expressions and physicality when she's fighting evolved EVA's signify the new visual possibilities Neon Genesis Evangelion explores with a feature film budget. An already resplendent show amplifies its best visual instincts to create an effectively overwhelming portrait of the world crumbling.

Happily, amidst all the apocalyptic mayhem, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion makes room for the best character in the entire saga: Pen-Pen. Like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me carving out time for a Log Lady cameo, this particular feature film extension of a popular TV series ensures that a fan-favorite supporting player isn't entirely absent from the proceedings. It's the end of the world as we know it,  but I feel fine knowing that the iconic penguin Pen-Pen got to be on-screen one last time. Imbuing a perfect Pen-Pen cameo into The End of Evangelion speaks to the attention to detail that really makes this movie soar.

The brightest parts of Lanterns make its darkest shortcomings extra frustrating

Rarely has something left me so frustrated yet entertained like Lanterns. The first four episodes of this DC Studios/HBO show left me tossing and turning like I was in Bonnie Tyler's "I Need a Hero." Some strong storytelling instincts abound in this grittier, dark mystery take on the Green Lantern mythology. Yet that same quality is as often a shortcoming as it is a strength. Adherence to grimmer aesthetics produces some "woah!" moments. Yet there's also the sense that Lanterns can't escape feeling like what you'd imagine an HBO Green Lantern show (constrained by television budgetary restrictions) would look like. Of course, such a production would opt for lingering around a dusty Nebraska hotel rather than the maximalist cosmic destinations of the comics.

And yet...as a wise Benoit Blanc once remarked, Lanterns "compels me, though." There's outright exceptional material in here, not to mention a bevy of strong performances. Rarely has a show delivered episodes that resonated as both subversive and Wattpad True Detective fan-fiction, sometimes in the same scene.

Happily, Lanterns, like fellow DC Studios production Superman, begins in media res. Picking up in 2016, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) has been training to become a Green Lantern (basically a space cop who can fly and has a ring that can materialize anything) under salty Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) for two months. Jordan's been a Green Lantern for decades now and he hates the idea of a "youngster" cutting in on his turf. Their training takes a more severe turn after a mass shooting in Rushville, Nebraska. Jordan's convinced that this wasn't just another rural slaughter. Instead, he knows aliens were at the center of this.

Now, the duo begins investigating what's actually going on in Rushville, much to the chagrin of Sheriff Kerry (Kelly Macdonald), quasi-David Koresh stand-in William Macon (Garret Dillahunt), and other local residents. Being "true detectives" in this environment is already a hassle. Adding further complications to the proceedings, though, is Stewart and Jordan keeping secrets from each other. Those hidden motivations will become only more dangerous once it becomes clear that a Manhunter (ancient alien robots that were the precursors to the Green Lanterns) is lurking inside Rushville. 

Though it's fully committed to "grounded" reality, Lanterns, has a welcome weirdness streak. An extended exposition scene in the show's fourth episode, for instance, is filtered through Stewart sketching a nude portrait of one of the program's male leads. Meanwhile, an entire second episode set piece involves Jordan flinging corpses around. There's even a cute use of the Rings powers for a post-sex cigarette. The writers of these first four outings (which include the series creators as well as Justin Britt-Gibson and Vanessa Baden Kelly) are working with backdrops that are more The Last Picture Show than Speed Racer. Happily, though, that doesn't stop them from injecting some creative outlandishness (and, by proxy, specificity) into the proceedings

These writers also laudably commit to making Lanterns work as an episodic TV show. Granted, all eight episodes appear to be building towards one larger serialized story (including a series premiere epilogue set in the modern world presumably teasing what this season's leading up to). However, each of the first four episodes has idiosyncratic qualities that make sure they're not just rehashing the same plot points over and over. The second installment, for instance, heavily involves Stewart on a solo journey accompanied by a small bird he conjured with that Power Ring. Meanwhile, the third episode revolves around flashbacks to Stewart's childhood while the fourth endeavor has a standalone villain-of-the-week adversary. 

These storytelling instincts ensure Lanterns functions successfully as episodic storytelling rather than just feeling like a DC Studios movie that was sweatily ballooned to eight hours. Hooray for television functioning like television! 

Meanwhile, there's at least an attempt to delve into some weightier topics within the grimmer Lanterns tone. The show's third episode, which largely explores John Stewart's backstory, deftly epitomizes this. This outing shows how Stewart's potential as a Green Lantern was revealed to his parents when he was just a baby. From there, his mother and father worked overtime to make sure he developed the fearlessness neccesary to become a Green Lantern and "have the life we never had." In other words, Lanterns recontextualizes the Green Lantern ring process to demonstrate how Black people have to work overtime for things white people are just handed. Abin Sur crash-landed near Hal Jordan and just handed him that ring. Stewart, meanwhile, worked himself to the bone to be even considered by the Guardians of Oa.

That whole episode is a thoughtful outing bringing something new to the Green Lantern lore while working as effective drama in its own right. Providing a showcase for Jasmine Cephas Jones' (who plays the younger version of Stewart's mom) acting chops doesn't hurt either. Embracing these weightier concepts lends welcome distinctive jaggedness to the buddy cop rapport of Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Throughout these four Lanterns episodes, they don't feel like initial rivals who will predictably become friends. Jordan's hostility towards a younger person (and a Black man at that) daring to believe he's worthy of this power informs greater intensity to their dynamic. You're not waiting for them to hug. You're instead intrigued by what new messy developments will further fracture their relationship.

Unfortunately, Lanterns is a lot limper visually. For starters, these four episodes emphasize dim lighting and subdued colors so much that different environments become indistinguishable. It makes total sense that a dingy Rushville, Nebraska prison wouldn't have vibrant hues littering the walls. However, when Jordan visits Sinistero (Ulrich Thomsen) in a cosmic prison, this drab color scheme persists. The farthest reaches of outer space have all the vibrancy of a 2006 mumblecore movie. Turn on the lightbulbs and get some primary colors in here, stat!

Meanwhile, the blocking and editing in this show is sometimes shockingly amateurish. Sinestro, for instance, is introduced in clumsy medium shots devoid of theatricality. Where's the pomp and circumstance in how audiences first see such a pivotal Green Lantern character? Earthbound conversations between humans are filmed with rudimentary camerawork and no staging specificity. Super down-to-Earth HBO crime shows like Barry were riddled with unforgettable images, inspired uses of empty space, and deeply precise camerawork. In other words, neither TV's budgetary confines nor being stuck filming people talking innately creates visual lethargy.

Unfortunately, helmers like director James Hawes (who directs half of these first four installments) struggle to breathe any memorable visual life into Lanterns. Additionally, the program's ambiance often reminds one of visually superior television programming (like True Detective). That just reinforces the imagery-based woes plaguing this particular endeavor. Combining these shortcomings with the pervasively grim color palette ensures that the program struggles to soar as high as it could. Yet, despite these problems, Lanterns kept my interest. Often quite intensely.

Perhaps that's the magic of Aaron Pierre, who's as compelling here as he was in 2024's terrific Rebel Ridge. Maybe it's the interesting juxtaposition of a grimy Western backdrop with comic book antics like John Stewart using his ring to conjure up a gigantic green drilling machine or encountering a cosmic Venus Fly Trap. There might even be a dollop of Stockholm Syndrome at play with me warming up to this show after four episodes. Whatever the reason, Lanterns does work more often than not. Unfortunately, its derivative and drab visual impulses are antithetical to the subversive TV programming it's trying so hard to emulate.

You Can Help Send The Box Office Podcast to SXSW 2027!

Let's cut to the chase here: my fellow podcast hosts and I on The Box Office Podcast have put together an exciting pitch for a SXSW 2027 panel! If accepted, we'd get to talk about the future of theatrical exhibition with a crowd of SXSW attendees and bring our shenanigans to a live speaking venue! However, to make this a reality, we need the support from everyday people!

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What movies ruled the box office 20 years ago in August 2006?

Tender father/son boinding between male cows in Barnyard (2006)

Come, step into this theoretical time machine. Let's go back to August 2006 real quickly. 20 years ago, Fergie's "London Bridge" was beginning to dominate the Billboard charts. The Rodney Atkins ditty "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)" was in the middle of a four-week stint atop the Hot Country Songs Billboard chart. The New York Yankees won a pivotal baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels. And then there were the movies. Summer 2006 grossed $3.75 billion, a significant increase above summer 2005's $3.53 billion haul, but below the grosses of summers 2003 and 2004. August 2006, the month of Fergie, Rodney Atkins, and the Yankees, was closing out that season with a few final box office hits. When the dust cleared, August 2006 grossed $761.56 million, below the August grosses from 2001 to 2004, but ahead of August 2005 (when The Dukes of Hazzard was the biggest movie of the month).

With July's mega-hit Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest finally finishing its three-week number one run in July 2006, it was time for some other movies to top the box office. One of those titles, which topped the North American box office for half of August 2006's four weekends, was one of Christopher Nolan's favorite features: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Talladega Nights was both the biggest grosser in August 2006 (contributing a mighty $130.67 million to the month's gross) and by far the highest grossing new release dropped in this month (it was the only August 2006 newcomer to gross $100+ million in North America). 

In hindsight, Talladega Nights was the pinnacle of Will Ferrell's box office clout as a leading man. For starters, it's the biggest non-Barbie/Elf/Austin Powers live-action movie he's ever appeared in. It was also the most prolific and successful of Ferrell's obsession with clashing wacky leading men with sports (a fascination that even continued with his 2026 Netflix golf show The Hawk). Both Ferrell's box office pull and creative interests were so intense at this point in time that he could get a NASCAR comedy to just under $150 million domestically. Talladega Nights was also by far the biggest live-action American movie appearance by Sacha Baron Cohen, who'd go on to headline a little film called Borat a few months later.

What other newcomers were making lots of money this month? World Trade Center grossed $57.88 million in the month and eventually grossed $70.27 million domestically. Right on its toes was another Paramount Pictures title, Barnyard. Not much to say about that Oliver Stone directorial effort beyond "LYLE! LYLE! TURN ON THE TV, THEY HIT THE PENTAGON!" This CG-animated comedy made $72.63 million domestically. That haul would've been disastrous for a new CG animated film just two years earlier, when these major studio CG movies (save for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) were basically guaranteed to make $126+ million in North America. However, this field had gotten especially crowded in the year leading up to Barnyard's debut. Titles like Valiant, Doogal, The Ant Bully, and The Wild had all cratered. 

Audiences no longer found celebrity-voiced CG animals farting and trading pop culture references a must-see event. In that respect, Barnyard was a respectable, albeit far from phenomenal, box office performer. Seven days after Barnyard introduced trans male icon Otis the Cow to audiences, Disney's Touchstone Pictures launched the first Step Up movie. Both a new franchise and Channing Tatum's leading man career were suddenly born in the middle of all those sweat-inducing death movies. Speaking of Disney, Dead Man's Chest was so mammoth at the box office that it still made $48.008 million domestically during August 2006, well over a month after its July 2006 debut where it set a new domestic opening weekend record. 

The seventh biggest movie of the month, meanwhile, was one of the more infamous motion pictures to drop during this month. Snakes on a Plane was preceded by a deluge of internet hype about how a movie with this silly title and Samuel L. Jackson was actually headed to theaters. I distinctly remember internet jokes around the film being inescapable. Even the Over the Hedge newspaper comic devoted several daily comic strips to skewering Snakes on a Plane. Alas, all that pre-release chatter didn't translate to motherfucking big ticket sales for those motherfucking snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane. Snakes on a Plane only grossed $34.02 million, a disappointing sum given both all the hype and its $34 million budget.

It's always the films you least suspect that make lots of moolah at the box office. Case in point: Little Miss Sunshine. Though it didn't have a 2006 San Diego Comic-Con panel or tons of online press like Snakes on a Plane, this indie darling expanded into wide release during August 2006 after debuting in a handful of theaters on July 26. It eventually grossed $59.89 million in North America, an outstanding sum for a low-budget indie movie. Turns out a quality movie was more important than a gimmicky title or making the biggest movie nerd sites of 2006 happy.

Other notable new releases dropping in August 2006 included The Descent (which Lionsgate launched to a solid $26.02 million domestic cume), Justin Long's Accepted (which topped out at $23.51 million, a sum Accepted co-star Jonah Hill would surpass just over Superbad's opening weekend one year later), the Tim Allen flop Zoom (featuring multiple Smash Mouth songs, including a cursed cover of David Bowie's "Under Pressure"), and, in the indie scene, Half Nelson, the feature that would garner Ryan Gosling his first Oscar nominination.

Compared to other early 2000s Augusts, August 2006 had a hearty monster hit in the form of Talladega Nights that could easily stand next to other early 2000s August hits like xXx, American Pie 2, and The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. As late as 2019 with Good Boys, August is often a strong month to launch one last comedy and Talladega Nights proved that nicely. Past Augusts, though, launched multiple $100+ million domestic performers, like August 2002 housing the $227.96 million grosser Signs and xXx or the trio of $100+ million grossers dominating August 2003. With no other domestic newcomers grossing $75+ million, let alone $100+ million, August 2006 couldn't help but fall short of shattering any records.

Still, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby did become the seventh biggest movie of summer 2006 while the month contributed about 20% to summer 2006's $3.75 billion domestic gross. In hindsight, the most interesting thing about August 2006 is how it's the last August before Hollywood regularly began launching tentpole sequels in this month. Starting with August 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, Hollywood began using August as a launchpad for titles like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and, eventually, 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy. No wonder only one* pre-2020 August would sink below $800 million domestically after 2006. Hollywood infused August with a tentpoles-only approach that bolstered the box office. In other words, Hollywood molded post-2006 August slates around Ricky Bobby's "if you're not first, your'e last" mentality. 

Now, before we depart the theoretical time machine, let's all enjoy a video of Kevin James eating hay to promote the release of Barnyard.

* = August 2017 was the one post-2006 August to make less than $800 million domestically. What a dreadful month that was, with the month closing out with what was, at the time, the lowest-grossing domestic box office weekend in 16 years.

Excessive familiarity dilutes impactfulness of kooky slasher film Buddy

Note: This film was watched as part of the 2026 Oak Cliff Film Festival line-up

Dating back to the 1999 short The Scooby-Doo Project, writer/director Casper Kelly has specialized in TV show pastiches. That talent memorably and surreally materialized in his outstanding 2014 short Too Many Cooks, which smushed together countless eras of television history into one kooky nightmare. Kelly contorting small-screen programming into unhinged mayhem continues with his first theatrical film directorial effort, Buddy. The film's title refers to Buddy the Unicorn (Keegan-Michael Key), a cuddly-looking orange unicorn who anchors a children's TV show. This obvious Barney pastiche (Buddy even opens with a riff on a Barney episode where the T-Rex gives a nervous kid "magical" dancing shoes) is incredibly precise in mimicking its influences, right down to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio and colors in the whimsical Fisher-Price-looking sets.

Buddy spends his days singing, dancing, and imparting morals to the four children who live with him. One of those youngsters is Freddy (Delaney Quinn), who begins to suspect something's askew once a disobedient child vanishes. Witnessing Buddy commit an act of violence makes her and the other kids realize that this Barney clone is more Ghostface than the Bear in the Big Blue House. She and her adolescent companions make a break for it. They leave Buddy's house to secure help in the far-off land of Diamond City. Meanwhile, in the real world, Grace (Cristin Milloti) feels like something's off in her life. Like something's missing. A sudden sighting of an orange unicorn on her TV (one that doesn't exist according to the internet) only fuels her suspicions.

Buddy is a longer and grander expansion of Casper Kelly's fascinations (he penned this script with Jamie King). Unfortunately, Buddy also follows numerous projects depicting handmade children's entertainment going dark. In 2019, The Banana Splits Movie had the costumed animal Banana Splits characters going on a murderous rampage. Don't Hug Me I'm Scared delivered a barrage of engrossing shorts juxtaposing children's show puppets with dark storytelling. Even the Five Nights at Freddy's movies, which lend slasher movie energy to Chuck E. Cheese animatronic pastiches rather than kids' television fixtures, tread similar terrain. A new entry in this crowded domain requires more specificity than, unfortunately, Buddy offers.

The greatest issue here is simply that Buddy struggles to feel either shocking or scary. While Kelly's Too Many Cooks had countless visuals that inspired "what am I watching?" emotions in the viewer, Buddy remains relatively straightforward and expected. Surrealism is frustratingly kept to a minimum, while the "darkest" are rarely unpredictable. Decades of "dark Barney" jokes just mean that the idea of a Barney-esque character lopping heads off or exhibiting ghastly injuries doesn't have immense innate value. Only Buddy's grisly solution for how he can fit down a well reaches proper gasp-inducing heights. Otherwise, Buddy struggled to leave me terrified or in suspense. It mostly comes off as the same "what if the Teletubbies killed people?" punchlines I already found old hat in middle school.

Massive props, though, Kelly, cinematographer Zach Kuperstein, production designer Anna Kathleen, and costume designer Shawn-Nova Foley (among many other artists) for making the recreations of a 90s kids program so eerily spot-on. Everything from the textures on Buddy's house to the camera movements to even the ham-fisted musical motifs in the score could easily fit on a Barney VHS tape circa 1997. Even if you've never seen the pop culture properties inspiring these elements, these handmade visual accomplishments would still resonate as exquisitely realized. Happily, inspired practical effects work continues littering the screen even once the story shifts away from Buddy's domain. As a demonstration of tactile craftsmanship, Buddy delivers.

Committed performances from the assorted child actors and Milloti are also laudable, ditto a mid-movie homage to one of the most iconic images from The Night of the Hunter. Unfortunately, Buddy often stumbles when it needs to exude madcap confidence. This is especially true in a plodding finale constantly stopping and then ramping up the film's intensity. This approach comes off as sweaty, not suspenseful. Meanwhile, the less said about the generic stabs at "random" humor, like a grown man making out with a Howdy Doody pastiche, the better. In these moments, Buddy tragically comes off as a shallow masquerade of better, more unhinged children's entertainment pastiches.

For those just looking to see an orange unicorn rip off the face of an anthropomorphized train or stab people, Buddy will fleetingly suffice. For those unfamiliar with works like Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, this title will surely resonate as more distinctively impactful. Alas, Buddy left me largely detached and thinking about how much I preferred that one "cut for time" Saturday Night Live sketch where Michael Keaton played unhinged cash-strapped Pee-Wee Herman. As a showcase for practical effects and accuracy to what it's skewering, Buddy works fine. As a horror film or something new in the crowded space of dark takes on kids' television, Buddy's far from the best pal around.

Lisa Laman's Highlights from Oak Cliff Film Festival 2026

An image from Cramps! A Period Piece

The 15th annual Oak Cliff Film Festival in Dallas, Texas has drawn to a close. This staple of the Dallas, Texas film scene (which heavily involves locations like the Texas Theater and Bishop Arts Theatre Center for screenings) is always a joy to attend, and I'll always be grateful that it was the very first film festival I attended back in 2019. However, what kind of motion pictures did this film festival provide this year? I decided to deliver a trio of bite-sized reviews of three notable motion pictures I caught during my Oak Cliff Film Festival 2026 experience. 

None of these are exactly the same movie, but they do all reflect the kind of audacious and unique features that the Oak Cliff Film Festival prides itself on screening. Read on for a trio of breakdowns of recent indie movies and here's to whatever the Oak Cliff Film Festival provides in 2027!

She Keeps Me Young

It's always amusing when random movies from a specific year end up feeling like they're cut from the same creative cloth. In the case of 2026 movies, we now have a trio of motion pictures with dry verbal comedy playing upon familiar mainstream cinematic molds. First came The Napa Boys, then Maddie's Secret, and now She Keeps Me Young. Though no performer is in all three movies, an assortment of actors do appear in two of these three productions (Nik Dodani is in Napa Boys and Young, for instance). She Keeps Me Young's pop culture frame of reference is harder to pin down than Napa Boys skewering legacy sequels and Maddie's Secret being an extension of Lifetime movies. If you squint, though, this feature does feel a wayward child of various 2010s indie comedies.

Writer/director Doron Max Hagay's She Keeps Me Young (which he co-wrote with Blair Beeken and Katy Fullan) follows Michelle (Beeken), whose drifting through life after her husband went missing. This 40-something woman unexpectedly strikes up a friendship with high schooler Bridget (Shay Rudolph), who goes to her dance class. Much to the chagrin of Michelle's long-time bestie Kelly (Katy Fullan), this unlikely duo becomes inseparable. 

She Keeps Me Young features plenty of amusing performances, with Beeken exuding such tangible and engaging humanity in her lead role. Katy Fullan is a blast inhabiting the adversarial and jealous best buddy archetype, while John Early and Patti Harrison are (per usual) hilarious in their supporting turns. Much of Young is competently made and the best gags (like a visual punchline about a lesbian softball team) are effective rib-ticklers. There are a few too many dry spells in She Keeps Me Young, though, and the overall movie unfortunately suffers from being less than the sum of its parts. Its aesthetic and humor constantly reminding one of superior 2026 comedies like Napa Boys and Maddie's Secret doesn't help either. There's amusement and effective acting here, but those virtues struggle adding up to something especially memorable.

Cramps! A Period Piece

An amalgamation of John Waters’ movies, Pee-Wee Herman sets, the wit of SpongeBob SquarePants seasons 1-3, genuine pathos, and Steve Rambo-esque line deliveries all told with lots of gory practical effects, vibrant colors everywhere (those vibrant backdrops!), and rich 35mm film. Such a bizarre-sounding concoction was screened on the second Oak Cliff Film Festival night in the form of Cramps! A Period Piece.

With this title, writer/director Brooke H. Cellars demonstrates a clear love and deep knowledge of cinema history. Even beyond the aforementioned motion picture influences, there are details like protagonist Agnes Applewhite (Lauren Kitchen) talking to a mannequin in her room. This reflection of Agnes' loneliness echoes similar conversations with an attic-bound mannequin from Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss. However, Cramps! A Period Piece is far more akin to Todd Haynes' Poison than Ghostbusters: Afterlife and The Flash in its harkening back to old media. Cellars and company are using the bedrock of pre-existing art to create something vibrantly new and not just a big-screen rerun.

Cramps! chronicles the saga of suppressed young woman Agnes Applewhite, who yearns to escape her controlling mother (Brooklyn Woods). Securing a job at a local salon with newfound pals Laverne (Martini Bear), bubbly Satanist Teddy (Wicken Taylor), and Holiday (Michelle Malentina) starts to get her confidence going. Alas, her menstrual cramps (which her mother forbids her from talking about and doctors are dismissive of) begin taking over her life and possibly unleashing a literal monster on everyone around her.

Cramps! A Period Piece looks so lovely with its lusciously colorful sets and radiant costumes. It's all a vibrant feast for the eyes filtered through some sharply precise camerawork (there's even recurring split-diopter shots, which are always welcome). Cellars echoes "Weird Al" Yankovic and Boots Riley in realizing the most outlandish material hits better when it materializes through potent artistic craftsmanship. It's also impressive how Cramps! consistently delivers loopy performances and biting barbs without sacrificing audiences taking Agnes seriously as a person. Her journey and vulnerabilities are handled with real emotional heft. Oscillating between absurdist comedy and raw, strained mother/daughter dynamics doesn't render the film a jagged mess. 

This tonal flexibility instead reflects how these relationships can have you laughing one minute and crying the next. Lauren Kitchen excelling playing Agnes no matter what mold Cramps! A Period Piece throws at her also makes the nuanced tone joyful to absorb. Equal parts heartfelt and unhinged, Cramps! A Period Piece is a remarkable feature-length directorial debut. 

Los Lobos: Native Sons

I've been the first to criticize how the America documentary has become a showcase for celebrities. The streamers especially inundate audiences with docs that are basically cozy press releases reinforcing the public-friendly histories of famous faces rather than the proletariat-focused impulses of great documentaries like Hoop Dreams, Time, or the works of Barbara Kaplan. That history makes it all the more surprising how much I deeply enjoyed the new music documentary Los Lobos: Native Sons. Maybe it's just because I wasn't as familiar with this band as the centerpieces of other recent celebrity documentaries. Maybe it was those toe-tapping Los Lobos tunes doing the heavy lifting. Whatever clicked here, Native Sons is a celebrity documentary done right.

Los Lobos is a band that originated in East Los Angeles and includes long-standing members like David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas, and Conrad Lozano. Their sound is deeply rooted in Mexican-American traditions and aesthetics (right down to them often doing covers of famous Spanish-language medleys), but what's great about Los Lobos is that they can't be pinned into one genre. Sometimes they're channeling serious rock energy. On other albums, they suddenly spin into experimental territory. Creative dexterity dominates their musical exploits as much as crafty craftsmanship.

Directors Douglas Blush and Piero F. Giunti capably reflect this variety and, most importantly, the underdog spirit of Los Lobos. That's a quality that makes Native Sons significantly more compelling than many modern band or celebrity documentaries. Last year's Becoming Led Zeppelin, for instance, eventually spiraled into feeling static with the interchangeable anecdotes about the titular band's exploits. Los Lobos, meanwhile, clawed and scraped their way to notoriety. For much of the runtime, the group is just an East Los Angeles fixture doing music for weddings and other events. There's an underdog ambiance making it transfixing to watch the group chronologically recount their respective careers.

Also underlining the feature's endearing nature is an emphasis on how art produces profound ripple effects going well beyond its creators. Sometimes this materializes through standard talking head interview segments with famous faces (ranging from Cheech Marin to Tom Waits) recounting how various Los Lobos tunes impacted them. Most memorably, though, are anecdotes like how the original tune Los Lobos made for the movie Desperado has become a mariachi culture staple. Meanwhile, the group's work on the movie La Bamba (which involved one of the band members providing the singing voice of Ritchie Valens) formed a vital friendship with Valens' sister.

Los Lobos: Native Sons especially excels as a movie reflecting art creating a chain-link connection from the past to the present. Los Lobos tunes were built on classic Mexican ditties while the band's biggest hit (a cover of "La Bamba") kept the spirit of Ritchie Valens alive. Other Native Sons segments, meanwhile, show Los Lobos tracks influencing modern artists of all stripes. Given how often Mexican-American lives are erased and dehumanized in American culture, this fusion of the past, present, and future in this documentary is extra moving. Throw in how engaging the Los Lobos members are as interview subjects and a cavalcade of memorable songs (how is every tune on that Kiko album so excellent?!?), and it's no surprise Los Lobos: Native Sons stands heads and shoulders above typical 2020s celebrity/musician documentaries.

One Night Only is a dreadfully boring cinematic hook-up with major performance issues

Fascism is only a nuisance. Don't worry about it. The pretty people say so.

These sentences inform One Night Only, which occupies an alternate America where premarital sex is outlawed except for 12 hours every year. This concept could only work as fleet-footed entertainment if filtered through Powell & Pressburger or Jacques Demy’s heightened visual aesthetics. Otherwise, it’s innately the set-up for a Paul Verhoeven/Lizzie Borden/Stephen Winter movie about America rotting from the inside.

However, One Night Only comes from director Will Gluck. Save for 2010’s charming Easy A, good decisions don't litter his filmography. In 2014, he decided what Annie needed was lots of autotune. In 2018, he apparently read Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit books, threw them across the room upon realizing they were devoid of James Corden snark, and opted to make two movies to correct that. Five years later in 2023, Gluck mistakenly believed Sydney Sweeney could do broad comedy.

Following this creative trajectory, he and screenwriter Travis Braun play the robbing of bodily autonomy as just a cutesy launchpad for a generic rom-com. If you’re going to go down that route, you better deliver something entertaining or fun. No such luck here.

One Night Only follows two New Yorkers hunkering down for their 12 hours of premarital sexual freedom. Inevitably, all their plans go awry. Pizza shop manager Owen's (Callum Turner) girlfriend suddenly wants to sleep with someone else tonight. Allie (Monica Barbaro) is feeling lonesome after her best buddy abandoned her at the start of this night. After that disappointment, she keeps encountering difficulties getting laid. Throughout the night, Owen and Allie keep running into each other. Maybe these conventionally attractive people with plenty of disposable income could click.

Braun’s One Night Only story structure sends Allie and Owen through a bunch of “wacky” vignettes (like an outdoor sex rendezvous gone wrong or struggling with condom purchases). It’s a bunch of standalone segments or TV episodes strung together, as if Gluck and Braun modeled One Night Only after early 2000s direct-to-video Disney fare like Tarzan & Jane or Atlantis: Milo’s Return. This epitomizes the disjointed and shoddy storytelling sensibilities permeating the whole movie.

Another microcosm of this problem? The lazy script’s half-hearted execution of Chekhov’s Guns. Braun groggily introduces new character details (like Allie’s fear of singing in public) and then pays them off five minutes later. There’s no elongated journey towards character growth. There’s no joy in watching people gradually come into their own over the course of a night. No wonder these people are so dramatically inert. Meanwhile, One Night Only spends so much time on world-building, exposition, and didactic dialogue about character defects that there’s no time for fun.

Granted, how could fun emerge in a movie whose idea of “wit” is having every character talk like Vince Vaughn impersonating Ryan Reynolds? Sarcastic quips and “well, that happened”-adjacent clunkers litter the One Night Only script as often as F-bombs materialize in Anora. Such shoddy writing leaves a bevy of talented actors stranded with nary any punchlines or personality to exude. I’d ask why someone hysterical like Ziwe received no jokes to deliver. However, nobody in One Night Only has funny lines. It’s a romantic comedy too sterile to be swoon-worthy and too bereft of humor to inspire laughs.

That former problem is such a weird issue in a movie about the one night a year people can bone. This premise requires filmmakers comfortable with all corners of sexuality, like Gregg Araki, Angela Robinson, or Lily and Lana Wachowski. Instead, Gluck and Braun bring weird prudishness to One Night Only. Right from the start, Allie makes weird comments (that the audience is supposed to agree with) about how “short” her best gal pal’s outfit is. Any fleeting depictions of or references to kink are either connected to antagonists or mocking punchlines.

Embracing sex for fun or exploring your personality is for supporting characters and deviants. Audiences only ever see one person who isn’t super skinny and beefy making out with somebody, while all make out/sexual sessions reinforce traditional gender roles (save for one outdoor comedic sequence, there’s no men being subservient to women here, no siree). This is all so vanilla that one must wonder if One Night Only is a sex comedy for Christian weirdos yearning for a “sin tax” mandate for OnlyFans creators. This element isn’t just cringe-inducing. It also epitomizes why One Night Only is so boring. This film’s too buttoned up and conventional to embrace elements that would give it personality and verve.

Similarly frustrating adherence to not alienating privileged viewers manifests in One Night Only details reflecting resentment towards “the mandate” (the in-universe term for this “no pre-marital sex” law). All graffiti in this universe says variations on “fuck The Mandate”. Small signs saying “repeal” occupy windows. Allie’s apartment features a poster with a pro-Mandate politician drawn to look like Satan. However, none of the characters themselves are politically active or aggressively hostile towards The Mandate.

They’re happy to go along with the status quo and not ruffle feathers. Allie, Owen, and the other One Night Only characters aren’t just written as “apolitical” to ensure the movie doesn’t alienate cushy right-wing audiences. Perish the thought these fictional individuals say something relevant to a modern political age where the government plans to restrict abortion access nationwide. It also renders this story's denizens immensely boring. They could all easily exist in any other rom-com. A starting premise this bonkers shouldn’t inspire characters so monotonous.

I could ramble on and on about how One Night Only frustrates. The deluge of pop song needle drops, for instance, feel like Gluck repeatedly attempting to recreate the popularity of Anyone but You’s “Unwritten” end credits number. Something tells me dropping Maroon 5’s “Payphone” in 2026 won’t have people dancing in the aisles. Too many jokes boil down to celebrity references to Pete Davidson, Glen Powell, or Coleen Hoover. Insipid camerawork further dilutes any chances of this movie exuding something resembling a personality. Oh, and people in-universe have tracking chips inserted into their wrists (which ensures the police can monitor their sexual activity), which is only introduced so Allie can ramble about her backstory. What the Hell is this nightmare movie?

Rom-coms live and die based on their two lead performers. In that respect, One Night Only at least is half successful since Monica Barbaro is charming. Her solid singing voice and recognizably human personality are welcome balms in such an off-putting production. On the other hand, Callum Turner is a wash as Owen. The only distinctive acting choice Brit performer Turner delivers is inexplicably making his American accent a Chris Evans impression. Whether it’s wooden line deliveries or shrug-worthy physicality, Turner’s a snooze. Nine years after anchoring The Only Living Boy in New York, his dismal leading man abilities haven’t improved.

One Night Only clearly wants to mimic Howard Hawks screwball comedies like Ball of Fire or Bringing Up Baby, where mismatched duos stumble into one wacky adventure after another. This production, though, doesn’t have the humor, creativity or sizzling chemistry fueling those titles. Instead, this 2026 motion emphasizes lots of Durex product placement, cowardly storytelling instincts, a strangely pearl-clutching attitude towards sex, and a runtime that refuses to end. If that all sounds great, go watch pretty people reassure viewers how “maybe the fascists got this one right” (an actual line from the movie). The rest of us shall savor actually good modern rom-coms like Rye Lane.

One Night Only hits theaters everywhere on August 7.

Every live-action Spider-Man movie outfit ranked from worst to best

Alas, the acclaimed Frank Reynolds Spider-Man costume has yet to appear in any Spider-Man movie

Spider-Man's got one of the best superhero costumes around. Naturally, the various motion pictures that have brought Spidey to life, including this past weekend's box office juggernaut Spider-Man: Brand New Day.  But what makes a great live-action Spider-Man suit? What separates the best from the rest when it comes to these garbs? Well folks, that's what I'm here to explore. Below, I've ranked the 13 different live-action Spider-Man outfits littering nearly 50 years of this character's cinematic exploits. Not all of them are superb, goodness knows, but each does reflect distinctive creative trajectories and the larger cultural trends of the movies and eras (respectively) they inhabited. Plus, the best of these make it clear why Spider-Man's superhero outfit is hard to beat. 

Behold, the ranking of every live-action Spider-Man costume from worst to best, starting with the nadir of this bunch...

13. The Amazing Spider-Man Outfit

Reflecting the initial ambitions to make this the Batman Begins of Spider-Man movies, Andrew Garfield wore a grimmer Spidey costume for The Amazing Spider-Man. The red and blue colors were deeper while a darker golden hue filled up his eyes. Another fun fact about this outfit: it looks terrible. The balance between the red and blue (the latter hue dominates the attire) is repellently off. The chest Spider emblem looks too big. The textures all over the suit seem like they’d be unpleasant to touch. Then there’s the eyes, which now look like grim voids rather than bright pupils. Even the ways the eyes are more oval shaped and slanting downward makes it look like Spidey’s permanently glaring at people. Just a really bad costume all around, a shocking outcome given how well the second Amazing Spider-Man did with these garbs.

12. Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man Suit

Weirdest thing about the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man suit (which he wore in the 70s CBS show The Amazing Spider-Man, which had certain episodes smushed together into theatrical films for the international markets) is that its so baggy. It looks so excessively roomy, especially around the face. I keep thinking he's going to trip in that thing when he starts running. Those eyes also don't look right, they're took darkly colored. The webbing and textures on this one don't look bad, but generally, this is about as shoddy of a superhero costume as you'd expect from a late 70s CBS show.

11. Spider-Man: Far From Home Climactic Suit

Peter Parker can look like and do nearly anything. He can be a person of color. He can be queer. He could be working as a DJ. The one thing I’m a stickler for, though, is that, unless he’s coated in the Symbiote, Peter Parker shouldn’t wear black. The classic Spidey suit is vibrant. Parker’s cinema-based superhero garbs should lean into that. Frustratingly, Spider-Man: Far From Home’s finale gives Parker a new super-suit replacing the blue parts of his red costume with dark black hues. The red and black don’t look good together and looking so much like the traditional Spider-Man outfit just makes one yearn for more blues. Don’t skimp on the colors!

10. The Night Monkey Outfit

Weirdly, out of Far From Home’s two black Spider-suits, the “Night Monkey” one Peter Parker dons is my favorite. That’s probably because it’s at least trying to do its own thing (since it’s a “stealth” outfit) rather than being a less vibrant standard Spider-Man costume. The traditional Spider-Man eyes functioning like high-tech removable specs and the use of fingerless gloves are especially welcome distinctive touches. Still, I like my Spidey costumes vibrant, so this one, while competently realized, doesn’t really scratch any fun itches for me. 

9. No Way Home's Black/Golden Magic Suit

Another black-colored Spider-Man outfit!! Why are the MCU movies (particularly the two sequels helmed by Jon Watts) so obsessed with draining all the color away from my boy? This Spider-Man: No Way Home outfit is a black suit with golden webbing and an ability to control the magic superpowers of Doctor Strange. The contrast between black and gold is at least cooler looking than black and red from Far from Home’s outfit. Those magical doo-dads on Parker's left wrist are nifty-looking. Still, again, I like vibrancy and no amount of golden lines can disguise that this is yet another darkly-colored Spider-Man costume utilized in a nighttime fight scene.

8. Berlin Airport Spider-Man costume

The outfit Spidey wears to the Berlin airport skirmish in Captain America: Civil War is largely the same one seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming, so I won’t linger too long on it. However, Civil War’s Spidey costume was added via CG in post-production (Holland wore a different Spider-Man costume on-set). It looks fine in execution, but it doesn’t have the immediacy or tactility of his Homecoming garbs. On one wistful note, remember how good Tom Holland was right from the start in Civil War? Man, the moment he walked on-screen or the first shot of Spidey crawling around on walls while chasing Falcon and Winter Soldier, I knew we were in good hands with this kid.

7. Iron Spider

I don’t mind the Iron Spider outfit necessarily on its own merits, especially as a visual signifier of Peter Parker working alongside The Avengers. Great threats require a more formidable outfit. Why’d he have to keep wearing it after Infinity War and Endgame though? When he’s swinging around New York and dealing with purse snatchers or The Scorpion, the high-tech Iron Suit feels comically excessive. Not only that, but the more time it’s on screen, the more obvious its visual faults, like its subdued colors or its obviously digital nature, become. It was also a bad idea to utilize this costume during No Way Home nighttime finale. In these confines, the Iron Spider costume just looked too much like the night sky. The Iron Spider costume is decent on first glance, but its problems grew increasingly apparent the more the MCU milked it.

6. Symbiote Suit from Spider-Man 3

There’s not much to say about this one, since it’s just Tobey Maguire’s standard Spider-Man outfit but colored black. However, the virtues of that classic costume (which we’ll get to shortly) endure here. The black coloring looks good for this specific comic book storyline Sam Raimi and company were telling. I like how the white Spider-Man eyes pop against the black suit coloring (unfortunately it emphasizes the frustrating lack of color contrast in Tom Holland’s darker Spidey suits).

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Spider-Suit

For his first solo MCU adventure in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tom Holland's Spider-Man got a proper supersuit (courtesy of Tony Stark in-universe) harkening back to his earliest comic book appearances. The excessive lines on his hips and legs, though (which weren't in those Amazing Fantasy issues Spidey debuted in), make this suit a bit too busy for its own good. On the other hand, the colors pop, the textures look strong, and the black lines around his goggles especially look excellent.

4. The homemade MCU Spider-Suit

If there’s a costume on this list that could be considered reasonably underrated, it’s the homemade Spider-Suit Peter Parker rocks in Civil War and Homecoming. It’s a cute outfit littered with amusing and endearing details related to Parker using ramshackle items to simulate what will eventually become the famous Spider-Man outfit. Those goggles are especially quite charming-looking. This suit feels truly homemade, a feat underscoring the characters underdog and humble origins. This one deserves a little more love, especially since it gives cash-strapped Spider-Man cosplayers an easy outfit to put together.

3. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man outfit

My earliest memories of Spider-Man as a character was seeing this Spider-Man teaser poster at my local Cinemark. This close-up of the Spider-suit Tobey Maguire would wear across these three movies was seared forever into my brain and instilled in me just how cool Spidey could look in art. Even beyond that nostalgia, though, this costume rocks. The bright red and blue colors look perfect, especially as extensions of the vibrancy of Sam Raimi's stylized vision of New York City. I love how the webbing looks (it has these sharp edges that make it look like an actual spider web), while the blue on the hips and legs isn't afraid to just be blue with none of the distracting lines in Parker’s Homecoming outfit. Its awesomeness should be inherently obvious, but let it be said again: Tobey Maguire’s Spider-suit is a masterwork.

2. That Amazing Spider-Man 2 costume

Sometimes, bad movies with a capital B can feature one absolutely inspired creative element. The Brothers Grimsby is a dismal comedy, but it does have that one amusing joke involving Sacha Baron Cohen’s character actsing like his bald son is named Luke after his Leukemia. Nobody likes Cocktail but how could anyone dislike the Beach Boys ditty "Kokomo?" Motherless Brooklyn is a total snooze of a period piece movie, except for Gugu Mbatha-Raw's soaring performance that totally could’ve inhabited an excellent 40s movie.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continued this tradition. Make no mistake, this is an abysmal movie in every respect, from the creepy Spider-stalking to an excessively crowded screenplay to even Hans Zimmer’s overwhelmingly busy score. In the middle of so much incompetency, though, this feature did deliver the best pre-2026 Spider-Man movie outfit ever. This installment had Andrew Garfield strutting around and saving the day in a costume whose colors were just luscious to look at, especially that its bright red hue. In contrast the golden goggles on the first Amazing Spider-Man outfit, this sequel gave Spidey bright white pupils that popped off the screen. Director Marc Webb shooting this installment in 35mm film made the terrific textures and colors on this costume really soar. Amazing Spider-Man 2 got so much wrong (why would you hire Emma Stone as a character whose only purpose is to die?) but when it came to its Spider-Man costume, it gets an A+.

1. Spider-Man Brand New Day’s Spidey-suit

I swear to God, this isn’t recency bias talking. The Spider-Man: Brand New Day Spidey-suit is a terrific feat combining all the best. Finally, Tom Holland walks around in a Spider-Man costume confident enough to not lather lines and extraneous busy-ness on the blue portions of his costume. The dark black coloring plaguing his Far From Home attire is also absent. Instead, the red and blue colors are fantastically vibrant, the web lines look like actual Spider-webs just like the Tobey Maguire outfit, while the black lenses (always the best part of the MCU Spidey costumes) look better and more expressive than ever.

Plus, this outfit really allows for breathable and flexible movement. Even just its textures and surfaces are as pleasing to the eye. Everything about Brand New Day’s Spider-Man suit is just right. Tom Holland didn’t need an Iron Spider or magic-enhanced suit to look perfect as Spider-Man. Something classical yet so well made did the trick divinely.