I Will Never Make It To Venice OR: The Dastardly (Constant) (Inescapable) Return of Imposter Syndrome

On days when imposter syndrome seems unstoppable, just curling up in Jennifer Lopez's fur coat from Hustlers seems extra enticing

Every day, it lunges at my brain. There's no warning. No floorboards creaking to provide one glimmer of the imminent attack. No heavy breathing just behind my back to suggest, "he's right behind me, isn't he?" Instead, my psyche is suddenly overwhelmed by a mighty familiar intruder, though that recognizability doesn't dilute this terrifying experience. It's my old pal imposter syndrome, once again here to creep into my brain and transform every one of my thoughts into "you're not doing good enough/did you see what that other writer's doing?/why can't you be different?" 

No matter how many items I check off one day's to-do list, no matter how many years of therapy I attend, no matter how many coping tools I memorize, imposter syndrome still lurks. It's even looming over my brain as I type these words down, telling me, "Lisa, nobody's going to want to read this."

Nary a day goes by without some form of imposter syndrome flashing across my mind. However, at the start of the fall movie festival season (when studios launch their big award season contenders at lavish festivals), that imposter syndrome especially becomes pervasive for me as a writer. Ever since I was a kid scouring ComingSoon, SlashFilm, Entertainment Weekly, and similar outlets, autumn events like the Toronto International Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival were momentous occasions. New eras of the year's cinema scene had begun. Not only that, but my favorite writers would regularly attend these events and report back with vital dispatches about what worked, what didn't work, and everything in between at these festivals.

Various Entertainment Weekly writers going to Venice's cinema extravaganza solidified them in my mind as the pinnacle of pop culture writers. To attend these events was to be a REAL film critic. Young Lisa Laman clutched dreams of pursuing an occupation like Lisa Schwarzbaum or Roger Ebert. She also wondered if, one day, she too would be at TIFF or similar shindigs. Cut to years later, and I'm privileged enough to make writing my full-time gig. I do what I love (typing out thoughts about film and television) as a means of paying rent. I'm incredibly lucky to have reached this status quo and to be surrounded by instrumental people (like ScarleTeen editor Heather Corinna, GALECA founder John Griffiths, or former Dallas Observer editor Eva Raggio, among countless others) who got me here.

Yet, like I said earlier, imposter syndrome cares not for the achievements you've accomplished nor the therapeutic mechanisms you've trained in. It festers, like a sharp pain in your foot refusing to vanish or a repellent odor from some mysterious point of origin in your fridge. Around late August or early September, coverage of events like the Venice Film Festival from major publications often instills pangs of imposter syndrome in me. "Why aren't YOU there?" my brain will think to myself. "I guess you're not a real critic." 

My not attending these effusive celebrations is suddenly a referendum on my abilities as a writer. "Everyone whose there is a real film critic," my imposter syndrome-consumed brain will say, "Not fakes like you."

Combining those thoughts with my exhaustion over the work and energy I do put into my writing is a potent combo. It can make things feel pointless, like all my value lies in watching movies at a specific festival rather than my actual artistic contributions or the ways I treat others. In recent years, I've gotten better about not letting these imposter syndrome thoughts beckon me down a catastrophizing spiral. Thank you to my therapist on that front. However, that hasn't always been the case, and I'm still prone to getting lost in a labyrinth of imposter syndrome-inspired worst-case scenarios. That includes when my insecurities over what I do and don't attend as a film critic flare up. In years past, this mindset has sometimes led to me thinking my "failings" as a writer reflected me also "failing" as a person.

Last night, I had pangs of this specific autumn movie festival-inspired imposter syndrome suddenly creep up. Given that I've been focused on moving the last two weeks and have sometimes had to go multiple days without watching a movie as a result, such insecurities had extra personal material to work with in 2026. "Look at all those people in Venice/Toronto/Telluride watching so many movies a day while you haven't logged anything on Letterboxd in three days!" my brain might say. These statements seem silly typing them out now (things in our brains tend to be much less ominous when we bring them out into the real world), but encased in my anxiety-vulnerable mind, they can, in the moment, seem like devastating indictments of my value. 

In my calmer, protein waffle-aided Friday morning mindset right now, though, I want to reassure myself and anyone else suffering from imposter syndrome (however it manifests) reading this that you're enough. True, I probably won't ever make it to the Venice International Film Festival. That's not the worst thing in the world, not by a long shot. Not only do all the films screening there eventually make it to North Texas, but my life isn't materially worse by not being there. People are making good memories and bonding with friends at this Italy-set endeavor. I can do the same in early September, watching movies with pals at the local Spacy microcinema or doing lesbian bar karaoke. 

Better yet, other people going to Venice isn't a reflection of my value as a person. Honestly, it's not about me at all. Dating back to my public school days (where I was paranoid about if and how other kids could "tell" I was autistic), I've had a survival instinct ingrained into my head that things are, by default, about me. If someone's frustrated, I must've done something wrong. If some piece of technology is on the fritz, then I must be the cause. This is why I'm always saying "I'm sorry" even if I'm just standing around existing. But like I said, it's not about me, and that includes other people going to autumn fall festivals.

Instead of filtering the existence of all fall film festival coverage as an indictment on me not doing enough, I'm retreating to my original mindset of celebrating both other people going and the art they produce via these events. Rachel Handler's coverage of events like the 2023 Venice Film Festival for outlets like Vulture, for instance, is always a must-read. The existence of these events isn't inherently a sign that I'm doing anything wrong or inferior. It can instead be a chance to relish and support the talents of other writers (like Siddhant Adlakha or Hannah Strong) who're there. Instead of seeing these film festivals as an opportunity for further inward, individualistic indictments, I'm viewing them as chances for communal support.

Plus, my personal experiences suggest I might get more overwhelmed than enthralled attending one of these festivals. I've carved countless joyous memories at both of my Austin Film Festival experiences, for instance. However, being somebody who doesn't drive and (thanks to autism) is prone to being overwhelmed by drastic schedule changes or sensory overstimulation, there were tremendously stressful segments of those experiences as well. Navigating expensive Lyft prices, being locked out of an AirBnB at midnight, suddenly being shunted to a deafeningly loud Austin street full of noisy clubs...it's not all as cool as watching masterpieces like No Other Choice and Hamnet in sold-out auditoriums. 

My mind circa. early September will tell me being in Venice is the "only" way to solidify myself as a "real" film critic. However, would me being overwhelmed in an unfamiliar place really help anyone, including myself or the prospective publications I was writing for? Perhaps bouncing around these film festivals in-person isn't something I'm capable of...and that's fine! The talented people who cover these autumn film festivals can clearly roll with the hubbub more easily, and that's awesome. 

Writing all of this out while bubbly Tyler, the Creator/Chappell Roan/Nina Simone songs play in my ear is one thing. In a week's time, though, when the evening rolls around, and I see some headline involving the Toronto International Film Festival, that imposter syndrome will creep in. Suddenly, my brain will be full once more of all the places I'm not occupying, the tasks I haven't accomplished, the Word documents I haven't finished. All will be used as evidence to declare, without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm a failure who's far behind everyone else in my career.

But you know what? I think I'm enough. It's hard to even type that out, given how difficult I find it to sing my praises (I detest the idea of coming off as "cocky"). But looking around the freshly decorated apartment I just moved into and at all the writing I accomplished this week, I do believe I'm doing enough. All those fall film festivals aren't a signal of me failing in my field. They're instead exciting displays of promising-sounding movies on the horizon and a chance to support other people in this vital career path. 

Whatever circumstances inform your own version of imposter syndrome, dear reader, I hope you also know you're enough. Imposter syndrome can be inescapable. However, reminders of our value can also be pervasive, if we just know where and how to look.

The five Netflix movies that had the longest theatrical releases

With the release of the American trailer for the Spain-originating feature La Bola Negra, a new era of Netflix movies begins. La Bola Negra, you see, will be the first Netflix motion picture to get a normal theatrical release before its streaming debut. Not just one week of showings and then vanishing like Glass Onion. Not screenings two months after its Netflix debut like KPop Demon Hunters. La Bola Negra will hit theaters October 16, gradually expand in the weeks afterward, and then hit Netflix in early December.

The trailer itself emphasizes the “in theaters October 16” detail in the top right hand corner of its first 15-ish seconds. The closing text, meanwhile, only emphasizes its theatrical release date while eschewing the “tum-dum” Netflix theme music closing out most other Netflix movie/TV show trailers. Even the trailers YouTube thumbnail suggests a fresh epoch is among us. Unlike every other Netflix trailer on the channel, the La Bola Negra thumbnail doesn’t the Netflix N stamped in a corner.

The intent is clear: this streamer wants you to think of La Bola Negra as a standalone movie, not as a Netflix tile.

This is no one-off either. In 2027, Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory will both get normal wide theatrical releases before their respective Netflix debuts. Netflix is by no means becoming a massive supplier of theatrical entertainment, but even this Silicon Valley entity can’t ignore the reality that the big screen helps movies. 

Ever since Netflix began its original narrative film push with October 2015’s Beasts of No Nation, Netflix has done the bare minimum when it comes to theatrical releases. Netflix gives its award season titles (Roma, The Power of the Dog, Maestro, etc) extremely limited theatrical runs (largely concentrated in just New York and Los Angeles) two weeks before their streaming bows just so they can qualify for the Academy Awards.

All the while, Netflix executives have taunted and diminished the theatrical movie experience and reveled in the idea of putting independent movie theaters out of business. This despite movie theaters housing 2020s hits like Oppenheimer, Barbie, Sinners, and Obsession, while costly Netflix movies like The Electric State and The Gray Man have fizzled into oblivion. Now, with summer 2026 poised to become the second biggest summer ever at the domestic box office, not even Netflix can ignore reality anymore. “Thar’s gold in them hills,” as they say, and “them hills” happen to be your local movie theater. 

Before we start living in a new Netflix future, though, let's take a brief look at the past. What Netflix movies, up to this point, have had the longest theatrical runs in North America? Typically, Netflix only does 14-ish days between an obligatory theatrical debut and a streaming premiere. However, there have been instances of Netflix stretching that release out just a tad longer, especially if there's major award season buzz hovering around a title. Ahead are the five Netflix original movies that got the lengthiest pre-October 2026 theatrical runs from the company.

Note: Glass Onion techncially had a 30 day gap between its North American theatrical debut and Netflix premiere. However, Netflix pulled it from theaters after seven days, so it is not counted on this list.

5. Maestro (28 days)

We may never know "who abandoned Snoopy in the Vestibule" (much like we'll never know what Scarlett Johansson whispered into Bill Murray's ear in Lost in Translation). What is clear, though, is that Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro did get one of Netflix's longer theatrical releases. The feature began playing in select theaters (roughly eight over its opening weekend) on Wednesday, November 22, 2023. It would then drop on Netflix just in time for Christmas on December 20, 28 days after its premiere. As we'll soon see, 2022 was the year Netflix flirted extensively with longer theatrical runs. The following year, major Netflix award season players like May December only got two weeks in theaters before an unceremonious Netflix drop.

Maestro, being the most high-profile of Netflix's 2023 award season fare, got the theatrical run closest to those lengthier 2022 big screen stints with 28 days in theaters. Now, audiences could ponder who left Snoopy behind on a massive screen.

4. Marriage Story (30 days)

Large portions of 2019 were dedicated to speculation over whether or not Netflix would cooperate with major theater chains and give Martin Scorsese's The Irishman a normal theatrical release. In the end, negotiations between the parties broke down. The Irishman only got 26 days in theaters before it was relegated behind a Netflix paywall. Ironically, that same year, Netflix gave another title a slightly longer theatrical release. Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story began its theatrical release on November 6, 2019. It had 30 days in theaters before its December 5, 2019 Netflix bow. Allegedly, despite never playing in more than 130 North American theaters, it did clear $2 million domestically at the box office.  That puts Marriage Story ahead of other 2019 movies that played in more theaters, like Western Stars and Waves. 

3. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (30 days)

As referenced earlier, 2022 was the year Netflix scooted a little bit closer to maybe doing longer theatrical releases (the Glass Onion "experiment" occurred during this time). A primary example of this was Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which launched in theaters on November 9, 2022 and hit Netflix 30 days later on December 9. No reported box office data for these screenings ever came out, and an exact list of how many theaters it played in is hard to come by (though one pre-Netflix showing was a 35mm screening at the Museum of Modern Art). Interestingly, an Orlando Sentinel piece reveals that it played for at least one week at multiple local Regal Cinemas locations. Given that Regal Cinemas is one of the big three theater chains (alongside AMC and Cinemark) and has expressed hostility towards Netflix in the past, getting Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio into these locations was a breakthrough for streamer/multiplex relations.

2. White Noise (35 days)

Here's the title that's bound to puzzle the most people out of any movie on this list. Yes, Noah Baumbach's ill-fated 2022 adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel White Noise got a surprisingly lengthy theatrical run from Netflix. I guess the streamer believed that Baumbach's Marriage Story becoming an Oscar juggernaut meant that any subsequent films of his were major events. That wasn't a totally illogical assessment, but White Noise ended up scoring mixed reviews, barely made much of a dent in the 2022-2023 award season race (beyond leading man Adam Driver scoring a Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy Golden Globe nod), and never made any waves in Netflix viewership. All the while, White Noise hit theaters on November 25, 2022 and ended up on Netflix 35 days later on December 30, just before a new year began. While there was some pre-release logic to giving it such a lengthy stint in theaters (this was, after all, 2022, when Netflix was a tad cozier with theaters), hindsight makes it baffling that White Noise technically had more time as a theatrical exclusive release than Encanto (among other titles).

1. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (42 days)

Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu's 2022 movie Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths isn't quite a topic of constant discussion in 2026 pop culture. However, it does have a major historical feat under its belt: the longest pre-2026 theatrical run ever for a Netflix movie in North America. Bardo began its theatrical journey on November 4, 2022, and landed on Netflix's platform on December 16 of that year. Why did a Spanish-language indie with lots of surrealist imagery get such a cushy theatrical run? Iñárritu's previous two movies (Birdman and The Revenant) had proved massive award season juggernauts, with both taking home the Best Director Oscar and the former film also securing a Best Picture trophy. I imagine Netflix thought a longer-than-usual theatrical run could help make Academy voters see Bardo as more akin to The Revenant than The Unforgivable.

Bardo going out into Mexico theaters on October 27 may have also inspired Netflix to give it a similarly early launch in another North American territory. Then there's the biggest reason of all for Bardo's longer theatrical presence: a mid-movie scene sees the title's lead character on a train that passes by a billboard for 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog. Netflix executives knew this collision of the worlds of Storm the Albatross and the Babel director was a monumental occasion that required a grander theatrical run. That's the most logical reason why Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths holds the record for longest Netflix theatrical in a pre-La Bola Negra world.

Two strong lead performances anchor the intriguingly wistful Late Fame

During the day, Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe) works at the post office. Once night falls, he often heads to a local pool hall and shoots the breeze with other people his age. It's a quiet life for someone who, when he was young, published some acclaimed poetry. One random day, twenty-something aspiring artist Meyers (Edmund Donovan) encounters Saxberger and recounts to him how much he loves his 70s book Way Past Go. For the first time in ages, Saxberger is a celebrity and an artist in someone's eyes.

Late Fame, which comes courtesy of director Kent Jones and screenwriter Samy Burch, proceeds to chronicle Saxberger joining up with a group Meyers has started called The Enthusiasm Society. This ramshackle gathering of young New York artists fawn over Saxberger, especially the gregarious and eccentric actor Gloria (Greta Lee). As everyone’s bonds deepen, Saxberger is coerced into writing a new piece for a poetry reading event that The Enthusiasm Society is hosting.

Jones and cinematographer Wyatt Garfield frequently imbue Late Fame with a quiet dreamy visual quality. This is especially true whenever Ed Saxberger is alone, wandering the nighttime wintery streets of New York. The camera darts around people, traffic lights, and even the sky as Dafoe’s wonderful voice intones narrative phrases like “can I still write?” on the soundtrack. Another scene conveying dreamlike qualities comes when Saxberger and the Enthusiasm Society members boisterously stroll down a sidewalk together for the first time. They’re clearly laughing and loudly chatting, yet we hear none of it. Don Fleming's melancholy score instead fills up the audience's ears.

In these and other Late Fame scenes, the movie simulates the idea that Saxberger is recounting the past in his dreams. Only fragments of yesteryear (like images but not sounds) fester, yet the emotions he felt endure. One can imagine this whole situation (some young poet stumbling onto him, lauding him as a hero while he’s spent decades in a mailroom) is both so inexplicable and impactful for this man. Of course it would infiltrate his subconscious. Of course he’d recount it. These striking visual and sonic choices are strong on a surface level. However, these dreamlike Late Fame flourishes also quietly submerge moviegoers into both this man’s psyche and a potent sense of melancholy reminiscence.

Executing that ambiance so effectively is a welcome cherry on top of a movie wielding two can’t-miss tools at its disposal. Something would have to go seriously wrong in Late Fame (like Birth of a Nation/Skyline/Gotti bad) for a movie starring Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee not to be slightly compelling. Luckily, this is a well-crafted feature so both skillful performers flourish like plants deposited in ripe soil. For starters, what a gift Dafoe is as an actor. He's so magnificent at deeply externalized performances, like his work in Nosferatu, The Lighthouse, or the Spider-Man movies.

Yet when he needs to play just a normal, understated guy, he’s also terrific (it’s why his Jesus Christ performance is so stirring in The Last Temptation of Christ). Thus, he’s tremendous playing Ed Saxberger. His subtlest physical traits really communicate how withdrawn this man has become at the start of Late Fame. Watching him slowly grow more comfortable and outspoken around the younger Enthusiasm Society members is quite absorbing in Dafoe’s hands.

This actor gets to play opposite Greta Lee for much of Late Fame, a performer who also excels here. Gloria constantly walks, talks, and even breathes like a leading lady from a 40s movie. She’s got a quick wit, snappy comebacks, and confident physicality that would, of course, captivate an older, more unsure soul like Saxberger. Lee’s replication of a Katharine Hepburn/Barbara Stanwyck persona is remarkably detailed and authentic. She gloriously commits to this outspoken portrayal, which makes Lee’s execution of rawer Gloria aspects extra shattering.

These performances inhabit a movie that happily ensures its plot avoids an especially lazy route. Burch's script (adapted from an Arthur Schnitzler novella of the same name) could've easily generated conflict between the Late Fame characters by devolving into a "kids these days" diatribe. Instead, the feature goes into more specific storytelling territory. That includes partially defining Saxberger’s comfort with these younger artists through how much they remind him of poets he hung out with decades earlier. The Enthusiasm Society members eschew technology, talk about mid-20^th century writers, and even have typewriters prominently displayed in their homes. They’re not vessels for Jones and Burch to lament about how “different” twenty-somethings are now.

Instead, Late Fame problems emerge through incongruity over varying levels of sincerity between characters. Saxberger craves a genuine, lasting connection with other human beings. The Enthusiasm Society, meanwhile, is made up by people defined by simulacra (namely through being rich kids posing as struggling 60s/70s artists). Even Gloria must embrace facades as a survival mechanism. This disparity between Saxberger’s craving for tangible bonds and the facsimiles defining his new friend group proves a compelling source of drama. This element also ensures Late Fame is distinctive compared to other movies about older souls intertwining with communities of young people.

Unfortunately, Jones and Garfield don’t imbue quite as many idiosyncrasies into the third act visually. While Late Fame features a more standard, less dreamlike home stretch, its generally a solidly engaging enterprise getting immense mileage out of two strong lead performances and Samy Burch’s thoughtful writing. Who can argue with a movie where Greta Lee’s so achingly maximalist or Willem Dafoe waxes poetic about old New York buildings? 

The Dog Stars is ruff for all the wrong reasons

The Dog Stars protagonist Hig (Jacob Elordi) endures a challenging existence. Not because of the dystopian future he now navigates every day. Instead, he and audiences must suffer through another shrug-worthy late-period Ridley Scott directorial effort. Alas, the helmer behind The Martian, The Last Duel, and Alien has now delivered another snoozer more reminiscent of Gladiator II and Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Now that a pandemic has wiped out the world, Hig spends his days in tattered Denver, Colorado with his canine pal Jasper flying his yellow plane around, collaborating with gunfire-prone Bangley (Josh Brolin), and fending off violent "roaches," survivors of the apocalypse. Feeling despondent, Hig takes a chance and steers his aircraft towards his dream destination: Grand Junction. Bangley isn’t so sure this location either exists or is hospitable. However, Hig must take a chance and venture out into the world. Along his journey, he encounters and gradually bonds with Cima (Margaret Qualley) and her hostile father, Pops (Guy Pearce).

Hig first encounters these characters when he’s spying on Cima working on her farm. Suddenly, a gun’s cocked. “Put your weapon down!” a voice calls out. This is how Pops and Hig first meet. It’s easy to imagine this interaction playing out effectively visually. The camera would pull back to reveal the shotgun’s barrel but never cut away from this jeopardized character. Eventually, audiences would only get a good look at Pops when the Dog Stars protagonist turns around. This could instill tension (“whose that holding the gun?!?”) while subliminally using the camera to simulate Hig’s perspective.

Instead, Scott and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt awkwardly cut to a medium shot of Pops right after he begins threatening Hig. The camera doesn’t simulate Hig’s point-of-view nor does its position say something about Pops (like a low-angle shot accentuating his intimidating nature). It’s just the same rudimentary camera angle Dog Stars keeps opting for. Scott’s Gladiator II inability to frame two characters in the same shot persist here. The Dog Stars is a movie full of inert visuals lacking specificity or personality. Even the cuts between scenes are awkward.

In a summer where low-budget movies like Obsession, It Ends, and Color Book have exhibited immense visual flair, the costly tentpole The Dog Stars radiating downright amateurish imagery is insulting. This flaw also provides a barrier between the audience and the characters. Hig, for instance, is suicidal and dreams of crashing his plane into a Telluride mountain. A superior movie would’ve reflected this harrowing desire through evocative imagery. Instead, Elordi just mumbles about this urge in flatly realized conversation sequences.

Similarly shabbily realized is Hig’s sorrow over his deceased wife. The only times audiences see this character, she’s pregnant, sitting in a bedroom, wearing a perfect bathrobe, and draped in billowing curtains. This "dead girlfriend" imagery isn’t just groan-inducingly familiar and a barrier to get invested in these characters. It also deprives The Dog Stars of any chance to establish an idiosyncratic identity. This flaw fails both audiences and the mindsets of the principal Dog Stars players.

The only time this movie truly comes alive is in a third act detour involving Allison Janney as a community leader who dresses like a 50s airline stewardess. The more pronounced creative choices in this Dog Stars segment (including the array of people wearing different period era clothes) is a welcome reprieve from the Temu Last of Us shenanigans otherwise populating the film. Plus, Janney’s kooky work is more specific than Brolin doing a pastiche of his other grizzled “man of the land” characters. This set piece is over way too quickly. However, it at least provides a jolt of life to an otherwise monotonous affair.

When it isn’t boring, The Dog Stars bizarrely falls back on weird, racially uncomfortable hallmarks to define the film’s primary bad guys. The two packs of violent post-apocalypse survivors Hig and Bangley contend with are a cornucopia of troublesome dog-whistles. One group is covered in tattoos (how EEEEVIL), bald, and speaks in an unrecognizable non-English language. The other is a slew of horseback-riding foes clearly evoking indigenous Americans, right down to their face paint and use of tomahawks in battle. The Dog Stars is so bereft of imagination that it’s rehashing dehumanizing indigenous American stereotypes from 50s Westerns.

Naturally, only white men with guns adhering to “traditional” living can “protect” their land and property from these forces. Amusingly, this cringe-inducing plot element exists in a story that still supports vaccines and deferring to medical professionals on diseases. In other words, the racially toxic Dog Stars material may lure some right-wing viewers in, but other core plot elements will repel them. That’s a microcosm of how this dreary affair is a movie for nobody. Action fans will only get three brief “fight” sequences over a 120-minute runtime. Jacob Elordi aficionados surely prefer him in less tedious productions.

Even devotees to grim cinema (like yours truly) will uncover none of the depth or evocative imagery from Come and See or Lynne Ramsay’s various masterpieces here. The Dog Stars frowns heavily, but that’s all its “bleak” atmosphere amounts to. Not even deeply talented performers like Jacob Elordi or Guy Pearce can imbue layers into this slog. Ridley Scott’s autopilot filmmaking instincts are an albatross The Dog Stars never escapes.

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!

SXSW chooses which panels actually make it to the festival by which ones get the most online support. Click on this link to go to our SXSW PanelPicker page (which is full of details about our proposed Box Office Podcast panel) and simply give us a heart. You don't need to give money or do anything more strenuous than giving us a heart. If we get enough hearts and support, this panel can become a reality at SXSW 2027! So go forth and please give us that heart, spread this around if you can, and thank you for listening,/supporting the various Box Office Podcast shenanigans! Hopefully we'll be able to bring some of that "Rango magic" to Austin, TX at SXSW 2027 next March!

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.