Trans Performers Will Not Capsize Your Movie. They Will Only Enhance It.

Koko Da Doll in an interview segment from Kokomo City

Koko Da Doll is phenomenally absorbing in Kokomo City. She is one of the central interview subjects in this 2023 documentary helmed by D. Smith, which focuses on a quartet of Black trans women who happen to be sex workers. Koko Da Doll radiates conviction any time the camera lingers on her. Smith's intimate filmmaking is perfect for highlighting every inch of this woman's multi-faceted personality. One especially poignant piece of testimony from Koko Da Doll comes when she confronts the past, present, and future of her relationship to transness. 

"Seeing other trans girls on reality shows and other stuff brought attention...I was just like 'they don't want to hear or see no trans girl,' and then seeing trans girls on these reality shows gave me light...if I can use the music to reach the people...I really want to send a message, I want them to hear me. And for the girls that can't speak, I want to be the girl that speaks for them."

Three months after Kokomo City's Sundance 2023 premiere, Koko Da Doll was killed. This woman in her mid-30s, with so much life ahead to live, was cruelly ripped from this mortal world. 50% of trans lives lost in 2023 that were recorded by the Human Rights Council were Black trans women. This is not anamoly confined to the year Koko Da Doll was murdered. 

In 2019, an NAACP report tragically noted that "the murder of transgender people is significantly underreported because data collection is often incomplete or unreliable" as well as the reality that "transgender women of color face enormously high rates of homelessness, unemployment, negative health outcomes, rates of depression and suicidal ideation, discrimination in their families, unjust treatment when seeking help from law enforcement, and homicide due to their transgender identity." Melinda Butterfield's June 2026 piece "Eryka, Juniper, Persia, Murry & Jane Doe: Murder, social murder, and trans genocide", meanwhile, provided a heartbreakingly comprehensive glimpse into the prevalence of trans dehumanization in 2026.

Koko Da Doll is gone. She is not forgotten. She lives on in how she personally impacted people. Her music is still entering people's eardrums. And then there's the Kokomo City footage she appears in. Her dreams, her glorious personality, they're still there on the silver screen.

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This past weekend, The Odyssey opened to massive box office numbers that included scoring one of the biggest non-Deadpool domestic openings ever for an R-rated movie. This came after a bunch of people who make what sure look like Nazi salutes in public threw online tantrums that Black women and a trans man were in the movie. Naturally, this discourse didn't impact the box office or critical reception one bit. Elliot Page, a trans male performer that right-wingers drive themselves nuts thinking about, showing up in The Odyssey only increased the movie's star power rather than diluting the box office. Meanwhile, Barbie remains one of the biggest movies of the decade so far. 

Featured in its cast as a doctor and DJ Barbie? Hari Nef. A talented actor, writer, and model, who just so happens to be a trans lady. She could show up as just another one of the gals in Barbieland, deliver killer comic lines, and even get called beautiful by Ryan Gosling's Ken without either the world imploding or Barbie's box office cratering. Trans existence and box office success are not incompatible. So I implore the larger film industry: put more of my trans brothers, sisters, and folks of all gender identities in as many motion pictures as possible. Especially trans individuals of color.

As Raquel Willis so brilliantly explored in her memoir The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation, representation by itself isn't a solution to woes informed by corrupt institutions, capitalism, and white supremacy. I'm under no delusions that offering a random trans actor two lines in The Mandalorian and Grogu would suddenly erase all these horrific statistics about trans violence. Increased representation of trans performers needs to go hand-in-hand with larger initiatives confronting imperialism, capitalism, and the global normalization of dehumanization (the nonchalant slaughter of Palestinian lives and the casual elimination of trans people are two sides of the same coin).

However, just because bolstering trans representation in film shouldn't be the be-all end-all of crusading for equality doesn't negate the importance of this initiative. For starters, more acting opportunities for trans performers would mean giving trans people money. Trans folks deserve to afford housing, food, medicine, and any other necessities vital to existence. More chances to perform in motion pictures can help make those essentials more accessible. This is especially true if trans performers get cast in theatrical films, which can provide long-term residual checks. 

Anytime Hollywood provides openly homophobic performer Shia LaBeouf or similar toxic cis-people another chance to headline a film, they're depriving trans artists of a chance to earn income they need. Trace Lysette has been openly vocal on social media and in interviews about the lack of acting opportunities sent her way. While major entertainment outlets, commentators, actors, and producers scramble to resuscitate the careers of cis-actors like Jonathan Majors or Louie C.K., we ignore the exciting possibilities of new trans performers like Misha Osherovich, Isabel Sandoval, and Jack Haven (among countless others).

Furthermore, Koko Da Doll's own words underscore another importance of putting more trans people into mainstream films. "Seeing trans girls on these reality shows gave me light," Da Doll recalls about the first time seeing trans folks on the screen. She also hopes her art can provide words "for the girls that can't speak." Speaking personally, I know seeing Tangerine at age 19 forever changed my life and made me reconsider life's possibilities. Yet I still had to travel 35-ish minutes by train to witness that film on the big screen. Smaller arthouse titles like Joyland, starring Alina Khan, don't have the resources to play in thousands of theaters. In addition to these wonderful arthouse titles, trans artists should also exist in all forms of cinema.

Imagine if films featuring performers had played at my local Cinemark my entire life. Imagine if most folks could just stroll down to their local theater and see new mainstream titles akin to Barbie and The Odyssey that feature trans performers. Trans people of all ages often struggle to see themselves in the communities they're trapped in. Art can provide reassurance and normalization. When you feel isolated or don't have the words to describe who you are, artistic representation can be a much-needed balm. Films can remind trans viewers "you're not alone" through showing Mya Taylor anchoring a fantasy feature full of dragons, Elva Guerra as the lead of a rom-com, or Brian Michael Smith being part of a silly comedy's ensemble cast. Trans audiences deserve to experience those reminders even within a big-box multiplex.

Fueling this yearning for trans people to be everywhere, though, also comes down to a tragedy plaguing our community: visibility. As pervasive transphobic legislation across America has shown, trans lives are perceived as disposable in the mainstream, especially when they're not white. Marsha P. Johnson's killer was never found. Rich CEO's will use every ounce of their energy to defend transphobes. Our healthcare system often ignores trans lives. In the final pages of her 2020 thesis essay "Historical Erasure is Violence: The Lives and Experiences of Black Transgender Women and Gender Nonconforming Women of Color in the 19th and 20th Century," author Rebekkah Mulholland writes that:

"Collectively, black transgender women have been considered the dregs of society...Black transgender women and gender nonconforming women of color have always existed. To many, their collective voices, lives, experiences, and bodies have not existed. Black transgender women and gender nonconforming women of color have a past. Erasing their history is a form of violence. Telling their stories is a type of liberation."

These lives haven't just been minimized. They've been tossed into oblivion, even by other queer communities. Again, increased representation in mainstream cinema cannot be the end point. However, it can be a way of "telling their stories" when it comes to trans and gender nonconforming women and marginalized genders. The ubiquity of trans people in movies playing in thousands of theaters can combat the erasure Western society defaults to when handling trans lives. Returning to Mulholland's words...

"Not only must these institutions listen to black transgender women and gender nonconforming women of color, these individuals must be included in the decision-making process so that they play a critical role in their liberation. They must be present at every level of government as they help to shape what liberation, freedom, and equality looks like. For this group, liberation means not having to justify one’s existence."

This same pervasiveness of trans voices should've always been ingrained into the history of cinema. However, even well into the 2020s, trans artists have struggled to gain footing both behind and in front of the camera. Non-binary filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun, for instance, recalled how they couldn't get financing anywhere for their follow-up to I Saw the TV Glow, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Shelling out $180 million for a Highlander reboot is apparently "logical" financing for major studios, but ponying up comparatively meager funds for trans artists is a bridge too far.

The challenges Schoenbrun and others face speak to the widespread erasure of trans people in all corners of society. For its future, it's vital that cinema highlight trans worlds, especially since Barbie and The Odyssey have proven without a shadow of a doubt that trans cast members don't sink box office numbers. Even in the most ruthless capitalistic terms, trans artists clearly don't adversely impact movies. Dumb-asses online can whine about Elliot Page or Laverne Cox showing up in a film all they want. Their presence is clearly not a deal-breaker for audiences. 

The floodgates need to and should've already been open. Trans actors should be in everything from A Minecraft Movie Squared to the next Denis Villeneuve movie. Trans lives (especially non-white ones) need to be inescapable. "I believe in my power, I believe in your power," Raquel Willis once chanted as part of a glorious speech. Put that power everywhere in the cinematic landscape.

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One of many outstanding titles featured in the recent Criterion Channel collection "Tramps, Troublemakers, and Trailblazers: Trans Filmmakers" is Rupert Remembers. This 2000 short from director Xanthra Phillippa Mackay focuses on Canadian trans man Rupert as he wanders locales that used to be gay hotspots. He regales audiences with stories from years past about the local queer community, friends he'd made, experiences eternally seared into his brain. Watching it 26 years later is a fascinating and moving experience. Even when it was made, Rupert Remembers reaffirmed how the trans community had a rich past. Trans individuals weren't a "modern" phenomenon. 

Decades later, that intent is potently enhanced. Rupert Remembers is now an ode to multiple eras of trans history. Permanently capturing Rupert and his stories on film allows modern trans (and cis) people immediate access to the reality that trans souls have always existed.

Cinema is a powerful tool. Sometimes adversely so. Titles like Rupert Remembers and Kokomo City, though, provide glorious manifestations of this medium's best possibilities. These titles, even in their quietest interview segments, offer a fiery middle finger to the societally normalized erasure of trans people. We will not be erased. We will not be cowed into concealing ourselves. We will occupy the middle of the frames. Through these movies, our history and lives can be preserved. Gossip columnist Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) tells 20s movie star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) in Babylon that cinema offers a chance at something resembling immortality. "A child born in 50 years will stumble across your image flickering on a screen and feel he knows you, like a friend, though you breathed your last before he breathed his first," she wistfully says.

That cinema magic should permeate every corner of the movie kingdom, including the big-budget wide release tableau Barbie and The Odyssey inhabit. Let the success of these movies be "the spark that will light the fire that shatters trans erasure in mainstream cinema," to paraphrase Poe Dameron from the best Star Wars movie. Obviously, it also needs to be paired with active political action to protect trans lives, strides to prevent trans murders, and politicians willing to stand up for trans lives (rather than being complicit centrist cowards). We can create a better world. One where movies like Kokomo City and its tender interviews with Koko Da Doll aren't tragic anomalies in the wider cinematic landscape. Create movies that provide the trans-oriented "light" and "attention" that made Koko Da Doll so giddy.

Want to watch even more great movies from and/or starring trans artists like Kokomo City? Letterboxd user Grays_Tedious has a fantastic list chronicling an array of such features. Personally, I'd recommend The People's Joker, Dressed in Blue, Titane, Paris is Burning, Joyland, and Neptune Frost, in additon to Kokomo City and other films mentioned in this piece, for some must-see trans cinema viewing.

15 years ago, Winnie the Pooh gave hand-drawn animation a gentle but beautiful send-off

Nowadays, when a movie provides some kind of conclusion, studio marketing leans into it. “The saga will end, the story will live forever”* the trailers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker proclaimed. That same years, Avengers: Endgame had marketing materials declared “nothing can prepare you for the end.” The trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4 repurposed Terry Jacks singing phrases like “goodbye my dear” and “it’s hard to die” in “Seasons in the Sun” to reaffirm that this was John Wick’s last showdown. Hollywood loves milking things for all their worth (oh hey, did you see Steve Rogers is coming back for Avengers: Doomsday?), but studios also love wringing money out of audiences eager for a definitive conclusion. 

On July 15, 2011, the last Harry Potter movie hit theaters with the tagline “it all ends”. The same day, another notable ending in cinema transpired, but it garnered way less coverage. How could it? Nobody knew at the time that Winnie the Pooh was Home on the Range redux in that it was also the swan song for 2D animated movies at Walt Disney Animation Studios. There were no posters or commercials proclaiming that Winnie the Pooh was a capper to a 74 year animated legacy. Only in hindsight is Winnie the Pooh an “ending” to an era of cinema. 

In that respect, Winnie the Pooh is much like Twin Peaks: The Return. Both were not conceived and executed to be the final bows for their respective artists. David Lynch had other projects brewing beyond The Return. Walt Disney Animation Studios, at one point in time, had additional 2D animated films beyond Winnie the Pooh. However, fate intervened to make both productions inadvertent conclusions to lengthy artistic endeavors. Much like The Return does now serve as a bittersweet farewell to the genius of Lynch, Winnie the Pooh now functions as a moving last chapter for big screen American 2D animation. 

For starters, Winnie the Pooh as a character is a perfect centerpiece for mainstream American 2D cinema’s final verse. The initial A.A. Milne Pooh books were populated by beautiful and instantly endearing illustrations from E.H. Shepard. His renderings of the Hundred-Acre-Wood weren’t afraid to leave pen lines inside Pooh’s body or scraggly qualities in the grass. Looking at these drawings, you could practically see Shepard hunched over a desk sketching out these characters and their world. His palpably homemade imagery was perfect for Pooh’s world. These are raggedy stuffed animals tumbling around the rickety British forest. Eschewing hand-crafted qualities in presenting Pooh and pals would be a tremendous miscalculation. 

Thus, hand-drawn animation has always been the perfect home for these characters. Here, that silly o’l bear and his friends can move around and have their voices heard without sacrificing their essential bespoke qualities. 2011’s Winnie the Pooh uses slightly more refined 2D animation tools than the 60s shorts (there’s no more xeroxing, for one thing), but going the hand drawn route here continues the legacy of Pooh encapsulating the joys of hand-crafted imagery. If Pooh didn’t feel like he just stumbled out of someone’s ink pen, he wouldn’t feel like that honey-obsessed ursine. 

Winnie the Pooh's importance as a 2D animation swan song, though, is more than just echoing the original Pooh illustrations. Inhabiting this medium allowed a bevy of Disney animation legends to serve as supervising animators for big screen characters one last time. Andreas Deja, for instance, who famously influenced the animation of characters like Jafar, Gaston, and Scar, was the supervising animator here for Tigger. Meanwhile, Bruce W. Smith oversaw Piglet, while the likes of Eric Goldberg,  Dale Baer, Mark Henn, and other icons of their field were supervising animators on other pivotal Pooh characters. Uncredited assistant animators included Mike Gabriel, Tom and Tony Bancroft, and Chris Buck. The only one missing here is James Baxter!

Several of these figures would continue to work in Walt Disney Animation Studios films (such as Goldberg overseeing the animation of Maui's tattoos in Moana) and other animated features in the years to come. Winnie the Pooh, though, offered these artists one last chance to flex their skills in the medium where they started. 2D animation brought them into this business. Winnie the Pooh let them say good-bye to it. This was no somber farewell, though. The character animation here is delightful and represents the dynamic physicality 2D imagery affords.

Rabbit's increasingly frustrated body langauge in the "not knot" scene, for instance, could only be properly realized in such hysterical terms through hand-drawn animation. "The Backson Song," meanwhile, is told through chalkboard drawings. The simplified and believable rendering of chalkboard doodles wouldn't quite look right in CG. In 2D animation, though, this visual emulation soars. 2011 CG titles like Rio and Cars 2 kept audiences confined to one visual style for an entire runtime. Winnie the Pooh, meanwhile, let a murderer's row of talented 2D animators flex the dexterity of this medium one last time. Disney may have had no interest in more 2D films, but that didn't mean artists like Deja and Smith couldn't reaffirm this mediums immense artistic value.

Even the quieter Winnie the Pooh aesthetic was perfect for relishing the joys of hand-drawn animation one more time. In 2011, hyperactive and noisy animated fare were dominating multiplexes. Cars 2 traded out for "slow down, enjoy life's journey" for machine gun fire and torturing automobiles on-screen. Gnomeo & Juliet was full of ass jokes and loud dance parties. The realistically animated abominations anchoring The Smurfs couldn't go two minutes without shrieking or dropping some Smurf variant on a risqué colloquialism ("Smurf Happens"). In contrast, Winnie the Pooh was gentle 67-minute film focused on wordplay, silly misunderstandings, and bouncing tigers.

With the script not jostling audiences around from one uber-loud set piece to another, there were plenty of opportunities for viewers of all ages to treasure the intricacies in the animation. Look at those gorgeous backgrounds! Check out that amusing facial expression on Owl! Look closely and notice that one letter (amongst a bevy of letters that have fallen the Hundred Acre Wood floor) curving into the Backson pit! Winnie the Pooh's unhurried sensibilities made the artistry of the various animators even easier to appreciate. When visiting Pooh and pals, chaos and hyperactivity are poor companions. Instead, watching these characters should be akin to taking a stroll. All the delightful flourishes in Winnie the Pooh's hand drawn animation made that aesthetic even more welcome.

This pacing and animation services a story that doesn't necessarily feel like a farewell to either the Pooh characters or even an era of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Retroactively, Winnie the Pooh now functions as a bittersweet capper to Disney doing 2D animated cinema. Like Twin Peaks: The Return, though, Pooh wasn't meant to be a pop culture good-bye. At the time of its production, Winnie the Pooh was conceived and executed as a potential transition between The Princess and the Frog and whatever big 2D animated film the Mouse House did next. In fact, Winnie the Pooh director Stephen J. Anderson recalled to The Look Back Machine podcast that this feature was supposed to kickstart a new era of more high-profile all ages Pooh media.

These realities mean Winnie the Pooh is all about living in the moment. It's a celebration of what makes the Pooh characters special, witty writing, and hand-drawn animated joys rather than a mournful procession. If there was no greater historical context to filter this motion picture through, its charming animation and endearing ambiance would still be laudable. Devoid of distractions related to being the "perfect" swan song for Disney 2D animation, ironically, means Winnie the Pooh excels in this function. An ideal manifestation of this exercise should be something entertaining, not art constantly reminding you the end is near. 

Of course, Disney was never the sole source of animated storytelling, hand-drawn or otherwise. Never forget, The Adventures of Prince Achmed beat Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the feature length animated movie punch by 11 years back in 1926. Winnie the Pooh was the end of Walt Disney Animation Studios doing hand-drawn animated movies, but that didn't mean all artists gave up on this medium. Since July 2011, international animated titles like The Boy and the Heron, the various works from Cartoon Saloon (like Wolfwalkers), Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, Boy and the World, Liz and the Blue Bird, and so many other features have kept this medium alive. In North America, filmmakers like Don Hertzfeldt have also embraced the tactile artistry established by works like Gertie the Dinosaur.

Still, Winnie the Pooh bombing (why did Disney release it against the final Harry Potter film?) was a turning point for big screen 2D animation, at least in America. Any hopes that the new Walt Disney Animation Studios regime (established in 2006) would permanently bring back 2D animated storytelling to this label were gone. While CG animated bombs like Strange World or Smurfs haven't inspired studios to abandon fully digital storytelling, 2D box office non-starters like Winnie the Pooh are apparently referendums on an entire storytelling medium. Hand-drawn animated cinema was finally down for the count in this realm of motion pictures.

Yet, 2D's joys live on, like an especially potent story you heard as a child still rattling around in your brain as an adult. Modern CG features like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and the Spider-Verse have taken tremendous cues and inspiration from hand-drawn artistry. In other words, mid-2020s CG animation has more in common with Winnie the Pooh and its 2D brethren than, say, Rio or Hop. 

Just as importantly, the hand-crafted imagery pioneered by artists like Eric Goldberg, Bruce W. Smith, and Andreas Deju (among many others) endures. Across the interwebs, reaction images utilizing Rabbit's various disgruntled facial expressions from Winnie the Pooh are incredibly common. Anyone who stumbles upon Winnie the Pooh today can appreciate the character animation in that scene as well as the other visual triumphs this movie provides. Disney's abandoned this medium, but viewers can still appreciate 2D animation's glories anytime they watch this particular 2011 film.

In the final moments of 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, as Christopher Robin and Pooh walk off into the sunset, Sebastian Cabot's narrator takes on a wistful tone. "Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way," Cabot's voice intones, "In that enchanted place on top of the forest, a little bear will always be waiting." 15 years ago, Winnie the Pooh "ended" an era of 2D animation, but not the entire medium. Just like Pooh always being there whenever Christopher Robin needs him, hand-drawn animation's not going anywhere. Movies like Winnie the Pooh "will always be waiting" to dazzle and inspire moviegoers.

*= Apparently “somehow, Palpatine has returned” memes will outlast both the saga and story.

Accept director/star Olivia Wilde's The Invite and have a hysterical time

"Love is a Many-Splendored Thing", as the song goes. For Angela (Olivia Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen), the lead couple of The Invite, love is mostly a torturous thing. The moment they see each other in their San Francisco home, they start bitterly arguing. Everything they do seems to stir up resentment in the other person. Joe's especially infuriated that Angela randomly invited neighbors Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penélope Cruz) for a social event.

This couple absolutely fascinates Angela. Her husband, meanwhile, has immense hostility towards them, especially for all the sexual noises they make at night. When the kindly, candid Hawk and insightful Pina arrive, tension is everywhere. Though they put on a smile and gracious airs, Angela and Joe can’t stop undercutting each other. These smiling, physically intimate neighbors just bring out the worst in The Invite’s leads. As the night progresses, though, some unexpected revelations make this social gathering especially memorable. That’s particularly true for a proposition (an invite, you might say) that Hawk and Pina propose for their hosts.

The Invite (a remake of the 2020 comedy The People Upstairs) exudes immense chutzpah on the part of screenwriters Will McCormack & Rashida Jones and director Olivia Wilde. Like other great movies confined to a single location, like The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant or Mass, The Invite’s creative team understands that you don’t need a plethora of rooms to create compelling drama. With no awkward cuts to flashbacks or worlds beyond Angela and Joe’s apartment, The Invite doesn’t just demonstrate incredible commitment to its storytelling scope. It also lets the simmering tension and hysterical throwaway moments sing.

Such are the sharp artistic inclinations informing The Invite’s hysterical sensibilities. Simply put, this is a deeply funny movie. This dialogue-driven affair is like someone fused the cramped scope and squabbling characters of a John Cassavetes feature with Nathan for You/I Think You Should Leave cringe comedy. Like pairing Post Malone with Beyoncé, that’s an unexpected mixture that works like dynamite. After getting derailed by the convoluted Don’t Worry Darling, Wilde’s witty filmmaking chops from Booksmart are back and better than ever.

So many of these gags get their impactfulness from Wilde and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra staunchly refusing to succumb to the generic visual impulses of many modern comedy movies. The Invite joins Maddie's Secret as a summer 2026 indie yukfest crusading for specific and rich imagery in this genre. Just look at a visual gag where Angela nonchalantly dumps a burnt soufflé immediately after pulling it out of the oven. This beat transpires in one unbroken shot, which makes the abrupt disposal of the dish so extra funny. Plus, not cutting the camera around and keeping viewers at a distance lets one appreciate Wilde’s fantastic physicality in this beat.

Similarly sublime is the way Wild and Newport-Berra use features of Angela and Joe’s apartment to accentuate entrapment. On the surface, their San Francisco domicile looks like a rudimentary home. For Angela and Joe, though, these seemingly ordinary spaces are their prison cells.  Thus, The Invite keeps framing the four leads through doorways or confined window frames. You can practically feel the walls closing in around this couple as they get trapped in awkward conversations or revelations about how they’re secretly finding joy in humdrum existences.

Screenwriters Will McCormack & Rashida Jones bring those tense exchanges to life. Above all else, The Invite features killer humorous dialogue. Each of these four leads has an incredibly distinctive voice. Pina, for instance, has a confident and decisive aura. Whenever she opens her mouth, your eyes dart towards her. Angela, meanwhile, is a people-pleaser Oobleck constantly shifting her shape and words to placate her guests. Then there’s cantankerous Joe, who couldn’t be further from the candid and upbeat Hawk if he tried. Watching a repressed couple colliding with a confidently free-spirited romantic duo inspires steady, sturdy laughs.

Many of those laughs come from Wilde’s gusto performance. Hollywood wasted this lady in disposable “romantic interest” parts in early 2010s blockbusters like Tron: Legacy and Cowboys & Aliens. That was always frustrating, but The Invite makes it downright tragic Wilde got pigeonholed in those parts. She’s got such expressive eyes, for one thing, that scream out how much Angela needs to connect with other souls.

Wilde also displays great humorous physicality throughout The Invite. This trait materializes right from the start when Angela crouches down and points at a cooking soufflé. Meanwhile, her portrayal of Angela’s enraptured state upon hearing about Pina and Hawk’s sexual exploits is both endearing and chortle-inducing. She’s just so genuinely curious, not to mention full of verve finally referencing “a DP” in conversation.

Wilde combines that amusing pose with her characters palpably intense urgency to make this and other physicality-based Invite moments sing. The other members of this movie’s quartet are also exceptionally amusing. Rogen’s nonchalant witticisms and unpolished awkwardness often make for a hilarious contrast to the other characters. That’s especially true when Pina and Hawk’s more sexually active behavior comes up in conversations and. Here, Rogen's Joe casually drops the most insane responses to these erotic revelations (including one bit about “counting the rings”). Cruz is effortlessly magnetic even when she’s portraying Pina at her most weed-induced goofiest. Norton, meanwhile, wrings immensely impactful yuks from the most soft-spoken line deliveries.

Watching these four actors firing on all cylinders in a movie with such sharp writing and equally commendable visuals makes The Invite a social gathering well worth attending. Beneath the barrage of laughs, though, is a thoughtful dissection of what makes a “successful” relationship. Is it adhering to society's monogamous heteronormative standards (“one man, one woman, until you die”) even if you’re both miserable? Is it engaging in more “unconventional” (by mainstream American standards) interactions?

The Invite potently explores how one relationship “mold” can’t guarantee success. What’s critical is a two-way street of communication and empathy. Underlying toxicity between two souls won’t suddenly become bearable with group sex sessions or suddenly adhering to an Amish approach to intimacy/relationships. It’s the rapport between people (or, in troubled relationships, the lack of rapport) that makes all the difference. That same quality also informs The Invite’s steady stream of hearty laughs. Love can be “many-splendored.” It can be torturous. In this movie, it’s often hilarious more than anything else.

Multiple Animated Movies Can Co-Exist In The Summertime...With Proper Breathing Broom

"In the summertime," as Mungo Jerry might've crooned, it's time for pools, BBQ's, and trips to the movies. With kids out for this season, Hollywood's taken to making summertime a go-to launchpad for animated family films. Just look at summer 2006, when a whopping five PG-rated animated films hit theaters. Summer 2013, meanwhile, saw six (if we count the heavily animated live-action feature The Smurfs 2) such titles reach multiplexes.

Anyone who follows release dates as obsessively as I have might have noticed some relatively recent patterns in how these summertime animated titles are scheduled. Disney has cornered mid-June as the launchpad for Pixar titles (starting with Cars in June 2006). Often, another animated movie opens either two weeks before or after the latest Pixar release. That's happening right now with Minions: The Rise of Gru launching just 12 days into Toy Story 5's run. Other recent examples of this exact release scheduling include...

SUMMER 2012

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (June 8)
Brave (June 22)

SUMMER 2013

Monsters University (June 21)
Despicable Me 2 (July 3)

SUMMER 2019

The Secret Life of Pets 2 (June 7)
Toy Story 4 (June 21)

SUMMER 2022

Lightyear (June 17)
Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 1)

Studios clearly love cramming as many animated family films as possible into the lucrative June/early July corridor. But does this release strategy actually work? Can multiple animated family movies co-exist in such close quarters?

In one of the many weird paradoxes littering the film industry, this release strategy is both nothing new and unprecedented. Studios cramming titles into seemingly "foolproof" release windows for family films, that's not new. In the 80s and up to 1991, Disney and Universal constantly released their respective new animated family features against each other. Once Beauty and the Beast trounced An American Tail: Fievel Goes West in 1991, though, that was the end of that. Disney was back on top of the animation game. Studios began keeping their distance between their new animated titles and whatever the Mouse House was putting out.

Thus, once Disney began launching animated productions like The Lion King in the summertime in 1994, there weren't new rival animated features launching just two weeks earlier or later. Disney's Pocahontas was basically the only major G-rated animated family film in all of summer 1995 (though Universal's Casper and Babe were around to deliver live-action family fare). Even when Hercules bombed in summer 1997, there were still no other animated family films in sight. It would take the 2001 DreamWorks title Shrek to really get studios comfortable with launching non-Disney animated titles in the summertime.

Even once other labels got in on the summertime animated family movie game, there was often a month-ish separating animated tentpoles. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron hit theaters May 24, 2002, and then three weeks later, Lilo & Stitch caught some waves. That exact same timeframe separated Over the Hedge and Cars, while over a month existed between Up and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Summer 2012 appears to have been the shifting point, when Madagascar 3 and Brave opened on June 8 and June 22, 2012, respectively.

Interestingly, neither of these titles debuted on their initially announced release dates. Madagascar 3 was once set for May 25, 2012 (mirroring the first Madagascar's Memorial Day launchpad), while Brave was set for June 8. Madagascar presumably left May because that month (which was steadily becoming the domain of new Marvel Cinematic Universe movies) was getting crowded. This above all else explains why studios often cram new animated films together. There's more competition than ever before for "ideal" summer release date slots. May used to be the place Shrek and Kung Fu Panda 2 opened; now it belongs to superhero fare and live-action Disney remakes. With fewer release slots available, more and more animated family films are crowding into limited space.

Enough blabbering, though. With all that historical context out of the way, does it actually help or hurt these animated features to open so close to one another? Usually, the two can co-exist...but there's a catch. Only once (before 2026, at least) has this phenomenon occurred, in which one of the two animated films was a $400+ million domestic box-office juggernaut. Often, both films, like in June 2012, are set to make $210-$235 million each. Easy to see how two motion pictures could survive there. When the numbers get bigger, though, it's hard for the struggling animated film to get out of the shadow of its rival. 

Illumination faced this problem when The Secret Life of Pets 2 bowed two weeks before the massive Toy Story 4. Minions: The Rise of Gru just missed the $400+ million domestic mark, but its massive North American run totally overshadowed Lightyear, which opened two weeks earlier. Offering a little breathing room when one of these titles is a massive tentpoles helps everyone. Finding Dory, for instance, temporarily became the biggest animated movie of all time domestically when it hit theaters on June 17, 2016. Three weeks later (not two), The Secret Life of Pets debuted and became one of the largest original motion pictures in history. Even just an extra seven days was crucial in making sure Pets didn't get swept up in Dory's success.

Still, sometimes certain movies in these release equations bomb because of reasons separate from opening so close to another animated family film. Cars 3, for instance, was already a box office non-starter before Despicable Me 3 wiped it out in its third weekend of release. Lightyear already collapsed 60+% in its second weekend before Minions: The Rise of Gru bowed. In contrast, last years Elio didn't have to contend with any new animated features until weeks into its theatrical run. That couldn't save it from immense box office failure. Oftentimes, it's the films themselves that are the biggest issue.

This tight release plan would also be less of a problem if studios used the medium of animation to make more varied family movies (or, heaven forbid, animated films not aimed first and foremost at children). Multiple animated PG comedies trying to court the same audiences can ultimately cannibalize each other. That inevitable outcome reflects the dangers of looking at the endless varied medium of animation as strictly a "babysitting tool". 

Madagascar 3 and Brave in June 2012, in hindsight, looks like an ideal slate of cramped animated features. The former's immense wackiness is very different from Brave's more action-oriented Scottish antics. Minions and Monsters is making less than all prior Despicable Me movies, but it has a reasonably different aesthetic from Toy Story 5. On the other hand, The Secret Life of Pets was already thought of as a Toy Story clone when it first hit theaters. Why on Earth would you try launching a sequel to it so close to a proper Toy Story installment?

The very existence of such release date quandaries would've been unthinkable 30 years ago when no non-Disney animated family films dared to open in the summertime. Heck, it wouldn't be until 1998's final months that The Rugrats Movie and The Prince of Egypt became the first non-Disney animated movies to hit $100+ million. Animated cinema has absolutely exploded in the last few decades, to the point that multiple major animated tentpoles are competing for the prime summertime release date slots. Time for a remix of Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" with lyrics newly conscious of how often Pixar and Illumination go toe-to-toe in this season.