Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen is as Richly Human as it is Emotionally Affecting

While cis-gendered actors are frequently being praised and even nominated for Oscars for playing trans characters, actual trans performers tend to languish in terms of the kind of opportunities they receive. They can't even get the chance to portray the rare specifically trans characters in films, let alone ones that aren't just defined by being trans. That fact is one of many entertainment-industry double standards explored throughout the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen. The premise for this one is simple as director Sam Feder interviews an assortment of trans celebrities and media figures on a variety of topics.

Welcome to Chechnya Harrowingly Depicts Endurance in the Face of Omnipresent Prejudice

In the last few years, a massive wave of violence against LGBTQIA+ people has emerged in Chechnya. It isn't just random citizens engaging in hate crimes either. Police are now arresting gay people and then torturing them for more information on where gays are hiding. The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, doesn't just deny the existence of this behavior. As seen in an interview in Welcome to Chechnya, Kadyrov outright denies the very existence of gay people in Chechnya. It's an easy way for him to sweep this inhumane behavior under the rug. Violence against a marginalized people can't exist if the marginalized people do not exist in the first place.

My Spy Struggles With Comedy and Originality

It is May 2008. I'm watching a rerun of Kindergarten Cop. I have never seen this movie but it's already familiar. A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie. The formula is apparent.

It is November 2004. I'm eight years old. I'm in a movie theater waiting to watch Chicken Little. The trailer for The Pacifier plays.  A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie. It has happened again.

It is June 2020. I am twenty-four years old. I'm at home watching the new movie My Spy. Directed by Peter Segal, My Spy concerns CIA agent JJ (Dave Bautista), whose good at snapping necks but bad with people. When little girl Sophie (Chloe Chloeman) stumbles on his newest mission, Sophie coerces JJ to be her friend in order to earn her silence. In the process, JJ and Sophie begin to help solve each other's personal problems.

This movie has already run for ten minutes. Yet it already feels like it's run for an eternity. Screenwriters Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber have created an utterly formulaic script. Every beat in the story is predictable.

In thirty-five minutes time, JJ and Sophie will begin to bond at a school event.

In seventy-five minutes time, JJ's lies will catch up to him and he'll briefly have to leave Sophie's life.

It is December 2009. I am fourteen years old. The impending end of Middle School weighs heavily on my mind. At some point, I catch a portion of the trailer for The Spy Next Door. There it is again. A muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid in a children's movie.

Two hours into my future, I struggle to write a review for My Spy. There's so little to say about a movie this disposable. The filmmaking is stale. Jokes are executed lifelessly. Only Kristen Schaal, as a C.I.A. accomplice to JJ, manages a handful of laughs. Otherwise, My Spy is totally forgettable. How can I write about this movie?

I am sixty minutes into My Spy. The villain of the movie, Victor Marquez (Greg Bryk), just stabbed someone to death. Why does a film aimed at children feature such gruesome deaths? It's understandable when darker kids movies like The Dark Crystal or Rango engage in violence. But usually My Spy has all the edge of a Dove hand soap commercial. The random bursts of violence are intrusive rather than an organic extension of the tone.

I am ninety minutes into My Spy. Kristen Schall just delivered her fourth witty line referencing some odd detail in the plot, in this case the fact that a runway was built next to a cliff. My Spy seems to believe that characters being aware of nonsensical details in the script will automatically create comedy. It doesn't. Lampshading is not an apt substitute for jokes.

It is March 2017. I am watching Bringing Up Baby for the first time. I am cracking up. Katharine Hepburn is a comedic master. This is one of my favorite comedies. My Spy is certainly not.

It is July 2, 2020. My Spy has finished. Clumsy pay-off's to JJ's inability to either ice-skate or dance close out the movie. It's an awkward finish. Dave Bautista is a good actor. He can be quite funny. But he's poorly directed here. His depiction of JJ struggling in social situations just makes the character come off as abrasive. Meanwhile, his handling of JJ's myriad of slapstick stunts isn't very funny. Bautista's performance lacks life, as does the rest of My Spy.

It is now five hours later on July 2, 2020. My fingers tap away at the keys on my laptop. I am writing the final words on my review for My Spy. What an awkward movie. Not funny enough for adults. Kids will probably be bored by it more than anything else. Talented people like Dave Bautista and Kristen Schall deserve better than starring in the newest Cop-and-a-Half knock-off.

I'd hope a forgettable movie like My Spy would put an end to bad family movies starring a muscular action star playing opposite a precocious kid.

But if Hollywood has taught me anything, it's that nothing ends. Nothing ever ends.

Rachel McAdams Shines But Will Ferrell Struggles In Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Each year, the Eurovision Song Contest (which is an actual thing) brings together musical talent from all of the European countries and has them compete to see who can deliver the greatest showstopper musical performance. It's an event that Icelandic natives Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) have been preparing for their entire lives. They've always carried ambitions of taking their unconventional musical act to Eurovision. Such hopes have been frowned upon by their friends and neighbors, particularly Lars' father Erick (Pierce Brosnan). But when this duo gets a chance to actually perform during Eurovision, it seems like their dreams are finally going to come true.

Miss Juneteenth is an Easygoing and Impressive Directorial Debut For Channing Godfrey Peoples

Every parent wants their child to have the best. For Turquoise Jones (Nicole Beharie), that means making sure her daughter, Kai Jones (Alexis Chikaeze) wins the local Miss Juneteenth beauty pageant. After all, winners to this competition get a scholarship to any prestigious all-Black college in Texas. That's the kind of education Turquoise, whose struggling to pay her home's electricity bill, just can't afford. It's also the kind of education that Turquoise knows will give Kai the opportunity to lead a better life than her mother. Miss Juneteenth is the story of a mother wanting the best for her daughter and the ways that this pursuit impacts the dynamic between Turquoise and Kai.

7500 Fails To Take Flight

It was supposed to be an ordinary flight for pilot and 7500 protagonist Tobias Ellis (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Just steer the aircraft from Berlin, Germany to Paris, France. Just another day for a guy whose life takes place in the sky. Unfortunately, shortly into the fight, something goes horribly wrong. A group of terrorists take the cabin of the plane and begin to bang on the cockpit door. They want in, but Ellis, obeying protocol, refuses to let them in. The terrorists insist they'll start killing hostages if their demands aren't met. Screenwriter Patrick Vollrath attempts to enhance the intensity of this scenario by filming almost the entirety of 7500 from the cockpit of the plane.

The King of Staten Island Isn't Quite Comedic Royalty

Despite what the title of The King of Staten Island would have you think, Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson) is far from royalty. He's a 24-year-old stoner still reeling so hard from the death of his firefighter papa who's going nowhere in life. Carlin's got a passion for tattoos, a constant detached attitude, and absolutely no plans to move out of his mom's (Marisa Tomei) house. Any changes in his life, like the departure of his High School graduate sister, Claire (Maude Apatow), or his mom getting a new boyfriend in the form of Ray Bishop (Bill Burr), tend to bring out the most frustrated side of Scott. What'll it take for him to grow up? Scott may never be a king of Staten Island but can he at least become something resembling an adult?

What Hath Artemis Fowl Wrought?

Why is Artemis Fowl getting released in 2020? At least there'd be some logic to its existence if it had debuted in the years between 2006 and 2010. That's when Harry Potter knock-off's like Eragon, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and The Spiderwick Chronicles ran rampant. Artemis Fowl would have fit right in. But in 2020, even knock-off's of The Hunger Games have leveled off, Harry Potter knock-off's are practically extinct. Artemis Fowl now emerges in 2020 as a visitor from the distant past, from an era when The Black Eyed Peas topped the Billboard charts, and the Tiger Woods scandal was still fresh news. Whatever year it premiered in, though, Artemis Fowl, which is now streaming on Disney+, would still register as a totally bad movie.

The Past Becomes The Present In Da 5 Bloods

Da 5 Bloods makes it no secret where its creative inspirations lie. Any movie about men heading off to unearth gold and developing distrust with one another is bound to draw comparisons to The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Writer/director Spike Lee has been open on that influences as well as how Da 5 Bloods takes inspiration from another Vietnam film, Apocalypse Now. Meanwhile, I myself found Da 5 Bloods frequently evoking William Friedkin's Sorcerer. Da 5 Bloods has an obvious rich love for the cinema of the past. However, this is not one of those movies that lean on homages alone. Instead, past films are used as a springboard for something new, something exciting, and something boldly-realized.

Shirley as an Excellent Page-Turner of a Movie

Speaking from experience, the process of being a writer is an utterly strange one. One would like to imagine it's easy as just sitting down at a laptop and typing away at keys that magically produce the next great American novel. Instead, it's all about patience, trial-and-error. You'll write yourself into many dead ends. Distractions creep in easily. You might spend just as much time worrying about if you're doing enough writing as you actually do the writing. The process of writing is ultimately rewarding but boy does it have its strange effects. If the new Josephine Decker movie Shirley is any indication, author Shirley Jackson, the writer behind The Haunting of Hill House among other works, could attest to that.