The 2026 Video Essay Recs

It's time again to share recommendations for some of my favorite video essays from the last year or so.  To be specific, these are all videos that I watched for the first time within the last calendar year.  Some may be slightly older than that, but everything should still be very relevant.  

There were some big trends and major topics in the video essay community that got a lot of attention, like why Netflix is having trouble with second seasons of promising shows, but I'm trying to share more idiosyncratic picks.  One is also a podcast discussion with some visual aids, but fascinating enough that I made an exception.  Another is a rant about video essays.  More on that below. 

Eyebrow Cinema: Why Can't Netflix Discover New Directors - This is secretly a video essay about Roger Corman, and how his approach to filmmaking with almost no money contrasts with the approach of Netflix, which seems to have all the money in the world.  There's been a lot written about Netflix as a platform for television series this year, and we shouldn't forget that they're also an important platform for films.

Climate Town: How Oil Propaganda Sneaks Into TV Shows - Why is Billy Bob Thornton spouting misinformation about wind turbines in the Taylor Sheridan show, "Landman"?

Folding Ideas: This is How You Get Jarhead Sequels - A deep dive into a franchise I didn't know existed.  The Sam Mendes film "Jarhead" is deeply critical of the US army, and was made without the support of the Department of Defense.  Somehow, it spawned three direct-to-video sequels that gradually abandoned the cynical themes of the original film in favor of more typical rah-rah pro-armed forces jingoism.  Dan Olson investigates how this happened.   

Sarah Z: The Illegal Fanfiction Death Games of 2011 - A frequently hysterical look into a once popular subgenre of "Hunger Games" self-insert/roleplaying fanfiction, with Sarah Z gleefully channeling her inner thirteen year-old, who just wants her May Sue avatar to have a really cool death, and is willing to sockpuppet her way to fanfiction glory.  I adore weird little fandom subcultures like this, which feel oddly wholesome in retrospect, in spite of all the fictional kid murdering involved. 

Patrick H. Willems: The Music Video is Dead, Long Live the Music Video - The music video to feature film pipeline was a big thing in the 90s, but not so much now.  Patrick Willems gives us a historical overview of how this worked and why it's no longer a thing, while spotlighting a lot of talented directors along the way like Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Mark Romanek, and the DANIELS.  I came away with a massive list of videos and films to watch, and a greater appreciation for the music video form.  A very close runner up was Willems' Munich video.

Panic World: We Looked Into the Psychology Behind Mobile Game Ads - So, this is the podcast with visual aids, where the guys at Panic World, a podcast devoted to internet trends, have a nice, informative chat with Chelsey Weber-Smith about the psychological tactics behind those terrible ads that are the bane of every mobile gamer without an adblocker.  It's also the oldest video on this list by far.  However, this is the best breakdown of why something that we see every day is the way it is, and ties in so well to several other trends related to internet marketing and social engineering, I had to include it.   

Movie Bob: Video Essays Are Starting to Suck - Movie Bob doesn't really make video essays in the traditional sense, but I've always found his commentary very cogent and well-informed.  One of his recent videos is about the state of video essays, so it's very on topic here, even if the only clips he's using are a few "Simpsons" snippets for emphasis.  I also like his Reckless Positivity video, which posits that Youtube is getting more hostile towards traditional media and their marketing, because it's trying to undermine what it sees as competition.

Lindsay Ellis: Did Disney Really Steal Aladdin? - Lindsay digs into the pop culture myth about Disney stealing the ideas for their "Aladdin" feature from beloved British animator Richard Williams.  Along the way she touches on the development of "Aladdin," Williams' film "The Thief and the Cobbler," and the work of lyricist Howard Ashman.  We also get some updates on how Lindsay is doing and her relationship with Disney content, which I relate to very much.      

Adam Conover: Hollywood Killed the Sitcom and They Did It On Purpose - Adam Conover does a lot of investigative videos on various topics, and it was gratifying to see him tackle the death of the sitcom, using a lot of data to back up his analysis.  He doesn't talk much about individual titles, but is looking at trends in what kinds of projects are getting made and what the larger market forces are that are impacting Hollywood productions.  While I don't think this paints a complete picture of what's going on - there are still many sitcoms getting made - it offers some important insights.

Zero Woolfe: The Architectural History  of Iron Man's House - Finally, for those of you who love art and design, here's a very comprehensive history of the style of modernist architecture that inspired Tony Stark's house from the "Iron Man" movies.

---

Christopher Nolan and "The Odyssey"

Just as Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein" was a father-son story with redemption and monsters on its mind, Christopher Nolan's version of "The Odyssey" reflects its director's preoccupations with themes he's been exploring for a while - namely the price of glory and the misuse of intellect and power.  I think fans of Nolan will expect the nested narratives and achronological storytelling, which follows an amnesiac Odysseus (Matt Damon), and  his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) separately learning the truth about what happened after Odysseus's great victory at Troy, and the events of his long journey home.  What's a surprise is that this version of "The Odyssey" is such a brooding, psychological take on the story, with more in common with "Oppenheimer" than "The Dark Knight."

First and foremost, however, "The Odyssey" is an epic, one that makes great use of its large budget and stacked cast.  Collaborating with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Ludwig Goransson, Christopher Nolan does a fantastic job of creating memorable action set pieces, bleakly beautiful visuals, and theater-shaking soundscapes, aiming for the kind of epic scale filmmaking that hearkens back to the era of David Lean and Akira Kurosawa.  Behold an imposing King Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in all black armor, who calls an unwilling Odysseus away from his loving wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) to go to war.  Here's the massive Trojan Horse jutting out from an empty beach, sinister and portentous.  Here's the hut of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), the cave of the Cyclops (Bill Irwin), and the deceptively peaceful shore of the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron).  And here are the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the Laestrygonians, the Land of the Dead, and the palace of Ithaca.  And here's our hero Odysseus on his ship, with his right hand man Eurylochos (Himesh Patel), and a crew willing to follow them to the ends of the earth.  

All the most famous, fantastical monsters and miracles from the story are here in one form or another, but it's clear that Christopher Nolan is more interested in Odysseus's inner turmoil.  While he's done an impressive job of constructing an IMAX-worthy world of magic islands and ancient kingdoms, abstaining from CGI as much as possible, what's even more impressive is how he resurrects a civilization built on the harsh laws of fickle gods, codes of honor, fatal curses, and bloody sacrifice.  It's a universe in turmoil, disrupted by the Trojan War, and a major theme is Odysseus reckoning with his own transgressions and their devastating unintended consequences.  There's an abiding melancholy that hangs over the whole film, the roots of which are revealed piece by piece, as Odysseus makes his way home.  And in the process Norton completely justifies many of his storytelling choices - the nested narratives, the stark aesthetics, and even some of the casting choices - in a way that caught me by surprise.

I want to make it clear that "The Odyssey" is a very entertaining film.  The Greek myths are the progenitors of modern superheroes and arguably the whole adventure genre after all.  Matt Damon acquits himself well as Odysseus, and there's a fantastic, slimy villain in Penelope's suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) who is so much fun to root against.  Each new island offers some new monster or obstacle, so the momentum rarely flags, and there's a big action showdown at the end.  However, it was such a pleasure to discover Nolan had found a way to include some very sincere examinations of war, loss, guilt, and heroism in the middle of all of this. The emotional core of the movie is so unexpectedly human and bittersweet, and makes his version of "The Odyssey" very distinct from any other adaptation I've seen.  I love how he keeps making the scope bigger, putting in little references and allusions to so many other stories and histories, from Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyongo) to the Sea Peoples at the end of the Bronze Age.  

As someone very familiar with The Odyssey by Homer, I can't help feeling a little disappointed about some of the adaptation changes and omissions.  The sirens are only seen from a distance, and we don't spend nearly enough time with Circe.  The gods are frequently discussed, but only a solemn Athena (Zendaya) appears to Odysseus.  On the other hand, I like that much more of the narrative is given over to Penelope and Telemachus trying to keep the suitors at Ithaca in check.  My favorite performance in the film may be John Leguizamo as their faithful servant Eumaeus, who has the most expanded role of all the major characters.  It's impressive how much of the story Nolan kept, all things considered .

A film of this size and ambition and vision could have only come from one director, and I'm glad that Christopher Nolan got to make his "Odyssey," and make it so unambiguously his own movie.

---

The Streaming Wars Hangover Era

It's a weird time in television.  There's plenty of good TV, with fun new titles like "Widow's Bay" and "Furious" in the mix.  However, we're several years past the peak prestige television years, when the streaming wars were really in full sway.  Instead of the calendar being full of splashy new event titles like new Marvel and "Star Wars" franchise spinoff shows, or ambitious star vehicles like "Big Little Lies," we're seeing episode orders shrink across the board, lots of belt-tightening, and long-in-the-works projects being cancelled left and right.  Linear television is still on the decline, but the enthusiasm for streaming has hit some bumps.

 Disney+ has cut way back on Marvel and "Star Wars" television projects, to the point where the majority of what's still running are animated shows.  A third season of "Daredevil: Born Again" and a second season of "Ahsoka" are the only live action offerings we appear to be getting in 2027.  Part of the reason is that theatrical revenues have recovered since COVID, so what might have been a fourth season of "The Mandalorian" became the theatrical feature "The Mandalorian and Grogu," and episodes of an intended "Moana" television series were hastily reworked into "Moana 2."  This leaves the Disney+ slate feeling awfully empty.  Meanwhile, over at DC, the Wonder Woman and Amanda Waller TV projects are no longer in development. 

There are signs everywhere that streaming event television is hitting the skids.  There was a lot of chatter earlier in the year about how Netflix couldn't seem to keep audiences around to watch the second seasons of their shows like "One Piece" and "The Four Seasons."    I don't think that Netflix's shows have been particularly lacking compared to their competitors, but the streamer just hasn't done a good job of marketing and supporting many of the shows that they have, and the long waits between seasons have made it impossible to keep some fandoms going.  "Stranger Things," their biggest hit, went out with a bang at the end of last year, but nobody actually seems to have liked it all that much.  However, Netflix does have plenty of more modest hits in their catalogue, and I think they'll be fine in the long run.  Hopefully no more of "The Witcher" though.  That ship has sailed, hit the rocks, and sunk forever.

What prompted me to write this post was watching several lackluster seasons of Apple TV+ shows that I couldn't bring myself to write reviews for: "Silo," "For All Mankind,"  and "Sugar."  All three were a bore this year.  I love that Apple is funding all of this science-fiction programming, but their shows have been severely hit or miss.  "For All Mankind" had a fantastic first year, and has been in a steady decline ever since.  A sixth and final season will premiere in 2027, but there's more excitement for the "Star City" spinoff.  I really like "Silo," but it's been going around in circles without much story or character progression for the last two seasons.  Meanwhile, "Sugar" really should have stayed a miniseries like Colin Farrell's last big TV outing, "The Penguin."  The second season had an incredible cast, but felt aimless.  These were all shiny prestige series that really distinguished themselves at first, but weren't very good at being television shows over the long run.  I also skipped the new "Ted Lasso" season, by the way.  That show felt like it was over after the third season, and the fourth looks too much like a spinoff of itself.

Then there's "House of the Dragon" over on HBO Max, which feels like it's the poster child for this whole, messy, current streaming era.  It's an epic scale franchise show that is chasing the popularity of a progenitor that everyone loved, but was so mismanaged that it completely lost its cultural cachet and audience goodwill years ago.  It's been beset by production troubles - reduced episode counts, big gaps between seasons, and trying to stretch out the source material beyond what it can sustain.  I liked much of the third season, but feel no small amount of relief that the show will be ending with the fourth.  The smaller scale "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" will hopefully fare better trying to do less.   

While we're on the subject of HBO Max, there are still a lot of big event shows on the horizon, not the least of which is the new "Harry Potter" reboot that everyone is already fighting about.  However, there are noticeably less of them now than there were three years ago, and expectations are much more measured.  Sure, I want to see "Neuromancer."  Let's just hope that this one stays a miniseries.

---

"Lanterns" Sheds Some Light

James Gunn's DC projects have a very mixed record, but I'm not surprised that the most successful so far has been the "Lanterns" series.  The talents assembled for the show are considerable, including Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and comic book scribe Tom King, who are credited as the show's creators.  Based on the DC comics about multiple superheroes who have fought evil as the Green Lantern, "Lanterns" gives us a grounded detective series that takes place in the DC universe.  It rarely leaves the small Midwestern town of Rushville, Nebraska, and doesn't show off many flashy special effects.  Super-powered showdowns are backgrounded in favor of nuanced character portraits and complex interpersonal drama.  Anecdotally, fans of the original "Green Lantern" comics don't seem to like the show as much as adult viewers with less knowledge of the characters and their comic book histories.  

"True Detective" is the clear template for the plot, which follows an ongoing mystery unraveling in two different time periods.  In 2016, the current Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), and his intended replacement/trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) come to Rushville suspecting alien activity in the area.  They're met by the doubtful Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly MacDonald), part of a complicated family that runs the town.  She warns them not to pry too much into local affairs as they're carrying out their investigation.  In 2026, John returns to Rushville and finds himself in the middle of a mystery again.  This is connected to the fallout of events from 2016.  Lots of flashbacks are involved, but the structure of the show is interesting in that the 2016 and 2026 mysteries largely play out separately, and in very different circumstances, rather than being intercut together.  The cast also includes Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Ulrich Thomsen, Jason Ritter, Laura Linney, Nathan Fillion, and Jasmine Cephas-Jones. 

At the center of "Lanterns" is the difficult relationship between the two leads, who are never on equal footing.  Beloved hero Hal Jordan is getting old, but clings to the power granted to him by "the Guardians," who designate each member of the specially chosen intergalactic Green Lantern Corp by bestowing them with a matter-controlling power ring.  Hal is supposed to be training John with the ring to be the next Green Lantern of Earth, but mostly just treats him as an unwanted, bothersome sidekick.  As for John, he's been preparing himself for the superhero job for his whole life, as a part of a deeply troubling family legacy, and has a lot of personal baggage to work out.  His frustrations with Hal grow steadily, episode by episode.  The show examines the racial and generational distinctions in play here, and offers a lot of interesting commentary on the nature of heroes, power, and self-determination.

The show has admirable ambitions, but "Lanterns" was met with an unusually contentious reception because of some wildly mismatched expectations.  To be blunt, "Lanterns" is an HBO prestige drama targeting adults, but its original source material is a comic book aimed at children.  Some existing fans didn't take too well to these larger-than-life characters being brought down to size and treated like fallible, flawed human beings.  Also, those who were expecting a more traditional superhero narrative, replete with cosmic green light shows and alien fisticuffs, instead got a very dialogue-heavy drama about morality and the responsible use of power instead.  The last episode doesn't even have a big fight scene in it.  Despite having clear connections to the 2025 "Superman" movie, "Lanterns" is tonally very different, with much smaller, more personal stakes and a far more complicated moral framework.        

The bigger question is whether or not this works as a television series, and my first instinct is to say yes.  The characters and their quandaries are interesting enough to follow whether or not you have any knowledge of the Green Lantern and the wider DCU.  You don't have to like superheroes at all, because superheroics are so peripheral to the concerns of the story.  "Lanterns" is better described as neo-noir and detective fiction.  However, as with much detective fiction, the plotting is sometimes rushed and messy, with some notable logic gaps.  The emotional payoffs and character arcs, however, are all very solid, which I consider much more important.  

---

"The Invite" is a Delight

"The Invite" is one of the vanishing breed of relationship comedies for adults, a mature dramedy about four people in an apartment spending an eventful evening together.  As you might expect, it's based on a play - the Spanish "The People Upstairs" - which has now been filmed half a dozen times in nearly as many languages.  The American version is written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones.  Olivia Wilde directs and also stars in one of the major roles, doing a fine job at both.

Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) play an unhappily married couple in San Francisco.    Joe comes home one day from work to discover that Angela has invited over the couple who live upstairs, Piña (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).  Joe wants to cancel, but Angela is very invested in the get-together, sparking a fight.  This is interrupted when Piña and Hawk arrive, but tensions are high throughout the evening as the four characters make introductions, get to know one another, and it turns out that there's another invitation on the table.

If you've seen any of the trailers or advertising for the film, you know that "The Invite" broaches the topic of partner swapping and discusses other titillating sexual acts, though nothing explicit is ever shown onscreen.  Piña and Hawk turn out to be very sexually open and adventurous, and offer some new possibilities to Joe and Angela that might help get them out of the rut that their lives have fallen into.   However, this in turn throws some of the issues with their marriage into sharper relief.  "The Invite" is built on performances, where the conversations are the set pieces, and the reaction shots are as funny as any of the dialogue.  Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen are both unusually committed here, very well matched as scene partners, and I would have happily watched them argue and verbally spar with each other for an additional hour or two.  

As much as I enjoyed "The Invite," it took me a while to warm up to it.  Part of it is due to the subject matter and part of it is due to the kind of film this is.  "The Invite" is very good at being a very talky, small-scale feature that I would have expected to be made by an independent director with a cast full of theater stalwarts.  I went into the movie mistakenly expecting something bigger and broader, and spent a considerable amount of time waiting for fireworks that weren't there.  "The Invite" is actually quite grounded and intimate, with some sentimental edges.  Also, as much as I liked Wilde and Rogen, I found Cruz and Norton pretty uninteresting - more like caricatures of what sexually adventurous people are supposed to be rather than the real thing.  Their performances are engaging and convincing when they need to be, but the characters are very slight.  There's a theory floating around that Piña and Hawk are not real at all and Joe and Angela just got drunk and imagined them, which I could see.

Though the comedic energy is high and the ending is hopeful, this can't negate the fact that "The Invite" is about the end of a relationship.  There's a bittersweet undercurrent running through the whole movie that really hit me when I realized it was there.  Part of the reason why the laughs are so big and hit so hard is that there's a lot of pain and frustration behind them.  I've never seen Seth Rogen in a role this serious before - and the more serious he is, the funnier he is.  As for Olivia Wilde, frankly, she has never had a screen role this good.  It's unfortunate that she apparently had to direct the movie herself to land it.  I don't think of these two as dramatic actors, and it was a nice surprise to discover that they are, in fact, capable of sincere drama when they feel so inclined.

And I don't think it would hurt if they were so inclined more often.  I'd really like to see more films like "The Invite," and Rogen and Wilde stretching their acting muscles more regularly too.

  

---

The First Five of "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe"

I was a casual viewer of "The Big Bang Theory" for years, but never got invested enough to catch up on any of the episodes I missed or check out any of the earlier spinoff shows.  However, "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" was such a weird prospect that I had to give this thing a look.  After all, I was paying for the HBO Max subscription anyway.

So, the guy who owned the comic book store in "The Big Bang Theory," Stuart (Kevin Sussman), is positioned as the star, joined by his assistant manager and ex-girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus), and two CalTech academics, Bert Kibbler (Brian Posehn) and Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie).  All four end up on a universe-hopping adventure together, thanks to a device that Sheldon and Leonard from "The Big Bang Theory" purportedly created.  A push of a button allows them to bounce from universe to universe, which is very handy in the first episode, since our heroes start out in an apocalyptic version of Pasadena and need a way out.

I've watched five episodes so far, and the show is not very good.  Creator Chuck Lorre and his longtime collaborator Bill Prady are joined by Zak Penn, who has written an awful lot of superhero movies.  They've taken a collection of minor characters from "The Big Bang Theory" - who I barely remember and haven't seen onscreen since 2019 - and promoted them to series leads.  Meanwhile, the main cast of "The Big Bang Theory" occasionally drop in for cameos.  And this doesn't really work.  Kevin Sussman is a character actor in his fifties, playing an unremarkable schlub who isn't very amusing or sympathetic.  Brian Posehn is born to play sidekicks, so he and a cartoonishly evil, lisping John Ross Bowie muddle through okay.  I don't feel I've seen enough of Lauren Lapkus yet to say much, though I've liked her previously on "Comedy Bang! Bang!" and other shows.

The big selling point of "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" is that Chuck Lorre decided to give genre-bending storytelling and meta-humor a try, abandoning his usual realm of sitcom couches for a show that features an entirely new universe with totally different rules each week.  We jump from the apocalypse, to a world run by robots, to a world where magic is real, to a world where Stuart is in a mental hospital, to a world inhabited by pre-civilization collectivist tribes.  Also, being on HBO Max means fewer content restrictions and a bigger budget for all the CGI in the show.  The result is similar to watching a live action "Rick and Morty."  Alas, it soon becomes apparent that  Chuck Lorre is no Dan Harmon.  

The pacing is frantic and the dangers are grandiose, but the humor in "Stuart Fails" amounts to the same old Chuck-Lorre-sitcom one-liners, middlebrow manchild shtick, and caricature based humor.  Stuart isn't really friends with the other two guys, so there are no existing group or family dynamics to play off of the way that "Rick and Morty" does.  Stuart still holding a torch for Diane is the only sign of any sort of real emotional connection anywhere.  So far, there are also no compelling stakes to the story aside from finding a "normal" universe somewhere that the group can call home.  Though, as the title indicates, Stuart and his travelling companions usually leave each universe worse off than they found it, the show never really gets very dark or satirical.  Frankly, the characters are too simple-minded for that.

So far the most clever bits are usually in the opening sequence, which prominently features snarky signs and messages that change in every episode.  All the episodes also have spoiler titles, such as the pilot being called "Spoiler: Gary Dies."  And a character named Gary does in fact die.  There's not much cleverness that makes it into the actual episodes, which are keen on using all the tropes and tactics of smarter, geekier shows, but don't put them to particularly good use.  Since Lorre and his collaborators are new to this kind of material, I expect that they'll improve over time.  The show has already been renewed for at least another season.

I, however, don't think I'll be sticking around much longer for "Stuart Fails."  "President Curtis" is a similar show that premiered around the same time, and is already much more promising - but that's another post.

---

The New Devices of "Toy Story 5"

It's been thirty years since the original "Toy Story," and it's interesting to see how the franchise has evolved over time.  It's become more and more clear that the toys, especially our most prominent major characters like Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, are really stand-ins for parents.  Their relationships with the children that they safeguard have become more and more explicitly parental over the last few movies.  And what are parents worried about these days?  Electronic devices.  It was one of the neatest tricks of advertising that I saw this year, putting the new tablet character Lilypad (Greta Lee) right in the middle of the poster, representing a massive existential threat to the "Toy Story" gang, and instantly grabbing the attention of every concerned parent who has had to wrestle with the screentime question.

Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is now eight years old, as imaginative as ever, but having trouble making friends because it seems like every other kid is spending so much time online.  Her well-meaning parents buy her a kids' tablet, Lilypad, to the consternation of her toys.  Jessie in particular is worried that the "devices" make kids grow up too fast.  Initial encounters with Lilypad do not go well, and Jessie and Bullseye mistakenly end up far from home, in the custody of another girl, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris).  Meanwhile, Sheriff Woody and Bo are called in as reinforcements, and there's a whole subplot involving a lost army of the newest generation of Buzz Lightyear toys, which come with some interesting new hi-tech features.  Conan O'Brien, Shelby Rabara, and Craig Robinson voice new characters, and nearly everyone from the older "Toy Story" films reprises their roles in some capacity.

The franchise is definitely feeling its age.  "Toy Story 5," directed by Andrew Stanton, has a lot of jokes about Woody being old and out of shape, a lot of freak-outs about technology, and a lot of nostalgic callbacks to earlier films, especially "Toy Story 2."  The voices of several of the actors, like Tom Hanks and Joan Cusack, have noticeably changed, and the performances have changed with them.  Moreover, it feels like the movie was marketed more towards adults than children, though there are plenty of elements in the film that kids will enjoy watching.  PIXAR finally gives into toilet humor in the best way, introducing a toilet training toy named Smarty Pants (O'Brien) to deliver several very silly and mild scatological jokes.  While the animation is as eye-catching and detailed as ever, and all the actors and artists clearly remain very committed to delivering quality entertainment, there's a safeness and overly familiar quality to the film that left me comforted, but largely unmoved.  There are no big set pieces, no feats of animation spectacle, or any innovations in animation or storytelling that we haven't seen before.  They also feel a little slower, a little gentler, and more tentative.

The treatment of the devices, for instance, turns out to be very even-handed.  Maybe a little too even-handed.  Though initially viewed as threats, Lilypad and a few other tech-enabled toys are eventually revealed to be just as concerned about the well-being of their owners as the toys are.  The negative aspects of too much screentime, and the dangers of online interactions are highlighted, but it's the human beings who are at fault, not the technology.  With an eight year-old at the center of all this, the examples of online bullying and irresponsible behavior are understandably very mild.  However, I still raised eyebrows at the amount of bad screen habits we see in the movie that escaped comment.  It feels like a missed opportunity for PIXAR to more definitely take a stand for toys and offline play over screens.

It's been seven years since "Toy Story 4," so I'm not as worried about the franchise being overexposed as I once was.  This is one of the rare cases where I believe that new installments don't get made unless someone has a really good idea for one.  However, "Toy Story 5" feels so remote from those first three films now, and the filmmakers seem reluctant to handle the characters too roughly anymore.  Maybe this is just a rare misstep that will be righted eventually, but I think it's more likely that "Toy Story" has inevitably plateaued, and may be on the decline. 

---

"House of the Dragon," Year Three

Spoilers for seasons one and two, and the first two episodes of season three ahead.

So, this is the season where "House of the Dragon" made some fundamental mistakes.  The most obvious one is not its fault.  HBO has cut down on episode orders, so the second season that premiered in 2024 had to end before its planned finale, the Battle of the Gullet.  This exciting naval battle ends up opening the third season instead, delivering lots of action and thrills that nothing else in the season matches up to.  An eight episode season would seem to be a perfectly fine length for "House of the Dragon," but there are a lot of characters who still don't have much to do between the violent clashes, and the showrunners seem determined to drag out the series for as long as its source material will allow, so the pace has slowed to a crawl.    

Most of the season is spent exploring the new status quo, with Rhaenyra having finally ascended the throne at King's Landing, but finding governance extremely difficult in the unsteady circumstances.  Up until now, Rhaenyra has been the most sympathetic of the main protagonists.  However, as the show moves into its later seasons, she's clearly not supposed to remain so.  The audience really should also be rooting for some of the other characters left on the board too, like Aegon II and Aemond, who are still on the run, or the scheming Ormund Hightower (James Norton), who has custody of Viserys's youngest son Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Ainsworth), and is set up as a major foe of Rhaenyra's this season.  Though attempts are made to get us more invested in all of them, it doesn't work.  A few cool moments doesn't make up for Aegon being a brat for most of the year, and Aemond has gone from fun psycho to angst-ridden brooder.  Ormund is entertaining while he lasts, but reeks of cannon fodder and desperation.  Alicent and Helaena, put under house arrest, are still around, but too passive and ineffectual to really be players this season.  

I was still invested in Rhaenyra's reign and her relationship with Daemon, but watching her flounder as a monarch really tested my patience.  Rhaenyra's been interesting so far because she's a strong character blinded by tragic flaws, far too self-obsessed and conceited to believe she could be in the wrong.  Once she's installed in King's Landing, all these new anxieties and self-doubts kick in, rendering her weaker and more unlikeable with each episode.  And it's absolutely maddening to watch this play out.  I don't like that the show seems to so often be making Rhaenyra a victim of bad circumstances instead of letting her decisively make the mistakes that will lead to her ultimate fate.  It might be an issue with Emma D'Arcy's performance, but the writing is not doing her any favors.

This leaves me without many sympathetic characters left to follow through the story.  There are several secondary characters who still have my attention, though.  Baela had a great tragic turn this year, and was at the center of a major action set piece. Gwayne Hightower has weirdly emerged as one of the more heroic characters.   Ulf and Hugh are decent enough wild cards.  Alyn, Addam, and Rhaena feel like they're stuck on standby after the premiere, unfortunately, along with Lord Corlys.  I think the less said about Mysaria - a problematic figure from the start - the better.  

There is plenty of potential in this show going forward, but "House of the Dragon" has already fallen back on some of the worst habits of "Game of Thrones."  The third season was better than the second because it was more eventful, but it's still moving too slowly and getting repetitive.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Harrenhal subplots.  Daemon was stuck there for most of the second season, with Alys as his enabler, and once he left, Aemond showed up and went through almost the exact same experience.  

Maybe HBO could have gotten away with this if "House of the Dragon" was being released yearly, but my interest is already on the wane, and I don't see any end in sight.  As someone who wasn't too impressed with "Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," it might be time for me to take a break from this franchise for a while.

---

My Favorite Andrzej Wajda Film

I don't think there's been a Polish filmmaker who has been as focused on Polish culture, politics, history, and national identity throughout his long career as Andrzej Wajda.  So though I was initially going to write this entry about "Danton," one of the great movies about the Reign of Terror, I feel it's far more appropriate to write about a Wajda film examining a period of Polish history through the lens of an investigation into the life of a fictional Polish hero.

"Man of Marble," like many other Wajda films, is about disillusionment and living in a corrupt system.  It follows a filmmaker named Agnieszka in the present day and her subject Mateusz Birkut in the past simultaneously, intercutting between their stories.  It emerges that Birkut was built up as a hero for propaganda purposes during Poland's Communist era, but once he actually undertook a heroic action in defense of a friend, he was brought to ruin by those in power.  "Man of Marble," made in the 1970s, was particularly notable for reflecting the social discontent of the Polish populace at the time of release, alluding to events that would be central to Poland's workers' movement of the 1980s.  "Man of Marble" would be followed by a sequel further exploring these themes, "Man of Iron."  Set five years later, it reveals the fates of several characters in "Man of Marble."  The political climate by that point was in such tumult that Wajda had to work outside of Poland for the next few years.

These two films are often discussed as a pair, but "Man of Marble" is more interesting for me for the way it engages with and is critical of Polish media.  The format of the film is similar to "Citizen Kane," with our heroine conducting interviews with people from Birkut's life, uncovering a little more about him with each encounter.  However, she is also working with researchers who unearth old films and newsreels about Birkut, many of them suppressed, censored, or never released at all.  The accounts of Birkut's life that they offer are usually deeply misleading.  Agnieszka even finds the director of the propaganda film that helped to lionize Birkut's image, who offers a more nuanced version of events.  However, there are also rare segments that contain fascinating glimpses of the truth.  Wajda created all of these archival materials himself in the style of the Communist  propaganda of the 1950s, highlighting their manipulative nature, and allowing him to contrast their narrative style with his own.

Wajda's frustrations as a filmmaker were also evident in the way he portrayed Agnieszka's struggles to make her film.  She has to fight for everything - funds, equipment, access to materials, approval of subject matter, and control of the project.  Agnieszka is played by Krystyna Janda in her debut role, this wonderfully modern, confident woman who struts through the opening sequence with determination and purpose.  I immediately sat up and took notice.  I appreciate that as much as the film is about Birkut, this forgotten hero figure who represents all the noble values of the Polish workers of his generation, it's also about Agnieszka, who resists the coverup and seems to embody all of Wajda's hopes for his country's future.  And it's her decision to keep going with her work, despite apparent defeat, that allows Wajda to end "Man of Marble" on a hopeful note.            

Andrzej Wajda isn't well known outside of his native Poland, despite being very highly regarded.  His work was a regular presence at the major European film festivals for decades, and four of his features nabbed Oscar nominations, most recently in 2007.  Many of his contemporaries like Roman Polanski and Krzysztof Kieslowski, however, are far more popular.  I suspect that this is because the degree of difficulty that comes with watching Wajda's films is higher - they are more culturally specific, more political, more ideological, and often very lengthy.  I confess that I watched "Ashes and Diamonds" and "Kanal" a few decades ago and didn't finish the trilogy until this year.

Finally, I should acknowledge that 35mm.online featured Wajda in 2026 for his centennial, and put several of his films online for free over the summer.  Without them, this entry would not be possible.   

What I've Seen - Andrzej Wajda

A Generation (1955)

Kanał (1957)

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

Innocent Sorcerers (1960)

Everything For Sale (1969)

The Wedding (1972)

The Promised Land (1975)

Man of Marble (1977)

The Maids of Wilko (1979)

Man of Iron (1981)

Danton (1983)

Katyn (2007)

---

"Frieren" and Friends

A common anime trope is the cute, girlish character who is actually decades or centuries older than she appears.  These are often pretty flat characters built for easy laughs or guilt-free titillation, and rarely examined in much depth.  So imagine my surprise when I came across "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."  The title character, Frieren (Atsumi Tanezaki), is a long-lived elven mage who inhabits a swords-and-sorcery universe.  The series begins where most fantasy stories end, in the aftermath of Frieren and her adventuring party having defeated a mighty Demon King, beginning a new era of peace.  They all go their separate ways, but Frieren comes back to visit a few decades later, and is shocked to find her companions at or near the end of their lives, while time has barely passed for her.  Contemplating her relationships to humankind and the passage of time, Frieren sets out on a new journey with an apprentice mage Fern (Kana Ichinose), and a young warrior, Stark (Chiaki Kobayashi).

From what I'd heard about the series, I'd assumed that "Frieren" was a slower-paced slice of life show, where the adventures are fairly low stakes and the tone is kept very light.  This is sometimes true, as Frieren and her friends spend the introductory episodes slowly retracing the steps of the original adventuring party, doing small missions for local villagers, bonding over shared experiences, and collecting bits of new magic as they go.  And its all very pleasant and charming.  However, "Frieren" also fits the mold of a more traditional fantasy adventure series, having Frieren fight surviving allies of the Demon King for a string of episodes, or putting them in other dire situations that tend to end in spectacular fight scenes and the use of showy magic spells.  To allow them to travel through a more dangerous region, Frieren and Fern decide to take a mage certification exam that pits them against a slew of other powerful magic users, which takes up about a third of the show's first season.  However, there are still slower episodes between these arcs.  "Frieren" is able to take its time building up its characters and its lovely fantasy world, explaining the different types of magic and gradually digging into past events.

And the chief reason to watch the show is the character of Frieren, this detached, aloof being of immense power who has come to realize that she does value her connections to others, and wants to find ways to deepen them.  Though largely unspoken, her chief reason for going on this journey is to learn how to be more present for the people she values, and trying to reckon with her past and her regrets.  Himmel the Hero (Nobuhiko Okamoto), her warrior friend from the original party, dies in the first episode but his memory is a constant presence, and flashbacks to Frieren's time with him are common.  I like that the series will show Frieren struggling over small, day-to-day concerns, like choosing a birthday present, or spend a whole episode on a minor spat between Fern and Stark, because these dilemmas can be as confounding for the group as trying to slay the monster of the week.  The characters are pretty typical animal creations - Frieren is a lazy slob in private, of course, and Fern is the fussy rule-enforcer type - but they really grow on you.

The production values of the anime are very high, with animation by Madhouse Inc.  The appealing character designs work in both comedic and melodramatic contexts, and look great in motion.  I especially like their habit of using wordless montages to skip ahead in time, which will often use more character animation than all the scenes around them.  The limited animation of the anime style is utilized very well, with good editing and shot design making the stillness look more natural.  And the scenes that do feature lots of action look spectacular.  

"Frieren" is based on an ongoing manga, and a third season is in production for release sometime next year.  I'm a little wary of getting attached to another long series with no end in sight, but "Frieren" is good enough that I'll be happy to catch up with her again in the future.  

---

My Top Ten Episodes of 2003-2004

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2003-2004 television season below, in no particular order.  A few spoilers lie ahead, including for one of the more upsetting episodes of "The Sopranos."

Wonderfalls, "Wax Lion" - Let's start with the premiere episode of "Wonderfalls," the short-lived fantasy series from Bryan Fuller and Todd Holland, starring a wonderfully deadpan Caroline Dhavernas as a twenty-something in post-grad purgatory who starts hearing voices.  Only four episodes ever aired in the US - the back nine were Canadian exclusives - but I never forgot about this collection of characters and the weird, fanciful little universe that they inhabited.  

"Battlestar Galactica" - The miniseries that kicked off the reboot aired in 2003, and remains my favorite part of the whole saga.  The destruction of Caprica and the hurried escape mean plenty of action and incident, quickly setting expectations and showing us how this version of "Galactica" is different from the original.  The Cylons are more human, more intelligent, and more dangerous, while the depictions of space travel and warfare are far bleaker and more harrowing.   

Paranoia Agent, "Happy Family Planning" - Satoshi Kon's anthology series about a group of troubled people who end up participating in a mass delusion is one of the best things to have ever come out of anime.  The "Happy Family Planning" episode is one of the least connected to the main plot, following the adventures of three strangers, who have formed a suicide pact, as they seek to kill themselves together.  It is dark, surprising, and in the end strangely touching.  

Mythbusters, "Stinky Car" - The early episodes of "Mythbusters" were so much fun.  The show hadn't really settled on any particular formula yet, and the experiments could get really gnarly.  I don't know why anyone thought testing a myth about cleaning a car after bodies decomposed in it would be a good idea, but it made for some incredible - and disgusting television.  Seeing the aftermath of two pig carcasses on a Corvette was fascinating and really, really gross.

The Sopranos, "Long Term Parking" - Final spoiler warnings here.  We have to talk about Adriana.  I knew that her exit was coming long in advance, and Christopher was obviously going to betray her, but so much of the effectiveness of her death comes from the hit still feeling like it comes out of nowhere.  The sequence of events from Christopher losing his nerve at the gas station, to the call from Tony, to Adriana in the car with Silvio is so fast that you don't really have time to react.

The Wire, "All Prologue" - This is the one where they put Omar on the stand as a witness for the DA.  He proceeds to take over the court room, clap back against attempts to cross-examine him, and deliver a fantastic monologue about how he views the American legal system.  I still have no idea whether he lied on the stand or not.  However, the episode ends on a dark note with the death of D'Angelo, ending his tragic arc and our time with one of the show's best characters.  

Carnivale, "Babylon" - This is my favorite episode of the series, one that has little to do with the larger storylines, but profoundly impacts several characters.  It's simply a brief stopover at a creepy, seemingly abandoned town, where a tragedy occurs and the troupe ends up leaving something behind.  Like the best ghost stories, it's more melancholy and unnerving than actually frightening.  The funeral sequence and the chilling final scene have stayed with me ever since.  

Arrested Development, "Top Banana" - This was only the second episode of the show, but it was already firing on all cylinders.  The amount of quotable lines is nuts.  "There's always money in the banana stand."  "No touching."  Tobias trying to do Steve Martin.  GOB trying to mail a letter.  Patrice O'Neal as T-Bone.  Also, I have to give a shoutout to one of the best visual gags I've ever seen, the "DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT" bag.  Really, Michael.  What did you expect?

Futurama, "Farnsworth Parabox" - I am such a nerd, and this episode is for the nerds.  The story involves parallel universe theory, which means everyone rapidly encountering all these different versions of themselves from gold Bender to hippie Professor Farnsworth to that one universe where everyone has giant bobble heads.  The interactions are priceless stuff - sometimes you can only truly know yourself when you actually have to spend time with yourself.  

Angel, "Not Fade Away" - The end of the Buffyverse is a mixed bag, but I do love that it goes out with all the surviving good guys about to go into battle against the monsters, intent on fighting their good fight all the way to the end.  It's an hour full of exits, big and small, leaving the door open for a sixth season that never came.  I'm glad in a way, because some of these goodbyes were too good not to stick.  That last scene with Wesley seeing Fred again in particular.  

---

Aang and Grogu Get New Movies

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to pair these two features together.  "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender" and "The Mandalorian and Grogu" are both movies that are spinoffs from popular and beloved series designed for younger viewers.  They are both intended to be watchable for people who haven't seen their respective shows, so they both feel a little detached from anything else in their franchises.  However, getting the feature treatment means that the creators get to do things that they never could in a television or web series format.

Let's start with "Aang," which follows up the three-season "Avatar: the Last Airbender" Nickelodeon series.  A now adult Aang (Eric Nam) unexpectedly comes across another member of his nearly extinct clan named Tagah (Dave Bautista), who sends him on a quest to retrieve a magical relic.  This means reuniting with his friends Katara (Jessica Matten), Sokka (Roman Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Zuko (Steven Yuen) for the adventure.  The voice cast is entirely new, and so is most of the crew, though one of the animation outfits involved, Studio Mir, previously worked on "Avatar" sequel series, "The Legend of Korra."  The series creators have story credits, but otherwise "Aang" feels a lot like the baton has been passed to an entirely different creative team.  The movie they've made looks absolutely fantastic, especially the epic scale action sequences with much more fluid and impressive animation.

However, as someone who has seen a lot of this series, because I have multiple younger relatives currently obsessed with it, "Aang" comes off as a little bland.  There are a couple of good character moments, and I have no complaints about any of the voice cast, but it's difficult to connect these versions of the characters with the ones from the show.  By making this a stand-alone adventure, the movie takes place well outside of the original narrative and sidesteps any potentially difficult questions about dangling plot threads and what's happened since the series finale.  Everyone is feeling a little adrift.  If this is the first time they've been together in a while, shouldn't they all be catching up?  Maybe resolving a few cliffhangers? And where is the rest of Aang's friend group?  Notably, all the secondary characters, including love interests, evil sisters, and beloved uncles are completely missing and never remarked on.  

The new Tagah storyline is also exactly the kind of throwaway, one-off plot that makes for a lot of great spectacle, but offers little in the way of expanding the "Avatar" universe, or offering any compelling stakes.  Aang learns an important lesson, but it's a lesson that we've seen him learn before, and there's none of the character growth and interesting worldbuilding that the franchise is known for.  Adult Aang seems nice, but he doesn't get much of a chance to display much personality.  Neither do any of the other heroes, except in the broadest terms - Sokka's still dropping one-liners, of course.  The "Aang" movie is lovely, and might be a good starting point for another series, but I didn't get much out of it.

 On to "The Mandalorian and Grogu," which I was happy to discover is firmly a "Star Wars" children's film.  Well, it's for children who are okay watching the hero constantly fighting sci-fi monsters and shooting enemies for over two hours, but still.  This is a creature feature full of aliens and robots and travelling around in cool spaceships to a bunch of different planets.  It's also got an incredibly simple plot.  The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal, with doubles Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder) and his adopted son, the green toddler Grogu, hunt down baddies for the New Republic, represented by a nice administrator played by Sigourney Weaver.  There are some complications involving hidden villains, double crosses, and Jabba the Hutt's angsty son Rotta (Jeremy Allen White), but for the most part we're just watching this duo travel the galaxy, getting into and out of trouble wherever they go.

This could be a short arc from the "Mandalorian " television show, since there is absolutely no change to the status quo or any character progression, except for Grogu being slightly better at controlling the Force.  Like "Aang," you could absolutely watch this without having seen the series at all.  However, amusingly, the movie does assume you've watched "Return of the Jedi" and know who Jabba the Hutt is.  Classic movie fans will also notice the influence of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" samurai adventure series is more pronounced than ever.  Director Jon Favreau and his collaborators seem to have decided to use this as an opportunity to do some of the more expensive characters that they couldn't justify appearing previously, like the Hutts, and experiment with the format a little.  Ludwig Gorransson's soundtrack gets the space to expand a bit, with the theme music getting a new electronica remix.  There are also noticeably a lot of puppets and practical effects being used here, especially little Grogu getting the spotlight for some major sequences.

And it's all very charming and very much in the vein of the "Star Wars" that I grew up with, but the film has been ignored by most audiences because it's definitely not the kind of "Star Wars" movie people have come to expect.  Between the lackluster marketing and the reluctance to deviate from the existing formula of the show at all, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" feels too much like an extension of the series that everyone can watch at home.  There are no ties to the rest of the "Star Wars" universe, but also no attempt to deepen the characters, or give them any new challenges. And aside from Sigourney Weaver and Martin Scorsese lending his voice to a new minor alien character, there aren't even any big names dropping in for cameos.  "Aang" has a more star-studded cast list than this!

I'm not worried about the state of the franchise, because the budget here was fairly modest and "Stafighter" is coming next year, but I still feel compelled to defend "The Mandalorian and Grogu." It's very slight, but perfectly fine for what it is, and I enjoyed it.  I expect that it'll work especially well for younger viewers looking for an entry point for "Star Wars." The youngest kids, who might be scared by little Grogu being menaced by scary aliens, and loud blaster fire, however, should stay home.

---

American Anime in 2026

I read through some of the older parts of this blog recently, and I realized that I'd spent quite a few entries talking about the bumpy attempts of Hollywood to reckon with the popularity of anime, which are not unlike their bumpy attempts to reckon with the popularity of gaming.  There were so many plans for adaptations of titles like "Akira" and "Neon Genesis Evangelion" that all fell through, but there were a few successes too, like the recent "One Piece" live action series.  It's been a few years, so I thought these posts deserved an update.  Also, "Naruto" is next in line for an attempt, with a live action film adaptation directed by Daniel Destin Cretton currently undergoing a casting search.  So, this topic is back in the popular consciousness again.

The influence of anime on the American youth shows no sign of slowing down, though all the popular titles are different since I was an otaku twenty years ago.  The new "Demon Slayer" movie crossed $100 million at the North American box office last year, the latest in a steady string of animated hits from overseas.  Former anime pirate site Crunchyroll is in the top ten US streaming sites by subscriber count, with over 20 million subscribers.  Netflix, the home of the "Castlevania" franchise, has become a major driver of anime production, with 50% of their viewers reported to be watching anime on the platform.  They recently announced a partnership with MAPPA, the studio behind "Chainsaw Man" and "Jujutsu Kaisen," which has sparked a lively debate about the potential threat of the streamers to the Japanese production committee system that produces most anime, as well as physical media and appointment viewing - a bigger deal in the anime world than in other parts of the media landscape.

American creators have been trying to capitalize on the popularity of anime through co-productions with anime studios for a long time, but the results were often very hit-or-miss.  Early attempts like "Afro Samurai" and "IGPX" didn't quite work, probably because of mismatched expectations and the unfamiliarity with the different production cultures.  After a few decades of experimenting, it's gotten better.  This summer the third season of the "My Adventures With Superman" cartoon and the new "Avatar: the Last Airbender" movie, both heavily anime influenced, hit the streamers.  One was animated in Korea and the other largely in Australia, but they both clearly had roots in shonen anime.  It's not just the designs or the animation style that made these projects work, but the use of anime visual language, character tropes (genki girl Lois Lane), and storytelling choices that have become familiar to global audiences.  "Star Wars" and "Scooby Doo" are also on the list of franchises getting the anime treatment.  "The Ninth Jedi" will probably be out by the time this is published.  There are still regular stumbles, however.  "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" feature film was a bad match of IP and anime aesthetic that didn't manage to appeal to anybody.

A culture shift has definitely happened.  Most of the people working in animation now grew up on anime, or are at least much more familiar with anime than they were in the '90s.  You don't see many conspiracy theories about Western shows stealing from anime these days - the homages are everywhere and they're proudly highlighted by their creators.  I'm of two minds about this.  On the one hand, I'm absolutely convinced that the boom in Western animated shows being made for YA and adult audiences owes a lot to the influence of anime.  "Arcane," "Blue Eye Samurai," and so many more great series wouldn't exist otherwise.  However, I've also seen some of anime's bad habits migrate to Western animation too, particularly in the projects that are really trying to go after the anime audience.

Personally, I'm taking it slow with anime.  I watch a series or two a year, and even if I enjoy them, I don't feel the way I used to when I was watching anime in my twenties.  I'm out of the target audience for the popular stuff, and a lot of the old tropes don't work for me anymore.  And, boy are the old tropes still in circulation.  The "Demon Slayer" and "Chainsaw Man" movies did not make me want to track down more.  Still, nostalgia and old habits compel me to keep a friendly eye on the anime world.  And every once in a while you can still find a "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End."  But more on that another time.

---

Getting Through "Disclosure Day"

Spoilers ahead, but the big ones will be clearly marked.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is my favorite Steven Spielberg movie, and one of my favorite movies period.  When I learned that Spielberg was making a new movie about aliens and conspiracies, I was excited but also full of trepidation.  I haven't connected to many of Spielberg's most recent films in the last few years, especially the genre efforts like "Ready Player One" and "The BFG."  Was "Disclosure Day" going to have any of the old Spielberg cinematic magic from his older classics?  Was I simply too old and jaded?  Were his filmmaking sensibilities now too nostalgia-driven and schmaltzy for me?

I'm sorry to report that "Disclosure Day" is a deeply mediocre effort for a Spielberg film, one where every issue I've ever had with Spielberg's work feels magnified.  As advertised, "Disclosure Day" is about a group of people trying to reveal the truth about alien activity on earth.  It turns out that all significant evidence and information about aliens is being suppressed by a government contractor, Wardex, led by the ruthless Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), that has grown into a malignant, unchecked entity with too much power.  One of the employees, a cybersecurity expert named Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), steals information with the intent to release it to the public.  He and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) go on the run, with help from another Wardex defector, Hugo (Colman Domingo).  Meanwhile, a Kansas City weather lady, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), mysteriously starts speaking in different languages and displaying strange powers.  She and her skeptical boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) also start being chased by Wardex operatives.

Written by David Koepp, who has often collaborated with Steven Soderberg in recent years, "Disclosure Day" feels like a film of a much older, less cynical era.  There are earnest declarations of wild concepts ("sometimes they take the forms of animals"), plot holes everywhere you look, and big, important questions raised without much expectation of trying to answer them.  Most of the plot boils down to getting characters from point A to point B, juggling Macguffins, and getting into improbable action set pieces.  And some of those action set pieces are very good, like one involving a car getting dragged alongside a train.  An extremely effective suspense sequence in the first act involves Scanlon using a mysterious device to eerily interrogate and control Jane from a distance.  Spielberg has always been good about creating images we haven't seen before and I loved some of the individual shots here - soldiers crashing through an invisible window, or a throng of camera lights through a windowpane looking like a starfield.

However, the storytelling is often very heavy-handed, with every emotional beat underlined by a far too noticeable John Williams score that is not doing the movie any favors.  The main characters were so credulous in such a mannered way that it kept taking me out of the picture.  Every time Emily Blunt did a Jedi mind trick, I wanted to roll my eyes - not at her, but at the overly reverent presentation of it.  I sat through two hours of "Disclosure Day" knowing how every single scene would play out, admiring the committed work of all the actors and crew involved, but being completely emotionally unengaged with anything onscreen.  I was ready to throw in the towel and write this off as a handsome, well-intentioned disappointment.

And then the last fifteen minutes of the movie happened, and suddenly everything worked.  Here I will spoil the ending, because I can't talk about it unless I do.  The news broadcast production control room sequence, where we watch the footage being sent nationwide, is absolutely extraordinary.  Suddenly we're in a room full of strangers, reacting to this stream of images that everyone is seeing for the first time together.  The mood shifts.  An NBC news presenter played by Courtney Grace offers live commentary, her stunned and emotional reactions accompanying the montage of audience reactions we watch unfold.  And I realized Spielberg had orchestrated a beautiful moment of shared global viewership and unity that I hadn't felt in decades.  I knew it was fictional, but it hit me so hard.

Yes, there's a lot about the movie that doesn't make logical sense.  And it's unapologetically hokey and bright-eyed, and don't think that I didn't notice the cutesy "Snow White" references paralleling the "Pinocchio" ones from "Close Encounters."  But I had a Spielberg moment with this film, a real taste of cinematic wonder for the first time in I don't know how long.  And my head says the movie fundamentally doesn't work and is a terrible slog, and my heart says that the last fifteen minutes was still worth it.

---