Katherine Royer
Little Old Lady
Professor Emeritus
Physician
and occasional wiseass
The Invite... Turn It Down
July 2026
Remember Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Where you weren’t sure whether you were watching a movie...
Or the volcanic relationship of the actors Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor...
Who couldn’t stay married.... or away from each other...
Well, The Invite.....
Is a lot like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf...
But only in that it’s another of those Middle Age Marital Ennui Movies...
But with less alcohol.. and more weed...
Where the husband is a failure...
The wife resentful...
And both feel bitter...and trapped...
So they tell lies to themselves...
And blame each other...
Until another couple shows up...
And forces them to face the truth...
About themselves and their marriage...
Now this plot has been round the block... a lot...
But there are elements that would identify this particular film as a product of 2026:
The couple can’t afford to buy anything, so they live in an apartment owned by a parent...
There is a lot of 21st century therapy speak...
So one character sounds like she might have been Rory’s therapist in Baby Girl...
Because she’s all about that kind of You Go Girl sexual awakening...
That is feminism’s favorite flavor right now...
Because good sex is going to solve all your problems...
And there is also a therapist’s advice that is so au courant in certain circles at the moment...
Just read The New York Times if you don’t believe me...
Which is that women do not need to concern themselves about what happens to their children...
Because they owe it to themselves to do what makes them happy....
Which is the message of so many films these days...
I’m not going to bore you listing them again...
Now, of course,
As always....
It doesn’t seem to matter...
That the practicality of the self actualization that each spouse longs for...
Would be problematic...
Mom would be unlikely to be able to support herself as an artist...
And would dad really be happier giving up his teaching job and going back to being in a band?
Because the world is just dying for a 45 year old rock star...
And playing in a band would really pay the bills...
Especially since this film is set in San Francisco...
Where people like this couple do not send their kids to public school...
But whatever....
Now this worn chestnut stars Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton...
Who are like Porsches on the race track...
Up against an electric scooter...
Which in this case is Seth Rogen...
Who always just plays Seth Rogen...
And Olivia Wilde...
Who gives us a caricature of a socially awkward insecure housewife....
That it is so cringe ...
She is hard to watch...
And so you wish she would just go away....
And that matters because The Invite is one of those drawing room dramas...
That seem to go forever...
Where no one gets killed...
And not much happens except two couples spar, flirt, confess...
And tease that they are going to go off and have sex with each other...
Which they never do...
And in the end nothing changes...
And Edward Albee did not write this screenplay...
And unfortunately....
Neither did Tracy Letts nor David Mamet...
So the acting has to carry this movie...
And Cruz and Norton are up to the task...
Rogen and Wilde are not...
And there was a missed opportunity here...
Because Cruz and Norton are written as self assured...
So in better hands that would have lent itself to a psychological battle between the two couples...
But Rogen and Wilde were too outmatched for that...
So instead we get the same old marital laundry hanging...
But Cruz and Norton are not an unhappy couple....
So the balance of couple dysfunction is off...
So nothing about this film works...
Except to remind you how good Cruz and Norton are ...
In everything...
And why Wilde should have thought twice about casting herself in a movie with people who can actually act...
Young Washington: How Young George Washington Screwed Up and Started a World War
July 2026
Ah... William Franklyn-Miller...
He of that chiseled face...
And 6’4 inches of so much Apollonian male beauty...
One becomes easily distracted...
But as George Washington?
The man with dentures made of human and cow teeth, elephant ivory and lead..
Because he was already losing his teeth...
In his twenties...
And although George was tall for his age...
Washington was not known for being handsome...
So whose idea was it to cast Franklyn-Miller?
A model...
And someone once voted the World’s Most Beautiful Boy...
As the Father of Our Country...
Because Franklyn-Miller is just too pretty for the role of the young George Washington...
Now he does know how to strike a pose...
So when Young George is worried...
Angry...
Happy...
Or sad...
He always looks like he is in a Celine ad...
But this was the only casting mistake...
In Young Washington...
Which managed to land...in what I would call a casting coup for Angel Studios...
The Provo Utah outfit most known for The Chosen and The Sound of Freedom...
Films that did well at the box office, but were not exactly embraced by the entertainment elite...
Because they were largely made for flyover country...
Kelsey Grammer....
But he is no surprise...because he is well known for leaning to the Right politically...
But Ben Kingsley...
Andy Serkis... who brought his Marvel cred...
And Mary Louise Parker...
And they did not disappoint...
And brought a gravitas to Young Washington that I wasn’t expecting...
Because this is not the kind of talent one finds in films made by a studio that usually crowd funds its movies...
So the Angel Studio connection was the reason I wasn’t expecting much when I went to Young Washington...
Because if there is anything the Entertainment Right has not learned how to do...
It’s make a decent movie...
Because their films are usually so bogged down by so much over eager earnestness...
They become cringe...
Like Reagan... which was simply awful...
But interesting films are so sparse in theaters right now...
That this week The Critical Drinker posted ...
About a trailer...
Of an upcoming film...
But it was the Fourth...
So against my better judgment ...because I’ve been burned too many times by movies made for the Right...
I grabbed a movie theater hot dog...
Which I always regret...
And settled in for Young Washington...
And I was pleasantly surprised....
Because in Young Washington, George is not some flawless hero..
Whose exploits during the French and Indian War were the opening act...
In the career of the man...
Immortalized by Mason Locke Weems in The Life of George Washington...
The writer who was single handedly responsible...
For the “Myth of Washington”...
And the story of the cherry tree...
Which was, of course, apocryphal...
Now in Young Washington...
George does cut trees...
When he is frustrated...
But he is no saint..
And this film is not a hagiography...
George screws up..
He gets his men killed..
He is arrogant.. ambitious...
Impulsive...
Quick to anger...
Even more quick to quit...
And a social climber...
So this film is more in line with Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life
Than the myth Mason Locke Weems so carefully constructed...
Which for over more than a century...
Was the story school children were told...
But I suspect... not any more...
Jon Erwin does take some literary license in places...
Because Washington was not as poor nor as socially down market as he is portrayed in this film...
And yes, when dad died he did not get to go to school like his older brother...
In England.....
And dysentery...
Which has been the scourge of armies from time immemorial...
Means you are constantly squatting over by a tree...
Not just sweating in bed as George does in this movie.....
But I guess that would not have been cinematically appropriate...
Now the battle scenes were better than expected...
Especially for a film with this budget...
But I did miss Ridley Scott’s finesse...
Because he does large set piece battles very well...
But these are not major problems...
And Young Washington does not avoid the issue of slavery...
Nor what was happening to the Native Americans...
Although the reason why any of the tribes would ally with either the French and English...
Is left largely unexplained...
And although the slaves are there...and acknowledged...
They are kept in the background....
But what Young Washington really gets right...
Is that George did singlehandedly start the French and Indian War...
And he made some massive mistakes early in that conflict...
Often because of naivete and over confidence...
And this is bigger deal than the movie lets on...
Because The French and Indian War...
Which is its American name...
And not its real name....
Was in reality just one front...
In the Seven Years War...
Which pitted France and England, as well as Prussia and Spain...
In the first global world war...
That was fought not just in North America, but in Europe, India, the Caribbean..
And the Philippines...
And was really the match that lit the fuse of the American Revolution...
So George’s screwup... was a big deal...
Now Young Washington doesn’t touch on the implications of this conflict beyond America...
But it is clear eyed about what lessons it taught him...
Which Chernow argues were not so much tactical...
As they were about endurance and leadership...and resolve...
Because George wasn’t particularly clever...
Nor a great battlefield technician...
But he was tenacious... and not easily deterred...
And so it was a pleasant surprise...
To finally see a film about a Founding Father...
That was not the Take Down the Left loves...
Nor the hagiography the Right too often falls for...
But a decent movie...
About a man who had his faults...
But who had an important impact on world history....
Decades before the American Revolution...
But my real take away from this film...
Which spends a lot of time on the class bound nature of British society...
Was how George...
Despite his initial desire to rise in the ranks of British society...
Which was initially thwarted at almost every turn...
Was the product of a culture...
Of scrappy colonials...
Who were unwilling to take no for an answer...
And that was the real American exceptionalism...
So ... as the Brits ...
Who today have the per capita GDP of Mississippi...
Continue to look down on us as uncouth barbarians...
Who are incapable...
And...more importantly... in their opinion...
Disinterested in being civilized ...
Young Washington is a reminder of how much you miss ...
When you are looking down your nose at someone...
Obsession: The Girlfriend From Hell Doesn’t Boil the Bunny, But She Does Do Some Weird Things With the Cat
June 2026
You know that Girlfriend from Hell...
Who won’t let you go anywhere without her...
Creeps you out when she watches you sleep...
Tapes the door shut with electric tape to try and prevent you leaving for work...
Pees on the carpet because she won’t move ...
From her position in front of the door
Waiting all day for you to return...
You don’t?
Lucky you...
But poor Bear in Obsession...
Learned an important lesson in life...
Be careful what you wish for...
Because he made a wish that Nikki...
A co-worker who was keeping him in the friend zone..
Would love him more than anything else...
And boy did she ever...
Now the obsessive girlfriend is a time worn premise for a horror flick...
But YouTuber Curry Barker...
Took $750,000 and made a film that has grossed over $300 million to date
For good reason...
And it wasn’t just that cat sandwich...
Or the bloodied bodies... because in that regard Obsession is relatively restrained for this genre ...
Because keeping the audience off balance is Barker’s schtick...
As his characters toggle between love and hate/ sanity and insanity
In the blink of an eye...
So watching Obsession...
Made me wonder if Barker has ever had a girlfriend with borderline personality disorder...
Because that is what Nikki looks like...
Until she starts doing weird things with the cat...
Or maybe its because Barker’s mom was a psychiatric nurse practitioner...
So I bet he heard some interesting stories growing up...
And although Nikki doesn’t boil a bunny...
What she does with the cat...
Did strike me as a homage to Fatal Attraction...
Another film about obsession....
So Barker has obviously done his horror flick homework...
But it’s his originality with this genre that stands out...
Now Barker first made a name for himself ... and his partner Cooper Tomlinson...
When they dropped out of film school...
To make clever shorts they posted on YouTube...
Like My Roommate is a Robot
And The Vodka Stand...
And I’d encourage you to check them out... as they are actually quite funny...
But it’s clear Barker’s heart is in horror...
And his first foray into this genre was The Chair...
A horror short film which went up on YouTube in 2023...
And picked up 10 million views...
And in many ways foreshadowed what he did in Obsession...
And not just because he used flowers as a visual metaphor...
Or had people hitting heads...
Theirs ... and those of others....
On hard things like furniture...or bricks...
And The Chair, like Obsession, is a psychological drama...
Where characters change moods so quickly...
You have trouble keeping up...
And reality is so obscured...
You can’t tell who is sane and who is not...
Up next was the full length found footage film Milk and Serial in 2024...
About a couple of YouTubers....
Who prank and gaslight each other and their friends...
But what first looks like some innocent fun...
Ends up in murderous intent...
Barker made Milk and Serial for $800...
And to be honest, it shows...
But after two years...
When he was still unable to find a distributor...
He put it up for free on YouTube...
And bang......
The critics... as well as the audience noticed...
And so Barker has now hit the big time...
And Obsession.... his first theatrical release...
Shows he has honed his craft...
The Chair drags a bit...
And Milk and Serial a lot...
But Obsession doesn’t...
And unlike the unsatisfying... and confusing... ending of The Chair...
Obsession leaves the audience surprised...
And impressed...
There are still some hiccups...
And lighting is one of them...
But that may improve with a bigger budget...
But what makes Obsession worth a look is not its visual style..
But its storytelling finesse...
And the way it ends...
With Nikki... in a moment of real horror...
Recovering her memory...
Which will stay with you
More than all those bloodied corpses you see splayed on the floor
In the standard horror film...
So Obsession is a tribute to how...
A guy who...
Who dropped out of film school...
To work at Starbucks...
Used YouTube to make a name for himself...
And has now made it into the major leagues...
And deservedly so...
Now horror is my least favorite genre...
But I walked out of that theater wanting to see more from Curry Barker...
And that’s a tell....
That maybe you shouldn’t your waste money on film school...
Just buy a camcorder like Curry...
And start putting your films on YouTube...
Because if you’re good...
Like Barker, Glitch and Gooseworx...
You will be noticed...
And then maybe more decent films will start showing up in our theaters...
Why The Amazing Digital Circus Is a Gen Z Primal Scream
June 2026
At first I thought it was the cleverly drawn characters...
Caine... who is a set of eyes floating in a mouth with amazing teeth...
Gangle... a ribbon like body attached to a theatrical mask that shifts from tragedy to comedy
Jax...a purple rabbit
Zooble.. an assortment of geometric shapes that make up a body.. and that are constantly rearranging themselves...
Pomni... a jester with cartoon eyes
And Ragatha...a ragdoll with bright red hair, button eyes...who bleeds stuffing when injured
Along with the quirky adventures...
Filled with visual comedy...
That take place in a bright cartoon-like colorful world...
All led by a seemingly playful ringmaster...Caine
But think about that name for a minute...
That explained why The Amazing Digital Circus had captured the attention of my grandchildren ...
But it turns out... they are smarter than I realized...
Which should be a bit worrying...
Because The Amazing Digital Circus is basically a Gen Z primal scream...
That was not originally intended for children...
And it is populated by characters exhibiting a variety of mental health issues...
Pomni struggles with anxiety...
Ragatha is the socially insecure caregiver...who had an abusive mother from who she needed to become estranged
Jax hides his insecurity behind a wall of sarcasm and troublemaking
Zooble... has body dysphoria... and so is constantly rearranging body parts
And Gangle... whose mask keeps shifting from sad to happy... and back again...appears to be bipolar...
So The Amazing Digital Circus characters are just your average Gen Z crowd..
Because isn’t this a generation in which 40% report having a mental health diagnosis?
Now there is nothing unique about a series filled with characters...
Who have “issues”...
That influence how they handle life’s obstacles...
But it’s what those obstacles are that make this an interesting series...
Because you see...
These characters are all trapped in a digital purgatory...
Run by a rogue AI agent... Caine
And they can never leave...
So in a way the digital world of The Amazing Digital Circus...
Is Gen Z’s Hotel California...
And this is a world in which they can also be deleted...
So this is a story about how these characters struggle to adapt to a life they never wanted...
And which, importantly, has left them with no memory of their former self...
Oh... and they are also manipulated by AI...
But unlike the book that was the inspiration for this series...
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream...
Which was written in 1967...
About a rogue AI military supercomputer that gains sentience...
And eradicates humanity...
Except for five individuals that it keeps around to make suffer..
Hey...Dario...I’m starting to wonder if you read this book sometime between when you wrote Machines of Loving Grace and The Adolescence of Technology?
In The Amazing Digital Circus...
The AI agent, Caine, appears less malign than the one in I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream...
Caine just wants to keep everyone happy by entertaining them...
But that is its own trap...
And this AI is incapable of recognizing... and dealing with their grief, trauma, and existential despair...
So The Amazing Digital Circus is basically the Allegory of the Cave set in primary colors...
Filled with characters who are struggling with existential angst...
As they cope with situation from which they cannot escape...
So to say this series is steeped in nihilism is an understatement...
And the scene where Pomni tries to escape by going through a series of doors AI has deliberately mislabeled Exit...
Which take her into room after room of offices...
With no escape...
Is a pretty powerful visual representation of a dead end job...
So it is easy to see so many of the Gen Z issues...
Embedded in this series...
The impact of the digital world on their lives...
How they feel trapped in a world they did not create...and do not want...
The uselessness of work for their generation..
The way AI entertains them, but is really manipulating them to do what it wants...
And a loss of identity... and sense of self ...
And in the final episode...
The characters watch the real world social media accounts of what their lives would be now...
If they had never become trapped in this digital world from which they can never escape...
Now none of this messaging was lost on a ten year old in my family...
To what end I am not yet sure...
But it was YouTube, which is part of this ten year old’s digital world ...
And where Glitch and Gooseworx first premiered The Amazing Digital Circus
That introduced him to the dark message of this series...
Which was done in 3D animation...
That was so visually arresting...
It easily captured the attention of the audience for which it was not originally intended...
And which makes Toy Story 5 look outdated..
Along with all many other major studio animated films....
But it was brought to my attention by the same ten year old ...
That there was a shift from the first to last episode of The Amazing Digital Circus......
In how light was used .....
Now Toy Story 5’s animation had aimed for cinematic realism with natural lighting...
Whereas The Amazing Digital Circus had a stylized video game aesthetic..
With saturated colors and bright almost blinding unnatural lighting...
Until that final episode...
Which the ten year old picked up...
And saw as significant...
Because the aesthetic of The Amazing Digital Circus turned darker at the end...
With lighting more like what one would see in other animated films...
As if the AI manufactured fun of The Amazing Digital Circus was now over...
As the characters finally accepted their fate...
And dealt with it by emotionally supporting each other...
But that same ten year old wasn’t buying ...
That once one was trapped in a digital purgatory...
All could be made well with a hug...
And he is probably right...
Toy Story 5 Is Why YouTubers Look Like They Are About to Eat Hollywood’s Lunch
June 2026
I have grandchildren...
Which means I am moderately up to speed on the argot of middle school boys...
Although ...
Until this week...
I didn’t know what being “Kirked” meant...
(Don’t ask...let’s just say it’s a verb for a specific act of violence...)
Which I’ll admit is a bit disturbing...
But not surprising considering where I live...
But having grandchildren also means I see a lot of kid’s movies...
The Good.. Hoppers
Interesting message...
The Bad... Puss and Boots: The Last Wish
Another example of the Marvelization of kid’s movies which means it is mostly cat martial arts on the big screen....
And the Awful...Inside Out 2
A film that should be banned for the pernicious message it is sending children...
So this week I saw Toy Story 5...
Of which I have not much to say... because it was anodyne...
So I was pretty bored...
But I did wonder when Woody became a middle-aged gay man...
And Buzz Lightyear riding to the rescue on My Little Pony...
Was an amusing visual...
And Disney made good use of Woody’s bald spot...
But otherwise...
Toy Story 5 is a lot like Toy Story 1 through 4...
The toys are sad...
Because...fill in the blank
They are being replaced by other toys... Toy Story 1
They worry the kids may no longer want them... Toy Story 2
They get lost or given away... Toy Story 3
The kids grow up ... Toy Story 4
And now they are being replaced by devices... Toy Story 5
You get the point...
But I can only watch this story so many times...
Before my eyes start to glaze over...
But the kids in my packed theater apparently loved it...
Because they acted like the second coming of Christ had arrived...
So either they are REALLY easy to please...
Because what the film studios have been feeding them is so bad...
The bar is now so low it is buried underground
Or I was just seeing the power of product placement...
And if you have ever come off a ride at Disneyland to be greeted by a wall of Woody and Buzz Lightyear dolls...
You’ll know what I mean...
I’m going with the latter...
So the power of merch should never be underestimated...
Just ask Glitch and Gooseworx, the team behind The Amazing Digital Circus...
But that series is proving there is another force out there...
That also seems to be putting bodies in the seats of our theaters...
And that is a ready made YouTube audience...
Now the same grandchildren who wanted to see Toy Story 5...
Introduced me to The Amazing Digital Circus...
Which was also in the theaters...
And my first reaction was...WTFWT...
And then... wow...
More later on why...
But films like The Amazing Digital Circus...
Are a challenge to big budget Hollywood movies like Toy Story 5...
Because The Amazing Digital Circus...
Is clever, visually arresting...and very thought provoking...
In that way films from Hollywood used to be...
And which Toy Story 5... with its $250 million budget
Is not...
Now The Amazing Digital Circus began its life as a series on YouTube...
Then migrated to Netflix...
And finally ended up with a major theater release for its final episode...
Which is the exact opposite of the normal theater first...
Then to streaming trajectory...
We have become accustomed to expect...
The Amazing Digital Circus is now in the top ten of Netflix series...
And was kept in the theaters longer than expected...
Because it made $35 million over a couple of weeks...
Now, of course, Toy Story 5 with its legacy name recognition
Brought in a much bigger box office...
But The Amazing Digital Circus has now been seen by 441 million people worldwide...
And it cost around $5 million to make...
Despite the fact that it is a 3D animated film like Toy Story 5...
And I can tell you which one is more imaginative...and memorable....
So The Amazing Digital Circus...
Sent me down the rabbit hole...
Of what is coming from YouTube...
To a theater near you...
Which then led me to Obsession...
And an appreciation of how the independent film landscape...
That many thought was dead...
Is alive and well...
But not where you thought...
Obsession, which was made for $750,000 by a YouTuber, Curry Barker...
Has raked $300 million so far in its theater release...
And it... along with Backrooms...
Have that precious commodity... word of mouth ...
That is bringing to the theater people like me...
Who never heard of Barker or Kane Parsons before...
So as I sat bored by Toy Story 5...
And intrigued by The Amazing Digital Circus...
And then later Obsession...
For reasons I will go into in my next reviews...
I was struck by how little that is truly creative is coming out of traditional Hollywood...
Despite the cost of what they produce...
Or maybe because of it...
And how the film landscape is being transformed as a result...
Because nature abhors a vacuum...
Thank god...
Disclosure Day: Steven Spielberg Discovers Evolutionary Biology, Riffs On the Role of Religion In Society and Makes Another Movie About Extraterrestrials
June 2026
Heh... ET...
You better call home...
Because someone needs to come rescue you...
Because those dudes at the Defense Department are going to dissect you...
Now there must be some rule...
That all aliens in the movies need to look the same...
With large heads, enormous bug eyes, lizard skin covering skeletal bodies...
With no genitalia...
And they always walk like a 90-year-old man who needs his hips replaced...
And they come in space ships that are aerodynamically ridiculous...
So there is not much new in Disclosure Day...
Because....
Spielberg already made this movie..
Twice...
(See Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET)
And his third foray into a UFO story..
Stars that Big Eared Guy... Josh O’Connor...
And I’m sorry I just can’t get past those ears...
Emily Blunt...
Colin Firth.. who definitely rocked that blue suit and beard...
And Colman Domingo... who seems to be in everything these days...
(The Four Seasons, Michael, and Euphoria...)
In a story about a cybersecurity expert...
Who turns whistleblower...
Against the military industrial complex...
Who are trying to hide 79 years worth of evidence about UFOs...
Now that is really original...
All set in Kansas City...
Which did not look anything like Kansas City...
Maybe because they didn’t film there...
There was some time spent in Indiana...
Now I don’t know why Spielberg has thing with that particular state...
But it was also featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind...
Now the most I can say about this film...
Is that I was nonplussed. ...
Because I couldn’t figure out if the aliens were meant to be God...
Or the message was that God loves every living thing in the universe ...
Space aliens included...
And so should we...
Even if they look weird...
And aren’t “human”...
Now this message is coupled with a fair amount of religious imagery...
A bloody crucifix, stigmata...
A Catholic character who argues that if the world learns there are space aliens among us ...
They will lose faith in God...
And society will fall apart...
But the aliens sometimes appear as animals so as not to scare the humans..
And Emily Blunt and O’Connor have been touched by the aliens...
Or was it God?...
I wasn’t sure...
But they are now prophets...
With Blunt as an all knowing angel like character...
Now if you’re confused... so was I...
But I am getting the impression that...
Right now...
Hollywood thinks it needs to throw in a little religion every now and then...
(See also Euphoria...)
Because.. you know...the zeitgeist...
But only just a little bit ...
Because it’s so associated with folks ...
They’d rather not have too much to do with...
But there are also scenes that mimic a near death experience...
With characters going toward the light...
And seeing dead loved ones...
And riff about how empathy is a human superpower...
Which makes me think someone has been reading Frans de Waal...
And now has some “deep thoughts” on evolutionary biology...
But this all just skims the surface...
And so comes across as intellectually pretentious....
As it is sandwiched in between car chases...
An exciting train sequence...
And I did like the bit about the invisible fire truck...
But when the FBI come for you...
Does Spielberg really think they wouldn’t send someone to the back of the house..
In case you thought of going out the bathroom window...
Of course, Disclosure Day has an Edward Snowden character ...
Who wants to go on TV and expose what the government has been hiding about UFOs...
And all this happens as World War III is on the horizon...
In a Cuban Missile Crisis like scenario...
With folks panic buying gas and supplies...
But this conflict involves Russia and North Korea...
Which did make me wonder ...
How long was this film in production?...
Because that scenario seems so last decade...
But so does the storyline about the government hiding what it has on UFOs...
Because weren’t those files released recently?
And then there are the usual sci-fi devices...
Which in this case involve some extraterrestrial technology...
That allows remote control of humans...
Can cause seizures...
And gives the characters the opportunity to grimace convincingly while they are using it...
And then this fine mess ends with the space alien...
Standing up slowly from his wheelchair...
To send everyone a message on live TV...
That is supposed to be profound...
And which definitely had a Twilight Zone feel...
But, unfortunately, this was the only part of this unremarkable film...
That had any suspense....
Euphoria: Is Hollywood Having a Come to Jesus Moment?
June 2026
The final season of Euphoria should be titled...
“The Desperate Housewives Edition of Only Fans”...
Because apparently if you are a comely young woman...
With money problems....
Like Margo in Margo’s Got Money Problems...
Softcore porn is your ticket...
Or at least that seems to be the zeitgeist this year...
Now Euphoria is a far more complicated story than....
Margo not being able to afford child care...
Or Sidney Sweeney as Cassie exposing her considerable assets to pay the bills...
Because initially this series was about Rue’s drug addiction...
And the sex lives of high schoolers...
Who are now dressing like they raided a Frederick’s of Hollywood warehouse in Fontana...
And are wearing makeup most often seen on hookers... or drag queens...
Now there has always an element of the surreal in this series...
About a lesbian drug addict, her trans love interest, who drew the attention of the hypermasculine football star, who had a pedophile dad who was doing the trans character...
And the football player also had a mean girl girlfriend...
Who became part of a love triangle with the oversexed sister...
Of the brainy girl...
Who fell for the lovable drug dealer...
Oh... and there was the fat girl...
Who finally got the attention she craved on OnlyFans...
Now this heady brew of dysfunctional and poorly parented teenagers...
Made major stars out of Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, and Sydney Sweeney...
And as Euphoria finally rode off into the sunset this season...
The kids are all out of high school...
Maddy has become a social media madame...
Jules found a sugar daddy who lets her paint all day in a beautiful high-rise apartment....
Rue is sort of sober and seems to be able to survive being a drug mule...
And a snitch...
Ok...
Like any of this was really going to happen...
Cassie is now a desperate housewife...
Married to Nate... who has become pathetic...
And in hock to some nasty Armenians because he is failing at running his father’s business...
Because of some protected plant that is preventing him from getting a building permit from one those California bureaucracies...
That will never let you build...anything...
Oh.. and the “happy couple” live in a house that looks like it has been untouched...
Since someone’s great grandmother died in 1953...
And this has “forced” Cassie ...
To play Little Piggy on Only Fans....
Because she wanted $40,000 worth of flowers at her wedding...
And since she is Cassie... she is loving the attention....
And has finally found her calling...
And her inner entrepreneur...
So one of the themes that courses through this season...
Is the way these women take charge of their lives...
And some of them decide to use sex, in one form or another, to exercise agency...
As if it was the most natural thing in the world...
And they do enjoy doing so...
In what I would call another of those You Go Girl moments our culture seems to be having...
Which would seem to be at odds with all those feminist complaints about the patriarchy...
But on the other side of that coin are the strippers at the Silver Slipper...
Who are used and abused...
Now Sam Levinson has a highly stylized touch...
And has filmed some great scenes this season...
Because he traffics in a carefully curated visual experience...
But restraint is not his bag...
Nor realism...
So the opening scene of this season has Rue driving a car up and over the Border Wall...
Over two thin metal tracks that look like they were borrowed from Jiffy Lube...
Anna Van Patten as Kitty the Stripper who goes to Mexico to get her butt “enhanced”
Which Levinson then shoves in our face every chance he gets...
And he had to have used AI for Kitty’s derriere’s transformation...
Or those were balloons....
Cassie launching into a scene from Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra ...
At an audition for a sitcom...
And Alamo the drug lord deciding to play polo with Rue’s head...
But the most memorable scene was Nate tied up and buried alive as a rattlesnake crawls up his chest...
People are still talking about that one...
So Levinson is certainly inventive...
And he seemed to be channeling Quentin Tarantino, The Sopranos, and Savages this season...
Because there is a lot of gratuitous violence, battles between drug lords...
And most of the action takes place in a strip club...
Run by a big black dude who fashions himself a cowboy...
Oh... and in one scene Rue is roped and brought down while on the run...
By a guy on a horse...
Like a calf at a rodeo...
So I guess you could call the third season of Euphoria...
A neo-western...
But some of the plot points don’t make sense...
Bishop’s betrayal at the end...
Why Maddy would help Cassie...
Or Alamo help Maddy in the way he did...
Which seemed out of proportion to what he was getting in return...
But no matter...
There are some riveting scenes in this season...
The most memorable was Colman Domingo’s soliloquy at AA...
Which was a tour de force...
And the scene where the fentanyl kicks in...
And you sense the subconscious realizing...
That no breaths are being taken...
And it is being starved of oxygen...
It gasps and struggles to get air...
But can’t...
But the most interesting aspect of this final season...
Was the way Levinson wove religious imagery into Euphoria...
Heh...I thought we were supposed to done with all that God stuff......
But from an episode titled “In God We Trust”
To Rue’s Come to Jesus moment in the church...
The Bible that travels from Rue to Lexi...
Who actually reads it...
Rue’s sanctuary in Texas...called Jerusalem...
Her haven... and place of peace...
Full of contented Christians...
Where a miracle calf is born...
And then there is...
The spontaneously burning bush Rue sees after a near death experience...
So there is a definite Old Testament feel in the final season...
With an eye for an eye shoot out...
But the final frame of the series has Rue sitting at a table looking like Jesus...
While everyone prays....
In a tableau that resembles Da Vinci’s The Last Supper....
Now this was all clearly intentional...
So what is Levinson up to?
Is he telling us he senses a move toward religion...
By a generation that feels lost and powerless...
In a sea of change...
So is all this religious imagery in Euphoria a portent...
Of some cultural moment Levinson is trying to tell us is on its way...
At this point, I’m not sure...
But very clearly religious imagery suffused the final season of Euphoria..
Which lays waste to the lives of many of the characters...
But especially Rue, Cassie, Maddy and Nate...
Which is why the crew at Vanity Fair have called this season...
“The Agony and Ecstasy of Euphoria”
Now this series has always been dark and depressing ...
But Levinson is an artiste ...
So it’s also always been hard to look away....
And this final season is no different...
Margo's Got Money Problems: Modern Feminism Discovers OnlyFans
June 2026
You go girl!
Set up an OnlyFans account...
And take control of your life...
You can make some money...
And get to humiliate men...
Who will pay you for that privilege...
Wow... what’s not to like...
I guess we have reached the stage in modern feminism...
Where girl power means selling soft-core porn on the internet...
Because this sure seems to be a trend...
As it is the premise of Margo's Got Money Problems...
As well as a major plot point in the last season of Euphoria...
Ok...
Now Margo's Got Money Problems is a light hearted series...
About a single mom just trying to get by...
Who discovers that OnlyFans is a great work from home job...
Where you don’t have to pay for day care...
And Margo, who is played by the always fun to watch Elle Fanning...
Is smart, resourceful, and a devoted mom...
But if Margo was really that smart...
She would know that in Fullerton...
Where she lives...
As a new mom...
She could get $1000 a month from Cal Works...
SNAP benefits for food through CalFresh for $500-700 a month...
Medical...
Be eligible for Section Eight subsidized housing...
WIC benefits for food... which amounts to $100-200 a month..
A childcare subsidy...
And Utility Payment Assistant through CARE/FERA...
Oh.. and assistance to pay for diapers...
So there is a little problem with the premise of this series...
That OnlyFans was her only option...
Whatever...
Margo’s dilemma... and her new job as an OnlyFans star...
Is the excuse for a fun romp...
Where everyone is kind of a cartoon character...
Because Margo’s mom used to work at Hooters and her dad was a professional wrestler...
Nick Offerman as Margo’s dad...
Is kind of quiet and cool... until he isn’t...
When he becomes a great big volcano...
Offerman has presence...
So even though he doesn’t say much...
He dominates the screen...
Her mom, played by Michelle Pfeiffer...
Is hot, narcissistic...
And holds Margo’s baby like he was a bomb...
So she is not much help...
And she is engaged to a pastor...
Who seems pretty clueless about the family is about to marry into...
And there is the kind hearted quirky friend... who is the best of the lot...
Oh... I almost forgot...
Nichole Kidman also shows up...
Looking like she is on loan from some Plastic Surgery Wax Museum...
But this all works....
Because Margo's Got Money Problems...
Definitely has a ComiCon feel...
And Margo sees her OnlyFans gig...
As a creative outlet...
Where she can flex her storytelling chops...
Because Margo always wanted to be a writer...
And I guess in a world where no one reads books anymore...
Or anything... for that matter...
And the hot movies in the theaters this week were made by YouTubers
Maybe Margo's on to something...
The Breadwinner: Why I’m So Done With Hapless Dad Movies
June 2026
The Breadwinner ...
Looked like a product placement for Shark Tank...
Featuring Lori Greiner...
Who currently resembles a doll some child forgot...
And left outside in the sun...
For a couple of months...
And I suspect she may have been just a tad jealous that Kevin O’Leary got such a plum role in Marty Supreme...
And so signed up to appear in this movie...
But The Breadwinner also made me think Garry Marshall had come back from the dead...
Because it has a decent cast...
Mandy Moore ...
Kumail Nanjiani...
Although when Nanjiani exclaimed...
“Pakistani Power!”
My first thought was....
You don’t hear that too often in a comedy...
But the screenwriters for The Breadwinner give this talent nothing to work with...
And the plot points in this movie are...
RIDICULOUS...
I mean a pet horse running through a house destroying it...
A goofy roofer who builds scaffolding that looks like it was done by a 7 year old...
Who thought he was working on a tree house...
And I’m so done with pratfalls...
They’ve become filler...
In films that can’t think of anything else to do...
So all this reminded me of another filmmaker...
Who would bring on a great cast...
For a movie that should have made anyone associated with it...
Embarrassed...
Which is why I started to think Gary Marshall had somehow been magically resurrected...
And the premise of The Breadwinner is that tired trope...
Of the newly stay at home dad who can’t handle what mom does...
I mean how many times have we seen this before?
Seriously...
Didn’t Michael Keaton do this movie two years ago?
And when he made Goodrich in 2024....
I thought at the time...
Michael... you already made this movie...
It was called Mr. Mom...
And you made it four decades ago...
Did you forget?
So Hollywood... once again...
Can’t think of anything new...
Because Goodrich had basically the same plot.. as Mr. Mom...
And now The Breadwinner...
And probably some others I’ve forgotten...
Dad is forced by circumstances to take care of the house and kids...
Screws up, gets better..
And learns to appreciate the family he ignored before ...
This is called the Family First Character Arc...
And we are seeing a lot of that these days...
Where the job is supposed to take back seat to family...
But in Goodrich they live in a 3 million dollar house..
The kids go to a pricey private school...
So how does the dad... as he rides off into the sunset of parental happiness...
Stay at home and pay for all this?
Well... Hollywood doesn’t really want you to think too much about that...
Or see if the dad and the kids in Goodrich are still happy ..
When they are living in an apartment in Van Nuys...
And going to public school...
I guess they just assume dad will buy a copy of Your Money Or Your Life...
Open a Robin Hood account...
Buy some crypto...
And all will be ok...
Because he now gets to spend lots of quality time with his kids...
So like all the Family First movies these days...
Fiscal reality is not allowed to intrude
On the prescribed happy ending...
So along with the Quiet Quitting and the FIRE movement...
I guess prioritizing your job... is so last century...
Which is why Nate in The Breadwinner decides being the top salesman at his Toyota dealership..
Was not worth it...
Because going to that spelling bee is more important...
Ok.. I guess that works
Now the comedian Nate Bargatze...
Would seem the perfect choice to play a hapless dad...
And he is the best part of this film...
He has great comic timing ...
Which is why he is a master of deadpan delivery...
A sort of George Burns for the 21st century...
And yes... I am that old...
Now Bargatze is a natural in front of the camera...
And so deserved better material...
Although the bit about dad taking the kids to Walmart to buy enough clothes to last until mom comes back...
So he doesn’t have to do laundry...
Was a very dad thing to do...
And at first I thought...
Why has no one given this guy a sitcom?
Oh wait... many have tried...
And failed...
And Bargatze did cowrite the screenplay for this film...
So I would suggest he not quit his day job as a standup comedian...
But with the right material...
I think he has potential...
But PLEASE...
Not as another hapless dad...
We’ve had enough of that...
Bargatze has a great riff in his standup routine about his dog...
So I would suggest...
Make him a clueless vet...
Dogs and Bargatze...
I think that would be fun...
But finally a word ...
From someone who has been there...
Had kids and a job...
Hollywood...
Let’s get real...
It’s not that hard...
Kids can have chores...
They are quite capable of doing their own laundry...
And you can tell those entitled little ones...
That you are not a short order cook...
And they can eat what you put in front of them...
Or wait until the next meal...
Because that worked for me...
Half Man: Toxic Masculinity and the “Mean Girl”
June 2026
Richard Gadd is a strange-looking Scotsman...
Who looks like he just wandered over from a battle scene in Braveheart...
But he is someone to keep an eye on...
Because he gave not one... but two... riveting performances...
In Baby Reindeer and now Half Man...
Two series that he also wrote...
And even though his oeuvre appears to be stories set in a dark world
Of self- loathing, sexual repression, abuse... and violence...
With disturbing characters who drive the plot...
Which ...if you have seen Filth...
Would seem to be a Scottish specialty...
Gadd has a real talent for storytelling...
And character development....
As well as acting...
Because his Donny Dunn in Baby Reindeer...
Couldn’t be more different from Ruben in Half Man...
And not just because of the physical transformation Gadd undergoes...
Donny is skinny, vulnerable... and massively insecure...
In essence, he is prey...
Whereas, Ruben is a force of nature...
Bulked up, charismatic, confident...
And very dangerous...
Gadd tackles the concept of masculinity in both series...
Although more directly in Half Man...
Which many will see as an exploration of toxic masculinity...
With its dichotomy between hypermasculine Ruben...
And his small, weak, bullied “brother,” Niall...
But the story is a bit more complicated...
Than it might first appear...
Now Baby Reindeer is a story about a stalker...
Played to perfection by Jessica Gunning...
As a saggy marshmallow of a woman with a foul mouth, a problem with spelling... And a creepy laugh...
Who will not be ignored...
But blessed with a seasoned intelligence about how to torment someone...
Martha preys upon poor Donny...
Whose natural empathy makes him an easy mark...
By switching back and forth between compliments and cruelty...
But she and Donny are two sides of the same coin...
Both desperate for attention...
And so Donny has a hard time walking away from Martha...
Because she is giving him something he desperately desires...
Donny is a self-loathing comic...
Who struggles to come to terms with his homosexuality...
And is so desperate for affirmation...
That Martha is not the only one who abuses him...
But the catharsis that comes at the end of Baby Reindeer...
And Gadd is big on showy cathartic denouements...
Is a false resolution... as Donny returns to one of his abusers...
And you can see the cycle begin again...
Now Baby Reindeer shares many of the same themes with Half Man...
Repressed homosexuality, self-loathing, self-sabotage, a history of sexual abuse...
And lots of drugs...
But also Gadd’s ability to project humanity on the screen...
Which complicates the trope of the Toxic Masculinity and the Self Loathing Homosexual in Half Man...
And there has never been a better title for a series...
For Half Man is the story of Niall and Ruben...
Who are thrown together as teenagers when their mothers move in together...
And so become tied together in a dysfunctional Gordian knot of “brotherhood”
That neither can quit ...
Even though their relationship brings each of them great pain...
They are two very different halves of a whole...
In so many ways...
Ruben is big, confident in his heterosexuality...
A bully with a hair trigger temper...
That leads to explosive acts of violence...
And he is very working class...
As well as in and out of prison...
Niall, played by Jamie Bell, is smaller, rat like in appearance...
Bullied, unable to come to terms with his homosexuality..
With an inflated sense of his talent as a writer...
And much as Donny saw himself as a comic with a future...
Niall feels entitled to what he feels is a life ...
That is his right by virtue of his “talent”...
And the education Ruben would never have been capable of acquiring...
This allows Niall to feel physically overpowered by Ruben...
But intellectually superior to him...
And although Niall is terrified of Ruben...
For good reason...
He turns out to be the more ruthless of the two...
Because Ruben is all Id..
And Niall Ego...
But this complicates the message about toxic masculinity so many are going to see in this series...
Now these two are drawn to each other...
And over the decades covered in this story
Neither can break free...
And there is an element of sexual tension in their relationship...
But it is the emotional bond... at least for Ruben...
That binds them together...
But for Niall.. it is what he can get from proximity to Ruben...
He fears him, but he also admires him ...
And sometimes he just wants to bask in the aura that surrounds his far more charismatic “brother”...
Ruben may be the bully who beats people up...
Because he lives by a code that requires he respond physically when challenged...
Or whenever his masculinity is threatened by some violation of the man code...
Which is why he is in and out of prison...
But Ruben also sees himself as a provider and protector...
And it’s Ruben who supports Niall when he is flailing...
Because Niall can’t seem to get his act together...
And refuses to work at jobs he feels are beneath him...
And this is why Niall’s mother is actually more sympathetic to Ruben than she is to Niall....
For she sees right through her son...
And the picture isn’t pretty...
And she recognizes that Ruben’s masculinity has two sides...
A destructive and dangerous one...
And protective one...
Whereas Niall is not only a coward...
But jealous, narcissistic...
And he does awful things to almost anyone who cares about him...
He is selfish, self loathing, vengeful...
As well as callous and calculating...
He is, in essence, a “mean girl”...
And so he surreptitiously sets out to hurt Ruben...
So although Ruben physically threatens Niall routinely...
It is actually Niall who is cruel...
And shows not a shred ...to anyone..
Of the empathy....
That occasionally surfaces in Ruben’s behavior...
Toward his “brother”....
Their complicated history unfolds slowly in this series...
With many moments of catharsis...
And although Gadd has written a story that probes the psychology of these two characters with great skill...
Men don’t talk to each other in the way they do in this series...
So some of the dialogue sounds more like what one would hear in a therapist’s office...
Rather than what two men would say to each other while they are in the middle of a physical confrontation...
But that is small beer...
For the story of Ruben and Niall...
Is a tragedy that is well told ...
With fine performances all around...
And Gadd is riveting...
So although I can’t wait to see what he does next... because the man is obviously talented...
I do worry he might have the Cheryl Strayed problem...
Because Strayed could only write one story... about a mother...
( See Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and Tiny Beautiful Things)
And to date both of Gladd’s series have tapped into the same themes...
Self- loathing, repressed homosexuality, the legacy of abuse, violence, and self sabotage...
So I hope he has some other stories to tell...
But to his credit...
Because Half Man looks like a standard story of toxic masculinity....
With all the expected tropes in play...
Gadd has written something far more complicated...and interesting