Disclosure Day (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Familiar but masterful nonetheless

Posted on June 11, 2026 by kaist455

Steven Spielberg’s new film “Disclosure Day” feels like watching a maestro handling his familiar repertoires with expected but undeniably impressive deftness. While it does not have the unadulterated awe of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) or the sheer terror of the first half of “War of the Worlds” (2005), the movie is still a very compelling science fiction movie packed with ideas and intrigues, and you can instantly sense from the very first shot that you are at the hand of a masterful storyteller who can interest and then engage us a lot more than expected.

 The story premise of the movie is quite familiar to say the least. Since that famous incident Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, the existence of alien entities from the outer space has been steadily and thoroughly covered up by a powerful agency called Wardex during next several decades, but now this hidden truth is on the verge of being fully disclosed in public thanks to a small group of defectors inside Wardex including Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor). Needless to say, those Wardex agents led by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) are quite determined to stop Kellner by any necessary, and the opening scene throws us right into an urgent situation surrounding Kellner.

As Kellner keeps running away from the Wardex agents along with his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), the movie also focuses on what happens to a Kansas City TV meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt). For some inexplicable reason, Fairchild suddenly finds herself capable of not only speaking several foreign languages but also sensing every personal detail of whoever she is looking, and she becomes all the more frightened and confused when another strange thing happens to her later. 

While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that these two main plots eventually converge around the middle act of the story, the screenplay by David Koepp, which is developed from the story by Spielberg himself, does not hurry itself much as occasionally exploring its thought-provoking main ideas. If alien entities really exist out there, can the humanity possibly process this surprising fact well? And how much will it actually affect our religious and existential beliefs?

The movie wisely avoids giving any definite answer to these and other questions arising from its story, while only emphasizing the undeniable value of empathy and open-mindedness. At one point later in the story, Jane, who was once a nun, asks some big questions to one of the nuns in her former convent, and that nun’s thoughtful reply is certainly something we should remember if the existence of alien entities in the outer space turns out to be real in our life.

Meanwhile, the movie steadily keeps things rolling for engaging us more. Spielberg and his crew members including his longtime cinematographer Janusz Kamiński give us a series of splendid moments including the one where Scanlon attempts a sort of mind control via an alien device, and each of these superb scenes functions as a building block for the considerable dramatic power of the expected climactic part.

Some of you may think the finale is a bit anti-climactic, but I admire how skillfully and thoughtfully Spielberg handles this part. Some of the special effects in the film are not very realistic on the surface, and those alien entities and their spaceships in the film are not so far from what we have seen countless other similar stuffs including, yes, “The X-files”, but these elements are handled with a lot of confidence and competence at least. In the end, we become focused more on the human reactions amply presented on the screen, and the score by John Williams, who is thankfully active even at present despite being over 90, carefully modulates the complex emotional undercurrents swirling below the screen.

The main characters of the movie sometimes feel like more or less than plot elements, but Spielberg has a number of talented performers who can fill their respective roles with enough presence and personality. While Emily Blunt’s solid acting gradually occupies the center of the story as required, Josh O’Connor is also effective in his character’s inner struggle along the story, and Colin Firth and Colman Domingo complement each other well as the two opposing supporting characters in the story (It is really nice to see Domingo doing something much better than his embarrassingly cartoonish supporting turn in that disposable Michael Jackson biography film which came out several weeks ago, by the way). In case of Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell, they manage to overcome their rather thankless parts, and Hewson is particularly impressive during a certain key scene of hers with Firth.

In conclusion, “Disclosure Day” does not reach to the greatness of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), but it is definitely another terrific masterwork from Spielberg. Yes, he was once a young but talented director ready to impress us more in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and, considering how much he has changed and evolved during last several decades, that time will never come again. Nevertheless, he demonstrates here that he can still handle his old familiar science fiction materials pretty well, and that is especially evident from the very last moment of the film. I instantly sensed where the movie must cut to the end credits, and, to my small delight, it did that at that exact point. That is something I cannot experience that often, you know.

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Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! (2026) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): His life and career full of ups and downs

Posted on June 10, 2026 by kaist455

HBO documentary film “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” is alternatively funny and touching as looking into many ups and downs in the life and career of Mel Brooks, a legendary American entertainer who will soon be 100 years old in this month. Although he may be near the end of the last chapter of his life, Brooks remains witty and spirited as before, and his jolly presence holds our attention with a lot of amusement for more than 3 hours.

The first part of the documentary mainly focuses on Brooks’s early years before his filmmaking career. He was born to a Jewish family living in a Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City, and he gives us some funny anecdotes on how he entered entertainment business during his adolescent years. After being on a stage for the first time in front of a lot of audiences, he became more convinced that he wanted to be an actor, but then he was drafted to the US Army due to the World War II.

Not long after the war was over, Brooks came to work as a comedy writer under a famous TV comedian named Sid Caesar. Along with many other young talented comedy writers ranging from Neil Simon to Carl Reiner, he constantly provided a lot of comic materials to their boss’s popular TV show, and Caesar became his biggest defender – especially when Brooks later demanded a salary raise to their producer.

Around that time, Brooks married Florence Baum, who incidentally worked in Caesar’s TV show at that time. As they came to have three children between them, she became a housewife while Brooks busily kept advancing in his career, but their relationship eventually got quite strained due to the growing estrangement between them, and Brooks is quite frank about how much he was responsible for their subsequent divorce in 1962.

And things got worse for Brooks after the end of Caesar’s TV show. He found himself struggling again, but then he came across Anne Bancroft, who was already a very successful actress at that time. Thanks to his persistent romantic pursuit, he and Bancroft quickly fell in love with each other, and that was the beginning of their loving relationship which lasted more than 40 years. Even though she was more successful than him, Bancroft kept motivating Brooks more and more, and that eventually led him to a couple of significant highpoints for his career. After the considerable success of his TV comedy series “Get Smart”, he got an opportunity to make his first feature film “The Producers” (1967), which became an unexpected hit and then garnered him a Best Screenplay Oscar.

Right from “The Producers”, Brooks demonstrated his own comic style and sensibility. To him, anything can be comedy, and he did not hesitate at all in making jokes involved with very sensitive subjects including racism. No matter how vulgar his jokes can be, he was ready to, as he once said, rise below vulgarity, and that is the main source of good laughs for us. For example, you may roll your eyes as observing how much the two main characters of “The Producers” go low for their loony scam plan, but you cannot help but laugh when their plan later culminates to one of the most outrageously funny moments in the film.

Although his next film “The Twelve Chairs” (1970) was a critical/commercial failure, Brooks soon came back with two comic masterpieces to remember: “Blazing Saddles” (1974) and “Young Frankenstein” (1974). While the former is a truly anarchistic (and vulgar, of course) parody on old western films, the latter is a seemingly serious but ultimately hilarious homage to Frankenstein movies, and they surely demonstrated the immense range of Brooks’s talent.

As shown during the second part of the documentary, Brooks’s filmmaking career had some big ups and downs after “Silent Movie” (1976) and “High Anxiety” (1977). Although his next three films, “History of the World, Part I” (1981), “To Be or Not to Be” (1983), and “Spaceballs” (1987), were not that successful, he established his own movie production company, which produced a number of acclaimed (more serious) films such as “The Elephant Man” (1980) and “The Fly” (1986). In case of “Elephant Man”, Brooks gave a chance to a young filmmaker named David Lynch without any hesitation after watching Lynch’s first feature film “Eraserhead” (1977), and the following critical success of “The Elephant Man” certainly boosted Lynch’s career a lot.

Around the point when he made his final feature film “Dracula: Dead and Loving It” (1995), Brooks’s career seemed to be near the end, but, what do you know, there came another turning point thanks to the enormous success of his Tony-winning Broadway musical “The Producers”. During the next 25 years, he kept going as usual while receiving a number of awards including an Honorary Oscar, and we will get the sequel to “Spaceballs” in the very next year.

Nevertheless, Brooks has become more aware of the approaching mortality as many of his friends and colleagues passed away one by one. He was certainly quite devastated when his wife passed away in 2005, and he was also deeply saddened by Reiner’s death in 2020. He and Reiner often spent a lot of time together in Reiner’s house as longtime friends/colleagues, and the documentary becomes poignant when Rob Reiner, who sadly died in last year, talks about how close Brooks and his father were to each other.

Overall, “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” is a funny and sincere tribute to its exceptional human main subject, and directors/co-producers Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio deftly assemble a various amount of archival footage clips and interviews to give an intimate portrayal of Brooks’s life and career. As far as I can see from the documentary, Brooks still has enough life and spirit for us as well as himself, and I sincerely hope he will amuse us more during next several years at least.

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Pee-Wee as Himself (2025) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Reubens behind Pee-Wee

Posted on June 9, 2026 by kaist455

HBO documentary film “Pee-Wee as Himself” examines the life and career of Paul Reubens, an American comedian who has mostly been known for his famous comic character Pee-Wee Herman. Although he was a very talented comedian to say the least, he was also not so open about his private life even after several notorious scandals which could almost ruin his career and life, and it is poignant to see him openly talking about himself with some remaining discretion.

With Reubens as its main interviewee, the first part of the documentary focuses on his life and career before the creation of Pee-Wee Herman. During his childhood, he was a sensitive kid who became interested in acting as he grew up, and that is how he began to study at the California Institute of the Arts during the 1970s. Along with many other free-spirited young people in that college, he casually tried one unconventional thing after another, and his experience during that time was certainly one of the main sources of inspiration behind Pee-Wee Herman.

Meanwhile, Ruebens became more aware of his homosexuality – especially after he began a romantic relationship with an African American artist around his age. Fortunately, his parents still stood by him when he revealed his homosexuality to them, but Ruebens remained guarded about his gay life, and we observe a bit of reluctance from him when he talks about that romantic relationship which still means a lot to him.

However, Ruebens eventually became more focused on his career, and that led to the end of that romantic relationship. After frequently appearing in several TV shows such as “The Gong Show”, he joined an improvisational comedy team named “the Groundlings”, and that was where he could fully push his talent along with several notable members including Phil Hartman. Ruebens and some of his colleagues fondly remember many fun and exciting times of theirs during that time, and that is quite evident from those old video clips showing some of their highlight moments.

When Ruebens created Pee-Wee Herman, he and his colleagues did not expect much at first, but, mainly thanks to Ruebens’ effortless comic skills, this silly but amusing character became an instant hit among their audiences. As the popularity surrounding Pee-Wee Herman grew more and more, Ruebens came to perform this character on bigger stages as well as several notable TV shows, and this eventually led to the production of 1985 film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”, which was incidentally directed by a young filmmaker named Tim Burton.

Although the movie was his first feature film, Burton, who can be more offbeat than Ruebens as Ruebens himself admits, turned out to be a perfect creative partner for Ruebens. Burton’s own quirky artistic sensibility clicks well with the absurd comic style of Ruebens and his character, and their result became an unexpected hit to many others’ surprise.

When an executive from CBS later suggested that he should do a Saturday morning TV show for kids, Ruebens was rather reluctant at first, but he eventually decided to go all the way along with several close colleagues of his. While looking mostly appropriate for its target audiences, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” was full of colorful spirit and absurdity from the beginning to the end, and its irrepressible charm and personality drew not only many young audiences but also a lot of adults out there.

After the commercial/critical failure of the 1988 sequel to “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”, Ruebens came to consider taking some time off. Once the last season of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” was completed, he went back to his family home in Florida for some rest in 1991, and that was when a notorious incident happened. He was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult theater, and the following scandal was a major blow to his life and career.

While mostly frank about many things in his life and career, Ruebens, who constantly tries to get some control over the documentary during his interview, is not willing to talk more about that dark period of his here in the documentary. As a matter of fact, he stopped the interview before director Matt Wolf and his crew were about to move onto that matter, even though he was actually dying due to his terminal illness at that point (As many of you know, he eventually died on July 30th, 2023).  

The second half of the documentary feels rather incomplete in case of the late years of Rueben’s career and life. As Ruebens steps back a bit, the documentary puts more emphasis on several other interviewees, but it is still touching to see how Rueben continued to work and live despite that scandal. As he points out at one point in the documentary, he is still remembered for that scandal and another hurtful scandal which happened several years later, but he kept going anyway, and his famous comic character subsequently got another big moment thanks to 2016 Netflix film “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday”.

On the whole, “Pee-Wee as Himself” presents the personality and humanity of its main human subject with a lot of sincerity and respect, and you may appreciate more of Rueben’s undeniable comic talent. It is a shame that he did not get a chance to be more open about himself before this documentary, but he has his last words at least, doesn’t he?

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Afternoons of Solitude (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The clinical but disturbing presentation of bullfighting

Posted on June 7, 2026 by kaist455

Albert Serra’s 2024 documentary film “Afternoons of Solitude”, which happens to be released in South Korean theaters a few days ago, deeply unsettles and captivates me for good reasons. Here is an austerely clinical but undeniably visceral presentation of bullfighting, and you will be quite mesmerized by a number of intensely vivid moments, regardless of however you feel about its rather gruesome main subject.

The central figure of the documentary is a Peruvian matador named Andrés Roca Rey, and the documentary simply and plainly focuses on how he and his entourage go through a series of bullfighting events in Spain. For example, we never get to know anything personal about Rey or any of his colleagues at all, and the documentary also does not provide any interview or narration to give us any background knowledge on its main subject.

As a result, we become a rather distant observer to whatever is unfolded on the screen, but I must tell you that it was often not so easy for me and several audiences around me to look away from the screen. As the camera of cinematographer Artur Tort Pujol, who also edited the documentary with Serra, steadily and patiently follows the actions of Rey and his colleagues on the field, the documentary gradually accumulates tension on the screen, and we become more nervous as our viewpoint is often limited by frequent close-ups. It is quite clear to us that anything fatal can suddenly happen from here or there, no matter how careful Rey and his colleagues are as gradually pushing their latest bull to its inevitable end.

This is certainly a highly risky profession, and the documentary sometimes observes Rey and his colleagues talking a bit with each other after their latest bullfighting event is over. As their vehicle is taking them back to their staying place, they throw some compliment to each other’s manly bravery, which makes an interesting contrast with their rather flamboyant attire. At one point later in the documentary, we see Rey wearing his pretty costume with some assistance from his dresser, and then we observe more of how cocky he must be in front of a bull which can kill him at any moment if he is not careful enough.

It is apparent that those audiences love to see Rey and his colleagues doing another bullfighting, but the documentary deliberately distances itself from the reactions of their audiences. Although we frequently hear a lot of gasps and cheers from their audiences, the documentary never shows them at all except a number of spectators close to the field, and we can only observe how much Rey and his colleagues are excited by a lot of cheers from their audiences.

While distancing itself more and more from Rey and his colleagues, the documentary sometimes seems to show a bit of sympathy to those poor bulls to be killed in one way or another by Rey and his colleagues. The camera often captures how the bulls become quite exhausted as attacked or teased more and more by Rey and his colleagues, and the most harrowing moments in the documentary come from when the camera lingers on their dying bodies for a while before they are eventually taken away from the field for the next bullfighting to follow.

Nevertheless, the documentary adamantly sticks to its neutral attitude as before, and this will provoke a lot of thoughts and feelings for yourself. In case of me, I was frequently repulsed by the bloody and brutal aspects of bullfighting presented on the screen, and I cringed and winced all the more during the last bullfighting sequence in the documentary, which is quite long without much interruption as phlegmatically but strikingly presenting all those acts of animal cruelty across the screen.

At the same time, I admired the considerable cinematic achievement by Serra and his crew. I became curious about how they closely and vividly shot all those bullfighting sequences in the documentary, and I was also impressed by how Serra and Pujol deftly generate narrative momentum to engage us more. As we see more of bullfighting, we come to feel more of the inherent professional danger of Rey and his colleagues, and our mind often cannot help but swing back and forth between repulsion and excitement.

As having such an ambivalent experience from the film, my mind went back to Georges Franju’s utterly unforgettable short film “Blood of the Beasts” (1949), which gives a vivid and unflinching look into what happens in those slaughterhouses of Paris day by day. Both “Blood of the Beasts” and “Afternoons of Solitude” show a lot of animal cruelty, but the former is a bit less, shall we say, disturbing as sharply recognizing how much our human civilization has depended on killing animals for meat. In case of the latter, we see animals maimed and killed just for fun and excitement, and that can look more atrocious to some of you.

Overall, “Afternoon of Solitude” is definitely not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but it is worthwhile to watch for those inarguably intense moments presented with considerable cinematic qualities to admire. I do not think I will soon watch this very uncomfortable masterwork again, but it induced a lot of thoughts and feelings from me during my viewing, and that is certainly something I will not easily forget.

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Masters of the Universe (2026) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Mildly goofy and serious

Posted on June 7, 2026 by kaist455

“Masters of the Universe” attempts to do two different things together, and the result is a rather mixed bag on the whole. While it is sometimes as earnest and serious as its hero, the movie is also deliberately goofy and campy with some self-conscious touches, and I was just mildly amused at times while occasionally appreciating the game efforts from some of its main cast members.

As many of you know, the movie is the second feature film from the media franchise of the same name from Mattel. I still remember well the TV animation series which I often watched during my childhood years during the late 1980s, and I am also familiar with the 1987 feature film, which did not impress me that much when I watched in the early 1990s.  

Compared to many tacky aspects of its predecessor (This was one of many notorious products from the Cannon Group during the 1980s, you know), the movie surely looks better in technical aspects thanks to its much bigger production budget (Around 170-200 million dollars), but it frequently feels jumbled as wildly going back and forth between seriousness and goofiness. The movie surely has some silly fun with its broad archetype characters, but it often stumbles in plot and character development as struggling to establish its overall tone, and we only come to observe the story and characters from the distance with a bit of mild amusement and nostalgia.

Anyway, the story is your typical hero origin tale. Our hero, Adam Glenn / He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), was a young prince of an alien kingdom named Eternia, but he was sent alone to the Earth when his kingdom was ambushed by a powerful evil warlock named Skeletor (Jared Leto) and his evil cronies, and the early part of the film establishes how he is miserably stuck in the Earth 15 years later. For returning to his kingdom, he needs a certain powerful magic sword, but he happened to lose it when he was swiftly sent to the Earth at that time, and he has desperately been looking for it whenever he is not working in the human resource department of some big company.

On one day, Adam comes across a possible opportunity to retrieve that magic sword. At first, he seems to fail in his mission, but, what do you know, he is later sent back to Eternia thanks to his old childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), and he soon comes to see how much Eternia has been changed due to the tyranny of Skeletor, who is still looking for that magic sword for becoming, well, the master of universe.  

Adam certainly feels overwhelmed by what he should do as the only hope for his kingdom, but, of course, he soon comes to see how much he can be changed thanks to that magical sword. Once he activates that magical sword, this mild-tempered lad is transformed into your average muscular beefcake not so far from the hero of “Conan the Barbarian” (1982), and this will surely tantalize many gay audiences out there just like the TV animation series aroused numerous gay kids like me. 

Nevertheless, Adam remains soft and gentle behind his new appearance. Nicholas Galitzine, who has been more notable thanks to several recent films including “Red, White & Royal Blue” (2023) and “Bottoms” (2023), brings sweet earnestness to his character, and his good performance clicks well with several supporting performers around him. While Camila Mendes imbues her role with enough feisty quality, Idris Elba, who plays Teela’s father, gives the best performance in the film as deftly balancing his character between humor and gravitas, and Kristen Wiig provides a wry voice performance as a certain robot character in the story.

However, the movie is relatively less fun in case of the villain characters of the film. Jared Leto, who has been criticized for unnecessary overacting more than once during last several years, surely gets a moment when he really needs to go over the top, but his efforts sadly do not reach the memorably fun performance of Frank Langella in the 1987 version. Skeletor in this version is merely sour and snarky without enough menace or amusement for us, and the only real fun during Leto’s scenes mostly come from Alison Brie, who plays Skeletor’s right-hand figure with sly gusto.         

Compared to his previous works “Kubo and the Two Strings” (2016) and “Bumblebee” (2018), director Travis Knight is less successful here in this film. Although several action scenes in the movie are handled with enough competence, they are merely drenched in a lot of CGI without much style or personality, and that is the main reason we become more distant to the story and characters. Furthermore, Eternia in the film is not particularly wondrous or enchanting, while only looking like the second-rate version of what we previously saw from “Thor” (2011) and its several sequels.   

In conclusion, “Masters of the Universe” is not totally without entertainment thanks to its several enjoyable things such as some engaging performances and the effective score by Daniel Pemberton, who recently impressed us with his superlative score for “Project Hail Mary” (2026) and did another good job here as delightfully quoting the main theme from the TV animation series from time to time. Considering what is shown around the end credits, there may come a sequel, but, due to the rather poor box office result of the movie at present, I do not expect that much, and I am already willing to move onto something more entertaining.

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026) ☆☆(2/4): A mediocre special episode

Posted on June 3, 2026 by kaist455

I must say this right now: “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is the most tepid Star Wars flick since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019). Thoroughly uninspired and mediocre from the beginning to the end, the movie simply trudges from one expected narrative point to another without much sense of joy and wonder for us, and we are only consoled a bit by a very few moments of fun pasted onto it.

Yes, I know that the movie is sort of encore to the Disney+ TV series “The Mandalorian”, and, considering that I have not watched any episode from that TV series, I may not be an ideal audience for the film. However, even though I was willing to open my mind from the very beginning, the movie turned out to be no more than a very expensive and superficial special episode, and I do not think the fans of the TV series would complain much even if it went straight to Disney+ instead.

One of the main problems of the movie is that it takes its two titular characters for granted a bit too much. If you have not watched the TV series at all just like me, there is almost nothing for you to get any substantial understanding on the strong relationship between “the Mandalorian”, who is also known as Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), and his little cute alien ward named Grogu, and they will just come to you as mere plot elements to roll from one narrative point to another. Perhaps, I should have watched the entire TV series first, but, folks, life has already been too short for me since I passed 40 a few years ago.

Therefore, I tried to enjoy the technical aspects of the film instead during my viewing, but, alas, director/co-director/co-writer Jon Favreau, who wrote the screenplay with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, does not try that much as merely being on autopilot mode. In terms of mood and details, the movie looks so visually flat and bland on the whole that I got frequently bored instead of becoming genuinely engaged and enchanted, and, the worst of all, the performers in the film often do not feel like inhabiting its backgrounds at all.

For example, just look at the main background of the first half of the story, which mainly revolves around the Mandalorian’s attempt to rescue the young son of that infamous alien villain character in “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (1983). When The Mandalorian and Grogu arrive at a big city on some alien planet, we are instantly disappointed as the city does not have much style and personality except looking quite drab and dark on the screen, and the only saving grace in this passable background comes from a little cameo appearance by Martin Scorsese, who is surely as talky as you can expect from him.

During its second half, which has the Mandalorian and Grogu get into a big serious trouble after they did the right thing for that alien lad in question, the movie shows some potential as introducing a number of different alien figures and creatures, but it lets us down again without anything new or fresh to impress us. Things get a little more interesting around the narrative point where an alien figure warmly played by Stephen McKinley Henderson appears, but, just like many other things in the story, this part is quickly discarded as the movie hurriedly moves its two main characters to the next narrative point.

Sure, there is a bit of cuteness thanks to Grogu, who is a small, adorable version of Yoda in the Star Wars flicks and is vividly presented on the screen via animatronics and puppetry augmented with visual effects. I and many other audiences were certainly charmed by this little likable alien character, and I was amused a bit whenever I watched Grogu doing some cute stuffs, but that is all we can get from this alien character, and the movie unsurprisingly uses Grogu as a convenient plot device more than once along the story.

In case of Pedro Pascal, who has been one of the reliable actors working in Hollywood during last several years. I can only tell you that he did a fairly good job of filling his role with enough presence and a bit of personality even though we do not see much of his face throughout the film. He and Grogu are mostly convincing as an odd duo to watch, but the movie does not give them enough space for more character development as often being busy with throwing them into more action along the story.

And the action scenes of the film are not particularly good or memorable in my inconsequential opinion. Unless he has to do some physical actions, the Mandalorian, who is incidentally one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, shoots here and there, and many of those bad guys (and aliens and robots) in the film are always shot down within a few seconds with no surprise for us at all. In case of the expected climactic sequence, the last-minute appearance of those X-wing pilots of the New Republic led by none other than Sigourney Weaver feels like being tacked onto that just for more bangs and crashed across the screen, but some of you may be a bit entertained by the very short cameo appearances of Deborah Chow, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Rick Famuyiwa, and Lee Isaac Chung (How nice it is to see Chung again after meeting him in person at the 2010 Ebertfest more than 15 years ago….).

Overall, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” dissatisfied me for its numerous weak aspects, and I must tell you that it actually made me less curious about the TV series. As writing the last paragraph of this review, I remember less of whatever I saw from the movie, and my mind is already ready to move onto anything better than this lackadaisical product.

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Pilgrims (2025) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Why do they never return?

Posted on June 3, 2026 by kaist455

South Korean independent animation film “Pilgrims” presents a little science fiction tale which could do more in my trivial opinion. While it is fairly competent in technical aspects, the movie feels rather flat and colorless in terms of story and character, and I observed it from the distance instead of caring more about the story and characters.

The film, which is based on South Korean science fiction writer Kim Cho-yeop’s short story “Why Do Pilgrims Never Return?”, begins with the introduction of a little utopia world outside the Earth. Every member of this world is incidentally female, and they all have lived together happily and harmoniously while mostly being away from most of those intense human emotions as reflected by one school lesson scene early in the story.

The elder members of this community diligently follow their quasi-religious belief originated from the legendary founder of their community, and one of their main tasks is handling a certain big annual ritual. All of the young members in this world must embark on a one-year pilgrimage to the Earth at the age of 18, and there is a space shuttle which takes the latest pilgrims to the Earth after taking back the returning ones from the Earth.

However, not all of the pilgrims sent to the Earth return, and a girl named Daisy (voiced by Park Ji-hu) begins to wonder what happened to those pilgrims who did not return from the Earth. One of those non-returning pilgrims happens to be a close friend of hers, so Daisy decides to go inside the space shuttle instead of greeting those returning pilgrims along with her other close friend Sophie (voiced by Kim Hyang-gi).

Some time later, we see Sophie going through another nice day along with many other girls around her age. She somehow does not remember much of Daisy, so she is quite baffled when Daisy suddenly attempts to correspond with her via a little object given to her in advance. After arriving at a big futuristic city on the Earth, Daisy had to go through some tough moments, and she certainly misses Sophie more than ever, though Sophie still cannot remember a lot of their friendship.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that both Sophie and Daisy come to realize that their utopian world is actually closely linked with the dystopian society of that big futuristic city. Many people in the city have been unjustly discriminated just because of being genetically “natural”, and some of them including that old friend of Daisy have been ruthlessly hunted by the system for showing defiant resistance against it.

Yes, this is a very typical science fiction story setup, and Kim’s short story probably brings some style and detail to its familiar story premise, but the film is often shallow and deficient in both style and substance. While we get some glimpses into that big futuristic city, it simply remains as a merely oppressive background without enough interesting stuffs to intrigue us, and it also fails to establish engaging characters to hold our attention. While we are supposed to care more about the emotional bond between Sophie and Daisy along the story, they are no more than broad archetypes without enough personality or spirit, and the story also does not flesh out that old friend of Daisy enough, who are more or less than a tool for some plot exposition.

In addition, the voice cast members of the film are usually flat and strained to my disappointment. While Kim Hyang-gi and Park Ji-hu are undeniably talented actresses (Kim recently gave a terrific lead performance in “Hallan” (2025), and I still fondly remember Park’s unforgettable breakthrough turn in “House of Hummingbird” (2019)), their voice performances occasionally show some distracting awkwardness, and they also do not generate much chemistry between their respective parts.

I must point out that director Heo Pyoung-kang had a fair share of animation filmmaking experience before making her directorial feature film debut here. During last two decades, she participated in the production of a number of notable Japanese animation TV series and films ranging from “Night is Short, Walk on Girl” (2017) to “Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer” (2018), and that is quite evident from the cell animation style of “Pilgrims”, which is not so far from that of many Japanese animation TV series and films out there. As far as I can see, she is a well-experienced animation filmmaker with considerable potential, though the film still feels like a mere test run before whatever may come next from her.

In conclusion, “Pilgrims” does not satisfy me enough during its rather short running time (60 minutes), but I admire it to some degree as another recent South Korean animation to notice. Although South Korean animation industry has been a lot less distinguished compared to the monumental status of the Japanese animation industry for many years, I and South Korean audiences watched a series of small but notable local works such as “Mother Land” (2023), “Exorcism Chronicle: The Beginning” (2024), and “The Square” (2025) during last several years, and they and “Pilgrim” will probably lead to more success and achievement in South Korean animation in the future.

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Backrooms (2026) ☆☆☆(3/4): A creepy labyrinth of backrooms

Posted on June 2, 2026 by kaist455

“Backrooms” is a modest but effective horror flick mainly driven by mood and idea, and I like that enough. While the movie is inherently a bit too simple in terms of story and characters, it is still interesting to observe how the movie expands its oddly nightmarish background across the screen step by step, and the result is one of the more interesting genre films of this year in my inconsequential opinion.

How it was developed is as fascinating as the movie itself. It is based on director Kane Parsons’s web series which was started a few years ago, and this was inspired by the “Backrooms” creepypasta on the imageboard website 4chan in 2019. The latter was initially just a series of images of empty rooms looking rather odd and disquieting, but these images led to the creation of an imaginary world full of such spaces thanks to numerous online users out there, and that was the starting point for Parsons’s web series, which is presented as a series of low-quality video clips supposedly shot inside this weird fictional world.

In case of the movie version, the screenplay by Will Soodik adds more substance to the original concept. At first, the movie, which is incidentally set around the 1990s, introduces a furniture store owner named Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and the early part of the story quickly establishes how much he has struggled in both his work and personal life. While his furniture store has not been so successful to say the least, his wife recently left due to their estranged relationship, and he also has a serious drinking problem.

At least, Clark has a regular session with his therapist, but it turns out that his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), has her own personal issue behind her phlegmatic appearance. She often finds herself haunted by her painful childhood memories involved with her mentally disturbed mother, but there is nothing she can do except maintaining her cool professional appearance in front of others as usual.

Meanwhile, Clark comes to discover something odd in his store on one day. In the basement of the store, there is a hidden portal to a dimension of seemingly endless liminal spaces, and he becomes more curious about that as exploring here and there in this weird hidden world. He subsequently has his two employees joining his exploration with a video camera, and that is where the movie overlaps with Parsons’s web series to some degree. As Clark and his two employees delve into this alien world more and more, we see more of strange things to baffle or disturb us, and the rough texture of low-definition video generates some verisimilitude to engage us more.

Needless to say, it does not take much time for Clark and the two other characters to realize that something dangerous is lurking somewhere in this strange world. Wisely not showing much of whatever is menacing them, the movie deftly generates the sense of dread around the screen, and we get all the more unnerved thanks to its dexterous sound design and the ambient electronic score by Parsons and his co-composer Edo Van Breemen.

Above all, Parsons deftly expands his genre playground more and more along the story. Around the narrative point where Clark’s psychiatrist also enters that strangely labyrinthic world, we get more of those weird liminal spaces, and the movie has a wry fun with that before culminating to an intense moment which somehow reminded me of both “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974) and “The Shining” (1980).

The movie stumbles a bit when it later brings a character played by Mark Duplass mainly for a bit of explanation and ventilation, but that is not much of a problem thanks to Parsons’s competent direction. Despite his rather young age (He is soon going to have his 21st birthday a few weeks later, by the way), he got the full support from his producers including James Wan and Osgood Perkins, and he demonstrates well here that he is a promising talented filmmaker who knows how to engage us via mood and details. Considering the critical/commercial success of the movie at present, he will soon move onto whatever he wants to make next, and it will be interesting to see whether he will advance further from his commendable result here in this movie.  

I also appreciate how deftly Parsons draws the interesting performances from his two dependable lead performers. Chiwetel Ejiofor, a wonderful British actor who has seldom disappointed us since his breakout turn in “Dirty Pretty Things” (2002), subtly conveys to us his character’s despair and frustration, and that is the main reason why a certain crucial moment of his later in the story works. Renate Reinsve, a compelling Norwegian actress who becomes more prominent after her unforgettable performance in “The Worst Person in the World” (2021), holds the other part of the film well, and her good performance brings some human qualities to the movie as much as Ejiofor’s.

On the whole, “Backrooms” is a solid genre work to be admired for its several strong aspects including mood and performance. Even if you do not know that much about Parsons’s web series or the “Backrooms” creepypasta, you will be intrigued and then entertained by its distinctive artistic qualities, and then you may want to check on Parsons’s web series currently available on YouTube. This is surely a good starting point for Parsons, and I think we can have some expectation on his burgeoning filmmaking career.

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Romería (2025) ☆☆☆(3/4): Getting to know about her dead parents

Posted on June 1, 2026 by kaist455

Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón‘s latest film “Romería” is about an adolescent girl getting to know more about her dead parents right before entering her adult life. While it initially looks like a typical mix between family drama and coming-of-age tale, the movie fills the screen with a lot of distinctive sensitivity and realism as its heroine comes to learn more about her parents along the story, and we do not mind at all even when it delves into a realm of fantasy for a while later in the story.

The movie is pretty much like a spiritual sequel to Simón’s previous film “Summer 1993” (2017), which is about a little young girl coping with her changed situation due to the early death of her parents. Just like that movie, “Romería”, which is incidentally set in a Spanish port city named Vigo during several days of July 2004, has autobiographical elements from Simón’s early life, and that is quite evident to us whenever its young heroine records a lot of things with her digital video camera in the film.

At the beginning, the movie gradually establishes young heroine’s purpose of visit to Vigo. Before Marina (Llúcia Garcia) was born in the late 1980s, her parents lived together in the city for a while, but they became separated from each other around the time of Marina’s birth, and both of them eventually died not long after that. Marina was subsequently raised by her mother’s family members in Barcelona, but now she needs to be recognized on her father’s death certificate for her upcoming scholarship application, and this requires some legal help from her father’s family.

Although she has never met them before, most of her father’s family members cordially welcome Marina right from her first day in Vigo. One of her uncles gladly lets her stay in his family boat along with his several family members, and it does not take much time for Marina to get friendly with her several cousins including Nuno (Mitch Martín). At one point early in the story, she enjoys some free time along with her cousins in the sea, and it looks like she will have a pretty good time in Vigo while eventually getting what she needs from her father’s family.

Meanwhile, she also becomes all the more curious about how her parents lived in the city during that time. Fortunately for her, Marina happens to have an old diary from her mother, and her mother’s diary comes to function as a sort of guidebook for her. She visits an old apartment building where her parents once resided, but a lot of things have gone or changed since that, and she cannot find anyone remembering her parents there.

In case of her father’s family members, they are mostly casual in their conversations with Marina, but it is apparent that her father and his death have been a skeleton in the closet even though Marina knows a bit about what caused her parents’ death. When she subsequently meets her paternal grandmother, she is not very nice to Marina to say the least, and her paternal grandfather prefers to pay all of Marina’s college tuition rather than getting her officially recognized on his son’s death certificate.

Nevertheless, Marina gets to know about her parents bit by bit as spending more time with her father’s family members. While they did love each other a lot, her parents’ romantic relationship was eventually deteriorated by their pretty wild lifestyle filled with a lot of drug and alcohol, and that was followed by a grim period about which many of her father’s family members are still not so willing to talk to Marina.

I must say that I have no idea on how much the story overlaps with Simón’s real-life story, but she did a good job of imbuing the movie with considerable verisimilitude to draw our attention. Although it takes some time for us to discern the family relationships among Marina and a bunch of other characters surrounding her, they come to us as realistic human figures to observe thanks to the natural interactions among the main cast members of the film, and we accordingly become more engaged in Marina’s personal quest along the story.  

When Marina comes to experience a mixture of fantasy and memory later in the story, this feels a bit too jarring at first, but the movie keeps holding our attention as freely moving across a series of personal memories associated with Marina’s parents. Regardless of what exactly happens to her at that point, we come to sense considerable emotional maturation from our young heroine, and that is why the last scene comes with genuine poignancy.

Simón also draws good performances from her main cast members. While newcomer Llúcia Garcia earnestly holds the center as required, several other main cast members including Mitch Martín, Tristán Ulloa, Celine Tyll, Marina Troncoso , and José Ángel Egido are well-cast in their respective supporting parts, and the special mention goes to a certain stray cat in the film, which always steals the show whenever it appears on the screen.

In conclusion, “Romería” is another distinguished work from Simón after “Summer 1993” and “Alcarràs” (2022). With these three wonderful films, she demonstrates that she is a talented filmmaker with her own artistic sensitivity. and I will certainly have some expectation on how she will advance further from this considerable artistic achievement of hers.

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Pillion (2025) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Learning about his sexuality

Posted on June 1, 2026 by kaist455

“Pillion”, which won the Best Screenplay award when it was shown in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival early in last year, is an alternatively amusing and fascinating drama about sexual maturity. Following a plain lad who comes to learn a lot about his sexuality via an unlikely lover of his, the movie explores those tricky matters of sex and desire, and the result is more thoughtful and poignant than expected. 

At the beginning, we are introduced to a young gay man named Colin (Harry Melling). He is openly gay, and his parents are actually willing to find any suitable boyfriend for him, but, like many other young men around his age, he is not so sure about what he exactly wants and desires. After singing several songs along with his friends at a local bar, he has a blind date with some guy there, but it is clear that they do not click that well with each other despite being nice and cordial to each other.

However, someone else begins to draw Colin’s attention, and that is a handsome biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). Right from when they come across each other, something instantly clicks between them even though they do not interact much with each other on the surface, and, what do you know, Colin comes to have a quick sexual encounter with Ray not long after that.

Ray turns out to have a specific sexual taste. He gets aroused by being sexually dominant, and, to his little surprise, Colin discovers that he is actually quite willing to do whatever Ray wants. During their first sexual encounter, Ray quickly takes the role of master, and Colin cannot help but become excited about that being Ray’s submissive sex partner.

And that is just the beginning of their kinky romantic relationship. Ray subsequently allows Colin into his flat, but he also strictly reminds Colin of who the boss is. He has Colin do several domestic stuffs including cooking for him, and he also has a rather intense physical moment with Colin just for another sexual fun for them. In addition, they begin to hang around with several biker gay couples not so different from them, and it does not take much time for Colin to become more like one of them. Besides often being on the pillion of Ray’s motorcycle, he shaves his head, and he also wears a metal necklace with a lock to complement Ray’s accessory key.  

  Because their son is quite happier than before, Colin’s parents do not interfere with whatever is going on between him and Ray, but they cannot help but become concerned at times for understandable reasons. For example, Ray has never told that much about himself to Colin while being often cold and distant to Colin, and Colin’s parents, who have earnestly built their loving relationship together for many years, do not feel fine about that. When Colin manages to have Ray have a lunch with his parents, they try to be nice to Ray as much as possible, but then the mood becomes quite awkward between them and Ray as Colin’s mother throws some inconvenient questions.

Nevertheless, the screenplay by director/writer Harrty Lighton, which is based on Adam Mars-Jones’ novel “Box Hill”, sticks to its non-judgmental attitude while focusing more on Colin’s growing attachment and dependence on Ray. Despite his frequently aloof attitude, Ray can sometimes be a bit nicer to Colin, and Colin appreciates that – especially when Ray holds a little nice event for them and their fellow gay couples on Colin’s birthday.

The movie does not hesitate to delve more into the sexual aspects of Colin’s relationship with Ray, and you may be amused a bit by when they and several other fellow gay couples have a sort of orgy at some remote place. We see a lot of carnal dominance and submission across the screen, and this will remind you of how one’s specific sexuality can actually look funny to others.  

 It goes without saying that Colin comes to want more from his sex partner than before, and that is where their situation becomes more intense than before. While he can be a little more flexible about what Colin wants from him, Ray has certain limits he cannot possibly overcome, and there is a brief but revealing wordless moment when he suddenly and achingly realizes that he is not holding the power over his relationship with Colin now.

This compelling power dynamics between Colin and Ray along the story is illustrated with vivid and realistic details to observe, and the two lead actors are utterly convincing as their characters pull or push each other throughout the film. Harry Melling, who seems to be on the way of becoming another wonderful actor nurtured by the Harry Potter movies besides Daniel Radcliffe and Robert Pattinson, is convincing his character’s gradual emotional maturation, and his sensitive acting is flawlessly complemented by Alexander Skarsgård, who brings a lot of sexiness and charisma to his rather elusive character.

Overall, “Pillion”, which is incidentally released as “Please Have Me on Your Backseat” in South Korean theaters, is worthwhile to watch for its witty and thoughtful handling of its main subject, and it somehow made me reflect a bit on my rather messy sex life during last 10 years, which can incidentally be a gay version of “The Worst Person in the World” (2021) in my humble opinion. I had a fair share of discontent and disappointment as getting mingled with one dude after another, but I came to learn more about my own sexual desire and yearning at least, and that is why I smiled and then was touched a bit as observing Colin during the last scene of the film. Well, he does know what he really wants now, doesn’t he?

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