Movie Diary
Thursday, August 06, 2026 
a) They Fight
They Fight, which is now on Hulu, is based on a 2018 documentary of the same name, and stars Andre Holland as a boxer who gets out of prison and starts coaching kids at a rec center in Washington, D.C. Director Sheldon Candis filmed it in his hometown, Baltimore (it also co-stars two "The Wire" alums, Wendell Pierce and Andre Royo). And I kind of wish the story didn't take place in D.C., because Candis really captures the streets of Baltimore on film so well, along with Holland's expressive face and understated performance -- people who haven't spent time in either city won't know the difference, but the exteriors are very Baltimore. I'm so used to sports dramas, even ones based on true stories, loading up on the genre's familiar beats and cliches that I found it refreshing that They Fight just told its story empathetically without an excess of Hollywood tropes.
b) Obsession
I was a little more impressed by this year's other surprise horror phenomenon, Backrooms, but I liked Obsession too. I love that Andy Richter is the only previously known actor in a massive box office hit (in the same year Conan was in an Oscar-nominated film!), although he really has a thankless role, no real comic relief or dramatic heavy lifting, just a human plot mechanism. Inde Navarrette is amazing in this role, the movie would not work so well without a performance that committed, and she deserves every opportunity that's coming to her right now. It's sad to see how many people misinterpreted the plot in misogynist ways, but I felt like the movie set things out pretty clearly and there are a handful of moments -- the screaming on the phone, the real Nikki speaking in bed, the film's only brief sex scene -- that were so disturbing that they've stuck with me more than any of the big violent setpieces. And the cash falling from the ceiling was such a cartoonish little flourish out of nowhere, I kinda loved it.
On paper this looks pretty silly -- ballerinas who have to fight their way out of a seedy hotel in Budapest -- but I thought it was really entertaining, highly recommended to fans of stuff like Ready Or Not or The Hunt. I'm trying to think if I've ever seen a better action movie written by, directed by, and primarily starring women. Maddie Ziegler, whose film career has included famous flops like Music and The Book of Henry, really surprised me in this, she just seemed like a natural movie star.
d) The Drama
I compared this to B.J. Novak's "The Premise" immediately after watching it. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are truly movie stars who have earned a lot of public goodwill, because I have no idea how such an outrageously misconceived, insultingly stupid movie made so much money and got fairly positive reviews, I never even heard the kind of negative buzz that I heard about The Materialists (which I actually liked). If you haven't seen The Drama and don't know what it's about, please watch it and tell me if I'm wrong, because I could not believe this bullshit. It kind of makes sense that a Norwegian guy wrote and directed this, I don't know if an American could make a movie this glib about this subject matter -- I'm not even going to call it insensitive, it just rings false on several levels.
I have to applaud and root for a fellow millennial music critic, Chandler Levack, for making the jump into directing films, and her second and third features have come out in the past year. One of them, Roommates, was made for Happy Madison from someone else's screenplay with a starring role for Adam Sandler's daughter, and nobody could make a good movie in those conditions, so I won't hold it against Levack. The much better Mile End Kicks, on the other hand, is her autobiographical 2010s indie rock movie, with Barbie Ferreira playing a Canadian rock writer who's working on a 33 1/3 book, dealing with cheapskate publications, and sleeping with gross scenester guys. Rodrick from the Wimpy Kid movies is in a band with an even worse name than Löded Diper, and Jay Baruchel has sex in a Hold Steady t-shirt. I felt plenty of secondhand embarrassment, but most or all of it was intended by the filmmakers, and the cast was very good, especially Ferreira and Juliette Gariepy.
f) The Moment
I'm glad Charli XCX's excellent new album was well received, because an unfunny mockumentary is the kind of thing that can really slow down a recording artist's winning streak. Maybe nobody saw it, or everybody who saw it just kind of quietly agreed not to dwell on it. The least subtle stuff, like Alexander Skarsgard's character, probably could've been pushed further to produce some actual laughs, but it all just felt like a failure of Charli trying to transfer the dry self-deprecation of her lyrics to a different medium, the music industry is too ridiculous to satirize in a toothless way.
Questlove's latest documentary is another wonderful tribute to the Black music of his youth, this one a little more simply telling Earth, Wind & Fire's story rather than using it as a lens for exploring a wider theme like his Sly Stone movie (I kind of want him to do one on The Roots next, I can't think of any other musician who's actually qualified to direct the definitive doc of their own band, though others have tried). EWF founder Maurice White is the one guy who's not still here to help tell that story, and his bandmates and Questlove do a great job of capturing White's genius as well as his human flaws, it was a really loving portrait. I'm glad they interviewed Baltimore native and recording studio innovator George Massenburg, I'm fascinated with that guy, and one of the best moments of the movie was him describing playing back "Shining Star" for the first time: "So I turned it the fuck up." Philip Bailey telling the story of "Reasons" was hilarious, too. They took "September" out of the chronological flow of most of the film to make it the finale, and I have to say it totally worked, what a lovely story.
h) The Dink
Jake Johnson plays a middle-aged former tennis prodigy who gets into pickleball in The Dink. It feels like an overly familiar addition to the overstuffed canon of sports comedies about aging athletes' redemption arcs -- in fact I counted at least two of the same supporting players from Will Ferrell's recent "The Hawk." Moderately enjoyable movie, though, Jake Johnson is just a very charming guy, and Patton Oswalt and producer Ben Stiller each waltz in and steal a couple scenes.
I really would like to see the musical live someday, it's about half as long as the two movies and I imagine it flows a lot better with just dialogue and songs, I could really just feel all these long bloated sequences of score and CGI visuals just dragging the whole thing out, even moreso in the second movie, which I had a much harder time paying attention to than the first one.
j) Drop
Drop isn't nearly as fun or memorable as previous Christopher Landon flicks Happy Death Day 2 U and Freaky, but the second half picks up the pace once the tense cat-and-mouse setup has been exhausted and things really start happening. There a few action sequences that are just so cool and creatively shot, and I think Meghann Fahy is ready for whatever great role you could give her, she might be a little overqualified for stuff like this. This is one of those movies where a lot of important dialogue is happening via text message, and I liked that the words just flashed across the screen instead of the camera zooming in on a phone (but I didn't like the font, if I may nitpick).
k) Goodbye June
Goodbye June is Kate Winslet's directorial debut, and she cast another great Australian actress of her generation that she'd somehow never worked with at any other point in the last 30 years, Toni Collette, as her sister. Either of them is reason enough for me to watch a movie, so I enjoyed finally seeing them onscreen together, especially as sisters whose dying mother is played by Helen Mirren. I like when skilled actors get into directing and make these kinds of small character-driven films, there's nothing particularly flashy or unique about Goodbye June but Winslet gets great performances out of an impressive cast just as you'd hope she would.
l) The Faculty
My wife was nostalgic to watch this one night and I'd never seen it, as much as I'm a horror fan who was a teen in the '90s, I have kind of an aversion to that Kevin Williamson '90s teen horror boom (Scream, I Knew What You Did Last Summer, etc.). I'd unfairly dismissed this, though, I think it was pretty fun, one of Robert Rodriguez's better movies, some really good visual effects. Also, '90s Bebe Neuwirth...man.
m) Tron
I realized that three Tron movies have been made in three different decades and I hadn't really watched any of them (but have listened to two of the soundtrack albums), so I decided to finally give them a shot. I love the visual texture of the 1982 original, there's still almost nothing that looks like it, including the sequels.
