Review: Stop Expecting Things and Let Spielberg Cook with "Disclosure Day"

By Ben Miller

Let's make an assumption, shall we? Let's assume Steven Spielberg, one of the most consistently successful and acclaimed filmmakers of the last 50 years, knows what he is doing. You might go into his new sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day expecting a certain kind of film, but that's on you, not him.

"That wasn't what I was expecting" is the death knell for films. This has very little to do with the quality of the film itself, but more to do with the marketing and filmmaker expectations. Even if your expectations were met exactly, isn't that boring? Wouldn't you rather be surprised instead of sitting in the theater for two-and-a-half hours with your arms crossed? Film should open up your expectations and show you something you weren't expecting. Spielberg subverts his own filmmaking while simultaneously conforming to it. Doesn't that sound great?

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First Predictions: Best Animated Feature

by Nathaniel R

JIM QUEEN is a French gay adult animated comedy about a virus that turns gay men into heterosexuals. It premiered at Cannes.

Every year I hope to become more of a voracious viewer of animated films. There's so much happening around the world in animation but international animation (beyond some films from Japan) rarely hits US movie theaters or stays for a long enough time to build a fanbase. The animation year started out unexpectedly strong with more animated films premiering at Cannes than is usually the case. And Annecy, the annual summer animation festival, is just around the corner -- we'll be reviewing a few titles from Annecy for the very first time -- though sadly we're not travelling TO the festival but responding to screeners. While we would love for the Best Animated Feature race to be a truly competitive international free-for-all each year, the stats suggest that it's always Disney's to lose. More accurately it's always Disney/Pixar's to lose (or at least it was until the 2020s) even if the selected nominees each year paint a broader picture of the artform...

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Very Gay Film/Very Straight Guy: "Bad Education"

For pride month, straight critic Ben Miller takes a look back at a gay film he otherwise would have never seen.

Much of the experience of taking in film is seeing yourself in the characters and situations. Part of why I wanted to write this series is for something exactly like this. Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education is completely foreign to me (no pun intended for the Spanish language). Every male character is either gay, transgender, or sexually fluid. If you are none of those things, how do you connect?

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First Predictions: Adapted & Original Screenplays

by Nathaniel R

Four inspirations for 2026 movies: Mrs Dalloway becomes CLARRISA, The Unfaithful Wife becomes MINOTAUR, Rocky (1976) gets a making of bio with I PLAY ROCKY, and of course the bestseller turned blockbuster PROJECT HAIL MARY

As someone who never used to have writers block but who has it frequently now, I have a newly reinvigorated respect for fellow writers who perservere. That said, the screenwriters life can't be easy given the amount of script doctoring, star and director and studio "notes", multiple drafts, and anything else that can change an original concept or even an adapted one -- and what is the difference really in some cases? Cheers to anyone who sees anything they wrote up on screen, even if it's only partially their vision in the end. Let's look at some Oscar possibilities after the jump...

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First Predictions: Music / Sound Categories

by Nathaniel R

The year's surest bet: A 55th Oscar nomination for John Williams scoring DISCLOSURE DAY © Universal

Encourage me to keep going with these charts via comments. Let's talk sound and music. These categories generally stay mysterious until late in the year since post-production is such a heavy part of eligibility and credits for music and sound categories. Sometimes they'll switch out composers after filming has ended! And of course Original Song is notoriously hard to predict. 

One thing that feels certain, though, is that John Williams will receive his 55th nomination for the score to Disclosure Day. John Williams just turned 94 which will mean that he is likely to break two of his own records (again) as the most nominated person ever AND as the oldest person to ever receive an Oscar nomination (any category). He currently holds the latter record for his nomination at 91 for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). The Academy's music branch never passes up an opportunity to vote for him, even if the film isn't in play anywhere else...

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