While much has changed about the movie industry in recent years, the presence of a sci-fi blockbuster like director Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” early in the summer season feels like a throwback. The buzzy tentpole will be joined by several other intriguing — if less hyped — films this month in theaters, including a talky dinner party drama and a queer horror fable.
Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg will turn 80 this December but seems in no hurry to slow down. “Disclosure Day” looks like his most ambitious science-fiction project since 2005’s “War of the Worlds.”
The plot remains mostly under wraps, but Emily Blunt (“A Quiet Place”) plays Margaret Fairchild, a Kansas City meteorologist who works with whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) to blow the lid off of a government conspiracy to conceal the existence of alien life on Earth. It’s a “dense roller-coaster ride blending chase film, love story and mystery, all wrapped in sci-fi wonder” that represents “Spielberg’s best film in 20 years,” said Gizmodo’s Germain Lussier on X. (in theaters June 12)
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Maria Bakalova (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”) is superb as Abby, a neuroscientist who signs up for an experimental new app technology peddled by the delightfully goofy Sam (Adam Pally) to create an AI version of her recently deceased father, Warren (David Strathairn). But her new creation slips out of her control when “Warren” interferes with her budding relationship with Douglas (Avi Nash).
Though it sounds like the premise of a bleak “Black Mirror” episode, the movie has a bigger heart and is less cynical than most cinematic takes on AI. An “instant audience-pleaser,” director Madeleine Rotzler’s movie creates an “effective adult fairy tale, a kind of latter-day ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ in which the main character is sent down her own emotional rabbit hole,” said Greg Archer at MovieWeb. (in theaters June 19)
‘Maddie’s Secret’
Maddie's Secret - Official Trailer | John Early, Kate Berlant | In theaters June 19 - YouTube
Comedian John Early (“Search Party”) directs himself as Maddie, a chef who descends into eating-disordered hell after her husband, Jake (Eric Rahill), releases a video of her cooking that goes viral. It’s been a long time since a man played a woman like this in a mainstream feature, and it remains to be seen how audiences will react, but “Maddie’s Secret” boasts an impressive roster of comedic talent, including Kate Berlant (“A League of Their Own”) as Maddie’s close friend Deena. A “tricky, one-of-a-kind stunt” that’s “sure to be divisive,” Early’s film succeeds as a “tongue-in-cheek critique of influencer culture crossed with a sincere homage to the heyday of disease-of-the-week TV movies,” said Peter Debruge at Variety. (in theaters June 19)
‘Leviticus’
LEVITICUS - Official Trailer - Only In Theaters June 19 - YouTube
Director Adrian Chiarella’s first feature is an unusually poignant horror story set in rural Australia, where teenagers Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) begin a halting romance. Then a local preacher (Nicholas Hope) curses the boys with a demon that visits them every night and takes the shape of whoever they desire the most.
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The result most closely resembles a queer version of “It Follows” and feels perfectly timed as a critique of the authoritarian turn against kids struggling with their gender identities in the U.S. In a film that “takes a more restrained approach to horror tropes,” the demon turns their “love into a weapon against them” and “vividly visualizes” the church’s project of “converting desire into shame,” said Marshall Shaffer at Slant magazine. (in theaters June 19)
In director Olivia Wilde’s first feature since the divisive “Don’t Worry Darling,” Joe (Seth Rogen) is a down-on-himself music teacher whose moribund marriage to Angela (Olivia Wilde) is stress-tested when the pair invites their glamorous and seemingly blissful upstairs neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pína (Penélope Cruz), over for dinner. The tense subtext is that Joe and Angela have been listening uncomfortably to their neighbors’ loud sex. Turns out Hawk and Pína may have accepted the invitation with more than a nice dinner in mind. “The Invite” intentionally recalls classic spiraling-marriage movies like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” while the characters’ “interplay yields an entertaining, at times crackling evening that tries for a bittersweet note,” said Nicolas Rapold at Sight and Sound. (in theaters June 26)
David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.
