“As a recovering Catholic, I can confirm being taught to be frightened of your desires is a core tenet of Christianity. The movie makes such fear and loathing manifest, entwining sex and violence in an amplification of the lads’ rowdy courtship rituals.There’s something hilariously Australian about boys throwing rocks at each other’s chests as foreplay.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/19/2026

“However academic you want to get about the actual Robyn Hode legends of yore, modern audiences are still going to think of men in tights and Disney’s wily cartoon fox. Yet in a strange way, that’s part of what Sarnoski’s film ends up being about. It’s a story about the stories we tell ourselves, and how we can’t help cleaning them up for our children.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/18/2026

“Adding to the pathos is how unnervingly elderly these toys sound. At 63, the grandma-voiced Cusack is a spring chicken in this cast. Listening to the 73-year-old Allen rasp his way through kiddie banter with the 69-year-old Hanks makes you wonder why Bonnie would want to play with senior citizens. Which I guess is part of the point.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/17/2026

“Not to sound like a party pooper, but perhaps beginning with the cold-blooded murder of a child rape victim isn’t the best way to get audience members in a festive mood for your stunt show. It did not engender in this critic a generous mindset for an escapist entertainment about how many awesome ways you can clobber somebody with a bicycle pedal.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/12/2026

“It’s tough not to think of Close Encounters, and even tougher not to wish you were watching it again instead. Spielberg has been here before and so have we. He alleviates some of the familiarity with his casual mastery of the medium. So many shots in Disclosure Day are tossed-off little miracles that other filmmakers would spend weeks trying to design.” – WBUR’s Arts & Culture, 06/10/2026

“Carney’s affable semi-musical is like the song itself: a drippy little MOR ditty that’s not quite catchy enough to get stuck in your head. Breezing along to a contrived, feel-good conclusion, Power Ballad is short on style — a lot of flat backgrounds and undistinguished two-shots — but good-natured enough that you can sit through it without feeling ripped off.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/09/2026

“A road movie with no destination, this sunny, sozzled comedy’s aversion to consequence can be delightful. At the same time, it does result in a certain rudderlessness, making the picture feel longer than it is. If nothing’s at stake for the characters, it’s hard for us to invest any deeper than the film’s surface pleasures, which luckily are abundant.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/06/2026

“What’s enjoyable is the fetishization of expertise, watching the weather wonk with an attitude flout all the back-slapping yahoos. There’s a lot of excellent acting in this movie. There’s also Brendan Fraser. His floundering turn as Eisenhower has got to be one of the most distractingly awful performances I’ve ever seen in an otherwise enjoyable film.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 06/04/2026

“The 20-year-old director’s eerie debut feature is set in a strip-mall purgatory of cheap office furniture and geographically impossible floorplans, like the Overlook Hotel by way of Bob’s Discount Warehouse. Brilliantly designed and dramatically underwhelming, Backrooms is more of an environment than a story. But it’s a really creepy environment.” – Spliced Personality Substack, 05/27/2026