THE GRID - We Are Not Alone

We are sad. This newsletter comes to you from two friends who just like trying stuff. We’ve been writing this thing for nearly three years(!). Last week, I wrote that our happiness is largely contingent on the San Antonio Spurs' performance. Little did I know that I was mere days away from the most heartbreaking loss I’ll likely experience, the largest blown lead in NBA History. The kind of WTF moment that makes you wake up the next morning thinking you had a bad dream. It’s time to take your licks: Your enemies dance on your grave, the opposition punches your fans on the way out of the arena, and you re-watch in anguish. I won’t make this a sports therapy newsletter, but even something as inconsequential as your sports team's performance, the big screen, or a live show serves as an escape. I love the big screen, I love a show that imprints on your brain, I love an album that meets all your needs. I hope we get more. I am certainly going to need them.

Summer is here. For cinephiles, summer simply means it’s blockbuster season. This summer alone, we have a Star Wars movie, Toy Story returns, and people still care about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. Christopher Nolan has his first feature since Oppenheimer raptured audiences and the award season. All that noise, we simply forget, maybe the most popular movie director of modern movies (or all time) has a new release at the age of 79. I see over 100 new releases a year, and I can’t remember a movie that has me going back and forth on its merits. A complicated movie, let me work through it with you.

Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s 37th feature film, returns to the playground that has changed the way we think about movies: Aliens! For a movie that is basically a 2.5-hour chase scene, it starts with an extended wrasslin’ scene, before we are introduced to a cybersecurity expert who becomes a whistleblower (big week for whistleblowers in cinema) against a shadow government agency, led by a genuinely scary Colin Firth performance as a blend of tech trillionaire and soulless dribble that has come popular with AI company heads. It’s not a spoiler; the movie isn’t trying to hide the ball, extra-terrestrial life is here, the O’Connor character has seen things he can’t unsee, and he feels a moral responsibility to no longer hide the truth. At the same time, we are introduced to a Kansas City weather reporter, with an Emily Blunt performance that reminds you of how much she can bring to the table when given something to do. Career best, award contender, even if you are skeptical, it’s worth the price of a movie ticket to see her alone.

This movie is often described as a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I found myself thinking of The Fabelmans, The Post, War of the Worlds, and Minority Report.

I’m delaying the point. Disclosure Day, a movie that meets the moment with technical brilliance, is intertwined with the childlike wonder that Spielberg has wielded like a sword throughout his career. Beggars can’t be choosers. Vilmos Zsigmond is here, wielding his camera with such excitement. The lighting in this movie is so well done that they might need to permanently delete the Wicked movies to save face. John Williams with his best score work in years. There is a train/car set piece (that we get to see the origins in The Fabelmans, loved that nod) that is what we like to call PURE-CINEMA-BABY. Oh, and Emily Blunt gets a Gwen Stefani car-karaoke moment.

Good movies turn into great movies, and whenever we are so lucky, the technical brilliance is met by characters and scripts that rise with the tide. Unfortunately, with the obvious exception of the original Jurassic Park, when Spielberg and David Koepp work together, you are more than likely going to find that movie at the bottom of most Spielberg rankings. O’Connor, whose buffoonery typically steals a movie, is asked to repeat lines that are basically “we have to do this,” “I promise I’ll come back,” and turns a nuanced performer into an avatar of plot delivery. Eve Hewson (A+ nepo baby, I should rank them soon), playing the helpless but down to dabble in some light treason, tries her best to bring some life between the characters. Here I am, a 34-year-old man asking for a meet-cute background story.

Spielberg is never short of virtuosity, again, which has always been his strength. If you take the themes of all his movies that have to do with “what if we aren’t alone?” Disclosure Day lacks the metaphors and gets practical. Close Encounters wonders how communication transcends; E.T. is a child of divorce and loneliness; War of the Worlds is a post-9/11 foreign invader; and Crystal Skull is a really bad movie I would rather not think about. People smarter than me might have their own assessment, but this movie is incredibly literal. What would happen in the world if we all suddenly became aware that aliens are real? How would it impact our faith system? Would it be enough to stop World War III? (Pesky North Korea at it again). A movie that resembles those of the 90s would have been met with a more open heart in the 2000s. Maybe it’s the sports heartbreak talking (it’s not, I’m always like this), but forgive me for struggling to get on board that network television is the medium to bring us all together. We don’t talk enough about how the eyes that see art impact our view of it. This movie seems to think we are all inherently good and lacks an understanding of how much grace we all need to make it in this life.

*Disclosure Day is currently ranked #13 on my Best Movies of 2026.

• Next week I’ll be screening The Invite. Olivia Wilde comeback tour?

• Anyone see The Social Reckoning trailer? Sorkin, the director, is not the same as Sorkin the screenwriter. I will bury my head in the sand and choose to believe it will be good until I see it.

I admittedly have been watching very little TV this week due to the NBA Finals. Let’s look a little ahead, as I am excited to dive deep over the next few weeks.

We are percolating on Best Show of the Year | Best New TV Series | Can’t Miss TV here. Even as S1 had its penultimate episode, they dropped the “Monster of the Week” storyline and didn’t miss a beat. I feel that as the season goes on, it’s become less scary and more accessible to a broader audience.

We are within two weeks of the return of The House of the Dragon and The Bear. I should be paid by FX for how much I’ve written about “YES, CHEF”, so feel free to read it all. The show has certainly felt the impact of being stretched out over five seasons, but you have to think they always had an ending in mind. Maybe they can recapture the magic? As for HotD (hilarious nickname), I think I’ll need to wash away my enjoyment of Knight of the Seven Kingdoms to get back into the much more serious tone.

Oh, and yes…I’ve seen a few episodes of Off Campus. I’ll leave it at that.

I’ve been workin’ for you doin’ all I can, but to work all the time didn’t make me a man
- I Forgot To Be Your Lover, William Bell and Booker T. Jones

THE GRID is on Spotify, X, and Instagram. We love to hear from you. Send us an email at thegridnewsletter@gmail.com