Do you understand the movie that is coming out of the projector?! (CREDIT: Vertical)
Starring: Nick Kroll, Andrew Rannells, Nunzia Schiano, Morgan Spector, Amanda Seyfried, Eleonora Romandini, Paolo Romano
Directors: David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)
If you’re an American who’s about to vacation in Italy, should you be required to watch I Don’t Understand You before you leave? Better safe than sorry, I say! Chances are, things probably won’t spin as bloodily out of control for you as they do for Dom (Nick Kroll) and Cole (Andrew Rannells). But… if you don’t speak the language fluently, and if there are things back home that you have to worry about, well, then you could get stressed out. And stress could lead to situations you’ve never been in before. And that could result in you doing something that you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life. (Plus, the plot was loosely inspired by writing/directing duo David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano’s own journey of becoming fathers.) So yeah, it can’t hurt to prepare for that possibility ahead of time.
TV
-AFI Life Achievement Award (June 18 on TNT) – Honoring Francis Ford Coppola.
Music
-The Cure, Mixes of a Lost World
-King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Phantom Island
-Van Morrison, Remembering Now
-Slick Rick, Victory
-Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, Talkin to the Trees
Sports
-Women’s PGA Championship (June 19-22 on Golf Channel, Peacock, and NBC) – They’re playing at Fields Ranch East in Texas this year.
Starring: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz
Director: Dean DeBlois
Running Time: 125 Minutes
Rating: PG for Dragons Taking Humans Higher Than They Should Go
Release Date: June 13, 2025 (Theaters)
Materialists
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Marin Ireland, Zoë Winters, Dasha Nekrosova, Louisa Jacobson
Director: Celine Song
Running Time: 117 Minutes
Rating: R, mostly for Discussions of a Date Gone Very Wrong
Release Date: June 13, 2025 (Theaters)
Picture this: it’s the weekend of June 13-15, 2025, and you want to see a new release at your local multiplex. How are you supposed to ever decide?! Especially if they’re total opposites? That isn’t quite the situation we have here, although the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon and the Celine Song-penned-and-helmed rom-com Materialists are certainly aiming for separate lanes. So if you’re a thorough cinephile like me who tries to see absolutely everything, where should you focus first? Or should you try to pull a Barbenheimer and make a double feature out of it? Let’s suss out the situation.
Starring: Dan Stevens, Al Pacino, Ashley Greene, Abigail Cowen, Patricia Heaton, Patrick Fabian
Director: David Midell
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)
Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you all know real quick that I saw The Ritual in the theater. It’s an exorcism movie starring Al Pacino and Dan Stevens as a couple of priests. And Patricia Heaton plays a nun! I guess they’ll do anything these days. Apparently it’s based on a true story. I’m glad it’s not my true story. Alas, I fell asleep during the last half hour or so. Or maybe it was just the last 15 minutes? It was hard to tell, but next thing I knew when I opened my eyes back up, the end credits were starting. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep! I like to stay awake even for the movies I don’t find very interesting so that I can know why I don’t find them very interesting. Oh well. Maybe everyone (including the demon) would have been better off if they’d just slept through the whole exorcism? Something to think about…
giving away more money this summer (CREDIT: FOX/Screenshot)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Dangerous Animals (Theaters)
–I Don’t Understand You (Theaters)
–The Ritual (Theaters)
TV
–Resident Alien Season 4 Premiere (June 6 on Syfy and USA)
-Tony Awards (June 8 on CBS) – Hosted by Cynthia Erivo.
–The 1% Club Season Premiere (June 10 on FOX) – Hosted by Joel McHale this season.
Music
-Cypress Hill & London Symphony Orchestra, Black Sunday Live At The Royal Albert Hall
-The Doobie Brothers, Walk This Road
-Brian Eno and Beatie Wolfe, Luminal and Lateral
-Pulp, More
Sports
-Belmont Stakes (June 7 on FOX) – End of the Triple Crown.
-U.S. Open (June 12-15 on USA, NBC, and Peacock) – The golf version, returning to Oakmont Country Club.
I must have seen her (CREDIT: Murray Close//Lionsgate)
Starring: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Reedus, Ava Mccarthy, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves
Director: Len Wiseman
Running Time: 125 Minutes
Rating: R for ALL of the Violence
Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: When Eve Macarro was just a little girl, she witnessed her father being brutally murdered right in front of her. So as you might suspect, she’s spent the rest of her life planning her revenge. In the meantime, she’s been training in the art of ballet (you might even call her the titular Ballerina) as part of the traditions of the assassin group known as the Ruska Roma. Since this all takes place in the world of John Wick, she stops by the Continental Hotel to track down those who were responsible for her father’s demise, which leads her to a centuries-old cult seemingly motivated purely by bloodshed. But if she’s not careful (or even if she is careful), her quest for vengeance could blow up an uneasy peace within the assassin underworld. And maybe if we’re lucky, John Wick himself might just show up to help her out, or stop her in her tracks.
What Made an Impression?: A New-Ish Kind of Revenge: The first John Wick movie did revenge a little differently, mainly by having the protagonist be motivated by a dead dog instead of a dead family member. Ballerina at first appears to be going the much more straightforward route. But ultimately, the climax paints a somewhat more complicated and intriguing picture. It’s far from the most groundbreaking portrait of vengeance ever, but it’s sufficient enough to hold your attention. Backstory Schmackstory:Ballerina spins off primarily from John Wick: Chapter 3, which is my least favorite of the Wick series, mainly because it dived so deeply into lore that I just didn’t care one hoot about. Ballerina isn’t quite as lore-heavy, mostly operating in broad strokes about the rituals and truces of these assassin groups. It’s enough to set the tone without becoming impenetrable. You Got to Be Versatile: Eve Macarro is no John Wick. Few action heroes are, though! To be fair to Ana de Armas, she’s at least a confident enough action hero to get the job done. She may not be getting inducted into the Fictional Assassin Hall of Fame anytime, but she does at least wield a flamethrower unforgettably. Also, she dispatches someone in a moment very reminiscent of the swordsman scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I definitely enjoyed that moment.
Ballerina is Recommended If You: Wanted a John Wick movie without John Wick (but not entirely)
The Spontaneous Choreography of Chuck (CREDIT: NEON)
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Chiwetel Ejifor, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Annalise Basso, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Harvey Guillén, Kate Siegel, Nick Offerman, Q’Orianka Kilcher, David Dastmalchian, Rahul Kohli, Heather Langenkamp, Violet McGraw
Director: Mike Flanagan
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Rating: R for Language, Apparently (Nothing Overly Outrageous)
Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Told in three acts unfolding in reverse order, Act Three of The Life of Chuck opens on a future on the verge of apocalypse: the internet is becoming ever more unreliable, natural disasters are an everyday occurrence, and soon enough the stars are being wiped from the sky. Everyone is despairing, and the only sign of hope are literal signs popping up all around town thanking some guy named Chuck Krantz for his 39 years of service. But nobody has any idea who Chuck is! But then we step back to Act Two, taking place on one of the most memorable days of Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) life, when he spontaneously decides to start dancing in front of a busking drummer and quickly draws an enraptured crowd. And finally, Act One introduces us to a middle school-age Chuck (Benjamin Pajak), who’s living with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) following the tragic death of his mom and dad.
What Made an Impression?: The King’s English: Mike Flanagan is currently our foremost adapter of Stephen King, with The Life of Chuck based on a novella that was published in 2020. I’ve never read a single story written by King, but it’s impossible to avoid him if you’ve been watching movies for the past 50 years. While I’ve enjoyed plenty of those big screen versions, they’ve never made me want to dive into the source. There’s something that’s just a little bit uncanny about the worlds that King weaves. It’s like he’s speaking a language that’s ever so slightly different from the one I’m speaking. And when that language is filtered through the lens of someone who’s clearly as much of a fan as Flanagan is, that uncanniness is a rather strong flavor. Voice Overlord: I’ve enjoyed the narration in plenty of movies that feature it, and I’ve also enjoyed Nick Offerman in pretty much everything he’s ever done. But the narration narrated by Nick Offerman in The Life of Chuck? Well, that had me going “Huh.” It’s blunt, literal, and near-constant. But it also felt completely necessary if this movie was going to be the movie that it wants to be. Does that make sense? One Life: The whole idea underlying The Life of Chuck seems to be that there’s an entire universe living within Chuck’s brain (and by extension, everyone else’s brain). To get mildly spoiler-y, he’s dying of cancer, and that universe is dimming in his final moments. Is Chuck truly worthy of this biographical treatment? Yes, insofar as every single individual is worthy of such treatment. If The Life of Chuck didn’t fully work for any of us, well, then perhaps we could respond by crafting our own The Life of (Whoever the Hell We Want). All He Wants to Do Is…: Despite all my misgivings, I’ve got to give it up for that dance scene. Actually, there are multiple dance scenes, but I’m talking about that busking one right in the middle. Damn, Hiddleston-as-Chuck gives it his all. And you know what else this scene underscored me? I really love drumming. Taylor Gordon just pounds away on the skins, and it goes straight to my core. And then Annalise Basso plays Chuck’s impromptu partner, who’s wearing the perfect dress to accentuate all of their spins and dips. It’s one of the best scenes of the year.
The Life of Chuck is Recommended If You Like: Hanging upside-down while reading a book all day until the sun sets
They brought Stitch back! And he brought the Thunder (CREDIT: Ingvar Kenne/A24; Disney/Screenshot; Marvel/Screenshot)
Lilo & Stitch (2025)
Starring: Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders, Sydney Elizabeth Agudong, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Magnussen, Courtney B. Vance, Hannah Waddingham, Kaipo Dudoit, Tia Carrere, Amy Hill
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Rating: PG
Release Date: May 23, 2025 (Theaters)
Thunderbolts*
Starring: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce
Director: Jake Schreier
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 2, 2025 (Theaters)
Bring Her Back
Starring: Billy Barratt, Sally Hawkins, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Stephen Phillips, Mischa Heywood
Directors: Danny and Michael Philippou
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: May 30, 2025 (Theaters)
Okay, wow, I just noticed something weird. Or maybe not that weird. And maybe millions of other folks have already noticed this before me. But that doesn’t mean it’s not weird!
Time for Teletubbies! (CREDIT: Universal Pictures/Screenshot)
They keep making new movies, and some of them are even worth watching. Here’s what’s at the top of the slate for June 2025:
28 Years Later: It’s been fewer than 28 years since 28 Days Later came out in 2002, but cinematic time isn’t always linear. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return to the world of the Rage virus.
It will be 28 Years Later in movie theaters on June 20.
TV
–The Quiz with Balls Season Premiere (June 2 on FOX) – Still ballin’.
Music
-Matt Berninger, Get Sunk
-Miley Cyrus, Something Beautiful
-Garbage, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light
-Pavement, Pavements – Soundtrack to the film.
-Grace Potter, Medicine – This was actually recorded a while ago.
-Ty Segall, Possession
Sports
-NBA Finals (Begins June 5 on ABC) – Feeling pretty thunderous this year.
Jmunney's Blog 