3-in-1 Movie Review: Robin, Leviticus, and the Girls Arrive on June 19

June 16, 2026

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CREDIT: Aidan Monaghan/A24

The Death of Robin Hood

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgӓrd, Murray Bartlett, Noah Jupe, Faith Delaney, Jade Croot

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Running Time: 122 Minutes

Rating: R for A Decent Amount of Blood

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Girls Like Girls

Starring: Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Zach Braff, Levon Hawke

Director: Hayley Kiyoko

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Teen Partying and Some Language

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: NEON

Leviticus

Starring: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska, Jeremy Blewitt, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie, Nicholas Hope, Zamira Newman, Edwina Wren

Director: Adrian Chiarella

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Disturbing Horror Violence and Some Sexual Content

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

Welcome to all of you who just can’t wait for the Summer Movie Season! And also welcome to those of you who absolutely can’t resist the lure of the multiplex no matter what time of the year it is. If you enjoy reading about any and all new releases, well you’re in luck, because this is one of those times when I review more than one movie in a single post. They’re all set to debut in theaters on June 19, and their names are The Death of Robin Hood, Girls Like Girls, and Leviticus. They all promise to provide very different tones from each other, but they also all have one thing in common: none of them is Toy Story 5.

The Death of Robin Hood hands off the famous outlaw’s bow and arrow to Hugh Jackman, with Pig auteur Michael Sarnoski writing and directing. This is one of those revisionist takes that strips away the most recognizable elements of a very famous character, which is to say that this Robin doesn’t do a whole lot of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. So what does he do instead? Honestly, not much. This is certainly a movie that lives up to its title, with Robin essentially just lying around and making amends until he expires. In the course of his demise, he’s tended to by a nun (Jodie Comer) and kind of befriends a leper (Murray Bartlett). So it’s not totally event-less, but I still ultimately came to the conclusion that it took away the most interesting part of the character and didn’t really replace it with anything else interesting.

Girls Like Girls similarly lives up to the promise of its title, but in this case employing a strategy that’s presumably much safer for pleasing its target audience. It’s the directorial debut of singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko, based on her novel of the same name that was in turn based on her song of the same name. It follows the teenage Coley (Maya da Costa) in 2006 as she moves in with her dad (Zach Braff) following the death of her mom and finds herself spectacularly smitten with her new friend Sonya (Myra Molloy). You get the sense that this is the first time that Coley has ever felt this deeply for a girl, or anybody at all really. That’s the key to this movie’s power: the bigness of the feelings are contagious. We’ve all endured the struggles of uncertain love (no matter how queer or not queer), and we’re all looking for the support that Coley’s looking for promising that it’s all going to be okay.

We’ve actually got one more queer love story on the docket, although Leviticus doesn’t exactly offer much in the way of anything resembling a happy promise. Instead, this Australia-set supernatural chiller finds teenage boys Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) spooked by an entity threatening to kill them after an encounter with a “Deliverance Healer” (Nicholas Hope), which is essentially the most evil case of “pray the gay away” that you can imagine. The entity takes the form of the person you’re most romantically obsessed with, so Naim and Ryan are screwed by any attempts at solidarity. Comparisons to It Follows are inevitable, but the despair I clocked has more to do with the geographical dispersion of Down Under. Truly, this is a nightmare worthy of the Outback.

Grades:
The Death of Robin Hood: 2.5 out of 5 Arrows
Girls Like Girls: 3.5 out of 5 AIM Messages
Leviticus: 3.5 out of 5 Doppelgangers

‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ Takes Manhattan

June 27, 2024

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A Kitty Place (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsou, Eliane Umuhire

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Acrobatic Alien Hunting

Release Date: June 28, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Remember those blind aliens from A Quiet Place that hunt by sound? Did you wonder what it was like when they first arrived? Perhaps you specifically imagined how it must have gone down in New York City. It’s the city that famously never sleeps. And it also never shuts up either! So the ETs would presumably be able to indulge in quite the feast. And so, in A Quiet Place: Day One, cancer-stricken Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) and her cat Frodo head into Manhattan along with hospice nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff). She only agrees to the trip because she hasn’t had a real New York slice of pizza in a while. But that proves difficult to procure when the aliens show up and also when a law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn) won’t leave her alone amidst the mayhem.

What Made an Impression?: Resourcefulness: One of the signature features of the first Quiet Place was getting to see all the ways that human life had adapted to being as silent as possible. I was concerned that Day One would be utterly devoid of those pleasures, but it turns out that people are pretty resourceful in a crisis. Or at least, enough people are sufficiently resourceful to make a movie out of. It’s hard to calculate exactly due to the chaos of the invasion, but I would estimate that it takes at most an hour for everyone to realize that they need to stop making noise. As Sam navigates the urban landscape as gracefully as possible, it’s enough to make you pine for the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when otherwise busy city streets were completely empty. Of course, in both cases, the circumstances precipitating the calm were quite devastating. But this movie is still satisfying as a how-to guide to navigate the world being upended by a sudden disaster.
Wait a Minute, the Cat!: Sam’s journey is ultimately one of allowing herself to live again amidst all the death and destruction. That’s not exactly groundbreaking when it comes to terminally ill protagonists, so I’m not surprised that I was far more interested in her stubborn insistence on acquiring one final slice of ‘za. And I think that burning desire partly explains why her feline friend is so loyal to her. Believe you me, Frodo is quite the cat. He knows not to meow! He knows how to avoid being trampled! He even knows how to walk on a leash! The Quiet Place movies are all pretty straightforward in what they promise and deliver, but then occasionally you have little Frodos that are surprisingly sublime.

A Quiet Place: Day One is Recommended If You Like: Being able to hear chatter from the lobby in between the explosions

Grade: 3 out of 5 Shushes

Review (of ‘Pig’)

July 16, 2021

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Pig

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: July 16, 2021 (Theaters)

Alex Wolff is Salt Bae. That could be the entirety of my Pig review!

Oh, but Nic Cage is in this, too, so I think I might like to talk about that as well. (Erbviously.)

But back to Mr. Alex Wolff for a second. He wears these fantastic skinny round sunglasses that sure look like Salt Bae’s. And he’s already got the dark tuft of hair and olive skin to complete the Chef Nusret Gökçe resemblance. Not for nothing does much of this movie take place in the fancy-schmancy restaurant world.

Anyway, Cage plays a truffle hunter who really wants his pig back, as you can surely tell by the profoundly simple title. Considering the actor and the premise, you might think he spends the whole movie shouting at everyone all over everywhere, but instead he prefers much subtler tactics. He has an uncanny knack for peering into the souls of anyone he comes across. He knows how to conjure emotional memories that bring the universe back into equilibrium. He’s like a wizard that way, and it’s kind of breathtaking to witness.

Grade: 3 Tablespoons of Facial Scars, 5 Cups of Psychology