Monthly Archives: June 2026

Jun 14 2026

The Truth Is Revealed With Disclosure Day

Auteur director Steven Spielberg returns the UFO/UAP genre that he helped revolutionized with Disclosure Day. It serves as the conclusion to his loose trilogy of extra-terrestrial contact films that started with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. War of the Worlds does not really count because it was a remake of the 1950s classic and was more simplistic with its portrayal of extra-terrestrials. In other words, Aliens bad, humanity mostly good. With Disclosure Day, Spielberg once again proves that he is the master of his craft with this tense and thought-provoking film.

Disclosure Day stars Josh O’Connor as Daniel Kellner, a hacker on the run with his girlfriend Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) from a nefarious government-associated organization called Wardex run by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) because Kellner stole film evience that the U.S. government had recovered alien technology and beings from crash sites throughout the past 79 years, and imprisoned and tortured the recovered alien beings. He also stole a piece of alien technology that has to be handled delicately because of its unimaginable capabilities. Scanlon will stop at nothiing to capture Kellner because Kellner’s ally, Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), is preparing to reveal the truth about extra-terrestrials to the public in a desperate attempt to bring the world back from the point of no return since it is on the edge of World War III.

Kellner is challenged not only by Scanlon but Jane herself, who questions the consequences of revealing the truth to a human populace that may not be ready to learn the truth about their place in the universe.

The film also follows the story of Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a restless weather meterologist in Kansas City, who begins to display psychic powers after encountering a cardinal in her apartment. These powers manifest in her ability to speak languages she never knew including an unearthly garble of clicks, and with the capability of understanding the emotions and thoughts of others. She too, goes on the run after being hospitalized after Wardex goons pretending to be FBI agents show up at her hospital room.

The paths of Fairchild and Kellner eventually cross paths as she is psychically drawn to seek him out and help him in his quest to disclose the truth to the world.

Unlike his previous films about extra-terrestrials, Disclosure Day is more mature, grittier and a fitting conlcusion to what Spielberg is trying to convey about contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence. While Close Encounters of the Third Kind focused on making contact and E.T. was about buidling relationships, Disclosure Day tackles the consequences of contact and how we react to that. The film tackles many important questions such as where do we go from here? What would happen if humanity learned it was not alone? What impact would such a disclosure have on societal institutions like religion? The end of the film may frustrate some but it is quite appropriate to leave its conclusion up to audiences since it respects them enough to let audiences come to their own conclusions.

Do not think the film is some kind of dry treatise about alien life. Disclosure Day moves briskly and is unbelievably riveting at times with the intense and creative action scenes that made Spielberg so renowned. Such moments include a thrilling pursuit that takes place in an abandoned farmhouse and an edge-of-your-seat sequence involving cars and trains. The moments when Scanlon uses an alien artifact to mentally hunt down and enslave his victims was downright disturbing and added to the film’s paranoia. Wardex is symptomatic of the runaway military-industrial complex that is plaguing this world supposedly for the good of all of us. It is quite easy for audiences to despise Scanlon and the corporate stooges that work for this malignant corporation and to root for the underdog heroes.

Fairchild’s use of her empathic powers was both eerie and captivating and shows how one can accomplish wonders without resorting to violence. Speaking of empathy, although the film is more adult and darker than Spielberg’s other alien films it still holds on to the loose trilogy’s message of hope and empathy being what wins out despite the obstacles the films’ heroes face. Unlike previous efforts where the idea of love and empathy being the greatest tool we need to get along, this film does not get lost in syrupy and over the top scenes to tug at our heartstrings. It lets the actions of the characters and events to convey that something more is needed for us to get by in this downtrodden world that is on the brink of a nuclear nightmare. To its credit, the film does not go overboard with its presentation of the eve of a world war, then again it disturbingly echoes what goes on with the real world, as people try to go about their normal lives with the backdrop of the global nightmare awaiting them. The film’s message about humanity having to be more empathic and trusting feels more relevant and resonant with us given our current circumstances.

The famous Spielberg tropes and camera work are present in the film and they still work. The film has a few flaws such as some of the special effects could have been better, although the found footage of the U.S. military recovering the alien crash sites are topnotch. The film also features many terrific performances especially by Emily Blunt who is at her best portraying someone who has been touched by something extraordinary and is understandably confused by her situation. Yet despite her situation, Fairchild is quite determined to find out what is going on with what is happenging to her and we can’t help root for her and Kellner as they stay one step ahead of Wardex.

For fans of his alien films, Disclosure Day is a logical conclusion to the theme of humanity and its place in the universe as we are given the chance to think outside the box for something better. One concept the film explores fittingly is that the aliens are not important but instead it is how we react to them. This was why Spielberg in his original cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind never showed us any details about the alien spaceships, nor why we never learned about the aliens in his films or their motives, except in E.T.’s case that the aliens are explorers. This film comes closer to giving us the answer in that the extra-terrestrials are probably here to help us frrom ourselves, though that is up to any person watching the film. For anyone captivated by the recent renewed interest in the UFO/UAP phenomenon and is displeased by the lack of true disclosure, despite promises from government officials, the film feels very cathartic in its final moments.

The most important question for fans is how does Disclousre Day measure up to Spielberg’s other films, many of which are classics. Well, it is his best genre effort since his work in the early 2000s and a return to form for the master director. Disclosure Day shows that Spielberg is still in top form and the film itself has to be seen and treasured.

José Soto

Jun 6 2026

Spider-Noir Shows How To Do The Multiverse

Spider-Noir is the latest superhero TV show now streaming on Prime Video and stars Nicolas Cage as a variant of Spider-Man set in New York City during the 1930s. This time, for legal reasons, his name is Ben Reilly and he is called The Spider instead. Noticeably older and gruffer than the traditional Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Reilly operates as a classic gumshoe private detective in a gritty New York oozing with corruption, crime and notorious gangsters. In other words, this is not your typical Spider-Man story and this is how the Multiverse should have been done by the studios.

When Spider-Noir begins, Ben Reilly operates out of his tiny office in Manhattan as a gumshoe for hire and still grieving over the death of his girlfriend Ruby five years ago, Ever since her death, Reilly retired from being the masked vigilante, The Spider, but all that changed when he is hired to track down a criminal named Addison, who turns out to have pyrokinetic powers. After Addison is killed, circumstances drag Reilly and his associates down a nefarious rabbit hole involving the city’s corrupt mayor (Michael Kostroff), the notorious mob boss, Silvermane (Brendan Gleeson), who runs the city’s underworld with a savage fist, and Cat Hardy (Li Jun Li), a conflicted nightclub singer he is hired to track but falls in love with. Silvermane has superpowered henchman in his employ, such as Flint Marko (Jack Huston), a Sandman variant, Lonnie Lincoln (Abraham Popoola), a more sympathetic version of Tombstone, and Dirk Leyden (Andrew Lewis Caldwell), a version of the obscure Spider-Man villain Megawatt, who all come into conflict with the Spider.

During his investigations, Reilly finds out that the villains are connected to his World War I past and how he got his spider powers. More importantly, Reilly is forced to come out of retirement as The Spider, which brings him to the attention of Silvermane, who wants to consolidate his grip of power in New York City.

As one can tell by the premise and seeing the show itself, Spider-Noir is an inspired homage to the classic 1930s crime films that were once so popular during the Golden Age of Film. The show can be watched either in garish color with popping bright hues or in noirish black and white, which feels more appropriate. The TV show captures many of the elements that made crime noir films so popular: the jaded detective; a dazzling but conflicted femme fatale; struggling people who talk with exaggerated New York accents and read script lines that would make Humphrey Bogart feel right at home; numerous Dutch angles; split focus shots, and scintillating photography that evokes stark existentialist German cinematography. There are so many ways this approach could have approached a satire, but thanks to the skills from everyone involved, Spider-Noir is a respectful tribute to those types of crime noir films. The actors have to be singled out for their innovative performances, especially Cage, who evokes a combination of Bogart and Jimmy Cagney while infusing his performance with the bouts of unpredictable insanity that made him so famous. The other actors turn in commendable work here as well, such as Li whose near-tragic Hardy captivates every scene she’s in and Gleeson, who projects a chilling presence.

The Multiverse is a great concept that allows for the exploration of many famous characters in different settings which provide captivating insights into what makes them work. The comic books from DC and Marvel have produced many memorable works based on variants of their renowned characters, but live-action attempts at exploring the Multiverse have had mixed results. For Marvel’s part, it seemed as if the studios were too afraid to go all out and give us wildly different versions of their characters. Why is that? Perhaps the studio heads fear that doing so will confuse audiences. But they underestimate them all the time. Other times, the efforts were laughably bad, such as Sony’s misguided films starring Spider-Man villains that were dead on arrival. We could have had more inspired Multiverse films and TV shows in the run up to Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars and even the beloved Spider-Verse films that took greater advantage of the Multiverse concept like Spider-Noir has done. The executive producers of Spider-Noir are Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also guided the Spider-Verse films and they should be the go-to guys for more Multiverse works if they ever happen.

Spider-Noir is more than an homage to crime noir films, it is also one of the best superhero TV shows ever done that focuses on character and exciting superheroics. Underneath his cynical exterior, Ben Reilly still has a good heart because he knows that having great power has great responsibility. Even though this setting is unbelievably different than the traditional one seen with Spider-Man lore, it still is a Spider-Man story and one that hints at how the character would be like if he were middle aged. This approach allows the character to be shown in a unique way while sticking to what makes Spider-Man so popular. By going all in with the Multiverse concept, this TV show is able to present a novel approach to the Spider-Man character and see how he would have turned out under a different setting. Spider-Noir, simply put, takes full advantage of the Multiverse concept and how it should be done.