Category Archives: The June Swoon

Sing Sing

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Colman Domingo received an Academy Award nomination for this lead role in Sing Sing. He was fabulous as “Divine G.”

While I figured this would be a prison movie, I have to admit, this was not what I was expecting.

According to IMDB, “Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men, including wary newcomer (Clarence Maclin), in this stirring true story of resilience, humanity, and the transformative power of art, starring an unforgettable ensemble cast of formerly incarcerated actors“

The only thing that I knew about this movie was that Colman Domingo was in it and, going by the title, I assumed it was taking place in the prison Sing Sing. I am glad that I went into this movie as blind as I did because it caught me so off-guard that it really made this a great experience.

I actually compare it in my mind more to Ghostlight than I did to another prison movie. It provided the power of the stage in a manner to help face the troubles of your life.

Finding out that this was a true story was another shock and made it even more impactful. The clips at the end of the film with the real people was powerful.

Colman Domingo was amazing. He has become one of our best actors working today. The rest of the cast was just as solid, as much of the cast was previously incarcerated individuals who played themselves.

Sing Sing was a outstanding film that had some real drama inside the prison without falling into the typical prison tropes that we have seen a million times. This is one of the overlooked films of 2024.

Ghostlight

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June 7

This was another movie that I never would have heard of if not for Dan Murrell, online critic, who put Ghostlight on his best of 2024 list. After hearing that, I added it to the June Swoon list.

Thank you, Dan. This was a sensational movie, one of the best that I have seen over the last year or so.

According to IMDB, “When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater’s production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.”

This script was beautifully constructed and the story told in a wonderful manner. Pieces of the story were given as the film progressed. We knew some of the things that happened, but they hold on to the overall events for the stretch. The writing was layered and worked so well that you could feel everything going on.

The performances were out of this world. Interestingly, the actors who played Dan and Sharon Mueller, Keith Kupferer and Tara Mallen, are married in real life, and their on-screen daughter Daisy was played by their real life daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer. All of this made this feel real and all three of them knocked this out of the park.

I had immediate connection to this movie because I know kids like Daisy, who came out immediately with curse words and anger. I wanted to know more about what was going on, and these characters were so well done that everything was awesome.

I watched the movie on Amazon Prime and, I am not sure if this was the way it was supposed to go, but the very end felt like Prime cut off too soon. Maybe that was how the film ended, which, if so, it felt like I needed one more scene.

That was the only problem that I had with this film. It is one of the best movies I have seen in awhile. The story was small and emotional with the feeling of reality truly cutting deep. Ghostlight was great. If I were giving star ratings for these June Swoon movies, this would be five stars.

The Only Girl in the Orchestra

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June 6

It is documentary day in the June Swoon.

Because of busy day at the theater, I decided that today I would watch the Academy Award winning documentary short for the first film of the day. It was called The Only Girl in the Orchestra, and it was a celebration of Orin O’Brien, the first woman to become a member of the New York Philharmonic.

O’Brien played the double bass the doc came about as she was retiring from her position.

It felt like this was too short and that this topic could sustain a much longer documentary. O’Brien was an interesting topic as someone who just did not want to be in the spotlight. She said, in the doc, “I didn’t have any ambition of being a soloist, I liked being in the background.“

She even revolted against the very idea of the documentary focusing on her. O’Brien’s niece, Molly O’Brien directed the documentary and tried to convince her that she a valuable topic.

Her passion for music definitely came through in this doc, even if it is too short. Oren O’Brien is a fascinating character that shines in the short.

Memoir of a Snail

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June 5

The June Swoon entry today is the final of the 2025 Academy Award nominees for Best Animated Feature, Memoir of a Snail. It is an Australian stop motion film.

According to IMDB, “A bittersweet memoir of a melancholic woman called Grace Pudel – a hoarder of snails, romance novels, and guinea pigs.”

The voice cast featured some of the top level Australian actors including Emmy and Tony Award winner Sarah Snook, Academy Award nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee, Academy Award nominee Jacki Weaver and actor Eric Bana.

This animated film is not one for kids. It is a distinctly adult story told in the stop action format. It is a funny film, with a very tragic feel.

The film was written, directed and produced by Adam Elliot and it was loosely based on his own life.

Even though the movie was dark, it had a remarkable flair for life and the eccentricities of the human condition. The film is chocked full of adult themes mixed in with the humor. It is powerful and deeply affecting. It is a wonderful example of what is possible in the animation style.

Flow

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Today’s entry in the June Swoon is an Academy Award winner, and you can see why. Flow won the Oscar for the Best Animated Feature at the 2025 Academy Awards, knocking off such luminaries as Wild Robot, Inside Out 2 and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

Flow follows the life of a dark grey cat that was living in a forest. A massive flood swept through the land, leading the cat to struggle to survive in a variety of ways.

During the film, the cat meets up with a group of different animals that form a sort of crew, especially while they were on a felucca. The cat joined up with a yellow Labrador Retriever, a ring-tailed lemur, a capybara and a secretary bird.

These animals were not anthropomorphic. They acted like the individual animals would act. The dog was playful and clearly looking to please. The lemur was a thief, collecting trinkets and shiny objects. The capybara, which is a type of rodent, laid around. There were some moments where it felt as if the animal characters transcended their natures and became something more.

The cat served as the POV of the film, as we see things through its eyes. The survival instincts of the cat was on display throughout the film in such a harrowing instance that you could not help but root for these animals.

I am a cat lover and so it was very easy to get into Flow. There were multiple perilous events along the path of this adventure that placed the cat in jeopardy. The whole showdown with the flock of secretary birds was tense and frightening.

There were a couple of scenes that went past just survival and looked at themes of life and death. One, involving the secretary bird, was a lovely moment that leaves you to deduce what exactly had occurred. There was a second scene involving a mutated whale that had saved the cat from drowning earlier in the movie. This scene was heartbreaking.

Flow was beautifully animated with such amazing visuals across the board. The artistic mastery created an incredible tone throughout Flow and some of the visuals with the cat and fish in the water was astounding.

With no dialogue, Flow was able to tell this story through some amazing characters and some fantastic music. According to Wikipedia, the cat of sound designer Gurwal Coïc-Gallas provided the meows for the cat in the movie, which I thought was a funny piece of trivia. It also provided that realistic sound that enhanced the viewing treat.

While I am not sure if I would have given Flow the Oscar over The Wild Robot, there can be no denying that this is a masterful animated film full of life and love and friendship.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

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June 3

There were several animated movies that I missed out on in 2024, so there are several on the list for the June Swoon 4. The first one is the Oscar nominated Netflix film that returned to the stop action animation of the franchise Wallace & Gromit.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl sees the erstwhile inventor Wallace trying to help his trusty dog Gromit with his garden. Going over the top, Wallace created a robot to help… the “smart gnome” or Norbot. Meanwhile, master criminal Feathers McGraw, who had been captured by the police thanks to Wallace & Gromit, plotted a way to take control of the army of Norbots.

I had watched another Wallace & Gromit film (Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and I did not like it much. That was part of the reason that I did not watch this on Netflix last year. However, this was so much better than I expected. It was funny, clever and just a really enjoyable film.

The voice talents of Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel and Reece Shearsmith are on full display in the film.

The animation feels old school. The effort it takes to create a film using the stop action animation is considerable, and this crew does an amazing job with it. It never feels shorted or lacking, and delivers some excellent moments throughout, including a big action chase scene at the end.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl has one of the rarer accomplishments… 100% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I can see why. This was a lot of fun. It did not try to exceed what it does well and it did not overstay its welcome at a slim 79 minutes. This is available on Netflix.

Hundreds of Beavers

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June 2

Dan Murrell had this on his list of the best films of 2024 and I had never heard of it. Hundreds of Beavers sounded weird and bizarre. I figured this would make a good watch for the June Swoon.

What a wild ride this was.

It felt like a live action Loony Tunes cartoon, full of slapstick, cartoon violence and laughter.

According to IMDB, “In this 19th century, supernatural winter epic, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.“

This film translates it story without dialogue (or at least, without much dialogue). Outside of a few words grunted or mumbled, the film does a tremendous job of creating a visual storytelling aspect that makes this all the more appealing.

The black and white style adds to the homemade feel of the film, and plays right into the joke. The score of the film is perfect, making this feel like the old time animation, despite the hundreds of over-exaggerated beaver costumes all over the place.

It is gems like this that I appreciate the YouTube community for mentioning. I can legitimately say that I would never have heard of Hundreds of Beavers without the recommendation from Dan Murrell. I spent a chunk of time laughing at so much of the stupid humor going on in this movie that it was an absolute treat. This is the type of film that takes a chance and has it pay off big time. One of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time.

September 5

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June 1, 2025

The fourth annual June Swoon kicked off this morning with a movie that I have been anticipating for a long time. It is a film that I would have gone to in the theater but it never came around to any of the theaters in my area. At least, I never saw it available in my area.

September 5 told the tragic story of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany where a group of Israeli athletes were taken hostage during the games. The movie was told from the perspective of the sporting crew from ABC, who were in Munich covering the Games and wound up near the scene of terror.

I only knew a little bit about the situation before viewing this and the massive tragedy that would befall the athletes. This was put together with an outstanding ensemble of actors as well as real life archival footage shot by ABC. Footage of the late Jim McKay as the anchor of the sports crew and the voice that sent the news out to the world was used. The quote of McKay when everything was finalized and his words went out across the world

When I was a kid my father used to say “Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said there were 11 hostages; two were killed in their rooms this morn– yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.
— McKay, 1972

The ensemble cast included  Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin, and Leonie Benesch as well as a ton of other actors. The tension of the situation was amplified by these talented actors and they brought suspense to a moment in time that many, if not all, knew would end up with tragic results. Yet as you watched the film unfold, you still held hope that there would be part of the story that you did not know and that there would be some sliver of happiness would be found.

September 5 was an emotional roller coaster detailing the horrors of a terrorist attack, and the dedication of these men and women to provide the details of the news to the world.

The Burial (2023)

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June 30, 2024

The June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback draws to a close for this year with a film on Amazon Prime that I had on my radar for several months at the end of 2023, but one that I simply did not find the time to watch. I am glad that the June Swoon gave me the opportunity to see The Burial as it was an engaging and dramatic court movie.

Starring Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones, The Burial is based on a true story of a small business owner’s struggle to save his business in the face of a greedy corporation.

According to IMDB, “Inspired by true events, when a handshake deal goes sour, funeral home owner Jeremiah O’Keefe (Academy Award® winner Tommy Lee Jones) enlists charismatic, smooth-talking attorney Willie E. Gary (Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx) to save his family business. Tempers flare and laughter ensues as the unlikely pair bond while exposing corporate corruption and racial injustice in this inspirational, triumphant story.“

I really loved the character played by Jones in this. He went against just about every convention you would have in a film, especially from a character played by Tommy Lee Jones. Nary a sign of a gruff, growly man. My favorite scene of the film was when Jones and Foxx were on Foxx’s plane and they played some music.

The best parts of the film were between Jones and Foxx as they had a tremendous chemistry on screen. They felt like true friends despite the natural differences between them.

The court scenes were also very well done as Jones gave an excellent person for whom the audience could relate to.

The Burial runs for over two hours but it did not feel like that. Nicely paced and brilliantly acted, The Burial was a wonderful way to wrap up the June Swoon 3.

Reality (2023)

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June 29, 2024

It is the penultimate film in the 2024 June Swoon today on June 29th and it was one on Max called Reality.

I was not sure why the title of the movie was Reality, but soon I learned that it was named after the main character, Reality Winner, a real life American intelligence leaker from 2017. The film itself is based on the recordings from the real life interview of Reality Winner by the FBI as they searched her home for any evidence that she had sent classified materials to an online publication.

Sydney Sweeney played Reality and she did a fantastic job. This was one of my favorite performances for Sweeney and from this you can see why she is considered one of the up-and-comers in the world of entertainment.

The dialogue of the movie reportedly came directly from the recordings of the day, including a bunch of the small talk that ensued between Reality and the FBI agents, specifically with agents Garrick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchánt Davis). Some of the dialogue was uncomfortable and could be considered cringe, but you could feel the tension of the moment with every word.

The film does a cool thing when it comes to parts of the questioning that needed to stay confidential. The film does a glitch type thing and reappears after the part is done. This is a clever way to conceal info that needed to remain hidden.

Tina Satter directed the film, which she also co-wrote. She had originally adapted the transcript into a stage play entitled Is This a Room. Reality was Satter’s first directorial debut.

The film was well done and highlights the talents of Sydney Sweeney. It is available for streaming on HBO Max.

You Hurt My Feelings (2023)

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June 28, 2024

Julia Louis-Dreyfus starred in today’s June Swoon 3, a film called You Hurt My Feelings, an A24 film that follows her life as writer.

Louis-Dreyfus played Beth, a writer who overheard her husband Don (Tobias Menzies) telling his friend that he really did not like the new book that she was writing. This bit of honesty sent Beth on a spiral, doubting everything in her life and putting her marriage under a scrutiny that she had never had before.

The film was fine. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is funny and she delivered her performance in the slow, real life tone. The film builds a series of events together, showing a full picture of her and her family’s life.

Some could consider the pace of this film to drag on, but I liked the simplicity of the presentation. The film takes its time it spends with each character to really reveal what they were like. Nothing major would happen to any of them, but these seemingly unimportant moments all had a powerful impact on each person.

The film does take time with Don as well, looking at his job as a therapist, a job that the film seems to be implying that he is not very good at. He has several clients that come in to air their problems with Don, to little success. Amber Tamblyn, David Cross, and Zach Cherry are standouts among the therapy sessions.

This had a definite independent movie feel to it. It is not flashy but it was an entertaining film with some thoughts on the little white lies and their effects.

Infinity Pool (2023)

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June 27, 2023

I avoided this movie not only when it was in the theaters, but this month during the June Swoon 3. I had a feeling that this would not be a film that I would enjoy. Infinity Pool was a Brandon Cronenberg directed film. Brandon’s father is David Cronenberg, who was renown for his body horror films. I am not big on the body horror.

Despite my hesitancy, I gave Infinity Pool a chance on Hulu.

Boy, was I right.

I did not enjoy this movie at all.

According to IMDB, “While staying at an isolated island resort, James (Alexander Skarsgård) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman) are enjoying a perfect vacation of pristine beaches, exceptional staff, and soaking up the sun. But guided by the seductive and mysterious Gabi (Mia Goth), they venture outside the resort grounds and find themselves in a culture filled with violence, hedonism, and untold horror“

I will start with the positive. Mia Goth is a star. She has been amazing in other films such as Pearl and X and she is just as frightening here. I look forward to seeing her career move on.

That was about it. I had no character in this movie that I could support or root for. They were all just horrific people. I think I was meant to cheer for Alexander Skarsgård’s character, but I found him unlikable in just about every way.

The bizarre sequences of the film were not enjoyable to watch for me and just did not engage me with the story.

It was unsatisfying and I was right to skip it last year. I wish I had skipped it this year too.

Flora and Son (2023)

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June 26, 2024

How have I never seen anything about this movie before?

What a wonderfully charming movie. From the director of Sing Street, Flora and Son is a story of a single mom Flora (Eve Hewson) who has had trouble connecting with her 14-year old son Max (Orén Kinlan). One day, in an attempt to find something for her son to do, she rescued a guitar from the dumpster. When he rejected it, Flora decided to take online lessons to learn the guitar herself and she found a guitar instructor Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who changed her life.

This film is a love letter to music and its power to create, heal or maintaining relationships, even those that feel as if there is no possible way for those relationships to work.

The film has a complicated relationship between Flora and Max at the center, a mother and son who seem to barely stand each other, but their eventual similar love of music started to repair their bond.

The relationship with Flora and Jeff is one of the most fascinating ones of the film as they never meet face to face, only over the internet. However, the film uses some clever ways to show this online relationship that helps create a connection that benefitted both of them.

Ewe Hewson is tremendous as Flora. She is the ultimate standout of the movie and her performance carries most of the film. I found her so appealing that I bought every relationship she had and I rooted for her to be a better mom. Orén Kinlan was solid too, bringing the typical brooding teen more depth than you would think.

I did not expect to enjoy this film as much as I did, but I loved Sing Street and the vibe definitely matches that one.

20 Days in Mariupol (2023)

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June 25, 2024

“Wars don’t start with explosions. They start with silence.”

Today’s June Swoon 3 film is another Oscar winner that absolutely rips at your soul and had me crying within the first 20 minutes. 20 Days in Mariupol won the 2024 Best Documentary Academy Awards this past March with this chilling look at the Russian invasion into Ukraine, specifically into a coastal city called Mariupol.

Three AP journalists, led by Mstyslav Chernov, who wound up writing, directing and appearing in the doc, end up the final journalists inside war torn Mariupol, dedicated to getting their footage out of the country to show the world the atrocities being committed by Russian soldiers.

Absolutely heart-wrenching as the footage showed men, women, children being torn apart by the shrapnel and the bombing of civilian structures. As I watched, I was taken aback by the continued filming of these tragedies and how the Ukrainian people, for the most part, wanted the filming to continue. I guess the desire to show the world what was happening, to be able to record the travesty was vitally important to everyone involved.

The switching to news clips of Russian representatives claiming these images and film was of actors, that it was “fake news” was downright sickening. The use of that phrase to try and minimize the truth and throw shade at the media is obscene, and I am ashamed of how that term has been used in the US as well as abroad.

The film was so raw and painful to watch these innocent people suffer through because of the aggression of an occupying force. As painful as it was, it also was a homage to the power of the human spirit and the dedication to one’s craft in the face of real-world horrors. This was harrowing.

A Disturbance in the Force (2023)

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June 24, 2024

A Long, Long Time Ago… in a Galaxy far away… Well, maybe not that far away.

Few fandoms are as currently as toxic as the Star Wars fandom. Not to put down the entire group of people for the divisiveness of some, but there is no denying that Star Wars fans lean towards hyperbole. One only needs to look at the discourse surrounding the new Disney + series, The Acolyte, to understand it.

However, the Star Wars universe had something once that is both beloved and reviled unlike anything else. It was something that George Lucas himself wanted to see banished from the canon of his creation. It was something that Star Wars fans desperately tried to see for decades… a badge of honor among those who truly called themselves Star Wars aficionados.

The Star Wars Holiday Special.

So today’s June Swoon focused in on a documentary from Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak all about the creation of and response to on of the most infamous TV specials of all fandom.

Between the release of Star Wars and Empire Strikes back, the CBS network wanted a Star Wars special to broadcast over the holiday season and they turned it into a variety show, featuring Chewbacca’s family as well as Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman and Art Carney. It aired once and then disappeared, only to be seen by those who could find a bootleg copy.

This documentary included clips of all of the Star Wars performers, including Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher with their thoughts on the special. Harrison Ford’s responses are always the most entertaining as he is clearly hoping the special would disappear forever.

There were also interviews of a ton of famous people in the geek community giving their comments and thoughts on the special including such notable stars as Kevin Smith, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Bobcat Goldthwait, Seth Green, Paul Scheer, Donny Osmond, Gilbert Gottfried, and Patton Oswalt. There were a lot of interviews with people involved in the creation of the special including Bruce Vilanch, Mick Garris, Bob Mackie among others.

Though the doc certainly says that this special was bad, there was items included that show how some people, particular those who may have seen the special as a child, loved the show. Jon Favreau is an unapologetic fan of the special and they showed how he included Easter eggs from it in The Mandalorian. The clips from the animated section of the special was shown as the first place we saw Boba Fett.

The documentary was very funny and gave real opinions of people who were desperate at the time for content in the Star Wars community. One wonders what the fandom today would do if something like the Star Wars Holiday Special were to be released on Disney +. The review bombing that would happen would be generational.

All Star Wars fans should be looking for this documentary, which I rented on Amazon Prime. If you are interested in how something like this able to be created, you should check this out. It was highly entertaining and an easy watch.