Sean Lemme

I started blogging as a way to lazily pass my high school senior project and somehow I've kept doing it for more than half my life

Shocktober: Clayface

Clayface

Somehow we live in a timeline where Clayface is not even the first (or second!) live-action origin story of a member of Batman’s rogues gallery to makes no mention of the Caped Crusader. This effort is the most palatable yet because, unlike something like Joker, I had my expectation-ometer set to “reasonable” by way-too-online DC boss James Gunn, who made it abundantly clear: this a standalone story akin to the animated series’ classic “Feat of Clay” two-parter that may or may not leave room to one day bring this character back in some other adventure … and also they haven’t even cast Batman yet. The only problem? You take Batman out and you’ve only got half a story.

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Shocktober: Backrooms

Backrooms

As fun and exciting it is to celebrate Kane Parsons, who, at 20, became the youngest director to have a number one movie at the box offices, the question we really have to grapple with regarding Backrooms is: should we be adapting 4chan? I’m just kidding, I don’t care. I wish I had an interesting angle or any angle at all with which to explain the fascination with Backrooms but having watched it… I’ve got nothing. I dig the aesthetic. It was fine.

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Shocktober: Obsession

Obsession

Given how much of our entertainment is about wish fulfillment or power fantasies, it’s kind of surprising how relatively few movies there are about good ol’ honest wishing. What was the last one, that Spider-Man “movie” where Dr. Strange ruins a boy’s life? These are always my favorite Twilight Zones, and, now that I think of it, this fascination goes way back to my childhood, when I countlessly watched the likes of Aladdin and DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp on repeat. Not only is it fun to see some lucky bastard get everything he ever wanted, only for it to blow up in their face; it’s even more fun to imagine your own wish, and how you’d legalese your way out of any monkey paw shenanigans. That’s especially true of Obsession, a movie where a bonehead thoughtlessly blurts out an ill-conceived wish and spends the rest of the movie making worse and worse decisions.

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Criterion Month Day 30: Sentimental Value

Sentimental Value (2025)

I don’t know how adults do it. Every single day, you gotta find time to work, exercise, clean, make food, have hobbies, maintain relationships… so much, and it’s every day. I’m already someone who watches maybe one or two movies a week, the disruption of having to watch 10 extra films and write 10 blog posts in a month should be pretty minimal. And yet I maintain such a delicate balance that by the end of July, I’m all out of whack. And I just have myself and an adorable cat to take care of! Imagine having a spouse and kids and more! Ugh. No wonder there are so many stories about deadbeat dads.

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Criterion Month Day 29: The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent (2025)

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent may have been smuggled into American cinemas late last year but it really had its cover blown this winter when it triggered considerable awards attention. At the Golden Globes it won Best Actor — Drama and Best Foreign Language Film and became the first Brazilian film to be nominated for Best Picture — Drama. At the 98th Academy Awards (which, by the way, have you started to think about how insufferable the 100th Oscars are going to be?) it earned four nominations, although it didn’t win any. While it may seem like a coup, once you see it, you can’t notice it has many of the hallmarks of the kinds of movies the Academy adores in the 21st Century – especially, and unfortunately, fellow 2025 critical darling One Battle After Another (with a tasteful splash of No Country For Old Men).

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Criterion Month Day 25: Boyz n the Hood

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Film critics, especially the kind that make Important Lists, typically overcorrect for recency bias, which I respect. You can never be too sure something that seems groundbreaking now will still feel that way in a generation, and it’s just as easily to dismiss something that ends up being iconic. This Criterion Month I’ve been thinking about François Truffaut a lot and the importance of his debut, The 400 Blows. A towering achievement, especially as a directorial debut, Truffaut’s coming-of-age story is often discussed as one of the greatest films of all time.

Boyz n the Hood is older now than The 400 Blows was when Boyz n the Hood came out in 1991. I think that’s why Criterion recently released his Hood Trilogy box set, enough time has passed that you can talk about both these movies in the same breath. But what do I know? I just saw it. Maybe it’s too soon for me to be making declarations.

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Criterion Month Day 22: Hairspray

Hairspray (1988)

When it comes to civil rights cinema, most of the attention has historically gone down south, where the fight for equality was its most dangerous. John Waters’ Hairspray is a sobering reminder that while things maybe not have been as violent in the north, there has always been just as much struggle to end segregation and work towards a more just future.

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