Disclosure Day Film Review

Disclosure Day, the anticipated new film from director Steven Spielberg, is layered with themes and hidden meanings throughout this thought-provoking alien drama. Starring Emily Blunt, John O’Connor, and Colin Firth, the film explores the idea that extraterrestrials have been known to the U.S. government for decades—and that the time has finally come to reveal the truth.

Meanwhile, Dr. Daniel Kellner, played by John O’Connor, is on the run from WARDEX, a secret government organization determined to keep knowledge of alien life hidden from the public. Kellner and fellow whistleblower Hugo Wakefield, portrayed by Colman Domingo, are

Colin Firth is wonderfully cast against type as Noah Scanlon, the ruthless head of WARDEX.

In many ways, Disclosure Day feels like a spiritual successor to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Humanity has long been fascinated by the possibility of intelligent life beyond Earth. Stories surrounding Roswell and Area 51 have only fueled speculation that governments may know more than they are willing to admit. Spielberg taps into those ideas while asking whether, in an age where information spreads instantly, the truth can remain hidden forever.

Overall, Disclosure Day offers plenty of food for thought about alien life, government secrecy,

With surrealist, colorful visuals and powerful, uplifting messaging, I Love Boosters is a breath of fresh air in a cinematic landscape relying on reboots and nostalgia. Written and directed by Boots Riley, which you might also know from his 2018 film Sorry to Bother You, this film centers on a ragtag group of boosters attempting to create a better reality for themselves and their community.

Set in Oakland, a group of friends that call themselves the Velvet Gang make a living by boosting, or stealing, all the high-end fashion items they can and selling them at a remarkable discount. Our protagonist, Corvette, played by the inimitable Keke Palmer, has dreams of becoming a fashion designer herself, but has limited opportunities to pursue that. She seems suffocated by the weight of her current circumstances, often seen under way too many boosted clothes or being chased by her vision of an ever-growing ball of trash after shoplifting.

Her friends Sade, played by Naomi Ackie, and Mariah, played by Taylor Page, have different outlooks on their boosting, simply looking to make quick cash or rebranding it as paying it forward to their community. Their crimes have caught the attention of the fashion designer Christie Smith, played by Demi Moore, after the Velvet Gang targets one too many of her stores, called Metro Designers. Corvette looks up to Christie, finding her designs and life story inspiring, but the adage about meeting your heroes rings true when their paths cross.

Metro Designers is a soulless store that only sells clothes of one color at a time, a saturated setting that pokes fun at chain retailers. Corvette, Sade, and Mariah plan their biggest heist yet and start by getting jobs at Metro Designers, but their plans are thwarted by someone with a contraption that sucks all the merchandise in the store into their bag. This is Jianhu, played by Poppy Liu, an employee of Metro Designers’ overseas clothing factory. After the Velvet Gang learns of the inhumane conditions that Jianhu and her fellow workers are subjected to, they team up to finally get revenge on Christie and fight for better working conditions.

I Love Boosters sticks to a pretty simple plotline but keeps the audience on their toes with elements like science fiction machines and stop-motion animation. The black comedic edge of the film allows for both moments of hilarity and genuine recognition with the characters, such as learning of Jianhu’s plight or witnessing the contradictory practices of Metro Designers. It’s an overt reminder that the struggle of workers and the oppressed all over the world are connected. This film uplifts creation rather than consumption and crafts an inspiring, kaleidoscopic call to action for collective liberation.

For KSQD’s Film Gang: Isa Cortez

DJ Dupsie kicks off The Sunday Dinner 2nd Annual Summer Music Series with Being Black, Rocks! A celebration of Black artists who created, reshaped, and continue to influence the genre of Rock’n’Roll!

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Merle Hoffman opened one of America’s first legal abortion clinics in 1971—and she’s been fighting for our rights ever since. In this conversation, the founder of Choices Women’s Medical Center reflects on fifty-plus years on the front lines of the reproductive rights movement: what she’s learned, what she’s lost, and why she refuses to stop pushing that rock up the hill. Listen in as Merle Hoffman shares how she finds joy and purpose in the struggle.

Visit BABBLERY.com for more information, transcript, and links.

The Babblery features conversations about who we are and how we got this way. Modern humans can seem like the ancients building the Biblical Tower of Babel, cursed by God/nature never to understand each other. As Visiting Translators at the Tower of Babble, our guests delve into their work, their research, and their own experiences to try to explain the bits they’ve learned about Earth’s most perplexing species. Though we all speak different languages, here at The Babblery we aim to promote understanding, one conversation at a time. Visit The Babblery at https://babblery.com/. The Babblery is produced by Suki Wessling with support from KSQD.

 “The Global Crackdown on Free Expression”

In Honor of Project Censored’s 50th Anniversary

 “Be Bold America!” Airs June 19, 2026 at 5:00pm (PT)

In this interview, on the global crackdown of free expression, Dr. Steve Macek from North Central College in Illinois will discuss his work to combat the growing attacks on free speech and academic freedom in the U.S. and around the world.

Over the past decade, free speech and academic freedom have faced a synchronized, global decline. This erosion is not limited to traditional autocracies; it has increasingly taken route within established liberal democracies – most notably, right here in the United States. The threats manifest in two primary ways: external political and legal coercion (from governments and lawmakers) and internal culture pressures (leading to self-censorship and polarization).

Tune in to “Be Bold America!” on Friday, June 19 at 5:00pm to learn how restrictions on free expression mirrors a country’s broader shift toward authoritarian governance.

Interview Guest:

Dr. Steve Macek is a professor of communication and chair of the department of communication and media studies at North Central College in Illinois. He teaches courses on the First Amendment, journalism history, media policy, media, criticism, and urban studies.

Dr. Macek is the author of Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, and the Moral Panic over the City, that is a critical analysis of media discourse about American cities. His ads, commentaries and articles on censorship, academic freedom, media regulation and politics have been published in a wide range of newspapers, magazines, and websites.

with

On Sustainability Now!  Sunday, June 21st, 2026, from 5-6 PM on KSQD

Who knew that ponds make music?  To the eye and ears, they seem silent and tranquil—except at night when, maybe, choruses of frogs serenade listeners.  But ponds are much noisier than that: you have to be very quiet and have the right equipment to really hear what’s going on.  And there is a lot going on: both the critters and the plants speak out.  Indeed, nature is full of sounds, many of them musical and, quite possible, the forerunners of human music.

Join host Ronnie Lipschutz for a conversation with Dr. David Rothenberg, scholar, author, musician and composer and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology whose focus is on animal sounds as music. We’ll talk about his most recent book, Secret Sounds of Ponds, for which Rothenberg tossed a microphone into ponds and heard “an entirely new world, a realm of the unexpected and stirring rhythms and tones of some of the smallest and loudest creatures on Earth.”

That’s on Sustainability Now! Sunday, June 21st, 2026, from 5-6 PM on community radio for the Monterey Bay Region, KSQD 90.7 FM, KSQT 87.9 FM, K207FE (FX) 89.5 and KSQD.org, streaming on the internet.

(click on this to listen to pond sounds)

In this episode of Moment of Truth, host Meilin Obinata interviews James Weller about his journey into activism and community service. In the Santa Cruz area, people have heard his name in connection with a variety of causes, from public transportation to affordable housing development. But you might be surprised to learn about his involvement in COPA (Communities Organized in relational Power in Action) and the AFC (Association of Faith Communities) From his San Francisco roots, learning at the feet of Alan Watts, inspired by the organizing principles of Saul Alinsky, to being nurtured by the religious academic communities in Berkeley, we learn about how Weller learned to put beliefs into action. He shares lessons from a life of organizing, including the importance of class struggle, establishing public relationships even with your opposition and others.

Backrooms, directed and co‑scored by YouTube phenom Kane Parsons, marks his feature debut—a science‑fiction psychological horror film arriving just in time for summer audiences.

The film opens with a framing device: scientists recover footage shot by their missing colleague, Naren Warne, who became separated from his team inside the Backrooms. The Async Research Institute had been exploring this vast extradimensional maze when he vanished. What they find on his camera sets the tone—endless rooms, outdated furniture, crooked doorframes, and the oppressive buzz of fluorescent lights. The environment resembles an abandoned call center, and it’s more unsettling than many of the later horror beats. Parsons’ score deepens the mood: understated, melancholy, and quietly foreboding.

We then meet Clark, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, the weary owner of a failing discount furniture store. His merchandise is cheap, his prices are lower, and his marketing gimmick—dressing up as “Captain Clark,” a pirate‑sultan hybrid for local TV ads—only underscores his desperation. Ejiofor’s muttering and strained expressions capture a man who has run out of road.

Clark is profoundly unhappy. His once‑promising career has stalled, his marriage has collapsed, and therapy has become a lifeline he barely believes in. His therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), carries her own emotional scars: years spent trapped in her childhood home with an agoraphobic mother, followed by the loss of that home entirely. Both characters move through life weighted down by grief and inertia, unable to find meaning or momentum.

After the divorce leaves him broke, Clark takes up residence in the basement of his store. Persistent “electrical issues” pique his curiosity, and his investigation leads him to a hidden passageway into another dimension. Inside, Clark encounters a sprawling labyrinth of rooms and strange sounds—none of it logical, all of it unnerving.

Perplexed, Clark confides in Mary, but she dismisses his experience. Feeling even more isolated, Clark brings his assistant manager and her boyfriend into the Backrooms for what he frames as a “research project,” hoping to capture on camera the strange architecture, disorienting sounds, and impossible geometry he witnessed—proof that what he saw wasn’t a delusion but a discovery.

Around the halfway point, the film shifts tonally—from something reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project into territory closer to a zombie‑adjacent survival story. This shift coincides with Mary entering the Backrooms herself after wrestling with her own sense of purpose. Mary’s been reduced to selling self‑help tapes and books on late‑night TV, a hollow attempt at reinvention.

Once inside, Mary finds herself in a liminal, eerie, and disorienting space. Reinsve gives a striking physical performance that anchors the film’s final act.

Mark Duplass appears as Phil, a scientist at Async. Horror fans will recognize him from his extensive work writing and acting in genre films.

Ultimately, Backrooms can be viewed in two ways: as a straightforward horror‑thriller, or as a deeper meditation on the suffocating drudgery of being stuck in your own life, unable to move forward.

For KQSD’s Film Gang: Susan Lovegren.

My guest for this podcast is Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, founder of Sunkissed Mozart,

This podcast features an interview with Cindy, and excepts from some of her chamber music performances.  ( This is part 1 of an hour long show; part 2 continues right where this one leaves off.  Part 2 can be found whereever you are accessing part 1. )

Cindy Wu enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber musician, and music educator throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia. Cindy has been featured as a soloist with top-tier orchestras world-wide. She frequently performs at the most prominent concert venues such as

We’re very fortunate to have such an outstanding musician as a local.

My guest for this podcast is Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, founder of Sunkissed Mozart,

This podcast features an interview with Cindy, and excepts from some of her chamber music performances.  ( This is part 2 of an hour long show.   Part 1 can be found whereever you are accessing part 2. )

Cindy Wu enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber musician, and music educator throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia. Cindy has been featured as a soloist with top-tier orchestras world-wide. She frequently performs at the most prominent concert venues such as

We’re very fortunate to have such an outstanding musician as a local.