Juneteenth Jams + One Very Serious Comedy

Somehow evoking mid-century melodramas, Lifetime psychodramas, Showgirls, as well as Elizabeth Berkeley's diet-pill spiral in that "Saved by the Bell" episode, Maddie's Secret is a delicious treat that doesn't follow comedy recipes. In his directorial debut, cult funnyman John Early ("Search Party") takes a rewarding creative gamble, starring in drag as the eponymous L.A. food influencer with a hidden eating disorder. Earnestly hitting the beats of a cautionary movie-of-the-week, Early (along with hilarious pros like Kate Berlant, Kristen Johnston and Connor O'Malley) grounds the odd-duck whimsy with a palpable, sincere pathos.

Shrewdly timed to both Juneteenth and Father's Day weekend, David Fortune's warm-hearted drama Color Book could've been a saccharine "overcoming adversity" tale in the wrong hands. A newly widowed Atlanta dad (William Catlett), barely holding it together, goes on a daylong odyssey to take his 11-year-old (Jeremiah Daniels, an impressive young actor with Down syndrome) to the boy's first baseball game. Lustrously photographed in black-and-white, this intimate meditation on grief and patience is genuinely uplifting, a film so authentically soulful that quiet moments (a shared muscle-man flex, a stubborn standoff over a balloon) land like revelations.

Philadelphia rapper Tierra Whack is a playful shapeshifter who won me over with her ADHD-addled 2018 debut "Whack World", an eclectic 15-track visual album of one-minute songs. Still flexing her slippery wit with dense wordplay, "Whack's Museum" is another left-field triumph, a loose half-hour mixtape (backed by Conductor Williams' chopped boom-bap loops) less interested now in genre experimentation than in showcasing her raw bars-spitting prowess. Whack addresses her own legacy and disses the haters, her humor underpinned by pain, and the results are anything but whack.

Always Take the Meeting. Even if the project stinks on toast, or collaborators feel like the wrong fit, or you're too dang busy. You don't know what's on the other side of a Zoom link until you click. Jenna Ortega nearly passed on "Wednesday" for fear of being typecast, until a chat with Tim Burton launched her to stardom. Kieran Culkin wouldn't have an Oscar if a meeting with producer Emma Stone didn't convince him to stay on A Real Pain. Taylor Sheridan was so sick of Hollywood that he refused to meet in L.A., but relented and now has a billion-dollar "Yellowstone" empire. Sometimes you can't see the potential yet. Show up if they ask. Even when you're sure it's a waste of time... maybe especially then!