6th Street, No Number 

As Sexual Assault Awareness Month comes to an end, I’d like to urge viewers and filmmakers to take a long and hard look at how rape is portrayed on screen.

This is not a film, it’s a drop tower.  A drop tower that you don’t get off of for the vast majority of its 106-minute runtime. 

Hoppers is a fun ride with a deep message underneath. In true Pixar fashion, Hoppers explores the complexity of emotions and learning to be still in a world that demands fast progress. Through the main character Mabel, we are reminded what it is like to let ourselves feel big emotions. But also how not to be controlled by them. 

Two movies that do a fantastic job in conveying the ongoing struggle for racial justice are Selma (2014) and Just Mercy (2019).

Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion is a fan-favorite, as are some of the more science fiction angled movies like 28 Days Later or World War Z. I recently watched the 1995 Wolfgang Peterson-directed movie, Outbreak for the first time, which is currently available on Netflix.

Ultra-violent storytelling has never been my thing, but the issues with Scarface go beyond that. The film perpetuates harmful stereotypes about Latinx immigrants and uses gore and misogyny for shock value that never serves any purpose. The whole venture is frustratingly empty, and left me desiring something more.