The Burden of History and the Phenomenal Women of “Miss Juneteenth”
A complex, realistic, and loving mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of this story about Black pageants and the fight for a better future.

As a response to criticism for the allegedly excessive “mass appeal” of his earlier epic STORM OVER ASIA (1928), Vsevolod Pudovkin unleashed his flair for experimentation in what was supposed to be the director’s first sound feature. Everything went wrong: technical problems forced him to complete the film as a silent; viewers were baffled by the lack of a recognizable plot; then, the ideological climate of the Soviet Union changed. He was now being blamed for catering to bourgeois taste! Time has come to set the record straight. Here’s lyrical cinema at its best, deliberately operatic and yet intimate as it matches the characters’ inner life with the solemn rhythms of nature, and depicted through breathtaking black-and-white photography. A sensation at last year’s Pordenone fest, Pudovkin’s long-forgotten swan song to the art of montage is resurrected by Gabriel Thibaudeau’s emotionally charged live music performance. –PCU (USSR, 1930, 75m)
A complex, realistic, and loving mother-daughter relationship is at the heart of this story about Black pageants and the fight for a better future.
Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow era, the film offers layered representation.
Naked Gun: The New Police Squad Team delivers exactly what fans want: relentless, expertly crafted chaos that honors the original while cranking everything up to eleven. The gags fire at machine-gun pace—sight jokes layered with wordplay and physical comedy so outrageous it borders on art. It's gleefully self-aware without being cynical, silly without being stupid, and maintains that perfect ZAZ-style balance of treating absolute absurdity with complete seriousness. The film knows exactly what it is: a comedy missile designed for maximum laughs, and it hits its target with surgical precision. Pure, unhinged entertainment that proves spoof comedy still has plenty of life left in it.
Happy Halloween! If you were debating capping off Spooky Season with a viewing of Hocus Pocus 2, it is just very clear that this is more for the younger audience as opposed to people who grew up with the original.
At first glance, one wouldn't think John Carpenter's cult classic would be a thematic double-billing - or that Free Guy would be worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as They Live - but the two films of vastly different genres have more similarities upon further examination.
Rip Tide is a coming-of-age film that teaches viewers about finding yourself and reconnecting with surroundings.