A Social Celebrity (1926)

With the start of the new season we're excited for all of the April new movie releases, some of which our writers here will cover in individual reviews throughout the month.

When diverse representation is featured on-screen, it oftentimes comes with strings attached that undermine the message they were trying to send. This can be attributed to the fact that behind-the-screen, the industry primarily does not reflect the breadth of diverse difference that is present in daily life. That’s why when something as powerful and authentic as Minari comes along, it is both incredibly wonderful and needs a large audience to witness it.

21 Bridges isn’t going to revolutionize action cinema. However, its action components are respectable. Every act is visibly clear, and as time moves forward, the film changes its conflictual rhythm.

The Invitation takes a creeping look at two simple premises: reuniting with forgotten friends and new-age spiritualism. Though one seems a bit scarier than the other, the film heightens social awkwardness to a macabre level that puts an uncomfortable look on when the social taboo of grief is put on public display.

Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.

Mark Anthony Green was unable to connect all of the pieces in his debut feature film, leaving Opus as a middling entry in an already oversaturated genre.