Call Me Queen 

Jordan Peele’s film is an intelligent and unflinching piece of work, firmly focused on the African American experience.

The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor. 

The fun tricks used in the production design and lighting read extremely well on-screen but hardly fulfill their purpose of trying to inject glamour into a lack-luster story with nothing to say. 

From its visually stunning opening credits, which show women dancing through a forest to musical rhythms that sound almost primal, to its quiet, heartbreaking final frame, Mona Fastvold’s historical rendering of the Shaker religious movement is an experience that will stay with me for a long time.

It's chock full of dream-come-true moments for Spidey fans, but its lack of substance reeks of a self-indulgence that is rare even in fan fiction

A socially conscious film that draws attention to the plight of American military veterans.