Don Giovanni 

This year, in light of the pandemic and the inability to gather with our loved ones, a few of our staff members reviewed their favorite holiday films with the hope of recreating some of the sentimentality that reminds us of home.

"King Richard" paints a nuanced portrait of a Black father trying to ensure his daughters’ success in a racist, misogynistic world. Yet, Richard and his kids overcome that fear and adversity to succeed.

In 1971, when discussions about how to integrate their school system break down, the community of Durham, North Carolina agrees to bring in Bill Riddick(Babou Ceesay) to conduct a series of summits(charrettes) to help them move forward with desegregation.

With such a raw look at the 15th century, it seems that Disney was really trying to step outside of its element with this motion picture. 

I highly recommend Kill Bill: Volume 2. In classic Tarantino fashion, specific sections of the film are a tad too long, but overall, it’s a wonderful piece of escapist fiction.

I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before.