Early Train From Taipei 

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. 

It only seems to prove that when the company had their backs against the wall and needed an all pleasing, generic movie that had to make up for The Last Jedi, they chose to sacrifice almost everything that made their main protagonist interesting and that made her stand out as the strong female character that a generation of young movie goers was supposed to look up to. Instead, we were left with a Rey that was so much less than she could have been. And I guess that’s the real story of Rey and The Rise of Skywalker; they could have been so much more, but they were just more of the same.

If you were to watch it on streaming when you have nothing to do, it’s still probably a giant waste of time, but you could do far worse.  Paying $18 for a movie ticket and who knows how much for concessions turns this from an exercise in boredom to an exercise in frustration. 

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For the entirety of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marion remains in full control of both her body and her personality, a rarity for female characters at the time of the film’s release. She’s granted depth with personal demons from her past and emotional vulnerability when the situation deems it appropriate for her to grow alongside Indy. She avidly rejects the notion of being anything other than a sassy, humane rebel, and Indy’s equal in every way. This she does while still maintaining her femininity.

It’s hard to capture the emotions and thoughts of a character just from a few shots, but Oscar-nominee composer Micachu's haunting melodies prove otherwise in 'Jackie'.