Five Stars (2024)

A Black woman centered in a box office rom-com with a happy ending and no struggle love.

The concept of male fragility is explored (interestingly, by a male director) in The Sun Never Sets

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie comes on the heels of its billion-dollar grossing predecessor, and seeks to do absolutely nothing other than repeat its success. In this, the film is eminently effective. If you have seen the previous film, you can expect something extremely similar in this package.  That is, a barrage of references to Nintendo intellectual property wrapped in a plot that provides the thinnest layer of emotional payoff for the characters.

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

Andor is an origin story where each side will do whatever it takes.

Mulan had to struggle to feel like herself and see herself properly. Some of us have to strive to have our reflection mimic what’s inside. We have to crawl. We have to fight.