For the Love of Chocolate 

Portraying how easy it is to be an ally heavily benefits the majority audience. The more we encourage it, normalize it, and give people the tools to become one, the sooner we can co-exist peacefully.

While prioritizing production value over substance, Flood depicts an emotionally taut family drama set during the farmland flooding of the Franco-Dutch war.

GOAT (2026) opens to the chanting of a crowd: "Roots run deep!" The rest of the film goes on to echo that sentiment, offering gorgeous animation and a heartfelt story along the way.

As this critic continues to look back at some of this Summer's films I have taken in, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the most overall unsettling trends in Hollywood over the last several years.....sequels, reboots, and remakes. Look, I am all for seeing more than one film for certain originals that made a splash, ie: "Jurassic Park", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Transformers", etc.

'The Lost Daughter' doesn't paint over the choices Leda and Nina make as mothers as right or wrong but examines the messy in-between.

"La Noria" deftly subverts audience expectations as it explores childhood grief, anxieties, and pain. The award-winning short shows us that often our monsters are often sprung from our darkest places.