Love, Regret, and Art: Pandemic Lessons from Station Eleven and The Real World
The three themes of lessons learned from HBO Max's Station Eleven are the same as the pandemic: love, regret, and art.

Arthur's 'old man persona' is just a disguise. He's really a trained hitman, one of the best. He's given a new target however there's a complication in the assassination, there's another hitman after the same target.
The three themes of lessons learned from HBO Max's Station Eleven are the same as the pandemic: love, regret, and art.
In this short film, writer/director Nikita Hattangady focuses on Jai, a starving artist rooted in the latter category. Though unhoused, he works hard.
Although Christmas is a time of year for love and cheer for all, holiday cinema has not always represented diverse communities. Being a holiday with Christian origins, much of its media consists of straight white families or straight white romances. Luckily, modern years have been bringing with them plenty of POC and LGBTQ+ representation that the holidays so desperately need.
Him is visually stunning—all concrete cathedrals and bone-rattling impact shots that look like a nightmare highlight reel. Marlon Wayans is magnetic as this legendary quarterback who's basically selling salvation with a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. But the story keeps running in circles: more tests, more cryptic pep talks, more ritualistic drills. The sports-as-religion metaphor beats you over the head when subtlety would've been more effective. The middle drags, and that finale chooses spectacle over substance. It's undeniably stylish, but left me cold. Also worth noting: despite the Monkeypaw connection, this isn't actually a Jordan Peele film—he didn't write or direct.