
Widow Lin Xiumei realizes that soon after both of her sons have left home, she changes into someone who was once “needed” to an “irrelevant” person, which causes a painful confusion for her. The sudden death of Qing Er, her only friend who is 10 years younger than her, sends yet another shockwave to her. She decides to prove her worth and importance once again in her 70s before she is taken by death. With the help from others, including the guidance from Qing Er’s ghost, and the instructions from the “Goddess”, Lin Xiumei takes on an impossible mission. Will she regain the care from her family? Will she successfully find her lost self?
Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.
This is a list of seven films that explore police brutality and systemic racism made by Black filmmakers. These are important movies to watch and to take in, as — through the power of cinema — they showcase what it feels like to be a Black person living in a country that is internally designed to be against you.
Of the 28 total films I watched, just six of them were queer or featured queer characters in some way.
A film for the post-MeToo era that inverts the narrative with an ironic coda, Tár depicts the duality of a sensitive artist capable of great evil and vile manipulation.
This is a Spanish-speaking short film that contains English subtitles. The short film is produced in the United States.