Ladies of Washington (1944)

For the most part, 'Sweet Girl' recycles tired hyper masculine revenge tropes, but a surprise twist in the end turns it into a female-centric revenge film.

With The Father, writer-director Florian Zeller- who wrote and developed the play upon which the film is based- pulls no punches as he confidently makes every effort to put the audience in the mind of someone whose grip on reality has all but vanished. It’s a dazzling testament to Zeller’s abilities as a director as he makes his first transition from stage to film appear as if he’s been working behind a camera his entire career. The dialogue he fashions with co-writer Christopher Hampton, along with the work of production designers Peter Francis and Cathy Featherstone, collectively makes the downward spiral of dementia startlingly tangible, doing so in a way that can be comprehended by everyone except the person it directly affects.

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.

Women who pray together, play together. Very rarely would I describe a story about a group of punk rockers as “whimsical”, but such an engaging array of visual and comedic components make this stand-out new series the star that it is.

21 Bridges isn’t going to revolutionize action cinema. However, its action components are respectable. Every act is visibly clear, and as time moves forward, the film changes its conflictual rhythm.

Tran Quoc Bao succeeds in telling us a story about martial arts, human decay, and friendship. The originality shown by his filmmaking is admirable and brings fresh air to the classic Chinese martial arts genre.