Los cobardes 

Over the last several years, I have had the privilege of being one of the critics having the opportunity to watch and review several films from writer/director/producer Marcellus Cox, whose efforts are never anything less but grounded, relevant, and steeped in unflinching glimpses illustrating the gripping, inspired, and ever-vacillating realms that make up the human condition.

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.

When you first hear that there is a series on Netflix where the lead character’s wife dies from cancer and he becomes dangerously suicidal, you wouldn’t immediately assume that it’s a comedy.

That gut-wrenching feeling you have while watching it is okay but needed, and you, the viewer, will be okay.

The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.