Mummy Dearest 

It is up to the community to decide if this film is a force for enlightenment or not.  

Twisting what seems to be obvious setups and frameworks is what sets the story structure of Squid Game apart. I appreciate that this narrative is complex but not complicated; an easy enough plot to wrap your head around while still treating the audience like an equal participant in this social commentary

Netflix’s new comedy drama, Don’t Say Good Luck, is a heartwarming tearjerker as well as a love letter to the transformative power of being a theater kid. Directed by Julia Hart, Don’t Say Good Luck follows Sophie (Sunny Sandler), a theater kid who finally gets the lead role in her school’s production of Waitress - just as she finds out her mom Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) is dying of cancer. While the singing is by no means spectacular and Sandler’s acting is stiff, the film is grounded in the moving performance of Lynskey as a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to achieve her dreams, even if she can’t be there to see them.

This horror, action, and fantasy movie released on Disney+ has a symbolic aspect.

A consumed-by-rage woman travels from universe to universe to avenge the death of her daughter by brutally killing her murderer over and over again. And that's all that she does.

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.