Nursery Rhymes (2005)

Coverage from the Austin Film Festival, highlighting some panels and films that emphasized the importance of diverse and inclusive storytelling.

If you enjoy the bizarre, silly and entertaining world of the horror B-movies and want a break from the nuanced and poignant big budget horror releases, I have a list of gore-fests from the last ten years to enjoy this October.

A gentle coming of age story, Water Lilies takes its time in exploring what it’s like to be a young girl trying to make sense of her sexuality in a heteronormative world.

A recent look at gender and racial diversity in film shows some signs of progress. However, white men still make up the vast majority of actors and directors in top-grossing films.

Two Distant Strangers (2020) centers around Carter James (Joey Bada$$) as he tries to get back home to his pitbull, Jeter, after spending a night at the apartment of his date Perri (Zaria Simone). What gets in the way of Carter reuniting with his dog is that every time he tries to leave Perri’s apartment,  he is killed by police and wakes up back in her bed in a never-ending cycle. It addresses the issue of police brutality which rightly has been in the public eye more and more with the unjust deaths caused at the hands of law enforcement.

Netflix’s new mystery thriller, The Marked Woman (released originally as La Desconocida), is confusing. More critically, though, it commits the worst mistake a movie can make: it’s boring. From Spanish director Gabe Ibáñez, the film squanders its premise at every turn, fills the story with unlikeable characters, and lacks emotional payoff.