Prisoners of the Sun (1992)

'Spiderhead' is Netflix's latest high high-concept Sci-fi offering in the acts of Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett, and Mark Paguio

Praising Black representation and condemning the power structures that suppress it, a mother delivers an impassioned speech to her distant son.

I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before. 

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.

“Synchronic” is special, but it doesn’t succeed in achieving all the objectives it aims for. The film is a science fiction oeuvre which tries to be cerebral at some points, although the original idea is interesting, it only accomplishes to talk about some serious matters superficially.