Private Stories 27: Galactic Girls (1997)

Paul Thomas Anderson blends tragedy, comedy in 2025 epic, "One Battle After Another."

Remakes. Reboots. Reinventions. Redundancy. It's the common practice in Hollywood of late, sometimes offering us victorious reimagining of what can be considered cinematic classics while also, more often, falling flat on their UN-imaginative faces in utter defeat and lackluster results. Admittedly, with this in mind, I went into the newest incarnation of "The War of the Roses" with typical trepidation and cautious optimism.

Stand and Deliver is an inspirational classic from 1988 starring Edward James Olmos as Jaime Escalante, and his class of rag tag students in East Los Angeles. It’s the story of how a new teacher shows a motley group of students in the inner city with backgrounds as gang members, dishwashers, and mechanics — the power of self-determination. He teaches the teenagers to believe in themselves through algebra and calculus.

Monster's plot is built around Steve Harmon's false accessory to felony murder accusation, and the anxiety and desperation experienced by him during incarceration and the corresponding trial.