Tough Guy Babysits…Again: Playing with Fire
'Playing with Fire' was clearly a film made for a kid or tween-ish audience. Keeping that in mind, I thought 'Playing with Fire' was alright, though it did portray some harmful stereotypes.

After their orphanage burns down, a group of children are being transported west by train to Manitoba. All of them are available for adoption and at a stop at Scourie, Ontario little Patsy meets Victoria McChesney. Victoria and her husband Patrick have no children and she immediately decides to adopt the girl. The only condition imposed on them is that as Patsy has been baptized a Roman Catholic the Protestant McChesneys agree to raise her as a Catholic. Patsy is a well-behaved little girl whose only real problem is a school bully, also one of the orphans, who spreads stories that she set their orphanage on fire.
'Playing with Fire' was clearly a film made for a kid or tween-ish audience. Keeping that in mind, I thought 'Playing with Fire' was alright, though it did portray some harmful stereotypes.
Everyone needs a BFF and a "wing person" like Yumi (Chloris Li). Li brings the "straight person" persona, literally and figuratively balancing James Aaron Oh's perfectly timed comedic delivery as the unlucky-in-love.
In 1971, when discussions about how to integrate their school system break down, the community of Durham, North Carolina agrees to bring in Bill Riddick(Babou Ceesay) to conduct a series of summits(charrettes) to help them move forward with desegregation.
“To be universal, you have to get specific”: while the film does not attempt to provoke discussions about queerness or race, those watching closely may find something resonant in Sorrentino’s love letter to the Naples of his youth.
"WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE?!!!!" "EVERYTHING!!!!!" This is but one of a multitude of highly emphatic questions, and subsequent answers, being asked in the newest feature film from one of the current masters of horror, Jordan Peele ("Get Out", "Us" and "Nope"). I must give Peele credit in that he continues to push the boundaries of specific genres and their associated tropes in order to provide what ends up amounting to subtly then jarringly intense, yet still character and story-driven, cinema that speaks more to indie stylings than mainstream.
Adapted from a 2014 novel by Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life is the feature film debut of documentary filmmaker Bing Liu. With the help of screenwriter Martyna Majok, he paints a realistic and somber portrayal of Aishe, a Uyghur immigrant, as she struggles to make a living while undocumented in the United States.