Staff Picks: Inauguration Edition 2021
It’s almost the end of the first month of 2021, and just over a week since the U.S. saw a new president take office. In light of the occasion, some of us highlighted our favorite political films below!

Mr. Gray is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life, but the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans, and the Honourable Ted - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.
It’s almost the end of the first month of 2021, and just over a week since the U.S. saw a new president take office. In light of the occasion, some of us highlighted our favorite political films below!
A short hybrid film featuring everyone's favorite Disney characters.
Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) are a delight to watch evolve, sometimes devolve, then evolve again.
In the film adaptation, director Jon M. Chu turns each musical number into a massive show stopper, with grand set pieces and a wealth of diverse dancers. Yet, in this attempt to show reverence for the people of the Washington Heights barrio, Chu, or maybe more specifically those in charge of casting, left out a crucial part of the community, Afro-Latinos.
“Ad Astra” is a film that possesses similar beats to sci-fi classics, falling into the realm of cinematic hypnotism, and pulling us in with its mysteriously intoxicating identity.
Films about casinos have long been a favorite of Hollywood. This is unsurprising, as they're often tied to magnetic characters whose lives revolve around luxury, spectacle, and even danger.