The Golden Boy (2025)

Ever since the mid-’90s, the Mortal Kombat game franchise has seen multiple attempts to make it on the big screen, or at least adapted into other media.

Striving for validation. Let’s be frank….we ALL want to be successful. Whatever we put our efforts into, ideally it is to make it culminate in the best possible results across the board, especially when it comes to what career path we are pursuing. We WANT to excel, to shine, to advance, to be acknowledged. AND…let’s hope that we also wish to better everyone around us to boot. However, what occurs when those whom we initially put our trust in suddenly become a burden instead of a boon? Do we falter under the weight of rejection? Or STAND UP for WHO WE ARE?

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. 

'Brother' is a gripping family drama with dazzling performances all around.

Trigger Warning with Killer Mike, a part of Netflix's Black Lives Matter Collection, features different social experiments showcasing the larger state of race relations in our society.