The Ladies Pachinko Graffiti 2 

Suppressed intergenerational family trauma and healing, warm welcome to the Marvel Cinematic Universe team, and Awkwafina's humor really make this film the real MVP.

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. 

“And I think to myself….what a wonderful world”. Louis Armstrong sang about this notion via his classic 1967 song, an ode to witnessing elements of our life that should be but some reminders of exactly what that concluding line of each verse indicates. Now we see our contemporary realities and, just being honest, it makes a sentiment like this seem SO overtly far away….perhaps even impossible….to accept or believe could be. It sounds harsh, but again, so much of what is occurring speaks not to beauty, but bedlam.

We are constantly being pushed to move on from mishaps and negative feelings. What happens if we're not ready to do so?

A bond between a girl and her dog takes an unexpected twist as the dog is not what it seems.

Spirited inverts the tropes of the holiday musical genre to update an age-old tale for 2022. It's a paean to those who make grand spectacles possible.