The Lion's Mouth Opens (2014)

Airplane! (1980) is a fun spoof comedy with lots of laughs, right? I watched this film for the first time the other night. I loved it. Then came the racist jokes.

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

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.

The Fog follows more of a 1950s creature feature plot than a late-70s slasher with three legendary scream queens.

"Thunder Road" presents the grief that comes from a family member taking their own life.

"Up" features one of Pixar's few Asian-American heroes and explores the institutionalized hardships elderly people face. Also, Dug is a good boy.