The Lover 

Audition should be on everyone's list of Greatest Horror Film. So I urge you to give it a watch.  Maybe watch the last twenty minutes with your hands in front of your eyes. 

The repeated actions, the blood on the petals, the rustling under the floor…An ambient short horror film takes us into another realm.

The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor. 

Pose tells stories of queer joy and love in a time of intense hate and sadness.

While the film didn’t hit me as emotionally as I wanted it to, I still enjoyed it. I simply wish there was a little more, particularly with the world building.

When Juana tries real sushi for the first time, she is immediatley smitten by it and discovers a passion she never knew she had.