The Lundstroms: Headin' West (1975)

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.

This Disney Pixar movie is based on the elements air, fire, water, and earth.

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.

Although bogged down by a slow pace and moralistic intent, ‘Deadly Garage Sale’ (2022) makes the most of its silly and nonsensical premise.

This showcase of Hollywood’s finest talent will certainly be around come awards season, and much deserved

The quiet ache of guilt sitting at the dinner table, the silence after a truth is buried, and the way pain is passed down like a name.