The Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain (1997)

Amanda Riley gets the opportunity to travel to Vietnam for the experience of a lifetime.

The Force Awakens is A New Hope 2.0, in essence. The story structure is virtually unchanged, marking a safe opening to the new trilogy.

An Indonesian film that brings strong representation of Asian descent in this heart-warming tale of a woman and her dog.

'Spiderhead' is Netflix's latest high high-concept Sci-fi offering in the acts of Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, Jurnee Smollett, and Mark Paguio

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. 

The Cycle refuses to lean into the same old, same old monster-movie tropes and builds the entire premise around the intellect and the history of a capable, smart female protagonist.