The Tortured Soul (2022)

Hope has great characters, inventive ideas, an incredible imagination, a palpable intensity, and numerous other aspects that make it one of the best of the year. 

Ripley is a great character because she serves two distinct, but rewarding, purposes in the original film and the sequel.

It’s almost the end of the first month of 2021, and just over a week since the U.S. saw a new president take office. In light of the occasion, some of us highlighted our favorite political films below!

It’s easy to dismiss Joel and Ethan Coen for writing from the world they build from outside the box of overarching Hollywood stereotypes, but their inability to compromise their collective vision is precisely what makes the simplistic nature of their world-building and characters so brilliant. It’s also what led Fargo to collect seven Oscar nominations and two wins for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Frances McDormand’s brilliant portrayal of the sincere, motherly detective whose wholesome demeanor seizes the day over the selfishness, corruption and evil of the men who don’t comprehend that there’s more to life than a little money.

Complex relationships between mothers and daughters are far from a new concept, whether the strain comes from abandonment, beliefs, or trauma. In My Only Wish, an Incluvie Film Festival submission, Brenda Gutierrez’s take on her character’s maternal divide comes in the form of abandonment.

With 'The Last Movie Stars,' filmmaker and fanboy Ethan Hawke cracks the facade of Hollywood's last golden couple, but reveals a couple who were committed to each other before all else.