The Trap Door (1980)

Praising Black representation and condemning the power structures that suppress it, a mother delivers an impassioned speech to her distant son.

Tara Thorne’s film is equal parts emotional and comedic, illustrating the beauty and the pain of long term relationships.

While subverting the conventions of Golden Age cinema with the characteristics of a slasher, Pearl studies the delusions of grandeur inspired by the movies.

In a world where we hear ringers and beepers at every corner, technology feels inescapable. This is why technology is often an enemy in Digital J-horrors, like One Missed Call.

The film follows the biblical story of Moses, from his time as a prince of Egypt, to a leader for the people of Israel. It’s a film that works brilliantly in animation, and is one that both children and adults can; enjoy despite its religious contexts, it is friendly to general audiences.

Perhaps the most amazing and groundbreaking quality about The Birdcage is how removed it is from both illness and insensitivity. Whereas films preceding it were often somber stories about the tribulations of being gay in a conservatively straight world, Nichols and screenwriter Elaine May expose the fallacies of conservatism as traditional values are thrown into a more open-minded space. They don’t care how far the community has fallen so much as how high they can rebuild themselves.