The Warrior of Deserts: Ban Chao 

In Paul Feig’s newest comedy, Last Christmas, Katarina (Emilia Clarke) didn’t give a heart, she got a heart, you see.

It only seems to prove that when the company had their backs against the wall and needed an all pleasing, generic movie that had to make up for The Last Jedi, they chose to sacrifice almost everything that made their main protagonist interesting and that made her stand out as the strong female character that a generation of young movie goers was supposed to look up to. Instead, we were left with a Rey that was so much less than she could have been. And I guess that’s the real story of Rey and The Rise of Skywalker; they could have been so much more, but they were just more of the same.

Despite the film’s efforts to reframe its heroine with modern complexity, a certain emotional distance lingers.

Netflix's new thriller Apex, starring Charlize Theron, puts a twist on survival horror. Despite its setting in the beautiful- yet-dangerous Australian wilderness, Apex is not a movie about man vs. nature. Instead, it’s woman vs. man. While checking out the title card and its unpretentious Netflix release might lead viewers to believe Apex is just another celebrity project churned out of the streaming machine, Apex - whether by luck or by intention - is a consistently harrowing film about the reality of being a woman in a public space. 

'Uprooted' is a short film on what's happening in Ukraine as of today. This captures the emotions of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The relationship between the characters is what makes this film stand out, and it’s just all-around fun.