Wang Dang (1999)

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. 

Sorry to Bother You ultimately speaks to the unfair advantages that the country’s power structures award to those with the resources to control others, as Lift’s easy access to the media allows his opinion to be the only one that matters in the eyes of the unsuspecting and easily impressed public. Moreover, it reveals the extent to which the American Dream has any true validity. It postulates how the promise of success and fulfillment as promoted by the American Dream more often than not leads to the undoing of the individual. Interestingly, in its revealing of the American Dream as merely a facade, Sorry to Bother You wisely questions whether or not anything can really be done to undo a system that has been accepted and in action for centuries.

Nightbooks, the newest entry in children's horror, honors classic horror films, focuses on themes of acceptance, and has awesome production design.

In this short film, writer/director Nikita Hattangady focuses on Jai, a starving artist rooted in the latter category. Though unhoused, he works hard.

I was able to sit down and talk with the director of the short film Dog Lover Anne-Sophie Bine as she discussed and how she came to be in film.

For football fans, this sports movie will show viewers the bonding between father and son as the son prepares for his big game.