REVIEWS
Post-film thoughts.
Santosh: Power Corrupts
The bones of Santosh could very easily have told the story of a young woman succeeding against all odds, rising into higher ranks within a powerfully patriarchal system—a tale of female empowerment. But life is rarely that simple.
Squid Game Season 2: Improving Debt Culture Critique Through Diversity
Modern media has an expiration date. Films and television series retain relevance in the news cycle for a week maximum. Yet almost a month after its release, Squid Game Season 2 still trends in Netflix’s “Top 10 in the World” ranking. How has this internationally acclaimed thriller maintained viewership and high social media status for so long?
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies: A Family Portrait, a Mirror
The Thai film breaking box office records and filling movie theaters all around the globe with tears, How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024) is a comedy-drama about a college dropout, M, who elects himself as the caretaker of his cancer-stricken grandmother, Mengju, in hopes of inheriting her assets.
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent: What Would You Do?
The film’s strength comes from its ability to transcend timelines and its characters. It asks a question that is applicable in any era: to speak, or not to speak. The film resurfaces a situation that has been asking for 30 years if you’d do the same and put up a fight.
100 Yards: A Hidden Ode To Chinese Martial Arts Cinema
A directorial collaboration between brothers Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng, 100 Yards (2023) is a martial arts film set against the backdrop of a westernizing 1920s Northern China. When an influential martial arts master passes away and appoints his apprentice Quan as his successor, the master’s son An engages the apprentice in a power struggle that upheaves both their martial arts circle and the entire city.
The Exiles (Los Tortuga): Textured Kinship
Spanish director Belén Funes’ The Exiles (original title: Los Tortuga) peers at that fragile relationship through the lens of its two main characters as they attempt to strike a balance between their own perceptions of each other and reality.
The Paradise of Thorns: On Getting Even
Imagine you have spent years of your life with your partner, working together to maintain a family business. You’ve invested all the money you have and spent every day labouring all to have it taken away from you because your name is missing from one document. How far would you go to get it back?
Bob Trevino Likes It: On Unconventional Friendships Turned Chosen Families
With Lily’s severe lack of paternal love and Bob’s childless marriage, the film explores how the bizarre duo connect and fulfill each other's personal voids. Bob Trevino Likes It is a heartwarming and healing film about chosen families whose posts are always worth liking.
Seeds: Embracing Rage
Those first few minutes of Seeds, Kaniehtiio Horn’s debut feature film, tells us exactly what we’re in for—a tongue-in-cheek comedy-thriller, but one grounded in very real questions of identity, colonialism, and heritage.
Mr. K: Searching for Meaning
Tallulah H. Schwab’s Mr. K tells the story of a travelling magician as he checks into a mysterious hotel and must later find his way out while encountering a strange cast of characters along the way.
My Mother is a Cow: A Daughter’s Loneliness
The thesis of Moara Passoni’s My Mother Is a Cow (2024) lies in its title. When the protagonist, Mia (Luísa Bastos), has to leave her mother to stay at her aunt’s farm in the Brazilian wetlands, she develops an attachment to one of the cows, her feelings much like those about her mother.
The Mountain: An Authentic Māori Story Marking Multiple Brilliant Debuts
The Mountain is a multi-layered treat. Visually stunning and moving, it allows the paradisiacal landscapes of Taranaki to do all the talking. Thematically, too, The Mountain is rich and kaleidoscope-like in what it can offer to its audience.
All We Imagine As Light: Beauty in the Ordinary
Kapadia demands your attention with the slow pace of the film and rewards those who give it. It is a deeply honest representation of what it feels like to live and to learn from the people you don’t realize you can learn from.
Good One: Everything and Nothing is the Same
A young girl with two big male egos out in isolation, what could go wrong? The film is a poignant reality check on girlhood, masked under the fantasy of the forest.
DÌDI (弟弟): A Son’s Coming of Age
Though this film is largely a coming-of-age story, what shines through isn’t Chris’s journey to find himself. Rather, it’s the touching and sincere relationship between him and his mother, the only person who loves him so purely.
Backspot: We’re All Just People
It is easy to see myself in Riley—in her anxious nature, in her drive to perfect her craft, in her ability to lose herself in her passions, sometimes at the detriment to the people around her.
I Wish You All The Best: In Search of Hope
Dorfman spoke about wanting to make a queer movie centered on hope, rather than trauma. And that is exactly what this film does—it shows that there is always love to be found in friends, chosen family, and community.
Songs From The Hole: A Visual Album Soaked In Humanity
The quality of JJ’88’s music, the visuals of ‘Songs From The Hole,’ and the way they magnify Jacobs’ circumstance of being both victim and perpetrator brings the film above the empty and vain marketing attempts that have become emblematic of music video production today.
7 Beats Per Minute: Of Consciousness and Human Connection
On the surface, ‘7 Beats Per Minute’ is about freediving and the prodigy champion Jessea Lu. But at its core, it is a story of emotional suppression and discovery, unshakeable determination, and the profound act of breathing.
Dickweed: Weird But True Crime
If you’re aching for a true crime story that starts with a bang and fades into a fascinating portrait of a potential sociopath, and you don’t mind a cable-soapy sheen, this will do the trick.