Impressive, emotional, and heart pounding. The Hunger Games is the faithfully adapted YA novel brought to the big screen by it's incredible casting, visceral action, and powerful sound design. It's a science fiction/fantasy epic that brings us a story of survival. 2 children from each of the 12 districts selected/volunteered annually to fight to the death in a contest to honor the fallen from a bloody rebellion, that which fought against a hierarchal society where those in the innermost districts…

product placement aside...sigh, this is a pretty solid movie for streaming. More Hitman than either of the Hitman movie attempts (referring to the popular video game IP), this captures the aspect of the neurotic boredom of waiting for the perfect moment to anticipate, not improvise. The disguises, the efficiency, the patience, all of these showing how the only thing keeping us entirely safe individually is the lack of motivation from an outside source to put us down. The opening sequence…

Intense, visceral, and devastating, Midsommar is a horror movie that wants you to feel safe in the sunlight, only to turn your feelings of safety on your head. Grief and trauma are highlights in this story in ways not often put to screen. Infidelity, relationships with flaws, those that are lacking deep and true connection get tested in ways that reveal strong character defects. We have real empathy for our heroine in this journey, somebody who continues on through so…

Beautiful direction, slow burning romance, an impeccable score, a portrait of change from youth to adulthood. Moonlight is a special film that totally earned its best picture win in 2016. It's hazy atmosphere, wonderful casting and pleasant storytelling paints a picture of a child from a broken area, with challenges that create a monster out of soft spoken, innocent youth. Barry Jenkins tells a grounded story that we can empathize with, and it has so much beauty between its awfulness.…