For decades film has told the stories of young people finding their way in the world to dazzling effect. There is something so universally relatable about those late teenage years where you feel like you’ve figured it all out and seeing it with the gift of hindsight you realize that those answers wouldn’t come until much later. The hard truth is that coming of age doesn’t happen all at once and that next phase of life brings with it doubts, big decisions and so much more uncertainty. Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World posits that people don’t stop growing up, even when they’re grown. 

A tale as old as time, how much can true love transcend? Is it simply an intertwining of attractions or is love something more, something so inherent to our very being that we’ll find our way back to it under even the most dire of circumstances? These are questions posed by Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze in What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, a film that askes much but answers sparingly little. 

If there has been one silver lining of a massive, life altering pandemic forcing us all to stay home, it may be the other pandemic that it placed on hold. Simply by virtue of schools being closed, the coronavirus pandemic has ushered in the longest period without school shootings in the United States in decades. Although our current torment consumes much of our thought, it’s worthwhile to remember the trauma it temporarily alleviated. Fran Kranz’ Mass is a bruising reminder. 

They say write what you know, and the only thing any of us have known for the last year plus is a coronavirus lockdown. The next pandemic is on its way: a plague of COVID inspired films. And we wont have to wait long either. Michael Bay was first out of the gate with his critically maligned pandemic thriller Songbird. Doug Liman’s very COVID specific heist film Locked Down is already earning wide pans on HBO Max. Documentaries of the early days of lockdown have been informative and more are sure to come. Like the pandemic itself, this scourge of on the nose movies will be with us for a while.

**A Quick review of Homeroom from the Sundance Film Festival. More thoughts to come when the film gets an official release**

​Senior year is always a tumultuous time for students. Young people across the country faced with an uncertain world ahead. Not yet old enough to buy a beer or rent a car, they’re forced to make decisions that will profoundly affect the rest of their lives. Certainly this anxiety, mixed with the uniquely youthful optimism and energy must have been on Peter Nicks’ mind as he set out to document Oakland’s graduating class of 2020. What he never could have predicted is what unfolded over the year.

**A Quick review of CODA from the Sundance Film Festival. More thoughts to come when the film gets an official release**

​My family just can’t understand. It’s a bit of shared experience that has been fertile ground for coming of age films as far back as Rebel Without a Cause. What makes James Dean’s portrayal of Jim so impressive is the deepens of his convictions when, in reality, he was the one who didn’t understand his parents. CODA presents a coming of age story where its teen protagonist really is misunderstood.
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