From it’s very inception, there has been a contentious battle at the the center of Warner’s modern MonsterVerse. No, it isn’t Godzilla vs Kong, it’s the monsters vs the humans. Godzilla (2014) took heat for investing too much time in the people while it’s titular Kaiju lurked in the background. Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) overcorrected the other way with an overwhelming amount of monsters and a small group of people specifically tied to them. People weren’t too happy with that either. So, what makes a good monster movie? Maybe it isn’t about how the two much people feature, rather how they’re used.

We’re a year into a pandemic that has fundamentally changed every facet of life. Given that the coronavirus has been front of mind for so long, it’s no surprise that a lot of films have begun to emerge with plagues, disasters and COVID itself at their core. What is surprising is just how many pandemic films were made before the real life pandemic.

If there is one thing Marvel Studios is world class at, it’s fumbling the ball. The studio has nearly a century of characters with rich backstories to draw on, a seemingly bottomless pool of Disney money to spend and the whole of Hollywood’s A-list of actors and directors from which to cast. Yet despite the their unparalleled basket of ingredients, the Marvel recipe consistently spits out finished products that fall well short of the sum of their parts.

Among the many beauties of life and love coexists the tragedy of loss that inevitably follows. To get close to someone or something is to know that eventually they’ll be gone. For most that bargain is one worth making but for so many others burned by it in the past, loss can be just too much to bear.

You can’t judge a film on authenticity. Don’t try to judge it on a political level either, especially if you’re a white lady from the LA Times. Over the course of one night Malcolm (John David Washington) gives a laundry list of ways film should not be analyzed. Naturally this begs the question: how should art be analyzed?

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.

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. Where, in Rebel, James Dean’s Jim was the one who didn’t understand his parents, CODA presents a case where a teen really is misunderstood.