Films about racial conflicts, gentrification, and segregation are one of the most popular styles of films helping emerging directors to tells stories that mean a lot to some minorities who need a voice to be heard. Do The Right Thing, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Boyz in the Hood, New Jack City, and Stright Out of Compton are some of the film brought by directors like John Singleton and Spike Lee.

The new movie Blindspotting made by the Mexican Director Carlos Lopez Estrada tells the story of Collin (Daveed Diggs) a convicted felon is reaching his last three days of his probation. His longtime friend Miles (Rafael Casal) is a short-tempered guy who loves to get in trouble. Collin and Miles work at a moving company in Oakland.

One day after work Collin stop at a red light and witness the murder of a white civilian by the police. For Collin witness, this very troubling situation haunts him, especially under the circumstances he is living. Miles presence complicates things even worst because he carries a gun for protection and his erratic behavior escalate.

Blindspotting is a powerful poetic film about life in the hood and the way white policeman sees people of color, a common problem that continues without a solution on sight. The films express the daunting experience of African America who lives in the neighborhood where they don't feel safe and they are always feeling a threat around them.

Movies have a very peculiar relationship with productions about astronauts. Always conflicted, troubling and nothing to lose mentality follows the space travelers from the core mission to their conclusion.

When astronauts face their reality up there, is when they find what they are missing, characters who are reckless, adventurous, genius or perhaps risk takers.
Gravity, 2001 Space Oddisey, Armageddon, The Right Stuff, The Martian, Planet of the Apes, Red Planet, The Cosmonauts are among the films presenting these courageous people.

Director Damien Chazelle embarked in one of the most ambitious films ever. The story of how Neil Amstrong reached the moon on First Man.

Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) is an X-15 pilot facing a very difficult time because his daughter is going thru treatment for a brain tumor. Amstrong is working very hard to figure out the problem by cataloging her symptoms and feverishly, sadly she died. After the loss of his child, he signs up for project Gemini, which is the beginning of the space program to orbit around the earth. Neil, his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and their son Rick move to Houston for Gemini. This is the beginning of a hard 5 years for Amstrong, their family and the rest of the astronauts who join the program, where controversy surrounds, the death of crew members due to test in several missions, the public protesting about the miss use of federal funding to send people to space without a clear vision from NASA and the inscrutability in the information provided to family members about the health of the astronauts.

Damien Chazelle does a great job laying out his vision about the space program, the technical aspects of the film are outstanding. However, the story felt short due to a lack of constant rhythm in the script. First Man started with a great pace but then slow down, come back again, and in the most important part of the story, is to short to enjoy it.

Clair Foy plays a strong wife and mother, that when she appeared on the screen can show everyone who is charge even the chief of the astronaut office.

First Man presents a hidden message about how our current administration is promoting the famous "Space Force", a project that none knows where is going and why we need it is just another excuse to get money to protect us from something that we don't know. According to the film, the '60s people were starving and without money for their necessities but the most important thing was to send "Whitey to the Moon"

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is well known for his perverse style and approach to his movies. From Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of the Sacred Deer. Lanthimos focus on complex characters living in difficult situations with unexpected solutions.

His last two movies explore the love, grieve and revenge. Now in his new movie The Favourite he explores the complex web of power and the true nature of envy.

Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) a woman with fragile health and not interest in governing Great Britan and Scotland. Queen Anne is more interested in superficial and eccentric activities, like duck races and play with her 17 rabbits which represent the child she had lost over the years. Her confidant Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) and also lover uses her power to influence the queen and manipulate her decisions.

Until one day Abigail Masham, Baroness Masham (Emma Stone) arrives in search for employment. Is important to mention that Sarah and Abigail are the queen's cousin. At first, Abigail works as a scullery maid in the palace. Quickly she realized that the queen is in bad shape. Abigail seeks an opportunity to gain flattering with Sarah and potentially Queen Anne by using some herbs to cure her inflamed legs, which works for the queen and help Abigail to become Lady of the bedchamber.

At this point, Sarah and Abigail fight for the queen Anna affection, quickly becoming a game of control, deceive and manipulation where England is at stake.

Lanthimos masterfully presents a well-crafted film leaning towards comedy, his previous approach leaning towards drama leave the spectators breathless, while this movie presents a challenge the audience who are impressed by unexpected visual styles, like extreme wide angle views, stunning art direction, and costume design.

Don't me wrong The Favourite is a good film, but not as powerful as The Lobster, and The Killing of the Sacred Deer who seeks less elaborated art direction and costumes and focus more in the characters. The Favourite presents nuances and visual metaphors in several scenes used as a tool to make the audience understand, however, The Favourite could be a little bizarre for audiences who are looking for a period piece with conventional storytelling style. The film has three powerful female characters who can survive in the 1700 era, the question is how queen Anne, Sarah and Abigail could do in the midst of the Metoo movement.

It is always a very recurrent subject in movies to explore the lives of writers. Depressed, conflicted, out of money, crazy, obsessed, a long list of issues that most of the time is the fuel for their work. The long list of films goes on, from Misery, Adaptation, Midnight in Paris, Manhattan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Hours, Naked Lunch, The Shining, Ruby Sparks and The Great Beauty.

Writers are considered virtuosos but also people who have a messed up life, searching the next best-selling novel. One writer, in particular, gain success not by creating her work but by using other people's work and falsified their persona.

Writer Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) living in N.Y. and suffering from writers' block after the success of her novel Estée Lauder. Lee is one a really rough patch, dealing with financial troubles and alcoholism.

She is unable to finalize a deal to secure funding for a new biographical book she is forced to sell her personal possessions to pay the rent and make a living. One of the items she has the sell was a letter written by the actress Katherine Hepburn, unable to sell it to a good price she decided to start researching about the writer Fanny Brice and then she finds a letter from Brice folded in a book.

Lee finds inspiration in Brice to forge letters written by deceased writers, which she starts selling at a good price. The scam lasts longer than she thought but some buyers suspect when one letter suggest the sexuality of a famous writer. Her friend Jack Hock ( Richard E. Grant) a drug dealer help her to sell more letters after Lee is blacklisted by her buyers.

Marielle Heller directs a very powerful story about a writer struggles to survive in the savage this savage world where art meets lies. Melissa McCarthy finally showed me that she can perform besides comedy, without using physicality to prove she can be talented. Richard E. Grant is the perfect sidekick and supporting role. Both have a well deserved Oscar nomination.

When you hear the term Femme Fatale yo think of Rita Hayworth, Sharon Stone, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauren Bacal, and Lana Turner. These women were sophisticated characters, mysterious and seductive.

It is hard to picture really young girls playing a Femme Fatale, but after seeing the film Thoroughbreds I think is possible to label Amanda and Lily.

In a suburban Connecticut upper-class family, Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) lives with her mom Karen (Kaili Vernoff) and her stepdad Mark (Paul Sparks) a wealthy and abusive man, whom she hates.

Amanda (Olivia Cooke) been friends with Lily for years, but then grew apart after the death of Lily's dad. Amanda is a complex person who suffers from an unspecified mental disorder making her emotionless. She was also charged with animal cruelty after euthanized her crippled horse with a knife. One day Karen fixed a paid meeting between Lily and Amanda pretending to be a tutoring session, Amanda figured out it is paid very quickly. Later they meet by mutual agreement. The friendship grows back but with one single interest, Amanda proposes to Lily to kill Mark.

Cory Finley makes his directorial debut with this film, Thoroughbreds borrow from the great Alfred Hitchcock the complexity two characters planning a murder but in a young kids upper-class environment. The film is really well made, great performances and carefully directed to deliver an intense thriller. It reminds me of the early days for director Ryan Johnson and his film Brick, which is a film noir murder mystery in a high school.

One morning the Castleman are woken up by a sudden call from The Nobel Prize, announcing that Joseph (Jonathan Pryce) has won the literature award. His wife Joan (Glenn Close) react happily but some reservations of his husband victory.

This is the story of the film The Wife. The film takes place in 1992 with the family living in the seaside of Connecticut with two kids. One of them Susannah already married and expecting a baby, the other one named David, an aspiring writer trying to follow in the footsteps of his dad.

The film cuts back to 1968 when young Joan (Annie Starke) meets with his professor young Joseph ( Harry Lloyd) already married and with a kid, always trying to take advantages with his students. Joan is interested in Joseph, but she doesn't want to become a homewrecker, however, Joseph flirts with her constantly, causing them to fall in love and subsequently Joseph leaves his wife and son for Joan. The film cuts again to 1992 when Joan, Joseph, and David travel to Stockholm for the award ceremony. During this trip is when the spectator-witness Joan frustration for Joseph victory and his mistreatment on his son David.

Director Björn Runge creates a parallel between Joan and Joseph earlier an apparent happy times versus their older times when the burden of being a beloved wife takes its toll. Joan was also a very talented writer, but she sacrificed all for the success of his husband while she stayed home taking care of the kid's. At the same time, Joseph is playing the famous writer flirting with girls and getting involved with every woman he can. The big revelation right by the Noble Prize ceremony comes when the audience discovers that Joan is the author of Joseph work, while he is just an editor of Joan's work, the pure irony of knowing that the award is false.

Over the curse of 100 minutes, we are reminded of the powerful role of women in the development of a healthy family, but also how much sacrifice they do, leaving behind careers and dreams to be as big as their husbands. Their sad story is represented in the younger years of Joan in the 1950s when women are trying to succeed in the misogynist world of men.

Glenn Close creates a powerful character who is capable show much emotion and communicate t the audience by staring at the camera in a blank stare.

In the early '60s, a Mexican director was born, his thirst for creation brought him to make films that reshape cinema's landscape. Children of Men, Solo con Tu Pareja, Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien, and Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban are among his most important films, this is Alfonzo Cuaron.

Roma is his most intimate and personal film ever. Directors have always searched on one point of their career making a movie about a personal story. Oliver Stone with Platoon, Richard Linklater with Before Sunshine, David O. Russell with Silver Linings Playbook and even Steven Spielberg with Schindlers List.

Roma tells the story of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) a maid who works for a family in the colony(neighborhood) of Roma in Mexico City during the '70s. She takes care of four kids from Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and Antonio(Fernando Grediaga), she also takes care of Teresa, which is Sofia's mom. Cleo also does cleaning and make sure the house runs smoothly, with the help from Adela.

The relationship between Sofia and Antonio is in crisis and they are trying to hide it from the kids, but there is a breaking point when Antioni leaves for Quebec for some research never returning home. At the same time, Cleo gets pregnant from a playful relationship with a guy name Fermin. The story continues in the brink of very dangerous times in Mexico with the rise of students protest and a paramilitary group name Los Halcones.

Rome is a very interesting exploration of life in the '70s thru the eyes of a maid and a middle-class family in Mexico City. Cuaron shows this life connecting with people who lived in the '70s and '80s in Latin America, a time a remember pretty well.

However, Cuaron's devotion to telling such a personal story gets some audience lost because there is not enough cultural context to understand what's happening, is just a glimpse of events. Personally, I had to research some of the political happenings in Mexico to understand. The film serves as collection vignettes of a different life in this city. The naturalism of just using sound and not having a music score creates a slow pace to the movie which can be deceiving for audiences.

Roma is a beautifully shot film with too many hidden VFX that makes me wonder, how you can tell a personal story about your past and you need to alter the reality of the story?. The film contains very interesting metaphors about relationships from a big car to a small car and also how dog's poop becomes an object for couple's argument, Cuaron borrows the visual style of Orson Wells, Hitchcock, and Tarkovsky just to make a point of a film that looks good black and white

What's struck me about watching Roma on Netflix's streaming platform instead of in theaters, is about previous well-reviewed foreign films and how they become forgotten after winning the Academy Award, Roma is now a trendy movie with audiences hating it and critics loving it, just like last year Will's Smith Netflix film Bright, was hated by the critics and love it by audiences.

Roma could be forgotten if it wasn't shown on Netflix.