136 Best Releases Translations Mandarin on Amazon Prime Video (Page 7)

When it comes to suffering, no one does it like Catholics. Consider Opus Dei, the secretive branch of Catholicism that still allegedly practices self-flagellation, or the hardcore worshipers who recreate Christ’s crucifixion every Easter, rather than dyeing eggs or baking a ham. Even when mortification of the flesh isn’t involved, no other religion promotes the idea of misery as the pathway to salvation. Rose Glass’s nightmarish Saint Maud digs deep into the pathology of that mindset, and is something you won’t likely forget for a long time. Continue Reading →

Before its release, Sia’s Music has generated controversy regarding the handling of its titular autistic character, including the decision to cast neurotypical actor Maddie Zeigler in the role. Sia’s responses to these critiques have only enflamed the hubbub, but tragically, those concerns are immaterial. Not because Music does a good job of handling the perspective of an autistic person, but rather quite the opposite. Continue Reading →

Where’s the line between a messy movie and a movie that’s a mess? Joel Schumacher’s clearly-flawed Flawless oozes with subplots while it tries to fulfill the obligations of an “unexpected buddy” movie. Like the pre-gentrification East Village that it’s built around, characters and cultures clash to chaotic, uneven results. Continue Reading →

Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Our Friend stumbles from a surfeit of generosity. It’s perhaps inevitable given the scope of its approach. Adapted by screenwriter Brad Ingelsby from Matt Teague’s 2013 Esquire feature, the cancer drama vainly juggles the perspectives of three close-knit friends (Matt, Dane, and Nicole) as they weather the effects and repercussions of Nicole’s (Dakota Johnson) terminal cancer. Continue Reading →

It’s not hard to see what Climate of the Hunter is going for once it really gets going. The warm glow, the celluloid look and feel, the way everything from the costuming to the soundtrack teeters on the edge of retro without ever really falling over. It’s a vampire film far more inspired by schlocky, colorful B films like Dracula AD 1972 than the modern classics like Let the Right One In. Continue Reading →

Obvious to those in Ireland and the UK, Herself’s title carries a second meaning that will likely fly under the radar for most American viewers. It isn’t merely a reflexive pronoun, it’s a term of respect and familiarity that can also mean “a woman of consequence” or, more aptly for this film, “mistress of the house.” Because Herself is the story of how one woman ends up finding herself by building her very own home, brick by brick. Continue Reading →

NBC’s new sitcom Mr. Mayor will inevitably be compared to 30 Rock, the network’s previous sitcom from Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Both feature rich men in power butting heads with their female colleagues. Both shows share a composer, Jeff Richmond (also an executive producer, and Fey’s spouse) crafting another bouncy score. Different from her New York-based shows (30 Rock, Great News, Kimmy Schmidt) Fey and company take on Los Angeles politics this time. While occasionally funny, the show fails to instill a vote of confidence in the future of the series.  Continue Reading →

The Expanse has always excelled at handling the sheer bigness of its stakes: events don't just impact individual characters, but the entire system -- and, I suspect, eventually the entire universe, given the underlying threat of the weapons that killed the Ring Builders. But as comparatively terrestrial as season five's stakes have been so far, episode four of season 5, "Gaugamela," leapfrogs off the last episode's shocking final moments to shake up the status quo in literally seismic ways. As bad as things got in the final moments of episode 3, here we see an episode of chickens coming home to roost, setting up a whole host of problems for our characters to resolve in the latter half of the season. Continue Reading →

There are two moments in The Wilds that so succinctly summarize the show’s tone, we have just have to start with them. In the first episode, Leah Rilke (Sarah Pidgeon) barrels directly down the lens of the camera and declares the life of a teenage girl in America in the 21st Century to be literal hell as if in direct conversation with the audience. Then, later in the series, Rachel Reid (Reign Edwards) searches for the word melodrama, applying it to the actions of her fellow island isolated survivors. And that’s The Wilds for you. Tremendously unsubtle and one-hundred percent aware of it. It also happens to be very good. Continue Reading →