Photo: ‘Night Stalker’/Netflix
To start 2021 off, Netflix released a new limited series that focuses on Richard Ramirez aka the “Night Stalker”. Convicted serial killer, rapist, and kidnapper, Ramirez has had 14 victims connected to him and many more that have yet to be officially proven. During the 1980s, he terrorized the greater Los Angeles area as well as San Francisco and committed a series of murders, rapes, and robberies within a short amount of time. Netflix’s newest documentary symbolizes a big change from its usual format of true crime documentaries, instead of focusing on the serial killer, they focused on the detectives and the victims.
‘City on a Hill’: No Rest for the Wicked in Boston Crime Drama
Claire L. Wong is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area who strives to advance intelligent analysis, diversity, and compassionate storytelling in her work. She especially likes writing about science fiction, action, AAPI, and LGBTQ+ stories. She believes that visual storytelling through film and television increases the practice of empathy, which aligns with
Hollywood Insider’s goal to use meaningful entertainment as a unifying tool. (she/her)
Jan 18, 2021
Photo: ‘City on a Hill’/Showtime
Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Jonathan Tucker star in Showtime’s gritty crime drama ‘City on a Hill’. Set in Boston in 1992, the city’s crime and corruption have reached a boiling point. Even among the cops and robbers, it’s difficult to tell who are the real “bad guys.”
‘What Would Sophia Loren Do?’ is a Short but Sweet Story of Celebrity Fandom and Representation
MarioYuwono is from Indonesia, but was born in Italy and attended school in Jakarta, Moscow, Berlin and Los Angeles. He has been obsessed with films ever since he saw his first movie at the age of five, and would go on to spend his younger years reading film encyclopedias and movie guides. Combined with a global upbringing rooted in greater social awareness, this drives him to be more observant of values promoted in films. He believes in cinema’s potential to enable greater empathy and meaningfully expand people’s horizons, in line with
Photo: ‘Loving’/Focus Features
The words ‘critically acclaimed drama’ come with certain expectations. The usual Academy darling contenders promise intense plots with high stakes, weepy declarations of love, and the ‘Oscar speech’ that comes right after our tragic protagonist’s lowest point. You know the one; where the hero declares their bravery and self-worth to the world before taking it on and winning in an epic show of fireworks and triumphant orchestral score.
Loving contains none of those tropes and, frankly, it’s refreshing. The film, both written and directed by Nichols, swerves away from the more dramatic and well-known events of the Civil Rights movement to focus on Richard and Mildred Loving, a mixed-race couple who, after being exiled from their home in Virginia, had their marriage legalised by the Supreme Court in a landmark case. Ruth Negga, who played the media-shy Mildred, would go on to be nominated for Best Actress at the 2017 Academy Awards, with
Photo: ‘Shiva Baby’/MUBI
Horror in the year 2021 looks much different than what we have come to expect from the traditional 1980s slasher movie- blood, guts, and plenty of gore. Instead, filmmakers like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele have ushered in a new era of cinematic, arthouse horror that focuses more on the human instinct than the things that go bump in the night. In this, the expectations of horror have reached brilliant new places- which is exactly why I am labeling Emma Seligman’s‘Shiva Baby’ as the quintessential horror movie for college girls, queer and/or Jewish women, and people who are currently keeping any kind of secret.