Hour 21: A Film and Interactive Media Blog

  Predator: Badlands (2025) “Yautja may hunt alone, but they die alone too.” “You know you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” “We can be more than what they ask of us” -Predator: Badlands (2025) The innate thematic richness of Predator: Badlands catches you off guard in the best of ways. Not that a Predator film can't be defined by its thematics, they most certainly can. Though, Badlands intermingles these themes into a world that is lively and brimming with a reality that speaks to the best in the sci-fi action genre of film. Death is our titular Predator's aim, though life is what we get in its stead. The hunting grounds of the planet Genna, maintain a uniqueness that hides a treacherous underbelly, alive with death and danger. Yes, Predator Badlands is a concise and streamlined sci-fi action thrill ride. It is a film that knows what it wants, and it executes those desires with extraordinary skill and passion. Its consistency is its greatest weapon...

  A Beautiful Mind: And The Autonomy of Connection “She never gets old… Marcy can't be real. She never gets old.” “Maybe Rosen is right? Maybe I have to think about going back to the hospital again?” “No…come here…maybe try again tomorrow.” -A Beautiful Mind (2001) John and Alicia Nash's biographical silver screen debut is a quintessential example of the innate eloquence of cinematic visual language to help us understand and empathize. A Beautiful Mind is a film about the contradictions and connections that are defined by a mental illness that is not eradicated but accepted as part of a lifelong journey of healing. A Beautiful Mind is therefore a film about love, and its power to create avenues of separational connection. In other words. It is an autonomy, on the part of John and Alicia Nash that paradoxically brings them together rather than tears them apart. Indeed, A Beautiful Mind is a sea of wayward contradictions as varied as the schizophrenic delusions of its ...

  Persons of No Interest, season 1 (2026) “He just… He showed me the world was so much bigger than my parent's little bakery in Rhode Island.” “Now she's dead and uh… no one's going to ever remember she existed…That's really sad.” “It matters…Twila, you matter.” -Ponies, season 1 (2026) In every story there are moments that have the possibility to captivate us, to motivate us and help us realize that stories matter. Not in the artistic sense of the word, but in the real human sense. People matter. Everybody matters. Perhaps that is why Ponies' first season is so affecting in its exploration of the dignity of the human person. Truthfully though, this 1970s era spy thriller comedy deserves far more than the word “perhaps” in its initial thematic narrative description. Ponies is far more than just an exuberantly engaging, and comedic journey through the spy-craft of the 1970s. The series is also remarkably grounded in its thoughtful examination of voyeurism and...

  Wicked (2024 and 2025) “What is going on? People are watching.” “Don't we all know there's no place like home?” “Because all that's required to live in a dream is endlessly closing your eyes.” -Wicked: For Good (2025) Wicked is at its core uniquely orchestrated to take advantage of all the dramatic nuances of the musical form. It is a story that calls into question perceptions and manipulations that evoke the most wily of propaganda tools. Though fret not, this backstage pass to the wonderful world of Oz, and the two witches that dominate its most iconic tale, is not seeking to deceive you, but to show you what it may look like beyond our preconceived notions. Therefore, Wicked seeks to find the realities that motivate trust and truth. When taken as a whole, it really is an impressively moving achievement of the musical narrative form that Wicked resolves as beautifully and coherently as it does. Wicked inventively and innately comprehends its melodic power in ...