“Higher, Further, Faster.”

While The Marvels is more entertaining than Quantumania, it is far from the best sequel that the MCU has ever created, despite this film in a sense serving as a three-way sequel for three separate MCU characters. Picking up after the events of Captain Marvel, WandaVision, and directly after Ms. Marvel, The Marvels brings together Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, Teyonah Paris’ Monica Rambeau, and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan into one movie to thwart an intergalactic threat. Fair warning: there are prerequisites for watching this movie in order to ensure that you can keep track with the continuity. Obviously, you will need to have seen the first film, which followed Carol Danvers, but if you have not also watched any of the miniseries featuring the backstories for the other characters, you will find yourself struggling to keep up. As I said, this film can be considered a three-way sequel rolled into one film. Encompassing all of this for three characters was a big task, that the film clearly struggles to accomplish at times, but for the most part, I would categorize this film as an enjoyable experience, albeit one that I don’t see myself ever feeling the need to repeat.

When watching Quiz Lady, the first thing that came to me was this strange wave of 90s nostalgia. It was like I was watching the early films of Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Will Ferrell, only this time it had Awkwafina and Sandra Oh in the starring roles. This isn’t a slight against the film, but instead I found it a bit refreshing, despite being a familiar formula. While this time of year a lot of us are used to seeing films that are heavy on the drama and are fighting for awards contention, this is a film that is instead a fun comedy that definitely doesn’t take itself seriously. Anne (Awkwafina), is a boring young woman who is single and lives on her own, well, at least with the exception of her adorable pug, Linguini. The only thing that seems to bring any excitement (I’m being generous here) is that every evening at 7 o-clock she watches her favorite game show, “Can’t Stop The Quiz”

Well, it is officially that time of the year when studios start cranking out the films they hope will receive some awards attention. Netflix has a stable of strong contenders this year, and Nyad is the first to be released. This is a film that is mostly flying under the radar despite starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. I really didn’t expect much out of this film, and I think because there were no expectations, no real buzz behind this film, that I was surprised how caught up in the story I found myself. If you are a fan of underdog stories, this is definitely for you, but the true spotlight belongs to Foster and Bening, who are here to show us all that they not only still have what it takes to carry a film, but they also deliver some of their best performances in ages. In 1979, when Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) turned 30, she made her first attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida. That’s basically 110 miles of water she attempted to cross.  It was meant to be the feat that she would retire her long distance swimming career on, but unfortunately she never made it to Florida.