Stanford‘s Hometown News Site

Prime Video clearly wants to broaden the entry points into Gotham, and BAT-FAM embraces that idea with both arms and a batarang. Carrying forward the energy of the holiday special MERRY LITTLE BATMAN, the series shifts into a more episodic rhythm — family first, crime-fighting second, and comedy leading the charge. It’s a tonal departure from the brooding Batman mythos most fans know, but that’s the point: this isn’t a story about The Dark Knight lurking in the shadows. It’s about a father trying to make breakfast while supervillains lurk outside — often at the same time.

UNLICENSED is the kind of film that understands the real battle always happens long before anyone steps foot into a boxing ring. Danny Goode was once a man who defined himself by winning—career, financial, and the thrill of a life lived fast. But after a stint in prison for insider trading, he emerges into a world that has moved on without him. The shame doesn’t just linger; it settles into every relationship he once took for granted. In just the first few minutes, it’s clear the film isn’t interested in glamorizing the comeback. It wants you to feel the weight of a man who’s starting from below zero.

SUPERCLAUS takes place in a world where Santa has grown just a bit restless. He loves his Christmas duties, sure — but all the attention goes to SuperClaus, a fictional superhero version of himself celebrated in a blockbuster franchise adored by kids and marketed into oblivion. One bump on the noggin later, Santa believes the fantasy is reality, and suddenly the North Pole has a hero with a misplaced identity and no brakes.

BULL RUN dives into the intoxicating world of high finance from a refreshingly personal angle. It follows Bobby Sanders, a former hockey player, as he tries to force himself into a career that looks great on paper but feels hollow in reality. He wants to belong to the world of big money and fast decisions, but every step forward raises the same question: what’s the point if you lose yourself in the climb?

This was a strange one, and when I say strange, I mean it both in the context of the film, but also just the experience. At its best, SALLYWOOD is a story about caretaking—of a career, of a dream, of a person you’ve decided to believe in even when others have moved on. Writer/director Xaque Gruber frames the film from the point of view of Zack (Tyler Steelman), a young writer who grew up haunted—in a good way—by Sally Kirkland’s work in ANNA. He shows up in Los Angeles with hope and little else. Through an amusing encounter that belongs to the city’s mythology, he’s suddenly carrying bags, answering calls, and trying to stage/manage a comeback for his idol. The film treats that arrangement with a mix of sincerity and bemused self-awareness; it knows this is the kind of story people roll their eyes at, then quietly root for anyway.

Director Alan Govenar frames Jasper not only through the horror that made national headlines in 1998, but through the people who refused to let that be the final sentence. We meet elders and organizers whose lives have been shaped by segregation, disenfranchisement, and the grind of being asked to “move on.” The film’s title is literal: the voices are measured, firm, and rarely performative. You feel the thesis in their cadence—progress, if it holds, comes from neighbors stacking real moments until a counter-narrative becomes the town’s muscle memory.

There’s a particular flavor of crime thriller that thrives on the tension between ambition and inevitability — the moment when someone reaches for the big score even though every warning sign tells them they’re speeding into disaster. THE PERFECT GAMBLE fits that mold, focusing on two men who should know better yet charge into danger because the lure of control, validation, and reinvention is too strong to resist. It’s a story about building a future on unstable ground and hoping you can outrun the collapse. There is a very made-for-TV vibe to the film, but it works, in a nostalgic kind of way.

James Mangold’s 3:10 TO YUMA understands that the heart of a Western isn’t in the gunfire—it’s in the moments between shots, when a man decides what kind of person he wants to be. This 2007 remake of the 1957 classic transforms Elmore Leonard’s story into a human drama of conviction versus corruption, anchored by two powerhouse performances from Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.

There’s a quietly terrifying moment in adulthood when you realize people expect you to have a roadmap for who you are and what you want — and worse, that you’ve internalized those expectations without ever questioning whether they’re truly yours. (DON’T KNOW) HOW TO BE takes that moment and stretches it over one emotionally loaded evening, turning a birthday visit into a confrontation about identity, love, and what it means to exist confidently in a world where everyone thinks they know what’s best for you.

With a final frame that will stick with you forever, the strength of HAPPY BIRTHDAY lies in its quiet defiance. Sarah Goher’s feature debut unfolds in Cairo, where one girl’s attempt to celebrate her friend’s birthday becomes an act of resistance against an entire social order. What begins as a seemingly gentle story about childhood friendship soon reveals itself as something far more piercing — a confrontation with the invisible systems that define who is allowed to dream and who is not.

There’s a moment in A BEAR REMEMBERS that crystallizes what the film does best: it makes history feel like something you can reach out and touch — or something that might reach back. This 20-minute short transforms a simple idea into something emotional and haunting without ever resorting to spectacle. It’s a story about a mysterious sound troubling a remote village, but it resonates because it’s ultimately about what happens when the bonds that hold a community together begin to unravel, unnoticed.

STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE! understands that journalism, at its best, is not a set of hot takes—it’s a muscle memory for asking difficult questions when the room would prefer silence. The film follows Amy Goodman across three decades of reporting and the daily grind, framing the Democracy Now! anchor not as a sainted outlier but as a working reporter who refuses to internalize the limits imposed by corporate consolidation, political intimidation, or apathy. Directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin shape that vision into a narrative: a story about the persistence required to keep a public square open when the gatekeepers continually change the locks.

DECIBEL locks a musician and a music mogul in an isolated studio and asks a question the music business keeps dodging: what happens to soul when the system optimizes it? The premise is pointed—a promising musician, Scout, is invited to a high-tech recording sanctuary run by Donna, a brilliant, exacting figure who believes the future of music is less about blood and breath and more about training data and control (typical billionaire…). That setup isn’t just timely; it’s personal. Every scene feels like a negotiation between two incompatible definitions of creativity: one that accepts messiness, and one that treats mess as a bug to eliminate.

AFTER DARK is a compact morality play about what we owe a stranger when our instincts disagree. In ten minutes, it sets up a classic 'what would you do' scenario: a man on his way home meets a young woman who needs help getting to the station. He decides to walk with her. From there, the film becomes a tug-of-war between two impulses—compassion and self-protection—played out on quiet streets where every footstep sounds like a decision.