Stanford‘s Hometown News Site

THE MIGHTY NEIN marks the next step for Critical Role’s expanding universe. Following the success of THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA, this animated adaptation of the tabletop campaign dives headfirst into darker, stranger, and more emotionally complex territory. Where VOX MACHINA leaned on boisterous energy and humor, THE MIGHTY NEIN sharpens its focus on fractured characters and the messy “humanity” behind their heroics. The result is an eight-episode first season that balances adventure, absurdity, and anguish in equal measure.

THE NAUGHTY LIST OF MR. SCROOGE begins with something that works immediately: a group of former college friends gathering for a holiday reunion in a remote chalet, only to find themselves stalked by someone dressed as an (very) unnerving version of Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s a straightforward setup, but the film leans into its seasonal hook with enough confidence to stand apart from the usual Christmas horror offerings. The snowy, isolated setting lends the story a natural sense of unease before the violence even begins, and the film wastes no time turning those early hints of tension into something.

LAUREL & HARDY: THE DEFINITIVE RESTORATIONS VOLUME 2 arrives as both an act of preservation and celebration. What Kit Parker Films and MVD Entertainment have assembled here is more than a nostalgia trip—it’s a technical and collector triumph that reintroduces one of cinema’s most influential duos to audiences who may have only known their work through faded prints or clips on YouTube. This Blu-ray set restores not just image and sound, but also a sense of comedy and timing that modern audiences may have forgotten how to appreciate.

What happens when art literally moves into the heart of consumerism? SECRET MALL APARTMENT answers that question with humor, heart, and rebellion. Director Jeremy Workman transforms an already-legendary story into an unexpectedly soulful documentary — one that finds as much beauty in drywall and duct tape as it does in the artists who dared to imagine a home within the walls of Providence Place Mall. The result is part social experiment, part philosophical study, and part love letter to the kind of creativity that refuses to play by the rules.

SCARLET LETTER is a microcosm of an exploration of love’s volatility — the soaring highs that feel world-defining and the sudden heartbreaks that threaten to undo it all. Across just three minutes, writer/director/co-star Cole Komssi distills a relationship into emotionally loaded moments that show how affection and pain often coexist, sometimes within the same breath.

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ: A BODY OF WORK takes a fascinating premise — the pursuit of a long-lost artistic masterpiece — and gives it a psychological twist, exploring how desire, obsession, and secrecy can blur the lines between admiration and fixation. Director Walter Ernest Haussner crafts a short drama that feels like a collision between art history and tension, reminding viewers that sometimes the most dangerous mysteries aren’t locked away in museums, but hidden in human behavior.

ARTISTS THAT INSPIRE FUTURE GENERATIONS: 10TH ANNIVERSARY JCYMAP PROGRAM is a celebration of what happens when creativity is not only encouraged but invested in. This documentary showcases the Jersey City Mural Arts Program (JCYMAP) and the transformational experience it provides young artists, aged 13 to 25, as they learn to shape public space with their own visions. The film serves as both a milestone marker and a testament to the enduring impact of community-driven art.

PRETEND I EXISTED is a deeply personal short that understands how memory becomes its own kind of storytelling — fragmented, emotional, shaped as much by feeling as by facts. In just under six minutes, filmmaker Quoc Huy Tran reflects on his relationship with his mother during her cancer treatment in Japan, capturing the fragile space between fear and love that emerges when illness alters the roles of parent and child. It’s a film built on reflection rather than drama, and that restraint gives its core remarkable strength.

ASCENDING BEYOND SHADOWS is a reminder that the most powerful journeys don’t need massive runtimes or sweeping narration to feel profound. Through the lens of rock climbing, this short documentary explores how one person turns a physically demanding pursuit into a lifeline — a means of coping with hardship and refusing to let struggle define his future. Director Patrick Civitelli approaches this emotional reality not through sentimental overstatement but through earned perspective, showing how climbing becomes less a sport and more a path toward healing.

VIVISECT is a smart, unsettling thriller that understands how fear doesn’t always come from loud scares or sudden shocks. Sometimes terror grows slowly, like discomfort creeping into a room where you initially felt welcome. In just eleven minutes, writer-director Ava Dell’Orfano explores that shift with precision, crafting a story that begins with relatable stress and spirals into something much darker. Here, the familiar setting of a study session becomes a breeding ground for manipulation, obsession, and survival.

THREAT wastes no time establishing its stakes. In under ten minutes, it takes on the emotional and psychological strain of espionage — a life where orders clash with personal values, and consequences ripple far beyond the mission. Stories about covert duty often lean into spectacle, globe-trotting action, or elaborate gadgetry. Director Arthur Dupuis and writer/lead Michael-Eoin Stanney aim for something more grounded: a human caught between loyalty and identity.

There’s a unique kind of pressure baked into emergency stories — every moment is a countdown, every decision potentially irreversible. LIFE SUPPORT manages to bring viewers into that reality in just ten minutes, proving that a film doesn’t need a long runtime to leave a heavy impression. Centering on an emergency physician and a young medical student watching and learning in real time, this short explores more than the mechanics of saving a life. It aims at the human cost of being responsible for the outcome.

TATSUMI opens in a corner of the underworld most films only mention in whispers: the person who shows up after the violence to clear the scene. That detail immediately tells you what kind of story this is—less about the swaggering side of organized crime and more about the residue it leaves on people who never get a headline. Tatsumi is a fisherman by day and a cleaner for local yakuza by night, a man whose life is defined by proximity to the worst moments of other people’s choices. When his ex-girlfriend is murdered and her teenage sister Aoi charges headlong toward payback, he steps in—partly out of guilt, partly out of duty, and partly because he recognizes a path that can only end one way.

SERIOUS PEOPLE starts with a straightforward, sharp what-if: right as a music-video director is about to become a father, the biggest job of his career lands in his inbox. He wants to be there for the birth and maintain his momentum. The solution he lands on is very Los Angeles—don’t miss the gig; just find someone to play you. From that premise, the film builds a funny, awkward, and occasionally bracing exploration of authorship, ego, and the economy of attention that treats human beings like interchangeable brand assets.