Steph:
This film about Bad Axe could’ve easily veered into melodrama with so much focus on familial love, but its discussion of the early days of the pandemic and the politics of race in Trump’s America somehow got me pissed off and crying at the same time, which is hard to pull off when you’re dealing with neo-Nazis. ⏰⏰⏰⏰
Josh:
I picked this for SMC thinking it was a narrative film, but it turns out to be 100% true—an uneven but deeply personal and emotionally rich documentary about a Mexican/Cambodian family and their restaurant surviving the first year of the pandemic in Trump country that naturally includes a potentially dangerous encounter with neo-Nazis and also with “normal” dumbass Americans, like that “deaf” gentleman I so badly wanted to punch in the face. ⏰⏰⏰
The Bare Minimum 