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Cool People Have Feelings, Too. (Substack)

Cool People Have Feelings, Too. (Substack) is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Marya E. Gates.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Corner Store (2010) Marya E. Gates A fascinating look at both life in Occupied Palestine, but also a hard look at the myth of the American Dream in the face of our intense immigration process.
Posted Dec 13, 2025  Edit critic review
The Summer of Flying Fish (2013) Marya E. Gates [Features] dreamy cinematography by Inti Briones (who also lensed Francisca Alegría’s The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future) and sharp political satire
Posted Dec 13, 2025  Edit critic review
Atropia (2025) Marya E. Gates The romance stuff doesn’t quite gel with the strong sense of satire, which is where the film really excels.
Posted Dec 13, 2025  Edit critic review
Little Trouble Girls (2025) Marya E. Gates I love the way that Djukić uses cinematic language (especially sound) to explore the feeling of disassociating, as well as the way she shows the oppressiveness of purity culture.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
A Private Life (2025) Marya E. Gates I will say, it’s very queer, it’s weird in the same way that Zlotowski’s Planetarium was, and both Foster and the great Mathieu Amalric are fantastic.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
The Chronology of Water (2025) Marya E. Gates Style-wise, the film felt like watching a sexually charged film by provocateur Catherine Breillat by way of avant-garde pioneer Hollis Frampton. Take that as you will.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Hamnet (2025) Marya E. Gates The universality of death and mourning. Unfortunately, the heft of that universality is undercut by the technical aspects of the film.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Viva Verdi! (2024) Marya E. Gates A wonderful love letter to humanity, community, and the arts.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow (2024) Marya E. Gates I can’t say this film made me feel better about the way the integrity of the media is eroding here in the U.S., but it definitely made me feel a solidarity with those around the globe who are doing what they can to slow fascism’s grasp on all our lives.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
The Tale of Silyan (2025) Marya E. Gates A fiery screed against capitalism and industrialization and legislation that puts profits over maintaining ancient ways of life and puts our connections with nature at risk.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night (2022) Marya E. Gates Combines an Arabic-language opera about loss, mourning, and inherited trauma performed. . .with Sansour’s signature flare for striking, layered visuals and a unique use of archive material to evoke the deep melancholy of a future differed.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Rental Family (2025) Marya E. Gates A real old fashioned charmer.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Selena y Los Dinos (2025) Marya E. Gates Hardcore fans might not find much new information here, but the sheer amount of footage of Selena, both performing and just hanging out with her family, makes this a worthwhile watch.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Left-Handed Girl (2025) Marya E. Gates Knowing how much Tsou has worked with Baker in the past, the film offers an interesting opportunity to ponder how much her sensibilities actually influenced his work over the years, and vice versa.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Belén (2025) Marya E. Gates Films like this remind us that we need to know our history, and the women who have fought for us, in order to even just keep what little ground we’ve won.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (2025) Marya E. Gates There are still shades of colonialism left in the film, but largely it is a love letter to the place that raised her and the profound effect those early years had on the rest of her life
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Die My Love (2025) Marya E. Gates Ramsay is a master of mood, and her use of sound design in particular does create a nightmarish sense of dread and tension that never once lets up.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (2025) Marya E. Gates This decision to keep the technology that connects, and occasionally disrupts, their conversations is a strong artistic choice to make the audience acutely aware of the fragility of their connection.
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
Lesbian Space Princess (2025) Marya E. Gates Think an animated Tank Girl, that’s a little more sapphic, and made for twenty-something Tumblr girlies, and you’ll be on the right track.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
I'm Not Everything I Want to Be (2024) Marya E. Gates It’s a gorgeous film about an artist’s journey toward self-acceptance and personal freedom told with the same verve and non-conformity as its subject.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
Calle Málaga (2025) Marya E. Gates This is a sensual film in every sense of the word, and Touzani’s brings the same tender heart and poetic eye she’s brought to her first two films.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
The White House Effect (2024) Marya E. Gates The film takes a wrecking ball to any nostalgia anyone has for the 1980s, laying bare not just the rampant capitalism, but the way ecology and conversation of our natural resources was sacrificed on its alter.
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
I Am From Palestine (2023) Marya E. Gates It’s a quietly effective way to show that cultural erasure can come in ways as seemingly benign as a map in a school room.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
River of Grass (2025) Marya E. Gates Wortzel weaves together Douglas’ writing, archival footage, present-day interviews with Miccosukee educator and activist Betty Osceola, and more to craft an poetic ode to her home and plea for conservation before it’s too late.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Mistress Dispeller (2024) Marya E. Gates This is a complex film that will sneak up on you and leave you with a greater understanding of our shared humanity, despite restrictive cultural norms.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
The Falling Sky (2024) Marya E. Gates The film encourages us as viewers to reassess our own materialistic worldview and the unsuitability of a lifestyle so entrenched in capitalism that it is threatened the wellbeing of whole world.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
The Mastermind (2025) Marya E. Gates Pointedly, James is a bored white aesthete who feels entitled to a better life despite having not worked towards achieving it while also has ignoring the politics of the world around him to the point of apathy
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Stallions of Palestine (2019) Marya E. Gates In the end, the doc makes a pretty broad statement that a shared love of raising horses can be a place where both sides can put away their differences and just enjoy these beautiful animals.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
The Alabama Solution (2025) Marya E. Gates It’s a harrowing film that takes a cold, hard look at the system
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
There Was, There Was Not (2024) Marya E. Gates The film stands as a stark reminder that cultures all over this world are being erased and people are being ethnically cleansed from their homelands under the watch of global powers who do little to deter these tragedies.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) Marya E. Gates Mary Bronstein’s frenetic and surreal ode to the anxieties and pressure of motherhood, is my favorite narrative film of the year.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Milisuthando (2023) Marya E. Gates Structured in five chapters, the film is an intimate and poetic portrait of herself and of her country as she contemplates the past, present, and future of South Africa and the lingering effects of apartheid.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
The Ice Tower (2025) Marya E. Gates It’s a slick way to show the film’s main thesis — that films and filmmaking can warp our own sense of self as we create and as we consume the art
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Wajib (2017) Marya E. Gates Although this film is as political as anything Jacir has made, it is also probably her warmest, funniest, and most accessible film.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) Marya E. Gates It’s a rich portrait of a woman who was a head of her times, but also fell into the traps set for so many women in the midcentury.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
American Sweatshop (2025) Marya E. Gates After you watch this film you’ll probably want to log off indefinitely, touch some grass, and hug your pet.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Love, Brooklyn (2025) Marya E. Gates Roger’s bike rides around Brooklyn are filmed with such care and wonder that the film ultimately works as a love letter to the endless possibilities of the borough.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Where Should the Birds Fly (2012) Marya E. Gates As with so many of these documentaries that have shown decades of this never-ending bombardment, it continues to be shocking to see such horrible imagery and realize not much as changed at all
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Red Sonja (2025) Marya E. Gates It's got moments of humor and an anti-imperialist, pro-conservationist, hippy dippy Earth mother meets Xena Warrior Princess vibe to it that I found immensely enjoyable.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
East of Wall (2025) Marya E. Gates [A] beautiful portrait of the wild beauty and deep-rooted sense of community that makes the American West like no place else.
Posted Oct 11, 2025  Edit critic review
Hola Frida (2024) Marya E. Gates Aims to introduce the life/work of trailblazing artist Frida Kahlo to kids, focusing mostly on her childhood. In doing so it has the same kind of sing-songy energy that you find in animated kids shows like Dora The Explorer. Make of that what you will.
Posted Aug 09, 2025  Edit critic review
My Mother's Wedding (2023) Marya E. Gates Thomas gives herself one really banger of a monologue at the end of the film and I wish the whole thing had as much verve and conviction.
Posted Aug 09, 2025  Edit critic review
Year of the Fox (2023) Marya E. Gates There is a lot stuffed into this drama, and while the emotional details are deeply felt, it all ends up pretty jumbled.
Posted Aug 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Folktales (2025) Marya E. Gates The snowy setting — and truly adorable dogs, and one cute cat named Tigergutt — adds a magical touch to the whole film, while the openness of teens as they share their fears and insecurities is heartwarming without ever feeling saccharine.
Posted Aug 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Oh, Hi! (2025) Marya E. Gates As someone who has been in more than one situationships without realizing it until it was too late, this movie cut a little too deep, and if the logs on Letterboxd mean anything, it seems it did for others as well.
Posted Aug 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1995) Marya E. Gates Anyone who has a creative bone in their body will be inspired by Lin and her work.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Thunder (2022) Marya E. Gates Jaquier films the rural setting with such love that its verdant hills become another character altogether, embracing the four youth as they embrace themselves and their newfound sexuality.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Apocalypse in the Tropics (2024) Marya E. Gates There’s no way to watch this film and not see it as a mirror for how religious fanaticism has taken over politics in the U.S. and other right-wing countries around the world
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Shari & Lamb Chop (2023) Marya E. Gates I came away wishing it went a bit deeper contextualizing her work within the world around her, both in terms of the TV landscape, but also the politics of the time, being a woman in the entertainment industry, etc.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
Wild Diamond (2024) Marya E. Gates . Throughout the film Liane navigates a power structure in which beauty and desirability are her capital — but also comes against its limitations.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
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