The last engaging trait of a good walk-and-talk movie like Crossing a Dawn is the ability to create an approachable and honest experience. While you want to be drawn to the appeal of the combined potential couple in question as they fully speak and recognize that a version of Before Sunrise is happening to them, you, the viewer, want to play your own “what would you do with the chance” mental game.

The movie is unafraid to shift ways to see and feel beauty, even through—and especially through—artificial sources. What makes her happy makes him happy, and not the over-traditional other way around, and that simple stance speaks volumes. Wicker’s lifts given to a woman’s independence and the proper devotion a spouse should give their partner create harmony sorely missing in the world.

One cinematic trait, among a great many, that the fine animation artists at the Portland-based Laika Studios consistently demonstrate is visual sweep. When you see one of their films, it’s like no other filmgoing experience. The precision movement and jaw-dropping detail poured into the production house’s 17-year, six-film catalog, which began with Coraline, is beyond impressive, and with Wildwood, that sense of sweep only gets bigger.

For their 246th episode, two dancing film critics, two proud dads, and two regret-filled school teachers, Will Johnson and Don Shanahan, embark on something they've never done on the show: Revisit and re-grade a movie from a previous episode. Early in their run together, Will and Don couldn't be farther apart on Damien Chazelle's La La Land. In honor of its 10th anniversary and adding the new experience of bringing their respective teen daughters to the film's recent return to the big screen, our boys reflect on previous loves and old wounds.

There’s shrewd wisdom in that call, because, like this film’s second lesson, that’s plenty and that’s where the real intrigue is. While the overarching rhetoric is scintillating and probably deserves more time in actual deliberations, The Plea found the right territory to explore in this all-hands-on-deck indie standout.

Love of Your Life proves that there’s always room for a good weeper at the movies. We, as the audience, attach ourselves to figures we love quickly, and process the acceleration of missing them when they are taken away. Watching fictional proxies go through recognizable pain can help viewers reflect, consider, prepare, or push through their own, in classic “what would you do?” fashion.