Review: "Everest" (***½)

Editor's note: We're excited to introduce our newest writer, Alexis Ahlzadeh, with this review! We think you'll enjoy her personality and confidence as much as we do. Love to write about the movies you love (or hate)? Email lucy@reelga.com with any interest in contributing. -LD

Josh Brolin stars as Beck Wethers in "Everest."

In previous years, the Venice Film Festival has kicked off its opening night with highly buzzed about, critically-acclaimed films like "Black Swan," "Gravity," and "Birdman." This year, that opening slot belonged to "Everest," the tragically true story of a guided expedition to the top of Mount Everest in 1996. The innate visual grandeur of the journey up Mt. Everest was left to carry the film as it failed to delve into the many interesting characters and artistic aspects that could have set it apart from other stories of its kind.

Review: "Laggies" (**½)

Chloe Grace Moretz and Keira Knightley star in "Laggies"

Lynn Shelton has created one of my most favorite movies of all time. Now I haven’t seen all the movies in the history of all time, so that first statement isn’t entirely accurate, but of all the movies I have seen, Lynn Shelton has captured me. But not with “Laggies,” her most recent directorial venture, but with “Your Sister’s Sister.”

I saw “Your Sister’s Sister” three years go, and this is the only time I’ve done this, but once the credits rolled, I immediately played the movie again in its entirety (I was watching it OnDemand). This isn’t the best movie ever made, it’s not even among the best, but this movie, it reached inside my chest, worked around my breastbone, and squeezed my heart until I felt nearly ready to burst. I loved its honesty, its sincerity, its small, freehanded charm. Everything about it, to me, is gorgeous. And since watching “Your Sister’s Sister,” I’ve followed Lynn Shelton’s career with a magnifying glass and a fine-tooth comb. I have a Google Alert set for her name. So when “Laggies” headlines started filling my inbox, as you can imagine, my excitement started to boil.