​Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron returns to his homeland for Roma, an autobiographical film about an upper class family in Mexico City.  Cuaron last filmed in Mexico for Y Tu Mama Tambien, an all-timer that also backdropped Mexican political strife against regular people living their lives.  Roma features less horny teenagers than his first masterpiece, and instead focuses on the family maid caught in the throes of her own personal drama, the family’s dissolution, and protests in the streets.  Like the best films, Roma gives the impression that concurrent stories are happening around the one being told here, and I went into this film sure that it would knock me out.  However, Roma somehow never breaks through my emotional barriers, leaving me to praise and admire it but not exalt it as the modern masterpiece that so many critics have hailed it as.

Flame and Citron is a story about a pair of members of the Danish resistance group Holger Danske during World War II.  Flame and Citron are assassins who calmly carry out their missions with little information in regards to their targets only knowing they are Danish informers or collaborators with the Nazi occupation of Denmark.  They purposely do not target German officials despite their desire to do so for fear it will increase the chances of retaliation.  The build up here is a little slow but the noir-ish style of the film directed by Ole Christian Madsen, and the performances of Thure Lindhardt and Mads Mikkelsen as Flame and Citron respectively engage you through the slower setup and lead into scene after scene of excellence as events begin to unfold.