Movie Reviews & News

 So here we are, the most controversial, loved and hated, highly disputed, episodes of the Avatar Sequel Series “The Legend of Korra” So far, Korra has managed to retain much of the charm of its predecessor while introducing more mature themes and characters to the story. The first 8 episodes of season 2 showcase a complex storyline that involves every main character in their own unique and intriguing way. Yet, when we get to the middle two episodes of the season, titled, “beginnings” the plot takes a 180 turn in a direction that doesn’t entirely make sense. The Civil War storyline is halted as Korra is discovered to have amnesia, and a two part episode takes place involving the story of the first avatar. This feels like an odd choice to put this extended backstory, as the second season had just begun to pick up momentum and the conflicts had started to come to a climactic point. Mako is arrested, Varrick is not who he says he is, Tenzin finds out about the Civil War. Yet all of th...

 In continuation with my series, this week I watched season 2 of the Avatar sequel series “The Legend of Korra” Seeing as how Korra has mastered all the elements, including the Avatar state, by the end of season 1, it’s difficult to predict what more Korra will learn in season 2. However, it is quickly established in this season that there is an imbalance in both Korra and the world when it comes to spirits. Indeed, the second season is titled and centered around “Spirits” The season starts out with a very strong first 8 episodes. Korra revisits her home at the South Pole only to discover that spirits have begun to attack its citizens. There is unrest about this matter between Korra’s father, who is chief of the South Pole, and her uncle, who is chief of the North Pole. In this initial storyline, Korra tried to help her uncle reconnect the South to the spirit world, only to discover that her uncles intentions were never spiritual, but political. A civil war dawns in the South Pole ...

 I have been a fan of Avatar the Last Airbender ever since I was a child. However, I never had the desire to watch its sequel series, The Legend of Korra, despite being its target audience. But with the new live action Avatar series on the horizon, it seemed to be the right time to finally watch the sequel series and for an honest opinion. I’ve heard people rave about the series and people hate the series with all their being, so now it came down to what would I think about it. This past week, I finished the first season of the 4 season sequel series. And honestly, it was pretty good. Definitely not perfect by any means, but there was a lot to be enjoyed. Here’s a breakdown of my opinions: The best part of this series so far has to be the animation. Avatar’s animation was extremely good for its time, but Korra has the benefit of a much higher budget and much newer developments in the medium. The show looks gorgeous. The colors are even brighter, the bending is even smoother, the en...

 Amazon Prime has just released a new original series in collaboration with A24 called Hazbin Hotel . The series has garnered some serious criticism from some amazon prime subscribers, who have claimed that it promotes demonic worship and misinterprets the Christian religion. However, others have given the show rave reviews. So what is this show really about? Personally, I have been a fan of Hazbin Hotel  for more than just the month it’s been on streaming. In high school, I followed the creator of the show, Vivienne Medrano, on all her social media, and followed Hazbin Hotel from when it was just a loose storyline surrounding her original character designs. I have seen the show go from comic, to storyboard, to pilot, and now finally to a fully fledged animated series. Watching the new series on amazon, I was thrilled to get to see the continuation of these characters’ arcs and their journeys together. So why all the controversy? Much of it stems from the setting of Hazbin Hot...

It’s been two decades since the movie musical Chicago  won best picture at the Oscars. Being one of my favorite movies, I rewatched the 20 year old film this past week, this time examining what made the movie best picture worthy. Movie musicals are extremely difficult to film, because they combine two entirely different forms of media that use entirely different methods of connecting to the audience. I think this is why movie musicals flop most of the time. Whereas a musical in a theater sense suspends the audiences disbelief by being on a stage, so that characters randomly breaking into song doesn’t feel unnatural, movies suspend disbelief by being as realistic and close to life as possible. Which is why combining the two often feels unnatural and strange. It just doesn’t make sense to our brains to have these extremely realistic settings, followed by characters breaking into song, something people in real life would never actually do. But Chicago  manages to work around this...

 There’s always that one friend that never stops bothering you to watch “the classics” in film. They insist every one of these movies are somehow worlds better than anything from the last 2 decades, but when you watch them, you find them to be slow, sexist, racist, and generally not fun to watch. This is the way I often feel about classic films, but last week, I was suddenly in the mood to give one a shot. The first one to pop into my head was the 1942 film Casablanca.  I had never seen it before, and knew close to nothing about the plot. I expected to find myself either bored or uncomfortable, and yet as the narration opened the film, revealing the beautiful setting of the African Port town full of displaced people, I found myself drawn into the movie, as movies are supposed to do. The plot of Casablanca is fairly straightforward, the setting never changes, there are no sprawling drone shots or impressive effects. And yet, the story is so intimately engaging, and the charact...