I haven’t seen the movie this series is based on, nor can I comment on its historical accuracy, but I can definitely recommend it because it is a good show. If you are on the fence, don’t be. Go, stream it now.
The series follows one of America’s first women’s baseball teams. The series focuses on the adversities they faced and how they overcame them. The series covers social issues such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. While I do have to admit that it addresses these topics in a fantastical wholesome manner, it does so respectfully, and I can’t take issue.
This show is incredibly wholesome with a fantastic cast, a fun narrative, and a lot of baseball. The characters are unique, and watching them grow and become a team throughout the series is truly inspiring. The Peaches face a lot of obstacles because they don’t fit the traditional role society has assigned them. They just want to play baseball and be who they are, but that isn’t what a traditional woman is. The show does a great job at showing that the traditional woman is a myth, and it instead broadens the definition by including a more inclusive representation of womanhood.
It is inspiring to see all that these women had to endure and to see what they accomplished. This is an important narrative and one that needs to be told. My only complaint is that the narrative is a little too whitewashed, but the intent of this show is to be wholesome and fun, not real and heavy. I’ll let it slide. You need to watch this show.
You can stream this on Amazon with a Prime membership.
Movie Review: Samaritan (2022)
Samaritan is Silvester Stallone’s attempt at the superhero genre, and I have to say, it is pretty good. Sure the pacing was a little slow, but his unorthodox take on the genre was both refreshing and entertaining. I doubt it will win any awards, but if you have been curious about the movie, go ahead and watch it.
Samaritan follows a young troubled youth Sam who is obsessed with the superhero Samaritan. Samaritan once protected the city from crime and against the supervillain Nemesis, but an epic encounter between the two leads to their disappearance. Most people believe the superhumans to be dead, but Sam holds out hope that Samaritan is alive and will one day make his return. His beliefs seem to hold some truth when he encounters a mysterious man who he believes to be Samaritan. At the same time, an ambitious and delusional crime boss attempts to fill the hole Nemesis left behind. Using the supervillain’s magic hammer, he plans to take over the city and bring forth a new world order. With the city spun into chaos, will Samaritan once again rise and bring the city new hope? You will have to watch the movie to find out.
This movie certainly gave me some Unbreakable vibes because of how it treats superheroes. It certainly challenges their traditional role in society by asking whether or not their existence is necessary. Samaritan makes some interesting points and raises some interesting questions about the genre, but unfortunately, I can’t address them without spoiling the movie. Just know that this isn’t your traditional superhero narrative, and it is going to feel a little slow. It does have a pretty satisfying conclusion if you stick with it.
This is a solid movie with fantastic actors, an entertaining narrative, and some pretty cool action. I always enjoy watching superhero movies that aren’t bound by their source material because they have a certain level of freedom that the mainstream ones don’t. They aren’t bound by the same conventions and aren’t bogged down by repeating a familiar backstory. I am even more impressed at how deeply Stallone understands the action genre and his respect for his ability to consistently make fun action movies. Samaritan is a fantastic combination of both these worlds and one that I can in good conscious recommend.
If you want to watch a decent superhero movie, you should give this movie a chance. You can stream it now on Amazon.
Movie Review: Thirteen Lives (2022)
I don’t watch movies that are based on real-world events. I have never been a fan. That said, I enjoyed Thirteen Lives, it is a very well-made movie. If you are on the fence and enjoy these kinds of movies, you will not regret the time you spend with this movie.
Thirteen Lives is a proper dramatization of a terrible moment in human history. The film recreates the rescue of the Thai youth soccer team and their coach as they were trapped in a flooding cave system. The movie will focus on the different groups involved in the rescue, and it does a fantastic job showing how complicated and exhausting the whole ordeal was.
I am familiar with what happened, but I was at the edge of my seat the whole time. This is no easy feat. The acting and all the moving parts came together to create an incredibly suspenseful and claustrophobic experience. Watching the divers move through the dark flooded tunnels still gives me anxiety. Watching the other groups work tirelessly to get the boys was heartwarming. This film is a proper homage to the heroes who made the rescue happen. A homage you are sure to enjoy if you choose to watch it.
Thirteen Lives is available for streaming on Amazon Video with a Prime membership. Check it out if you are thinking about watching it.
Movie Review: Don’t Make Me Go (2022)
Don’t Make Me Go is a fantastic movie, and you should be watching it. The acting is amazing and the story is great, but keep in mind that it is sad.
Max is a single father who finds out he only has a year to live due to bone cancer. In an effort to spend his remaining time with his daughter, and leave her with the only family she has left, he takes her on a road trip to meet her birth mother. Will this trip be the perfect goodbye, creating the lasting memory it is intended for?
This movie is sad, but it has enough cute and heartwarming moments that make up for it. While the story brought me to tears, I wasn’t depressed after. It won’t ruin your day if you watch this. The ending is cheesy yet satisfying. The story is well done and made better by its cast.
This movie has some amazing leads. You need to watch this performance. They are amazing, and the chemistry they share is unparalleled. For a movie like this to work, you need a believable father-daughter relationship, and they are able to create a cute one. You will laugh when you need to laugh, but you will also cry when you need to. The performances are that moving.
You can stream this on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
Series Review: Paper Girls (2022)
Paper Girls is an interesting take on the time travel narrative that I am sure you will enjoy. Where most time travel narratives create a complex journey full of plot holes and redundancies, Paper Girls creates a creative narrative about womanhood within an epic time travel adventure. The series focuses on a group of four girls who stumble into a war that has waged through time. Stranded outside of their own time, the girls must figure out a way to get back home and maybe save the universe in the process.
The show is incredibly fun with great actors and a fantastic narrative. The leads are well written and share some great chemistry. They are fun to watch on screen. I absolutely love how they handle time travel. The science is pretty reasonable, making this a very plausible Sci-Fi adventure. I loved that there wasn’t any over-the-top scientific babble. You won’t be overloaded with convoluted plot points, but instead, be told a very sweet story about friendship and growing up.
At its core, Paper Girls is a coming-of-age story. Each girl is just trying to survive being a teenager dealing with the circumstances they are dealt. Each girl wants to find out who they are in life. This adventure forces them to make the difficult choices that define who they will be. It is a well-written adventure, and watching the girls grow throughout is well worth the investment.
If you like Sci-Fi Fantasy like Stranger Things, this is a good show to tide you over till the new season. I didn’t know what to expect when I picked this up, but it has easily become one of my favorites. Check it out on Amazon if you have a Prime Membership.
Movie Review: Anything’s Possible (2022)
I thought this movie was fine, but it isn’t something I would watch again. There is an audience for this movie, and I am not it. If you are the target demo, you will have a deeper appreciation for this movie. If you aren’t in the demo, the story and acting is fine enough where you won’t hate it.
Anything’s Possible is about a trans girl Kalsea and her relationship with a sis boy Khal. While the movie does touch on some trans issues, the movie focuses on their blossoming relationship as they try to survive high school. This is another teen movie at its core, but one that fairs a little better than the rest.
This is a teen movie that suffers from a lot of the same problems that exist within this genre. The narrative exists in a bubble. As a result, there are no real stakes. The issues Kalesa deals with are resolvable, although the movie will create drama to move the plot forward. You know everything will work out at the end, but I didn’t mind it much this time because the story and the characters are interesting enough. I loved the chemistry between each character and loved the fact that this movie doesn’t try too hard to make characters hip and cool.
As far as tween movies go, this one fairs a bit better. I enjoyed that the relationship builds at a more natural rate, although there is still some ex-machina involved. It makes sense why they are together and I wanted them to be together. I liked that they don’t make her a symbol for trans kids. She wants to just be treated normal and doesn’t want the fact that she is trans be the only important part of her identity. It is hard being part of a disenfranchised group because there is the unfair expectation and pressure to be the spokesperson for the group. I liked that this is addressed, although she does ultimately become the spokesperson at the end. Tween movies aren’t known for having the soundest logic.
I also liked how it wove the different narratives together. You get both the lead’s perspectives as they try to figure out who they want to be while facing the pressures of society that try to mold them. It was very well edited and it all felt like one cohesive story. The way they blend streaming, texting, and social media is very well done. It doesn’t feel fragmented or like a cheap attempt to pad the time, but rather adds to the narrative in a meaningful way. I love how story telling is evolving with technology and they are starting to get it right.
If you are the target audience, it’s a cute teen movie with a trans lead that doesn’t get too preechy. We need more positive trans leads and this is a step in the right direction. For eveyrone else, I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it, you won’t hate it if you have to sit through this.
While I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch this movie, it’s not a bad one. You can stream it on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
Movie Review: Love and Monsters (2020)
Love and Monsters is a lighthearted movie about surviving the end of the world. If you haven’t seen it or are thinking about it, think no more. Go watch it! This cheesy fun movie is a delight and you can watch it on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
Humans are once again the catalyst for the world ending events that drive the narrative of this film. Animals have mutated because of the radiation, killing off most of the human population. The survivors now live scattered across the globe in small colonies. The movie focuses on Joel, an average guy who is incapable of taking action. Joel freezes at the sight of danger and as a result is left to cook and repair stuff for the colony he lives in. Joel is done waiting around and decides to venture out into the monster infested world to find his long lost girlfriend. Will Joel find the strength and courage to survive in a post apocalyptic California, or will the monsters make a meal of him?
Love and Monsters is a lot of fun, especially if you are a fan of Zombieland. It shares a similar style, but not as edgy. It is light hearted and cute, but there are real dangers lurking around the landscape. I loved the monster design, and each monster encounter was thrilling despite the overall tone of the movie.
Joel is played by a fantastic actor who brings this movie to life with his quirky nervousness. It is fun to see his character develop as he faces and overcomes adversities. He is also has some amazing chemistry with every actor he interacts with, including the dog. Joels charisma and chemistry with his costars create the tone necessary to make this movie work. With narratives like this, you need a lead with enough charisma to drive the plot and make the audience care.
As far as stories go, its fine. You’ve seen movies like this before but it’s done well. It is a little cheesy but the cheese gives this movie its charm.
Movie Review: 1UP(2022)
1up is possibly the best modern video game movie out right now. The story is great, the characters are fun and memorable, and the acting is solid. It might be a low-budget film and a bit on the cheesy side, but it is a fun story that you are sure to enjoy. If you have a Prime Membership, you should be watching this movie.
V and her friend Sloan are the only girls on their college’s esports team. As a result, they deal with the constant discrimination that comes within the misogynistic world of gaming. They are pushed to the sidelines, not because they lack the skill, but because they are women. Fed up, the girls quit and decide to form an all-girls team. Now they must learn to work together to prove to the world that girls can be gamers too.
I have grown to be wary of video game movies because most of the time dialogue is just a series of gamer terms strung together in a desperate attempt to be hip. Worse yet, women in these movies tend to be very one-dimensional and quirky in the worst way. I am tired of poorly written female leads designed to fit males’ obsolete image of women. 1UP does a better job than most movies. The girls are still archetypes, but at least they aren’t characters. I like that they have real tangible goes, and they work towards them. Best of all, they feel like a group of friends who just want to play video games.
This movie is a fun underdog story. The characters are silly and lovable. The pacing is perfect as it builds up to a satisfying conclusion. It does follow a lot of the tropes and themes that are common in the genre, but I had enough fun with this movie where it doesn’t matter. The way gaming is woven into the narrative is fun and exciting. I loved the dramatized fights and how intense the tournaments were even if they weren’t clicking the right buttons. Most importantly, it deals with an experience that movies about gaming tend to ignore. Being a girl who likes gaming is hard. Being a gamer girl comes with a lot of stigma and misogyny. This movie does a decent job at addressing a lot of these issues, but it does so softly. They could go a lot harsher in showing how bad it gets, but I will take what I can get.
This is a fun movie that I recommend to everyone. Even if you don’t play video games or have never touched a MOBA, this film does a good enough job where it doesn’t matter. You won’t get lost in the jargon or the gaming, but I can’t say the same for the story. I loved this story. I urge you to watch it on Amazon.
TV Series Review: The Wilds (2022)
The Wilds is a modern reimagining of the novel Lord of the Flies. While it isn’t a direct adaptation, the show expands on themes explored in the novel. The show focuses on a group of girls who are stranded on an island and are forced to survive its elements. The island will test the girl’s resilience as well as a lot of their resolve. Will they survive this strange new world, or will it be too much?
I liked this show more than I thought I would. The acting is great, the story is fun, and the suspense is killer. The series is structured as interviews recounting the girls’ time on the island. Each girl represents an archetype of the female identity, but each is unique enough that they are more than the personality trait they represent. It was interesting to see each girl overcome their own hurdle as they adapted to life on the island.
The show will jump between different narratives as it pieces together what happened on the island. The show constantly jumps between the present, the island, and each character’s backstory in an almost formula. You get a scene of the interview that will cut to an event on the island which will further cut to the back story. I liked this structure, but it does get a bit tedious towards the end. The back stories are fine, but it definitely feels as if they are pandering for sympathy. As a result, pacing can become an issue, but it is never unwatchable.
The Wilds explores themes like gender roles, mental illness, personality, and ethics as it shows the complications of building a functioning society. For the most part, it is well done, but there are moments where the show reaches for explanations. The show is a bit cheesy and it leans more on the fantasy side, but it makes for a good story. I found great difficulty pulling myself away from this series because of how invested I was in the narrative. You should watch this show. Check it out on Amazon if you have a Prime membership.
TV Series Review: The Summer I Turned Pretty
The Summer I Turned Pretty turned out to be a solid coming-of-age story that I didn’t hate. Usually, I stay away from these types of shows because I am not the target audience, but I am glad I didn’t. If you are the target audience or love sappy reverse harems, this is a decent one you can find on Amazon.
The show focuses on Belly who has just grown out of her awkward teen phase. She takes it upon herself to make the most of her summer and try to find love as well as define who she is. Will she find love, or will she be overwhelmed by the new world she is setting off into?
While the show does follow some of the tropes and the characters are a bit two-dimensional, it stands out against others I’ve seen. It is a lot tamer, the characters are likable, and the story is interesting. I liked that the show doesn’t rely heavily on fan service, current slang, or over-the-top quirky characters to trick people into watching it. You have a solid cast, some heartwarming moments, and some very real situations despite the narrative existing in a bubble.
The whole story takes place in a vacation town, far removed from most problems. It allows Belly to exist in this world where she can be the main character for once and also gives her the opportunity to find herself. The show handles a very complicated period in our lives pretty well. I liked watching Belly grow from her experiences and mistakes, but I was a bit disappointed by the ending. My problem with this story is that this is a very specific experience that plays out like a fantasy. As a result, the story is a bit sappy, but it never got cringy or unwatchable. I think if you are the target audience and enjoy these types of dramas you will enjoy this show a bit better.
You can watch this on Amazon with your prime membership. While I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it, you won’t hate it if you do.
