19 Wish

 Just...copying from my Letterboxd review with a few additions, that will be in italics.

I didn't hate this as much as I expected, but there are some huge flaws.

The rules in this world regarding magic are not set up too well, and that could be easily ignored if the story didn't focus so much around it.

ex. yeah we don't know why Mirabel didn't get a gift from Casita, but the story isn't finding out why and giving us a story about a magic system, the story is about how Mirabel is being poorly treated by people for not being magical. 

It's so funny how Dreamworks last year beat Disney at its own game with a story about wishes.

Book: Father of The Future by Darren Dash

 

 There are 9 Archibald Lox novels, 4 Larten Crepsley novels, 12 Darren Shan and Zom-B novels,and 10 Demonata novels - and I own digital copies of all of them, a few digital copies of the Vampire's Assistant manga issues, and physical copies of 5 or 6 (look I don't have the space).

When I say I'm a fan of his work, I am a fan of Darren Shan's work.

 

18 The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 

 Some spoilers.

This movie has 2 huge problems that doesn't quite make this accessible for audiences who didn't read the book;

You see in the book Snow's internal thoughts and monologue, that his care for Lucy Gray is 75% based on his own survival, how possessive he feels over her to better himself. It's very hard to portray that in a movie without having a voiceover of internal thoughts. 

You do see some other mentors (the rich kids who are still starving probably but) who get lines that Snow could have had about the self-serving attitude they had, but a lot of it is simply "Here's a close up on him, hope you get the idea."

So it works, to the uninitiated audience, as "Oh this boy went bad because of circumstances [also his girlfriend didn't like that he was a murderer]"

 Also, the first 45 minutes is really rushed. This movie is 2hours and 37 minutes. Slow down.

Outside of that, as someone who read and really enjoyed the book, I really enjoyed this. Viola Davis as Volumia Gaul is awesome.

The music and performances are impactful (I do not give a shit what some people have to say online, Rachel Zegler is great).

Blue Eye Samurai

 Watch the first episode for free;

Posted this review before I saw one of the creators is Zionist, damn, well. That sucks. Free Palestine.