How the pandemic has affected movies

The coronavirus pandemic has brought a lot of changes to daily life and how things are going. Stores started closing early and only letting a certain number of people into the store, some business closed entirely, and many people have started to work from home.

Production on lots of movies and TV shows has been halted due to it including large groups of people and it being hard to adhere to the safety guidelines: like staying six feet apart. Movie theaters have also closed.

Due to the theaters closing, many film studios have opted to release their movies instead on a streaming service to be able to rent. Movies typically cost twenty dollars to watch this way.

This has proved to be beneficial for the movie companies too, as Trolls: World Tour made way more money than its projected profit.

Companies seem to be comfortable offering their movies this way, as at home theater rentals seem to become more and more common.

Not every movie can benefit from the pandemic. Many have had to halt production and change their release date. This can cause a shift in a company’s schedule for years. This can be seen with Marvel. They had every movie planned out for many years, so even having to push back one release date can affect all their movies. This can result in a major profit loss.

Movies like Mulan, Wonder Woman 1984, and Venom 2 have been pushed back months for their release. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is nearing it’s tenth anniversary and was going to be rereleased in theaters, but now it’s going to have wait.

The pandemic has caused many things in our daily life to change. One thing is for sure though, movies will always be around and many studios are willing to adapt to change to put out their movies for viewing. Although production has halted on some projects, they will still be released.

What the US government has done wrong during the pandemic

Some countries have handled the COVID-19 pandemic better than others: Australia is already going back to school, South Korea has had widespread testing since the beginning of the pandemic, and Germany has the lowest mortality rate in the world.

One of the biggest issues that the US has faced is the lack of testing. In the beginning, the WHO came out with tests that worked and were widespread and were working for the most part, but the CDC made their own tests that were going to be used in the US. These tests had major setbacks, and the US couldn’t get as many people tested as other countries because we weren’t producing enough tests.

Another huge issue is that states are competing for resources like ventilators and masks. The US government hasn’t done a good job providing, and rationing, resources so whichever state has the most money, or is willing to spend the most money, will get the most resources.

Finally, the spread of misinformation by the president is causing a lot of problems. Trump has been contradicting Dr. Fauci and telling people to take medicine that hasn’t been proven to help, or ingest chemicals that could have disastrous side effects. He recently told people that testing is overrated and that the less you test the less cases you have. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has been saying things that aren’t true and has not been listening to the government issued guidelines.

‘Community’ review

By Oliver Kelly

Community is a 2009 sitcom available on Netflix that centers around a group of college students in a study group in community college. It’s quite funny, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh.

Community starts out as cliche as it gets. You have predictable character arcs, like the handsome jerk, the rebel, and the cooky old man, but through time, their character development becomes unique and interesting to watch. The quote on quote “handsome jerk,” a character called Jeff Winger, is a former lawyer who doesn’t care about anyone, but over the course of the show he slowly comes to care for the people around him.

This show was created by Dan Harmon, so naturally it is pretty wacky. Nothing is off the table for the students at Greendale Community College. Weird events happen all the time, and on multiple occasions the main characters play paintball on school grounds. There’s even a side plot about Troy Barnes, one of the main characters, deciding if he should attend the evil air conditioning repair school, which goes on and off for multiple seasons.

I think my favorite character would have to be Abed, whose dream is to make movies, and who spends all of his time making movie references and being weird. One of the running jokes of the series is how Abed pretends his entire life is a movie, so he does all sorts of fourth wall breaking and calls out setups for cliches.

However, this show is not without its flaws. It’s supposed to last four seasons because that’s how many years it takes to complete college, but for some reason it returns for two more simply because the writers thought it should be longer. They do this by making Jeff a law teacher after his lawyer business failed, which makes enough sense, but the last two seasons are a severe drop in quality. Trust me, if you want to watch this series, you are not missing anything if you just don’t watch the final two seasons. They are really not worth it.

My final rating for this show is an 8/10.

Phase Four of Marvel

By: Zhara Christopher

Ever since Endgame many Marvel fans have wondered what’s in store for Marvel. Lucky for us, Disney has provided us with a loose timeline for phase four.

In 2019, Disney released Disney+, a streaming service for all things Disney, National Geographic, Star Wars, Pixar, and of course Marvel.

During that time, Disney has released their plans for multiple Marvel TV series that will come out in the next three years. This will include:

  • The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, a mini-series bringing back Captain America: Civil War villain, Helmut Zemo. This will be released in fall 2020.
  • A Loki mini-series, which will pick up after the events of Endgame, coming out in 2021.
  • Scarlet Witch will also be getting a show called WandaVision where Wanda and Vision live in a typical classic sitcom where everything is not what it seems. This will be released sometime in 2020.
  • Next title is, Marvels What If… a show about the alternate universe of the MCU; coming in summer 2021.
  • Other titles with dates not conferenced are Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, and Moon Knight.

On the movie side of Marvel, they have released many tiles of movies coming out in Phase Four.

To start is, Black Widow, a movie about Natasha Romanoff confronting her history of being a spy and working to fix broken relationships she left in the past. This will be released November 6, 2020, or a different date due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Next year we will be seeing Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings, our first leading Asian superhero in the MCU. This will be released May 7, 2021.

We will also see The Eternals, a new group of Marvel superheroes following the events of Avengers Endgame. It follows a secret race of aliens that have to step out of the shadows and defeat their enemies “The Deviants.” This will be released February 12, 2020.

In 2022, Thor Love and Thunder is scheduled. Few details have been released, but we know it will come out February 12th of that year. The second movie coming out in 2022 will be Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness. Again not many details about the movie itself, but it will be coming out on March 25.

For more information, please go to: https://www.ocolly.com/lifestyle/turner-s-take-marvel-studio-s-phase-thoughts-and-predictions/article_9583e8b0-b2e6-11e9-a8e2-bbde93a8e44c.html

Apps

There are lots of things to do during this time.

This app is a really good way of keeping track of your mental and physical health. It’s good for stress, and is a good way to help wind down for the night.

2. Brain Test:Tricky Puzzles

This app is so much fun! It’s a fun way to find new ways of solving problems and it is a really good way to spend time playing! It’s not really an IQ tester but it’s fun to play around on. 

3. What’s up? – A Mental Health App

This app has a lot to offer, it keeps track of your good days, when you rate them on a scale of good to bad. It’s almost like an online diary to help you reflect on the past. It has habit trackers and uplifting quotes. 

4. Bored Button – Games 

This app offers a bunch of games and puzzles! A great way to pass the time with many levels and games to choose from. Once you finish up school work this app has a lot to give.

5. Houseparty 

This app is one of my favorites! It’s a great way to connect with others through a video chat! There are built in games that you can play with your friends from a distance! If you get your friends to download it you can play with a bunch of your friends! It’s a great way to stay connected and have fun! 

I hope this was a helpful article! I know how hard it is to find ways to spend your time since we’re all stuck at home. Stay safe!

‘Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile’ versus real life Ted Bundy

By: Yanyoua Xiong

In 2019, the film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile came out about the famous serial killer from the 1970s, Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy was famous for killing young women he either seduced or lured in by playing inured. He was later convicted for several things which led to the death penalty. 

The film uses real life quotes and basically re-enacts Bundy’s whole life starting from when he gets caught the very first time for running a stop sign, twice. Obviously, there are details that can’t be thrown into the film, but it holds a lot of facts that were caught on camera.

Things like Bundy’s personal thoughts, his plans, and even his feelings were all put into the film. After my own personal research, I found that Bundy’s friends, attorneys, and prosecutors released recordings of Bundy explaining how and why he did things. They also released information about personal meetings they had with him that unfortunately couldn’t be recorded. The film captures these emotions well and it sometimes even feels like it’s truly Ted Bundy himself.

Something that interested me was during Bundy’s trials, women were stacked in the audience watching. They were scared, yet found an attraction to him. Every one of them watched his trials knowing he attacked only women, especially young women, yet they still went hoping to catch his attention.

Bundy’s attorney even noted that some women would even sneak her some notes and ask her to give them to Bundy. Bundy’s attorney wasn’t in the film but they put in the interviews of women that explained how they felt about Bundy. 

I personally enjoyed this movie even though there were some unsightly images, but it added to the realism of the film. I recommend this film to people who like thriller and mystery films. It was accurate and interesting, and really showcased Ted Bundy’s trials. 

Conditions in Amazon warehouses

Image taken from: https://qz.com/1664017/how-one-amazon-warehouse-prepares-for-prime-day/

So, we all know there is a global pandemic going on right now where everybody who is labeled as a non-essential worker is being asked to stay inside in much as possible.

This, and the fear of contracting or spreading the virus, has many people shopping online.

With the rise in online orders, many things are out of stock or take longer to ship. All of this purchasing has been handled at distribution centers that are having significant losses in staff. 

According to the New York Times, workers in Amazon distribution centers across the country are realizing what a large role they play in the success of the company. The workers are using this as leverage to “demand better pay, better sick leave and more of a voice in how the company is run.”

Fear about, and around, the coronavirus has caused attendance at Amazon warehouses to fall as much as 30%, leaving the remaining workers to struggle with the rise in the number of orders while the numbers of staff are falling. 

Amazon has also been accused of firing workers who participated in protests about the working conditions inside the warehouses. These conditions depend on what state the warehouse is in, and has also been a rough topic as some are closed for cleanings while others remain open.

Many employees have tested positive for the corona virus. After the first case was found in Queens, NY, employees at 50 other sites had also tested positive.

Recently, Amazon has been giving its workers quarantine leave and has also raised their wages, while also giving more space between stations and tripling the janitorial staff.