Category Archives: Movies/TV/Theaters

Movies/TV/Theaters

Movie review: ‘The Black Phone’

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By: Marina Yang

*Warning: This review contains spoilers

The movie ‘The Black Phone’ was made on June 24, 2022. It was directed by Scott Derrickson and co-written with C. Robert Cargill, based on the short story of the same name by Joe Hill.

‘The Black Phone’ is a thriller and supernatural horror movie that revolves around our protagonist Finney Blake, Gwen Blake (sister of the main character), the antagonist/kidnapper being called the ‘Grabber’, the 5 other victims (Bruce Yamada, Billy Showalter, Robin Arellano, etc.), and others.

The movie starts off with missing posters of kids, indicating that the kidnappings have been going on for a while already. Our main characters’ family, as others are, are more wary and scared about this situation as the disappearances pile up with no lead. Then, one day, when Finney is walking back home after going separate paths from his sister (context: Finney’s sister sleeps over at her friend’s house every Friday night), he sees an odd black van with a man coming out of it. The man drops his groceries, and as most people who pass by in this kind of situation, Finney helps the man. Then the stranger pops up a question, “You wanna see a magic trick?” which Finney as a kid is easily fantasized by and answers, sure/yes. The strange man opens his door, revealing several black balloons, and then snatching him into his truck to his house. Finney then has to survive the next few days in an enclosed basement room as the mysterious, broken-like, black phone rings with advice from the past victims to help him escape. Meanwhile Gwen desperately is trying to find an answer from her dreams to draw a conclusion of where her brother may be located or a hint on the killer’s identity.

The story mentions the undetermined/unrevealed details of missing cases. Throughout the movie, we never really know what the killer’s true intentions were with these kids and why he hinted at creepy things. It greatly speaks about the terror and how scary it is being in the position of the kidnapped victims (children in this case), and the strategic thinking you need to plan an escape in a confinement-like area. This is heightened by switching the perspectives between the worried families trying to search for their lost family member(s) to the kidnapped person struggling to reach back home safely.

I’d rate it a 4/5 because I thought it was a pretty good storyline, even if it had been based off of something else, the plot is interesting. Though I’d by lying if I said that I wouldn’t feel some kind of emotion if the killer was never caught in the movie. Especially if Gwen never had this psychological dream-reading trait of hers because she was so helpful throughout the movie, helping the officers make leads and get a step closer to solving the case.

You can watch this movie through a subscription on Peacock or renting/buying it from other services (Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, etc.).

Movies/TV/Theaters

‘Monster High 13 Wishes’ movie review

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By: Marina Yang

This is my review of the movie ‘Monster High: 13 Wishes’, made by Mattel Entertainment in 2013 and produced by Nerd Corps Entertainment. Our main characters consist of Howleen (our main character), Draculaura, Frankie Stein, Clawdeen Wolf (Howleen’s older sister), and Gigi Grant (genie), with small segments featuring other characters like Clawd Wolf (Howleen’s older brother) and his friends in a fright show.

This movie greatly speaks about the grip that greed has on one person, being shown in different ways like wanting popularity (mainly featured from Howleen), money, etc. Howleen is jealous of her older sister and brother being so “popular”, despite the title of that being outdated in high school; just well-known.

While Howleen and Clawdeen’s friends clean up in the attic they come across a genie lamp, rubbing it a couple of times to reveal Gigi, our genie assistance. Despite all the good of having a genie may be, Gigi wasn’t the only thing released, her evil twin sister, Djinni, has been summoned and will take over power all over again. Howleen blinded by the want of being popular may make that mission easier for her.

This movie is a “kids” movie I’d say, but it highly acknowledges the feeling of greed and a look into real life with the “need” to be popular and liked by everybody. That factor really enhances my opinion about this movie rather than just reminiscing about my past/childhood, as I feel at least popularity, or being liked by everybody, is a great factor in people’s lives somewhere in life.

Alongside the message and meaning of the movie, the visuals I’d say are very fashionable and cool for the castle inside of the genie lamp. This is a good film for anyone who is into fashionable films or just for a blast in the past.

My review on this would probably be a 4/5 because I like the message a lot, and feel a lot of people need to hear this and realize how you might lose yourself trying to build a fake you for recognition. It’s at a 4/5 though because I feel like they had better films than this, but this is still relatively good in my opinion.

‘Monster High 13 Wishes’ is free to watch on Plex, or with a subscription/rental on other streaming services.

Movies/TV/Theaters

‘Weapons’ movie review

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By: Seng Nhkum

There are many horror movies, and this 2025 horror movie called ‘Weapons’ is very different from the rest.

Summary

‘Weapons’ is about one 3rd grade classroom where almost all the kids mysteriously go missing at 2:17 in the morning except for one child named Alex. This mysterious situation puts the small town into chaos.

The movie ‘Weapons’ shows many different perspectives of the characters in the situation, either how they were influenced, experienced, or how they were affected by the disappearance of the kids. The perspectives are a homeless person, the principal, the child Alex, the teacher of the class, a father, and a police officer. The ones who try to unravel the mystery of the disappearance are the teacher, a father, and a police officer.

Review

Overall, I rate’ Weapons’ an 8/10. I really liked how this movie showed multiple perspectives of the characters because this was the first horror movie that showed this, and it really shows details of the characters. Alex’s perspective really stood out to me because it showed his influence in the movie. For example we learn about how he ended up being the only kid that doesn’t disappear. How this happened was a twist that surprised me.

Also, I liked the suspenseful build up which made me scream because I didn’t expect things that were going to happen. I didn’t expect the jump scares.

You should definitely watch ‘Weapons’. The plot is very intriguing, and I also think you’ll like this horror movie too!

You can watch it on HBO Max and it is rated R.

Movies/TV/Theaters

Review on ‘10 Things I Hate About You’

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By: Marina Yang

This is my review on ‘10 Things I Hate About You’. ‘10 Things I Hate About You’, is directed by Gil Junger, produced by Andrew Lazar, and written by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith. Our main characters consist of Bianca and Kat Stratford (sisters), Patrick Verona (acquainted with Kat), Cameron James (acquainted with Bianca) and the antagonist Joey Donner.

The movie is an early 2000s romance movie that revolves around two developing relationships with problems to overcome, inside the relationships and out. It all starts off with Cameron, who is a new student, who sees Bianca and crushes on her hard. There’s another thing though, she’s boy crazy for another dude named Joey. Also, Bianca is under a new rule where she can’t date unless her sister Kat is too. This seemed easy for Cameron to fix until he realized who her sister was, a total ‘loser’ who isn’t interested in boys or relationships. He ends up finding a fitting candidate for the job, of dating Kat, in Patrick.

I found this movie to be an emotional ride, it had its ups and downs, cringey moments and a little tears, but overall I found it pretty sweet. It has the old-school romance a lot of people romanticize and admire, really capturing the lover-boy and hard to get girl relationship dynamic.

Besides just the romance, it briefly covers the changes Kat goes through from middle-school to high-school, expressing the truth behind her “rebellious” act in the movie. Teaching people the importance and impacts of pushing yourself to fit into an/or someone’s image of you, and diving into something you’re not ready for. Which I feel is valuable to a certain crowd who dreams for a relationship, and romanticizes all the cute acts in these kinds of romcoms.

Though, I don’t think they truly know how differently this generation has changed over time, we’ve grown into a generation where it’s normal to ask people out via text or phone number, etc., not any love letters or devoting themselves through a song.

Besides that, I’d give it a 4.5/5. It’s good in my book, but I may just not have enough pages to really consider it a finalized product/book to truly read and believe. What I really like about this movie though is the ending, Kat says something truly heart-warming yet sad in the moment, showing how much she cherished the time they shared together.

You can watch ’10 Things I Hate About you’ on Netflix or Disney+, or rent it on other streaming services.

Movies/TV/Theaters, Uncategorized

Review for ‘Ginny and Georgia’

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By: Kendra Shanklin

*Warning this review contains spoilers

‘Ginny and Georgia’ is a show about a mom named Georgia who wanted her 2 children Ginny and Austin to have a fresh start so she moved them to Massachusetts. It was released on February 24th, 2021 and this show is rated TV-14 containing intense language, sexual situations and violence.

*Recap

In the first season Austin and Georgia are at his first day in school and he’s nervous but his mom reassures him that everything will be okay and that he’s strong. She then gives him a hug and sends him off to school. Later on, Ginny starts her first day at school and she’s in class and her teacher sees her and says that students in his class take AP English very seriously and she should move down to regular English. She takes that as a racial comment because she’s the only colored person in the classroom. She then throws a comment about how they’re reading 14 books but there’s not 1 black author that wrote a book amongst them.

She then starts talking back to the teacher saying how she thinks he’s a racist because he doesn’t talk about any black book writers. Her classmate Max then jumps in and starts siding with her and having her back.

Ginny’s class then ends and she’s in her locker when she closes it and a boy named Marcus is standing there looking at her. He then asks if she’s new and moved across the street from him and she says “It’s Monday,” because he’s wearing a shirt that says Wednesday.

They then have a tiny conversation and he mentions how he met her mom the night before. Ginny says, “She can be friendly,” and Marcus says how her mom asked for drugs so she can’t be that friendly.

Ginny’s classmate Max then tells Marcus to leave and Max starts talking to Ginny and they ditch lunch to get tacos off campus, but from afar Ginny sees her mom having lunch with the mayor.

‘My review’

I love this show every time a new season comes out I’m always so excited to see what’s next. Although this show can give you a few second hand embarrassments and get boring at times because of how much they talk, other than that, it’s a pretty good show to binge watch on your free time.

If you like drama movies or anything that has to do with a lot of controversy I recommend you check this out. I give this series an 8.5/10.

Thank you for reading me review I hope your willing to watch the show after reading this🤍. You can watch ‘Ginny and Georgia’ on Netflix.

Movies/TV/Theaters

Movie review of ‘Spider-Man’ (2001)

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By: Norah Hoglund

There’s a lot of different Spider-Man movies, but I’m my opinion, the best ones are the original ones. A lot of the time, they are referred to as the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies because that is the actor who plays him.

Summary

‘Spider-Man’ is about a teenage boy, Peter Parker, who gets bitten by a genetically modified spider and begins to develop powers. He decides to use his powers for good after his uncle is shot and killed by a carjacker. At his best friend’s father’s company, Oscorp, an experiment went very wrong and the father starts having episodes where he goes crazy and kills people. He is known as the Green Goblin. Peter has to protect the city against him and ultimately defeat him, all while balancing school, friends, his family, and his job.

Review

The plot of ‘Spider-Man’ is very intriguing. It’s really exciting to see Peter develop his powers and realize what he can do. Although he has superhuman strength, so does the Green Goblin. He has to use everything in him to fight him and save the city from his schemes.

The movie also has great special effects; for example, the scenes of Spider-Man swinging through the city are very realistic and ahead of their time. The movie also demonstrates good character growth. Peter starts out as a shy nerd type of person and by the end he has much more confidence as he has become a hero.

The soundtrack of the movie is also on point. The tones of different songs really add to the scenes to make them more suspenseful, emotional, etc. depending on the music.

The only thing I don’t like about this movie is how long the credits are at the beginning, but I do like the vibe and overall look of how they are presented.

Overall, this movie is honestly a classic for me and I would rewatch it. I rate it a 9/10.

You can watch ‘Spider-Man’ on Amazon.