Who doesn’t love a good war movie? They’re raw, intense and the fact that it’s based on an historical event makes it much better. 1917 in particular stands out from the rest and I believe you’ll love to know why.

1917 came out on December 4, 2019, and made $323.8 million in the box office. The movie is a dramatic narrative film based in World War I and follows two British soldiers by the names of Lance Cpl. Schofield and Lance Cpl. Blake. These two men are given a mission to give orders to another team that the battle they are about to fight is a trap, and they’re about to lose 1,600 of their comrades, along with Cpl. Blake’s own brother. It is up to these two men to go and stop this mission before time runs out.

This movie may sound somewhat simple, but it takes big twists that makes the audience feel more hooked and engaged to the film.

One thing that really stands out, and probably is the most known element about this film, is that they make it look like the whole movie was filmed in one single shot. This makes the audience feel stuck in the movie and it feels as if the story wouldn’t have an end. They also cut scenes in a very clever way, they have the character they’re focusing on walk into a very dark room and that’s when the next scene starts.

The acting in 1917 is very good for the most part. The writing for the characters that the actors play on the other hand can be a bit questioning. For example, the main character would see an enemy and wouldn’t shoot, they would rather wait for the enemy to shoot at them. Or they would try and save the enemy from a freak accident. Moments like these are somewhat irritating because the movie is meant to focus on a soldier who is meant to do their duty and they seem way too soft on their enemy and almost see them as an ally.

One thing I believe really stood out in this film is the color scheme. It has a realistic tone to it but still stays on the grayish and dark green spectrum, which I believe really fits with the time period it’s meant to take place in and the location of the film. 

The film does a really good job at making the audience nervous. They have the movie feel as if it’s going to have a huge blast of action at any moment or that the character next to the main character will get shot with a big loud bang to make everyone jump. It makes the whole audience feel uneasy, and I think the soundtrack plays a big part in this feeling.

The soundtrack is very slow during a majority of the film and it really fits with the timing and moments. Though sometimes it seems to get really dramatic and too intense and it seems they’re trying a bit too hard for the audience to get really into a scene. A majority of the time though, the slow and eerie music makes the movie feel a lot more intense.

Overall, I believe this movie did a solid job at making itself unique and have an interesting take on the war film genre. 8/10

In April 2014 To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was published by Jenny Han who followed with two more books: P.S. I Still Love You (2015)and Always and Forever, Lara Jean (2017).

After watching P.S. I Still Love You I was disappointed. I was expecting a big feud between Peter Skavinsky and John Ambrose, but Ambrose wasn’t even in the movie much. They had times where they met and talked but it was mostly still about Peter and Lara.

I would give this movie three out of five stars as there where parts of the movie that lacked emotion and were just slow paced. Also the characters were still brand new even though we were in the second movie. I also thought that Peter was portrayed as a bad boyfriend the whole movie and they put a halo on John making him seem like he was the good guy, and for them to just get back together doesn’t make sense.

The Netflix show, Iron Blooded Orphans, also known as Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans, is a story set around 300 years after something called the Calamity War. The Calamity War refers to a great conflict between the Earth and Outer Spheres that lead to the establishment of the Post Disaster Timeline. 

The war put Mobile Suits in high demand, and the mass fighting caused a lot of destruction. Mobile Suits are humanoid combat vehicles, typically employing two arms to deploy weapons, two legs for propulsion, and a head that acts as a main camera. Generally, a mobile suit is approximately 60 feet in height, with the cockpit located in the Mobile Suit’s torso.

In the story humanity has terraformed Mars. The Mars colony is still under an Earth-based rule and is effectively an economic slave state that now wants its independence. This creates child soldiers that make up the ranks of a civilian security company called Chryse Guard Security. This force is tasked with escorting a Martian noblewoman called Kudelia Aina Bernstein to Earth to go against Mars being under earth’s rule. The Earth military force of Gjallarhorn has plans to stop this escort to earth so that Mars can stay under Earth’s rule. 

All the complex machines they use something called the Alaya-Vijnana System, which is a cybernetic interface across the spine that directly connects the machine to the pilot. The children use the cybernetic interface, or the Alaya-Vijnana System, to create an army of child soldiers that are remarkably adept at handling complex machinery but are a cheap and expendable workforce from a business standpoint. The Alaya-Vijnana System process is a dangerous one to make and almost any adult would not survive the process if they tried to have it done. The group of child soldiers is called Tekkadan.

So, the Gundam series Iron-Blooded Orphans is without a doubt among the best the Gundam franchise has to offer, especially when it comes to the alternate series in the franchise. This is aimed at older audiences since it has a brutal, and very gritty story. I would recommend this to people who like a good story, like seeing big battles with mobile suits and Gundams, and like great character development.