Review: ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Lands on Top

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (dir. Francis Lawrence) is the newest installment in the Hunger Games saga (dir. Francis Lawrence/Gary Ross) and is a prequel about the life of a young President Snow—the face of the enemy in the original Hunger Games movies. While Ballad can be seen without any prior knowledge of the Hunger Games movies or books, it is definitely suggested, as there are many nearly imperceptible nods to the original series.

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Review: ‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods’ is DC’s Newest Godlike Blunder

The DCEU, since its inception with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, has been criticized for a multitude of things. Bad casting, bad directing, bad writing, bad storytelling all around, just to name a few. Trying to create an MCU-like universe for the DC heroes seems simple enough, yet DC’s try at it has been lacking in nearly every way. Some hope for a return to Snyder, let him finish his universe, most are sighing with relief that James Gunn has been brought in to just not do this anymore. My biggest gripe with the franchise so far has been the fact that its stories are at odds with the themes. They come out of nowhere, or aren’t developed, and these lackluster and underdeveloped themes create bad characters, bad story cohesion, and ineffective world building. Shazam: Fury of the Gods is the latest in the DCEU lineup, and you know what, I was pleasantly surprised with how much worse it was than I expected. 

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Review: ‘West Side Story’ Re-Imagines the Classic Tale For a Modern Audience

Sixty years since the film last graced movie screens, West Side Story is back. This time around, legendary director Steven Spielberg takes his shot at the classic re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet. Set in New York in 1957, The Upper West Side is divided between two teenage street gangs, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. The two gangs have a bitter rivalry fighting for control of the neighborhood, but their quest seems futile as the neighborhood is set to be demolished to make room for Lincoln Center. One day, Tony (Ansel Elgort), a former Jet, locks eyes with María (Rachel Zegler), the younger sister of the Shark’s leader Bernando (David Alvarez). As the two gangs prepare for a rumble, the star-crossed lovers are caught in the middle, desperate to be together and also save the people they care about. 

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