Khanimamba Rawlings Khoza

The idea of the perfect someone, someone made just for you and to love you is an idea many have pondered over, at least I have on very lonely nights, shallow, pretentious, and insecure as that may seem. These are the themes that are very evident throughout this movie. A writer dreams about his perfect woman and like any writer would attest, he decides to write about it, and to his surprise, a woman is born out of ink, paper, and imagination, what follows is a love story with some very dark and cringe turns, but the theme of love is always looming in every scene of the movie. In the first few moments of the movie, we are introduced to Calvin, the writer and main lead of the movie. Calvin rose to fame as a teenager after publishing a successful novel, however, despite the success, he is also a loner, insecure, and in therapy. The movie does a brilliant job of teasing how Calvin will eventually unfold as a character through subtle tones in the conversations he is in, and his development as a person and as a writer, is done beautifully as it allows, you, the viewer to go on this journey with him. Through every word he writes, you start questioning if it was the right word or sentence to write, in the context of whatever situation. Throughout the movie, there is this tone with Calvin and Ruby(the woman he dreamt up and wrote into existence), a tone of control and to what extent does he get to control her since she is entirely his imagination come to life, or whether, regardless of him creating her, she is not his property, and he does not get to rewrite her every time he wants her to do something. Whichever way you view the movie as you watch it, several things will be clear, it will get creepy, it will be romantic, it will be cringe, some moments you will love, some moments you will hate, and some will leave you on the fence. Ruby Sparks is, however, the most engaging and thought-provoking movie I have ever watched with themes of romance and relationships. The writing is brilliant, the cast delivered amazing performances, especially the two main leads, Paul Dano(Calvin) and Zoe Kazan(Ruby), who were relatively unknown to me before this movie. My only regret is that I did not watch the movie sooner, as it is a 2012 movie. If you are a fan of romcoms with suspense and twists, I highly recommend Ruby Sparks. 4.5/5

Going into this movie, I was prepared to love it, for a few reasons. I love Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy; I think they are both incredibly talented women, for that alone, I went in with high expectations and the other reason is that the movie has two plus-size leads and as a plus person myself, I am all for that representation, especially in a superhero movie as this is almost always never the norm. The twisted thing about expectations however is that they usually lead to disappointment and this movie had bucket loads of it. When Melissa McCarthy is a lead in a movie, it would be naïve of one not to expect comedy and that is exactly what happened in this movie, her character has little to no character development, her whole arc in the movie is entirely mad up of being the comic relief like any other movie she is in. This is not Melissa’s fault because for the most part, it works, I found myself giggling a few times during the movie, I think I was meant to laugh a lot more but most of the jokes fell flat, Melissa and Octavia are both plus-size women, so the better part of the movie is dedicated to fat stereotypical jokes, that compensate for a lackluster storyline. Melissa McCarthy with the help of the young girls that played a younger her(Vivian Falcone and Mia Kaplan) did a decent job bringing a typical Melissa McCarthy character, Lydia, to life. The really isn’t much to dissect about her character, she plays out how you’d expect her to play out from the moment she is introduced. Melissa McCarthy might just be the most typecast actress in Hollywood, but that is a discussion for another time. The storyline was promising, a young, smart black girl, who had a bad thing happen to her as a child, growing up to be a powerful woman dedicated to fighting back against those that wronged her as a child is an inspiring story and Octavia Spencer and the young actresses that played a younger her(Bria Danielle and Tai Leshaun) did an amazing job breathing life into the character of Emily Stanton but somehow the storyline still fell flat, and this was mostly due to the fact that the movie is too self-aware, it is very aware of the diverse cast it has, the inclusivity feeling the viewer will get while watching, unfortunately it is also because of that self-awareness that they didn’t take time to develop their characters, make you care about the heroes, even the villain. The Crab had more character development than both our heroes, and his whole deal is that he has crabs for arms, when the only character that is memorable from your movie is a guy whose power is having crab arms, then you know your movie did something wrong. This movie had moments where it felt like they wanted you to take a moment serious but then ruined it with a lazy dry joke in the next scene. This movie is bad as far as superhero movies go but it’s a decent watch if your thing is laughing over forced stereotypical jokes. 2/5.

Nostalgia, the movie captured the nostalgia of the first coming to America, an iconic movie, a classic and ran with it. From the jump the movie relies on your love for the first movie to get you invested, it needed to do this because on its own? The movie has a subpar storyline with corny and lazy writing. The movie relies on humor to compensate for its shortcomings, but here is the crazy part, it works! If one has an hour and some good minutes to spare, Coming 2 America is worth spending your precious time on because it will make you feel good, the comedy, though overused, works and is funny and entertaining to watch. If not for the humor and nostalgia, another reason to watch the movie is to see black actors having fun, from the legends to the newcomers, the movie is a fan-service to the black community for that alone, it is worth a watch. The movie does not inspire a think-piecy review out of this aspiring movie critic but, I can let you in on this much, Coming 2 America is a movie absolutely no one asked for, because it was unnecessary to make the movie, hack, even the movie recognizes this fact as it pokes fun at the unnecessity of sequels to old classics at one point. But we got it, it will never hold a candle to the original and I do not think it was trying to, they just wanted to make a movie that celebrates black culture, in the most American way possible, which is wearing dashikis and putting on bad accents that are borderline offensive to people who are African. The cast despite an underwhelming storyline, delivered great performances, they all seemed to be having fun and had great chemistry with each other. As a South African I am biased, but I was very impressed with Nomzamo Mbatha and I was pleased that she had a somewhat prominent role in the movie, while still on the South African bias, it was also refreshing to see the Trevor Noah cameos. All in all, the movie had a fast pace, which was good, so you never got bored, the cast was entertaining, I was surprised to have enjoyed the movie very much because I am usually not forgiving of lazy writing. @TheMovieAccording2Rawlings

FATE: The Winx Saga Review If the title was not already too on the nose, the new Netflix show is based on the beloved Winx Club animation from the early 2000s. I vividly remember watching a few of the episodes with my sister and I remember the show as a very bright and colorful show, a great show, easy to see why it had such a strong fanbase. However, the Netflix show is not Winx Club, this is not your childhood show, leave the nostalgia at the door because it will not be fed. The first season of the show has only six episodes and as such, it spent majority of those episodes showcasing its potential, what it can do and never really focused much on the current story it is telling. It was about keeping one intrigued enough to want to care about what the next season will bring, this is most apparent in its season finale, the ending set up the future of the show and I am confident it will be renewed for a second season. Outside of the main character, Bloom, the few episodes did very little to tell the audience more about the other four fairies and their supporting specialists. It needed to do more, and, on that end, it fell flat on its face. The first five episodes always felt like they were missing something, the showed a power by a fairy but did not really explain the depths of that power. They mentioned a lot of the realms but never took a minute to explain just what these different realms are. I am guessing maybe the realms were explained in the original Winx Club series and fans of that show did not need the explaining but for someone who was getting introduced to fairies, they ended the show with more questions than answers. In no way am I saying Fate is a bad show no because I enjoyed the show very much, from an entertainment standpoint, I do not remember enough about Winx Club to compare but visually, the shows are very different, you can tell this show was made by the same person that made The Vampire Diaries, they have very similar feelings, so if you enjoyed that, I could almost guarantee that you will like Fate as well. The cast of the show is great and what they brought to their individual characters and the chemistry they each have with each other, they made you want to know more about their characters… I would have loved to see the love triangle developed more, the dynamics because the suitemates stretched out more. Again, potential, therefore I was and am willing to love the show, because it can easily be better. The cast did such a great job that I am even willing to overlook the whitewashing. All in all, I enjoyed the show, 3.8/5.