Savy Flores

Alex Hirsch brought me to this show. I adore Gravity Falls, and I'm always excited for any project he's brought on to. I love him as King. He's a brilliant voice actor in this, just as he was in his many roles in Gravity Falls. Though he did not create The Owl House, there are plenty of similarities: The beautiful visuals, the older, morally questionable mentor, a young main cast, the grey-areas explored, the deep bonds between characters, the dark fantasy element, the home away from home themes, etcetera. On top of these wonderful similarities, the character concepts for this show are stunning and the animation is extremely fluid. Not all of the episodes are perfect, but the show is a joy to watch. Caring about the characters made watching the later episodes so much more gripping. You want these main characters to succeed, because at their cores they are good people. I wished that Luz's character was slightly less impulsive at times, so that plot could revolve around things that didn't come from her making an avoidable mistake, and I wished that there had been more episodes like the one on the snowy mountain where Eda actually places Luz and nature and tries to get her to connect to it to understand magic. Though Eda is meant to be a "bad teacher" character, I'd love that opportunity to learn more magic lore. Other than those two character critiques, without going into deeper detail, This Is A WONDERFUL Show. Please watch it!

I’ve loved this movie for a long time! It’s not super long, but it tells a powerful story in that short time. If you’re prepared for something told non-linearly, with elements left up to the imagination, and emotionally heavy topics like loss, neglect, substance abuse, etc. then definitely give this a chance! It’s not something to just set in the background and pay half a mind to. I would strongly recommend experiencing it fully to really enjoy it. And if that doesn’t do it for you, then it’s just not your kind of movie, and that’s okay! For me, it makes me bawl my eyes out, and I love that about it, but maybe it just tugs specific heartstrings that I feel especially emotional about, and others might find other aspects that they prefer about the movie. It is certainly unique and sets up a fascinating world with only little nods in each direction, which is just a joy to watch from a world-building standpoint as well! Oh, and I HAVE to mention the soundtrack. It’s just gorgeous, and I’ve had Jacob’s Chain in my playlists since I first watched the movie 7 or 8 years ago

I completely get why this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie! There are a lot of complaints about the gore. DEFINITELY don’t go into this thinking it’s tame. There are some showy and somewhat drawn out deaths, though nothing close to a Tarantino-style death (such as that seen in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). I actually enjoyed the similarities though to Tarantino’s movies—featuring a colorful backdrop for some unique action. I say unique because every character gets a few minutes of introduction (which somewhat breaks the flow of the story but later is quite funny). By the end, they have given a water bottle a title sequence and “backstory.” This movie is not a “comedy” in that it’s constantly throwing quips at you. It is very situational and compositional, which I actually enjoy because it won’t age out of it’s comedy in the same way that movies with pop culture references may. I would say that one con I noticed with the movie that I didn’t necessarily see low star reviews mentioning in my preliminary scroll was The Prince. I actually would love to read more opinions of her, but I felt that I had trouble suspending my disbelief with the set up for her character. She was the “good luck” antithesis to Ladybug’s “bad luck” yet the movie heavily relied on that good luck. With so few female characters in the film, I truly wanted to see her “build herself up” into a formidable foe like she claimed she had, but there were plenty of moments where she did not have the upper hand, was unprepared to defend herself, and only survived off of pure luck. Aside from this character who was initially villainous but later forgettable, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie’s visuals, Ladybug’s desperate attempts to bring his social-emotionally aware self into violent situations, the quirky cast of side characters, the respectful lack of killing animals for a joke, the upbeat and exciting soundtrack, and a chaotic plot that left me tense at who would survive each interaction.

Upon discussing the movie afterward, we all mostly agreed that we would give it a 6 or 7 out of 10, so 3 stars is where I'm at. I'm actually surprised by all the 5 star and 1 star reviews (though, to each their own) and even more surprised by HOW MANY 1 star reviews there are! Wow! I was scrolling for quite some time. I have to say, this movie doesn't deserve to be hyped, but it doesn't deserve any hate either. I read some reviews that criticized the aggressive chimp backstory for being presented multiple times in the first half of the movie before dropping off completely, but the point of the backstory was not for character development but instead to enhance the theme that disrespected animals have power over people and cannot always be tamed. I'll forgive the strange pacing of that backstory's inclusion for its furthering of that theme. I also read reviews that criticize the lack of character development. This, I have to agree with. The characters were not developed well enough for me to care deeply about their attempt at making a name for themselves. I didn't hate them or anything and enjoyed many of the little interactions between characters that made them feel more human. The problem was that so much of the movie was spent on drawn-out, quiet shots or false scares that it did not leave room for learning about the complexities of these characters' various struggles. I expected to learn more about their personal and familial goals. Instead it felt more like: we have an extrovert who focuses on self care in the form of vaping and therapy, a dutiful introvert who is grieving, an alien-believer who knows tech stuff, and a gruff videographer with a hunger for impossible shots. They felt a little one-dimensional. Lastly, I saw that some reviews criticized the CG as being lazy. I actually enjoy the alien design, because it feels distinctly otherworldly. It looks almost mechanical but appears to be composed of various cloth-like materials. Though it's not the classic alien of most action films, it considers the idea that an otherworldly being might not have any resemblance to the macro-fauna of Earth. The movie, Arrival, explored this idea as well. Their alien designer considered many incredibly abstract alien concepts before landing on the strange hand-octopus people that we saw in that movie. It may not look "cool," but it is certainly unique and catches one's attention. On the point of the movie, Arrival, another example of a non-traditional alien film, (and A Quiet Place for that matter) I couldn't help but compare these movie while watching NOPE. In both of those films, there is incredible emotional depth that ties moments of grief in the beginning of the movies to moments of grief at the end. This was lacking in NOPE, so I did not feel the same connection that frequently draws me back to those movies.

I was watching this when it came out and recently rewatched while sick in bed. It just continues to be such a feel-good show for me when I need it. Yes, the characters can be pretty self-absorbed and petty and passive aggressive, but you do quickly grow to love them and root for them to get better and do great things. I feel this sense of loss ending the show again. There are so many characters in the show that I just feel like you could never end it without feeling like there was more you wanted to explore with some storyline or other, but that's not to say that they didn't do a beautiful job with the ending. I commend the Levy's for knowing when to end their show without it progressively running out of stories to tell and fading into dreariness. The show maintained its charm in my opinion, so I'm content just rewatching and continuing to be comforted that way instead of getting new content. I hope anyone who hasn't seen this show enjoys it once they start (just stick with it!) :)

If you enjoyed the show, PLEASE go check out the Webtoon! Alice Oseman does a beautiful job with both, but the Webtoon has a ton of episodes, so you can experience more of the story and keep enjoying these characters. Some changes have been made to the plot and some characters have been added to make this comic work for a TV show formula, but I have to say that with both the comic and the show, I found myself smiling so often that my cheeks hurt. I haven't gotten that in such a long time with a show or comic. They are both so wholesome. The comic delves into some darker issues than the TV show has yet, but Alice Oseman is so careful with her viewers and makes sure to put up specific warnings on any pages that cover these topics, so you know what to expect from them. It was a delight to find the comic and to find out that it had a Netflix show coming so soon, and I'm so happy that I've finally gotten to watch it, because it really did meet my expectations!!

No movie is without flaws, but this was a breath of fresh air for the MCU. Some of my favorite movies now are one-offs like Black Panther or Antman, which have so little ties to the other films that you can enjoy them without spending money on all the other movies to try to understand where you are in the overall storyline. Going into this, I was worried that it would be a very Western type of plot-line to portray Eastern lore, but I was pleasantly surprised. The amount of action was indicative of Marvel’s style and was certainly overdone at the beginning, where the plot could have moved on a little quicker, But there were also moments where you were just allowed to breathe. They spent time showing character interactions that made people’s bonds with one another believable and made me care for them, Awkwafina’s character Katy had almost none of Marvel’s standard comic-relief character flaws and instead had mostly delightful interactions with Shang, there were gorgeous slowed down scenes that showed the more peaceful flow of movement of the Ta Lo people, and lastly the story was not told linearly but instead cyclically with constant breaks back into flashbacks. I was extremely impressed by this less formulaic method of storytelling. Spoilers: One flaw: the instigator for the conflict is a situation where the father is able to be tricked by a mere voice, and that is not completely believable because he has lived for over a thousand years and would have to be smarter than that to have lasted this long. His grief at the loss of his wife would have been more convincing as a motivator for his lack of critical thinking if it had been more recent. I won’t go into too many others. Over all, this is a very solid movie. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least for me, as someone who likes Eastern media for its focus on character interactions, familial/friend love, cyclical story-telling, and often its focus on complex solutions to problems, this was a nice homage to that.

I desperately don't like giving one star reviews, and I have to be clear that this is just from my own experience. This might be a 5 star movie for another person, just not me. I love ambient movies, and I love ones that require some thought, and I love horror elements in movies, but none of those things really worked for this movie when I watched it. I can't help but notice that the movie had 78 percent approval by Google users last night when I watched it and has gone down to 75 percent by the time I'm writing this. It's just really hard to watch for your average viewer. With a runtime of 2 hours and 10 minutes that could have easily been edited down and still felt ambient and carefully paced, I nearly walked out of the theatre 5 times and would have done so if I had not gone with family to see it. The movie's symbolism just went over my head, the lead character was hard to like in any capacity, and his trials were so odd and didn't have real consequences that I struggled to feel worried for him throughout the entire film. If this movie is fun to watch for someone, that's great that they get it, but I would just advise the average viewer or even a viewer who does enjoy more thoughtful films to avoid seeing this in theatres. The film looked beautiful by the way and had a gorgeous soundtrack. Props to the people that made this movie shine visually and audibly, though it could not save the plot and flat characters. If this movie is just too smart for me, then I guess I'm okay not being smart. It feels like high fashion. It's artistic, and it's brilliant to the professionals, but no one on the streets is really going to wear it.

It's hard to judge a show that's only got two episodes, so I'm a bit surprised by the one star reviews (Edit: There are seven episodes out now. It’s still a sweet show). (For context, I've watched Bob's Burgers for years, a little Central Park, and these most recent episodes) Though these three shows all have the same animation style, try to look at them as different shows. In the same way animation is not a genre but a medium for story-telling (as is obvious by the differences in adult and kid's animated shows), make sure you don't watch The Great North thinking you're going to get Bob's Burgers. It's a different show with a different vibe so far. It's been fun to watch so far with nothing extremely stellar to note as of yet. The characters are loving to one another, if a bit obsessively at times, but the story doesn't revolve around hate, which is a huge plus in my mind. There's just a bit of dysfunction from the characters' codependent natures, but the show isn't built upon people treating each other like trash. Don't get me wrong, I also can enjoy a show with hateful characters, but this type of show, like Bob's Burgers, has always been a bit more feel-good, for when you need that in media.

I both enjoyed this movie and was left feeling just a tiny bit off. I think it’s already been said in other reviews that Haper’s character throughout the movie is shown by how she interacts with her family (while she’s terribly afraid to show her true self). Seeing her continually choose her family over Abby after promising otherwise makes it really hard to view that character’s word as truth as time goes on. I don’t think Abby would have believed anything Harper promised by the end of the movie. Other than the issue that they should have developed the leads’ characters equally well, or even shown Harper regretting her actions or ruminating over them alone (all her scenes of regret are just her apologizing to Abby) the movie was otherwise good. The dynamic between all the characters gives a lot to work with as far as dysfunctional family plot devices, Dan Levy was funny and delivered one of the most genuine and heartfelt speeches of the movie, and though it is sad to watch a relationship degrade over feelings of self doubt, the movie was still sweet and funny.