The Stargazer

In June 2020, it was announced that the final season of the beloved cop sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, would premiere as part of NBC's fall schedule. However, NBC later delayed the premiere until mid-season 2020–21 due to the pandemic. After many further delays, rewrites, and rumored cancellations, fans wondered if they were ever going to see their favorite detectives in action again. Thankfully, the eighth and final season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine premiered on August 12, 2021, with a total of ten episodes. Despite numerous alterations due to the social/political climate at the time of its production, creators Dan Goor and Michael Schur delivered a fitting, hilarious, and heartwarming conclusion to one of my personal favorite sitcoms of all time. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is criminally underrated, with many impressive qualities that set it apart from its peers and easily make it one of the best sitcoms of the 2010s.

After countless pushbacks and delays, fans all around the globe were finally able to experience Denis Villanue’s long-awaited sci-fi blockbuster, Dune. Originally scheduled for release on November 20, 2020, to say that the film was highly anticipated is an understatement. About a month before the film premiere, I challenged myself with finishing Frank Herbert’s original 1965 novel Dune, managing to do so just a few days before seeing Villanue’s adaptation in IMAX. As a massive sci-fi and fantasy fan, I was well aware of the novel’s critical acclaim and influence on massive sci-fi franchises such as George Lucas’s Star Wars even before reading it. The novel is truly a masterpiece, and with all the details so fresh in my mind, I was cautious not to set unrealistic expectations for the film. With that being said, Dune is not only a fantastic adaptation, it is a beautifully immersive visual experience the scope of which I have rarely seen before in any film. Spoiler warning for anyone who has not seen the film yet.

From Full House to Sex and the City, it seems almost every popular show and movie get remakes/reboots that to appeal to the audience’s nostalgia as they age. In this series, I will look at the best and worst remakes of all time and breaking down scenes from each to see how they stack up.

Among the many things memorable about Fargo, I find that I most connect to its locations. There is one shot specifically, when Steve Buscemi’s character, Carl Showalter, is driving into the airport parking lot, that I point to every time I watch the film. The camera briefly flashes to an exit sign, one that I would see every time I drove home from school. While Showalter takes the exit, my dad would take my brother and I, and eventually my brother would take me, and eventually I would take myself further up the highway, across the Mississippi river, into Highland, Saint Paul.

Anyone raised in the early 2000s will recognize 2004’s The Polar Express as a defining part of the holiday experience when we were kids. The animated classic captured our imaginations by bringing the iconic story and illustrations of the book to life before our eyes. But beyond its place in our childhoods, The Polar Express represents a fascinating period in the history of animation in Hollywood. Despite using the predominant medium of computer animation, its visuals stood out from the other popular animated films released at the time. Unlike the works of Pixar and DreamWorks The Polar Express’ character animation strove for a near-photorealistic quality, prioritizing detailed faces and believable expressions over the exaggerated, cartoony style preferred by the other studios.

*warning, spoilers for all three seasons of You ahead*

If you have seen the Netflix series You, which just premiered its third season, you are no stranger to the ultimate creep, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley). As a character, Joe Goldberg manages to approach women in the most unsettling ways through his constant voyeuristic pleasure of spying turned intense stalking. Throughout the first two seasons, Joe bounced around from one love interest to the next, so much so that when season three was released this October, I had to look up a recap of the first two seasons to remind me of his many victims (shoutout to Netflix for having the actors film a recap video), which reminded me how much of a nightmare he is for women everywhere. Across all seasons of the show, Joe’s mindset seems to have remained the same for the most part. He holds onto the idea that he will meet a soulmate who will change who he is at his core, which is basically just a complete sociopath.

There’s nothing like a good holiday movie to get you feeling ready for the season. Holiday movies have very different criteria, in my opinion, for what qualifies as a good movie. From Christmas classics to Hallmark movies, there are plenty of choices to get you into the spirit. After putting my list together, I came to the realization that the holiday move genre peaked in the late 90s and early 2000s. Note that the movies are listed in no particular order.

This 2009 rom-com features plenty of familiar faces, including Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock, Betty White, and some other actors you may recognize. Sandra Bullock as Margaret Tate and Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton portray an unlikely couple that somehow works out. Like most movies that fall under the rom-com umbrella, The Proposal has a somewhat predictable ending. Although that may sound like a bad thing, there is some comfort in the predictability of rom-coms. Despite the movie’s 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, The Proposal has become a staple of the romantic comedy genre. While the formula for the perfect rom-com has changed slightly over time, the abundance of them that came out in the 2000s had a very specific style that mainly relied on casting credible actors who would ensure box office success regardless of the quality of the actual content; And, of course, it doesn’t hurt to make them nice to look at. The formula seemed to work out pretty well for tons of movies that would otherwise be considered mediocre and forgettable, like Confessions of a Shopaholic, She’s the Man, and many more.

My first memory with The Velvet Underground was in tenth grade during the springtime. I sat on my couch and looked out to the backyard, watching the sun slide through the sky. The stone of the patio was soaked in a darker tone from the earlier rain. Rainwater rolled down the vines and pine needles into big globs until they fell. “Sunday Morning” was playing. I can’t remember if the sun was going up or down, I can only remember the wetness outside and the fuzzed out sound of the celesta playing that unforgettable line.

From Full House to Sex and the City, it seems almost every popular show and movie get remakes/reboots that to appeal to the audience’s nostalgia as they age. In this series, I will look at the best and worst remakes of all time and breaking down scenes from each to see how they stack up.