Author: Tiffany Jablonowski

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Have you ever watched Nickelodeon’s critically acclaimed 2005 animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and thought to yourself, “Boy, this sure is garbage! It would be so much better if it were live-action!” Well, you and me both! How that cheesy cesspool of amazing character development and masterful worldbuilding ever reached our TV screens is beyond me. I mean, don’t the executives at Nickelodeon have any idea what people enjoy in stories? But never fear, for not all is lost! In 2010, film director M. Night Shyamalan took on the difficult task of turning garbage to gold with his live-action remake, The Last Airbender.

Masterfully summarizing the events of the show’s first season (in which protagonist Aang travels to the North Pole alongside his friends to learn the art of waterbending), this film is an Avatar hater’s fever dream. A heavy emphasis on bad acting? Changing the pronunciation of protagonist Aang’s name to “Ong”? Whitewashing the cast to remove all sense of cultural representation? The Last Airbender succeeds in accomplishing all of those, correcting the inexcusable mistakes that were made in the original. It has stood the test of time for nearly 15 years. It is no exaggeration to call this work of art the magnum opus of the human species, overshadowing any and all works that have preceded it by several miles.

There is no comparison to be made: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is the GOAT of the entertainment industry, and naysayers shall be shunned until the end of time. As a matter of fact, this film was so good that the geniuses at Nickelodeon decided to scrap all plans for a sequel, to end the series on the highest possible note. Naturally, this decision sparked heated discussions amongst the Avatar fandom. Why would the studio throw away such easy money? How could they rob the fans of such a promising, and arguably perfect, film trilogy?

Unfortunately, the natural order of the universe simply hasn’t been the same since this groundbreaking decision was made. Clueless souls have attempted, and ultimately failed, to replicate the sheer success of the 2010 masterpiece, such as the more recent Netflix adaptation. But both critics and casual viewers alike have dragged that hollow bid at a cash grab, and rightfully so. How dare they cast actors who accurately represent the ethnic background of their animated counterparts. How dare they strive for acting that is anything but soulless and uninspired? And lastly, how dare they pronounce the name of Aang, a character whose name has been heard by millions for two decades, any differently than the improved pronunciation in 2010? The audacity of these studio executives is unbelievable! We can only hope that someday, lightning will strike twice, and another flawless adaptation of a criminally flawed series will grace our television screens.

Wow, that was tough to write. Happy April Fools’, everyone!

Happily N’Ever After (2006)

Critics hate it; weirdos love it. Happily N’Ever After (2006) was another movie that went platinum in my house. This animated film is a reimagined Cinderella story from the perspective of Prince Charming’s servant, Rick (Freddie Prinze Jr.), who mostly works in the castle’s kitchen. Right away, Rick shows his distaste for Prince Charming (Patrick Warburton) and annoyance at others, like Cinderella (Sarah Michelle Geller), due to their obedience to following the usual storyline of their fairytale. Though often irritated at Cinderella, Rick’s crush on her is still strong, even if he knows there’s zero chance of anything happening. That is, until the Wizard (George Carlin) heads out on a golf trip, leaving his two helpers Mambo (Andy Dick) and Munk (Wallace Shawn) with the task of guarding FairyTale Land and keeping the scale of good and evil from being tampered with.

The film follows a lot of the usual storylines people know: Cinderella gets invited to the ball, and her evil stepmother Frieda (Sigourney Weaver) and stepsisters torment her before leaving her home. It starts deviating from the usual structure as we meet Fairy Godmother (Lisa Kaplan), who shows up, name drops a few other fairytale characters in this world, and helps Cinderella get ready for the ball. With this switch in storytelling, we are also given a chance to see Prince Charming’s character a bit more. He’s beloved by all, as per usual in retellings, but because we get his story from Rick’s perspective, we are shown how empty-headed Charming is as he reads from a book about his life for short, quick reminders of how he’s supposed to act and what to do.

As for the two unknown characters Mambo and Munk, we finally see them again when Cinderella arrives at the ball, in the same castle as each other, mind you. As Mambo and Munk look into the glass that shows each fairytale in current time, Frieda breaks in, sending the two away before she takes control of the scale, turning it to evil and watching different fairy tales fall apart and change. Now in control of the fairy tales, she ruins her stepdaughter Cinderella’s story by changing her back to her servant clothes early and sending an army of fairy tale bad guys after her, giving Rick his opportunity to save the day.

As the story nears the end, Mambo and Munk stumble upon Cinderella first, and the trio is saved from attacks by Rick, leading to the audience getting to watch a short-lived montage of Cinderella realizing that she loves Rick and not the Prince, breaking out of the mold Rick despised. After three minutes of screentime together though, Cinderella is captured. Rick, Mambo, and Munk go to save her, but things once again shift from the original story. Instead, Cinderella decks Frieda, sending her through a portal and saving the day. After all seven minutes of screen time Rick and Cinderella had together, the two get married, and everything else is restored to the balance of good and evil just in time before the Wizard returns from his golf trip. Is this one of the best reimagined Cinderella stories? It’s questionable, but trust me, back in the early 2000’s, this was fire.

Available on YouTube.

The Women

The Women (2008) is a comedy-drama that my mother and I settled on after trying to find something interesting to watch together. The film follows Mary Haines, a wealthy fashion designer and mother, along with her group of friends, as she experiences betrayal in her relationships. Her best friend Sylvie Fowler discovers that Mary’s husband is cheating on her with a perfume saleswoman named Crystal Allen, thanks to a gossipy nail technician. Instead of telling Mary this discovery first, Sylvie tells their mutual pregnant friend, Edie Cohen. Mary eventually finds out on her own, through the same nail technician. For a part of the film, Mary’s friends wonder when a good time to tell her would be, not knowing that she already knows. Eventually, it is discovered everyone knows that Mary’s husband is cheating on her, and she leans on her friends for support while starting the divorce process.

And what better way to support your friend than to leak her personal struggles to a gossip columnist to save your career? Mary, hurt when learning Sylvie did this at her expense, ends their friendship. This doesn’t stop Sylvie from stepping up for Mary’s daughter Molly, without Mary’s knowledge, after catching Molly skipping school with friends and smoking cigarettes. Mary’s daughter confides in Sylvie that she feels distanced from her mother because of the divorce. Sylvie uses this opportunity to support the girl without telling Mary about her concerning behavior.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, Mary’s father fires her from his fashion business for not having work good enough for the industry. Finally hitting rock bottom, Mary decides to start over and create her own fashion brand. To signify her transformation into a new life where she is the one empowering herself, Mary straightens her beautiful, luscious, curly hair for the remainder of the film. As someone with curly hair, I felt that was such a power move! It almost convinced me to finally buy a straightener, as that was obviously the main takeaway of the movie.

The group of friends then have to rush Edie to the hospital as she had gone into labor. The movie takes a turn as Mary receives a call from her ex-husband. Seeing her succeed in her independence, he wants her back and asks her out. With her friends’ encouragement, she says yes to a dateand throws out all of her achievements and character development.

Ultimately, The Women is a feel-good movie filled with themes of betrayal, women friendships, and personal empowerment. My mom and I give it a solid 10/10 despite the ending.

Ernest Goes to School

When Chickasaw Falls High School’s (CFHS) faculty comes under scrutiny, maintenance worker Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) is forced to return to high school to obtain his diploma or be fired.

For Ernest, a klutzy adult with a low IQ, having to return to school and earn a diploma is a recipe for disaster. Navigating high school at a time when it is still good to be bad, he falls victim to the school bullies and mistreatment by cruel faculty members. Happily, he has some friends in the school who take notice of those difficult situations and want to help him. Two of those friends, science teachers who have been developing an intelligence-enriching device, offer Ernest an opportunity to increase his knowledge, enabling him to pass his classes and earn a diploma. Ernest accepts, and after each session, he is less ignorant, less clumsy, and, unfortunately, less likable.

While attending CFHS as a student, Ernest develops romantic feelings for his music teacher, who makes him the drum major of the marching band. With his newfound knowledge, he trains and teaches the band to follow his lead toward the best football half-time show to ever be performed at CFHS. Meanwhile, the school’s bullies vandalize the mind machine, causing Ernest’s cognitive abilities to return to normal. This forces him to lead the marching band and finish his quest for a high school diploma on his own merit.

In true Ernest fashion, he finds himself an underdog in a failing fight to succeed and prove himself a worthy recipient of kindness, respect, and love. With the help of real friends and some hard work, Ernest studies hard and passes his classes without the mind machine, truly earning the credit and praise he so often craves.

What ever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, and evening TV? Full House, which originally aired from September 1987 to May 1995, is a show that is full of nostalgia for a lot of kids who grew up in the ’90s and into the 2000s. The show was always a family favorite in my house and was pretty much always on in the background. It was a comfort show and made me feel like maybe growing up wasn’t so scary; As long as I had my family there to help me, I would be okay. Plus, Uncle Jesse. I, like many other young girls who watched the show, had my first ever celebrity crush because of Full House. Can you blame me, though? The bad-boy attitude with a face like that. … Have mercy!The show follows the Tanner family after the death of Pamela Tanner, the wife of Danny Tanner and mother to DJ, Stephanie, and Michelle. The new widower Danny must take care of his three daughters, which he knows is a tall order. To help the family adjust to their new normal, he brings in his brother-in-law Jesse and best friend Joey to help him. Full House is a feel-good sitcom that deals with themes like love, loss, growing up, and the importance of surrounding yourself with good people. It is a show held close to the hearts of many, and it is not hard to see why. Its lovable characters and relatable plot make you feel like part of the family while watching.

Available to stream on Hulu, Disney+, Max, and Amazon Prime.

Gravity Falls

When I was seven years old, my parents had an anniversary party at our house. With a bunch of adults invading my home, and nobody around my own age, I decided that my best option was to watch TV. I turned on the Disney Channel and discovered a new cartoon was airing that day. The show was about these twins going to their uncle’s house for the summer in Oregon, with mystery surrounding the small town. I was intrigued, and I wanted to sink my teeth into more content. Little did I know that this show would become a fixation of mine.

Gravity Falls was created by Alex Hirsh and aired from June 15th. 2012, to Feb. 15th. 2016. The show lasted for two seasons, spanning over four years but taking place over an entire summer. Dipper and Mabel Pines (voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal) are 12-year-old twins from California who arrive in Gravity Falls for the summer and are thrust into adventure and mystery. As they dive deeper, they encounter everything from lovesick gnomes to vengeful psychics, hoping they can stay alive for the whole summer. While they stay there, we meet a variety of characters such as Grunkle Stan (Alex Hirsh), Soos (also Alex Hirsh), Wendy (Linda Cartalini), and many more.

Looking back on it, I believe the reason I fell in love with the show was the balance of humor and intrigue. I was interested in the ongoing mystery of the town and why all of these strange things were happening, but the show also came off as lighthearted and fun. Even though there were a lot of messed up things happening, I didn’t really realize it because of the tone of the show. It starts to ramp up the tension once the main villain, Bill Cipher (Alex Hirsh), is introduced, but even then, a lot of the episodes are pretty silly.

With all of the crazy plots happening every episode, the characters help bring the heart. My favorite character is a tie between Dipper and Mabel, since they feel like two sides of the same coin. Dipper is the smart, serious one while Mabel is the happy-go-lucky one. I feel like they are both at their best when they are together. Dipper takes things a little less seriously, and Mabel adds her genius and viewpoint that helps a lot. The other thing I really like about them is that they fight like siblings. A lot of their arguments are petty and stupid, but when one of them needs help, the other steps in.

Overall, Gravity Falls is a great watch and has a lot going for it. If you ever get tired of the show, there is plenty of outside material to look through books, like Journal 3 and The Book of Bill, with their own hidden secrets. Even though the show has been off the air for almost ten years, it still feels fresh every time I watch it. I’m currently doing a rewatch with my roommate who has never seen the show, and it brings me back to my house on that hot June day, when I discovered a core part of my childhood.

Gravity Falls is streaming on Hulu, Disney+, and Apple TV.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Released in 2013, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is yet another narrative masterpiece from video game designer Hideo Kojima. The game follows Raiden, whose real name is Jack, also known as “Jack the Ripper.” On this mission, Raiden is tasked with stopping a terrorist organization headed by the private military company World Marshal Inc. from starting a war for financial gain. However, this is not his only goal. It becomes evident that this organization also operates an organ-harvesting group targeting children. This hits Raiden particularly hard, as he was also a victim of war at a young age.

So far, this all sounds very tragic, even horrific, but this is where the narrative genius of Hideo Kojima truly shines. Raiden is no ordinary soldier but a child soldier turned … cybernetic assassin? Armed with a high-frequency (HF) blade, he can cut through just about anything in front of him, whether it be other people, the environment, or … giant bipedal tanks.

This is where the game begins! The tutorial boss is Metal Gear RAY, a massive bipedal amphibious tank armed with a heat blade. This is only the tip of the iceberg; each boss gets progressively more insane — and more hilarious. The main example occurs halfway through your adventure, when you run into Monsoon in Denver. Monsoon is a cyborg with a body made up of unattached segments, held together by powerful electromagnets. These electromagnets allow Monsoon to fly and detach his limbs at will, as well as throw large vehicles such as tanks at you. Apart from his powers, another notable part of his character is his obsession with memes, which he calls the “DNA of the soul.” In this context, a meme is simply a recurring subject or theme. And for Monsoon, as Raiden says, “Your memes end here.”

The pinnacle of this comedy is with the final boss, Senator Armstrong, the director of World Marshal Inc. and a presidential candidate for United States of America. This sounds funny enough — fighting a United States senator as a final boss? Who thinks of this? However, once you begin the fight, it gets even more insane. You encounter him in Pakistan, where he emerges from the ground in a Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a hexapedal walking tank equipped with two retractable blades, two plasma cannons on its head, and multiple missile modules. In the face of these frightening, overwhelming odds, Raiden cuts off one of its swords and engages it in a duel of heat swords, both of which are the size of small buildings. Once the Metal Gear is dealt with, the real threat is shown to be Steven Armstrong himself. Infused with nanomachines, he has unmatched strength, being able to throw Raiden into the air with ease and catapult debris weighing tons. He uses this strength to frankly beat Raiden to a pulp removed comma and then … offer him a partnership. This (obviously) falls through, at which point he is forced to fight Raiden to the very end, passing on his ideology to Raiden in his dying moments.

This is only scratching the surface of this masterpiece of a game, complete with the insane plotlines the Metal Gear series is known for. If you’re a fan of Metal Gear Solid, this game is … not at all like those games. It’s a breath of fresh air, where stealth is optional, and you always have the option to simply cut through your enemies.

“I said my sword was a tool of justice … Not used in anger. Not used for vengeance. But now … now I’m not so sure. And besides … this isn’t my sword.” —Raiden