WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Cobra Kai Season 6, Part 2.
Cobra Kai is a Netflix title I’ve had a love-hate relationship with since its debut in 2018, initially on YouTube Red.
Continue reading “The Outrageous Plot Choices and Treatment of Asian Characters in ‘Cobra Kai’”
George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, has said that when he made the original trilogy of films, the initial target audience were kids. And yet, in the time since then, not only has that detail seemed to have been lost in the ongoing discourse on the franchise, but rarely has there been Star Wars productions with said demographic as the central characters.
Continue reading “‘Skeleton Crew’ Star Ravi Cabot-Conyers on Being a Kid in a ‘Star Wars’ Production”
The official trailer for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is out, and… wait, is that Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom (Coming Home),” I hear? Already it was something to behold to have an artist create a song for the previous live-action series, The Acolyte, with Victoria Monét’s “Power of Two,” but to actually license a song for a trailer for a Star Wars series is very unusual.
Continue reading “‘Skeleton Crew’ Trailer Brings the ‘80s Vibes in Story and Sound”
A little over a month remains until Moana 2 hits theaters, and for folks in New Zealand, they’ll have more than one way of experiencing it.
Continue reading “Reo Māori Dub of ‘Moana 2’ Arrives the Same Day as English-Language Counterpart”
A content, unmotivated 29-year-old ignites a toxic relationship. The origin story of shaka. A glimpse at the life of the Ambassador of Aloha. A look at Israeli occupation in the West Bank of Palestine before October 7, 2023. Delinquent girls plot their escape from an abusive reform school. Three kids band together to climb up a mountain.
Continue reading “Titles to Watch For From the 44th Hawai’i International Film Festival”
This week will see the release of Rez Ball on Netflix. Directed and co-written by Sydney Freeland, the story is set around a high school basketball team at a Native American reservation. In the aftermath of the loss of their star player, the remaining members must learn to come together and continue their efforts in competing for the state championship title.
Continue reading “‘Rez Ball’ Director and Stars on Their Creative Approaches to the Sports Drama Genre”
It’s been a week since the latest Star Wars live-action series, The Acolyte, wrapped up. The first production to be set in the High Republic era follows a Jedi reuniting with his former Padawan, as they investigate a series of crimes that, in time, show that not all is what it seems. While there’s yet to be word on whether or not it will continue for a second season, the stakes in which have been set up in the end definitely pose for possibilities.
Continue reading “Amandla Stenberg Discusses Morals, Acting, and Combat Training for ‘The Acolyte’”
Chronicles of the Avatar is back! The young adult fiction series set within the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is about to drop its fifth installment, centered on a new Avatar, penned by a new writer.
Continue reading “Randy Ribay on ‘Avatar’ Fandom and Writing for Roku”
For a franchise of stories set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, this will be the furthest back in time many Star Wars fans will be experiencing. The Acolyte is the first live-action series set during the High Republic Era; a period of time where both the Republic and the Jedi were at their best.
Continue reading “‘The Acolyte’ Makes for a Fresh, Accessible Entry into ‘Star Wars’ Canon”
Doctor Who is a few days away from kicking off a new era, with new faces leading the way, and on a whole new platform that is Disney+. The longest-running sci-fi series in history continues as the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his new companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), go off in his TARDIS, and experience the wonders and horrors of traveling through time and space.
Continue reading “Russell T. Davies Discusses His Experience Returning as Showrunner of ‘Doctor Who’”
The Bad Batch may have just ended, but the wait for more animation from the Star Wars universe won’t be long. Just in time for Star Wars Day (a.k.a. May the Fourth) is the anthology series, Tales of the Empire.
Continue reading “‘Tales of the Empire’ Voice Talent on Recording and Unraveling Their Characters’ Nuances”
I recently came back from my first time at WonderCon. Surrounded by the stimuli of elaborate cosplayers, autograph opportunities, panels, and exhibitors, it’s a sight that’s become particularly familiar for me in recent months. You see, it was my third convention I was present for in the past four months; the others being LA Comic Con and FanExpo San Francisco. I’ve been present at these conventions not as an attendee, but as an exhibitor.
Continue reading “From FanExpo to WonderCon: A Retrospective of Promoting ‘Dasig’ in the Convention Circuit”
In 2022, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi was released, exploring untold stories via short films of characters, Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku. The Dave Filoni-helmed animated anthology series was a hit among fans, leading to the announcement at last year’s Star Wars Celebration that a second season would follow.
Continue reading “Morgan Elsbeth and Barriss Offee Take Center Stage in ‘Tales of the Empire’ Trailer”
It was revealed earlier this month that the return of the longest running British sci-fi series, Doctor Who, will be coming this May. While snippets have been released here and there since the Christmas special of what’s to come of this upcoming season, it’s the official trailer dropped today that really goes in on what to expect in full force.
Continue reading “Official ‘Doctor Who’ Trailer Teases Adrenaline-Inducing, Timey-Wimey Season”
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, a few blocks away from where the Lunar New Year Parade would later be held. It’s two days after the release of the cautiously anticipated Netflix live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and three days since the beloved Nickelodeon animated series turned 19.
Continue reading “‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ In Concert Arrives at a Cultural Moment for the Franchise”
Stan Walker is a singer from New Zealand. Rising to prominence through Australian Idol, he has since gone on to release seven albums; the most recent one in 2022, All In. In 2023, he was summoned by director Ava DuVernay, who, after being shown a video of him doing a cover of Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam” by her producing partner, asked Walker to do the song for her latest film, Origin; which tells the story of how journalist Isabel Wilkerson researched the caste systems in the histories of the United States, Germany, and India, for her 2020 book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
Continue reading “Stan Walker on Creating the Song “I Am” for Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’”
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is about to return for its third and final season. In a time of so much uncertainty for the galaxy, things are already posing to be even more so with Omega taken captive to Mount Tantiss (where former Clone Force 99 member, Crosshair, is also held). The remaining members of the Bad Batch now must do whatever they can to get her back, and sadly, following the previous season’s finale, they’ll have to do that — and other missions going forward — without Tech.
Continue reading “Michelle Ang and ‘The Bad Batch’ Executive Producers Discuss Conclusion of the Series”
The new Paramount+ animated film, The Tiger’s Apprentice, is arriving just in time for the Lunar New Year (yet two years past the Year of the Tiger). Based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Laurence Yep, it follows 15-year-old Tom Lee who, in the aftermath of his grandmother’s death, becomes the apprentice to the tiger zodiac, Hu, and rise to the occasion of becoming the guardian of an ancient phoenix.
Continue reading “Despite Potential, ‘The Tiger’s Apprentice’ is a Rushed Effort”
Much like in the way of previous Star Wars animated series like The Clone Wars and Rebels, The Bad Batch is setting up its third and final season to be its most darkest, high stakes season yet.
Continue reading “‘Star Wars: The Bad Batch’ Gets Ready to Return for One Last Fight”
After the umpteenth appearance of David Tennant as the Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa has, at last, taken the wheel. In the final 20 minutes of the third Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, The Giggle, the first Black and queer actor to take on the mantle makes his debut in the most unexpected of ways, and quickly establishes himself as a Doctor who has such a light to him, and also brings a lot of empathy for others.
Continue reading “‘Doctor Who’ Christmas Special Summons a New Era of Empathy”
In Genzaburō Yoshino’s 1937 novel, How Do You Live?, there is a quote that’s striking in what often comes to mind when thinking of the vastness of the universe, in comparison to our humble existences: “On a night like this, to think about the distant celestial world was to feel that one was disappearing into the atmosphere.”
Continue reading “Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy and the Heron’ Challenges the Ghibli Generation on How to Live”
As of Thursday November 9, the SAG-AFTRA strike came to an end following an approval of a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. Having lasted a whopping 118 days, it is the longest actors strike against the film and TV studios in Hollywood history.
Continue reading “Nerd Poppin’ Throughout the SAG-AFTRA Strike”
Say what you will about English dubs, but they are, in fact, a thing. With Hayao Miyazaki’s newest film, The Boy and the Heron, soon to be available internationally and outside the film festival circuit, audiences were teased the performances of the English language cast in a new trailer that came out earlier today.
Continue reading “‘The Boy and the Heron’ English Dub Given First Look in New Trailer”