NOC Review: ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ is DnD-lightful!

March 19, 2023March 20, 2023 Mike Manalo

At the end of this month, one of the most charming surprises to hit cinemas this Spring will be making its debut with Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Now, it’s a hard thing to adapt a role-playing game with passionate but somewhat niche audience. How do you satisfy fans and players while appealing to mainstream audiences who have never played the game? Well we at The Nerds of Color would love to offer opinions that represent both perspectives: a player’s perspective, and a non-player’s perspective. This review will be from someone who has played before.

Reviews, Star TrekLeave a comment

How I Learned to Stop Worrying About ‘Star Trek’ Canon and Enjoy the Big Dumb Mystery

March 16, 2023March 20, 2023 Zhouweiwen

As we are halfway through our return to the 25th Century, we can pretty much settle into the rhythm of Star Trek: Picard. It’s a bit of a clunky narrative but a lot of fun character work for new and returning players. Most discouraging but perhaps least surprising is for all the things Season 3 has done to get us those wonderful character moments, it can’t escape the Kurtzman of it all and has at its center a big dumb mystery around Jack Crusher.

DC Comics, Movies, Reviews3 Comments

NOC Review: ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Charms a Bit Less than its Predecessor

March 15, 2023March 17, 2023 Mike Manalo

It’s Shazam! Week at The Nerds of Color. And so far, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have been able to chat with stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, and Jack Dylan Grazer about their new film Shazam! Fury of the Gods. And it has been a true honor for us because the first Shazam! film was an absolute delight. However, with Fury of the Gods coming to theaters this Friday, the question becomes — will lightning strike twice? Let’s break down the answer for this right now!

Movies, Reviews2 Comments

NOC Review: ‘John Wick Chapter 4’ is the Most Epic Installment in the Franchise

March 13, 2023March 24, 2023 Mike Manalo

Who would have predicted back in 2014 that John Wick, a movie starring Keanu Reeves as a former legendary assassin avenging the death of his puppy, would become a four-installment franchise phenomenon?

Books, Fantasy, Reviews

With Swords and Shakespeare, ‘That Self-Made Metal’ is a Welcome YA Fantasy Adventure

March 8, 2023March 9, 2023 LaKase

Magic and superstition swirl around the world of William Shakespeare. While priests at the time decried belief in fairies, the practice of witchcraft, and women speaking on stage, the theater world managed to carve out space where anything was possible.

Movies, Reviews

Thoughts and Reactions to Watching ‘John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum’ For the First Time

March 6, 2023March 6, 2023 Lauren Lola

We have arrived in the month of release for the next John Wick film. As our coverage on the latest installment really kicks into gear, I wanted to make sure I got in my thoughts about its 2019 predecessor well before then.

Reviews, Star Trek

‘Star Trek: Picard’ is Really Worried about Mom and Dad Fighting

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 Zhouweiwen

Yellow alert! This was still an overall enjoyable episode with a mix of good and somewhat forced character beats. However, some of the internal logic is starting to be concerning.

Reviews, Star Wars, Streaming1 Comment

‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3 is Off to Bold New Adventures

March 1, 2023March 2, 2023 Michael Lee

Star Wars has always been more than a space opera. It mixes in different genres from action-adventure to space westerns. It even takes inspiration from the great Akira Kurosawa. And The Mandalorian brings a lot of what we love about Star Wars and throws in a brand-new story that doesn’t have much to do with the Skywalker saga.

Movies, Reviews1 Comment

‘The Harvest’ is a Moving Family Portrait Seen Through a Southeast Asian Lens

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 Michael Lee

Stories resonate and have a stronger connection with audiences when it has key specificities that give them more layers and nuance. So when something like The Harvest comes along, it can explore the complexities of family dynamics and make much more of a connection through a cultural lens.

Fantasy, Reviews1 Comment

‘Under the Oak Tree’ Finale Introduces a Potential Friend (or Rival) for Season 3

February 25, 2023March 2, 2023 Laura Sirikul

With the conclusion of Manta’s Under the Oak Tree season 2 finale, there’s a lot to talk about — particularly with the cliffhanger with the introduction of Princess Agnes Drachina Reuben, a woman who has been talked about these past two seasons but never shown.

Reviews, Star Trek1 Comment

‘Star Trek: Picard’ — That’s Not How Accents Work

February 25, 2023March 2, 2023 Zhouweiwen

Mercifully, Picard is not hiding the ball. A recurrent problem with a lot of serialized shows is setting up a lot of mysteries that are slowly dripped throughout the season and you have to hope the mystery at the end is worth it.

Movies, Reviews

‘Cocaine Bear’ is a Ridiculously Good Time with Over-the-Top Gore

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023 Wendy Lee Szany

Cocaine Bear — a dark comedy about a 500-pound black bear, who consumes an obscene amount of cocaine and goes on a killing rampage — is just about as over the top as the title suggests.

Reviews, Star Trek1 Comment

‘Star Trek: Picard’ — Once More Unto the Breach

February 17, 2023March 2, 2023 Zhouweiwen

Star Trek has always wrestled with managing its legacy and the ability to do something new. Fans are always a prickly bunch judging a new series, movie, or a given episode as to whether or not it feels like Star Trek.

Marvel, Movies, Reviews

NOC Review: ‘Quantumania’ is a Solid Start to The Kang Dynasty

February 14, 2023February 15, 2023 Mike Manalo

Phase 5 is finally here and so is Kang! After the mixed reception of Phase 4 from the critics and fans, does the MCU still have what it takes to excite audiences and set them on a path towards another epic franchise-spanning narrative? With Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the answer is a resounding “potentially!”

Movies, Reviews1 Comment

Thoughts and Reactions to Watching ‘John Wick: Chapter 2’ For the First Time

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 Lauren Lola

Two months to go until the latest chapter of the John Wick franchise drops. I’m moving right along as I continue exploring its three predecessors for the first time.

Reviews, Television

NOC Review: ‘That ‘90s Show’ is a Pretty Fun Return to the Basement

January 25, 2023January 25, 2023 Kelly Martinez

Hello, Wisconsin! The Formans are back, and so is the basement. Set 15 years after the events of That ‘70s Show, Netflix’s That ‘90s Show is a direct sequel to its predecessor. Season 1 takes a bit to get off the ground, but once it finds its footing, the sitcom mostly succeeds at being a fun, nostalgia-filled time.

Movies, Reviews

Say ‘I Don’t’ to ‘Shotgun Wedding’

January 19, 2023January 20, 2023 Laura Sirikul

It’s hard to believe that rom-com royalty — Jennifer Lopez (The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan) and Josh Duhamel (Life As We Know It, When in Rome) — have never made a movie together until Amazon Studio’s Shotgun Wedding. It makes sense to put these two together in a romantic movie as both are beautiful people with experience in the genre. But unlike their sappy romantic films that follow the same formula, Shotgun Wedding gets mixed in with some action and adventure with pirates, money laundering, and lots of explosions.

Reviews, Television, Video Games

NOC Review: ‘The Last of Us’ is a Game Changer

January 15, 2023March 1, 2023 Mike Manalo

If yesterday, you were to tell me the best video game adaptation ever put to any screen was Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the truth of the matter would sadly be that you’d likely be accurate. The subgenre has been suffering ever since the first Super Mario Bros movie from 1993 caused Nintendo to embargo any film rights to their games for at least three decades.

Movies, Reviews

‘House Party’ 2023 Struggles to Keep the Party Going

January 13, 2023January 19, 2023 Bray Lawrence

Written by Jamal Olori & Stephen Glover and directed by Calmatic, House Party tells the story of two freshly fired house cleaners — club promoting best friends, Damon and Kevin — as they decide to host the most exclusive party in California at LeBron James’ exclusive mansion, the site of their last cleaning job. While the film does deliver on its premise it isn’t until the later half that it comes into its own.

Movies, Reviews1 Comment

NOC Review: ‘Plane’ is Just Plain Offensive

January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 Mike Manalo

January is often said to be a dumping ground for studios to release their pretty terrible films. And in some cases you’ll see a movie like M3GAN and be pleasantly surprised when it’s actually quite good. But then a movie like Plane comes along that’s just so horribly offensive and, simply put, bad, that it reinforces the stereotype of this being the month for garbage movies.

Horror, Movies, Reviews3 Comments

NOC Review: ‘M3GAN’ is a Hilarious Horror Hoot

January 4, 2023January 4, 2023 Mike Manalo

Oh man. I haven’t laughed this hard in a theater in a long time! I once said in my review for James Wan’s Malignant, that sometimes you don’t know which “Wan” you’re going to get: “serious Conjuring Wan” or “silly Dead Silence Wan.”

Movies, Reviews

NOC Review: ‘The Fabelmans’ is Fine

December 29, 2022January 2, 2023 Mike Manalo

It’s award season, which means every studio is going to tout their maudlin batch of contenders that qualify as “cinema” all over town. Trying to get voters to desperately nominate them for every award, while name-dropping the who’s-who of bait-worthy talent — all while every self-important and self-proclaimed “cinephile” pretends to preach about the difference between true “art” and “garbage” as if they invented the concept of “film” and are the authorities between what “real filmmaking” is and isn’t.

Movies, Reviews, Streaming

‘The Hater’ Has an Earnest Heart

December 23, 2022December 20, 2022 Bray Lawrence

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 showed that real life had become more like a season of television than ever before. Two years into Joe Biden’s presidency — and in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection — our identity as citizens in this country has become increasingly fragmented from each other. What is best for our communities has fallen to the wayside as it has become harder to find common ground. So when The Hater — written, directed and acted by the multi-talented Joey Ally — finally ended and credits began to roll, I finally realized what had been missing in so many other pieces of media about politics in the world of Fake News and political team sports.