Nadia Osman joins us once again to review Ramy Youssef and Pam Brady’s new raunchy animated series on Amazon Prime, #1 Happy Family USA.
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks Episode 73: ‘#1 Happy Family USA’ Review”
Feelings are fickle, especially when one reaches puberty. Hormones and emotions go haywire, elevating everything to exaggerated proportions. It would be easy if humans were only given five emotions to work with, but it’s much more complex than that. That’s what Inside Out 2 tries to convey: as people grow up, their emotions become more complicated, but they don’t define who you are.
Continue reading “‘Inside Out 2’ is a Bit of a Mess, But That’s Just How Life is”
This time last year, Blumhouse was on a roll. M3GAN was making a killing at the box office. And the year prior they released the final film of David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy, and the critical and commercial hit, The Black Phone, paving the way for the juggernauts of Insidious: The Red Door and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Unfortunately, following the disappointing Night Swim, the house that Jason Blum built has seen a rough 2024. And sadly the streak continues with the new lackluster film, Imaginary.
Continue reading “NOC Review: Lackluster ‘Imaginary’ is More Fantasy Than Horror”
Disney has a different way of making you feel like a guest at one of their hotels. And with the new opening of the Pixar Place Hotel, they can expect to be fully immersed in the creation and production of their favorite Pixar films, all the while feeling like a character in one of those stories.
Continue reading “Pixar Place Hotel Celebrates Storytelling While Making You Feel Like a Guest”
“Why do I have to die so you can learn your lesson?” says Kim (Chacha Tahng), the ill-fated character from the Tony Award-winning musical Miss Saigon, in Preston Choi’s This is Not a True Story. She continues on her tirade with her fellow doomed counterparts, CioCio (Julia Cho) from the tragic Madame Butterfly, and Kumiko (Jo Yuan) from the 2014 film, Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter.
Continue reading “Preston Choi’s ‘This is Not a True Story’ Examines the Dark History of Asian Heroines”
When Apple TV+ first announced an adaptation of the hit manga The Drops of God, there was a little hesitation on adapting a story based on Japanese characters by changing the main character to a French woman. In hindsight, with France being the creators and largest producers of wine and the series being set around gastronomy and fine wine, it just made sense. Fortunately, the series is really well done — despite minor changes from the original source material.
Continue reading “Apple TV+’s ‘Drops of God’ is Good to the Last Drop”
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.
Continue reading “‘Under the Oak Tree’ Finale Introduces a Potential Friend (or Rival) for Season 3”
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.
Continue reading “‘Star Trek: Picard’ — That’s Not How Accents Work”
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.
Continue reading “‘Star Trek: Picard’ — Once More Unto the Breach”
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!”
Continue reading “NOC Review: ‘Quantumania’ is a Solid Start to The Kang Dynasty”
How much are you willing to pay to become king? Is the price of having wealth, power, or respect worth the pain or death it brings? Hot Blooded: Once Upon A TIme In Korea succeeds in tackling these themes, as well as the perpetual cycle of violence, with a poetic focus that left me intrigued with what it was trying to say, even though I’m not sure if it was clear enough.
Continue reading “‘Hot Blooded: Once upon a Time’ is Intriguing But Disjointed”
Elitism is a disease for which there is no cure. Despite the need for people to work towards the collective good of supporting one another, society has a tendency to try and hold rankings and create conflict out of those rankings based on wealth, power, and opportunity, resulting in humanity immersing itself into the throes of these ridiculous constructs of social hierarchy that elevate one individual over another. It’s a disease that also impacts how we view art, lifestyle, business, and politics, contributing to increased levels of human arrogance and self-satisfying entitlement. Which is why I’m grateful for a movie like The Menu that attacks this problem head on.
Continue reading “NOC Review: ‘The Menu’ is a Delightfully Devilish Delicacy”
Tariq Raouf joins us once again to review the third season of Ramy, out on Hulu now!
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks Episode 43: ‘Ramy’ Season 3 Review”
Just in time for Batman Day, Cartoonito and HBO Max are introducing the Bat Family and its colorful Rogues Gallery (and their sentient vehicles) to an all-new preschool audience with the half-hour special, Secret Origin of the Batwheels.
Continue reading “‘Secret Origin of the Batwheels’ is a Fun Romp Through Gotham City”
We review the first season of Neflix’s first ever Palestinian original series, Mo! Co-created by Palestinian American actor and comedian Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef, this outstanding comedy-drama is a semi-autobiographical take on Amer’s own life in Houston.
Continue reading “The Middle Geeks Episode 42: ‘Mo’ Review”
When a pilot declares an “emergency declaration,” everything is given priority to that plane as it is in the most imminent danger. All other planes are rerouted or grounded as resources are then directed to that plane until it can land safely. It is the first note to be shown in Jae-rim Han’s new film Emergency Declaration to establish the importance of this statement by the pilot.
Continue reading “Jae-rim Han’s ‘Emergency Declaration’ Sticks the Landing”
I’m not gonna lie. I fell off The Walking Dead wagon years ago. Like a lot of fans, I checked out when Steven Yeun’s Glenn was killed off. And while the series, and its subsequent spinoffs, continued on, I never returned to the franchise. Until now.
Continue reading “‘Tales of the Walking Dead’ is a Welcome Addition to the Franchise”
Having a falling out with a family member you are close with can be difficult and the same can be said when you fall in love with a person you’ve never met online. Both experiences can leave you with the empty feeling of realizing you don’t really know them as well as you thought. In I Love My Dad, writer-director James Morosini crafts an endearingly funny and real film that displays that feeling honestly and cathartically.
Continue reading “NOC Review: ‘I Love My Dad’ is Endearingly Funny and Real”
If there is anything that director David Leitch is good at, it’s that he is brilliant at finding the hilarity in the chaos. In his new film Bullet Train, based on the popular Japanese novel Maria Beetle by Kōtarō Isaka, Brad Pitt plays Ladybug, an “unlucky” assassin who is assigned to steal a briefcase from other assassins while on a speeding bullet train in Japan.
Continue reading “‘Bullet Train’ is Able to Find Hilarity in the Chaos”
Spoilers abound! We go episode by episode and do our big series review of Obi-Wan.
Continue reading “FDI Cast 147: ‘Obi-Wan’ Spoiler Cast”
At the beginning of this movie there’s a disclaimer briefly explaining that this was the movie Andy saw, loved, and became obsessed with when he got his first Buzz Lightyear action figure. Andy really needs to see more movies.
Continue reading “NOC Review: Decent ‘Lightyear’ Doesn’t Quite Reach Infinity and Beyond for Pixar”
What even is a “diehard” Star Wars fan? Back in the early days of the franchise, when it wasn’t a franchise, a “hardcore” fan would be the ones camping out at their local theater the night before — a tent and sleeping bag to fight back the cold. All was worth it to be among the first to see Luke’s adventure come to a triumphant conclusion (for now).
Continue reading “‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ is a Great Entry Point and an Even Greater Legacy Series”
You would be hard pressed to find me wanting to watch a Shakespeare production willingly. While I am painfully aware his works are considered the echelon of fine performance arts training, my distaste for it only grew as a vast majority of Shakespeare productions only utilize white actors for the meaningful parts.
Until now.
