La La Land is a 2016 movie directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. The film follows two young artists who must choose between their respective careers or being with the other person. This movie is truly unique and incredible, and it really doesn’t get enough attention as it should.

La La Land follows Sebastian and Mia. Sebastian is a jazz pianist who wishes to start his own jazz club and bring classic jazz music back to Los Angeles. Mia is an actress who wishes to make it big, but is consistently overlooked for whichever role she auditions in. The two of them fall in love and end up being a couple. However, over time, their respective dreams take hold of their lives and deprive them of each other. Although this is technically romance film, it’s certainly not a happy one, as the ending is incredibly sad and bittersweet.

In addition to being a romance film however, La La Land also incorporates elements from broadway musicals, and often the cast will break into a song and dance routine in the middle of a traffic jam. The music in this movie is simply amazing. Almost every track is memorable, catchy, and sometimes even beautiful. In addition to the music, the setting of L.A. is wonderful. This movie makes me want to move to California, because La La Land portrays it as being magical vibrant. The setting perfectly compliments the music, even the slower more somber tracks such as “City of Stars.”

There were a couple of annoying things I found in La La Land. For one, Ryan Gosling’s voice. I think Ryan Gosling is a really great and underrated actor. He’s excellent in this. However, his voice I found irritating. It almost sounds too quiet or tired. Another thing is that despite Mia and Sebastian’s relationship feeling very real as a whole due to some great chemistry between the leads, the fight scene they have feels really unnatural. First off, it’s never really been shown that there was any tension in the relationship. Yes, Sebastian was touring, but Mia was shown missing him, not resenting him. And also, the fight seems to come out of nowhere, and escalate from 0-100 in a second. Overall it just doesn’t feel natural and stands out considering the rest of their relationship was so well done.

I love La La Land. It’s a magical and unique film. It’s really sad that the main reason people remember this film is because of that fiasco at the Oscars a couple of years ago. La La Land deserves your attention and needs to be watched by more people.

The Princess Bride is a 1987 movie directed by Rob Reiner and starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright. It follows a swordsman trying to get back his true love from the clutches of an evil prince. This is a classic swashbuckling movie and it absolutely deserves it’s reputation.

The Princess Bride follows Wesley, a peasant who becomes a great pirate and swordsman after being captured by a famed pirate captain. However, the rest of the world believed him dead, and his lover, Buttercup, consequently became engaged to a prince. After Buttercup is kidnapped by bandits, Wesley must stop them as well the prince and bring her home.

This movie is great. I still remember seeing it on my cousins portable dvd viewer when we couldn’t sleep one night, and it retains the same charm years later. It’s got funny characters, such as Wesley with his dry wit, or even the prince with his cowardice, some excellent (albeit completely ridiculous) sword fighting, the fight between Wesley and Inigo is legendary among film buffs, and a really likable lead character that the audience roots for the whole film. As I said before, there is a very famous fight scene between Wesley, and a Spanish fencer named Inigo Montoya. It takes place upon a cliff side, with both men using rapiers. Some of the fighting is quite good actually, with fairly realistic, although slightly telegraphed moves. Granted, there’s also acrobatics and pirouettes which no fencer worth their salt would ever do, but it looks very cinematic. Additionally, the line, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.” Actually comes from this film, and it’s constantly parodied.

The acting and plot in this movie are nothing particularly special. Cary Ewles as Wesley is incredibly likable, particularly due to some hilarious line delivery. Buttercup on the other hand is a little boring and doesn’t really do anything the whole film it seems. The main thing I didn’t really like about this film was the sub plot in the present day. Technically, the whole film is occurring while a grandfather is reading to his sick grandson. This wouldn’t be as much of a detraction from the experience, if it weren’t for the fact that the grandkid is really annoying, and seems to interrupt the action at the worst times. Also, it just seems unnecessary to even have a present day section.

Overall, The Princess Bride is a classic film, that should be watched. It’s got fun action, some hilarious moments, and incredible sword fights. I love this film, and I highly recommend it.

The Last Airbender is a 2010 film directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Noah Ringer. Saying this film is bad is like saying Hitler wasn’t a particularly good person. Both, while technically true, don’t even begin to cover the extent of how awful each is/was.

The Last Airbender is a movie based off the classic kids tv show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Now while the show is arguably one of the best pieces of television ever made, the movie falls on the opposite side of the spectrum. Both follow Aang, a young boy living in an eastern inspired fantasy world filled with “benders,” or people who can manipulate one of the four elements. However, Aang is the only person able to bend all four elements, and is called the Avatar. It’s his job to stop the fire nation from conquering the world. The tv show handles this plot wonderfully, while the movie messes it up and is consequently very confusing.

This may sound like an exaggeration, but there is not a single aspect of this movie that’s good. The acting is awful. The cgi is terrible. The script and writing is so bad it’s not even fun to laugh at. The editing is atrocious. The names from the show are all mispronounced. The action is laughable from how bad it is. The casting for the most part is terrible (and kind of racist?) The only slightly good aspect is Dev Patel’s Zuko, and he actually feels well cast in the role. The rest of the cast however feels incredibly wrong. In the show, the various elemental nations were inspired by real life Asian cultures. For example, Airbenders were based off Tibetan Monks while waterbenders were based off of the Inuit people. In the show, everybody is white, and it just feels completely wrong. Ironically though, the bad guys are still diverse.

It’s not all bad however, as The Last Airbender makes one ask questions. Such as, “they thought they were going to three movies like this?!” Or “what could I have done for two hours instead of watching this piece of junk?” Overall, spare yourself from this terrible experience. Watch the animated tv show instead, it’s amazing. Just please, for the love of all things good in this world, skip the movie.