chassw-68914 Reviews

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (2023)

All the haters represent the traditionalists in the show

[7/10 · 15 April 2023]

All those hating on this represent the group's insistent that the old days were the good day... or so the days when woman weren't the storyline and gender roles were more favored... or when white jocks ruled the school... you miss it because it was easier but only for you. You don't like this because it represents the oppression that actually existed that was often ignored or invisible because it didn't affect you directly.

As for those saying that this is a show attempting to rewrite history, remember that Grease is not based on a real story, and this is a spin-off of Grease anyway. It's not the same. We know. It even shows it in the title.

If you aren't interested in female empowerment, which is clearly shown in the trailer and title, then don't want the show! It's not the classic version, so don't compare it as such. That's like eating a fruity tootsie roll and being angry it's not chocolate... well, that's obvious.

Back to me review:

The reason why I am giving 7 stars is because the lead, as amazing as she is, is playing an Italian and Puerto Rican character despite not being explicitly either. I'm not one to be offended often by these things, but the show is based a lot on her culture, and as one who actually is Sicilian with grandparents from Sicily, it's just annoying that they the show missed their opportunity to portray their vision correctly with someone of at least one of the two ancestral cultures. It wouldn't matter if it weren't such a big theme in the show, but it is.

Tiny Beautiful Things (2023)

Healing old traumas

[9/10 · 15 April 2023]

This is a beautiful story and even more beautiful production of a middle-aged woman stuck in life... then hit by a metaphorical truck of a midlife crisis that seemed to be heating towards overboiling for the 2 decades since the protagonist's mother died an abrupt yet painfully slow death to cancer.

The scenes not only jump back to past and present but also showcase the past, inner child in present day depictions to highlight the sealed off trauma never healed before. Clare's writing, which was pushed off due to what she felt was writers block, a lack of creative flow, and being a mother is now being pushed to the surface as she faces the music with her realities of today, her adolescence, and her abusive childhood.

It highlights the true internal blocks of underlying traumas - how these can haunt you and create vicious self-destructive patterns if not faced... and most importantly, how to forgive yourself and your inner child... how to look at yourself from the third person (what we see as the audience) and understand what triggers continues to throw a wrench in your path with recycled anger (we can especially see this in the s1e8). Sometimes, you just have to look at that little person within you and cut them some slack - Clare's mindset and experience is stuck in her young experience and understood through the eyes of the young twenty-year-old-self. She is now almost 50 and is finally starting to look reflect and take a glimpse of her hardships through the eyes of a middle aged women... reflections only made with empathizing advice to her peers she so easily can guide. In a sense, Clare is getting a back door entrance to self-forgiveness with her human and mature advice towards helping others unpack their trauma and forgive themselves.

It's truly fantastic for those seeking their own redemptions.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

You're missing the point viewers

[10/10 · 29 March 2023]

It's so unfortunate that anything requiring thought or a bit of reflection becomes a waste to those who need answers explicitly lit on a neon sign.

These girls are held under such restrictions - they are far mature compared to their male peers, as seen in the 13-year-old's diary when the boys examined it, yet they are consistently at the whim and handling of boys/men who have far more life enjoyment than these young girls.

Despite this situation showing the girls being grown under far more restrictive circumstances than average, it is an accurate representation of what maturing women go through and how that compares to maturing men. These boys, even just examining the sisters across the street, learned more about life and maturity than their male adult figures (as seen in final movie moments).

If the fact that a raw, and much less edited film than most today is frustrating, shows how uneducated and obtuse people are... and ironically, this misunderstanding further justifies the complex and often overlooked theme of women expectations and misconceptions in youth within society.

These reviews worry me because it's not hard to apply a little creative thinking, yet people so often don't do and use this tunneled thinking to negate art and beautiful complexity.