Tales of Tenth Grade

Godzilla (1954) Godzilla (2014)      I've been having a lot of conversations with my brother over the past few months about old movies and remakes of old movies. It turns out the pretty much every time I prefer the original and he prefers the remake. He liked the new Godzilla movie, while I thought it completely lost everything that made the original great. He thinks the new Star Wars trilogy is the best Sart Wars trilogy while I think nothing has come close to the originals. In fact, I found out that my brother won't even watch anything that's in black and white, and is reluctant to watch anything made before 1990. My brother's reasoning has always been "its because it doesn't look as good," which made me wonder how much that really matters.      Looking at the example of Godzilla, its easy to see why someone would think visuals and technology is what makes a movie good. The original Godzilla looks terrible by today's standards, the monste...

Let’s be real: television is pretty dry right now. There are some exceptional shows here and there, but there’s a reason that we all collectively wait for the same programs to air instead of finding something new to watch. This issue is directly tied to the overproduction of mediocre television in order to fill up streaming platforms. Just scroll through Netflix once and you get the picture. There are thousands upon thousands of shows that you COULD watch, but choose not to. Instead, there’s a select few, the cream of the crop, the A-1 pieces of televised drama that people across the globe tune in for. It can be really hard to find something new, so that’s why I’m doing all of you, dear readers, a favor. Today, I’m introducing you to one of the best shows ever made.  Don’t be confused,  Avatar: The Last Airbender,  (which I will now abbreviate as  ATLA ) is not the movie about blue people. Far from it.  ATLA  is a cartoon that premiered on Nickelodeon ...

          As many of you may know, I have a little bit of an obsession with Saw , the blockbuster slasher-franchise.  I founded the basis of this interest in 2018 when the latest complete addition,  Jigsaw (which, by the way, ranks number three on my list even though it doesn't have the feel of the original movies) was added on Hulu.  It was an instant click.  The issue with many movies that are categorized as "slasher" is the focus on blood rather than plot--just see any of the Halloween  movies, Texas Chainsaw Massacre , Jeepers Creepers III , Psycho , the  Chucky  movies, or many other dishonorable mentions.             The thing with Saw  is that it has a plot and realistic characters.  It centers around morality and redemption--things the other movies lack as a topic.  At the risk of sounding like a total psycho, when I first watched Saw  I sympathized with John Kram...