Lightning-Struck 

'Blonde' commits a relentless assault on the autonomy of Marilyn Monroe, reducing the icon to nothing more than a victim of the director's whims.

Ultra-violent storytelling has never been my thing, but the issues with Scarface go beyond that. The film perpetuates harmful stereotypes about Latinx immigrants and uses gore and misogyny for shock value that never serves any purpose. The whole venture is frustratingly empty, and left me desiring something more.

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

This side-splitting workplace comedy features a diverse cast and tackles challenging social issues. Other sitcoms should take note.

It doesn’t offer an absolute answer for the dialectical ethical questions that emerged in search of justice but portrays the characters as living people beyond the identities of victims.

Striving for validation. Let’s be frank….we ALL want to be successful. Whatever we put our efforts into, ideally it is to make it culminate in the best possible results across the board, especially when it comes to what career path we are pursuing. We WANT to excel, to shine, to advance, to be acknowledged. AND…let’s hope that we also wish to better everyone around us to boot. However, what occurs when those whom we initially put our trust in suddenly become a burden instead of a boon? Do we falter under the weight of rejection? Or STAND UP for WHO WE ARE?