Monument Research 

Hope has great characters, inventive ideas, an incredible imagination, a palpable intensity, and numerous other aspects that make it one of the best of the year. 

As an extremely avid fan of DC’s animation, I’ve become familiar with the way the studio uses Batman as a bit of a Trojan Horse to introduce some of their lesser known characters.

Some people’s first introduction to Mira Nair might be as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mom. But with her insightful direction of 1991’s Mississippi Masala, Nair shows how much she deserves to be known as an artist. Delivering a nuanced portrait of a romance between a Black man and an Indian woman living in the South, Nair explores the complications each character faces, giving both equal weight.

White audiences saw Peola’s mixed-race passing as a Black woman’s struggle to be white. Black audiences saw it as the rebellion of a Black woman trying to gain privileges only given to white people.

If the message here is that without a support system, grieving people turn into monsters, it’s not really well-delivered and may be flawed as a message itself.

This magical reboot introduces a new set of Charmed ones, much to the ire of fans of the original series.