Raanan Hershberg: It Could Have Been Better (2024)

'Zombieland: Double Tap' was entertaining and fun at times, but not very evolved. It had poorly developed female characters and stereotypical characters of color.

The 2019 film, Vai, takes us through eight stories across the islands of Oceania. The settings are unbelievably beautiful, the cast is beautiful, the languages are beautiful, and the stories are beautiful…but heartbreaking.

A sweet slice-of-life anime that visualizes all the ways we creatively hide our vulnerabilities from the world.

This action thriller is made with the hope that the black youth of America will feel empowered, and realize the significance of their heritage.

“Ad Astra” is a film that possesses similar beats to sci-fi classics, falling into the realm of cinematic hypnotism, and pulling us in with its mysteriously intoxicating identity.

An aspect of She-Ra that I find refreshing is even though a large portion of the cast is on the LGBTQ+ Spectrum, being gay is never mentioned. While this might initially sound like a negative thing, in the show’s land of Etheria being on the gay spectrum is shown to be so common and normalized that straight isn’t the default. As much as there is to appreciate about narratives revolving around the obstacles that may come from being non-heteronormative, it’s nice to get immersed in a world where no one bats an eye at all to any sort of differing identity.