The Ouija Experiment: Haunted By Bad Writing and Racism

via Giphy

Yes, readers, this is what I have been reduced to. September will soon become October, and it’s still hot as balls outside. I am unwilling to give up on the idea of the possibility of a more temperate autumn, though! So this week I went all the way–from cute magical anime to B-grade horror flicks.

After watching the 2014 Ouija movie, I basically lost all hope of there being a good horror movie concerning Ouija boards ever. (Not that I was expecting that movie to be great, it was just so, so much worse than I could have ever anticipated.) And on starting the 2013 indie film The Ouija Experiment, I didn’t expect anything amazing either. In fact, I almost didn’t watch it until I realized that, shockingly, most of the main cast wasn’t white. While the diversity was enough to initially draw me in, and the movie’s determination to not immediately fall into the typical tropes of Ouija bullshit kept pulling me along, in the end The Ouija Experiment’s casting did very little to save it. In fact, the diverse casting seemed to only exist so the writer, Tony Snearly, had an excuse to whip out a bunch of racist jokes. 

Spoilers below the cut.

Star Trek: Discovery: Off to a Strong Start

(via Fortune)

If there was one show I had been looking forward to this year, it was Star Trek: Discovery. Sadly, I won’t be able to watch the rest of the season until it makes its way to Netflix or DVD, but I did catch the pilot, and I was extremely happy with what I saw. The Star Trek television shows have in the past proven themselves to be more than capable of giving us a diverse cast with thoughtful character development. As a new first for this universe, we’ve got a woman of color as a lead in our new series, and she’s kicking ass.

Throwback Thursdays: Disney’s Pocahontas

(via DetToldDisney)

Now that Moana has been released and Lindsey Ellis, formally known as the Nostalgia Chick, did a video essay comparing it to Pocahontas and talking about cultural appropriation, I’ve been thinking a lot more about Disney’s 1995 Pocahontas movie. I absolutely don’t want to defend Pocahontas because, well… it’s bad. It’s really bad and racist, but this movie did have a lot of positive effects on me and my understanding of the genocide white people waged on Native Americans. And even nowadays, over twenty years later, it once again indirectly managed to help me come to terms with a personal trauma. Lindsey Ellis’s video does a really good job deconstructing everything that’s wrong with this movie and I wholeheartedly recommend everyone watch it, because Pocahontas is on the whole a really awful movie. Despite my love for it and the positive influence it had on my life, those things do not erase the negatives.

Trigger warning for sexual abuse up ahead.

Orphan Black: “Manacled Slim Wrists” Review

(via denofgeek)

We left last week’s episode with Cosima locked in Westmoreland’s basement and Kira determined to take a more active role in her family’s crusade against Rachel. So of course the clone we start out with this week is… Krystal? With only a few episodes left, it makes sense that she would come back to wrap up her plotline, but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it quite so much.

Spoilers below the jump!

Throwback Thursdays: 1776 The Musical

(via broadwayworld)

It’s almost the Fourth of July, and for those of us here in the United States, we’ll soon be celebrating our nation’s founding. For me, that often meant watching 1776 with my parents, and I have to say that I adored this musical. The film version of the musical 1776 came out in 1972, and the musical itself came out in 1969. It follows John Adams as he tries to get a difficult, cantankerous, and often divided Congress to agree on American independence.

However, if you are a Hamilton fan, this musical might be a disappointment for you. This movie is very white and almost entirely male, with the exception of two female cast members, only one of whom plays a significant role. Regretfully, while there are some great moments in this musical, as far as representation goes, it definitely falls short.

Web Crush Wednesdays: #GoodMuslimBadMuslim

After catching up with They Call Us Bruce last month, I found out that They Call Us Bruce is actually part of the Potluck Podcast Collective, a network of Asian-American-hosted podcasts that discuss both serious and more comedic Asian-American issues. Starved as I was for Asian-American content, I decided to check out the other podcasts and eventually settled on #GoodMuslimBadMuslim, a podcast about American Muslim issues hosted by Bengali-American Tanzila Ahmed and Iranian-American Zahra Noorbakhsh. I found it to be a funny and informative look into both current events and American Muslim concerns about said events.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag: Another Good Game for Current Events

(via Origin)

It’s been a while since I played the previous Assassin’s Creed game, so I decided it was high time to continue on with the series. Black Flag was next in the main storyline, so I dove right in and blew my way through it in record time. Once again, my biggest problem with these games is female representation. It’s just… not good, and if there were one thing I wanted the games to improve on, that would be it. As for everything else, sure, it’s not perfect, but like its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed IV is remarkably on point when it comes to race issues, as well as just being a fun gaming experience.

Spoilers below.

Wonder Woman Is Wonderfully Feminist

(image via screenrant)

This weekend, I rushed to the theater to see Wonder Woman. I was filled with both hope and fear. I knew that if Wonder Woman did poorly that we might never see a female led superhero movie again, and I knew that so far DC Comics’s movies have left a lot to be desired, but I was hearing good things about the film so I walked in hoping for the best. And praise Hera, I have never been more pleased or satisfied with a superhero film.

Spoilers for the Wonder Woman movie below.

Trailer Tuesdays: Transformers: The Last Knight

With the exception of Black Sails, I don’t think there’s anything Michael Bay has worked on that I like. This includes the Transformers movies, which I keep watching, because for some stupid reason I always think “maybe this one will be good”. I have no doubt that the same will be true for The Last Knight.

Throwback Thursdays: Doctor Strange: The Oath

After revisiting the adorable Doctor Strange of the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur comic last week, I found myself craving more Strange stuff. And while I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to bring myself to watch the MCU movie, I do own a few trades’ worth of Doctor Strange comics. I remembered enjoying them well enough when I first read them, so I figured the time was nigh to revisit one and see if older, woker Saika still thought they were any good. And that’s how I ended up rereading the 2007 comic Doctor Strange: The Oath, by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin. Turns out, while it’s a good standalone story to read if you’re interested in the good Doctor, it’s also full of some tired tropes and isms.

(via marvel)