Roots
Night 2
Directed by Mario Van Peebles
Teleplay by Alison McDonald
Based on the novel by Alex Haley
Starring Laurence Fishburne, James Purefoy, Matthew Goode, E’myri Lee Crutchfield, Forest Whitaker, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Mandela Van Peebles, and Malachi Kirby
The History Channel | A&E | Lifetime
Air Date: Tuesday, May 31st, 2016, 9:00pm

Last night on Roots, Mandinka warrior Kunta Kinte (Malachi Kirby), had a beautiful life, until he got caught and sold to the English by a rival tribe. He was thrown into the bowels of a slave ship traveling to America. They were chained and lined up like sardines, and when they tried to take over the ship, it got bloody. The English won, and some slaves were beheaded, included Kunta’s Uncle Silla. Kunta was sold to a plantation owner, Waller (James Purefoy) with a cruel overseer (Tony Curran). Another slave, Fiddler (Forest Whitaker) befriended Kunta, caring for him when he got viciously whipped.

Spoilers below.

Roots
Night 1
Directed by Phillip Noyce
Teleplay by Lawrence Konner and Marc Rosenthal
Based on the novel by Alex Haley
Starring Laurence Fishburne, James Purefoy, Matthew Goode, Anika Noni Rose, Forest Whitaker, and Malachi Kirby
The History Channel | A&E | Lifetime
Air Date: Monday, May 30th, 2016, 9:00pm

Roots, the 1977 miniseries based on Alex Haley’s 1976 novel, turned America upside down with its powerful story of warrior and slave, Kunta Kinte, and his descendants. With Levar Burton and then John Amos as Kunta Kinte/Toby, Roots made television history with unprecedented ratings and tons of Emmy nominations. A+E Networks brings Roots back tonight, in a reimagined series simulcast on three of its networks, The History Channel, A&E, and Lifetime. With Malachi Kirby in the lead role, it’s starting out as powerful as the first.

Spoilers for Roots: Night 1 below.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Director: Zack Snyder
Screenwriter: Chris Terrio, David Goyer
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Gal Gadot
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 151 Minutes
Release Date: March 25, 2016

When there is a film as hyped as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, you expect a fight between the two heroes that resembles an epic title card match that you paid good money to watch. So you go in, feeling excited about a fight between two of “The World’s Finest.” It will be a match for the ages. Two heroes with different ideologies on what it means to be heroes. As impressive as a movie about a fight between two iconic comic book characters sounds, this one that doesn’t live up to the hype thanks in part to sloppy editing, a poor script, and a director with an absolute disrespect for the characters.

Sure, a movie like its predecessor Man of Steel isn’t perfect, and no film is. But it can be considered the prologue to a film that will set the foundation to the DC Expanded Universe. But what took Marvel years to set up, DC is attempting to do in just two films. It’s an admirable attempt at trying to create a shared universe like their competitors did, but the moment you step foot into this world, you start to get lost in a convoluted mess.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Director: Zack Snyder
Screenwriter: Chris Terrio, David Goyer
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Gal Gadot
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Rated PG-13 | 151 Minutes
Release Date: March 25, 2016

“What have you done?”

You know those combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell fast food places where you can get a Pepperoni Lover’s® Personal Pan Pizza and a Doritos® Cheesy Gordita Crunch with a Mountain Dew Baja Blast®? Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is kind of like that, except the pizza is a soggy, overloaded sadness pie and the Cheesy Gordita Crunch is deep-fried in sweat and dread. So, your standard Taco Bell experience I guess.

Directed by Zack Snyder (Man of Steel, Watchmen), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is both deadly serious and aggressively silly. It’s a heavy-handed treatise on post-9/11 America written on a Quesalupa wrapper; a soliloquy on sacrificing freedoms for the illusion of security, delivered by a GameStop manager between trade-ins of LEGO Batman 3.

Don’t get me wrong: A movie about the ideological divide between Batman and Superman could be compelling, but that isn’t this movie. There are no heroes in this movie, only violent psychopaths trying to one-up each other in the “right-wing nutjob” department. This isn’t a battle of ideologies; it’s a war for bragging rights. These guys aren’t fighting for justice – they’re gunning for the highest body count.

2016 will see two movies about two legendary heroes at odds and forced to fight each other by some outside force. It’s a bit perplexing as to why WB didn’t release the trailer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice during their Flash and Arrow annual crossover episode and decided to debut the trailer during Jimmy Kimmel Live, which airs on ABC, a Disney owned network, but I digress. The fact of the matter is, we are getting a new trailer for Dawn of Justice, and after a lackluster teaser, and a fairly descent Comic-Con trailer, this latest one will surely have comic book fans (yes even the Marvel ones) excited for this one.

Check out the latest trailer for the film below.