that one girl who reviews

From TikTok stars to music powerhouses, the VMA’s pink carpet was packed with looks from Taylor Swift to Olivia Rodrigo. While some of these dazzling stars knocked it out of the park, others barely made it up to the plate. 

Starting off strong with Cardi B, she stunned in a Findikoglu gown, consisting entirely of silver hair pins. The floor-length dress is certainly one of the most outlandish on the carpets, but is so beautifully put together and executed that it’s almost hard to believe that it’s actually just hair pins. 

Contrarily, Tiffany Haddish disappointed in a sheer Jason Wu embellished gown with a black bodysuit underneath. The dress, with an unflattering neckline and lace pattern, mimicked what a middle aged woman might throw on over a black t-shirt and jeans whilst asking people to guess what she is for Halloween (spoiler: it’s a spider web, but no one knew that because she’s just wearing a sheet of lace). 

Doja Cat looked ravishing in an Ap0cene gown that resembles a white spider web. The dress, revealing and scandalous, looked absolutely gorgeous on Doja and perfectly advertises her upcoming album, Scarlet. 

In a sleek and stunning silver Ludovic de Saint Sernin gown, Olivia Rodrigo looked beautiful on the pink carpet. However, the look in its entirety was enough to make you fall asleep. The gown was gorgeous, but its plainess with the lack of accessories did nothing to help solidify Rodrigo as a red carpet icon just yet. 

Colton Hayes wore an all white Dior suit with what appears to be half of a skirt on top of a full pair of pants. While Hayes certainly gets points for straying from the usual black suit and tie, his outfit looks more like a fresh tampon rather than something that can be considered “fashion.”

Following her epic tour and the massive success of her latest album that she announced at last year’s VMA’s, Taylor Swift stunned on the pink carpet in a black asymmetrical Versace gown and  faux mullet. While Swift’s carpet style might not always be the best, this one is definitely a hit and has even sparked rumors that perhaps the “Anti-Hero” singer will be announcing yet another album at the show. 

Demi Lovato wore a short black dress covered by a long black leather coat that protruded at the shoulders. While Lovato looked absolutely stunning, I cannot say the same for their outfit. The dress looks as though it might have been cute, but unfortunately the monstrosity on her shoulders hinders the entire thing. They look like they were on their way to their high school football game rather than the VMA’s.

Olivia Rodrigo has once again outdone herself with a stellar sophomore album that is the perfect combination of messy and fun and heart wrenchingly honest. 

GUTS, which dropped on September 8, is a true phenomenon showcasing female beauty, pain, heartbreak and questionable actions through pop punk and soulful ballads. 

Starting with the tongue-in-cheek “all-american bitch” and ending with the brutal truth of “teenage dream,” Rodrigo curates a track run that shouldn’t work but miraculously does, in a way that surpasses her peers and places her right on top. 

“ballad of a homeschooled girl” is the angsty pop punk song that I’m sure will be referred to as the Bible for “teenage girls in their twenties” in the years to come. A perfect mixture between the unique talking she employs on a few of her GUTS tracks and her gritty singing, the song perfectly captures the entire vibe of the album: Rodrigo, much like the rest of us, has no idea what she’s doing. 

However, unlike the rest of us, Rodrigo knows how to perfectly articulate these feelings in a way that transcends universally to the general public. 

“the grudge,” lyrically one of her most beautiful songs, emphasizes how hard it is to let go of something that hurt you. A personal favorite and truly one of the standouts on the album, Rodrigo’s angelic voice shines through and takes the listener on an emotional journey, sure to hit home for those who tend to hold serious grudges. 

The opening track of the album, “all-american bitch,” is some of the most fun you’ll ever have while listening to a song. The pure sarcasm that comes with the verses and the absolute genius of creating a song that’s so blatantly obvious to some (but will definitely go over the heads of others) is something unachieved by many, yet it’s what she has excelled in. 

“All the time/I’m grateful all the time/I’m sexy and I’m kind/I’m pretty when I cry,” closes out the track, rounding out that central theme of what girls are supposed to be and creating a modern-day “What the Hell” by Avril Lavigne. 

“logical” is another one that showcases Rodrigo’s vocals in a way that the album lacks at times. The nonsensical lyrics allow her to expertly depict how love can distort the logistics of every situation. “You got me thinking/2+2=5/and I’m the love of your life” is so simple yet so beautifully put that it honestly is one of the standout lyrics of her entire discography.

Contrarily, “get him back!” is a hilariously fun song that plays on the titular phrase – does she want him back or does she want revenge? Rodrigo answers this by saying both with another pop punk track that is so relatable, sometimes you think she might be writing about you. 

Additionally, the amazing one liner, “But I am my father’s daughter, so maybe I can fix him,” becomes even more amazing when you realize that Rodrigo’s father is a therapist. 

My only gripe with the album is Rodrigo’s choice in the singles released leading up to the drop. While “vampire” and “bad idea right?” are both great in their own right, they don’t hold a candle to the album tracks. However, good things come to those who wait.

The album closer, “teenage dream,” perfectly ends an era meant to define her teenage years. As someone who rose to fame at 18, she was stripped of normalcy during her last few teenage years and she expertly pens this feeling in the closing track.

Starting off as a soft piano ballad, she sings, “They all say that it gets better/it gets better the more you grow/they all say that it gets better/it gets better but what if I don’t?” slowly ascending into a drum-filled chant about doubt and insecurity. 

GUTS is an excellent follow-up to the stellar and remarkably unbelievable success of her debut album SOUR, leaving Rodrigo with only more of an impressive resumè as she builds her name in the music industry.

Puppy Love, which released on Freevee and Amazon on August 18, spins the tale of two seemingly star-crossed lovers. Nicole, played by Lucy Hale, and Max, played by Grant Gustin, are polar opposites who happen to go on a date that ends terribly, only to find themselves thrown together again after their dogs mate. 

Unfortunately for the two leads, their dogs had a much more riveting love story than themselves. 

Hale, who seems to be perpetually stuck in the role of edgy woman who’s “not like other girls,” did a fine job at portraying what she always does. She was convincing enough that, by the end of the film, you could really imagine that maybe these two crazy kids did actually overcome their differences and fall in love.

Grant, however, was the standout of the film, his portrayal of mental illness raw and accurate, only to be undermined by the incessant commentary from the other characters in the film. 

Throughout the movie, multiple people make fun of his condition, Hale’s character even calling him a “pathetic loser” at one point. Obviously, comments like these aren’t reserved for fiction and oftentimes, mental illness is seen as something “wrong” with the person, but to have almost every character make comments like this without any sort of repercussions is only reinforcing the stigma.

Perhaps this is an overly critical review of an otherwise fine movie, but I feel that the movie’s inclusion of mental health is to its detriment. Instead of using the film to accurately portray and destigmatize mental health, it just uses it to check off a “diversity” box. 

Grant’s character is described as “socially anxious” as a way to absolve the writer’s of actually doing their job and accurately representing what he most likely has: obsessive compulsive disorder. Under the guise of “social anxiety,” they can get away with almost anything, including the ending where he’s suddenly okay with having a bunch of people in his home (even though he expressed thoroughly at the beginning how much that bothers him). 

While people can change and mental health can get better, Max’s mental health seemed to be severe enough that it wouldn’t magically ease up in two months just because he met a pretty girl.

Richard Alan Reid and Nicholas Fabiano work hard to create a story that’s lovable and heartwarming. It’s just a shame that it comes from the dogs and not their owners. 
Puppy Love is a fine rom-com with all of the enjoyable antics and corny jokes that are inevitable when creating something fun and romantic. Hale and Grant do their best with a script that, unfortunately,  wasn’t intended to let them succeed.

After season two of Amazon’s The Summer I Turned Pretty came to a close, it became painfully clear that I was only continuing the show with the sole purpose of hate-watching these characters and their awful decisions. 

While the premise of the show is intriguing (who doesn’t love a good love triangle?), the execution is poorly done and the acting doesn’t help. 

Lola Tung, who plays Belly, is one of the only actors on the show who gives a memorable performance and yet, it’s often overshadowed by her character’s incessant need to selfishly make things all about herself.

While this can most definitely be attributed to the all-consuming idea teenagers have that everything revolves around them, it’s hard to look past it when a big chunk of the season focuses on the loss of Susannah, played by Rachel Blanchard. 

Belly even goes as far as invalidating her mother and brother’s grief throughout the show, claiming that they “don’t care” or “weren’t there for her.” While it doesn’t seem like the intent was to make her insufferably ignorant, Jenny Han certainly does so with the way Belly recklessly deals with everyone’s feelings. 

Aside from the glaring personality flaws of the main character, Christopher Briney, who plays Conrad, and Gavin Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah, unsuccessfully convince the audience that they’re both pining over Belly. 

Briney and Casalegno deliver performances that leave much to be desired and are more reminiscent of the early Disney Channel acting that would satisfy a ten year old who just wants to know if Miley chose Jake or Jesse. And even that acting was better than whatever is happening on The Summer I Turned Pretty. 

Han also fails to captivate the audience with the soundtrack. While the songs may look pretty on a Spotify playlist, they’re often thrown into the show randomly, leaving the viewer jarred when a singer is suddenly speaking while Belly is having one crisis or another.

There’s also an intense amount of Taylor Swift. While I love her music just as much as the next person, the inclusion of nine songs in an eight episode season seems entirely too much and takes away from the way some of the songs actually elevated their scenes. 

In fact, one of the highlights from the show comes from Blanchard herself during a flashback scene with Tung and Laurel, who’s played by Jackie Chung. Belly reluctantly visits a dying Susannah, who’s wish is to see Belly happy with one of her boys. 

The scene is an emotional gut punch with Blanchard and Tung seamlessly bouncing off one another until the tears start flowing. Swift’s “Bigger Than The Whole Sky,” a devastating track about loss, completely paints the rest of the picture, creating one of the best scenes of the entire series.

Which makes it so hard to believe that we could go from something like that to a scene outside Belly’s volleyball camp where Jeremiah says “You’re not going to go cheer your girl on?” in the cringiest way possible. It’s almost as if Han is trying to make him the physical embodiment of awful TikTok thirst traps, but worse because the writing is so evidently done by a 40-year-old woman trying to impersonate a couple of 17-year-olds. 

It’s unclear when the third season will begin production due to the ongoing strikes, but it is confirmed that The Summer I Turned Pretty will be returning. 

While I wish I could say that all of these negative qualities have turned me away from watching the next season and I suggest you do the same, I would be lying. Watching The Summer I Turned Pretty is like witnessing a car wreck that you just can’t pry your eyes from.

After a strong introduction into the music industry with her EP Everything to Everyone, it’s hard not to hold high expectations for Reneé Rapp. Yet, her debut album, Snow Angel does more than impress: it solidifies Rapp as a force to be reckoned with.

The album consists of 12 songs that weave seamlessly together to tell the story of a woman; not a cohesive narrative with one linear plot but rather the inner-workings of a girl’s mind.

“Talk Too Much,” the album’s opening track, starts off similarly to “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 but quickly diverts into a uniquely rock sound as she sings “Talking myself out of/My own happiness/I’ll make it up ‘til I quit/I wonder if we should just sit here in silence ‘cause/I think I talk too much.”

The track delves into the idea of self-sabotage and how someone seemingly goes to great lengths to prevent their own happiness. Rapp expertly creates a bridge that’s not even really a bridge but instead, representative of the track title, Rapp continuously rambling to her muse, talking way too much. 

Next, Rapp delivers a tearful ballad called “I Hate Boston.” While the city unfortunately gets a bad rep with the title, Rapp makes sure to let listerners know that it’s not its fault. When you love someone, every piece of them, including their hometown, becomes haunted for you when they leave. 

“I Hate Boston” is one of the standout tracks and Rapp beautifully says, “How’d you make me hate Boston?/It’s not its fault that you don’t love me/Had it’s charm but it lost it/It’s not its fault, just a casualty/And casual’s the way you chose to leave,” the last line hitting like a cement truck right to the heart. 

She follows this up with a witty pop sound for “Poison Poison” which is a universal experience for everyone listening. I can say with full certainty that everyone’s met someone who is so annoying they could, quite frankly, poison poison. 

The lead single of the album and the titular song, “Snow Angel” is a painful story of addiction paired with loss of love. Starting off slow and tender, the song’s chorus eventually picks up with an intense guitar and drum section that eventually leads into the bridge which speaks for itself.

“I tried so hard/I came so far/I met a boy/He broke my heart,” kicks off the verse as the instruments slowly ascend and Rapp’s vocals truly come out to shine when she sings, “I blame him ‘cause/It’s easier/But I still look for him in her/The season’s change/Addiction’s strange/I love back then what I hate today.”

Track nine, “I Wish,” solidifies the album as something more than just love and hate. The feelings of women and people, in general, are so much more than the people they choose to love. Rapp wistfully talks about the grief that comes when you lose someone close to you as you grow older. 

“I Wish” is truly the standout of the album. While it’s slow and stringy, the song navigates how getting older doesn’t always mean getting better. 

“Hair turns to gray, but the blue’s here to stay,” is a beautiful interpretation of loss throughout life. While we get older, others don’t, and some goodbye’s are permanent whether you realize it at the time or not. 

Writing with a pen similar to Taylor Swift’s and vocals reminiscent of Adele, Rapp creates a sound that is so uniquely her own, it’s hard to ignore.   

While I could go on and on about how every song on Snow Angel is worthy of its own bouquet of flowers, I think it’s safe to say that Rapp’s ability to write so effortlessly about her own feelings, so much so that they transcend universally to her listeners will guarantee her success as a musician.

TikTok sensation Addison Rae released her EP, “AR” on Friday, granting her audience the pleasure of listening to five songs, four of which were unreleased and three which had unfortunately been leaked last year. 

Her EP is camp in a way that transcends the meaning. Starting strong with “I got it bad,” Rae delves into the all consuming feeling you get when you really want someone. The track, which is the longest out of all the songs, features an infectious hook that you will not be able to get out of your head no matter how hard you try.

Rae then explores a uniquely fun beat in “2 Die 4” featuring Charli XCX. The track is an open invitation for someone who can acknowledge her worth and who thinks she’s “2 die 4.” 

She follows this up with “Nothing on (But the radio),” which is one of the standout tracks of the EP, its chorus reminiscent of the 2010’s pop music that plagued night clubs and retail stores. 

The lyrics share a sense of literalness that is what makes the EP borderline iconic. “I’m calling just to tell you/Get here, I’ll make it all worth your while/I can make you some food,” is just an all around hilarious verse that you can’t help unironically singing at the top of your lungs. 

The incentive of food to get someone she likes to come over is just perfection.

“it could’ve been you,” is perhaps the best track of the EP, a song that could easily become a radio hit if it wanted to. The chorus starts with “’Cause every time we break up, I break down/Now I don’t wanna make up, I’ll make out/With somebody new, it could’ve been you,” which is an amazing way to let someone know that you’re getting over them.

The song is upbeat and the lyricism is actually on par with the production, something the rest of the EP doesn’t exactly account for. “it could’ve been you” is a confident anthem that reassures the listener of their own worth in relationships.

Similarly, “Obsessed” which launched Rae’s music career in 2021, closes out the EP perfectly, once more reminding the listener that these songs are fun, confident and sexy. 

The track, which wasn’t received popularly when it first released, deserves more credit when it’s given. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is a great piece of advice for TikTok stars who are thinking about dipping their toes into the music industry. 

Rae’s EP is a sign that we don’t need the same bland melancholy ballad or pop song about missing your ex or being depressed. Dixie D’amelio can take care of that for us. 

Her songs can be compared to the fictional star “Jocelyn” from Sam Levinson’s The Idol, which may be true but discredits the actual likability of Rae and the art she is creating. While it may sound similar to the music created by the show, Rae’s songs are a little less raunchier and much easier on the ears.

Rae is running circles around her “TikTokker-turned-musician” peers because she is unapologetically confident in herself and her sexuality. 

While her music may never touch what Taylor Swift or Beyoncé are creating, her mediocre vocals, fun production and camp lyricism is exactly what her young audiences need to stay entertained and hooked on her art. Perhaps with a little more practice and vocal work, Rae could establish herself as a young force in the industry.

Broadway’s & Juliet is an inspiringly fun tale that spins Shakespeare’s tragedy into something powerfully uplifting for everyone involved. This uniquely imaginative retelling of the classic Romeo and Juliet explores a world where Juliet didn’t kill herself in the name of love, but instead, lived in spite of.

The musical, which debuted in 2019 and went to Broadway in November 2022, is composed of 30 pop hits all produced by Max Martin. It is currently shown at the Steven Sondheim theater.

Perhaps it was the tired and tacky feel to the original Romeo and Juliet plot that got us here or maybe it was modern feminism, but either way, it seems that there was always meant to be a life for Juliet after Romeo. 

The highlight of the play comes not from Romeo and Juliet themselves, as one would expect, but instead from Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, who are navigating this retelling in real time, working as a team to create a story that feels authentic to both of their lives. 

Betsy Wolfe, who plays Anne, delivers an enchanting performance as a woman who longs to be seen and appreciated by her husband who seems to love his work more than his family. Her input on Romeo and Juliet provides a freshness and emphasizes Juliet’s independence as a young woman. 

In addition to this, Wolfe hilariously weaves her way in and out of scenes with impeccable comedic timing and personality. 

Her counterpart, Austin Scott who plays Shakespeare, also provides a superb performance as the ignorant husband who doesn’t understand why his wife isn’t satisfied staying home alone with the kids all the time. While his character is quite annoying (not to his fault or detriment), the progression and development within Shakespeare is admirable and well-paced.

Juliet, played by Rachel Webb, is fiercely independent, as well as a little naive when it comes to life. Her vocals truly shine during her solo songs and provide some excellent humor, such as singing “Oops… I did it again,” after accidentally getting engaged to another man only days after Romeo’s demise. 

Anne and Juliet are direct reflections of one another – while some artists separate their lives from their work, Anne pours her heart into Juliet, just hoping that Romeo will see her for all she’s worth. 

Wolfe and Webb successfully mirror each other throughout the play while also letting one another shine in their own right. 

Although Romeo’s part is surprisingly small within the musical, Ben Jackson Walker completely steals the stage for the scenes he is in. His killer rendition of “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi for an even more thrilling plot twist has been and will forever be engraved in my mind. 

Walker and Webb, even with their limited stage time together, have dynamic chemistry and provide a love story that is infinitely better than whatever Shakespeare was thinking when he originally wrote Romeo and Juliet.

The songs in the play were also another highlight and actually enhanced the viewing. Using “It’s Gonna Be Me” by NSYNC to have François declare his love for May couldn’t have been done more perfectly. Or the usage of “I Want It That Way” by The Backstreet Boys for why Anne wants the play reinvented. 

While the characters of Romeo and Juliet are purely fictional, the story itself serves a greater purpose to the narrative of the play. No one deserves to have their life written for them. 

Everyone deserves the chance to write their own story.