By Michaela McGrath
Film: “The Emoji Movie”
Knock it off Hollywood! Not every app, trend, product or game that’s popular with the “kids” needs to be a movie. Nobody wanted this. “The Emoji Movie” is an ugly, soulless, headache-inducing slog. It’s shameless brand advertising disguised as an animated movie. If you have millions of dollars to make something, you could at least have the decency to create characters that aren’t literal turds.
Television: “Inhumans”
ABC’s “Inhumans” is a new low for Marvel. The show, based on the comic series of the same name, premiered on Sept. 29. It is a spectacularly boring trainwreck with an unimaginative story and flat characters. There’s a cheapness to the series’ design, despite speculation that it cost over $10 million to produce. “Inhumans” is bad, and not even the fun, ironically-enjoyable type of bad.
Album: “Reputation” – Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift’s act has been wearing thin for a while now. The pop star’s self-pitying persona is crystallized by her sixth album, “Reputation,” released Nov. 10. The tracks on “Reputation” feel copy and pasted from other genres and artists, never reaching a cohesive sound, even sometimes within the same song. But it’s Swift’s petty, cringe-inducing lyrical obsession with her prior feuds and media coverage that make this album, frankly, irritating. Her narcissism suddenly feels out of place in pop and music in general.
Niagara Wire 