Sophia Conte, Staff

From the concert stage to the movie set, Harry Styles stars in Don’t Worry Darling and the question on my mind is can Harry Styles act? Do fans even care? Well, if you saw Don’t Worry Darling this weekend, you probably have some of those answers. The film is directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Styles, Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Gemma Chan. With a budget of $35 million, and a press tour mired by rumors of drama between director Olivia Wilde and star Florence Pugh along with wild speculation over photos of Styles potentially spitting on co-star Chris Pine from the Venice Film Festival. Between bad press and average pre-release ratings, the film did well in its first weekend, grossing $19.2 million from Friday to Sunday. Facing Don’t Worry Darling this past weekend was The Woman King which was on its second weekend in theaters, and the re-released highest grossing film in history, James Cameron’s Avatar. 

Another film playing in theaters this past weekend was horror movie Barbarian, directed by Zach Cregger. The film stars Georgina Campbell and IT actor Bill Skarsgård. Barbarian is in its third week since its release, on Sept. 9^th. Moving towards the gruesome is Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, released on Sept. 21^st . Directed and written by Ryan Murphy, who is also famous for his creation of Glee and American Horror Story, the Dahmer series stars an AHS actor, Evan Peters. Eating while watching this series is not recommended. 

Disney fans got a glimpse of The Little Mermaid starring Halle Bailey. Unfortunately, some people were, let’s face it, racist concerning their issues about the casting of Halle Bailey who will play the first black Ariel. Most comments and discourse came from the popular social media app, TikTok, where people voiced how the casting choice was not “biologically accurate” for the fantastical, made-up creature, that we call a mermaid. Also generating controversy over diverse casting, is Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power show which is placed inside The Lord of the Rings universe. Overall with 25 million people watching the first two episodes upon its release, the series is doing well even though it places women and people of color in the forefront of its narrative.