The Hate U Give Is A Thoughtful Character Study Packed With Outstanding Performances

2018's been a good year for the Young-Adult novel film adaptation subgenre, hasn't it? It's nice to see this strain of American cinema having such a banner considering that I've always felt its gotten too much of a bum rap from people always associating it with Twilight and its various knock-off's rather than also considering that the high-quality likes of The Fault In Our Stars or The Spectacular Now also qualify as entries in this subgenre. Twilight isn't good (though the hate for it seems a wee bit overblown at this point), but judging the entire YA-novel film adaptation realm just by it is like judging all of superhero movies on Batman v. Superman. 

To All The Boys I've Loved Before Is A Charmer Of A Film And A Great Showcase For Lana Condor

2018 will be known as many things in the future, most of them bad (especially in the realm of American politics), but on a happier note, maybe 2018 will also go down as the year Netflix's original movies division finally took off? After three years of trying to getting people's attention with pricey star-studded duds, turns out all it took for Netflix to capture the masses was to create films that aren't getting made in large quantities by major American studios, like romantic-comedies (Set It Up) or in the case of To All The Boys I've Loved Before, High School dramedies. Pity the theatrical studios aren't making more of these since not only is Netflix making a killing appealing to these underserved audiences but they're also making charming movies like To All The Boys I've Loved Before.

Though Plagued By The Same Problems of It's Predecessors, Maze Runner: The Death Cure Ends It's Series On A Decent Note

Divergent couldn't do it. The Mortal Instruments, The Fifth Wave and Beautiful Creatures, none of them got past one installment. But The Maze Runner did it, it managed to be one of the few movie adaptations of a young-adult book series adapted in the wake of the success of The Hunger Games to actually not just get a sequel but also adapt all the books it was supposed to adapt. Only Harry Potter, Hunger Games and Twilight have managed to do that, so take a bow Maze Runner, you earned it. Plus, unlike Hunger Games, this series ended on it's best entry yet, even if this newest adventure, The Death Cure, is still plagued by the problems that haunted its predecessors.

The Maze Runner Review

A-maze-ingly Mediocre

Last Fall, months before the first film even debuted, 20th Century Fox put a screenwriter in charge of writing the sequel to The Maze Runner, a film based on a series of YA novels. That kind of confidence seemed well founded once The Maze Runner debuted to $32 million this weekend. Right alongside the first box office numbers came a release date for the second entry, The Scorch Trials, which will arrive a year after this entry. Hopefully sequels are a bit more consistent in quality, as this one has promise, but winds up mostly squandering it.

The Maze Runner Gets A New Trailer Full of Twists And Turns (Get It?)

Lots of YA Novels are being translated to the screen this year, in hopes of jump-starting a new franchise. Mixed results have come from these movies, at least in 2014; Divergent and The Fault In Our Stars made big bucks, but Vampire Academy flopped big time. In terms of quality, I loved Fault, didn't care for Divergent, and didn't even bother with Vampire Academy, but just like superhero movies, it's each movies unique plot and not the exact genre these films belong to that lure audiences into the theater.

The List!!!: 5 YA Novels-To-Movies That Have Changed Pop Culture Forever

In The List!!!, I do a list that just reeks of being click-bait, analyzing a particular topic or subject that pertains to something major occurring in pop-culture. This week, in honor of The Fault In Our Stars, I look at five YA novel movie adaptations that have had a particularly notable impact on pop culture.

I should note that, in terms of making it onto this list, I'm not talking entirely about quality of these five movies specifically (I haven't seen Twilight, for instance, rendering any critical thought on it beyond "Robert Pattinson needs to smile every once and a while" moot), but rather just what kind of impact they've had on film and pop culture. Onto the list!!