#Look. The trailer did a good job aping the animated movie shot-for-shot.

[joemerl]

Me, @DreamWorks

Seriously, everyone was praising you after Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Best not-actual-Disney movie in years. And then you look at their parade of hated remakes failing at the box office, and what? You thought this was an idea worth stealing?

[popculturebuffet]

Nightmare Time Episode 1 Review: The Hatchetfield Ape-Man/Watcher World

I take a look at the first episode of Starkid’s new show Nightmare Time! Starkid, returns for a zoomcast, bringing back the casts of both Hatchefield plays for an anthology series of science fiction double feature picture shows! This week’s tales of terror:

The Hatchefield Ape-Man: A british heiress gets romanced by a shaved bigfoot with the help of everyone’s favorite kooky college professor. Forgotten fiances, murder and described nudity naturally insue. 

Watcher World: Bill and Alice return as Bill drags his daughter to a kitschy theme park for a day of family fun, which Alice enjoys and is as respectful about as much as you’d expect. As you’d also expect given Bill’s general luck, things take a turn for the Shining real quick. Spoilers and full review under the cut. 

Well this was a nice suprise. With the ongoing pandemic I genuinely did not think Starkid would be back anytime soon. Having just gotten back into them this years after several years of forgetting they existed via the Hatchetfield plays, I was pretty bummed, if understanding. So last week’s announcment of not only this series but a full scripted series from their sister production company the tin bros was a HUGE shot of happy I needed in this troubling times. Still need to watch spies are forver love the soundtrack nto important. 

Point is the Lang Brothers and their merry band of actors found a way to continue on via  format I didn’t realize existed outside of table reads but is a nice way to do things: The Zoomcast, basically a podcast done live on zoom, with the actors in plainclothes for the most part, with one person, in this case Nick Lang, reading out descriptions of what’s going on. Being a starkid production this also has musical director Matt Bohm playing accompaniment and pretaped if still via the actor’s own camera musical numbers. Overall while i’ts an understandably cheap production, only what costumes the actors have on hand and most props mimed, it WORKS, allowing for way more elaborate set pieces than the stage would allow and is anchored by Lang’s impeccable descriptions and the cast’s amazing as always acting really making the stories pop.  So things worked on a technical level despite having the barest of bones to work with. But did it work on a story level? Well yes, but if I ended my reviews with just that i’d have less than the 3 or 4 fans I do have, so without further ado, it’s nightmare time! The Intro: 

Now normally in my reviews I don’t talk about the intro because I come in mid way or because I just didn’t think to. This is an exception since 

A) I should be doing that anyway or at least when I cover a show’s first episode since intro’s are sometimes one of the most memorable parts of a show 

B) It’s a full musical number that’s been stuck in my head since the trailer for this series and has now set up an apartment there.  C) This series is a musical, if not to the same degree as the two plays before it, so it’d be weird NOT to talk about it’s signature song. 

So with that out of the way the intro.. is fucking impressive. Seriously taking disparate videos with probably as much as the directions “Sing this part of the song and be kind of creepy or alluring or whatever” and making it really flow? Good work, both to the starkids for bringing their a game to it as always and to Nick and Matt really did a good job   editing this together, musically and visually to be an abolute jawdrop. And somehow finding utterly stunning stock image animations that none of us realized were stock footage but still fit the tone perfectly. Just great stuff.  Some stray notes: Mariah is absolutely stunning in both voice and apperance in this, John Matheson’s bit as paul was great, and Jeff Blim of course got a great bit with his always astounding hair blowing in the breeze with him at full high pitch. Just an utterly great intro, and for Starkid’s first series in over a decade, and really ever but semantics, they really brought it. Good stuff. Onto the actual episode content. 

The Hatchetfield Ape-Man: Lucy, a british heiress played by Angela Giarratana, was saved by the legendary “Hatchefield Ape-Man”.. who apparently has a hyphen like spider-men because while sasquatches can do that. Point is she’s come back every year in the hopes of reuniting with her savior but has so far failed.  But as Lucy prepares to leave from this year’s failed expedition, an old friend finally gives her what she needs... old friend to us to her she’s just some grey haired lunatic who showed up out of the mist. Which while accurate, dosen’t quite quantify everyone’s favorite playwright/college professor/murderous psychopath/composer.

Yes at long last Professor Hidgens has returned! I honestly didn’t expect the anthology to bring in such a huge fan faviorite so soon. I mean I expected returning characters, mostly because the project allows old faviorites to come back for their own stories or for the stars of the musicals to get a chance at a much happier ending... there’s a lot of potetial there. That and let’s face it “Jane’s a Car” is a pretty dead giveaway it’s going to be about Tom’s dead wife and Tim’s dead mother coming back in horrible mash up of christine and my mother the car. Maybe. I could be wrong. I also doubt many of you know what my mother the car is and to that I say it’s an old sitcom i’m honestly suprised I know exists and know nothing about other than the title and it being about a son’s mom’s ghost possesing his car apparently. Well that and it was the basis for this. 

Point is, while I expected some returns, I wasn’t expecting one this large and this bombastic so soon, but BOY was it welcome.  So getting back on track after all that, HIdgens seemingly takes Lucy to meet her ape man, who goes by the name Klonk, played by everyone’s faviorite sexy caveman Joey Richter. Also it’s adorable he and Lauren share a streaming screen. I know practicality and all that but their engagment is genuinely a sweet thing to hear about at a time when the world’s going down the toilet fast. Fun Fact: I pegged the Ape-Man was either going to be Jeff or Joey, leaning towards Jeff, though given my love of Joey I wasn’t disapointed with him, especially with the twist... but I was EXASTIC to learn the answer was basically “Both.. kinda?”. But yeah Lucy soon bonds with the ape man, with HIdgens encouraging her since it’s more than he’s gotten out of Klonk in 11 months of looking after the guy, and this way they can get him to learn enough to decide what he wants for himself. 

So a few months, and some romantic bonding between woman and ape-man, pass but a wrench is thrown into Klonk’s wooing and attempt to tell lucy he loves her: Jonathan, Lucy’s just now mentioned fiance and royal dickhead played by Kurt Mega. And credit where it’s do whlie he clearly didn’t have to dress up, he did have a nice 50′s monster movie british person suit he put on.  Lucy is now conlficted and what not even though Jonathan is kind of an asshole who just wants to drag her back home. And i’ts not like Lucy didn’t keep in touch: she sent him texts and probably called, so i’ts not like he didn’t know she was here. He’s also a hunter for extra dick points as if he needed them.  Naturally when meeting his romantic rival he’s a dick.. but raises some valid questions: While Hidgens claim he shaved Konk due to lesions, there’s no mark of lesisons or the shaving. But his natural dickheadedness shines through and Jonathan talks about shooting Klonk before lucy takes his ring off and throws it and Jonathan goes after her.  Annnnd yeah turns out the disposable dickhead fiance for once is RIGHT. In a twist I did not remotley see coming but damn if it wasn’t clever, Klonk.. is Ted from TGWDLM and the plan was to seduce lucy with this con, marry her and then bump her off. It’s a hell of a twist and cleverly hidden since Joey’s such a starkid mainstay, it’s not a huge suprise he was Klonk and thus easily hid the fact he was also Ted. It’s clever stuff and pivots the story nicely. 

Ted is naturally a douchey as ever, going along with Hidgen’s plan to have him marry lucy then kill her and take her dough for themselves.. and unsuprisingly, so Hidgens can get Workin Boys off the ground. Granted there are easier ways to do this with the same scooby doo scheme: Just have HIdgens plan working boys casually, have Klonk really love it and being the sweetheart she is LUcy would fiance the thing just to make them both happy. I mean he can still marry her and ted can still have direct acess to her money if they want, it’s just an easier way that dosen’t shine supscion on the caveman who looks exactly like a local douchebag who everyone he’s met would testify against him. I mean would Paul and Bill REALLY be that suprised that Ted did this? 

Exactly. Then again neither of our “heroes’ Here is very bright, and this scheme only works because Lucy is clearly very sweet, very naive, and very much wants a romantic evening with an ape man after all this time and effort searching, so she wants to believe him. So the fact the best they could come up with is something out of Scooby Doo is unsuprisng but still great.  However things take a turn for the

Pretty quick as Hidgens takes disposable british douche fiance hunting.. then kills the guy after freely admiting he’s a fraud in what’s an INCREDIBLY chilling scene. Seriously it’s amazing how Robert takes a character as loveably redicilous, even his evil and murderous plan during TGWDLM was still hilariously rediclous, and makes him UTTERLY TERRIFYING. Even when dropping my fair lady refrences. Amazing stuff.  So the next day, after Konk “asks” what an engagment is and what not, we then get Lucy wondering just WHERE jonathan is and we get the second biggest laugh of the night as Hidgens gives us the iconic line of “Oh he left... said something about you being crazy and going back to london and basically to go fuck yourself. “. Naturally Lucy has followup questions and goes to find out while Ted, also naturally, isn’t exactly pleased when he finds out his partner in crime did a murder on someone. 

Ted may be a sleazy dickhead.. but even he sees maybe murdering a rich british person who just came here, went basically ONLY to this one location, and whose probably got many people who will misss him, one of whom is their primary target, is kinda dumb. Then again this is a plan that hinges on someone who could easily be identified, as he has or at least probably had an office job and three coworkers who know him, assuming a false identity to marry someone for their money. But again we’re dealing with a guy who thinks working boys is marketable to anyone who isn’t a starkid, and a moron who soon says he does his best thinking while erect. They only got this far because their target REALLY wants to fuck a sasquatch, is sweet but naive and well Ted IS still joey richter, and no longer has the porn stache so there you go.  Ted decides to cut Hidgens out of things.. partly because you know, he killed a person, and partly because instead of killing Lucy, Ted realized he honeslty has a LOT to gain by simply marrying her and staying married. He gains a hot rich wife (his word’s not mine, but angie is genuinely beautiful so fair point), a mansion, and while Hidgens points out the obvious, he has to stay Konk.. that’s actually appealing to Ted as he feels better as Konk, not just because he impresses an attractive woman for doing basic stuff, but because he feels better as Konk. This is.. an intresting turn for Ted i genuinely like. It shows that Ted may, as much as he presents with bluster and ego, actually LIKE the kind of shithead he knows he is. I mean looking at his life he has two workmates who calling them friends is a bit of a stretch, and one who he’s having an affair with but seems detemrined to make her doomed marriage to an even bigger asshole work. He really dosen’t have much as ted so it’s easy to see why being Konk is better: He’s a better person as him who actually has someone who cares about him.  Naturally Hidgens takes this as well as you’d expect and when Ted/Konk tries proposing he goes with the logical option for taking the fourtune for himself:

Yes really. Hidgens strips naked, and swings his arms around like an orangutan to try and convince Lucy he’s the real hatchetfield apeman. Sadly this dosen’t mean we get a shirtless robert manion as he needs to keep the turtleneck on for later, but the mental image.. I had to pause the video for a good minute to laugh over it. Just everything about it from it somehow being a dumber plan than his scheme this episode, to the orangutan swaying to just.. everything. It’s fucking genius.  But Higdens has more than a mighty penis to compete with Ted.. he reveals ted’s phone and Ted ends up revealing himsef by telling Hidgens to go fuck himself. Naturally Lucy is distraught and tries to leave and the professor pulls out his shotgun to threaten her into financing his musical because of course it’s about workin boys. Lucy tries to run, Hidgens tries to shoot.. and ted , doing the first good thing in his entire life, takes the bullet.  Lucy gets ted out of there then locks the door behind them, and we get the SCARIEST bit in this segment as Hidgens leans into the camera, simulating the peep hole of the vault door to the ape man inclosure and begs her to let him out. It’s some real Jack Nicholson in the Shining stuff and it’s utterly terrifying, but it’s also an amazing bit of acting. Nice job Rob.  So ted bleeds out, as much as Lucy wants to save him he knows he’s not going to make it and prefers to die as Konk, finally happy with himself. And I just realized everyone at Paul’s job is horribly miserable. I mean good god, Paul himself has serious depression issues judging by “Let it Out”, Ted clearly hates himself, Charlotte is in a horrible marriage and Bill just got out of one and has a strained realtionship with his daughter we’ll get into more in a bit. I mean honestly, Mr. Davidson is the only one of them who really dosen’t need therapy.. he just needs to tell his wife he wants her to choke him while he jerks off. For as ungodly hilarious as that line is he’s probably the most well adjusted person there. Go figure. 

Naturally being already insane, Hidgens breaks out, still naked mind, and chases after Lucy. Also noticable is apparently some people thought hidgens was manipulated by the blue shit hive mind in TGWDLM. Which.. no. I do love the guy dont’ get me wrong.. but it was very obvious both from the way his musical number was done compared to the rest of the ones in the musical, and his actions that was entirely him, and his playing the music was so he could join, especially since we don’t see the hive mind use any mind manupluation on anyone else. Regular manipulation sure as seen with you tied up my heart and not your seed, manipulating charoltte into freeing her asshole husband so he could infect her and torturing bill for funsies. Just something to get out of the way. Point is he was always crazy we just now have him chasing an innocentish woman with his dong hanging out to prove it.  He eventually catches her as Lucy catches herself in one of his bear traps when she hits the woods, because he had those for some reason.. and he has a resonable way out: Just give her the 30,000 dollars he needs for his musical. Thing is she dosen’t have the money.. or hardly any. She spent all of it trying to find the ape man and was marrying jonathan for his money and him for her title. And while it is a bit skeezy, it’s very clear both were using each other and likely knew it, and Lucy still comes out the most moral of our cast here.. granted it’s not a big stretch as hidgens is criminally insane, ted’s a skeeze and Jonathan.. well he’s just a diiiiiiccckkkk. It’s not hard is what i’m saying.. much like hidgen’s dick flopping around in the rain. But yeah he dosen’t take it well, Lucy goes up a tree, which is apparently something Becky did once. But before Lucy can die at the hands of a naked thespian, the REAL Ape-Man shows up and tears Hidgen’s arms off, taking lucy in his own arms afterwords and revealing he remembers her. The two hit it off instantly, it turns out his name is chumby in an excellent gag as that was what Hidgens wanted his fake ape man to be named but Ted froze, and go off into the night together. Awww.. what if a naked ape man played by my boy jeff blim and a british person can’t work who can? 

We then close out the segment with a cameo appearance by Jamie Lynn Beatty, who while not part of the cast for this double feature, does get a fun showtune about the ape man. Also fun fact that i found out here on tumblr: That costume is from something Jamie did in HIGH SCHOOL. As in well over a decade ago. Like holy shit, good for her. She looks great in it. But yeah it’s a fun song and a nice way to close it out.  Final Thoughts on the Hatchetfield Ape-Man: This was a great way to start things off. This one was more in line with starkids pre-hatchetfield work, a goofy story with some hidden depth inside. And like the guy who didn’t like musicals it was utterly terrifying in spots so yeah good stuff ,utterly hilarous and a great way to bring back some old faviorites while giving us a neat new protaganist. Good stuff. 

Watcher World:

Now from a mostly comedy with a horrifying ending to just.. pure unfiltered horror and depression! It’s Watcher World! Bill and Alice are back! And given I love Mariah Rose Faith and Corey Dorris, I was exastic to find this was what the second segment was about.. mostly because I had no idea Starkid had teasers for the episodes on their instagram, or I would’ve known Hidgens was coming. I wouldn’t of known he’d be stark naked for the last third of his story but still, pleasant surprise.

So Bill and Alice are spending the day at Watcher World, a run down amusement park on the edge of town. It’s Alice’s last weekend before College so Bill’s trying to reconnect with her by cramming a good old fashioned family vacation down her throat. Alice is less than enthused, both because she clearly resents her dad in general, and because Deb is throwing a huge rager on the same night. My honest interpretation of that is that Deb fully inteded for her girlfriend to come but Bill sprung this on Alice at the last minute and being pretty oblivious and hating Deb, either didn’t care about taking alice from one last night with her friends and girlfriend or didn’t generally think that through. I mean don’t get me wrong normally i’d side with a parent not wanting their daughter to attend a huge teen rager on their last weekend together.. but it’s also Alice’s last weekend in town for some time, and it’s likely a saturday.. so he has another day, and presumibly had friday before this and while things with his ex wife are tense, fighting for an extra day with her would be understandable and i’ts not like Alice, even if she hates Bill, would really fight him on getting an extra day in the town she didn’t want to leave. 

But that’s what I really like about this one that it’s layered. While Alice is slightly more in the right, she’s still shutting her dad out, refusing to let him follow her on instagram (though he does agree with her keeping it private as he dosen’t want Ted perving on her, which tracks, or Ted’s brother doing it which.. wait what?), and being on her phone the whole time to very clearly spite him and rub how much she dosen’t want to be there in her dad’s face. She dosen’t WANT to be at watcher world but instead of trying to talk to her Dad just wants to complain and apparenlty has on all their vacations.. it’s easy to see why Bill is annoyed by his daughter at times and thinks he has to FORCE HER to have fun with him, because otherwise she’d gladly ignore him for their entire weekends together for Deb. She’s so determined to punish her dad for the divorce, that she refuses to see on some level he IS trying, and is just sad about her leaving, and possibly leaving him forever and alone with nothing else in his life but his buddy Paul, whose getting married next week so that’s probably not helping.  On the other hand the reason I say Alice is more in the right is that well.. Bill’s a grown ass men. And while, speaking for himself, grown ass men don’t always make the right decisions, and not speaking for myself neither do fathers... Alice’s acting out is understandable coming from an 18 year old whose been through hell over the last year, having her parents divorce being forced to move, loosing her friends. Bill however just kind of uses her age and angst as an excuse to undermine and belittle her feelings. Because he doesn’t like deb for the very stupid reasons of she does pot, instead of assuring her that Deb wouldn’t cheat on Alice with Deb’s former crush Zigg, starkid’s first non binary character in a nice show that Nick Lang wasn’t just covering his ass when he said there’d be more representation in starkid, which in his defense I didn’t doubt him on but it’s still nice he did so at the earliest opportunity and very clearly plans to use Zigg if he can find a nonbinary actor for them. 

But yeah instead of assuring his daughter, Bill is just like “well sometimes relationships don’t work out” which while true is clearly his self serving way of trying to get Alice to break up with someone he dosen’t like. INstead of supporting her in her dreams of writing plays, one of which was good enough to get her a scholarship, he tries to act like she has no plans for her future and get her to be a doctor for more security, even though having a secure job has done.. no one at his office including him favors. I mean again, the most stable and happy person at the office is the guy in charge, and even he can’t tell his wife he wants her to choke him out at night. He wants her to choke him, he wants her to choke him while he jerks off, he wants her to choookeeee himmm while heeeee jerrrkssss offfff. 

While part of this seems to be that Deb plans to be a starving artist who can mooch off her parents in a pinch, Alice GENUINELY seems to have a full plan for her life. I do get his worrying about her future.. but she’s a smart kid. A bit of a brat but she knows what she wants clealry and clearly has talent. He’s just projecting his own fears on her. He also refuses to accept any responsibility in the divorce.. his hating his ex wife IS valid, as she took his daughter away, uprooted her life a year before graduation and spends gobs of money on impressive outings, the latter two seemingly just to spite him when honestly, it’d of made more sense for Alice to stay with Bill for the year before she graduates and been better for her. However, Bill still doesn’t take responsibly that he too is shoving fun down her throat to try and win her over, hates her girlfriend and refuses to treat her with any respect, and really DOSEN’T know Alice all that well. As we learn during their fun day she has anxiety, and he never knew about it. And the divorce isn’t really an excuse when he had years before that.  It’s the real problem of their relationship: Bill feels ENTITLED to a good father daughter relationship, but isn’t working at it and blames his ex wife or Alice for it instead of himself. While Alice isn’t an innocent as i’ve made clear, putting up walls and not telling dad things, given bill ignores her when she DOES try to tell him about her life, it’s easy to see she’s just given up. If he won’t listen why bother. Which yeah i’ve found myself there with my own dad from time to time. Bill’s not a bad person, he genuinely loves Alice, as he says “to the moon and back”, but it’s very clear from this outing he still loves the little girl who loved him unconditionally and not the complicated and mopey adult sh’es become, and dosen’t WANT to adapt to that and fears once she leaves for college she’ll avoid him for good, which isn’t unfounded. It’s a good, complex rich dynamic.  Naturally with.. all this I covered up front instead of sprinkling it throughout, the day doesn’t go great, with Alice utterly miserable most of the time, and ending up in a goofy novelty t-shirt due to a log ride. She also has an unsettling encounter with park mascot Blinky, our newest adorable abomination, who not only shows up the moment she does something bad on camera but also stares at her ass, which.. Paul you mind coming back for a second?

Thank you. They end up at the Watch Party, a cheesy kids show musical because Bill apparently equates this with his daughter loving musicals. I mean granted cheesy kids stage shows can be rad just listen to this. 

But I get Alice’s annoyance here. Thus we get the return of the sniggles, who apparently serve whatever eldrich deity is around this week and our first song of this segment, The Blinky Song. Which is catchy as hell as well as hilariously dark (”I’m so hungry”), and uses the stock footage well, as I could buy a cheap theme park ran by an eldtirch eye goblin using stock footage. But yeah it establishes Blinky as always watching and kinda fucked up.  Also the sniggles are now clearly the smurgs with Angie’s now being named Sniglette, Jeff being papa Sniggle and James being Snigglotts. However Sniglette considers leaving with another song with a long string of words. Then, things get.. dark as the rest of the sniggles don’t want her to leave and try and mob her, and then Papa Sniggle accidently wings her with a mallet and apparenlty injures the actual performer, before everyone’s ushered out and the usher pretends nothing happened. Good mind screw horror stuff. 

Alice and Bill then bicker a bit with my above point being made as Alice TRIES to get Bill to accept some respoinablity but he refuses and blames her mom. It’s now time for the Tear-Jerker, the reason they came. Bill’s buddy Paul says someone died. They also find three other people waiting in line and when one goes to the bathroom the other two start making out which.. yeah, dosen’t help Alice’s worry Deb’s going to cheat on her. So she takes the first single rider pass she can, with Bill worming his way in as to not let her get away.  The two naturally end up fighting on the Tear-Jerker before it stops up high, and ends up stalled, with the gloriously returning Nerdy Kid played by Joey from Black Friday being as helpful as usual. Seriously bless them for bringing him back. Man in a Hurry also showed up again, bless him too. Alice picks this time to reveal her fear of heights and anxiety, and an approaching storm isn’t helping. So Bill.. steps up. He helps ease Alice down taking her phone for her, if loosing it due tot he rain and helping her stay calm. It’s a REALLY nice portrayal of an anxiety attack, with Mariah herself apparently having them and thus portraying it really well. As someone who has them myself it really hits home and Bills calm attempts to help her are really heartwarming, getting her to describe her musical for him and the two bonding. It’s genuinely sweet.  But.. it can’t last, as Alice freaks out about her phone and Bill for once is in the right, as .. he was you know.. trying to save his daughter having a panic attack, and really stepped up given he was obnovious she had anxiety in the first place, and managed it well. He then gives the utterly heart stomping line “I love you to the moon and back, but sometime’s it’s really hard to like you. “

Just damn. So Alice runs off and both find their way to the fairway. Bill tries winning a doll for Alice, getting into a test of strength where he fails repedatly and is constantly mocked by the barker, played by James Tolbert who also played Blinky.. 

That should be Tolbert’s twitter handle. Anyway point is, Bill keeps trying even as he wracks up 400 dollars in credit card debt, for a 49.95 doll, before eventually the barker and hte crowd’s jeers get to be too much and he does smack it hard, thinking of all of his pent up rage towards alice.. just as the bell at the top takes the shape of alice’s head and explodes.  Bill is naturally horrified by this by the barker assures he loves him.. and that he should totally hobble his daughter misery style to make her not leave him and use the mallet for it.  Meanwhile Alice is at the shooting Gallery not wanting the blinky doll she wins, just blowing off steam when she runs into an old crone played by Lauren Lopez. But this Crone has her phone... which suspiciously has a ton of instagram photos of Deb and Zigg making out while sharing a toke. Granted Deb COULD’VE cheated, but given Alice is insecure, and her phone was given back to her by a witch working for an eye goblin.. yeah maybe just maybe Deb was loyal, and if she wasn’t wouldn’t be dumb enough to put it on instagram. But given Alice is already worked up it’s easy enough for her to beliive that her relationships in danger and if she gets there in time she can stop it and oh look her gun is now a real gun and can help her get the keys.  So yeah it’s time for a creepy as hell Shining-esque showdown, but if both sides were possesed instead of one. It’s.. a CHILLING as hell scene, not helped by Alice wielding a gun again as both fight. I was gripped the entire time and don’t have much to say utter than HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AS TERRIFYING AS IT WAS RIVITING. 

But a crowd gathers as the fight continues.. all with purple eyes which ave been seen on and off, watchers with a thousand eyes.. and with Blinky, now revealed NOT to be a costume probably, above them all. We also get one hell of a line.  “This is an amusement park but not for YOUR amusement.”

So yeah I love this sequence.. and Blinky as a villain. While it’s vague if he and Blinky  are the same entity.. I’m going with not. It’s not a stretch that like Cthulu, Wiggly has brothers in the black and white, with their own motives, methods and ability to get into our world. Unlike Wiggly.. Blinky’s already here and has no real ambition other than to find people to mentally tear apart and set loose on one another for his own amusement. He doesn’t have grand plans of burning the world.. he just wants to be entertained. It’s an interesting and chilling motive and I hope we see him again eventually. I also believe those at the park are trapped there bound after their own day there and trapped doing whatever Wiggly needs. Except maybe squeaky voiced teen. He probably just complains about cleaning up so much blood.  But yeah Blinky is very happy as the fight escalates into the hall of mirrors and Alice looses her gun.. with Bill now poised to strike down his daughter as the mirror reflects the various workers at the park, all encouraging him to kill her... it’s utterly terrifying as Bill’s eyes take on a purple tint.. and we get a POWERFUL use of the score and the “why does it hurt to love you’ bit from TGWDLM.. as Bill sees himself and what he’s about to do, sees his daughter understandably having a panic attack.. and calms her, his eyes returning and the two reconciling.  Of course Blinky isn’t happy about this “sappy bullshit” and brings htem into his domain, charging at them. But kinda missing that giving a pissed off teenager a rifle she knows how to use when you have a giant target for a face isn’t a good idea and she shoots him, with him bleeding a flood of purple goo that sends them out. While I doubt Winky’s dead, he is done with them.  Our story concludes on a sweeet note as the two find their car, and they finally make as tep forward, Bill having seen almost too late how selfish and controlling he was being and accepting his daughter on her phone.. and Alice realizing her need to open up and after checking Instagram, likely finding out those photo’s weren’t real, she throws her phone in the back.. but not before accepting her dad’s request, letting him in. Sure the road ahead is rough.. but the two have made a good first step towards repairing things and loving one another again in a healthy manner. and all it took  was bill nearly murdering her and allice shooting an eye goblin int he face and getting covered in his blood. Cue the credits, a beautiful song called “One Thousand Eyes” with Jeff Blim fucking nailing it. A great way to send off this bit.  Final Thoughts: This was the best one of the two. While Ape Man is really good too, this one took the darker tone of black friday, but with a tighter narrative. By focusing on a smaller cast, the darker elements really played better and the conclusion felt more satisfying.. though it helped that BOTH of these tails ended without everyone dying, and while I doubt EVERY story will have a happy ending, it makes things more interesting knowing that the heroes can get a happy ending this time around instead of an apocalypse. 

Overall Thoughts: This double feature was great, I’ll be getting a ticket to the next one if I can afford it, and if not i’ll see it presumably in December or next year when it comes on YouTube. Really excellent stuff.  So this was a first for me but if you’d like to see more starkid stuff from me, let me know in the comments or my askbox, commission me to review one of the musicals via dm, and if you liked how I did this review follow this blog for weekly ducktales and loud house coverage, and amphibia coverage when that returns, among more fun reviews. And until next time.. don’t blink. Play us out Jeff. 

I really hope this is the ending theme for the series. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Aladdin 2019

I think that the Disney remakes are a lot like the direct-to-video sequels of a decade or so ago; they may not be as good as the original, but I think they do have their merits and some are even good. People all too often seem to write them off as lazy rehashes, and I won’t deny that some are, but I frankly see this as no different than the numerous versions of Shakespeare’s plays put to screen. If a director has an interesting vision on how to retell a story I love, I’ll give them a shot. Heck, I gave The Jungle Book a shot even though I dislike the original film and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. On the other side, though, we have the remake of Beauty and the Beast, which was a complete and utter travesty. And in both cases I think it boiled down to what was changed and what wasn’t. The Jungle Book altered quite a bit – Louie’s species, Kaa’s gender, the ending, no stupid vultures – and ultimately was a more entertaining story to me because of it, as it kept the same basic framework while twisting stuff around. Beauty, on the other hand, did so little different aside from making Lefou more entertaining and charismatic than Gaston that it just fell flat; I SAW all this before, and done better, so why should I care?

I bring all this up because, obviously, I had mixed feelings going to see Aladdin. Aladdin is my absolute favorite Disney movie and has been since I was a kid, and Robin Williams’ Genie is one of my all-time favorite characters in anything, so this movie had quite an uphill battle to impress me. Combine that with the lackluster trailers and some iffy drama behind the scenes involving brownface (which I should note was corrected in reshoots after this came to light), and I was really hesitant in seeing this. But see it I did, and with my expectations basically being “I’ll like Will Smith but I don’t know about the rest,” I must say… I was just blown out of the water by how genuinely good the film is.

Now, of course, I still think the original animated film is best. But this remake does what I think any good remake or readaptation of a prior work should do: it tells me the story I love with some new twists and turns added in. Obviously there’s no mind-boggling revelations that change the course of the entire story, but I appreciate a lot of the flourishes they added in. Case in point: the film opens up on a ship, and a sailor played by Will Smith sets up the movie as a story he is telling to his children. As we are already well aware Smith is playing the Genie, this is sort of a clever shout out to the heavily implied idea that the merchant at the start of the animated film is just Genie in one of his forms telling us a story. The fact they decided to keep that bit in and expand upon it a bit filled me with hope that wasn’t lost as the movie continued.

In general, all that they added to the plot was welcome. I loved Jasmine’s haindmaiden friend Dahlia, I loved the expansion on Jafar’s backstory, I like how they changed Jasmine’s motivations from wanting to run away from the palace to wanting to go out and get to know her people better… it all made the story feel a lot more fleshed out and engaging. They even make no one recognizing that Aladdin is Prince Ali make sense! However, I have to say not all of the changes work perfectly. Jasmine gets her own song, for instance, and it is a very good and powerful song, with its reprise late in the movie being one of the best scenes hands down. The issue is the song doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the soundtrack, and it does stick out quite a bit. Still, this is a borderline nitpick.

What isn’t a nitpick is Jafar. Jafar is the most mixed bag in this film. While I do like that they made him a lot less obviously evil, and I like the backstory they gave him and his reasoning for wanting power, and basically a lot of his characterization… Jafar just doesn’t feel much like Jafar. He’s a great villain but he’s not a great Jafar, and I think the big problem is that Iago has been utterly neutered. He’s not the snarky, angry, mouthy jerk that Gilbert Gottfried played; here, Iago is just a smart but sadly stereotypical talking parrot played by Alan Tudyk, marking the second time Disney has wasted this talented man playing a useless bird. With Jafar having no one to bounce off of, he just feels a lot less impressive, and not helping matters is his showing in the third act, where he loses a lot of the fun and theatricality that movie Jafar had. He doesn’t even turn into a snake! He doesn’t ruin the film, but Jafar really does feel like someone they should have polished a bit more.

The rest of the cast fares a bit better. Jasmine’s actress Naomi Scott is one of the standouts among the cast, with her gorgeous singing voice and beautiful dresses really selling you that she IS Jasmine. I actually prefer her to the animated one, honestly. The same I sadly cannot say for Aladdin, because while Mena Massoud does a good job and brings a sort of awkward charm, I don’t think he quite matches up to the original Aladdin. The rest of the ensemble cast is pretty solid as well, but I’m sure there’s one man you really want to know about: Will Smith.

Will Smith had some big shoes to fill here, and even he knew it. He was playing a beloved character by a beloved actor in a remake of a beloved movie, and more than just that, he was playing the character that honestly makes the movie work as well as it does. People were writing him off before the movie came out due to how weird the CGI looked, but at the end of the day… Will Smith steals the show. Smith’s Genie is everything you want out of a remake of a character: a fresh take that stands on its own while respecting the original. He doesn’t just ape Williams’ performance, he adds his own spin, turning the Genie into basically a magical dating coach and wingman for Aladdin (which has lead to numerous jokes about how this is really a remake of Hitch). It works really well, and Massoud and Smith play off each other very well. What really sells Smith is definitely the scene where Aladdin, now a raging jackass on an ego trip, tells Genie he isn’t going to free him. Where Williams’ had the Genie react with resentment and bitterness, Smith’s Genie reacts with the most crushed, sad response; he is just genuinely hurt and is so sad to see a guy he considered a friend turn out like all the masters before him. This little change there easily made Smith’s Genie every bit as good as Williams’ in his own way.

This movie is a lot of fun, and I hate how everyone just wrote it off before it came out. Even I did that, and that’s something I need to work on correcting; these remakes, no matter their quality, do have some level of artistic merit to them, and regardless of your feelings there is nothing wrong with them existing. If this had been a shot-for-shot remake like Van Sant’s Psycho, I’d have more of a problem, but this movie was someone else’s view on a story I’d seen before. I hope Disney uses this movie as a template on how to properly do their remakes as opposed to Beauty, because this really was everything I could have wanted from one: fun, enjoyable, good expansion, good changes, and while not as good as the original it is good in its own right.

[brian-lozano91]

War for the Planet of the Apes movie review.

War is directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) it’s the third film in the Caesar Planet of the Apes films and a prequel/ reboot to the original Planet of the Apes. It stars Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings) Woody Harrelson and Steve Zahn. The premise is Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his apes are forced into a deadly conflict with an army of humans led by a ruthless colonel (Woody Harrelson). After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. As the journey finally brings them face to face, Caesar and the colonel are pitted against each other in an epic battle that will determine the fate of both of their species and the future of the planet.

This trilogy has been very surprising, the first film Rise the trailers didn’t look that good but once I saw it and everyone else did it was a pleasant surprise. The reason being is that the filmmakers focus on the apes, they are the most important part of the films. Especially Caesar played by Andy Serkis, he is since the beginning the best part of the trilogy. He so good in this film and the the other ones that he deserves an oscar for best actor, he is that good. The character of Caesar has become one of my favorite movie characters of all time. I love this character, Andy Serkis plays him so powerful that the character just has to stand up or walk through a crowd and you can feel his presence and power. Also all the other actors playing apes even though their not the main focus and were just background characters did a good job playing apes. But we also have the main four who follow Caesar. Which are Maurice, Rocket and Luca.

These characters especially Maurice are great because they try to bring Caesar back to earth, try to bring him back on doing the right thing and call him out when he does something bad. Their his best friends and they do what best friends do. Maurice has been my favorite of his friends since the first one, you also tell that Caesar really see’s as a brother. He listens to Maurice all the time and usually goes to him for counseling. One of my favorite parts of the franchise is in the second one when Maurice gets shot by Koba you see that Caesar gets really pissed off, that’s how much he cares for him. Then we get Rocket who has been with him since the first film as well who acts as another advisor. He doesn’t say a whole lot but he does go with Caesar in order to make sure he is safe and comes back home. He’s the only one of Caesar's friends that has also has a family. So this is something that Caesar and him can relate to and can understand Caesar’s motivations in the film.

Now getting to the villain, I thought Woody Harrelson was good. I’m glad that he wasn’t the typical villain where he wanted to do bad things because he was bad, no he actually had a reason for the things he was doing, even though you can tell that he is crazy but I feel he is like that because of his intense anger for what happen in his life. You can also understand how someone like him could come to power and so many followers. His actions have a purpose and despite his extreme ways of dealing with a situation I understood every reasoning he had. These are the best types of villains the ones that think that what they're doing is the right thing no matter if it means killing so many people.

Changing the subject the special effects in this movie or trilogy have never been better. You believe that every ape is their and is real. You can see every bit of detail in their face, which makes you care about them even more. Props go to the animators and the actors, because of their combine effort they really bring these characters to life. Every movement and facial expression is extraordinary and this film deserves and oscar nom for special effects. Some other great technical stuff that I would like to get into is the production design, every place you see feels like a real place and fits in this world. I like the post apocalyptic world that the film portrays. Then to top it all off is the excellent score by Michael Giacchino, bringing an homage of the original score from the classic film tying both franchises together. Also the fact that they don’t shoehorn references from the original Planet of the Apes films is great. There are references but they are done correctly.

Now time for negatives. Their few and minor, but one of them is the villain. Like I said he isn’t a bad villain and Woody Harrelson does a good job playing him, but I wish the villain had a stronger presence. Like someone who could really challenge Caesar mentally and be able to butt heads with him. Like the Joker in The Dark Knight, you see those two as powerful, both characters are so different and yet you can see the struggle that Batman has to face while talking to him. I kinda wanted that for Caesar a mental challenge. Then the marketing for the film is bad and I believe hurt the film. I mean the title is misleading, War there is no war the only war is between the humans not with the apes whatsoever, they should’ve called it something else because I believe people are gonna go in expecting one thing while getting something else. The movie is great but that marketing is stupid. Also one tiny thing the guards in the movie are dumb, they are standing inches away from the apes and they don’t see them communicating with each other. But whatever that really doesn’t matter a whole bunch.

War for the Planet of the Apes is a nice conclusion to the Caesar trilogy and is one of the best films of the year. It has drama, great writing, great characters, actual emotions and one of the best trilogies. This is summer movie that should get nominated for an oscar, and if Andy Serkis doesn’t get nominated then I don’t what he has to do to get recognized. I highly recommend this film you will not be disappointed, regardless if you are a fan of the original films or coming in new.

5 out of 5 stars.

[martinhalldin-blog]

Kong: Skull Island Review

Here’s a little disclaimer before you continue reading this review. I enjoyed my time watching this movie. I liked it as a pop-corn-flick because of its effects and progression story-wise, though I did not like it as a fleshed out, well-crafted movie. I think you know the difference between the two. If you don’t then I strongly suggest you skip this review. I will most likely de-tour a lot and ramble quite a bit. If you can deal with that, thank you. Now let’s get on with it!

Spoilers ahead!!! Read at your own risk!!!

I first off want to talk a little bit about the good things in this movie, because credit where credit is due, this movie was entertaining from beginning till the end. It’s got humor, very hit or miss, but humor nonetheless. It’s got action scenes which were all done extremely well. I don’t think there’s a single action scene in this movie I ever thought was boring or uninteresting. Handled with care, the scenes in which we see King Kong we’re all beautiful. I love the homage to classic action flicks were the heat is distorting the image, making it look wavy, while helicopters are flying towards the sunset with rock-music playing in the background. it seems to me like the filmmakers were trying t make a fun movie more than they were trying to make a deep philosophical drama about the existence of unknown creatures living o earth. But that is also why this movie is as horribly flawed as it is. And here is why:

Pacing. Oh god the pacing. As I said, one thing I really have to give this movie is that it is really good at keeping your interest. There are few scenes were you’re out-right bored which I see as a strength because if there weren’t a lot of action scenes this movie would be boring as all hell. This doesn’t play to the movies advantage though since it got very messy during some scenes. The longest shot (coincidentally it was during an action-sequence) lasted for a whooping 11 seconds… 11… Fuck me if that isn’t on the verge of being a little too long for our precious audience to handle. Who needs good framing, and in that pacing, when we can use cuts to emphasize… I don’t fucking know… how urgent the whole situation is? I mean the characters are stuck on an island full of fantastical creatures never before known to man. Some of them are extremely dangerous and they need to get away from these beasts. Maybe the editors wanted to put us in the characters shoes by never showing anyone for more than a second, because it’s not the characters that’s the stars of this show. It’s fucking King Kong baby, and he is literally everywhere in this god forsaken movie.

The sad part about all of this is the fact that they’ve got some amazing shots in this movie that could have been so great, but they cut those parts out so fast that nothing ever feels fantastical. It just seems rushed. No less does the lack of interesting camera angles help. There’s a scene in the movie were, after just crashing on the island, the crew is venturing out into the wilderness to get to the north side of the island. They then stumble upon a gigantic bison-looking animal. They all stand still, fearing that the creature would attack. But Tom, the brave soul that he is, tells everyone to calm down. The bison creature turns out to be friendly and just wants to eats it’s grass in peace, and so it leaves. This could have been a great first introduction to what this island has to offer, but this scene was so hastily edited it looses all sense of awe that I was feeling during that moment. It’s actually sad because I know that behind all the curtains there is a great movie somewhere. But making a movie too long would scare off a big audience and devoting too much time towards the characters would have taken a lot of time away from what the audience wants to see in a big block-buster movie like this. The creature in the title, the trailers, on the posters, and literally everywhere else. This isn’t so much a fault of this movie in particular, more so the general style of a movie like this. But because this movie has still got these issues I’m counting it as a flaw nonetheless.

Characters, or lack thereof. Characters are extremely weak. I remember Tom Hiddleston’s character being a navigator of sorts. But he never fucking does his job. I remember him saying “Damn I’m so smart I’m just going to fucking point towards the dangerous parts of this island because it’s the quickest way of getting to wherever the fuck. We need to further this plot and if we can’t have an excuse to show more of King Kong because we know people got disappointing to not see any of Godzilla in his movie, we just need to head in King Kong’s direction because I am the navigator and I need things to do. I’m not being payed to do jack shit even though that is exactly what I fucking do.” But I could be remembering things wrong...

Brie Larson being a photographer (and unlike Tom’s character, she does her fucking job). She takes photos of whatever, anything and everything. I don’t remember her ever doing anything else though. She made the tribes people do the fucking peace sign for a photo, which was hysterical, comedical genius. People who’ve never seen a god damn camera before needs to pose for a photo she needs to take and do the fucking peace sign. I can’t see this being in the movie other than for comedic relief. If this is what her character decided to do upon meeting a civilization unknown to the rest of the world then I will consider her a stupid cunt who needs to lay off her shit. Because that is nothing like what a rational human being would do in a situation like the one the characters are in.

Samuel L Jacksson’s character is an army man who hates King Kong because Samuel L Jacksson flew with his team onto Skull Island and got attacked by King Kong, because the fucking army guys shot him, and so him and his team got mushed to shit by the gigantic ape, being the beast that he is. Who the fuck are you to be pissed off when you strike first and then gets shit for it. His piss-poor excuse for a character makes no sense to me because the only thing that drives him to do anything in this movie is his urge to kill King Kong. I get that you can’t flesh out all characters in a satisfying way for a two hour long movie like this, but there is no depth. I guess you could argue that his motivation to kill King Kong isn’t just fueled by his hatred towards him, but also because of his desire to get home. But that could also be said about any character in this movie. Everybody wants to get back home.

And for the last character I really want to bring up is Tian Jing’s character San. Why is she in the movie? What is she if not padding? She talks… Which is great I guess, but she doesn’t add anything to the movie, not as a character nor an actor. Walking out of the theater I was on the verge of laughing just thinking about how nothing the character was. The way they showed her in the first few scenes had me thinking she was going to be a major role, maybe not of the same rank as Tom or Brie’s characters, but still important to the progression of the story. But no. She is literally just there, doing whatever it is her character does. Amazing.

The rest of the cast, John C. Reilly and Toby Kebbell for example, we’re okay for the most part. They played their roles nicely and was actually giving a somewhat decent performance. Most of the cast was, too bad none of them could get a chance to stick out because no time was spent developing their characters because they needed time to show off how cool and exciting King Kong and other animals on this island are.

Enough ranting about characters, let’s move on to something even better:

Tone, the one thing a movie like this desperately needs. This movie has no idea what tone it wants to settle for. Now I know that a movie can have multiple tones and switch between them. Many great movies has done that successfully. Just look at The Trueman Show blending comedy and drama for example. But this movie is trying very hard to be a mix between an intense action packed dark-drama, comedy, and a monster-feature. There was one scene in the beginning of the movie were the research team flies in on skull island, meeting King Kong for the first time, and the fucking nerve the writers have to murder basically everyone but the main characters in one of the most intense and brutal helicopter scenes I’ve seen in recent years, and one of the fucks in the helicopter asks “Is that a monkey?” HOLY FUCK THE OBSERVATION SKILLS YOU’VE GOT DISPOSABLE ARMY MAN #23. Yes it fucking is, team of writers, making the script for fucking King Kong, the most famous ape since that one that got shot in the zoo a few months back. (God bless you, sweet child.) I honestly admire the team of writers who can come up with this shitty excuse of a “joke” and the nerve it must have taken to put it into the final product. No shame.

I can’t get over the fucking deaths in this movie. This connects nicely with tone because again, this movie fails to jump between being a dark-drama and a comedy. The writers seem to be unaware of one huge and important aspect of any movie: timing. If you nail the timing, you’re making good shit. When a character dies in this movie they all have to fucking blurt out a shitty one-liner. “oh fuck…” or “god dammit…” are only a few examples. Why do they all do this before dying? If it’s for a joke then you can’t repeat the same kind for joke for every major death because it’s extremely lazy. Repetition kills humor.

Where are they? Whenever there’s a scene… like… any, there’s a noticeable haze around each character. That haze is what we professionals call “shit green/blue-screening”. Was all of this movie shot in one studio somewhere in Hollywood? Probably not. There were some jungle scenes and some shots inside a temple that all looked like it was recorded on a real location. Though with the amount of processing on the imagery it’s hard to tell. It looks nice, but not necessarily convincing.

Oh my god the music. Why? Why… Omg why go from diegetic to nondiegetic music in your action movie if you’re not going to do anything interesting with the concept? Swiss Army Man had the characters start going “DAA, DA DA DA DAAH” from nowhere and they built the entire fucking soundtrack around that. It was incredibly executed and worked really well for the tone of the film. In this movie though, some guy starts a record player and that is now playing clear as day in the background of a shot, for entire scenes in some instances. It’s not a huge problem, it’s just not interesting enough to put as much emphasis on as they are in the movie. And if they didn’t show so many god damn record-players being started, I wouldn’t have cared enough to bring it up. But they did, and so did I.

Not to mention the songs they used. This could easily have been written in the “tone” paragraph but I think it fits better here. Here’s a short list of songs they decided to license for this film:

The Chambers Brothers - Time Has Come Today

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Run Through the Jungle

The Stooges - Down On The Street

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

I know that these songs brings back a sense of nostalgia for the 70’s, and it certainly did for me, but when comparing it to what the movie was showing you they just don’t fit at all. Were some scenes shows you death and chaos, other scenes will be happy-go-lucky with these songs playing. Like wtf. It’s such a harsh contrast between what would realistically be going on during a situation like this. The group of people you are with are the only ones left after the attacks of King Kong, you wont make it three days without being killed by whatever could be out there in the wild, and the songs they choose to play over these scenes are… these… I dont’ know. I just think you should be more considerate when picking songs for your movies. Either you make your movie more lighthearted and not as dark, or keep it as is and use more fitting music. Although i see this more as a preferred taste than anything. Subjectivity is always important when it comes to movies, but I still feel it is important to give your two cents on something that is so mish-mash as this movie honestly is.

Other minor gripes. Where the ever living fuck did King Kong come from in the scene with the bison creature? Brie Larson’s character should have, not only heard King Kong walking up to the hurt bison creature, but she would also have fucking seen him walk up from behind the bison, seeing as King Kong is “the size of a building” in the word of the one army fuck earlier in the movie. I’d expect King Kong to fucking sound like one as well. There were no sound building up to his appearance, except for his roar right before the camera pans up towards him.

Why were the tribes people not explored more? We were taught about the gods they believe in, the fact that they don’t talk too much, they share their land and we can see on them that they’ve got some kind of body-paint covering most of their bodies. But we aren’t sure about how they communicate with one another. We have no clue how they’ve managed to stay alive in an environment at hostile as Skull Island for so long, when an army is wiped out in a heart-beat. It’s something I would have loved for them to have elaborated a bit more on. I was genuinely interested in knowing more about their existence.

Fuck the scene were John Ortiz’s character get’s taken away by monster birds and eaten right in front of the rest of the cast. There’s literally no reason for it to happen. There were no signs of the birds catching up on them. There was barely any reaction from the other characters, more than a “He’s gone, nothing to say.” by John C. Reilly’s character. They then swiftly move on to the next scene. Was his character so uninteresting to the writers that they just wanted to kill him off without ever expanding on who he is, how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking? I mean I can only assume they killed him off because there was literally nothing else for him to do in the movie. He didn’t say much, nor did he do much. I guess I see why they did it, but I don’t agree with it. Not one bit because the scene is dumb and the characters are awful for barely giving a shit about it.

Final thoughts! Oh my god this fucking movie. Even though it is cheesy, filled with death and destruction, rock music, and everything that could be considered “cool”, it’s still got its fair share of flaws. But i honestly kind of likes it. It’s like the room, just not as unintentionally bad and not as unintentionally funny. I could totally see myself seeing this with friends again some day, when we’re bored and just want something fun to watch. But I cant see myself digging deeper into what this movie has got to offer story-wise. It’s got great ideas, like the underground spaces they kept bringing up throughout the movie. It’s just a little sad that that idea wasn’t utilized at all. And it’s sad that things that I could have seen being made into this movie were cast aside for other ideas. But it turned out okay in the end. Okay.

——

See it for laughs. Not for substance.

4 / 10

——

[threeoutoffive]

BEST OF 2017

It’s almost a new year which means it’s once again time for my personal Top Ten movies of the past twelve months.

There have definitely been some less-than-great movies this year from true turkeys such as The Mummy and Alien: Covenant to movies that didn’t quite live up to my own expectations such as Justice League and Jigsaw. I would also add Star Wars: The Last Jedi to this latter category as, whilst not a bad movie, it personally left me feeling a little underwhelmed and didn’t live up to The Force Awakens or even last year’s Rogue One, both of which made my Top Ten.

Without further ado, please enjoy my Top Ten of 2017.

10. LIFE

With sci-fi blockbusters Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Blade Runner 2049 smashing this year’s box-office, it would be all too easy for this sci-fi/horror released way back in March to be forgotten about. However, with a great cast and even better story, it would a real shame if this were to happen. Life is essentially “Alien meets The Blob” and follows a crew of scientists on a space station who are the first people to discover signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the form of a small one-celled organism. When the organism quickly begins to learn, grow and evolve, they realise that the organism could be far more dangerous than anticipated. Released in the same year as Alien: Covenant, it manages to be ten times scarier and a hundred times more necessary with a killer ending to boot. A must-see for any sci-fi fans.

9. LOGAN

Out of all the superhero franchises, the X-Men cinematic universe has always been the most willing to push the boundaries and step out of its comfort zone; see last year’s Deadpool and next year’s horror-themed The New Mutants for evidence of this. Even with this in mind, I don’t think anybody expected such a stunning, artistic piece for Jackman’s final appearance as Wolverine. Jackman is fantastic as Logan at his most tragic (and violent) but I felt Stewart’s performance as the aged Professor X was a personal highlight and I would put the “psychic seizure” moments up there with my favourite scenes of the year. If this is definitely the last we see of this incarnation of Wolverine on screen - a high likelihood thanks to the recent Fox-Disney deal - there could be no better way to go out.

8. THE DISASTER ARTIST

I admit I am a sucker for so-called “bad movies” and followers of my yearly movie lists will know the Sharknado movies have appeared more than one occasion. Needless to say, when I originally watched The Room - often referred to as the “Citizen Kane of bad movies” - I was blown away in the best way. As it turns out, the behind-the-scenes story of The Room is as fun and outright bonkers as the movie itself. The Disaster Artist follows the story of director Tommy Wiseau and wannabe actor Greg Sestero as they accidentally make one of the worst films ever made. Those looking for answers to some of the most-asked questions (how did Tommy finance the movie? where is Tommy really from?) may be left wanting but, within the confines of the movie itself, Tommy’s question-dodging makes for some of the funniest moments of the movie. As well as being a great movie about filmmaking in general, it also manages to be one of the funniest films of the year. The Franco brothers are fantastic as the co-leads but I genuinely believe James Franco should be in Oscar talks for his spot-on portrayal of Tommy. Considering Tommy’s misguided belief that The Room should receive an Oscar, I feel it would be hilarious for The Disaster Artist to be nominated.

7. MOTHER!

This is likely to be the most controversial and divisive movie on my list this year but I personally thought it was absolutely great and had to be in my Top Ten. Aronofsky has made some strange movies in the past but it’s fair to say this movie is way more abstract and unsettling that any before it which is why it seems to have alienated some of its audience. The movie follows a young woman whose life starts to unravel when her poet husband invites a stranger into their home. Saying much more would mean going into spoiler territory and Mother! is a movie that greatly benefits from going in blind. There is a lot to be read from the movie which is essentially one big allegory but, even without looking for hidden layers, I found Mother! to be one hell of an unsettling psychological horror. One scene in particular towards the end - those who have seen it will know exactly what I’m talking about - truly shocked me and caused an audience-member I watched it with to actually cry out in horror. Any horror movie that causes such an involuntary, visceral response from anybody deserves a place on my list.

6. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

Since his introduction to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) in Captain America: Civil War, I never thought for a moment that I would be disappointed by the new Spider-Man movie. That said, it managed to even surpass my expectations to become one of my favourite movies of the year. Tom Holland is an inspired choice for Peter Parker and I feel he manages to combine the characters of Peter and Spider-Man more seamlessly than either McGuire or Garfield before him. There were more MCU links that I’d expected and even more of Tony Stark than the trailers had suggested. However, rather than suggesting an lack of trust in the Spider-Man property, I felt that it actually grounded Spider-Man more in the universe the audience are used to and believe it would have actually been odd if they hadn’t taken this direction. Michael Keaton as The Vulture was another great choice and, even out of his mechanical flight-suit, he is a worthy opponent for the titular hero. Here’s to hoping for many more Spider-Man appearances in the MCU as, if they do it right, Peter Parker could soon become the real heart of the franchise.

5. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

When news broke that a live-action Beauty And The Beast remake was being made, most peoples’ first question was ‘why?’ The more negative critics said it smacked of unoriginality and cynicism on Disney’s part but, after watching it, it became clear that it better than the sum of its parts. For me, if the upcoming Disney remakes are half as good as Beauty And The Beast, I would be more than happy to check them out. It seems like the entire cast and crew had a blast making the movie but the stand-out performance is Luke Evans who puts his heart and soul into bringing the arrogant, villainous Gaston to life and clearly has fun hamming it up to the max. The general plot and songs are almost identical to the original animation and it’s clear the filmmakers have taken a “ain’t-broke-don’t-fix” approach but still add enough changes and a couple of original tunes to make it feel fresh. Possibly the most re-watchable of all the movies on my Top Ten this year.

4. PADDINGTON 2

When the first Paddington movie came out I went in with fairly low expectations. After all, how good could a quaint movie with a marmalade-loving CGI bear as its lead really be? However it managed to completely charm me in a way that I hadn’t expected and the sheer niceness of it and old-fashioned aesthetic totally won me over. Expectations were therefore high for the sequel and so I was pleased to find my expectations were more than exceeded.  The story is so simple – Paddington wants to buy his aunt a present for her 100th birthday – but quickly escalates into a fantastic set of scenes where Paddington finds a job and eventually finds himself locked up in prison. The idea of throwing a young, idealistic character such as Paddington against tough, grizzled characters like the prisoners he is forced to live with is a touch of genius and the end result is more charming and heart-warming than any recent movie I can remember.

3. WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

When Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was released in 2011, I wasn’t actually a fan of the original Apes movies. However I was quickly won over by the story of Caesar the chimp and have enjoyed every movie in the franchise since. The third in the rebooted series is very much the end of Caesar’s tale and focuses on him and his group of apes as they attempt to survive one final stand against a group of desperate human survivors led by Woody Harrelson’s Colonel. Whilst Harrelson is great in the villainous role, full kudos goes to Andy Serkis whose mo-cap genius truly brings Caesar to life and the story is so enthralling it is almost easy to forget what a technology marvel War really is. Many of the shots of Caesar (along with the other apes) are done in extreme close-up which, even in the prior Apes movies, would have not been possible or at least would not look as incredible as they do in this movie. Wherever the Apes series goes now, it’s safe to say that this is a fantastic, fitting end to the current story arc and one of the most emotionally moving stories of the year.

2. THOR: RAGNAROK

Just when I thought Spider-Man: Homecoming would be the funniest Marvel movie of the year, Thor: Ragnarok came along and became probably the funniest Marvel movie of all time! When it was revealed that Taika Waititi would be directing the latest Thor movie, some people thought his particular comedic style could steamroll the film and reduce any potential stakes set up by the existing MCU movies. It clear after watching the movie that this is not the case; I mean did anyway expect the total destruction of Asgard to occur in this movie?! Thor: Ragnarok is effectively a ‘buddy movie” with Thor and The Hulk teaming up, along with Loki and a ragtag group of warriors, against Hela the goddess of death. Whilst the stakes are as high as they have ever been, the comedy factor is the biggest take-away from the movie and I simply cannot review it without mentioning Waititi’s role as benevolent rock-creature Korg who acts as a vessel for the director’s comedic chops and is by far one of the funniest MCU characters to date. Whilst the big event lies with next year’s long-awaited Infinity War, audiences have been truly spoiled after receiving such great MCU movies this year. Here’s to many more ahead!

1. IT: CHAPTER ONE

As a fan of all things horror-related, there was no way IT wouldn’t be at the top of this year’s list. It took 31 years but they finally did it. They finally made an adaptation of – in my opinion – Stephen King’s magnum opus that is worthy of the title and a whole lot of fun to boot. The basic story follows a group of children who are forced to fight for survival against a supernatural, killer clown that is killing the townsfolk. However the tale has always been much more than that; a coming-of-age story, a slice of nostalgic Americana, a twisted “adventure” tale of sorts… Everything that the 1990 TV movie got wrong, the remake manages to get right, from the children interacting the way children actually act with each other (see the 90’s version for the very definition of overacting) to removal of the more schmaltzy moments.  There have been some criticisms of the amount of CGI in the movie – required, I would say, to pull off many of the weirder scenes from the book – and the lack of true scares. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that the movie could have been a lot scarier, Skarsgard’s performance of Pennywise the Dancing Clown manages to be extremely unsettling nonetheless and I feel it may even top Tim Curry’s from the original for me. IT has become the highest-grossing horror movie of all time and it’s great to see it’s been commercially as well as critically acclaimed. We have to wait until 2019 for It: Chapter Two but I have no doubt it’ll be worth waiting for...

Well that’s that! It’s been another great year of movies and it would be utterly dismissive not to add some honourable mentions for the likes of Wonder Woman, Get Out, Baby Driver, Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 2, Kong: Skull Island, John Wick 2 and The Lego Batman Movie, all of which were pretty damn great and made it very difficult choosing my Top Ten this year.

2018 looks to be a great year ahead in cinema with superhero big-hitters Deadpool 2, Black Panther, Ant-Man And The Wasp, The New Mutants, Aquaman and a little movie called Avengers: Infinity War as well as The Predator, Ready Player One, Insidious: The Last Key and, probably my most anticipated movie if next year Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

See you all on the other side!