#my shit movie reviews

[the-sage-libriomancer]

Rewatched Princess and the Frog today and honestly it feels more like a celebration of Disney's 100 years than Wish. A classic fairy tale respun in interesting ways while still being undeniably Disney? Check. A traditional story with modern twists and a (narratively) strong female protagonist? Check. A return to 2D animation in a time when the medium was dying out? Check. Hell, it even takes place in the same time period (1920s) that Walt Disney released the first animated feature film and started a hundred years of magic. There are multiple references to older Disney movies, from classics like Pinocchio and Sword in the Stone to (then) recent films like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. It features the fucking wishing star! In a more narratively sound manner than Disney's actual 100th year celebration!

And even beyond that, Princess and the Frog feels like it pays tribute to the magic of magic - the power of believing in stories, of having a dream, of working hard to reach your happy ending while never losing sight of what's really important. There is so much effort put into this movie and it shows: the animation is gorgeous, the story is creative and structurally sound, and behind the scenes reveals that the producers put their backs into making sure both the African American aspect and the New Orleans cultural aspect were accurately depicted. It was the first Disney movie in over a decade to return to the Broadway musical format, and they literally had to dust off the abandoned 2D art tools because the company hadn't used them since 2004.

Princess and the Frog was a labor of love through and through, a heartfelt tip of the hat to Disney's legacy while still being its own story. I don't know what could be more celebratory of Walt Disney's dream than that.

[bmpmp3]

sorry to be a bit of a hater but i do wish youtubers weren't so scared of making their videos just like, "reviews", whys everything gotta be a "video essay" all the time. every day my recommendations are filled with 40 minute videos titled "_____: An Underrated Masterpiece" where the first like five minutes are reading the wikipedia definition of "masterpiece" in a somber voice with dramatic themed text on screen. please just tell me how good or bad you think something is and use the rest of the runtime to explain why. you dont need to put on all these airs

[starrysharks]

okkkk i watched the first episode of hazbin hotel and i think it has a lot of missed potential. there are actually quite a few goods - the animation for the most part is nice, the voice acting is great (especially keith david as the cat thing), and the songs are alright. the show brings up interesting concepts but the main problem is that it doesn't really execute them in an interesting way, mainly due to the way the characters are written.

every character - with the exception of alastor, charlie and nifty - has a generally "vulgar" personality, ranging from that being a primary trait to basically the entire character (based on the 1st episode alone). they're all written in a similar way, which means that character interactions are very basic funnyman/straightman endeavors with little variation - angel dust says something dumb and vaggie chatises him, or angel dust says something sexual and husk chatises him. that formula basically extends to most if not all of their interactions so far, so the dynamics between characters are similar and frankly uninteresting. angel dust especially (i really don't like him sorry) is so far just a vessel for sexual jokes, and we don't really get anything from his character other than "he's horny", which isn't really good for your first episode imo. the language the characters use is also similar so there's little humorous contrast. there aren't really "jokes" with setup and payoff - just characters saying and doing out of pocket things.

the worst example of this is with the angels, particularly adam. i think that the angel with him (lute i think?) would actually serve his purpose in the story better based on her character - somewhat regal, orderly, but most importantly uses a completely different language to the devils. this sort of contrast would've been way more interesting imo - have the angels be holier-than-thou (quite literally), talk charlie down, make her feel less than or even like a "sinner" - which would be cool because as far as i can tell charlie tries her best to be as good as possible! that would be a unique way to bring out her angry side but instead adam just acts like any other devil, even worse than them, and maybe that's on purpose but i don't think it's very cool...... it would be fun to play off the watcher's preconceived notions and ideas on angels and devils after establishing how charlie deviates from the norm, maybe even having the angels be like "wow you lashing out proves devils are all evil", but now i'm rambling...

other than that, i think the story introduces its main plot points too early. give the concept some time to breathe and establish itself before dropping the bombshell that the extermination is to be 6 months early, damn,,, but i'd have to watch every episode to give an opinion on how they handle that, which i likely won't do. i have some small nitpicks, like the weird lack of buildup to most songs and the kind of weird pacing, but in short, based on the first episode, it's just a compilation of missed opportunities and edgy swear-humor offset by some genuinely interesting and good ideas. this isn't a review of the entire series, by the way - just a "initial thoughts" thing. if you really are interested in the concept, i'd say give it a chance, but please be aware of the creator's actions before you support it monetarily. (i watched the first episode through other means as i genuinely dislike the creator due to her bigotry, of which others have described more eloquently than me - it's very easy to find "call-outs" and critiques of her actions). 4/10, where is verblase :/

[omeletcat]

Odie transforms into big daddy vibes?? wtf?? no i will not give context for this look through my posts if u rly wanna know i rly wanted to share this clip of a movie i found.

[cloudsoffire]

big godzilla fan but i will never in my life interact with the fandom based on what i've seen on here

[drunkonimagination]

kung fu panda four my beloved, they could never make me hate you

[lushpeonies]

i've watched the get low scene a stupid amount of times but it's just too good. like... alex being an absolute dreamboat dancing on the other side of the floor while henry sneaks peeks at him and awkwardly tries to bop along?? and of course the way alex looks at him when everyone drops low and henry gets all shy and blushy? aforementioned genuinely sweet/serious moment happening as lil jon screams about shaking ass which is also the funniest thing ever? matthew lopez did suchhh a great job capturing the heady feeling of a crush damn

ETA apparently kyle hanagami the LEGEND choreographer was behind this so no wonder it was so damn smooth, thank you king

[danothan]

you ever notice how many similarities there are between jinx and jason todd:

- orphaned + raised in infamously fucked up city

- underlying violence/anger at young age, never properly redirected by guardian

- bomb trauma + imagery

- involved in gangs/drug-dealing

- bazooka moment

- “came back wrong” trope, revived by mysterious neon liquid (shimmer/lazarus pit)

- forgives initial betrayal (abandoning jinx/not saving jason), but is truly betrayed by the aftermath (befriending an enforcer/letting the joker live)

- final act family reunion made into a performance with unwilling audience (caitlyn/joker kidnapped + bound + held at gunpoint)

- feels replaced by family (caitlyn, tim)

- forces family to make symbolic choice: “it’s them or me”

- when family is unable to choose, reunion ends in an explosion

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN god hold on this needs to be rb’d with a side-by-side comparison

[officialkendallroy]

journaling is so awesome you guys you should try it

[wavetapper]

i cannot count the amount of times ive pretended to watch a movie or a series or whatever just to have some connection with a customer at work. im a professional liar

[finalset]

watched the power of the dog and now I am Thinking

[linesonscreens]

Stuff I Watched in 2024 – Orion and the Dark (Movie):

What is it?

Orion and the Dark is DreamWorks trying as hard as humanly possible to make their own Inside Out. It's directed by a guy who worked in the art department on a bunch of the Troll movies and is about a boy with an anxiety disorder befriending the personification of the dark.

Things of Note:

Oh shit is that the voice of Luca? They really do want to be Pixar.

And it was written by the guy who wrote... Being John Malkovich!?

Based on a children's book with the same name by Emma Yarlett. Haven't read it because it's for literal babies but what little is up for free looks pretty cute.

Into the Spiderverse really ruined most traditional CG animation for me. The movie looks good but it just can't hold a candle to some of the more stylized stuff that's come out recently. Also, some of the humans look a bit off.

The movie introduces a weird framing device towards the middle that threatens to be pointless and dumb but more than justifies itself by the end.

God damn, Dark. Your friends kind of suck.

I found the third act fight (the kind you see in every movie like this) forced and dumb but everything else about Night and Orion's friendship was well handled.

The movie makes a lot of effort to go in a different direction than you might be expecting early on. I appreciated that.

VERY solid ending that has a lot of fun with it's premise.

Final Verdict:

Fun and surprisingly heartfelt. Not perfect by any means but ~leagues~ better than a direct to Netflix Pixar clone has any right to be. It should have at least gotten a theatrical release IMO.

On the other hand the main character is named Orion and at no point did his belt become important. 0/10 stars.

Stuff I've watched so far:

Orion and the Dark (Surprisingly good. 0/10 stars).

Day Job (Very Australian)

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[hellishgayliath]

Never seen the nightmare on elm street movies and have watched the majority of friday the 13th movies (still debating on seeing jason x and the remake) and gotta say Freddy vs jason is so damn entertaining to watch. I don't know shit bout the stuff that happens in the other freddy movies other than the videos i see people discuss bout it but the characters in the movie lay out a lot of the plot points that helped me get the general gist of things. Dunno if that acting is just how it is in the other Freddy movies, but I had fun watching it.

[synthmusic91]

quick thoughts on past lives (2023) dir. celine song

the movie is very. sparse. what was there was okay, not poorly executed, but nothing was really new. it felt like the movie wanted to send a certain message and pushed the characters through that rather than 1. letting the characters breathe and finding the message that way or 2. finding the characterization that would land them at the intended (and well-thought-out, right? right???) conclusion. sadly this didn't happen. the themes were quite muddled. past lives is a movie that seeks to be more than what it is and thus only succeeds in being dogmatic.

i know hae sung and na young were each other's childhood friends and first loves, but there's an entire life beyond childhood. why didn't they get over each other*? admittedly there might be a bit of a culture difference here, because I've never really understood the thing with childhood best friends that pops up so much in Korean and Japanese media, but. people grow up. hae sung's first love stopped existing when na young emigrated. for a movie that prides itself on pragmatism, it ignores that simple fact that should've been evident a quarter of the way in: na young is gone.

that's pretty sad, but then why was there twenty-four years of grief on hae sung's part, when he's never had to feel the ache of leaving his homeland? was his childhood really the crowning moment in his life, for na young to be the source of so many of his ideals? in that case, this should be a different kind of movie because this poor man's life must be bleak as hell.

also, this is in contrast to nora, who has every reason to mourn her past life IN KOREA. that's what this is really about, isn't it? she only looks him up as a joke (*so my bad, I guess she really did get over him). throughout the movie, the reason for her grief has little to do with hae sung specifically and everything to do with the pull she feels between the US and Korea.

then arthur. we don't see much of him but he poses a lot of interesting questions during that bedtime conversation that nora doesn't give any satisfactory answers to. like, how DOES he make her world bigger? nora's responses either 1. dodge the question or 2. sound like she's lying (because it's out of character given her behavior so far).

those last two paragraphs really solidify it for me: adult nora is a callous person. i don't know if this has anything to do with emigrating, but it really doesn't matter---what matters is that we know 1. she has grief and 2. she clearly hasn't processed it ("[re: being a crybaby] I realized no one really cared, so I stopped."). she's hiding from it!! she's been hiding from it for the entire fucking movie!!!

this is what irks me about a lot of relationships between white men and asian women in general (and in case someone crawls up my ass for this, i don't mean all of them, love is love, or so i'm told)---there's a lot of hiding on both sides. working to bridge the culture gap can function as a distraction from one's own issues. and there's an escapist and cowardly comfort in knowing that the other party doesn't understand how mundane and mortifying they really feel like they are. that's what I feel like happened between arthur and nora. to nora, arthur is evidence that she belongs in the US, and to arthur, nora is someone exotic and unreachable, and as long as they remain like that they can avoid thinking about how mundane their lives really are. arthur challenges this avoidance during the bedtime talk, but nora doesn't let it get anywhere. she is HIDING FROM HERSELF!!

unfortunately, since nora is a self insert, the writer/director doesn't notice ANY OF THIS!! and that's the thing about real life, and one's own experiences. these things don't fit into narratives!!! it's not as easy as recreating a single experience (in this case, her childhood sweetheart and her husband together at a bar)!!! that happenstance was the shell of an effect of a million different factors, not just a boy's tepid and half-formed feelings for a callous little girl. this entire movie is grounded in the ghost of an effect of something that might've touched me but didn't actually.

lastly, making her self insert always get the best grades in her class and also having that guy (who is kind and normal and NOT the deranged stalker that realistically would be the only kind of person hung up on her for 24 fucking years) be hung up on her for 24 fucking years all while she barely acknowledges his existence...is extremely fucking cringe

[ellariasand]

who the fuck let me be a film critic

[snazum]

me trying to stroll thru the ted nivison tag on tumblr for some sick art X READER, IMAGINE, OTHER THINGS I CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF EVEN THO IT'S QUITE LITERATLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME XDD