#the visual design of this movie is so good wtf

[madpiemagpie]

i just watched pacific rim for the first time and dang, tumblr did not lie to me, that was a fun movie

but like instead of becoming obsessed w ms. mako mori like i expected, i cannot stop thinking about the color grading

[gilly-moon]

PERCY JACKSON TV SHOW REVIEW

(SPOILER ALERT! I Did Not Like It)

It has been 16 long years since I first picked up The Lightning Thief, and once again...I am faced with an adaption of one of my favorite books that is so painfully disappointing. And now that the tv show is completely out, it's time to purge the collection of thoughts I compiled on it:

Starting on one of the (few) positives, the cast was incredible. I know for a FACT that they are all wonderfully talented individuals, and I aim all of my gripes with their acting at the directors and writers.

So much telling. So little showing. Stop explaining the plot and the mythology to me. SHOW it to me. Explain later only when necessary.

And yet, some things weren't explained at all! I know, as someone who read the books, what blue food means to Sally and Percy. But the show never explains its significance. To the unknowing watcher, it's just a weird quirk, not a small rebellion between a woman and her kid against the life they're stuck in. It baffles me what the writers chose to over explain versus under explain. There's no clear reason for either behavior, and it permeates the writing in a bad way.

There's also a lot of the kids just being dragged from point A to point B by an outside force, rather than their own actions. They never really felt alone or even in danger on their quest, because gods kept showing up to help them along. I did not like that.

These kids aren't allowed to be kids. I stg you could make them teens or young adults and the dialogue/their actions would be the same. That's not good.

Why do they always have all of the information!!!?? They immediately know it's Medusa. Echidna introduces herself and they immediately know who she is and that it's a Chimera in her bag. They immediately know what the Lotus casino is. Why? It makes the stakes feel so low, rather than the mad dash scramble in the books that happens a lot when characters have to remember the myths and how to beat a monster mid-fight. And it makes all these scenarios so boring!!!

Also so many of the fight/chase scenes were boring or anticlimactic. The only good ones I can think of were in the first two episodes, and then one with Ares. Someone actually slipped in some good choreo in those few fights, but completely forgot to add it in to....the rest of the show....

There's very little about the show that feels magical. CG is used, obviously, but at times it feels like they should've gone further with it, or used it even more, and they just....didn't. The visuals end up feeling clunky and not very cohesive, with zero whimsy. Hate to make this comparison, but the Harry Potter movies were VERY good at showing the lines between the magical world and the muggle world, and the tension that occurs when the two interact. There is....none of that in the PJO series. Zip. Zero. And the mythological CG that is there is more often than not static or boring.

Break for a positive! I actually really liked that Percy was learning mythology from Mythomagic. The show wasn't really consistent on that point - saying it was his mom instead most of the time - but that was such a fun and clever way to work in the card game and make it plot-relevant. As someone with ADHD, I can confirm I would also learn mythology WAY better if it was for my favorite game.

Ok back to the negatives - Wtf is up with the portrayal of the gods? For one, they're boring to look at. Nothing about their designs makes them feel 'godly' and while that's ok with some gods (Hermes for one, tho I have issues with his weird beige sweat suit look) why is Ares just some regular ass biker dude? Where are the flaming eyes?? And radical skin-leather bike?? He couldn't even have a CUSTOM bike with red bloody paint and boar heads and chain link handles or something???

And the gods are way too fucking nice. Sorry. I don't have an issue with Hermes being nice but. Ares having a heart-to-heart with Grover? When his presence is supposed to stir everyone up into a rage? And Hephaestus sees Annabeth refuse to give up on her friend and just goes 'awww, ok, you and Percy can go, and take my rival's shield back to him too cause I'm just so nice.' Sorry, no. I'm fine with gods being helpful - Hephaestus helps (reluctantly) in the later books. But it was at a price! A favor for a favor! Not a 'get out of jail free' card just because he was moved by normal ass human compassion!!

Hades gets his own bullet point because who the fuck was that. As a child of Hades, I'm offended that this sweet fruity guy just wanders up and goes 'hey, how's it going, wanna snack?' like, that is NOT my dad. My dad had skeleton soldiers filling his halls and a garden of jewels and a voice so loud it rattled the whole Underworld. Whoever that was in the show was a pathetic imitation.

The point of the first series is to work up to Percy throwing it in the gods' faces how awful and neglectful they've been of demigods and specifically their own children. Demanding that they do better. But if they're already showing compassion and 'humanity' in the context of the first book/first season of the tv show....Percy starts running out of ammo against the gods. There's no coherent story progression where Percy spends years seeing the worst of the gods and the best of them at very distinct, important times of his life and his story. It no longer feels like a massive change they have to make in the system, something that deserves a godly favor for Percy to demand of them. Luke no longer feels like his fury at the gods is wholly justified. The whole series begins to crumble because the gods already have a good reason for being how they are, rather than being thoroughly selfish assholes who only dote on demigods when they do something really cool. And the exceptions are presented at intelligent moments that prove to Percy when he most needs it that the gods can be better, they just need a forceful push to get there.

That being said, where was Percy getting the info that the other gods were feeling scared and abused by Zeus? I love the balls on this kid, but like...when did he make these assumptions and why? That whole scene felt really unearned.

Also Olympus was BORING. And EMPTY. And DARK. It looked like we were just back in the Underworld. Which. The Underworld was fucking boring too. Some neat visuals, sure, but put that in some high fantasy show. Not this one.

One last positive before my final point - there were some pretty good jokes scattered around. Not nearly enough, but I did really enjoy the Dionysus introduction and a handful of lines from Percy. Also releasing the animals in Vegas - Grover being like 'oh, you were worried about the humans' got me good.

The final word that kept spinning through my head after finishing episode 8 was: Pathetic. Luke's betrayal was pathetic. No deadly scorpion. No commitment to that period of time in the books we were convinced he really was evil. And Gabe just stumbling on the package with Medusa's head in it? PATHETIC. Percy outright asked his mom if she was being abused in the book, and she took fate into her own hands to statue-ify that bastard. But no. The show was through-and-through just a pathetic, watered-down version of an incredibly fun, emotional, brutal, exciting series of books. I know there was a lot of heart behind this production, but I did not feel it at all. But what else should I have expected from modern Disney?

[anhed-nia]

I'm sorry about this post. It's really long and I don't know if I had a point to make! But I didn't realize I was maybe just torturing myself and others until I was neck deep in it, and now I feel obligated to post it due to sunk cost fallacy. Sorry again. I guess this is how you find out who your real friends are.

In the pursuit of my masochistic project of understanding the enduring Phantom of the Opera phenomenon, last night I spontaneously went to a rep screening of Joel Schumacher's Oscar-nominated 2004 adaptation. This was a singalong audience participation type of thing, which I would usually avoid at all costs especially for something I have no emotional investment in, but it was just too strange that it was randomly happening while I'm in the middle of this assignment, so I went! We all got fake roses and Phantom masks and rubber bracelets that say OPERA GHOST and little artificial candles to light up during the big chandelier scenes, and there was a singing contest before the movie started and I almost had a panic attack, but I managed to maintain my sense of humor. Apparently the climate control was totally broken and it was oppressively hot in the house, to the point that I wound up sitting there in a painted-on Uniqlo undershirt for most of the movie, and I couldn't bring myself to get dressed again for about half an hour after it was over. I walked down to the bar attached to the theater where the queen running their drag bingo night and the bartender were laughing about how they should leave the heat blasting because everyone was buying a lot more drinks. The bartender quizzed us drinkers about which theaters were we in and were they hot; I said "This is not an outdoor shirt!" and everyone laughed. I'm so glad I wasn't wearing a weird bra.

Anyway.

It would be too much to say I had high hopes for the Schumacher PHANTOM, but I had a certain amount of optimism about it; he seemed like a really good choice for this irredeemably kitschy product, but the truth is that the movie is completely neutered. It really needed some of that BATMAN FOREVER juice, but the whole thing just has no energy. Apparently Andrew Lloyd Webber had "complete creative control" and I think it really shows, it's very limp and undistinguished, and simultaneously pretentious and stupid. Sometimes things can be described as "lavish" because they are so exquisitely realized, and sometimes they are "lavish" on account of the fact that they are just extremely busy, even though no single detail rises to the surface as memorable or remarkable. Even the chandelier, which is as much a staple of this story as the mask, is just not that impressive. There it is, a big old chandelier, it's round and it's shiny and you know exactly what's going to happen to it.

Any comparison with the 1925 Lon Chaney version is inevitably unflattering; the costumes are bad, the staging is boring--I mean there is just no excuse for a big Hollywood production to NOT go ham on the masquerade ball, WTF?!--and of course, the Phantom himself is really uninspiring. The most important part of any Phantom iteration is the unmasking, and this movie has TWO (2) whole unmasking scenes and both of them suck! We all know that no Phantom design has been remotely as good as Chaney's nearly 100-year old version, but still, Joel Schumacher has worked on movies with some really freaky makeup effects, he should have given us something better than this. The whole thing just feels like they were trying as hard as possible not to surprise or offend anyone. I blame ALW.

I see this image and I hear wind whistling through their ears.

The problem with the unmasking sceneS here (besides the lack of visual impact) is that they both feel really unmotivated. Actually, this is almost ALWAYS a problem. It's the biggest moment in the story and you shouldn't be asking yourself WHY it is happening. Plus, the reason why it is happening lies with the heroine Christine, and if your main character's motivations for doing something so outrageous are unclear or uncompelling, then your whole story is in trouble. As a viewer you can tell yourself that she does it because she is overwhelmed by curiosity, or overpowered by a compassionate urge to see the Phantom as he is, or that she sees the unmasking as a way of defanging her captor...but you shouldn't have to tell yourself all that stuff. The movie should tell you. And who the fuck is Christine anyway, shouldn't we know? In other versions Christine is so devoted to her career that she readily sacrifices her love life and embraces the absurdity of a sort of spirit of opera communicating with her and guiding her path. Some versions dramatize the conflict between her monastic commitment to opera and her desire for real relationships. In the AWL version, Christine is chiefly devoted to getting attention. She falls in love, from minute to minute, with anyone who looks at her long enough. She's in love with her dead dad, so she's just frantically in search of a living boyfriend and she seems pretty indiscriminate about it. It's kind of gross and pathetic and it makes it really hard to care about her or the burning question of which boyfriend will she choose.

I've never said this before in my entire life, but Minnie Driver is the best thing in this movie--followed by the old queens who take over the theater, followed by all of the bit players, followed by, at the very bottom, the main cast. None of the leads are really inspired casting choices, but it's hard to blame them for their output because there is nothing they could possibly do with such empty roles. Who is Christine? The girl who has to pick a boyfriend. Who is Raoul? The guy who wants to be Christine's boyfriend. Who is the Phantom? The other guy who wants to be Christine's boyfriend. I mean there's this brief, grotesque excuse made for what the Phantom's problem is, but it comes far too late and explains too little. It just boils down to ye olde "not getting laid drives you nuts, so we should be afraid of ugly people." There are no personalities to be found here, and casting generically pretty actors of no distinction really hurt things in the characterization department.

Full disclosure though: I'm very faceblind. I have a lot of trouble identifying actors, and sometimes I can't even tell people apart within one movie. So, because I didn't look up very much about this production going in, I was sitting there for at least 90 solid minutes constantly thinking:

Is that Patrick Wilson? That's Patrick Wilson. It is, right? Patrick? Wilson? Yeah no it definitely is. Like for sure. Right? PaTRICK? WILson??? Pa.........Wi........

At a certain point after I finally accepted that it was probably him I just started laughing every time I saw him. But to be totally fair to ME, this presentation barely resembles a real live person:

And that hair is unacceptable. I'm sorry, Patrick Wilson. It's not your fault. I really liked the INSIDIOUS sequel you directed even though no one else did, so I'm sure we can be special friends.

The main effect of the Schumacher/ALW PHANTOM was...making me really aware of how much I like the Menahem Golan one with Robert Englund. Really! I thought I didn't like it. I know I saw it when I was young, when I had major league Freddy Kreuger fever (worse than now, somehow), so it would seem like if it didn't get its hooks in me then, it never would. But now that I have sat through...many Phantom iterations, I have become aware that it is genuinely one of the better attempts on the story. It has a lot of personality! It's trashy and juicy and a lot of fun. It even looks pretty good sometimes! I fondly remember specific costume details, which I cannot say about the big expensive ALW one. I'm not here to tell you that it's a great example of cinema or something, but it is vastly more entertaining than much of what's been done with this story by more reputable people. You'd think it would be hampered by the lack of a proper mask, but the gory unmasking scene is spectacular, AND it gets around the question of why Christine unmasks the Phantom which has not been answered satisfactorily by almost any movie. I was pining for the Englund edition for all 2.5 hours of this ALW debacle. I was even pining for Jill Schoelen as Christine! Not that I have a problem with Jill Schoelen, she's very charming. It's just that I hate POPCORN, which she stars in and which is itself a kind of Phantom adaptation. I'm not watching it again, though, no matter what. My agita.

[cringelordofchaos]

Flicker Eduardo headcanons!!

I know almost no one cares except maybe that one flicker fan scrolling through the flicker tag, but idc

(some of these are weird and stupid)

(also when I say "into ___" I don't mean it in a romantic or s##ual context btw)

pansexual demiboy, he/they, name means "Wealthy Guardian" (only thing canon in this post)

Into rock and heavy metal

Introverted

Into cryptozoology

Into 80's horror movies

Teenager, bout 16-18 y/o

Into werewolves

obsessed with stranger things

Deadname is Valentina (based on the fact that he was initially supposed to be called Valentina and have a different design)

Engages with risky (??) and rebellious behaviour

Divorced parents, father had abandoned both them and their mom and his infant sister

Hispanic

Used to be best friends with Alex, drifted apart and now Ed feels bitter Abt him

Not satanic but they are into studying satanism and people devoted to it

Atheist

Into murder mysteries

Quiet in groups at first until he gets to know others in the group better

Plays the guitar (both acoustic and electric)

Horrible at singing, still likes singing

Used to be in a band with Alex, Amethyst and Prasiddhi

Gets absolutely horrible grades in school besides in literature and Spanish

Theater kid

Dumb#ss nerd

Has sooo many earrings and necklaces

Obsessed with many bands (I can't specify which ones bc i don't know sh#t about music,)(actually screw it I'll name a few that my mom likes

Into Metallica, Radiohead, Queen The Door, and other crap like that (I only listen to Radiohead out of these)

Has one of his eyebrows pierced

Has wolf as their fave animal

Kinda insane (don't ask)

Into paranormal stuff

Brave

Determined and stubborn

Street smart

Skateboards

All about self expression

Known as the quiet kid or the weirdo in school

Likes to go outside at night

Halloween is their fave holiday

Quiet in relation to his negative opinions regarding others

Secretly a MLP + STH fan

Can get bored and distracted easily

Into parkour and tree + rock climbing

Spiritually in the 80's

A really good older sib figure

Attachment issues, fears being abandoned so sometimes they push other people away first, other times he is a bit clingy and desperate

Uses the peace ✌️ and rock 🤘sign quite often

Embraces weirdness

Will always protect and defend people he cares about

Can be kinda rude but also really kind?

Often does the chores in the house, kinda tired from that + schoolwork

Now that Alex isn't their friend anymore, they're just kind of the loner in their class (before he gets sent to the Flicker game)

When the flicker game first starts, he like most people just think it's a run, fake murder mystery game, but one night (a bitttt early on) when they were supposed to get killed they managed to flee and escape into the woods, everyone thinking he's dead

Always puts up a fight when needed

Used to crush on alex and still cares about him as much as he refuses to admit it

Swears a moderate amount

Winks often (ok these HCs sre getting very mundane... um)

Ends up getting along well with most of the flicker players

He constantly feels like HE has to work for everyone (like their mom, having to do chores and upkeep his grades), and although they're very loyal they're also reasonably tired

The start of the flicker game has actually been one of the happiest periods in his life in some time

Can be impulsive

Fidgets often

In classes they barely do anything

Master at solving Rubik's cube

Pretty chill most of the time actually

Into video games too, primarily indie horror and visual novel

Him and Rosalie bicker often

Really wants to be independent, competent and responsible to prove they don't need anyone

They give me Lucas Sinclair and Drew from TMF vibes for sum reason??

Is neurodivergent (bpd, adhd, maybe sumth else idk)

...

Wtf even is this... I'm literally the worst flicker fan to ever exist I'm so sorry

[possfloss]

I truly think Trolls Band Together is a 10/10 movie.

-This movie's gay as hell (I can explain but I won't). I'm gay as hell. It would literally be difficult for me

- The original songs never stood a chance since they were right next to time-tested pop/boy band classics. They weren't even bad.

-The visual humor was on point. The joke of Poppy and Viva braiding hair out of frame killed me every time. All the pans to something funny and perfect pacing of even nonverbal punchlines (Velvet just hammering the button after her assistant tells her to gently press the button once) kick ass. It's one of my favorite kinds of humor.

-"Daddy, I don't see how any government even stands a CHANCE." "You're not wrong, kid."

-Evil pop star is a well-worn trope, and I don't think it ultimately said much about the originality of pop stars with just how unsympathetic and entitled they were, but they got so much utility as comedicly over the top villains that there's no way I can be mad. The jokes were so funny and cruelty so vast that they worked as villains.

-There were legitimately so much sexual content in this movie? Like, in the totally spies sense (diapers, bondage, micro/macro, tf, b...butts). It's not unique in animation, but they used the absurdity well. I laughed at the binky jokes ngl.

-I'm such a mess - I fuckin cried at Branch's bunker having rooms for his brother. Yeah, music killed his grandma, but he grew up all alone and never had any of his brothers attempt to see him (or his dead grandma) EVER. And I loved when Floyd came back from dying over the water slide. His special bond with Branch 🥺

-John Dory was so unlikable at first that fin and I thought he was a twist villain who made up the story about Floyd to get back into his brothers' lives. Glad they didn't go that route.

-I was also high while watching this.

-"Don't pull on daddy's chest hair." Bruce is so fuckin good wtf trade abs for body hair dilf any day who said that?

-Ultimately, this movie expanded the world so much on the world that I feel like there are a million amazing designs waiting to be made in this world.

-In the same vein, NSYNC trollsonas. I just like that they clearly got to help in making them.

-Hubby bet me that they'd play Butter. He was wrong >:3c

[curestardust]

Dust Watched: Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 3: Eureka

Genres: Mecha, Sci-fi, Drama // 1 movie (2h) // Orig (x) M1 (x) M2 (x)

So, umm... this was definitely a movie.

✧  story  ✧

I’m just going to cut to the chase, I’ve no fucking idea what happened in this trilogy. The first movie was to set-up this new timeline, the second one was to establish the new Anemone’s character and show us what Eureka has been doing and this one is uuuuuhhhhh... 

????????

So there are 2 halves to this movie. The first one is a road trip with Eureka and Iris, who is a baby EUREKA so she can’t control her powers yet. They’re being chased by Dewey who can uhhhh astral project to anywhere in the world? I guess? And yeah, that’s pretty much it. I don’t know what to say. They are just driving, getting attacked, survive, then drive again and this goes on til the 2nd arc begins.

I also have no idea what’s going on in the 2nd arc however. Dewey reveals that his grand plan for kidnapping Iris was to make her use her power to... erase reality or something? Because they’re from one of Eureka’s alternate realities, so they are not “real”, so they want to die???

Listen, I’m not gonna lie, I don’t remember much from the original E7, nor was I the biggest fan of it. So I can’t really tell what’s just blatant bad writing and what is something that is just being referenced and I just don’t remember it. But even then, as a movie, it’s just not particularly interesting to watch.

I starts off with a cool ass mecha fight, then it goes into a slow pace character building section, then it goes into an absolute “????” with events that make no sense and then it’s over. 

To me, one of the most telling factors of a show being unsure of itself, is when they have someone narrate what we could easily deduce from visual cues. And that’s the entire movie. To mention one example. after Dewey’s first astral projection, when he comes back, one of his 6 earrings turns into dust. An obvious visual cue that his earrings serve as a countdown for how many times he can do this again. But instead of leaving it at that, one of the characters is made to explain this to the viewer out loud. Infuriating.

✧  characters  ✧

I don’t think the writer really understands why people love the characters of the original anime so much. It’s not just “Eureka” who they love; it’s all the hardship they went through alongside her in the original series that made people feel so much for the character. And it’s true for all of them; Renton, Anemone, Holland... 

This is an alternative universe. You can push as many of the original characters into my face but I won’t feel anything for THESE characters. What I feel is simply nostalgia from the original. These are people who I don’t know, simply walking around with the faces and names of people I know from somewhere else. 

There were only 2 times I felt something and one of them was heartache for Eureka in one scene where she reveals her scars. The other was absolute befuddlement turned into rage. <Spoilers> This movie brings back Holland, gives him the dream life and then fucking kills him. And for what? Why, How, Who? None of it made sense! His pals from the Gekko join him on this mission and then they let him sacrifice himself (for something that doesn’t even work!!!) at the end DESPITE knowing that his wife is pregnant! When he goes off, the rest of the crew is floating on something and just waving at him?? What are you doing?? Fight him, punch him, shoot him in the fucking arm, and do it yourselves! Are you seriously telling me that his friends just let him kill himself like that? Just like that? OOOOOHHH my god wtf.<Spoilers>

✧  art  ✧

Oh my good lord, do I not like the character designs?? Like, none of them. Anemone gets offended for being called an “Oba-sama” but who can blame the kid? She looks 40! And Eureka looks like she hasn’t been to a hairdresser in 10 years and has just been cutting it for herself which... actually, that would fit her character in the movie. Still looks ugly though. 

I also deeply dislike the colours. It’s so washed out. It just looks lifeless. The only thing I can commend the staff for is the background designs and the animation. The BGs and set-designs look gorgeous and are insanely detailed. The animation is fluid, although it suffers a drop in quality alongside the actual art itself in the latter half of the movie.

✧  sound ✧

Honestly, all BONES projects I’ve watched had fantastic music and this one is no exception.

✧  overview ✧

All in all, I’ve no idea what the purpose of these movies were. None of them were particularly good tbh. Maybe the Anemone one is worth watching just for how much of a fever dream it is.

My Rating: 4/10

[alolanroy]

2023 media thread

Blood(originally from twitter)

2023 media thread! Copied over from twitter since it’s getting worse by the day. Scores 0-10 aren’t on the American grading curve, but more like ‘irredeemable bad’ to ‘changed my life’. Most things will be a 6-7 if I liked it. Negative = ironic.

Knives out (6/10) and Glass Onion (8.5/10). I prefer glass onion not only because it was a nice tight watch but also how oddly topical it was. Tate was arrested the day I watched this and Musk is on fire. Hopefully a prelude to more real mystery movies.

Wakfu: I’m grasping at straws for nice things to say. Not really pleasing to watch in French and some of the worst dubbing since gundam Age in the first seasons. The story feels like a pantomime and I question the standards of who recommended it. 1/10

The Rapsittie Street Kids Believe in Santa: this shirt is a cognitohazard to anyone who has used any kind of software. Each frame has so much wrong with it the human mind buckles into maniacal laughter. The grandma is the same VA as savathun. -9/10

Elf bowling: honestly kinda disappointing. Might be funny with some good company. I feel like the character Tom Kenny voices says something offensive but my memory just dumped everything about it. -2/10

Sound and Fury (2019): One of the greatest audio-visual experiences I’ve seen in a while. Not all sections were created equal though. Fucking watch it. I will say no more. 9/10

Lego Star Wars holiday special/summer vacation: Not good in the traditional sense but interesting because they give some of the characterization missing from the sequel trilogy with a dose of kid friendly robot chicken energy. Interesting to me at least. 6/10

Bleach Arancar Arc: Do I regret watching the anime? Yes. I could examine how stretched out this this was even with the filler removed all day. It is DIRE. Any sense of tension was destroyed and if I wasn’t sick I would’ve dipped. 4/10

Kamen Rider Black Sun: on a technical level I appreciate the movie. Good music, sound design, suits and it looked impressive for the budget it must have had. However, this might be the first toku I find actually offensive. No joke, it tries to recall George Floyds murder. Wtf.

Gundam witch from mercury S1: this is exactly what I needed and I’m waiting with baited breath. Nice to see the writing shine where ibo was dull. I’d buy the kits if I could 9/10

Knife or death: a perfect watch over some home cooked hotpot. The combination of gruff and warm hosts gives the show a ‘guys being dudes’ energy in a wholesome way. My only gripe is that as it goes on, it gets less diverse and loses some personality. More weirdos please. 7/10

Star Trek Prodigy: not particularly interesting on an episode by episode basis, but most treks have rough first seasons. Despite being a children’s show it’s more watchable than Picard or Disco, which is a low bar for me. It has trek spirit but it’s not made for me. 5/10

Astro Boy 2009:threw it on while I was cooking. Just as bad as I remember. I have some story boards for this for some reason. I don't know why. Speaking of not knowing why it feels like a 30-minute shows worth of content when it's over. It's strange. 3/10

Six String Samurai: I'd be more into this if the vibes were new to me. Unfortunately, I'm seeing this in 2023, so it reads like a Fallout New Vegas mod. In stark contrast to Astro Boy, this feels like it stretched on for hours and the kid ruined a lot of the cool moments. 3/10

Avatar 2: Not bad. Nothing groundbreaking, but great looking and drew me in for a sequel that was like 15 years late. I can't believe I was actually compelled by some of the characters. Avatar 2 was supposed to be a joke... 7/10

Shin Ultraman: this movie unashamedly embraces the fun Showa era energy like nothing I’ve seen. It’s funny, cool and is clearly a labor of love. It’s episode format makes me yearn for a tv continuation if it can maintain the constricted, but slick production and writing. 9/10

The men who made Ultraman: I get the sense a lot of the stuff in here should be taken with a grain of salt since it’s a dramatization, but man the peak behind the curtains on how creative and dangerous the special effects were then. Even the little things we take for granted 6/10

Vampire Survivors: I think by hitting 40 minutes I can kinda say I’ve ‘beat’ it in a sense even though there’s tons more content, but I need to add it to the list at some point. Good game with deceptively smart design to be a mobile game w/o the predatory garbage. 8/10

Rush Hour 3: Fun enough but I can feel the 2000s reliance on cringe humor and the stink of post 9-11 bigotry begin to set in. I had a few good laughs. 6/10

Loaded weapon 1: An absolute blast with the kind of cast you don’t see anymore. Again, Shatner is underutilized as a comedy actor. My final take: Sight gags are a lost art. 7/10

Spelunker my 2: I don’t really get the appeal of this game. Even with sprint switched off of default, movement felt oversensitive and deaths came only when my character did something I didn’t intend. Maybe I should’ve been on controller but this left a bad taste 3/10

Kill it With Fire: I appreciate smaller concept games like this, but as a recovering arachnophobe, this didn’t invoke as much of a response for me. My SO had a blast though. 5/10

A Few Good Men: Man. 8/10

Magic Lizard: ‘this feels like one of those adhd TikTok’s with an infinite runner game and family guy in the corners’ - @SuperheckDX this thing oscillates between middling slapstick to animal abuse. Genuinely disgusting for a moment (if you know you know) -3/10

SpongeBob in Tehran: enough of the jokes translate but the visual absurdity wears off pretty quick. -6/10

Webtoons I won’t dignify by naming: Trying out random Manhwa that caught my interest was a fun policy for a bit but I’ve been seriously burned. I could tear apart why even the best in the field have issues with long term storytelling due to issues with distribution. Im done 0/10

Puss in Boots the Last Wish: Being overhyped did this movie a disservice. The animation was fantastic, but there’s not much else here. I didn’t find it particularly exciting or funny and the musical number didn’t hit. I really it lacked that ohmf. Definitional 5/10 on my scale

Tangential, but Puss’s arc mirrors Kirk in Wrath of Khan. Do what you will with that.

Dwarf Fortress: disclaimer I didn’t play too much of this game but I appreciate its system rich nonsense. I’ll probably revisit it later since the unintuitive UI isn’t helped by most forum discussions not being for the steam version. IE idk how to make a horizontal door. 7/10

Entropy: Zero: Short sweet and to the point. It uses all of its creative ideas and remixes existing assets like nobody's business. A few stumbles like a turret stealth section that soft-locked me, but I appreciate a game that doesn't waste my time 7/10

Entropy Zero 2: I cant remember the last time I was this consistently exhilarated playing a shooter, maybe Titanfall 2. It delivers good writing, action, varied gameplay, gags and emotional beats. It caches the checks valve wrote a decade+ ago at their standard. A must play 9/10

Donbrothers The Movie: New First Love Hero. An absolute farce with almost no toku action. Needless to say it’s fantastic. 8/10. Will likely give any MMPR fan an aneurysm. The foreshadowing is clever…

Bionicle Mask of Light: I wouldn’t say it’s good since I’m an adult and have more tempered nostalgia, but I derived a lot of enjoyment watching it through the lens of knowing the lore and it added a level of dramatic irony. 5/10

Farscape S1: In its best episodes it delivers on a wacky premise and great puppets, at its worst it has pretty template episodes. The crews dynamic seems to be still finding the right balance of adversarial and friendly, and sometimes it just makes everyone seem like an ass. 6/10

Shadow of the Vampire: I might need to marinade my opinion on this somewhat. First impressions are good but part of me wishes it shied away from the come comical elements since the darker tone is interesting. Just made we want to see Nosferatu 8/10

Movie night speedrun Backstroke of the West: Surprisingly good joke dub -5/10 Marmaduke 2022: bizarre -1/10 Agent Revelation: what did they have on Dorn. 2/10

Movie Night Roundup: Alone in the Dark: false advertising, It was bright and I don't think anyone was alone. Made to be riffed on. -6/10 Fist of the North Star 1995: A total snoozefest that failed to hold our attention. The only fun was realizing Dante Basco was in it. 2/10

Pinocchio a True Stroy: We nearly watched a second dub with more generic voice action. Sadly this is basically unwatchable. 0/10 Waynes World 2: A weaker comedy than the original, mostly because it uses a recycled B plot. Nevertheless, a good palette cleanser. 6/10

Farscape Season: I appreciate the more serialized storytelling and multipart episodes. I appreciate that they are kinda figuring out the characters, specifically John going into his Joker arc. However, there were a few stinkers. 7/10

Record of Ragnarok S1/2: This isn't a particularly good adaptation, but the first fight should get an award for the most baffling adapted shounen fight. It truly put its worst foot forward. Otherwise pretty mid and doesn't make me feel particularly excited about the manga.

Vengeful Guardian MoonRider: On the plus side, it looks great and has a clear love of 90s anime and tokusatsu (Hakaider particularly). However, it just felt frustrating because of issues like an awkward walljump and a lot of cheap damage caused by the small screen. 3/10

Super Mario Bros(1993): people lied, this movie kicks ass. The bizarre mushroom kingdom is wildly entertaining, funny, internally consistent and inventive with how it remixes elements from the games. It’s not what the 2023 one will be: safe. 7.5/10

Return of Ultraman: I see what they were cooking. Not a lot to judge here but the way they stretched what they had was impressive. 7.5/10 Eragon: Laughed out asses off when playing Star Wars music. It synced perfectly at some point. But there’s nothing else to work with. -3/10

Aura Battler Dunbine (I): I'm splitting this up into three parts since I have distinct thoughts. The first third is relatively weak and fails to set up the factions (no idea what's up with house Given). However, it makes up for it with appealing classic fantasy aesthetics. 6/10

Dunbine (II): The middle chapter has a sharp improvement across the board. The politics and tactics begin to fall into place as the mech designs improve. The reverse Isekai arc with Garalia (my beloved) is a real standout. Bummer the Billbine sucks. 8/10

Dunbine (III): The final third speaks to me. The undercurrent of resignment and desperation pairs well with a massive shift in the mechanics of combat. While the repetition can get straining, the interjection of real-world interaction makes it work 8.5/10

Dunbine: I enjoyed the heck out of this series and appreciate the interesting ideas and aesthetics of this world. My only complaint is the way it approaches writing women. Its otherwise rad cast of mostly women gets tanked by Elmelie. Took me out of it. 8/10 #dunbinesweep

Farscape season 3: once again this season is an improvement over the last. Less crazy creatures, but more interestingly shot, especially towards the end. It makes the budget-friendly episodes go down more easily. I continue to enjoy John’s arc of just getting weird. 8/10

The thought that someday, someone will feed My Dinner with Andre with thousands of other contextless content into a machine learning algorithm fills me with a deep sadness. 9/10

Knife or Death Season 2: Overall pretty fun, but I felt that with the increased size of the episode order, they ran out of interesting contestants. You can only see so many redknecks in a row, and the finale was a bit of an upset in a b ad way. Season 3 needs some changes. 6.5/10

Donbrothers: This may be the funniest, most satisfying, and unapologetic show I have ever seen. I don't think any sentai can compare to it after, mostly because there hasn't, and can never be anything quite like this again. 10/10

Dunbine Neo Boston Well: phenomenal art and visuals but it kinda falls apart in execution. Eventually, you notice how little is animated and the Ovas have little time to explore its owns story let alone the amazing glimpses of this world. Good character design. 6/10

Destiny 2 lightfall: this expansion was so bad I think it broke the spell destiny had over me. It’s a bizarre swerve in story and aesthetics that is utterly betrayed by the most grating dialogue that was mixed in a way that hurt my ears. 2/10

Season of the seraph: a pretty middling season with some interesting mechanical tidbits, but not a lot to latch on to. It lacked the week to week narrative drive that kept me engaged. Now it feels like the content kinda ends in like 4 weeks. 5/10

Kentucky Fried Movie: slow start but pretty funny. The Enter the Dragon parody was a gas. We need more formless comedy chimeras. 6.5/10

JJBA:DIU 2017: what do you get when you remove the style, humor and pacing from jojo and try to take it completely seriously? Something that should never get it’s trilogy finished -3/10

Garzey’s wing: this thing lives and dies by it’s comically bad dub. Otherwise it’s a pretty write ova with a neat few ideas bot no real ending and would be an unsatisfying watch. However. The dub is hilarious. -6/10

Pledge this!: National Lampoon’s fell OFF! Idk if I can forgive @roflcopterbtw for putting this on the wheel…-3/10

Street Fighter: the legend of Chun Li: Firstly: why are you white. Secondly: if you want to see a better version of this movie, watch snake eyes. 3/10

Kingohger: first impressions: the first episode alternates between obscenely good looking and abysmal in was that is bizarre and completely preventable. They really didn’t have to do primarily cg environments. Writing is halfway to doing something cool but wiffs.

Onegamart: it’s like if a really well themed line ride kept going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going… 8/10 that was cool

Movie night roundup: Barbie the Princess and the Pauper: Concerningly well produced as a musical. Its a campy kids movie with comical CG. What more can I say. -6 Shrek the Musical: We were ENTRANCED by Farquad's costume! I can't say I agree with some of the decisions tho. 6/10

X-files S1 & S2: I find myself more compelled by the episodic mysteries rather than the serialized storyline. Maybe since the alien conspiracy feels a little one-note so far. The real treat is spotting famous actors and the occasional rising star at a higher rate than usual.7/10

X-Files S3 Vibe check: After a few real bangers, Ep12 and 13 were a 1-2 punch I didn't need after a stressful day. The hard dip in writing quality, bad drama, and cheap CW drama feel couldn't cover up what was clearly an anti-drug episode that no one seems to talk about. 2/10

The Man Who Laughs (1928): Essayists have already dissected this film on my behalf, but there’s something interesting here. Oddly enough it’s really obvious The Joker directly homages this more than I think it owes Taxi Driver. 7/10

G-Saviour: under the thick layer of low budget Canadian production and generic execution there’s some surprisingly cool cockpits sets and fight scenes that would’ve made for a good movie. However it isn’t and we never got the iterative sequels it wanted. 5/10

Welcome to Sudden Death: as Die Hard clones go this is a surprisingly fun watch. The reversal of the black comedy relief archetype and some genuinely cool but blue ballingly short martial arts sequences make this an entertaining 6/10 in the best way possible

John Wick: in all honesty this didn’t set my world on fire. I think it’s relevancy has more to do with it signaling that action movies could be cool again rather than the ‘secret world of assassins’ shtick I can’t see myself getting into. 6/10

John Wick 2 Electric Boogaloo: A marked improvement over the first for me, and a lot of that comes down to more creativity, bombast and actually being able to see the fights in this one. The secret society element was less rote than I assumed it would be. 7/10

John Wick 3: I think the missing ingredient might’ve been building up strong opponents. While an improvement, the movies deadly combat means each enemy gets one fight, so they don’t get the opportunity to develop. More bombast was welcome. 7/10

John wick 4: holy fuck in the goddamn. You know the movie is fire when 20 minutes later I say ‘John wick had a nunchuck, how tf did I forget that’. The last three are almost invalidated by how hard this executes on everything they both had and lacked. 9.5/10

AVGN movie: this one’s an oddity, it feels like a throwback to the golden age of early internet reviews despite coming out in like 2014. This is a realization of the channel Awesome movies but with competency and production. The gags and effects made me smile. 6/10

Trigun Stampede S1: Anime of the decade. Never before have seen such expressive 3d cg anime, let alone for tv. while it undercuts some of the charm of the original with its rush to the knives plotline, it makes up for it in its own identity. 9.5/10

The Future is a Dead Mall and Line Goes Up: I knew it was dire but wow. Line Goes Up aged particularly well. 8/10

X-Files S3: A real mixed bag, as mentioned earlier, this contains some of the best and worst episodes of television I can remember. While some parts of the serialized story are improved by getting interesting resolutions, my faith was shaken. 7/10

Pitch Black: Enjoyable as a thriller with a neat grimy version of space travel. it Tickles my fancy 7/10

Chronicles of Riddick: I guess this universe has a Warhammer 40K faction. I think the end result is cool, but I see why people think it was a weird pivot 7/10

Riddick: Just another cool thriller, liked the more survival elements at the beginning. 7/10

The Adventures of Kosuke Kindaichi (1979): One of the most impenetrable films I've ever tried to watch. I can't help but feel I lack the cultural context for this as a parody, but the visual absurdity and direction sell it. 7/10

Robot Ninja: Perhaps I'm just a sucker for the 'artist spiraling into madness' trope but this movie has an interesting take on it. If anything the Ohio shoe-string budget energy kind of enhances the delusion and unreality of it. Very critical of the comics industry. positive 5/10

The War in Space: I'll admit I talked with my friends through this one, but the model shots and excellent space suits caught our attention. Effective final sacrifice but overall it was uneventful in a 70s toku way. 4/10 (the captain had Leonard Maccoy energy)

What's up tiger Lily: The specter of Woody Allen haunts this film. While historically important as the first notable parody dub, the space jokes (which mostly land) and lousy 60's dancing interludes kill the energy and just make me want to see the original. 4/10

Skyrim SE: Since Skyrim is kind of a Super Game(TM) I'm breaking it up since some parts of it feel totally disjointed.

Skyrim (main quest): I assumed the Blades quest chain would be on the level of the Mages College in terms of importance. I appreciate its attempts to intersect with the civil war plotline but it felt over in a hurry. The final dungeon is a joke. 4/10

Overall, having the focus on melee combat against a pretty bad enemy variety makes the game feel like a slog. It does manage moments of brilliance, but the half-baked questing feels more like frustrating writing. Base game is a mess with potential. 6/10

Skyrim: Saints and Seducers: It kinda sucks how this DLC was plopped in without any consideration. I mean yay free content (I wouldn't have paid for it), but my animosity comes from stumbling into the strongest weapon in the game on my blind playthrough, trivializing combat. 4/10

Tron: Half the fun of this movie is trying to contort the metaphor of the grid onto my understanding of how these systems actually work, like naval admirals watching Battleship. The Wendy Carlos score is really unusual and has wormed its way into my head. A charming 4/10

Passenger 57. Die Hard on a plane. No Notes. 7/10

Batman and Robin: As a 60s Batman enjoyer, I cannot overstate how much of a joy this was to watch. The costumes, the set design, the pitch-perfect acting, the architecture, the cheeseball writing..never have I seen more camp with such ambition and budget. 8/10

Skyrim: Dragonborn: this smaller, denser island shows what Skyrim can do. Stealing from morrowind gave this place a lot more character and it was refreshing. However some bad bugs and dragon controlling being a complete mess…It was an 8/10, but man 6.5/10

Skyrim: Dawngaurd (vampire): not great. Besides careening down the main quests chain without noticing the 8 radiant quests(the vamps aren’t fun to deal with). Mechanically, vampirism sucks. I never found switching forms to be anything but cumbersome and it wasn’t any better…

Vampire and dragon attacks killing NPCs is a cool idea but having that happen when you’re doing the main quest is just confusing. Adding the Vale and the soul gem dimension is neat, but kinda shallow. Each felt like other dlc they condensed.

The saving grace really is Serana, which was further advanced by an incredible mod that has me wanting to restart and take the dawnguard path. Until then…5/10

X Files S4/5: Once again there were a few bangers, but I'm starting to get the creeping feeling that the atmosphere that made the series unique is beginning to get lost. I wouldn't say many of these are terribly tense or mysterious anymore6. 5/10

STEALTH(2005): Look, I'm of two minds about this thing. Yes, it wastes a lot of time. Yes, the DOD clearly inserted a 15-second scene that minimizes the interesting sci-fi of the movie in a ridiculous way that had my friends both booing and laughing at the movie...

BUT HOLY SHIT ACE COMBAT MOVIE REAL!!! The last half really leans into being a bombastic action and sci-fi thriller. I can't think of a movie that had a more left-for-dead character and 'the loyalty switching is nearly at gundam levels' -@SuperheckDX 7/10

Bright Memory Infinite: I'll give it credit for a surprisingly fresh twist on character action, but it's over just as it gets good and I feel like it learned the wrong lessons from the early 8th gen CoD era of shooters. Worst double jump in an fps to date 5/10

X-Files S6: I'm not sure how, but a shark was jumped at some point between seasons. Immediately the average quality went down and the episodes felt much less engaging. It still managed to surprise me (Aliens in the Klan???) 5/10

Lobsteroids: it serves video game fmv vibes. -4/10 No.1 of the secret service: fun action and a Dracula assassin make up for having a plot I couldn't follow, but I'll give them points for a bravely anti-climactic ending. Just a good B movie bond. 6/10

ZOE: 2nd Runner MARS: I'm not gonna sugar coat it, this fucks. The remaster really shows how strong the art direction is by sharpening it up and it looks and plays divine. However, the translation and dub are incomprehensible. It's like what people say about Tomino's writing.8/10

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3: I don't think this movie was great, the jokes didn't quite make me laugh and there were some wasted opportunities, but the emotional core worked. I feel a good sense of closure from this over the MCU in general. 7/10

X-Files S7: Nah: 5/10

Azure Striker Gunvolt 3: I never got around to putting this on the list since I was hoping to finish the 2nd character playthrough, but that never materialized. 

This game has sparks of good. Good voice acting and a few creative level concepts that sell the team’s energy. The gameplay loop of tagging and teleporting is married well with the well tuned directional aim. Its also up to Inti’s bar for visual flare.

However this is all in spite of everything else. The translation makes some bizarre choices that make Joule is immediately grating, mostly due to the choice to never shut up about fetters (you could just call them seals...). The timeskip is truly bizarre since it abandons all the plot threads for a more or less identical setting, just with apologism for the evil conglomeration which Gunvolt is okay with working for now (despite being turned into a dog for some reason.) Worse, Joule is immediately the most mechanically bloated character in a 2d game, having too many features at once in addition to the (also expanded with her abilities) Gunvolt style switching. Less is more, if they had settled for GV with the flashstep or simplified Joule individually it would have been more fun to control. If they were going to give players so much more combat capability, it would’ve been nice to have enemies that could actually fight back...6/10

Kamen Rider Geats × Revice: Movie Battle Royale: Who put battle royale in my previously battle royale-free battle royale Toku show...AND it crosses over with the first battle royale Kamen Rider? I’m gonna be real, Revice nostalgia was coming on stronger than I was prepared for with this movie. I hope we see more Seeker in future material and the Ryuki cameos were heartwarming (except Ouja’s suit had a prominent pot-belly for some reason.) 7/10

Revice Forward: Kamen Rider Live & Evil & Demons: I miss revice... Making Demon Hiromi a Vergil was an interesting choice 6/10

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, This is really the best version of a Illumination Mario movie we could get. It has fantastic sequences with 80′s pop music replacing the perfectly timed and funny soundtrack for what feels like a quota. It didn’t really make me, as an adult laugh or really engage much with its emotional stakes one they entered the mushroom kingdom. (I kinda liked their whole failing plumbing business) They tried to do something with the core cast, but without doing anything really memorable, save for good performances in spite of the material. Chris Pratt isn’t awful. It should be deeply meh, but it has enough colors and the occasional humor to make it work. If anything I would like to see the midpoint between this and the 80′s one 6/10

However, the pattern recognition part of my brain would have lit up like a Christmas tree if you put it in an MRI. I’ll admit that even a cynic like me soyjacked a few times when I saw something from Mario 3.

Telefrag: Listen, I don’t like beating a dead horse...but I see why it’s a dead game. bad feedback and tutorialization make matches with only one bot by default and fast ttk even less interesting than they should be. 2/10

Eagle Flight: It’s amazing how Ubisoft finds ways to ruin their own games with corporate nonsense. On startup within steam VR, I had resolve the bugged out multiplayer launcher installation while having to repeatedly switch from my VR headset and my keyboard. It left a sour taste in my mouth for an admittedly neat and good controlling game. There were a few instances of inconsistent button prompts in menus as well. The promise of flying through the air like an eagle is realized but did it really nead assassin’s creed collectible and map mechanics? 4/10

Sierra Ops: I occasionally see moments where what this was supposed to be shine through, but overall the writing could use an aggressive editing pass to allow it to capture the excitement of a space opera by tightening up the interpersonal stuff. I usually love this stuff when its concise, but the relationship drama comes across as bloated and ends up sinking the whole experience. An hour and a half of half vague meandering disengaged me for the cool declaration of war moments. Even longer until the game properly starts. It did grab me once or twice but mostly I found myself skipping and it still felt long. The gameplay is neat enough to begin with, enough to get me to the halfway mark but only having two possible other small ships in your controllable battle group kinda kills the exciting strategy and large scale warfare the premise promised. The more mechanics it ads the worse it plays unfortunately. Mostly because the mecha can't be ordered and must be actively controlled, destroying the gameplay flow. I also encountered a broken feature for the long range bombardment at the start of the third chapter where it only worked once. The only youtube playthrough that got that far had the same issue but never noticed.

I don’t think this thing is going to complete its 10 chapter plan, but with the >2 chapters I played. 2/10

Fast X: I feel hard judging this harshly since it is supposed to be part one of a duology(trilogy?) but I feel like the rubber is going to hit the road once we see the payoff to the setup. As it is, I can’t say it was mind blowing in comparison to 6-9 since some of the action sequences were deliberate retreads. 6/10

Rocky: A lot of times I find the movies pop culture upholds as classics are divorced from the actual quality of the material. This is one of those cases where I was blown away. I can’t think of another case where a character was so soulfully portrayed in every small minutia of the performance, direction and even set design. While I usually dislike the dirty look to a lot of 70′s film (I’ve watched a lot of movies that should’ve stayed in the 70s) the filth of Rocky’s world sings in every character. In the first 10 minutes I knew I would ride or die with this lovable loser. 10/10

My Friend Pedro: Interesting gunplay ideas that feel made for twitter clips. However I never quite felt the flow. The real enemy is a tedious and artificially extended playtime fattened with too many puzzle platforming segments that add nothing. Ultimately the ‘lol so random XD’ humor got old real quick. It had the energy of a Deadpool cosplay in the 2010s who didn’t know when to quit when he was ahead. 4/10

~~~Random Half-Life/Portal mod roundup~~~

Thinking with Time Machine: Its primary mechanic is interesting but cumbersomely executed. The puzzles are more a pain to pull off than solve and the writing is bad fanfiction tier. I encountered multiple repeatable crashes between levels. 3/10

Requiem of Science: It starts out as an uninspired series of levels and escalates into a baffling gasps of creativity that make no sense and have no real context. Random mashup of Black Mesa and Aperture assets? Kinda weird. Egyptian pyramid with a trap involving 15 consecutive headcrabs? What? It’s really just a series of random source assets combined with maybe your 3rd attempt at a doom wad in high school. The story is...bad. The protagonist is named Genry Freedom and it has spongebob beyond writing. 2/10

Snowdrop Escape. Too many straightforward puzzles and gunplay felt nonthreatening. I never felt challenged and this thing has essentially no story, not that I could hear it half the time. I’ll put this in my ‘bad multiverse media’ pile.  2/10

Rexaura: Good puzzles and fresh mechanics but the writing and story didn’t wow me. Competent. 5/10

Entropy Zero: Uprising: Encountered a gamestopping bug, but the pretty normal content didn’t give me the energy to continue.

Logistique: The puzzles weren’t as hard as they were dull. but I appreciate the effort 3.5/10

Portal Stories VR: can’t really say much other than I was trapped halfway through the floor and it had unity’s kinda bad movement. 2/10

The Lab: Neat gimmicks but only two were worth more than 4 minutes of my time. 4/10

Aperture Hand Lab: My controller didn’t have the haptics to progress, but it was pretty funny while it lasted. 5/10

Entropy Center Demo: Look we all know this is a portal fangame. Puzzles were neat enough with the rewind mechanic. I can’t say it has the wit that makes portal work yet just from the demo, but I hope it adds that X factor it needs. 6.10

Justice League: Putting aside my bias for the cast, which is peppered with some of my personal favorites from TV, This is a solid show. By most measuring sticks this measures up, but people like me who know too much about comics can get waaaay more out of this. It’s confident enough to show a haranguing news anchor wave around a copy of ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ assured both kids and general audiences understand its criticism of moral panics while respecting comic book fans to use their brains to catch the specific callouts to real world history. It has ham and it has heart. from the goofy golden age callbacks to the Christmas special with sharp character writing. I miss the dedication to creating quality entertainment with its material. 7.5/10

Shin Kamen Rider: Full disclosure, my experience with this movie was colored by a pretty rotten day. The first fifteen minutes were gold. There was energy. A snappy camera, brisk exposition and flare to the action. It replicated the tricks that made the original show work but dialing up the visually absurd elements to contrast with a more serious tone. I’ve heard some folks had bad screenings, but I had the pleasure of a few sporadic academic chuckles to add ambiance. Shoutout to the sight gag where the cyclone motorcycle is following Ichigo during a dialogue scene at a polite distance. The whole thing reminded me of Anno’s earlier live action take on Cutie Honey. However after the first act, I got the sense the film was petering out. Perhaps the format of adapting a handful of episodes risks getting tired, but by the start of the third act I was checked out. I don’t check my phone in theaters. I checked my phone, looked up how long the film was and questioned if I wanted to stick it out another hour. Worse this is the first movie to physically hurt my eyes. The penultimate battle is in a pitch dark tunnel with abrupt flashes of bright light that caused me to recoil, even cover my eyes after a few minutes. 3/10. That time he did a flip was cool, but I regret staying.

Rocky II: This should’ve been a cash-in sequel. It repeats the beats of a first film that needs no follow up. Rocky’s arc was done, do we really need another with the same beats? Second verse same as the first but a little bit more production value and pretty dang good. I’m giving it a 9/10 so it must’ve done something right. The melodrama of pregnancies and unemployment and comas didn’t have me, until it did. This movie waited to switch back to southpaw and didn’t let up after that. 9/10 

DragonHeart: It’s a kids movie but it does have that childlike wonder and innocence you don’t see in fantasy movies these days. If I think the dragon looks good or bad depends on my mood at the time 6/10

The Master Demon: I’ve seen low budget but this is something else. We skipped most of it. -3/10

Battleship: It really didn’t have me, and then it did. This movie needed another few weeks in the editing booth because opening you ship action movie with some boner comedy shenanigans doesn’t bode well. Gimme a tight 90 cut and we are in buisness. There is no doubt in my mind why this is a favorite in a lot of navy households, because this is somehow more hype than Top Gun. 6.5/10

Justice League Unlimited S1-2: Fantastic. Perfectly constructed. It operates metatextually as a commentary, even a refutation, of many of Alan Moore’s works and opinions on superheroes. As someone who enjoys the odd comic book, the intertextual game of ping-pong that is The Question (voiced by Jeffery Combs, who better?) is an absolute joy to see. Adaptations like ‘For the Man Who Has Everything’ show a clear love for the character driven aspect of capes and cowls that you don’t see anymore. It more thoughtful and nuanced than it has any right to be, and talks up to any audience with more respect than I’ve seen out of superhero media (outside of maybe Gunn’s movies). Even the most die hard modern comic book fan should loop back to this for a shot in the arm of hope. 9/10

Justice League Unlimied S3: there was a third one I guess 7/10

[it looks like a few of the things I added got lost so quick lightning round]

Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves: Hey! Thats pretty good! It’s a charming and fin fantasy movie, don’t see those as much as we should these days. Best of all it really captured the energy of someones unwieldy campaign. Hope a sequel has a completely different party. 7.5/10

Bumblebee in 4K: Each subsequent viewing I can deconstruct this into its component movies more and more, but ‘steal from the best!’ 7/10

Mikadroid: It was fascinating and had a unique atmosphere. The obvious symbolism of a 80′s Japanese bubble disco built on top of a ruin of fascist superweapon is a treat. Great costume and model work where it counts, but it undercuts itself with poor momentum and a monster that is shown in a few unflattering angles. Spotted a classic Ultraman actor so I’m happy 7/10

LoZ Cartoon E1: annoyingly competent 4/10

Kappa Mikey E1: I see why this wasn’t good enough for 2000′s MTV. In spite of it all it was actually a little funny -5/10

Mars Needs Moms: The implications will tie your brain in knots while the actual story is so bog standard it numbs your mind at the same time. The aliens were clearly somebody’s fetish in production. -4/10

Dune 1984: I’mma be real with you chief. this isn’t great. Sorry Mr.Lynch, they can’t all be winners. Nice Cameo though. I will come to the defense of character inner monologues though, but having them whispered doesn’t work. I wasn’t wowed by the special effects but the weird set dressing had a charm. 5/10

Across the Spiderverse: I might need more time to digest it, but within the first 10 minutes I had to stop and think if there might be other animated movies that look this good. Not even close. I think the beats hit me differently than some others, but yeah, no doubt. It’s great. Anything else would be nitpicks I will withhold till the second part. 9.5/10

Oh wait, Unlimited SpiderMan didn’t have a prominent role: 0/10

Heavy Metal L-Gaim: It pains me to say this, but I couldn’t finish it. Individually, each episode delivers top notch cartooning with expressive and goofy animation that really sell the wacky cast. That is, when we, as an audience, can get it. The plot lacked forward momentum and enough of it felt dull that I dropped it a few times. I skipped to the end and found a backloaded finale with a soggy final note. The vibes are top notch, but it can only take you so far. 6/10

Rocky 3: I though a shark was jumped when Hulk Hogan showed up, but they had me. They fucking had me. 8/10

Wolf Tracer’s Dinosaur Island: this had to have been a tax scheme or something. -4/10

Skull Island: I got nothing. No real emotional response. Nothing. It was there. It was inoffensive. But I gotta point out that at this point, Kong’s survival rate for plucky kid companions is pretty low. 5/10

The Italian Job (2003): A fun enough heist movie, but now I want to watch the original to compare 6.5/10

Transformers Rise of the Beasts: Just because it’s CGI action slop doesn’t mean it can’t have heart. Putting aside my predisposition to like this, it was a decently constructed version of what these movies are. It was coherent, funny and well made. My only gripe is that at the end they do something just kinda weird, but you know what? Who cares! Besides that one moment, the movie had my suspension of disbelieve right where it needed to be to have a grand old time.

As a Transformers fan? There was fanservice. I was a fan, and I was served. ‘Subversion of expectations is kind of a tainted expression, but by reversing a few familiar bleats was a nice variation on a theme. They could’ve easily messed it up, or gone too far, but so much as a few notes of a leitmotif made me a hair shy of spontaneous combustion. The credits stinger? Dumb as hell, but you know what this movie earned it, and My entire friend group was popping off. 7.5/10

Rock 4: This doesn’t quiiiite live up to the premise of ‘Rocky destroys the soviet union’, but it tries. however I felt more like I was watching an ad for the album. Kinda like Netflix shows that are desperate to make the next big TikTok dance after Wednesday performed well. 7/10

Farscape: I gave the last season a fair shake and found it kind of unwatchable. 2/10

Half Life Alyx: Oppressive. Immersive. Possibly the last VR game I’ll ever need to play until they make a sequel. This could only be by the virtue of being the only vr game that actually feels like a real game, but it is far more than that.

MyHouse.pk3: I kinda ruined this for myself a little since I blasted through the non-spooky wad version a few times confused about what the fuss was over. However the creativity and magic to make this work is astounding. The final beat was pretty cool. Short and sweet. 7/10

(Lost a few of my entries due to an edit error, these’ll be shorter than my original thoughts)

Black Mesa: A triumph of game remakes. While Xen is a more total reimagining, the rest of it really makes me appreciate how ahead of its time a lot of the original Half Life was. I often found myself suprised when reviewing the original, sections I thought were added in were in fact there since 1998. Genuinely gorgeous at times. 9/10

Devilman 2004: How do you make Devilman Boring? If you have seen any 2000′s Japanese b-movie, you have seen this one. Its got all the halmarks, minimal action, camcorder grade early digial picture quality and a lot of high school non-drama for some reason. -2/10

Bloodshot: This movie goes hard than it’s redbox-grade appearance would have you believe. It weaves this deception into its intentionally genre generic setup in a way that makes tired sci-fi tropes feel exciting. Its costumes and CG fights feel like they outmatch what marvel pours millions into. 7.5/10

Barbie Princess Charm School: The things I watch for our movie night’s wheel. It’s competent, but not as funny as the last one I watched. -5/10

Rocky V: It’s very 1990, though I feel like the energy is brought down by the cheap contrivance to reset rocky back to the streets TM. I will say that the emotional beats with Micky hit hard, and I appreciate having the fight at the end be out of the ring. Refreshing, but I think this was a good place to end it. 7.5/10

Andromeda S1: An efficiently produced show that takes star trek (in all but name) into an interesting new status quo. I did worry at first that it would fall into the bad habits of white savior storytelling and some cheesy sci-fi concepts (nietzschean? really?). However I can’t contest that I had a good time and there were enough fresh episodes to keep me happy. 7/10

Movie Night Speedround

Alone in the Dark 2: this is clearly a movie they just retitled. 4/10

Jupiter Ascending: Can’t rate since I might get back to this later but it at least looked neat. -4/10

Nick Fury Agent of SHEILD: Good casting but this sure is a TV movie. -4/10

Nutcracker and the Four Realms: This was more fun when it was an actual ballet production for 5 minutes. Generic late 2010s Disney twist and fluctuating production value. Morgan Freeman is a clockpunk father cristmas. 6/10 

[airasora]

OO if you have a min I'd love to know your opinions regarding the other live action remakes? Personally I actually quite liked beasts live action design and the cinderella dress! (tho i do wish it wasn't blue)

Ok, so since there's a lot of remakes, I'll go through them super quickly or else this will be a VERY long post, so hold on to your hats!

Cinderella (2015)

While the Cinderella remake was a visually pleasing film (seriously, the costumers and overall aesthetic and look of everything was such a joy to look at) it did not fix my main issue, which is with the main character whom has no personality outside of her actual story line. An interesting story does not make for an interesting character. And for the people saying they DID "fix" Cinderella in the remake, I will ask you to watch this video, or specifically from 17:24 to 22:11 where NC points out every single issue I have with the remake Cinderella in comparison to OG Cinderella.

The Jungle Book (2016)

I overall enjoyed the movie for what it was, I find it very awe-inspiring with its just one actual actor - who is honestly really good considering he's acting off of NOTHING basically - and not amazing effects, but good enough. However, it has three big changes that I heavily dislike which is the beginning, the third act breakup and the ending.

Why oh why would you NOT use the story's original beginning? It does everything a beginning should: it introduces you to its characters, their relationships and the way the world works while also making you connect with them almost immediately. Why the ever loving HELL did they switch that out with an overused trope with a basic ass fakeout that, instead of showing you, it TELLS YOU how it all happened. There is absolutely no reason for it and it's lazy.

Third-act breakups are also extremely lazy, and more often than not make no sense or makes the character look like idiots. Having Baloo lie to Mowgli about not actually seeing him as a friend to make him want to go to the village to get away from Shere Khan is the dumbest fucking thing cause he could just, you know, TELL HIM THE TRUTH. Mowgli in the remake, at this point, has already MET Shere Khan, he KNOWS how dangeorus he is. There is NO REASON for Baloo to lie to Mowgli. None whatsoever.

And the ending... what the actual living hell is the message of the story when Mowgli STAYS in the jungle??? Original message is that sometimes you can't stay where you want to be in order to grow as a person, and you have to make sacrifices for the greater good and go where you can evolve. By having Mowgli stay in the jungle, its audience learns nothing and Mowgli doesn't develop as a character. He literally just stays where he already was, only difference is he now has a bear friend.

Sidenote: WTF did they do to Kaa...

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

It's gonna be easier to just bullet point this one:

Love most of the new songs

Emma Watson can't sing, why the fuck can't she sing, hire someone who can sing if they're gonna sing, I can't believe that has to be said

Their attempt at explaining plot holes in the OG just creates new plot holes

Despite the movie being longer, Belle and the Beast has LESS chemistry and what are important scenes for them are shortened and replaced by new scenes that DO NOT give them as much chemistry as the OG

The Beast is hot, I don't care what anyone says

This is an unpopular opinion, but I liked Belle's dress solely because it looks more like a dress a girl like Belle would choose for herself. Is it boring as sin though in comparison to the OG one, though? Yes

I do like that Gaston is a bit more fleshed-out, he almost convinced me he liked Belle's personality as well just a bit, and not just her looks

HOW do you have Belle's dad talk about her mother, just after Belle says the other townsfolk think she's odd, and NOT have him tell her that her mom was odd as well??? That scene could have melted my cold, cynical heart and instead they go with "fearless" - fuck off

I have more, but it'll get too long.

Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin can't act or sing worth shit, how the HELL is it a theme that some of the Disney remake actors can't act or sing sometimes? Not gonna lie, I didn't realize how poor his singing was until A Whole New World and he had to sing with Naomi Scott and my jaw legit dropped because I realized how horrible he sounded by comparison. He also shows ZERO remorse that he has to go back on his promise to Genie about using his final wish to set him free, hell he even looks smug about it. What the ever loving hell is that about?

Also... jam. Never thought I'd hate jam.

The Lion King (2019)

This remake is the only one I've hated so much that I actually sat down and made a video about it on my Ayla Sky YouTube channel. Imma have to refer you to that cause I can't possibly condense all of my hatred in a short tumblr post.

Lady and the Tramp (2019)

I actually think this one was fine. Nothing really pissed me off and it's an overall nice movie. It was very inoffensive. It's nothing spectacular, but it's probably the least blood-boiling remake ever.

Mulan (2020)

... *sigh*

Mulan doesn't work hard to become a good soldier, she's just born cool cause she got chi

Team claims they wanted to make it more adult and therefore removed Mushu and the songs and made it more realistic and yet they add a SHAPE-SHIFTING WITCH

Mulan has no feelings or thoughts at any point whatsoever

THE TRAILER TRICKED ME

The way the villain dies is still one of my favorite, corny, over the top deaths I've ever seen. I legit got a stomach ache from laughing so hard

That's the last one of the bigger remakes I've seen. I've watched the Maleficent movies, Cruella, Alice in Wonderland movies and also the old 101 and 102 Dalmatian remakes from the late 90s and early 2000s, but they're not quite in the same group as these ones in the same way. But if you want to hear my thoughts on these two, let me know and I'll share!

I haven't watched Dumbo, Pinocchio, Peter Pan & Wendy nor The Little Mermaid yet so I have no opinions on those right now except I am cautiously optimistic about TLM :)

[hapuriainen]

Hapuriainen's animation, comics & games of 2022

It feels every year these get shorter and later... but better late than never!

Anime: 

Ranking of Kings, Magia Record s3, Machikado Mazoku s2, Futari wa Precure Max Heart, Delicious Party Precure, Spy x Family (part 1), Tiger & Bunny s2 (part 1), Yashahime s2, Magic User's Club, Tokyo Mew Mew New

Overall Yashahime was a disappointment but at least the Moroha stuff was good. As for Tiger & Bunny it was a delight to have Kotetsu back since this was my number one series back when the first season came out, but the netflix release model really killed all momentum it could have had and I still haven't managed to watch the second half.

Webcomics: 

Magical Mom, Cloudy Wondrous, Apricot Cookie(s)!, Strawberry Seafoam, Miss Guillotine

This year I read a lot of webcomics, which has been documented on my magical girl tumblr. On the manga front there wasn't anything new but I still continue with many series from past years. A shoutout to One Piece for having its worst year to date but at least the Wano arc is now finally over.

Movies: 

Encanto, Turning Red, Lightyear, some Precure movies, Children of the Sea

Games: 

Zelda Skyward Sword, Link's Awakening, New Pokemon Snap, Hyrule Warriors DE, Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, Pokemon Scarlet

Overall this has been a Game year (rather than anime or manga). I learned that nowadays games save on the console and not the cartridge so I could borrow games from the library and only buy them myself if I liked them enough (and then continue on the same save file). Unfortunately this was after I spent money on Skyward Sword which was not worth the 60€, meanwhile New Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Let's Go were enjoyable for the price tag of 0€ and Hyrule Warriors I had to get for myself and now I have over 100 hours on it. And Pokemon Scarlet was surprisingly fun too.

The awards:

Best work: I guess I have to give this to Hyrule Warriors since I've played it unexpectedly much, the story was dumb but I'm having a lot of fun in Adventure Mode.

Best music: Tal Tal Heights from Link's Awakening, Hyrule Warriors in general having a lot of good music, Area Zero music from Pokemon. Also the Bruno song.

Best visuals: Strawberry Seafoam for reminding me of retro girl shows

Best character design: Cloudy Wondrous, a very cute and creative magical girl look

Best OP: Spy x Family, the song is mellow and fun and the visuals are great

Best ED: Spy x Family for the visuals, no real standout songs this year

Biggest WTF: Children of the Sea overall, what even happened in that movie??

Best Girl: Kuroe from MagiReco

Best Boy: Ehh let's go with Bruno

Best Side Girl: the queen from Ranking of Kings being a surprising highlight of the whole show

Best Side Boy: Arven from Pokemon seemed super cringe at first sight but his bread storyline turned out to be the best part of the whole game. Also Groose from Zelda

Worst Girl: No total duds this year, let's go with Yui from Precure. Or Yuuko from Machikado Mazoku

Worst Boy: n/a

Worst Side Girl: Cia from Hyrule Warriors with her dumb outfit. Or (I'm sorry I know she's popular) Iono from Pokemon kind of annoys me... Oh right also Fi

Worst Side Boy: Trace from Pokemon Let's Go was a major disappointment for a final boss and it didn't really feel anything beating him. Also Porun from Precure

Best romance: For the first time in years I have a ship (botw Link and Zelda) but since I didn't play it this year, let's say that Loid and Yor are always a delight to see in how positive and respectful their relationship is

Best non-romantic relationship: the Spy x Family family stuff

Worst romance: Hyrule Warriors making it a plot point that the game's Link and Zelda will end up as a couple but giving them zero chemistry or development

Worst non-romantic relationship: Yashahime for keeping the new heroines separate from their parents 99% of the time

Plans for 2023:

Botw 2 can’t come out soon enough

Until then I’ll probably keep playing Hyrule Warriors

Pokemon Arceus

Hirogaru Precure

Overall expecting a very Precure year, since they revealed new sequel seasons and I have to watch the originals by then

Evangelion has been on my watch list since 2014, maybe I’ll eventually get to it if I keep including it.

Tiger & Bunny & Spy x Family part 2

TMM New s2

[agentnico]

Strange World (2022) Review

My dear fiancée put it best: recent Disney animations are like when you get a book as a kid and you think “wow, this looks awesome, I cannot wait to read it!” and then you get home and 10 pages in you’re awkward smiling and regretting everything.

Plot: The Clades are a legendary family of explorers whose differences threaten to topple their latest and most crucial mission into uncharted and treacherous territory.

Yep, Disney made an animated movie and yep it was in cinemas and nope no one went to see it. Why? Because there was hardly any marketing for it, however having now seen it pop up on Disney+ I’ve now watched it, and I can see why this movie wasn’t marketed much - it’s not really good. It basically ticks off every Disney cliché possible, and also never knows what it really wants to be. At times it’s a Jules Verne type exploring venture with even featuring Indiana Jones styled posters in the actual movie, and akin to Journey to the Centre of the Earth you see these characters get enamoured by this unknown new locale, however the title Strange World isn’t that justified, as this new world isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in other better adventure tales. Then next its a father-son tale, where by the way I never bought the relationship between those two - it felt so forced and unnatural, almost as if it were all just a fictional piece of wallop written by an overpaid screenwriter in the House of the Mouse. Like they have a disagreement and the dad just decides to ditch his young son for 25 years - like WTF??! Then there is the environmental commentary on renewable vs. non renewable energy which was such a last minute shoe-horn idea that felt like I was being force-fed life lessons by the almighty do-gooders that are Disney. However then I am reminded of Disneyland and how much machinery and food and resources it uses. Yet they want to go environmental mode on us? Seems hypocritical.

Also these days I’ve grown accustomed to accept that no matter the narrative quality, Disney or Pixar animated films always looks amazing in terms of visuals. They’ve got the best animators in the biz working on these movies, so even the disappointing Lightyear that came out earlier this year, for all its problems still managed to give us some incredible visuals. However Strange World manages to somehow look cheap. The creature designs were all really simple and the landscapes were all really uninspired and nothing to be in awe of. How is it that a 2022 animation from the giant that is Disney looks so amateur for their standards. It’s not that the animation is terrible or ugly, it just feels very ‘meh’ so to speak.

It seems that Disney spent most of its budget and time for this movie on their brand spanking new Disney logo intro that commemorates their 100th anniversary as Disney Pictures, and yes the logo screams “look how bloody rich we are”, but that seems pointless when what follows next is the utter mediocrity that is Strange World. Then again its Disney - they are indeed bloody rich and can afford to make forgettable content like this.

Overall score: 3/10

[stumblngrumbl]

i was pretty much commanded to watch Dune 1 because Dune 2 is apparently a must-see in the movie theater and i hadn't seen Dune 1 and Dune 2 will leave the theaters shortly

i'm just kinda gun-shy about seeing movies, they're usually just so fucking disappointing the last number of years i practically see only repeats of safe movies, boring right?

so anyways, yeah, saw Dune 1. considering i had a few years where i mostly read and re-read dune 1/2/3 books (then suffered with 4, then a few years later read 5&6 and said ok this is just getting fluffy, refused to read the other stuff that Frank Herbert didn't write because he was dead), and having suffered through Lynch's disastrous version - i never saw the syfy version - this movie was pretty dang good.

the good: followed the book story line surprisingly closely. really surprising.

also good and surprising: there's a character that was male in the book, they made female. good character; a named one; making the character female didn't change the plot at all, so why not? good deal. in retrospect, you could've done this with a few others, including some of the more badass ones.

the bad: i can't point to anything actually bad about it other than

the ugly: i had the sound up REALLY LOUD with a good sound system. i couldn't understand half of the dialog. i still knew what was going on because of the aforementioned being well-versed in the story... but still, wtf? and the darkness! i turned every light out, i usually have a dim light in the room because my eyes don't like hella contrast, but with true full darkness (there are zero lights outside anywhere here, and no moon last night) some scenes i would've got almost as much out of by turning the TV off. fucking hollywood, yeshua eff christo

specific things under the cut.

further observations and specific complaints:

Thufir was the Duke's master of assassins. In the movie, this guy may've been a mentat but he's not going to assassinate anyone. maybe in his youth he could've but book-Thufir was still a physical badass - not a Gurney or Duncan but still a lethal danger. You could easily imagine him and Piter de Vries circling each other in the arena. Not this guy. This guy was too nice, too.

The ornithopters were AMAZING. Loved them. damn. seriously, i didn't consider damselflies in my imagination before but what a perfect model. Whoever designed that deserves an Oscar, i hope there's a category for that. Does raise a question as to why is it an "orni" thopter if it's more buglike, but I'll let that slide. Also enjoyed the sand compactor which was mentioned in the book but i previously had no good visual on that.

The carryall (spice crawler mover/rescuer) was supposed to be a really big thopter. I think what they had in the movie probably makes more sense, kinda. Though those balloons were probably way too small to help much at all, but maybe spice gas has super intense buoyancy, or maybe those were some special suspensor globe thingy thing idk. Regardless, a thopter big enough to pick up a crawler seems a bit absurd once you see the size of the crawler (which the movie got right, it's a reasonable sized thing - consider that the worms always come and will clean up the spice blow, so you can't just use a small crawler and come back - you need to get all the spice from the blow right now).

Muad'dib is cute. I mean the kangaroo mouse. Not the mousy actor.

I thought Jessica was played a little too weepy, book-Jessica wasn't unfeeling but she was ready for battle pretty much all the time. She was seriously a strong and intense woman, and while she had her "human" moments she wasn't weepy except when they were in the tent after the storm. i don't think this is the fault of the actress and think she did a good job.

I was ready not to like paul in this movie because of the actor, but he did a decent job. i'm not well versed in current young male actors so i can't suggest a better one; there's likely a better one IMO but it wasn't bad

They cut the political dinner in Arrakeen and that's ok. it was interesting in the second or third read of the book but it bogged down the beginning of the first read (gg i almost stopped reading the book because of the slow beginning the first time) and was probably an easy cut making the movie. They also cut the solarium/greenhouse and moved Mapes's confrontation with Jessica forward. Way forward. That should've been completely private without a house guard present, Mapes would not have shown the blade with anyone else around. Are crysknives special or not? Apparently only kinda.

I don't recall there being a fairly big deal about the duke letting Duncan Idaho join Stilgar's sietch as compensation for some of Stilgar's men having been killed when trying to warn the Atriedes of a treachery. We just get duncan dancing around looking happy about whatever instead. It was a major coup getting him in there and having their trust that way, Leto's entire strategy banked on alliance. While Duncan & Gurney & Thufir (haha movie-thufir sorry) had trained a fighting force to within a hair's breadth of sardaukar strength, they couldn't do it large scale, and he knew that the fremen would allow them to take on the sardaukar face-to-face and win - safeguarding the house if not forcing a political marriage.

Speaking of marriage. "I should have married you". wha????? yes us readers understood. Everyone else: the fuck does this mean? They completely glossed over the politics that underpinned the entire story.

Still it seemed to me like they'd just landed on Arrakis when they came under attack; in the book i'm pretty sure there were at least a number of days if not weeks - seemed a bit quick and compressed. they at least needed to wait for the next heighliner, right?

Yueh's conditioning was never brought up so the shock that he was the traitor wasn't there. He had a pretty serious part, and the lengths that the baron went in subverting the conditioning crucial, but yueh was just some guy in the movie. nice to see they kept his symbol in the thopter but there was no reason given why it was even there, how had he left the goodies in the right thopter? in the book - he and specifically called out a desert-prepared thopter to use in disposing of P&J.

Sardaukar - first, salusa secundus was known as the emperor's prison planet, not army planet. nobody knew for certain where the sardaukar came from, though Leto &co strongly suspected it was S.S. surprise that SS is where nazi looking army dudes are from, right? yeah well ok nm. still. Also: the sardaukar were talked about in the book such that you could actually see their faces (remember when thufir was captured? oh wait they cut that from the movie too). why would they fight with this weird ass helmet on that blocks so much vision? are you trying to make pathetic imperial troopers? even under shaddam hussein iv, a sardaukar was still considered a match for seven typical landsraad levies - even if that's down from 10, 7:1 is still really badass.

Ok I mentioned the gender swap character - Liet Kynes - as I said, the character being male didn't matter to the plot so it's cool that they found another slot (in this as-is-typical mostly male movie) for a woman. But, what a stupid way to kill her off. She took like three steps outside the base onto the sand and called the maker and just stood there like a fucking idiot. Big surprise she got stabbed in the back isn't it? I think they could've done it better. Also this ended lost the ability to have the scene from the appendix which gives a lot of backstory about Arrakis (with Pardot Kynes).

Given that they did it to Kynes, why stop there? Thufir could've easily been female. I've never met a male Thufir, so it's not an obviously male name. What about Gurney? Duncan is kinda a male name, so you can keep him male I guess. Do we have to keep the Fremen so patriarchical that a woman can't lead a sietch? They let Kynes be female, and Kynes as pretty much the leader of the Fremen, in fact if not in name, so if they're ok with Kynes being a woman, Stilgar could've just as well. I'm fine with the H being male because they're obviously nazis... but does the Guild have to be all male? Don't forget Dune was written in a different time, but there's no reason we can't swap more.

When Paul & Jessica meet the fremen after the desert crossing, Paul pwning Jamis as he gtfo'd was key to Jamis being a hothead. ok jamis was a hothead all the time anyways but he was particularly pissed off about this little shit getting the drop on him and that's really why the fight happened. What's a sayyadina? i know and you may know, but my movie date didn't have a clue and neither did 90% of the movie watchers; in the book jessica was surprised to hear the word used at this point and realized the opportunity to take advantage of the natives' fremen superstition as a result.

Book-Chani gave Paul some tips about how jamis turns to the (right?left? i don't remember) after a particular attack. Why? Seems like she's already besotted with Paul or something after such a quick time? I liked the movie-Chani's attitude more, no tips or tricks, good luck i'll help jamis drink your water tonight white boy. Definitely more realistic.

Also in the final fight scene, i'm really surprised they didn't take advantage of this - in the book they took off stillsuits for the ritual fight. This is the reason given why the winner of a fight gets the loser's water, because they lose water due to perspiration in the process. As i said, surprised they didn't give the audience a show and have the actors strip to loincloths for the fight. Would it have been the case if one or both contestants was female?

ok that's more than a couple and i'd probably find more if i watch it again but i'll stop here and reiterate that

besides the seemingly long complaint list this was a good movie and overall really well done. i always figured that this book had too much going on in the characters' heads to make a good movie but i guess i was wrong and that's good. could it have been better? sure. i'd like to see a director's cut with the dinner and thufir's capture. oh and gurney shacking up with the smugglers too, that's not there.

[bradenthompson]

Divergent (2014) notes

>lemme just say at the top I'm not here to dunk on this movie for the sake of it and, moreover, I like every movie I've ever seen.

>I like getting a location card in the middle of the opening credits, definitely nowhere else that coulda gone

>so here's how this faction society shakes out, as I'm to understand five minutes in:

-Amity is a bunch of farmers -Erudite is the entire science industry and ig everything that entails -Candor is just the legal system -Dauntless is parkour cops -supposedly Abnegation is literally everything else. What would the subway driver be?

>realtalk I can forgo the "hurr durr faction society doesn't make sense" thing bc it's clearly analogous for teenagers entering adult society for the first time. So we'll be looking at it through that lens as opposed to the cinemasins bullshit

>lol why is the faction test like getting an ultrasound. thought it'd be like a pen and paper, Myers–Briggs thing. Faction society doesn't fuck around

>odd that a drink would inoculate Beatrice in like two seconds. Second verse same as the first

>drug trip faction test is still funny but good on the visual medium for doing visual metaphor

>set design looks like when the new star wars stuff has to make an in-universe version of a normal earth thing

>not a fan of nondiegetic licensed songs in movies, less so songs with sickass EDM drops

>lmao Beatrice just immediately talking shit unprompted

>so are they cleaning that Choosing Knife between initiates or what

>when you pick your faction you walk over to their quadrant and someone already in a seat has to get up and leave. Where do they go. Why is it set up like this. Remarkably inefficient systems here.

>you really can't trust a writer to be impartial with all their special clubs. Trust they will be biased towards one and make it the obviously coolest choice. Who tf is picking Abnegation

>presumably most people joining dauntless are gonna be doing dauntless shit for the first time, lmao, why is there no orientation. "K, welcome, climb an elevated rail line pussy"

>the percussion in the (licensed) song synching up to the chugging of the railcar is a cool editing flair. That's it. Just giving props

>why do all the dauntless initiates have cold feet about jumping in a hole. Jumping around is all these guys do. What did they think this was gonna be

>I promised not to do cinemasins shit but I'm really struggling with wtf Abnegation is. Apparently Beatrice has only eaten plain, spiceless food bc it'd be selfish to have salt? They're just so selfless they take precautions to never enjoy themselves? Why do they shower? Why do they have hair? What is their definition of vain bc so far it feels very arbitrary

>lmao Beatrice realizing cheeseburgers are good like "holy shit why did I eat rice cakes and tap water for eighteen years"

>Dauntless orientation is, in order: -jump on a train -jump off a train -fall in a hole -beat someone up -shoot a gun

>Miles Teller giving undercover cop energy

>cool of Dauntless to pair up the girls to fight other girls. Odd amount of inclusivity on their part. Thought they were bad boy cool dudes who don't bake you cakes and tuck you into bed

>would Dauntless let me get a tramp stamp

>does Faction Society have money?

>Girls loves throwing knives, write throwing knives into your thing and I promise they'll be like YOOOOOOOOO

>running w the theory that miles teller isn't a dick on purpose, he's just really clumsy with social cues

>Divergents as a plot device are still very unclear to me

>Candor is the faction that tells the truth but faction society as a whole has, so far, two separate means of looking inside someone's subconscious so, I ask, how does anyone keep secrets in this world

>how is anyone affected by the fear hallucinations the second time around. Beatrice is telling herself "this isn't real" but i refuse to believe only divergents would think to do this

>too many actors in this movie end their sentences whispering. it's not everyone but its enough to notice

>wait so factions don't do their jobs based on applicability? Whaddo they mean Erudite is gonna be running the place soon? If another faction decided they wanted to be the parkour cops could they just challenge Dauntless for that right?

>I have a theory about the nature of Divergents I may elaborate on should I watch the other movies, but for now: if we are to take the whole faction dynamic as analogy for entering adult society, what's in the suggestion that being a sociological individual (Divergent) is a rare, unique trait? It may empower the reader who fancies themselves a "Divergent" of sorts, but I'm not yet sure how to feel about this archetype being like the sigma male of YA girls. Seems like a device that's talking down to the rest of the non-Divergent cast (I will assume we meet more than one Divergent in the course of these movies)

>I remember when this movie came out and some circles were in a tizzy over Woodley and Elgort playing brother and sister the same year they were set to play a couple in TFIOS, which I'll tell you rn is a nonissue bc at no point do they feel like siblings in this. Could be intentional since Abnegation kids are homeschooled and eat off the ground with their hands, or that's the vibe I take.

>Beatrice: *punches a guy in the mouth* Kate Winslet: "Are you alright?" Beatrice: "yeah, s'all good"

>icking me out, how much unintentional blood swapping goes on in this. Four goes and injects himself with a needle, doesn't replace it, immediately injects Beatrice. Do people find that hot or something

>sorry to all the Divergent haters but the fear scene with Beatrice and Four is cool. I like the problem it proposes; Beatrice has to confront common fears but critically in ways she herself normally wouldn't, since doing so would reveal her Divergent-ness. Also the only scene thus far filmed in any compelling way (I like the pullout where it looks like they're still trapped in the tiny box but turns out they're against a wall in an open space. It's cool)

>spending a lot of time with Beatrice and Four just hanging out. Will suppose the author just wanted to do a bunch of scenes with them but wasn't gonna space them out

>What exactly is Four's status within Dauntless, even? Is he just the camp counselor? He shows Beatrice how Erudite is up to some funny business with Dauntless as if to suggest he has no control over them doing that.

>what--is--up--with--all--the--injection--serums--in--this--movie

>k the fakeout ending in Beatrice's final test was neat but made a little funny by the fact that a. everyone watched Beatrice and Four almost screw b. one of Beatrice's greatest fears, apparently, is taking things too fast. Like it's right after burning to death

>How does Kate Winslet know about the "shooting innocent people" thing? That was one of Four's fears, and I thought what fear trials one goes through are personalized

>calling it right now: bullets in the gun are blanks but Beatrice doesn't fire regardless.

>DOUBLE FAKEOUT, IT'S VERONICA ROTH'S WORLD AND YOU'RE JUST LIVIN IN IT, BITCH

>hey guess how the Dauntless graduates get their tracking devices implanted. Guess. Make a guess. Guess how they do it. Did you guess injection bc its an injection.

>must you overthrow Abnegation by force? Just tell them it's egotistical to run the government and they'll go back to eating Corn Flakes with water.

>I'm not seeing how Abnegation stands to destroy the faction system. Why would a faction capable of doing that even be a faction. who came up with this

>Beatrice having a buckwild couple a minutes, here

>inspired mother-daughter firefight goin on. "Oh, so you shot one of your friends, Bea, come on, I've split like twelve wigs in the past two minutes, you don't see me crying about it."

>I like that Beatrice just uses a gun. All the other YA girlies are stuck with weapons arguably more graceful but if you fuck with Bea you're gettin the Blick.

>Beatrice noticeably less bothered over her dad dying as opposed to her mom, then again she's on a Horrors of War crash course rn.

>gonna attempt to call it again: Four is Divergent, he's just doing a bit rn

>lmaooo Beatrice hittin the fuckin hurricanrana on Four, why do people think she's lame

>"you won't kill me; I'm the only A-lister in this movie, barring Miles Teller who's still in the B-list incubator."

>one more injection to send the crowd home

>narration's back, wooooooooooooooooo

>why are the credits in Courier

That's all, folks. Movie's fine. Nothing outright terrible about it, least nothing we shouldn't be holding other YA movies to. When I watch Insurgent I'll be sure to make a count for all Needle Imagery

[naughtygirl286]

So yeah we finally went to see Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Ant-Man 3) this week and yes there was some collectable goodies which you can see here

but as for the movie I thought it was amazing! I have to say I did love it it was exciting and fun there was plenty of action and I have to say I did feel that it was a bit more serious then the previous Ant-Man movies it did have its funny moments but I felt that it was a bit more serious in its tone and story.

I think think that the seriousness was because they were setting up how deadly and dangerous that Kang is going to be in the MCU movie forward and I feel that they achieved this in the movie Ant-Man was in serious trouble in this one.

but yes speaking of Kang which I felt was one of the major draws of this movie was done perfectly! he was ruthless and cunning and just how I would have pictured him in Live-Action they introduced him and just did him perfectly and alot of that is due to Jonathan Majors's protrail of him he was excellent in that role and alot of what made Kang so good was how he played him all the credit should go to him and I can't wait to see more of him as Kang in the future also not only Jonathan Majors's protrail of the character but the costume department deserves some credit as well with the look being Kang looks like he should As a comic book reader you can tell right off that this is Kang.

another thing that I was completely pleased with was the introduction and look of M.O.D.O.K. I was kinda iffy on how they were going to do this when I heard he was going to in in it I was kinda like "wtf?" but I'm seriously pleased with how they introduced him and his look and everything. Sure he is kinda of a jokey character in this and at times in the comics (was M.O.D.O.K. ever a serious character?) but they pulled this off perfectly as well and he is extremely close to his comic book look as well which was awesome I have to say I did like how they did him in this I was happy with it.

also they have Cassie Lang (played by Kathryn Newton) in a suit now much like she is in the comic as she goes by the name Stature/Stinger so that makes me wonder if they are possibly going to do a "Young Avengers" movie or something now? but she did a good job as this character everyone did excellent in their returning roles especially Michael Douglas,Evangeline Lilly and Michelle Pfeiffer One thing thought is lots of people were all excited for Bill Murry's "big role" which wasn't every big it was like only a few minutes I thought I mean he was good in the screen time he had but I wouldn't consider this a big thing the way some were hyping it and I still think Paul Rudd is doing a great job as Scott Lang/ Ant-Man.

But yes like I said the movie is a bit more serious and has I'd say a darker tone then the previous ones it is light and funny at the beginning when they are on "earth" but when they go down to the Quantum Realm that is when it get a bit more serious and and is more like a action/thriller and once they get back up to earth it is back to being light and funny I think they did this to show the difference between the 2 realms of existence

Now one major draw of this movie I think would be the visuals. this movie is amazingly visually and I believe it does bring the WOW effect when they get down to the Quantum Realm the environment and all the crazy landscapes and especially all the crazy creatures its one of those movies that I wanted to pause and get a good look at everything becasue I love stuff like that and see all the details and designs. but it was all very impressive and I loved it all from a visual effects/creature/make-up/production design aspect especially the lil blob guy who is obsessed with holes lol

but yeah I thought the movie was fun and exciting and had lots of action, had so great funny moments and a good bit of silliness being I feel the Ant-Man movies are suppose to be a bit of a action/adventure/comedy type of thing. I have heard that some ppl didn't like it and that it their opinion not everyone is going to like something but personally I thought it was great I enjoyed it! I had fun watching it, I laughed at some things giggled at others and was happy with how stuff turned out. All I can say is what I usually say which is don't listen to any reviews and go see it and make up your own mind. That is how it should always be. don't listen to people saying its bad or good that is for you alone to decide. I liked it and that is my personal opinion. Also yes There is both a mid credits scene and a end credits scene one featuring Council of Kangs (aka The Kang Collective) and another dealing with Season 2 of Loki.

[steampoweredstarsketch]

OKAY CAN WE TALK ABOUT RETURN TO OZ FOR A SECOND!?

So I just watched Return To Oz all the way through for the first time, and, as someone who has read almost all of the Wizard of Oz books in the series, can I just say….

What a marvelously accurate representation!?

So Return To Oz is based off the two books in the series following The Wizard of Oz, (The First One). The Marvelous Land of Oz, and Ozma Of Oz. And while it is a far cry from a shot for shot visual recreation of the books, it is a damn respectable representation as far as the parts it did adapt goes. In fact, most of the characters, tasks, and elements are ripped straight from the book, they’re just rearranged in a hodgepodge sort of way that still somehow maintains the sentiment each of them had in the book so authentically I might just give it a medal for most loyal book adaptation were it more linear!!

Pretty much all of the character designs were ripped straight from the original John R Neil illustrations like Jim Henson and Will Vinton brought them to life!! All the main characters, the wheelers, her returning to Oz with Billina by getting lost at sea and showing up on a shore with lunchbox trees and encountering a terrifying princess with an interchangeable head, facing off against the gnome king with her friends getting turned into ornaments one by one, the gnome king coming off as nice at first but then showing his true colors, Ozma, Tik Tok, even down to how jack pumpkin head came to be and the magic words to say that brings the Gump to life with the Alive Powder and getting it from a wizard! So much of it is so on point, even the celebration at the end!!

Of course, there are some striking differences between the two that I think they did either to save the run time, by technical limitations, or to consolidate aspects of the book together for simplicities sake. And you would think that might ruin it for a lover of the book, but I’m telling you this movie was MADE for people who loved the books!!!

Like holyfuck!! Return to Oz was made with so much love and time and effort and attention to detail I could cry!!! Even right down to jack Pumpkinheads outfit!!! They mixed up or left out some important aspects and context, and I have no fucking clue what the whole insane asylum thing at the beginning was supposed to be about, that is probably the most made up and out of place thing in the whole movie to be frank. …… L. Frank…. That is….. 😏 Okay I’ll shut up.

Also can we talk about the whole insane asylum electroshock therapy thing??? Like wtf guys??? I’d chalk up everybody’s childhood fears to the 80’s effects if it wasn’t for that weirdness at the beginning! Also, why does the doctor die in the fire and why is the nurse being carted off to jail?? I feel like I missed something there. Like, I got the feeling we weren’t supposed to like them because Dorothy was afraid of them, and we have hindsight bias about the effects of electroshock therapy, but like, they didn’t do anything wrong or evil or even particularly mean!! Like we know electroshock therapy can scramble your eggs now, (although a modified version has been proven safe and effective and is still used today for some specific circumstances) back then electroshock therapy was just another treatment, they genuinely were under the belief that they were helping their patients! The doctor tried to be friendly and make the experience less scary for Dorothy, and the nurse just came off as a little cold and not good with kids, and sort of firmly told her to lie down on the gurney, but she was never in anyway cruel to anybody, and even risks her life to save the two girls from the river in the thunderstorm in the beginning!!

And in the end they say the asylum burned down, and everyone was rescued except the doctor who went back in for his machines, and they just don’t explain why the nurse is being carted away!! I think it’s implied that it was for having people locked up there and we can hear their screams in the beginning, but once again, that was standard practice by then! And since everyone made it out okay, that specifically implies that both nurse and doctor did their jobs and ensured the safety of all the patients in their care! And once that had been done, the doctor went back in to try to safe this equipment he thought he was using to help so many people, and he fucking dies in there!! WTF!?!?

That aside, I can’t gush enough about the effects, Will Vinton is a god of his craft, and just how unbelievably smooth and creative and expressive the stone gnomes are is just eye candy, and same to Jim Henson with how he brought all the other characters to life so accurately!!!

Also, fun fact, “Princess Mombi”, from Return to Oz, is actually a mashup of two different characters from the books, The Old Witch Mombi, a recurring antagonist who debuted in book 2, The Marvelous Land of Oz, who for years imprisoned Princess Ozma as her indentured ward, except Mombi turned her into a boy named Tippertarius, Or Tipp, for short. And in the fucking end of that book?? THERES A GODDAMN TRANSGENDER MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATION!!! This book was published in 1904 mind you!! No wonder why this series was claimed by the gays so fast. (Unrelated note, The Scarecrow X Tin Woodsman OTP forever, they’re so wholesome,) And by the way, this was the bit where Jack Pumpkinhead comes from. Ever wonder why he keeps calling Dorothy “Mom”?? Well Ozma created Jack Pumpkinhead while she was Tipp to scare Mombi, and then Mombi used the magic alive powder on Jack to use him as a handyman so she could turn TIpp to stone for all the trouble. Tipp turns into Ozma at the end of the book, and I believe Jack refers to Tipp as his father, and so when Tipp turns into Ozma I suppose she then became his Mother. And Ozma and Dorothy are tighter than a pickle jar and Ozma dubs her an honorary Princess of Oz, and are supper affectionate toward one another, giving off some major lesbian vibes, so in that case, as two in love co-rulers, I think they’re trying to say Jack Pumpkinhead has two moms and I’m super here for it.

So if Mombi is a witch, then what’s with the princess shtick with all the heads about?? Well that’s where the book “Ozma of Oz” comes in, which ironically is more Dorothy centric. So Dorothy gets lost at sea while sailing on a ship to Australia for a vacation with Uncle Henry, when she’s looking in the ship chicken coop on the deck, she finds a chicken named bill, they get swept out to sea in a storm, and wash up on the shore of, Not Oz! But the Country of Ev!! They dust themselves off, Bill the chicken corrects Dorothy’s pronouns and renames herself Billina, and they see big letters written in the sand saying “BEWARE THE WHEELERS” And lemme tell you, the movie was spot on with them fuckers. The designs, and the fact they talk big but are generally benign and try to scare people away from the lunchbox trees so they can have them all to themselves. BTW the lunchbox trees are also in the book and I wanna eat them so friggin bad!!!

Princess Mombi/ Princess Langwidere /

Witch Mombi

Anyway! The Country of Ev has a Princess, Princess Lanwidere, who has over 50 interchangeable heads she came across much like Princess Mombi from the movie! Also kept in glass cases, and she also expresses the desire to lock Dorothy away so she can take her head when she’s older. (Side note, Langwidere is the Niece of the Late tragic Kine Evoldo who has a really tragic story and demise of walking into the sea to drown himself!) Princess Langwidere is also narcissistic and not a very good ruler, but aside from her one run in with Dorothy she’s generally a one off antagonist in the story. But her whole deal is so interesting and memorable I see why they chose to combine both the characters together to make a really memorable knock your socks off villainess!

And lastly the Nome King, while still being made of stone with pebbles for the beard, he’s described as looking like a very jovial short Santa Claus, (L Frank Baum REALLY loved Santa Claus, and references him often in the Oz series, and even writes the life and adventures of Santa Claus) And he has a magical emerald belt. There were no ruby slippers in the books, only silver shoes, which magically disappeared when she wished herself home in the last book, but they were lost forever and never recovered.

They also got Ozma’s magical mirror correct, and she looks into it at a certain time every single day to see if Dorothy ever wants to return to oz and she will make it so.

This was such a tender an loving adaptation I demand it be given more love and more credit for all time!!

I! HAVE! SPOKEN!!!

[oceanspray5]

I feel like someone like you, who likes the Cinderella fairy tale for the fairy tale, would've liked the new Camelia movie just fine if it wouldn't have been named Cinderella and just another modern musical 🤧

Possibly...

But tbh my problem isn't just that they ruined the fairytale aspect of it but rather how much they tried to force the girlboss narrative?

This tweet more or less sums it up for me:

It's not the fairytale that I miss or that made me angry. It's the fact that they tried to make everything about it as "in your face" as possible while also getting the essence of it completely wrong. In a way this movie appeared to call the previous versions of Cinderella weak when that isn't true at all.

On a surface level this movie tried so hard to say it's about a strong woman but it completely forgot that the original Cinderella was strong af too even if she didn't go about saying "I'm a strong woman" every 2 seconds. The movie felt almost as if it was insecure in itself. As if the writer was scared they couldn't write an actual strong woman and instead decided to over compensate by having every single female character say it. When you have a good story, you show your audience rather than tell them things like "the female lead is a strong role model". When you have a strong character, you don't need to say it. The audience can see it for themselves.

If the script of the movie was in better hands, if it were a GOOD script in ANY capacity, then we'd see how Gwen is better suited for being Queen rather than have her give random untimely one-liners about things she would improve about the kingdom when the conversation being had on screen isn't even remotely related to it. She'd help the Prince escape while doing his paperwork for him and we'd see her drive a hard bargain for doing him this favor which would prove to us that she's an excellent negotiator but also that she knows matters of state. Or we'd see her do something necessary that needs to be done somewhere while everyone else is panicking over how to solve the problem. These visual cues, if they would have been included, would have shown us that Gwen both wants to be Queen and has the capability for it while Robert does not.

For the Queen... Wtf even was that whole shtick about the King's throne being an inch taller? They did a good job with her in the second half of the movie where she confronted the King about treating her badly but the first half? It was weird af. They tried too hard there too and they made the king over the top mean to his wife in the process.

That Queen Tatiana at the ball... Why did she have to have killed her husband? Why was it necessary to have that be her story? Was it that hard to have her say "Oh yes I'm at the ball with my husband but I'm the diplomat of our kingdom so I have to travel a lot and I need a designer to come with me on my travels"? This gets the message across just as well doesn't it? That the Queen is both independent and comes from a kingdom which is open minded about women undertaking important jobs BUT it would also have delivered another important message: The Queen is loved and supported by her husband and that marriage and love are things you can have while retaining your own autonomy. So again... Why was it necessary for her to have murdered her husband to be seen as "strong woman". The method the movie chose to go with has one less plus point than the one I just suggested and there were a billion other ways to go about it than the one I just said.

And Cinderella herself... She doesn't suffer any sort of abuse from her step family. They're mean to her but they're not cruel as in other versions of Cinderella and they certainly don't prevent her from having her independence otherwise she wouldn't have an entire basement full of her designs unharmed. In an actual Cinderella story, the step family would have exploited Ella's talents if they knew she was such a capable seamstress. In this movie, society is the abuser and not the stepmother and that sort of changes the entire narrative of the story.

Cinderella's story is about patience and courage and kindness and forgiveness. Her story being reduced to wanting to be a businesswoman just because it's more #girlboss than overcoming an abusive situation does not sit right with me at all. It's the opposite of feminist, in fact.

So yes, in a way you're right. If they had changed the name of the movie I would have tolerated it because it would be just another fairytale film but with a message targeting society's lack of acceptance of working woman. But I am not okay with them warping the message of Cinderella being an abusive victim and turning it into something it's not and turning her into something she's not.

If this movie wasn't called Cinderella, it would just be another bad film with a terrible script and meh acting. Unfortunately it is called Cinderella, so it makes sense it's getting a lot of criticism from me and many other people because the fact of the matter is:

Cinderella was already a strong woman's fairytale. This movie was just a weakened cheapened version of it that spent all of its time trying to use words to say it was about a strong woman to hide the fact that it wasn't actually about a strong woman at all because that would have required the writers to show strength rather than just tell it verbally and that is something they did not do.

Sorry... 😅 I went on a bit of a tangent there but I had a lot of feelings about this and I guess I used this as an opportunity to say them all.

[looseratinthegarage]

First thoughts of Prey

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️

I liked it. The premise is good. CGI is okay at times, better at others. But wtf did they do to my boy? They fucking did him dirty. I didn’t like the design in Predators from 2010 either. It feels like directors who know nothing about the franchise keep strolling in and changing shit up. You don’t mess with perfection. The original design is perfection. I was rather disappointed to see that they significantly slimmed down the yautja and made his head “more proportionate to his body” quoted from the director. Director Dan Trachtenberg stated he wanted to make him more “animalistic” I believe is how he phrased it, but correct me if I’m wrong. The fact that this Yautja was “slimmed down” doesn’t make a lick of sense if you look at what happens in the movie and the sort of fighting he engages with. He willingly wrestled a bear and got fairly wounded. He took on one of earths many tanks without weapon aid, why? Because he was fighting on its level. As we’ve seen them do in countless other movies. But why would they make him smaller, therefore weaker, and put him up against such a deadly creature?

Something that peaked my interest was the fact that Dan said this is a more “primitive yautja”, one from 300 years ago. But that just doesn’t make sense. The Yautja can live hundreds of years and evolution takes far longer to happen then in that short time. Try millions of years. If you look at humans you see we haven’t changed almost at all in 300 years, now If we take a look at some long living life forms on earth we see that they don’t really change either, in the millions of years of the species existing. Example, take a tortoise for instance or a crocodile, they live an extremely long time, have they changed very much throughout history? No. Evolution never stops, Darwinism and the theory of natural selection will always be around, but these specific creatures kept adapting efficiently to their environments, making a “near perfect” life form from the combination of helpful mutations. All of this leads me to believe the Yautja have been around far longer then humans if they have such a long life span, as if that wasn’t already obvious with their advanced technology, but I digress.

Now, another problem I have with the movie is a couple scenes.

1). It’s when the Yautja has Naru in between the rocks and was going to decapitate her with his advanced shield-like weapon. Granted I’ve only watched the movie once through, and will have to rewatch it many more times to give a thorough and more accurate analysis; Why didn’t he kill her? He had the perfect opportunity, so why? Was something stopping him? Did his weapon get stuck on the large stones? or did he seriously still not see her as a threat still at that point?

2). He blocked almost zero attacks. I’ll reiterate once more, they made this Yautja weaker, so why did he get so many hits on him? He’s smaller to be more agile, but he really didn’t show that off. When jumping from tree to tree he did not display it either, we’ve seen the larger Yaujta fight as he did from the trees. He is no tank, powerful yes, but he is unlike his beefier yautja brethren who can take more hits.

—(ADDED CONTENT)—

I feel the need to discuss the predators design further. They elongated his head and reduced its width as well. He looks far too bug like or perhaps resembles an odd fish. The colors are muted and bland unlike the other yautja we’ve seen in movies, comics, and games. I also noticed his “dreads” are much finer, less thick. I’m not opposed to the change of the dreads, I actually like the update, as well as the og thick dreads.

—(END OF ADDED CONTENT)—

But despite my nitpicking I must give credit where credit is due. This is possibly the best film we’ve ever seen come out of the franchise. While the original from 1987 will always be my favorite, this is a very close second. The visuals were absolutely stunning, the camera work was well done, and the casting was awe-inspiring. I would like to thank Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenplay writer and producer Patrick Aison for their wonderful job. As well as the cast and crew who worked on this fantastic piece of cinema.

⚠️This is all my opinion, I am not claiming to be an expert on the subject nor know everything about Yautja canon and lore. Please take this with a grain of salt.⚠️

If you have thoughts on this please share them, I’d love to hear everyone’s opinions. <3