Inside Man

Hello, World!

I think I get where all those hostage themed episodes in tv shows came from.

+spoilers+

Overview: Criminal Dalton Russell and his gang stage a bank heist with over 50 hostages. It is up to Detective Keith Fraizer with the help of police to try and defuse the situation and save them.

This is an interesting take of a heist movie. Instead of the protagonists being the heisters or the cops, it’s actually the hostage negotiators. That’s pretty cool. I really like Keith Frazier. He’s smart, funny, clever, and very serious when doing his job. He gets mad respect here.

When I was watching it, it felt very pretentious. The power play between Russell and White, White and Case, White and Frazier, Frazier and Russell, which like I get it’s necessary given the situation, but it just feels so political and patronizing. Especially with Russell just giving his “I’m so smart with the perfect heist” speech in the beginning. Which I totally called his “because I can” line from that. Smug Asshole.

Which, going from that opening to just bollywood music was such a tonal shift that I literally thought this movie takes place in India.

The bank heist at least felt and look professional. They knew how to use fear and humiliation to establish control of the hostages, dressed the hostages as themselves to provide cover and be anonymous, all without needing to kill anyone. Which really tipped me off that they weren’t going to do it. I mean, the first guy TOTALLY got caught and all Russell did was just pulled him to another room and beat him. Like, guns aren’t for threats they’re for action. Hell even Fraizer caught on to that and that’s why they had to “kill” a “hostage.” I caught that was fake. I didn’t how how they faked it, but I knew it was fake.

Doesn’t take away from the movie though. I need to make that point clear. Just because I semi figured shit out doesn’t negate the good writing and deception that the heisters did.

Also shout out to the hard hat guy who knew it was Albanian, I really liked him.

This movie was also good in showing racial prejudice too. Given everything going on, I appreciate that. Like Vikram Walia, a Sikh who the police literally called him a terrorist. He was also demanding his turban back which I 100% agree with. Give the man back his turban!

Did not like Madeleine White, like At All. Or her thing with Case. And didn’t really care for what was located inside box 392. Or like, I wasn’t interested would be better said. I literally guessed what was in it as a joke, then it became true. I think it was because of the pretentiousness and “power play talk” that killed it for me.

The reveal of the bank heist, with how the robbers managed to pull it off...I didn’t really care for it. Like, not that it wasn’t clever to make a fake wall to hide behind to lay low. It’s just that where the hell did that come from? I never knew/heard about this until then, so it just sort of came up out of nowhere. With Ocean 11/8/whatever they at least let you know who the heisters are and then spring on the final piece of the plan to make you go “Oh! Now I get it!”

Overall: It was good, but I was ok with it. I think that I need more action in my heist movies, or at least see how it was being planned. Otherwise the “cat and mouse” psychological chase thing, I’m not too into the genre. Again, good movie, just not my thing.

Hugo

So this movie has more than meets the eye

Yeah I went completely blind. I had like a vague idea of what it could have been. I knew it was about a kid who is associated with clocks and clock towers, and that there was an adventure around it. So what I had in mind was this steam-punk action-adventure fantasy type film finding hidden secrets and mysteries with keys and clockworks. Boy was I wrong.

I sort of don’t want to say what this movie is truly about because of how much of a twist it was for me. So I’ll just say what I can while keeping what I think of as “The Reveal” a secret.

Overview: Hugo is an orphaned boy who lives at the Paris train station working and winding the clocks. Before his father’s passing, they found a mysterious automaton broken in a museum. While trying to avoid being caught, he works hard to fixing the little machine, solving the mystery and bringing him closer to his father once again.

I like how atmospheric is feels. It is very calm and relaxing. There wasn’t any loud music, even when there were action scenes. It was very gentle, both in the soundtrack and the pacing. Like it is meandering in it’s storytelling, taking its time knowing the movie will get there when it does.

It even takes time to try and flesh out the other side characters too, regardless of actual relevance to plot. My favorite was this one guy who just wants to be near his sweetheart, but her dog keeps growling at him. He doesn’t even say anything, but you can see how dedicated he is trying to get the dog to like him. They also took time to flesh out the Stationmaster. He isn’t some heartless asshole that just likes order and hates kids. He is a WW1 vet who is awkward as hell but also self-conscious about his wounds. I at first hated that he was given a solo scene because I hated this guy, but all the characters do grow on you in some way. They may be antagonistic, but they are still people.

Ben Kinsley is an asshole. When we first met him he’s an asshole. When my sister tried to watch this movie on a plane she stopped because he was an asshole. And yes, he is a Major Asshole. But again, the movie does its thing of just slowing building the world and slowing building people to the point where he isn’t just an asshole or isn’t THE Asshole, but he is his own person with other feelings.

And the mystery element behind is very very good. Just what is the automaton, what does it do, and why does fixing it lead to more and more mysteries? It just gets deeper and deeper in solving it, with a very satisfying conclusion.

Overall: Yeah I recommend this movie. Its peaceful, graceful, poetic, and just touches on who these people are. It’s just, so fantastic in both the grand and mundane. Definitely check of out.

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

How did I find this movie? The answer may surprise you.

Overview: Jessie moves into Elm Street with his family and begins to have horrific nightmares about Freddy Krueger, as he slowly comes forth from the dream world and into Jessie’s life.

The original Nightmare on Elm Street, I was ok with. It has some decent scares and special effects, and is considered a horror classic for a reason. I think at least in the slasher flicks genre. But after watching the original, og Freddy Krueger , I had no desire to see any of the sequels. They tend to fall in the “this was a huge hit so we are going to milk it for as long as we can” and it shows. I mean, when you watch Friday the 13th 8: Jason in Space, it tends to become campy instead of creepy. Remakes are the same vein, the producers and directors are so dedicated to make this aesthetically modern and scary, that they forget to add in decent writing to the mix. So seeing horror sequels or remakes never even cross my mind or interest.

But then I heard about how gay this movie is.

And it was intriguing.

I first heard about this movie while watching a youtube video analysis called “Monsters in the Closet- A History of LGBT Representation in Horror Cinema” (which it a very interesting watch too btw, totally recommend it). The video basically talks about the 3 ways the LGBT+ community is shown in horror series: Subtext, White-People Fears, and Villains. But when it got to Freddy’s Revenge, it pointed out how extremely obvious it was in gay subtext, which the writers/directors/cast had to deny it for years just so they can make sure the film was made.

It’s sort of hard to talk about what happened in this movie without talking about the gay subtext because I went into this movie to deliberately watch it as a gay horror film, trying to see and find the instances littered all over.

I mean, Freddy at one point put his finger to Jessie’s lips, caressed his hard, then grabbing the front of Jessie’s shirt and pushed him into a wall, I didn’t really need a magnifying class to find the gayness.

It goes even deeper when you can watch this film through the lense of “Jessie is battling through his internalized homophobia over the thought of being gay/bi and Freddy capitalizes on that to reek havoc on the town” (which is explained in much better HERE HERE)

Overall: yeah I recommend it. Honestly the production value of special effects and scares matched the first one pretty well so as a horror film. The actors were decent, the pacing was fine. It’s a passable and entertaining movie. But when you throw in the themes of being gay and homophobia (which no matter how you see it, the movie was written with those ideas in mind) it just makes it all the more interesting. Because I have never seen a horror movie quite like this before, and it is opening up a whole new world for me.

The Dark Crystal

Puppets get a pass only when they are muppets I’m going to be honest, I tried once to watch this movie a few years ago. Didn’t make it half an hour in, but I can’t remember if it was because I was bored or got busy. But that was before the new tv version on Netflix came out. So I watched it this time on youtube in parts because I didn’t want to pay to rent it. So the movie was split in like 5 minute segments with partial director commentary at the end of each video. So while it didn’t exactly flow great, it did give me some interesting insight to the movie’s making. Overview: In ancient times an ancient crystal broke into two parts, creating two groups of people and plunging the world into terror and darkness. Now it is up to a young Gelfling, last of his kind, to unite the crystal again so that peace may reign.

The puppets were really cool to watch. I mean it should be, it was made by Jim Henson after all. He did an amazing job with this movie. I loved just watching the sets and the background creatures burst into life. The Gelflings were just…a little creepy in the face. The Gilfling’s smooth faces sort of threw me off, but I loved the other creatures. The Skeksis and Elder Turtle guys, they were really cool to look at. And I literally have no idea at all how the hell they were able to do any of that! Were they hand puppets? Stop motion puppets? Puppets on strings? That shit is amazing to try and figure it out.

The plot had this grand epic scale to it. Old ancient beings both good and evil reaching the ends of their long lives. The commentary actually pointed out that there were a few similarities to Star Wars and I can see why. Just this feeling of big purpose that was put on the weight of one’s shoulders. I especially liked how connected the Skeksis and Urru (humming turtle elder guys) are to each other. The other half of the same coin. The Urru elder dying peacefully and disappearing into the universe. The Skeksis Emperor fighting and clinging to his power until his last breath where he dissolved into nothing. It was just, nice to see their relationship to each other throughout the film.

Aughra is like the best character here. She is so energetic and literally didn’t give a shit no matter who she was talking to. She just started yelling at the Ancient Millennia Evil Beings like she’s lodging a complaint at the housing committee in her neighborhood. Like, that is a life goal right there. So I liked the puppetry, and I liked the plot. I wasn’t actually too keep on them being together for some reason. I don’t know why exactly, maybe because I’m not use to an all puppet story (muppets had some human characters in there too). It’s probably just a medium thing where some people don’t like a particular art style. Some people aren’t a fan of black and white, some don’t like anime, so I guess I’m not too into puppets. So I was sort of watching the movie as two distinct parts and not as a whole, but it still was enjoyable to see.

Overall: Yeah this was a fun watch. Maybe not my absolute favorite film or something I would rewatch, but it was still cool to see. I’d say give the puppet movie a chance. It’s weird and fun, and even if there aren’t some parts you like, there’s still enough to enjoy.

Titanic 1997

Alright, I finally caved and watched it. It could have had a happier ending. I was against watching this movie for a long time. I didn’t have anything against the plot, it was just I knew how the movie ended. The boat sinks. My mentality was, if I knew how the event ended why bother watching? Like, all the movie was going to do was let me see a bunch of people who is just going to die at the end. Plus, back then I was really against romance movies of any kind. If it was a movie marketed as a romance, I would be super against it. Meaning the entire lure of Jack&Rose was strike two against this film. Then, it didn’t help that I knew the end and main plot points because of how big Titanic was. (pun unintended but accepted). I knew the song, the motif, the opening shot, specific lines like “Paint me like your French Girls” and “It was called the Ship of Dreams,” “I’m king of the world,” Jack could have fit on the door. Basically, all the best/iconic parts of the movie. So it felt like, if I knew plot of the film, for something that didn’t really held my interest, in a very sad event, why do I need to really watch it? Well, I was wrong. And really wrong. Overview: Treasure Hunters search for a rare necklace that was lost on the Titanic. Soon they discover information from an unlikely source, an old woman named Rose Dawson, who explains her experience of love and lost on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

I did not realized that the movie opened in present-ish day. I was expecting to just jump right into actual story, so that was a little off-putting. I was against it at first, because they were going for the whole “flashback” route and I wasn’t really into it. But it grew on me, and looking back it was probably the best way to tell this story. It opened on modern day because that was where we are, but we can’t possibly imagine how/what happened on the Titanic unless someone who has been there tells us. It just makes it feel more real that way. I think Rose explains it the best when that one guy was explaining how exactly the Titanic sank to her: living through it was a different experience than just explaining it. The transitions between old and new are just beautifully done, both in a long emotional transition as everything fades from old to new to old again, and a quick jump for comedic timing. I never really expected this to be a funny movie, but there are a LOT of good jokes throughout. Old Rose is especially hilarious. She is just old and spunky and didn’t give two shits. I hope to be like that someday. .

The supporting characters are good too. Cal the fiancee was a dick and a trash person and oh so wonderful to hate. Fabrizio and Tommy were the fun party guys just there for a good time. We got to see some cool historical characters brought to life like Margret Molly Brown, who is a fun take charge kind of person. Thomas Andrews the ship builder as a kind and thoughtful man who really did care a lot about the people on the ship. They were like two of my favorite people in the movie. And speaking of historical things, James Cameron did a lot to portray the movie as historically as possible. Not just the big things with the ship and the historical people. There were so many small moments that were historically important and relevant to the sinking that were included. Like the missing binoculars, wanting the ship to go faster, “woman and children first” to “woman and children only.” There is just a lot of respect in trying to make this as accurate as you can.

The romance felt natural, it was a nice slow burn of just trying to open a new world for Rose. Stuck in a shitty and loveless engagement, ending up just talking to a genuinely kind people. Like, Leo was perfect in his role as Jack. I just love his care free attitude and his kind nature to just try to help. Granted, I wished that there was a….Better Way for them to have initially met, but it just pulls you in that you know you want there to be a way for them to work it out. I’ve also noticed you don’t really see a genderbend version of the trope, the poor but free traveler and the wealthy but trapped socialite having a romance. It’s always a poor boy and rich girl in those specific roles. Just a thought I had while watching. image

You know, I never actually heard them really play the song “My Heart Will Go On.” I mean as the full song. I was expecting the lyrics to play at some point at least. Instead it was just a motif in little parts throughout the movie, but at all the romantic parts whenever Jack and Rose were really bonding together. And it also got sad when you hear the music over, you know, the ship about to sink. God I was freaking crying when Rose jumped back into the ship and Jack and kissing her calling stupid but they just kept kissing! Arg!!!

Also, have you noticed that there were a LOT of hints to Jack dying when the ship sinks? I get catching the lines foreshadowing the ship sinking, but there were a bunch of moments that also point out his own demise. If I didn’t know about Jack’s death already, I probably would have just chalked it up to specifically the ship sinking. This movie has a terrible habit of getting me attached to side characters only to watch them die. It also has a terrible habit of getting me attached to characters I’ve never even seen before while I was watching them die. Which makes sense, because this movie managed to really capture just how awful and tragic the entire sinking was. We see people panicked, fighting for the boats, silently accepting their fate, trying to survive, and I couldn’t really blame anyone for their decisions. Like, there were a TON of dick moves that people did, but at the same time you KNOW most of them are going to die so you know they are also just trying to survive as best as they could. Overall: This film has helped me realize that I didn’t really have a problem with romantic movies, just bad romantic comedies. Basically, just watch this film. It is gorgeous in the set designs and shots. It is funny, romantic, thrilling, horrific, historical, kills you in the feels, literally everything that you could/would ever want in a movie. Is it a long ass time? Yes, over 3 hours. Does half of the movie just cover the ship sinking? Also yes, but it was time well spent.

Outbreak

Yeah I bet you can guess why I watched this movie Did I intend to watch this movie? No. Was it apparently the #9 spot on Netflix most popular list? Yes. So did I have to watch it? Probably not. But given the coronavirus going around, I’m 100% sure that’s why the movie is this popular. So I thought might as well and watch the thing. Overview: A deadly disease is affecting villages in Africa as Colonel Sam Daniels and his crew is sent there to assest the situation. Unfortunately, due to external factors, the disease has spread to America, and to a small Californian town. With time running out as the disease spreads and evolves, Daniels fights the odds to find a vaccine before it is too late.

Not gonna lie, when I put it on I wasn’t like 100% focused on it. It was just supposed to be background. But it just sort of…sucked me in as it went on. Especially with that opening of the original virus just killing the soldiers. Also, that’s Morgan Freeman. You can’t just ignore Morgan Freeman! (Also, it’s sort of gotten to the point where all I can see is just Morgan Freeman and not his character.) All the characters were really cool to watch, but I didn’t really care of the divorce side plot. Or, I didn’t at the beginning? It’s hard to describe because I’ve seen that trope of “main protag who is divorced with wife ends up reconciling at the end” in a ton of movies. Even in movies that didn’t actually need divorced couples (looking at you 2012 and War of the Worlds remake). So I saw what was happening a mile away. But it, wasn’t as bad as I thought. Like, Dr. Roberta Keough had her own life and her own work at the CDC, so she had her own reasons to work on the virus. Which, made it work I think. Because she wasn’t constantly forced to be with Sam, it was just part happenstance and part trust.

It was actually really cool that the movie also showed us how the virus spread. They could have just had the virus appeared in California and had the virologists (look I learned a new word) find out the cause. But instead, it showed the whole path with the monkey, and what was going on with the monkey. The movie could have had it add more of a mystery, but by showing the monkey it added more tension! While the scientists were trying to manage the situation, it’s just in the back of your mind “it’s the monkey, where’s the monkey, that monkey is the key”. So not only are you stressing about the monkey, but whether or not they are going to find the monkey.

The virus was also, pretty scary. Like not only did they show the scientific view of how the virus adapts and grows, but also the plan of defense against said virus. You get to see the different levels of clearance the virologists go through with each virus, the level of security and safety they take to protect themselves against said viruses. I mean, they take it to extreme when things really heat up, but it’s nice to get an idea as to how procedure really would happen. image

The movie had some really good military and political critiques too. Like when is the line to draw to follow orders, does power go to your head, when is it right to give all the information and when is it to keep secrets. There was a really great scene where the PR for the white house basically said “if you guys want the president to take the nuclear option, you ALL need to give him your support, to show that there wasn’t any other way otherwise it wouldn’t work.” And part of it is, you can empathize with these people in these positions. You might not like the decisions they take, but you can understand why they took them. This was my first virus disaster film, and given the current climate here with the coronavirus, I’m glad I watched it. It sort of, I don’t know, gives you hope? Like things are scary, and this virus is hurting a lot of people. But there are a lot more people working hard on a vaccine to beat this. Scientists, Governments, everyone doing their part. Like, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It might take a while, and it’s going to be scary, but we will get there. Stay safe out there

Flatland the Film (2007)

This film either awoken me or broken me and I can’t honestly tell which. I started to watch this, but I restarted it so that my sister can join in. A bit into the film she said that she saw this film in an high school math class. Which is Buck Wild considering what this movie really was about. Overview: A Square is, well, a square, who lives in his plane of reality, dealing with his family, children, and political turmoil over multicolored laws and threatening neighboring nations. However his entire world is shaken (literally) as he is forced into a new way of thinking.

The movie was very engaging from the very beginning. There’s this sassy text narrator that just come and explains things, or just makes commentary on how things works. It’s only around for the first half of the movie, but it does break the ice on how Flatland works. So we can laugh as we try to work our way around the world.

I got really invested in the political war of flatland. The problem was whether shapes should let themselves be different colors, so there are different political factions on whether colorizing should be legal or not. A lot of the political speeches and arguments is actually similar to the things I’ve already heard of. I guess there is just constant war no matter what plane of reality. No matter how great the gods are. I love the animation. The creator obviously put in a lot of thought into how these worlds work. How the inhabitants of lineland, flatland, and spaceland feel and see themselves. That the flatlanders have Plus how they manage to explain the values they have to each other. Like, I was trying to visualize how flatlander’s saw with that lesson from the beginning of the film. And I completely understood how they tried to describe the dimensions to the other planes. All of this is just really fascinating, and you have to appreciate all the effort that was put into these concepts.

The 3D effects caught me off-guard, but it fits well. We got so used to the 2d shapes and lines, that the 3D world looked truly bizarre when it bled through. Well, the 3D effect looked bizarre regardless, but I think that was an intentional thing. It was still a world of basic shapes after all. Maybe the next stage are more complex 3D shapes like our world? There are still somethings that I’m still questioning. Or horrified. Like the hospital of shape reconfiguration. That horrified me. Like, how they use basically stapler looking things to reshape babies. Then how shapes can actually bleed and die. I mean sure, they are all just shapes, but that was pretty horrific.

I think that there’s a message here, like a grand message. But I, I’m not sure what I need to take away from this. Is it, the futility of war over irrelevant ideals/believes? Is it about the religious awakening and the possibility of something greater than yourself? Like, there is something here, but it isn’t something that I can instantly grasp. It’s like a modern version of the Allegory of the Cave, and I’m the person who just heard of it trying to conceptualize what is going on. I feel like it’s the type of movie that you really need to rewatch over and over to find out what the meaning is supposed to be. Or it’s like an abstract art piece, where sure the artist might have their view, but you can find your own meaning in there. It feels a bit complex, the longer I think about it, but in a good way. Overall: This is a great philosophical film to watch. Not only with points of war and politics, but also how you can explain concepts that people couldn’t even conceptualize. There is another movie called “Flatland the Movie” so I don’t really know the difference, but they are both available on youtube. Definitely check it out when you get the chance.

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins

The live action version of the Alaskan Bull Worm Well this is a strange set of circumstance. Mainly because I have not seen the second nor third movie. I have seen the 1st movie. I love the first movie. I’ve seen that movie multiple times over and over again ever since I was 10. Fantastic monster movie, 10/10 always recommend. Then I guess people decided to make a franchise out of it because Netflix has 7 movies available, the last 2 I’m 75% sure were specifically Netflix made. So how it happened was I saw the title for the 2nd movie: looked like a fun romp with a different cast. Saw the title for the 3rd movie: Burt comes back for revenge so…yeah I skipped that. 4th one tho? Where it’s the 1800s and they are fighting the giant worm things that took and entire gun arsinal from the first movie to kill one? Sign me the Hell Up. Overview: In the town of Rejection where the economy is set on a local silver mine, mysterious deaths happened to the miners, and scared everyone away. In order to save his business, Hiram Gummer comes into town to fix the problem, only to realize that both he and the town residence are in over their heads. Now it’s no longer a battle for the mine, but a battle for their very lives. Got to love a good plot summary.

Yes, we are indeed following the 1800s version of Perfection. Not just the town, but the inhabitants. The general store is run by a chinese family, like Chang in the first movie. There is a family, so we have children running about. And there is the outsider entering the town ( Rhonda from the first movie, Hiram in this one).

I think the best of all of this is that Hiram is canonnly an ancestor to Burt. Even played by the same actor Michael Gross. And he is everything that Burt isn’t, which is beautiful. Yes they can be a little thick headed, but Hiram is neat, orderly, the air of wealth around him, not above being a dick to children to get his things, the “gruff ruff ruff how dare you sir I’m a gentleman” which is a great antithesis to who Burt is. And it plays great because his entire character arc is him learning not to be a dick and to be basically more like Burt, at least in terms of asserting oneself and a sense of community.

It isn’t just Burt Ancestor, but Heather too. The hotel owner Christine is, first of all really cool, but is like the stand in for Heather (Burt’s Wife). And she really is so cool here. Stands her ground, the matriarch leader of the town that the community gathers behind. And they did a really good at the romance between her and Hiram. The movie takes place over the course of months as opposed to the two days from the first movie, so there is a real natural slow burn to their romance that makes freaking logical sense. It felt like I was watching the romance between Burt and Heather from the first movie, if Burt was a dork rich boy.

Tremors is so good with the supporting cast. Everyone is so loveable in this film. The Chang family are sweet and the kid is so flipping cute. Tecopa is funny when interacting with everything. It just feels like a small western town. And Juan, god Juan is so cool. He’s the local that saw the whole thing and warned everyone. He is my favorite character here. He just has a dream! He just wants to get enough money for his own farm! He doesn’t want to get hurt, but still helps the dumb rich guy in his investigation! And he does everything he can to help the town from these monsters! Like, my guy, love everything you do. You also see some really cool western gadgets throughout the movie. Telegraphs to figure out where people are at. Wagon races. Western Guns shooting at people. Just, when you put a monster attack in an era, you become very creative in your plot choices. And they don’t miss a chance here.

The cgi….look it can be better. It can be worse. It’s passable for the most part, so it doesn’t really hinder the movie, only when the worms are doing complex motions. Other than that, they use puppets like the 1st film, so it really feels like a classic Tremors movie. But I do like how they just build to the lore of the monsters. How they grow, their stages of development. It might have been touched on in the other 2 movies, but it is still nice to know that you don’t have to see the other two movies to understand how they work. Overall: Listen, seeing Western people deal with monsters is my jam. But I really wasn’t expecting much from them other than that. So having an actual plot, a wide cast of characters with their own personal struggles on top of a well executed monster attack, this was a great movie. A solid B Monster flick that anyone can watch.

Primer

A very personal look into science Overview: Friends Abe and Aaron are engineers who work together creating various projects. One day their invention has the unintentional side effect of time-travel, where upon discovery both men use it to their own advantage. However as the experiment continues, tensions run higher as the weight of their actions come crashing down on them. I wasn’t too sure what to make of the movie when it began. Just four guys sitting at a table, talking about their life in a way that seems obvious to them but foreign to me. I understood the words, and a vague sense of what the general idea was, but it was a bit hard to truly get the message. At least for a while.

It doesn’t really ease you into whatever the hell Aaron and Abe are doing, or why they are doing it. The movie just throws you in there head first and let you figure it out from there. But I guess it just adds to the effect of when the Actually got to their accidental discovery of Time Travel. Because by that point, you got use to their jargon to really know what they are saying, and that this is serious.

I love everything about the Time Travel in this movie. First, how it actually worked. The machine turns on, you do your thing, enter into the box later to come out exactly when the machine was on. Sort of a small scale Looper with how time seems to encircle itself. Second, I love how the time travel thing was an accidental discovery. They weren’t even intending to make it! It was some….thing with magnets that they somehow got Time Travel from it. And the first thing they do it to figure out who would want to use it. It is very scientific, practical, and entrepreneur like that. They want to see how it can work, how it can be applied, and who would want to buy something like this. And that is what leads to their eventual downfall.

The movie is shot constantly with up-close camera shots, right to the face and basically always on our two leads. It took me a while to figure out what feeling I had since the beginning because of these shots, and it was towards the end that I realized how raw and personal it felt. It was so claustrophobic. Everything surrounding the time travel felt claustrophobic from the machine being basically a coffin, to where it was being stored. And it just, feeds into this feeling of tragedy that surrounds them, like in a Shakesphere Style. How they tried to succeed and just, couldn’t. We had such a close up onto their lives and friendship that we couldn’t really see the bigger picture until it was too late to change anything, just like them. Overall: I think it is a great movie. It is a bit on the shorter side, but very personal that just sucks you in. The time travel is creative not only in the scientific way they actually plan and use the machine, but how the machine works in general. Best part, you can get it for free on youtube. If you like science fiction and morality issues, this is the movie for you.

Mr. Right

With a guy like that, you can never be wrong So this might be a short review because I honestly really absolutely love this film. It’s silly and dorky and just the right about of fluff and violence. Overview: Martha discovers her boyfriend cheating on her and is in a rut. She finds herself falling for a zany guy who claims to be a hitman. And he is. So begins their struggles of maintaining a relationship, while trying to avoid being murdered. Listen, normally, I’m not into RomComs. Like when I was younger, I saw some bad RomComs and it sort of turned me off on them. Like if I have to watch it, I would, but they aren’t my first pick. So when my sister wanted to watch this, I was just sort of expecting to suffer through it. By god am I glad I was wrong.

This movie is freaking adorable. I mean, it really it. Even during murder scenes it has this comedic charm to it. Even during serious battle moments there is this funny banter going on to make you laugh. Crewman #6. His real name is Sam Rockwell, but I first saw him in Galaxy Quest. So, Crewman #6. He’s such a fucking dork. He’s a complete weirdo but is so genuine in what he’s feeling and what he’s doing that you just love him. But don’t let that fool you, he is Still a hitman and Will kill people. We first see him killing people, so there is no hiding what he does. But it’s so fucking cool!

He dances while killing people! He literally sets a rhythm for his own fights! He break dances and tangos as he kicks their asses! That’s actually really hot. Especially with his laid back attitude and genuine interest in Martha. He’s just, a really dorky boyfriend.

Martha is such a Mess™. Like, an absolute mess. But it’s understandable, given how she broke up. She exasperates her friends with shenanigans, is also a weirdo, but it fits with this dorky charm that both she and Crewman #6 has when they are together. It’s just, they are so adorable together! So much freaking fluff! Not to say that the relationship doesn’t have it’s struggles. You know how it is, with being a hitman, having people want to kill you, having to kill people, having your potential girlfriend find out you kill people, having people pull you into this attempted assassination plot of a side gang. You know, the usual. Yeah, not much else to say about this. It’s just, flipping cute, hilarious, and a fun film about two crazy people falling in love.

The Happening

When titles like “The Event” were already taken. tw: will mention different types of suicides, will start/end paragraph with tw So….that happened. Ha, I’m hilarious. I don’t know if this is cheating or not, but for a while I would watch reviews of movies I haven’t seen or read the wikipedia plot for movies I don’t care to see to get the story without actually seeing the film. And The Happening just happened to be one of them. So I knew from the beginning what the twist was. But what I forgotten from those reviews was how dead and robotic the actors where. Overview: In New York City and all over the Northeast of the U.S, people are performing mass suicide in a daze. Fearful for his family, high school teacher Elliot flees with his wife, friend, and friend’s child to avoid the catastrophe, unaware that the danger is all around them. Let’s get the elephant in the review out of the way first otherwise it’s gonna be on my mind all the time.

Plants did it. I knew that the Plants did it. It was the only thing that I actually retained from my review watching habit. And you know what, when I heard it I knew it was going to be stupid. They came up with some psudo-science bullshit about plant pheramones being so so strong that it affects the self-preservation part of our brains to make us want to kill ourselves. Like, this is just so easy to pick apart with basic scientific and logic. The thing is that I don’t care. I’ve seen bad anime with worse logical reasoning for having the plot happen. Like evil virus that only affect men so there’s like 10 guys left on the planet filled with women. Or waking up on an island via LOST style and having to fight off against giant insects. So I get it. The reasoning of “who did it” or “how did this happened” doesn’t really matter in the context of the movie. The plant thing is dumb, but it is something that I can understand people ignoring it to just enjoy the movie. The Problem is that the rest of the movie is boring as shit.

tw The beginning of the film, Very Beginning, it was interesting. It had me by my seats. People are killing themselves, that’s pretty fuck up. And the movie doesn’t hold back in how fucked up it was. Seeing people just calmly in a daze just stab themselves in the neck with their own hair pin? Like, I had to take a step back. Was not expecting that shit at all. It certainly sets the mood, though I don’t know why they do this…backwards walking thing before they die. To show them being rewired? But my favorite part was with the construction workers dealing with people jumping off the building. That was really emotional to me. You just see the heartbreak during this slowburn of one person jumping, then another, then just 30 in one go. It went from sad to horrific in a great way. tw TOO BAD it was freaking undercut by Matt Wallburg’s science class which killed ALL MOOD that was set up.

You CAN’T set up a thriller movie with the actual scary thing happening, only for the main character to just….completely ignore it/not know it for a long ass time! It ruins the whole thing!! Like, HINTS!!! HINTS ARE A THING!! I thought you were supposed to be good at subtly Shyamalan! Ok, so here’s a quick sidebar. Train to Busan. Great movie. Go watch it. Same director as Parasite. It’s about surviving the zombie apocalypse on a train. Highly recommended. But the thing with THAT movie, is that we get Hints that the zombies exist in the beginning. We get some information that there could be danger, but we don’t SEE the actual zombies until it is too late. HERE, we SEE people literally off themselves in some very realistic ways. You can’t expect me to mood shift that fast to Matt Wallburg just casually teaching about the death of nature and bees! That kills the mood! And makes the main cast look like an idiot because WE know what’s going on, but THEY DON’T!! It’s hard to feel connected to the main characters when we know more than they do. And these characters SUUUUUUUUCK!

Matt…you stink. If I have to judge your acting career based on this movie, I will never watch anything with you in it again. He’s just so boring! And Dull! Everything he says sounds like a blank empty husk of a man. He has the worst reactions to Everything around him. Like a woman accuses him of killed her in her sleep (which is a bizarre scene anyway) and we get THIS God he’s the worst! And this dull-ass line-reading bleeds to every other character!

Apparently her name is actually Alma. And here I thought that it was Emma. Doesn’t matter, did not give a shit about her. I really couldn’t give a shit about the romance. At all. Like, not one ounce. I was actually rooting for them to get a divorce that was so how uninvested I was in them. They are both bland. The whole thing hinged on them working things out and not emotionally cheat I guess, but it just seemed like Emma was getting worked up over Nothing. She ate cake after work with a coworker. Alright. You see her getting calls from him and when she does answer saying “no I love my husband it was just cake we had nothing between us” except it was just the guy talking about all the bad shit happening in whatever area he was. So, again, she just blew things up all out of proportion here.

Then the children….the little child Jess gets a pass. She’s not the greatest, but she’s a tiny child. There’s a lot more things to worry about than her acting. Like the other teen boys they meet while escaping, Jake and John. They have them randomly show up as part of their small group. Only for the Next Scene for them to be killed. Like, what the fuck movie? There’s dramatic tension, then there’s just bad writing. Most of this is just a bunch of bad tiny plot decisions like….why the fuck did they add this in the movie? Just a lot of them trying to add in characterization…but it falls flat so so bad. Humor of Matt talking to a plastic plant? Lame. Trying to distract a person from horrors with a math problem? Possibly could have worked if they actually had any personality of a rock. Matt talking about how he…I guess was thinking of emotionally cheating on his wife with a pharmacist but was just lying…..just why??

Hotdog Man who first said it was the plants to begin with? He actually gets a pass. The hotdog thing is weird as fuck but he seems like the ONLY genuine actual human in this movie. I like Hotdog man. He was just trying his goddamn best. Then different moments of trying to add tension when there shouldn’t really be? Like…some random ass hyper tension of Matt walking into a room that just has a doll? And I guess it is to…MAYBE imply that the old woman is nuts and thinks the doll is actually her daughter? That’s a bit of a stretch coming from me, but that’s all I got for why that scene exists. But that was soooo unneeded, unnecessary, no purpose to the plot for ANY REASON! Like, just….it’s shit like this that’s bad. Look, Disaster Films need 2 things for it to work: A) showing the destruction that the disaster is causing, and B) Showing people trying to survive through said destruction. The Happening has a decent pass for the 1st part, mostly. The suicides are creative and disturbing. Just seeing people randomly grabbing the nearest thing to passively kill themselves does make you step back. Like driving through a street where people hung themselves. Or watching 30 people jump off of buildings. Or a guy sees a nearby lawn mower and just lays down before him. (The one where a dude just sits down casually to cut himself with glass, really fucked me up). It’s the second half that needs work. None of these guys seem to give any actual human responses to that’s going on, whether it was the main cast or any of the side characters. It was like the movie was trying to make everything high tension and that comes off forced, boring, and bizarre. Overall: I was not a fan of this movie. Did not like this movie one way or another. There was so much bad in it, but not in the fun bad. Just bad bad. The only two good things I liked were the Hotdog Man and the beginning scene with the construction workers. That’s it, and it does not save the movie. If you want something similar to this that is a little better, try Cell by Stephen King. Instead of Plants it was Cell Phone reception. Just as ridiculous but a lot more heartfelt and frightening that whatever this mess was.

Cool Cat Saves The Kids

I watched this movie and I still can’t believe this is the actual cover art for it.

God I wrote so many notes about this that even my flipping Bullet Points were basically an essay. I don’t even know how to begin just thinking about it hurts my head.

Overview: Cool Cat is Cool. Things happen to him, and he has to deal with bullying.

That’s it. That’s the thing I watched. Because there is no Real Flipping Plot to this movie.

This is a kid’s show. Or at the very minimum, a movie that is intended for children. It was based on a kid’s book series I’ve never heard of whose author Derek Savage decided to turn it into a movie. Though movie isn’t exactly what I would call it. When you watch it, it honestly feels like there are six 15 minute shorts that they just mashed together to a feature film, but even then that is a Generous Description.

Basically, the film tries to be a children’s program (and I guess has beef with Barney?). And you can see intent behind it being informative child-friendly psa. But the execution was so bad.

First, there is no plot. Sure the cover says that this is “an anti-bullying kid gun safety movie,” but it really give you nothing. What would happen is that Cool Cat has a problem, like someone bullying him or his friends. It would either A) be addressed immediately and solved so that’s great, or B) it is dropped immediately and never really addressed throughout the rest of the film.

And example of A is that the bully kid Butch just starts stealing candy just to be “evil,” Cool Cat sees that and chases him, and the kid gets arrested twenty seconds later. The End.

For B, Cool Cat gets a mean email. And…that’s about it. He responds to the email, but doesn’t actually address the issue and the subplot drops entirely until that VERY Last wrap up scene.

I think the reason for this lack of plot is that there was just WAY too many messages in here. Like, take a shot every time you see a psa announcement. It ranges from don’t bully, how to deal with bullies, being creative, crossing the street safely, to fricking GUN?! Like, the gun thing that I Guess was promoted in the movie tagline, only shows up the last 10 minutes. It caught me so off guard. You cannot call this a Gun Safety movie when guns aren’t even prevalent!!

And the lack of plot is counterproductive when you want to make a Kid’s Movie like this. If you want to tackle each issue as a show or a short, the messages would come across better. There would be more time to develop each message for kids to really understand. But because there is So Much to cover, a lot of the things are gonna fall to the wayside. There is no way a kid would pay attention to this, and if they do I doubt they are gonna learn everything that Derek Savage is trying to teach. There just isn’t any real focus.

The acting, god like they Tried to go with the kid friendly vibe, but was not working. At All. It was like they thought that to add emotion is to just enunciate your words as loudly as you can. Cool Cat was way too yelly. Every line he was just screaming, has no change whatsoever. Even Elmo can sound sad when need be (fucking love Elmo, but he does has a similar voice vibe to Cool Cat, just better).

Then the kids….I don’t want to be mean but I’ll be blunt. They are just reading lines, this is a middle school stage play basically. I’m not blaming the kids, Butch look like he had a hell of a time doing his villain laugh. It’s just that some of the scenes felt like it was taken in one shot and they didn’t bother to retry. Example: One kid got too excited and jumped his line, but they couldn’t just retake that??

And the lines, man. OOF. Some of it was bad. Like, really really bad placement.They should have had someone proof-read this.

Cool Cat: “Why Are You Painting That Wall?”

Random Kid: “Because Nobody Loves Us”

lol what?

Maria: “I bet those kids have never been shown love before.”

Cool Cat: “Thanks, and it’s all true”

LOL What??

There are just a LOT of lines like that that should have been rephrased.

THEN there are the freaking technical issues.

The audio kept fluctuating in sound quality, which honestly started to hurt with Cool Cat’s constant yelling. Some scenes it sounds like they recorded in a studio, sometimes it sounded like the actors had to yell in order for the camera to capture it. There were echos, there were layers, you can’t hear the lines over the song, you can’t hear the song over the cheers. There was one point whispers overlaid on top of the lines where I thought that Cool Cat just got haunted now. And the fun side of having headphones on means I heard the phone button noises in only One Ear. LOUDLY.

Blocking could have been better. There were a lot of backs to the camera, shots of characters walking away from camera not just off screen. This didn’t bother me as much, because I know this isn’t professionally made. But it didn’t feel like they really tried as much as just half-assed it. Example:

Cool Cat was drawing a picture with different colors, but the actor only used one marker and just said different colors. Or Cool Cat is working on a poster but really just rubs the already completed poster  on a clean table as him “working.” Like, how hard is it to just film on a table with a bunch of craft supplies around you?

Then there are the questionable camera shots. LOTS of lingering shots to I assume fill up run time. These are shots of just showing Cool Cat walking round without having any real purpose. It shows Cool Catwalk all the way Up Stairs. Walked all the way Down Stairs. Walking into the House, walking into the Car. Even just shots of the parents doing things with no real motivation or impact to whatever Cool Cat is doing. It’s just there. If you want to say stuff like “oh well its to show the parents relationship” no it doesn’t. You can’t really add nuance to characters when the rest of the film is just one chaotic shot after the other. It just gets lost in translation.

The music number is probably what hurts me the most. You see Cool Cat WRITE the song. Then he SINGS the song. Then he DANCES to a DIFFERENT song. And that was it. He just needed the song for the parade, but there wasn’t any explanation or anything. I don’t even know WHY he needs the song for the parade! There was no explanation. It was just an excuse to have two back-to-back bad music video of poor choreography that again, NO POINT to whatever plot/message/psa thing he is trying to do.

I get that there should be some leeway since it looked like this was shot at Derek Savage’s house/neighborhood, so there really isn’t much they could do with their setting. But they could at least tried more with what they had. Cool Cat’s room doesn’t look exactly child friendly. There are only blank drab walls with two, maybe three posters of just Cool Cat himself. There is a reason the settings in other children shows have vibrant colors to engage them. Along with that, another half-assing moment was Butch graffiting Cool Cat’s poster, but it was one of those political posters you stuck on the lawn so it was like a foot tall outside. 1) You can’t really see that shit that small. 2) You couldn’t put the poster on a wall to film that scene at, to give a better view to the audience? It’s just a bunch of little things like that all over this film that really adds up.

Also, what’s with the posters only being about Cool Cat in his own room? A bit narcissistic if you ask me.

I’m also like 70%,sure they made this movie around the footage of them being in the Hollywood parade twice. They were at the parade, got the film, and wanted to use it so they made a movie for it. And I know it was twice because the announcers that were there to announce the arrival of Cool Cat had a costume change after switching scenes.

And after ALL of this, there is just so many random shit that really don’t do anything. Elements are randomly introduced and just as randomly dropped. We get a “next day” transition in the middle of the movie when days have already passed before them. Cool Cat breaks the 4th wall a couple of times with no real reason why. There is this joke where the camera was following Cool Cat into the bathroom for Cool Cat to ask for privacy, only to just ignore that bit every time he goes to the bathroom afterwards. Cool Cat just makes random ass noises when doing things, not important stuff. Just Doing Things. And he does this weird thing where I think he is trying to do Air Guitar, but it just looks like he is just shaking his leg a lot. I don’t really get it.

(Oh Shit, it is only after like the 3rd proof-read of this review I notice that in the gif you can clearly see the dude’s actual leg. I don’t know how mascot suits actually work, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to let kids actually see that there’s a person underneath in a kid’s show.)

There is also this….lowkey humblebrag going on? Which does not do the movie favors. After the first dumb song number, Derek shows off that he has a signed guitar by Van Halen. Like not just him playing it (which after the 15th zoom in on the guitar how could you NOT notice it thank you Derek), but pointing out to the audience that, Yes it was Indeed signed by Van Halen. Then there is the footage from the Hollywood Parade about the cars there. Sure, I get showing off like the Ghostbusters car, or Jurassic Park car, or the Batmobile. But Hurby the Love Bug? Night Rider?? Starsky and Hutch??? Magnum P.I.?????? The target audience is elementary kids, they aren’t going to know these old shows. So who is this for exactly?

Kudos to the cop for actually doing this, seriously. That cop probably had a hell of a lot of better things to do than arrest children for a bad after-school special.

And this is just SOME of the main problems of this film. There’s so much going on it would be impossible for me to go over everything without

The thing is, there is good material here. Maybe not great results, but there are a lot of ideas here that you can work with to make a decent kid’s movie. I actually loved the part where Cool Cat is dreaming and trying to figure out how he should handle bullies. I thought that was a good scene and a good way to show kids how to think through different options. There are good ideas here, but it was just way to much going on at once the movie basically shoots itself in the foot.

So here is My Version of what Cool Cat should have done. 

Cool Cat is running for School President. That’s the main story line. Early in the movie he learns of a writing contest where the winner gets their own float at the hollywood parade (stretch but roll with it). But Cool Cat has no idea what to write, and talks to it with his friends who offers ideas. So he is juggling that along with running for Student President.

However, the Butch the Bully doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want Cool Cat to win. So he vandalizes his posters. Cool cat still runs and makes better posters. Butch tries to frame Cool Cat for vandalizing the playground, but instead his cronies get caught and convinced that it was a bad idea. So Butch decides to cyberbully Cool Cat and his friends to scare them off. He works with the other kid running for President to make a hate ad against Cool Cat, telling everyone how terrible and bad Cool Cat is. Cool Cat tries to go against this my making his music video song over how cool he is to swing the votes, making Butch more angry and vindictive to his bullying scheme.

Cool Cat doesn’t know how to get Butch to stop, but after getting advice from his friends, parents, teachers, and some hard thinking, he decides to confront Butch about his bullying issue, tell someone, and thus solves the problem. Later on after talking to Butch, maybe manages to convince him to start being friends. 

Finally, Cool Cat uses this scenario to write his story about how to deal with bullying and make new friends. Which wins and we end with the Hollywood Parade.

Is this perfect? No. But it focuses the idea to one main plot (running for president) with the other issues naturally coming off of it, instead of making each issue it’s own separate thing. There is no random shifts in narrative, no GUN moments (or GUN in general we kick that shit out) and just focus on the main bullying theme.

Overall: This was a weird and bad children’s show. You have to put in a lot of effort into making a movie, but there was just too much going on for this to be a Good Children’s Movie, least of all a Good Movie in general. But it isn’t to say that it wasn’t morbidly enjoyable. It’s was like playing Spot The Difference to find all the Wrong Things in here. It was fun in a bad way.

So will I show this to children? No. But will I play a drinking game with my friends where we take a shot every time someone says the phrase “Cool Cat”? Yeah that sounds enjoyable. 

Take a shot for every time you read “Cool Cat” in my review.

Side Note:

You had this as a GUN PSA, wtf are you doing holding a gun!? Given how the only 3 videos this channel has is only Cool Cat Trailers, I’m assuming this is official Cool Cat. Soooo…..what the hell?

Red Dawn

I understand the south park reference now

<Disclaimer: Spoilers>

I never actually intended to watch this movie this week, it just sort of happened. I was looking through Netflix for a different movie, saw this, remembered that this was on my list, and just decided to watch it.

And it was a pretty good decision. 

Overview: Text exposition tells us that communism is on the rise, countries are turning to civil war, NATO dissolved and America now has no allies. We see students from the small western town of Colorado going through their normal day when suddenly Russian/Cuban soldiers parachutes in and attacks. A small group of teens manages to escape, and begins guerilla warfare to try and take their town back.

I guess a good place to start when describing this movie is yes, the first time I heard of this movie was in a south park episode “Grey Dawn” where old people take over the town to keep their drivers license. I thought it was just regular absurdist south park humor, I didn’t realize that the entire episode was a reference. It’s actually one of my favorite episodes.

The only other time I heard of Red Dawn was when there was that remake with North Koreans instead of Russians/Cubans. When it came out, I really didn’t care to go see it, because it felt like a stretch to me. Enemy soldiers just parachuting in the middle of a country? What was their game plan after the initial attack, fight their way out when they are completely surrounded by their opponents? It sounded like a glorified wish fulfillment with teens fighting and winning against trained military professionals.

Which was what I saw in the original, and the movie makes it work.

I wasn’t watching the movie for the characters, not really. I can’t even tell you what any of the characters name were. Hell, I don’t think they even introduced the teen girls by name initially. The only guy I really remember was Jed and that’s because they kept saying his name constantly throughout the movie.

Naw, I was mainly watching it for the plot and plot alone. How did the Russians somehow airdropped tanks to this small town? Why did,they decided it was a good idea? Who know and who cares. I left my critical thinking hat at the door when I started watching. I just wanted to see teens staging a revolt, being revolutionaries and beat the bad guys who invaded. It doesn’t matter the logistics of How the movie got here, just enjoy the ride as they show it.

It didn’t feel like there was a lot of individual characterization, but there was a lot of group characterization, a lot of small moments that were honestly my favorite parts. When the Russians invaded you see a bumper sticker saying “you can take my gun from my cold dead hands” and see a soldier doing just that. The town residents protesting by singing “My Country Tis Of Thee”. As the teens were ditching town and stocking up food and bullets one of them grabs a football. Like, that makes sense for a teen to do. And later on we get a great scene of them actually playing football with everyone, a real group bonding moment.

There’s also a great scene of three enemy soldiers just exploring the area, seeing the natural park sign, and just translating it out of his ass saying it is a site of a great battle. Yes, they are the invaders, but they aren’t faceless, the movie does humanize them.

I think my all time favorite scene is when they we’re victorious in their first ambush. One of the boys just shouts “WOLVERINES!!” And I laughed. Because school spirit, its their identifier to their home town, of course they would use it for their name. But it also true that the teen was just so high on adrenaline that he just cheers like at a prep rally.

The transformation of the teens to this militia group also feels very natural. The movie takes place over months and you can see the process that they take. From first just trying to survive in the wild, to protecting themselves, to laying traps, then attacking. Each victory gives them more and more supplies and more and more knowledge on how to fight. But they are still dumb kids that when someone with real tactical knowledge explains an attack plan, they have no idea what the hell he’s talking about because of the terms he uses. It just seems like a natural progression.

Course, this movie does have it’s bad parts to it. When the girls came into the group, some dude told them to “make themselves useful” and wash the pots, and the girls just went off in him and it felt…a little disingenuous? Like I get what the scene was supposed to represent, its war, they don’t want to be belittled after the trauma they went through, and i get it. But it just felt a little Too Vicious. A little Too Forced, on both sides, for it to really feel real. This also sort of plays into the whole “lack of characterization” thing. Like, I see moments like this happening, but I just don’t feel it. Its more like hitting a mark than actually telling me anything about who they are as a person.

One of the girls has a crush on an older man. One guy is sad that his dad is dead. I think one of the kids is supposed to be the nice one, but there really isn’t any focus on them for me to say exactly which one it is. The only real character with any form of characterization is Jed, seeing him deal with grief, be a leader, and the responsibilities from it, but even them its so few inbetween that it still feels a little vague.

And one of the Big Scenes that they could have done with characterization was completely mishandled. The Russians call in the Big Guns Major to deal with the Wolverines. He gets a group of men to track them down to their base camp. How? Well the town’s mayor is actually the father of one of the rebels. At their insistence to be safe, the teen swallows a tracker led the army to the hideout.

That caused so much infighting and drama.

Too bad we never saw the scene.

We never saw the betrayal scene. It was just, completely cut out. We only know because after the attack the traitor teen confesses to what had happened. Which was a complete missed opportunity.

The entire scene afterwards was by god probably The Best part of the film, where they deal with the aftermath of the attack. But how could they not show the actual moment of betrayal? The teen being convinced by the enemy to rat out his friends for his family? That would have been so emotional and showed so much about the guy, but instead they just went to the next attack and told us about it as an afterthought. I guess they wanted to keep the reasoning of the attack as a surprise, but it felt like a missed opportunity to me for some character development.

Again, not to say that this movie was bad without it. To me, it chose to focus more on the events than the people, leaving only a few with any real development. It doesn’t ruin the film for me in any way, and it allows for outlandish attacks and “fuck yous” for an Actual Military losing to 16 year olds. Yes, there were a few things that annoyed me. But the movie promised from Wish Fulfillment revolution fighting, and by god did it deliver.

I actually watched the trailer for the 2012 version and honestly, I sill wasn’t feeling it. It felt like it was trying too hard, or trying to give legitimacy of like a Marine leading the Teens and that’s why they were good fighters. Personally, it didn’t seem to capture the heart that is the original, but maybe it will be different if I watch it, who knows.

Overall: If you haven’t had a chance, I would definitely recommend you check it out yourself. It was a fun ride from beginning to end where they put in genuine effort into making this movie and is very much appreciated. 

As Above So Below

This somehow both scared and bored me at the same time

<Lots Of Major Spoilers>

Overview

: After years of searching, Treasure Hunter Scarlet finds a clue that would lead her to the fabled Philosopher’s Stone somewhere in Paris. She gathers together a crew to find the stone in the catacombs of Paris, but there are other things that lurk down below.

I would consider myself a big time movie/tv person. Have I seen everything? No. Do I like watching anything? Yeah, I’ll give it a chance. I like most genres.

Horror though, I have mixed feelings.

Now, I’m gonna be honest, it was hard trying to go into this movie open minded. I have a love/hate relationship with the Horror genre of movies. Older classics like John Carpenter’s Thing, Alien, even Scream are movies I adore. But…modern horror movies are a pain to me. I hate how they use shortcuts to try and scare me with random ass Jump-scare for no purpose other than to scare me. It’s ridiculous! I can call out when the jump-scares happen, and they Still scare me because of the freaking sound track!

Anyway. I felt it would be unfair for me to say how much I like/dislike the movie without mentioning my preferences. If you like the newer horror movies, awesome, you do you, but for me, its like one of those gatchapon machines where theres a 50/50,chance you’ll like it or not.

With that out of the way, lets Actually start talking about the movie.

The movie is shot in Found Footage style and that already added a tally against it in the 1st minute. I am not a fan of found footage. I know that it’s popular to make it cheap and personal, but it makes it so hard to follow what is going on. When they are being chased or attacked, I don’t know whats happening! Its too dark to tell, the camera is jostling around making me slightly nauseous, and if it does show something, its only for like 5 seconds unless it is stupidly close! There were parts that felt more like watching a Let’s Play of a 1st person horror game. Run Run Run, Punch Monster, Run.

It is due to this 1st Person view that, not gonna lie, I barely followed how they got into the catacombs in the first place. Scarlett was in Iran…then she went to France, then…a church to pick up a reverse vandalizer, club, tunnel, catacombs. I can remember the place order, but like hell can I remember what exactly they were saying. All of that took 30 minutes and I was bored out of my mind. And the things that I do remember, they just sort of randomly popped up? Like, they were discussing on whether to jump into the hole

There are parts of the movie that I think was their attempts to build atmosphere, but sort of came out of left field. They say a pale woman walk away from a club: ok. They see her…directing the creepy ass ghost choir?? No idea what that was about. Then They ran into statues that just….came to life to bite at them??? This,was Never Mentioned as potential threats anywhere, it was as if the movie decided it needs random encounters to fill the climax, which is a shame because the tension in this in the middle was really good.

In the middle, when they are Finally going underground to when things got fucked, had a good tense build up. Showing landmarkers that shouldn’t be on their route later on. Local lore of “don’t go down the cursed tunnel” (PSA: If the locals say don’t do something, don’t do it). They get trapped trying to crawl through a pile of bones. Now that part wasn’t scary, but was Very Uncomfortable, especially if you have claustrophobia. They have just…random ass things appear like a Piano and Phone which, these people are dumbasses for thinking those things are natural to be there, but does add a good “what the hell” moment that just pikes on. I thought they might go the whole “vague supernatural tunnel turning tricks and getting them to turn on each other” route instead of “slowing pick one off one by one” type. And maybe that’s what they were trying to have, but it was still random monsters popping out to attack so… c'est la vie. 

Another thing I take issue with is part of the lore they use for the Philosophers stone. First, they use the legends and work of alchemists. And that’s pretty cool. Like mystical National Treasure, unlock secret symbols and solve chemical problems. There was a part where they had to figure out the number of celestial planets in the sky based on what century the stone came from since it kept changing over the years, that part was pretty clever. I didn’t know the information, but i appreciated the history.

But they just add random bits from around the world to be like “ooh they connected” like, ok. They have alchemist lore, 14th century Flamel. Makes sense. Then they add a mummy of a crusades guy. I don’t know which crusades, but it doesn’t matter since he was used more as a prop than plot device. Hell it might be Flamel himself, I don’t know. Then they throw…Ancient Egypt….Sure. Why not. Alchemists could go to Egypt to learn then stick hieroglyphics and traps in the french catacombs. Given how I don’t know anything about alchemists history, I’ll go with it.

What I WONT accept is them calling Dante’s Inferno Mythology! That is Bullshit! I call BullShit! That! Is where I DRAW THE LINE!!

Because they carved “abandon all hope he who enter here” into the tunnel wall when things turned batshit and thats where i gave up on the lore.

Dante’s Divine Comedy is not a myth! It is a poem! A poem written by Dante about Christain ideology of what heaven and hell is like! But the movie doesn’t give a shit. The line just sounds cool to have as they go deeper into the tunnels!

If they just went with Dante references and alchemist lore, I would have been fine there. The main reason I got angry at that part with Scarrlet saying about “Dantes myth” is that she knows like 5 languages + 2 dead ones, all this backstory and alchemist stuff, and she doesn’t know that inferno was a poem? Yes, part of that is semantics and technicalities, but it sort of pulled me out of the world a bit. Because at that point, it felt like they were picking and choosing lore to fit in because it sounded cool. Have an egyptian trap! Why? Because it was cool! Have hieroglyphic puzzle to find the stone? Sure, don’t know why it’s in France but whatever!  I dont know. It threw me off because it felt like they were adding too much, which is a shame because some of the Dante references like traveling through a pool of blood was really good.

I don’t get the visions. I really don’t. Like…random pianos and telephones just appear on level one of their journey, that calls out to their memory. Which is…bizzare. Especially since they actually touch the freaking things. Like, don’t touch the childhood piano! It will make things worse! Seriously! White people!

You later learn that the visions come from their sins (like the one and only tormented sin they got) and it is only when I googled the end of the movie did I learn that they have to acknowledge their sins or die. Which if you have to google the movie to understand the message, the message didn’t go through. And opens up to more questions.

Because there were other people that died that didn’t get to see their sin visions. George and Scarlett got taunted with pianos and objects since the 1st floor. What about Benji? He was followed by the creepy ghost choir and fell down a hole. Tell me what sin that means. Do They….all have sins, or did the vague demons here have to kill off the innocent ones first before putting the focus on the true targets?

And Scarlett finding out that the power was in her all along? What? Did she…consume the power? Was it transferred? Did she have it since she was born? Does she still have it? It felt like a bad moment to throw in a self esteem psa in this movie.

I will give the movie credit though, i liked how they were forced to go down to get out. When everything turns to shit and they have to do the same things they did but in reverse order, but still forced to go down, that was good. It adds to the tension of “holy fuck how are they gonna get out is this even the right path?” And that last scene with the manhole, gorgeous. Really truly gorgeous. It just shakes you to the core with what you are seeing.

But Overall…..yeah did not like this movie. Wasn’t a fan of shakey cam. Wasn’t a fan of the “gotcha” jump scares. The movie felt a little more uncomfortable than scary to me with the claustrophobia. There were a bunch of times where I had to check how long was left in the movie because I was really bored with what was happening. I did like the use of alchemist lore, the Egyptian trap scene, and the end scene, but just wished they stuck to one part than try to mash up different myths to fit.

And if they wanted to stick with Dante, fine. Apparently this entire movie was an allegory of Dantes inferno. (Thanks google) But while i can appreciate looking back on it in hindsight, it doesn’t change the fact that I really didn’t “get” the symbolic nature of what they were trying to do in the initial watch. Maybe if I rewatch it I would appreciate it more, but I would just skip like half the movie to the actual cave exploring part because I am not sitting through the full thing again. 

If you like horror movies with historic flair, this might be for you. But its not my cup of gatorade.

Overly Sarcastic Productions Presents: Journey to the West

Wanna hear the origin story of basically all anime ever?

So this was suggested to me by my Discord and it is, sort of a movie. Overly Sarcastic Productions(OSP) is a youtube channel that does videos about mythology, legends, and classical stories. And they have a whole video series dedicated to Journey to the West, a Chinese classic that explains a lot Eastern story telling.

Overview: Buddha wrote super holy scrolls, and needs to get them to the people of the East. But he needs someone super pure of heart and mind to get them there. So they choose the monk Tripitaka to fetch the scrolls for him. With his magical and powerful companions Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, (those are in fact their ancient chinese names) they embark on their Journey to the West.

I have got to say, I’ve heard of this story before, but this is the first time I actually understood what the title actually meant.

This is a little harder to tackle compared to the other movies because this isn’t exactly a movie. The book is so long that OSP are only going over the more important parts, and even then it is told more episodically so it feels more like a series than an actual movie. So basically, my review is going to be a mix of the story as well as OSP’s retelling of it. It’s only fair.

The Story

So when I said that this was the origin of basically every anime ever, I wasn’t joking. OSP also pointed it out. The story centers around our protagonist gaining allies, traveling, fighting enemies that turn to allies, then keep traveling with the hero until they accomplish their goal.

Sound familiar? Like, every shonen jump ever?

Hell, it was even mention that Goku was spot on for the Monkey King in design, skills, and behavior, as well as Dragon Ball being another retelling of Journey to the West.

Oddly enough while watching, this series actually reminded me of Inuyasha, which also had this feudal japan “monster of the week” feel to it.

In the actual story we have the kind and pure Tripitaka, the brash and impulsive Monkey, the braggart yet scared Pigsy, and the loyal but dedicated Sandy. As well has a dragon horse who is basically always a horse and never a dragon.

Personally, my favorite of the four are Monkey and Sandy. What can I say, I love the loud brash characters with only slight impulse control, and Monkey fits that bill to a tee.

And also, his golden headband that is activated by a spell to cause pain? Very Similar to the password activated magic necklace Inuyasha wears.

Sandy is a pretty chill dude. Sort of like the straight man of the group, trying to manage everyone and keep them in line.

There is also a lot of humor into this. The beginning of the story is more like a prologue than anything else, talking about Monkey’s history that the main character Tripitaka. He became immortal 5 times in different ways, basically compounding his immortality to cover the conditions of the other immortality. One ways was just getting stupidly drunk and ransacking a god’s science lab and drinking his immortality potions.

I love how Heaven is a bureaucracy, where gods can work there or just push out complaints. Like if someone was the God of Rain you don’t expect them to have a desk job.

But that’s what makes this story very interesting. The characters still feel very human. They get angry, act impulsively, become sad, or drunk, or play pranks like peeing in someone’s food. It was written 400 years ago, and it still feels very relatable.

The Narrator

I really do like OSP’s style of storytelling. Yes they are a summary/overview of what the story/fable/lore/whatever is, but it still has heart to it. Kind of like telling the plot of the movie to a friend, you won’t get to everything, but you will definitely cover the important parts with your own touch of flair.

The art is stupidly cute. Like, god look at this!

Adorable. Absolutely adorable.

But not only is it adorable, the art adds more to the story. While the narrator is speaking over, the art gives out more of the personality to the characters. Not just in body movements, but they’ll also write in lines for the characters that OPS won’t say, but it builds up the story and make you more passionate about it. Hell I’m pretty sure you can turn off the audio and you can still understand what’s going on from the visuals alone.

They’ll also throw in a lot of commentary to the story, providing some pretty cool context to the time period the story was written in, or the motifs and themes that the story has. This is pretty cool because I have no idea what 16th century china was like. I haven’t read the book. So it is nice to gain as much insight as I can without actually doing the work.

Overall, I recommend this series whole heartedly. The art is cute, the story is charming and makes me seriously want to read the entire thing on my own. The only downside is that because OSP is releasing it in parts the story isn’t finished yet. But that means you can check out their other lore videos and learn more about these amazing stories ^u^

K so I first thought it was a fever dream I had. When I was looking for photos for the review I saw the thumbnail of that video in the images and I thought it was a gag or a one-shot photoshop or something. But your ask actually made me find these videos to watch.

Originally, I was interested in the comparisons between the movie. Like a “oh yeah, look how similar they are” like I was humoring the idea of the crossover.

But then they got to the Oompa Lumpa part. And that basically cemented it for it. Snowpiercer is a post-apocalyptic sequel to Willy Wonka, end of story. I’m a full believer now.

U.S.S INDIANAPOLIS: MEN OF COURAGE

Nick Cage mixed with WW2 and sharks. What can possible go wrong?

Answer: Everything

Nick Cage has just an attraction to me. I have known him for so long since I was little, I can’t tell if he is a good actor or if it was nostalgia. All I know is if there is a Nick Cage film, it is going to have that Nick Cage charm. And BOY HOWDY, this movie has it.

Let’s go with backstory first.

This movie is based on the incredible and horrific events that happened to the U.S.S Indianapolis, a Naval Ship during World War 2. It was sent on a secret and dangerous mission to deliver parts for the construction of the Atomic Bomb. However, on their way back a Japanese Submarine sunk it with a torpedo, leaving the survivors stranded alone in the middle of the ocean for 4 days filled surrounded by sharks who would attack the dead, injured, and living. Out of the almost 12,000 sailors aboard, only 300 would survive, making this the worst naval tragedy in U.S. Navy history.

And they made this movie.

Not going to lie, I was stupidly judgy through this movie. I mean, I tried goddammit, to watch and enjoy it straight. But I couldn’t help it. I care about this history. I’m fasinated by this bit of history, the horror and pain the sailors when through. This is THE Greatest Shark Attack in history. I was judgy because I wanted this movie to respect the event and tragedy that had happened, to do the survivors justice. And they tried.

God did they tried.

The problem is that they didn’t do it well.

Let me start with the good things about this movie.

1) Nick Cage was pretty Good

He plays Captain Charles B. McVay of the Indianapolis. There is still a bit of hokiness that comes from Nick Cage being Nick Cage. One is him talking to himself while writing a letter to his wife in the weirdest way possible. Another is the fact that his sunglasses makes it look like his eyes are closer to his forehead. But he does the role well I think. He makes sure to show that Captain McVay cared for his men, put their safety ahead of his own, did everything he can to help. I thought he did a good job.

2) They were respectful in the representation of the Japanese Submarine Crew.

The movie could have just not even show the submarine until the ship sinks, but no, we actually get to see the crew. We see the Captain Hashimoto dealing with the struggles of fighting their side of the war. How he cares for his crew, and how they will lay down their lives for the fight. The ship was sunk by Kaiten Torpedoes, basically an underwater version of Kamakazi pilots. They were manned torpedoes, so you see the men loading themselves in to be launched. So while the main focus is on the Indianapolis, it is nice they tried to be empathetic to the Japanese crew as well.

3) The side-characters were interesting enough.

With a historical story like this, the best way is show the movie is to let the audience see all the possible people that were serving on the ship. You see two best friends fall in love with the same girl. Two guys who were enemies and in jail together. A guy with a gambling addiction. The lovable engineers that you see up above. The brand new green commander who is a bit of a dick. My favorite one is the writer sailor. He writes what he sees and tries to bolster people up with his stories. Like, there is a lot of characters so even if you don’t like one plot-line, there are others you can enjoy. They may act goofy/overly dramatic at times, but the actors did a good job for you to root for them.

With that out of the way, things I didn’t like.

A) The cgi was too basic and shit in places

I wish, I WISH I can find a better picture to show what I mean. When we were watching, even my sister were going back and forth on whether it was good or not. Everything that was cgi was just weirdly too smooth. Like really look at it. It looks more like graphics for a video game. Which, is passable. But you can’t have passable for a movie. This movie came out in 2016! We have the technology for a hell of a lot better images than template models. At that was the better cgi. Because when the cgi is bad, it is glaringly obvious bad.

B) The Editing Kills Me.

They have a weird sense of pacing in this movie. When you hit the middle part of the movie, it’s fine. Decent moments of the sailors goofing around, hving drmatic romance, fights, struggles. But there are some parts of the movie where someone in the editing room was like “Oh shit, the people watching this won’t understand. Quickly! Put out that exposition as fast as you can!!”

An Example: the first 3 minutes of the movie. Minute 1: BATTLE! Ok, good, see our historical men in action. Minute 2: We are in a war council room where the Indianapolis has been chosen for a secret mission. “You mean the atomic BOMB?!” -> Basically the line used. And this was BEFORE meeting ANY of our main cast. So it felt like the movie was putting more emphasis on the ship rather than the sailors. 

It also didn’t help the movie Felt like it ended when the survivors were rescued, but didn’t Actually end for another 20-30 minutes longer. I appreciate them going in for historical accuracy of showing the actual aftermath to Captain McVay, but by that point I was so done and bored that I didn’t really care.

Plus they keep using the same periscope tracking shot 7 times! Seven! In the same scene. TWICE!! When the Japanese were firing in daytime, we see the same daylight periscope 7 times before launch. Then when they fired a torpedo at night, LET’S DO THE SAME THING since it went so well the first time.

B) The ship sinks titanic style, the fuck is that?? 

Not going to lie, while I am facinated by the Indianapolis, I do not know everything about what exactly happened. One of them was how the ship sank. But I am pretty sure the ship did not sink in the Exact Same Way as the Titanic. Where one side is lifted up, then got cracked in the middle, and so it was split into two parts. It was, it was bad. Because this tied in to the whole repeating shots thing, because I saw the same man holding onto a pole trying not to drop 5 different times. The Same Exact Scene. No difference. And I’m sure he fell in the exact same way as in the Titanic Movie shots.

(Note:The jail cell sailors during this part were very good, but I still have No Idea how the hell they got out. Let me know if you figured it out)

C) The Sharks were S H I T!

This is basically where the whole meat of the story should have taken place, nd it was AWFUL! Trash! They were stupidly inaccurate, trying to go for Jaws Chomp factor instead of being anywhere near historical. The sharks were all Great Whites, which wasn’t a thing. Because the sharks that historically attacked were Oceanic Whitetips.

But ok, you could get pass. The sharks look similar enough at first glance so it would be an honest mistake. Except that sailors were specifically talking bout “Great White Sharks” with colored pictures of great whites, (which think about that for a minute) so that was bullshit. in making the audience think Great White.

But ok, so what, who cares, the sharks still does it’s things right? Why should we care if they got the type wrong or not?

^Because of Shit like This!! This movie decided to try and shittily mimic Jaws and the Jaws ripoffs by having crappy cgi sharks launch itself out of no where to stupidly chops on the nearest sailors. God you could make a drinking game out of it. Take a shot for every shark you see. Which won’t kill you, because there were NOT ENOUGH SHARKS!!

^The sharks should have been like this. The sailors literally should have been like waist deep in sharks. There were a lot of fucking sharks. And yet! There weren’t any. The sharks only decided to freaking rocket launch themselves out of the water when it’s time for a jump scare, on any old person they can fine. And maybe the reason they decide to throw themselves to the nearest pound of flesh instead of going for the closest dead body is because

D ) THERE WERE BARELY ANY SURVIVORS!!!

Seriously! When the ship sank there were 800 sailors left in the water, We only see 60. TOTAL! Not even random background sailors. It was just Nick Cage’s group, then a separate group of 30 people, and random boats here and there.  God how could they have fucked this up! I don’t know if it was just, not in the budged to hire more people or what, but you can still get somebody. Show the survivors dammit!

It pisses me off because this could have easily solved their shark problem. Because if there were more people, you can see the sharks eat/take the dead bodies. Then when there is a ton more sharks, see them go after the injured and dying. Like, having screams constantly while sharks pick people off left and right, even if it is just background characters, would build so much more tension than just “guys have a good laugh, talk, and support each other, send the shark for the jumpscare.”

I will give the movie this though: While I feel like the majority of the ending was unneeded, I do respect that they have little end-cards for what happened to the character’s historical counterparts, as well as come footage of some of the survivors describing the experience.

Overall: Don’t watch it. If you wanted to watch it for the actual historical event, watch something else. They made note of smaller historical facts while completely screwing up the actual main event with the sharks. You can find better documentaries Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here. The last one has a clip of the special that I I saw originally and while you do have to pay to see it (Here), it is very well done.

And If you want to watch a “so bad it’s good movie” then maybe it fits the bill, but I just honestly don’t think it’s worth it. The editing and pacing will give you whiplash. The CGI takes you out of the zone.  Nick Cage tried his best, but not even his enjoyable presence could save the film. They make for a great movie to rag on, but having it be on an actual historic event like this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth

Pan’s Labyrinth

Ive heard of this movie for a while and finally had a chance to watch it. I was going to see it in my Spanish Class in high school, but family had vacation so i missed that day. Which was too bad because this film was really good, in a pessimistic way.

The main plot: Ofelia is a girl who traveled with her pregnant mother to her stepfather’s military outpost during the Spanish Civil War in the 1940s. While the rest of the adults try to deal with the effects of war life, she finds herself get pulled into a fantasy world, where she must succeed in 3 dangerous tasks in order to prove herself.

Not gonna lie, it felt like I was somehow watching 2 very different movies that, somehow in way I can’t yet explain, seamlessly blend in together.

Because look, magic time in war movies is not a new thing. Narnia, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks. But I can’t really think of any other movie that actually has the magic being pushed aside for focus on the war.

I think to better explain this, i need to talk about the two prominent plots in this movie.

First is Ofelia. She is a girl who adores stories and fairy tales (like same). And her story follows that of a classic fairy tale. She meets a magical figure, the Faun, who gives her 3 tasks to accomplish. If she is successful, she can enter into their magical realm as their princess. So you see her being tested in strength, courage, kindness to see if she will get her reward. And, it really does play out like a fairy tale. In the beginning you see her fix a broken statue, and that kindness is what summons the fae. Because that is how it works in fairy tales, when you do a good deed you are rewarded.

We meet The Fawn who approached Ofelia with the tasks. He was designed like bark, so he blends to the background for an epic reveal. He’s a bit of a trickster, a flatterer, someone who you cant be to sure if you can completely trust them. Which, as fae goes, makes sense. I went back and forth throughout trying to figure if he was trustworthy enough or was trying to scam Ofelia out her soul or,something.

THEN! There’s the actual serious war movie about an assertive, serious, strict military Captain Vidal (the stepfather), who is doing battle against the last bits of Resistance that live up in the mountain. Like, its weird how these seperate things can be so closely tied together when one story does not affect the other at all.

The Captain is cruel, and a dominating prick to boot. He cares more about his legacy than his new wife/family and it shows in tiny ways to make it more realistic. Ofelia offers the left hand to shake, Captain crushes the hand instead. He puts down his wife at a dinner party saying that no one really cares about her stories. He is so sure that his wife will deliver a boy to carry on his legacy. And this is just his personal side.

Professionally, he is ruthless, sadistic, doesn’t give a shit about who he needs to kill or even cares if he kills innocent people. Like, he’s scary man, and I was on edge over what he was going to do, if he was going to catch the Resistance, if he was going to hurt Ofelia and her mother.

Doctor Ferreiro is cool. He’s there to help Ofelia’s mom during the pregnancy, and the pregnancy itself was a whole can of stressful times let me tell you. He’s just trying to do what he can to help, even at the risk of his own life. But the Doctor has one of my favorite lines in the movie, where he basically said he is unable to obey without question, because to lose your ability to question would lose your sense of judgement. Yeah, the movie went there with their commentary on “just following orders”.

Then there is the head maid Mercedes. Shes cool because you can see shes toeing the line in this place. She may be in charge of the household, but she is still at risk. So you see her do small things, subtle things, to keep ahead and keep out on top. Stuff most people wont notice during the moment, but it lingers just long enough on camera so the audience can hopefully pick it up. It..it almost feels like she’s the main character in the War Part of the film with the Captain as the villain.

The movie really does make a divide between Magic and Reality in sets. Becase while the adults are in war time here, Ofelia is in her own magic business. The sets when she does her challenges, incredible. Totally astounding. The set of the 2nd task terrifies me.

^This scene. It freaked me the fuck out. It is literally just “enter the room and dodge the monster” but the atmosphere is just FILLED with temptation and danger I just choked on stress for Ofelia’s safety. Which still falls under the fairy tale rules of “follow the advise or suffer the consequences.” But it is just filled with red and yellows, colors that you don’t see in the War portion of the film.

You can even see some of the magic being used in the war film. Ofelia uses magic to help heal her mother who’s sick. In the beginning she fixes a broken statue and garners the attention of the fae and Fawn in thr first place (a total fairy tale movie). But it is so small and subtle that it can give into doubt on “is magic real, or just all in her head?”

I think, the reason these plots can mash so well together, is because they both center around when people should trust and when people should question. Not following the rules has consequences that can cost you your life. But you shouldn’t obey everything, especially when it could cost someone their life. Del Toro did a magnificent job showing this in both a simple fairy tale and a hard war movie.

Overall I definitely recommend to watch this movie. The premise is a bit misleading, and it is pretty heavy, but if you like dark fantasy mixed in with realistic war you are going to enjoy the hell out of this.

SNOWPIERCER

Snowpiercer is an excellent movie that focuses on class warfare and I was screaming every minute of the way.

I don’t really know where to start since I want to scream about everything, so I’ll just give an overview of the plot and then go from there.

So the world is fucked. To combat global warming people shot missles into the atmosphere to fix things, which A) doesn’t and B) freezes the whole world instead into eternal antarctic. The only remembrance of humanity lives on one train, which never stops and continues to run on an eternal looping track. With each car, humanity is divided literally into sectors and sections with the poorest of the poor at the back of the train. Tired of the subjugation, Curtis stages a revolt to try and take over the train.

The set designs in this is beautiful. From the beginning all we see are drab colors, dull browns/blacks/greys. Like life was just sucked out of everything. Here we see the brutality towards the train’s back, the “freeloaders” as they are called. And then, then a woman with a fucking pristine yellow dress came and took children away and I saw red. Because of course only the rich and higher class can get colors, can be clean, can boldly wear yellow to stick out like a sore thumb and just be overall revolting. God I still hate that woman, her and her ugly yellow dress. GAH!!

This movie does not skimp of the brutality here. You see people bleed, injured, suffering, all in like the first 15 minutes of the movie.

Yall, I had to pause the movie and take a break when this scene came up. I was so fucking angry over what they did I had to take a break. This is a completely different woman than before, but I hated her for different reasons. It was a torture scene. They did a fucking torture scene while this woman stands there in her color and basically scolds them as if they were children!! It was horrendous. HORRIBLE! Ohhhhh we still get gruesome scenes in the future, but this one is probably my most hated. Fuck You lady!

Then after the introduction of the two most hated women in the movie, we finally get justice. The revolution starts! Viva la caboose people!

To help them, they picked up a prisoner named Namgoong, who can open the doors to the rest of the train. I love international movies like this, because they did the same style of translation like in Animal World. They speak in the device, and they have the device translate, so you still have people talk naturally in their own language. It is just a clever way to have communication without overdubbing everything.

Plus, Namgoong and his daughter Yona are my two favorites characters. They literally don’t give a shit, just try to do their own thing and just shit talk to everyone. Hearing an AI say “dumb fuck” is still a joy to me.

This movie is so brilliant in how it can both amaze and horrify me. It feels like an alternate version of “Stakes and Torches“ by Aurelio Voltaire.

Because there was obviously a lot of effort put into the logistics of how the hell would a train like this function. How would humanity keep getting food, water, heat, supplies, all while being trapped in a moving tube. It feels a little like Mad Max: Fury Road, where the movie doesn’t really need to explain everything, but gives us enough to fill in the pieces. And because the train-end people never saw any of this before, we are experiencing the same things at the same time. Hell they never even had any windows back there, so seeing the outside world is still a shock to us all.

But on the flip side, this train had all this wonderful, peaceful, enjoyable thing. And the rich couldn’t share? They couldn’t help? They fucking chose not to while the people in the back were suffering?? The antagonists talk about maintaining balance, which I get why. This train is a closed system. If equilibrium isn’t met, then it could kill the supply for everyone. But they use this idea as justification for the pain it causes, and it is honestly leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

As it should, since the entire theme of this movie is class warfare.

This is a serious movie, but there is I think just enough lighthearted moments to keep it from being too depressing. Like during the horrible speech scene, you have people trying to translate the speech as she is giving it in real time. Or you see a conductor just keep clicking his counter thing during a fight to count how many are killed. Not to mention everything dealing with Namgoong and Yona. They are perfection throughout this entire film.

It’s going to be a tv series soon and honestly I can see why. Like there is soooo much that they can explore here. The train is supposed to be 1000 carts, and we only saw like, 10-20 different areas. They can dive deeper into what the movie touched on, hell what I touched on. I barely made a dent in describing the things things this movie has, and like hell am I going to ruin/spoil the ending of this movie for you guys.

Because at the very end, when I just so overcome with despair and sadness over what happened, the movie gave me a glimmer of hope, that one moment of feeling that no matter what, there is still a way, and I think that’s beautiful.

So 100% percent would absolutely recommend! This is such a great movie and I am absolutely tuning in to see the tv show when it airs. 

Movie #1: Free Willy

Week One and I start out with a Family Friendly picture from the 90s. Free Willy, the story about a troubled child (teen?) bonding with a captive orca. This movie is chocked full of Whimsy and Magical moments of whales swimming which to be honest, didn’t really think it diserved a Victory Score.

Because the movie REALLY wants to hammer in that Willy is a majestic creature because there is a LOT of nature Orca shots. I timed it, the end credits has 5 uninterrupted minutes of orcas swimming. Double that for the beginning and you have 10 minutes of an orca documentary. Plus, they have this weird inspirational music going on in the background to I guess make you Feel with Wonder and Aw! Except the footage was the same thing over and over, and I watch nature documentaries all my life I’m immune to this.

The movie also wants to hammer in that Willy is sad because as the evil redneck fishmen capture Willy with nets, you see the other orca longingly look at each other from the other side. And like..I get the intent, but try looking at an orca’s face and see if it’s sad. It felt more scripted than natural for “orca crying”.

So while Willy is being shipped to Not Sea World, we meet Jesse, a boy who I don’t know his age living on the streets and who I didn’t know his name until he gets into his new foster family. I want to point out that Jesse was stealing food and he literally grabbed the breadsticks and run. Anyway, while running from the cops he got caught graffiti-ing the whale pool (pen? Tank?) and as punishment has to clean it up.

Insert Orca bonding time here. Which, is pretty good. Granted I’m terrified for the child actor being that close to an animal like that, but in the movie it was nice. Jesse talks to Willy, buys him fish with his own allowance, plays with him. Like they are some genuinely nice moments here and you care that the kid cares. Which is good when you center a movie around an animal, the audience needs to care for said animal.

I still have concerns for the well being of this kid though, potential whale injury aside. This kid is left alone constantly. Seriously, his foster dad drops him off at the entrance of the Not Sea World and expects the kid to search around the park for the guy he needs to go himself? No one is watching him as he cleans the tank?? I get giving Jesse like space and respect, but what happens if Jesse decides to just decides to run out again or, I don’t know, gets fucking injured while on the job (Which, guess what guys! It happens!)

The 90s were a wild time.

Then there’s the other adults of this movie. First is Randolph, a guy who works at the sea world park who is from the Haida Tribe. Originally, I wasn’t sure about the character, because I was afraid they were going into the “Native Tribe Mentor To Protag” trope. And while it does play a little into it, it wasn’t anything disrespectful. He shares stories about whales to Jesse who loves them so much. He’s a good guy who takes a little bit to warm up to, just like Jess and Willy (you see the theme here yet?)

Then there are the foster parents and Jesse’s mom. Jesse’s birth mom, not his foster mom. Foster mom is cool and listens to Jesse. Jesse’s birth mom never appears in the movie, and it is made a big deal that she basically abandoned Jesse to Foster Care. But Jesse doesn’t give up hope for her. And everyone else is basically telling him to give up hope for her. Like??? The fuck??? Who tells a kid that??? Point blank aggressively that his mom isn’t fucking coming back and abandoned him?? You ass you’re a case worker you Don’t talk to a child like that! The kid was abandoned when he was 4-6, of course he is still going to be attached to the idea she is coming back! You don’t just push away trauma like that!

And then we get Glen. Fucking Glen. The Foster-mom, Annie, she’s chill and fun, but I do not like Glen. When the social worker came to drop off the paperwork for Jesse to stay in their care, Glen said it was more like “leasing” instead of “buying.” And yeah, Glen did try to bond with Jesse, like play catch and junk, but not good enough. In one full scene he implied that Jesse’s mom is never coming back (you don’t say casual shit like that to the kid), then got mad when Jesse came home late (gee I wonder fucking why), incorrectly told his wife why the hell Jesse was made (“I don’t know why the kid doesn’t like me” bullshit he got scared because of what you said), then they start fucking fighting about Jesse while Jesse overhears upstairs, and to add the nail to the coffin Jesse hears that Glen wished it was just back to him and his wife without Jesse. Like Fuck Off. I get you may be new at parenting, but the fact that you said so many bad shit so fast in one go, god you are such an asshole.

Back to the plot, of you know, protecting the whale. I thought that it would be, you know, environmental reasons or “protect the whales” reason. Not to say that the Other Sea World was perfect, they kept the orca in a dolphin tank for crying out loud. So it would be reasonable to think that they need to free Willy because he was slowly dying of depression or need to reunite with his family or something.

But nope, insurance fraud.

They need to save the Orca, and have their bond tested, because of Insurance Fraud.

Which weird, but also realistic?

I have no complains about the climatic end. It was fun, stressful, had heartfelt moments. My favorite line is the fact that there is no Theft Insurance on Willy, because it is something I specifically asked about literally 2 minutes before I got the answer.

And…this might be a moot point, but the movie cover is a pretty big fucking spoiler, if you think about it.

Final Thoughts: I liked the movie. Granted I was eyeing some of the tropes they did with caution and just Glen overall, but it was pretty wholesome. The kid is a troubled kid trying to find acceptance, there are good whale bonding moments which, while sometimes over-dramatic as hell, can pull at your heartstrings, and there was some decent emotions and acting here. It’s a good family film and something that I would recommend checking out.