Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

^ I knew a little about that. Honestly, between his scenes in the movie proper and all the footage in The Missing Pieces I'm surprised there was as much Kyle MachLachlan as there was.

I actually really liked the recast Donna.

Lego Ninjago - No where near as good as Batman or the original movie, but it still had a lot of fun moments to it. It did drag on a bit though as it was a little longer than necessary. Still a good time, but a 7/10.

Annihilation

This is a good one. Great cast and wonderful visuals. Like Blade Runner 2049 it's not an action movie: more about ideas and mood (emphasis on the second one, which I like - think movies should have more mood).



I'd read the book, liked it, but I think the director had the right idea of just taking the concepts and working from there instead of doing a straight adaptation. Both the book and the movie are very suited to their mediums.

Jigsaw - Oh for crying out loud, SERIOUSLY?! I'm not sure which is the worst aspect of this movie. The predictable plot twist, the boring traps, the bombastic soundtrack, or the major retcons it made to the previous movies. Not to mention it leaves off for a new batch of sequels to happen. Everything that happened relies on the characters doing exactly what Jigsaw needed them to do, which makes it feel like a scripted event rather than people trying to figure out what the hell to do. Did this movie even have anyone from the original series involved? It didn't feel like it. Overall, a pretty piss poor attempt at restarting a franchise that lost all of its blood years ago. Let this one just die already! 4/10.

Annihilation is still really sticking with me a day later. Really want to see the climax again...

^^ The trailer really didnt do anything for me, but I loved Ex Machina and the book was interesting, so I do want to see this

Still thinking about the movie. Everyone see Annihilation.

We borrowed Justice League from the library and initially I figured my entire review would just be a bitchfest on how wrong the characters were. Yeah, sure, there was that. Ezra Miller and whoever played his father are no Grant Gustin and John Wesley Shipp, but there were a few things he did I did enjoy. It would have fit Wally far more than Barry though. Then there are the horrible looking effects like the piss poor CGI that looks like it came out of the early 2000s. Beast Wars had better CGI than some of the scenes in this movie. Like did they really have to CGI Superman tossing Steppenwolf around? Couldn't they have actually had Cavill bashing around something green to make it look like he wasn't a video game character? Not to mention Steppenwolf could have been replaced with a wooden plank and he would have had the same effect. A total waste of an awesome actor. He is now 0 and 2 for super hero movies.

However, I'm not going to spend any more time on that, what I'm going to mention is my "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" god, this movie was a utter and complete mess. The pacing was all over the place. The first 20 minutes felt like an hour's worth of content condensed into that short time frame. There seemed to be A LOT of story missing from Aquaman, which is exactly why his movie should have happened before this one. I didn't understand a damn thing he and Mera were arguing about. Are they a couple or not? All I heard was words. Finally, the movies biggest issue was that it was just flat out boring. I really thought the movie was nearly over with when they fought Steppenwolf in the underground tunnel, but nope, that was barely the halfway point. There was a whole other hour to the damn movie and it was so "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" slow. None of these characters are remotely interesting because there was never any time to develop them. Batman didn't even seem like he was the same character from the last movie.

It just didn't know what the hell it wanted to be. Does it want to be a super hero film? Does it want to be a Justice League adaptation? Does it want to be a grim dark thriller? I have no freaking idea becuase the movie didn't know either.

Now there were a few scenes I did like, such as when Aquaman was sitting on the lasso of truth, the kind-of bank robbery at the beginning, the Danny Elfman theme for Batman, and the scene when Flash saves the family with the truck while Superman saves a building full of people, but other than that, I was just meh about it. I guess it could have been a lot worse, but when your film about some of my favorite super heroes ends up being a snoozefest, there is an even bigger issue at hand than just disrespecting the source material. Batman vs Superman might have been a garbage movie, but at least I didn't find myself bored during it. This, I was and I am so glad I did not pay a single cent to see it. Overall, I give it a 5/10.

I'll always be amazed that a $50 million movie like Annihilation and a $20 million movie like The Shape of Water and a $35 million movie like Baby Driver can look absolutely gorgeous and at the same time a $300 million movie like Justice League can look like total butt.

Justice League - I don’t care what people say. I really enjoy the current DC movies, and this is no exception. I saw it once in the theater and really wanted to see it again but life was too busy. So I’ve been eagerly anticipating the BD release. I’m not blind to its faults, but (much like a certain Kaiju series we all love) I just don’t mind them. I love these takes on Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (and I’m really starting to dig this Aquaman too) and I think the casting is absolutely spectacular.

I won’t do a full review since I’ve mentioned what I thought before, but there were some things that stood out on second viewing. I liked the Flash a lot more this go ‘round. The first time I just couldn’t disassociate from Grant Gustin’s protrayal to give this version a fair shake. This time I knew better what to expect and enjoyed his character a lot more. The tv version is still superior, but this take on the Flash is enjoyable in his own right, and I’d be happy to see more of him on the big screen.

Contrary to some posts above, I actually like the way this film looks. It certainly doesn’t look real, but it’s kinda a heightened, over saturated reality. It looks like a modern digitally created comic book come to life in the “real” world, if that makes any sense. Not that I don’t love and appreciate classic hand drawn, inked, and colored work (I absolutely do!) but I also enjoy the crisp detail, slick pages, deep inky blacks and over-saturated colors of modern comics (when done well) and I think they did an admirable job mimicking that look on film here.

Henry Cavill’s mustache. I totally didn’t notice it in the theater (I know I know! I was just too busy enjoying the movie I guess). Here, I could definitely see it if I was watching for it. But if I wasn’t specifically focusing on watching his upper lip for oddities, it really didn’t stick out as anything unusual. I certainly don’t think the cgi lip is as bad as people make it out to be (though I whole heartedly agree that the fact it was done at all, and the reasoning behind it is absolutely, insanely, preposterously ridiculous!). But while watching the movie it really didn’t bother me. However, after a few minutes of him onscreen, my wife asked, “what’s wrong with his mouth?” so I explained the reshoots. About 30 minutes later she asked, “did they reshoot every flipping scene he was in?!” So your mileage may vary...

Bottom line is (like all the DC movies) it’s certainly not perfect. But I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as the internet population would have you believe. It’s a decent “save the world from invasion” story featuring my all time favorite super heroes played by some of my favorite actors to have ever donned the costumes. I personally find it immensely enjoyable. I hope this universe continues long enough to get at least JL2 with this cast. And I hope they learn the lessons from this one so the sequel is truly great a’la the best MCU entries (while I strongly prefer DC characters, I have no problem admitting the MCU has easily produced the better films on a critical level. And I don’t dislike marvel. I just find DC heroes resonate with me more. It’s probably why I like Captain America the most by a huge margin of the MCU heroes... he’s the most like a classic DC icon such as Superman or Batman.)

Flatliners - Flatlining in the real world would have been far more exciting than snoozing through this borefest. It could have Valerian a run for its money in curing insomnia. Whatever score I gave that movie is what I give this one.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

The ultimate 'training sequence' film, as the setup and finale take a backseat to an often funny, thrilling, and sometimes profound training as San Te goes from reckless youth to disciplined warrior monk.

Touch of Evil (1998 cut based on Welles' notes)

Orson Welles is just unrecognizable in this period of his life. To me he looks nothing like the more iconic skinny young Orson or the older, rotund, bearded Orson.

It's totally a noir, but it lacks so many of the hallmarks of one: no femme fatale, no hard boiled protag, several incidents that end up tying together instead of a central 'case.' Welles directs the hell outta it, some sequences choreographed like dance numbers.

Touch of Evil is hands down the second greatest Noir of all time. I agree, Welles is unrecognizable, which is what makes this performance of his his best.

I love the single shot opening sequence.

Jabberwocky - I don't know why, but Terry Gillian's films just don't seem to wow me as much as they do other people. I found Brazil to be down right boring, Twelve Monkeys was okay, Dr Parnasas was good the first time but took a deep decline the second time I watched it. Fear and Loathing Las Vegas is the only one of his I have seen that I really enjoyed, but despite owning it, I've never had this desire to go back and watch it again. So now we have what is Gillian's first solo directed movie and I'm not sure what I thought of it. I enjoyed a lot of it, but other areas just bored me. I also couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be a comedy or not because it had conflicting tones that didn't mesh well together. Some times it was really funny, other times I barely chuckled. My main issue is that I just didn't get it. Stuff happened and it ended. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooookay. I think I'm going to give it a 7/10 since there was a lot more good than there was bad, but it could have been a good 15-20 minutes shorter.

Le Portait de Petite Cossette - This is probably my favorite anime OVA of all time and one I have severly neglected over the last few years. It's such a great series with a lot of phenomenal visuals to go with its haunting score from Yuki Kajura (probably her best work) and its erie gothic story that is so complex that it will confused you on the first several times you watch it. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful one and I really hope someone license rescues this at some point to give it a well deserved Blu-Ray release. 10/10.

^There are crazy parts of Beneath the Planet of the Apes that I've forget about and them am surprised by every time I watch the movie.

If you go back 32 posts you'll see JellyD still likes Parker Posey, so it hasn't all been negative lately