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This review is primarily a tool for collecting my own thoughts, though it would be a nice bonus effect if the text and resulting rating turned out to be helpful for anyone else.

The trailer for Eighth Grade preceded the showing of Won't You Be My Neighbor? I saw last month. I have a nephew who's entering eighth grade this year, and I thought we just had to see this movie together. Bo Burnham's name had also been floating around, mostly in reference to his work as a comedian, and I suppose that name recognition factored into my interest in the film too.

I hope Burnham's comedy is as entertaining as Eighth Grade's trailer—isn't it odd that I would recognize the name without having seen his work?—and the film's ratings soundly beat every other film my nephew was interested in going to see tonight. (I was surprised to see its scores exceed even those of The Incredibles 2, though I can understand the mediocre ratings of Rampage and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.) It seemed like an easy choice, based on audience reactions, and the large turnout at the cinema reinforced that feeling.

However, I'm not entirely satisfied with the experience.

From an artistic standpoint, I appreciated many elements of this film. The way its segments are punctuated by Kayla's videos is a neat narrative device—though sometimes it was frustrating how the audio track of her would play over muted footage of some other event, blocking out any other dialogue.¹ Throughout, the cinematography was well done. Shots were well composed, and it certainly never felt like we were looking at something unimportant (or missing something important). For technical reasons, though, I wish that Kayla hadn't broken her phone's screen so early on. Given how many times it's shown in place of spoken dialogue, it would have been nice to be able to read it more easily.

Content-wise, though, the film is… tame. Uncomfortable at times, but very tame. Quite predictable, too. For a comedy, there weren't actually that many jokes—and a film with this many awkward, uncomfortable scenes definitely needs jokes to lighten the mood. Burnham's use of slightly-dated slang and memes to make adults seem "out of touch" likely won't age very well. Same for the specific references to social media services like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. The demographics on those sites will change faster than any of us think they will, and leave this movie feeling much older than it really is in just a few years.²

Other reviewers here (so far, @jb4times4 and @nmahoney416) have called out the film as being extremely relatable. I suppose it is, in the way that any stand-up comedian's material is "relatable", but I wouldn't call the writing "amazing". There's a certain feeling of superficiality to the whole thing, and not just because it's a comedy. The movie felt almost like an impressionist painting of the Teenage Girl Experience, or even a caricature. As a twenty-something guy myself, I can't claim any more experience at "being a teenage girl" than Bo Burnham can, but I'm definitely interested in reactions from people who once were teenage girls. Preferably from my generation or younger, just because I think the gap in technology between my parents' generation and mine or my nephew's deeply affects the experience of growing up. Hopefully some of my friends have seen (or will see) Eighth Grade and I can ask for their opinions.³

Ultimately, I can't really put my finger on any single reason why Eighth Grade fell short of my expectations. But the trailer definitely wrote a check that the full film couldn't cash. I'd say 5.4/10, roughly, mostly because I don't want to round up to 6.

Instead of this, I wish we could have had a second season of Everything Sucks!…

1. This was especially noticeable near the end, when Kayla and her dad are talking about something in the car but all we can hear is Kayla's video to her college-bound self.
2. I don't think middle-schoolers use Twitter even now. It's too old-school.
3. It's actually surprising and a little disappointing that in the three weeks since release, this movie has garnered only three (including this one) reviews on Trakt, and all from men. Fortunately it seems the IMDB reviewer population is bit more diverse. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7014006/reviews

If I had to summarize how I felt after watching this film using only one word, that word would be "underwhelmed".

Maybe I went in with inflated expectations, but this live-action addition to the "Winnie-the-Pooh" film franchise carried over little of the cartoons' charm. It honestly failed to convince me that the stakes were really that important.

Pooh and his friends were not… quite… real. Yes, I know they're really stuffed animals (or most of them are), but I'm referring to the production's technical side. I haven't been able to decide whether they fell into the infamous "uncanny valley" by being too realistic, or just weren't designed well as character models. Pooh in particular never seems to look like he's properly talking, which is a problem when he has the most lines of all the Hundred Acre Wood residents. Actually, I found most of their lip-sync distracting because it was "off".

How the animals looked and moved definitely pulled my attention away from the good parts. There are a number of genuinely funny lines in this movie.¹ Eeyore gets most of them, which meshes with what I remember of the animated installments. (He's got to have something to make up for that dark cloud he lives under, right?) Christopher's heffalump fight and pretty much everything involving Pooh in London did have me grinning, despite the aforementioned animation issues.

As for structure, I thought the use of chapters (complete with "In Which…" titles) in the beginning was great. It was frustrating that most of the film seemed to be one chapter, after burning through something like eight of them in the first few minutes (showing how Christopher Robin goes from childhood to working father). More of those line-drawn animation inserts would have been really nice. Perhaps they could have helped connect the story a bit better; as it was, the plot felt a bit disjointed at times.

I have my own theories on why this is, starting with the fact that there are two "Story by" credits and three "Screenplay by" credits, all separated by "and". That indicates a possible dilution of vision, since so many people touched the script.² It's the opposite of "Written and Directed by", which is akin to publishing a book without an editor's help. A second set of eyes can really help tighten a story, but too many pairs of eyes can melt it into a puddle of conflicting creative visions. It doesn't usually result in an awful script (though it can). Rather, having too many writers involved more often limits how great a script can become.³

I'd actually love to ask the writers if they considered devoting a little more time to explaining how Pooh ends up in London. The Hundred Acre Wood's connection to the real world is kind of just… there, but I think it would have been interesting to explore how the tree tunnel works a bit more. (Fantasy elements are much more fun when we question them and push their limits!)

Christopher Robin was definitely not as great as it could have been. It was enjoyable enough, but it didn't earn a spot in my "Rewatch Over and Over" collection next to The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh (1977).

1. How funny is up for debate, since I can't actually remember any of them less than 24 hours later…
2. In film credits, "and" between names usually means those writers worked separately, i.e. writer 1 finishes, then writer 2 is hired to rework it independently, etc. Teams who worked together simultaneously (and presumably collaborated) are joined by "&" instead. These conventions come from the Writers' Guild of America's pile of rules for who gets credited and in what order.
3. It's implied, but bears restating in relation to this specific assertion: This is entirely my own opinion based on observations, not fact.

Honestly, a lot of romantic comedies leave me feeling empty. There are so many out there that come off as little more than cliché-dumps. Substantive dialogue, character development—your average romcom won't have these.

Crazy Rich Asians doesn't have a whole lot of substantive dialogue, and I wonder how many of the characters actually developed over the movie's two-hour runtime (maybe two or three?)—but it certainly tried. Beyond that, it's a beautifully shot film with a (mostly) great cast, and spectacular sights to go with the cinematography.

I wouldn't necessarily give the film any story awards. It follows one of the basic romcom plots we've all seen a hundred times: Dude brings girl to meet family for the first time, family doesn't like her, but love wins anyway. It's not even a spoiler to say that Nick gets the girl—right from the first scene, that's the only possible outcome.

But I would award the film a gold medal (that's not a thing, but I'll make it a thing) for bringing the audience fully along for the ride. Going in, I knew this was a two-hour film. But, aside from maybe one or two scenes that dragged on a bit, it went very quickly. That's a solid testament to this movie's enjoyment factor.

While I didn't mind how predictable the story became as it went on, I can see that putting off some viewers. Rachel's character was also kind of underwhelming. Put up against all the other big, in-your-face characters, she kind of blended in. If Constance Wu was directed to play the part that way, that's fine, even if I don't think it was the best choice. I read at least one review (from @nancy-l-draper, https://trakt.tv/comments/187607) expressing the opinion that she was miscast. From where I sit it came across as more of a script and/or directorial issue, but I certainly wouldn't have objected to Gemma Chan playing that role. (Which reminds me… I need to get caught up on Humans…)

Bottom line:
If you can stomach the extremely predictable romantic moments in the latter half, this is a really fun ride. Now I need to read the book…

Maze Runner is one of those young-adult book series I never bothered reading. I was probably slightly too old to care when the first book dropped (a year after The Hunger Games, I might add), and the series never appeared on my radar until the movies happened.

The first film in the series, I saw almost three years ago, followed soon by the second. Neither left much of a lasting impression. By now, certainly, I forgot who everyone was, what they were fighting for, and you know… everything relevant to the story. This film did an OK job of refreshing my memory along the way… (Well, not really. But I'm not going to rewatch the other 4 hours of this film series.)

So, from my perspective as a "Hey, I remember this series; wonder how it ends…" viewer? This was decent. I have a few bones to pick with the script (don't I always?) but the execution was reasonably good. Despite stretching to well over two hours, The Death Cure didn't drag until near the end. Most of the way, the pacing was kept up nicely. I wasn't bored. I remember being bored during The Scorch Trials.

Yes, I predicted a ton of the "twists". (If they're easily predicted, do they even count as "twists"?) Yes, I rolled my eyes at some plot points. (Did Teresa really need to fuck around for so long on that rooftop waiting for the building to collapse instead of JUST JUMPING? Why the hell did Lawrence goad that huge mob into invading and destroying the city, thus making it impossibly hard for Thomas's crew to get out?) But the CGI and VFX work were generally fine, and the action kept my attention from drifting.

Definitely a Decent/10. Not necessarily rewatchable, but good enough if you don't want to watch anything with a ton of substance.

Based on the flood of "____ception" memes that hit the 'net after this film came out, I expected… more.

As the cardinal rule of filmmaking says: "Show, don't tell." Inception does an awful lot of telling. It (or its characters) never shuts up.

I will grant this: The visuals are incredible. From Ariadne's first ventures into the role of architect (the street-bending is aces) all the way down to Limbo. It's really too bad the writing wasn't equally nuanced.

Admittedly, Inception doesn't have the worst info-dumps ever. I just watched an episode of The X-Files, "The Erlenmeyer Flask", that had a scientist piling basic DNA science onto Agent Scully (a medical doctor) for the benefit of viewers who hadn't gotten to the DNA chapter of biology class yet. Now that was bad. Inception isn't quite that blatant about its info-dumps, but they do exist.

Putting off writing this review by a few hours really let me get tired, so I'm not inclined to write as much. But, it's also taught me that the plot isn't particularly memorable. The basic idea is simple, and things play out pretty much exactly as expected (broadly speaking). The details aren't that interesting, and the only plot point that surprised me (Dom actually being "responsible" for Mal's suicide) wasn't worth the overly long build-up.

Oh, did I mention this movie is two and a half hours long? It's too much. (About 7 minutes of the 148 are devoted to credits, and can be skipped if you wish, but that's still a long film.) I checked the clock several times wondering just how much longer this ordeal would last. Fortunately the falling van gave me a decent point of reference, so I didn't have to check as often.

Mostly, I'm disappointed at the lack of substance. I expected some real profound shit, based on the hype. I didn't get it. Some people say you need to watch this film several times to get everything that's going on, but I don't think so. This is a one-and-done movie with some pretty action scenes and inconsistent treatment of its own mechanics. (Seriously, why do the gravitational effects from the van swerving around only penetrate one dream level?)

This was OK, I guess. It was better than I expected. That said, my rating is still rounded up to 6, not down.

On the plus side, I only caught one continuity error: The Amazing Reappearing License Plate. (Stretch removes the limo's rear license plate in one scene, but it is back in a later shot of the vehicle being towed. A short shot, but not so short you'll miss it by blinking.)

What impresses me most about Stretch is the filming budget. With $5 million, Joe Carnahan pulled off a half-decent thriller with respectable production values. Nothing about the movie felt especially low budget—and while I realize that $5M is not pocket change, it's not uncommon for this kind of film to cost many times that amount. The quality of the visual and practical effects was pretty damn good for such a relatively low-budget movie with several big-name actors in main and cameo roles.

I was less impressed by the humor, but reading the IMDB trivia gave me the most probable reason: The film's original writer (Jerry Corley) used to write for The Tonight Show, which I never found particularly funny. Just not my brand of humor. That's not to say I never laughed during Stretch; just that a lot of the jokes did fall flat for me. The ones that landed were good enough.

Ed Helms' character ("Karl with a K") was my favorite, and he didn't get nearly enough screen time. Fortunately I watched Tag (2018) not too long ago, which featured Helms in the primary lead role, and was pretty good. The bloopers run during the credits for Stretch gave me a bit more of him, too. (They could have almost sent out the blooper reel instead of the film; it was that good.)

I give this a carefully calculated 5.49/10. Yes, it's not 5.5 so I can "round down" to 5 instead of going up to a 6.

While I can agree with @saint-pauly to a certain extent that the film feels more like an anime than a movie (whatever that means, given that anime movies exist)… the writing just isn't there. If all I know about a character is their name, job, and who they love, they're not a character at all. If I don't know why the character is doing something, or what they want, I might as well just watch ants or something. (Actually, that's not fair to ants…) Movie or anime, I'll hold the screenplay to the same standards, and this one didn't meet them.

This film is amazing as an atmospheric piece. It's so beautiful! And you should definitely read @omegancq's review regarding the original Japanese title and how it relates to the cinematography. Japanese filmmakers really seem to have the art of making pretty pictures (both films & frames) down. Rarely have I ever watched a film from Japan (made in the last 20 years or so) that didn't blow me away with at least a few stunning shots. I just wish that the writing was so consistently great.

As I made my way through this film, I grew increasingly frustrated with the flatness of the characters. Nearly all the dialogue revolves around the film's main romance (love polygon?) and we learn so little about these people despite several time skips. Even worse, I honestly think the female characters' dialogue would fail the Bechdel Test. Realizing that the girls in this movie pretty much only ever talk about their boyfriends with each other just made me even more frustrated.

It's a cute, gorgeous piece of cinema, and I want to praise it! But I just can't rate this without also considering the awful characterizations. They're just so empty that it hurts.

When we first enter Next Gen's world, it has the gleam of the digital city in Ralph Breaks the Internet combined with the cute-styled robots and griminess of WALL·E. At first glance, it seems promising.

The inconsistencies set in quickly, though. While I can forgive the simplistic writing—it's a kids' film after all, despite the (bleeped) coarse language, though targeted at older kids—I can't ignore the technical plot holes. Chief among them: Why 7723 only has the ability to fly until after falling off the highway and breaking its memory? Obviously, if that didn't happen, it would remove the plot's linchpin. (There's no humanizing sacrifice in 7723 deciding to delete all its memories to defeat Ares if the memory core never gets damaged.) But that big hole got me to pay closer attention, and there are many more, smaller, holes scattered through the script. It's distracting.

What this film does do well: Illustrate why Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were a good idea. The robots in Next Gen are entirely too happy to harm a human on command. (This is understandable in-universe, of course, given who Justin really is.) But that's just an idle observation from one guy (me) who loved the Asimov references thrown into Portal 2 entirely too much.

Perhaps the biggest issue with this movie is that it's not a Pixar film. I know I wasn't too thrilled with Incredibles 2 (the last Pixar film I watched and reviewed), but there's no doubt in my mind that this script would have gained a lot more depth if Pixar had produced it. While I don't always like Pixar's animation style, the way they always build layers of meaning and sophistication into their scripts is hard to ignore. Movies made for kids don't have to be simplistic all the way down, but this one—frustratingly—kind of is.

Pfft, maybe it was green screen footage matted onto an old photo, hmm? The hotel really isn't that big of a tell.

Gotta love how Simone's character editor conveniently hides all the right spots, when a real character editor hides nothing. Hollywood… Gotta keep those PG ratings, huh? Especially funny considering the in-dialogue comments about Simone doing nudity in her films.

Why does the trunk sink? That's not how physics, not unless it has holes in it (computer disks aren't that heavy.

I am 95% certain that floppy drives can't be ejected through software that way—especially the older type shown on this particular computer. Granted, I'm too young to have used floppies much (though my first laptop had a floppy drive built in), but that kind of physical turn-switch? Nah, that's not getting ejected by anything but the physical action of turning the lever back. (Also, Lainey pulled the ejected disk from the gap between a filler panel and the case, not a floppy drive slot.)

Also, apparently Lainey is a Wesley Crusher–level whiz kid. What a deus ex Lainey that was.

Goodness knows I can be critical of technical errors in visual media—maybe even overly so. But I'm certainly not unaware of the other elements. Though the execution of S1m0ne's premise might require suspending one's disbelief rather more than usual, from a technical-accuracy standpoint, the premise itself is interesting.

True, the characters tend toward flat caricatures—but ultimately, S1m0ne is a comedy. Comedies frequently take shortcuts instead of creating truly realized characters. This wholly expected shortcoming is worth a half-point deduction at most.

My nitpicks (above the break) aside, exploring society's attitudes toward celebrities in this way is perhaps even more thought-provoking now than it was when S1m0ne came out nearly 18 years ago. Since then, Yamaha's VOCALOID product line (initially released in 2004) has given us virtual singers. The popularity of many music producers' works using VOCALOID gave rise to entire concert tours featuring 3D-animated, pseudo-holographic avatars of the VOCALOID voice cast, played to thousands of fans at a time.

More recently, a number of "Virtual YouTubers" have gained popularity. While these animated characters are usually based on a real voice actor, and often take advantage of how much cheaper motion-capture technology has become—they amass fans in much the same way Simone does. The speed with which the production outfits behind such VTubers churn out new content would be difficult (or even impossible) to maintain if they aimed for photorealistic characters instead—character models and their costumes/props clipping through each other would break that illusion immediately for most current channels—but we definitely have the tech right now to pull it off in slow-paced environments like film production. Heck, we've had the tech for at least a decade. It's just a lot cheaper now than when James Cameron made Avatar (2009).

We must also note the fast evolution of deepfake video manipulation, real-time performance capture, video performance mapping, limited-sample voice synthesis, virtual reality, and so many more techniques & technologies based on machine learning. Niccol simply got some of the details wrong. The fundamental thesis of S1m0ne is sound, and we're closer to it than ever.

When I impulsively added this seemingly obscure trucker film to my watchlist,* I had no idea it would turn out to touch on the civil issues of today's America. In the era of #DefundThePolice, this blast from the past seems a pointed commentary on the same police issues—overuse of force, abuse of power—still facing us over 40 years later.

Unfortunately I wouldn't call the script or its execution "stellar", but Convoy worked hard to earn my 5/10 rating by weaving the C. W. McCall song in through editing and managing a few good tugs of the ol' heartstrings. Without those regularly spaced positives, I think the level of flat caricature on display deserved considerably less.

A good villain is relatable, but Lyle "Cottonmouth" Wallace is merely a figurative goateed cardboard cutout, "evil" for one reason only: The story demands an antagonist. We don't know why he hates Duck.

Similarly, a good hero has flaws, but Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald stands on a golden pedestal, a quintessential "hero". Why is he the hero? Because the story demands a protagonist. He always does the right thing, and never makes a single mistake. (This is debatable, I suppose, but so is my entire thesis here.) Duck is "perfectly rebellious in every way", to paraphrase Mary Poppins.

The side characters, too, are painted with only the broadest of strokes. Melissa, "Pig Pen"/"Love Machine", "Widow", "Spider Mike"… every one is a flat stereotype (or archetype) with no nuance. The romantic chemistry between Duck and either of the two women he gets (more "quintessential hero" material here) is just not there. It's even less believable than Sam Malone with Diane Chambers (Cheers), or even Chakotay with Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager).

The nearly one-dimensional characters and shoestring storyline might be (somewhat) forgivable if the production values had been better. But it would be hard not to improve on the sloppy dialogue replacements, awkward editing, and awful fake-slow-motion stunt shots.

It was a good concept. It should have been better. Convoy really could have used another script rewrite (or two), and… I'd say "a bigger budget", but surely $12 million should have been enough for action shots that don't play back at half speed?

* — Bo Time Gaming on YouTube mentioned the film a couple times during one War Thunder match, and references to the song are peppered through the TBLF squad's tank battles when they all roll down streets together. I generally appreciate Bo's sense of humor and taste in media references, so giving Convoy a watch seemed like a good idea. It didn't sound all that different from Smokey and the Bandit—which I hoped this would match for entertainment value.