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I mean, the sex scene was nice I guess, the computer generated effects that make up a majority of these shorts is fabulous, but we accomplished that shit years ago. The majority of these Love, Death & Robots shorts suffer from wasted potential. It's nice some of these concepts are brought to light and shown what can be done with them, but by the time you get into their stories, they're over. Beyond the Aquila Rift is a doomed story of men who get caught in a literal spider's web when transporting across space. I love body horror and downer stories, but there isn't much to chew on. No exploration of itself, no messages about temptation, just nothing. I'm having a hard time finding things to write there's so little to discuss. The other one I watched was the werewolves in Afghanistan one, that one was okay, but your time is better spent elsewhere, preferably off Netflix since that platform is mostly the same: The promise of original, fresh work from auteur directors, only to be saddled with waste of time affairs that fall under the guise of "entertainment." I always feel like I waste my time with the service. Pirating is where it's at.

As the Oscars grow increasingly irrelevant and a shell of it's former golden Hollywood days, the limp dick Academy has opted to create an "Achievement In Popular Film" category, as well as a shorter show time and other changes. The details and eligibility for nominations are to be announced later. As viewership continues to plummet every year, this year's being an all time low, some pointing to streaming or politics as the perpetrators, ABC and those running the show are in total panic mode. If they continue digging into their rut, they would probably have to end the Oscars completely. I am completely against adding this category and it just serves as more proof how out of touch these people are. By creating this separate "achievement," it highlights a slue of conflicts. One, they're aware they don't recognize "blockbusters" or any movies general audiences like as real films. Two, movies like Mad Max: Fury Road will now have the privilege of being shoved out of the Best Picture nomination and instead lumped into shit like The Smurfs, because, this is "most popular" film, right? The Smurfs made like a billion dollars, that means it has a chance of winning an Oscar now. This is the same shit that happened with the Best Animated Film category, masterful works of art like Loving Vincent have no shot at even touching the Best Picture award. However, if they consider Fury Road artful enough to get a Best Picture nod, people will still complain why didn't X blockbuster also get nominated? This will still cause debate about what counts as an award worthy film. Three, what the hell defines "most popular?" The box office or the critical reception? Are we going to gauge the popularity based on the extremely outdated Tomatometer:tm: or the "rigged" audience score? How about the flawed "Cinemascore" system that only weighs initial reactions of a film from literally walking out of the theater? Four, just adding this category at all is shady and screams desperate. We need other categories made first well before a popularity contest. How 'bout following The Golden Globes' footsteps and making genre based wins? Best action movie? Best drama? That way at least each type of film has a shot at getting recognition. The Oscars have always been shit, but this "attempt" at staying relevant is only going to sink them lower. Now Disney owns two wins of the night, since all the most popular movies made now are distrusted by Disney, and they always win the Animation award. No coincidence ABC, who runs the show, is owned by Disney. They've already thrown obviously endorsed lame Star Wars skits into past shows, but this is no longer a celebration of the best of Hollywood. This is a money driven popularity contest, and I hate it. Black Panther will get the win so they can scream black empowerment, even though the film is odious filth.

why are we still here? just to suffer?

I actually first got introduced to David F. Sandberg from seeing his mainstream theatrical production, Annabelle: Creation. Once I looked him up online, I had no idea he was the man behind creating those fantastic and viral horror shorts on Youtube. Later on, I sat down and watched the feature-length, Lights Out, which I really loved. But as for his first-time short films, they're all perfection in a hand basket. All of the ones he's done, including the original Lights Out short, are genuinely creepy and tension-filled little moments captured brilliantly on camera. My favorite of his currently is the 2014 Pictured. Right from the get-go, the short starts off creepy with a rather grainy and faded picture of a creepy-looking girl standing on a sidewalk. From there, the short escalates, as the girl in the picture escapes and manipulates the photograph, taunting the owner in the house. The brilliant use of sound and finale set-up make this one of my new favorites. When she's putting her hand up and and down and the girl in the picture moves each time she does this, I got braced for impact and I was almost yelling at the monitor. There was a slight final scare, but it was more of an unsettling startle. I love all of Sandberg's work so far, and I can't wait to see more of his talented productions in the future.

I can't say much more than what other critics have said a million times before in the past 100 years or so, but damn, I forgot how revolutionary this film was. I saw the post-processed colorized version of the short feature, in my opinion the best version, and it absolutely blew me away how ambitious this was for 1902.

Let's see, we've got a basic structured narrative, which includes a beginning, a middle, and an end. We've got amazing special effects through use of practical sets, matte paintings, and in-camera tricks. We've got great performances that tell the audience the story and what the characters are feeling, without the use of dialogue. There's also some great composition with actors in the framing of what the camera could see.

The only shoddy special effects are some of the quick cuts (Because there wasn't any editing equipment back then), and actually, I find the rocket hitting the moon's eye to be the worst special effect of the film. The rocket appears much bigger in size than what it actually it is and the cut to the rocket hitting in the eye is too jarring. Otherwise, the movie has some great work with blending together smaller sets and in-camera tricks with the real actors.

Georges Méliès possibly revolutionized movies forever and I think everyone owes something to him. By today's standards, it's not the best movie ever created, but goddamn, at the time, it certainly was. A milestone in motion picture history. Everyone interested in movies has to at least watch it once.

What a shame, I liked the first Wreck-It Ralph a lot, and many of the complaints I have with this one, you could throw at the original, but I don't think so. This is a two hour advertisement for a huge conglomerate of intellectual properties, just everything you could think of about the internet, it's in here. Amazon, eBay, YouTube, everything under the cyber sun, and I would almost be okay with it if the story had some deep rooted sincerity or depth to it to justify it's money hungry bullshit. But the script is so simple, just a saturday morning cartoon plot that can be summed up in two sentences. The real meat of the movie is the eye candy of seeing these websites that you all already know, just sold to you for a full price movie ticket. The genuine charm and cleverness of the original is not here at all, and the film doesn't use in the internet in a clever way, just presenting it as is. Yet some want to argue it satirizes it, sorry, no, just showing it accurately doesn't make it commentary. I'll given them credit for being more accurate to mainstream internet, but everything else, worthless. This could've been a thirty minute television episode and I would've been okay with it. The filler is ridiculous in this. What a waste.

Ugh. The first movie I come back to discuss on this website, it's this new live-action Disney masterpiece. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a special kind of bad. A Wrinkle In Time from earlier in the year failed spectacularly due to it's haphazard presentation, claustrophobic cinematography, and abysmal acting. I could almost see the script working with some tweaks and a much better director at the helm, because I could see what was attempted with the fantasy sequences. Now this latter film Nutcracker, is the inverse of Wrinkle. One thing I noticed off the bat is the production design and cinematography is beautiful. Victorian London, although has a bad CG introduction, is presented beautifully and even looks better than the real world sets from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. The use of blue and golden color hues and lighting give a fantastical storybook vibe. And once Clara emerges through the other end of the hollow tree log, the white forest illuminated by the sun looks like a painting, just, wonderful imagery that wouldn't be possible in a real location. There's also lots of classical and even Fantasia inspired pieces, when Sugar Plum and the rulers of the Four Realms are showing Clara their kingdoms. Instead of a generic clip/slideshow, it's opted to represent the lands in a stage show ballet, with performers and stage effects. I can't say the same for the make up and costuming though, as it becomes very hard to take the characters seriously who are dressed up like they're at queer parade, with mismatched colors and ridiculous hats and face paint. It's too off the walls for it's own good. But okay, visually, the movie has most everything going for it; a storybook brought to life. Though, I don't know what's with the connection to the Nutcracker story, besides Sugar Plum Fairies playing here and there and there being a "nutcracker" character, this script doesn't seem to be about this world, just this one event happening in the world. And this leads into the disaster that ruined this movie at it's core, and it's the script. I hate to compare, but imagine taking Tim Burton's Alice and strip away all the character development, most of the world building, any sense of scale, pacing, really, any sense of story. There are no pauses, no real chance to breath in this world, no one-on-one conversations about, I don't know, human emotions. Clara just keeps talking about finding the key to her egg her mother gave her, or, we need to go here, I want to go home, etc. She rarely ever talks about what she actually wants, who she wants to be, what she wants to do now knowing this world exists and her mother was a part of it. I would say an overwhelming majority of this movie is action sequences. The script is all in service of the most underwhelming, small scale battles against such dangerous foes like mice, slow tin soldiers, and a high pitched Keira Knightly. Yeah, spoilers, but I don't care. There is no reason to care about anything, and the twists and cliched dialogue can be recited perfectly before they happen. "Oh, open this egg, and everything you need will be inside." Inside the egg, there's only a mirror. Let's have an elongated drawn out sequence where Clara gets upset and storms off about it, then like ten minutes later realizes, "Everything I need is inside... it's me." Like, I laughed hysterically because I read the lines out before she said them, it's so predictable and childish. And the detriment is, you might say, this movie is for children, why are you, a grown man criticizing this. I don't think even kids would want to sit through this, I say that as a sibling. There's nothing that gives you a reason to care about anything, and the exposition is dropped faster than Alice's scroll and so much more lazily through awful mumbling acting. "That is the fourth realm, which is currently at war with the other three realms." Wow, so creative. No images to convey that a war is even happening. Yeah, I know later it's revealed that there isn't even a war going on and everyone was just being tricked by Sugar Plum, but even that doesn't make sense. Why is the forest destroyed? Where are the casualties to prove to the people that a war is actually happening? Sugar Plum isn't mind tricking anyone. There are real people here, and other lands filled with population that can see this. The world has no scale or sense of consequence. Clara could so easily just walk back through the hollow tree and go home. What, so she can get the key for her stupid egg? So what? Why should she or the audience care about anything that happens to this world? It's populated by a bad acted Nutracker, ridiculous looking leaders, obnoxious and unfunny sidekick guards, and ballet dancers. I'm on the edge of my seat, worrying about the future of this stupid world as it gets invaded by slow moving, hollow tin soldiers. This movie is a pathetic, watered down children's fantasy movie, and I think Disney even knows this. You will not seen advertising or promotion for this anywhere at the theme parks or online. It's best we forget this ridiculous, unfortunately beautiful looking 90 minutes of dreck.

For never was a story of more woe than this of Adam Scott and his agent.

There's a reason the term "Straight To Netflix" has been coined. For years, it seemed Netflix would become the answer to cable television and multi-chain theaters; everyone would switch to digital streaming services and all new films and long form shows would be watched via the internet. Only one little problem: a lot of the content being dumped onto these platforms are total garbage. I had no interest in checking this out, as I had already seen the original The Omen in theaters, but my father wanted to try it out, so why not. Trust me, all you'll be greeted to is an abhorrent display of mediocrity. Eli Craig may have put out one successful horror comedy, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, which critics began to quickly overpraise the talent presented. little evil is one of the most forgettable and plagiarist amateur pieces I've sat through. When the film isn't directly ripping the montages from Edgar Wright's films, it's copying the scripts from Silent Hill and a bevy of other better projects. It's downright jarring to see a very polished quick location switch montage borrowed from Shaun Of The Dead in the midst of all these other film school-tier shots. Shots will be digitally all in focus, no depth of field to speak of, very poor framing of actors (see Adam Scott in the car at beginning), no real artistic vision to speak of. It's like a second unit director, whom are usually out to get pick up shots, was given the reigns to shoot the main pieces. And the slog of a joyless and heavy on annoyance script doesn't at all overcome the lackluster presentation. It tries to be clever by throwing in a couple twists at the end but fails miserably at developing any tension. I get the idea is they want this to be a comedy, with a couple scary bits being the undertone, but the humor is the most sassy blackcent shit ever, most relying on this hideously ear-grating co-worker who's throw in for no reason other than "comic relief." The creators were hoping that would be the driving force, since they forgot to make the child at all intimidating. Nothing they do works; when they try bad CG demon composites (few and far between), it looks too cheesy to startle or disturb, and the poor little actor just doesn't have an intimidating appearance to fool you. No set-ups or pay-offs to speak of, the mother is the most worthless, disposable, underdeveloped, totally avoided plot device in a recent motion picture. Nothing that captures your little imagination, it's honestly draining to watch. You see every moment coming, just, whatever, fuck this movie and Netflix for approving this kind of soulless nonsense to continue parading around on the platform for suckers to sap into. People wonder why I have such a vendetta against the company, their originals like this is why. I'm so confused how people can look at by-the-numbers dreck such as little evil and just shrug, meanwhile lampooning and attacking other bigger budgeted films with much more artistic merits. Priorities are so backwards.

I mean, I'm a fan of historical films, big time, I think if you can accurately portray a point of history and grip me from start to finish, it's an out of this world film. Schindler's List, The Pianist, Defiance, Life is Beautiful; all Holocaust films that engaged me and never halted to a grinding slug. The characters are given enough stock and feel like real human beings. The story doesn't feel like a retelling of events for the sake of historical accuracy, but rather a complete narrative arc. In Life is Beautiful, the boy wins the tank and finds his mother. In Schindler's List, the war ends and Oskar sets free all the Jews he was harboring. Unfortunately, Operation Finale fails to reach a cinematic aesthetic, so it ends up feeling like made for television. Scenes kind of just happen for the sake of keeping events accurate, without much regard for asking, "You know, will this being entertaining for the audience?" Oscar Isaac is fine, I guess-- he kind of just says his lines. The only sequence the film got more engrossing is when he's acting opposite Kingsley. Adolf believes he should be able to tell his side of what happened during his time as head of the camps. Watching the two bounce back and forth perked me up a little bit, as I had started to fall asleep within the first twenty minutes; quite an accomplishment. They try to also "explore" the hive mind phenomenon that brought impressionable teenagers to the Nazi regime, but it's glossed over with no finishing arc, it could've been cut out of the movie. Watch Swing Kids if you're eager to see that on screen. The televisual cinematography leaves a lot to the imagination. They couldn't find any other creative ways to shoot these scenes? The framing is so flat and the editing is like an assembly line chop, you can count the cuts. Even during the alluring conversations with Isaac and Kingsley, the laborious presentation kept it back from being better. I don't remember any of the characters' names; just don't bother; the most average a film can get.

You have no interest in what I have to say. Unless it confirms what you think you already know.

I hated Crazy Rich Asians. When the film isn't sending you through montage orgasms, it's telling one of the most cliché and surprisingly underdeveloped romcoms in the last hundred years. There's a reason the proposal on the airplane has become a joke about it's overuse, they just parodied it in an AT&T commercial. How the hell people are looking at this amateurish display of subplots and spikes of drama as anything other than "been there, done that" flabbergasts me. The biggest single praise I've seen for Not so crazy, Royalty Asian-Americans is it's stellar and diversity-quota representation. "This film is so revolutionary because of it's all Asian cast!" Never mind the fact China regularly puts out big budget films, with insane box office returns, all the time. Let's all forget Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall, which was a giant American and China co-production with an overwhelmingly large Chinese cast. That came out two years ago. Anyone screaming praise about the, not even fully Asian, cast is a brainwashed soyboy who wants to be W O K E. Your representation does not make a good film. Nothing that comes up in this film heightens any kind of drama at all. A random affair thing with a couple in the royal family gets brought up, but dealt with so quickly and with very little consequence, it comes and goes like a passing emoji on a Facebook livestream. Speaking of emojis, the inconsistent editing is another problem with this movie. Why is there a hyper fast edited social media montage in the first ten minutes of the film, clearly stylized with stock footage and done by a separate editor, and nothing like that sequence is replicated or topped afterwards? It's really jarring in hindsight. To create some forced conflict, off-screen, the traditionalist and "bigoted" mother hires some investigator to look into Rachel Chu's family history, to get her to leave her rich son. It's totally out of left field, comes across like a Disney twist villain, it's comical and not clever. Maybe the reason people are praising this is for "the immigrant stands up to the traditionalist" and anything that tackles that sort of topic is automatically good. Seeing Chris Stuckmann squirm his way through his review, like, "You'll have fun with this movie. Go see it to support Asian representation" makes me sick. We should be supporting good cinema, regardless of cast. I want to go see Searching, which has an Asian lead. I like the Asian culture and aesthetic, but this does nothing for me, no, wait, it insults me. If all you're looking for is a blandly directed John M. Chu movie (the cinematic genius behind the Jem and the Holograms movie and the Justin Bieber documentary), with a plot as predictable as a children's book, just in service of "wacky" people doing not so wacky things, just cause, by all means, keep saying this movie is a masterpiece. I compare it to Fifty Shades Of Grey because of it's almost fanservice and spectacle like attitude. With no regard to writing a timeless and emotional plot you'll remember for the ages, it sends you off on a tourist like safari through Asian food and "glorious" rich mansions, then tacks on stupid drama to make it seem like it has plot. I want to know why this movie's objectively good, outside it's overrated, and frankly horribly acted, cast. This story is so overdone and nothing unique is done here. I'm baffled this is what people accept now, this is how low standards are.

I say this as a life long fan of Brad Bird, and I mean watching The Iron Giant when I was five, Incredibles 2 is rushed. No, it's very rushed. This is his most amateurish work to date, including Tomorrowland, which I believe is a unfairly maligned movie. My guess as to what happened here, Disney looked at their release schedule for 2018 and 2019, and noticed both this and Toy Story 4 were supposed to come out the same year. To make sure they capitalize their profits as much as they can, I bet they pushed Bird to release it a year early. As a result, the long awaited sequel to one of the surprise underdog hits of Pixar's line-up is lacking a lot of detail and the epic heart of it's predecessor. This feels like one of those direct-to-video sequels that Disney liked to pump out incessantly from the early 90's to late 2000's. The plot has about the weight of a television episode, the characters lack a lot of the intrigue previously seen, and the direction is very stock at times. Half the time, I forgot I was watching a Brad Bird production, his usual trademarks are missing in this. Even just the wee details I appreciate, such as these two guys' cameos, are nowhere to be seen. The most Birdiam-esque feelings I would get are the brief villain moments, like the seizure inducing, literally, fight in the apartment, the monologue, and one-on-one talk on the plane towards the end. But just, I don't know, I didn't really care about anything that was going on. There's some sweet little scenes with Par and the kids, including his amending with Violet, plus the fan service of seeing the family's reaction to Jack Jack's powers. None of it's bad, but comes off swapable. A lot of it is generic family fare, just done with Brad Bird's style. You may enjoy that, but I was looking for something much more special, especially coming from the man himself in the same franchise. Where's the scene that tops Par's heartbreaking revelation that all his friends are dead? Not only that, but murdered by the villain, and he watches the screen as he sees their names marked off. There is no such scenario in this, nothing comes close. It appears they took the VERY surface level political attributes from the first movie, and just decided to make that the childish plot around that. It's like a child's understanding of what made the first movie clever and it becomes redundant. Supers were already kind of coming out of hiding by the end of the first movie. To retread that old ground, bring back up the Underminer villain cliffhanger, only to not do anything with it and not acknowledge it after the opening scene, makes this almost feel like a fanfiction like remake. The magic just isn't there. The new villain is incredibly (haha) forgettable and replaceable. She barely has any connection to the heroes, and the dinky thread she does have is copied from Syndrome, but there's no big comeuppance for her, just, nothing. She's just thrown in jail without much word about it, then the film just ends. Believe me when I say, my heart almost sank when I heard the end score play so early after the final fight. It couldn't have been over that quickly, but it was. The saving grace this sequel boasts is it's very imaginative action, adequate set pieces, and some shining little character bits. But holy wow, this needed a rewrite or two and another year of production.

I'm sorry Blumhouse, a big fan of yours, but people, PLEASE DO NOT GO WATCH BLUMHOUSE'S TRUTH OR DARE. A 2018 horror movie... relying on this many clichés. No attempt at writing any character development, or, well, there's plenty of half-baked ass moments to "define" this collection of sad fucks. "Oh, see look! That Asian guy is the gay one! He's going to come out to his dad! Our main character is just a super nice gal in a bad situation. She's going to do something rotten by the end. Her roommate is a stuck-up meanie, but it's just because of a misunderstanding. What's that? You don't care? You want to see them all die in gruesome and horrific ways? Sorry! This is a PG-13 movie, we're not going to show any violence. Please suffer through our god-awful script, to finally watch a character die, but you won't get to see the details!" Effectively, they made it so there's nothing here to satisfy anyone. It's all equally degenerate. The only reason you see a movie like this, is for the gore and blood, let's be real. This anal sauce is trying to act like it has a deep script or some shit, so it doesn't need violence to sell itself. I'm sorry, that's the main reason your audience bought their tickets to come see this, not watch teenagers take selfies. I love the horror genre, I seriously do, but I have standards. This is one of the worst movies I've ever tried to get through; I failed. Shame on Blumhouse for trying to parade this fecal matter around, proudly stamping their name on the cover. Of all movies, this one? I'm frustrated and monumentally disappointed.

I'm not even going to be bother with a long review, this "big-budget" religious piece of confusing garbage doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately, it's not terrible enough to be funny, i-it gets close in a couple places, but falls into the just-trash mountain. Samson is the latest disaster by Pure Flix, after such smash hits like God's Not Dead 2. They decided to go big-budget for this one, which I guess means paying $50 for a shitty SD drone-camera that looks horrible every time it shows up, the left-over CG from Gods of Egypt, and actors plucked out of the middle of a porno. There were times I was expecting a sex scene to happen, just because the production design and script felt like something out of that. Samson's fake beard he gets half-way in is some of the worst make-up appliance I've ever seen, there's a reason there's a category for this at the Oscars. Billy Zane looks like he's doing this for the million dollar check I'm sure Pure Flix promised him, he's so fat and looks so out of place here. And they managed to drag Sokka from the live-action The Last Airbender on-set too. I walked out around the time he grabbed Billy Zane's crown from atop his head, I couldn't stop thinking about the "BALD!" scene from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. There's this quick little part before the third act beings, Samson and his brother step out of a cave, and good lord, the green-screen they had to use for these lines of dialogue is so horrible, I started laughing out loud in the middle of this empty theater. I feel awful for the class of Church kids that will probably be forced to endure this.

The fight choreography is terrible, the script is abysmal, the characters are flat with no depth, the special effects are eye-piercing, and the stock music deserves a round of applause. You guys know the Youtuber, Sargon of Akkad? They play his theme song in the movie, which I assume now is a stock piece of music. I really hope the budget for this wasn't any higher than $20,000. Monsters was made for less than $500,000 and Hardcore Henry was made for less than 2 million. Pure Flix, please just cancel God's Not Dead 3 now, have mercy on our souls.

You know what I recommend you do with your time instead of watching this? Take a fucking nap. This slug moves at the pace of a boring four hour epic you'd see from sixty years ago, yet it's run-time is miraculously only two hours and fifteen painful, agonizing, and traumatic minutes. You think this movie is a comedy? Fuck no. This is just another in a long line of pretentious "arthouse?" movies being falsely advertised to a general audience, only for it to backfire and cause terrible word of mouth/poor critical reception. I half-knew what I was getting into based on what I heard from initial viewings, but I still went in with the expectations I was going to see a drama with some comedy elements.

So, you may be asking, well hell, if this movie isn't a comedy, what is Downsizing all about? Here you go: immigration. Yup, that's it. Wow, how original. That hasn't been done already in a ton of other worthless indie projects in the past year. That's totally not wasting this interesting concept. Matt Damon has to star in another misleading political propaganda piece that has no a single aspect, story or technical, going for it. It's really a shame. Downsizing now finds itself in the ranks of other classics of 2017 like The Snowman and Gerald's Game, all with fantastic concepts and genuinely great things going for them, but fall flat on their face for just a few mis-steps. The first half-hour of this promises a fun and engaging satirical look at our current world with the introduction of a "solution" to man-kind's problems and jabs at popular culture. (The Leisure Land place is themed a lot like Disneyland, for example) There are good sequences here and there scattered mainly in the first half, but the movie, like, immediately changes it's interest from being about little people, and more about being a metaphor for America and immigrants. The second Damon arrives at an apartment complex that looks like a shitty Mexican place, topped off with graffiti and Spanish programming playing on a television, I felt like busting out laughing. Call me racist all you want, but holy lord, was this just hilarious, the mental gymnastics Alexander Payne was doing when writing this to justify some of this shit.

You might comment and say I'm just not getting or I hate it because of it's message, trust me, I'm not. I hate this movie because the fact they took this direction. I hate that they wasted such good potential with this. My father was actually looking forward to this and he thought this looked like an interesting comedy, but no, I'm going to have to tell him just a colossal trainwreck it actually is. I'm done. I'm not writing anymore about this. I need to stop going to see bad movies, but how?

Star Wars jokes, huh, Disney? Not trying to be subtle anymore?

It's a remake of Spider-Man 2. Now I know that's a dumb criticism to be made, because really, how many different stories for a Spider-Man movie can you do at this point? Well, actually a lot! There's how many fucking comic books stories from The Amazing Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man that Marvel Studios and Sony could've pulled from? But NOPE. We get an almost scene-by-scene copy of Spider-Man 2 with Toby Maguire. And my biggest problem with that decision, is they didn't ever top that film once in the entire run-time. There's even a scene that directly mirrors the "Raindrops are falling on my head" scene from 2, where Parker is now an ordinary guy without the suit. What a joke.

Without comparing to the original movies, what are some positives? Tom Holland is a great choice for Peter Parker, and he sticks closer to the age and personality of the original comics. I love him from The Lost City Of Z by James Gray, so it was cool to see him get a big role like this. The spidey-suit upgrades were an inventive fun thing to watch, so that added a little humorous element to the story, even if it was a little too reminiscent of the Ant-Man we just got, but Tom Holland makes it work. A couple of the jokes landed really good, especially the acting from Jon Favreau, but there were multiple desperate attempts at using memes to get younger viewers to laugh, and that got annoying. Diego Tutweiller has an excellent essay about the "Humor of Juxtaposition" in Marvel movies, so go read that too. JMichael Keaton as the villain was a fantastic choice. He doesn't have any super-insane freak-out moments, but his intimidation was what made his character interesting. And also, with the way they wrote him, you can't really love or hate him. I was actually just a sliver sympathetic towards the end when he's explaining his actions to Peter Parker. But I never felt any of the dramatic weight that I did in the originals.

And this is where I get into my major problem with this movie and the other MCU movies. They feel so disconnected from the real world, that what they Avengers do have no effect on civilization and not a single person is affected by their actions. Why don't we get to see the reactions of people getting killed when a plane crashes into a city-scope tower? It's obvious people were harmed and killed, but why don't we see that? Because Marvel wants to keep their movies fun and accessible to wide-spread audiences. All the dramatic tension in every single Marvel movie I've seen so far, is so superficial and without consequence. Call me biased to DC all you want, I'm not, but at least in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, you see the effects that Superman's attack on Zod had on Metropolis and the world. You see the people who were affected by those actions, IE, the little girl who lost her mother, the employee at Wayne enterprises who lost his legs, etc. We never see anything like that in the MCU movies, Spider-Man Homecoming included. The only time it gets even close to this aspect is when Peter's Decathlon class is stuck in an elevator about to drop, or the ferry with people on it. But just like the other movies, it plays it up for laughs, so there's no serious weight to the situation, because you know none of them are going to be killed, and you don't see any people really cowering in fear. You know what would've made that ferry scene work even better? Seeing a mother protect maybe a child in her arms, and then seeing Peter Parker's reaction, realizing the gravity of the situation. But NOPE. We have a fat black guy say, "Yeah, go Spider-man!" What the fuck.

I firmly believe at this point no one will ever make a Spider-Man or superhero movie in general that tops Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. Do people just not understand what made that movie so incredible? People sure like to praise, but do they really know why?

Oh, how the might hath fallen.

There isn't anything I can say that hasn't been stretched out to a two hour YouTube analysis video, but the state of Star Wars is depressing to say the least, and Disney knows it. The High Republic project they just announced is a direct response to the fans' disdain for this entire sequel trilogy and it's disrespect to the last six films. You have grade-A talent on display, in front and behind the camera, and the result is a two film story squished in to two hours, strung together with some of the most headache inducing pacing I've seen in a major studio film. Ian is wasted as the great Emperor Palpatine, John has no arcs as Finn, Daisy has the same expression she's had in the last two films, stonefaced and Pennywise, and Oscar Isaac wished they killed his character off in the first film so he wouldn't have to do the next two. The only thing I can feel during the final scene at Luke's old home on Tatooine is heartbreak. Hearing John Williams' brilliant last score for the series (and probably just a few years before he dies, he's so old), but coupled with the imagery of Rey taking the spot for herself feels so unearned and lost potential. Had our main lead been written with so much more thought and consistency, it could be a real heart tugger like it's meant to by, but all it does for me is remind me how the series has been ruined in just five short years. It's never explained who made the Sith wayfinders, who made the dagger, why they made the dagger, why they made it the way they did, who are the Knights of Ren, how did Palpatine come back, is he a clone, or is he the original version, how did he have all the resources to make like a thousand Star Destroyers (all with planet killing weapons), who are his faithful followers, what happened to the Republic that was destroyed in The Force Awakens, how did Han come back (was that really a memory or a vision, because it's never revealed Han could have force powers), why can force ghosts interact with the physical world, when did force healing become a thing, why is the Holdo maneuver one in a million, and so on. The film is a complete disaster when it comes to the writing, because it's very evident the film is a collection of twenty or so re-edits all with clashing ideas, in some desperate vein to get fans back on board after the abysmal The Last Jedi. But instead of digging themselves out of the coffin, they put the final nail in.

All the people talking about race and whatever bullshit with Peele's films kind of sour me on the projects. It's reminding me of Hideaki Anno and the collective analysis that happened with Evangelion. People trying to find this grandeur meaning behind the imagery used in the film, when the mundane reality could just be Peele is making more cliché horror, albeit with a more careful and artistic lens. Everyone labeled Get Out as this masterpiece of screenwriting that's a commentary on whites using blacks for their own gain, and that's not to say those themes aren't present, that doesn't mean it makes the film's formulaic storytelling a step above or revolutionary, or dare I say it, "brave." Peele's previous felt very much like a typical Blumhouse horror movie, but because some notes about his views of race where used as a piece of the storytelling, the critical circles lavished it with, in my opinion, unwarranted praise. It was a standard family horror fair, if you've ever watched horror, you can pick out the set pieces and notes from a mile away, I know I did, but oh, now critics will pay attention to horror because it has some undertone "messages" about race relations. Just because you have those themes does not automatically elevate your film above others, and that's the sad narrative surrounding Peele's otherwise decent movies.

I've enjoyed both of his films so far, and Us I actually enjoyed even more. It's a neat little film that has much more in the way of set ups and pay offs. This is a better constructed screenplay. Every beat and cue comes back to finish off it's arc with amusing grandiose. The hands across America commercial, use of handcuffs, the flare gun line (which comes back in the form of a weapon), and little pieces in the dialogue like, "Doesn't anyone care about the apocalypse?" there's quite a jam packed screenplay in the first and third act. I think it's the second act things get a little too padded out. It's entertaining with some almost hilarious displays, like the neighbor (on her last breath) telling the device to call the police, but it turns on Fuck the police the song instead. There's a surprising amount of humor in here, some working better than others. The family is likable enough, but isn't developed much outside their ambiguous goals, like the daughter conveniently was on the track team, and she's the one who's told to run. The characters serve the plot for the majority of the run time, it's not about them, it's what happens to them and their clones. If you just want action, there's lots of it in the second part, like I was saying, it just gets too long with seemingly not much purpose, upon which is gets exhausting. The third act comes around to finish off the story (and show off the facility underground I called) that was set up and kind of forgotten about, in a nice little bow that's not as clever as any of Shyamalam's twists, but at least brings everything full circle. Maybe everything was a little too predictable. My family guessed the mother was actually switched around in the Merlin's Forest like a half hour before it was revealed. I think this is a case of a script, and I know, who am I to judge Peele, but everything was in place here, I just wanted more a reason to care. I don't really know anything about this family or why I should care about them. The mother is coming to terms with her fear and really, the fact she stole her way in to what she wanted, so there's some nice conflict there. The daughter is mostly a reclusive young girl that sticks to her headphones, the boy likes to wear masks and is also a bit reclusive and weird, and the dad is... well, dad. I enjoyed it enough, but nothing that sets much apart from other things like it. Just some nice camera work (the telephoto shot of the clone boy walking backward in to the fire was a real treat) and editing that kept me engaged. Probably won't rewatch it soon.

CW: Christianity, Atheism, white males, a retarded plot

Do I even need to say anything? It's God's Я Us 3: A Light in Bankruptcy. Pure Flix, by some miracle of God, has managed to assemble a cinematic universe out of this fecal matter, just like Universal Studios and Focus was able to splurge out three Fifty Shades movies. I'm committing review sin by comparing two unrelatable franchises, but the parallels apply. I must ask, who is going to these to make them profitable? Suckers like me who want to watch some unintentional trash? Authentic Christian audiences who view these as important films? I would love to have a discourse with someone who honestly enjoys a broken wreck of a movie like this. Everyone can have their own taste, I welcome all perspectives, but it makes you curious. I admit, seeing Shane Harper's silly mug back again made me ironically geek out. It was the equivalent of a seeing a side-character cameo back in a Marvel product. All enjoyment is purely found in the accidental humor and structural problems. When a focal dramatic moment has met me laughing at it's scrambled pacing and distracting inadequate digital effects, you've failed at telling whatever story you were trying to. There's a sampling of laughably edgy conversation too, one where domestic abuse is brought up and another the Mandela effect being used to interpret Jesus may exist. It's too bad, Christianity could be so metal if shown on the big-screen with reverence. Pure Flix, you have money, make a badass action movie (that's not Samson), put some Bruce Campbell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dwayne Johnson in there, and you got me there opening day. Throw heavy rock in and hardcore Bible verses for maximum flavor. For now, we still have Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, and any Mel Gibson movie, so I guess we're good.

I don't even want to write anything. This movie makes me angry. Even with the mind-set going in that this is cheesy non-sense meant to please the brain-dead movie-going public, it fails to generate any sense that it understands what it wants to be and it's responsibility to respect it's predecessor. Call me exaggerating, but Pacific Rim: Uprising is a nightmare of a film, it's the last thing any fan should want of a property: Taking everything great a franchise has established, strip it down it's bare assets, then trying to sell it to dumb people. I've already said the first Pacific Rim wasn't a brilliant piece of cinema, but a lot of love went into crafting it's visuals and universe. Del Toro had a great eye for practical effects, lighting, digital composites, etc. I'm sorry Steven S. DeKnight, but he murders the franchise in every possible category: The writing is film school amateurish, the effects are below-average (lower than Transformers quality), the music is forgettable, and the universe has been shrunken down to a couple people, just like what The Last Jedi did for Star Wars. You had this mature and bad-ass world of Jaegar meets Kaiju action and you squandered it into the embarrassing cringe-inducing children's movie domain. I don't know how much hand John Boyega had in the creative process, but you can smell the cheapening all over the product. Everyone's picked apart the Jaegars moving too fast and the outfits not appearing as technically impressive, but down to the core, the writing, it's ruined. You thought Independence Day: Resurgence had lazy writing? Wait until you hear classic lines in Uprising that just reference how much better the writing was in the last movie. Want to write a great speech before the final battle? That takes too much effort. Just mention how great Idris Elba's "cancelling the apocalypse" speech was. They do this constantly in the movie, chucking, not even just random subtle call-backs, but full pieces of dialogue mentioning events in the last one. If you're not even going to bother writing your story better than garbage like Ender's Game and every other "youth training in military to stop evil force" movie, please don't insult the original by persistently referencing how much better it was. The action isn't even exciting. The physics and extremely out-of-place uses of slow-motion hinder any kind of tension or thrills. The finale in Tokyo is among one of the most underwhelming and confusing messes of editing ever. Resurgence was easy to follow at least, because it was set in the barren desert. How is it that a sequence at night in the rain, from the first movie, is easier to follow than one in daylight? And the movie just ends after they defeat the "final boss" Kaiju. No extra words to bring the characters' arcs to a close, you know, like a resolution should. It just goes from the characters getting out of their pod, having an out-of-place snowball fight, and the end credits. I almost couldn't believe it was over then. There was a brief mid-credits scene that poorly set-up future sequels that thankfully won't ever happen. It just dumbfounds me the entire cast went about putting this disaster together without one person going, "You know, shouldn't we at least get something right from the original movie?" Long-gone are the days of cool neon-aesthetic duel-outs with robots smashing ships into on another. We have the most bare-bones bullshit that's parading around as a sequel to a passion project of epic proportions. It's no wonder Del Toro isn't advertising this movie on Twitter. There's a part in the movie where they play the "Trololol" song as the Jaegars are flying away to fight. It was literally trolling it's audience.

Clint Eastwood's
A Series Of Pointless Events

I was going to write more, but my dad summed it up pretty good with that title. One of the worst films I've seen a long time. This is Tommy Wiseau's The Room levels of bad, not exaggerating. Scenes that are so short with no purpose are all over this movie. Some scenes even mirror ones from The Room, like when they go into an ice cream shop and for four minutes, talk about random junk that have no effect on the story. There's an entire section of this movie where these jackasses just tour Rome and take selfies all over the place. Nothing matters, all the dialogue is horrible, the acting is some of the worst I have ever laid eyes on, there's baffling editing choices, inconsistencies in the editing, bland music, and POINTLESS every-day affairs.

This movie has inspired me to take a notebook with me to movies now, so I can write shit down as I watch. I'm just now remembering stuff. There's a little moment with one of the friends as a kid, he's in his room, and on the wall, is a poster for Letters of Iwo Jima, one of Clint Eastwood's movies. Reminded me of that bit in Transformers 2 with Sam in his dorm room, and there's a Bad Boys 2 poster on the wall. But beside the nitpicks, the movie fails at it's emotional structure. The real heroes suck as actors, so it's hard to take their monotone mumbling performances seriously, and a large portion of the movie just focuses on random seemingly unimportant pieces of their life. We get no look at who the terrorist is or where he comes from. I felt no threat or tension in the final scene because the terrorist just came off as an incompetent shooter, just baffling. Even in Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay chose to include scenes with the Japanese army to hype up their power-level and what they could do to an American fleet. Here, there is not a single scene with any explanation or story for the terrorist, reducing my engagement. I'm not intimidated by him, so why should I care?

Typically, I disagree with the complaint that these army movies are nothing more than propaganda commercials for recruitment, but good Christ, this movie is the dictionary definition on throwing subtlety out the window. Spencer, or whatever the hell his name is, wants to join the Air Force. Okay, cool. Does that part of the story have any effect on the train attack at the end? No? What's the point of it? There is none? It's just to promote the Air Forces and the Marines? There's really no point to it? Thanks for wasting my time. Story comes first, plot structure comes first, tension comes first, characters come above-all, and this terrorism-level disaster of a "feature film" did nothing for me at all. It's also just a shame this isn't bad enough in a funny way to be like The Room. It borders into the category so many times, but keeps slipping into the just-bad territory. How did this happen, Eastwood?

I loathe this recurring trend I'm seeing with a load of movies being put out, not just in the horror community. Studios take this engaging and expansive concept that could be fleshed out into a thought provoking and timeless archive of our culture, this Winchester story being the perfect capsule of life and death. There's plenty of interesting shit that's lightly tapped into... but like a ton of other projects of recent, we take this potentially enriching thing and throw it into the mainstream bubble. I can see the executives going, "Yes, this tale of a woman building time capsule rooms of dead people, and where they died, is cool and all... but it needs more poltergeists, jumpscares, and marketability." We're taking potential arthouse movies and slapping a studio coat of paint onto it. It's really disgusting.

In this movie, there are so many interesting conversations that are briefly explored. This woman is being told by supernatural beings (who were all killed by weapons from the company she owns), to build rooms in her mansion that capture their spirits and replicate the location where they died. That is so neat, and it amounts to barely anything. No big message at the end, no character study of this woman and the visiting doctor, who's also troubled just as much as her... really nothing. There's a lot of short scenes that go nowhere and inconsistent rules within the house. It's a generic ghost movie with a promising concept being used as the gimmick to draw suckers in like me. The synopsis is far more interesting than how it's executed.

I give credit for teed-bits of the production design, but we just had Crimson Peak and other great period piece movies, so I don't know what's the point of giving this credit for that. And for heaven's lord, I'm an apologist of egregious jump-scares, but this movie is not helping my case. I can't count how many times I wanted to walk about because of the predictable and ineffective jumps. Let's lock this movie up behind thirteen nails and forget it.

Even the poster is shit, step up your game, Netflix.

It's like two terrible hack directors, who are actually actors, saw It Comes At Night and The Strangers, then said, "Hey, let's remake The Strangers without understanding anything that made that movie interesting. Then let's throw in the ending from It Comes At Night. People will love this!" Nothing is explored, nothing is explained, all set-up plot threads early-on are completely ignored in favor of an open ending, there are no interesting characters, the drama is extremely forced and immaturely edgy, the cinematography and editing is jarring and even laughable at quite a few points, but overall, it's a fucking bore. It's trying to be like so many other horror movies (other bad horror movies, mind you, I mentioned Paranormal Activity 3 once when watching), and even doesn't understand why those were successful. All I can tell you, is Netflix is not having a good track record with their original movies. Sure, some of you may argue about Gerald's Game, but ultimately, nothing has impressed me enough into thinking paying for a subscription to this service is worth it. The idea I enjoyed Insidious: The Last Key more from earlier this month is downright unacceptable. Avoid this house, trust me, you won't want to buy it.

This whole movie, I couldn't stop thinking about Shinji and Kaworu's sub-plot from Evangelion 3.33. There is no point to this movie. It is the most boring film involving an on-screen romance I've ever seen, and I've watched all of Fifty Shades Of Grey. While Shades is bad, it has greater production design, has a form of cohesive story-line, no matter how laughable, has a memorable soundtrack, and is actually enjoyable, in an ironic sense.. Call Me by Your Name wishes it could be this important coming of age bisexual story it props to be up from it's aesthetic and Oscar-bait attire, but all we're left with in the meat are pointless everyday scenes and sub-plots that go nowhere, characters given zero depth or personality, yes, including the two leads, locations so bland and in-effective in expanding the story's world, that scenes could be taking place anywhere, and cinematography that feels very amateurish at times. I started counting the number of times the camera forgot to put the characters in-focus after someone moves to another position on-screen. The blocking and placement of the actors is televisual and bland, there is not a single shot that sticks out to me. Sitting at a table, laying in bed, bicycling, and etc. The only shot that sticks out is the final one as the credits play, but that's only because it's held on for so long.

I'm actually having trouble finding stuff to write. The two stars give it their all, desperately scrounging up an ensemble performance that appears emotionally stirring, and I applaud their efforts. But this just does nothing for me. It's so inconsequential and pointless. There are far better gay movies out there. If that's the reason you guys are all giving this movie high scores, then I'm sorry, you're missing out on movies more worth your time. Go watch Strawberry and Chocolate, a much more entertaining and fulfilling little story. I think I'm done with gay movies. I've seen a lot in the past year and they've mostly just felt the same. This genre is really limited. I'm telling you this because I wanted you to know. Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine. Okay, I'll stop quoting obvious lines. By the way, there's a scene in the movie where he fucks an apricot. Symbolism? Maybe. Hilarious? Yes.

I know I'm going to be in the minority when I say this, but let the Monsterverse end here. I don't mean that in the way that, I hate these movies. Exact opposite, King Of The Monsters is my second favorite film of 2019. But given the history of cinematic universes (MCU), the Toho Godzilla series, and the current situation of the Monsterverse, I would rather see this little series end as a trilogy of sorts, discounting Kong Skull Island, and let it stay a self contained epic that completes all it's arcs over the three Godzilla films it currently has. I wouldn't want them to (((drudge))) this out, change it up to be more mass appealing, and lose the spark the series currently has. Legendary currently has the option to keep making Godzilla films as long as they want so long as they renew the license, Toho would let them. But given the financial returns, I don't think that'll happen. They're going to release this early in China, get some money back on their investment, and release it for the fans that still like this stuff. Neutering it down is the last thing I'd want and I'd rather it end now. I know you all would disagree, but end it on this "high note."

EDIT: Fuck, this didn't age well at all.

Wow, this latest Jennifer Lawrence "movie" is a lifeless slog, complete with horrible, uninteresting leads, unrecognizable bland locations, improper direction, lack of an emotional connection, and feels like only an edgy teenager would consider "artsy" because it's slow and quiet. Who the hell made this?

looks up the director's filmography

Oh, that explains a lot.

I know I keep giving mainstream movies a hard time. We're living in an age where blockbusters, like Black Panther, are superficial and lazy committee projects used to sell products to the general public. But then on the other hand, you got this stuff like Red Sparrow that just turns off said masses from the more original and creative small projects. I know this isn't a small movie, but it's an original movie not tied to some cinematic universe. The issue is, this movie's a piece of shit. It's the dilemma Downsizing and It Comes At Night had with audiences: being lousy "art" movies that are miss-marketed to a mainstream demographic. Doing this shit is only driving people back to the "safe" movies made by Disney. When people are dropping over $10 on a ticket, your film better match up to that selling price. There's a reason Black Panther is winning the box office right now, because people would rather trust a certified movie like that, than take a risk with a shit movie like this. I guess my incoherent rambling just boils down to... stop making bad movies? I don't know, my mind is spinning right now. Black Panther is undeniably a more coherent and gratifying experience, so they got me there, but at the same time, it's barely above this. Quality control has definitely been abolished, I will say that. These studios view something like Red Sparrow as the answer to the pleading call from losers like me, for more original projects. So, they don't care what it is or how good, just that it's the answer. We're already on the road where the only profitable movies will be the spectacle Disney movies, full of action and product placement. They infect all the months around them, so none of the smaller movies stand any chance. Only the few meme movies that Reddit and the Oscars pick up stand a chance at making an impact. Why else does Chris Hemsworth keep choosing to play Thor instead of doing other movies? Because they don't make as much money, and most of them aren't good movies either. Maybe cinema has always been like this, a handful of movies each year are worthwhile and the rest just aren't.

Fresh off of John Wick, David Leitch delivers basically a similar action gun-toting movie, but this time with a female lead, which worked fine. The use of martial arts more this time around added to the uniqueness the film had, enough to separate it from David's previous movies. But sadly, the few and far between action scenes can't make up for this incredibly slow and ultimately pointless movie.

I thought I was crazy when I walked out of this movie a little tired or bored of what I just watched, but it seems I'm not the only one. I originally was going to give this an above-average rating, but the more I thought it over, the more I realized how un-inventive and unoriginal and boring this was. I can't count how many times I was sitting in my chair waiting for this fucking movie to hurry up and just end. I'm never really given a reason to care about anything that's going on, or care about our lead, mostly because the movie makes no try to add charisma or an interesting shaded personality to our spy protagonist, Lorraine. She does have a nice sex scene about half-way into the movie, which attempts to add emotional quality to her character and the french spy, but there's something about Charlize's attitude and reaction to situations that just made her so detached and uninterested in anything going on. I didn't really care at all about what would happen to her, maybe partially to blame being the fact the whole movie is told through flashbacks, but I don't know. James McAvoy adds more charm to the movie and he was much more interesting to watch; the second he came on screen, I already became more interested in him than our lead. There's an attempt to add twists and double-crosses, and the story taking place around the Berlin wall collapse was kind of cool, but I was never full invested in this. I don't know why, maybe I was just tired, but this bored me almost all through. I will say, the long take staircase fight scene is wonderfully done, so props for that.

Also, do we have to rely on 80's nostalgia this heavily now? So many movies coming out now use a 1980's noir type aesthetic and matching soundtrack, filled with stuff like Queen. It's getting just a little old. I appreciate the movie's efforts to be unique, but the action is not anymore impressive than anything that's come out in the last 10 to 20 years. If you're curious to see the lesbian sex scene, check that out I guess, but the rest is rather boring. At least I got a chuckle out of John Goodman saying the word cocksucker.

Do you guys think I enjoy disliking these movies? 'Cause I don't. I swear, I go into every one of these hoping I come out having had a good time, laughing and enjoying watching superheroes do marvelous things. But this is the third time this year I've been disappointed by a Marvel movie. I just don't get it anymore. Is there something wrong with me, or am I missing something in this movie? I really don't know. But as I was watching, I didn't laugh once, but other people around me were laughing, at presumably all the right points. I could tell when a moment was supposed to be funny, I could tell a joke was being attempted, but I just kind of sat there, not at all convinced. A lot of the humor just feels so flat, or simplistic. I didn't think any of the jokes were clever or original. Just like awkward dialogue or callbacks to previous Marvel movies. I think I only half-smiled at two jokes in the entire thing. One was at Steven Strange's place, where Thor puts his hammer (disguised as an umbrella), in an upstairs umbrella rack. At the end of the scene, he's downstairs ready to leave, he puts his hand out for his hammer to come back to him, and you just hear in the background glass shattering and things just getting destroyed. After a couple seconds of it, Thor just half-heartedly says sorry. At least that joke had a little bit of set-up to it. I know there's another one involving a callback to Loki and Hulk's encounter from The Avengers, but I don't consider it clever. Most audiences won't get the joke unless they've seen that scene from that movie. The only other scene I kind of smirked at was the Hulk bouncing a giant ball across the room and back, like that prison scene from The Great Escape, and I thought that was just a nice little touch. But outside that, none of the humor landed with me. I don't know where people are getting at that this movie is like hilarious and easily the best Thor movie. I mean, yeah, it's the best Thor movie, but is that saying much? The first two Thor movies were total garbage, and I actually think I'm not alone in saying that. The story in this movie could not get anymore cliche, with it's hero's journey arc. I think it's definitely the laziest written Marvel movie of this year. I wish we actually learned something about Cate Blanchett's Goddess of Death in this movie. There's like a half-explained backstory that she was banished or something and all traces of her and the real history of Asgard was erased, but that's about the extent of her character. Also, we don't know enough about her powers and her abilities. What weakens her? How powerful is she? We don't know. Check out this little scene from her introduction:

youtu.be/lBBvT6QY2Xk

She's brought up to be like this ultimate powerful being that shocks audiences. I can hear the people watching the trailer now screaming, "Oh my god, she destroyed Thor's hammer! How's that possible?!" Yet, when we see the whole movie, the actual confrontation is very underwhelming. And we never really understand what can she do and can't? I'm still like confused on this. I get that she's more powerful than Thor, but is that it? I don't even know what kills her at the end of the movie. Getting stabbed by that fucking huge flaming monster? There were a few moments of a flashback we see of her fighting the Valkyries, and it's got this renaissance-painting like look to it, similar to the storybook in Wonder Woman, but that's really it. OH, and when she first arrives in Asgard, she murders to people guarding the gate, but randomly decides to spare the janitor that's standing by. Oh, and the guy states he's a janitor in a fashion I assumed was meant humorous, but it wasn't. But she spares him and makes him her executioner... because janitors make really good executioners, I suppose. And he just kind of like awkwardly follows beside her, and I'm still really fucking confused why she kept him. She's the Goddess of Death. Why does she need a fucking executioner? He does nothing the whole movie, and she could just do his job, as she shows off early in the movie. But his whole arc amounts to nothing. I don't even know if we saw him in the final scene. The whole movie just has so much lazy writing. It starts with Thor in a cage talking to a skeleton we see off-screen, but I was just thinking the whole time, "The only reason he's talking to this skeleton is so the audience can get caught up in why he's in the situation. When has Thor ever talked to inanimate objects like that?" It was just something I noticed. And the scene after that has some of the worst CGI I've seen this year. The flaming monster of whatever had terrible animations, it just looked so jarring whenever they'd cut from him back to Chris Hemsworth's live action footage. It even looked like the chains Thor was in was CG, maybe it was the lighting. Now, now, I don't have ill-will towards the director Taika Waititi, I've yet to see his previous movie, so let me list off at least a few positives. And that's the direction the movie sometimes has. At times, there are some really impressive elaborate shots, like the previously mentioned flashback sequence. And there's one scene with Thor and his hammer flying away from a giant serpent monster that was nicely put together with the silhouette lighting and fast movement. But at other times, the movie looks like hot garbage. I don't have all the footage at my disposal, but just for example at some of the bad direction, check out this clip:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw1T6KYM_4I

I swear, the blocking and camera choices are straight out of Attack Of The Clones, with that scene of Anakin and Obi-Wan talking in the elevator. As much as I like that film, same shit. But you know what's really funny, is I found Waititi actually admits the direction is lazy:

youtu.be/7WahFlp7LKI?t=36s

I love how he finds a hard time saying positives in that sequence. Just pointing out the background is all CGI. Something that's clear as day obvious. There's actually a lot of bad green-screen in this movie. One was so bad, I swear, I almost started laughing in the theater. It's when Thor's running down the bridge towards Asgard and I swear to God, I could see the black lines around Chris Hemsworth.

But, ugh, I don't really know what else to say anymore. Marc Ruffalo has almost nothing to do in this movie except spout jokes at times towards Thor, there's more comic relief characters, just like what you'd see out of Guardians Of The Galaxy 2, and Jeff Goldblum doesn't have as many scenes as I wanted. He was one of the better parts of the movie. I want to see more of him in future movies. I gotta admit, I got a kick out of seeing Doctor Strange again. Benedict Cumberbatch is always a treat to see, even if he didn't do jack shit in this movie and only served as a cameo. Also, they play Led Zepplin's Immigration Song twice in the movie. Why? I don't know, because Guardians of the Galaxy changed movies forever. And before people tell me it's Waititi's style to put jokes in serious moments, fine, but I don't think so. I've seen Marvel do this before, making a potentially dangerous and tense sequence silly. Not once was I on the edge of my seat during this whole thing, and I never feared for the main characters' lives. Even when Thor's home planet, Asgard, is blown up to smithereens, they make a joke about it.

I'm so not looking forward to Infinity War. I just don't get it anymore.

The whole movie, I was just thinking about this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=40hFDtQLB8c

I'm going to try to vent my opinions on this movie now.

I think this movie frustrated me more than anything. Barry Jenkins did a really outstanding job with the direction. The scene near the beginning with Chiron in the ocean is great. The way the camera bounces up and down with the water was fabulously disorienting and I loved it. A similar example of noticeable camera work was when Kevin enters Chiron's car. The camera is mounted to the car door and the camera moves accordingly when the door is opened. There's good work all around.

Another major positive of the movie was the acting. Everyone did a phenomenal job with the material they had, especially Naomie Harris. She was absolutely perfect as the drug-addicted mother, who eventually winds up in a Rehabilitation center. She gives an outstanding performance at the table with Chiron, as she breaks down and tries to tell him she loves him, to which he just has to respond that he hates her. Mahershala Ali was quite enjoyable, but unfortunately, he wasn't in the movie very long.

I'm not typically interested in films with topics about gays or victims who are resulted from bullying, but I felt obligated to check it out after all the buzz and critical acclaim it was getting. There was a lot going for it and I was having fun with the characters at different points in the story, especially Chiron's classmate Kevin, played by André Holland. However, even with him at the forefront of the third act, I thought the last hour of the movie dragged on way too long. Far too fucking long. I could see exactly where they were going with setup, but they took too long in the diner to execute anything. There's plenty of scenes like it throughout the whole film. Something will be setup, but then not go much anywhere or do anything particularly interesting.

I understand the movie is trying to get across some important messages about life, love, and the struggle of trying to find yourself as a person. But the problem is, while I applaud and definitely see some great scenes in this movie, like Little Chiron sitting alone in the bathtub, there is far too little happening. You can't have a movie that's only themes. You still need interesting scenes to convey your themes. The only parts I really got invested in was Chiron's life in high school. He finally had enough and threw a chair right into the back of his notorious bully, Terrel. It was a chapter of the film I could identify with, we've all gone through rough patches growing up.

I'd like to give this movie a higher rating because it has good material to boast, but while it has some good subject matter behind it, it's far too slow. Not even the impressive direction and performances can make me want to revisit this movie. I could see why some could get sucked up in the world of Chiron's, but I wasn't digging it. Great visual work from Barry Jenkins, but a script re-write was needed.