Last Venom

We made it, one last dance to go.

Eddie is in Mexico, and decides to go back to America because he's in trouble and... the movie needs to happen. But there is an alien creature (I've already forgotten the name) that's after him for some macguffin that exists in him that can release the Final Fantasy villain, but the alien can only track him when he's in full symbiote mode. So Eddie goes into full symbiote mode and every opportunity, and eventually they end up at Area 51 where there are a lot of other symbiotes, and the second half of this movie is just one big extended CGI fight scene of symbiotes we don't know fighting that one creature until the movie ends.

As you might be able to guess, I wasn't that impressed by it. I'm sure there are some out there that deeply care about these characters, but the movie doesn't, and give very surface level characterisations. One guy is military, one guy is hippie dad, one woman is scientist because her brother died (this is the biggest character beat anyone gets), and one woman is there because... they need other people? Tom Hardy barely seems to interact with anyone, just schlubbing his way through the movie, which could be a deep character point about Eddie, but just comes across as him not caring about how he's on screen.

As I said, the second half is basically a CGI fest of a large number of symbiotes that no-one whos they are without a scorecard, and they don't stick around long enough to matter anyway. The big ending between Eddit and Venom is... what happens, but since they are an annoying pair, I'm not sad to see them go.

Apparently Sony is giving up on SPUMC, so there is a big likelihood we are done with these... until they are rebooted on screen again in the future.

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Pulsy

Japanese horror movie, why not?

So I had to look at a plot synopsys to fully get an idea of what is going on. Ghosts are invading the real world via the internet, it seems. Okay? We see people seeing creepy images of people on the computer, and then they go away (in various meanings of that term). It's all about being alone, and loneliness is death, so if you are alone, are you a ghost?

There was something bugging me as I watched this movie... that I felt like I'd seen it before. Certainly I could have, it is the sort of thing I would watch, and certain moments did feel very familiar. And then again, parts of this was completely unknown to me. Did I just remember the "good bits"? Did another movie do some of this and I'm remembering that? Any and all options are possible!

But this is very low key horror. Seeing where ghosts inhabit is enough to "infect" someone, so don't expect jump scares or anything. I like me some atmospheric horror, and Japanese horror does tend to be atmospheric, but this... this isn't that.

It's like Suicide Club in that this is likely saying something about how Japanese people see themselves as disconnected, but it comes across as very abstract.

There's an Americanised version in 2006 that I suspect is nowhere near as subtle.

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Hereaticky

Hugh Grant has transited into evil characters well.

Justify your religion. That's the point of the movie. Two Mormon girls visit Mr Reed, who knows a lot more about their own religion than they do, and also raise several red flags immediately. However, it's too late at they are caught in his game as he tries to demonstrate the true power of religion, complete with miracles.

Is this movie anti-religious? I wouldn't say so, although I could easily see others saying it is. It does question the foundation of many beliefs, but no more so than many other athetists have pointed out, and indeed religious scholars already know about, and we still have religion here, don't we? Indeed, you can easily say "well, yes, but despite all those other religions, mine is true".

So what we get is a bit of a character study of what does one man who thinks he knows what the right religion do when confronted by people who believe in another? Try to dismantle their beliefs so they accept his. His wider point is one I've made myself, but is only half the story (I will refrain at the moment explaining more under the pretence of spoilers).

Hugh Grant is lovely and menacing, and Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East are indeed the two women are are also in this movie opposite him. Not to say they are bad at their job, just that they aren't really given much to do that isn't just reacting to what is going on around them.

There are many movies about religion, and this is one of them.

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Longing for Leopards

Leopards are such beautiful creatures.

This is a documentary on Netflix, so you can see it there for yourself. We follow Mochima, a female leopard, as she gives birth to two cubs, and then spend a few years following the new family. She has a daughter and a son, and they are quite different, and it's a question as to whether or not they'll grow up enough to be independent leopards, so if nature will be as nature will.

They really are beautiful, whether loping along, stalking, taking down prey, eating raw meat... such a delight to watch. And we get to see them, and some the crew who feel like the cats are now a part of their lives.

It's a great watch if you like leopards (which I do), but I perfectly understand that they would take me out without pause if I got in their way.

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Secret Not Tunnel

Eight episodes based on games. Sure, why not?

Varying between 10 to 20 minutes, these are wee snippets of "what if we saw some adventure set in the world of X?" Where X could be Warhammer 40K, or Dungeons and Dragons, or Sifu or... some other things I have never heard of. Most are pretty much just an extended fight scene, and if there's anything more to the lore being revealed, I'm not getting it.

And then there is that other episode, the weird one. Yep, it's weird! And it's apparently now going to be a thing.

Got some big names in there too: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and others. I guess 'cos it's an easy voice role, it probably wasn't that hard to get them.

Various animated styles, in the vein of Love, Death and Robots. ... ah, same producer (Tim Miller), that explains that.

Not bad, but more gimmick than anything else.

Oh, and there's another eight episodes coming. Didn't know that.

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Last Horrible Movie

Another meta-horror movie. Have I said I've been watching meta horror movies? I've tried to, some aspect where they are trying to draw the audience in, but here is another one.

The gimmick is this is just some schlocky horror movie... but something else has been taped over it. A person addresses us, tells us he a murderer, shows us him murdering people, and wants to know what you think of it all. And he'll ask you because he followed you home from renting the movie.

Which relies on this being a media that could be taped over, this might work for VHS days. But for DVDs, not really. And for streaming, even less so... although you could do a gimmick whereby the person has hijacked the stream and showing something else? That might have legs actually...

Anyway, this is a British take on what reminded me on The Rise of Leslie Vernon... which was actually after this, so the British did it first! The psychopath actor is fine, but I couldn't help feeling "I'm just watching a movie" especially when he kept going on about "is this real or not?"

It looks like this did quite well on the indie film festival circuit, but it doesn't quite hold up nowadays.

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Emelia Parez

It's a big movie that Netflix has... unless you have a local Netflix which doesn't have it.

Emilia wants to fully transition, and hires Rita to get it done. However, she was the head of a rather nasty cartel, and has a family, so she now has to face not being in her children's lives as a parent, and coming up against the consequences of her past actions. There's a lot of good things happening... until there is.

Now this is a musical we should be talking about. Zoe Saldana is putting her limited Spanish into play (she herself said she wasn't happy with her Spanish), as Rita, who occassionally breaks into song and/or dance. As does Selena Gomez. But the main start is Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia, an actual trans actor playing a trans character. This is what representation is supposed to be, people!

While full on, it does get rather unpleasent at times, but it is always watchable. And watch you should, if you can.

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Futterbly Kisses

A documentary of a found footage documentary of found footage.

Layer 1: A student film looking into Peeping Tom. Layer 2: a filmmaker finds those tapes and tries to make something of them. Layer 3: A documentary looking into that process.

I've seen my share of found footage movies and this... is pretty good! I like that meta level of it, and they are doing interesting and different things with comparing how this could be real but also could be fake. There's a large element of "make up your own mind" while suggesting that it is real, and at the same time suggesting it is fake.

And I like more than they are including real world people in there, such as Andy Wardlaw, editor for Finding Bigfoot, and Matt Lake, writer of Weird Maryland. No doubt those people have to be careful around what they say "that stuff is fake, but my stuff is real", but it's nice to see bringing in links with that area of media. (This isn't the only case of this I've seen, and it's always nice when it happens.)

There's a lot here about obsession, about what looking into the abyss can do.

The final ending is a little bit of a let down, with the film trying to be tricky about what it wants to convey at the end, but otherwise is a good watch.

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Dark Tales of Japan

Anthologies can be hit and miss, so how does this J-Horror fare?

With a brief frame of creepy ghost on a bus, we get a collection of random other horror fare. Spiderwoman is pretty straight forward "here is a creepy supernatural urban legend" that of course turns out to be true. Crevices could have been more, but on the other hand it doesn't hang around. Sacrifice is pretty straight forward, you can call what is going to happen after a minute, but then need to wait for it to play out. Blonde Kwaidan is much of nothing. Presentiment is another instance of "yep, we see what you are doing and... waiting for it to happen".

With these being short tales, it plays both into it and against it. We get to the point, but the point isn't anything amazing to get to. These are fine, but more of a sampler taster than fuller fare.

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UzuTaVi

No doubt you've all be waiting for my opinion of the latest tv adaptation.

This is the same plot of the manga, spiral slowly overtake a town and all kinds of Junji Ito weirdness happens. In this version, they mash a lot of the stories together, so going to the school might encounter the snail people and the attracting hair, going to the hospital deals with Shuichi's mom and the mosquitos. And for me, that is fine. I know the stories well enough that I know what bit of plot goes with what. Some of the actual manga stories are rather short, eg jumping jack, so we don't want to spend a lot of time drawing that out, although that particular story ends up as a few weird moments scattered around other episode.

A lot of comments have been made about the animation itself, about how episode one is so much better. Um, yeah... the later episodes do have a lot of dodgy moments, but there are dodgy moments in the first episode to, so while it is clear where the effort went, it's not like the first episode didn't show its cheap hand. Given that Ito adaptation tend to be straight putting on the screen what was on the page, this worked about as well as other attempts I've seen.

Like other people, I wanted this to be great... but as been pointed out many a time by other people disappointed by adapations: the manga still exists! And that is always worth a re-read!

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Blob, Then and Now

I watched the two films, 1958 and 1988.

There are a lot of similarities. A strange thing lands in the bush, is found by crazy old guy, gets his hand engulfed. At the hospital, the blob moves on to others. The police are brought in and are relatively competent, but the blob still gets out. It takes out a movie theatre and seems to die in fire... but no! Instead, it dies in cold. The day is saved!

The 1958 version is very 1950s sci fi. Young guys in cars, dames hanging on their arms, the blob is basically a pink goo that engulfs, but otherwise doesn't get too gory, the police/army win at the end.

The 1988 version cranks up the gore a lot, in so much as taking out the leading man! We see half-melted people inside the goo, it's far more active in taking people out. And we get that the blob is because of scientists from earth instead of something from beyond the stars.

Very much movies of their time. Clearly we missed one for 2018. Something that is devastating, that just rolls over the country, killing people... hmm... maybe not.

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Smale 2

Here's the secret: it's 100% Unreliable Narrator.

This is the one where people smile. No, not that one. The one where only the person infected can see the creature. No, not that one. This is the one where trauma is a creature. No, not that one. This is one of the other ones.

In this one, Skye is a poor little rich girl, who has fame and love, but also trauma. She's got a show coming up, but after an accident needs pain meds, and can only get them from someone who was previously infected and so gets infected herself with the Smile. And from that point on you basically can't trust anything you see. There are lots of moments where we see something silly and then immediately switch to them not being there (the scene where there are tons of people crawling towards her is just funny), but there are longer moments to... but since we know from the small moments we can't trust anything, why should we trust the longer moments? This is to give the audience a sense of hope, but the character in the movie never really has any, they just don't know it.

And you know what... that's not actually enjoyable to watch. That's just misery porn trying to hide out under a big audience twist. It's not actually enjoyable.

But I don't think that will stop the hundreds of sequels this film will yet have.

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A strang hous

Something a bit more modern, youtuber investigates weird house...

Only, not really. While there is an odd house, it's more about the family who lived there. And even then, it's more about where they went before and after that house. We get to a weird cult, and another strange house, but there's nothing supernatural here, just people being people.

I think the translation subtitles I had were a bit off. Aside from a few gaps, who was whoms mother/brother/sister got rather confused. I think I got it, and fortunately it's not like this was too convoluted.

I'm not sure who played who, but I liked the actor who was the architect. Good character acting there.

Had the potential for spookytimes, but they went with a story about family instead.

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Okkult

Back to Koji Shiraishi!

Several years ago, a group of women accidentally taped a stabbing on a bridge. The production crew led by Shiraishi speak to people that were there and find that one of them is hearing voices and has a strange mark on his body that the killer marked there. "Miracles" happen around him, and they follow him some more and uncover that he has a mission, one to bring people to god's dimension, just like the killer did.

Shiraishi has a tendancy to cast himself in these movies, as a director, and so presents it as a documentary style. This leads to the slow build I really like, and so I really like this. Revelations come slow, and the "miracles" get right creepy. And the final reveal is certainly built off what has gone before, but is rather full on for all that.

Definitely one of the better ones of his!

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Noriko no shokutaku

This is the sequel... I think I get it?

Noriko is frustrated with her life, so leaves, goes to Tokyo and becomes a member of a family for rent. Then her sister does similar. Their father ends up hiring them as a family... some are happy with that, some are not.

Where the previous movie was about the problem youth and them committing suicide, this one is pretty solidly about leaving behind life to find out about yourself. Through the rather extreme measure of becoming someone else, but you are out in the world, experiencing it through the eyes of someone who isn't you (while you are being you).

I looked up the previous movie, and got that then, but this is far more obvious. However, it's nearly three hours, and doesn't need to be obvious for that long. This does tie into the previous movie, and tries to reframe those events, but it easily stands alone.

This can speak to you, but I'm probably too old for it now.

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Jisatsu Sakuru

It's a movie with a rather troubling title, let's see if I can avoid it.

It starts with a group of girls throwing themselves in front of a train, and others also jump to their deaths elsewhere. The police are baffled, is this murder or not? At some locations are stitched together strips of skin, from their bodies. One internet sleuth thinks she is on to someone, but is captured by someone who claims to be the leader (but isn't really). It is slowly revealed that there is a lot of philosophy going on. "What is your connection to your wife? What is your connection to yourself? Does the connection remain even if you die?"

It's a really weird movie. I saw it years ago, and... it's still just as weird. The whole bowling alley scene (the chap who claims he is the leader) could easily be removed. What is really going on is... it's not supernatural or anything. It is sort of philosophy. There's also a singing troupe that seem to be involved, and at the end of the movie it just seems to be over and they move on?

Is there a "vibes" movie where you just experience something weird without knowing what the hell is going on?

Just imagine if there was a sequel to this. (There is!)

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Uncanny JuRei

Are you ready for some random spookums?

Each chapter, which is only a few minutes long, sees someone, usually a school girl, dying to some spirit of a friend. Which we then see said friend dyng to some other spirit as we go back in chapters and time as the movie goes on. Eventually we get to the original cause... which was some other random spirit killing someone.

This is very much in the Curse genre of "if you encounter something bad, it will spread to all around you." (And speaking of Curse, they start at a movie of Cursed Video, which is another movie of this director.)

This is just, as said, random spookums. Hear a strange noise? Maybe see a dark figure? Often then a white faced ghost gets in your face, and boom, you are dead, on to next chapter. Does a decent job of building up the atmosphere, but yes, it is very repetitive, and doesn't really build to anything of an explanation that isn't just "it continues".

Fine, but definitely seen better.

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Impoosible Defence

The other 2017 movie of note, a Japanese non-slasher flick!

People die in nasty ways, wasps, poison, stabbing... but there are no wasps, poison or stabbers! Instead, if you want someone to die, to contact a man who stares at the person and then they die. It's the power of suggestion, but Inspecter Tada is immune to his ability, but refuses to stoop to murder herself. But as killing abounds, can she stick to her principles or let more people die?

This movie sets out the killer straight away, and the method not that long after, so it becomes a test to see how quickly the police can act. Although it does get a little (unintentionally) silly when the killer just turns up and says "hey, I killed them" and nothing happens (because of a little thing called proof). And there is also ironic deaths that lead to more ironic deaths.

The main special effect is the red eye and then CGI style screen effects, otherwise there is decent action as the deaths play out and chasing is abound. This is based on the manga, which no doubt had a lot of easier time representing visual weirdness. I nearly want to check that out, but doubt I'll track it down.

Not terrible, but Inspector Tada just keeps letting the killer go too much.

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Dunedkirk

Finally got around to watching that Nolan war movie.

I'm gonna admit I couldn't tell various people apart. At best I got the Mole plot, the Boat plot and the Air plot, but if we saw different people during those plots, I wouldn't be able to point to whomst was whomst. But in the Mole plot (they make a point of calling it a Mole, so I will to), we got some soldiers just trying to survive and evacuate, and some do. On the Boat plot, we get some people trying to help soldiers, and some survive to do so. And in the Air plot, pilots try to stop the enemy fighters, and some do.

This is both a positive movie of "hey, some people survived!" but also realistic in "not everyone did". Much is made of the time side of things, but I didn't really feel it. Not that I would expect aircraft to be in the air for several nights (which we got in the mole plot), but there's plenty of continuity of action that makes it feel like it is all happening at once, and I have no innate sense of how far away or big Dunkirk is to think "they did that quick/slow/on time".

There are some actors I recognise, and plenty I would have no idea about short of browsing the IMDB page. Everyone does a fine performance, as far as I can see, but this does remind me of a twist I'd like to do to a war movie, that I've probably mentioned before. Gender-flip the actors. Not the characters, they stay as they are, but the actors. I'm sure that is meaningful of something.

I thought this was three hours before I saw it, and it was far more watchable that I was thinking. Finally ticked it off the "oh yeah, I guess I'll see it some time" list.

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Craved The Slit Mouthed Woman

Well, I guess they can't all be excellent pieces...

I'm sure I've heard of this Japanese urban legend before, but this one in particular is a disfigured woman turns up, asks "Am I pretty?" then I'm fairly sure whatever you answer you are in trouble. Although no-one gets around to answering her, she just turns up and then there is the encounter. Her basic method is to kidnap children, and I think disfigure them (the movie doesn't exactly focus on it), but what we also find out is that... she's actually a spirit that possesses women and transform them, and it's tied into mothers hurting their children is linked to her.

Oh yeah, this movie features a lot of mothers slapping children, so warning for that. (Nothing overly graphic, just her slit mouth is the worst we see, otherwise bruising etc on the kids.)

Anyway, one teacher is looking for a kidnapped kid because she hit her own daugher and the daugther wants nothing to do with her (yeah, there's problematic connections there). But there is also another teacher whose mother is the actual Slit-Mouthed Woman (or the original possessed woman), which has a whole slew of other problematic components.

This is fine... nothing too amazing happens plotwise. At around half way through the movie, the main protagonists suddenly go "oh, she lives there" and so go there. Super Easy, Barely An Inconvenience. Otherwise, there is a lot of standing around and... brown. This whole movie is saturated in brown. Maybe it was a bad copy I got, but it was just very blah to look at.

I've got others of his, so hopefully better to come. I just wish there was an easy way to watch all these J-horror movies I'm hearing about.

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Noroi

I don't care how elitist it might sound, J-Horror is so much better than other horror!

This is one of them found footage documentaries, only I like this one. Kobayashi is looking into a report of a strange neighbour and soon finds himself helping a local actress and a "super psychic", trying to find a child. He tracks back to a village now under water that used to perform a ritual that appeased a demon. Which they aren't doing any more. And it seems like that demon is rather pissed.

This is from back in 2001, so video tapes galore. And the effects aren't huge. But what we have is atmosphere, and that's what I love about J-Horror. Just atmosphere building up and dripping everywhere. This immediately grabbed me and although the above summary seems rather all over the place, this is well paced and keeps you engaged. I was reminded of Ju-on, where something supernatural is going on and it infects people nearby no matter what.

I'm not going to embarass myself by saying I know who the actors are, but the main leads work really well. I guess I now see to see other movies by the director Kôji Shiraishi.

Full thumbs up.

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Harvay

Jimmothy Stewart? Quite the draw for a movie.

Elwood P. Dowd is a pleasent chap, if a bit odd. He has a friend in Harvey, a six foot rabbit. Life is pleasent for him. Life is rather more unpleasent for others who have to deal with Elwood and Harvey. To the extent of having Elwood committed to a sanitarium... but Harvey is a mischevious sort and so there is lots of shenannigans and escapades and people rushing about and... and finding themselves having a charming time.

This movie annoyed me for quite a while, with everything going well for Elwood and not for others, that sort of thing is just irritating. However, once you get into the groove that the movie is trying for making life better for everyone, I calmed down and got into it.

This was a play, and I can see that. Aside from Harvey, it's just people talking about things, just missing others as they pop on and off stage, no special effects needed.

If you can jive with it, it'll work, but it might be work to work...

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The goF

Sure, why not more John Carpenter!

One hundred years after a ship went missing, it returns, hooray! It also brings fog, moving in strange ways, more hooray! Oh, and death for anyone that crosses its path... hooray? We have a small town where the ship returns, and we follow a handful of people who are important to the story (important, in that they are on screen), and a lot of people who manage to escape by being off screen. One is a radio dj, another is a random driver (I'm sure he does something important, but I missed it) and a hitchhiker he picks up that goes where he does. The mayor and her aide, and one priest to round out... One of them are vital to solving this problem, and the others just try to survive.

What a cast eh? Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Hal Halbrook... and John Houseman as someone I can't even remember seeing. The fog effect is straight forward, and the creature effects are decent (although we only get a tiny glimpse of them in close up).

The movie is a bit "supernatural just because" with no real explanation other than "so we can have a supernatural movie". This isn't terrible, but makes it hard to follow the story logically when the why is just "because that's what I wrote in the script."

Still, a cracker of a movie, check it out!

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X-Ray Man

Roger Corman just went for any ole script... but hey, it works.

Dr Xavier makes compound X, because names are hard, and it slowly gives him X-Ray powers! Being a doctor, that's really handy, until he accidentally kills someone (haven't we all), then the second half of the movie begins where Xavier tries to live in society, first as a wouldbe psychic, then healer, then gambler. It doesn't go well, but at least there's religion to give an answer.

This is almost Lovecraftian in that he begins to see beyond our normal sight into something far beyond what we are prepared for. The movie also nearly deals with the kinds of problems you would have if you have permanent x-ray vision, but I'm fairly sure he would have a lot more trouble just interacting with normal every day objects when you can see right through them.

Decent performances all around. No-one is going overboard, even Ray Milland keeps his doctor on the sedated side when mad cacophony was possible. And Roger Corman clearly knew who to talk to for the naked dancing scene, you naughty man!

Quite recommend!

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Wild Wobot

I'm just wild about robots...

Oh good, this movie allows me to bitch about something: animals cannot talk to each other! There is not one common tongue that all animals speak that once you decode how to talk with moose, you can then talk to squirrels or foxes, and have them all talk to each other too! It doesn't work like that!

Anyway, this robot lands on some out of the way place and tries to be a robot in a place of animals, when none of them have technological needs. After learning the language, the robot then accidentally commits near genocide and takes on the role of helping a young gosling grow up, with the aid of a fox. You know, as one does. However, where there is robot, there is evil corporation and, I'm sure many people have compared this film to Wall-E, and I'm right there with them.

Lupita Nyong'o has the main voice work, but I can't say I recognise her in this. Pedro Pascal is more notable. And there are a host of other voices to pick out: Bill Nighy, Matt Berry, Mark Hamill... 

It's all fine, but I can't say there's anything special here.

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Cat Song

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American London in Werewolf

This is one of them classics! (I haven't seen it before although some of it was familiar... huh.)

David and Jack are in the English countryside and encounter one of the scariest things of all... an unfriendly English pub! And a werewolf, but those things happen. David wakes up, Jack (who is dead) tells him he is a werewolf. David tells everyone he is a werewolf. And yet... no-one believes him! What is the world coming to? It takes two nights for people to finally accept there is a problem (and hey, some of those deaths on the second night is because of bad English driving, you can't blame that all on David!), and then twas beauty (and several guns) that killed the beast.

At one hour, we finally get the moment we all came for, the transformation... and it's worth the hype. That looks extremely well done, and very painful (as one would expect). I don't know how much of that was due to Frank Oz, but clearly there was talent involved in (and we even get a Muppet Show cameo... to the extent of they get credits!). [It was Rick Baker, of course.]

Fine performances all around. Some names I recognise now, and clearly the actors are having a lot of fun. (Oh, that is Rik Mayall!) 

Definitely an enjoyable treat.

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2 Joker 2 Folly

It's out on VOD, so it would be rude not to.

Arthur Fleck is in jail because... did he get captured at the end of the last movie? I can't remember and I'm not watching it again. Anyway, his lawyer is going for the "insanity defense" because Joker is a different personality. Certainly this film has two personalities, where one is in a musical, and it is unrelated to the other movie. Unreliable narrators are always fun. Heck, for a while I wondered if Lee would turn out to be imaginary too. Arther Fleck goes to trial, not a lot happens, then Joker goes to trial. And then the movie finally ends, over two and a quarter hours later. You may have heard about the ending already, certainly there was a lot online about it at the time, but that might just be me.

The joke of this movie is definitely on the audience for sitting through this. Whatever he says, Todd Phillips clearly did want to make this movie, and say something. Other people have dissected that, but I put it to you that this doesn't say anything at all other than Todd Phillips made another movie. It just goes on and on and...

And yes, it's a musical. People complain about Joaquin Phoenix's signing, but... eh, it was fine to me. Seemed a bit rough in parts, but I'm no singer either. Nice to see Steve Coogan still in things, and even Ken Leung gets a cameo. Of course, there is Lady Gaga, and I have no idea if she did this because Todd asked nicely, it was a paycheck, or she actually thought there was something worthy of her attention in the script. I couldn't see it.

I'm not recommending this movie. Unless you like watching people smoke cigarettes, 'cos there's a damn lot of that.

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Murder by Bells

Sometimes you see a trailer and go "I have to see this!" Fortunately, youtube...

We start immediately with a women in a train station answering a phone, and death! Her previous lecturer is asked to be nosy. and looks into it, and there are a few deaths by phone and he is the One True Hero and works out that phones are to blame. He hooks up with an artist who works at the phone company while investigating, and harasses a cop to help, but...

Yes, we do get the point where just a ringing phone installs a sense of dread. Is this someone calling to pass on information, or is this a call to cause someone to pass on? Since this is 1982 phones are everywhere, and there's lots of wires, so this is very plausible. (Although, even back then, people's phone numbers are 555-something.)

Richard Chamberlain is our hero, and he does have a rather heroic beard. We also get fine performances from others, and some fine cameos too (hello Barry Morse!). The phone death effect is quite the thing, and I'm sure there's one or more stunt performer that got a good gig out of this considering how far some of the people got thrown.

An oldie.. but a goodie!

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Demos

In the recent Steam NextFest there were some demos for games I might like, so I tried them.

Hail to the Rainbow: Post apocalyptic game where you are Ignat and... I'm not really sure what is going on. This game is very Russian and as such is rather obtuse. Especially the controls. So much stuff I missed because I wasn't expecting the controls to be what they are. We get at least two bits, the first part I got past, the second part I didn't because I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Wishlist? No.

The House of Tesla: From the makers of House of Da Vinci, a puzzle house. We get one room, and the demo had a bug or two, so that's not a promising start. But I played those other games, so sure as anything I'm gonna play this.

Wishlist? Yes.

no signal: There's a signal from a black hole, and something happened to the station. I think. There is a lot of Lore, but it is rather disjointed. We get a bit of stuff to do but... I hate the gameplay. It is free moving in all three dimensions and the controls are just uncomfortable to move around with.

Wishlist? No.

Take Notes: Something happened in the bunker, and we are investigating. Fairly direct puzzle game but... I had to brute force quite a few of the puzzles. It's possible that I missed the clues, but there were many I looked over for, but couldn't find anything. Rather on the basic side, but... okay?

Wishlist? Currently yes.

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M T Mon

Creepy-pasta does not a good film make.

An ex-cop looks into the missing young woman and... wait, let me stop you there. Whenever that happens in horror movies either the young woman is the Special One and ends up ending the person looking for them, or the person looking ends up the Special One. As this is called the empty MAN guess which one this is. Because I guessed before the end of the movie and remained unsurprised.

This was a comic book by BOOM! Studios, and was made back in 2017, but counts 2020 as the release year. Delaying a movie really indicates they have a hit on their hands and want to build hype or... no, wait, yeah, it was the other thing. No-one was interested and they finally let it out.

Pity, as this started well, with a group of young hikers and supernatural happens... but then they cut to J. Random White Guy and a cult and it all just falls apart, even though they sprinkle in "hit internet thing kids are doing that could be trouble". This had a few good ideas, but mired it down in a lot of tedium. I will check out the comic, and hope that was a lot better (although knowing comic adaptations as I do, it probably just has the same name and the concept of an "empty" man, and that's about it).

Featuring people that reminded me of other people. They were fine, but there are no actors that can make parts of that script believable, and it certainly wasn't.

I watched this on D+, and the best thing I can say about it is that it was better than the movie it recommended straight after (which I also watched), The Night House.

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ReBoot ReWind

As I mentioned when talking about the remastered episode, there is an associated ReBoot documentary, ReBoot Rewind.

The full series is now available, although the playlist is in a weird order.

Anyway, episode one for your viewing:

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The Superstance

This is as subtle as a car crash... which it has!

Elizabath Sparkle is an over aged, cursed husk of a woman (age 50) and the industry has no use for women over than this century, so she takes a "substance" that kicks out a sort of clone of her, but younger. Who is really popular. And doesn't want to put up with her older self. That can only go well.

As much as this isn't about women getting old, and we briefly see an old man, this is about women getting old and not being in Hollywood any more. As much as you want to say it isn't just woman, we get Dennis Quaid and Old Shareholders having a fine ole time. And we have plenty of evidence of older men still acting whereas always need the new female hotness.

Demi Moore is still a fine actress and so is Margaret Qualley as they both are the same person (more or less, they don't talk about how they don't really look that alike - indeed if they did it might cause more problems for the story than they want to address). The prothestics and other effects are blended in well, and help sell everything.

This is one of those good "black comedy"s, in that you can actually tell it is a black comedy. Worth a watch!

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Prints of Darkess

More John Carpenter? Don't mind if I do!

Science or Religion? When an old priest dies, he bequets the key to Donald Pleasence (who is just called Priest), and said Priest then gets in a scientist to study a large vat of green liquid. The scientist decides to get a whole slew of students in, and they practice good science like not actually observing the item of interest, and talking about things instead of looking. However, that does allow various people to get possessed, and soon Father shall be here.

This reminded me of The Stone Tapes, of science trying to tackle the supernatural and not being able to cope (I need to rewatch that). It is extremely watchable, slowly drawing you in, but then the idiocy of the students does make it not at all surprising that the Prince is winning.

Aside from Donald Pleasence, we have Victor Wong, and other actors who have not done anything to make me recognise them, and a cameo by Alice Cooper! The vat, and other, effects are hard core, done by playing film in reverse, and the main prosthetic is the skin one of the students ends up wearing. Simple, but good.

I'm gonna say a hot take here: John Carpenter made good movies!

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Arktik Konvoy

How about a Nordic version of Greyhound?

It's 1942, and the Allies are trying to get supplies to the Russians, via naval convoy. However, the British, who are providing cover, get word that a big German warship is coming, and decide to peace out leaving the convoy on its own. We follow one Nordic ship as they decide to continue their mission, although not with everyone on the same page. So much so we get drama from the captain and second officer having different plans and different chances to be in charge.

This movie brings you in. We are just following one ship, but we get the sense of how the entire fleet feels... until everything is broken up. As ever with good drama, you can agree with the different people's decisions and while some people are very definite in their opinions, it is hard to say anyone is particularly "right" or "wrong".

One unusual thing... there was a woman in the crew! Two amazing things, a) I couldn't imagine an US crew doing that, and b) no-one acted creepy towards her, she was just another character with her own things going on. Oh, such a world we can live in...

So enjoyable if you are looking for a good not-english drama movie.

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Mr. Croket

Yes, okay "What if Mr Rogers, But Evil?" but... quite watchable!

Mr. Crocket is a children's entertainer, in that he entertains children. And cares for them. Like, if you are in trouble, he will help you. So if your parents aren't good to you, he will sort them out. And then you can stay with him forever! But, of course, the parents themselves might have a different view of that.

This is about the hardship of being a parent, you try, but sometimes you are pushed too far.. and then the system immediately punishes you. For some parents, that might be better, but there are a lot of people just trying. So while we see Mr. Crocket take out someone who deserves it, of course we are following someone who does actually care about her child.

Of note, these are black actors, so... I'm not sure how much of this is a black story. I'm not qualified to talk about that aspect, but in the general sense of "it can be tough to be a parent" I can understand that.

In many ways this is quite low budget, but it fits the story it is telling. It doesn't feel like it needs to go big with effects for the story, but what we get works well.

It's things like that that makes me sometimes try sub 90-minute movies.

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Mouthy Madness

Spooky month, so classic horrors to catch up, although may or may not blog them. But yes to this one from John Carpenter.

John Trent is a chap who finds people, or otherwise investigates them for insurance purposes. Now he is on the trail of the popular author Sutter Cane, with the aid of Linda Styles. They finally track him down to Hobbs End, and encounter some very strange people and events. And then can't leave. And then question the very nature of reality itself. No biggie.

Hey, Sam Neill! Well, that immediately gets bonus points from me. And the classy presence of David Warner... and the manic appearance of John Glover. And even Charlton Heston cameos.

The effects are pretty good as one would expect from Carpenter, but the unsettinglingness is from the nature of how people are acting rather than weird grotesqueries. Although the breathing wooden panel is a bit on the "too flexible to be real" side.

And the end... well, this is supposed to be Lovecraftian, but it is more "we are just going to give into the weird" rather than go for anything sensible.

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There was a Crooked film

This has gone through a few things, but since we all love Mike Mignola...

Back in 1959, Hellboy and Agent Jo ended up in Appalachia and get randomly caught up with witches an trying to deal with the Crooked Man. It's been years since I read the comic, so no idea how faithfully this follows that story. But there is one basic thing this movie does:

This feels like a fan film make by someone who cared way more about style over substance. Like, for every scene, the prime consideration was "where can I put the camera to make this an interesting (to me) shot"... and anything else, like coherent story telling, continuity, or making sure you can actually see what is going on, is at best fifth, if considered at all.

Jack Kasey is Hellboy and... he's fine? I guess? Definitely the fan film version of him. There are some perfectly fine performances in this all round, and the effects are fine as well. Just everything is fighting against the camera so it might be great but it's hard to tell.

This movie had the lowest budget, but since Mike Mignola didn't like the other movies, he apparently is on board for this? Let's go back to him not being involved.

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The Fle

Watch this movie to see something truely miraculous... Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis having sex.

A random scientist sort of hits on a woman at a conference, and reveals to her the existence of teleportation... but fails to realise she is a journalist. What a genius! A journalist with a really scummy ex-boyfriend at that. Anyway, they have sex, and as a result the scientist knows how to teleport flesh, and does so... and merges himself at a fly (which is the premise of the movie after all). It can only end in love and harmony, really.

Well, it actually ends with some decent creature effects, but that is far too late, and after a not so decent creature suit Jeff Goldblum wears. We're here for a mutant man/fly hybrid, not Jeff Goldblum'ing all over the place! And this movie is rather disjointed in that we speedrun to get to the teleport, speed run the romance, but then spend a long time on Jeff and his disgusting hairs.

Both Jeff and Geena are... in this movie. Neither of them really seems to be that invested. John Getz does get to be scummy in his role, but doesn't do a lot here either. Aside from the momentary creature effects, this movie doesn't bother being that interesting.

Really, this is making me want to watch the original... and hey, there's a sequel to this one as well.

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aifairaidai

The family gets a nanny, but this time we skip straight to the robot!

Curtis is basically in advertising, and two AI people want to promote their not-Alexa substitute Aia. To do so, Aia is installed in his home, and it goes about integrated with him, his wife, and his three kids. Aia doesn't so much "go evil" as just start taking over everything, and when Curtis realises that it's going too far, he tries to stop it. However, technology is everywhere...

Why does noone ever think of Rule 0? This isn't a matter of Aia wanting to preserve itself, that's barely an issue, although the movie does try to pretend that it is. It's about Aia taking control of everything, and how willingly people let Aia do it, regardless of the consequences (which Aia quickly turns into what it wants anyway).

This has some true to like aspects such as "we have no idea what data it was trained on," but we are still so far from how intelligent, artifical or not, this will be. Let alone recognising that when it is trained on the internet, it will watch movies about evil AI and thus that will be what is modeled. You get out what you put in, people!

This is under 90 minutes, which is usually a warning, but Blumhouse isn't known for its long epics. John Cho and Katherine Waterson are good in this, and hey, Riki Lindhome! The effects are... ai'd. This is basically an excuse for the movie to use AI to do things, but when you need to have actual images be generated, I suspect this was more crafted than generated.

This movie is largely what you expect from the premise, but the short run time helps it not outstay its welcome.

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Subservant

An old story, now with AI!

The wife is in hospital, needing a new heart, so the husband gets in a temporary nanny to help with the family. Only problem is, the nanny has designs on the husband, and starts taking steps too far to keep him happy.

Notice that I didn't mention the nanny is a robot? Because it doesn't matter! It's the same story with evil nanny as has been told before. That it has AI now it just because it's 2024 and everything has to have AI now.

Is this the adult version of M3GAN? Like M3GAN grown up? But without the tiktok dance. I'll let others pursue that line of questioning, but this definitely feels like it could be the same universe... and certainly the same set up for sequel potential movies.

Megan Fox is the draw here, and she certainly is in this. As is Michele Morrone. And I kept thinking Madeline Zima was a slightly older Saoirse Ronan. People are fine. The effects are fine. Nothing is overdone in the special effects realm as the robots look just like us, just taking our jobs.

Nothing amazing to see here. Just more of the same, with a robot paint over.

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Moon Flying

It's a comedy! ... I guess?

Kelly is brought in to sell the moon, as NASA tries for landing people on the moon. The government is so set on having America on the moon, they'll fake it if they need to, and they decide they do. But Kelly falls in romance with the Flight Director, and so wuv will lead the way.

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are the leads in this, and in terms of romantic chemistry... they certainly are on screen together, sharing screens. Not that they have zero chemistry, but it's more like buddies than the romance partners they are trying to sell.

Speaking of selling, this is trying to sell itself as a comedy, and I aint laughing, so I aint buying. It was a nice light time, nothing heavy going on here, but the great comedy starts with Scarlett pretending to be pregnant and doesn't rise above that. You can tell what the story is going to do, and we wait for it to play out.

It's a fine time, but nothing amazing.

I do wonder if there is a standing set somewhere for the old mission control that Hollywood rents out, considering how often we get productions set in that time/place...

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Triangular Sadness

It's the vomit movie! Although there is over two hours where there is no vomit.

The lives of rich people are different. For a start, they are rich. We are introduced to two rich people who are rich because they are beautiful. That is all. Then we get the yacht, in which we have a whole bunch of rich people, the white staff who cosy up to them, and the island staff that actually do work (much like many cruises). After stupid events (including the well known projecting), we get them wrecked on an island... and oh, how the turns are tabled!

While the director wasn't wanting to make the rich people monstrous without social understanding, he did portray them as as without social understanding. You can't just order people around like puppets, but here we are. And then we get the view that as soon as you get any sense of power, you become corrupt. Acton's Law is still in effect.

Fine performances, and the ship sequences are good, but... at nearly two and a half hours, the main sadness is the runtime.

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Lady Scopios

Cynthia Rothrock was a big name back in the '80s as being one of the few leading white women martial arts actresses. (So few, I can't name another off the top of my head.) While I haven't seen those, I have seen her movie from 2024.

This movie is not subtle. There's a father-son gang where the father is trying to live his life, and the son is fucking things one. One such way is getting Agent Moore's family involved. Problem is, she, and her daughter, are both martial arts masters, and so there is a lot of hand to hand combat as they deal with the gang to get the daughter's daughter back.

This is very 80's throwback. This isn't a complicated set up, this is just an excuse for fight scenes, but it works because it isn't trying to be more than that. Cynthia can kick all the ass, and Caitlin Dechelle is no slouch either. The bad guys are mostly bad, led by Jeff Fahey, and the son, played by Jose Manuel, is not exactly filling a rich role, but does fine. David W Rice gets a nice bit to do, and is the most likeable of the lot.

This is not going to win awards, but it is a fun time!

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ReBooted

ReBoot ReWind is a documentary series look at the history of the TV show ReBoot. As part of their process, they got their hands on the original files for the episodes, and remastering them in full HD. While there are episodes on YouTube, and AI Upscaling, this is the actual episode.

I suspect this is just a taster, and not going to put all the episodes up, but a) have the documentary available first, and then b) have the episodes for buying (on BluRay?). But either way, you can enjoy the first episode of the series...

Hang on, it looks exactly as I remember! They didn't do anything!

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Whatpot?

It's a comedy with Awkwafina and John Cena, it has potential!

Katie Kim wins the Jackpot, and as this is Calefornia, if people kill her, they get her money. Noel tries to help her / protect her and... that's it. That's the concept of the movie, and they don't go deep.

I watched this, hoping to get a few laughs, but the main humour is a mixture of "look at how these people fight in a funny way" and "making fun of John Cena".

This is just a nothing of a movie...

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Buttlegeist Buttlegeist

I rewatched the first movie. It's really good. Takes a little to get going, but once it does, it goes! However...

It's been many years. Lydia has a ghost show and a daughter, and is still seeing ghosts. Charles dies, and Delia, Lydia and Astrid are drawn back to the house which has the ghost with the most. Astrid meets a cute kid and.. the audience is about five steps ahead at this point, and the movie is already half over before it barely begins the main storyline.

It does have plenty of other storylines. Monica Bellucci is in this, doesn't matter. Willam Dafoe is in this, doesn't matter. Most of the actors in this don't matter! Catherine O'Hara is being her extra self/character. Winona Ryder is looking permanently bewildered all the time. Jenna Ortega gets most of the main plot, but her characterisation consists of reminding us her dad died. And Jeffrey Johns has rightly fucked off.

Michael Keaton is having fun, but he seems to be the only one. The movie cuts to him every now and then to remind you he is in the movie, but doesn't actually do anything until the final act of the movie. A lot of which is a musical number that is as unsubtle as the Weird Al song I kept thinking of.

Parts of this movie are quite fun. But also a lot of this movie just could have been cut without any harm.

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Oddily

Shudder horror movie? How unusual!

In a far away, overly large house, a woman is killed. Her sister finds out it isn't quite as people reported, and the wife's husband has himself a new woman, and there is more going on... and there's a large wooden man.

Shudder horror movies have a very consistent throughline: that of having potential, but not quite getting there. And apparently this particular movie is related to other short movies the director has done, so this isn't even stand-alone movies!

There is stuff going on, but.. the thing is, it is just stuff going on. Apparently the supernatural is a thing, but the appplication of the supernatural is very... disjointed. Just picking bits and pieces, without any real sense of consistency. There are ghosts, but... they don't mean anything? There are psychics, but... people accept them but don't care? There are golems, but nothing special about them either.

It's a mess of a story that is only fully graspable because there isn't much to it.

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The Jeneral

Classic Buster Keaton schtick!

It's the war, and Buster Keaton wants to sign up to please his paramour, but they don't want him! (For good reasons that they don't explain - so the movie can happen!) He is left driving trains, and when the other side get ahold of his precious engine, he goes after them, by himself, and to get his kidnapped girlfriend (although he doesn't realise it at the time). Then there is the tricky matter of getting back before something bad happens, to him, his side, and his train.

I'm a big cagey about the side because... he is working for the South! Although, to be honest, this easily could have flipped the uniforms and have exactly the same movie. [Although this is based on a true story, which makes it harder to pretend.]

That aside, we get some great gags and damn some of those bits would have needed incredibly precise timing. On a train, and no CGI trickery here! Buster does his bits, Marion Mack is the leading lady and gets her own bits (whether she wanted them or not), and there were others in the film.

This is in public domain now, so should be easy to find a copy, although try for a quality reprint. It's worth it!

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Bomberlands

Oh dear. I see why people are not excited...

Lillith is hired to rescue Tiny Tina, but then teams up with her to get to the Vault before the bad guys do. Because when you are trying to stop people unlocking something, what you definitely want to do is collect all the keys, and not dispose of them at all.

I haven't played the games, but I could tell some parts when the movie went "hey, remember this from the game? Huh? HUH!!!" because those were all the moments where the movie stopped pretending to do something relevent and pause to do something. Like whenever the psycho spoke, I feel that was all lines from the game, and didn't mean a thing.

And speaking of not meaning a thing, this plot is a complete mess. Voice over doesn't mean that the movie has problems, but voice over, with excessive exposition, and obvious ADR patching in scenes does mean they were trying to cover up something. No blame on the actors here, it was Covid times, what the hell, get the paycheck and run. Just hope no-one is relying on residuals here.

The best sign? That this went straight to VOD before even leaving the theatres... so if you haven't seen it yet, clearly wait for it to hit free streaming, 'cos I doubt it's that far away either.

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It's a Tarp!

New M. Night? Can you guess the twist? I couldn't...

The nicest dad in the world takes his daughter to a concert, but spots a high police presence. Due to being the likeable person ever, he finds out they are here hunting the Butcher... oops, that's him! And so we get a sort of cat and mouse game as he tries to escape. And then... you won't believe what happens.

'cos I want to spoil the big ending... wait, let's rot13 this. Gurer vf ab gjvfg! Abguvat bs abgr unccraf! Guvf vf gur zbfg trarevp zbivr raqvat rire! Guvf vf whfg frggvat hc n frdhry!

Okay, that out of my system, yep, Josh Harnett's character is the friendliest person you'll ever meet. He feels a little too lucky to get away with what he does, but it isn't entirely without cause. Ariel Donoghue is a young girl. And Saleka Shyamalan is indeed very believable as M. Night's niece (actual daughter). In fact, if this whole movie was written around giving Saleka a fake concert to sing at, I'll 100% believe that.

I'm not mad at this movie. I'm just disappointed.

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Short, and yet...

I like games I can just zen out to, your Powerwashers, your Viscera Cleanup Detail, so I picked up WereCleaner and decided to see if it was that kind of game.

You are a cleaner, yes, but you are also a werewolf, and if someone sees you, you kill them! ... and then have to clean up the bodies (continued employment!). The cleaning is basic, spray water, vacuum trash, and bag animals. But...

It's isometric. Just something about isometric controls just straight up annoys me. I just want to go up or left, not hold down up&left! And the screen is really close up. When a big mechanic is "avoid people" (No Kill is an extra challenge per level), you need to be able to see when people are close, but you can't. Just all of a sudden someone walks in on you, and you kill and have to deal with the body. I got things to do, I would avoid them, but it is more luck than design.

The levels are short, just go to a few places, and clean up, so you can race through it quite quickly. And given the number of stars is based on how quick you are, speed is important. But then we hit the last level. At least, I assume it is the last level. I gave it several tries, but failed constantly, to the point where I'm thinking if you succeed, it will be more luck than anything else.

So I gave it a go, clocked some cheevos more or less incidentally, and... uninstalled it without finishing. And short of this blog post, I plan no more thoughts on it. Well, maybe watch an LP to see the ending, but no interest in playing it myself.

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Legslong

This is one of them big horror movies, it seems, and amazingly isn't from A24.

Lee Harker is an agent with the FBI, and ends up joining the group looking for Longlegs, a supposed killer that has already claimed several families. She has rather an unusual connection with the case, and it seems like there is more connections with her past than she remembers.

I do wonder if the main reason this has some reknown is because it has Nicholas Cage attached to it. He's a producer, and is in it as the Longlegger himself, albeit in a fair bit of latex on his face, but it is clearly still him, and for people wanting a loud performance from him, he does give it. However, he's not the main focus, Maika Monroe has that job. She is... fine? Blair Underwood does a good agent too. I feel like I should know Alicia Witt from something, but not sure what.

This is a long walk of a movie [sigh, no doubt puns will occur] but it doesn't go anywhere.

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Outside In 2

I'm getting really confused about these movies... wait, is that an emotion?

Riley goes to Hockey Camp, but also experiences puberty and so also gets new emotions. Which makes things a mess, and so we have the battle of the old emotions vs the new emotions! Who will win? Fight for Riley, fight, fight, fight!

So the Emotions control Riley, but she is also her own person and does her own thing? And the emotions feel emotions too? I really can't keep track of what this movie is trying to have us understand. And there are Imaginations? And mind police creatures? The analogy of people inside your head controlling you only goes so far and it fell off a cliff for me in this movie.

There are still some good bits in here, but I'm going to place a lot of the heavy lifting for that on the music. I definitely noticed it during the more emotional (in the usual Pixar sense) scenes. And I'm not saying they didn't work, just that I could tell what was going on.

Voices... everyone is fine. I have no idea how many people came back from the first movie, but they seem the same? And the art style is consistent, so that's good. (Probably helps that this is a closer sequel than some have been... looking at you, Incredibles!)

It's fine, but... I'm just not tracking everything properly here.

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Twosters

Wow, this is such an original movie.

Addy likes to chase tornadoes/ride horses/climb cliffs/defuse bombs, but a disasterious moment kills her friends. Years later, she is pulled back to chase tornadoes/hunt tigers/fly jets/jump stunts, and can she get back her mojo?

Yep, I realise that is so incredibly generic a description, but this is so generic a movie. It really could have been any other hundreds of movies, just that this one features tornadoes and a hunky guy with a western accent that heals her heart.

From a production point, this is fine. Tornadoes look real enough, people have trouble driving around in them, people being sucked into tornadoes look funny and totally real.

No doubt this was made because of money, as I can't think of any other reason for it to exist.

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/ | | | \ Wombulus

So this is more of an actual sequel to Alien than the rest of the franchise... read on for if that is a good or bad thing.

Life sucks on a company planet, so when a space ship is nearby with the gear to get out of there, you'd be a fool to pass up on that opportunity, and these teens (no, they are not teens, but-) are no fools. However, you wouldn't believe this, on the ship are some Xenomorph stuff, and, guess what, this gives rise to an Alien that presents a threat they have to deal with.

Okay, so no doubt someone will say "Always has been" but this is basically "Teens visit a Horror House". Exact same vibes, and many of the same plot points! Complete with "you did this to yourselves" and "why are you doing that?" This has space stuff painted over it, and a Giger monster, but still...

But this is also the first movie again. Space ship, alien creature, running around a lot of corridors, and bits reminiscent of the previous movies, this is exactly the sort of sequel that is the first movie again, complete with quotes that are said because characters said them in earlier movies. This is exactly the sort of sequel we would normally get to a movie, where it is the same thing again, which shows up how much they mixed it up for the other movies in this franchise.

The cast is fine, although the character of Andy is coded a neuro-divergent I'll leave to others to say if that is a good thing or not. However, on the production side, this is one damn dark movie. There are lots of lingering shots of "look at this" but dang if I could see what they wanted me to see. And the dialogue got crushed in a lot of places, I was wanting subtitles just to follow what was going on!

This could have been a good movie, but given the range of what we've seen, this feels like "just another movie" and not something special.

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Bbbbad Bbboys: Ride or DON'T

I do wonder how much this movie is just Martin and Will wanting to hang out together.

After Mike's wedding, Marcus gets a vision that a movie is about to happen... and then they find out their old boss was dirty. Clearly, that is rubbish, so time to go on the run to find out what really is going on and...

This movie feels very long. I was half-way through it and already felt I had been watching it for ages. This is just under two hours, but I'm fairly sure a good (bad?) thirty minutes could be chopped out without anything missing. Mainly excuses for set pieces for "comedy" action, with a big stretch to get there for many of them.

This feels a lot like a sequel to BB3... although it only feels like it, I can't say for sure, 'cos I haven't seen the other movies since ages, so went in purely on vibes, and this movie just has so many characters I'm sure we're supposed to care about because we already know them. Nope, remember them not at all. And hey, the two male leads have grown up male children so that... there can be action pieces of guys fights a bunch of people without having to pretend that Martin or Will could do that.

This movie doesn't feel like we needed it. Will there be a BB5? Possibly, the next time Martin and Will want to share a project again.

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Despic Him Foor

Basically... a total waste of a movie.

Hey, what if Gru has to pretend to be a normal person, wouldn't that be funny? How about Lucy (I had to look her name up, 'cos I didn't remember it) had to be a normal person, wouldn't that be funny? What if the minions were super-beings, I bet that is a great source of comedy! Oh, and give Gru a kid! Everyone loves it when Gru has a baby to deal with. And a random heist scene with a random person. And a bad guy to randomly cut to for a while before defeating... Yeah, that's a movie!

This is just a random collection of scenes they put together to... fill a 90 minute runtime? I guess? It is not good, it has no cohesion, just random nothingness. Will Farrell is wasted. Stephen Colbert is barely a cameo. Joey King is in this and that might mean more if I could remember what else she's done. But, hey, John DiMaggio for a few seconds!

Could you tell I didn't like this movie? It probably made lots of money, and there will be billions more, and minions and everything (they attempted to do the minions again with cockroaches, but fortunately they put as much time into that concept as they did the rest of the movie, i.e. sod all)... but this isn't something anyone should bother with.

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Shush! Part One!

John Krasinski was less involved in this, and it kinda shows. But I will give away straight up: the cat survives.

Samira is just trying to survive (I think she has cancer? The movie probably makes this clear, but I didn't pick up on it) although she hasn't got many days left. When aliens arrive she decides to go get pizza, and ain't nothing going to stop her.

This movie... could have been anything really. Some disaster happens, and Samira has to survive the new situation. But it could have been any disaster, random aliens, zombies, whatever the infected from Omega Man were, whatever, and this would have been exactly the same. Even though the schtick of these creatures are they hear everything, that same thing has been done with zombies more than once.

Which isn't to say the core is a bad story. Lupita Nyong'o does a great job as Samira, Joseph Quinn does all right as Eric, but there's nothing here to stand out because the whole story isn't standing out.

There can be a billion of these, but I damn well hope the next one has an actual relevant point!

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!Mac!Gruber!

Another Lonely Island related movie! Wow, these are stacking up! Although this isn't featuring the LI crew as much.

Small confession: I did think this was a made up movie that other people referred to in order to refer to a movie that wouldn't get them in trouble for mentioning. So I was more than a little surprised to actually watch it.

This is very much 80s style "retired action hero is brough back for another mission" and this just leans heavily into that, not trying to be anything else. However... the big problem here is the comedy. The comedy is very much "hey, wouldn't it be weird if he did this? Action heroes don't do that!" and that's about the extent of it. It may have more than one note, but it repeats those notes over and over again.

The lead is Will Forte and ... he is the lead of this movie. I know nothing about him. I barely know more about the other male lead Ryan Phillipe. But hey, I did know Kristen Wiig. And we also get Val Kilmer and Powers Boothe! The action is a lot more than the previous movie, with a lot of explosions and guns and other action, and even celery. But it's all in service of the comedy.

Shame that this is real, really.

Hear the Lonely Island (and Seth Meyers) talk about it here.

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Hottie Roddie

The Lonely Island has a podcast, and during the episodes they talk about the movie they did. Hot Rod. Wait, they did a movie?

Rod has extreme father issues, and deals with it by trying to become a stunt man like his father was. Only, he's just a kid, really, in a small town, so he is barely able to ride into a pool, no chance of over it. But his step-father has a heart problem, so he has to stunt harder than ever to raise money to cure him... so he can kick his step-father's ass!

When your step-father is played by Ian McShane, yeah, he's a hard case that could kick your arse any time. So there are some big names here...

But really, this is the Saturday Night Live cast playing almost every major role. Aside from Andy Sandberg in the main role, with Jorma Taccone as his brother, we have Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Will Arnett, Chris Parnell, and no doubt many others I don't know. At least Isla Fisher is new as the love interest.

While it is a small town movie, it is still a human interest story. Rod is relatable as a stupid kid that is trying to do something in the world, and having a step-father not being evil is a step up in the movie world.

The production is light weight, but then this was put together quite quickly and done very much on the cheap and in between seasons. Still, well done!

You can hear the Lonely Island (with Seth Meyers) talk about it here. Part 1 and Part 2.

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See these Eggs NOW!!!

See something about this?

These are all "easter eggs" videos. Understandable because it's current, so got to get those clicks. (Note: I haven't clicked.)

But... these came out right after the movie launched... so how did they have the time to find and detail all those easter eggs? Sit through several screenings straight away?

And if they have images (I haven't checked, because, as I said, I haven't watched), where did they get images from? Camera pointed at the screen? Some have done that (I saw an "Ending explained!" video). That feels... wrong. Or they got a hold of the actual film file somehow, which is... how? One big channel might, but not all of these.

This is a need for clicks, but I disbelieve all this was done above board. But... they need the clicks!

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Deaderine & Wolvpool

Not the first available screening, but the second day, still, got there.

I went into this without having seen the final trailer that apparently gave away a lot of the stakes, and also deliberately skipped reviews, and I think I am the better for it. Yes, we can have the whole "spoilers don't matter" discussion, but sod it, I went in unknowning, so I'm not going to explain it to you.

This is a fine outing for Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. Have to say that Hugh does get some more emotional scenes than Ryan does, so be ready for those. There are some amazing camoes I knew nothing about, so I won't say anything other than "damn, they look fine!". Although they clearly wanted Richard E. Grant over Matthew Macfadyen.

And yes, a lot of humour, R-rated so. Indeed, Event Cinema kept saying "This is R16, so have photo id ready!" Didn't see anyone checking for id, but then I can't say I saw anyone suspiciously young. But yeah, lots of laughs to be had, as well as cheers.

Overall, the story is... well, meh, to be honest, but this isn't a movie you are going to for a deep plot. It is Deadpool after all. Definitely enough to keep going, but more something to string everything together.

If you can hold out for the D+ release, that's fine, this isn't something you need to see in the theatre... but this is something that people can give away a lot of the best reveals to.

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Apes of the Kingdom of the Planet

I eventually got around to seeing this... and I have questions... some of which are even answered!

Noa is good ape, he lives with his clan, he has father issues... then Proximus Caeser wipes out his clan and so he goes on a revenge streak. Which sort of happens. He teams up with the human of the movie, and together they deal with the second half of the movie together. (Hmm... two togethers... eh, I'm gonna leave it.)

I have to say, the human manages to have quite good clothing standards, even if clothes are still around that it dubious... but we do get an answer for that. And how she knows so much. And that that background will lead to another movie definitely where humans and apes clash again. So that will be coming.

More impressive, with less explanation, is that a wooden bridge is still standing. Do the apes maintain it? Do they understand bridge setups? 'Cos that bridge should not still be standing after "many generations". Yes, I actually thought about this during the movie.

But all that aside, I did wonder how this was an Apes movie at first. It could have been any story, and yes universal ideas, but this isn't any movie, this is in the Apes franchise! Fortunately, we get there and... I enjoyed it! Yes, even after all the complaining above, I did enjoy this. Well performed, well CGI'd, well done all around.

I don't miss seeing this in the theater, so check it out when you can, and no doubt in a few years we will get another one.

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Axle efF

As threatened, let's watch! No, I'm not going to do a full break down because this movie is not several decades old (yet).

This is following the previous movie, we have a Detriot thing, then out to Beverly Hills. Hey, they even reference the other movies! (I assume, still haven't seen them.) But this is very current day, Axel even has a daughter now! But as this is 2024, it's about dirty cops (and the main bad guy is IMMEDIATELY obvious - but everyone knows it).

The jokes... the jokes just don't work. They did back in '84, but now this is just a sad old man trying to be funny again, and it does not work. On the plus side, they got back a LOT of the actors from the first movie (even Bronson Pinchot!), and it's great to see them again, after having just seen them earlier in the week and 40 years ago! But they have aged a lot (haven't we all). I do welcome Joseph Gordon-Levitt to the cast.

This is better than the Indiana Jones disaster, but... not by much. I was hoping this was going to be a throwback to '80s style, but they updated it and... it doesn't cut any mustard.

Oh, and Theme count: 10. Although they did more different rearrangements than I spotted last time.

Dammit... I'm gonna go watch the intervening movies...

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Bevvy Hills Cop

With the "sequel" just out (there were many sequels), I decided to check out the original first.

It's a classic (well, classic now) start with Foley doing a deal, the police chase him... and he turns out to be a cop! Wow! That's been used to much now! Heading home after the failed bust (theme tune count: 1), there's an old friend waiting for him, but after some banter, he gets taken out, and Foley decides to look into the case... in Beverly Hills, that's where he wants to be! He Axel's his way into a hotel and later into the bad guy's lair (theme tune count: 2), and yes, it's obvious this is the bad guy. He's arrested by the local cops (theme tune count: 3), and meets the other buddy cops. After banana'ing their car, he heads to the warehouse (theme tune count: 4) where he finds the plot. He gets the minions to do his paperwork, but that scene goes nowhere. He swaps out buddy cops for a second pair, tails the bad guy (theme tune count: 5) but is arrested again. Axel gets all the cops together, explains the plot, barely gets one buddy cop on side, and goes back to the warehouse (theme tune count: 6) where the token woman of the movie gets kidnapped. They all head to the bad guy's place to rescue her (theme tune count: 7) where they have a full on 80s gun fight. The bad guys gets shot, and fortunately everything turns out all right, huzzah!

Most people remember Eddie Murphy (of course) and Judge Reinhold, but we also have Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, Jonathan Banks, Bronson Pinchot, Paul Reiser, and one Damon Wayans. And a full on soundtrack of 80s hits that would overflow a CD.

Still enjoyable, even today, it's a fun movie where even the bumbling cops aren't terrible. I'm going to jump over all those other sequels and go straigh to the Netflix movie...

And I'm not sure I caught all instances of the theme tune, but you know it:

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Doctor Who Exhibition

We had a Doctor Who Exhibition come to town, so of course I had to go! While there certainly were props from the show (and I took lots of photos), this was also a chance for them to get into various bits of science, and about a 1/3 of the things were science related, with maybe a Doctor Who link.

They did get Mark Gatiss to do some host segments, and Zoe Wannamaker to do a Cassandra cameo, so that's nice.

There was a good mix of classic and new Who stuff, with an understandable focus on the more recent series (because that would be an easier source of props).

Full collection of photos here.

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Monolith Monsters

I was listening to Hypnogoria talk about this movie in his Universal Horrors series, and it appealed to me as something to watch!

A meteor strikes down in the desert, scattering black rock around. It seems harmless enough until someone gets a sample wet, and then the stone grows until it falls down, shatters, spreading more of it. And people become petrified by it. Geologist Dave Miller gets onto it, but can he work out what is causing it? And more importantly, how to stop it? And then it rains...

This is a cracking wee adventure. No bug eyed monsters or enlargened insects, just some "natural" events happening. It's only 77 minutes, but it keeps up the pace and is better than many a movie one could name today.

It's probably due to what I've been consuming recently, but this could have easily been a Doctor Who adventure, of the Third Doctor and UNIT. This would be right up their alley.

Some times, the oldies are goodies.

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Furry Osha

No, I didn't see it in the theaters, but it already has come out on VOD!

There was one overriding motive for Furiosa in the previous movie, and here we find out how that all started. And it's a long road (sic) to get from here to there. We see the five stages of grief (probably, I'm sure someone made that analogy), as young CGI Anya Taylor-Joy goes into non-CGI Anya Taylor-Joy... and it's a story of killing one man because of a life she made.

And yes, let's be honest, this looks fantastic! George Miller knows what he is doing, of course, so it's all very stunning to look at. Although... *looks around warily* the story is a bit on the basic side. Not that this needs to be Shakespeare, but we get the basic idea, and that's all there is.

ATJ is ... I'm just going to go with fine. She sits, and stares, and that's about the extent of it. Chris Hemsworth is having fun. Tom Burke is decent, but rather one-note.

Overall.. yeah, it's fine. People have already raved enough about this, and more will. But... to me, it's just fine.

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Generic Train Shuttle Robot Toy...

As a kid, I had an Astrotrain. Great 'bot. Is it the size of a train? The size of a shuttle? Who cares! But that was then... and this is now. Where knock off versions are available!

Who's the mean machine in grey and green.. er, purple?

Could you, would you, fight him as a train?

Could you, would you fight him as a plane? (okay, a shuttle, but that doesn't rhyme as well).

Well, he'd fight a Dalek for ya!

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