Friday, 16 May 2025

A MineChicken Jockie

Okay, I definitely was going to watch this, so that's now done.

Steve YEARNS for the mines, so ends up in the Overworld, then encounters piglins. Because of that, four other people from our world enter Minecraft, and then all sorts of shenanigans happen. There's a suggestion of character arcs of the kid learning to trust himself, of Jason Mamoa learning to be more emotional open, of Jennifer Coolidge getting over her ex-husband by fucking a villager... it's a lot of small blocks put togther.

Into a complete mess. Like, this is a TERRIBLE movie. So many elements are explained by "tell don't show". And half the cast are irrelevent. I'm not saying this is a male movie, but the female characters could have been entirely removed and you would never notice. And as for the Minecraft elements...

I recognise them, but I don't care. But that's all right, because the movie doesn't care about them either. Just random excuses for things to happen for the audience to go "they did the thing", let alone all those meme moments that people are now going to this movie for audience participation for, which don't need to happen. You can say that this is for the kids, but let's respect them as well as when we cater to them, eh?

I'm not the only one who thinks Jack Black should have been in a different, and he and Jason might have been a great duo to see play off each other, but not this vehicle for that. Still a lot of New Zealand actors in here, although Rachel House is largely getting herself stereotyped here.

This made buckets of money, so they don't care about my opinion, so it's apt that I don't care about this.

[END]

Read more!

Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Hert Eeys

It's a "romantic comedy slasher"... only, not good at any of those.

So every Valentine's Day, there's a slasher who goes around slashing couples... so if you think people would take the obvious step of just not doing romantic things on that day, especially if you hear he is in your town, then you don't know people, you DO IT HARDER! Our romantic couple (the romance is in the comedy of how they say they aren't a couple) is forced to deal with the killer, and when it seems like they have... they haven't!

The comedy is obvious, the romance is banal, and the slasher was obviously trying to be the overly graphic comedy kind. This seemed like it had potential, and I will freely admit I didn't see the third act twist coming, but this still felt overly long and not worth it.

It didn't feel like anyone was trying with their acting, which does match the quality of the film. The mask, which is about the only notable thing, doesn't really have much going for it as doing anything other than being a mask.

Just overall a more meh movie than I was hoping.

[END]

Read more!

Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Skinners

Lot's of people have talked this up, I finally decided to see it.

I can't recall the trailer, but anyway, two slick talkers come back to town, and set up a juke joint... but then evil monsters are around, and we aren't even talking about the klan! [My main too logical thought I had during the movie was "how do the monsters avoid the problem of exponential growth?" and it turned out the answer is "they are really stupid".]

Michael B. Jordan is doing the key work here, being two different characters. I'm sure filming that was tricky, but Ryan Coogler clearly had a lot of fun doing this, particular in that music scene. Miles Caton gave a lot too, and actually played the guitar for real (and yes, I stayed until the very end of the movie). In fact, not surprising from a Coogler movie, there are great performances all around!

While this is a decent movie, I admit I'm currently distracted about thoughts of people in that era because of The Reformatory.

[END]

Read more!

Saturday, 3 May 2025

Thunder Thunder Thunder Bolts Ho!

Latest MCU, yadda yadda...

Yelena is a sad girl, not happy with her shady dealings, and wants out... as it happens, the best way to do that is to kill everyone, a ploy that has never ever gone wrong... and then the Thunderbolts form, and Bob...

I really don't know what to say. There is a lot happening here that is really generic... but I don't remember it being revealed in the trailers? So I don't want to spoil stuff, but there's like ten minutes of story stretched over 120 minutes of movie.

Florence Pugh is the key to this movie, and she gets the lion share of character development and screen time... which does low key shade the idea of this being a team movie. The other actors did a fine job, although Lewis Pullman's face looked odd to me and kept taking me out of the movie. That all said, I love what they did with the Void's costume.

Some people are saying this is a great return to the greatest of the MCU but... eh, this is good, but I wouldn't say it was that amazing.

[END]

Read more!

Monday, 28 April 2025

Mirror 4 Reflections

This is as far as the series got... how did it get this far?

A young woman and her beau go to a derelict warehouse and a crazy cleaner lady (their words) uncovers a mirror, is killed, and somehow the beau is kidnapped or something? Later, she and her "friends" are in the warehouse because... that's where the movie is, and then we get a low scale haunted house scenario that accidentally includes a mirror. The young lady lives because... she's the main protagonist?

Yeah, this is nothing to get excited about, with one of the more disconnected mirror appearances in the series, it's just there, no-one is otherwise fascinated by it or anything. The movie then happens, with surprises involving such things as... people being around. Spooky!

Billy Drago is the repeat actor this time, but I can't say I recognise anyone else. There are one or two moments of actually decent effects (even for the time), so that's were the budget went.

If you do feel like watching this series, for some reason, don't feel like you need to watch them in order because there is no connection between any of them... or, more simply, don't watch any of them.

[END]

Read more!

Saturday, 26 April 2025

Mirror 3 Voyeur

More Mirror, More Irrelevant Side Plots.

We start with Anthony having dream sex with Cassandra... get used to that, the ladies in this movie didn't get great contracts (I'm guessing) so there's a lot of sex with breasts on display. At the same time, Cassandra is casting a spell or something with the mirror that leads to something with mobsters and Mexicans and the police and... I have no idea. It wasn't worth paying that much attention, and to be honest that sub plot doesn't really go anywhere. Not that the main plot does much better. Anthony turns up at the ex-mobster's house, and finds a mirror and that inspires him to have more sex with Cassandra, and Carolyn is also involved. Cassandra doesn't like Carolyn, so does a long play in which Carolyn ends up injured/dead?, with means that Anthony ends up in the mirror and Joey is dead. Who are any of these people? It doesn't matter.

The "mirror" as such is a winner here, and has a lot more to do with the movie than the previous one. There is that, I suppose. The whole detective subplot could easily be removed, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was imported from some other script, they are so disconnected.

Actors wise, we have Billy Drago, an actor I haven't heard of in a long hot minute. We also get Mark Ruffalo back, playing someone else, but it isn't the first time this series has done that. We have Monique Parent and Elizabeth Baldwin as the women with the bad contracts, but they are fine.

This movie would be luck to be "straight to dollar bin".

[END]

Read more!

Friday, 25 April 2025

Mirror 2 Raven

Finally watching more in the Mirror Mirror series... such as it is.

Marley is a young woman in a convent, placed there by her elder sister by another mother, who wants control of Marley's assets, and so it going to extreme lengths to make it happen. Unfortunately, Marley finds a large Mirror that finally does something in the last fifteen minutes of the movie to actually be supernatural.

So there are two stories, one with trying to gaslight Marley, the other with the mirror that in many way reflects (sic) the mirror story of the first movie, in which the mirror is there until it does something. That said, the main storyline is amusing enough to watch, with Roddy McDowall as a creepy doctor, and Veronica Cartwright pretending to be the hook to the mirror side of things. And hey, this movie's big point: the debut of one Mark Ruffalo!

I'm not sure anyone is desperate to watch this, but if they are... I can't imagine why.

[END]

Read more!