Prosidont Weevil

It's that movie with that guy from the jif that looks like James Grimes!

Raccoon City needs a delivery, stat, so the courier driver who needs the money takes the job. And then proceeds to run into a lady, a cop, a kid, and a number of other people that he tries to help but fails miserably. But that's all right, incompetence is the watchword of this movie.

And the courier guy has an arc involving a pregnant girlfriend, but I am genuinely not sure what that contributes to this story other than being a side plot. He doesn't have to make a choice about helping another pregnant person, and he has one moment with a kid, but is early on, but it's like this concept is supposed to mean something, by normal movie rules, but I'm not getting it.

Austin Abrams is fine as the "average joe", and the character fumbles his way through the movie a lot. Other actors are also around, but only turn up for a scene. What happens to him, and with the nearly positive outcome, is nearly sad, but as I said "incompetence" is the main message, which is why everyone is in this situation in the first place.

Zach Cregger didn't have a great time in the release of this movie "it's not RE it if doesn't have Leon!", but it works fine for me. (Although it needed more bullshit puzzles to be more RE ;) ) 

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Uther Mummy

Who loves ya? The other one does! 

Bela is a young kid and she has a secret... she has three parents! Daddo, Mommy, and Other Mommy! Other Mommy loves her very much and wants to inside Bela forever and ever and ever and...

One of the more amazing things about this is that other people can see and interact with OM. No "oh, it's a strange creature that only Bela can see", nope this OM will fuck you up.

But this movie is rather frenetic. There are quiet moments... then sudden intense moments... and then snap back into quiet moments... and sudden snap into intense, and so on. There are also some really superfluous scenes that could be lifted out without changing anything. Even having Karen Allen in your movie doesn't mean she makes a scene worth having.

Jessica Chastain is pulling a lot of work as Mommy and Other Mommy, and I assume going through lots of set ups for the special effects. Which are fine, and definitely creepy in moments, but that swing in intensity undermines a lot of what OM is supposed to be.

And that's the big problem I am having with this movie. This movie definitely has a message... but it isn't very good at presenting it. It wants to say something, but also wants to present various scary moments, and needs to pick a lane. 

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New Grouping

Be one with the group. 

People may wonder why I like Japanese horror so much. I give you the following movie summary/teaser: Ai is a high school girl who feels suffocated by social pressure, but finds it hard to fight going with the flow. One day, the people in her school inexplicably start to form a human pyramid. The principal and other teachers start to act weird and encourage taking part in it, and the various gymnastic formations start to spread and take over the whole town. Eventually only Ai and Yuu, a transfer student who finds it hard to fit in, are left to rebel against the conformity madness.

...how can you not be intrigued? The secret: it's about conformity. And there are aliens involved (given away right at the beginning/inciting incident).

It starts unusual, and gets weirder from there.

Here's a strange pose! 

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G-0

Japanese grief and trauma takes all sorts of forms. 

The war is over, Godzilla is over, everything is now fine sunny rainbows... except for Gidorah! There's only one thing to do... try to defeat him and completely wet 'em in failure. And then that leaves only one thing to do: grieve until something else comes along.

There is a lot of grief in this, from the monsters and the other monsters, some of whom are human. The emotional core really hits, and then there is monster stomping.

This movie does take its time. However... it's really well done. I did realise at one point "hey, it's been a while since we saw a monster" but I didn't mind and enjoyed what the movie presented to me.

I haven't seen Minus One since it came out, but I assume those are returning characters, and I vaguely remember them. And the effects are just straight up good (with very solid thumps as the monsters walk around).

Check it out! I saw it in colour, but I have no doubt the black and white version will be just as compelling.

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Blaaaade

I will say this over and over: the Blade TV Series fucks harder than it has any right to! 

After the movies it looks like it took a while, but a tv series featuring Blade happened. He continues his fight against the vampires, but they are upscaled (although to be honest I don't recall the movies) to have various houses that are in competition against each other, with "infected" (made vampires) vs "pure bloods". As well as a keyboard jockey, he befriends a newly made vampire, Krista Starr, who keeps her sanity with the help of the same injections Blade uses. There are minor one off episodes, but mainly it is one long story arc over twelve episodes (with a two hour pilot).

Sticky Fingaz is Blade, and he does the job well! He has tough and surly down pat. Jill Wagner is Krista, and her main character feature is "sexy", which is de rigueur for female vampires (which is also the character feature of Jessica Gower). Neil Jackson is the main bad guy, and his main feature is to look imposing while glaring at the camera.

This series is just so well done. We aren't talking amazing effects, but it shows how well a good story will elevate any series. David S. Goyer is the main chap behind this, and there are other names involved, including one Geoff Johns. It gets real dark in places (we are in the 2000s after all), but it doesn't try for edgy (beyond being a vampire series involving Blade anyway).

I'm not one for vampires, but... this is better than one would expect. 

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Salmokji

Is it a fish dish? Something from Sweden? Or a Korean horror movie?

There's a ghost head on a street view image of a lake, so the Road Team needs to send some people up to take new footage. However, that particular lake has issues, such as possibly being a flooded cemetery, and the group that go up there quickly learn one does not go into the water... but then the water comes for you.

Yay, a good horror movie! What I like is atmosphere and this builds it quickly. We start with the bringer of a quick horror moment, and then get just get on with bringing a new group of unsuspecting people in. No big soap opera connections between the people, no fake ghost investigation team, just some people needing to do a job and getting swamped.

Because this is building atmosphere, we get slow glimpses of odd things happening before the full on specters start turning up. The quality of the makeup is... variable, some are low key excellent, some are just full on "slather on the make up and make the eyes glow" which don't work quite as well.

Still, once again, we have foreign movies bringing the horror I crave.

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Archi Pelago

I've been distracted by gaming recently. Not just any gaming, but asynchronous gaming where my keys are in another castle... in fact, in another game entirely. 

Archipelago is a thing where a group of people play a group of games, and the items are mixed between them. So when I open a chest, I might get a boost for someone else, or unlock their map, or anything. And they'll find things for me.

(In some ways, this is like a randomiser, where it's randomised across games, not just within games... oh, and this is an easy way of doing randomised run games anyway.)

While there is an "official" list of games, there are a lot more games that you can tweak and do this with.

I played Portal 2 and A Short Hike, and "checks" are when I open a chest, help someone, complete a map. Portal 2 keeps the maps within each chapter but shuffles them around within the chapter, you need other people to unlock items like buttons and the portal gun itself. A Short Hike just mixes up everything, and most of the items I need are with other people, including those vital feathers. Archi is supposed to arrange things so that an item you need isn't locked away behind something that unlocks via that item, but...

I spent a lot of time at "Burger King". Early on, one person couldn't do anything, so went and got BK.. and still couldn't do anything they got back, so getting blocked became "BK"d. And with so many games and so many checks, many of us ended up BK at some point or another.

It was a lot of fun, but... there is a danger of obsessively wanting things getting unlocked, and bugging others to unlock things for you, so there is mental health to watch out for.

Still... what else is on the list I can play...? 

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