4 Pics No Jokes

I play 4 Pics 1 Word... a lot... how much? Well, what can this picture tell us?

One is that this game doesn't do culturally specific jokes!

But also, I have done nearly 200,000 levels (indeed I am now on Prestige Level #43!)

I have more money than I need. I could fill in so many jokers and not notice.

And yet... I'm gonna play more!

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Bullat Train Exploision

It's Speed, but on a train!

On a Japanese bullet train, there has been a bomb attached, and if it goes below 100 km/h, it goes boom! The first half of the movie is about dealing with people on the train finding out about this, and the train company doing what it can to rescue people... leading to just a handful of people, ie the main cast, to deal with the second half. There's an actual twist I didn't see coming, and the movie is more about how people react under stress and revealing their true selves.

I have no idea how they did the outside train shots. I doubt they could just hire a train, so did they just film the train as it went about its business? CGI? Models? Bit of everything? Certainly well done.

The acting is fine. I'm not sure I entirely buy the acting from some of the characters, but I got the idea and that was enough.

Decent action movie, turned thriller, but ultimately rather disposable.

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Yes! George! Tadpole!

One of my favourite songs! And one of my favourite bands! They're back, baybee!

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A Woking Mon

This film already feels older than this year.

There's this guy, he's just a guy, doing a laborer's job... except he has a past. When the daughter of his boss goes missing, he has a special set of skills, and that involves killing everyone... You know, now I think about it, he was in wars, but given how he, as an older man now, goes around killing everyone, how was there anyone left in the war after he was there?

Anyway, that man is Jason Statham, acting in a movie that has Sylvester Stallone involve in the script. Given that Stallone has written some damn good movies, this one... is so very generic. Frankly, as you read the above, you probably thought of a dozen movies that summary could fit, and yes, this doesn't really do anything to stand out.

It's all fine, just nothing amazing. There is room for a sequel if they want to work the man more, or not, it's open ended.

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War of the 2025

You may have heard about the latest version of War of the Worlds, but ... it is BAD!

Will Radford is a DHS Government agent that spies on hackers and other nefarious people... and his own children. Because he is a parent and wants what's best. But then aliens turn up, and start sucking up data! ... wait, what? ... They came now because the government just launched Goliath, which will enable them to parent everyone, get it, there's a thematic connection! Now Will has to join with his hacker son to take down the aliens, and the bad government. The aliens may have taken out all electricity and shut down all the computers, but Will's computer is fine (how?) as is the internet (wait, what?), so they won't have any problems. And it is the microbes that save us all.. no wait, no it isn't, it is a virus they write. Did they even read the book or see any adaptations or anything?

Remember Searching? And Missing? You know, the movies that were done entirely on computer screens, with face time like videos with the actors? What if we did that with this movie! So that we don't need to spend a lot of time setting up full sets and getting a lot of people together, just have them on screen, that'll do. At least we have the tripods... oh wait, they look like ass too! At least we only see them briefly through bad security cam footage, so that saves the effects team from having to do too much work.

Ice Cube is the lead, with his "oh no you don't" and "damn", he is the everyman government agent that... hang on, why are we on his side? He abuses his power to invade his children's lives, but at least he's on the good government's side? That feels like an excuse to allow him to see what's happening around the world, because luckily you can take control of everything with just a few clicks of a button. Other actors agreed to be in this too, some big names like Michael O'Neill and Jim Meskimen, and hey that's Clark Gregg!

This is a movie about a dad trying to be a better parent... but unfortunately the movie gets in the way.

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Rebirthing Jurassics

Already streaming although still in cinema.. why are movies in trouble?

Let's pretend people don't care about dinosaurs, so we can do "people go to dino island and get into trouble." (Alan!) Evil Corp needs three different blood samples, from land, sea and air, and... getting them isn't that much of a problem. However, while doing that, they are stranded on this dino island, along with a family they picked up, and then they walk around the island for a while until they get to the end act where some action has to happen with this movies goofy looking dinosaur. Yay?

Something something metaphor for this movie franchise, and yes, when you just remake the previous movies over again, again!, then yes, people are going to get bored with it. At times, I was reminded of the Godzilla movie in which we followed the people and only accidentally saw the giant creature. That's not a good association!

Acting wise, it's all fine, they cover all the stereotypes and you can guess who will live and die as soon as they are introduced. The dinosaurs are also fine, but the D-Rex (the new one) does look extremely stupid.

I assume "Rebirth" means they are rebooting this series again. Maybe next time they'll try for a good one?

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Then and Now

Copaganda is alive and well. I watched some SWAT (2017) recently, which was based on SWAT (1975). So let's compare!

The main team: Back in 75, the SWAT team was five people, all men (of course) and diversity expressed by having one African America. Although possibly also one Italian? Racism is weird. In 17, we have six, with Hondo (the main lead) being African American, one being Asian and a Woman(!). Now they do point out that women have a tough time in SWAT and there is a plot or two about a second woman getting into SWAT, so they aren't shying away from that.

The secondary team: In 17, there's the Commander who is in most of the episodes, supporting them, and they've had another female character in charge as well (changing over the seasons). And Deacon is married. Back in 75 the only other character you see often is a woman.. and she's the lady selling food! Hondo is married, but only in season one. In season two, she disappears, possibly so the main lead can get some romance from the female lead of the episode?

Humanising the forces: Back in 75, quite often in the episode we would spend time with the bad guys of the episode, finding out why they are experiencing the lives they are. They aren't portrayed as angels, and often it's them ranting about how cops screwed them over, but we get their side. In 17, we get on-going soap opera of the main team, especially their romantic lives, going over several episodes. That's fairly standard for tv series these days, but definitely a different take back in 75.

Wrapping up: Every episode have a big action piece towards the end, of course. Got to have a shoot out to keep the action up. However, in 75 we might get a whole minute cap at the end to find out that injured people survived, or that the one playboy cop isn't getting date. Whereas in 17 we get the whole last act after the ad break (nearly 10 minutes) of wrapping up events, and dealing with whatever soap opera plot line was going on that episode. They are really hoping people are staying for the characters.

In some ways, yep it's the same show. But definitely a lot of changes over the years.

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Aga-damn!

Gimmicky movie, but I watched it!

Three guys bury a corpse, but then are haunted by her ghost... and that's about all I know. This is a Tamil movie, redubbed in Hindi, and.. I have no idea what they are saying (and the auto-generated English subtitles were rubbish). But this is a good chance to see how much I can follow just from the acting. As far as I can tell, there was some dodgy business about selling (health?) drinks that were possibly poisonous, and from that the woman died, so they buried her. But then, eventually...

The big gimmick of this movie is that is all one take, over two hours. This does mean it is very slow, with plenty of scenes of not much happening as other actors move into position (especially the ghost woman, who shows up with a scream). And apparently they buried her just across the road or in their backyard or something, as they get into their house straight away, which is fortunately plenty big enough for people to go places.

Acting-wise, I'm not sure who is who, so I'll just say that the guy in the police shirt overacted a lot, the guy with the mustache was suitably intense, and the others were also there. As for the effects... at best, someone is rocking something from off screen, but otherwise, at best it's up to an actor to lie as still as possible.

You can check it out for yourself:

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On the nature of Facial Recognition

There are lots of facial recognition stuff around. Phones have it. Computers have it. Takes an image of your face, checks it against whatever stored scanned image it has, and says okay or not.

But the basic function of that is the computer takes an image. With a camera. With just one camera. Which can only take a 2D image. So there is no 3D image taken of your face.

I don't know what exactly goes on behind the scenes, but clearly it processes the image to recognise some features and extrapolate points, and what have you... but it does this from a 2D image.

Which suggests that if you have a suitably fitting photo, you could use that instead. The image would need to take into account that it is also a 2D image and might need to do some manipulation in order to be demanipulated by the processing computer to meet requirements, but it should be possible.

And certainly recognising any adult, no particular one, would be even easier.

Which has been done!

Brits can get around Discord's age verification thanks to Death Stranding's photo mode, bypassing the measure introduced with the UK's Online Safety Act.

Not just Death Stranding, but I suspect any realistic photo mode would work. Lara Croft? Aloy? William "B.J." Blazkowicz? Computers do so many pixels these days, other computers thing those are enough pixels.

But how long before any photo could do to unlock specific computers?

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Frantastic Frour!

It's amazing what this movie doesn't do.

On a world of their own, the Fantastic Four are the only heroes the world has. So when a galactic threat comes a-knockin', everyone looks to them to solve the issues. But this is family, and there are some things family won't do.

This movie is a slow burn. It just takes its time over everything. Each plot beat is slowly introduced, and the audience just sits with it while it happens, and then the movie eventually moves onto the next thing. Even the action sequences take their time! Now, it doesn't take too long, and definitely gets what it wants done, but this is not a movie for those that need punching every other minute.

This is going to sound heretical but... can someone please get Pedro Pascal to act? Yes, Reed is supposed to be stoic, but here he shows no emotion whatsoever. Even when it is scenes where we are supposed to see the real emotions beneath the surface, they are so far beneath you could be mistaken for not seeing them. Vanessa Kirby is fine, and I applaud their restraint over not putting her in skimpy outfits, until certain other Sue on screen appearances. The Thing... came across mostly well, but there were very obvious moments where it was some CGI creation trying to interact with the real world. Joseph Quinn kept reminding me of the young RDJ from the start of Civil War.

Shalla-Bal was... in the movie. And I applaud, as well, them not trying to make Galactus not entirely serious, with his huge helmet and such, although they did decide not to dress him in his usual purple skirt.

I'm not saying "they're back" cos they have always been here. This might be the start of a new stretch (sic) of movies, but let's see if they can actually keep momentum.

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M32gan

People are talking about how this movie is a shift to action over the last one, but there's one tag they aren't talking about.

There's a new killer robot on the loose, so we need to resurrect the old killer robot in order to protect them. But going on the attack only works as well as those involved are willing to let you.

So this is all action and stuff, but what this is more than anything is... Comedy! Indeed, at moments it goes into Farce. There is no way to take this seriously, and there is a large part of fetish around dressing up women as sparkly robots that speaks to what the writer/director wanted.

Acting and effects are fine... but then this movie isn't aiming for peak performance. This entertains, and that's the best this movie is aiming for.

It's a movie, I've seen it, and will forget all about it when the next one comes along.

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Games for Streaming only

I like games. Even horror games. But we are seeing a slew of particular kinds of horror games. Co-op horror games.

Now, that might not sound terrible, but they all have a common secondary characteristic... your avatar looks stupid and can do stupid things.

There is only one reason for that... to amuse viewers in streaming, baby!

Which brings us to so many "horror" games that are just there for the jump scares which are just there for the views, and when there aren't jump scares, people can act stupid, for the views!

So the game is all about the streaming experience, not the game experience.

Sod off.

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Ten Days to Go

There is a new Madonna album coming... kinda.

Veronica Electronica is sort of a concept album, whereby Madonna is putting on an alter-ego self, which isn't uncommon for singers. Heck, Madonna has done that herself, with Dita during Erotica and Madame X in Madame X. One upcoming track has been released already:

That's the demo version, which won't be the version on the album because... the album will be remixes.

Oh... is that all? I'm gonna get it, but... kinda disappointed that this is just rehashing old material. I was hoping this was a full new album because... I will admit, this song is already better than the entire Madame X album.

Here's hoping we do get something fully original in the future than a remix of Ray of Light.

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Dance it out!

Girl Talk did some great mashups, one of which is All Day. And then I found this amazing video of someone who did a whole dance choreography movie to it!

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Krypto

You will believe a Dog can fly!

We start with Krypto coming to the rescue to be a good boy, and jumping around a lot. Later he tries to help more, but is unable to, and is left to deal with squirrels. But he comes back later to be the best boi and save the day!

We get into it with not needing an origin story, 'cos everyone knows the origin story. This is basically a Superman vs Lex story, but I am surprised by how much this is the first time Lex has gone up against Superman. And everyone buys into Lex's side of things. So much for the big boy scout.

Everyone is fine with their performances. Even Rachel Brosnahan isn't irritating as Lois, and Lois can be extremely irritating as a character. The effects are believable, but we are not exactly in the same age as when Superman first came to the big screen and CGI can do so much, as can wires (as can wire removal).

Is this a big bold new stance for DC? Given we've already had several TV projects, this does feel like it fits in with that, but I really need to see a bigger universe before I know how this fits in.

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Prikosnoveniye

Why did I select this movie to watch? I have no idea, but I was fascinated by it!

A detective investigates a murder/suicide, and hears about how the mother's father would visit her to encourage her to kill herself... and he's been dead for twelve years now. What follows is him getting to know the sister, eventually marrying her, but they are all continually haunted by the presence of the father, insisting that this life is grim and everyone would be better in what comes next.

Is this an extremely Russian movie? I don't know, but it's bleak and bitter in many places, although the detective continues to say that life is beautiful and amazing, which conflicts with what the father wants. There are many odd shots (I'm not sure all are intentional) and we get fish-eye lens as we see through the ghost's eyes, but each shot is just something I couldn't stop watching.

This isn't a fun watch, but it was a compelling one.

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Phoneican Shem

Wes Anderson has a style, and has no interest in changing it.

Korda has been through several assassination attempts, and after the latest one wants to get his estranged daughter involved to take over the business. However, other businessmen move against him, and so he has to quickly move to meet with several of his contracts to get his scheme to come to fruition.

Which is basically an excuse for bringing in lots of different characters and set pieces, as is Wes's wont. Which is fine with me. This isn't going to be the highest rated of Wes' movies, but it is still very enjoyable. No doubt there are many themes I miss, but I got the main plot, and yes, there's even a coming to Christ subplot I could follow (like it was subtle... it wasn't, and wasn't trying to be).

Benicio Del Toro gets to run the entire movie, with Mia Threapleton and an amazingly non-annoying Michael Cera at his side. Lots of star powers in the other characters around, I won't list them, check out the credits yourself. And of course everything is precisely framed on screen, because this is Wes Anderson we are talking about.

Yep, good movie, but it will be "another Wes Anderson" rather than a peak one.

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FromtheworldofJohnWickBallerina

You better refer to it as the full title! My cinema does.

As a young child, Eve had a terrible experience where her dad was killed. Later on, she got into being a killer so she could be revenged. Oh, and John Wick was there.

This script started as a near parody female killer movie, then was adapted into a John Wick spin off. That would explain why I felt like the movie was something very different to the otherwise John Wick experience. They don't go full "she's a woman, so has to be a mother" but they don't not to do that. And apparently in the first cut of the movie it was terrible and there were reshoots to make it better... oof, this movie had problems. And this was Lance Reddick's second to last movie, so at least he was actually performing and this wasn't some creepy AI creation.

Ana de Armas gets a lot to do in this, where a lot means a lot of violence. She got beat up a lot, making me wonder if someone was really getting into that (the original script had a scene where the lead female assassin fought nude, so likely this is in keeping). Other actors come and go, with several moments of "hey, they are from the main line movies!"

And the action is.. actually, completely in line with the rest of the series. They know what they are doing.

It's fine as a movie by itself, but it didn't need to be tied in to wider universes.

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Demo-lation!

Play more demos, made more judgements!

Code: Loopbreaker - very annoying interface, obtuse puzzles, nope (in one puzzle, you selected with teh WASD keys, but confirmed with Left mouse... what?) Wishlist Cross!

Haunted House Renovator - I like house building games, but this just straight immediately turned me off. Wishlist Cross!

Botany Manor - this game is out, had a bad impression, played the demo... now have a good impression! Wishlist Tick!

3D Escape Room: Mystic Manor - reminded me of that puzzle game with the eye piece that sees things and null element. Wishlist Tick!

Secrets of Blackrock Manor - nice enough, will pick it up some time.  Wishlist Tick!

Dead Letter Dept - nope, a "horror" story that doesn't develop or go anywhere, don't care. Wishlist Cross!

Is This Seat Taken? - decent, but not sure I want a full game of it. Wishlist Cross!

The Button Effect - Exponentially annoying. Wishlist Cross!

Demos should be available, but may have been taken down. (Why???)

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PreDators of PreDator

New animated film? Sure I'll check it out.

Three different parts of earth history have a Predator going to it... and basically getting its arse handed to it. Seriously, you'd think they'd learn "do not go to Earth". Indeed, unless they are filing flight plans so other Predators know where they are going, those particular Predators just disappear, looking for a fight. Anyway, those get put down, but when a ship turns up to collect those that killed the Predators, not a problem! And so we end up with the three of them needing to deal with the Predators once and for all...

Basically, this is the same story over and over. The only difference is "what weapon is the Predator using?" and even then each of the Predators get defeated by people using that weapon against them. They really DO NOT LEARN anything ever! The ending is better than what I could have expected, but clearly setting up for more adventures (and that last scene could have otherwise been a post-credit scene for other franchises).

Decent vocal performances, and the animation was... largely fine, although the fire effects looked odd whenever they were used. [Apparently this movie was animated in Unreal Engine. Huh.]

There are lots of links to previous movies here, and if this is how the series continues, I'm not against it.

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17th Mickey

I need to stop watch black comedies...

Mickey needs to get away from Earth, so signs up with a not cult expedition to a new planet of purity, but didn't read the fine print when he ticked the "kill me" box. And so he gets to be the guinea pig for every bad thing around. Except the latest bad thing doesn't kill him, but they already produced a replacement, so wackiness ensues!

I'm gonna start with, I didn't really enjoy this. The black comedy aspect of it didn't hit home, so it just felt drawn out and not going anywhere. The creepy minister (political not religious, but...) is creepy, the creepy aliens aren't, and you can largely guess where the plot is going and wait for it to shake out.

Robert Pattinson is fine here, but frankly this felt like a role anyone could do so that Robert doesn't bring anything special to it. And that holds true for the rest of the cast. The effects are fine as well, and... this was over two hours? Don't need that.

Yes, I'm going to say that Moon did this better, which is unfortunate because that cast is 33% shit.

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Waiting for Sunrise

I've seen the video game... this is nothing like the video game...

With her sister gone missing, Clover and her friends go to Glore Valley to find her... and instead find death. More than once. Because when they die, they come back to life. To survive the night, they need to survive... until dawn!

While this has definite nods to the game, this is nothing like it. The game is all about Wendigos, this movie just has it as a minor monster. The game has the clown faced killer as a stalking menace, this movie has that as just one of many killers. The game has Peter Stomare as a over the top doctor... this movie does get that right.

We have Ella Rubin as the main girl, Odessa A'zlon I recognised from Ghosts, and Ji-young Yoo stood as the token Asian... but I could not tell you the difference between the two guys. The killers are decent enough, but aren't really on screen long enough to stand out as more than momentary jump scares.

The video game had a strong enough story, and plenty of characters. This pares down the number of characters... and the idea of a story. It's rather weak, because of that. Feel free to skip.

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Doctor Cruise

Medical shows are always something (The Pitt was The Bomb) and ads for this caught my eye, so yeah, let's binge it!

Set on a cruise ship, a new doctor heads up the medical team of two other nurses, and each episode is a different theme cruise with medical mishaps happening. The three medical people get into a situation, yes, a full on throuple at one point, but the soap opera comes out because the head doctor wants a solo relationship, but the female nurse doesn't, but maybe does have feelings, and the other male nurse has feelings for her as well, but she doesn't and... it gets messy, but hey, I already said "soap opera". And we have Joshua Jackson starring, last seen in Fringe, and Don Johnson is the captain. I'm sure I've seen Phillipa Soo is other things, but not Sean Teale.

But let's complain. So this is on a cruise ship, and I know a few things about cruise life... this is one of the smaller luxury liners, and there are definite changes for TV, but...

Three medical staff? Nope, way too few. And that medical office they have would be impressive in a stationary hospital, on the high seas there is no way they are having all that stuff!

The Captain and Doctor get fancy suites. Again, TV (and they give every person basically the same suite to save on sets), but I highly doubt they get anything thay really fancy, because they would a) be below decks, and b) cruise ships love to save on money and space by not giving out luxury cabins to staff. (And there don't seem to be any staff elevators either, just plush ones for everyone.)

The staff and guests mingle. A lot. And yes, fraternise... NOPE. That is extremely against all guidelines, and such staff would be thrown off the ship. This would also harken back to that classic series Love Boat... (and everyone calls this a 'boat', although the captain keeps correcting to 'ship').

And it isn't just me complaining.

It's a fun show, but TV beats realism. And network beats TV as there is no sign this is going to get a second season.

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Ura horâ

Found out about this Japanese horror today, so I watched it today.

This is an anthology of shorts... like really short. Like we are talking five minutes here. Just enough set up to get the idea, then BAM, a horror sting! On the one hand, great, let's get on with it. We know a lot of tropes, we don't need the hour backstory to "this is a creepy place," let's move. However, on the other hand, the horror moment is "look, it's a creepy thing" or "look at this image!" Indeed, a lot of them end on "here's a strange image to consider" which isn't really all that horrific, even outside of the J-Horror set up.

The basic set up is "found footage" with lots of tapes being "this was not aired, but we have it here for you now". And don't worry if you can't tell when the big moment is coming (and again it's not like these stories hang around for a long time for you to wait to) as there is always a moment of "proceeding further is not advised" shot.

Since it is so short, I can't really point out any actors, but two listed directors are Yôhei Fukuda and  Kôji Shiraishi and... hey, we recognise that last name!

And finally... you can see it for yourself!

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Implausible Reckonation

This is it, the final of the Running Man who Runned and did Stunts!

The Entity is nearly everywhere, and once it gets everywhere, then everywhere will become nowhere! ... 'cos it will destroy everything. Fortunately, the US can exactly determine a ticking clock to follow, with enough time for Ethan Hunt to go through some action sequences and long scenes of just talking and not doing much.

Seriously, for an action movie, there is large chunks of just nothing happening. And even some action scenes where there are large chunks of nothing happening... while being an action sequence!

This is definitely a "culmination" movie where they link several events from movies past, including a lot of links to the first movie.

The cast is pretty much the same as in Part One, and... yeah, several of them definitely are looking older now. No wonder Tom Cruise has bowed out of more movies, I can believe a few others putting their roles down... and, on the other hand, this isn't concluding anything, and the series can continue on and on and on...

This movie passed the time, but it didn't need to be the length that it is...

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Final Bloodlination

Sometimes, you just want to see a dumb movie.

This is what, the sixth movie? We start with an initial death sequence set piece... but it turns out that was a dream! But the young woman having the dream is seeing it at a nightmare, and goes in search of her family... which does technically lead them to start dying, so it is kind of all her fault, and if she hadn't done anything, they would live (longer). Also, it was a dumb kid's fault for some part of it all, so don't let kids do anything fun.

This series varies between horror and comedy, although the length of the mechanations that Death goes to and the final practical effects have always bent it towards comedy for me, and this one is definitely on the comedy side. Decent practical effects (I assume) or at least not obvious to me that it was all computer imagery.

The main cast are fine, but I can't say I know any of them from anything in particular. Aside from Brec Bassinger, last seen riding a stick, and of course...

Farewell, Tony Todd...

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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.

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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.

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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]

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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.

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Blacked Bagged

Spy thriller from Steven Soderbergh.. all right.

George is tagged to find out what happened to Severus which is a MacGuffin that can do a thing, doesn't matter. There are a number of suspects, one of which includes his wife. There are plans and machinations all over the place, and all sorts of things will be revealed as the plans come to light.

This was... very pat. Almost immediately people jump to the right conclusions, and already know a lot of information before the audience knows it... which kind of makes it one of them terrible murder mysteries when you find out there was a hidden marriage that the detective reveals in the final scene that would have solved everything... thanks Christie for that! Not that there is a hidden marriage here, but George certainly knows a lot more than he ever reveals except at the moment when it is useful for him, so the audience is definitely lagging behind.

But hey, this has Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett! Great performances, but not really stretching their acting muscles here, given every character is "reserved and cool". And there's a cameo from Pierce Brosnan, which automatically adds ten points to the score.

Not terrible, but rather stilted and more than a little up itself.

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Boiled Point

What's a good movie to watch on a plane? A one take movie about a chef and his restaurant on the brink.

We are following chef Andy Jones dealing with his restaurant, which, while seemingly popular, is running into problems with staff and stock, and trying to keep up with what the house staff are dealing with while also dealing with their own problems. This comes to the head at various moments in the movie (the movie is well named) with various sub plots, with a few key pieces that go off and suggest that the restaurant might not survive too well. And we end on a note of... I'm not entirely sure, but it's not good.

This is an intense character piece of putting a bunch of characters in one location, and then let them go. We follow various plots, and I assume this was one take? So yes, it could have been a play, but it feels like some parts of the story are there just to give the main cast a breather from being on screen. I do also question about how the restaurant itself manages to work with the work flow we see, but that's the buy in of watching a movie.

I'm gonna give a large round of applause to all the cast. There are the people you know, but all of them give good performances, making the whole movie enjoyable.

And watching it on a plane is fine! Although your preferences may differ.

[END]

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What Fresh Hell is this?

There's a set of three movies under "Fresh Hell Presents", so let's see what they presents!

Dead Teenagers: Five teenagers at a lake. Murderer around. You've heard it all before right? But what if one of the characters finds a few odd things. Like a light stand... or a script. And what if the movie doesn't go exactly according to the script, so the movie has trouble happening. What do you do then? Take over being the writer? Or do whatever it takes to make it out alive?

I can see what they are doing here, but there are large slabs where everyone can see what is going on so we are all waiting on the movie to get to the next part. It's an otherwise tight script, only 80 minutes, but the last 20 minutes are rushed, after the prevous 40 minutes taking too long to get there. I guess the acting is fine, but no particular standouts.

Wolves Against the World: Two band members were heavily into being Nazis back in the day with a third member, who died. (According to the IMDB summary we were supposed to think he committed suicide, but later find out he was killed by one of the band members... I never got that, I entirely assumed he was killed.) They get back together as the one that tried to get clean is trying to get money from his friend that didn't.. and we get deep into heavily Semetic things, and an "occult battle of wills"... again that is from the IMDB.

No, what we get is two ex friends trying to be friends again, but finding out one friend is full on psycho Nazi and I think the movie is trying to end on the "good" one taking out the "bad" one? Which is not occult, no matter what contacts they put on the bad guy to make us think of actual werewolves. I note that the script writer is the "bad" guy, so yeah, if you write a piece of shit, you play the piece of shit, otherwise don't write that.

The Exorcism of Saint Patrick: A pastor takes a gay young man out to a faraway cabin to deconvert him from being gay. It doesn't go well, and after 60 of the 90 minutes, the gay kid finally kills himself. The pastor is somewhat accused, but keeps away... but then undergoes severe guilt and kills himself (or what it demons or ghosts?).

This could have been something, but spends most of the time showing how terrible gay conversion is. Then punishes the pastor. And... there isn't much else to it really.

There is some connective tissue between the movies, reused locations, and a bit with a buried cable, but mostly this is writer/director Quinn Armstrong doing some movies. And so I guess he did that.

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Cleanup

Why did I watch this? Oh, Daisy Ridley!

Joey is a cleaner, but the movie takes twenty minutes to get to it. First she has to be very late for her job, and deal with her brother, who has autism. [I will not addess the autism representation in this movie, I will leave that for others.] But eventually she gets to window cleaning on the outside of a high rise building... and then the movie finally starts when activists take rich people hostage, and threaten to expose their secrets. Can Joey survive a) being outside, b) the activists, c) her brother's autism, and d) the police who are policing all over the place.

Die Hard anyone? But what if... John McClane was a woman?? She doesn't make fists with her feet, but she does have several problems. Like a script that takes a long time to actually get going, and then spends a huge amount of time not actually having the hero do anything until the final act of the movie.

Barely over 90 minutes, this is a cut rate version of an action movie, and did this get a commercial release? Didn't deserve it.

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The Mooonkeee

Oh... oh no....

So there's a toy monkey drummer thing... wind it up and... someone dies. A lot. Violently. Like a comedy horror amount of death. It starts at the toy of two boys, and then they have to deal with it as adults. Something something dealing with life, accidents, and death, and what does that mean, and also comedy deaths.

This is a "black" comedy, which I have a bad track record with. It's either comedy so esoteric you can only tell it's supposed to be funny in hindsight. Or... it's just really bad comedy "but that's all right, because it's supposed to be 'black' comedy!" No, that's not a good excuse for bad comedy, and this is comedy that thinks it's funny, but it really isn't.

Not bad performances, with Theo James doing double work as twins, but you can easily tell who is who as one of them wears glasses. Colin O'Brien isn't terrible as the young punk kid, and hey, that's an Elijah Wood cameo!

The effects look fine, the film clearly enjoys showing splatter and gore, but... it again wants to be comedy splatter and gore, but no, just no.

This isn't a terrible movie. It's just not a good one.

[END]

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Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

"Gleaning" is the act of picking up what has been left behind. Usually relating to harvets, but...

We start with the field gleaners, who get potatoes and other crops, left behind after the harvest. Previously they were the harvesters, but with machines doing that job, they are left with the leftovers. And given that machines can only do so much, there is a fair bit to gather. But what can be gleaned there is restricted by the law, so are they breaking it or not? And not just vegetables, but also grapes, apples, other items... But then, on the streets of Paris, what is left behind can be after shops close, after people leave items to be picked up by the garbage men, that is also "gleaned".

Agnes Varda presents a documentary about gleaners, and even gleans herself. She isn't shy about putting herself into the movie if that's what the moment calls for, but we mainly follow people she interviews as they glean for their living. Nowadays this might be called "Freeganism" but back in 2000 (when this movie was made) and in France, it isn't called anything so sexy, and is mainly about people trying to live their lives. (Although there are those who also refuse to take part in "normal society" and scavange.)

According to the law, people are allowed to glean in the fields after harvest, as long as they respect the owners and meet conditions on when, and in the city they can glean because people have discarded/given up their ownership.

And it makes you wonder what you've thrown away that people could still use.

[END]

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THE boogermans

What if, get this, trauma was an actual monster?

A family has a dead mother (what is this, Disney?) and the father isn't really opening up with the two sisters. After a visit from a horror movie infector, the sisters start getting the idea that there is an actual monster, with the younger sister being targetted first. After nearly killing the monster, the older sister gets the idea "hey, what if we kill it?" and they all come together to believe in their dead mother to help with beating the monster's ass. And of course, it is totally dead and not coming back...

Yeah, there is nothing notable here, this movie is as generic as I made it sound. Sohpie Thatcher is a lead sister, and hey, that's a cameo by David Dastmalchian! The monster itself is hidden in darkness, which just makes it hard to tell if it is scary or not. The "eating" effect has hints of being interesting, but doesn't fit with the rest of the esthetic.

This has a polish of current horror movie production-wise, but doesn't strive for anything more.

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A Boogerym'ns

Sod it, just gonna talk about three of them at once.

One: A kid is in bed, strange things about in his room, his dad comes in to reassure him, dad gets pulled into the closet. Years later, he has a girlfriend and a good job and... his mother dies. This brings him back to town, meet an old friend, and he decides to stay at the house. As you could guess, this does not go well, and various people end up dying.

This is written by Epic Kripke, and sides more with the horror of the situation. We have a weird house where the guy ends up going through doors to places that shouldn't be connected, and jump about in time too. The eventual boogeyman is a bad CGI man, but Tim will get there. Features a cameo by Lucy Lawless!

Two: Twenty years previous, there was a Nightmare movie where a group of patients were at a hospital and got killed off one by one. And now we are in a hospital with a group of patients that get killed off one by one. However, in the last third of the movie, we switch from being a supernatural creature to a fairly standard slasher killer, and it's like Scream never happened to show how basic that was. We do get a connection to the previous movie where Tim went into a psychiatric ward thinking he was the Boogeyman and killed himself. A note which is repeated with someone else thinkings they the boogeyman.

This is written by Brian Sieve, and it's a definite change. Aside from the nature of the killer, this suddenly has a lot of blood and gore about the place. But it does feel a lot like Dream Warriors all over again, until we get the boring scraping of knife on the wall to show that it's just some guy. Xena connections continue with Renee O'Conner, and we get Tobin Bell as the lead doctor.

Three: The daughter of Tobin Bell's character is in college and is grieving her dad's death, and reads his journal about the boogeyman. This is a change up from the previous movie where instead of a hospital with people dying one by one, we get a college dorm where people die one by one. The nature of the boogeyman changes yet again, back to being supernatural, but this time is powered by the belief of people (back to channelling Freddy again). Sarah, the final girl, decides to take responsibility on herself rather than have people believe in the boogeyman, but this is a supernatural creature that ain't putting up with that.

Written again by Brian Sieve. We get blood and gore again, but as I say, the nature of the threat changes again. Keep it consistent, people! I prefer actual supernatural over slasher, so this is better than two, even if it is just a redress of the second one. No notable cameos.

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Woofies

Want to see more movies with George Clooney and Brad Pitt just acting off against each other? Rather specific, but I got you fam!

When a hookup goes wrong you bring in a guy. But someone else also brings in a guy. So now you've got two guys who are just their own guys, who do what they do. Now they have to work together, all to just get the job done.

This is a fun movie. As mentioned you want George Clooney and Brad Pitt together? This is that. After the set up, it's all them playing off each other. Yes, we have Amy Ryan to start with, and Austin Adams for most of the movie, but it really it the two of them just having a fine time.

The plot isn't deep, and the action pieces feel like they are just there to have action pieces, but hey, that's not really why we are watching this.

Just put this on, and enjoy!

[END]

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Invading all those Snatching Bodies

Not just one, but two!

In 1956, a doctor returns to a small town, where some people have been reporting strangeness, but now everything is fine. Except some people are claiming that other people are not themselves. The doctor finds a friend with a strange growing duplicate, and starts to uncover strangeness. He gets his female friend out, but the pods are being distributed. The doctor has to run away, and is only believed at the end. Perhaps the world will react in time.

In 1978, a health inspector has some friends that randomly encounter strange people saying that people are not themselves. They take time to wander around, not doing much, but taking their damn time to go through the same set of motions that the previous movie did economically, but the big difference this time is that we are in a large city! The inspector destroys a greenhouse of pods, and hides away... and then comes back in a rather stilted fashion, encounters a friend, and .... screech!

The 80 minute movie is good. The 115 minute movie is padded out, just extends the scenes for no reason, just must take longer. And the ending is not a surprise that Donald Sutherland is a pod person at that point, it's plainly obvious, not even trying to be a twist.

At best, you can say the first movie is about small town life, and becoming unsettled as people become alienated. The second movie is about alienation in a big city, where there are lots of people, and connections dirft away. But the first movie has hope that this problem might be corrected, the second movie is just everyone gives into it.

See the first, don't bother with the second.

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Moore Boogeym'n

Yes, okay, I watched the two sequels.

Revenge of the Boogeyman is the second one. We return to Lacey, from the first movie, and she goes somewhere else, and accidentally has a piece of the mirror with her. After recapping events from the first movie (ie. replaying all the kills) we get more kills of the new people, in just as silly and stupid ways as the first. And even a really stupid moment at the end where the buried killer suddenly raises a fist from the ground, blows up a car, and then fist is back down... wut?

However, that is far more work than they did for number three.

Return of the Boogeyman features Annie, who is receiving psychic visions. Those visions? Repeat of footage from the first movie. Yes, again! So basically Annie is a device through which they replay the kills of the first movie, with added lore dumping from the psychiatrist, until the eventual boring sting at the end as they pretend it was more than just repeating the movie, and the killer is actually around.

I of course know why they bothered: someone though there was money in this. Not the directors, but even they want a paycheck at the end of the day.

I would say to rightfully ignore these, but you wouldn't be able to find them if you wanted to.

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Spooky observation

I played two games with the same concept, The Cabin Factory and Shift 87. You are tasked with going through repititions of environments and evaluating if they are weird or normal. You have to get a certain number in a row correct, and if you fail, you reset back to zero. The Cabin Factory also has the chance to kill you, also resetting you, but it also has more of a plot than Shift 87 has.

What can be considered weird is very different. In Shift 87, a lot of them are very obvious, but some of them are really hard to pick up. In Cabin Factory, weird is only if something is moving, and they mean that. Something strange, but not moving... not weird!

After playing them a little, I got really frustrated. My personal perception is low, so I was missing everything. For both, I looked up a list of what I was supposed to find... and while in a way that made it easier, it also made it more fun! I knew what I had to do, and then it was just me being stupid as opposed to completely ignorant.

Since then, yep, completed the games, and now appreciate them better. Cabin Factory has a little too much "uncanny asset" issue, and prefer Shift 87, but each loop of Shift 87 is a lot longer.

Not terrible, but definitely know if it is the kind of game you want to play.

[END]

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Immmersiom

More Japanese horror? Don't mind if I do!

On an island, a VR company is building a copy of the world, a copy so accurate it has ghosts from the real world in it! A new hire comes in, and immediately recognises that something odd is going on, and slowly the nature of the spirit is unveiled, and even more slowly we get the real story of what happened, although we don't get how the two worlds smear over outside of "it's Japanese horror, this happens".

It gets rather weird in the end part of the movie. We have the VR stuff, but it morphs into "distressed spirit", but then it morphs into "one person's guilt infests the world" but then it's real (as ghosts get), which doesn't track, so there's a whole mash of different things that don't quite gel.

I was wondering if this would be like Pulse, with the disconnect of people in VR, but it isn't that introspective. And then, because I'd seen the Death Stranding 2 trailer, I was expecting more on the beach, but it wasn't that either.

Could have been better.

[END]

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THE Boogeym'n

Someone really liked Halloween, but this time using mirrors!

With an opening bells that makes you think Michael Myers, we start with a mother getting it on with a guy, and her two young kids are watching. The kids go on to kill the guy, but the evil of the moment is trapped in a mirror... it takes time, but that mirror eventually comes back into the movie, now the kids have grown up, and then the deaths start happening. Not entirely believable deaths, but some of them are really funny. Will the evil be defeated... or even survived, or will there be obvious sequel baiting?

It's amazing how much Halloween this is, although I don't know where the whole mirror aspect came from. It's used to excuse deaths in a way that gets around needing to have an actual killer, although we get plenty of deep breathing as if there is an actual spirit, so that's something.

Aside from a cameo from John Carradine, I can't say I recognised anyone. But considering the quality of this movie, the acting is fine.

Note this is THE Boogey Man, with its trilogy, not Boogeyman, with that trilogy. However, I can't find the actual sequels, just that other series.

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Mir rorriM ror

I find mirrors fascinating from a horror perspective, so I've been checking about a few, and want to talk about this one.

Mandy is 100% channelling Lydia from Beetlejuice, and moves into an old house with her mother after her father recently died. However, in her room is a neat mirror. Did I say neat? I meant evil, portal to demons, that grants Mandy's dark desires. Which leads the goth girl into causing lots of death and harm to people, in order to help out her friend, whether her friends wants it or not. Surely, nothing can go wrong there?

This movie is shot really weirdly. We have standard angles and such, but for some reason whenever the character Emelin is on screen, suddenly we get extreme close up of her face. And then other shots are in slowmo for... I think the movie is trying to emphasis it's creepy or something, but it's at the oddest moments and doesn't work. And then the movie goes pervert by showing a naked woman getting killed in the gym showers (the actress was around 21/22 fortunately, although I'm not sure the character was), while the movie intercuts with the other girls in the pool while it stares longingly at their asses underwater...

While this is a heavily female crew and cast, it says a lot that I recognise two male cameos (Stephen Tobolowsky and William Sanderson) over the others. Fine performances, but I do wonder if the directer wanted Winona Ryder.

Oh hey, there are three more of these? I don't know... but I'm going to, aren't I?

[END]

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Demos Time

We had the Steam Next Fest, which means demos. I tried some that were tagged with "Puzzles".

Dr Priori's Time Escape - more like the escape rooms you see elsewhere. There are some mechanics whereby you need to do "time" to get to parts of the room. Not a bad idea, pretty clear (even if I can't spot the thing for a long time). But it NEEDS a run button. But yeah, on the wishlist it goes.

3D Escape Room: Detective Story - standard point and click puzzles. This isn't doing anything too amazing, although I suspect it wants to be with a name like "3D Escape Room". Might pick up when it's cheap enough.

Post Trauma - action shooter with "puzzles". This was created by one person, so I shan't complain about the graphic gliches I saw. However, I can say that this was someone who really wants to create the next Silent Hill, and that's not for me.

Strand - sci-fi puzzle game. Looks very nice, some nice feeling things to click on... and then very annoying thing to drag. This is a game with loops, whereby you need to find the path through the loop to do everything you need to do, and will spend many loops trying things... and it was very annoying. Have to do so many things to get even the smallest of progress. Nope.

Arkham Mysteries: Chapter One - point and click puzzle game. This was made by two brothers and.. this really felt like this. This is the sort of game I would expect to play two years ago. It needs some basic understanding of how to handle UI (give me a back button tied to my mouse, not something I have to click on screen). Not for me.

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Wait... is that...?

Are we getting a new album????

...or is it just an ad for a magazine? (it could be both!)

Hang on... is that Teardrop I hear?

[END]

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Presents

This movie tipped a potential warning for me as it was under 90 minutes. But...

We are in a house, going around, looking at the rooms. A family moves in, and we follow them around, caring a lot about what happens with the sister Chloe. The brother brings in a douche-bag friend, and he is a real scumbag. We don't like him.

And that's what I'm going to say about the plot. Is this a second-person film? It definitely can be read that way. There's a mixture of oners, but then this is underdone with short cuts that don't quite work in that framework. The set up was enough to keep me watching, and we get definite hints about what is going on...

Lucy Lui is in this, but despite that name, she isn't the lead. Instead it is Callina Liang and Eddy Maday who lead the movie, and they are quite believable. There are very few effects (and the few are well done) but the key trick is how well the camera moves, barely getting past some of the actors, and you don't hear any footsteps. Good production there.

Frankly, this was a far better movie that I was expecting.

[END]

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Campagnion

I keep thinking that is Anna Taylor-Joy in the poster.

Josh is a shitty person, and this movie is entirely dedicated to showing that in every frame of this. Terrible person, terrible friend, terrible morals, just all out and out terrible.

Oh, and this is about companions and such.

I knew the trick of this movie from early trailers, but then it seemed to be a twist to not reveal? And yet, the "twist" is revealed in the first half of the movie, so it's not the big reveal? Indeed, there isn't much of a big reveal, it's just Josh being a shit, and we find out the degrees to which that is true.

The performances are fine. Sophie Thatcher is indeed the lead role in this movie, and Jack Quaid is the piece of shit. Others are also in this movie, including it's Harvey Guillén!

This movie doesn't have that much to say, so on one hand keeps it clean, on the other... it just doesn't have much to say.

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The Georg

He's just an assassin boy, she's just an assassin girl, can I be any more obvious?

There's a Gorge in the middle of nowhere, and it might contain some epic nastiness. Anyway, aside from that, we have an American man on one side, and a Russian woman on the other... can these two would be enemies find common ground, and come together in love? (Like, they aren't really enemies, just not supposed to contact each other.) And then a monster movie happens.

Half this movie is build up, then the bulk of the next part is them dealing with what is in the Gorge... and then like the last five minutes is wrap up? Seriously, they go from "we barely made it out of Act Two" before they are suddenly able to set off the last act and then the credits roll. How will they deal with it? Super easy, barely an inconvenience!

Miles Teller is our lead, and he's fine. Anna Taylor-Joy is the female lead, but she is definitely treated as the supporting artist here. Sigourney Weaver gets to cameo, so that's something. The monsters are... fine. Nothing particular spectacular about them, and the colour pallete is "mono", so they don't really have anything out standing about them.

If you want to see this, I'm not going to say "no", but there are better things to put on.

[END]

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Maona 2

I can see how this was abbreviated...

Moana is out looking for other islands/people, and after being struck by lightning, she gets the idea for the plot of the movie of going looking for a particular island. After grabbing a handful of other people who will not matter in this movie version, she heads out, bumps into someone who shortcircuits a lot of the adventure, finds Maui, and then goes to the island. There are many, many songs to fill in the space to make this over ninety minutes.

This definitely has the feel of "we could make this a television series" feeling, with lots of potential plot points expanding over an episode, with the focus on different characters. See, for example, how Prodigy did this. But here we just get maybe a song covering a lot of it, then on to the next one. Speedrunning as a movie!

Auli'i Cravalho and Dwayne Jackson are back, and perfectly fine. There are a scattering of other actors, and now I can easily recognise Rose Matafeo's voice, so huzzah for her!

This is fine, although would have been better as the full series. But at least there's the teaser for more movies... yay?

[END]

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Capitan Ameraci

aka The Falcon And The Angry Soldier.

There's a Celestial out in the ocean. Remember that? 'cos the movies haven't for a while, but now it's all anyone is talking about. It's vitally important for... reasons, and it forms the main backbone against which the events of this movie play out. Captain America is uncovering things while President Ross is involved, and then...

Actually, if you've seen the trailers or heard lots of old commentary, you know a lot about the 'who's that are involved, but they aren't nearly as prevalent as you might think. Anthony Mackie is great as Sam Wilson, and Harrison Ford is... often on screen. There are numerous other characters, and various cameos, and Giancarlo Esposito is wasted as Sidewinder.

All because the plot just isn't that exciting. The common thing people are saying about this movie is "it's fine" and...

It's fine.

[END]

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Trans1former1s Un

Before they met the eye, they were not more.

Orion Pax and D-16 are just dudes who want to help out and be more than they are. They do this by doing extremely stupid things that turn out to be helpful for them, until they find out the obvious secret of betrayal and their whole lives are built on lies. And then they are on track to becoming the battling bots we know and play with.

This is a lot better than I was expecting. It's not exactly deep, but it's a story well told, and even the obvious moments are still executed well. It's a decent origin story, and although the twist from D-16 is a little forced, you can see how it plays out. Although the actual eventual name of Autobot and Deception is a lot of a stretch.

Good vocal performances too. Chris Hemsworth is doing his "big speech" voice, and Scarlett Johansson is also in this. Brian Tyree Henry is a great D-16, and Keegan-Michael Key is suitably annoyingly as B-127. (If there is more to their names than just random numbers, I have no idea.)

I don't know Transformers deep lore, but this works fine for me.

[END]

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Nosfaeratau

This is the 2024 remake, and if it is a faithful remake... yeah, I just watched Dracula again.

Blah blach not Harker goes to not Dracula and sells him a place in England yadda yadda not Mina is entranced with not Dracula skibibi toilet not Van Helsing is on board to explain everything and cause some kind of ending.

No wonder copyright law was all over this back in the day. It's such a rip off you would think it was originally a Kylo/Ren fanfic! I will allow that the performances are good, Nicholas Hault is fine, Willem Defoe is having fun, Bill Skarsgaard is creepy, and Lily-Rose Depp is... on screen. Women don't fare well in Dracula stories, and she isn't exactly playing up a strong woman stereotype, and I just couldn't care when she was on screen.

All I can say now that this is at least a movie I've now seen.

[END]

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Glaadiiaatoor 2

The movie of the farther will be revisited upon the son.

Hanno is a young man with a wife, and she may as well be named "Dead soon, gonna bite it" as she lives up to that name almost immediately. He is captured, and taken to be a gladiator, and we get several fights as Hanno proves he is the Main Character of the movie. The man who killed the wife turns out to be Hanno's mother's new husband, so he is actually not a terrible person (and indeed, is played by Pedro Pascal, so of course we are on this side), but unfortunately Roman politics happen. Which also leads to the two lead mad emperors trying to lead (having character be mad mean you don't need to justify the plot - they are mad, they just do things!), but are outdone by one person who takes advantage of them never having guards around, and then we finally get to the final combat, in which everyone watches so they don't need to shoot a huge army fighting scene.

I was surprised by the collection of English actors here, Derek Jacobi, Tim McInnery, and Matt Lucas. But they, and everyone, is overwhelmed by Denzel Washington's acting all over the place. The effects are fine, and the battles look impressive enough.

All in all, I was somewhat entertained.

[END]

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Hoos of Leves

So I read the book. Or did I blue the book? I considered doing House in blue, but now can't be bothered.

As you may have heard, this is a book of layers.

Level 0: There is a movie, called the Navidson Record, about a guy documenting a strange door in his house that goes into an infinite depth of darkness and corridors. Which is definitely my shit. Indeed, I've done an RPG module based on that (although I didn't know it at the time)!

Level 1: A book about the movie, written by Zampanò. This is an indepth analysis of the movie, detailed notes, and a bajillion footnotes to academic papers. [One conceit of this book is that it is written around four years after the documentary, but there are just so many academic papers referenced that I am severly doubting that any media could generate so much discussion in such a short time frame.]

Level 2: Johnny Truant had the notes Zampanò wrote, and put it together into this book we are reading, and has added notes of his own. He is affected by the book of the documentary, adversely, and has to get it out to get it out of his head. Here the most interested aspect to me are the appendix of the mother's letters, which I will come back to a moment.

Level 3: This whole thing is a book written by the actual author of all, Mark Z. Damielewski.

This is certainly a piece of work, where Mark has put a lot of effort into it. Many of the chapters are formatted to give a sense of what the text is about, eg the labyrinth chapter is cramped and confusing (this is the chapter most people reference when pointing out what the book is doing), another chapter is spacing things out, only a few words per page, so you get the rushing sense of action as you speed through the pages. That's nice and all, but I'm not convinced it's really needed. Like if this was an actual film, you would get that naturally that translating it to text doesn't quite capture. Frankly, aside from the labyrinth chapter, this could easily be any normal book, or even an audiobook, but with that chapter...

And then there is the deep reading of the text. The meaning of the various layers, why is the word house in blue, what happened that no-one apart from Zampanò is aware of the documentary, that this book itself appears in the text as a book, but... the problem is this entire book is predicated on the concept of an unreliable narrator. Every level is suffused with "are they telling the truth, or just writing down anything," with Level 2 explicitly calling out some of the times he is doing that. So... I noticed a few weird typos and such, but I can't trust "is this a key to unravelling the whole thing?" or is it just "whoops, didn't mean that?" Let alone "I wrote this because it was just what occured to me at the time" (at Level 3). I'm definitely doing to watch some video essays that deconstruct this book, but I can't trust they understand it either.

So definitely a book I read. Or, at least, turned the pages while seeing words with my eyes.

[END]

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Karven

It's the end of the SPUMC, or whatever acronym that is up to.

It's Kraven, and he's hunting people! Unless he has to get someone else to hunt people! But we start with him killing people, and just as well we are on board with the "hero"es of movies killing people, because he will do that a lot. In a flashback origin we get extreme coincidence giving him powers, but that is extremely comics, so I'm actually okay with that. Then his brother is kidnapped, so Kraven hunts down a bunch of people that other people have hunted for him, and then there is a fight between a tough guy and another tough guy, woo!

For all that, it's fine. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is fine. But... that's just it. This movie is fine, nothing more. On the scale of Sony movies, it's... fine, which still puts it above other movies, but it's all only just fine.

BTW, what's the deal with the Foreigner? No idea who is was during the movie, and the Marvel version has nothing to do with this (and certainly has no powers). Just this random guy.

So... Fine?

[END]

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Sanic 3

According to how the titles present themselves on screen, this is Sonic 3 The Hedgehog.

Another piece of Sonic lore character turns up, and now the movie begins! The story is largely straight forward, they need to get the MacGuffin, and then have a big fight, and they expand that final fight into a third of the movie. Because this movie feels like different scenes they had together, with feature either Eggnik and/or the Voice Cast, and then they scatter in other characters into the different scenes like random events. This one involves Tom and Maddie! This one involves Kristen Ritter! This one has both! And we can even squeeze in Rachel and Randall from... I vaguely remember them from being in the other half of the second movie, and Wade... who is a character I guess?

Jim Carrey isn't terrible, clearly he is having fun by himselves, but a lot of scenes involve him doing things twice and/or interacting with... I don't know how they did the digital characters, either a ball on a stick or a large plush or something? Certainly they don't physically interact, because that is not good (there is a moment where James Marsden is supposed to touch Sonic's chest, but there is no evidence at all of any contact happening).

Which isn't say this is bad. Just that they wanted to tell a story and decided on the Sonic story first and then inserted other things as actors were available. The voice cast is doing their thing, Ben is the only one who seems to be emoting (over emoting!) and Idris and Keanu are just one note for their performances (seem to be enjoying the one note, but one note nonetheless). And Tails is there...

But yeah, decent enough, but nothing amazing. Next time, pink Sonic lady!

[END]

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Sûîto hômu

Someone else was interested in this Japanese horror movie, so I had to watch it.

There's a mansion in the woods that is said to contain a lost fresco, so a documentary team go in to find out. However, the reason the fresco was lost was because the artist's wife and child died there under terrible circumstances, and wouldn't you know it, the wife ends up haunting the place.

This is from 1989, so before the current spate of horror movies. This is very 80s in some of the effects, and tries to do more with some character beats than what we get nowadays (which is no character beats). There were odd beats to the plot where the movie should have ended after an hour... and then another 20 minutes later... but it found (not entirely believably) ways to extend it out to keep the characters in trouble.

While the ultimate creepy horror creature effect was... ambitious if not brilliant, I will give big props to the death scene of Mr Yamamura, which is full on impressive, comparable to the end of Raiders.

Decent enough movie.

Oh, this is related to a Famicom game. Huh.

[END]

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Alls Terrifier Eves

Anthology time, with clowns!

In the first one, we have Art... and it's a compilation of the Ninth Circle short, the Terrifier short, and another one (which has acting and aliens so bad that even if it was a parody, it would be a bad one). There is a framing device of a babysister and two kids watching a tape, and we watch them watch it, with the VHS on a small screen, and close ups of their faces, and just sometimes there is the actual shorts to watch.

Techinally this is the first full film with Art, but as it is just the previous shorts (his face is badly put into the other short to link it in), it doesn't really count. But hey, they were trying to make him a thing.

In the second movie, we get another three shorts, but this isn't Art, it's Pumpkin-Face! The first short has a mother thinking it is a good idea to cut into her son. The second short shows that trick or treaters are little shits. The third I'm sure I've seen elsewhere... frankly this is all just highly unconnected shorts stuck together. Like a lot of anthology movies are, but this is worse than most. Not even the Pumpkin-Face killer is constant, he's just in the framing device! I'm guessing the company just had some shorts to compile.

Clearly Pumpkin-Face didn't take off like Art did.

Frankly, the Art ones are the best of the lot, but that isn't saying much.

You know, the most amazing thing about this movie is not that people find VHS tapes, but that they still have VHS players!

[END]

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Terrifiered

It seems the budget went up again for this one.

This movie cares a lot more about continuity than some horror franchises! Aside from Art, Victoria (a victim from the first movie, and just as much associated with these movies as Art is) is more in this, and is just as paranormal as Art is now. That could be interesting as to how that happens, but that's not this movie. Although Art imparting paranormality to his victims would explain how they survive so long after he disfigures them. [And apparently Art is called Clowny now.]

Sienna and brother is also back, dealing with surviving the previous movie. And her plot goes on for a while before finally intersecting with Art's. Showing trauma is one thing, but this movie doesn't respect that when they cut to show what Art is getting up to. Although the join is weird, like there's a scene missing, making you wonder if it is a dream. Although everyone gets supernatural now!

This marks the move of a Halloween killer to a Christmas killer. Although that it is just costuming, it shows that there really isn't that much in it.

This is definitely the low budget horror series that is both under the radar and punching above its weight. We'll see you for Terrifier 4...

[END]

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Terrifiering?

This is series of movies that kinda snuck up and produced a "highly acclaimed" third movie... only it's been more than three movies.

The key figure is one Art the Clown, who mimes things, and stalks people, and just cannot be stopped (although doesn't become full paranormal until the end of the "first" movie... although becoming paranormal does take a lot of fearsomeness from him. It's not a person doing this, it's just a random creature).

But we start with The 9th Circle, in which Art scares a young woman at a train station, and drugs her... and then she takes part in a completely different movie about people with facial prosthetics and cult worship and whatever.

We then have the actual short Terrifier, in which Art murders someone (we are surprised), a woman sees this, so he goes after her. As it is short, it doesn't waste a lot of time, and reflects what the longer movies will be.

After a side appearance in another series (another post later), we get the full movie Terrifier, in which Art stalks young ladies and gruesomely plays with and then kills them.

Next is Terrifier 2, where we get the "heroine" of Sienna, who, as an essential part of the story, dresses up as a fetish angel. Art is rather casually wandering around, being cruel, and not at all a Freddy knockoff (there's a dream sequence). And much like Freddy, there is more complicated stuff happening than just Art being creepy... but mostly it's Art being creepy.

One noted feature of this series is the use of effects for the gruesome stuff... fine, call me jaded, but I wasn't that impressed. The movies are late 2010s, but the effects feel like stuff I've seen from the 80s (Evil Dead lives on). T2 is better, clearly it got a large money upgrade. 

But will the third movie finally get to me?

[END]

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Jiggy Sawm'n

A spy thriller from '83 with Michael Caine? Sure!

Kimberley dies in Russia, but comes back as Kuzminsky. He has a [MacGuffin] document hiding in Britian, and is sent back there with Russian handlers to get it... but he escapes them, and tries to trade secrets with British Intelligence. But there are moles there and coincidentally one of them is sleeping with his daugher and...

I have to admit, I couldn't quite keep everything clear. I think the bad guys got done over, but I'm not 100% positive. Yes, I watch at high speed, so some of this is on me, but we also swap around a lot of subplots, and don't follow key players for a while, so although we do get some elements of "innocent people get caught up in troubles that have nothing to do with them," there is also elements of "stuff is going on, good luck keeping track".

Parts of this felt very Bond, and once I looked up what else director Terrance Young had done, that explained a lot. We get various performances from Micheal Caine, which is good, and also I see Charles Gray and Robert Powell in there, and I failed to recognise Laurence Olivier.

Decent spy movie, although I could have had it spelt out a little more simply to me.

[END]

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Canclove

Do I really want to watch a movie about the political maneouvering of old men?

The old pope dies, and Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with setting up the Conclave to come up with who will be the new pope. As expected, there is a lot of political goings-on as various cardinals jockey for position. Sins are uncovered, cardinals are pushed aside, and... in many ways, this could be any political movie of new leader rising. (I would have been amused for a Death of Stalin approach to this.)

But I will give the ending, I did not see coming. At first, I thought "oh, that was a bit easy, for them to get out and say that everything is fine" but then there is that further moment and "okay, let's see them roll with that!" I doubt the real church would ever go with that, but this is fiction after all.

Great performances all around from Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and others. The sets are decent, and even the bed chambers look a lot nicer than what most of us will have.

But is there god? There is if you think there is, I supposed, but I didn't spot one (just the hand of the writers).

Very watchable.

[END]

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88 Pulse

From back in the day... I went to see this with my dad! It was some treat or another, I think.

David is a kid of divorced parents (and his dad's remarried), and has come out to visit his dad. The neighbour had some weird things happen in his house, but surely that's unrelated. Unrelated, the electricity in his house is now sparking, rewiring tvs, and behaving kinda intelligent. The new wife is taken out, the dad tries to deal with it, then it's down to David and his dad to just survive.

This does have some neat effects, especially when the insides of the tv is rewiring itself. Solder gets heated up, flows, and rejoins circuits. Could that ever happen? Who cares! It looks cool. (My dad was an electrician, so I can only assume he treated this very incredulously.)

This movie is a stance against electrifying and connecting (with electricity) everything in the home. The heater, the gas pipes, the window bars, all controlled by electricity, and all prone to "accidents". I can only assume there's a version of this that is this exact movie with just AI controlling everything.

This has a wee Joey Lawrence as David, and playing the hard put upon father is.. Cliff De Young, who is playing every character Cliff De Young always plays. Roxanne Hart is the wife, and I'm sure I've see her in lots of things. Charles Tyner has a great turn as the Crazy Old Man Who Knows. And Joey's brother Matthew plays the kid that no-one else wants to play with.

This ain't a deep movie, but clearly I have an emotional connection with it. And the end credits ask you to ponder how the streets of the city are like the traces of the circuits board... I mean, they aren't really, but it almost makes you think.

[END]

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