MonU!

It's the sequel that's the prequel that has older people playing their younger selves! But it's all just cartoons, so that's all right.

So this kid goes to university, doesn't fit in with the cool kids, so he joins the loser team and builds them up to something amazing! And they put cameras in the women's dorm and... wait, wait, that was a different movie... This is the cartoon... so then Bender got them to raid the fembots... no, wait, wait, wrong cartoon... So then Mike and Sully have to work together. That's the one! I was surprised by the would be big moment, which occurs earlier... but then they go on to have the real ending, showing that most of the middle of the movie is entirely secondary to what is actually going on... but then, what is actually going on is the character relationship between Mike and Sully, although the movie spends a lot of time not working on that.

Production-wise, this looks as good as the previous movie. They retain the old characters and build into them well. The voices still work, and I didn't realise it was Nathan Fillion until I looked at the voice cast list, but then, yep, it was he.

It's fun enough, although it is largely generic 'underdogs at university' schtick. Still... makes me want to watch Monsters Inc. again.

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Somm

It's another documentary, this one about wine, and the people who want to be masters of them. (I am surprised by the low rating on IMDB.)

This follows four people who are studying to become Master Sommeliers, a test that involves theory, tasting and service. And it's not simple. Most people don't pass it... so yeah, good odds on the ones we following doing well. There's a lot of talk about what it means to be able to know the details of wines, being able to describe the taste, knowing the region the particular grapes come from, getting all the minutiae right. I'm impressed, and bow in acknowledgement of that level of detail you need to know. We see the four of them struggle to master all this, and speak to actual masters and find out what they think of it all. While we don't get to see the actual test in action (shame, but understandable), it's still an interesting showing.

I can't say I know anything about wines myself (not being any kind of drinker), but I do find documentaries about masters of the craft interesting. And this isn't the first wine documentary I've seen. This is more about the people taking the test than the wine itself (maybe that's why it's a low rating? People aren't connecting?), so depending on what you are looking for in a wine documentary...

But as a documentary, it's decent. Aside from wanting to see the tests, no real criticism.

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The Clothe

This has all the hallmarks of independent film: amateur actors, CGI that is painfully bad, one or two areas that is clearly where the money went. And in some cases (such as here): the writer and director is acting... although in this case he's playing the villain!

The hero is some godless guy, and gets brought into some form of Christian order that fights demons. By using guns that shoots crosses and holy water and good feelings and stuff. Makes people explode either way, which doesn't seem to be a problem (certainly no sign of the police being involved anywhere). And so the hero must make a journey to being on the side of the good guys, and get the girl as a reward. By extreme violence on the bad guys.

One item on the trivia page caught my eye: "No other film has had transforming weapons and this is a trademark of the Cloth franchise." Um... no. Aside from there hardly being "the Cloth franchise", there are lots of movies that have guns that fold out into bigger guns, and other kinds of transformations, such as, to pick a movie out of nowhere... Men in Black. Which clearly was an inspiration for this movie, which could largely be described as the demon possession form of MiB. Complete with a scene where we are introduced to a bunch of weapons (rather Q style) and ending on the hero getting a small weapon that he complains about being too small.

There was money here, as can be seen in the demon make up effects, which are rather good. Oh, and in the presence of Eric Roberts and Danny Trejo. They aren't on screen much, so clearly weren't paid that much, but they are in this movie. The leads have some ability, but a lot of the minor players aren't quite as good. And, as mentioned, the CGI is very plasticky.

A fairly classic example of amateur film... however you want to take that...

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Whodidit?

There's a new tv series out there called Whodunnit? Unfortunately, it's not that one. This one is a reality tv series... hold on, hold on... in which people are at a mansion in which one of them is a killer and each episode one of them is killed off. The people get to investigate one of the crime scene, the last known whereabouts and the morgue(/body). And there's a bit where they try to solve a riddle/hunt for a clue.

But where it really shows up as a reality series is that they are all conniving about how much they talk to each other. Do they reveal the information they found out? Do they lie? Do they form coalitions? People are liked, people are annoying, and... it's all very 'reality tv' in the most despairing sense of the term.

As for the actual murder investigations themselves... having done various role playing game murder investigations in which the GM was a hard ass about the details, and these people trample all over everything. If it isn't written (metaphorically) in huge neon letters, they aren't seeing it. It's all overly contrived...

Which is another point. This is fake. Seriously fake. No-one is seriously taking it as serious (to be honest, the one having the most fun is the chap playing the butler). And yet... the people are acting like they really are under threat of being killed. Immersion is one thing, but are these people all just actors playing the parts of bad investigators? The first death was a total plant, and each person 'acts' in their own death (not well, but they try). It's all just so... badly done.

One like this that I saw that I thought was done better was Murder in Small Town X. More thinking and investigating done better, the people didn't snipe each other (...as much...). At the moment I will keep watching... but I'm so close to dropping this and walking away...

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Reign of Winter

[I'm not sure I'm remembering all the encounters, or in the right order. We had a lot of them!]

Venturing into the snowy forest, we soon found a chest. I, as is my duty, kicked it... unleashing the log which struck most of us. This was only the start to our troubles in the woods.

Further in, we were attacked by three little winter touched fairies, which had an annoying habit of disappearing once they shot at us. I chased them around, finally managing to attack one, while the others in my party took care of the second, and the third ran away. Small annoyances, but the cold iron blade worked well.

Then we got to a gully. We weren't able to climb the walls, so proceeded through... and a white lizard creature attacked Mage and started dragging him away, which gave us the chance to attack it and take it out. However, with us down on spells and Mage unconscious, we took him and the creature back to town to rest. The creature was unseen before by the townfolk, but at least we got healing.

The next day, we're back in the woods. Further in, we find a display of fetish dolls made out of crows. Nasty. Moving on, we encounter a talking stag! However, we sense evil in the area, and so we are forced to take the stag out... revealing the little creature that was guiding it. It didn't last long. Unfortunately, it did shrink my cold iron sword, so I only have my trusty axe... but that is all I have needed so far.

Onwards, we see a frozen river and a snowman on the path to it. Which contains magic. We move off the path to completely miss the lone figure made of snow. On the other side of the river, we find the body of old man Denmarsh [Can't remember his actual name]. Unfortunately.

And then we approach our current goal, the lodge with the rangers... but before then we are attacked by bandits. We put one down, but capture the others. They are not worried, and dare us to take them to the lodge... which is clearly in the hands of the bandits. One gets away, so we hide in the woods.

During the night, a boar enters camp. I fail to scare it away, and obviously the night is impeding me from dealing properly with the creature. It gets me, but I slice deeply into it, clearly killing it, although it still attacks, stupid creature... and it gores me, spilling my insides. I go down. It then tramples Mage. It takes out Feldgar. And knocks down Hogan... [Yes, due to bad rolling, we are basically TPK by a random encounter boar. Fortunately the GM doesn't want to end the adventure just yet.] We spend a few days coming back from that, but must face the lodge next...

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The Steely Man

The movie that isn't Superman, that's the one. While a little dark and gritty, not as much as Batman. My main first impression... LOUD! MUSIC IS LOUD!! SOUND EFFECTS IS LOUD!!! STOP BEING SO DAMN LOUD!!!! And there's a lot of Whiteout too.

What the story of the movie feels like is: back story, build up, back story, build up, back story, build up... SUDDENFIGHTEND! Investing this in the character might pay off more when we can view this in a block of other movies, but it feels really front loaded (much like the last time Nolan introduced a comic book hero). There are many nods to the comics, but most them feel like the script writers heard about them, and added the idea, rather than actually knowing what the reference is. And one thing I did notice... no-one ever says the city is Metropolis (or names it at all, most people will probably assume New York if they don't think the big M) [the name is on screen very briefly at the army HQ].

Henry Cavill is decent as the Man himself, although characterisation quickly falls flat when it just becomes all about the punching. Amy Adams as Lois Lane felt... unnecessary. Really, what did Lois Lane add to this? If we are all about re-imagining Superman (without going the Smallville series route), why not skip that entirely, or make Lois Lane into something other than 'reporter who finds Superman and then needs to get saved by the men'? Michael Shannon eats all the scenery, Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner probably cost most of the film's budget, and Antje Traue... sigh... so sexy when she's being all imperious and superior.

We could do worse than this movie, but I'll need to see the sequel for judging if this gets a pass or not.

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Jack, the other Slayer

This is one of the other 'let's retell children's stories' movies. First up, while it is two hours long, it does move along well, and doesn't unduly slow down speed up slow down speed up. There are quieter moments, but they are a good pause for breath between action scenes, then it gets back on with it.

Storywise, there's Jack. He's a farm boy schlub. Had to go sell his horse at market (get it! It's not a cow! It's something new! It's a horse!). For beans, yes, but this is a world in which giants are well known and magic isn't unheard of (which is definitely needed to explain how this huge land hovers in the sky without impacting on the world), although the beans and the giants are the only elements of magic, no spells or anything... where was I? There's Isabelle, a princess, who, while trying to be strong and independent, immediately gets trapped by various things, and needs to be saved more than once. (Fine, the story is 'Jack', but they clearly tried to make a strong female character, and at the end of the movie it would have been brilliant is she had it... but no, it had to be him). There's Elmont, who, as he is played by Ewan McGregor, is clearly more competent that the rest of the characters. There's Roderick, who is Evil. We're just lucky he doesn't stand around twirling his moustache, but there's no so dimensionality to his character, he's evil and that's that. And there's Fallon, the giant, who is being played by Bill Nighy repeating his Davy Jones voice (which is how I recognised him).

The action pace is good, and the supporting cast overshadow the two leads, but... yeah... it's a decent enough movie, but not spectacular. There's nothing that surprising in the plot (although I will credit the movie with a decent boss death), and the giants looks all right, although clearly CGI. And is that supposed to be a twist or something at the end? 'Cos it isn't.

It's there, it doesn't offend, but doesn't amaze either.

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