bwkolbuck Reviews

Split (IX) (2016)

M. Night Shyamalan-ANTON Volume 2

[8/10 · 15 November 2019]

Sorry Volume 1 wasn't called Volume 1 in the last installment, I'll try to stay consistent from now on. The films I am 100% sure I'm reviewing in this series are: Signs, The Sixth Sense, The Happening and Glass. But enough about that let's get right into the meat of it!

First off, I gotta give mad props to James Mcavoy in this movie. He really puts himself out there and honestly should have gotten an Oscar or at least nominated for his performance. The plot was intriguing and interesting. The lead girl was good and convincing as well as the old lady in it. The Horde (James Mcavoy) was genuinely threatening and unpredictable and you understood their motivations. Hedwig was funny and Mrs. Patricia and Dennis have their moments. The Beast was scary than I expected. Shyamalan really puts faith in the audience for this one and you can tell. I like how the main character's backstory gets slowly revealed to you, because she feels so calm when she's kidnapped and you learn why.

This however is not a perfect movie. (Unlike Unbreakable.) The first 10-15 minutes are really bad and everyone brought their C game. The acting from the bimbos that are kidnapped with the lead girl is consistently bad.

I won't spoil (even though everyone knows now) but the twist is AMAZING. 8/10 for me. Best movie of 2016 just barely topping La La Land. I guess I just really enjoy insane people in movie, because I gave Joker a 9/10. Weird.....

The Mandalorian: Chapter 1: The Mandalorian (2019) Season 1, Episode 1

The Mandalorian review- Chapter One of Nine

[7/10 · 15 November 2019]

This will be short because this is a 39 minute episode.

I enjoyed this episode. It felt like a fan made episode but in a good way. You can tell that Jon Favreau is a fan of the franchise and wants to make a good, fun, entertaining Star Wars show. The production design, costume design, CGI and practical effects are all very good and is what I've come to expect from Star Wars. I can't say The Mandalorian is a good or bad character yet because it's too early to tell but as of now I enjoyed him when he was on screen, as well as the side characters. The firefight at the end of the episode was awesome and I loved it.

The only problems I have with it are the fight seen at the beginning was to fast and the cinematography was not great. I still can't tell what happened in that scene. As of now The Mandalorian doesn't have any weaknesses but that will hopefully change. This next part kind of gets into spoiler territory so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I liked IG-88 in it because I've always been a fan of IG-88. I prefer him silent but I'm fine with Taika Waititi voicing him. It's annoying how IG-88 was a focal selling point and then he just died. That was disappointing.

I'm not sure if your not that into Star Wars you wouldn't like the show NEARLY as much. more reviews soon!

Unbreakable (2000)

Surprisingly underrated

[10/10 · 9 November 2019]

Welcome to the first installment of M. Night Shyamalanathon where I talk about M. Night Shyamalan movies because he is arguably the most inconsistent director working today. He's made great movies like this one, The Sixth Sense and Signs and he's also made terrible ones like, The Last Airbender and The Happening. But enough about M. Night let's talk about Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson.

I'm gonna start off with the bad things this time because I want to end it off on a high note. The only problems I have with this movie is that there is this one part of the score that the filmmakers used during this intense scene (which I won't spoil) and the music is really bad and didn't fit the scene at all, but it wasn't enough to ruin the scene. Another problem I had that took me out of the film is at the beginning Sam Jackson's suit really distracting but after a while I accepted it, especially considering that Shyamalan created this heightened world within Unbreakable.

The cinematography is very impressive and has a personality to it and in itself is kind of a character. The score (besides the one previously mentioned) fits the movie very well. The editing is really good. The writing, directing and overall story is brilliant and subtle. Samuel L Jackson's character's (Elijah) phycology and theory is very interesting. Bruce Willis' character (David) has no phycology really, (and if he does it doesn't really matter to the plot) and he sort of develops one by the end of the movie. All of the actors bring their A game and deliver a convincing performance.

There isn't much to say it's just a very good movie. I can't really talk about much else without spoiling anything. Obviously it being a M. Night Shyamalan movie it has a good twist that I was not expecting. 10/10 VERY good movie.

Halloween (1978)

Nice slasher movie

[7/10 · 3 November 2019]

Halloween (1978) was good. I that much out of it as I had hoped,the reputation of the film being really out there and had a good story. I thought it was a fun Halloween slasher movie and I do think that you should watch this movie before something like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street and definitely watch it before Scream. With all the backstory behind it like how the budget was $300,000 and the actor bought their own clothes, I was expecting something above-average, and I guess that's what I got it was a tad bit disappointing though so let's get into that.

First the good things. The character Dynamics I really enjoyed. I like how Jamie Lee Curtis's friends do drugs and she doesn't smoke like how they do. I like Donald Pleasence as the doctor who took care of Michael Myers for 15 years. I like the concept of Michael Myers, he's kind of like Darth Vader except not as super-powered. I like the cinematography and the music used in this film. I also enjoyed how the filmmakers knew when to use the music and what not to like in the Dark Knight. The opening credits are cool with the pumpkins slowly revealing itself using them. I think the cheapness of the phone actually kind of helps it in terms of anesthetic makes it look more gritty the scary than it would with a big-budget 100 million dollar movie. Interior of a movie you watched during Halloween really fun and it's really good you can watch it with friends or if your mom and dad is really cool they watch that kind of stuff with you.

Now for some of the problems I had with it. That last line was a good segue into this one. As a Halloween movie I enjoyed it, but as an actual film it didn't really have an effect on me or surprise me and anyway. Some of the acting from the kids and Jamie Lee Curtis' friends is really bad. Michael Myers wasn't as scary as I had hoped. And I guess people just built this movie up too much and the point where it got disappointing when I watched it.

The reason I gave it a 7/10 was because of prison been some of the tropes of horror movies maybe you should all of them and it was really entertaining. Good definitely outweighs the bad. No Masterpiece Though.

Gemini Man (2019)

Why did I see this movie?

[5/10 · 25 October 2019]

So apparently the director of this movie, Ang Li, is known for his technological achievements in film. He directed Life of Pie. I'll get into the "technological achievements" in a second but I want to address the story behind this film. So in 1995 This movie was supposed to star Nicolas Cage and it had a different director. People kept coming in and dropping out of the project. They rotated through actors, producers, writers, directors you name it!

I will continue this conversation when we get into the bad things. But their are good things in this movie, it's just that the badness shines through. First of all the movie looks nice in terms of color and contrast. When Junior (young Will Smith) is in the shadows and darkness he actually looks like Will Smith from the 90's. Will Smith also does a convincing performance as Junior, he sounds like how he did. The shootouts and action scenes have good choreography and sound mixing. The Cinematography ranges from pretty good to ok. And all the lead characters have a dynamic... it's a weak one, but it's there.

Now the bad stuff: The script is D class, Rampage, Skyscraper, Venom levels bad. ESPECIALLY the dialogue. Characters just tell us things that we don't see, we just believe it because Will Smith said so, or they tell us something really cool that happened off screen. Kinda like the (dare I say it) STAR WARS prequels, when Obi Wan and Anakin have no chemistry so Lucas just maid them tell us that they're friends. Like when they're in the elevator, and they're like: Remember the time when you saved me, remember the time we did that thing, BLaH bLah BlAh bLaH bLAh BlaH. That happens a lot in this movie. If you were a talented writer you would let us figure it out. There are also lots of plot holes, wooden acting when Will Smith is Henry (old Will Smith) and from the lady and Wong from Doctor Strange when he doesn't say anything funny. Also when CGI Will Smith is out in the daytime you can see the imperfections on his face. Especially when his lip moves in the daytime, it looks really bad.

SPOILERS I guess it isn't that but still. Henry (old Will Smith) says he's deathly allergic to bee venom and he mentions it like 4 times, and it's so obvious that the bee venom will come in later and when Henry is injected with bee venom his friends cure him of it instantly. Henry gives a long monologue to Junior about how he feels, like, you don't know how he feels, you know his physical traits not his mental state. Wong didn't have to die and the last scene of the movie is trash.

Gemini Man had some cool, some terrible writing and in the end the good and bad break even which means you've got yourself a 5/10. It did nothing to raise or lower my view of the movie. I also never believed Will Smith as "Henry" I just saw Will Smith showing up for a paycheck. Look forward to my review for: The Untouchables. Shortly after there will be some Spooky Reviews coming soon, including but not limited to: Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween (1978) Scream 1, 2 and 3 and The Shining. Possibly even reviews of Friday the 13th parts 1-4 if I have the time.

Joker (I) (2019)

Get outta here Ad Astra!

[9/10 · 18 October 2019]

I was excited about seeing this movie. And this movie exceeded my expectations. I did have my concerns. One of them being the very existence of the film. If you told me 5 years ago that joker would get his own solo movie without batman in it I wouldn't believe you. Another concern was that the reason Joker the best superhero villains, comic book villains, and just one of the best villains ever is you DON'T know his backstory or why he's crazy, so making an origin story about may imply that the studio doesn't understand the point of the character. And don't tell me that Jack Nicholson was a good Joker and he had a backstory. Because yes he was a good Joker but Tim Burton just made stuff up for the movie, it worked for 1989 but half the stuff in that movie isn't from the comics. And I'm not saying it's a bad movie because of that. Anyway that discussion is for another time. My final concern before seeing the film was, that all the other supervillain esc movies that came out before Joker were all bad and made the villains into heroes and save the world from blowing up, and it's a dumb blockbuster. For example: Venom and Suicide Squad. In Suicide Squad they end up saving the day and becoming the F list Avengers. Same thing with Venom except it's only one guy.

While Joker makes you feel sympathy for the character and explain why he's insane you're not pro Joker by the end of it, you don't support him when he kills someone. This film does not portray him as hero, which I respect. This film is also exceptional at the bare essentials for a film. It has good writing, editing, direction, acting, tone, makeup, costume design, cinematography, plot and it had something to say. Joaquin Phoenix is the heart and soul of this movie and without him this film wouldn't have been nearly as good. I can't imagine someone else playing Joker in Phoenix's position. Another thing I should mention is this movie was so good it made me lookup interviews. The only other film I can think of where I looked up interviews recently was Thor: Ragnarok and I guess Stranger Things 3. I'm trying not to spoil all that much, but I can't not talk about the spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet then don't scroll down.

SPOILERS The twist that Arthur Fleck's (Joker's) mom said that Thomas Wayne was his son but it was later revealed that she was dilosinal was interesting. It was a little unnecessary but I thought it was clever. There is also political commentary on the lower class and higher classes of society and how they play into mental health. How they feel or don't feel about mental health. And near the end of the film you see Bruce Wayne and his parents run out the theater and one of Joker's followers has a gun and follows them to an alleyway.... I think you know the rest of the story. Now I want to talk about the steps by Arthur's apartment. Every time we see Arthur walk up those steps something bad happened before hand. We always see him walk up the steps carrying something using a fair amount of force. And at the end when he becomes The Joker, he is armed with this new confidence that he is never seen having before the film. And this time he's walking down the steps smiling and dancing, (the scene from the trailer) he found happiness. Throughout the film you see Arthur struggle constantly, so when you see him walking down the steps without a care in the world, in a strange way, you feel good for him. Another thing that happens around the second act of the film is Arthur gets invited to go on The Murray Franklin Show. Arthur has watched Murray for years and looks up to him because Arthur wants to be a comedian. And obviously Arthur is not mentally stable. So when he goes to this stand up show and watches other people do stand up, he's laughing at the wrong parts and has a weird sense of humor. (Nice touch guys.) Off screen Arthur gets invited to do stand up there and he didn't do good at all. In fact, he was so bad Murray Franklin made fun of him on the show. So when Arthur gets invited to go on Murray's show he practices how he's gonna come on and he also practices killing himself on the show. When he enters onstage however he doesn't enter how he practiced. When he was practicing he assumes the audience would like to hear a joke the joke being him killing himself. When the audience actually wants him to tell a joke he doesn't kill himself, instead he gives a monologue about previous events and kills Murray (Robert De Niro.) And in the end his followers are surrounding him and he feels loved and happy after all this time and you don't know what to think. I like Joaquin's subtleties in terms of his mental condition. Like he moves his leg aggressively and fast. He also has a condition were he has uncontrollable laughter and when he is laughing he adds this cough to it as if he's in pain. Back to the whole stairs idea, Arthur also has these very slow, disturbing dance scenes and when he has that confidence, as I mentioned before, he's going all over the place and doing crazy dance moves. And the best part about all this symbolism is you can take whatever you want out of it. Personally I think this is how far someone will go just to be loved. It's a comment on; politics, political corruption, mental health, depression, crime, neglection, and stuff like Chicago in the 1930s-50s, New York and Detroit now.

Overall, Joker is a clever and well-made character study and you should definitely check it out if you can. Look forward to my reviews of Gemini Man and the first 3 Scream movies!

Bee Movie (2007)

I hope the producers are BEEroke

[2/10 · 18 October 2019]

This movie is weird. I watched with my friends and two of them fell asleep. I went into this movie thinking it would be a ironically funny guilty pleasure and it wasn't that. So apparently there is a bunch of history behind Bee Movie. It all started in 2000 something; after Jerry Seinfeld's hit show Seinfeld had ended Jerry didn't really have anything going on career wise. One night Jerry got invited to dinner with Steven Spielberg. After a while things got boring at the dinner so, to brighten things up a bit, Jerry said: What if we made a movie about bees and we called it Bee Movie. And as the legend goes Spielberg thought it was so funny he called up the other coe founders of DreamWorks to get permission to make the movie. Once Steven got permission Jerry signed on to be in the project. While making it Jerry got so stressed out, it ended with him having excessive control over the making of Bee Movie. He starred in it, he helped storyboard it, write ii and even learned how to animate, sometimes he would even take over a directorial position. And there's just so much more history and lore behind the making of Bee Movie. (in fact, it's more interesting than the actual film.) Just a few examples would be: Jerry Seinfeld dressing up like a bee and ziplining down to the premiere, there was a Bee Movie music video and, most infamously, while making the film Jerry and the crew (mostly animators) would fim short skits of them making the movie. This was to be both funny and advertise the film. Some people say that the skits aired so much on TV it got annoying. So essentially this whole movie was made off of a pun.

Now for the actual review: Let's start off with some good things. For 2007 standards the animation is pretty good. There are some jokes and gags that were genuinely funny... And that's all I can think of.

Now for the bad things! So originally the joke was; it's a movie about bees, it'll be called Bee Movie like B(ad) Movie, and since it's a "B movie" the story is just going to be crazy and make no sense. That's what I wanted, but I just got a generic animated kids movie. With all the history behind it I thought it would build up to the hype. Of course naturally since Seinfeld had too much control over the project the directing isn't good. The dialogue and script is terrible. It felt like a checklist the hero doesn't fit in and wants to go against societal norms CHECK the hero goes on an adventure to somewhere he/she hasn't been etc. CHECK the hero falls in love with some bimbo CHECK evil villian who is the opposite to the hero CHECK and so on. And sometimes it can get really boring. I was lucky I watched this movie with friends or I would have turned it off or fell asleep.

In the end what it boils down to is it was disappointing. In one of the original cuts Barry B Benson (the main character played by Jerry Seinfeld) somehow ends up going to space. I wanted to see stuff like that.

La La Land (2016)

Nice!

[8/10 · 16 October 2019]

La La Land is really really good and I wish I saw it sooner. I think I might go on YouTube and rewatch some of the songs. (And a never do that.) I honestly don't know what to say, it's just a good movie.

This film succeeds on avery technicol level. The cinematography, set design, makeup, costume design, editing, and CGI is all great. The CGI isn't there that much but when it is it's pretty good in terms of the film it's set in. This segways into my next positive thing: The fakeness. I know what your thinking but the fakeness is a good thing in this movie. This movie is a commentary and tribute to Jazz and Hollywood. The two leads both have big dreams one wants to be an actor the other wants to own a jazz club. They both retreat from their normal lives with these artforms (plus they both live in LA) this also applies when they are dating each other. Also when I say 'the fakeness" I mean the; CGI, random spotlights, random dancing and montages. It has a sense of Hollywood in its golden age, which I can't really explain. This is called good directing. When you watch it it feels like your watching a beautifully filmed play because of this. The writing is also very good, you get the sense that these people have been together for a while and really know each other.

I got more out of this movie than I thought I would and I enjoyed it very much. This is the best film of 2016 and I highly recommend it. Stay tuned for more reviews coming soon, including but not limited to; Joker, Bee Movie and The Scream Trilogy.

The Lion King (2019)

This Movie Terrible

[2/10 · 11 October 2019]

I really have nothing to say about this movie, which is the ultimate sin. I would rather your movie be laughably bad or really good then it just be forgetful and boring.

Let's start with some good things:................

Now some bad things: The only good things (including James Earl Jones' performance) about the movie are the things from the original Lion King. And even the stuff that gets ripped from the original isn't even as good. In the first one the animation is very expressive and has a lot of emotion especially when it's a dance number or something like that. but even when in the first Lion King when characters are just talking the animation allows the lions to be very expressive. The magic of animation (especially Disney movies) is you can take a picture of a character and you know exactly what they are thinking, if they are happy, sad, angry. And then I heard Disney made the film thirty minutes longer than the original and it was pointless and made the movie more boring. You know lions are one of the least expressive animals on the planet, so when you make The Lion King photo realistic it takes away from the emotion and life from the first one. There's a lot of shot for shots. I guess the actors (with the exception Beyonce) do a good job with what there given but you'll never make a Lion King movie better than the original, that's top tire Disney.

I honestly don't remember anything from this movie. especially that extra half hour it's like it wasn't even their. This movie had no reason to be made, besides the obvious ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$). A little story; My mom and I went to the theater to try and see two movies at the theater in one day, so we just watched Toy Story 4 which was very good, and we had about an hour break and tried to find a restaurant to eat at and of the two we wanted to go to they were both closed. So we found one that was ok. And when we got back to the theater I was like: now I can relax wind down and watch a fun, entertaining, good movie and what I got was a stupid, dumb, corporate mess. In short started off on a high note and ended on a stupid note. As of me typing this review now I gave it a 4/10 but this could easily go down to a 3/10 somehow managing to be worse than Godzilla King of the Monsters. By the way I'm marked as *No Spoilers* because there's nothing to spoil since it's just the same movie.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Chicago Patriotism

[7/10 · 11 October 2019]

Their on a mission from God. That's all you have to know. This is one of the funniest films I have seen. First of all a little background I'm from Chicago and I love the way the Blues Brothers talk, what they say, etc. so I connected with the film on a comedic subconscious level.

There really isn't much to say it's just a great movie. Dan Aykroyd and John belushi have great chemistry and deliver great performances. They also have some really good dance moves and are pretty good at singing the blues. I like all the gags that happen throughout the movie, such as; Carrie Fisher constantly trying to kill the Blues Brothers, Elwood always saying that they're on a mission from God, and that the Blues Brothers keep making enemies (the Nazis, police, Carrie Fisher and the good ole boys) and that gag pays off with one of the best car chases I've ever seen (which I'll get to later). Honestly I could make a whole review about the third act in Blues Brothers. There's also just little things like; whenever the Blues Brothers get attacked afterwards they just walk it off and brush their suits off. I like how they stick out like a sore thumb with their suits they're constantly wearing. The songs they sing are good and they put their own spin on it. This movie also doesn't spit out exposition. Like Dan doesn't say to John: Remember the band and how we played music and stuff BLAH BLAH BLAH. That never happens which I'm thankful for. They never say they were raised in an orphanage you, the audience, figure it out yourselves. This is called show don't tell.

This segment I'll call THE FINAL ACT/ CHASE SCENE OF BLUES BROTHERS IS FRICKING AWESOME So as I mentioned earlier throughout the entire movie the Blues Brothers keep making enemies. So at near the end of the film all their enemies find them at the same time; the cops, good ole boys, Carrie Fisher and the Nazis are there and the brothers realize this and this all ends in an epic chase scene. So the brothers hop into the bluesmobile and there's like ten cop cars behind them as well as the good ole boys and the Nazis. The Blues Brothers are at top speed and the police cars are crashing and can't keep up so they get reinforcements, the good ole boys crash and eventually the Nazis catch up to the Blues Brothers. By the way i should mention that these are all practical effects apart from the Nazi car flying as high as a skyscraper and falling down and dying. When the Blues Bros get to the bank there's hundreds of police cars, there's armored police cars, fire trucks, fire fighters, police officers, security guards, there's a tank, helicopter, boats, the military show up, the military police show up, there's people with rifles, pistols, shotguns, and every first responder ever is there it's awesome, I love it. There are also many quotable lines in the last act and it ends with our heroes getting what they wanted but still ending up in jail. And isn't that Chicago in a nutshell?

I highly recommend this movie. As of now it's a 7 but it may go up to an 8 on a second viewing. Great movie and I could see myself watching it many time in the future.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

This Movie is Crazy

[7/10 · 8 October 2019]

This movie is insane. I don't know why I love this film so much. It's a comedy, drama, action, adventure, crime, western, romance and I love it! Honestly I would give this film a 10/10 but I try to keep my reviews fair.

So let's go over the good things first because there's a lot. All the performances are very convincing considering the tone and goof setting they are placed in. Almost every character has a comedic moment. No one ever underplays it to the point of boredom but no one overplays to the point where it's annoying. It's a convincing action movie and a convincing comedy. There are memorable jokes and funny lines. everyone has a funny line but, in terms of comedy Johnny Depp steals the show. The action is awesome. It's over the top and intense and I love it. In terms of action Antonio steals the show. (Or as I like to call him Mexican John Wick). There is crazy !@#%$ going on every 10 minutes or so. Johnny Depp has a fake arm and shoots people with his real arm, Johnny Depp likes the pork he's eating and shoots the cook that made it for no reason, there's flamethrower guitars, gun guitars. a guy gets shot by 3 double barrel shotguns at once and flies back, Johnny Depp looses his eyes and there's blood pouring out, There's a flipping war during the third act, Johnny Depp tells a 10 year old boy to F off and so much more, it was so epic. The setting, costume design etc. There isn't much to say other than the fact that the costume design and makeup (especially for Johnny Depp's eyes) is fantastic. The set design and scale of the city is great. The drama aspect is competent but nothing out of the ordinary.

Let's get into bad things now. While this film succeeds at the comedy and action aspects it doesn't excel as much with the drama aspect. The story (which is the drama part) that is holding this movie together isn't as good as it could have been. The plot is unnecessarily complicated. So many people die and come back to life. And Mickey Rourke has this whole subplot where he's american and he wants to leave Mexico and team up with the FBI agent. The cop girl is the daughter of Willem Dafoe for no reason. and another problem I have with this movie is that there are too many characters. This kind of falls into the drama aspect. If you want to make a good drama you have to develop the characters and their relationships for you to care about them and the story. Once Upon a Time in Mexico fails at this. For Example: Johnny Depp is dating this police officer lady (who is the daughter of Willem Dafoe) and we only see one scene of them talking and that's it. Or how the retired FBI agent says that the Willem Dafoe killed his partner, but we never see his partner so we don't care. It gets to the point where the writer doesn't know what to do with all these people so most of them just die at the end of the movie. Also since there are so many characters this results in a lot of one note stereotypes like; the guy who drinks a lot, the independent woman and evil villian #456.

Overall I really had a fun time watching this. I would highly recommend this film. I can't wait to see it in the future. It succeeds at mostly everything it's trying to do. It's funny, action packed and has great performances, cinematography, set design, direction, competent script and so on. As of now I give Once Upon a Time in Mexico a 7/10 but I could see it going up to an 8 or down to a 6. Really great movie.

Ad Astra (2019)

Best Film of the Year (as of now)

[8/10 · 7 October 2019]

I walked into this movie thinking it would be a standard Hollywood blockbuster action movie and I'm pleasantly surprised with what I got.

There are many good things in this film, first thing coming to mind being Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt says barley anything in this movie besides his mental narration which was very effective. Considering the role he is playing he has to do a lot of SHOW not TELL, which is a good thing. Considering all of this Brad delivers an excellent performance. Another thing this film does well is lighting and cinematography. Each shot has a purpose or conveys something. For example: whenever Pitt's character, Ray McBride, is describing his sadness or is feeling alone his reflection from the astronaut helmet fades away and all you see is a black void. The lighting is some of the most interesting lighting I've ever seen. There's a lot of natural lighting and different colors used for lighting. For instance: On Earth there's lots of greens and grays, on the moon it's very similar to earth which I'll get to in a minute, on mars there's lots of reds, oranges and yellows and on Neptune there's lot's of blues. And the actual color palette is beautiful. The palette really shines when Ray McBride is in space, which leads me into the next good thing. The CGI and VFX are outstanding, very beautiful and real looking. The chase scene on the moon was awesome, the CGI monkeys were awesome, McBride falling from space onto earth was awesome I loved the CGI. The social commentary for society is a nice touch. The moon is very similar looking to earth because it's commercialized and there's war and we are all fighting for resources. And SpaceCom hiding the fact that Tommy Lee Jones was a murderer was also social commentary. Of course there are also themes of; depression, fatherhood, responsibility, being in the moment, and storing anger inside and not letting go.

BUT. This movie falls short from being perfect. Some of the science doesn't make sense, like why was the spaceship Tommy Lee Jones was on send serges in the first place. I know it's just a framework for the actual plot but still. A few weird editing choices, nothing too bad. I thought whenever Ray McBride had a flashback it was kind of dumb. You could just trust the audience to fill in the blanks or have a character say it. When his ex-wife shows up at the café it's cheesy and would have been just as effective if she didn't show up. Finally, characters just show up... and then leave as soon as they give out exposition. For Reference: Donald Southerland (I think that's how you spell his name) show up to acompany Brad Pitt on the mission, then he tells him about his father and has a heart attack and we never see him again. Same thing with the captain of the ship Pitt is on for some of the movie and the lady he met on mars.

Overall though despite it's flaws Ad Astra was entertaining and subverted my expectations and I can see myself watching this again in the future. As of now this film is an 8/10 but it might bump up to a 9/10 in the future

Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019)

The Stupid and Funniest Movie of the Year

[6/10 · 29 September 2019]

I could ramble on about how this movie doesn't do justice to the internet show Between Two Ferns or it doesn't really have a structure and is just sort of a series of Zach Galifinakis interviewing people and other non-related things and it's also funny..................................................................................BUT That's all it was asked to do. Just because I gave it a 6/10 doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, I try to be fair with my ratings.

I think this movie could introduce new people to Zach Galifinakis and if you watch the show (like myself) you will really enjoy it. Sadly though, as much as I did enjoy this movie it was what I expected. It did everything it had to do, but other than that it's your standard road trip movie. It doesn't do anything new and if your not a fan of the show it wouldn't be as funny and the plot wouldn't make as much sense.

SPOILERS It's dumb fun though. Will Ferrel gets out of a limo and rides a scooter while wearing a leather suit and sunglasses. It's amazing.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)

Pretty Good

[7/10 · 14 September 2019]

This movie was pretty good. I haven't seen any of Guillermo Del Toro's work, I heard he is really good at writing a good scary monster movie. I think this was a good film to introduce you to his work.

GOOD THINGS The CGI is pretty good no matter how ridiculous the monster is. For most of the movie the effects look real. It just starts looking a tad bit fake near the end of the movie Whenever the show the Jiggly Man too much. The acting is pretty solid for every character, the performances are at their weakest when they are doing something emotional, like crying. But whenever they have to be serious, funny, scream, or be horrified it's pretty good. The creative depictions of the monsters. This one speaks for itself..... just watch the trailer. The suspense is what kept me going. The way the suspense is shot, acted lit, choreographed, etc. is perfect, however, the suspense usually ends with a cheesy, bad, not scary jump-scare. But I'll get to that later. The 60s esthetic really adds an extra layer to the film. If it was set now in present day it wouldn't be as scary. The costuming, lighting and production design really create a good 1960s atmosphere.

BAD THINGS I mentioned this early: Jump Scares, they are just a lazy way of scaring people. I will admit, it did scare me 1 or 2 times, because of the suspense as mentioned early, but most of the time they don't work. I already said the emotional sappy acting isn't very good. This is probably my main complaint with the film. This movie builds off of the characters fears, but the problem is that these fears don't get developed enough for whenever a monster shows up to make sense. The scarecrow one and zit one and final one make sense but that's it. Often a character will say something like: "I'm scared I might be next" and then they're next. Or: "That story scared me as a kid" and then that story comes to life right after they say that.

NITPICKS When Stella's friends are telling Ramon that mother left her, it's stupid because her father talks about it 5-10 minuets later. I mentioned this earlier but in the third act sometimes the Jiggly Man looks fake. The monster in the red room scene is kinda funny to me.

Overall this movie is pretty good and definitely something to write home about.

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978 TV Movie)

Is It Possible to give this 0 stars

[1/10 · 31 August 2019]

This is not a movie. It is a series of scenes that have nothing to do with each other. There is no plot or 3 act structure, it's just thing happening slowly, even thought scene is only 5-10 minutes long each frame feels like 10 hours.

Let's start at the beginning. So Chewy has to get home for Life Day, but him and Han are in the middle of a chase. Chewy's family is worried about him. Then the Empire realizes that Chewbacca has a family on Kashyyk and they search his family's home. Chewbacca and Han show up and save the day and attend Life Day. But..........

The Movie is 2 Hours long! so there's and hour and 45 minutes of filler! And at 1 point they just play a cartoon for no reason! This is the worst movie I've ever seen! And I've seen Baby Geniuses! If I could I'd give this movie -900000000000000/10

Suicide Squad (2016)

DC at its worst

[2/10 · 31 August 2019]

From the acting to the script everything sucks. I couldn't tell you if the actin was good because the lighting was terrible. DC and WB somehow managed to ruin every character in this movie. This movie is so bad I can't even think of all my complaints 2/10