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PhillipJarodNelson
Reviews
Gran Turismo (2023)
Based On a True Story
The film says it's a true story, but more accurately it's based on one. The film is a cheesy mess of exaggerations, clichés, and corny representation. You know how every bomb diffusal gets down to literally the last second, and we know in advance that it will because it always does? Imagine that but racing instead of a bomb. Jann has to rush to play GT live or be eliminated and makes it as the race is starting (last second.) He's gaining on first but barely takes the lead as they're crossing the finish (last second.) Build a film out of Hollywood clichés and you have Gran Turismo.
All the character development and backstories feel poorly thought up, relying on standard tropes. Why are you wasting your time on ____? You'll never succeed in ____! Oh, you conveniently just got an unexpected opportunity at ____ just as you were being preached down to about having no hope at ____?
It also feels like it's too blatantly an add for Gran Turismo. It put too much emphasis on over-stating the realism of the game. Yes, it was impressive for a game console, but it's presented as the absolute pinnacle of racing simulation but it wasn't. It was impressive for a game console but more accurate sims were available on PC and later even on console, but the movie depicts GT as peerless, which is dishonest marketing.
It's a shame because I love motorsport and I love racing games. I have my share of time in Gran Turismo. It just feels like this is Hollywood fluff that doesn't respect the source material.
Resident Evil (2022)
Resident Evil in Name Only
They took the Resident Evil name and slapped it on something totally different. It's like slapping a Ferrari badge onto a generic minivan. They have an Umbrella corporation doing shady stuff behind the scenes, but that's as close as it gets to the source material. What used to be undead in the games are now still technically alive here. Wesker has been reimagined as a totally different character in just about every way except his gender. Outside of that it's girls going to school, traveling the post-apocalyptic countryside, family squabbles, and a general lack of the Resident Evil atmosphere and feeling of pervasive dread. There was some junk about clones and banter between clones that just felt weird, like it should have been a citcom of its own but shouldn't have been in here.
Big Kill (2019)
Mediocre
It's a western. That pretty much sums it up. The pacing is slow with little plot development along the way, slowly building a very basic, cliche story. Have someone imagine a stereotypical western, jot those notions down, and you've basically got this movie. It's not terrible, but it does absolutely nothing of interest. Drawn-out scenes that seem like they should be for character development or building the plot pretty much boil down to people staring seriously at each other. You've got a spaghetti western town inhabited by a few bad guys, a bunch of hanging out in a saloon, some prostitutes, a hanging, and a 1950s shootout in the street. If you've seen any western, you've already seen this.
Godzilla and Other Movie Monsters (1998)
Has Little to do With Godzilla
This documentary was absolutely terrible. Despite the fact that it's narrated by an adult male, it sounds like the narration was written by a fifth-grader as some sort of report for class. Some of the information presented is sort of accurate but not accurate enough, the lines of narration are painfully separated out with long gaps of nothing in between, and ridiculous amount of the film shows irrelevant video clips. Much of the narration strays away from Godzilla but even when speaking directly about Godzilla the imagery on the screen is often completely unrelated.
Had all the long pauses between lines of narration and all the irrelevant video been removed, the film would have been somewhat more watchable, but also would have been like ten minutes long instead of 88 minutes.
Masters of Horror: The Washingtonians (2007)
Avoid this garbage at all costs.
If I hadn't known better, I'd swear this was penned by a fifth-grader. The plot isn't just stupid, it's just plain absurd. The acting is atrocious, every moment is dull, and what seems to be intended as gore is just a bore. I think I'd have personally green-lighted my kid sister's elementary school script for "Scream 3: The Craft" (clearly a combination of the Scream films and The Craft) before giving the "go ahead" to this steamy turd.
I want my 58 minutes back.
And who in God's name has been giving decent ratings to this garbage? Were they high when they watched this or have they not actually seen it at all?
Code Monkeys (2007)
Nerdgasm
As a hardcore gamer geek, this show really speaks to me. I've been gaming for twenty-some years and counting, and this wonderful show is riddled with game-related jokes from start to finish. I don't expect non-gamers to appreciate it too well, but anybody that's spend a decade or two with a game controller in hand should find the show entertaining enough.
It has the silly absurdity of South Park, not to mention the vulgarity, but the cast of characters are adults working at a fictitious game development studio. The art direction is interesting because it's obviously intended to appear like a classic 8-bit video game, on a system like the NES, complete with overly-pixilated character sprites. Each episode is intended to appear as if playing some sort of weird video game, with each show beginning with a start screen and ending with a "game over" screen, and typical in-game stuff like a score or health meter appears at the top of the screen, though sometimes swapped out with other gaming oddities like items collected. The show pauses for commercial breaks.
I wouldn't recommend this show to non-gamers, but to the hundreds of millions of gamers out there, this show comes highly recommended.