Java_Joe Reviews

Music (I) (2021)

The equivalent of autism blackface.

[1/10 · 5 December 2023]

I found this movie to be offensive. The title character is a girl who goes by the name "Music" who loves music because she's autistic. She acts like she's literally mentally disabled in every sense of the word. She's got weird facial expressions and hand gestures all the time. And sure some people with severe autism who are non-verbal might be like this but they tend to be the exceptions to the rule.

Then there's the advice they give. In one part the therapist, a guy that supposedly deals with autistic youth, puts her on the floor and then lies on top of her. He's "crushing her with his love" which is not a thing. Yes some autistic people enjoy this feeling, but it's only because they don't like being touched and need something like a hug every once in a while. It's literally the reason why some person with autism created a literal "hug box". A mechanical device with a mattress in it that would give him a squeeze when he needed it.

Seriously the worst part of this is that seemingly nobody who knew the first thing about autism or people on that spectrum were.

Avoid at all costs. And avoid even more if you have, or are close to, somebody with some form of autism.

Winnie-the-Pooh (2023)

This is horrible.

[1/10 · 13 November 2023]

There's literally nothing to like about this movie. There is nothing positive to say about it. We have ugly CGI characters that clip through themselves or just seem to float around, we have a guy trying to do a Winnie the Pooh voice from Disney, we have no real lip sync and it's just UGLY.

There are simply no positives to give to this movie. The voice acting is bad. The character designs are bad. Nothing feels like it has any weight. And the worst part is... it's credited to AA Milne, the guy that wrote the original story. Why? Well they just took the novel, copied the dialogue and there you go. You have a movie.

The Disney version might not be art but it's at least good to look at and has heart. This? This is a naked attempt at a cash grab.

The only good part is since Tigger isn't in the public domain they couldn't use him. Avoid this at all costs.

The Red Ape Family (2021– )

An exercise in futility.

[1/10 · 5 September 2023]

Bitcoin was Tulip Mania for the 21st century. But this opened up markets like you wouldn't believe and one of these things that were created in the aftermath were NFTs or "Non-Fungible Tokens". Basically little images that don't exist in real life but only on your computer. And due to how things work they can go up in value when other people express interest in your NFT of an ugly monkey. That's were Red Ape Family comes in. The first NFT cartoon. Everybody who owned an NFT of one of these ugly apes from the Bored Ape Yacht Club had a share in this cartoon. And it was going to make everybody rich. But again, reality had different things to say. To date there's only been two episodes. The third is in the pipe and ready to go. The problem is they have no money to make it. These promised riches never appeared and the whole idea of NFTs hopefully vanished with it.

But what is "Red Ape Family" about? Your guess is as good as mine because I've watched it and it's just about this family of apes who try to push the idea of NFTs really hard. But only the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. All the other ones they make fun of. There's something about then stealing a USB drive with NFTs on it and hopping on a spaceship. Then landing somewhere else and because of their USB drive they're determined to be associated with the local government. It makes no sense.

Jokes on the show go from really lowbrow, to obvious to really dated references. I mean who says "wasssssup!" anymore? That was over 20 years ago that it was a thing. And they swear because I guess swearing is funny.

The second episode involves them making fun of all the people on the internet who made fun of their cartoon as being crap. Yes. That's the entire episode. A bunch of butthurt investors who thought they had found the golden goose getting upset that people don't like what they're putting out. The fact that the 3rd episode has yet to drop just makes the whole thing that much funnier.

Family Gal (2022– )

Incredibly weak.

[1/10 · 3 September 2023]

There's a lot of people saying this show was made by AI and... I can see where they're coming from but I think it's just a very low budget show done on the cheap with no-name actors who can't voice act with crappy animation. There is nothing positive I can say about this. Absolutely nothing. This is even worse than that NFT Red Ape cartoon is such a thing is possible. And if it wasn't bad enough it's also ripping off Family Guy so it's not even original. Except instead of Peter Griffin being the title character it's Miranda Screwball.

Beyond that it's a bunch of lazy jokes, lazy character types, some awful voice work and... no substance of which to speak.

Seriously. Give this one a miss.

Roe v. Wade (2019)

A passion project that doesn't work.

[2/10 · 25 July 2023]

I get it. Abortion is a hot topic issue and people on both sides have strong emotions where it's concerned. But for a passion project to be good it needs some good writing, good acting and above all a good lead. This movie has none of that.

There's talent on the screen. Jon Voight is a good actor. As are. Corben Bernsen and Steve Guttenberg among others. But Nick Loeb can't act. He is absolutely terrible in this movie and I mean terrible. Near the end he has a breakdown in a church for dramatic effect and... it has all the weight of a high-school production. It's pure community theater acting at it's best.

There's historical inaccuracies. There's points where people just don't speak like real people and it comes off like bad writing. And the less said about the jaunty "abortion" song the better.

But as I said, it's a passion project so a lot of these things are to be expected. It's just not a good movie unless you are rabidly anti-abortion and don't care about the poor acting, the inaccuracies or any of that and only care about the message.

Winter of '83 (2022)

Kinda dull

[3/10 · 12 July 2023]

I like analog horror and when it's done right it can really be something special. But when it's done poorly the cracks are really easy to spot and it just comes off as being crap. That's unfortunately how this comes off overall.

Don't get me wrong there are some good parts to it but it doesn't feel organic. Instead it literally feels like somebody's paint by numbers set. You know those things add this color here, that color there and you now have a crappy painting.

This takes place during a blizzard in 1983 in a small town in Minnesota. The town vanished after this storm and we're left to pick up the pieces. It's told through audio recordings and videos. Some good some bad.

The good make good use of the medium and that's mostly the audio recordings. The video recordings? They're less good and the biggest problem there is the camera is treated like it's a character. Now I want you to imagine a scene. You're filming yourself doing something and you hear somebody call to you off to the side. Would you A) look over to where the person was or B) look through the camera where they are?

The answer to that is of course A but in this series it's always B. And that's a big problem. It's made worse by the acting in this which is community theater acting at best. There's a couple people that give a good performance with the material they're given. The private investigator for example. But for the most part the lines are spoken by non-actors trying to act.

All in all it's not the worst I've seen but it's far from the best.

Robotman & Friends (1985 TV Short)

Nothing like the comic strip.

[2/10 · 30 June 2023]

Robotman was part of a marketing blitz to bring Robotman to people's attention. It started off in a comic strip called "Robotman" about a robot who thought he was from space and was learning about humans. Turns out these were implanted memories by his creator Monty. This has nothing to do with Robotman the cartoon. Like at all. Except the name and overall general look of the character.

Where the Robotman in the comic strip was a little squat and had a big nose, this one didn't. In fact if the general design and name weren't the same they could be considered two different characters altogether.

This cartoon is just your typical schlock put out by a company trying to push a product. Good robots who love and want to help people come to Earth. They need people to tough the hearts on their chests to power them or something. There's a bad robot that comes along and he hates music and is able to influence people to hate the robots.

It's frankly... stupid. But what do you expect? It's hollow and has a marketing feel all over it.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Disappointing but glad I saw it.

[6/10 · 1 May 2023]

The first Avatar movie was something special. Not the plot as it's been done before. There was a reason it was called "Dancing with Smurfs" by critics but the story came second to the visuals. And those visuals were stunning. Absolutely stunning. Seeing it on the wide screen, in IMAX 3D no less, and it was nothing short of a spectacle. I walked out of that theater just saying "wow". I told people to go see it for the visuals alone. And when I heard they were not only making a sequel but there were three more on the way then I was definitely going to see it.

And... I'm underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong. The beautiful scenes and world building is there. It's just the story kinda drags and it suffers from a lot of what the original story suffered from. A lack of real story.

In the first one it was the humans come to Pandora to search for Unobtanium, a mineral that is worth billions back home. The Na'vi who are the giant blue bipeds fight back, Jake Sully is the chosen one who winds up joining them and becomes one in the end.

This one? It's the same thing. It's literally the same story but with a different coat of paint.

Again the vistas and underwater scenes are amazing. Everybody was free-diving for it. So when you see them swimming around, that's the actors swimming in the big pool set while holding their breath.

Pandora looks even more beautiful than it did in the first movie but it lacked some of the impact it originally had.

And while this one has already broken the $2 billion mark making it another movie by James Cameron that has done so, the third one will need to bring something special to top the amazement we got on seeing the first one.

Yo, Yovanna! (2021 Music Video)

I don't get it.

[1/10 · 26 March 2023]

This song, if it can be called such, is a rather simple melody about some woman named Yovanna and how much the guy in question likes her. Nothing new here. Songs like this have been done a thousand times before but this Yovanna person actually exists. I never heard of her but she's a young woman of Domincian descent who models. And she also acts and sings.

Is she good? I guess. But we're not here to talk about her. We're here to talk about this puzzling song. The writer of it is man named Russell Greer who seemingly wanted to attract her attention. I would at least think that's the reason why he wrote it because it's just mindless pop without any kind of substance.

The melody is fine. Nothing new. Standard mindless pop that's also been done to death. Ir's the video that is confusing. It has nothing to do with the song.

Ms. Ventura, as stated, is a young woman of Domincan descent. This video shows a young woman of Slavic descent who gyrates, dances to and occasionally "acts" out the lines being sung. When the line, "you're hot like salsa" is sung she takes a bite of a taco. When the line says something like, "like Red Bull you give me wings" she takes a sip of Red Bull and mimes wings. Truly stunning choreography. But I'm guessing she wasn't hired for her dancing or acting and only her looks.

This video is a hot mess and while I would imagine Ms. Ventura saw the video or would up being directed to it I doubt she gave it much thought. As I said. It's not very good but obviously made by somebody who really really wants her to notice him.

Which would be great if he hasn't done the same thing for at least a half-dozen other female celebrities. Oh yes. Mr. Greer is a serial song flatterer.

The Academy of Magic (2020)

Total ripoff

[2/10 · 15 March 2023]

Honestly it's so blatant that this cartoon is ripping off Harry Potter that it's honestly a surprise they haven't been sued.

See if this sounds familiar. A young person is gifted with magic, has a very distinctive scar, goes to a magical academy where they learn magic, has a dark haired teacher that gives them a hard time for yet known reasons and there's a blond bully who bullies them for being "common". Oh and there's a dark secret there that this young person and her friends must uncover. It's Harry Potter but with a girl in the lead role. And if that wasn't enough she bears a striking resemblance to Anna from Disney's "Frozen".

The animation is second rate and looks more like something you'd find in a cheaply made cartoon... which this is. It's cheap. The animation, while not terrible and I've seen worse, isn't good.

Honestly this isn't a good movie by any stretch. Sure. Kids will probably like it but what can you do?

It's just not a good cartoon or story.

Also somebody, or a group of somebodies, have attempted to game the system by voting this a "9" en masse. Didn't work. It's still only 3.3 or thereabouts.

The Orville (2017–2022)

It's not bad but it's kinda obvious.

[5/10 · 14 March 2023]

Here's the thing, I get what Seth MacFarland is trying to do with this. It's one part gentle parody of Star Trek and other such shows, it's one part actual sci-fi adventure and it's one part social commentary. In fact there's a lot of social commentary in it.

Don't get me wrong, social commentary was a large part of Star Trek. They could examine social issues that existed at that time through the lens of sci-fi and present it in a way that was easy for the people at that time to understand. But this? As I said it's obvious. For example Season 1, episode 7 "Majority Rule" is commentary on social media and cancel culture taken to an extreme. Is it bad? No it's actually quite well done but it feels like they're using a sledgehammer to drive the message home.

The problem is a lot of this has been done before. Does anybody remember "Black Mirror"? It was a Twilight Zone kind of anthology series but one of the episodes was called "Nosedive" where people rate each other on social media and the higher your rating the higher your standing. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as a young woman with pretty high score of something like 4 stars out of 5. She does everything she can to keep her score high but due to one bad day it starts going down and she goes into the nosedive. The difference is that when she's down to 1 star she gets put in jail instead of getting "re-educated".

A lot of the plot elements are just obvious from the start. Something happens or is told to the crew then a couple scenes later it's revealed that this person has a disease, or this person is not who they say they are.

There are some stand out episodes that genuinely made me laugh or the reveal was unexpected but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

So not a bad show just not a great show.

Otherworld (1985)

Interesting premise marred by poor writing.

[5/10 · 22 January 2023]

This is an example of a series with a reasonably clever premise. This family winds up thrown into another world where they're chased by a zealous police officer and must find a way home. Pretty standard stuff when you get down to it but there's a twist, no two episodes are quite the same.

You see when they arrive in this "Otherworld" they're stopped by a police officer of sorts. They manage to overpower him, steal his car and control crystal and make their way to the closest town. It looks like normal America with people, stores, homes and the like but there's something off about it. The stores just sell cans of food with generic labels on them. The mother gets sick. And it's revealed everybody is an android due to the high levels of radiation there. And this sets the stage for every new city or area they visit. Different cultural norms exist. In one women are the dominant sex. In another everybody is a Mad Max kind of biker. In a third it's like the 1950's and everybody is repressed and boring.

That right there makes it interesting. In doing this they're able to explore certain things and it's not always the same story. But the writing on these things was inconsistent. Or there's just big old holes of logic that make no sense. Like in the 1950's world the two kids bring rock & roll with them as they perform this at the high school talent show. A world without rock & roll still has modern drum kits and electric guitars? How does that even work?

While this could have been given a little time to find it's footing the ratings were never that good and it was cancelled after, I think, only a dozen episodes. You can find them on Youtube if you really want.

Movie 43 (2013)

There's an alternate cut that actually makes sense.

[2/10 · 4 December 2022]

The movie we got was of an unhinged screenwriter pitching a movie to a couple movie execs. The sketches are the parts of the movie. As it goes on it gets worse and finally at the end it's revealed the entire thing was being filmed as a kind of movie within a movie. End credits. This makes no sense.

But there's an alternate version of it. I don't mean it's like an unrated cut and the sketches are all the same and in the same order but this one actually has a narrative that makes sense given what we actually see. It starts off with two guys who want to be internet famous so they film themselves having a load of Jackass type stunts and are getting huge views. Thinking they have it made it's revealed all to be a joke by the younger brother of one of the guys. There is no website, the views are fake, they're not internet famous. So, to get back at him they ask him to find a banned movie only known as "Movie 43". As he's doing this they load up his laptop with a bunch of viruses by going to a lot of free porn sites. Although if the younger brother is that smart to create a fake Youtube type website for them, he's smart enough to know how to get rid of viruses. And it's being done on an apple laptop. You know, the ones that are harder to get viruses on?

Anyway he finds a bunch of sketches he says are part of this movie and that's what we see. That's the movie. It's not any better as the sketches are all sophomoric crap but it makes sense. Plus the ads we see playing during the movie now make sense I mean when was the last time you watched a motion picture, in a theater or on a DVD and there was an ad in the middle of it? You do see that on Youtube however.

This movie is not good. It's really bad. The sketches tend to be really simple with one joke that is then beaten over and over until it's dead. Like the first one. Hugh Jackman is the most eligible bachelor in the city but can't find the right woman. Why? He has balls coming out of his neck. That's the joke. Something that South Park did years ago and this movie stole from them as their first joke. Are you laughing yet? How about the one where Anna Farris and Chris Pratt are a couple and we think they're getting ready to propose to each other. Except Anna wants Chris to poop on her. That's the joke. Are you laughing now? No? Didn't think so. How about the couple that home schools their son but to give him the "true high school experience" bully him in the process? If that wasn't bad enough his mother comes onto him. Are you laughing yet? You better not be because that's not funny. It's disturbing.

Also the IMDB really needs to work on a way to get rid of fake reviews. Ones that call this a masterpiece and give it 10/10 because they think they're being clever are not helping. Luckily the weighted average seems to show a more accurate rating even though it should be lower.

Do not watch this. There is no reason to watch it.

Centurions (1986)

It's not good. Its nostalgia.

[4/10 · 28 November 2022]

I liked this as a kid and the toys were great but there comes a point where you have to say it's not as good as it was.

When you're a kid you tend to watch things uncritically. You're looking for action, excitement and really wild things. And this cartoon delivered. The problem in seeing it now with a more mature outlook shows all the faults.

Let's get it out of the way first, this show was made to sell toys and I'm perfectly fine with that. So let's take that off the table and talk about the show itself.

It had a good concept. Three men, later on increased to five, were experts in their given field. Jake Rockwell was the land expert, Max Ray was the water expert. And Ace McCloud was the air expert. All of them wore these "exo frames" into which items could be plugged into . This meant that they could customize their weapons for whatever was needed. There's a bad guy and his not-too-bright henchman who are always trying to take over the world but the Centurions stop his plans in the end. Rinse and repeat for just about every episode.

The characters are stock and rather one dimensional but this is more or less what you'd expect from a series like this. The dialogue feels rushed and often times falls into the trap of having catch phrases like Ace always calling a woman "beautiful" when talking to them.

But the worst part of it is that it suffered from "Night Boat syndrome". To those who are unaware, Night Boat was a spoof of Night Rider, a show where Michael Knight rode around in a souped up Trans Am. Lisa and Bart have a problem with this premise because, as they put it, "there's always a canal". It's a boat so they can't take it on land. But if there's a convenient canal / river / estuary etc the action will always take place near it allowing Night Boat to do his thing. I bring this up because no matter the episode, whether it made sense or not, Max Ray would ALWAYS run into something that allowed him to continue the investigation or chase the bad guys.

The animation was done on the cheap. The voice acting is fine and while the premise is great the execution wasn't.

The Munsters (2022)

Disappointing.

[3/10 · 5 November 2022]

I'll say right here that I would never call myself a fan of the original Munsters TV show. I've seen a lot of them and I like them well enough but they're the equivalent of marshmallows. Soft, kinda sweet but ultimately not very filling. It's a sitcom in every sense of the word. And I like sitcoms but there's only so much of it I can watch at any one time. It's not a show you can binge watch. So maybe this was just the wrong movie for me.

While Sherri Moon Zombie felt like she was channeling Yvonne De Carlo and Daniel Roebuck as Grandpa... I mean The Count was decent enough I can't say the same about Jeff Daniel Phillips playing Herman. Wrong wrong wrong casting. There's literally nothing right about his playing that character.

To play lovable boob like Herman Munster you need two things. The first is you need a good actor who can act through the makeup. And secondly you need somebody who is smart enough to understand the character. Neither of those were to be found here. Nothing against Jeff. I'm sure he's a good actor in other roles but here? It just didn't fit him.

As for the movie itself it just wasn't my thing. I felt that it just wasn't what I was expecting it to be.

Hello, Larry (1979–1980)

It's not bad... but it's not good either.

[5/10 · 26 September 2022]

Hello Larry was, strangely enough, the most successful TV show McLean Stevenson was ever on. After he left MASH that is. Every single show he was the headliner for was cancelled after one season. Hello Larry ran for two. He later admitted that leaving MASH was the worst career decision he ever made and... I have to agree with him.

The show itself didn't feel complete. It was shown after "Diff'rent Strokes" and was by the same producer so in order to cement this they had a couple crossovers where Larry and Mr. Drummond met as they were old war buddies. Nothing really came of it though. After those three episodes they never met again.

The story itself was of a guy on the radio giving people advice but he wasn't very good at it. He often made smart-alec responses to what the callers would call in about. After a couple episodes it was decided to change the format around and now he was supposed to focus on his two daughters. After his divorce he moved, with them, to Portland from LA for this job.

Older daughter Diane and younger daughter Ruthie. They.. were typical sitcom kids. Nothing of real note.

In the end it just wasn't interesting enough to carry along and was dropped.

Light of Blood (2005 Video)

Low budget, low expectations.

[2/10 · 1 September 2022]

This is a low budget movie about werewolves and stuff. It's laughably bad and kinda cringe in some places.

Actually I don't remember much of it because I was so bored. It's pure community theater when you get down to it. Not good community theater mind you. It's the bad kind where nobody seems to know what they're doing and the director is just the guy that came up with the idea.

The only reason I know anything about this is Gustavo Perez, the director and guy who plays the protagonist was King Apollyon in the equally bad movie "Maradonia and the Shadow Empire". He delivers the same lack of performance in this movie as he did in that one. This man is not an actor. And based on how this movie looked, he's not much of a director either.

Avoid this unless you're really curious to see what a no-budget horror movie looks like.

Nude Nuns with Big Guns (2010)

Just a B for Boobs movie.

[3/10 · 9 July 2022]

I can see what they were going for as it's very similar to a Robert Rodriguez movie. The music especially was very similar but that's where the similarities end.

While Robert is known to make low-budget fare he's at least a competent filmmaker. The makers of this movie aren't. So to compensate they throw in a lot of boobs, a lot of full frontal nudity, a lot of lesbians and.... that's it.

The movie itself is a revenge flick. Corrupt church is selling drugs, nun is left for dead, she swears revenge and scene. It's kinda self-aware in that I do think they weren't going for serious. At least I hope they weren't. But it's dull. And nobody can act worth a damn. Again, maybe this was by design but it feels more like the actors are just low budget.

This is a movie that gets by on it's name alone. Lots of nudity, lots of guns. It delivers what it promised.

Countdown (III) (2019)

Really missed the mark.

[2/10 · 15 October 2020]

The basic idea behind this is actually quite good. There's an app you can download which will tell you how long you have to live. So a group of friends downloads it and one girl finds she only has 3 hours to live. When it's time to leave soon to die girl says she wants to walk home because she feels if her boyfriend drives her, that's how she's going to die.

And yes, had she driven home with him he would have gotten into an accident and she'd be dead. So good news right? Nope because you can't cheat the app and if you don't die where you're scheduled to do so, something else is going to make sure you do and so she dies.

A better movie could have used this moment to delve into the psychological horror knowing that you only have a limited amount of time to live. And it tries to but I never felt the characters truly felt afraid.

In fact the movie could have done so much more. Like the app glitching and it randomly chooses a date 400 years in the future. Meaning the person will live for another 400 years. Still aging, still getting all the problems that come with old age but they're incapable of dying. Or a person trying to kill themselves early and having the curse, or whatever it was, turn on them and leave them lying broken and unable to move for days, months or even years. Or somebody hacks it to give them more time and the curse decides to mess with them and makes sure they're going to be in pain and misery for every second they tried to steal.

In the end it just plays like your standard supernatural safe kind of horror. Nothing really new here. Just the framing device has changed.

Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End (2013)

Movie trying to cover too many bases.

[5/10 · 8 August 2020]

Yeah I get it, this movie wan't made for me. But it's enjoyable enough in a B-movie kind of way if you can look past the religious bits. Or if you're here for the religious bits then you'll probably have a grand old time.

Here's the thing, I like David A.R. White. He's a decent actor with some surprising comic chops and with some not too bad editing makes for a decent action hero. I get that he might not be for everybody but if you like cheese, then he's where it's at.

David plays a travelling salesman who's on the road when the Rapture hits. It's now Mad Max with David, in effect, playing the Road Warrior. And as I said with some decent editing he makes it work. But he's got some kind of secret past where he's some badass mercenary / assassin and this training pops up whenever he needs to kick some ass. Story is pretty basic beyond that. His wife is religious, he's not. She's raptured, he's not. And he now needs to hit the road in an attempt to... do stuff.

Along the way he runs into a group of evil bikers. You know standard end of the world type stuff that you've seen better examples of. The characters felt rather one note but these movies aren't made with characters in mind so much as delivering a message. If you agree with it you'll give it top marks. If you don't, well check out the 1 star ratings for it.

Personally, while it's not something I'd normally watch, I'm willing to give it a 5. It's got a lot of problems. The third act feels rather tacked on. And it's not an apocalypse movie that I'd recommend but it's got it's good points.

Not bad, but not great either.

Under the Sun (2015)

Behind the scenes of propaganda.

[7/10 · 26 June 2020]

We all know that North Korea is a secretive kind of place. It's run by a dictator who's revered as a living god and his father and grandfather are worshiped even after death.

A Russian film crew were invited to film a documentary of a young North Korean girl and her joining of the North Korean Communist Youth league commonly known as the "Young Pioneers". They intended this to be a propaganda piece, as all North Korean works are, to show the youth of of the DPRK the proper kind of mindset to have. What they didn't intend was for all the behind the scenes footage to be filmed as well.

Basic story is nobody told the filmmakers to stop filming when they stopped a scene or the director would walk on and give direction to the actors so we see a lot that they didn't want to show. Of course North Korea wasn't happy with this, blamed the film crew of sabotaging their movie and promptly kicked them out of the country. But they didn't confiscate their film and this documentary is what we get.

While it's not necessarily a scathing expose of what goes on behind the curtains, it is bad enough that it shows some of the corruption, rot and revisionism that North Korea is famous for trying to hide.

The Drone (2019)

It's a spoof of sorts.

[5/10 · 26 June 2020]

This is a movie that is rather self-aware. Basically take the idea behind "Child's Play" with the killer doll Chuckie and you have this movie. It's ridiculous, it's silly and if you're willing to turn your brain off and just go with it then you might have a good time.

Sure there's a lot of problems with it but what movie doesn't have plot holes? In short it's a not quite original horror story that doesn't take itself very seriously so neither should you.

Cats (2019)

It's horrifying.

[1/10 · 23 December 2019]

I get what they were trying to do for this movie but the execution was frankly horrifying. The look of the cat costumes kept drawing me out of the movie and full into the uncanny valley. Say what you want about the music and the songs, the costumes and how everything was scaled to the actors being cat sized just didn't work.

The stage show was much better. See that if you can. Avoid this at all costs.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 TV Movie)

The original and still the best.

[10/10 · 16 December 2019]

There are certain Christmas traditions that stick with you over the years. And for me, it's not quite Christmas until I've seen "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

Like a lot of kids, I grew up on Dr. Seuss. Had all the books, saw all the specials. And while some of them were better than others there is no denying the impact that Theodor Geisel had on our collective childhood. The use of language, the imaginative creatures and drawings and the fact that he wrote some of the most memorable children's stories of all time.

Everything about this special is memorable from Boris Karloff's narration and voice as the Grinch, to Chuck Jones' animation to the songs and even the central message. To this day I can still remember all the words to "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch" sung by Thurl Ravenscroft better known as Tony the Tiger.

Nothing more really needs to be said. It's such a part of the cultural zeitgeist that even though some might not have seen it, we all know the story. Sure there are some that prefer the Jim Carrey version as it might have been their first exposure to the character and the story but as far as I'm concerned, there's only one Grinch. And this is it.

Lost in Space (2018–2021)

An interesting story marred by stupid writing.

[5/10 · 12 December 2019]

The original "Lost in Space" was a goofy show that didn't really take itself seriously. But it was fun and we got the great Johnathan Harris as Dr. Smith in the process. Then in the 90's came the gritty reboot in the form of a movie which had promise but was, in itself, rather silly in places. And like a lot of things we now have a "Lost in Space" for the 21st century and honestly I wish we hadn't.

Here's the thing, I don't hate this show. But I don't particularly like it either. The sets are decent, the look is stylish, the actors are capable of doing their job so what's the problem? Well, it's the writing which makes these supposedly incredibly smart people into some of the dumbest people around. Well that and errors all throughout the series and have you question why the need to add in all these moments of manufactured drama.

An error, like literally within the first minute of the first episode. They're falling towards the surface of a planet and the computer is reading their altitude in feet when the display is clearly in meters. And I don't mean doing a conversion. No, it says they're at 3000 feet and the display has just shown them at 3000 meters. This happens quite often in which a display will show things in meters or kilometers only to have them just change the unit to feet or miles. And these are supposed to be scientists. Or how the mother says they're trillions of light years off course. Had she said kilometers or even miles it wouldn't have been much of a problem. But light years is another matter. The entire observable universe is only 93 billion light years across meaning they would have had to, somehow, travel further than the edge of the observable universe in an impossibly short period of time while still being partway between Earth and this colony they were heading to.

The rest of it isn't all that much better. People make stupid mistakes, often times aided by some incredibly shoddy science all for the sake of drama. Like Penny getting stuck in the ice. If water froze that quickly, they would have frozen solid the moment they took off their helmets.

Sorry, but this is just childishly written which is a shame. It could have been so much better had they gotten better writers.