Last movie you saw? (Theater/Home)

Most recent movie was Dragon Ball Super: Broly.
Dragon Ball Super: Broly was the most disappointing thing since my son. I honestly don't understand the modern shonen action style of "extreme squash and stretch, camera/characters endlessly rotating, and ultra-pulsating energy blasts". And you can tell they were fans of Hollywood's love for shaky cam— a technique originally used as far back as the '60s but in very limited situations until the rise of found footage films, and then made infamous by its overuse in big budget action and then made even more infamous when used in dramas and even romances that have no need for its use and often misapply the style. Dragon Ball used to use quick bits of shaky cam for environmental impact, adding to the "feel" of certain attacks. Ever since the start of Super, it poorly uses shaky cam to replicate the Hollywood style, which is fundamentally rooted in directors' lack of directing and editing ability and only works to reduce the impact of strong attacks until everything feels the same. That's unfortunately true here; very few hits during the battle felt like they hurt because the camera was shaking at all other moments anyway. It's a situation where I would have much preferred everything up to the main action to have been twice as long— especially the section dealing with the drama on Planet Vegeta, which was so excellently done and written that I am convinced Toriyama and Toei's usual writers had absolutely nothing to do with it and probably actively fought against including it in the movie.

In all seriousness, it's all right. It feels like three older DBZ movies smashed together, but the DBZ movies from the third one on already felt like extended episodes/heavily compressed arc retellings more than actual movies, so it works. But despite its length, it still felt too short as if there were important chunks of it cut out or reduced (which there actually were). And like I said, you can definitely tell it's a "modern Toei shonen" because of the stylistic choices in animation. Which is a bit sad because the art style made some effort to resurrect the old '80s/'90s look, but in motion, it was far too fluid and loose. All the good moments during the fighting were early on before the animators started overdoing motion. Is it the best Dragon Ball movie? It's certainly the most complete one. And Dragon Ball movies haven't exactly been a measure of quality to begin with— after Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle and before Fusion Reborn, they felt more like side quests and extended episodes than fully fleshed out movies, and it got ridiculous with Z-era movies that usually had a plot summed up as "evil forces arrive; the Zetto Senshi jobs one by one; Son Goku asspulls a victory; the end" with literally no other twists or turns, which I guess is all you need. This particular movie had a lot more going on and the stakes were much more personal since it's Broly's fate on the line rather than something like "the fate of the planet/universe/dimensions". So it's easy to say it's the best because all the others set a very low bar to begin with.

7/10. 9/10 with rice, but unfortunately he never showed up nor was ever mentioned.

 

I can't say I've ever enjoyed DBZ terribly much, but it's unfortunate they started picking up more of this. The 90's look was very... 90s. But shaky cam is infinitely worse. I can't even imagine how that has to work in an animated movie. I mean yikes.

----

Last movie I saw was Ralph Breaks the Internet. I know I'm late to this one, but I don't get to the theater much these days. XD

I'm torn about this one still. I went into it wanting to love it, like I loved the original Wreck-It-Ralph, though I'll admit the marketing leading up to last falls release had left me feeling underwhelmed and confused. What exactly was the plot supposed to be? All I saw were a bunch of meme references and internet buzzwords. (There was one trailer that hinted at the greater plot, but I can legitimately say I never saw it until after I saw the movie last weekend.)

Unfortunately, the first half of the movie felt exactly like that. There was a plot, but that plot felt distinctly out of touch with the characters. As though they were pantomiming the emotions rather than actually feeling them. I was just about to write the movie as a gimmick to show off Disney's multitude of intellectual properties in a way that felt distinctly like pandering, though I'm not sure to whom, when the twist in the plot happened and suddenly we had a mildly interesting story going on. By the time the movie wrapped up I'd actually found myself liking the damn thing, though it by no means measured up to the original.

I'm still kind of on the fence about any rating I could give it. The plot in the later half of the movie is pretty fantastic, and technically everything that happened first was necessary to achieve that. At least, most of it was. The way they handled the internet itself, and the very scheme they use to drive the first half of the plot, calls into question the rules of their universe in a way that's mildly unsettling when you stop to think about it (heavily implying that the characters living inside these virtual worlds could interact with humans in a direct way if they wanted, but choose not to for no apparent reason. Y'know, despite the humans' penchant for killing them in droves by unplugging devices. It's got a very Reboot vibe in that way, without the impetus to explore that idea the way the older property did.)

Anyway, it ends on a decent note, and a good lesson for kids--which is what it's there for, admittedly--but only after it stops shoving in random cameos and rather dated internet jokes. (The Princesses being shoved in was just really, really cringy IMHO. Especially given their entire cameo was focused around unnecessarily mocking themselves and their own place in the Disney wheelhouse. Meanwhile, characters unique to the WiR franchise got sidelined into a parenting subplot that go no screen-time whatsoever.)


... that was a lot of writing for a kid's movie. I'm gonna go actually work on my novel now. XD

 

I couldn't be bothered with Mortal Engines, but I love Watchmen. I re-watched Salmon Fishing in the Yemen this week and it is still as delightfully entertaining as the first time I saw it. 8/10.

 

Alita Battle Angel! Based on the amazing manga, except the mediocre second series. But I prefer to forget that one exists.

Alita comes very very close to my anime Waifu. There are just certain things in series two that undermine that, and knock her down to "Best Girl."

I am wondering what the deal is with that hair style. I know the 90s were weird, but her hair looks straight out of a "Chucky's Bride" movie. Manga specifically.

They fixed that in the movie.

 

Last movie we saw in theater was Dark Phoenix. It was okay. I guess I'd give it 3 of 5 stars. Not amazing, not a dumpster fire, just... okay. My boyfriend and I agreed that it had a lot of great elements, some good actors, but the plot seemed to be compressed for time, like they cut some character development parts out. But it has an amazing end scene, and some of the CGI is beautiful. Also some there were a couple eye roll moments, but they were over quickly.

 

Watched the new Child's Play movie (the chucky movie reboot)

I'm surprised that they actually did their own thing instead of just updating the original. This one has a few nods towards the original but that's it, just nods.

As a movie however... it's ok as a made for TV movie, the material was stretched and they had tonal deafness as they attempted to go from comedy to extreme violence and gore within the same shot, it just fell flat.

Overall it's an ok movie that seems more like an episode of black mirror and not in a bad way. I love that in the 80's and early 90's everything was waved away with "it's magic" and in this one we shifted to waving everything away as "it's technology" and the dangers of it. That actually shows you where our heads are at right now.

 

It was already hokey by the '90s, but the '80s and definitely the '70s and '60s had a lot of arcane magic causing havoc in the world. I first noticed it with zombie movies: how in the '60s and '70s, zombies were the Satanic undead, literally reanimated corpses controlled by voodoo warlocks. Nowadays, every big zombie movie doesn't actually have "zombies" but "infected"— the diseased and victims of a pseudo-demonic rabies-esque plague. Nowadays, the reanimated corpse-type zombies are only really seen in cartoons lampooning zombies. And in the near future, I wouldn't be surprised if zombies shifted towards being victims of technology in some way. As if all the 5G conspiracy theories lead to a movie where humans become telepathic zombies from cellular radiation or something. And it will probably be awesome.

But we moved away from dark magic when "gritty realism" became a thing, and that was definitely in the '90s. You even saw it in music. Remember '80s metal? Of course you do. The go-to source for edgy darkness was Satan and black magic. Then, in the '90s, that became cheesy and goofy after grunge and alternative metal went mainstream. I think Slayer said it best when they said they started out singing about "demons from Hell" and then shifted to singing about "personal/inner demons".


You know what would be fun? Some movie that mixed technology with the paranormal. All sci-fi horror I've seen pretty much derives from Alien and Dead Space, which are "survival horror" and not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about something that takes things like the Kinect Ghosts or Alexa glitches and runs with them into the future, like Paranormal Activity but set 50 years later.

 

Finally saw Iron Sky. Over the top and funny, but couldn't help wishing it had been made in 1969 with super-cheesy effects, the Rat Pack as stars, and Sammy Davis, Jr., playing the astronaut. That version really would have been awesome.

 

Careful what you wish for. the book D.O.D.O is just that, an attempt to mix magic with technology and good god was it BAD!

The 90's was a shift in taste for sure however the paranormal was still a big thing back then thanks to shows like buffy and it's clones. Even supernatural was riding that wave in the early 2000's when it first aired. There was a tonal shift of course. In the 60's and 70's it was EEEEKKKK MAGIC! RUN! In the 80's it was the trendy voodoo or new aged stuff that got used and were given an almost indestructible quality to them where a good ending would be your own family's safety and nothing more. In the 90's and early 2000's we were actively hunting them down.

The trouble with mixing the two is that you can only go one way with it. the old saying "technology so advance it looks like magic" which I've only seen used properly in shows with a mythic touch, The Thor movies for example used that concept well. You can't half-ass it like the DODO book did making it half magic ritual and half goldberg machine, the two cancel each other out and is now a test to the reader's patience!

 

No, no, no, I don't mean "mix magic with technology" or "make technology indistinguishable from magic." More, "technology encounters magic." Like how we have "haunted cars" and "haunted telephone calls" now, but with much more modern technology.

Okay, imagine you're sitting at home. You've got your smartphone, you've got an Amazon Echo, the works. And then out of nowhere, your Alexa starts responding to requests from no one. You think it's a glitch at first, but then it keeps happening and so you get rid of the Echo and get a new one. But that one also starts talking to someone who isn't there, and you start getting more and more freaked out until suddenly, plot happens.

Or maybe you've gotten used to autonomous cars and are talking to your partner about the wicked levels of technology in your new ride (literally a ride now), and it drives itself. But then after the fact you realize that the computer absolutely couldn't have been the one driving it and your car was *literally* moving by itself with no external force or power.

That. Give me more of that.

 

I recommend black mirror then.

I do like the shift towards technology and logic though, I've always found the hand waving away of "it's magic" to be annoying since there didn't seem to be any rules in place for what the magic could do. With recent movies however the rules are placed before hands and your mind can fill out the rest.

Your iPhone, MAC and even the self driving car are all produced by the same company AND are connected via the cloud. If one for those goes berserk and the AI uprising is started then it's easy for the reader/viewer to see why it can control the others and use that to it's advantage.

AKA the plot of the third act of the new child's play.

 

Have you seen Pulse? It is a wifi signal that goes wrong. Ghosts in the wifi or something like that, it's very interesting. Another I like is H+ on youtube. It's a world where everyone has an implant connected to one hive server, and the files get corrupted. It's really well done.

 

My personal recommendation is Princess Bride! A true classic, but honestly: nothing beats the ridiculous, over the top fantasy elements that were stuffed into the movie.
I regret nothing!

 

I've become a Man.
I've become a Broken Man.
Oh God.
Oh No.


It really was as bad as they say it is.
It's true.
"Every frame of this movie looks like someone's last known photograph". Oh god, it's true.

This is the kind of film they force people to watch on repeat Ludovico technique-style. I actually felt drained after it, and that doesn't happen often. Of course, I watched it near midnight, so that probably had something to do with it as well.

 

Storming a castle? Inconceivable!!

 

I get why Akira Toriyama liked this series. It's actually really fun.