Transformers: The Last Knight - 7/10

Flawed but very enjoyable. It's certainly not the worst live-action Transformers movie ever made.

 

Cloverfield Paradox: 5/10

Def the weakest Cloverfield movie, but not awful. Final shot was cool and got me hyped so there's that.

 

GoodFellas: 6/10

Probably shouldn't be as revered as it is.

 

The Cloverfield Paradox:
This was like a weird combination of Star Trek and Alien and other astronaut dramas. It's not horrible, but it definitely is weaker than 10 Cloverfiled Lane.

6/10

 

Fixed.

Yes it is, and deservedly so, now go home and get your shinebox

 

The Cloverfield Paradox - 7/10

As far as the "People-Trapped-On-A-Space-Station-And-Weird-Stuff-Starts-Happening" genre goes, this is one of the better ones.

 

Batman: Gotham By Gaslight - 7.5/10

Not too familiar with the graphic novel, so I was watching this as a film, and with that I thought it was surprisingly solid. As most DC animated films tend to be, I felt it was too short, and there's a bit of a plot hole/unanswered question that could have benefitted from an added scene or epilogue. Other than that, I had a good time.

 

Winchester--6/10.

 

Short Circuit - 8/10

I remember seeing this on TV when I was a kid and even today I still love it, it has a lot of charm and is damn well funny.

 

•The Cloverfield Particle 3/10

Garbage.

•The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 9/10

I will never not love this movie.

 

A Bad Moms Christmas - 7/10

Not as good as the first, which is to be expected from comedy sequels, but there were enough solid laughs to be had.

 

Batman and Harley Quinn - 5/10 - I went in with low expectations, so I didn’t despise it as much as others might, but it still felt like official fan-fiction. The one bit I thought was kinda neat, was all of the henchmen/women having their own bar to hang out in - it was cool to see so many of those old BTAS character models used again (plus the two Catwoman henchmen from the 60s show).

 

Just watched Spider-Man Homecoming. Not as boring as what I thought it would be. The jokes were decent enough and not too in your face, with Peter's blunders having some form of consequence. Still not much to get invested in. The ending was hilarious. 6/10

Also ended up catching Wonder Woman. Didn't really see what the hype was for. Diana was pretty good, I guess, but she felt overshadowed in a lot of places. 5/10

 

Justice League - Hahahaha... How The Hell Did Anyone Even Okay That For Release?!?!/10

Me and the lady watched this last night, and wow... I mean, I knew it was gonna be bad, but never expected it to be THAT bad. We legitimately laughed out loud throughout it, almost made a drinking game out of the infinite amount of terrible "not even trying to make them blend" re-shoot scenes and Cavill's distorted face, and am STILL in awe of how unbelievably bad the FX/CGI was. Like, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets a 2 hour video game bad. This thing made The Last Knight looks like Citizen Cane, and I actually think people were too kind with it... even when they were ripping it apart.

 

Wonder Woman (Finally!) - 10/10

Well worth the wait to see this movie!

 

Blade Runner 2049 - 9/10:

This was just a feast for the senses and it overwhelms. From the visuals, to the sounds, to the emotions, to the story, all of it is like the Big Bang in film form and you're trying to keep up with it as it explodes and expands.

Surprising how smoothly it moves from scene to scene without dragging or missing a step, even at 2.75 hours. And it's amazing how they fully used every second, nothing was truly wasted. Speaking of waste, when you hear that there's rather surprising amounts of nudity in the film, you automatically think "Aha! Sex scenes! Gratuitous nakey shots!" and you end up being wrong. It's not gratuitous at all, in fact. There is indeed a sex scene, but there's no nudity in it. In fact, it starts out weird, but you see a kindness coming from it as well. (You have to see the scene to understand what I mean. Long story short, it's about finally feeling human connection for the first time in a character's life, it overwhelms them.) It's also used to make a statement about how women are viewed.

As for the story, this was one of the most grueling stories to experience because you truly feel alone and isolated and alienated. You feel their hurt, their confusion, their loss. You experience their discovery of the truth and how it can a cruel and fickle mistress destroying everything you love and hold dear.

But it's also comprised of scenes with beauty, truly touching moments and how the power of love can make a difference.

One of the loveliest scenes is preceded by one of the saddest, just slightly twisting the knife some more, even after it's already given you a few good jabs along the way.

Blade Runner is widely hailed as a classic, as groundbreaking cinema, and rightfully so. When a sequel was announced, everyone immediately thought "Oh, no... Now this?" and we worried if it would work out, will it be in good hands, will it be a worthy sequel, will it be a film worthy of our time... The answer is a resounding yes to all of the above.

I truly believe 2049 will stand not behind but right next to the original and be widely hailed as a classic and groundbreaking as well. Maybe not today, but one day more people will appreciate it and see just how amazing of an experience it truly is.

A lot of people will tell you this is self contained, you don't need to see the original to enjoy it, and they're right... Sort of. Seeing the original greatly enhances the story and the characters. Knowing what came before will certainly help what happens in this one make a bigger impact on you.

I... yeah. Do yourself a favor and watch a movie that requires you to use your heart and mind, one that isn't a popcorn flick, but something more.

Oh, man, go watch this one.

 

Sushi Girl - 7/10

That was something.

 

The Cloverfield Paradox 6/10
It was interesting, and it answered a few questions from previous"Cloverfield" movies, but it felt (appropriately) like one movie that was hastily rewritten to be another movie

 

The Ghost of Slumber Mountain:
One of the earliest dinosaur movies before King Kong and even before The Lost World. Sadly only 18 minutes of it remains out of the original 45 minutes version making it a slightly lost movie. While I'm used to Black & White movies, I'm sadly not that used to silent movies. I don't hate them, they're just more difficult to follow. And since this was made back at 1919 the story and effects were rough and simple. This is one of Willis H. O'Brien's earlier works (not his first) and you can see they're still not up to his later stop motion works.

5/10

 

War for the Planet of the Apes

Damn that took a long time for this trilogy to wrap up! Let’s see...because my wife and I really enjoyed these films, comparing with our personal timeline:
Rise, 2011: we started dating
Dawn, 2014: got married the year prior
War, 2017: we now have two kids (hehe “war”)
Yeah I know, Star Wars (OT & prequels) followed the same schedule. But with all due respect to the Apes, Star Wars this ain’t (the OT that is). Now onto the movie itself:

Positives
-characters are still top notch, especially all the apes. Both in look/movement and being fleshed out as actual characters we care about despite being CGI [I said this after the “Dawn” but it bears repeating: take notes, Transformers franchise!]
-direction was solid too. Everything just looks great visually (I see you, shot of the beach that’s a callback to the original Heston Apes film!)

Negatives
-the constant beat-you-over-the-head symbolism. Why, yes Woody Harrelson with his god complex and “holy war” sounds like he cribbed the bible talking about “sacrificing his only son to save humanity”. And with this civil war happening amongst the humans (Americans), the army from the north is coming for Team Woody whose have taken it upon themselves to enslave the apes <cue burning American flag>
-probably could’ve benefited from a trim of 15-20 mins, as pacing dragged like a mofo when the film switches gears to “prison break” mode. They committed to it so much I’ve taken it upon myself to rename this instalment “Ape Escape”
-character deaths occur in the most cliche ways possible

Despite all that, still a final score of 7.5/10 built mostly on the strength of the characters and goodwill of the first two instalments. And at the risk of sounding like a vapid Kardashian: can anyone name a better, more consistently high-quality trilogy/film franchise this past decade? Hunger Games totally shat the bed when the split their final book into two movies. The various Marvel/X-Men/Spider-Man series all had their ups and downs. Even reaching back a bit for Nolan’s Bat-trilogy: DKR was such a dud I can’t even pretend it delivers as a “trilogy” (and TDK is my personal #1!). Craig-era Bond? Hangover? JJ-Trek? Twilight? Divergent? Fifty Shades?? Not even going there. Apes is your true king, all hail Caesar!