Welcome to the world... lol

 

Hellboy (2019) - 6/10

Some stuff is good; I liked Ben Daimio, I liked that the masquerade is sort of there and sort of not. The Lobster was funny as hell and Ian McShane is never bad in anything. Now the hard part to land on is David Harbour as Hellboy. He's got a rougher voice and sometimes that makes the more drama focused lines come off as petulant rather than outraged. But he's got presence, physicality and a good chemistry with the others. More negatively they movie sort of lurches from one plot point to another and the gore is.....well its certainly there for that R rating. Monster designs are top notch though.

Filling the boots left by Ron Pearlman and Guillmero Del Toro was always going to be hard, though.

 

The Incredibles - 10/10

Do I really need to say more?

 

The Day After Tomorrow - 7/10

Meh? It was more serious and less dumb than I expected out of a Roland Emmerich film, but still had a lot of contrived explanation for why this disaster is happening. The idea of an abrupt climate shift is an interesting setup, but the idea of it happening overnight is a bit laughable. Which is a bit of a problem when the movie wants you to take it so seriously. It might have been more believable if they had it happen over the course of a couple decades, and maybe started with a prologue of everyone disbelieving the scientist in the 1970s or something. I also didn't find the characters particularly likable. It wasn't a terrible movie by any means, but I don't see myself ever watching it again. In general I don't think natural disaster films are entirely my thing, I kind of prefer an alien threat or monster or something.

 

Troy (2004) - 7/10

Watched this for the first time in a few year since I've always had a thing for Trojan War stuff. Good in parts (in particular the battle scenes) but also pretty underwhelming adaptation of one of the world's most famous stories. Some good cast choices that I'd have liked to see in better work (Sean Bean/Odysseus, Eric Bana/Hector, Brian Cox/Agamemnon) though Brad Pitt is definitely miscast as Achilles who has that usual thing you see in historical films where they give (relatively) modern beliefs on to characters in time periods where they likely wouldn't have had them.

 

I had no plans to watch this, but it showed up on Prime, so I thought what the hell. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Sure, the director is nowhere near Del Toro's level, and the lower budget shows, especially in the laughably bad CG in places like Hellboy fighting the giants. But the cheesiness of the effects in that scene almost made it better in a way. And I liked that they tried to kind of adapt an actual Hellboy story, even if it does end up completely differently.

One thing that struck me funny is that in the Del Toro movies, Hellboy is shoved into a needless romantic relationship with Liz that never happened in the comics, while in the new movie, Hellboy's actual romantic relationship with Alice from the comics is ignored. Not a big deal, just weird.

Also, I can't remember if the movie makes clear that Milla's character is the Lady of the Lake, which adds weight to King Arthur's betrayal of her and paints him in not the best light.

Anyway, I'm now kind of sorry this didn't do well enough to get a sequel, although the sequel I would have wanted was the story that followed this one in the comics, with Hellboy dead and in Hell, not the "The Adventure Begins!!!" sequel the end of this movie seemed to be trying to set up.

 

Milla was referred to as Nimmue, the Blood Queen. I don’t recall if it was brought up that she was The Lady of the Lake, and she also had a coven of that’s worth anything.

 

Yeah, I don't remember if they made it clear in the movie. I guess some people would know the name Nimmue, but without the comic, I wouldn't have made the connection, since I had previously only known the Lady of the Lake as "the Lady of the Lake". I don't remember her having a name in Excalibur or any version I'd read of the Arthur story as a kid.

 

Harry Potters: Sorcerers Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban - shrug emoji/10

First time watching these. Gave them an honest chance, but I just don't see the appeal of the characters or the world. I understand they're YA novels, but most of my peers hold the franchise in high regard. And from a cinematic standpoint, the movies were pretty shit.

Full disclosure: I've never read the books. But I've never read a comic book either, and that hasn't stopped me from being a giant MCU fan.

 

Hacksaw Ridge 9/10

Based on the true story of Desmond Doss, the first combat medic ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. What made him even more special was that due to his beliefs he never carried a weapon.

Andrew Garfield 's portrayal of Doss is remarkable, Vince Vaughn is also very good. Great story, great action and great directing by Mel Gibson. Though not entirely accurate to the true life of Desmond Doss.

 

Zach Snyder’s Justice League. 7.5/10
Overall it’s a good time. The best parts of the theatrical cut were in this cut. A lot of my issues with the characters in the theatrical are mostly gone. Cyborg is a character in this one and a really damn good one. Flash isn’t as annoying and has more confidence in his powers. The Theatrical cut made Flash look pretty pathetic. Batman felt more natural and Ben Affleck didn’t give off the impression that he would rather be dead than in this movie. Wonder Woman didn’t change much. I feel like Aquaman got less screen time or overall the same amount as in the theatrical cut. I still feel like Snyder still doesn’t fully get Superman. Steppenwolf was more fleshed out but as of physical design I didn’t think it was better or worse, still mediocre.

I feel like you can cut a lot of slow motion and the strange long close ups of Flash’s face. It would trim down run time without loosing any of the plot. Some of the music choices were strange like the town people yodeling to Aquaman. The Score by Junkie XL was great. As of the Knightmare scene. It was okay, the best part about it was Batman and Joker. I feel like that scene gave me the Joker that I wanted Leto to be in Suicide Squad.

I personally don’t need a sequel on film. I think Snyder’s sequel story doesn’t work for a cinematic film universe. It sounds like a cool one off graphic novel.

 

Law Abiding Citizen 7/10- Lots of stuff that didn't make sense but Gerard Butler was good. Jamie Foxx was horrible and the ending pissed me off but it was entertaining for the most part.

The Mule 8/10- Solid all around. Enjoyed it.

Wonder Woman 1984 6/10- Went in with very low expectations. Think I like it more than the first one which I always thought was highly overrated and pretty boring. Ending sucked and wish Cheetah was actually in it for more than 5 minutes smh.

 

Baseball series:

The Babe: 6/10

John Goodman does a great job, but a LOT was changed in service to the film's story.

Mr. Baseball: 8/10

One of my favorite baseball movies.

A League of Their Own: 7/10

Hanks is great, but I never realized that the character of Kit is a complete lunatic.

Bull Durham: 6/10

More of a series of scenes and quotes than an actual movie.

 

That filmed in my home town. The Racine Belles stadium is a local field. It is the one with the brick wall and white building in the back. Also I know someone in this. When Tom Hanks autographs the baseball for the two kids, the kid in the tan who says "Wow." was a grade/middle school classmate. We were about between 5th/6th grade when filming.

i know where several scenes filmed.

 

If you no watch Major League, I say fuck you, Jobu.

 

2001: A Space Odyssey - 8.5/10

This is one of those movies I've been meaning to check out for years, and just didn't get around to until now. It's legitimately hard to rate because I've never quite seen a movie like this before. There's a lot of ambiguity, and a lot to digest. It's undeniably a good film, everything in it seemed deliberate. It was filled with stunningly gorgeous imagery. Like, most of the shots in this movie would be considered the best shots in other movies. There were also some really mind-blowing visual effects. The artificial gravity shots would be mind-boggling if they were in a movie today.

This is one of those movies that I knew a lot about from cultural osmosis and seeing clips here and there. I sort of assumed seeing it as a whole package would clarify things that seemed vague to me (for instance, I had seen the ending before and had no clue what was going on). But after watching it, a lot was still very vague. I also expected more HAL-9000. Truth be told, I expected that conspiracy to be the whole movie, not only a fourth or so. Keep in mind that's not a knock against the movie, just a reflection of my expectations.

There was a lot that really clicked with me, and a lot that kind of made me say "what the heck?" I loved everything involving HAL and the Jupiter mission. The "Dawn of Man" portion seemed really weird at first (at one point it almost felt like trolling), but it started clicking with me eventually. Loved the visual transition between the bone (the very first tool) and the spacecraft (the most modern tool). I liked the mystery of the monoliths. Not sure I entirely "got" the ending. I've read Kubrick's explanation of it...and I understand the intent...but I'm still not sure I feel it yet (if that makes sense). Didn't quite click with me. Maybe I'm trying to think about it too literally.

I don't have any real 'objective' complaints. Nothing felt sloppy or poorly handled. On a totally personal level, I'll admit that I found a lot of it very slow. I certainly don't need everything to be a fast-paced Marvel movie, but I was craving a bit more story and explanation at times. As powerful as visual storytelling is, I enjoyed the moments when we finally got dialog. I kind of wish there was a teensy bit more of that.

Overall I think this was a really good movie. Will this become one of my personal favorites? Probably not. And I can't see rewatching it all the time. But I would like to revisit it later down the road, and see if I get anything new out of it. I honestly can't see not getting something new out of it next time, there's just so much to take in.

 

Raya and the Last Dragon - Chuck Norris/10

 

....And Justice For All - Al Pacino/10

Its interesting the clip this movie moves at. It manages to rather deftly manage three different defendants for the run time with different levels of audience sympathy and even the two supporting lawyers with Kirkland (Pacino) are flawed but clearly dedicated. However what's really magical is the last ten minutes. Don't misunderstand me its a great movie from start to finish and despite the two hour run time will breeze by, but that last ten minutes when the Judge puts no doubt in Kirkland's mind that he really did rape and beat that woman, you can almost see the gears turning in his head as he plots what will surely be the downfall of basically everyone in that room, himself included. And then at the end he looks at the camera as the credits roll, as if even HE can't believe what he just did and how utterly farcical the entire experience has been.

 

Justice League: The Snyder Cut 7.5/10
The effects looked better than in the theatrical cut, The Flash and Cyborg (who hadn't previously or since gotten a standalone film to flesh them out, unlike most of the other hero characters) got more fleshed-out and it was nice to get to see a build-up to an overarching villain like Marvel did up to Infinity War.

Wonder Woman 8/10
Friggin' took me long enough to see this one. Pretty great movie. Was not expecting Professor Lupin from Harry Potter to be the bad guy.

Aquaman 7/10
Didn't really care about Oceanmaster as a villain, and Black Manta got punched into the Mediterranean Sea and proceeded to fuck off for the rest of the movie. The CGI De-aging they used on Temeura Morrison was really apparent, but overall it was a fun movie.

 

Godzilla vs Kong:
It gives what it promises: Godzilla vs Kong. The battles are some of the best among the 4 films, some characters were okay, other were awful. Despite going for 2 hours it goes by too quickly and it's over before you know it.

8/10