The new Netflix documentary Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics interviews celebrities about their personal experiences with psychedelics and provides reenactments of their experiences. Some of the reenactments are animated while some are live action. There’s also a funny skit poking fun at 1980s after-school specials. Continue reading
A few more Marvel movies have come out since I last did a review of them. I don’t have much to say about Ant-Man and the Wasp, other than it’s absolutely hilarious. Probably the funniest movie Marvel has ever done. It felt like I was laughing through pretty much every scene. Continue reading
I didn’t care for the first Incredibles movie. Its repeated central message is “If everyone is special than no one is.” In the world of The Incredibles, some people are born naturally superior to others and equality is bad because it takes privilege away from those who were born into it. So I wasn’t looking forward to watching Incredibles 2. But I’ve got a kid, so I knew it was inevitable. I turned out being pleasantly surprised. Continue reading
It’s become a cliche to say “the book is the better than the movie”, but it’s a cliche for a reason. The Girl with all the Gifts is better as a book than as a movie because the book goes into much more detail than the movie can given its medium. How boring would it be if a movie just showed someone thinking for thirty minutes? And yet whole chapters of books are filled with nothing but the thoughts of characters and it remains fascinating. Continue reading
Not all movies stand the test of time. We’ve probably all experienced shock at rewatching a childhood favorite only to discover it’s not as good as we thought it was. I remembered The Transformers: The Movie (1986) as being sophisticated because Optimus Prime dies in it and tried to get my wife to watch it one time, only to be chagrined to find out it’s basically just one long toy commercial. Continue reading
I didn’t like The Incredibles (2004) the first time I saw it. Now that a sequel is coming out, I thought I’d give the original movie another chance. Let’s see how that goes.
The Incredibles seems to be an homage to the Fantastic Four (1961-present), a comic in which someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can light themselves on fire and fly form a kind of found family. In The Incredibles, we have someone with super strength, someone who can stretch, someone who can turn invisible and make force fields, and someone who can run fast forming an actual family. Continue reading
Since I’ve last posted about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve seen the latest four movies. They just keep pumping them out as fast as they can, don’t they? Spiderman: Homecoming (2017) was an average superhero movie targeted towards teenagers, but I liked several things about it: it gave us a sympathetic villain, they didn’t bother giving us Spiderman’s origin story (we’ve had enough of those), the bully wasn’t stereotypical, and the high school students appeared to be – well – high-school-aged (in so many Hollywood movies, they have adults play fifteen-year-olds and it just doesn’t work). It’s also funny in parts. Continue reading
That’s right. I’m doing a review of the entire DC Extended Universe. Except for Justice League which I haven’t seen yet. Which leaves only four films, so I guess it’s not that big of a deal to be reviewing everything all at once. But anyway. Continue reading
That’s right. I’m reviewing all the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one post. Well, except the two most recent ones which I haven’t seen yet. And I’m doing it all in under 500 words. Continue reading
I finally got around to seeing The VVitch (2015). I liked that people spoke in period appropriate slang and wore period appropriate clothing. The discordant and minimalist music really added to the tension. I’m not an expert, but I think the film makers really succeeded in portraying witches in the way people of the time thought of them. You can tell a lot of historical research went into it. The acting is great and features some impressive work by child actors. However, in the end, I think it was ultimately just a typical horror film in which people get killed off one by one in a variety of gruesome ways. The fact that it fully embraces its historical setting certainly sets it apart from other horror movies, but I don’t think it was as ground-breaking as many others seem to think. Spoilers, including descriptions of some rather unpleasant things, below. Be warned. Continue reading
Mania Delight 