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Reviews
Contra: Operation Galuga (2024)
Contra's big comeback...
I have enjoyed the Contra games since the year of 1991 when a guy older than my older sister and I introduced us to Contra for the Nintendo Entertainment System - and its sequel Super C (which was originally Super Contra in the arcade).
Up until I saw the trailer of the game, I was playing the classic Contra games on the Contra Anniversary Collection by means of my Nintendo Switch - and playing the old Contra game on the NES was no exception (let alone doing that "Konami Code" to get thirty lives instead of three). When I saw the trailer for this Contra game, I knew some good stuff was about to go down.
When I finally got the game, I was smiling - since I had played the demo, the game had a few alternate soundtracks - the Retro Mix (where the BGM is the music from Contra and Super C for the NES) and the Vania Mix (as the name implies, it's various songs from classic Castlevania games of the NES era) to name a few.
The game gives you two modes to start out with either Story Mode or Arcade Mode. Sure, the game is a reimagining of the old Contra on NES, and playing arcade mode is the closest thing to a remastered version of Contra, if anything.
Probably the best thing about this Contra are the perks. Before you fire up the game (after picking out which character you want to be - whether you want to be Bill or Lance or any other characters who you've unlocked via story mode), you're given the option to select whichever perks you want. I'm always using the "Weapon Retention" perk which keeps whichever weapons I have in the event of my death. Another good thing is that the game gives you the option to have a health bar or - if you're wanting to stay faithful to some old school Contra, the "one hit kill" where, when you take damage from an enemy, you lose a life - there's perks to extend your HP bar as well.
This is a must-have for people who grew up with Konami's Contra games - and I'm no exception.
The Flintstones (1960)
YABBA-DABBA-DOO watch this show!
This is the cartoon I enjoyed watching as a child. It was shown to many generations, including when me and my sister were kids. Both my older sister and I were 1980s babies (my sister born in 1983 while I was born in 1985).
It's amazing how there were a lot of modern Stone Age technology that was present in the 1960s. Imagine having a mammoth for your showers, vacuum cleaners, a bird phonogram, and so much more. This show was what introduced me to the concept of a drive-in theater seen during the more familiar "Meet the Flintstones" opening title sequence.
And who could ever forget Fred Flintstone being "twinkle toes" at bowling? I had a tendency to imitate Fred's famous "twinkle toes" when I would go bowling myself - although it wasn't accurate compared to the real McCoy. You also GOTTA love that "Bedrock Twitch" song as well.
In the years before MeTV began showing reruns of this show, I would hear amusing anecdotes from my mother (who was born the same year this show premiered on TV - 1960, of course) of how she and her siblings would get up to watch Saturday morning cartoons, and The Flintstones was no exception. Probably one of my mom's favorite episodes of the show was when Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm sang "Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sunshine In", which apparently became an instant fave of mine as well.
I always enjoyed the end credits sequence (again, the familiar "Meet the Flintstones" theme song) where Fred gets the Bronto ribs (which tips over the car), and of course, Baby Puss throwing Fred out of the house and the door's locked. "WILLLLMAAAAAAA!!!"
The Flintstones is a relic of my childhood that can be watched until the end of time. Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
For Keeps? (1988)
A good movie that teaches about the downsides of teenage pregnancy...
I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school at the time I had seen this film. I was taking a child development class in high school at that time, and one day, our teacher didn't feel like teaching - so she popped in this movie into the VCR, and we watched this movie...
The premise of the movie is that Darcy Elliot and her boyfriend Stan Bobrucz are seniors in high school and plan to go to college after graduating. Darcy plans to go to Paris, France with her mother before attending her college as a graduation present.
However, Darcy gets pregnant, and their parents urge them to go through an abortion or give up the baby for adoption - neither of which happens. At Christmas, however, both Darcy and Stan plan to keep the baby. They marry, rent a rather seedy apartment, and then they go to the prom, which their prom time is interrupted when Darcy goes into labor and gives birth to a girl named Thea.
Now I won't give away the rest of the movie, but the movie shows the downsides of teen pregnancy. For instance, Stan and Darcy get into a lot of fights, Stan takes a second job, and the bills pile up so much that their electricity and their phone are shut off. That's the consequence of not paying your bills if you don't got the money. This results in Stan and Darcy having to move in with Darcy's mother Donna.
Like I said, this movie is a great teaching aid against teen pregnancy, and it was the final movie role where Molly Ringwald played a teenage character (as Darcy Elliot). Molly Ringwald tackled a lot of teenage girl roles in a lot of films throughout the 1980s (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty In Pink), but Molly was good when her character was having postpartum depression after having Thea.
Lots of other stars were in the film, such as the late Conchata Ferrell (of Two and a Half Men fame) as Mrs. Bobrucz, Kenneth Mars (voice of King Triton in The Little Mermaid) as Mr. Bobrucz, and Pauly Shore (in his first ever movie) as Retro, one of Stan's friends.
Overall, if you're a teacher in a school and teaching a child development class, this is a good movie to show to your class to show the cons of teen pregnancy.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Much better than Super Mario Bros. film from 1993...
Many of you folks may have been unlucky to see the Super Mario Bros. Live action film from 1993 that starred the late Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo as Mario and Luigi respectively. The movie was horrible, corny, and didn't make sense to many fellow Mario fans, including my sister and I. When I reconnected with my love for video games around the age of 16, I read a lot of jeers for the infamous Super Mario Bros. Film. Heck, I read that Bob Hoskins said that it was the WORST film he ever did...
And then...along came Illumination's idea to adapt Mario. I've seen their wonderful movies, including the Despicable Me films (let alone the Minions movies), and when I saw the trailer where I heard Jack Black voicing Bowser in a far more menacing way (than how he would voice protagonists, such as Po in the Kung Fu Panda films), I was hooked.
I won't give away the movie, but the animation was superb. Hearing Chris Pratt (who I first learned of as Emmet Brickowski in The Lego Movie) as Mario was a bit odd with no Italian accent. Let it be known that I am FAR MUCH USED to Charles Martinet doing Mario's voice as of now.
While I saw this movie at a drive-in theater (as the weather in Upstate New York was unusually warm), I was hearing a lot of familiar songs in the Mario games (including the oh-so-famous overground theme from Super Mario Bros., which is ubiquitous), and seemed to do "Name That Mario Game Tune" throughout the movie.
Bottom line, this movie is LOADS better than the infamous 1993 film. If you didn't see the 1993 film, you're lucky. Go see this film for your own sake if you're a Mario fan.
Theme Hospital (1997)
Dr. Jekyll to Psychiatry, please...
As a girl about to enter 7th grade in 1997, this game was really a hoot to play. I had discovered it as a demo on a PC Gamer disc during the summer of 1997, and gave it a go. As the days and such went on, the game was rather amusing...and here's why.
The game has some made up diseases. One of them is Bloaty Head, where the afflicted patient's head is...well, bloaty. Then we have King Complex (which I alternatively call King Syndrome), where the patient is impersonating Elvis Presley. Then we've got Slack Tongue, where the patient's tongue is larger than usual, and has to be treated in the Slack Tongue Clinic.
You gotta admire how Bullfrog Productions' team put a lot of work into the game, giving the game some memorable tunes, which I listen to on my iPod at this day and age. They also made some rather humorous Game Over cutscenes if you fail in Theme Hospital for whatever the reason (for instance, killing too many patients). And how could I EVER forget the receptionist's voice making various announcements, even funny ones? (My father would let out a chuckle every time she'd utter, "Patients are reminded not to die in the corridors.")
This game is quite a memory from my childhood, and if you loved Theme Hospital, I HIGHLY recommend you get its spiritual sequel called Two Point Hospital, which many employees of Bullfrog Productions made.
Suburban Commando (1991)
Hulk Hogan fights evil-doers intergalactically!
As a girl who was born in 1985, I know pro wrestling was all the rage, especially with Hulk Hogan. I wasn't big on pro wrestling, but then I had seen this underrated film starring WWE (which was WWF at the time) wrestler Hulk Hogan when watching this movie countless times on Showtime.
Well, where do I start? The film is hysterical at many scenes. The scene with the car alarm was one that had me rolling on the floor laughing. Then there was the one with Shep Ramsey beating Sega's After Burner arcade game ("GIVE IT UP DRAGOS! GIVE IT UP!"), which had a pretty explosive (pun intended) ending. The scenes with Shep giving the street mime hell were funny.
I won't give away much of the movie, but there are many other well-known actors/actresses other than just Hulk Hogan. Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, etc.) plays Charlie Wilcox, whose hobby shop is made into a vacation cabin, which Shep Ramsey rents. Along the way, two bounty hunters (one of which who is played by Mark Calaway aka The Undertaker) are going after Shep Ramsey.
The funniest part of the film is when Charlie is frozen by the bank robbers, and when he's taken to the place where Shep is charging his ship, he unthaws and utters the most notable line that Christopher Lloyd would ever utter in the course of his acting career (other than saying "Great Scott!" when the guy was Doc Emmett Brown in Back To The Future): "I WAS FROZEN TODAY!" (as a side note, my aunt had the privilege to work with Christopher Lloyd who starred in a film she was doing called Senior Moment, which I suggest you folks stream by means of Amazon).
Even though Suburban Commando wasn't the best in the box office, it was still pretty funny when I would watch it.
Garfield and Friends (1988)
Hating Mondays but loving lasagna...
As an 80's baby, I grew up watching 1980s cartoons, whether they were being first run on Saturday mornings, or if it was being reran on other networks throughout the 1990s and such.
There's nothing better than watching Garfield and Friends. This show, which features our favorite orange cat who loves lasagna but hates Mondays, has Garfield and his buddies (Odie, Jon Arbuckle, Nermal, etc.) doing all sorts of antics throughout many episodes.
Along with Garfield is the U. S. Acres, which was based upon a short-lived comic strip Jim Davis did in the late 1980s(?) that had barnyard characters. Orson was a pig, Wade was a duck (that, according to my uncle, who died in 2019 in a car accident, was afraid of everything) who wore an inner tube around his waist, Bo and Lanolin were sheep (or lambs?), Booker, one of the chicks, and finally, Sheldon, who hasn't come out of his shell...and I mean it literally.
There are more than a few memorable episodes of Garfield and Friends, but one that sticks out in my memory is the episode "Clean Sweep" where Jon gets a dog cleaning machine to clean Odie so he wouldn't have to do it himself. When the robot would activate, the sound heard when the spider skitters about on the screen in the old arcade game "Centipede" was heard. The episode certainly had me laughing.
Even though some of the voice actors in Garfield and Friends may have passed, (namely Lorenzo Music, the one and only voice of Garfield), Garfield and Friends has been a very good relic of my childhood. Long live Garfield!
Atsumare doubutsu no mori (2020)
The best cure for being down in the dumps...
When this fine mess regarding the COVID-19 pandemic started, I was cooped up in my first apartment playing the same old video games I was playing (Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, The Sims 4, Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled, etc.), and they started to make me go stir crazy over not being able to do the things I would normally get to do...
...and then along came this Animal Crossing game I've gotten word of mouth from from a bunch of net friends. However, the first time I was able to experience this Animal Crossing game and know what all this Animal Crossing fuss is all about was when I picked up a copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons at Walmart, which I hadn't been able to set foot in since the pandemic began.
At first things were boring. I started out with a few other villager animals that are still on my island (which I called GreenAcres after the 1960s sitcom of the same name) named Sterling (an eagle) and Hazel (a squirrel). Since it was my very first Animal Crossing game I had ever touched in my life, I got stung twice by wasps after shaking their nests out of a tree (ouch!), causing me to faint.
I won't go into much detail, but when I finally got a grip on how to get more stuff in Animal Crossing (and get me a house in the game) thanks to the powers of the Siri function on my iPhone, I sometimes will drag on with a session of this lovely game for what may seem like more than three hours. And you gotta love Isabelle, Tom Nook and his Nooklings (Timmy and Tommy), among other characters.
Bottom line, this Animal Crossing game got me through some hard times, whether it was COVID-19, being evicted from my first apartment (for being a noisy neighbor), or just if I'm feeling down. This is why Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still my go-to game on my Nintendo Switch to this very day.
Thank you Nintendo for making this game my favorite.
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (2000)
Zangief says it best: "QUICK! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!"
I remember first hearing Elmo & Patsy's "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" song by seeing its music video on TV when I was eight years old, and I heard it a bunch of times throughout my childhood, even when I was in my teenage years.
Then came this Christmas special based upon the song in 2000. I was seeing the VHS tape in stores (like Walmart and such), and then on the first Sunday in December of 2000, my older sister and I were in Sunday School, and our friend brought in the VHS of this special, and I thought it would be an okay special...
I was sadly mistaken. Halfway into this special, people in my Sunday School class were falling asleep, and as a lot of people could imagine, I was rather disgruntled, and people were demanding our friend to put in another VHS because this special based upon a rather funny special was HORRIBLE!
From that day forward, I made a vow to AVOID watching this special as long as I lived. This "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" special is Whamageddon (avoiding listening to Wham!'s "Last Christmas" until Christmas Eve) in my perspective.
Whenever I know this putrid Christmas special is about to come on TV, whether it's The CW or Cartoon Network, I avoid it at ALL COSTS! I love the song, but I HATE, HATE, HATE this special!