Reviews

You know, I hadn't really watched Southpark since I went off to college. That was way back in the early 2000's so I've missed a lot. The only reason I went back to it was because some of the YouTube channels I watch made references to Memberberries and I was like, hmmm, I have HBO, Southpark is on HBO, why not watch it. I was bored and drunk that night and so I watched them backwards - meaning, I started from the lastest episode and worked backwards to the earlier episodes. Probably not the best way to watch them but F-it. They're pretty much episodic anyways so you can watch them in any order you want.

Upon watching Southpark again, I gotta say, I was surprised. I thought they would've bowed to the foaming at the mouth fanatics of the "movement" but they didn't. You know, those people who say you can't criticize anything because that's an -ism and you're an -ist, a terribly bad, crappy person even though they're content is legit S-Garbage. "Think what I command you to think!" Blah, blah, blah. Good on you Southpark for telling them to go F-themselves.

But I digress, this episode was unexpectedly, really funny. These teenagers wondering into the boys' houses. Not understanding how anything works. Being dumb as #%^# and getting pissed off about it. Damn their stupid! And the Boys' had to act like the adults. Is this how teenagers are nowadays? Do they really walk around saying Bruh all the time. Boy, is that annoying. Is that why those boys in Avatar 2 say Bruh all the time? I mean, I suppose every generation of teenagers are annoying. We were all once teenagers. That awkward stage where every thing is the end of the world. If I could go back in time to talk to my teenage self I'd say, "You think $&@$ is bad now, wait, it gets worse. This is a walk in the park compared to what's coming. Crappy adulthood."

I've heard it said that you can't make comedies like they use to. The Office, All in the Family, Married with Children would all be considered, "problematic" nowadays. Blazing Saddles? Jesus Christ! Forget about it! If it were up to these Social Justice Terrorist everything would be like Full House except they'd all be LGBT and represent every race on the entire planet. It's like they want to make the whole world a "Safe Place". They don't have a sense of humor and they don't want anyone else to have any fun. That's too bad because I feel that great comedy should push boundaries. Great comedy points out how incredibly stupid something is and I'm glad Southpark is still doing it. Yeah! F those people!

This movie was alright. There were things about it that didn't make much sense but this was somewhat mitigated by the eye candy... you know what I mean.

Like, why would there be no rail that leads to the tip top where the light bulb is at? There are actual people, in real life, that go up these kind of structures to change these bulbs and they need a reasonably safe way of getting to them so I didn't buy that. Also, these same people, who change the light bulbs would probably complain about how rackety this structure is and unless the company that owns this tower wants a million dollar lawsuit from one of the workers falling or the whole structure itself collapsing and killing people below they'd send a construction crew out to reinforce it. Because, like I said before, these bulbs eventually go out and someone gets paid a crap ton of money to climb them and change those bulbs so that planes don't fly into them at night.

Also, if this girl is a professional climber like she says she is then it baffles me that she didn't do any recon on this structure. She didn't go out to it first and look at it, examine it, test it. Seems incredibly foolish to me to climb a tower that's rusted and old as $&@$ without first, at least, going to look at it. And, it was also incredibly stupid for that same girl to jump to that radar so she could retrieve that backpack without having any way of getting back to the rope. Now your stuck there ya dumb $&@$@! Of course (spoiler alert) that part didn't really happen which I must admit, did catch me by surprise. Two perfectly beautiful boobs wasted. SMH. But that's alright because the second girl pops her white tee off and her boobs are equally beautiful. Very nice.

Lastly, my brother being an electrician, told me the connection to complete a circuit in light sockets are inside the holes themselves so you wouldn't be able to just touch your plug to the outside rim and get a charge. If it were actually like that then this configuration would present a potential electrocution hazard to anyone having to manipulate the bulb for whatever reason.

Alright, those are all my complaints. Other then those, I must admit the movie was fairly entertaining to the bunch of drunk dudes watching it. It was fun to call out the problems and look at two beautiful women. So, it gets a five my book.

Oh, one last thing, how is it that she flew that drone right into that semi? I mean, she is on a tall as $&@$ tower, she can see miles in every direction. Your telling me the girl piloting the drone didn't, at any point, look up to see where her drone was actually at. You didn't see that semi truck coming, huh?

Wow... If this story follows some semblance of logic then it just killed off almost all of it's main characters in one fell swoop. Just like that, they're all dead... That's $&@$ing crazy. Especially Galadriel. She absolutely has to be dead. Unless Elves can survive a raging inferno or have some sort of magic they didn't mysteriously use until now, she's totally $&@$ed. So is everyone else in that village. They have to all be dead! How is anyone going to survive something like that?! There's no way!

On the other hand, it would be totally nuts to kill off most of your characters like that. Where would you go from there? You only have the Hobbits left. But, you know there going to find some crazy $&@$ing way to keep them alive. Saved by some, just in the nick of time, miracle. All of the important characters will somehow live.

Man, can you imagine the balls it would take to commit to something like that as a writer. Killing off all those story characters like that? You'd have to start fresh with a bunch of new characters and/or go back to the ones that remain elsewhere in the world. But they're not going to do that and that's kind of disappointing because I'd be very interested to see what happens after that. I mean, I guess I'm interested either way.

So in short: If they kill off all of them - That's shocking and I'd be very interested to see where it goes from there. If they kill off some of them - That's still shocking and interesting especially if it's an important character. If no one dies then that will be disappointing. In that case, I'd feel like I was tricked. The old bait and switch. Because if they are trying to create a fantasy world that feels real i.e. It obeys some semblance of our physical laws even though it is fantastical in nature, it still follows rules, then there must be consequences for what just happened. Important people must die!

But they're not going to do that. Everyone is going to miraculously live and I'm just talking in circles.

So the first time I watched this movie, I didn't get it. I was very confused by what was "real" and what wasn't "real". Even though I was lost at what to make of this movie it had somehow still put it's hooks in me. The next day, after having seen it, I read a fantastic article that better explained the movie to me then I watched it again with this understanding and I loved it! But I can understand people not liking it. It's one of those artsy, interpretive movies and can be difficult to grasp but once your given some guidance on how to interrupt what you're seeing it is much more enjoyable.

Let me start off by prefacing that this is not your typical knighty movie. In fact, I'd call it the anti-knight's movie. The anti-quest, if you will. Gawain has aspirations for being a famous knight BUT he lacks knightly qualities. He's not brave. He's not chivalrous. He's always trying to take the easy way out. Every test to prove the caliber of his character he fails. Now this sounds like a set up to a comedy, and in some ways it is, but not the laugh out loud kind of comedy more of an intellectual kinda comedy. It's brain funny because it's a contradiction.

Also, Gawain's mother plays a huge part in the story even though she's not in most of the movie. She is the one who summons the Green Knight to King Arthur's court so that her son can go on a Knightly quest. She also gives Gawain a scarf(???) or something like that, that essential makes him invincible as long as he keeps it on. Any scene that depicts him dying, he doesn't actually die because the scarf magically brings him back to life without any knowledge that he'd ever died in the first place. You can see how this makes his quest unfair. There's nothing that he is really putting on the line. It's like playing a video game where you're constantly getting help from an unseen hand and you have infinite lives. You're eventually going to make it regardless of how unskilled or incompetent you are. You're not truly being challenged just in the same way Gawain is not truly being challenged. And therefore, he is not worthy of becoming a knight but, he becomes one anyways because he cheated and he lied his way to it. But it's a empty victory. He lives a long life only to understand that all his victories are hollow and everyone hates him and everything he built up over the years falls apart late in his life. Was it worth it?

The answer is no, because he's suddenly taken back to his final confrontation with The Green Knight where he decides to take the scarf off and accept his fate. The Green Knight sees this and congratulates Gawain on his bravery only to tell him that his head is coming off anyways. This seems to surprise Gawain, as I think, he was excepting to be praised for his bravery and allowed to live for it. And then the movie suddenly ends. We don't see his head come off but I think we can safely assume it does. Now Gawain is truly a knightly hero and all he had to do was give up his life.

I really like this movie because it's very different from other movies I was watching at the time. Something new and refreshing. It even contradicts the usual conventions of its own genre. Also, to me, Gawain was portrayed as something like an everyday man. He's not a bad person but he has no real strengths, no real talent, and he's lazy. He's just an ordinary guy who has aspirations for being great but lacks the strength of character or real will to do so. This movie is The Anti-Knights Tale and I love it!

I watched 3 of this director's movies. The Witch (I saw somebody call it The VVitch. It's not called The VVitch is called The Witch. They just did that VV thing as a design choice). That movie was pretty good. If anything, it was memorable for me. On a side note, if that hot witch would've shown up to me when I was a boy, looking all sexy in the woods like that, I would've been like, hell yeah! This never happens to me! Awesome! I also saw The Lighthouse which was also a good movie but it made me feel uncomfortable. If that was the director's intention then kudos to him because it worked. And lastly, The Northman, which to me, I thought was actually better then those two movies previously mentioned.

I think, the reason for a lot of these low rating scores I've been seeing is because, maybe, people were excepting something a bit more action oriented. Instead, they are presented with a slow burn revenge story. The story is structured more like a Classical Greek drama then a contemporary movie. You know, the king or the prince or whoever is expelled from their kingdom for whatever reason. They go on a journey. They meet witches and the sorcerers along the way that guides them. Everything is fated. You cannot fight fate. Blah, blah, blah. The hero confronts the man who took everything from him and kills him. (Actually, spoiler alert, they kill each other at the same time.) It's the same story we've heard millions of times since antiquity and Homer's Odyssey. So there aren't any surprises or twists here. It's just a Nordish Mythological revenge story. Plain and simple. Having said that, I'd say that it's a very well done revenge story. If you go into it excepting some sort of epic medieval story with lots of action and sword fights the likes of Vikings or Gladiator you'll be disappointed. If you go into excepting a slow burn revenge story you'll probably get more mileage out of it.

For me, watching this movie was entrancing. It was like watching a sweaty foggy fever dream. The visuals were memorizing. The acting was good. The historical accuracy of the clothing and housing seemed spot on. And the last battle, I thought, was epic! Probably the most epic one-on-one Viking battle I've ever seen. I mean, come on, they're sword fighting at night in front of an erupting volcano totally butt naked. It takes a certain kind to man to walk into a sword fight without any clothes on. The balls on that guy are huge! (Metaphorically speaking). I think, if people walk into this movie excepting what I previously mentioned they'll have a more enjoyable time. Although, this is not a movie that's for everyone. It's not a masterpiece and it's a story trope that's been explored many times before but still, it's a well told story.

P. S. If any of you guys liked this movie then might I suggest watching Valhalla Raising. It's another Viking story in the vein of The Northman but, in my opinion, a better, albeit a more psychedelic movie. Mads Mikkelsen plays a Viking warrior named One Eye who can't speak because his tongue has been cut out and he's put into gladiatorial battles with other people. Oh man, a Viking battle between Mads Mikkelsen's character in Valhalla Raising and Alexander Skarsgard's character in The Northman would be both a brutal and epic battle!

Nope. I wrote this out then I accidentally turned my phone and it kicked me out of the app and now I have to write this again and now I'm even angrier then before.

Those old movies, that new movie, this show, they all suck and I don't care. I don't care so much that I'm going to write a lengthy review about it.

Resident Evil 2 and 4 (the games) were so much better then those movies and TV shows. They were actually scary. That other stuff was garbage. Not scary. Why should I have any fear for a woman who can launch her motorcycle through a church window (classy move by-the-way) then blast the crap out of a monster a hundred times before she even touches the ground. I thought I was watching Resident Evil not Devil May Cry. I mean, they're just not scary. There's nothing really on the line. These women are invincible! They're ridiculous! Same for this show.

Another thing I noticed, why do these monsters, zombies, whatever you want to call them, why do they wait to kill people? That caterpillar zombie had that main chick right there on that car and it didn't kill her. Nope, it had to get close to her. It had to smell her. Then it had to roar. And when it looked back down she was gone. She'd ran away while it was roaring and it didn't see where she went.

That didn't really happen but can you imagine how funny that would look if it had. Nope, the caterpillar gets its brains shot out at the last second. Saved in the nick of time. What a coincidence! The regular zombies do the same thing. Blood drops. They turn and look. They wait... then they run after her. Why? She's right there for Christ sakes! Just get her! Man, these zombies are stupid.

Lastly, why is it they when they move into this new neighborhood they show everyone as being white. Even all the houses are white. I mean, you can't get any whiter then how white this neighborhood is. They made it pretty obvious. And Whiskers family (or whatever it is!) are the only black family in the neighborhood. I'm three episodes in and this still hasn't been explained. Why make this such a striking and obvious visual reference but never mention anything about it? That just seems kinda strange and pointless to me.

Ultimately, this show is so bad it makes me want to scream and set my hair on fire and jump off a bridge. That would be so much better then watching another minute of this show! And it's ruined my childhood! And my ruined children's childhood too! I can't believe this! What an outrage! But for real, I'll probably continue watching it and criticizing it because there's nothing else to watch right now.

Let me start off my saying I'm not one of those people who go crazy over Marvel movies... (Shrugs) They're alright. Some of them are better then others but I most certainly wouldn't put ANY Marvel in my top ten movies of all time. And any person who can look me straight in the eyes and say that they truly honestly believe Spider Man: No Way Home is the best movie ever made-they can't think of any other movie they've ever seen that was better-well, I might question whether they were mentally handicap. For real.

So I saw this movie about two months ago. A sign that a movie was good to you would be remembering a lot about it. I don't remember that much about this movie but I'll dip my toe into some of the stuff I do remember.

You ever watch a TV show or movie where some character makes a garbage-ass joke and all the characters fake laugh at it? Like, the people playing that part don't really think that's funny so they're forcing a laugh. That fake laugh BS. I always roll my eyes when that happens. Peter Parker asks Doc Oct what his name is. He tells them it's Otto Octavius and Peter and the Gang get a good little laugh out of that. OH MY GOD IT'S SO FUNNY! But then they ask him what his real name is and he tells them the same thing... I work in law and I've seen some crazy-ass names. Names that your tongue would get tied in a knot trying to say. I met two guys with the last name Weiner and Doodee. Yup, true story. Mr. Weiner and Mr. Doodee, but not at the same time. I don't think Otto Octavius is that funny of a name and I don't remember anybody I was watching it with laughing either. But they're going laugh at it because that name is so crazy! ... Ok. Peter should've just said, "Are you for real?" And Doc Oct says, "Yeah." And that's that. No need to fake laugh at it. I remember that part and it bothered me.

Another thing I had an issue with was whether what Peter Parker was doing, trying to save these villains, while good and admirable was, to me, morally ambiguous. My understanding is that he had to cure them and send them all back to their respective dimensions. This would fix things and all would go back on to the way it was, for some reason, and no one has to die. Right? Now I can see the Sandman, and the Lizard Dude, and Otto Octavius, and Green Goblin wanting to be cure. Some of there conditions may not have been entirely their fault. Some of them could be consider victims. But it's hard for me to believe that Electro would want to go back to the way he was. Why? He was a loser. No one even knew his damn name! Would you really want to go from being an electrical god to being a nobody? But Peter is forcing the cure on them. The alternative is to die but their not given that choice. Is it right to force a cure on someone who doesn't want to be cured? What if they like who they are? What if they'd prefer to die instead? They're not given any other options. Peter Parker is so good that he's going to cure them whether they like it or not. The moral implications of him forcing them to be saved is complicated when you really start to think about it.

The last thing I remember is the Three Parkers. That was a cool scene and this is what brought my score up to a seven. I was especially impressed with Tobey Maguire back as the original Spider Man. He's older, wiser, and seems to genuinely care. And there's a sadness behind his eyes. I would be really interested in watching another spider man movie with him reprising the role.

I can't stop watching this show in spite of how ridiculous some of these theories are. Marie Antoinnette? The Knights Templar? The Mayans?! What?! I just don't understand why anyone would dig some deep-ass tunnels, to bury their treasure 200 ft down, in some hard-ass rock on some random-ass island. Why would anyone go through all that trouble when you could just bury it 6 ft down so you can easily get it later. Or maybe, don't bury it at all. Spend it you idiots! You know, like normal pirates do.

But then I start thinking, "If it's a religious site maybe there's treasure there. You know, like the pyramids or something." And I hold onto that small intriguing thought in spite of my logic screaming, " That's stupid! There's nothing there!" The only mystery is why people keep sinking their money into this island. I mean, come on, one guy's theory is that the Mayan's sailed from South America all the way to Canada just to booby trap and bury their treasure. That sounded so absurd I would've slapped the dude who said that in his face. I can't believe some people buy this stuff. However there are some that are plausible. The one about the British soldiers burying their plunder of war there; I can see that possibly happening but not 200 ft down in an elaborate tunnel system. That's ridiculous. No one who wants to get their treasure back is going to bury it that deep.

And I also don't like how the show makes a big deal about the most mundane things. "I found a handle that's a treasure chest handle." Cue dramatic music Because it can't possibly be a handle for anything else. They find a log. Cue dramatic. They find a rock. Cue dramatic music. Anyone mentions the word treasure or gold. Cue dramatic music. If any documentary guys are reading this please stop with the dramatic music cues every 10 secs. It's getting out of hand. Not everything is dramatic.

Despite all this I can't stop watching it! Even though my logical mind tells me this stuff is BS there is that small bit of intrigue that's taken me 8 episodes and I'll very likely finish the rest. So I give it a 6. There are things that annoy me about it but it's kept my attention.

The title says it all. What started out as an awesome episode ended so horribly that I was yelling at the TV screen. "You can't end it like that!" But it did... It ended that way and it gave me cinematic blue balls. The problem is they had all these pieces in place, all moving towards this massive conflict... then nothing happens. Nope Tom Riker pussyed out and decided not to go through with it. He'd rather spend the rest of his life in a prison camp then go out in the blaze of glory. What?! Why take the time to build all this tension then have no conflict. It's like a woman who teases a penis but does not finish. It aint right. That's what this episode did to me. Don't get me wrong, it was fantastic in the beginning but in the end I was alone with massive blue balls. 5 stars out of 10.

P.S. Like Michael J. Tobias said, they should've made this a two parter. End the first part with a cliff hanger. The Defiant is surrounded! Then start the next episode there and have Riker finish his mission at all cost. That would've been really cool

Lets Stop and Talk About Our Feelings… Attack on Titan Season 1 Review

Let me start off by saying the first time I watched Attack on Titan Season 1 I was hooked right from the get go. The plot was interesting and original and the Titans were terrifying. I'm not kidding. They truly freaked me out. It's horrifying enough they're gigantic and they eat people but the cherry on the pants crapping terror cake is their otherworldly demeanor. Their Joker smiles. The way some of them run like it's a fun frolic through a flower field. And their inexplicable, insatiable appetite for human flesh. They really like eating people. And If I saw a Titan in real life I'd be like James Wood off of Scary Movie when he sees that girl rotate her head 360 degrees a la The Exorcism. "Funk that!" And run off.

Now that stuff was great and all but upon watching the first season again I gotta tell yea I was starting to lose my patience in a very big way. I cant tell you how many times during intense action scenes where they'd pause it so that the characters can express their thoughts and feelings. For example, the three main characters have to make a split second decision before a cannon blows them to kingdom come but they spend half the f-ing episode talking about the right thing to do! They did the same thing in a scene where an intelligent female Titan is chasing them through the giant tree forest. That Titan is right on their butts and they got time to stop and reflect not once, not twice but three MF-ing times! She's right behind them! There's no time to think stupids. I was getting so upset I'd yell at the screen, "Shut the F up and get on with it already! Jesus Christ!" Can you see how annoying that would get? It'd be like watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick where they'd stop right in the middle of every firefight, 15 minutes at a time, so we can hear every person's thoughts on what's happening. Good Lord! If you'd cut out all that damn exposition in an Attack on Titan episode it'd probably be 7 minutes long. Seriously, that's too much. Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." Obviously the guys who write for Attack on Titan didn't get that memo.

Another thing that annoyed me was how the characters dramatize everything it that over-the-top anime way. You know what I'm talking about. Everything is a big deal and every sentence has the force of a nuclear blast. Eren, the main character, is particularly bad about this. Always screaming and whining about something. Dude you gotta take a chill pill and stop yelling like that or you're going to blow out your hemorrhoids. I should know.

Now don't get me wrong, I still like Attack on Titan even though I just took a huge steaming poopy on it. It's just very frustrating, to me, that an awesome battle scene is constantly interrupted by, "Lets stop and talk about our feelings" bull crap. The first time it didn't bother me too much but the second time it drove me up the walls. If they come out with a second season I will watch it but for the love of God I hope they cut down on all that needless expositional garbage.

Crap, crap, crap, crap, and more crap. Piles and piles of crap! Tons of it, as far as the eye can see. Not only does this movie delve into the BS that is 'humans only use 10% of their brains' garbage, the movie gives Lucy outlandish god-like powers when she moves above 10%. How does having a higher brain capacity allow one to defy gravity, gain telekinesis, understand Chinese instantly without once studying it, able to see a person's plane ticket and hence where they are going without having personally seen it even for a second, change their form at will, search out and listen to phone cells without a device from which to hear it, and move to any point in time? All this wouldn't have been so bad had the movie went for a kind of fantasy theme, but it tries to give itself scientific credibility which only makes the movie more ridiculous.

My other issue with this movie is the conflict Lucy has with the bad guys. How on earth are normal men suppose to take out a god when she can destroy them with a simple thought? There is no tension in this movie. It's all gone when that happens. The bad guys are simply fodder for her. This movie would've been better had they explored deeper into the concept of Lucy struggling with losing her humanity, in fact, you could've made the whole movie about that concept and it would've been way, way, way better, but nope, it wanted to be an action film with pseudo- science, and a dash of philosophy.

I respect Luc Besson as a movie maker. I especially loved Leon: The Professional, and Danny the Dog, but this movie was terrible. I'll give this three stars only because the beginning was engaging but as soon as Lucy started to defy gravity and roll up the walls in her jail cell I was instantly turned off. It defies scientific logic and it loses all its tension. If you want to see a movie about the same concept than watch Limitless, which is much better.