Reviews

If you love 80s horror movies, like "Nightmares on Elm St", "Friday 13th" or "Hellraiser" - then "Unwelcome" is the right movie for you !

I just saw it last night, rented from Youtube. I've never expected I would see such a great movie. First of all it started like a copy-paste of an 80s horror movie scenario - cool panoramic scenery of calm nature, small village, young family moving from the big city to escape the big city crime to the calm small village, mysterious forest with ancient mysterious creatures. So copy-pasted at first and yet so wonderful to see it!

First thing that struck me was that unlike most modern movies, especially a movie coming from a smaller studio it was real beautifully shot and especially beautifully color-edited. I totally love the vibe the colors put on the entire story. Whoever shot it and whoever color-edited it and the editors in general did a truly great job. As a Youtuber myself I could not miss to mention that.

Then was Hannah John-Kamen which I knew from "Killjoys" and liked a lot. Sure, she plays in other much bigger titles, but I liked her in "Killjoys". Then we get a cool set of distinct characters carefully added.

Basically everything in the movie is added with precision. Do not let me saying it is "copy-pasted" to stop you from seeing it, because this movie is the 80s horror recipe - unlike modern horrors which plan to make you watch five minute suspense when nothing happens and then make you jump when all of a sudden something scary pops-up, "Unwelcome" does it exactly like they did it in the 80s - especially the "The Fly" (Jeff Goldblum version) and "Hellraiser" way - you get a bit over the half time story developing, then can see the villains coming from a far - fully shown, you know already what might happen, but you do not know the details exactly how it will happen and you wait to see. And it happens with both precisely dosed amount of blood and humor (yes, there are actually funny things among the scary ones). We also get good amount of visual effects and visually well crafted villains.

Of course we got a happy end, but it was sorta an unexpected the way it ended, which was a nice surprise.

We even got just a little tiny bit of suggested erotica when Hannah was about to take a bath, before another character ruined everything. And that was really the only thing which I miss here to be a truly 80s movie in the big horror franchise style - they had to let her take a bath for few minutes so we could enjoy a bit more of her beauty, before the action take place. Sorta like the teen girl bath scene right before Freddy Krueger to surprise her in the very first movie.

But anyway. And now question is what will happen, because even "Jeepers Creepers" being not that good got few sequels, so for "Unwelcome" I want TWO sequels for sure! There are plenty of opportunities for this to unfold and I already wrote to Mark, one of the writers to keep it in mind. Hope they'll do it.

Go check it out!

I am glad that there are still movies done with just few actors, which can still show that this is far enough to make an interesting movie.

This is a weird movie. Not everyone's taste. But I did not understood how two hours passed. There are just four actors involved, everything happens in just one place and yet somehow this is enough. This is a scifi military thriller. I enjoyed it from begining to the end.

Music is fine, camera work is fine, actors are fine, story is interesting. What is not to like? Kudos with whoever came-up with the idea.

And there are nice visual effects on top of that.

Fact is, everything in this movie is simple, a bit weird, well dosed and yet everything fits really well.

I enjoyed it, but it is not everybody's taste.

Just finished watching this movie, rented out from Youtube Movies (Google Play Movies). I have to say this is the cutest movie I've seen the last two-three years.

Sure it's a drama, but it is romantic and so cute. Time passes slow when you watch it, it is not one of those action movies you don't understand how fast is it the movie finished, but you cannot take your eyes out of the movie.

It is also a fine and rare example of what you could do with just nine actors. Sorta "Breakfast Club", except the entire movie is actually about just two characters, everybody else just pop-up periodically and the two characters constantly change the place - they move around the city.

I don't know what is it between the actors, but the actress really does look in love, no idea if this is just screen magic or going on for real. Either way the two main actors do play their characters really well.

Thus said in general the movie is really enjoyable. Not the everybody's taste, but really enjoyable. Camera work is good, music is good, sound is good, nothing to complain. I enjoyed watching from beginning to the end.

Overall the movie is about the real love most people missed, the artistic dreams and opportunities we missed and finally where we are all headed at.

Enjoy!

Just finished watching this documentary I rented out from Google Play Movies. This time I will be short in my review. In very short: This is a documentary for all parents and children hockey coaches to see.

Hockey is a beautiful game. I never played, can't yet skate on ice, but I love to watch. Personally I am a Toronto Mapple Leafs fan. But this documentary is about children. There is a brutal aspect of the game and we all know that. There are fights, there are hits - the so called checkings. Children are shielded from all this up to a certain age. True, initially they are forbidden to fight, but they are encouraged to check. And this is what this movie is about - the moment they are introduced to checking.

It is not a secret, that hockey and the American-style football (to differentiate from what Europeans call "football", which in North America is called "soccer") are the most dangerous sports in North America from the popular team sports. Lots of people adore them, lots of people play them either professionally, amateur leagues or just for fun in the park. But there is a dark side - lots of people do get injured and some of them do not recover or do recover for a serious amount of time and wish they never did it. And we do not want that. We all want games where everybody play for the sport, games which are safe for everybody or at least games where no serious injuries could happen. But reality is different.

What this documentary differs is that it is done trough the eyes of both a children coach and a father, because the main character is the coach's son. The movie follows him and his teammates from the moment right before checkings are introduced, to the moment where some kids have already broke their arms in their second year of checking. We see several points of view - the coaches, the concussion specialists, the mothers and fathers and most of all - the children themselves.

Generally the movie is well done. There is a nice camera work, nice music, including a very good end song. Story is well developed and generally I would recommend this movie to absolutely all parents and children hockey coaches out there. And most importantly - do show this movie to your children! Even though my son does not play hockey at all, he is close to the age of these kids and I have shown him already few moments and plan to show him few more today. I have to say even I re-winded few moments several times to watch certain important things.

What I really like about the movie is they try to show a more dynamic picture, for which they have mounted cameras on several places - on the rink walls and on the players.

So to finish all this - all parents, children and children hockey coaches should watch this.

Extremely well done documentary on an extremely sensitive subject - editing the human genome. Everything revolves around the Chinese scientist professor He Jiankui and his secret experiment of CRISPR human genome editing, experimenting on two twin babies. While his initial desire is to help humanity get rid of HIV, many question the actual use of the technology, as it gives unlimited possibilities and real opportunity of playing God. But what kind of a God could we be? A good one or a bad one? Would scientists really help humanity get rid of deceases or would it be a luxe of those who can afford it to have a designer baby created for them? And would some use it to control humanity? Nobody can answer these questions now. Only clear is this - it is inevitable that science would develop this technology and start to use it as soon as possible and that it is now the time to develop a framework of ethical rules of what could be done and how it could be used.

The movie provides great imagery, good camera work and nice music while serving all this up, topped with a well narrated story. This movie is not to be looked up as a conspiracy, nor dystopia or utopia, it is to be seen only as the facts it tells about of the professor He Jiankui's experiment and for this it is really well made.

I love sport movies. And I watch mostly track-and-field and cycling sport movies. And I've seen pretty much everything that is to see for runners: "Personal Best", "Chariots of Fire", "Race", "McFarland USA", "Without Limits", "Prefontaine", "Running Brave", you name it. I was a long-distance runner hobbyist for a while too. And I have to say "Zatopek" 2021 is one of the very best and finest sport movies out there that is to see.

I don't know where to begin. First of all, this is absolutely not the typical sport movie one would expect. No. There is not the typical kung-fu style story development of the innocent little kid and his drama, who decides to embark on his personal spiritual and physical development and unwind it all in one great race to prove it all. No. The story unveils step by step, little by little and seen trough the eyes of Zatopek, the eyes of his wife Dana and Ron Clarke. Everything is shown with great attention to detail and trough the prism of the then existing Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. What one western viewer would see here would be completely alien to him, but coming from an ex-communist country myself I perfectly do understand everything happening in the movie and appreciate the detail it was all shown to us.

Speaking of the cinematography, the camera work and the editing, it is all perfectly done. There are really good scenes, beautiful landscapes. Music is really well made. Overall it is also a fine example of a great Director work, as watching this movie does not feel like watching a movie at all. It pretty much feels like living it. And this is the great about it - it is one of the movies I would definitelly want to watch again.

Actors act really good. Decors on the set are great. It really make you feel like you are in the 50s Czechoslovakia so you just lean back and enjoy the story.

Generally I seriously recommend seeing this movie not just to the sport movie fans, but also to any good movie lover out there. This is not just a good sport movie, this is a really well made movie in general. But speaking of sport movies, "Zatopek" 2021 is one of the VERY BEST sport movies EVER, because this is not just a good story, but also a story which has actually to offer a full palette of details. Think of "Personal Best" served with a lot other things.

It is needed to mention that there is a "Zatopek" comic book by Jan Novák published in 2016, which I actually got in 2021 but still had no time to read. Maybe now is a good time.

Put simply - to date (2022) this is the best heavy metal music documentary. The author really tried hard to explore the origins of nearly every subgenre and the genre as a whole and the directions it is heading. Plenty of metal legends interviews, everything is greatly structured, great camera work and great editing.

My only remarks are these: the company behind the documentary seems to explore North America and UK music only and fails to understand what is really going on when it goes East of UK. This applies both to "Metal Evolution" and "This is Pop" which is now on Netflix. So speaking of North America and UK everything is fine, everything is explained in great detail and well structured. But once they go to the actual part of Europe is where things go bad, because both movies show lack of proper understanding of both the European music roots and the European music culture. To be honest I will credit only these two documentaries, as these two are the only ones I have seen entirely. So far I started "Hip Hop Evolution", but I am still not past Season 1 Episode 4, so will refrain from commenting this one.

As for "Metal Evolution", there are basically few weak points. First thing I noticed was also lack of enought attention towards Sepultura. Sepultura was iconic superstar band in the trash era and they barely mentioned it. Sure, they used "trash legends" when mentioned it and there was a short interview with Max Cavalera, but that was it. There was nothing about the innovative solo sound which Andreas Kisser tried to do either. But Sepultura is a Brasilian band. So maybe Banger Films fail to properly understand everything which is outside North America and UK, not just Europe.

I don't think there was enough depth shown for the death metal genre either. Also while not a metal band, I think Red Hot Chilli Peppers deserved a proper mentioning in the grunge episode.

One other thing missing was mentioning the Goth metal genre and the industrial genre. However I assume there was not enough budget for these. Still - goth metal was huge in the mid 90s to the mid 2000s approximatelly, pioneered by the legendary Paradise Lost and this band was more than deserving to be shown. Speaking of industrial, this could be a huge topic, but mentioning at least Front 242, Ministry and KMFDM was needed.

One serious flaw I noticed was the power metal episode. Dude, how is it possible you did not properly understood what power metal is about ?? Sure, there was some imagery with bands like Manowar, but hell the power metal (and the speed metal and so on) was never about that! Helloween (respectively Gamma Ray), Blind Guardian and the rest - these are first and foremost about musicianship - all of them are amazing musicians. The hell - listen to some covers they did - everything is amazing, the same way as once a friend of mine could not differentiate Dream Theater doing a Kansas song cover. In the case of Blind Guardian for example or Gamma Ray - the covers they do are signed with a signature tones, very distinguishable. So first and foremost as I said - this metal is about being a great musician. Then the litemotif of the entire genre is the narrative - it is not just the European folklore, yes it started there, but it could be anything - it is all about a well told story. Yes - storytelling!! Expanding the J. R. R. Tolkien narrative with some new ornaments, adding a brush stroke on the Dune universe ("Traveler in Time" -Blind Guardian) or Stephen King (again Guardian) or praising the pirate adventures (Running Wild) or the good times of Nightwish with Tarja and the stories they have told! Why do you think we all listen to this music - it inspires us to dream with the stories they tell and this is exactly why bands like Blind Guardian put bard pictures on their covers, because it is all about storytelling! It may started with Rainbow and R. J. Dio continued in albums like "Holy Diver", but it lives on! For the sake of everything, the catchy melodies come in the very end of the whole thing!! Stick this in your pipe and smoke it once and for all!!

I also noticed there was nothing about the symphonic metal genre, which evolved out of the power metal to me and was and I guess to a degree is still a huge hit in Europe. But for example the super-famous album "Theli" of Therion came out in 1996, so no excuse a documentary in 2011 not to mention it. Therion pioneered the genre and lead hordes of Scandinavian bands after them.

No mentioning of the doom metal as well. Bands as Asphyx need a serious mention here.

And there were some experimental bands which also needed few words to be told, like Tiamat for example.

Anyway. I will attribute all this to the lack of budged, except the fail to understand the power metal. Everything else was fine, well researched and well told.

I still recommend watching this in 2022.

They started with a nice idea. But unlike the previous docuseries of this company "Heavy Metal Evolution" and "Hip Hop Evolution", these series ("This is Pop") totally lack research.

The series focus only on the North American pop music and the only time they showed Sweden as example of European pop music origin, was because of the connection to Brittney Spears, Backstreet Boys and so on.

What they show about the North American pop music is good, but even there they missed the major pop-stars - no Madonna, no Michael Jackson. How could this be?

These docuseries are a farce. USA is roughly 233 years old at present. While they have some pop music which originated there, there is a lot more going in Europe.

So what was missed - This is NOT POP because: no Madonna, no Michael Jackson, no European pop-music properly explained and more specifically:

No proper schlager explanation - dang you people - you did not found what Polka is ?? Yes, it started in Europe much before the Polka, but still. Then we go to Sweden about ABBA, but then we go to Italy (and partially Germany and France) about 80s disco called eurodisco, mostly known for the italodisco. Whoever did this movie is a total newbie. The italodisco was the major European pop music in the 80s. Madonna would have never been known in Europe if it wasn't for the Sandra to drop the pop-queen crown to become a mother. Then there is Sabrina and Samantha Fox. We have Mylene Farmer in France (and so much more). Did anyone mentioned the New Wave and the New Romantic? Okay I guess the New Romantic was a very short-lived thing.

Fast forward to the 90s where finally the eurodance came to the clubs and the swedish stars they mentioned became club legends.

But then anyone mentioned Belgium? No. They never heard of it. Late 90s was the hype of the electronic music. Dang they forgot Germany again? Berlin Techno anyone? Nope.

They talk of some festivals and they give example with some festivals and all of a sudden is like the famous Love Parade never existed ?! The biggest ever festival in the world is not mentioned at all.

Fast forward to the 2000s - the hype of the eurotrance (the vocal trance) and the power of Belgium (starting with Technotronic for example in the 90s) - Belgium is a mass producer of vocal trance - Milk Inc, Lasgo, Sylver.

So no - "This is Pop" is "This is NOT Pop". Too many major things missing. Forget these docuseries and go watch a proper pop-music documentary.

I love French comedies. Louis de Funès, Bourvil, Pierre Richard, all the French comedy classics. But this movie - it's just a big no-no. I tried. I watched 5 minutes for sure, maybe a bit more, but I could not reach full 10 minutes after the opening sequence. It was just extremely boring. Maybe the fun starts later, I don't know and I don't have any reason nor desire to wait that long. Nothing in this movie caught my eye - not the opening sequence, not the first five minutes of acting, not the music. Everything was just boring. I don't like to sound that way, but there are such movies, rarely but exist. Waste of time. Not the typical good comedie francaise.

This movie is not for everyone. You have to be in the mood, you have to be in the vibe to get it. You have to be at least a bit an artist, a weird one. At least a little bit.

To me, basically this movie is sort of "The Doors" (1991) meet "Downtown '81". A bit Basquiat-ish. There is a lot of both there. Except we see a black Jim Morrison and there is a happy end, so it ends well. But everything is there, plus a pinch of the "Hotline Miami" (2012) videogame soundtrack vibe.

Now as I think of, maybe there is a pinch of "Wild Style" (1982) as well. This self-discovery journey... Okay.

This movie is weird and very artistic. This movie gets you high without the need to do anything. Just sit and watch. It is a sort of a spiritual journey all along to re-discover your truth and your true self. Most defining quote is probably "how do you sell truth" with the answer being "by being true yourself". In this world of wannabees and fakers, go on a journey and find your own world with your own truth where you will meet your true self. The one that you hold back, the one to bring out and the one to help you go forward.

This is what movie is all about.

Great camera work, scenes, music, actor work, nothing bad about this movie. I rented it from Google Play, but after my rent period expire I actually plan to buy it. This is one I want to see again.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very amusing movie. I had fun watching it. But the trailer gives sort of a wrong impression being a new "Over the Top" (1987), while in reality this is an Over The Top cross The Karate Kid with The Powerpuff Girls crossover.

So basically we get the trucker and arm-wrestling kind of thing from "Over the Top" (1987), we add the cheating sensei and the sorry-feeling disciple from the "The Karate Kid" (1984) final match and we top it up with "The Powerpuff Girls"(1998)-sorta girl-power thing. The only thing we remove is the actual "Over the Top" parent drama, so in "Golden Arm" there is nothing serious, so generally it is all sugar and sweat with a pinch of glitter in the very end kind of thing.

Generally as I said the result is very amusing. Nice camera work, cool actors, not bad music, tough people and a cute main character which evolves quickly over time. And that's it.

Killing nearly two hours - sure, bring it on. It is amusing, I give it that.

This is the type of movies they need to make more often! And I loved it!

If you admired "Amélie" (2001), this is a much more complex story without all the computer bell and whistles of "Amélie"'s visual effects. "Skies of Lebanon" incorporates lots of visual effects of different types, excellent music and surreal vibe.

Actually it was the surrealism which really got me to see this movie, after seeing the trailer. The trailer itself gives pretty good clue what the movie is about.

One important thing to mention: I am not familiar at all with the history of Lebanon, so I will not comment on this aspect. I was watching the movie purely as a story.

In short, this is a love story set mainly in Lebanon. Unlike "Amélie", there are more things set in motion around the main characters and I absolutely loved how everything was shown. However it is a thorn love story. The characters go trough a lot. From the thrills of falling in love to the perils of marriage and parenthood.

There is a very tiny bit of glimpse of Kusturica's "Underground", speaking of the love, life and difficulties during wartime, but it is a totally different thing.

"Skies of Lebanon" is an absolute form of art and will appeal seriously to any art lover worldwide.

It does not happen often to me to fall in love with a movie, but here I am. And I wonder why.

No. This is not the best secret agents movie you are going to see. Not the best thriller either. Not the best action. And yet there is really something about it.

Let me see. First of all I see some sites label it as an Adventure. I guess you can say that, but it is an extremely lightweight Action movie. And somehow all the time I felt that nostalgic something, coming from the good old late 80s action movies. I even can't exactly realize where in this movie it is weaven, but it is definitely there. And it came to me from various aspects of the movie.

I already said - this is not the best Action movie you're gonna see, but I can't hide I fell in love with it on the opening credits. To be honest, I felt something even on the trailer. And there is this cool poster too.

It all begins with beautiful views, mostly aerial of Malta. The entire movie is soaked with beautiful views, mostly aerial all the time. I give ten out of ten for cinematography and editing here. Really great work. Nice title work too - fontfaces, sizes and everything was greatly selected. Also - one of the few movies which tries to stick to the good old ninety minute limit. Never got me bored.

Let's discuss the cast. The only familiar name to me was Jeff Fahey. I don't remember seeing him much after "The Lawnmower Man", but I really loved his character there. In this movie however he barely shows and still it was a nice presence. Good selection of Villains. One of them was so much like Dolph Lundgren. I like how the actors did the characters. All of them.

Story is the weak point of the movie, and still I do tolerate it because of everything else.

So my favorite part are the views and the music. Let me first mention - they did great soundwork. First is the audio editing - the mixing and mastering - I love how they did it. But the music takes full credit, along with the camera work for the 80s nostalgic feelings I mentioned, because the music plus the views and the little romance we see are really the three things which we had in the old action movies.

And still - the music is great from the very begining. And I rewinded the end credits few times to listen to the end credits song. I can't believe the soundtrack is not uploaded anywhere!! I want to listen to this!! Seriously!!

So now I am trying to find this guy, who wrote the songs. Looks like he lives off the grid, because he last wrote on his Twitter in 2018. Come on bro! Seems Instagram never heard of him either. So weird.

If anyone knows that guy or the guy who wrote the actual movie score music, please let me know. For sure I want to get the entire soundtrack, so tell them to upload it. I personally use YouTube Music (former Google Play Music), but noticed he is not much on the streaming platforms, such as Apple Music or Spotify.

This is very much all. I recommend this movie to all. Suitable pretty much for the whole family - not much blood, rare fights, not brutal.

Enjoy!

Little disclaimer: I was never familiar with the actual story behind the movie, so what I am going to write down is based purely on my experience from the movie.

This is one of the few movies whose trailers really got me and I decided to rent it out from Google Play Movies. So I sat and watched it right now. I was very deeply moved from several perspectives.

First, I am married, second is I used to be volunteer in Toronto's biggest congregational church and I love the camera and microphone too, being a radio host in the past and doing my own Youtube videos.

Purely as a movie this is a very sad story of a broken family with broken dreams and broken love. I could not but wanting to put my arms around Jessica Chastain, who did more than amazing job to recreate the charismatic persona of Ms Tammy Faye.

This movie raises some big questions. Question of the morality of the Christian organizations, question of the righteousness of the religious organizations, question of who deserves to be loved and question of who are we and what is our mission during our lifetime. There are no direct answers provided, as the answers are ours to figure out.

I loved the movie and gave it 10/10. There is a very good camerawork, great score, well directed and amazingly good acting from Jessica Chastain and Amdrew Garfield, Chastain especially.

While this might not be everybody's cup of tea, I really do recommend people to try and see this movie, as there is actually something for everyone of us in there.

I had no idea what to expect, never read the novel and the trailer was nice. In short:

What I disliked: The movie confused me at few places, but these are probably explained in the novel? No idea. This whole singularity idea is confusing me - is he dreaming? Are those all parallel universes?

What I liked: Minimum violence. I actually loved that. There is some violence, but mostly shot nearly old-school - not much blood. Not much bullets either. Usually I dislike the lack of bullets, but in this case I consider it a nice change. There is a nice narrative too. I don't think actors played bad, I liked it. And overall I liked the movie.

Not the best thriller I've seen, but it was a time spent well.

Let's start with the good things. This is an animation and a drama and they decided to render everything in black and white, which automatically sets the movie as different and artistic. Let's remember how Michael Cacoyannis shot "Zorba the Greek" in 1964 all in black and white, despite colors were fully available at this time, but no - he shot with no colors and it looks so awesome! Favorite movie of mine. So here they decided to render the entire movie with grey-scale only. So far so good. Story is set in 1926 USA and while at first I was not familiar at all, I decided to run my own fact checks and discovered that the story uses some bits and pieces based on true events. I will try to reveal no spoilers, but in short - we see the story of Coriander - orphaned young and aspiring actress and her step-brother, who is madly in love with her and dreaming for the lights of Hollywood. This is a drama - shattered dreams and an impossible love. However the story actually speculates with the real mystery around the dead of Rudolph Valentino - Italian actor, lived in USA, legend of the silent cinema. This is a true story - he was beloved by many and after his death, each year there was a lady in black, bringing flowers to his grave. Now there are actually four ladies running for the title, but history mainly credits Ditra Flame and while most would call Ditra the Lady in Black, the director decided to speculate with the story, add a little "what if" and put our little orphaned actress in the rivalry for the title. The story is actually the best thing in the movie.

I can clearly see the nostalgia in this movie. The characters are designed to look and move a bit like in the old stop-motion animation movies and mr. Grant also shares this nostalgia of his in a video you could find on YouTube. I am not sure if "Grand Guignol Productions" is his own company, but the entire movie smells of not hundred, but a thousand percent nostalgia of the good old and weird. For the not familiar - Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was a theater, which closed in 1962 in Paris, known for weird horror shows. The logo of this company comes from "Death Records", the imaginary record company in "The Phantom of Paradise" (1974). Then we get the black and white in the entire movie, we add some old songs, we exploit an old story and we end up with a total nostalgia, which is great, I actually salute such ideas. I also did some research on the director himself and watched nearly all available videos and shorts on his own YouTube channel, so I can see he is a lover of weird and good.

The characters are overall good, but there is a room for development. Dialogues are fine. Music is okay. The best in the music is they made use of the 1926 Vernon Dalhart song "There's A New Star In Heaven Tonight", which is an actual song dedicated to Rudolph Valentino, which adds even more authenticity to the movie. The other nice thing is they decided to stuck to the old school movie lengths - the 90 minute mark.

Now - the bad things. Problem is there are just few bad things, but they are so significant, they ruined nearly the entire experience of watching this movie.

Character 3D design. I am not sure exactly what software was used to design the characters, the props and to put all of it together and finally render it. But it is not good. Neither of it. So characters have big heads, with very skinny (most of them) bodies. We could say the body contours are exaggerated to look weird and this is not bad. Actually it imediatelly strikes memories of the 60s-70s stop-motion animation characters and from this point of view everything is totally fine. What is not fine is they do not look smooth. Nothing in the graphics and animation look smooth. Something which I really disliked is the ankle bracelet. In the beginning of the movie, Coriander gets a bracelet from her step-mother. Later she haves this bracelet on her ankle. This is visible like another 3D prop added to the character leg model and does not look nice. It would have been much better if it was just added to the leg texture. Maybe they wanted it to be more clearly noticeable, but still.

The first funeral scene. In the very beginning of the movie we have the funeral scene, where Coriander's father is in the burial home, there is a priest giving a service, everybody are there and they ask Coriander to sing a song, after which they joyfully applauded her. Oh my! Who does this? While I am from a Christian Orthodox background, I actually attended North American funerals too, some of them protestant. Nobody applauds on a funeral service, at least I've never seen it. That scene shocked me.

Animation flaws. This is huge. Animation is real bad here. I can see on Julian Grant's YouTube channel that animation is a flaw in his other 3D movies too. His 2D movies are fine. In the very last one "Sif's Folly" it looks more polished, but even there are flaws, which are fully present in this movie too - the character animation is not smooth, except on few dancing scenes. The most striking flaw is on the Rudolph Valentino funeral scene, where he is in the coffin and Coriander goes to see him for first time after he is dead - movie timer is around 53:09. Shocking moment, obviously missed by the movie team - we have a corpse WITH OPEN EYES, which as Coriander approaches the corpse, the corpse BLINKS TWICE!! Nope, not joking here. The corpse is with eyes open and blinks twice. I watched the scene two times to verify it and it looks horrible, not just because we talk of a corpse, but also because in just few seconds we learn this is even not an actual corpse. Another serious miss. Obviously the movie team never did an actual quality assurance. Another animation flaw is the character movement. Often the models walk or otherwise move, without this to be in synchronized with the environment. Example - character walks and while one foot is supposed to be stuck on the ground, we see either it glides with the ground being stationary or the ground moves faster than the character foot moves. This could be also seen in Julian's last YouTube short "Sif's Folly".

The rendering. For those not familiar - "rendering" is the process of having some scenes made of 3D models (let's say characters), some props (furniture, trees, etc.), background, textures, cameras, lights and putting it all together as a 2D video file, ready to be seen by the audience. This is usually done on a separate computer, much more powerful than the other production computers, as it takes lots of memory, processing power, speed and time to do it. Well Coriander does not gets it well. Nothing is smooth here. I sometimes get the impression the movie is black and white not for the nostalgia, but to hide the rendering flaws, because the entire movie looks like it was rendered at the most with Quake III (or Unreal II) engine on a Windows 98 computer. Or a 2014 student laptop at the most. It is actually worse. Remember the famous Dire Straits music video "Money for Nothing"? It is a 1986 video. And back then the team with such a limited computer resources got it so right, so smooth and so awesome. Well, not Coriander in 2019. Nothing moves smooth. We can clearly see on scenes where the environment is more spacey and there is a lot of movement, especially where the camera follows the characters and the entire room "spins", they move worse than the zombies in "The Walking Dead". There are few exceptions - the dancing scene with the two ladies, which could be seen on the trailer - this is nearly smooth, then there are I think two scenes where man and woman dance together and close - these seem nearly smooth too. Everything else is not. Not to speak - near the end of the movie there are few scenes where there is a crowd, the camera is set from apart. The crowd moves without the bodies to move, they just glide. Most of them had no textures too.

Maybe I am spoiled. I am a Senior Software Developer and while I don't do animation myself, I actually spent nearly four years in the company owning Nelvana Animation studio. Nope, I am not anymore associated with them in any way. But being close to Nelvana and watching so many animated movies over the years on YouTube, I really expect more from a production released full-blown animation. If it was a short for YouTube I would not mind and would never mention anything of what I just wrote. But we are not talking about some student YouTube short, we talk about an experienced director and a production release. I could see, from his other works he is very talented, but obviously 3D technologies are not his strongest thing. I would also totally understand a lack of budget, but it could not be such an issue - let's remember the 2012 "Iron Sky" - it became famous for crowd-sourcing and crowdfunding and it looks totally awesome! It took years, I could live with this. Even some YouTube shorts made by small teams look amazing. So technology should not be an excuse for a full-blown production release. Not in 2021.

So while this movie have a good start, very interesting story, cute characters and does a nice reverence to the good old and weird, I can't close my eyes to the significant flaws it shows. If you're up for some little weirdness, I would recommend watching this. Not otherwise. I seriously hope Julian Grant would spent more time on the character models and especially the animations from now on and gets at least one quality assurance person. I would love to see anything new from him. There are some really good things on his YouTube channel to be seen.

Thank you.

This movie is totally cute. I do not watch LGBTQ+ movies, but something in the trailer just caught me. Truth to be told, if you are in the mood for something funny, cute, amusing and positive - this is a perfect shot. Totally fine to watch for straight people too. Everything in the movie is made with the precision of a fine dine restaurant recipe - nothing is too much, everything is just enough and well dosed. I had fun watching this.

Music is good. Characters are funny and well developed. My personal favorite character is Katherine, played by Tori Spelling.

Problem is, the first MK movie was a hit. And it was good. They had all the cool characters, nice cast, legendary music and cool tournament, just as the game did. While the second movie did not really repeat the success, MK fans still reference to the first movie. We had the tv show which was nice, then recently came "Scorpion's Revenge", which was very nice and now this movie, which is a huge disappointment.

First - the bad things. I was expecting the tournament. The tournament is the culmination of every MK story. No tournament here, just separate battles. Nothing epic. Then is the cast. Cole Young was not bad, but it was Kano, Kung Lao and Sonya who excelled. Everything else was real disappointment, most of which was the music. Hell at least put a good music! True, music was not bad, it was good, but galaxies away from the legendary beats of Utah Saints. To be honest, in the beginning of the final credits, you hear the Utah Saints chords striking and... what you hear next is emotionless crap of sound. And in the end, there are Scorpion and Sub-Zero - they were not bad, but they were seriously crippled towards the end of the movie. I really expected so much more.

Now the good things. Visuals are of course good for a modern movie. Music is not bad, just not what it was supposed to be. In general - good fight scenes choreography. Especially the very first scene in the movie - I watched it two times, it was really well done and we see the origin of the famous Scorpion weapon. Then we have the cast and characters of Sonya, Kano and Kung Lao, which were really well done, Kano especially! And in general it is amusing movie, so if you want to kill some time, go ahead. And that's pretty much about it.

All MK fans and all martial art movies fans - it is nice to see this. I am not sure other people would want to see it.

This is the most creative and most hilarious cartoon I've seen in the last ten years, maybe more. Whoever came with the visuals for this, must get Oscar for creativity.

In short, this movie is: Terminator meets Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo meets Lilo & Stitch and all together they go and Kill Bill, but Tarantino can eat his socks.

Let me explain. In short, this is a movie about the modern society and the direction we are headed with our obsession about social networks and the resulting real-life de-socialization. In the end, there is a machine apocalypse, just as the trailer mentioned, thus the "Terminator" relation. However, this movie is much more about family relations, thus the "Lilo & Stitch" reference, except this movie is more about the family than "Lilo & Stitch" is. There is a huge amount of surrealism, thus the "Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo" reference and in the end they mock some famous movies, thus the Tarantino reference, however they do it in a really hilarious and much better manner. There is also a bit of coming-out-of-age element.

The movie as a whole is an explosive bouquet of emotions, both funny and sad. Speaking of funny, I've never laughed so much on a cartoon in the recent years. I was nearly rolling on the floor and the entire family was.

So in short, some scores from me: Visuals: 10/10 Music/sound: 10/10 Story: 10/10 Creativity: 30/10 Characters: 20/10

If somebody wants to do a funny cartoon, even a live action movie, this is the movie they need to study from.

They definitely need to make a second part and they need to accent on the pug a bit more.

This movie comes only one year after "Flashdance". I cannot forget the moments I spend in the movie theater back then (I was a teen). Just saw this movie again and it sparks the same feelings inside me and I still love it.

First of all, I do not agree this movie is a drama. It does have a happy end and it is a pure sport movie with a little love story and a pinch of "villains" (a tiny little pinch, just as much black pepper one would put on his lunch). I know some people would suggest this is a dance movie a-la "Flashdance", but really - while it bears some resemblance, "Heavenly Bodies" is a pure sport movie.

This movie reflects on 100% the aerobic fitness mania of the 80s. I know few countries, where this movie got nearly a cult status. Why? Because while "Flashdance" was all about the dance and by accident helped to popularize the breakdancing, "Heavenly Bodies" is all about the aerobic gym classes and a competition. That's it. Nothing more or less.

Sport, ambition, competition and winning - this is all about the movie in four words, all wrapped up with the story of a single working young mother and her ambition to dance, which turned to aerobic mania and a little love from a local football star. We add the ambition to escape the 9-to-5 office life and the desire to get your own business and make it run. And in the end - they lived happily ever after. However all this is packaged with nice views from Toronto, Canada, nice young Canadian legs and butts, lots of hair in 80s style and a great soundtrack, while the competition keeps you on your toes, while you wait to see the winner.

Yes, the competition is the best in this movie. Well done, suspenseful, not that you don't suspect who's gonna win, but it still manages to make you doubt it in few moments and keeping you on your toes all the time. The main character was hurt the previous day, but still manages to go trough "the wall", as the runners call it - the initial limit of the human energy, which once broken unlocks additional energy potential, in this case fueled by the main character's dream of having and keeping her own business.

That's it. All I can say is, back when the movie was released, where I am from this movie had much more impact, than "Flashdance" and to this day it is better perceived as a good sport movie and a movie to value ambition and a good-looking body, along with the great songs it comes with. This is a movie I can watch for much more time.

I recommend this movie.

I just saw the movie in Google Play Movies (Youtube Movies). Gave it 9/10, because, while it is a good movie, I really want to see more of what Neversoft guys have to say about the story. In short - the movie is otherwise good. Not as good as Stacy Peralta's documentaries on skateboarding, but still good. I enjoyed seeing it. I am one of these people, which this video game inspired to get into skateboarding, even late as now I am 44 years old. and I know I am not the only one. In the past I started with THPS2 and since then, every new game for me and my brother was like a holiday - we played for countless hours. So for sure, there was a need for this movie to be made and I am glad it is a reality now. Good thing about the movie is, that there are interviews not just with the skaters and few Neversoft guys, but also some of the musicians from the soundtrack and some of the influenced kids.

Basically, the movie represents more of Tony Hawk's point of view on the story and it is a good one. We see of course interviews also with the other core game skaters, such as Rodney Mullen, Steve Cabalero and more. I was looking to see Elissa Steamer, but she was not featured in the movie. Still, the presented material was interesting. There were stories, Tony tells what other options he had, the development around the game, which is the X-Games competition and the legendary 900 and many other things. Just as in the game, the movie features cool soundtrack.

Fun fact: Rodney Mullen wears a Debian linux logo t-shirt. I am curious why - is he a linux guy too? Won't be surprised, but need to ask. Asked him on his Facebook and Instagram, so let's see what he will reply.

The movie duration is like 1:11hrs and the rental price on Google was like 4$, so it was affordable and fun to watch.

I do not watch much modern horrors, as they tend to be very gory and with real bad story lines and/or characters. Especially most vampire movies tend to be so dumb, that when I see "vampire" in a movie description or something similar to a vampire creature in a trailer and I skip the movie. However decided to give this one a try.

It is a vampire movie with a Nazi theme, set during the end of World War II. One bad thing to say about the movie is that it is basically a rip-off of "Aliens" (1986) story line. We have a warship, with few war survivors and some monsters to fight and nobody have nowhere else to go. And there is also a little girl with a doll. Sure, they twisted it a bit, so it's not a complete rip-off, but basically this is what it is.

With that being said, it does not mean it is not worth watching. The characters are cool, the make-up is real good, special effects and costumes are real good too. On top of that, it is not real scary, but the entire time is feels really entertaining. Honestly I've been enjoying it. It was a nice fresh cup of a fairy-tale with a dark twist. And of course, don't get me wrong, with my "Aliens" comparison, it is very far from Ridley Scott's tale, there is not a pinch of that much suspense or horror, but still - I liked it.

I won't reveal spoilers, so you will have something to watch for, but it is a nice movie to watch for the evening.

There is no really what to be said about this movie. For what it is, it's nice and that's all about it. And what it is - it is an anti-superhero movie. A very dark one, but not like "The Crow" where we had all this darkness surrounded with so much character and story development - here we have a bad super-hero and that's really it. They copy the Superman concept - a child lands on the Earth, but not in Kansas, it's been raised, realizes he is almost invulnerable (got a weakness after all), gets mad to the world and goes to take it over and destroys the humanity. He discovers his true self, when his spaceship calls him in his dreams (the ship is berried in their barn. And that's it. Really. What we miss from Superman is sooo much:

1) Where this child comes from 2) Why this child flew his own world 3) Who are the parents 4) How he found the Earth 5) Is there an opposing force? He is soo super that nothing can stops him. After all he could get hurt from his own spaceship, but still - who will fight this new bad superman and how? 6) Any emotional development, we saw he gets in love, but what after that?

Also there is a scene, where his mother breaks a shard from his spaceship with bare hands!! Excuse me - this is supposed to be alien technology, much more unbreakable, than our own. And how exactly did that happened?

It had the pottential to be something good, but it is not. Still - it is nice to watch. Not scary at all, just dark, so it is not a horror movie at all.

Check it out, if you have nothing else on the plate for the evening.

I just finished watching. This movie is from another universe. If it could be called a "movie" at all, as it seems to be some organic being, living in its own world. The only way to descrive this, is probably to compare it to listening to a Frank Zappa album - there are just no words to describe it.

So to put some words to it, I have to say I was skeptical at first to how Adam Driver would deal with it, but I have to say he just nailed it. Big kudos to the man, who did Don Quixote himself - Jonathan Pryce - amazing performance! I really have nothing more to say. I am not familiar with the music of Roque Banos, but his score add a great finishing touch to this movie masterpiece. And on top of this we see marvelous sceneries. I seriously have nothing more to add, except perhaps this is a movie you need to watch more than once, because every time there would be something new to discover.