Month: June 2016

When it comes to animation, Michael Stocker has seemingly done it all. His first animation role in a movie was with the 1994 classic The Lion King and from there he moved onto actual animation roles in Hercules, Tarzan, and The Emperor’s New Groove. After a few years, he found himself an animator working on purely 3D movies like The Incredibles and Cars.

When Toy Story 3 came around he was a directing animator and now, with Finding Dory, he is a Supervising Animator, leading the entire film along side David DeVan.

So when we got to sit down and chat with Stocker on the past, present, and future of animation, he had a lot of interesting things to say.

“The rules they used to animate Pinocchio, we all used to animate Dory,” Stocker said. Despite a change in technology, the same rules still apply to making an animated film, technology just makes things easier. “The difference is we are doing it in a computer, we are doing it in a 3D world.”

New technology comes with its pros and cons. “One thing that is easy [with a computer] is that when…fifty people animate Dory, it will still look like Dory. When fifty people draw Dory it will look like fifty different people drew Dory.”

The advancements in technology actually hurt them in a few ways since the release of Finding Nemo in 2003. He compared using new technology to opening a very old Word document on a newer computer: It wouldn’t understand the older data. “We had to go back and rebuild Dory, rebuild Marlin…The challenge was that people loved this world…We had to make sure that our new world matched that exactly.” Despite advancements in technology, they had to match the world aesthetic from 2003 and couldn’t upgrade every component.

Newer technologies did make certain aspects of the film a bit easier to handle. Software they developed a few films back was used extensively in Finding Dory. When they were not sure how to animate or take a current scene they were able to take a pen and just draw freehand what they wanted into the scene. Instead of taking a day to animate it and maybe trashing the whole thing, they could visualize in less than a minute and match the animation to their drawings.

As for the future of animated film? “I’m not sure,” laughed Stocker. “Things are changing so fast.” What he did know is that the challenges in the future for Pixar will drive the technological improvements. It will be a movie by movie basis. He went on to note that with Cars 3 coming down the line, it had a similar issue with Finding Dory, where things had to be rebuilt while maintaining their previous aesthetic.

Stocker was very open about his past in animation and his role in the Finding Dory film. But more importantly, he said his favorite animal was the octopus, and thus was a big component of Hank the Septopus from the film, arguably the best part of the movie. Coming from a family obsessed with the octopus, both in sports and in our child’s nursery, I can say that he clearly is a man with the finest of tastes.

Welcome to documentary review day, or foreign film day, depending on what I feel like doing and feeling. Today, I don’t look at just any documentary. I look at a documentary that is really local to my current location. I am looking at an award winning documentary, technically

I am looking at The Last Man on the Moon. Now that it has made it onto Netflix I finally had a way to watch it. It is actually a winner of the Texas Independent Film Award, given out by the Houston Film Critic Society. I mean it went up against such classics like…Results. And uhh, other films I haven’t seen.

Just because the competition was weak doesn’t mean the movie didn’t deserve an award though. Just remember that!

And in The Last Man on the Moon, we look at the space program, astronaut Gene Cernan, and how he has the honor of being the last man to ever walk on the moon. Not typically an honor one thinks about. When one thinks the moon and people on it, they think of the first two names and kind of gloss over the rest.

But damn it, after Apollo 11, there were six other missions that went to the moon! And since Cernan left, no one else has graced it with their feet. Well, no one that isn’t a robot.

Yeah, Science bitches!

This documentary is actually about more than the moon landings though. This is basically a sort of bio on Cernan’s life. How he grew up, when he joined the Navy Air Force, his days as a pilot, his first wife and first daughter, his second wife and many new kids, how he first heard about the space program, got drafted and tested and picked over dozens of individuals, and his not one, not two, but three trips into Outer Space.

Shit, I just talked about the entire documentary!

I think it is important to show that astronauts didn’t just go out into space and to the moon once, they had multiple trips. His first trip was part of the Gemini missions which had a lot of failed aspects. He was part of Apollo 10, the last mission before they finally let people go to the moon. And of course he was part of Apollo 17, how he scraped in barely to the final trip the US would fund for testing.

It is actually a really informative documentary, looking at early aspects of NASA that isn’t super common knowledge. I loved his story about his first interview to be an astronaut, the tests involved, the secrecy, and how no one knew really what the hell was even going on. It made science feel sexy again. And everyone knows that science was the sexiest in the 1960’s during the Cold War.

The Last Man on the Moon was a better documentary than I imagined. And it was about a man who did a lot who doesn’t get a lot of recognition. I wouldn’t say I am biased, but I heard his acceptance speech when it won the TIFA, and it made me cry a bit. A speech about reaching for your dreams and achieving what you love in life, never giving up, and making every minute count.

Shit. Astronauts are the coolest American heroes. Space Cowboys and what not.

If I looked at all of the anime films I have reviewed, the total number would be closer to 0 than to 10 I imagine, and that is sad. There are a lot of anime films, and I watch a lot of animated films. But I believe the only ones I have reviewed in the last 4-5 years have been the ones out of Studio Ghibli and that is it. Much like there are other black films made by people other than Tyler Perry, there are other anime films made by studios outside of Ghibli, and damn it, I need to start giving them a chance.

Or you know, say I will on this review and then wait a year before my next anime film. Whatever happens.

The only reason I knew about The Boy and the Beast was from seeing a trailer before some other movie and hey, this one looked interesting. The trailer didn’t really say much, but the visuals were cool, and of course then someone recommended it.

Boom, sold, let’s get this anime train rolling.

I am so excited to write this, that I didn’t even notice I was using a PROMO art picture.

Ren (Aoi Miyazaki, Shôta Sometani) is a 9 year old kid, whose mom has died with a dad out of the picture from a divorce years earlier. He is going to be sent to live with another family, but he wants to live with his dad, he wants his mom back, and he hates everything else. So he runs into the streets of the town to live on his own. While out there, a cloaked beast man, Kumatetsu (Kôji Yakusho) runs into him, mentioning needing a disciple, even if it just a weak human. Ren having nothing better to do, follows Kumatetsu and finds himself in another world where animals walk upright and talk and have personalities.

Now in this world, humans aren’t actually allowed due to the darkness that can be in their hearts. Ren finds out that no one actually likes Kumatetsu, a brash and arrogant fighter, but he is one of two fighters vying to be the next Grandmaster of the area. The other is Iozen (Kazuhiro Yamaji), someone loved by all, many disciples, and two kids, Ichirohiko (Haru Kuroki, Mamoru Miyano) and Jiromaru (Momoka Ono, Kappei Yamaguchi).

Now obviously Ren doesn’t want to be yelled at, but he feels bad for Kumatetsu for having no one on his side. So he agrees to be his disciple, to make himself a stronger person, to have a place to belong to.

And this story is not about a master and disciple coming close together, becoming strong, and doing the thing you think they will do. No, that is just the first hour. Then directions change, things get weird, and they stay weird.

Also featuring voice work from Suzu Hirose and Yô Ôizumi.

The only time in the movie where the boy’s mouth is bigger than the beast’s.

I will just go straight into it. Like I just said, only the first half follows the general plot line that I laid out. That is what I expected the whole movie to do. You know, to give me a classic Karate Kid like story, where the master and the disciple grow and learn together, and then they both achieve their dreams and do good and be good and fuck the bad guys.

But it is a lot more complicated than that. The plot never goes away, but more things start to happen that change the primary motives for some of our characters. As they age, their priorities change, and holy shit, they are like real people. I mean that in comparison to cartoon characters, not the fact that 90% of the cast are beast things.

Great, a story with character growth. But what else? Well, the animation is nice to look at. The fights are decent enough. And the comedy/drama is balanced.

Now again, things get a little bit weird near the end. The plot doesn’t get hard to follow, but the character actions do get a little bit muddled. Hell, Ichirohiko is a big part of this thing. If it was supposed to be a surprise what happened, then the surprise was bad. I also thought the character was a woman based on the voice actor as a kid and was very confused to see the deeper voice when they grew up.

The Boy and the Beast! Something different, that’s for sure.

I bet you didn’t know this movie was coming out today. I bet you never heard of it before.

What movie would dare go against Warcraft AND Now You See Me 2? Of course! Puerto Ricans in Paris, an R Rated ethnic comedy starring Luis Guzman!

I don’t want to say that that the demographics for these films are super different. That’d be ridiculous. The demographics for this film would totally want to see Warcraft and Now You See Me 2 before this.

On the title alone, I am surprised that this movie didn’t go straight to DVD or a January release. But hey, low budget films need love to. So I have to give it a chance.

This is the type of film that will play hard into stereotypes.

Our heroes are two cops in NYC, the best city in the world. Luis (Luis Guzman) thinks himself a smart guy who is great at getting counterfeit products off of the street, and Eddie (Edgar Garcia), a regular cop guy. He has a wife (Rosie Perez) and kids, with his wife being Luis’ sister. Yay friendships through marriage.

For whatever reason, they eventually get a case that is specifically for them. Vincent (Frédéric Anscombre) is some fashion or real estate mogul type of guy. One of his main clients is Colette (Alice Taglioni), a huge fashionista in Paris. She designs very expensive and sought after bags. But they have found that one of their bags for the upcoming season has been stolen and being sold to the highest bidder. Vincent needs to fly Luis and Eddie to Paris to figure it out, and if they can do it successfully, they will each get a at $150,000 bonus.

Based on testimony from Colette, there are only a few people who would have access to the bag and might be responsible. So Luis and Eddie get a free trip to Paris (with no loved ones) it should be easy to get paid as well. Then they can fix their relationships at home.

The maybe culprits are played by Julie Ferrier, Lilou Fogli, Charlotte Mangel, and Michaël Cohen, with other roles played by Miriam Shor and Rosario Dawson.

So many tagged names and so few stars.

Puerto Ricans In Paris is a comedy in the way that hanging out with your friends on some couches is a comedy. When you are just hanging out, you are most just chilling and occasional someone makes a joke, you all enjoy the overall experience, but you aren’t just cackling for an hour and a half.

So I am saying that Puerto Ricans in Paris is a very chill film, with some jokes, but one that isn’t going to be remembered as a very funny film at all. Most of the jokes all come from Guzman, who has a larger than life character, as per usual. Garcia plays the straight man, along with the entirety of the cast.

But the story is just average. The plot is basically a slightly longer episode of a generic cop TV show. And by slightly longer, I mean this movie is right under 80 minutes in length. The twists by the end are pretty easy to grasp and the acting from everyone feels very standard.

And that is the issue. Mediocre plot, average acting, and not very funny. That is not a good sign for a film that wants to be considered as a comedy and not an action/drama with the occasional jokes.

This movie is definitely a pass, but you probably weren’t going to see it anyway, since you never would have known it existed.

Right off the bat, there is a big problem with Now You See Me 2. The big problem is that it is called Now You See Me 2.

How in the hell do you have a movie named Now You See Me, and then fail to call the sequel Now You Don’t? It is a really popular phrase, everyone knows it, and you give us this even more generic sequel name. It is like they aren’t trying to be cool.

I didn’t expect there to even be a sequel to the first film. Yes, I gave it a 2 out of 4, but it had one of the worst twist endings of all time. They picked a character that would produce the most confusion and failed to make a movie that made sense. They also blurred the line between real magic and explaining the tricks, because the writers had no idea what to do. They went for cool and splashy and couldn’t pick a side. The only reason I probably gave it an average rating is because it came out the same day as After Earth.

Now, sure, a lot of movies are coming out on this day as well. That is why I saw this one weeks in advance to make sure I had a clear mind before writing the sequel’s review.

Ass shots for everyone, not just the lady, hooray!

Set a year after the events in the first film, The Horsemen have gone missing. Dylan (Mark Ruffalo) is still looking for them, just badly to cover it all up. This angers his boss (Sanaa Lathan) and coworker (David Warshofsky) who think he is a bumbling fool almost. This is all a ploy though, in order to finally bring them back out at a big phone tech reveal.

This Octo company, led by Owen (Ben Lamb) is unleashing some super sexy phone tech, however it will also steal all information from the users and sell the data on the black market. So The Eye has told Dylan to get The Horsemen together to crash the event. You know, Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Wilder (Dave Franco), and Lula (Lizzy Caplan). Wait a minute! She wasn’t a horseman! She is a replacement for Henley, who in the movie wanted out in the year in isolation, so they replaced her. I think the studio was hoping you wouldn’t realize it.

However, bad things happen during their surprise show and the group find themselves now in Macau, China (basically their Las Vegas with a big Magic scene), in the clutches of some rich dude named Walter (Daniel Radcliffe). There is more behind the Octo tech, Walter wants his hands on it and wants The Horsemen to steal it! Oh the layers!

And then, you know, shenanigans.

Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine return, along with Jay Chou and Henry Lloyd-Hughes.

GET IT? He is Harry Potter! In a different magic movie! DO YOU GET IT!?

Now You See Me 2 tried to answer some questions its predecessor failed to do so. The key word being tried. Good. The first one explained how The Horsemen did the first trick and didn’t really explain anything else after that. This time they put a lot more effort into explaining how things work, at the bare minimum some tech terms and concepts, to show hey, this isn’t real magic, it is just tricks.

Except, you know, some of the bigger tricks like Atlas falling backwards into a puddle and disappearing completely except for his clothes. They don’t try to explain that, because the writers put it in because it is cool and have no idea how to actually make it work. This is an example of a movie pretending to be a super smart heist movie, but when they get to complicated matters, they shrug their shoulders, say magic and move on.

So everything is just special effects in real life, unless it is actually magic. You know, like speed hypnotism or whatever, which is used constantly in the film. They refuse to make up their mind.

This film has a big twist near the end too, all about who belongs to the mysterious Eye organization and what their purpose is. Well, the reveal isn’t actually a big surprise, it is a let down, but at least it makes more sense. In fact, it is the type of reveal that would have been better at the end of the first film, not the end of a sequel no one wanted.

Here is a positive. Yes, it was awkward that Caplan was suddenly in this film, but her character was the best and funniest with the most personality to boot. If they decide to punish our life more with a third film, it should be called Now You Three Me and star her with completely new cast besides her.

Just three years ago, The Conjuring was a big deal. It was my favorite horror film of the year, which is surprising because it was such a main stream film. For the most part, horror has been dominated with the unique indie horrors running around the last few years.

But that isn’t the only reason it was a big deal. It was also noted that it was rated R, not for gore, violence, nudity, language, or anything else. Just R for being too scary. Now, obviously, there are a lot of problems with the people who rate films. But that is still a rather unique reason to give something an R reason and hasn’t really been done much at all before or since then.

The Conjuring had a lot of hype behind it. So much hype that they didn’t just announce The Conjuring 2, but several spin-off movies, which is why we now have the shit fest that is Annabelle. It’s badness didn’t ruin the doll from the first film thankfully.

There is a lot of pressure on James Wan the director, because he can’t go and make a PG-13 sequel. Nor can he resort to gore just to force the R. He had to try and make something just scary enough without cheap methods to get his rating. And well, going into it, I only know that it received the R for “terror and horror violence.” Good job Wan. I hope I am shaking in my boots.

Good thing I have a nun fetish, or else this might have terrified me.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are a ghost exercisting (?) power couple, kicking ass and taking names. You know that, you saw the first film. They also helped all of that Amityville stuff, which you will see parts of early on in this film. During that, Lorraine gets a bad vision that shuts her down for awhile, but they still keep chugging along, albeit at a slower pace.

Across the pond, however, in the Enfield borough of London, England, a family is about to have a real bad time. The Hodgson family is a poor family, led by their mom (Frances O’Connor) who is raising four children on her own, because the father has walked out on them for another lady. Jeez. Her oldest are daughters, Margaret (Lauren Esposito) and Janet (Madison Wolfe), and then two sons, Johnny (Patrick McAuley) and Billy (Benjamin Haigh).

Things begin to go bump and clang in the night. Toys play with themselves. At first you assume poor stuttering billy will be the child in danger, but nope, it is Janet, who starts to sleep walk and yell at unseen demons, getting sick and quite violent. Oh shit, demons and a haunted house, again!

And the Warrens are the couple, reluctantly, who will help make things better. Man, it is really hard to kind of hype a haunted house / demon possession plot line. There are a lot of them after all.

The neighbos in London are played by Maria Doyle Kennedy and Simon Delaney. The local ghost expert is Simon McBurney, a different more skeptical ghost expert is Franka Potente (Hey, that’s Lola!), and Bob Adrian plays the main mean ghost guy!

And those pajamas were played by the same cloth that used to used to be a sail on a pirate ship!

James Wan is a really clever dude. He is consistently making better quality horror films than anyone else out there. I don’t even really like the Insidious films, but I recognize the passion and quality that went into them. I mean, he made the first Saw film! What a scary dude!

And he keeps the scares coming in this sequel. This is not like Annabelle. Fuck Annabelle. This is scary, this is well crafted, this has heart.

Horror films tend to start off of slow, a rare scare here and there, with moments in between scares to calm yourself down, usually before a hectic finale. Well, the scares are everywhere in this film. When I found myself in a time between scares to settle, it sometimes had scares of their own, keeping me on my toes. Hell, it had so many scares, I was even afraid to just hold onto my cup for a drink, thinking I’d shriek and spill it.

And when I say this is well crafted, I can’t believe the camera work for what is a mainstream horror film. The first time we see the house, the camera pans around with the family going about their day, zooming in and around rooms, around furniture, up the stairs, everyone feels like a big open house where tons of mischief can take place. The scenes are so well set up it is a delight on the eyes, even when there is something ghastly on the screen. The best scene was between Wilson and the demon, all one nice long shot, with a single focus and a lot of creepy atmosphere.

I was also excited that the polished look of the film didn’t take away from the fright. If something looks too produced, it can take someone out of the film. And in a lot of horrors, they make it look grainier, or extra dark, or whatever. But this movie wants you to see everything and it adds so much to the overall experience.

And sure, yeah, there are jump scares. But these are high quality jump scares. Jump scares you can see coming and have appropriate build up and aren’t completely random just for the cheap thrill. And audio based jump scares as well. The sounds? They will make you squirm.

Despite my rating, it isn’t perfect. I thought a few lines were cringe worthy, and Farmiga wasn’t on her A-Game. Which is a shame, given how excellent she is in Bates Motel.

I think the only reason I wasn’t scared going to sleep after watching this movie, is because I have had a shitty sleep week and couldn’t help but pass out despite glaring at the shadows in my room.

The best documentaries deal with the hardest of subjects. I think we can all agree that we don’t need to see too many more musician/celebrity documentaries, or even worse, documentaries based on specific movies or fandoms. I have seen enough to last me a life time, but they keep chugging out.

when a documentary comes out that is about some seriously bad and shady shit, then you know that documentary is important and actually might be worth a watch.

So, what is An Open Secret about? Well, a sex scandal in Hollywood. Which doesn’t sound like news. But this is an underage sex scandal. I am talking about pedophiles in Hollywood, forcing child actors to get involved with older men sexually, in order to get jobs, get references, get big in the game.

Yeah. That is some serious stuff, with pretty serious allegations. And yet, still, when I first heard about the issues years ago, my first thoughts weren’t surprise or shock. No, it was a more fucked up acceptance. Kind of like a “Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense to be happening.” Not implying that it is a good thing, just noting that I can see it happening and that I would probably believe any reports.

And despite rumors over the last few years, former child actors speaking out, actual cases against producers and directors, and of course people who went to jail for kid sex issues, the topic is still barely discussed and documentaries on the subject (like An Open Secret) are practically buried and ignored.

This isn’t a joke line, this is a serious line.

I honestly don’t even know what to say in a review like this. The stories of these actors, most of which are not big names and didn’t get to make it big, hearing what they went through scarred them in their teenage years for the rest of their lives. Being told that if they didn’t comply, they wouldn’t get work. Being told that they can’t go against all these powerful people. And to think this is just talking about teenage boys in Hollywood, when clearly it is happening on the other side of the gender pool as well.

The biggest name mentioned in this film is of course Bryan Singer, director of The Usual Suspects and like, half of the X-Men related films. Now, he isn’t specifically called out as someone who took advantage of kids, but he does interact with a lot of people who were in the group talked about in the documentary.

And shit, this is a hard subject. It is best to just watch the documentary and see for yourself. I think the narrative started to fall apart a little bit by the end. It just started to lose my interest at the point when they should be making their biggest points and driving the whole thing home. But the beginning and middle are quite well done.

Watching it won’t make you feel better about it. In fact, it will probably make you feel conflicted about Hollywood and the movie industry in general. But you have to take the good with the bad, even if dealing with the bad is hard.

How long was Warcraft in development hell? It had to overall be at least 10 years before it was announced that this movie would happen and its final release. I remember that it was supposed to come out in 2009. But then delays and director changes. Sam Raimi was originally going to direct it before being replaced by Duncan Jones.

For a bit of context as well, I definitely played World of Warcraft. I played the game a lot three different times in my life, so it is easy for me to say I will not go back to it, because it is never worth it. More importantly, I played a lot of Warcraft 2 and 3. Warcraft 2 was my first ever real time strategy game, and I played the heck out of Warcraft 3 Story Mode and early DotA.

So I like the Warcraft IP. I might not care for the MMO as much, with a similar hipster mind set. “Kids these days think it is just an MMO and don’t know the previous games!” At least with Warcraft 3, the games were really rich with story and there is still a lot of story that could be still said with the franchise. A movie with more story actually seems like a nice place to put some of it. As long as I get my Warcraft 4 eventually.

Aww look at the cute little green baby. What was I talking about again?

For those wondering, the official timeline of this movie puts it BEFORE Warcraft II. I don’t know anything about the first game, but presumably that means it is after the first one as well. So you won’t be seeing a lot of the WoW or Warcraft III plot lines, just allusions and hints towards the future.

In this land, a great warlock Gul’dan (Daniel Wu) has united the various Orc tribes on their dying planet. Using a dark, green, and evil Fel magic, gaining power from sacrificed souls, and creating a massive portal to another world. So they get all of their best warrior and chieftains to lead the charge into the new world. Once they secure enough slaves, they will build a new portal and bring the rest of their tribes over. The other Orc leaders include Durotan (Toby Kebbell) and his pregnant wife, Draka (Anna Galvin), Orgrim (Robert Kazinsky), Blackhand (Clancy Brown), and the half-orc slave of Gul’dan, Garona (Paula Patton). While running through the portal, Draka gets all funny and of course gives birth to her son right on the other side. Yay Orc babies!

Ahem. Speaking of the other side. We have a lot of different races. Humans. Dwarves. Some of those cool Night Elf things. But as of right now, the Orc raiding parties seem to be only a threat to human settlements, so the other free nations stay out of it for now. King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper) of Stormwind City is tasked with finding out what unknown entity is killing his people. His best soldier, Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel) is sent to investigate which leads him to Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), a young mage who abandoned his order sensing a great evil. He discovers The Fel, so they also bring in The Guardian (Ben Foster), the most powerful mage in the kingdom to help figure out this new threat.

And yeah. Then a whole lot of fighting. It should be noted that the Orcs are a not all mindless blood fiends. There is a growing movement in their camps, led by Durotan, to bring down Gul’dan. They don’t trust that Fel magic that kills the land and inhabitants, forsomereason.

Also starring Ruth Negga as the Queen, Callum Keith Rennie as The Guardian’s assistant, and Burkely Duffield as the son of Lothar.

THE POWER OF THE LICH KING COMPELS YOU!

The one thing I didn’t want for this movie to be was average. I wanted it to be awesome or shit and definitely not in between. Part of that is for selfish reasons. Average movies are hard to feel passionate about to write. But good news, despite the rating, there is plenty of things to talk about. Because we have a lot of things that are good, and a lot that are bad, and that just balances the movie. In fact, it is the perfect film for one of our LIKES/DISLIKES lists. Yay bullet points!

Likes:

• The fights. This is an action packed movie, there are a lot of encounters between the humans and orcs, between the orcs and orcs, between magic users, between magic users and humans, and more. This is a movie called WARcraft and damn it, the war is here.
• The fights. Yes, a second point. There is a difference between these CGI heavy fights and something else recent, like TMNT2. In this movie, you can actually clearly see, for every fight, what the hell is going on. It doesn’t blur, it doesn’t constantly cut away. You can see who hits who and it makes them a more enjoyable experience.
• Schnetzer was one of the highlights of the movie for me. He provided a character I felt I could actually cheer for and of course comedic relief at times is extremely helpful.
• Patton, as our half-orc was also pretty decent. She wasn’t hounded by CGI so she could make real expressions and have a nice and tragic story line. Fimmel as Lothar was decent and almost crossed into very compelling territory but never fully reached his potential. Still better than others!
• Good throwbacks. Both to zones in WoW, the capitals, the towns, characters, and of course, a couple spells or two.
• That baby orc. I saw it in a trailer and was like, ew. But things must have changed because I loved it and wanted to play with it.

Dislikes:

• CGI consistency. For the most part (see: fights) the CGI worked really well. Both in terms of magic and hulking orc bodies smashing humans and orc bodies lounging. But at other points (budget or time reasons?) it was incredibly weak and looked like a B-Movie. One especially bad scene involved a character lying in a greenish pool and I remembered visibly ugh-ing.
• The ending. The ending battles feel all over the place, and I don’t just mean geographically. The final fight between humans and orcs is incredibly forced based on the scenes right beforehand.
• The ending. The fights at the end all felt just lower quality. Not just in CGI, but in purpose and proper set up. A character joins the Orc/Human fight after it is basically over, causing even more fighting to take place out of nowhere. It felt awkward and could have been handled better to not drag it out.
• The ending. For the most part, this movie felt like it was planning on telling just a story and giving us resolution. But only one major point gets resolved out of about three, leaving more story for sequels. And I know this is based on source material, but on the Orc side, it feels like absolutely nothing really got resolved by the end. I didn’t get satisfying deaths of major characters that are supposed to. It is possible to tell a story and make it feel complete, despite part of a larger arc, damn it. Warcraft fails to really make it seem like a worthwhile movie ending.
• Stars. I don’t know if it is a good complaint, but seeing Foster and Cooper in this movie felt odd. They were very recognizable and I couldn’t really see them as their characters.

Ah, those are always fun. What’s that? Review done? Okay good, I want to go play Warcraft 2 now.

For the most part, I try to avoid reading a book if I know it is going to turn into a movie. Or even worse, just try to read a book right before watching the movie. I can’t stand it, I will go into the movie with biases, and the movie won’t be able to surprise me.

I don’t know if I would have been able to cry during The Fault In Our Stars had I read the book! And those were some good tears.

But I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I think I read it in 2010, before I started writing reviews, with the actual book coming out in 2009. I read the entire book the whole way though, and then quickly got rid of it. I paid full price for it and gave it away for free. It was dreadful trash and I couldn’t stand it. I only finished it because I assumed it had to get better, there had to be reason for the success.

The book was about 80% original Pride and Prejudice and about 20% the author changing some scenes and throwing in zombie fights. Every time the author switched it was so jarring, going from well written to complete trash. All it made me do was appreciate Pride and Prejudice more and vow to not read any of the other mashups that would exist, no matter how popular.

Needless to say, I am going into this movie incredibly biased. And also I am in general surprised that it took 7 years for this film to get made.

Well, you know what they say. You cannot spell Slaughter without Laughter.

Oh that zany 19th century England. Full of lords, ladies, romance, guns, and zombies.

What is a patriarch (Charles Dance) and matriarch (Sally Phillips) gotta do when they have five daughters, all of viable marriage age, needing husbands to take care of them?

Their oldest daughter is Jane (Bella Heathcote), but everyone knows their best daughter is Elizabeth (Lily James), despite her strong wills. The other three daughters, Lydia (Ellie Bamber), Mary (Millie Brady), and Kitty (Suki Waterhouse), are around but not super important.

Jane falling for one Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth) is important though, as he falls for her as well. Now the parents can meddle and force a marriage. When they meet Bingley, they also meet Colonel Darcy (Sam Riley), whom is seen as a pompous and arrogant person, but also wealthy as fuck. And you know, he can kill a zombie like no other it is said.

Can headstrong Liz learn to love another, more than her love of zombie killing? Can headstrong Liz keep her head strong enough to avoid zombie bites? Find out…well, in this movie.

Also starring Jack Huston as Wickham, Lena Headey as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Emma Greenwell as Carolien Bingley, and Matt Smith as Parson Collins.

Kicks to the chest also can be quite deadly, apparently.

Fuck. Just fuck. I feel like this movie was actually worse than I imagined. I imagined it would have bad acting, sure. I imagined it would shit on something I find enjoyable, yeah. I imagined the CGI wouldn’t be top notch and a lot of corners would be cut when it comes to fight choreography, of course. But on top of everything, I also didn’t think it would be Boring. As. Fuck.

Say what I will about Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (and of course I did), but at least there was an inherent entertainment level there. At least I could sit in the theater and laugh at some of the more ridiculous scenes. But with watching this film on DVD, I found myself constantly wanting to pause to get a drink, go to the bathroom, spin in my chair. I wish my laptop worked so I could have laid down in my comfortable bed and fallen asleep to the movie, instead of actually watching all 90ish minutes.

I think it is notable to mention when you fall asleep in a film, which usually happens only in theaters for me. But I know I would have passed out for a lot of this movie if I was watching it while feeling any bit comfortable.

Everything about it is magnified so much, because of how interesting the story becomes. I get annoyed at the bad fight scenes. Annoyed at the acting. Sam Riley as Mr. Darcy? They picked a guy, who decided to give a raspy voice performance and absolutely no sex appeal in a role that is still very much technically in the romance genre? Riley is not my Darcy. The cast for most of the parts in this film is just the final nail in the coffin.

But let’s end this on a fun fact. Emma Greenwell plays one of the three younger sisters. I already forgot who. But she also was in the movie Love & Friendship, also out this year, and also based on a Jane Austen novella. How cute.

Two years, Michael Bay released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a nickelodeon presents film, after 4 or 5 years of delay. And now, just two years later, we have a sequel!

Damn it, in my last one, I mentioned how forgettable the movie was. That means I also wanted to forget about it. But how can I forget about a movie if they go and make a sequel?

This time it is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. Or, TMNT: OOTS for short. Hmmm. Oots. That kind of, if you stretch it a little bit, sounds like OOZE. And ni the previous set of Turtle films, the sequel was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Is that a coincidence?

Based on that screen grab, then HELL NO IT ISN’T!

Set a year after the first film, our turtles are now heroes! Just kidding. Leonardo (Pete Ploszek), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Raphael (Alan Ritchson), and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) are still hiding in the shadows with Splinter (Peter Donald Badalamenti II, Tony Shalhoub, yes two people), training and existing.

They let Vernon Fenwick (Will Arnett) take all the glory, and people love him for it. But now…now The Shredder (Brian Tee) is about to break out of prison! In fact, his break out involves teleporting, portals, and a whole lot of foot soldiers. And of course, Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), smart scientist who wants to do evil to be famous.

And now they have Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (Stephen Farrelly). And the turtles get Casey Jones (Stephen Amell). Basically a nice fair trade. OH AND KRANG (Brad Garrett) is here to tip the balance for the bad guys!

Eh, yeah, I guess Megan Fox returns as April O’Neal, Brittany Ishibashi is female Shredder assistant ninja, and Laura Linney is a police chief or something. It kind of fluctuates.

AW SHIT, KRANG HYPE FOR REAL.

While writing the plot outline, I couldn’t help but feel that this movie was just more of the same, with like, four more characters. And if it is more of the same, then it is still not too good, and making it crowded could add to the problems.

Like, for instance, Shredder not having any cool fight scenes whatsoever in this movie. And Splinter is in the film, but has maybe six lines and maybe a minute of screen time. Krang is only brought in for two scenes, his introduction early on (that goes too hectic and fast, like it was made for people with short attention spans), and then near the end. The ending scene was actually a bit more entertaining and longer, which is a plus.

But that brings us to all of the fight scenes. Basically every fight scene feels blurry and it requires you to fill in the blanks with what is going on. None of the fights are clear, every single one uses this lazy tactic. The first scenes of the movie involve the turtles running around buildings in NYC at night, and it set the bar for low quality action scenes. Hell, the final fight is actually in daylight, but it is still basically ruined with the CGI.

Yes, I both think Krang was cool in this film, while also disappointed in his big fight. The fight looked fun and creative, but again, they just blurred the whole thing together.

Bebop and Rocksteady were okay. They had more personality than the Secret of the Ooze versions and arguably took up all the screen time from Shredder/Splinter. Fox’s character wasn’t interesting, Casey Jones was only in the hockey mask once (early on, not even for the finale), Arnett was still annoying. Linney’s character was really badly done, but probably didn’t have a lot to work on with the scrip.

And honestly, this is the type of film where you might find yourself scratching your head, confused as to why the characters do certain actions. It seems like the dumb or extra complicated route is always chosen. Leonardo was acted far too strongly in the Asshole category, but the other turtles personalities felt right. Oh, and Perry as Baxter is one of the brighter spots as well. Go figure.

I can’t wait to be disappointed by another of these films in 2-3 years.