Tag: 1 out of 4

And now for the movie everyone has been clamoring for…Tom & Jerry!

But you know, animated versions interacting with real people! Yeah! That is what we want for sure!

Okay, but for real. Space Jam was a hit. No way this has to mean an auto flop. I guess if there is a good reason behind it, it should be fine. What better way to fill your film with A-listers to help sell the product than by letting them interact with CGI technology?

If the angst is fake, we must dispose of the cartoons. Kayla (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a down on her luck, but smart woman, just needing a break and an income in New York City. She ends up conning her way into a sweet hotel gig, and honestly, she is probably qualified if she can convince enough people she is knowledgeable in my eyes.

But this luxurious hotel is hosting the biggest wedding of the year this weekend. Two really big social media influences (Colin Jost / Pallavi Sharda) and they are rich and it will be the tits. Can I use that term in a kids movie review?

Anyways, another hotel liaison, Terence (Michael Pena) doesn’t trust her at all, and thinks she is up to something. So he will watch out for her and hope she doesn’t ruin things. Oh also there is a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry I guess, they are involved in all of this for some reason.

Also starring Rob Delaney, Patsy Ferran, Jordan Bolger, Ken Jeong, Daniel Adegboyega, Nicky Jam, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Bobby Cannavale.

“I am shocked, shocked! To find you two causing problems.” – Chloe, probablyWhat is the normal plot of Tom & Jerry? Tom is a house cat, Jerry is a home invader who starts to live in their owners house and Tom is supposed to kill him for the owner I assume. Jerry is clearly not a pet. And mice can live a lot of places and aren’t entitled to human houses or anything like that. But I think the cartoons ignore a lot of that and just make the back and forth seem natural and fine.

So what about the movie? Well, we know that Jerry isn’t a rich mouse so can’t get a sexy apartment and eventually sneaks into a fancy hotel and is seen by guests and they want him out. That makes sense. This is a fine establishment with a no pets policy already. We also see Tom making money in the park as a piano playing cat. He also pretends to be blind for more sympathy tips maybe. Kind of bad. He should be able to rely on just his cat piano self, its already impressive. Then Jerry comes up and puts his own jar out as a dancing mouse and tips go to him.

Why are the tips going to Jerry? What’s more impressive, a dancing mouse or even a non-blind cat playing piano? One is just straight up reactions. So Tom gets notably angry at him for this, but Jerry keeps winning.

Alright, so like, I don’t know what they are doing to make us on Jerry’s side? Because the one constant is of course that Tom tries to get Jerry and Jerry wins and survives and Tom gets hurt. But in the cartoon Tom is just doing his job assigned to him? In this movie, Tom gets hired by the hotel to help get Jerry out of there before the wedding and guests find out about a mouse problem. Again, a job.

Sure, the animals in this world are all animated, but they also are animals. People eat meat. Jerry isn’t inherently a special mouse. He is someone who broke into a business as a trespasser and won’t leave. And everyone is fine with the fact that cats eat mice. There are zero problems here from Tom.

And yet, that is what we get repeatedly. The same shenanigans. Tom continually losing and getting hurt in terrible ways.

The fact that this is set in the real world makes things a bit worse. The wanton destruction of their surroundings, in the park, in NYC, in the hotel lobby. It is ridiculous as he humans just stand by and have continual WTF looks on their faces. My own kids laughed early on at some of the shenanigans, but once the real world implications continued to occur and compound, they didn’t. It is hard to laugh over seeing things get destroyed and violence even on the cartoon scale.

So we have a majority conflict where the bigger jerk continues to win (and obviously this is not a story where the bad guy eventually loses). We get violence after violence. And a plot that kind of includes them.

Sure, the movie eventually tries to give us a message of togetherness and harmony. But it doesn’t feel earned at all. And it all just feels like a mistake.

0 out of 4.

To sin is divine and to err is human. Is that a quote? Probably.

Strictly speaking, sinning probably refers generally to doing bad stuff in the Christian religion that their god said was a no-no. Whether it is one of ten things or one out of hundreds is debatable. So what would a Cosmic Sin be?

Can you be a Christian on another planet? Does their god care if you keep the Sabbath holy if you are on another planet with different lengths in days? Do you have to keep track of Earth Sunday’s regardless of the time or day of your planet?

Or is a Cosmic Sin just a generic term to mean something so bad, that it is bad on a galaxy plus level? What could be that bad? A double forgetting of the Sabbath maybe?

Is wearing space armor after some space holiday a cosmic sin?

After some initial plot, it turns out we are hundreds of years in the future, the world united due to some past nonsense as a federation power. And now? Now there are aliens that we have to deal with.

Initially they don’t know if they are good or bad, but the aliens do start attacking our side, so of course, they must be bad. Ideally, this won’t start a big war between planets, that is costly and sucks. Can’t we just end the war really quick with a small force? That’d be nice.

That is why they get James Ford (Bruce Willis). They want him to un-retire so he can lead a small team of people to the planet and maybe put an end to this thing. And hopefully they don’t start an interstellar war by going, that would be the opposite of their planned outcomes.

Also starring Frank Grillo, Brandon Thomas Lee, Corey Large, C.J. Perry, Lochlyn Munro, Perrey Reeves, Costas Mandylor, Eva De Dominici, and Adelaide Kane.

The good news about space armor is that you don’t have to protect your head.

That was probably one of the worst plot descriptions I have ever written. I definitely watched Cosmic Sin. But it is not a plot that sticks with me. The movie felt like a complete drag. Hours later, after I had seen it, I realized I forgot almost every aspect of the film. I remembered the ending in the bar, and one scene when the aliens first start attacking,  and that is about it. That isn’t enough for a great plot analysis.

But the gist is there. And hey, you know I was bored as all could be.

For a moment I did think this might be something where Grillo/Willis was noted as the leads, while also barely being in it. That is only partially true. They are for sure in it, and have main parts. But I will also say that that there for sure a lot of scenes, relatively long in length, where they are not present as all. They were probably limited in some amount for actual time to do shoots, but the film did the best they could around it, if I had to imagine any scenario.

Overall, Cosmic Sin is forgettable enough that I would probably forget to write the review if it came out a week later. I had high hopes, because damn it, this movie had Lochlyn Munro, and I like the guy. His part was limited too.

1 out of 4.

Chaos Walking is obviously not the only movie to be delayed recently, but it is notable that it was delayed before the Pandemic! It finished shooting in late 2017, but they announced it needed reshoots in mid 2018 due to people hating it, and they had to wait a whole year to do reshoots, thanks to the leads being in major franchises and having full schedules.

Then it was delayed March 2020, and you know the rest there.

It turns out this is based on a book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, in the Chaos Walking trilogy. I really like that title though. It reminds me of Never Let Me Go. And it puts the future of this trilogy into question. Too many YA novels have an issue where the trilogy name is used for the first book, meaning future books/films have awkward naming conventions. And for this, they used the trilogy name instead of the book name.

Huh. Interesting. Okay. Well, future movie’s will worry about that issue then, if they get any.

Okay, this is Chaos Running actually.

Todd (Tom Holland) is just a kid living a world that has gotten pretty fucked over. First of all, no women! Boooo. Second of all, only men! Boooo!

Now this world isn’t our world, it is New World. And at some point a virus came and killed everyone on it called The Noise. The Noise was fatal to women, and for men it just made it so their inner thoughts were all audible to those around them, and creating a visible cloud around their head. Also there is some alien stuff.

Todd is set to being a new warrior or scout or whatever, as he gets older and learns to better control his thoughts. But then he discovers a crash landing on his planet and finds, a girl?! Viola (Daisy Ridley) and a crew crashed down, not good, but she is the only survivor, and they have no clue about this Noise stuff.

And a few plot shenanigans later, Todd and Viola are on the run from his city, who want to capture the girl, and look up settlements that are rumored to exist, even though Todd thought he was in the only real community left in the world.

Also starring Demián Bichir, David Oyelowo, Kurt Sutter, Cynthia Erivo, Mads Mikkelsen, Nick Jonas, and Bethany Anne Lind.

No, he is not thinking of the movie The Color Purple. 

Jeez, I wonder what they changes with this version versus their initial version? I hope it wasn’t adding in MORE ACTION because honestly, that was one of their weaker points. The action, and fighting, especially near the end. I was a much bigger fan of the drama and suspense before that. You can have a big fight between communities without needing to bog us down in the fighting.

I am not anti violence, it just felt like a lot more at the end versus any point earlier, even if the threat was already there. I was more curious about the mystery, and the aliens, and the virus, all of that, and it just never delved enough for me.

The acting is fine, but for a movie with stars like that, this is not good enough.  I do think Bachir probably did the best of the bunch, but he was also limited in his role.

This is supposed to be a fantastic book and trilogy, and honestly at this point, I can’t see how the book would be good for me. I feel like the movie not really being great, while also telling me about the secrets (unless they are different) would ruin the appeal of the book and I have no reason at all to seek it out. I certainly don’t read everything, and I try not to read things before movie adaptations, but I do get quite annoyed when a movie takes away my desire to ever read the story.

A potentially riveting plot line that is ruined with mediocrity and forgettableness.

1 out of 4.

If ignorance is bliss, what does that mean for the movie Bliss? Is it also ignorance?

The is a good question, and honestly, the movie Bliss is definitely going for this quote when it picked the title. You can live your life happy. You can live your life normal. But what if there is more out there? What if you are in a simulation and trapped? Would you want to know that? You wouldn’t be blissful in that regard.

But bliss can be brought by different ways. Through narcotics, for example, that just wipe away your worries, and make you forget about the bad.

Huh, maybe this film is about both.

I don’t know what is happening here, but ACAB.Greg Wittle (Owen Wilson) is some sort of person with a job and a family. He isn’t that successful at either. He is divorced. And even though he has a big job in in his firm, his performance has been notably slipping lately.  In fact, his boss wants to talk to him about that specifically, and fires him.Aw shucks.

Well, an argument happens with his boss, and Greg books it out of the building to hide out across the street, where he meets Isabel Clemens (Salma Hayek), a girl from his drawings. She helps him get out of a few jams, so he trusts her now, and is whisked away in the city.

Sure, she may be some level of homeless, but she says she does it to live off the grid. She knows that they are living in a simulation and that Greg is one of the few real people in the simulation for a visit along with her. She proves it by giving him a pill that gives him the power to mess with the world around them, like they are kinetic. Oh shit. This must be real!

But what about Greg’s kids (Nesta Cooper, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.)? Are they really fake? Will being on the streets, hiding from the world improve his life? Can he escape this situation?

Also starring Bill Nye.

You mean to tell me the Bill Nye? The Science Guy? Is in this film? Wow!

Bliss wants to be a movie that has it both ways and keeps itself open to interpretation to keep the conversation going. Never fully giving an answer. But honestly, after watching it, I can only see one answer. Is it drugs? Is it a simulation?

This isn’t a spoiler, it is my just thoughts on the film. But when watching this movie, throughout, the only thing I can ever think about is that this movie is about drugs and drug addiction. It just has the simulation angle as a hook to get people to watch it, and hey, people addicted can totally live their reality thinking their reality isn’t real. (Damn, what a sentence that was).

And when examining this film as a movie about the dangers of drug addiction, and seeking out help, and letting them overtake your life, this is a much better film. If you examine it as a movie about being in a simulation it is pretty bad. It doesn’t have a great ending, despite believing it to be a simulation still, and uhhh, I just don’t get a lot out of this thought process.

So why the low rating? Well, there is a certain simulation scene, that takes up way too much of the movie. It is like, the entire second and maybe part of the third act. There is no reason to be in that mode for so long. It is so boring. It is uninteresting. It is like ten minutes of content that they just stretch over 30-40 and it slows the movie down. It is really quick early on and stays that way for a good chunk. A slow down could be helpful, but not if we are just sitting there wondering what is the point and waiting to get back to the actual story (because we all know its coming).

Wilson and Hayek are okay at the acting in this one, this is probably one of Hayek’s better in the last few years, but she also has been in a lot of shit lately, so that doesn’t say a lot. The film does a good job of having us feel for the daughter character, and we can all be so lucky to have a kid like her.

1 out of 4.

Let’s say we had the title as a real item. You know, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things.

What does that mean? Is it a treasure map thing that takes you on an adventure? One tiny prefect thing to the next? Or is it just like a regular map, but instead of street names (or in addition to street names), it has some perfect things along the way.

What a useless sounding map, holy damn.

I mean, these things that are perfect. They are tiny? And I guess they are plentiful enough to make a map? I don’t know why I’d want a map like this.

“Oooh, I love it when you talk to me like a cartographer.”Mark (Kyle Allen) wakes up one summer morning, during a time when he has summer school, and has an interesting morning. He knows stuff in the crossword, he knows what his sister will say, and he has breakfast timed perfectly. Heck, traveling around his town, he flows seamlessly around traffic and people, helping people along the way, things are going great. It is because, sure enough, Mark has been here before.

He is stuck in a time loop. Pretty normal situation for anyone to be in really, nothing weird to see here. Except he is a teenager, with limited income, and resources, so he feels pretty stuck. And while trying to go on a date with this one girl whom he barely knows (getting closer and closer each time maybe?) he spies another girl, whom he never saw in that part of town at that point of the day.

Her name is Margaret (Kathryn Newton) and, sure enough, she is also in a time loop on the same day. Great! Mark wants to hang out, someone they can share experiences about. They can meet up. They can feel less repetitive! And of course, Mark is going to fall for her, because he is a horndog and wants that physical touch, but she is uninterested.

Well, Mark has the idea that to get out of the loop, they should have a perfect day, mapping out the perfect events around town, those weird moments where something perfect occurs all the time around them in life, but now they are going to try and find them and map them (and redraw the map daily). I mean, sure, why the fuck not, you got eternity I guess?

Also starring Jermaine Harris, Josh Hamilton, Cleo Fraser, and Anna Mikami.

This must be that big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff. Oh hey. Did you like Palm Springs last year? The R rated movie of a similar subject matter, with two people stuck in the same day? Then you’ll love this movie! Then you might like or might hate this film.

And for me, it definitely falls in the latter. Part of Palm Springs being great was the uniqueness of the concept, having a second person in the loop, after it was already going on for a long time, and having an expert of the day.  And obviously this movie has the same concept, but it is a lot more toned down. You know, because of the age of the protagonists, and the rating.

So it is nowhere close to being a funny film, it is just a very uncomfortable romance with a “sci-fi” element. It isn’t original, but it is well shot I guess?

I will say by the end, they start to go for something profound. Just a bit. And it all deals with the Margaret character and her struggles, but they haphazardly put it together, and things get solved because of it. Oh okay. Kind of not only fumbled throughout the execution, but the ending as well? It didn’t drive the point home at all well enough, and just sort of ended. And of course, the plot about the map of little perfect things, the title, is exhaustingly boring.

One final nitpick. The “moon date” scene I hated so much. Besides feeling extremely creepy because he is just trying to court Margaret against her already stated wishes, but it is just…impossible to have done given their constraints of time. They use one line to explain it, but it isn’t believable, and that is important even during a fantasy film.

Definitely one to skip and pretend didn’t really happen.

1 out of 4.

For my (checks notes) second film of 2021, I was given a movie called The Marksman. I guess it would be about a guy who is good at shooting, or fond of shooting, or one who shoots occasionally?

Oh shit, it is a Liam Neeson action movie! That definitely has a bad track record from me. Ever since the first Taken, it has been either bad or ignored from my website. I can’t handle the cuts, the bad staging, any of that. I can have Liam Neeson as a serious star, I just can’t even have him as a serious action star, not anymore.

And honestly, I knew nothing going into this movie, so it didn’t surprise me that it was a January release.

Give a boy a gun, and he’ll gun for a day. Teach a boy to gun, and he will gun at least for a day.

Jim Hanson (Liam Neeson), former US Marine and current old dude, is living in Arizona near the Mexico border. He has been mostly working at a Ranch of his own the last few years with his wife. But when she got sick, the ranch didn’t do as well, the bills piled up, and then he eventually lost the light of his life. Now those foreclosing son-of-a-guns are going to take his house, and then what? Probably nothing great!

He is a pretty dark place in his life, unable to get extra work either, when he happens upon Rosa (Teresa Ruiz) and her son, Miguel (Jacob Perez) literally right after they crawl through a hole in the border fence. He wants to call it in, because Rosa was hurt, but after doing so, a few cartel members start firing on him, and now suddenly he is in jeopardy!

Jim is able to get out of there, but not able to save Rosa, and is now left not sure what to do with the kid. They were heading up to Chicago where there is family, and some bad dudes are apparently after him. Can he help the kid, or let the authorities just send him back to Mexico?

Also starring Katheryn Winnick and Juan Pablo Raba.

This gun is way bigger than the last gun, why did you not teach the boy this gun?

The Marksmen is not a classic, straight up Neeson action movie. No, it has dramatic components, and a plot here. A guy trying to get this kid to Chicago, with some people who want to kill him and take him back, for some reason. Occasionally they get close to stopping them, and then they get really close to stopping him, and then eventually it ends. By the way, the problems resolved at the end of the movie involve the kid, not the crimes committed, or the ranch money problems, but hey, that was just intro movie problems I guess.

Neeson’s acting is pretty average for what he has done lately. He has to play a stern older gentlemen technically way above his head, but also, with a certain set of skills that might help him out. He is kind of a dick for large parts of the movie, and I wouldn’t say that changes much by the end. It is like this movie was made for Clint Eastwood, but he didn’t feel like it.

I’m not sure what the overall message of the film is after seeing it, except that there isn’t one. Life can be difficult and strange some times, but you have to follow your heart? Hard to tell. I just know that if you want to see this movie for action, you will be disappointed. If you want to see it for a great story and acting, you will be disappointed.

However, if you want to see it for a quick shout out to Sierra Vista, Arizona (A city I lived in once before), you might get some glee out of it.

1 out of 4.

Ya’ll ever hear about the Mothman? You know, the large moth like creature the size of the man? With its glowing red eyes and soft gentle plan? With its wings like a moth and its chicken frying on the pan? With its beacon of doom and its skin never tan?

Sorry, I wanted to rap a little bit about Mothman.

A lot of people know about the Mothman thanks to the book and movie called The Mothman Prophecies. It had Richard Gere and Laura Linney! That is definitely when I first heard about it, dealing with events leading up to a bridge collapse in West Virginia in the 60’s.

Maybe if you read the book before that you heard of it, or lived in West Virginia, or near West Virginia. It is there Loch Ness Monster up in the woods. It goes back decades and people like to talk about seeing the Mothman and how it is a bringer of doom, or a warning, or a symbol.

In this documentary, The Mothman Legacy, they examine the legacy of the….uh….Mothman.

Actual Mothman picture. No, just kidding, just another graphic.

In this documentary we have interviews with people who claim to have seen the Mothman when they were younger, or when they were old, and how it led to something in their life. How they can swear they never heard about it before but described it to their siblings who say they saw the same thing.

We also have interviews with people who were there in the 60’s and saw or dealt with the bridge collapse, and the mood of the town at that point. We have people who have their own Mothman museum and the Mothman festival that happens yearly. And heck, we even got an expert about Native American tribes in the area and the reason why their mountains were left alone.

And that is what the documentary gives you. If that sounds like a hoot and a holler, then go for it. But I can only take so much ominous noises as background music, with artist rendered Mothmen, and hear these stories over and over before wanting something different.

And sure, it tried to break it down into sections and themes, but they didn’t feel different enough to me to basically keep giving the same format. Sure, they had a specific topic or time frame or whatever. But by golly, and I don’t mean to swear, it was a bit drab. Boring. Sleep inducing.

I wasn’t going into this expecting to be convinced about an urban legend or anything. I was expecting just…something more exciting. But this is presented in its best made for TV special format, with easy to insert commercial breaks, like something that could be on the History Channel. And I mean the modern History channel, not the old one.

Moths were already relatively uninteresting to me, but I guess so now are the Mothman stories.

1 out of 4.

Hey! Come over here. Closer. Closer. I got a secret. Let me tell you it in your ear.

AHHHHHH!

Hah, got you. Remember a decade plus ago when The Secret was a thing? Some book about unlocking the key to the universe! It lead to vision boards, if I am not mistaken. Put positivity out there, and it will come back to you with rewards and money or something. I dunno, I never read the book. They made a documentary about this topic.

And now we get a movie! The Secret: Dare to Dream! It has a fancy subtitle to, you know, daring you to dream. It thinks you are a bitch and won’t take the dare. Come on chicken, bawka bawka. Do it. Dream. They dare you.

That envelope better have fat stacks of cash. Negative Nancy Miranda Wells (Katie Holmes) is so goddamn bitter. She has her reasons. Her husband died, and he was an engineer, about to come out with this great invention to make them super rich. But he died. So she is raising three kids (Sarah Hoffmeister, Aidan Pierce Brennan, Chloe Lee) mostly on her own. Her boss at a local fish restaurant is also her now boyfriend (Jerry O’Connell), which makes her feel uncomfortable when he steps in to pay for things.

And he makes her just feel uncomfortable in general, but she isn’t in it for love, just survival at this point, and her mom (Celia Weston) adores him.

This is when Bray Johnson (Josh Lucas) slams into her life. Or at least the opposite, because she slams her vehicle into his. We see Bray being super happy and helpful with people, so he is super happy and helpful with her too. Sure, no worry about insurance, let’s help fix your vehicle. Oh and roof. And other things. Help help help. Thanks stranger!

Why is this guy so positive and obsessed with Negative Nancy Miranda Wells? Can he make her happy?!.

Jerry O’Connell, playing the asshole boyfriend most of his career.I definitely went into this film ready to just hate it. Don’t give me this nonsense. The Secret has some good life advice, but don’t turn it into some mystical thing, you know?

The beginning was very much on point with making this movie feel like the 90’s or 00’s. “Miranda Wells has so much shit on her plate! How can it get any worse?!” But you know what? Lucas is very charismatic and sweet. Hard not to get lost in his eyes, his work ethic, and his…secrets.

You see, not only is The Secret about The Secret way of thinking, but there is also a big Secret in this film. We have layers to our secrets.

And that is the reason why my rating dropped. The characters reactions at a certain birthday party came out of nowhere, and became a trope of easy to fix miscommunication makes people mad and upset. But it was even worse, because even with miscommunication, there was little justification for causing a scene the way it occurred. The movie fell back into the trash pit, and stayed there, especially as things fixed them self in one of the most ridiculous ways possible.

Overall, this movie has little going for it and is definitely a decade too late.

1 out of 4.

Who is Walter Mercado? No really, who is Walter Mercado? I don’t think I have heard of his name before watching this movie and review.

Now, I saw reviews of this, brief reports, and that it was now out on Netflix. And looking at the pictures, I just assumed he was an eccentric weather man on Hispanic based television. Boy was I wrong. Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado isn’t about weather at all.

For those of you who do not know, Walter Mercado was a famous (and likely, the most famous), Astrologist in the world. Astrologist? Yes, Astrologist. You know, zodiac signs and horoscopes.

Mercado grew up different than his friends, and was always seen as a spiritual person. Apparently in his community he was slightly worshiped as a kid because a neighbor saw him “heal” a bird back to life and fly away. So people wanted to come by and touch him. It’d be hard to grow up thinking you were a mini-god at that point I imagine.

After being an actor for awhile, with lots of substance, Walter was put on the air once to do an interview for an upcoming show. The interviewer didn’t want to talk about the show, wanted to talk about horoscopes, because Walter talked about it a lot to the staff before the show. Because the show got so many calls during that segment, they asked him to come the next day and do it again with new readings. And the rest was history.

History is fabulous!

So what happened after that? He eventually got his own Astrology show, which had lots of ratings. That show led to another show. It led to him being on the news, and to traveling across the world to various shows and getting his readings out there. Basically, if you grew up in a Spanish home in the 80’s or 90’s (or 70’s?) you likely knew about this mysterious man.

And then he went away at some point, and no one seems to know why, which is what this documentary wants to explain.

You see, it is all about law suits. He trusted a manager to be a good person, and this led to him signing a bad contract letting them do whatever they wanted with him. Once the money stopped flowing, Mercado wanted answers and out, but this led to big legal battle that lasted years. Overall, Mercado got to keep his name, but the company got to keep his likeness and old material and shows for profit. At that point, Mercado had tried a few comebacks but failed, and the rest, again, is history.

Now my biggest issue with this documentary is two fold.

First of all, astrology itself is all just made up, and that should not be a controversial statement to make. Vague statements that can be applied to most people, and if it doesn’t, well, you usually remember the ones that are spot on. There is lots of information out there on this and similar topics. So Mercado got big and famous over lying to lots of people. Okay, whatever.

The second thing is that this documentary is 100% a puff piece documentary, not going to much nit or grit of his life. The entire last third of the documentary is preparing for and being excited about a museum show honoring his life in Miami in 2019 and just drags. But Mercado was involved with some shady shit. He had a psychic hot line and also was involved with selling “magic” jewelry (which the documentary left out) and the documentary swept it under the rug. They blamed his manager, said Mercado wasn’t out to hurt people at all and then moved the hell on.

Come on, this is a documentary, lets be truthful. It is okay if you did bad shit. Talk about it, admit to it, and lets move on. Instead they focus on this person only being an angel and worshiped, but ignoring the bad stuff and that it is all based on a lie anyways. It just rubs me completely the wrong way.

This documentary will definitely inform you as to who he is and why he became popular, but I find myself skeptical at other parts of it due to the glaring obvious parts that are ignored.

And hey, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eugenio Derbez are in here, and they are famous. The former also opens the documentary and has an extended part at the end. I also did like to hear about his long time best friend and assistant Willy Acosta, and I wonder what he is up to now with his life in his own hands.

1 out of 4.

Oh hey, remember how everyone wanted a new Scooby Doo movie? Nah.

Okay, that is fair, we don’t have to ask for a movie to come out to get one. Sometimes the studios know what is up. For example, I bet people did ask for a live action Scooby-Doo movie in the late 90’s early 2000’s, and what it gave was a really cheesy strange story, with adult jokes, some obvious some not. And honestly, it sort of filled a really good niche back then. Go figure.

So even though this animated version is going full CGI, and is dealing apparently with the childhood beginnings of the gang (ehhh), as long as we got mysteries to solve and people in masks, it shouldn’t be too hard to make it work. Unless they decide to go for the “monsters are real” gag, which basically every Scooby Doo entity has been doing for the last 20 years, so it is kind of getting annoying. Please, give us weird people in masks.

Remember, if a movie has an exclamation point, it should be a musical. Scoob! should be a musical. 

Ah yes, origin stories, like a superhero movie.

Alright, here we go! Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) meet on the beach when they were younger. Shaggy needed friends. Scooby-Doo needed a home.

Later on, at Halloween, some bullies mess with the duo, and some other kids help the two out! Their names are Fred (Zac Efron), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and Velma (Gina Rodriguez). Also right after that, they end up solving a mystery of a lot of stolen goods that no one even knew was a thing! They just had to meddle.

Alright, years later, many mysteries, they want to expand their operations. Their Mystery Machine needs work, so they want bigger clients, and higher paying jobs to become a success. And then they bring in Simon Cowell for some reason, who barely insults Shaggy and Scooby who leave as a result.

The other friends don’t go and stop them, so eventually, Shaggy and Scooby get attacked by robots. And then abducted by aliens? Nah, it is actually Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg), Dynomutt (Ken Jeong), and their assistant, Dee Dee Skyes (Kiersey Clemons). They know that Scooby-Doo is important for something. Because Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) is looking for him and some ancient skulls, to maybe summon dog Cerebus from the underworld. Ah yes, real mythical monsters.

Also starring Christina Hendricks and Tracy Morgan.

What nice chairs. And I feel like a hater not showing Daphne/Velma/Fred.

It is really early on in the film when you realize this is not going to be something you want to see again, and for a lot of people, that is when Simon Cowell appears. But before that, I will acknowledge they did a version of the original intro. It was okay in the singing department, really basic, but they did recreate parts of the intro and use it as a montage of solving some mysteries. That was nice.

That was also where most of the Scooby-Doo action remained. The kid mystery was very awkward, because when a ghost appeared in the house they already had their goal completed. They could have just…left, like any normal person. Having this long run through the place and eventual capture of the ghost to find it was a masked person didn’t even make sense. 

But let’s get back to Cowell. This movie came out in 2020, why the hell is Cowell in this movie. This is not 2004. Kids for the most part won’t understand that at all.

In terms of how Scooby-Doo this movie is, it is Scooby-Not. Most of the time the gang is split up (which happens a lot sure, but not to this scale). This is a superhero movie. It is about Blue Falcon, and Scooby-Doo wanting to feel more special. It has a real monster and issue to deal with, and…it is just a mess.

A lot of the voice acting felt off. I especially did not like Jeong as Dynomutt, because it just sounded like Ken Jeong, not a robot dog. 

It was a boring film for the most part, with some other Hanna Barbera properties thrown in for fun. It is really easy to see where the movie is going, where the conflicts will appear, and what will happen at the end. It is such a waste of a nice property. It felt like something they would try as a third or fourth film of a reboot, not right away. This was barely Scooby-Doo. Focus on the basics first.

And obviously it wasn’t a musical, but it did have a lot of modern music because that is easier to get the kids to love it. 

1 out of 4.