A Quiet Place

a quiet place

We live in a age where it’s been said every idea has been done. When I saw the trailer for this last year, it looked like a breath of fresh air, especially in a era of remakes, reboots, and sequels.

A Quiet Place is a story of a family’s survival where sound means a swift death. There are mysterious creatures that hunt via sound so silence is the key to living another day; they are blind but incredibly fast and armored with acute hearing. The mother of this family is due to have a baby and the near yeah and a half has taken a toll on the whole family. But what can you do when you’re alone, giving birth, and the monsters come out?

This is a perfect example of a simple premise followed through damn well. The actors are great as a family dealing with tragedy, loss, fear and love in a quiet world; it was impressive how much emotion they conveyed through facial expressions, body language, and sign language. The score is amazing and crucial to the film. It’s filmed fantastically and I love the creature designs. With all these positives, I can say this movie won’t be for everyone. 98% of the movie is told through subtitles, you don’t find out much about the monsters, and it’s based on suspense rather than gore or jump scares. Regardless of how you may feel about it, I highly recommend it and it’s one of the biggest standout horror movies I’ve seen in a while. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Total Recall

total recall

As a kid Arnold Schwarzenegger was my favorite actor, and while he hasn’t been in many great movies in a long time, the dude never sleepwalks through a movie. Surprisingly, unlike many, I never saw Total Recall until a few days ago. I was in for a hell of a ride…

Douglas Quaid is a normal dude with a lame ass job who keeps having strange dreams about Mars. He wants to take a trip to the colonies up there but his wife refuses to go. To spice his dull life up, he goes to the Recall center, where they implant memories of your choosing into your brain to reinvent your reality. Doug ops to be a secret agent. He gets way more than he bargained for when armed men start trying to kill him, he discovers his wife is a spy and corporate assassin, and the memories weren’t fully implanted. Doug heads to Mars, unraveling the reality before him while starting a a revolution on the red planet in the process…

Total Recall is a fun, batshit WTF movie that’s pretty awesome. It’s a good blend of action, suspense and deep sci-fi that never feels preachy. Schwarzenegger sells the movie and makes it fun without losing the cool cerebral points the movie is trying to make. Visually there is some really cool scenery and even a three boobed prostitute. The pacing lags at times and I admit the plot has moments where it’s hard to follow so you have to pay attention more then your typical action movie. Overall, Total Recall is a fun and thoughtful sci-fi action movie I’d recommend checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Terminator: Salvation

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I’m going to say this first and foremost: this movie has one of my favorite trailers ever but damn it spoiled 90% of the movie. Being ten years old as of this date, I feel spoilers aren’t a big deal now and this movie gets truck loads of hate anyway.

The future is grim and the resistance against the machines is on the brink of defeat. John Conner is fighting to keep control of a military that believes he’s unhinged because of the foresight he has towards the mechanical threat. The machines have stopped there slaughter, kidnapping people for experiments in making what Conner believes is the legendary T-800. When a young Kyle Reese goes missing, Conner goes in search of him, finding a horrifying anomaly in Marcus Wright- a machine who believes he’s human. The future has changed, but can we save ourselves from uncertainty?

While not a great movie, this movie doesn’t deserve a fraction of the hate it gets; I’m going as far as to say it’s my favorite Terminator movie besides the original and Terminator 2: Judgement Day . I like that this movie doesn’t involve time travel and doesn’t recycle the old plot formulas. I like Christian Bale as John Conner and feel he’s the believable badass Conner should be and Marcus Wright was a interesting character in his own right. I thought it was interesting getting glimpses  of the early Terminators leading up to the dawn of the T-800; added points for making the classic Terminator model badass have gravity again. A problem I had was the PG-13 rating, which meant it couldn’t delve into the nightmarish horror elements of the first 2 films. Another issue I have is I thought the ending was pretty cheesy. The movie deserves a watch and if you don’t like it, at least it tries to do something different. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Outlast 3 announcement trailer

I always wondered when the hell this was going to show up. If you saw my list of  5 more games that were a huge bummer, you’d know I’m not on the Outlast hype bandwagon. So far it looks like a run for the course for the series but I’m sure the sound and visuals will be good. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Black Adam poster and release announced

black adam poster

If you watched Shazam and know you’re DC lore, you picked up on the Black Adam references but surprising revealed Mr Mind instead of him in the after credit scene. I’ve heard whispers that Black Adam is set to face his nemesis in Shazam 3 but I haven’t seen anything concrete to substantiate this. Anyhow, Adam is getting his own movie without Shazam;  Dwayne Johnson is playing Adam the movie, as the poster depicts is coming  out 12-22-21. Honestly I love his look and I like the grim god-like presence he has in the poster. I’m a bit worried Adam’s story may come off too humorous or they may try making him too much of a hero instead of the tragic, badass villain/ antihero he is. Time will tell. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Disney+ Review

disney+

A few days ago the long anticipated  Disney streaming service debuted, so I got my hands on the free week trail.

First and foremost, I’m incredibly surprised at the affordable prices. It’s $6.99 a month or $69.99 for a whole year. The layout is inspired mostly by Netflix’s layout so it’s pretty simple to use. There are shortcuts to the classics, Marvel, Pixar, and National Geographic but when you go to the search engine, additional playlists pop up which is helpful.

So how is the selection of Disney+? It’s really freaking impressive. The whole MCU is on there (minus the Spider-man movies and Incredible Hulk because they were joint projects) Every episode of the Simpsons is there. Every obscure Disney channel show and original movie, Marvel cartoons I didn’t know existed, and multiple versions and straight to video sequels accompanying blu-ray grade classics of yester-year. I was in awe at the selection before but that was nothing compared to how well everything comes in. The sound and visuals are great but on certain things there is a tiny bit of lag when uploading certain things. For certain movies like The Last Jedi (second opinion) , Avengers: Infinity War, and the movies found elsewhere can’t be accessed now but they do list when they will be accessible on plus.

My complaints are surprisingly few and many I had cleared up after Day One. Day One there were seasons of shows left out, movies and shows that couldn’t be accessed and things ran a bit clunky. After Day One , a lot of those issues did clear up thankfully. There are some minor issues in regards to the responsiveness of the menu but I chalked it up to either how new the service. I have heard the Simpsons came out funky but I haven’t really got to check out those claims for myself yet.

In the end, Disney+ is a surprisingly good service I’d recommend checking out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Color Out of Space trailer

 

I’ve got to admit, I find it weird more of Lovecraft’s stories haven’t been adapted into movies (just not Cthulhu, I’m getting really sick of Cthulhu). I can’t make out a feeling for this movie. It looks kinda cheesy but also creepy as hell in some parts. The concept seems pretty interesting and it’s definitely something I’d check out. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

DragonBall Z: Buu Saga (Kid Buu)

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We come to the finale of DragonBall Z and the true terror of Buu is finally realized. Trunks and Goten have perfected the fusion technique; Gohan had his ultimate potential unlocked by Elder Kai; and Goku and Vegeta fuse using Supreme Kai’s earrings, becoming the nearly unstoppable Vegito but nothing stops Super Buu from absorbing them, growing ever more powerful. After absorbing Vegito, he becomes the terrifying fiend Supreme Kai warned them about. The maniacal, giddy child like Kid Buu immediately destroys the Earth and everyone on it. Goku and Vegeta manage to survive inside Buu, but can they destroy this final enemy once and for all?

While the Buu Saga wasn’t my favorite saga of DBZ, there are some awesome battles in the finale. Buu is overall a interesting foe for the Z Fighters to face, and Kid Buu is pretty creepy and badass. Like most of the saga, it is overdrawn but unlike Dragonball Z: Buu Saga (Tournament)  and DragonBall Z: The Buu Saga the final season stays mostly on the main plot. Overall, it’s a good way to end an amazing series and I can’t recommend Dragonball Z to new anime fans. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Invisible Man trailer

I’m going to start off by saying I think Elizabeth Moss is a very talented actress and I seriously think she could do better than this movie. I can tell from the trailer she’s giving it her all with a flimsy script. The story looks decent enough but for the most part it looks like a fairly typical horror movie; the positive is at least it’s not part of Universal’s Dark Universe with the failed The Mummy (2017) . May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

t3  So it’s pretty universally recognized that the first 2 Terminator movies were freaking awesome. Simple stories filled with interesting characters, a bleak future, and epic action scenes. Well Terminator 2  pretty much wrapped the story up in a nice, fulfilling bow and the promise of a T3 was legend until it came with this and the great downfall began.

Judgement Day never came and John Conner grew up off the grid, waiting for the future that him and his late mother never hoped would come. The military trusted Skynet with a new AI that is being infected by a strange new computer virus. A new Terminator has come but not solely to protect Conner, but the person to lead after he dies in the future. They are hunted by the extremely dangerous T-X, a Terminator designed for extreme combat including destroying other Terminators. She is also implementing the virus. Can we really stop or end or is our fate inevitable?

I can’t say this movie is good, but it’s not total shit, it’s just simply meh. The acting is fine and Schwarzenegger tries his ass off to make the most out of a lame script. the effects are alright and there are some cool action scenes but what doesn’t feel recycled, feels out of place with the blooming CGI. The story is ok I guess but everything about it feels forced, and as I got older I couldn’t help but feel like a giant cash grab. In the end, it’s a decent action movie but nothing special. May the gaming gods bring you glory.