300 (2007)

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300 is one of those movies that is based on a true story in the sense that Spartans are real, Thermopylae is a real place, the battle is real hell even King Leonidas is a real person. Most of the details tho are pretty much made up for dramatic effect and to sell a movie.

The movie by the way is about 300 Spartans holding the pass of Thermopylae against a massive Persian horde. The action is great and violent, there is the obligatory sex scene, and of course there is the classic scene where arrows block out the sun and they fight in the shade.

All of this are things anyone would know simply from common sense or previews however as solid as the acting is and as action packed as it actually is i have to say, when I first watched the movie I loved it. Watching it again I noticed while I still enjoy it, there isn’t much to the movie. It’s just an action flick with an extremely historically inaccurate story and not much else going on. Even the struggle of the Queen attempting to get reinforcements to the king is just sort of there and in the grand scheme there for the same of being there more than anything else. The movie is fun, but it’s rather empty. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Game Over, Man (2018)

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Another Netflix movie that on the surface probably shouldn’t have been all that good. Three idiot friends that work in a hotel, one of which has a weird Salvia addiction that he buys from his possibly delusional money obsessed friend get the surprise on a lifetime. A rich internet celebrity is having a huge party at the hotel, and they are going to try to get him to finance their dream. One small issue, some terrorist have a slightly different idea.

The entire plot of this movie is that Terrorist and these 3 guys want money. Tho the 3 friends had a check that their boss took off them and gave back to the manager and they simply wanted it back. The movie is quite hilarious, and ladies if you want to see Adam Devine’s Dick, this is your chance. It is legitimately in the movie.

The story obviously should not be thought about, it has plenty of plot holes and is far from perfect. It is simply a fun and entertaining movies with some bad but passable special effects. Very much worth a watch tho, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell is one of the most influential animes of all time, spinning off other movies and anime series and the live action film adaptation in 2017. Weirdly enough, I never watched the anime, instead starting directly with the live action film. As I watched both, I began to see the reach of the influence it’s had on science fiction over the few past few decades.

What’s the same? In the future, technology has evolved to such a degree where people have used cybernetics to enhance themselves, whether on a small level or extreme level. We follow Major Motoko Kusanagi, an officer of Section 9 that deals with cyber crimes. Her and her partner Bato are on the hunt for a dangerous hacker that is screwing with peoples memories and rewriting people. Major is a ghost, a living brain in a full mechanical body. Many of the breathtaking and gorgeous images have been recreated in the 2017 version, as well as the context to both.

What’s different? The anime film was a more contained story where the live action film went into some heavy Blade Runner territory, trying to make it a deeper story and give more answers. In the anime, the adversary is the Puppet Master, while the live film has a more elaborate villain. Major is more coldly portrayed in the film and surprisingly more human in the anime.

Ok, so which do I like better? Though not quite my favorite anime and/or film, I respect both of them a lot. I love the concept and art style of both. I found both fascinating and beautiful but somehow neither grabbed me as much I thought they would. I recommend watching the anime first but I think you’re solid either way. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Mermaids (1990)

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When I was flipping thru the movies on Netflix and Hulu my girlfriend saw this one and wanted to watch it. Now being an idiot..I mean good boyfriend, I said sure I will watch and review that. I mean I overlooked the fact that Cher was in the movie, plus Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins are always solid. So this had to be good right?…right?

No, no it didn’t. First Charlotte (Ryder) is a very religious 16-year-old girl in the 1960’s, all good. She is also discovering herself in a sexual manner. Pretty normal. But this has been blown WAY over the top to the point a stereotypical teen boy would be telling her to chill out. And this is legitimately something that happens in the movie, she pursues and sleeps with her much older and adult bus driver.

Mrs. Flax (Cher) is the worlds worst mom, first off she encourages the actions of her daughter,and has more emotional baggage than a large international air port. Seriously she has a great guy in Lou (Hoskins) and she does everything in her power to drive him away. At one point he even turns an entire room in his house to look like the bottom of the ocean so the youngest daughter can know what it feels like to sleep on the bottom of the ocean ( she is a swimmer and loves the water and ocean) and Cher treats him like garbage and even accuses him of attempting to use her kids to get closer to her like what he did was some nefarious scheme.

The movie did however have some funny parts, but all in all just wasn’t very good. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Look Who’s Talking Now

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The last of the look who’s talking movies, and in my opinion the best of the group, tho also the most odd. In the first movie, Look Who’s Talking (1989) we met Mikey and in the second, Look Who’s Talking Too we met Julie. In Look who’s talking now, we meet their dogs, and yes we will hear their side of things. Rocks ( Danny DeVito) and  Daphne (Diane Keaton) Come home when both the parents decide to be the cool parent and bring home a new family pet

Like the other look who’s talking movies, this one was predominantly met with mixed reviews by both critics and fans with what seems like younger people and parents enjoying them and others not liking them so much. The story also revolved around typical family problems where one again there is almost a divorce. The movie honestly does nothing new from the last two, they just did it better and added animals to the mix. If you enjoyed the last two you will probably like this one, if not you probably won’t like this one. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Look Who’s Talking Too

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Look Who’s Talking Too is obviously the sequel look Who’s Talking, and sadly it is kind of the black sheep of the three movies. This time around Mollie (Kirstie Alley) and James (John Travolta) are married and having a little girl, and she is now added to the children we hear from.

We also get to deal with potty training issues, a separation of Mollie and James, the murder of a stuffed Penguin and even the first steps of a new little girl named Julie. (Roseanne Barr) As far as family comedies go, the movie isn’t bad. In fact it has its moments and is even quite cute and pretty well written. The problem is older adults that don’t have kids usually tend not to like those types of movies, so much so the movie was actually demolished on Rotten Tomatoes by both critics and fans, tho fans did rate it higher. This is another one of those movies some will like it, but most probably won’t. Its cute, but it’s for a very niche market. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: The movie

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It finally happened: the Aqua Teens finally face Dr. Weird as we finally discover there origin in this epic feature film. Seriously, this movie sneaked up on me. It opens on a cameo of Abe Lincoln, a trip to the moon, and a sweet nu- metal remix of the theme song. So the plot mainly focuses on the gang getting a new piece of exercise equipment that turns out to be an apocalyptic death machine. If you love the show, you will love the crazy scale of the movie and will appreciate the other cameos throughout (Space Ghost man). I found myself liking it a lot more than I thought I would; may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ice Sharks (2016)

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Oh man oh man I love a good B movie, and this one starts out fantastic. Looks solid but still corny and the sound effects are nice. The acting is pretty good as well, but too to. You can still tell this isn’t an upper tier movie. As you can tell, this one takes place in the arctic a research facility. Some of their instruments start to either malfunction or  the ice is melting real damn quick, they aren’t sure which it is but we know it’s the ice melting. It isn’t long before the sharks start attacking. The movie is pretty good right up until around half way when the facility sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Seriously the sharks use their dorsal fin to cut around the center and it floats out to sea. They then use propane tanks and a blow torch to scare the sharks away damaging the little bit of ice they are on and sinking them. The movie falls apart there pretty much completely. My girlfriend stopped watching it and even I was just hoping it would end. This is a movie best avoided my friends, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Look Who’s Talking (1989)

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I first saw this movie years ago, so seeing it on Hulu kind of brought me back to my childhood. I don’t even remember how I saw it first saw it, probably my mom honestly. The movie is actually a very simple concept. A woman has an affair with her married boss, woman gets pregnant, woman has baby, woman meets a guy in the gab while labor weird friendship ensues. What makes this movie weird? The movie actually takes place mostly from the narrative stand point of the kid. As the movie takes place you hear the internal dialogue of the kid. His thoughts, his wants etc.

The movie sounds kind of weird but it’s actually a very well written and funny comedy. Kirstie Alley and John Travolta play their parts amazingly and while both had careers before and after this was one of the first movies I saw them in, tho Bruce Willis was equally amazing I will always associate him with Die hard. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Power Rangers 2017 (2nd opinion)

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I promised @torstenvblog I would toss his review in here early so you could see his, so you can see that here Power Rangers. I will also say this, the movie had some nice comedic parts, the characters were good and well played and was entertaining at times. If you just wanted to see the positive now is the time to stop reading. Because I am about to trash this movie for a number of reasons.

To start, the opening scene with the cow gave me hope, but then the movie turned into The Breakfast Club. Seriously the dad even pulls the line about blowing his ride as he drops him off for Saturday detention.

Moving on to them…finding the power coins laying around…randomly, not sure how that even works out, they now move on to ripping off the Spider Man movies.Seriously the punching the sink knocking out a bully and even jumping a cliff ( yes I realize Spidey did a building) this movie didn’t seem to have an original scene in the first hour and a half of a two hour movie. Hell even Trini essentially ripped off the Karate Kid.

Not to mention when the hell did the power rangers become super heroes when not morphed? Now their suits ( that are now basically mech suits for protection) are basically super heroes. They have super strength, superior speed, reflexes recovery power and durability. Seriously the suits are really just there as armor and weapons.

Next we get to Goldar, who is literally just a pile of amorphous solid  gold in the general shape of a monster. The movie moved so far away from the source material calling it a power ranger movie has no meaning. Yes the movie was entertaining, but calling this a power ranger movie is a stretch. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.