Tag: Movies

Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

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Miracle on 34th street. A movie that has been done a few times and always tells the same story about a man that claims to be Santa, works at a department store and a rival tries to ruin him and the store by discrediting him. Lets be 100% honest here tho, how the hell do you hear and old guy running around claiming he is Santa and not think this dude is bat shit crazy?

The movie honestly is amazing, if I had to choose between this and the original I am not sure I could choose. Both are well done, the characters are played amazingly the stories are damn near perfect and the people playing Santa look like someone ripped them from a Christmas book and stuck them in the movie. These movies are considered classic for a reason, and I dare you to see the court room scene with post office dragging in bags of letters to Santa and NOT cheer for the crazy old man. There are movies out there that just epitomize Christmas and this is one of them. But don’t worry, on December 25th I will be posting the best Christmas movie of all time. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Star Wars The Last Jedi Review (Savior)

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Tonight for my birthday me and @torstenvblog went to see The Last Jedi. Honestly it was a combination birthday gift, Savior Gaming outing and Dream of seeing a numbered Star Wars movie thing. Honestly we made a trip out of it. Hit the mall for some good old fashioned loitering got some pizza then hit the movie. So without further delay here is my spoiler free review.

First the movie starts off strong, the opening scene gets right to the action to suck you in. From there the movie shifts perspectives quite a bit. There are multiple stories going on that include one between Rey and Luke, Finn and a new character and one with Leia and Poe. While there is a lot going on it all comes together nicely and I never really felt that it was to much or hard to follow. I would have liked more back story on what Luke was doing all these years but there is enough to paint a pretty good picture and Kylo has mostly lost that whiny emo attitude from the last movie and has really come into his own quite a bit.

The movie is far from perfect, and I am still not sure how I feel about the sudden influx of comedy into Star Wars tho it was pretty funny. I also didn’t care for the fact that much of the movie felt like it was longer than it needed to be simply for the sake of being there. Certain scenes felt like they were there just to add some time and didn’t really do much. This was more of a personal preference and didn’t take away from the film, but it just may bother some people. All in all the movie was fun and well done and for me was the best Star Wars since the original trilogy. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Dreamcatcher (2003)

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Before we get started, I know, the Stephen King book was better. I have not read it, but someone always shows up and says it. I could say this movie was garbage, someone will say it. If I say the movie was amazing someone will still say it. Save us the time, lets assume the book was better and move on. And yes I am talking to one person specifically. My mother. I know you read these mom, I know you think the book was better and yes you will see me at Christmas. Also mom, you can click here  to buy a Savior Gaming coffee cup.

Now, moving on. Dreamcatcher as you may have noticed, is based on a Stephen King book. I am also convinced he was on drugs when he wrote this. Here is the story.

A group of kids help a mentally challenged kid being attacked by bullies. They become friends and it turns out he has special powers that he then gives to his new friends. As time goes on they all grow up, keep in touch and eventually have to save the world from an infection, or aliens. or something, I am trying not to ruin it. Also that sounds a lot like Power Rangers.

That is a pretty bare bones explanation, but we all know my love of avoiding spoilers. The story is pretty damn great tho, as is the acting. You will never be confused by it and what is going on will be pretty clear, but the true weight of it all is just out of reach. King has always been a master at this, and the movie does a good job at translating that. By all means check this one out, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bedeviled (2016)

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With the reliance on technology today what would happen if there was an app that was also your companion? It talked to you, it knew you, it used the information on your phone to help you with things? You would probably call it Siri or Cortana. Lets take it a step further tho, what if that thing could say, play music for you? How about turn your lights on or record a television show? Actually we have the technology to do that as well.

This movie however isn’t about that. No this movie is about an evil force using our knowledge that technology exist to appear on your cell phone as an app that a friend sent you, gain your trust, then kill you. It then sends an invite for the app to your friends, and the process starts all over again. It is almost like a modern day boogie man or Freddie Kruger in a sense, angry that humans have convinced themselves they are gods and have nothing left to fear it has taken it upon itself to create that fear,

The story is pretty well done as is the acting, it manages to be modern and brings to light many of the things of the modern world, but it doesn’t do it in a belittling or arrogant way. It doesn’t try to convince you the good old days were better. It simply tries to tell you times have changed and some thing is angry. This one is worth a watch people, best wishes and may the gamin gods bring you glory.

All American Christmas Carol (2013)

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I appreciate what this movie was attempting to do. A modern, trailer park version of the classic Christmas story, a Christmas Carol. Actually expected this to be hilarious. It is basically the three expected ghost visiting a white trash mom that thinks work is for suckers to show her the error of her ways and save her family and Christmas. Honestly it starts off pretty well on its way. One of her kids dads (there are many) is a semi professional paint ball player that dies when he gets shot in the eye playing and not wearing his safety glasses. While this in itself isn’t funny, his funeral is at the paintball range and there is beer in the coffin, but only sixer.

Sadly the movie pretty much fails to ever take off. The humor is all about stereotypes but is never actually funny about it, for example one character is a redneck named rat tail that has, you guessed it, a rat tail. He owns a motorcycle and is a professional wrestler. That is it. Outside of being a semi love interest he serves no actual purpose.

The ghost themselves consist of a girl from high school that died during an accident with a donkey, draw your own conclusion, a dead rock star and the main characters mom, none of which are all that memorable. This movie is best avoided. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cowboys vs Dinosaurs (2015)

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This is another movie I saw and just said to myself, self, you are watching this movie. So I popped it on. If you like outrageous B movies with a ridiculous plot just look at the title of the damn movie. It is exactly what it sounds like. A small mining town trying to get some iridium accidentally finds something else. Dinosaurs.  First a few small ones come out, kill some swimmers in bikinis because hey, every B movie has that scene.

Eventually our “paranoid” single survivor of the mine is proven right as dinosaurs run rampant on the town. Of course this is a town of country cowboys so everyone has a gun. By the end of the movie there are bullets and dinosaurs everywhere. As the bodies get stacked high on both sides a daring plan to finish the problem once and for all is hatched. This movie isn’t for everyone, but for B movie fanatics its worth watching. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

A Christmas Horror Story

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A Christmas Horror Story is pretty upfront about what it is honestly. It is a horror movie and a Christmas movie.  It is actually multiple stories happening all at once, some rather interesting such as Santa fighting zombie elves at the north pole. Others not so much, such as  the ghost story in a basement.

One of the highlights of this movie for me was William Shatner playing a radio dj that i working a double for Christmas. As the movie progresses he gets more and more into the Christmas spirit with eggnog and booze until he is just drinking booze out of the bottle.

The movie itself however ranges from pretty bad to downright average at best. Normally this is the part where I say unless you are a pretty avid horror fan to avoid the movie, but this time I won’t do that. I actually recommend anybody that is even remotely a horror fan watch it. The Krampus story arc and the Santa is pretty fun, and the short fight between the two is interesting, but the ending of the movie is why I say to watch. I won’t spoil anything for you, but it is worth it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

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So I am screwing around on Netflix looking for something to watch and I come across this. Feeling nostalgic around Christmas, maybe because my dad died this year and I used to watch stuff like this with him, or maybe just because I haven’t really had the chance to sit down and watch some classic movies in awhile I popped this one on. I learned a few things. First, it felt weird not watching this on VHS and an old tube television. Second, this movie came out decades before I was born and yet I still enjoyed it more than most modern movies. And possibly last but not least, At least once a week I hear someone say ” I wish people would stop with all the political and social commentary in movies and on television.” Honestly, that has always been there. This movie is about a man from space that shows up with a giant robot. We as humans of course shoot him as soon as he tries to hand us something and his giant robot melts some guns and a tank. Space man gets fixed up and tried to get a meeting with the world and of course the world goes all high school stupid and starts with the if he goes I won’t go stuff.

So what is a space man to do when America locks him in a room and says don’t go anywhere? He leaves to see the city. News of course goes nuts, starts gets people all riled up and scared. See a pattern here? This movie was released in the 1950’s and if you replace the word spaceman with words like “Irish, immigrant, communist, Muslim” or any number of words you can change the year and it would fit the social commentary of a decade. The space man even comments about the media spreading needless fear.

Once we get to the end of the movie we hit another topic of social commentary that could hit any number of decades. Our space man finally gets a meeting, but not with world leaders but with scientist. Whats his message? That giant robot is basically the galaxy police force and they have ultimate power that no one questions or interferes with. They are so feared the rest of galaxy wants to trouble so they simply don’t have weapons. Since earth discovered nuclear energy they will eventually use it in a space ship and join the galactic community. Either do so in peace or the giant robots will destroy the Earth. That is a pretty damn severe message I would say.

All and all I have to say I was surprised by the the amount of social commentary in a movie from the 1950s, but more surprised how much of it actually stands true over 60 years later. Best wishes and  may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse (2001)

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Oh Mickey you and that contemptible damn duck Donald. Wait this isn’t Kingdom Hearts so the duck is cool. Seriously watching this sense me into flashbacks of him not healing me when he was supposed to so I died. They better make him not a useless jackass in KH 3 or I will be upset.

Anyway on to this movie. It is essentially a series of short Christmas stories for the kids…..that  I watched without my kids. My favorite of course was their version of A Christmas Carol. My capitalistic hero Scrooge and those pesky ghost ruining his life stealing all his cash.

Now that I think about it that wasn’t how A Christmas Carol went, but I am sure someone out there thinks Scrooge was the victim here. The movie is about an hour long and is full of Disney characters from what people my age consider the golden era of Disney when everything was pretty much hand drawn. Cameos galore, over dramatic dancing. Its a great nostalgic blast from the past that everyone should take this Christmas. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Bad Santa 2 (2016)

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Its hard to believe there is a 13 year gap between the two movies, but here we are. Thankfully this time around parents seemed to have been smart enough to realize an R rated movie called “Bad Santa 2” was not good for kids. Maybe that 13 year gap was long enough for those kids to have kids and remember oh shit  Santa’s elf punched a kid in the nuts lets not bring my kid to see this one.

Anyway this time around our elf is out of jail and is back with Santa for one last job, and this time mom is here. Mom is played by Kathy Bates and I have to say Billy Bob, her and Tony Cox work amazing together. Not to be out done Brett Kelly once again plays his role perfectly.

The plan this time? To rob a charity of millions of dollars by pretending to be Santa once again. Having recently watched the first Bad Santa again I can’t say this one is as funny as the first, but it is as good of a movie. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is hilarious and it is now on my list of movies I will watch every Christmas. This is easily one of those must see Christmas movies. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.