Doctor Who

New Season, New Doctor - 10/12/23

I'll start by saying I enjoyed The Star Beast, and Wild Blue Yonder. I won't talk about them, at least not now. I wanted to bring them up, because I felt those two episodes far outdid the last one, in terms of writing. SO, bigeneration is interesting, and I guess a concept that would've come up eventually. But I can't help think, 'why? what was the purpose?' So that the Doctor could slow down and live a normal life for a while, but was this really an issue that needed to be resolved? And why now? Could it be a goodbye to the shite writing that culminated in a clueless, stoic Doctor last season? Even so, I can't see it as anything but an insult to the 10th Doctor's unwilling goodbye that brought me to tears. I just don't understand why else they would keep David Tennant's Doctor around, nor why they brought him back in the first place, after so many seasons of moving on. Even the Toymaker seems like a weird concept to bring back, and that was from the First fucking Doctor. And for this?? Regardless, I will continue to watch Doctor Who with Ncuti, but as suspiciously as I watched poor Jodie's seasons.

The Place Where He Inserted The Blade

04/12/23

To me, I read a story of abuse and the desperate want for someone to care about it for you. I relate heavily to this reading, a lot of my life has been crying out in my head: "WHAT CAN I FUCKING DO TO GET YOU TO CARE ABOUT ME AND EVERY GOD-DAMNED THING THAT'S HURT ME." Give me a while to think on this, and I'll come back and edit this with a more thorough analysis maybe.

Whiplash!

13/11/23

Holy shit, I'm still sort of shaking, anxious, from watching it like an hour ago. It's such a powerful movie. I don't have much insight to give about it, but as someone who cried whenever my music teacher would criticise my tenor horn playing, YEAH THIS MOVIE ROCKS. My teacher was not even nearly abusive, let alone the lengths that Fletcher goes to in this film. The dread I felt whenever he would open his mouth, especially after losing his job. To me, the film echoes an abusive relationship, through Fletcher and Andrew's, but as someone who's never experienced that, I can't comment on it. I will say, excellent movie, 10/10. But it's gonna take a lot of nerve for me to brave the second watch.

In response to the new helluva boss

It's bad... - 14/09/23

I really think that the episode was way too predictable, all the story beats were mapped out by cliche. The series currently feels like a fanfiction of itself in the way that the dialogue is so dry, and nothing is said outside of two characters talking to each other. I really feel like this kind of series could do with some emotive body-language especially given it's bouncy art-style. I can't tell if this is how it has always been or not. The episode felt far too long for the story it was trying to tell. This is especially obvious in the 'song', which was like three minutes of deliberate nonsense. There was nothing being told through this song, ON PURPOSE, in order to distract the bad guy, which, realistically wouldn't have worked. I really think they should've gone back to the story board with this scene, worked out another way to resolve it. I really don't care about the character we've seen only once before, and their resolution with Blitz. I really think all these problems are products of the team (is it just one person?) not taking enough time to think through each episode and the grander arc. I want to love the show but it's just painfully dumb to me in this state.

Serial Experiments Lain

Let's muddle my way through another piece of writing... - 27/07/23

I find it difficult to put into words how I feel about avant garde shows such as Evangelion and Lain, I won't lie. I will try and explain what I think the show was trying to express, I think. It is explicitly said that Lain is a program designed to break down the barrier between the real world, and the Wired, an equivalent to our internet I suppose. Eiri, who worked at the company who created the Wired (I believe) and who was killed a while before the anime took place, claimed he was the God of the Wired, and that he created Lain in order to achieve the breakdown of the barrier. I believe that the last episode shows us that the true god of the Wired was Lain, who in the end would observe Earth and it's people rather than interfere, even with the woman, Alice, whom she loved. It's tricky to say what was occuring prior to the last few episodes, partly because I watched those a few months back and only returned recently. In my memory everything that came before led up to meeting Eiri, who claimed to be God. Chisa's rejection of her Earthly body in order to lvie in the Wired was a foreshadowing of Eiri's own Earthly death. I imagine that the Knights of the Eastern Calculus were attempting to arrange the meeting between Eiri and Lain, though I'm not sure. I vaguely remember there beign a plot point about some children who were experimented on for some purpose, and to me this seems irrelevant, though I might be wrong since I can't remember correctly. Anyway, I found this story to be immensely befuddling, but I did enjoy the show regardless. I'd give it a 9/10. It was revolutionary I imagine, too, given the time period. All of this about the barrier between the Internet and the real world in 1998? I like it. Anyways, I still find it hard to say all I have to say in reviews, but I think I did an okay job this time. See ya.

Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 3: 'Beyond the Sea'

New black mirror season is actually maybe good?? - 17/07/23

Black Mirror episode 3 of season 6 was the episode starring Aaron Paul. The relationship depicted in the episode between Paul's character, Cliff, and his wife, Lana, was an incredible depiction of a good marriage. Though it was flawed in the way that Cliff's wife was unsatisfied physically, her faith in the marriage and devotion to Cliff was 'human'. By 'human' I mean that it was true to the fact that she had chosen her husband as the person she loved and wanted to be with for the rest of her life. Maybe I'm being a boomer here, but I find that when shows try to show the trope of 'the suave man' swooping in to claim the 'unsatisfied country wife', he will be succesful in his campaign. While I imagine this does happen in real life, I feel that a good marriage is one that would not be broken by some smooth talker. This is shown when David says "I've seen the way you look at me." and Lana replies with "At you?" Clearly the person she was seeing while David took over Cliff's body on Earth was not David's person, but Cliff's, her husband's. Up to this point, I myself thought the way this would go was that Lana would have fallen in love with David in Cliff's body, and had an affair. Her strength to deny David was extraordinary, perhaps, but also a testament to the strength of Cliff and Lana's marriage. Later in the episode, Lana's experience with David's unwanted adavances opens up the conversation to Cliff about her loneliness at the farm, allowing for a strengthening of their relationship. I think the takeaway, for me at least, is that you should marry who you truly love, and though this isn't always possible to gauge, marry someone who you can talk to about strengthening your relationship. Hell, this applies to any relationship really. If you can't talk about problems in a relationship, then what the hell kind of relationship is it? This is what I got out of the episode, anyway. Is this the best episode this season? Maybe. But it's going to be a hell of a contest.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN SPIDERMAN - 10/06/23

Holy shit!
Need I say more? Probably. Will I? A little.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was an incredible experience. The art style and the drama and the music and the humanity all conglomerate into this preposterously good film. I loved (almost) every second: my tiny gripe being the dialogue volume, but I'm not sure if that was a fault of the movie or of the cinema. I'm so terrible at writing reviews, and I want to improve, but here, I don't think there's much I can say that no-one else can tell you. Here are my thoughts anyway.
The message in this film, and I guess what will be the next film's, is that the universe following a formula is bullshit. There's no set way to live your life or things that have to happen. I feel like this is sort of a dig at Christianity's semi-destiny shit. Loved one's don't die for your character developement, though change is a consequence. Anyway, the art style was what really blew me away. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I felt the style was so much more nailed down than in the first film, even though it's all over the place!! The backgrounds in particular were unbelievable. They're really out here doing what's never been done and making it work, huh. Specifically the intro scene, with Gwen playing the drums was so intense. I want to watch the whole movie again just to see that scene agan. The dialogue was great, cheesy spider-man shit in the places cheesy spider-man shit should be. In serious scenes, everything felt so human, so... i don't want to say real, but... real! Pauses in all the right places. Emotions felt. Seriously, the voice acting pulled everything up to amazing heights. The only issues I had were: the dialogue volume, again probably not even the film's fault; I found the chases scene with all the spidermen a bit dragged out and overdone, it felt like they were trying to squeeze every spider-man into the same scene meh; and also I thought the ending was a bit of an anticlimax! Like I think they could've had a bigger scene for the end, but I guess that's what you get in a middle-film. All in all, it was incredible so all these complaints are minor compared to how mind-blowing the film was. What else can I say? Probably my favourite animated film. 10/10 Gwen is trans.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

The only good marvel movies - 27/05/23

Shit ok, I forgot to re-write the review notes I wrote after I watched the movie. I can't be bothered now, so here are my notes:
Rocket heart-wrenching scenes made me cry. When he almost left to fly with Lyla.
Funny! Jokes landed a lot of the time, nothing felt forced. Or not forced in an unfunny way.
Mantis and Drax are so cute together omg!!!! When they fight together, when they fight each other. When Mantis tries to get Drax to make Peter feel better! aaaaa.
Mantis is soo sweetheart, she jsut tries to help, but gets shouted at!! When she erases Drax's mind though,,, pretty fucked up.
My heart dies everytime they call Drax stupid!! He's sweet and lovely, and people don't need to be intelligent.
Fight scenes were fun, specifically that one where they highlight everyone specfifcally on the ship.
Some scenes were weirdly drawn out. Lingering on stuff that I feel had already be expressed?
Mantis and Floor were my favourite characters, I'm going to draw them, check my twitter.
Who the fuck is Adam? I never watch the tv shows or anything so...
The villain was so fantastically deranged I loved that.
Pretty gruesome at times, a la the guy they slammed into the earth from 1000ft, and a bunch of cyborg creatures in that same fight scene from earlier.
9/10 pretty fucking rad, funny movie. Creep appearance brings it down a notch, though...

D&D: Honour Among US

Board game themed movie - 17/04/23

I saw the D&D movie last night, and to summarise: I really liked it! I thought it was a really fun, well rounded movie, that I could definitely see myself watching again. Key-word here, in my opinion, being 'well-rounded.' I feel a lot of these movies based on games tend towards being REALLY CRINGE. Somehow, mirculously maybe, this movie has avoided being a slog of references to the original media and out-of-touch "humour". I thought the story was interesting, perhaps long-winded, but in a fun 'd&d-like' way. It starts, not by "WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF D&D" and then a LONG explanation of the backstory of the game, BUT by introducing the actual characters!! Wowie, a real movie. I am so glad that the story isn't about the game, but rather a story in the world! Welcome to d&d where this kind of shit happens all of the time. I'm losing my train of thought here, let's move on.
I really want to mention, that they used puppetry. OH MY GOD THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS!! I have been saying for YEARS that what movies lack is that charm that came with puppets and little models. CGI works for a lot of the time, and I'm not gonna be one of those freaks who tell you, "EWw CGI looks awful" when really, it looks practically identical to real life. What I'm saying is that stuff doesn't NEED to look like real life, practical effects are just so much fun!
In terms of characters, what a cast! Really, I am so happy with the characters of Holga, Ed, and Simon. Not to say that Doric's actor was bad, I just had to look up what her name was, so I would say the problem is that she didn't get enough time to develop. Simon, portrayed by Justice Smith, was so goofy and fun and literally me. I did not know anyone could put on as good a British accent as he did! At one point in the movie, when they were in the graveyard, I thought to myself "wow, you can really tell he's British. No one could put on such a good accent." I really cannot wait to see what roles he plays in the future, because I think Justice must be my favourite actor at the moment, he's so fun. My teacher commented that it was good there were middle-aged actors, which made me think: Hey! Yeah, what the hell is up with that?? There's a shortage of good middle aged actors. It's always A-list elders or young folk chosen for movies like this, which just ends up with the sequel never being made, because the actors are off doing something else.
Anyway, I really loved this film, I think it definitely deserves 8/10. I think maybe it needed just one kind of centerpiece, something really special to push it up to a 9/10. But maybe its 'well-rounded-ness' was really what it needed, who knows! Thanks.
PS. I think at one point in the Underdark, the screams of weird monsters is the same scream as the Demi-Humans from Elden Ring??? I'll have to watch it again to see... Also what's really funny is that all these fight scenes are what d&d players ACTUALLY THINK THEY LOOK LIKE HAHAHAHA

Hawaii: Part II

I caved, let's review it. - 14/04/23

I'm listening to Hawaii Part II, and it's really good! I'm so fond of experimental stuff like this. It feels so diverse in sounds and vibes. I'm really fond of the track Isle Unto Thyself. It's groove is just such a... groove! it has an almost compound time feel to a simple 4/4 beat. The backing vocals from the feminine voice is just so comfy, and the autotuned vocals in between the verses just reall glue the whole thing together. Most significant, I think, in the whole album, is the lead vocalist. Their vocals are so humble, I feel, genuine in a way that is not often found in experimental albums, I feel. Though I can't understand Japanese or French well enough, I do appreciate the unapologetic inclusion of these languages. The song The Mind Electric starts by playing the entire song in reverse, which, once it ends, reverses back to normal and plays again in it's entirity. I'm not fond of this song for this reason. Like, yes, it's experimental, but what does this actually achieve in terms of musicality? Sure I guess it gives it a creepy vibe, or a psychedelic, but the forward song I think sounds quite eerie, and the whole song twice just drags on. The hip-hop track, Labyrinth, was a real surprise to me! I didn't expect this 8-bit Gorillaz type of song, in the midst of the rest of the spacious piano and acrobatic vocals at the start of this album. (I'm sorry Gorillaz is practically my only reference for hip-hop) I definitely get a sense of unearned nostalgia from the first and final tracks, as if the singer was a star that my grandparents would have obsessed over in their adolescence. I'm unaware about the origins and story of the album or the band, but I will certainly check them out once I finish the album; I often find I like a band or an album a lot more when I understand where it's coming from or why other people like it so much. The album has the kind of structure of a concept album, but other than being about Hawaii, or other island, I'm too dense to figure it out. The vibe of the album is so comfy, I'm not surprised so many people love it! I think it's interesting, it's experimental, and perhaps is the harbinger of the cycle of fashion coming round to the early days of vinyl records again? Who knows. I like it, I will give it a 8/10. Maybe this will go up if I listen to the album more, and maybe I'll have some more thoughts about it.
Favourite track/s: Isle Unto Thyself, Black Rainbows
Least favourite track/s: The Mind Electric

Owl House Final Episode

A brief recollection of thoughts before my site got removed - 09/04/23

Um yeah so the finjal owl house episode came out and here are a collection of thoughts rather than a reivew, really:
So i really liked it! first off. I'm really happy with how it reached expectations from start to finish, really. I think the whole show started strong and ended strong, and considering the trials the team went through to get it out, bravo. I wish there was a bit more of an exploration into titans and archivists, though I know this isn't possible, I just want to scratch that Eldritch/Cosmic being itch. I think that there's maybe some sort of embodiment of 'the fans' in Dad Titan, as he's been watching the series along with us, and gives Luz the power to finish the series, which, however vain, could represent how the fans were supportive of the series and really helped it to finish? Yeah generally, I'm happy with it, it was an enjoyable watch, though I know I'm not really the target audience. Huntlow is canon, Vee gets emo, so I'm happy. (No old woman yaoi with Eda and Rain though... noooo) 10/10 really strong finish.
Side note, the way Belos merges with the Titan bears a striking resemblance to the cover art of Murder of the Universe!! Did they know, because that would be so cool.