Johnny-the-Film-Sentinel-2187 Reviews

Squid Game: The Challenge (2023– )

Reality TV is often more poison than entertainment.

[1/10 · 28 May 2024]

Of course Squid Game, an inspired television series that makes commentary on competition itself, would get the most uninspired reality knock-off bearing its own name and cheapening the brand in kind.

This show feels like an AI-generated sewage pipe of been-there-done-that tropes that other shows of its ilk have infested the tv landscape with. It's an insult to modern television itself.

This could be labeled ANY other title under the sun and it'd still suck by any known metric of quality. This category of tv CAN be good when you've got the occasional Kitchen Nightmares episode having Gordon Ramsay have a real-life story of persistence reflect itself with a fulfilling outcome, but where is that fulfilment here? Even with shows like Kitchen Nightmares being diamonds in the rough (somewhat), there's still awful episodes in shows like it.

I'm probably being relentless here with my take in this show here, and I'm sorry, but it's honestly how I feel about it and reality tv itself as a 'medium'. When it's good it's watchable, but when it's not, it's like a documentary made of diarrhoea and no solid story.

0/10 IMDb points. 0/5 stars. I know it's officially 1/10 here because of the review score, but my god is this placeholder sludge at its worst.

Titan A.E. (2000)

Don Bluth's Star Wars.

[7/10 · 27 May 2024]

Titan A. E. was a tragic victim of 'studio sidelining' where a film is shafted in favour of a bigger and 'more viable' product; in this case, it seemed Fox was focusing its efforts on X-Men in getting adequate promos and licensing deals to make that movie soar at the box office. Titan A. E. was sporadically promoted besides the occasional tv spot, but the tie-in campaign proved very moot compared to tentpole Disney films at the time.

Titan A. E. also has the distinction of being Don Bluth's latest feature film, as his in-development Dragon's Lair film still hasn't been released. It sucks, because Don always had a knack for blending pathos in with slapstick comedy that few animators dared to balance as well as he did (with the likes of Secret of Nimh, American Tail, Land Before Time and All Dogs Go To Heaven); and it would have been nice seeing that trend continue into the 2000s and beyond. Sadly, it hasn't seen another film of his yet, and fans of Don Bluth are still waiting for Dragon's Lair to become a movie. Hopefully the day will come soon when Bluth graces the world with another of his feature films.

This movie was also a nice refreshing change of pace from all the musical animated films that were nigh-omniscient thanks to the Disney Renaissance still rubbing off on the competition. Science fiction has only gotten stronger representation in animation recently thanks to the Spider-Verse films, and films like them and Wall-E owe themselves to films like Titan A. E. and The Iron Giant daring to give audiences something different and high-concept escapism in a field dominated by Disney Princesses and talking animals.

2000s animation was something of a crazy and difficult time for theatrical toons; the technology evolved rapidly thanks to PIXAR's films and Dreamworks' Shrek, and traditional cel-animation still had a foothold on television when it was dying out at the movies. And Titan A. E. is a fascinating window into that time for the animation industry, where the demands of audiences were changing and becoming very complicated, and it seemed like a case of it being too ahead of its time (who knows how a film like this would have performed in the 2010s or 2020s in a post-Spider-Verse world?). Hindsight makes it impossible to know if a failure could have had a 'second chance' at success given the proper promotional material, or if it was always gonna play out the same way regardless.

7/10 IMDb points. 3.5/5 stars. Titan A. E. gives us a glance at a simpler time for animated cinema; and how sci-fi animation has continued to refine itself thanks to the likes of it and others daring to defy Disney.

Baby Reindeer (2024)

Disturbing yet insightful regarding stalkers.

[8/10 · 26 May 2024]

Baby Reindeer is based on Richard Gadd's real life story and how his life got turned upside down when an emotionally needy desperate woman started making everyday a living hell.

Of course with these true story shows, the names are changed up but the narrative is still very much there in spite of all the name changes to avoid pissing off the real people (which is ironic saying it, because Martha's inspiration is trying to sue Gadd and Netflix); and the characters are all fatally flawed humans indeed.

For as disturbing and bittersweet some of the payoffs were regarding Baby Reindeer's story, I've gotta say that the characters prove that the events in the show actually happened, because a lot of these characters have 'a$$hole syndrome' about them in spades. And it's refreshing when Gadd's character tries to be better than the a$$holes filling up his world (though he doesn't always stay 'the better man').

This is 2024's sleeper hit: and for good reason, controversial or not. 8/10 IMDb points. 4/5 stars. It's important but heavy television.

Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020 Video Game)

Final Fantasy VII Reborn.

[10/10 · 26 May 2024]

The Final Fantasy franchise has become one of the most storied and iconic video game franchises in history; and that's made clear to this game being a remake (more a reimagining) of the iconic original 1997 game that basically introduced the world to JRPGs on a massive scale. Remake is like a retelling of a classic film that goes into the nuances the first game didn't necessarily cover, not because it couldn't but because the pacing and story structure was that different to the standards of 1997 and how the game was originally conceived.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first of what I'll call 'The Remake Trilogy' or 'The Sephiroth Trilogy': because that iconic pretty boy hero-turned-homicidal-maniac is the narrative glue of the game, in its themes and how he wants the same thing as AVALANCHE, a world free of Shinra and 'poison'; the big difference is that Sephiroth wants ALL of it gone instead of AVALANCHE wanting to save The Planet from a totalitarian energy company.

All the iconic moments from the original game's Midgar segment are all here, and it's given more room to develop the side characters and stories that benefit The Remake Trilogy's broader scope of world-building and character-development. Cloud and company are still the same noble freedom fighters they were in '97, but given a quasi-anime-and-semi-photorealistic sheen for the Ultra HD era of video gaming.

Are there issues with the game? The side quests tend to grind on for longer than you'd be comfortable with, and kind of dent the pacing of the main story, but they're not total deal-breakers when it comes to affecting the game's overall fun factor. The Hard difficulty makes items pointless, and the boss fights can range from unusually easy to hair-greying-ly hard.

Final Fantasy VII Remake has all the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to a modern AAA-title; and thankfully the good is real strong with this one.

10/10 IMDb points. 5/5 stars. This is a fantasy to die for. Give it a shot.

Wish (II) (2023)

A Centenary Letdown. Makes you wish for more.

[4/10 · 24 May 2024]

Wish feels like Disney's proverbial 'AI-generated movie' in the way it was written, plotted and scored with milquetoast Alan-Menken-wannabe songwriters who are trying to fulfill the studio's laundry-list mandate of Easter eggs and direct callbacks to Walt Disney Studios' 100-years-of-filmmaking; the only problem is that the stuff that's supposed to be fan service here comes across as shallow pandering and the story feels emptier because of Wish's shortcomings as a feature film celebrating one of Hollywood's most coveted studios.

Wish has the Disney Princess with Asha of course, the cute animal sidekick (forget the goat's name), the world-weary side characters and the Big Baddie in King Magnifico serving as motivation for the hero to overcome and save the day. Why does this all feel so damn familiar? Because the Disney Renaissance utilised this formula so much better and with more creative flare with all of their marquee feature films (to reference a few); Wish feels like it's repeating that and everything since 2010's Tangled. What you get is a hodgepodge of decent animation trying to bring an uninspired story to life that we've all seen before.

What's the good about the film (along with some of what doesn't work)? I guess Asha was a likable enough main character and the animation was alright, but the rest of the cast ranges from totally inconsequential to placeholder stereotypes of other Disney characters. The score (not the musical songs) is great during the film's closing credits that do a better job at honoring Disney's legacy than the actual film itself does. It's weird.

Honestly, the short film 'Once Upon a Studio' was the superior Centenary birthday gift for Disney; it had better focus, clearer direction, sharper respect for Disney's history and it could have been the basis for a feature film too. It was all right there; right in front of them. But hindsight is its own double-edged sword when it comes to delivering products that may or may not sell, especially when you're as massive as a studio like Disney is. Wish leaves you wanting more, and not in the good kind of way; it's like eating a meal that leaves your stomach crying for something more filling.

Wish should have become Disney's 100th-Birthday-Extravaganza on the big screen in feature length format; instead it's a reminder of how the studios' animated offerings of late haven't been as good as they used to be in the 1990s. It's a passion project that prioritises Easter eggs and callbacks over the story at hand. Sure it tries making literal magic and wishes a part of the story, but they don't feel any less cliched and on the nose like so many of us joke about regarding Disney tropes, period.

Wish gets 4/10 IMDb points. 2/5 stars. This film or no, Disney's 100-Years+ of existing is no small feat for any iconic brand to claim as part of their identity. If only Wish had the narrative confidence of past Disney films that typified the company's image for so many of us. It's a shame.

Barbie (I) (2023)

It's like a midnight movie that became a blockbuster.

[7/10 · 22 May 2024]

Barbie is very much a guilty pleasure kind of movie, and it's become a MASSIVE target for online pundits to mock and chastise its take on Mattel's most iconic toy line. And it became 2023's highest grossing film too. It outdid Mario. Why? Because I think both those camps were desperate for movies that weren't simple 'hack jobs' and the hype was just THAT insurmountable.

Barbie is a weird movie, but its self-awareness stops it from being a total slog through IP-promo-fodder like 'The Emoji Movie' or 'The Playmobil Movie'; it's kind of bizarre that a Barbie movie became a billion-dollar blockbuster with such a wacky story too. I guess they had to make it weird and meta to justify the film's existence at all.

When will there be screenings of the movie when people dress up as the characters and rant at the screen similar to screenings for 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' or 'The Room'? That'd be a blast I'm sure.

Now that this film's a thing, how long will it be before Mattel milks it out with its other franchises like He-Man and Thomas the Tank Engine (if that's strictly theirs)? My guess is they're gonna try and make those within the next 5/10 years.

7/10 IMDb points.

Space Jam (1996)

Childhood milestone.

[7/10 · 22 May 2024]

Space Jam was a lot of 90s kids' first ever introduction to Looney Tunes, and what a wacky intro to the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and co. The movie is definitely a 1996 movie through and through, what with its 'sooky' marquee song 'I Believe I Can Fly' bookending the film from start to finish and the emphasis on movies that were new at the time like Pulp Fiction getting referenced; and the film was probably made possible due to Who Framed Roger Rabbit showing animation and live-action can still work on-screen, but made easier thanks to the 1990s' rapidly evolving technological advances in cinema.

Space Jam was a commercial hit at the time but critical buzz was mixed, and Chuck Jones himself apparently hated the movie. All of that didn't stop many of us looking back on this movie with equally genuine and ironic sentiment years down the track. Fast forward to the 2020s and of course there's a sequel, and it didn't seem to work like the first time around.

Space Jam may not be a typical cinephile's cup of tea exactly, but it makes the viewers happy and the vibes of the live-action stuff mixed with the Looney Tunes cast makes this movie a camp classic that has garnered a massive cult following. 7/10 IMDb points. 3.5/5 stars. It's easy stuff to watch.

Robot Chicken (2001–2022)

It's funny stuff (generally).

[8/10 · 21 May 2024]

Robot Chicken was probably most people's introduction to Adult Swim before Rick & Morty even made the pilot phase of its production; and it's all thanks to this show's emphasis on pop-culture gags and stop-motion making the commentary materialized on-screen.

Some of the episodes are constant laugh-out-loud assaults on our diaphragms, whilst others may be not all that amusing, but Robot Chicken is comfort food on the television screen, and it knows when to see the funny in the most bleak things in life.

Some of the standout episodes are easily the Specials riffing Star Wars and DC Comics (their Batman gags have become legendary), and of course The Nerd character is something of an outspoken mascot for the show itself.

Robot Chicken is anthology tv done perfectly for comedy, and the jokes can still be funny even if one doesn't understand the references ALL of the time. 8/10 IMDb points. 4/5 stars. It's simple but effective comedy. Give it a watch.

Mr. Birchum (2024– )

Daily Wire, Dumpster Fire, Painful Ire!

[1/10 · 21 May 2024]

Mr. Birchum feels like a show-within-a-show so poorly done and so cliched that it's a miracle someone said this was a good idea at all and not a Velma-like-dumpster of bad ideas and repressed rage over the modern world. The unfiltered anger over modern America's political disconnect is on full display with it's not-at-all-subtle shades thrown at 'liberals' and LGBT culture, and this makes conservative-oriented comedy like King of the Hill seem like a diamond in a sea of endless crap.

The Daily Wire + is an insult of a streaming service, providing non-entertainment instead of actual productions that will be analyzed to the end of time (like any competent filmmaker can attest to having made, like Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Christopher Nolan, and even show runners like David Chase and Vince Gilligan). Mr. Birchum has precisely none of these endearing qualities, and feels like the most shallow kind of pandering imaginable; South Park has done a much better job at 'politically even' comedy and is much more in touch with universal human values and modern times than most cartoons being made well beyond their heyday.

Mr. Birchum is a toilet-fire of creative bankruptcy, characters that seem to impress only those who made the damn thing, and storytelling so on-the-nose and shallow it makes shows-in-shows from series like The Simpson or Family Guy seem as deep as a Shakespearean sonnet (THAT'S how low the bar is with Mr. Birchum); Mr. Birchum is a cliche's cliche of a show and a spit in the face to modern animation period.

The Daily Wire + just doesn't seem like a service that needs to exist, especially when shows like this are gonna make naysayers resort to Netflix, Disney+ and/or Amazon without a second thought in their minds. Streaming television has invited all kinds of creative possibilities that weren't possible with linear network tv of the past; Mr. Birchum is an impressive regression of what streaming's achieved for modern television.

0/10; if it were possible here. 0/5; same story. But it has to get 1/10 IMDb points 'officially'. This is awful stuff. Pirate the crap out of this one; DON'T give them a dime. Save your brain cells for good shows instead.

Fallout (2024– )

Review from a Fallout newbie...

[9/10 · 14 May 2024]

Fallout is a sure fire way to introduce non-fans to the iconic franchise. As for me, I had casual knowledge of the video games from friends and family, but I've never played them myself (I've gravitated to stuff like Final Fantasy, Mass Effect and Legend of Zelda when it comes to role-playing action-adventure games). Now I think I just might play them, because the show does a good job of establishing the world for fans and non-fans alike. THIS is video game television done right just like The Last of Us (of which I am a fan).

The show has your 'typical' post-apocalyptic tropes of desperate survivors killing each other for resources like food and water, but things are distinctly more nuclear here, as the world's suffered several Atomic Holocausts since the late-21st Century in Fallout's timeline. It's a dark setting filled with surprisingly goofy black humor and bloody gunslinging action, and a retro-futuristic future that's ACTUALLY all about the future itself. Also the characters range from doe-eyed people naive of the wider world, to weary cowboys untrusting of anyone or anything unless they themselves are the ones in control of their own life. Also, the Brotherhood is like if a syndicate of steampunk-like Iron Man suits brought medieval traditions into a 'post-societal world' of knights and squires doing the bidding of their lords.

Update relating to the series: saying nothing of the spoilers here, Fallout Season Two is official! Will it continue the stories told here strictly, or will there be even more characters set to appear in this series adapting one of gaming's most iconic franchises? Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll continue what made Season One a strong magnet for television audiences in the first place. Amazon may be letting the irony of the 'Vault Tec' go under their nose or over their head, but I don't know if anyone else is as oblivious to it as them. It's genuinely funny when a hit show has something to say about corporate America, when the satire is backed by one of today's ultimate perps of corporate culture being a terrifyingly unstable double-edged sword. It's funnily scary that way.

Fallout continues Amazon's tradition of trying to oust its competition in Netflix and HBO, by trying to use the methods of both brands: releasing the show day one and using marquee actors (like Kyle MacLachlan), sex and violence to forward the story, and Ramin Djawadi doing the theme music (that's a must for HBO at this stage). With the show continuing, it's gonna be interesting to see how the Fallout show will go beyond the world of the games.

Overall, it's a good show. It's very watchable, has a great post-apocalyptic vibe to it, and the story keeps getting more interesting the further you keep watching and seeing the world kind of open up as the episodes play along.

Fallout gets 9/10 IMDb points. 4.5/5 stars.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022 Video Game)

Simply old school fun!

[8/10 · 12 May 2024]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, started off as a niche 1980s indie comic, and now it's a franchise that's bigger than the likes of Superman and Archie. Of course a franchise as storied as TMNT had several video games over the years and Shredder's Revenge took the best of all those beat-'em-ups and made an arcade style game that honors the legacy of the TMNT characters and old fashioned side-scrolling action games too.

This game's simply fun; the story is your typical Turtles vs Shredder storyline, and your job is to stop him from getting ultimate power by leveling up your roster of fighters over the course of an arcade game paced adventure. The gameplay is very fluid and retro-feeling, and the pacing is brisk in all the right ways; sure the storyline is a bit too short for longterm playing, but the story isn't the main priority: it's the fan service of the characters themselves against a simple plot backdrop. And that's more than okay.

Shredder's Revenge is simply meant to be fun, fun and more fun. It's a retro inspired game that balances modern sensibilities with old-school vibes in all the areas it needed to deliver. And for some developers that's nigh impossible to do.

A good time that's simple yet challenging, retro yet accessible for any devoted gamer, and its 'old' but charming aesthetic makes Shredder's Revenge an example of fan service done right.

Play this one on any system (save MacOS, yet). It's worth your time and money. 4/5 stars.

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)

Multimillion-Dollar Ineptitude...

[4/10 · 9 May 2024]

Rebel Moon 2 is the long awaited sequel to the nothing-burger that was the last movie. Zack Snyder shows that he's capable with captivating visuals and well-choreographed action sequences, but his screenwriting chops just don't cut it when he's doing a self-indulgent 'passion project' that was originally gonna be a Star Wars movie, and he takes character development as 'trivial' instead of seriously like any veteran director treats as equal priority with personal vision.

Where to start with this thing? First of all, it feels like Part Two was more a threat of more-of-the-same that the last movie offered, and lo-and-behold: it pretty much is exactly that, except it's a 'pay off' to a culminate story that doesn't feel earned at all.

Zack Snyder is a good director when he's got a good script to play with, but don't give him his own script. He'll lose all self-awareness and will go full blown George Lucas over his own lack of creative restraint or finesse on his own movies.

Rebel Moon 2 MIGHT be potentially 'remedied' if they release an oversized cut that includes both movies back-to-back, and with extra coverage, but it'd be of little comfort for newcomers who've already heard what they need to know about the film already.

This kind of film... it's a wonder Netflix said yes to this one, considering it's a blockbuster-budgeted film that didn't get a wide theatrical release (it got limited release before Netflix) to try and recoup the ridiculous amounts of money sunk into Zack Snyder's now infamous Star Wars ripoff. And they wanted this thing to be a 'franchise' comparable to Harry Potter, James Bond and the MCU, etc.

Rebel Moon 2 brings closure to one of the most puzzling two-parters in recent memory, and has you wondering: is there gonna be anything else from Snyder or this 'franchise' afterwards?

This is a bit of a weirdly boring movie, what with its development lacking any impact on viewers, and the abuse of the slow-motion technique hampers Rebel Moon in almost every conceivable way.

This one's a 2/5 flop-sweat-maker. It's really not a well-defined movie like you'd expect from similarly high-concept directors tackling passion projects, but hey; maybe it'll inspire someone to do even better than what we got here.

They Shall Not Grow Old (II) (2018)

Simply incredible and devastating all at once.

[10/10 · 22 April 2024]

They Shall Not Grow Old honors the fallen of World War One with cinematic flare, and poignant tragedy in that many of these men never knew that they'd one day be in the movies (about real world history) and would fight for their grandchildren to relish the peace they died to uphold.

This is historical cinema brought to life by being recreative AND giving 1-to-1 honest commentary on the war thanks to archival recordings played throughout the film. This is a documentary that tries being informative about the past by recreating it with the technology of the 2010s. This film must have been a nightmare to brainstorm in a way that made sense to 2018 cinephiles/documentary-junkies.

Thankfully the film is a well done tribute to fallen soldiers where some of them never returned home alive, but this film gives a full-bodied picture of the early 20th-Century and gives the era depth by making it 'talk and breathe' in this movie.

They Shall Not Grow Old gives a voice to the long-passed soldiers of World War One and makes sure they're immortalised in an ever-complicated landscape of modern documentary cinema.

Hopefully more documentaries covering more periods of modern history will follow this film's innovative remixing of our understanding of the 'old' modern world.

Gotham Knights (2022 Video Game)

They should have continued the Arkham Canon with this one.

[5/10 · 27 March 2024]

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

Gotham Knights definitely meant well, but the clunky controls don't even come close to the Arkham games' buttery smooth control scheme and lively combat system. Not to mention the story could have done with some work via Paul Dini too.

Batman video games seem to be either REALLY good for some, or REAL average (if not outright awful sometimes). Gotham Knights is like an aggressive middle ground in that spectrum of gaming quality. The voice-acting is competent and the graphics are genuinely good (the frame rate is another issue though), but the control scheme is where the game falls apart compared to the Arkham Series.

With these open-world video games you'd expect the controls to be as seamless as breathing in everyday life, but they're really clunky here, and it kills the immersion (the grappling is just one of the issues here), and it's kind of a blessing that the game doesn't have Batman in the title, because he's kind of dead (at least that's what the intro leads players to believe).

To be honest I haven't even finished the main storyline here because the controls REALLY do get in the way to that kind of disruptive degree. It's a far cry from Batman: Arkham City and Marvel's Spider-Man series, and Gotham Knights takes a potentially interesting idea and ruins it with a control scheme that doesn't feel like it belongs in the 2020s landscape of gaming at all.

Gotham Knights is so-so stuff. It could have been more, but the issues at play here kind of stop anything in this game having any outspoken standout moment. 2.5/5 stars.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024 Video Game)

Gaming's modern mythology.

[10/10 · 18 March 2024]

Final Fantasy has constantly reinvented itself through the years, and Rebirth is no exception. Final Fantasy VII has become its own mega-franchise within gaming and its namesake's universe. And for good reason. This game takes what made Remake great and expands on it with an open-world gameplay design that also blends the seamless level transitions of the Uncharted video games and keeping the otherworldly charm of the Final Fantasy franchise fully intact the whole time.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth may be a bit overwhelming for casuals, but the choice of difficulty definitely eases some newcomers' anxieties of the experience being too overwhelming. Yes there's the trademark difficult boss-fights that require some trial-and-error strategising, but victory is never too far away to achieve for the player. The world on display here is something else, and the open-world design (in select chapters that is) really adds countless hours of replay value and depth to the world's dense story. Cloud and his friends are exploring the massive iceberg that is Rebirth's world-building with absolute swagger that's daring and cinematic all at once.

There's a lot of stuff to unpack here. Maybe almost too much; but hey, JRPGs were always bursting with several hours of stuff to do. Some of the mini-games are unnecessarily hard (the piano is near impossible to perfect with the analog controls), but they're thankfully 110% optional and don't roadblock the story completely. Rebirth gets a lot right, but a game this massive can't be perfect; but it doesn't need to be PERFECT perfect. Rebirth just needed to be a deep exploration of Final Fantasy VII's iconic world, and with that it succeeds many-folds over.

Rebirth has something for hardcore fans, for newcomers, and it delivers on the cut-scenes too. It's already shaping up to be 2024's game of the year. And who knows? Maybe Part Three will be even better?

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the reason gamers play video games so passionately. It has the characters, exploration, and immersion people have come to expect from the best JRPGs on the market. It's a modern classic that's begging for Part Three to round up the trilogy as soon as possible (but seriously, let's hope they don't rush Part Three THAT quickly).

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a 5/5-star masterpiece. 10/10 IMDb points. Give this one a go if you love the Final Fantasy franchise.

Dune (2000)

It's like an uber-campy high-school stage play.

[6/10 · 6 March 2024]

Dune has become a notoriously tricky property to get right; before Denis Villeneuve's films in the 2020s, this miniseries was as close to a faithful take as you could possibly get on-screen. Besides fan edits of David Lynch's Dune making rounds online, that film was material proof of the novel being nigh unfilmable for many creatives in Hollywood.

The miniseries is like a multimillion dollar community stage play committed to film and trying to evoke science fiction otherworldliness in the most conventional ways possible. The set designs just don't feel alien enough here, and the lighting screams typical television production conformity instead of being daring in trying to give Dune its much needed high-concept feeling.

Is this faithful? Yes. Does it work all that well in light of the iffy production choices? Not particularly, but it's not unwatchable. Does the acting do the source material justice? I'd say yes and no at the same time. The performances range from Leonard-Nimoy-like stoicism to Adam-West/William-Shatner-esque camp and makes the whole thing feel like a dedicated mixed bag of effort.

Dune is sci-fi's equivalent to The Lord of the Rings in terms of scope AND trickiness in getting it right outside the source novels both properties originated from. And filmmakers many generations from now will keep making their own jabs at their own versions of these iconic stories. Blessing or curse? Hard to tell sometimes. Here I'd say it's a charming curse. It does just enough right to try and outdo the wrong stuff, but just barely pulls it off.

Dune gets 3/5 stars. An atypical television production of the 2000s taking on a book that was far too demanding for basic cable television to take on alone.

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

A crazy but impossibly important documentary.

[10/10 · 5 March 2024]

Jodorowsky's Dune covers the infamous film that never was: a 10-hour-plus epic that would have starred Salvador Dali as The Emperor and Orson Welles as Baron Vladimir Harkonen, all against the backdrop of an H. R.-Giger-inspired world of sci-fi oddities.

The greatest film never made is captured in this documentary with the notorious eccentric filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky hosting the journey chronicling the film's journey into never-being: yet the fact it never happened didn't stop its influence permeating EVERY nook and cranny of the film industry then onward. It was a project so wild, so ambitious and so groundbreaking that there was no way the 1970s could muster such an impossible film. Yet the story behind it and the attempts to make Dune for the big screen: nothing short of great stories themselves.

Hopefully there will be a film like this for George Miller's Justice League: Mortal, or Guillermo Del Toro's The Hobbit, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man or even David Lynch's Star Wars: Episode VI. The possibilities for 'never made cinema' documentaries feels like an untapped well of potential begging to be tapped into.

Jodorowsky's Dune is a wild yet necessary window into the world of high-concept filmmaking being stretched so thin that all the effort was too much for one project to carry alone; so literally everyone attached divided and conquered cinema in their own ways after the film ceased production.

One of the 2010s' finest documentaries and easily 2013's craziest one by a long shot. Heck, it could even be the finest film covering Dune's impact on cinema and one of the best Dune films out there, period. 5/5 stars.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Destiny's a terrifying thing to burden.

[10/10 · 5 March 2024]

**Possible Spoilers**

Dune: Part Two takes right off from where the first Dune film left us hanging. And it's just as dreamy yet more ambitious than its predecessor.

Dune: Part Two almost feels like a critique of 'The Chosen One' motif of other movies, and shows the 'pros and cons' of being chosen as a supposed saviour in the eyes of desperate people in a desperate world. What happens for those who are not the 'One'? The world around them gets mighty tricky to navigate, and coming to terms with what is to come... is a lot easier said than done.

Dune: Part Two is equal parts spectacular and unusually somber with its high-concept sci-fi trappings. I'm just glad the two movies can finally complement each other; there's bound to be fan-edits that make it a five-hour-plus feature (or it could become reality via a Director's Cut or something), and fans are gonna dissect every scene on YouTube videos speculating as to what the future holds for the Dune franchise on-screen. And it's a breed of film which deserves that kind of online speculation because it's rich with world-building and foreshadowing that may surprise us when they make Dune: Messiah as a movie.

Sure it's cliche for reviewers to note the Star Wars similarities, but I gotta say that Dune finally becoming a cinematic franchise to compete with it is nothing short of a miracle (even if the book basically willed George Lucas' magnum opus into existence in the first place) that would Frank Herbert proud.

Dune: Part Two is a LOT of movie to digest, but it's no slouch. This is what high-concept filmmaking should strive to be; this is how to channel all that money into something that's worth the effort, and it doesn't have contempt for its audience either. Dune: Part Two can send messages to the rest of Hollywood on how to tackle legacy properties well.

2024's first sci-fi blockbuster does justice to one of the most important novels ever written, and it raises the bar pressuring Hollywood to get its collective asses into high-gear instead of slouching on so-so productions (looking at you, Madame Web).

Dune: Part Two is good stuff. Give it a shot before the spice runs dry at the movies. 5/5 stars.

Hazbin Hotel (2019– )

Damn solid stuff!

[8/10 · 23 January 2024]

Hazbin Hotel has become a beacon of independent animation on the internet becoming a mainstream thing thanks to its being picked up by Amazon Prime and turning Viziepop's passion project into a streaming darling. It's a real accomplishment for indie-animators everywhere, and proof that Hollywood's big studios no longer have a perpetual monopoly on television animation anymore.

Hazbin Hotel is like a matured Disney musical taking cues from John Lennon's solo career with doses of Taylor Swift, and giving some heavy-metal undertones akin to Queen's Brian May, and underdog gay sympathy that Freddie Mercury himself would be ridiculously proud of. This series is a tale of redemption from the depths of circumstantial depravity, and how goodness is a random force of nature that doesn't discriminate as to WHERE it comes from.

Sure this series may be confronting for some or downright crude thanks to its honest vulgarity in a demon-centric world, but Hazbin Hotel is a well-deserved success story that's sure to deepen even further with it already having an order for Season Two. Maybe this'll result in Seasons Three and Four being picked up, or Amazon picking up Helluva Boss for airing too, and eventually (maybe) regular television syndication?

Hazbin Hotel is a solid 4/5 for me. 8/10 points. Looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing it in full once all the episodes are out.

Food (1992)

Darkly comical and unsettlingly spot-on... with food!

[8/10 · 16 January 2024]

Food is like a surreal comedy horror that comments on humanity's relationship with food, all through the lens of Jan Svankmajer's filmmaking lens of stop-motion and live-action mixing, making up for some truly fever-dream-like stories! For a short film it's got a lot of story in its three brief sequences: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

Food is probably one of the truest films about dining, and possibly one of the greatest criticisms of communism encouraging people 'eating off each-other' (at least that's my interpretation of the Breakfast segment); Lunch's critique of classism in that regard is also very sharp, and Dinner's indulgence of 'eating your own body parts' is comically dark stuff at its finest.

The 1990s were really a remarkable time for stop-motion cinema and Food was something of a radical film in a post-Wallace-&-Gromit world (A Grand Day Out was released in 1989). Also it was an achievement for the Czech Republic finally breaking free from its communist trappings and restrictions on filmmaking.

Food is good stuff; it's plentiful and satirical on what it's covering, and shows the cross-quadrant world of dining and how every experience says something about the consumer (and their priorities) and what they do to get by.

Food is a 4/5 star film. 8/10 IMDb points. It's not for everyone, but it certainly says a lot about all of us. It's like a cerebral stop-motion film. And a good one at that.

The Sea Beast (2022)

Netflix is certainly amping up their animation artillery!

[7/10 · 12 January 2024]

The Sea Beast is the project that got Disney veteran Chris Williams onto the Netflix Animation deck of production. It's surprisingly slick animation for Netflix to have, especially considering they're relative newcomers to the animated feature scene in Hollywood: and the film's commitment to ocean-based iconography and navigational history is very good. The imagery is so crisp it makes up for the somewhat predictable story.

Nature vs nurture and all the good stuff of 'misunderstood monster' tropes is on full display, and though it does fall short of the likes of Klaus, Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio and Nimona, it's still a good time-killer. This film makes you wonder what else is on the horizon for Chris Williams and Netflix? Sure there's already a sequel coming out (or it could be a prequel), but who says it all stops with Sea Beast alone?

Netflix Animation is gonna keep increasing production output to stand out on the Hollywood scene of animation, and it seems like an Oscar for them (besides the one for Pinocchio) isn't too far off at all. Heck, could they even make a movie that's nominated for Best Animated Feature AND Best Picture? Who can tell? The future's unpredictable with stuff like this. All that is predictable: production output is gonna be consistent if the success keeps coming.

The Sea Beast is a visual feast relying on storytelling that gives some breathing room to done-to-death tropes, and though it doesn't make it wholly 'mind blowing' it's still refreshing enough you want to finish the film anyway.

3.5/5 stars. 7/10 points. Streaming is getting ambitious with its animated filmmaking!

The Abominable Snow Baby (2021 TV Movie)

Harmless Christmas fare.

[6/10 · 3 January 2024]

The Abominable Snow Baby is like if someone tried evoking the wholesomeness of The Snowman with the animation style of European television cartoons with trace elements of Bob's Burgers style of animation (Granny REALLY evokes that style here for me). It's a harmless short that basically promotes hospitality at Christmas regardless of whoever or whatever is in need.

Channel 4 has always had a tendency to churn these shorts out at Christmas like clockwork, and though sometimes there's real classics, not every attempt is gonna be a home run in terms of acclaim and general popularity. The Abominable Snow Baby is still a commendable homage to Terry Pratchett's witty style of writing and world-building, and it's nice seeing something outside the DiscWorld stories see some attention.

As Christmas shorts go there's still joy to be had here, but don't expect a 'spellbinding classic' like The Snowman or Father Christmas. But that's okay: it's still nice family entertainment all the same.

3/5 stars. Nice time-killer if there's a shortage of other Christmas offerings.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

Is this a parody of Star Wars rip-offs?

[4/10 · 27 December 2023]

Rebel Moon was DESPERATELY trying to be a Star Wars movie right from frame one and the whole 'substitute world building' is woefully shallow and it's trying to build a universe when this story COULD have worked in the actual Star Wars Universe.

This movie has the hardened badass girl archetype, the shunned but street-smart scoundrel, the strong-willed slave, the humanised robot, the *cough* Empire *cough*, and these cliches have been done to death in better movies that makes Rebel Moon sadly derivative when this film could have easily been a more inspired thing had it not become an awkward exposition-fest interlaced with Zack Snyder iconography that's on the brink of being a satire of the man's style and filmmaking techniques.

Supposedly the 'Director's Cut' is gonna be a better movie (or more of the same) but I'm not too sure if extra stuff would fix the movie right here. Maybe with more breathing room Rebel Moon could easily have had a valid reason for existing besides being a space opera to fill in the Star Wars and Star Trek cinematic voids (currently).

Simply put, Netflix wanted to make this as a 'rival Star Wars' franchise, but the problem is that these universes NEED depth right off the bat. And this one is waiting for either a directors cut or a clearer vision with less cliches to pick out of the proverbial raffle hat.

Rebel Moon is a multimillion dollar copy-and-paste job that seems like a passion project which became a feature length missed-opportunity-and-a-half for 2023 and Zack Snyder. Maybe Part Two will be an improvement? Who can tell with these things?

2/5 stars. For all it tries with its impressive visuals, the film seems like it's trying to be certain with its world building while being completely uncertain on whether to make this new world actually feel real to the viewers.

Magical Mystery Tour (1967 TV Movie)

It's watchable stuff.

[6/10 · 20 December 2023]

The Magical Mystery Tour was notorious for being The Beatles' first critical dud (the movie that is), but the album became an INSTANT classic for those who heard it all the way through. The movie feels like a fever-dream sideshow of vignettes that The Beatles couldn't firmly set a story around so they just threw together whatever they had filmed and hoped for the best once everything was finished.

Is the film terrible? No. Is it particularly good? No, not so much but it's okay. Is it bad? I guess the film was always gonna be in that 'it's so bad it's good' kind of campiness anyway. It's a confused film in need of a real story instead of the unfocused hodgepodge it turned out to be.

Magical Mystery Tour isn't bad but the real star of the show is easily the music that was done FOR the film; it's become an immortalised piece of pop-music itself and has leapt countless bounds compared to the movie it came from. But the film is nicely crazy.

For The Beatles' first critical flop, it could have been a LOT worse honestly. 3/5 stars. It's watchable and the music is something else, but the story is definitely gonna fall short for some viewers.

Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

It's like Mulan and The Man With No Name all at once.

[10/10 · 17 December 2023]

Blue Eye Samurai is sizzling adult animation what with its fully realised characters, action scenes besting action-cinema from Hollywood today, Japanese iconography ranging from the blossom trees and snowy landscapes in Edo period Japan and even the kimonos some of the characters wear bringing the cultural context full circle for this series about Samurais, terrorists from 17th Century Ireland, and political intrigue and back room politics that feels like it's plucked straight out of shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors.

The show itself is like a mix of Akira Kurosawa's films, Sergio Leone's Man With No Name Trilogy, the film Logan and Disney's Mulan in 1998, and the animation is of course gonna inspire the cliche comparison to the Spider-Verse films thanks to the 'crunchy' style Blue Eye Samurai uses. This feels like an anime made outside of Japan to reflect how the world sees its history and beautiful landscape all with the samurai story tropes we've come to obsess over through cinema, television, gaming and literature. This is an inspiring show the same way films like the Spider-Verse films (yes, I know what I said before), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and any Studio Ghibli film from Miyazaki-san himself stirs a whirlwind of awe and a lifetime impression of something transcendent.

Blue Eye Samurai has become a surprise hit for Netflix; and for good reason too, because the pacing and animation complement each other damn near perfectly and the script is pretty sharp to top it off, and the characters are like sprinklings of Parmesan cheese/icing sugar on the dish that is this show. It's just fantastic news for mature animation fans by this show has become a runaway hit: and hopefully the following seasons will live up to its debut arc too.

Netflix is certainly trying to rival Disney with animation output for streaming, and if they keep it up with offerings like this I'd say it's absolutely possible that could actually happen in the not-too-distant-future, that's if it hasn't already started RIGHT now!

For action junkies this show is catnip with real depth, and animation lovers will find lots of imagery to watch over and over again, and anybody simply wanting good television regardless of medium or platform, Blue Eye Samurai is no disappointment by any stretch; it's a classic in the making if we're all lucky enough to see the story play out to completion (fingers crossed).

5/5 stars. 10/10 IMDb points. Give this a watch pronto!