Jackson Hughes

If you're in the demographic of the original (old people) you'll like this. If you were going to remake Naked Gun in modern day, this is about as good as you can ask for. I watched the original before I saw this one and I vastly prefer the original. It has some magic to it that couldn't be replicated here. I can't blame Liam Neeson for not being up to par with Leslie Nielson but I still prefer the original Drebin to the Junior. It's good. My girlfriend and I thought it had some funny jokes but we weren't in love with it. I'd still pick the original over this one any day.

I saw a comment that said,"the style is the substance." This movie definitely has plenty of style. The scenes are shot in Wes Anderson's signature style. The dialogue is exactly what you expect. The colors are all what you expect. It's filled with Anderson's style. The issue is that the style can't be the substance. The movie focuses on a wealthy Phoenician business magnate. As a character, he's very interesting. Very Machiavellian. Lots of lying and cheating and plane crashes. His arc is where the hollowness of the movie comes from. It's a reasonable change but I never emotionally connected to him or the character that powers his arc. He's interesting but I didn't connect to him at all. I enjoyed it. It's a solid time but I think Wes Anderson has shown in Fantastic Mr. Fox and Grand Budapest Hotel that a movie can have both style and substance. Phoenician Scheme just has style.

I have to be one of the dissenters on this one unfortunately. I loved the first two films but Totoro didn't capture me nearly as much. It is beautiful. I like all the characters. I see what they were going for with a lighthearted story of children discovering kind, magical forest creature and yet it felt like the movie just meandered on. We paused about an hour in and wondered how we were that far in and it felt like nothing had happened yet.

To me, this is one of the greatest movies of all time. It's about these strange, awkward characters that are naturally very funny and tragic figures. I can't help but love it because at its heart is this intense level of kindness for the characters that they wouldn't get in other movies. Napoleon is strange. He likes to (badly) draw pictures of Conan the Barbarian and tells his classmates that he went hunting wolverines in Alaska. In another movie, he'd be the 'weird' kid but this movie refuses to degrade him just because of who he is and I love it for that. At the very end of the movie when he shows the entire school who he is, they love him and no other movie would show that. It's the only movie I've seen that actually celebrates the unique-ness endemic to humanity.

Very mixed feelings on this. It's not terrible but I didn't think it was very good either. The ending was very predictable. The villain wasn't scary. The story was alright. I didn't like the explanation for what happens when I first finished it but a day later and I think it's kind of interesting.

I doubt anyone could play this and argue that it is anything but a good game but I have largely mixed feelings about. Keep in mind I played on normal so some things will differ based on difficulty. I'll start with the story. Forbidden West's narrative is not intensely compelling on its own but in combination with the interesting locales it takes you to and the characters, I can see why many people like it. Personally, the characters did not grow on me as much as I wanted them to but I didn't hate any of them and I did love one a lot (Kotallo ❤️). The villains are basically unseen from most of the game but when they show up, they are interesting...at least conceptually. None of them will be topping any lists of best game villains any time soon but they're servicable. For the sidequests... a lot of these are skippable and the formula becomes obvious very very quick. Some of them are really cool and interesting like one that has Aloy fly in a hot air balloon but a lot of them lack any spectacle and don't present any interesting characters. And there are A LOT of them. So many that I have to assume you're meant to skip many of them. Not just due to their lack of quality and interest but also because if you do all of them, you will become way overleveled compared to your part in the story. Leveling itself is also a strange system as it just kind of doesn't matter? You can unlock powerful 'ultimate' abilites that can be very useful and the weapon techniques flesh out your weapon types in a cool way but a lot of the skill trees are worthless. Minute increae here, another minute increase there. Despite maxing the stealth tree, my shots out of stealth, with a sharpshot bow, still couldn't kill many human enemies or even rip off a part from a machine. There are 6 skilltrees but none of them present anything strong enough to make Aloy feel mechanically different. I just think that if the skills don't make you feel or play differently, why are they there? I can clearly picture a system where the stealth tree increases damage from range or makes it easier to stealth through enemies or hides bodies. The combat and weapons is where you've got me and I have to admit something cool is being done here. The robots feel different to fight and have different tactics that work against them. Fighting a thunderjaw does feel a lot different than fighting a tideripper. The weapons feel good to use and have their niches, except for hunter bows and the crossbow thing - both those weapon types are a little too strong and versatile comparatively. If there's a single selling point for the game, combat is it. The world is beautiful. From a fidelity point of view, there's no doubt this a big budget console exclusive. A lot of time went into making every area feel unique and different. Eh I'm bored with this. Good game but it has a lot of flaws with it.

This a good game. This a good game. If you've played a Ratchet and Clank game before, you know what to expect. It's a third person platformer/shooter with a light-hearted vibe and a bunch of cool guns to shoot guys with. Each level feels unique with its own theme and gameplay gimmick. Ofcourse, each new level also unlocks new guns to use and that's why you're really here. There are close to 20 guns and each feels unique and fun, though there are some that are unique-er and fun-er than others. The sprinkler encases enemies in vines and plants, another gun turns enemies into 16bit sprites, and another is just a rocket launcher. It's a mix of very fun and gimmicky stuff and pretty normal stuff. There are some I like more than others but when I got to the final fight, I was having a great time moving between each one to crowd control, stun, or deal big damage. Good game. The story is simple and predictable but the characters are fun and enjoyable. The combat is fun. The platforming is easy but feels good. It's just a good game. Not a lot to hate and kids can love it too.

Let's just get this out of the way, Honor Among Thieves is not the best movie you've ever seen. It's not some thoughtful high art masterpiece that is unforgettable. It's a very fun movie that very strongly follows the beloved Marvel formula. Lots of cool setpieces and funny-ish dialogue. Easy to recommend to basically anyone. Bonus points for being accurate to the souce material and feeling a lot like an actual campaign. Ok now I'm using the rest of this to nitpick it a little bit. I hate Michelle Rodriguez in this movie. She sticks out in every scene. Every other actor I can be fooled into believing is their character except for her. She's doing a kind of flat Drax the Destroyer type thing and I hate it. The CGI also can't fool me. It looks cool and good, technically I guess, but I'm not fooled for a second that the dragon or crumbling bridge is anymore than 1s and 0s spiraling around in matrix code.

No one is going to read this but I wanted to write down my thoughts on this game. Indivisble is a game I really wanted to like, and I like it more than I expected to, but it's not quite all there. All the hand drawn art is beautiful and the characters look cool, though a lot of them are just hot, thin, woman with big blanks. The fight animations look good and add to each of the characters. The stuff they spent a lot of time on looks so good. The animated cutscenes are beautiful. But most of the game is spent in passable 3d environments that don't make me feel any type of way. Also disappointing that a lot of the miscellaneous characters that populate each city look like...not good. The characters themselves well, they don't have all that much. You can collect 20 something party members throughout the game but most of them barely speak throughout the game. You can get short lines from them in a hub area but if you're not constantly going back there, you might forget some are even there. The main ones have simplistic personalities but aren't awful, I guess. There isn't a whole lot to latch onto. One is hot mom, one is a mischievous mage, one is a soldier guy. Like there is character there but they keep the traits down real real low. Additionally, some of the writing is just not good. Real Tumblr/fanfiction-y type stuff. Ajna, the main character, is fine. There just isn't a whole lot to say about her. For part of the game, she's real selfish and then she learns to not be so selfish. It's nothing crazy or that interesting. She's fine. I don't like her I don't hate her. I like her character design but her personality didn't grab me. I started out hating the combat. I grew to like the combat. And then I returned back to hating it. There just isn't a whole lot to it. Each character has a unique playstyle but there aren't many combat mechanics for that to mean something. Once you figure out their playstyle, you've mastered them. You'll make them do those same moves over and over each turn forever. There isn't a little bit of strategy too it when new enemy types get introduced but I really just found combat itself boring after awhile. The story is...a story. You go to area A, oh no there's a problem here with a unique antagonist. You learn some new platforming skills, you meet new party members, kill the boss, move to area A. None of it is that interesting and where they could be a twist, the party members won't stop talking about what will happen so it's no suprise. Speaking of the platforming, I liked it. The levels do suffer from being overly confusing and with no fast travel, but when you get into a groove with it, it's not so bad. It can be infuriating sometimes but chaining the moves together can feel good. Indivisble is a game I really want to love. The animations and character designs are so pretty and so cool but it just needs to be so much more for me to love it.

Watched it just because it inspired Bloodborne. Some of the style is there but overall Brotherhood of the Wolf just didn't impress me. At its heart it is a competent historical drama/romance. The romance portion isn't anything special but the historical aspects are good. I was suitably tricked into believing I was watching 1700s France. The horror aspects are very minimal. It sucks you in with the werewolf/monster premise but it's really not about that, which is fine because it lets the other aspects breathe a little bit. Focusing on the monster just a little bit more. It's important to the premise but its effects don't look great. I think it was a mix of practical, CGI, and stop motion and it just didn't fool me. In a different movie, it might be charming the monster is stop motion. When the story really hinges on you fearing the monster like the characters, it just doesn't work. The narrative itself is fine. There are a solid amounts of hints sprinkled about so you know the twists and reveals weren't just haphazardly slapped on but it's definitely a little predictable. The villain is not hard to spot even if you're only about halfway through. Look, it's fine. It's not amazing, it's not terrible. It's fine.