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televisor-reviews · 3 years

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Top 10 WORST Movies Of 2019

Yep, when everyone is looking back on probably the worst year in the history of humanity for everything, I’m gonna look back a little further. I mean, so many films come out every year, how can one man keep up? I think we could all use an extra year of preparations, especially after the last 365 days we just had to go through. And of course, I still didn’t get to see every movie to come out 2 years ago. So as terrible as I’m sure The Fanatic and The Queen’s Corgi are... I didn’t see ‘em. If you’d like a more detailed list of every 2019 movie I’ve seen, I’ve got a list over on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/animatorreviewa/list/every-2019-movie-ive-seen/

#10. Gemini Man Of all the dumb shit Ang Lee has put his name on, Gemini Man has to be the worst. And of all the dumb shit Will Smith has put his name on, this is still better than Collateral Beauty. Gemini Man’s folly comes from it’s extremely stereotypical plot, it’s dull and boring characters, and everything about it is just so obvious! This is easily the most by the numbers movie I have seen in a very long time. But that’s fine, because like Avatar, the big selling point is its incredible special effects. But unlike Avatar, the effects here are just okay. I mean, it looks good, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen from Rogue One just a few years back. Not the kind of thing I’d really lean on. So in the end, we got a decent looking film that in literally every other regard, is just like every Liam Neeson movie within the last couple years except even more dull. Great job guys, definitely worth the 20 year development process.

#9. Playmobil: The Movie Remember The Lego Movie from 2014 and how surprisingly great it was? Remember The Emoji Movie from 2017 and how unsurprisingly terrible it was? Now remember Playmobil from when you were a kid and your aunt hated you? Yeah, what if they made something much worse than The Emoji Movie based on the ripoff Legos starring what’s her face from Split?... And it’s nothing like you’d expect. Here’s a shocker, it’s a musical and is about humans who transform into these things and it’s a lot worse than you’d expect. The music sucks, the characters suck, and the whole spy thing that the trailer was all about lasts as long as the trailer itself. This has to be false advertising, I’d say we sue but how much money could On Studios possibly have, especially after this humungous bomb. What a waste of time, money, and thought.

#8. Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil Disney is on a rampage to ruin every single one of your favorite animated movies as a child. This is more or less here as a representative of the fad as a whole. Fuck The Lion King and it’s extreme lack of creativity. Fuck Dumbo for treating its audience like a bunch of morons who can’t handle what made the original so iconic and need basic morals jammed into their heads. Fuck Lady And The Tramp for thinking the basic story isn’t enough to entertain and need to throw in some goddamn chase scene right at the end. And fuck Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil for being so being so stupid, boring, and lame! This is like looking at a #Girlboss poster but dumber and more boring. The last act is the only interesting part and that is just too moronic to work. Please Disney, please stop. And audiences, stop seeing them! This includes me, what the fuck?!

#7. Unplanned Have y’all seen Son Of The Mask where what’s her face has a baby and when looking at the ultrasound, the baby starts doing that Looney Tunes frog dance? That’s significantly more realistic than how fetuses are portrayed in Unplanned. Just tinier babies instead of the little not alive things they are. You can be prolife or prochoice or pro-whatever-the-hell, but if the movie itself can’t tell the difference between these two very different things, how can anyone trust its judgement on the issue? A piece of art should make you think, reconsider your previous thoughts on the matter. These Christian propaganda films are actively bad for you, they only make you more sure of your own thoughts on the matter rather than making you think harder about it. Maybe if the filmmakers actually gave a shit about the issue and did a little bit of research, maybe we’d get a decent film. It could be prolife even, I don’t care as long as it’s good. But this is propaganda that’s only interested in getting you on its side, no matter what. Lying to the audience, making shit up half the time, sucking beyond belief. All just part of the game, who cares as long as the viewer hates Planned Parenthood by the end of it. What a cynical piece of shit.

#6. Norm Of The North: King Sized Adventure It isn’t one of my end of 2 years worst of list without Norm Of The North. The first one just barely made the cut back in 2017, but in hindsight, I’m very glad I inevitably did that because the franchise has become a staple of my lists ever since. But also, I guess I didn’t see that many bad movies in 2019 because King Sized Adventure is easily the best Norm movie so far. The characters are more fleshed out, the plot is actually kinda interesting, and I think I laughed once. What keeps this on my list is the typical Norm Of The North stuff: terrible animation, awfully unfunny jokes throughout, extremely annoying characters, and my expectations for Lionsgate being much much higher. But at least with NOTN 3, I could justify it as a film for a much younger audience. But even as that, I think you’d be better off with something more like The Addams Family (2019) or Wonder Park. There’s really no good excuse for even a movie for kindergarteners to be this bad. But I do definitely look forward to covering Norm Of The North: Family Vacation next year, can’t wait!

#5. Airplane Mode Fuck you Logan Paul. I feel like I can’t go that hard on Airplane Mode, it’s just too fun. Not to watch, but to imagine being apart of. Even though very few of the jokes land, I believe everybody on set was just enjoying themselves so much and thought every joke was super funny that the very rare times one lands, it lands hard. I’d say I laughed about 3 times throughout, an abysmal amount for any 90 minute feature, but those 3 times, I laughed pretty hard. Honestly, if it wasn’t making a complete mockery of Airplane!, one of the greatest comedies of all time, it might’ve not made my list. But also, fuck Logan Paul. Fuck all of these dumbass influencers in this! I’ve always been more of a Jake Pauler myself anyways.

#4. The Benchwarmers 2: Breaking Balls Remember the original Benchwarmers? No really, do you, because I’ve seen it a couple times now and I still don’t remember what happens in it. Baseball or something, I don’t know; maybe it was funny, maybe it wasn’t. But its much belated sequel definitely isn’t. I sure hope you like nut hitting jokes, because that makes up a good 80% of this movie. If not, I hope you like very racist and sexist jokes stolen right out of Adam Sandler’s trash can. If not, I really hope you like predictability, because from the very first goddamn shot, you’ll be able to tell how the rest of the movie is going to go. This whole flick just feels so cheap, but in a bad way. Things like the live action Kim Possible movie or The Banana Splits Movie feel cheap, much at least try to make it work. This just feels like everyone was given a script and a ham sandwich as payment from some studio and were subsequently forced at gunpoint to make this piece of garbage. No one is trying because nobody cares. Unlike the previous entry where some jokes work simply because the people working on it believed they were funny, there’s not a single good joke to be found in Benchwarmers 2 because a good joke couldn’t possibly exist in this atmosphere. If the person telling the joke doesn’t think it’s funny, nobody else is going to either and you can just feel the disregard and lack of care from everyone on set for this garbage. Fuck this movie and can everyone stop making sequels to movies from 20 years ago for a quarter just to make a cheap buck on Netflix? Please?

#3. The Haunting Of Sharon Tate Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood was kinda just an okay movie. Probably my least favorite of all the Tarantino films I’ve seen, but it was still pretty good. The Haunting Of Sharon Tate is like if an insane person saw that movie and was told to make something like that. Absolutely no respect for the families of nor for those whose lives were lost on that horrible day. Followed by days if not weeks of the titular character having visions of what’s to come like she’s That’s So Raven. But in a way, I can see the attempt to shift power back to Sharon and friends, there’s a scene in which they beat the shit out of the Manson people and that I’d imagine was suppose to be a “hell yeah” kinda moment like it was in Once Upon A Time. But instead of feeling like Lizzie McGuire just overcame literally anything, the I was instead thinking, “Oh thank god, the movie’s almost over.” Which isn’t the right emotion you’d want your audience to feel when seeing a real life grizzly murder take place. But at least there was an attempt, unlike...

#2. The Murder Of Nicole Brown Simpson Oh no, Daniel Farrands (director of #3) is at it again with another murder but one much more recent. One in which the (probably) murderer is still alive and very much in the spotlight. One in which fucking it up can be a whole lot worse than that of one from the ‘60s. And in one where there wasn’t even anything close to an attempt to be respectful to the memories of or the families of the victims. Apparently, Nicole Brown Simpson was so easy that even a cross country serial killer could fuck her. Did you know that her favorite hobby was eerily foreshadowing her own death and walking for several hours to nowhere? Honestly, what bothers me most about this movie isn’t even the blatant disrespect, it’s that it was building up to some stupid and cartoony murder where OJ Simpson and the Cross Country Killer team up to murder these two like they were the Joker and Harley Quinn. But then it happens and... nope, just OJ. Lame.

Before we get to #1, here’s some runners up:

Cats Honestly, I’ve come to kinda love this movie. How can you not enjoy something this dumb and insane? Besides, I do love musicals enough to find this at least a little fun. C’mon, tell me you weren’t humming the music to yourself for months afterwards. No? Well I was.

The Jesus Rolls Did The Big Lebowski really deserve this? I know the fandom for it has gotten a little out of control. I’d admit, as much as I enjoy Big Lebowski, I don’t love it enough to go to Lebowski Fest. And I’m not insane enough to pretend to like this fever dream of a remake of a French film that’s vaguely related to a movie a kinda like just because John Turturro thinks it’s cool.

Dark Phoenix The X-Men franchise has gone seriously downhill ever since... well, Fox I guess. The original trilogy was good but then X-Men Origins and Last Stand came out and it desperately needed a reboot. And the that was good until it wasn’t and then BOOM, Dark Phoenix. The absolute dumpster fire to cap off a very on again, off again franchise that does at least end it with a boom. Still better than Origins and more interesting than Apocolypse.

Doom: Annihilation Between Doom, The Angry Birds Movie 2, and Sonic being pushed back, 2019 had its hands full with terrible video game to movie adaptations. But where Sonic turned out to be a pretty decent flick and Angry Birds 2 was mostly harmless, Doom: Annihilation turned pit to be much, much worse than what anyone expected. How do you turn a movie based on Doom, one of the coolest and most bad ass video games of all time, in which the plot revolves around hell demons murdering everybody on Mars, boring? The 2005 adaptation was bad enough, but at least it was fun, this is just so dull and lifeless. I can’t imagine Annihilation satisfying anybody’s Doom fixated blood lust.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes was a docuseries that really grabbed the public’s attention. And how could you blame them? It was a fascinating look inside the mind of one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. But making a movie based on the life of Ted Bundy is a completely different issue with its own whole set of problems. How do you portray a famously hot and charming villain without making him too sympathetic or lovable to the audience? Well, maybe only showing one murder near the very end of the film doesn’t help. Maybe actually portraying this real life murderer as a bad guy would help. Maybe just being a better made version of #3 and #2 won’t help.

Countdown Some premises are just too stupid to make work as an actual movie. Which is why I was initially really excited for Countdown! Based on the trailers, it looked like the kind of horror flick that knew what it was and was going to have as much fun as possible with its ideas. Like what Happy Death Day 2U was, with its insane but pretty fun sci-fi twists. Countdown is no Happy Death Day, in fact I’d have to apologize to those movies for not really liking them. They’re way smarter and funnier than this piece of garbage. If your horror movie isn’t scary, then make it humorous. If it isn’t humorous, then make it enjoyable. If it isn’t enjoyable, then tell a good story. If it’s not telling a good story, then we’re all fucked. This seems to be trying to do a little of all of those, but keeps falling on its face when the only decent part is the couple of scenes with Tom Segura. Just a terrible waste of time,

Yesterday The big problem with Yesterday, and Rocketman to an extent, is more of a personal one than anything else. I just don’t like the music in them. For Rocketman, I’m just not a fan of Elton John’s work. I like Benny And The Jets and a few songs from Lion King, but that’s it. Every time I started getting into that movie, it’d be interrupted by some awful song that I’d have to then bare for a few minutes. Yesterday is different because I actually love The Beatles’ music, I’ve been a big fan of theirs since I was a kid. And because of that, I don’t really want to watch a movie in which some moron stumbles his way through playing some terrible karaoke covers. I think I could probably sing them better, and that’s saying a fuck ton.

Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise Of Skywalker I may be a Last Jedi lover, but even I know this was a terrible idea. Suddenly shifting direction, directors, and concepts with an extremely safe and extremely rushed script meant to please fans who were going to hate this movie anyways. Hey Disney, news flash, Solo bombed because nobody wanted a Han Solo prequel, especially when Last Jedi was still in theaters! Hey Disney, news flash, but Last Jedi actually got a ton of critical and fan praise. Maybe instead of listening to the loud minority and making a compromised piece of dog shit that neither side was going to like, instead lean in to pleasing those who’re still on board this Star Wars train. Goddamn, I’m so tired of Star Wars now!

Teen Titans Go! Vs. Teen Titans I know what it sounds like, but the issue here isn’t the Teen Titans Go! crew. They did a fine job all things considered, really stuck to what people liked about their style and did it well enough. but as a humungous fan of the 2003 series, I cannot overlook this, why are the classic Teen Titans portrayed like this? Why are they being called the serious ones, their show was like 80% comedy! Sure, they’re serious compared to the Go! team, but Spies In Disguise was more serious than them. And why are they apparently animated by those animated greeting card people? Why do they look like that? Where is their charm? Has the Teen Titans Go! people not seen a single episode of the original series? GOD!

Don’t Fuck With Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer I know its a miniseries, but I feel the need to mention at least one documentary and Letterboxd counts it, so here we go. A bunch of terrible Facebook sleuths making a mockery of the actual police isn’t very fun to watch. This just isn’t a fun story at all, I don’t know why its made in a way that even tries to be so. It’s titled “Don’t Fuck With Cats,” how can I not expect at least a little enjoyment out of this. But instead, I got something super fucking frustrating! These people are terrible detectives and so are the actual goddamn detectives. Neither of them seem to do much or be all that helpful. The show will start talking about some thing in the background that’s sure to be the smoking gun, but was just a trick to trick them. This happens all the time, why are we wasting our time with this? What’s the point? Why was this documentary even made? Who cares?!?!

#1. Playing With Fire The big manly man having to take care of children is a long and storied genre dating back to the ‘80s with Mr. Mom starring Michael Keaton. From there, it all goes downhill. 1993′s Mr. Nanny starring Hulk Hogan, 2007′s The Game Plan starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, 2020′s My Spy starring Dave Bautista. None of which are good per se, but they are at least watchable. But then you’ve got 2019′s Playing With Fire starring John Cena: an annoyingly unfunny, terribly written, awfully directed, horrendously performed, horrifically horrible piece of fucking dog shit caked with garbage from Nickelodeon’s rejected pile! Playing With Fire is a shockingly 96 minutes long, shocking because having seen it, I would’ve guessed it was probably about a week long trek through the shattered careers of John Leguizamo and Keagan Michael Key as they slowly realized just how big of a mistake they made while singing the wrong theme song to My Little Pony! This is an unbearable watch, a terrible punishment to put upon your children if they were being bad. I’d call CPS if I saw that happen. The audience will realize that they too made a mistake in choosing to see this horse shit maybe around the 20th dog reaction, the 80th childish scream, or maybe the 120th joke that refuses to land. I hate this movie with every fiber of my being, I cannot overexaggerate my hatred for this vile. The people who made this are the ones who are truly Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile! And as the cherry on top this shit sundae... John Cena flosses. The very beloved and all around nice guy that is the legendarily cool and awesome John Fucking Cena... flosses... Thanks Nickelodeon, I think I’ll go hang myself now.

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televisor-reviews · 4 years

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Top 10 BEST Films Of 2018

Taking this extra year to look at the film market of 2018 has given me the space to really look at the year as a whole as, what I’d describe as, really extreme. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful, and I wouldn’t really say it was mediocre either. There were lots of movies I loved but just as many I hated with surprisingly few I thought were just okay. Both the best and worst lists were pretty hard to put together because there were so many movies I really wanted to put on them. Cutting Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom from my worst list was a serious heartbreaker for me. But that only means that I’m particularly quite happy with how both turned out, there’s some seriously game changing films on this list. And keep in mind that, despite how much I tried, I still couldn’t watch every movie from the year: so as amazing as I’m sure A Star Is Born and Best F(r)iends are, I just didn’t get around to them. If you’d like a list of every movie from 2018 I have seen (in order from best to worst), it can be found on my Letterboxd here: https://letterboxd.com/animatorreviewa/list/every-2018-movie-ive-seen/

#10. Searching Back in 2014, the world was introduced to a new form of filmmaking that told a story via the screen of the main protagonist’s computer in Blumhouse’s Unfriended. Kind of like a modern day found footage film. And while I was one of five people who really liked Unfriended and its 2018 followup Unfriended: Dark Web, I think Searching is the penultimate of what this newfound sub-genre is able to accomplish. Similar to what Cloverfield was able to do for found footage, Searching was able to use the computer screen film style to heighten the tension and breaks down a part of the audience’s suspension of disbelief to create a horrific experience for anyone who witnesses it. Which also puts a ton of pressure on the lead, John Cho, as even a moment of bad acting can break this fragile fourth wall. Pressure that Cho overcomes like it was nothing. All of this combines into an incredible experience that keeps its audience on the edge of their seats and constantly on the brink of a heart attack. I’m almost certain that Searching will be considered an important piece of 2010′s film history. #9. Bad Times At The El Royale In 2011, Drew Goddard set himself apart as a director with a very unique and interesting vision with his landmark piece A Cabin In The Woods. In 2018, he did it again with, in my opinion, an even better film, Bad Times At The El Royale with a fascinatingly put together and complicated story featuring some of the best acting from such a star studded cast I’ve seen in years. From Jeff Bridges playing against the Big Lebowski type most are familiar with to Jon Hamm definitely playing towards his Richard Jewell typecast to Dakota Johnson making up for all three Fifty Shades Of Grey movies with quite possibly her best performance. Bad Times At The El Royale is one of the most uniquely made mainstream movies I’ve seen in a while with several scenes told several times from different perspectives and each character breathed life into them with such interesting backstories. My only real problem is that the whole thing with half the place is in Nevada and the other half is in California doesn’t really go anywhere but it’s made up for as soon as Chris Hemsworth shows up to ham the hotel up. Incredibly entertaining and amazingly fascinating, this is a movie that threatens you with a good time. #8. The Favourite I appreciate that powdered wig period pieces are coming back into style with shit such as Beauty And The Beast (2017), The Age Of Adaline, and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. But among the failures of this once well respected sub-genre are good stuff too, for instance, The Favourite, a movie that actually remembers that British people spell some words with a “u”. One of my personal Favourite cliches of films nowadays is having a cast in which literally everybody is an asshole, see #9 and #1. And what I really like particularly with this is that old time-y movies about royalty can be really intimidating to hurdle, even now I have to hype myself up to watch something like Downton Abbey. But this overcomes it by being really entertaining with some great performances from the entire cast, especially Emma Stone showing once again why she deserves an Oscar! And the directing from Yorgos Lanthimos is so good, it actually makes me want to check out The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. The Favourite is a magnificently smartly fun picture that can satisfy both the most bored audience member and the most pretentious film critic. #7. Love, Simon Look, we all have biases. Some lead people to rave about how BlacKkKlansman is the best movie of the year because of how well it portrays black culture and their relationship with the police and evangelical racists. Some lead people raving about Crazy Rich Asians because it had the balls to fill its cast with Asians and Asian Americans. For me, an (at the time) openly bisexual 18 year old who masks most of my anxiety and fears with a very thin facade of comedy, Love, Simon really spoke to me while also entertaining the hell out of me. The script knew exactly when to be funny and when to be serious, when it should have a heartfelt scene and when it should go on a random tangent, and even when it’s trying to be funny or go on a tangent, it gives incredible insight into the main protagonist’s psyche. And for those moments, the context is everything. I remember cringing pretty hard at the whole “coming out as straight” bit in the trailer, but laughing my ass off when it showed up in the film. And Nick Robinson, who plays the titular character, kills it and I think he’s going to go places very soon. All of this culminates at the end, when the emotion is high and I (along with the rest of the theater) are on the edge of our seats, and Love, Simon got me to shed some tears. #6. Ralph Breaks The Internet Of the two million Disney movies released in 2018, this sequel is the highest one ranking on my list. And of the one million animated films released in 2018, this is actually the lowest one ranking on my list. Which kind of surprises me because you wouldn’t think so on the surface. On one hand, it’s just a sequel to a video game movie that lost Best Animated Picture to Brave, how is Wreck It Ralph 2 doing better than the emotional rollercoaster that was Christopher Robin or the long awaited and ton of fun that was The Incredibles 2. But then again, anyone who knows me knows that Wreck It Ralph is one of my favorite Disney cartoons, so how does it barely creep above the smart while not being funny at all Smallfoot or the only surface level hilarity that is Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation? Well, in some sense it’s much better than the original: with superior animation, a cooler concept, and finally realizing that the focus should be entirely on the real star, Princess Vanellope Von Schweetz. On the other hand, it doesn’t even come close to matching up: the humor is a tad sub par, too much is really going on, and considering the very cool concept, it should’ve done more with it. But did I still watch it a ton as soon as I could: absolutely. So who really won here: me for being a little disappointed or Disney who made a very entertaining film? The sixth spot feels about right to me. #5. Annihilation Between J.J. Abrams’s batshit crazy Nazi-zombie experiment Overlord, Steven Spielberg bringing his amazing talent to Ready Player One, Netflix throwing their hat into the “ripping off Big Hero 6″ ring with Next Gen, and do I even need to mention Marvel, 2018 was a damn good year for sci-fi in the middle of a decade that was, as a whole, great for the genre. And while Annihilation isn’t the last we’ll see from science fiction on the list, it is the one that’s here largely because of that. Flatly, I love how the science in this movie works; in general, I tend to prefer my sci-fi very grounded and that is how Annihilation works. I could kind of see how something like this bubble can exist and everything inside it really working this way. But what I really love about this film’s science is that it is a borderline horror flick. Once Natalie Portman walks through into the anti-Wizard Of Oz, the shit that goes down is horrifying. All of a sudden: up is down, left is right, and nobody knows what time it is and I loved it! This kind of gaslighting horror that I don’t see a whole lot of lately really throws the audience through a loop because for once, we don’t know what’s going on either. And for a film to really go so far just to confuse people, I have to at least respect. And to do it so well with some amazing acting on just about everybody’s part, I must love! Annihilation is a serious experience that I wished I was able to catch on the big screen. #4. Sorry To Bother You In 2018, Donald “Childish “Lando Calrissian” Gambino” Glover released his major #1 single, This Is America. Whether you love it or you hate it, you have to admit that it was saying a lot in such a unique way. The world that music video took place in was a nonsensical cartoon to somehow represent the plight of African Americans in the United States. I’m not gonna pretend like I totally understand because I definitely don’t; the point is that the portrayal struck a nerve with a lot of people and, personally, it did feel like a proper way of showing it. And Sorry To Bother You does something very similar, portraying the African American plight in a humorous, cartoonish, and unrealistic way to counteract the very serious, down to earth, and realistic parts. Do black people need to completely show themselves as white to get anything done; maybe not but we all know that people in general are much friendlier and nicer to those who sound like their ideals, usually meaning white. Are we, as a nation, (spoilers) turning poor (and considering how blacks are predisposed to being lower middle class because of reasons relating to how capitalism works, most of the blacks of the world) people into horses; I sure hope not but big companies and better off citizens do tend to think of the working class as just objects to do shit for them. Sorry To Bother You brings up a lot of the problems prevalent in modern society, especially those that directly relate to African Americans, in a palpable and entertaining way is ingenious and amazingly well done thanks to the overwhelming talent of Boots Riley and I cannot wait for his next big project. It’s definitely the best racial relations film of the year, beating out other great films like Monsters And Men, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Oath. #3. Isle Of Dogs 2018 is a year that really threw me through a loop as far as films went. When I went to see Isle Of Dogs, I was certain that it’ll be the best movie of the year, absolutely no competition. Then, later on, when the #1 film came out, I was certain that would be it. Then the #2 spot came out and made me question everything all over again. Anyway, Isle Of Dogs is Wes Anderson being very Wes Anderson-y while combining it with the same kind of claymation he used in the fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox and the traditional culture of Japan that’s oh so lovable. And as much as I love the Anderson style, the animation used here, and how Japanese culture is portrayed, involving my favorite animal brings my appreciation over the top. I am so down to get a million more films in which the theme of the picture is that dogs rule. This really is the kind of film that I love just about every aspect of, and though it might mostly be on a surface level way, I really don’t have anything bad to say about this film. It’s almost boring how much I enjoy this, I don’t have much to say except please watch it. It’s so good! #2. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Back in 2012, the world as a whole was introduced to a pair of directors mostly known for animation named Phil Lord and Chris Miller when they directed the surprise hit 21 Jump Street and its followup 22 Jump Street. The world then got to know them a little bit better when they seemingly single-handedly jumpstarted the beloved The Lego Movie franchise. Then in 2018, everyone learned that no matter how crazy, Lord and Miller know what they’re doing when their firing spelled doom for the financial flop that was Solo: A Star Wars Story. So when the pair brought their producing and writing talent to a Sony Animation made Spider-Man movie just a year after The Emoji Movie, I think most people were expecting to enjoy it if only because that snippet at the end of Venom was really well animated. But I don’t think anyone was expecting an Academy Award winning film. Whenever I went onto my Twitter for a solid month, all I saw were people exclaiming how Into The Spider-Verse was their favorite movie of the year and then again for another month after the Oscars took place. All of a sudden, Disney Marvel, Warner Bros. DC, and Fox X-Men (rest in peace), have a brand new and major competitor... and for good reason, this movie is incredible. I immediately accepted it as easily the best Spider-Man movie ever, but took a few watchings for me to accept it as the second best film of the year and a few more to accept it as my Phil Lord and savior. It is so much fun, so entertaining, so enjoyable with such great characters, amazing writing, and hilarious comedy all wrapped with a brilliantly animated bow. Another film I really have nothing bad to say about, this is just a fantastic film through and through. Before we get to #1, here’s some Runners Up:

Black Panther This was the year I got a little spent on superhero movies. Considering how I still put Into The Spider-Verse as my #2, clearly not that much, but I just wasn't super amazed by what Marvel, DC, or X-Men had to offer. But I don’t think I even disliked any: Avengers: Infinity War was fun but incredibly unfocused, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies was hilarious but was still just a poor child’s version of Teen Titans, and Deadpool 2 had some great action but not nearly as entertaining as its predecessor. Black Panther was the only one that really left a real mark on me, but even still, it’s not the best film of the year to handle black culture. Even as far as Ryan Coogler films go, I think I’d rather watch Creed or its sequel Creed 2. It’s good but I don’t think it deserved a best picture nomination. Instant Family Hear me out, the movie in which Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne adopt Dora The Explorer and her two bratty siblings directed and written by the same guys behind Daddy’s Home 2 and Horrible Bosses 2 is the feel good movie of the year, is incredibly hilarious and underrated, and even got me to shed a tear by the end. There is no excuse to let Daddy’s Home flourish and this beauty and die, I implore you to please watch it. You will not regret it, let it get big on home media, get more of these made! Vice I get that not everybody gets the Adan McKay style of making a dramedy like in The Big Short or Bombshell, but I do and I love both Christian Bale and Amy Adams so Vice was really up my alley! I just thought of it as a really enjoyable movie with a message I was predisposed to agree with. What really throws this into being a great movie to me is that Christian Bale really is that good in this, maybe one of the best performances in his career. I don’t know, I thought it was funny so I enjoyed it well enough. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I think most people agree that this was easily the best documentary of the year. As much love as I have for Fahrenheit 11/9 for being my first theatrical documentary and Behind The Curve for being one of few docs that are incredibly entertaining, I had to eventually break down and admit that Won’t You Be My Neighbor (once again) made me cry because I grew up loving Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood that much. Especially now that we’re past A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood leaving not nearly as big of a mark as people were expecting and we’re still watching and talking about this documentary, I think this actually has the lasting impact it earned. Green Book It won best picture, I guess I’ll talk about it. As a movie, Green Book is fine. It’s well made with some good acting, I’ll allow it being considered good. Is it racist? I’d say probably not but it does definitely feel racist. Kinda like that scene from The Office where Michael Scott does his Chris Rock impression; you know he’s not racist and he doesn’t mean for it to come across as it but it still absolutely does. Considering the message of the story is “don’t be racist/homophobic,” I’m pretty sure that it’s not racist/homophobic, it just doesn’t know how to say it without coming across as such. My real big issue is with it winning the same year that had Roma and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, it had no business even being nominated. But outside of all of that, Green Book is an okay movie. Mid90s The 2010s owes a ton to Jonah Hill and I don’t think most people realized that. He told studios how to translate old properties to a modern audience with 21 Jump Street, showed how comedians can combine their sense of humor with the serious setting around them in The Wolf Of Wall Street, and most importantly to this entry, showed how coming of age stories should be told in this day and age with Superbad. Ever since, for better or worse, coming of age films have been trying to recreate that magic. The closest to get it right, in my opinion, is The Edge Of Seventeen but still goes wrong by being much much better, but Mid90s does some really great stuff as well. I appreciate any theatrical film that’s willing to be filmed in a way that doesn’t look theatrical at all. And I also appreciate the likable but very flawed characters portrayed. Mid90s really left a mark in my mind and is a great start to Jonah Hills directorial career. Aggretsuko: We Wish You A Metal Christmas And for my pick of short film of the year, let’s talk about what might be my favorite Netflix series, Aggretsuko! As a cradle between season one to season two, this does a great job at portraying these super relatable characters in a very entertaining scenario all set during Christmas! Maybe it’d make more sense to give this honor to something more impactful like A Sister or clever like I’m Poppy: The Film or even a nice surprise like Harvey Birdman, Attorney General, but no. I refuse. I enjoyed A Very Merry Aggretsuko Christmas much more. Book Club Considering how I’ve spent literally every Worst Of list talking about how awful Fifty Shades Of Grey is, even that year it took off I ended up watching and bitching about Fifty Shades Of Black, I’d like to talk about what is easily the best film to come out of this franchise. Book Club is basically a bunch of old lady celebrities getting together, reading the Fifty Shades books, and talking about their sex lives. It’s like a feature length Gilmore Girls movie and I loved not only the idea, but the film itself was hilarious. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch As a die hard Black Mirror fanatic, of course I was excited for a full Black Mirror movie with, from what I’ve heard, five hours worth of footage. Especially since its story was told in such a fascinating and unique way, I was interested as hell into this and I loved it! I’ve loved select your own adventure books and games for a long time now, from Detroit: Become Human to Gravity Falls: Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure!: A "Select Your Own Choose-Venture!". So one set in the well established and amazingly well put together world of Netflix’s British Twilight Zone, sounds incredible and it was! It’s just so cool! Bumblebee Laika didn’t have a movie in 2018, but I feel like we still did with Bumblebee. Getting Travis Knight, the director of Kubo And The Two Strings, objectively their best picture, to do a Transformers entry is ingenious! If anyone should know how a creature like this would move and how to differentiate any one robot from another robot, it’s an acclaimed director from Laika. Now that we’ve finally pried this franchise from Michael Bay’s claws and Paramount playing it smart with their directors, maybe we’ll finally get a series of good Transformers films... or maybe Transformers 7 is cancelled and all hope is lost. #1. Hereditary I think the 2010s get a bad wrap when it comes to horror. All too often I hear Gen X-ers proclaiming how, “there’s no good scary movies anymore!” Completely forgetting hits like The Cloverfield Paradox, A Quiet Place, and The First Purge. Every new trend of a certain genre can usually be traced back to one major film: 1930s had Frankenstein, 1980s had Halloween (BTW, the 2018 one is also great), 2000s had The Blair Witch Project, etc. I think this new trend of mixing slow and suspenseful with big jump scares and everything is dark can be thanks largely to The Conjuring. While that franchise might have started the trend, I feel pretty certain that Hereditary perfected it. Every scare is at least mildly horrifying, the loops it throws you through is abundant, at no point are you sure what’s going on, and by the end, you find yourself breathing much heavier than you remember doing. Hereditary is a trip and a half that I loved going through again and again. I think when people think back to what was the best horror film of each decade: 1930s Dracula, 1980s The Shining, 2000s The Ring, 2010s Hereditary. I loved this movie in all its horrific glory.

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televisor-reviews · 4 years

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Top 10 WORST Movies Of 2018!

As everyone is talking about their favorite and least favorite films of last year, I’d much rather take a look at what came out two years ago! This is what I do every New Year, get used to it. And keep in mind that I haven’t seen every film from 2018, so as bad as I’m sure Sherlock Gnomes and Pacific Rim: Uprising are, I haven’t gotten around to them. If you’d like a list of every film I have seen, I have them listed on my Letterboxd: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1HnDnQ4ibO82ryM9lOCGgw1FZhVLdC4SZ

#10. Fifty Shades Freed On my 2015 list, I didn’t even bother putting Fifty Shades Of Grey on it because I thought it was absolutely hilarious! On my 2017 list, I placed Fifty Shades Darker at the very top for its lack of even the basics of what makes a decent flick, notably there being no real plot. So I guess I’m meeting this franchise in the middle by putting Fifty Shades Freed at the tenth spot for just how batshit this movie is. Shit kinda just happens randomly with little to no reason while also not being funny in the slightest. In fact, large segments of the film is kinda boring, particularly the sex scenes in which there are so many that by the 20th time, you’d just get used to it like a jump scare in Winchester. Really, the biggest reason this is only at #10 is because Fifty Shades Freed has Freed us all from this series, assuming that a film adaptation of Grey isn’t made. And that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever given to one of these movies. #9. A Wrinkle In Time I once heard someone justify Disney’s live action remakes by saying they help fund their more unique film escapades like Nutcracker And The Four Realms (which barely didn’t make the list). The problem with that is that I don’t want those ether! And considering how Solo and The Rise Of Skywalker turned out, maybe Disney’s live action department should just stick with Marvel movies. Honestly, I don’t completely remember why I left the theater after seeing A Wrinkle In Time so angry, like legitimately pissed off. I remember the girl who looks like one of the Mean Girls being treated like a member of the Losers Club, how terrible the child acting was, how even worse the adult acting was, how annoying everybody who wasn’t Chris Pine was, and how that little kid was named Charles Wallace because the characters said it at least a million times! Considering how angry I am just writing about it, I’m guessing it was a combination of all of those elements being wrapped up with a pretentious bow. Honestly, A Wrinkle In Time was a humongous waste of my time. #8. Show Dogs It’s a bad sign when the movie starring Bojack Horseman yelling at Ludacris dog is only at #8 on my list. The big reason for that is because this is so terrible that I had to break down laughing at times. Not because Show Dogs is genuinely or ironically funny, it’s just so batshit insane that I had to laugh. Almost like a defense reflex: like if I wasn’t laughing, I’d end up jumping off the roof. The plot is crazy, the acting is crazy, the whole fucking idea is crazy! I’d like you to stop and imagine Will Arnett with the straightest face possible yelling at a dog voiced by Ludacris that nobody can actually hear in the middle of a very serious police station about the dog fucking up an undercover job and somehow not laughing your ass off. That is what it was like watching Show Dogs. You’re welcome. #7. Slender Man I think people really downgrade how good horror has been lately. I know that in a world of Insidious: The Last Key and Truth Or Dare, it’s easy to be pessimistic. And I think people also dismiss the greatness the internet has had on modern pop culture. Considering how bad things like Daphne And Velma and Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle are, I kinda get it. In reality, these tend to be the outliers among a lot of greatness, but after seeing Slender Man, I’m starting to think similarly. I was one of the only people who was actually excited about this movie because I’m young enough to remember a time when Slender Man: The Eight Pages was the scariest thing in the world and after seeing how well Hollywood treated the character in Beware The Slender Man, I was really hopeful. Little did I know that Madhouse Entertainment had one of the least interesting and least scary horror movies I’ve ever seen with boring characters, a monster that’s barely in the movie, and a script that’s closer to Rings than it is to its source material. I really hope this’ll go the way of Ouija and Annabelle and end up having a really good followup or else Slender Man will be a huge blot on the legitimacy of the internet. #6. Snake Outta Compton I’m gonna be straight with y’all, I have been doing a pretty bad job at keeping up with horror B-movies lately. I mean, I did watch The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time and Leprechaun Returns but those were mostly just mediocre, even within the context of the rest of their franchises. So when I saw the title Snake Outta Compton, I knew I had to watch it expecting something really stupid and funny as all hell. Instead I got a boring and uninteresting barely even an attempt at cinema. I really hated this film, it’s just such a boringly dull film where little to nothing ever happens and I hated every dumb second of it. The terrible rapping, the awful effects, the horrendous acting, everything in snake Outta Compton sucks and I hate it. #5. Norm Of The North: Keys To The Kingdom Remember that god awful polar bear movie starring Rob Schneider from a few years ago… yeah, they made four of those. Normal people would say the first Norm Of The North was the absolute bottom of the barrel, I say “No!… It’s Norm Of The North: Keys To The Kingdom,” and even more suicidal people would probably say it’s Norm Of The North: King Sized Adventure. If you thought the animation in the original was bad, you’ve seen nothing! This is so bad that I’m not even sure it should be considered animation! This is so bad that it makes Duck Duck Goose look like The Grinch! This is so bad that they couldn’t even get Rob Schneider back! The plot, it’s like this is one of those straight to DVD Disney sequels that were made up of episodes of conceled TV shows except why would anyone try to make Norm Of the FUCKING North into a TV show! But apparently it made money considering how (and I’ll repeat this again) there are four of these! Maybe the immense failure of Arctic Dogs will stop Entertainment Studios from making any more. #4. The Thinning: New World Order Speaking of sequels that’ll make the originals look like masterpieces, we’ve got Logan Paul’s magnum opus, coming straight outta that Japanese suicide forest. A film that tells you that a country made up of the smartest 95% of citizens are stupid enough to not catch on to the pretty obvious government plan going on in this universe. Even more so, apparently presidents to be are allowed to just make major laws that’ll arrest about 50% of the population before being sworn in as president. But even more so, I’m to believe that Logan Paul of all people is smart enough to escape these poorly conceived concentration camps. This is a key example of suspension of disbelief gone too far. I don’t believe for a second that this world actually could exist. And I want everyone reading this to remember The Thinning: New World Order after seeing what I put at number one that even liberals can make terrible movies too! #3. The 15:17 To Paris No shit, this is easily the worst movie I’ve ever seen in theaters. No joke, no sarcasm, the Clint Eastwood trainwreck that is The 15:17 To Paris is by far one of the worst movies of the decade… and it’s only at #3 on my bottom 10 of the year. Let me explain. Where the absolute bottom of the barrels of the year are total slogs that I wouldn’t be able to stand watching again, this is actually really fun to watch. Immediately after seeing it in theaters, I wanted to see it again just to make sure it wasn’t a fever dream. In every conversation I have, I recommend this movie because it has to be seen to be believed. Of all the films on this list, this is the only one I’d actually recommend to people. No other film has the balls to portray three normies with ADD talking as boringly as possible taking selfies in Venice for 30 minutes for no goddamn reason. In no other movie will you see a bunch of comedians try and do serious roles that they had no right being casted in. When I went back to school and brought this up with my film nerd friends, every one of them had a different story of watching this. My god, please watch The 15:17 To Paris so that we can convince Clint Eastwood into making The 15:18 To Paris. #2. Gotti Let me tell ya, Gotti is one of the wurst felms ya’ll evar see! Who in da hell convinced John Travolta that he culd do serious roles! But in all seriousness, this movie sucks. I’m not super familiar with the story of John Gotti, and by that I mean I’ve never even heard the name before seeing this film. And I’m pretty sure that to even get what’s going on in this, you’d have to see a 3 hour documentary on the guy beforehand or else you’d be incredibly confused the entire time because I know I was! Don’t even ask me what happens in Gotti because I have no clue. It goes all over the place with different characters doing different things at different points in time and eventually, I stopped paying attention! I do remember that there were about 20 characters named “John,” John Gotti only kills one guy though I’m pretty sure that as a mob boss he’d kill more, and I have no idea how this mafia makes money. Oh, and this convicted feline is apparently also Jesus Christ. I’ll tells yas, ya can live 100 yeers an neva see a moovy as bad as Gotti. Before we get to #1, let’s do some runners up!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom I wanted so bad to put this on the list because as a pretty big Jurassic Park fan, I can fairly say that Fallen Kingdom is easily the worst film in the franchise. If only because of that dumb ass twist at the end with that kid I kinda forgot even existed. Or just for those annoying ass comedic reliefs that are consistently useless. Or just because on a base filmmaking level, this movie sucks. Hurricane Bianca: From Russia With Hate Listen, I’m openly and proudly bisexual, so I get how important it is to get good representation out there in the film industry. And I also get why a lot of the Ru Paul: Drag Race fandom has latched onto this series. But Jesus Christ guys, drag queens can do better and they deserve better. From Russia With Hate is definitely a step in the right direction with it being way more interesting and fun than the first Hurricane Bianca… but come on guys! These aren’t good movies! Just watch more Drag Race, it’s much better. The Happytime Murders Disney, please let Muppets Now be good! The puppetry artform deserves better than this garbage! The Happytime Murders is a movie in which half the jokes is that a puppet is jizzing a lot. Honestly, my biggest beef with this film is that it doesn’t even get to the heart of what people love about the Jim Henson style of puppetry, notably the fun. Look at most of the cast, they are very humanoid compared to Kermit The Frog or Fozzy Bear. This movie is, first and foremost, not fun. Bob Lazar: Area 51 And Flying Saucers This is my nomination for worst documentary of the year. It’s just annoying to me that this guy can get away with lying to so many people without any repercussions. In fact, he gets this whole documentary that’s basically sucking his dick the entire time! I went in expecting something along the lines of Behind The Curve, a doc that takes an even stance at looking at its crazy subject matter but in a respectful way. In reality, Area 51 And Flying Saucers isn’t even in the slightest being totally on Bob Lazar’s side without questioning his all knowing wisdom for a second and is n’t respectful in the slightest for the intelligence of its viewers! Fuck this doc! A Simple Favor This is my nomination for best worst movie of the year. A Simple Favor is a crazy film with a cast and crew taking it weirdly seriously for a comedy, all with super monotone voices. None of the actual jokes are genuinely funny but lots of them are ironically hilarious. Granted I was very high while watching this, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s the best state of mind to be in while watching it! And did I mention how nobody acts during this but rather just say their lines monotonely! Loved it! God’s Not Dead: A Light In Darkness This was the year Christian propaganda got boring. I was so excited when I went to see I Can Only Imagine in theaters as my first theatrical Christian film experience only to be totally disappointed when it turned out to be pretty dull. Even more so when, later on in the year, the newest installment in the world famous God’s Not Dead franchise, the same one that first brought upon this new age of Christian based filmmaking that’s brought me so much joy before, turned out to be similarly dull. There was a split moment when a character states, “Jesus Christ was the original social justice warrior,” when I was brought back to life with its own stupidity, but it turned out to be fleeting. Not outrageous enough to be put on the list, but too outrageous to be any good. So this is how God’s Not Dead ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Meg And speaking of boring, The Meg has to be the most boring shark movie ever made. A film that feels like it lasts for days and in which no real stakes feel like are in play. This has got to be the most boring and dull and uninteresting and BORING movie of the year! And considering how boring of a year it was for film, that’s saying a goddamn lot! Mary Poppins Returns I feel like I went through an arc of my own while watching this. I went from, “this isn’t bad,” to, “okay, this is a little too much like the original,” to, “why the fuck am I watching this?” Mary Poppins Returns feels like one of the Disney live action remakes because it’s basically just a shittier version of the original with absolutely no good reason to exist let alone to watch, especially compared to said original. And the climax makes absolutely no sense with the logic of the film universe; she can literally fly! And by god, does this feel like anything but Mary Poppins. Blockers Listen, I get that this film is sex positive and that’s a really great thing and all the actors are really trying their best. But it is all in vain for this film with a really unfunny script and that’s kinda important for a comedy. Sometimes Blockers can get a chuckle out of me because of how over the top it can get at times but those are just outliers in a mostly mediocre movie that got built up too much because of how much positivity is in this. Proud Mary Proud Mary is the perfect example of a film in which just because someone can do it well, doesn’t mean everyone can. Ever since Quentin Tarantino has been making movies like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, throw back action films have been really cool to see. Then, all of a sudden, the director of London Has Fallen had to come around and remind everyone that they can’t all be winners. Mostly dull dialogue between characters I don’t care about waiting for the action that isn’t even all that good. I was really hopeful that Proud Mary would be fun, but it’s anything but. #1. The Trump Prophecy Listen, I get that when I say that a movie literally titled The Trump Prophecy is the worst film of the year, it comes off as if I’m making a big political statement but believe me, I am not. Politically, admittedly, I am pretty liberal but I’m not really a political dude. But I do know terrible filmmaking when I see it, and believe it or not, a film about a crazy firefighter who gets a vision in his sleep from a god orb that Donald Trump must be president might not be very good. In fact, fuck this cynical, piece of shit, taking advantage of conservatives, monotonely acted, with no love or passion put into it, goddamn movie! As much as I didn’t like any of the movies I’ve mentioned on this list, it’s clear someone, anyone, was passionate about making them. But considering how clearly the director never asked any of his actors to do a second take, no love is clearly put into this. How cynical, how shameless. As someone who does genuinely love the art of filmmaking and would adore the opportunity to make a relatively big budget movie myself, the fact that something as lifeless as The Trump Prophecy gets to be put into any theaters really pisses me off. Say what you want about The 15:17 To Paris, at least it had its heart in the right place. Say what you want about Gotti, at least John Travolta was obviously passionate about the project. This has nothing and is easily the most hatable film I’ve seen in years!

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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So here's something fun.

I don't post here super often largely because I don't have to. If I have something to say, I'll just say it on Twitter. But apparently I'm not allowed to say what I feel is necessary to say.

For context, Chris "Absolute Monster" Brown had a new hit not too long ago featuring Drake. I didn't listen to it but I assume it was pretty awful. I was frustrated & partially angry that Drake, a well respected artist, would stoop so low as to collaborate &, in the process, legitimize a terrible human being such as Chris "Go Fuck Yourself" Brown. Especially after his collaboration with Lil Dicky brought him back to the limelight. So I took it upon myself to remind everyone of just how big of a feminist he really is, in case everyone forgot.

So I took it upon myself to call a spade a spade, or on this case: a douche a douche. I said what I thought would be the least controversial thing I could've said & called Chris "Total Hack" Brown a, "piece of shit". Apparently, according to Twitter, beating Rihanna to a pulp is perfectly fine but calling him out on it falls under harassment & constitutes a ban. I assume this came from the overflow of morally bankrupt Chris "Motherfucker" Brown fans who are known for attacking anyone who dares criticize their God Almighty. I assume this because I literally can't get back into my account.

I have a phone number, I gave Twitter my phone number so I can get back in to my account & hopefully DM some people to help me out & appeal the claim. The problem? I don't know! They refuse to accept my number & after insisting that it is the only number that I can be contracted by they locked me out of even that. I don't know what else to do but to post a long ass Tumblr post & hope somebody will help me out. Get this vital please. I need some help.

Mostly I'm just furious at Twitter. You want to consider me calling Chris "I'd Rather Stab My Ears Out Than Listen To His Music" Brown a "no-talent" harassment even though I literally only tweeted about him once & didn't tell anybody else to do so, fine. I don't need a Twitter account, nobody listens to me ever & they probably shouldn't. But do you know who's done much much worse & do have large audiences who'll listen to every word they say? O.J. Simpson. Louie C.K. R. Kelly. And most importantly, Chris "Doesn't Have A Decent Bone In His Body" Brown. If I don't get to have a Twitter account, why should they? #BanChrisBrown

#twitter #Chris Brown #lil Dicky #drake #music #ban #ban Chris Brown #bullshit

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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Everything Of Note I Have To Say About “Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil” Season 4!

As I’m sure you’re aware, the great animated series Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil has recently concluded and I have a ton to say about it... So I made a list!

1. Spoilers...

2. Duh...

3. Before anything, I absolutely loved it! This was the finale this great show really deserved.

4. Let’s start from the beginning: I’ve been watching Star Vs. for a few years now when a good friend of mine recommended it to me. At first I was resistant because the advertising for it at the time was god awful, but luckily I was convinced otherwise and been loving it ever since.

5. The show premiered when I was a teenager, going through all the cliche teen shit. So seeing a show that portrayed the overly dramatic life of a teenager without being one of those stock teen dramas was a good change of pace.

6. In particular, I remember being amazed that it could be so relatable while still being able to have it’s upbeat and fast-paced fantasy/sci-fi action sequences and world while also having a good mixture of mature and juvenile humor. I mean, all of that would seem to work against each other and yet this show made it work in spades.

7. Actually, the way Star Vs. uses it’s fictitious setting to complement its down-to-earth characters while juggling great humor reminds me a lot of a different Disney property: Guardians Of The Galaxy. GOTG, I think, is the perfect film to study if you want to ever write for sci-fi or fantasy because director James Gunn understood that you can have as wild and crazy of a world as you want but you still need to write your characters as genuine as possible. If you don’t, you’ll get something like Avatar (the movie); a film that everyone remembers liking because of the incredible world and even better effects, but no one can name a single character or plot-point. The universe still needs to be grounded by the characters or else it’ll become forgettable and un-relatable. Star Vs., thankfully, does not have this problem. I love the characters, their trials, their tribulations, all because they feel real despite the world in which it takes place.

8. That isn’t to say there isn’t a reason to set a story in a fantastical world or that there isn’t an issue with being too relatable. If anything, the world of the show helps to make it more entertaining, less monotonous, and more unique. Without it, Star Vs. would be another Pretty Little Liars or Zoey 101 or Dawson’s Creek or any other boring teen drama out there. They’re practically identical because they start off too similarly! They all follow around relatively normal teenagers in a relatively normal world with their relatively normal life and god do none of them stand out. So Star Vs. separates itself by still keeping its characters pretty wacky and the universe as crazy as Daron Nefcy’s imagination!

9. Even by a storytelling perspective, this makes more sense because there is objectively more that can be done! By the end of Zoey 101, Zoey and her lame crew basically did everything they could do without jumping the shark too much. In comparison, there are countless adventures Marco and Star could go on even past the series finale.

10. And because the number of future adventures are countless, part of the tragedy of the show ending is that we (the audience) don’t get to experience them alongside these characters we’ve learned to love so much. Keeping that door open leaves a much longer lasting impression on the audience, as apposed to the ending of Zoey 101 in which... wait, what happened again? I don’t remember. Anyways!

11. I love the comedy in this show! From the very beginning, the humor was very lighthearted and yet mature because it had to be. It had to have a tinge of maturity to it because the target audience isn’t little kids like it would be for a show like My Little Pony or SpongeBob. Star Vs., with it’s doomsday atmosphere and constant teen drama, was definitely geared more towards older children/preteens. The ones more likely to watch a show like Gravity Falls or Rick And Morty and this audience will not tolerate childish humor. They can appreciate it sprinkled in here and there but if used too much, they’re taste will sour. This is because as they are maturing to to start maturing into adulthood, there is the natural need to separate from childish things with the added childishness of wanting to totally separate from it. That’s why on The Loud House, a punchline could literally be poop and why that is not something you’d see very often on Star Vs.

12. With that said, the show still needed the humor to be incredibly lighthearted because otherwise this show would be so depressing! The worlds in which these characters live in and know are constantly changing, evolving, and almost blowing up. For Christ sake, many important characters die in this finale! The only one who died in Gravity Falls was the villain and in this, the villain isn’t even one of them! Seeing Marco and Star still be able to crack jokes to one another and making each other laugh keeps spirits high. God knows Hekapoo can’t do that now!

13. Speaking of Marco and Star, I have been a hardcore Starco defender from the very beginning despite the show constantly trying to convince me otherwise! There are so many perfect pairings in this cast that any one of them could’ve worked if Nefcy were top change her mind. If it ended with Star x Tom or Marco x Janna or Star x Janna or Marco x Hekapoo or Marco x Tom or Marco x Kelly it would’ve worked perfectly well.

14. But lets not kid ourselves, it was always going to end with Marco x Star. Their relationship and chemistry is unmatched, they might be the only couple in existence to say a joint line like “With or without magic, we were always meant to be together,” work and come off as not only sincere but true. I don’t even believe in the whole “soul mate” mumbo-jumbo, but I’d be damned if they are not that!

15. I audibly squealed in delight when they finally got together. It was like the build-up of four season culminated in one scene.

16. Though it wouldn’t really surprise me if I was alone in this assessment because I am a sucker for a good romantic movie. I saw La La Land in theaters, I cried at Love, Simon, I actually really love Love Actually. And though I do think Star Vs. pulled off relationships better than most, take my opinion with a grain of salt because the build-up itself was a little grating.

17. I have a huge issue with “will-they, won’t-they” stories! It’s the same issue I had with The Office and Friends and The Big Bang Theory and Sailor Moon and That ‘70s Show and every other show that has this dumb trope! Of course they’ll get together because otherwise I wasted several hours of my life wondering about it! Star Vs. isn’t as bad about this as most others but it’s still there and it’s still annoying.

18. It does this better than most because of three main components: it’s relatively short, we get plenty of Star and Marco being all lovey-dovey with each other once they do get together, and they do have genuine chemistry together. They have so much chemistry that Star’s ex literally told Marco that they were clearly into each other. If only they could’ve avoided the trope.

19. Okay, this next point is a little personal but it did effect my feelings towards this show’s finale so I think it’s kind of important that I mention it. Around the time the Star Vs. was ending, I was just entering my first real relationship and around the time I watched this finale, we lasted long enough that we could start taking the relationship a little bit more seriously. Now before anyone says anything: everything’s going great (she actually made me my header) and I am absolutely still in a honeymoon phase with her. But I think you could imagine how a lovesick teen just entering a serious relationship would be effected by this show that ended with lovesick teens so in love that they’d happily sacrifice themselves for the other.

20. I may or may not have also been high while watching this and that may or may not have effected my viewing experience. Don’t be a narc!

21. I love what this last season did with Ludo. Push away the fact that they somehow keep talking Alan Tudyk into these rolls he clearly does need to do and yet still does a great job at it (did you know he was King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph? Why? Why did he do that? Why is he so good in it? This guy’s casting decisions are so weird). The character of Ludo was a generic comic relief villain (see Doofenshmirtz) but was usually fine if only because he made for a good contrast and was way more interesting compared to Toffee (played by Michael C. Hall, another actor who does not need this job). But season four made Ludo a million times more interesting by showing his obsession with the wand exactly what it is: and unhealthy obsession that he needs to get over. And I like where he’s left by the end, clearly still not doing too great but is making strides to get better. As someone who has known many addicts in my life, this hit home a little.

22. Actually, I think a large part of season four was specifically meant to fix the first two mediocre seasons. Just look at my new favorite episode of the series: Britta’s Tacos. In this episode, Star and Marco find themselves back on Earth after a year of being on Mewni and catching up with all of their friends and seeing what’s changed. Watching this episode, I was reminded that as good as the first couple of seasons were, the latter half of the series was a ton better! The characters, character arcs, stories, everything, everything was better once they went up to Mewni. So seeing them go back to Earth and challenging the writers with rewriting their past characters to be more interesting showed just how much the series has improved. Could you imagine characters as uninteresting as those nerds I don’t even remember the names of being introduced in the much more interesting latter seasons? I couldn’t! So I appreciate that they went back and made sure every character in this show was interesting... except for Toffee, he still sucks.

23. And of course, the character that improved the most, hands down was absolutely Jackie Lynn Thomas! She was as bland and boring as a love interest got and that bothered me from the very beginning. How is it that in a show this imaginative and unique they still felt it necessary to use this tired cliche. So bringing her back, the writers had to do something to make her more interesting and it was apparently really easy. All they had to do was keep the character herself basically the same but now she’s a lesbian. And somehow, just adding that one extra layer made her feel so different, so interesting, so complete. I think that’s what it was, she just felt like an incomplete plot point and giving her a girlfriend completely separates herself from being important to the plot and adds that extra layer to make her seem more finished as a character.

24. I’m actually really surprised by this recent trend of LGBTQ+ characters in kids cartoons. You’d think that of all mediums, kids cartoons would be the last to fully integrate a controversial minority but they’ve been some of the first. Steven Universe really started this trend but I feel like The Loud House was the first to show and say it outright. Star Vs. doesn’t do it that well (and I’m willing to bet that was because of higher-ups over at Disney) but I appreciate the sentiment anyways. They never call Jackie and her girlfriend a couple or show them kissing, the most they do is have them hold hands and though I guess that’s enough, I wish they were able to go further. Whatever, I already wrote about why this representation in kids media is important, go read that.

25. For a while, Star was my favorite character in this show. I just have a real soft-spot for upbeat female badasses (and I am very happy this has become more of a trope recently), I think Janna might’ve taken the throne. It’s not that Star stopped being interesting or anything like that, I just really love Janna and her “Jannanigans”. Plus, I do really like the “cute girl who’s into weird shit” trope too. She’s not my favorite version of this trope (see Raven from 2003′s Teen Titans), but she was always a delight whenever she was on screen.

26. Tom is probably the most obvious example of “boring character was made interesting” that the show has. In the beginning, he was the standard bad boy archetype but, over time, was given more personality and started working off the other characters much better. Sure, he and Star worked great with each other as to be expected, but I think the real standout relationship he had was with Marco. I have never seen bromance as strong as what those two have. Their little musical number at Queen Moon’s cornonation turned talent contest might have been the greatest piece of animation ever made (change my mind). And this I know people agree with me, I cannot exaggerate just how much literally everyone I have ever spoken to loves Marco and Tom. It just works so strangely, it has to come off as genuine.

27. I think the series was supposed to go on for another season. I say this because Kelly was too good of a character to waste like they did! She was a great character with tons of personality and amazing chemistry with Marco that was seemingly building up to something... only to drop the ball at the end. She isn’t given much to do, she doesn’t have a final scene with Marco, she isn’t even given a good ending. The most we got was Ponyhead theorizing what her life would be like just to cheer up Star. If that was all they were going to do with Kelly, that’s just a waste of perfectly good build-up.

28. It’s very strange how on the nose these metaphors in the show got at times while still seeming perfect. I guess it had to be on the nose so that the younger audience could catch on to them but I’m not sure what the’ll do with the knowledge that magic=nuclear power. Also, the monsters kind of changed metaphors, originally they were clearly meant to be Native American stand-ins but later on they kind of changed into African American stand-ins. Not that they’re histories (in America) are all that different but it was a noticeable switch. It’s not like Zootopia where any given animal could represent any number of races depending on the scene in question, this was definitely what Star Vs. was going for and I’m not sure if it totally worked. It didn’t NOT work, I guess.

29. I actually don’t like the whole “blowing up the magic” thing. It was something Star made up in a temper tantrum and goes totally against the theme. The whole time, the show was going on about how important integration is and how “separate but equal” doesn’t work and whatnot. So destroying the only way they know how to travel through different dimensions seems contrary to that point. I get that drastic times need drastic measures but I get the feeling that in a theoretical season five, Star and Marco would work to bring back the magic. Or maybe find a more scientific way to travel through dimensions... like some kind of portal gun. We already know this takes place in the same multiverse as Rick And Morty, it’s not that crazy an idea.

30. Another reason I think there was originally going to be another season is because the whole “Mewmans are humans” thing that came right out of nowhere! I mean, it makes total sense and I’m totally down with this plot point but it seems like that would be a much bigger deal than the characters make it out to be. My god, they don’t even let Marco finish explaining this. How the hell did that cave painting get to Earth if they didn’t run into Glossaryck until they got to Mewni! Explanation please!

31. I wish destroying the magic didn’t also mean killing off Glossaryck and Hekapoo. I don’t really care about any of the other characters literally made out of magic, but those two are just so likable and such fan favorites, it’s just a shame to see them go. Though I do really like that they’re reaction to the whole thing seems to just be a mild shrug. I get the idea that since they’ve lived for millennia which would make them more okay with dying. It’s easier to live a full life if you can’t die.

32. I like how Mina’s story ends: defeated and yet still refusing it. Her whole speech about having good ideas really says something, like these issues will never be fully defeated because everyone thinks that they’re right. It’s a bit more of a bittersweet moral than “bad always loses because they’re bad” but is an important lesson that I think kids need to learn. Especially in this political climate. Good god, just end me!

33. Holy shit, I’m up to 33! My Wakfu one only made it up to 25 and I am nowhere close to done yet!

34. A psychotic part of me really wishes the finale had Star and Marco die in each other’s arms in the Magic Dimension. It’d be the ultimate show of love as they’re sacrificing each other for one another and be the ultimate ending. I mean, what more is there to care about after the main two characters are dead? It’d be very bittersweet and much more emotionally taxing on the audience but it’d also be more classic. Like Romeo and Juliet or Bonnie and Clyde, they’re love was just too strong for this world.

35. With that said, that part of me is absolutely wrong! Having their dimensions merge was clearly what the series was building up to with it’s hopeful tone, the power of love being a big theme, the message of integration, and (of course) the promise they made to Meteora and Hispanic Meteora. It seems so obvious in hindsight and yet I still didn’t see it coming, I guess that’s a sign of a really good plot twist.

36. My god, everyone is such a dick to Queen Moon. Like let her be in love you jackasses. I had such a hard time liking anyone who worked against her (which is why I really like that Hekapoo had reservations on both sides the whole time) and this includes Ex-Queen Moon. I really can’t grasp my mind as to why she thought this was a good idea, it clearly wasn’t from the very beginning. Maybe if the show gave her time to explain herself I’d be singing a different tune but she never really does and I have a hard time forgiving her even after her apology.

37. This is just a reminder that Starco is best ship. Repeat, Starco is still best ship.

38. The ending reminds me of Titanic. I mean, two young lovebirds meeting each other, growing closer, and falling in love all the while a looming threat of destruction and death is above them. The epic scale of their problem being brought down to earth by the almost normal love story happening in the midst of it all. Their ever ready willingness to sacrifice everything for each other. Their world forcing them to cling to each other for protection. The grand scale of everything around them making their love seem grander than it would be without it. Yeah, there are more and probably better examples I could turn to for comparison (Romeo And Juliet, Les Miserables, Spartacus) but Titanic was the first one to come to mind and I’m sure my subconsciousness has a good reason for that.

39. I continue to have problems with this finale but I get the sense that I’m nitpicking because this was still an amazing end to a great show. When I think about this ending, the first word that comes to mind is deserves. This is the ending that the story deserves, that the characters (minus Kelly) deserves, that the show itself deserves. It really is a fantastic finale and I’m so grateful that I got to experience it.

40.

#star vs the forces of evil #marco diaz #star butterfly #daron nefcy #disney #disney channel #disney xd #animation #cartoon #finale #season 4 #starco

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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Top 10 Best Movies Of 2017!

2017, as a whole, was a pretty damn good year for film! Sure, it had a shit ton of crap, but I definitely think there was way more great films than terrible. Even the bad stuff, tended to have something likable about them (hence why there were mostly unfunny comedies on my worst of list). Meanwhile, the good movies, I generally really loved. I don’t think it’ll go down as one of the best years for film, but it’s a better contender than most. And these are what I believe to be the top 10 best! And keep in mind, even with the extra year, I still didn’t see everything: so as great as I’m sure The Big Sick & The Florida Project are, I never got around to them. For a comprehensive list of every movie I did see from 2017 (in order from best to worst), go here: https://letterboxd.com/animatorreviewa/list/every-2017-movie-ive-seen/

#10. Baby Driver In a few decades, Edgar Wright is going to be considered one of the best directors of all time. It’s going to be: Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Edgar Wright. Baby Driver, though not as energetic as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World nor as hilarious as Hot Fuzz, is objectively his best directing project. How Baby’s mind boggling driving goes along perfectly with the music he’s playing looks incredible the entire way through, never relenting & always exciting! And if this was all it had, it’d still be an amazing movie but not “top 10″ worthy. But it has Oscar-worthy performances from Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx, & even Kevin Spacey (a terrible person with lots of talent), a gripping narrative, & amazing looking special effects that’ll make Transformers: The Last Knight blush! If anything, the reason why it’s only at #10 is because, at the end of the day, I’d still prefer to watch Shaun Of The Dead... again...

#9. Coco Pixar has been on a serious roll ever since they got through their shitty phase. Inside Out made my 2016 list, Incredibles 2 is probably going to make my 2018 list, & even Cars 3 was way better than it deserved to be! Coco is Pixar showing that not only are they back & going to stay, but could make movies that should suck & yet is still amazing! Every dumb movie cliche is on full force in this: the family that hates music but it’s the main protagonist’s passion & his family just doesn’t understand, but through a wacky & heart-warming adventure through his family’s history, maybe they’ll blah blah blah blah blah... It even rips off The Book Of Life to a good extent! Yeah, this movie isn’t great because of its twists & turns. It’s great because even though you know exactly what’s going to happen from beginning to end & yet it’s still gripping, interesting, & fun with gripping, interesting, & fun characters that you’d want to run around a million cliches with! It was a blast to watch in theaters & definitely worth sitting through Olaf’s Frozen Adventure to see.

#8. Get Out I’m not even going to pretend like I know what it’s like to be black in America. It’s pretty clearly not something I will ever understand as I can actually hide my minority-ness. So, a movie like Get Out, as great as it is, I find generally pretty hard to relate to what happens in them. But I will say that Get Out, as a film, is absolutely thrilling, exciting, & at times scary. I was worried about this character & concerned about what he was going through; when things start not making sense, I’m right there with him! That’s what a good horror movie should do & that kind of horror is in low demand nowadays. Even It, a movie that almost made the list, didn’t engross or engage me as much as Get Out did! The directing of Jordan Peele & the acting of Daniel Kaluuya are on full display & only makes this chilling movie even more so! A great start to a great comedian’s great directing career!

#7. Gerald’s Game Though, as a horror movie, I find Get Out far more engaging & engrossing than Gerald’s Game, I do think it’s far better made with a much better basis, story, & acting. What I really love about Gerald’s Game is how it tells its plot. It’s not new to tell your story out of order (Pulp Fiction, Mulholland Drive, every Christopher Nolan movie), but very few do so as well as this! From the beginning, its unique & universally horrifying concept makes sure you’re paying attention & holds on to it with equally unique & universally horrifying events told in the perfect order to have it make sense throughout but not entirely so until the very end. It starts off on the perfect note & holds it throughout! Fascinating & universal, Gerald’s Game is the perfect engaging drama!

#6. Molly’s Game A biopic that doesn’t tell the whole truth, just how much did happen & to whom is the whole reason why I found myself intrigued with Molly’s Game. The great story told fascinatingly with incredible performances is why I love Molly’s Game. The film itself feels like a particularly great poker game: just when you think Molly’s up, just as quickly, she can fall back down. At the end, you’re just concerned if she’ll end up broke by the end of the night! And just like a great poker game, it’s hard not to get engaged with every little thing that happens in this film & it requires Oscar-worthy performances from everyone, especially Jessica Chastain! Incredibly engaging & engrossing, it’s the perfect movie for critics!

#5. I, Tonya I already praised Molly’s Game for how it tells its mostly true story, but I, Tonya is about a famously inconsistent story from & about inconsistent people. I don’t know why, but I find that everyone in this movie has their own stories & they’re probably all lying very interesting & it makes for a great story. It’s kinda like if you took every good element from every Alice In Wonderland adaptation & put them all into its very own movie. Like if the story itself had a couple of decades to edit itself into the best version it possibly can be. Add in the marketing of it maybe being true: taking all the intrigue of a “based on a true story” of something so outrageous while not feeling like it disrespects its audience enough to think they’d believe it. And it helps that its story is based on one of the most interesting parts of modern American history & it has 2 of the best performances of the year (Margot Robbie & Allison Janney). Put them all together & you get the 5th best movie of 2017!

#4. The Shape Of Water Beauty And The Beast is one of the most timeless & universal stories ever told, hence why there is so many versions of it. Everybody can relate to the idea, feeling, & fear of being neglected, ignored, & hated & for many people at many points in history, that fear was a reality. The original story is so universal, it can be read as being a peasant at the turn of the 18th century just as much as it can be about being gay at the turn of the 21st century & that’s why it has persisted for so long. The Disney animated film of the same name from 1991 was revolutionary for many reasons, but its incredible story is largely why it became the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. So, The Shape Of Water actually winning with this story is not only deserving, but it’s probably my favorite telling of the classic. Guillermo Del Toro had already made a name for himself by directing the critically praised Pan’s Labyrinth, the audience pleaser Pacific Rim, & creating the hit series Trollhunters: Tales Of Arcadia. The Shape Of Water is plausibly his most praised work & possibly his best work. The chemistry between the 2 mute leads is incredible & it becomes even more so after you realize that it’s all without talking! And that fact makes the villain seem even more villainous when every little thing he says is hate filled. And the amazing directing of Del Toro is what brings it all together, making it a worthy Best Picture winner.

#3. The Disaster Artist Another biopic with a possibly untrue story, The Disaster Artist shows that James Franco & Seth Rogan don’t need cheap sex jokes or obvious drug jokes to be funny. In fact, they can make a movie about an already obscure film that only nerds know about & can make a decent hit! Hell, maybe they can also get it nominated for a few Oscars & make it on my Top 10 list! I was ready to call this duo dead after The Interview made only obvious jokes, The Night Before was ungodly uninteresting, & Sausage Party was straight up unfunny. But The Disaster Artist brought a breath of fresh air, a movie for movie nerds & not just the kind that Google what really happened in the Infinity War comics. Ones that keep up with Nostalgia Critic & Cinema Snob because they’re still pretty big guilty pleasures & hope that they’ll eventually review Where The Dead Go To Die. The kind that already knew that The Room exists, love the fact that The Room exists, were immediately excited when Greg Sestero released his book, & were even more so when James Franco said he wanted to make a movie about it! I do my whole shpeal about how true to life the Franco bros. performances are & how great the directing was. But really, the reason I put this above The Shape Of Water & I, Tonya is because I’m a nerd. That’s mostly it! It’s not even my favorite movie about movies, that’s still Ed Wood.

#2. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Stepping back & looking at the empire & universe Marvel has created, it’s impressive & incredible just how huge & lucrative it has become. And it wouldn’t have become so if it didn’t have the films to back it up. When the first Guardians Of The Galaxy came out, it was Marvel trying to send the message that they can make a film out of one of their most obscure properties & not only make it a humongous hit, but also make it so good that it ends up on the 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list! And with its sequel, they pumped up everything that made the original great tenfold, added in some heartwarming moments to make sure you don’t leave the theater dry, & a much more interesting villain! And by god is Ego such a fascinating & engrossing villain, especially compared to the nothing of a character that made up Ronan. The way it covers its themes of family & parenthood is clever & amazingly well done. You’re right there with Peter Quill, wondering when to side with his dad or his best friends; whether or not a few good deeds redeems the torture of a childhood he had thanks to Yondu. And that kind of inner thought process is largely thanks to the incredible writing & directing of James Gunn, who is irreplaceable. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is now my 2nd favorite Marvel movie & 2nd favorite movie of 2017. #RehireJamesGunn

Before we get to #1, here are a few runners up:

Wonder Woman I didn’t realize it until after the fact, but 2017 was a really good year for superhero movies. Spider-Man: Homecoming was an amazing comeback for my favorite hero, Thor: Ragnarok somehow made Thor more likable, even Justice League managed to not piss me off! But, arguably, the most important of these was Wonder Woman which showed that not only can female led superhero movies make money, but also be very good!

Paddington 2 2014′s Paddington surprised both critics & audiences with its genuinity, heart-warming-ness, & immensely likable lead character, gripping everyone. When Paddington 2 came out, it immediately got 100% on RottenTomatoes, & that is a serious rarity. To the point where I first thought it was a fluke, like it got almost entirely middling reviews resulting in a 100% on a movie that generally averaged with 6/10s. Leaving the theater about 2 hours later, I can agree that it not only deserves that 100%, but it’s way better than the first movie! And I love the first movie!

Call Me By Your Name This was actually a really good year for Oscar nominated films. Most years, I don’t even consider most of the nominated movies because they tend to be a little pretentious, long, & boring. Which does have a place, just not the type I tend to watch a million times like the films I do put on my lists. But this year, my list is filled with Oscar winners & I actually wanted to include more like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Dunkirk, & All The Money In The World. I think Call Me By Your Name is at least more interesting than most of these if only for the background of being about 2 bisexuals, one being a kid. It can get a little pretentious, long, & boring but definitely worth watching!

The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) Meyerowitz Stories is Adam Sandler’s stab at an artistic movie after nobody saw Ridiculous 6 & Punch Drunk Love continues to garner praise from just about everyone. It’s the beginning of a new kind of Sandler movies as he gets used to his new home on Netflix & realize what kind of movies that kind of audience wants to see. I really hope that he continues to make these kinds of movies in the years to follow!

John Wick Chapter 2 On the side of action movies that aren’t based on comics, the John Wick movies continue to be exciting, action packed, & most importantly, fun! I had fun when I watch these movies, which is something I don’t say about the darker side of modern action movies. I haven’t had this much fun watching an action movie like this since Die Hard!

mother! On the battle of is this movie pretentious garbage or exciting drama; nominated for both an Oscar & a Razzie; do I love or hate mother!... I actually fucking love these kinds of movies! The kind that makes no sense as you’re watching it but every sense after the fact. Movies like Black Swan, Mulholland Drive, & The Cure For Wellness. So I might be biased towards this kind of movie, but I loved it!

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi Talk about toxic movie topic, I also really loved The Last Jedi! I actually thought it was a clever film that completely subverted my expectations at every moment. I love that Rae’s parents turned out to be nobodies, it’s such an interesting twist on this build up & arguably the most daring take they could’ve have after the millionth fan theory stated that it’s Luke & Leia. I loved where it left our heroes, at their bleakest moment, paralleling The Empire Strikes Back! I genuinely loved this movie & I’ll admit, I don’t totally get what all the hate is about! But whatever, my list, my runners up, nyeh nyeh.

Bill Nye: Science Guy Here’s my documentary entry... & it was a hard pick between this & Jim And Andy: The Great Beyond but I did inevitably pick this one because Bill Nye is a personal hero of mine. I’m a science dork, I’m subscribed to ASAP Science, I grew up with Bill Nye. I find his journey fascinating, this documentary very well made, & I can’t wait for the next season of Bill Nye Saves The World.

World Of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden Of Other People’s Thoughts I really hope Don Hertzfeldt catches on with more movie nerds. Just between this, the first World Of Tomorrow, It’s Such A Beautiful Day, The Meaning Of Life, Rejected, & every other film he’s created, he’s easily one of my favorite directors. Making some of the most thought provoking & intelligent films I’ve ever seen. If I included short films, this would be a serious contender for #1! Please watch this, just the phrase “The Burden Of Other People’s Thoughts” makes this worth watching!

Loving Vincent Fuck! I didn’t even get to include the pretentious animated film of the year? This is the only movie I can think of where literally every frame is a painting & it looks beautiful! Throughout, you can tell the people making this are genuinely passionate about Vincent Van Gogh & that’s what really drives the movie. I also want to take this time to mention My Little Pony: The Movie, which is my “I love this animated movie way more than most people probably should” of the year & I didn’t even have room in the runners up for it!

#1. Logan Last year, I was running around looking for a movie to beat Captain America: Civil War for Best Movie Of 2016. Luckily, I did find it in Arrival but the reason why I so desperately didn’t want Civil War to win out is because it just didn’t feel right. A fun & intelligent film for sure, but mostly surface level in a way the Marvel movies are able to be. For 2017, I saw Logan in theaters & instantly knew it should at least be on my year end top 10. At first it was just #5, but it did eventually climb up as the more I thought about it, the more I loved it. Before long, I was battling whether or not this or Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 should top the list. And though I do think I’ve seen GOTG2 more times than Logan, at the end of the day, Logan is the objectively & subjectively better made film. The action feels dark but in a real way, like this could genuinely be someone’s reality like Die Hard or John Wick. But this is way more clever, intelligent, & interesting than those movies ever were. This was the last film for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine & for his efforts, it was rightfully nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. What a way to go out...

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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Top 10 Worst Movies Of 2017!

As everyone is gearing up for their 2018 lists, I prefer to take that extra year to see as much crap as I could from the year before! Now, keep in mind, even with that extra year to watch as many movies as I possibly could, I still didn’t see everything. So, as awful as I’m sure Baywatch or The Bye Bye Man are, I just didn’t around to seeing them. If you want a comprehensive list of every single film I did see from 2017 in order from best to worst, you can go here: https://letterboxd.com/animatorreviewa/list/every-2017-movie-ive-seen/

#10. A Bad Moms Christmas Bad Moms (2016) was a surprise hit with both audiences & critics: with interesting characters, some really funny moments, & a clever moral; it wasn’t anything that would win an Oscar, but if it was on, I wouldn’t complain. A Bad Moms Christmas on the other hand: has annoying as hell characters, obvious humor, & the same damn moral from the first film! In a world with the MCU, which is constantly trying different & unique things, especially with their sequels in hopes to make them stand out, this kind of cheap, cash-grabby sequel with no heart or care put into it simply has no place. If this came out in the ‘80s or ‘90s, it’d be un-notable among Caddyshack 2 & A Christmas Story 2. But in today’s day & age, these kinds of sequels are a relic of a time once left & forgotten & for good reasons. It’s unfunny, uninteresting, & just straight up awful! If I wasn’t keeping track of these movies, I would’ve easily forgotten about it.

#9. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul Growing up in the early to mid-2000s, I grew up with the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books. I remember being very excited when the movies came out, & to this day, the books & movies continue to be (at the very least) guilty pleasures. The Long Haul book kept with the spirit of the series, being about a relatively un-notable piece of someone’s childhood, mixed with the feeling of being of nostalgic reminiscing while keeping with the spirit & imagination of a preteen. Its lack of reliability & humor that made past books more enjoyable made The Long Haul my least favorite DOAWK book, but it was still notably timeless as it had little to no potty humor or modern technology that tends to ruin perfectly nice children’s media. The DOAWK movies tend to have the same feel, like it’s just as relatable for children at the time as it would be for kids 50 years from now. What made the films so enjoyable, as opposed to the books, is the spot-on chemistry & acting of the cast. Everyone seemed believable in their roles, Zachary Gordon felt like a genuine kid making genuine kid decisions how a genuine kid would act in a genuine kid filled world. The Long Haul movie is absolutely nothing like these. It relies heavily on bad potty humor, horrendous acting, scenes too out of this world to ever seem believable, & characters who act nothing like any human being. The Rodrick in book & first 3 movies was a dumb older brother who compensated by bullying around his younger brother while still being somewhat caring towards him by giving him honest advice (even if it’s bad). The Rodrick in this would have a hard time breathing & walking at the same time. There was way too much use of modern technology, making it unrelatable to older audiences & cringy to younger audiences, who’re smart enough to know that the old farts making this probably never met a child before. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul was an unfunny, annoying, & unrelatable slog! #NotMyRodrick

#8. Bigger Fatter Liar Coming about a decade too late, Bigger Fatter Liar is mostly unfunny & annoying. It’s a repeat of the first movie except less funny, less interesting, & less Frankie Muniz. I cannot over-exaggerate how much I hate these kinds of sequels: the kind that takes a great comedy, strips any of the humorous moments, repeats the plot point-for-point, mostly repeats the jokes point-for-point, & adds nothing of interest or value. This is why Vacation made my Top 10 Worst 2 years ago, this is why Bigger Fatter Liar makes my list now. Just like Vacation, it takes a bunch of ingenious build-ups from their original film & fucks up the punch-line by being too over-the-top. Now, going over-the-top isn’t inherently bad (Ghostbusters & Spaceballs are 2 of my favorite comedies & their very over-the-top), but it can be easily overdone, & when it is, you get The Big Bang Theory. I guess what I find most perplexing is who is this made for? Anyone who grew up with Big Fat Liar are too old to be interested in an obvious cash-grab & younger children who might’ve been shown it by their parents aren’t going to be shown it because their parents are smart enough to not show it to them! I can only assume its target audience are people like me, who go out of their way to find the worst movies they possibly can, & this is a damn good contender.

#7. Snatched There really are few things in the world as hard to watch as a bad comedy as so far, it’s made up my entire list & Snatched isn’t going to be the last. Snatched is one of those comedies that has some serious tone issues. You’re supposed to laugh even after Amy Schumer & Goldie Hawn are kidnapped & probably almost raped! I’ve heard of dark comedy, but that’s a hard sell especially since it isn’t a dark comedy! It has generally pretty light humor in it that you’d see in A Bad Moms Christmas or The House, & though those movies are also quite terrible, Snatched puts them in the context of one of the really bad Scary Movies. This film offers the kind of balls you’d see in Deadpool or The Hitman’s Bodyguard but instead gives the least daring comedy in years. It’s humor is safe but doesn’t have the context of a safe film.

#6. Woody Woodpecker I’m going to be entirely honest... I never really liked Woody Woodpecker. I never found him funny or enjoyable, he’s always been just annoying. Now take the concept of a classic character who’s only personality trait is being annoying & make an entire annoying movie around him with the animation that’d make some of the D-list Blue Sky movies look like Pixar & you get the Woody Woodpecker movie. A movie that literally nobody needs to see! The story is... well, who cares? It’s a Woody Woodpecker movie in the style of The Smurfs, who cares about anything in this? You wanna know how bad it is? Guess... you’re right. How about the comedy... you’re right. It has so few twists & turns that if you simply imagine what it’s like, you’ve seen it. Congrats, you saw the 6th worst movie of 2017.

#5. F The Prom Say what you want about the Smosh movies or the Shane Dawson docuseries, but at least they’re naturally creative people doing creative things. Sure, Ghostmates is horrendously edited, but at least it’s made by people with experience at making popular sketch comedy with an actual audience. The Mind Of Jake Paul probably didn’t go as deep as it should’ve, but at least it’s made by someone who’s used to having to be energetic & humorous on the spot & has an audience who likes his stuff. The Fine Bros. have limited experience at being creative. All of their hit series (Kids React, Elders React) have been based around other people’s creative reactions to someone else’s creative content. And I’m not saying that doesn’t take some hard work; they must have a talent at finding people-pleasers, getting the kinds of reactions to make a compelling opinion, editing them together as to not fuck up their opinions nor the original content, & marketing that to the right audience. That’s why I think they’d make for decent producers, but creative types they are not. That’s why their more creative series like Emo Dad & MyMusic ended as failures with little fanfare. F The Prom was directed & written by the Fine Bros. & watching it, you can tell that everything I just said was true. It’s just a knockoff of The D.U.F.F. which was a knockoff of The Breakfast Club! Why would you want to be The D.U.F.F.? The critical bomb no one saw because it’s nothing like anyone’s high school experience? They both have all the tellings of an ‘80s high school (queen bee cheerleaders, bully jocks, bullied nerds, etc.), which is fine, but then they threw in cell phones & emojis to relate to modern day teenagers. Doing so alienates older audiences who didn’t have sexting when they were in high school & alienates modern teens who don’t have these kinds of cliches anymore. It’s funny that they have a hit series called Teens React because they pretty clearly didn’t ask any of them what modern high schools are like! I was hoping that The Edge Of Seventeen would bring on a wave of great teen movies & Eighth Grade would bring on a wave of great YouTuber movies. But I guess the Fine Bros. had the worst YouTuber movie & 2nd worst teen comedy ever still in them.

#4. CHiPS Okay, I didn’t realize that this list would be made almost entirely of bad comedies, we just happen to be in a bad age for comedy so you’ll have to deal with me typing “unfunny” a little bit longer. CHiPS is cheap & unfunny garbage that I wish I never saw! Every joke was just “sex this” & “sex that” which is fine in moderation & with good writing, but this has neither! It’s trying to be 21 Jump Street but doesn’t understand that what made that so great was it’s clever humor to parody the original franchise & reboot movies as a whole, not just cheap sex jokes! You want to get drunk? Take a shot every time they mention sex, you don’t even need other rules, you’ll be dead 10 minutes in! There’s no cleverness, no nuance, nothing of substance to make it even worth talking about! And that’s why it’s #4!

#3. Let There Be Light Here’s the obligatory Christian movie, I’d stop including them if they stopped being so badly made. The writing, acting, story, cinematography, everything (& I mean everything) seems like they were done by people who don’t know how to make a movie because they were. Christian movies aren’t made to be interesting or Oscar contenders, they’re made to propagate their shitty ideals. That Christianity is good, all other religions are bad. It is, quite literally, propaganda. Which isn’t inherently bad. What is bad that it’s in the service of hatred towards the other (whether it be Atheists, Muslims, gays, etc.) & it’s really badly made. And don’t think that I hate all Christian movies just on principal simply because I myself am a bisexual Atheist. I love Angels In The Outfield, Field Of Dreams, & VeggieTales just as much as everyone else. I hate bad Christian movies that open with 9/11 for literally no reason other than to say “fuck Muslims”. I hate bad Christian movies that support hating others rather than love & acceptance (like what Jesus Christ preached). I hate bad Christian movies that hate me because of how I was born for no reason other than because an old book told them to. There, have I made my point yet? Can these movies please stop being made?

#2. Pitch Perfect 3 I know it’s weird to follow up “this movie hates gay people” with Pitch Perfect 3, but I saw this in theaters surrounded by a bunch of middle-aged women who seriously need to get laid laughing with that kind of annoying theater-people laugh every time a character literally named Fat Amy said “I’m fat, ppppffffttttt!!!!” I have never had such a negative theater experience & the fact that I still had to sit through a movie as bad as Pitch Perfect 3 didn’t fucking help! I can’t stand this movie! It’s annoying, frustrating, unfunny, cheap, & all around bad... but so was A Bad Moms Christmas & Snatched & they were delegated to #10 & #7 respectively. What made Pitch Perfect 3 particularly awful to sit through? Well I wish death upon the audience I saw this with, but there is one more thing... The Pitch Perfect movies weren’t ever, well, perfect but they were perfectly fine, harmless films. There’s a few decent laughs, I like Princess Poppy in them alright, I think the singing was genuinely good. But what separates those films from their sequel is their basis in reality. The Pitch Perfect films always took place in a very realistic, very grounded reality. Pitch Perfect 3, on the other hand, opens with all of the main characters tied up on a Bond-esc villain’s boat, about to be murdered because Fat Amy is his daughter & reasons. If that isn’t jumping the shark, I don’t know what is! And I would accept this if it was fun, but it’s not. In fact, it’s barely focused on until the last half hour when it’s entirely that. The rest of the film is just a less funny Pitch Perfect. Wouldn’t be good, but not 2nd worst movie of 2017 bad. But it’s just so unfunny & the story so convoluted & the audience that annoying! I hate everything in this, I can’t imagine anyone liking this! Fuck this movie!

Before we get to #1, here’s some runners up:

Sandy Wexler I think both I & Adam Sandler are tired of the general Adam Sandler shtick. Encapsulated by the fact that I didn’t include this on my list & Sandler releasing critically praised films such as The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) & 100% Fresh right after this. There’s nothing of note or particularly interesting about Sandy Wexler when compared to Grown Ups or Pixels. It’s another bad Adam Sandler movie, the same as any other, I’m just happy that they seem just about over.

Wish Upon I heard a lot of people consider this film so-bad-it’s-good but I didn’t enjoy its awfulness quite that much. But I did enjoy it just enough to keep it off of the list. There’s lots of accidentally funny moments in this, just not as many as I was hoping.

The Emoji Movie I know a ton of people put this as their worst movie of 2017... but I don’t know. Maybe it’s because people hyped it up too much by the time I got to see it or maybe because I’m a sucker for fast paced animation but I enjoyed this film way too much to put it here. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s that bad. Mostly mediocre, I guess. Same goes for Duck Duck Goose & Gnome Alone.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales 2017 was not a very good year for mediocre movie franchises. Between this, Tom And Jerry: Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, & Transformers: The Last Knight, all being god awful & not making much money, maybe it’s the end to these 3 not very beloved series... or Bumblebee will make a bunch of money & nobody will learn any valuable lessons.

What The Health I have no problem with vegans, if anything, I think they’re objectively correct in their arguments, I just like medium rare steak too much! Just please don’t make shitty documentaries with shotty evidence & bad science! This one in particular made me so mad that I stopped watching it half way through & I would’ve put it on the list if I included documentaries!

All Eyez On Me Joke’s on me! I thought Straight Outta Compton would’ve brought a new wave of great music biopics, but apparently it only brought along terribly boring & overly long music biopics with 2018′s Bohemian Rhapsody & 2017′s All Eye’s On Me. The longest 2 & a half hours of my life!

Death Note As a huge fan of the Death Note anime & manga, this is practically blasphemy!... but there is still a lot of creativity & cleverness in it. Granted, those are all from the anime & the worst parts are whenever it tries to be original. But, granted again, if it was just the anime there’d be no reason to watch it. I feel like the people working on this were given a bad hand & probably did the best they could... but it still sucked. I strangely feel very similar about Beauty And The Beast.

Despicable Me 3 I think I just have a really low tolerance for annoyance. I cannot stand being annoyed, I’d rather be tortured! And that is the fatal wound of the Despicable Me franchise. I like the first 2 films just fine, but between this & Minions, I think it’s doomed to annoying purgatory!

47 Meters Down Shark movies are more dead than the shark at the end of Jaws: totally terminated & yet still showing up in films. 47 Meters Down is another hackney entry into a tired genre.

Happy Death Day I feel like I’m alone in hating this film. People praise it for being funny & clever while I bash it for being void of any entertainment & doing the same shit that got overused a decade ago.

#1. Fifty Shades Darker As out of touch F The Prom is, as hate-filled Let There Be Light is, as annoying Pitch Perfect 3 is... at least they have stories. They have comprehensive plots. Things actually happen in them. That is a lot more than what I can say for Fifty Shades Darker. On my 2015 list, I didn’t include Fifty Shades Of Grey because, as a film, it was decently made & had more than a few funny moments that made it worth watching. Its sequel did absolutely nothing, & I mean nothing! Nothing happens! How is this enjoyable for anyone? Just watch porn! You’ll get more out of it & it’ll probably have a better plot anyways.

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televisor-reviews · 5 years

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Everything of note that I have to say about Wakfu season 3:

I get that it’s old news at this point, but I finally got around to watching the new season of Wakfu & I really do have a ton to say about it... in list form!

1. It’s very good.

2. SPOILERS... duh...

3. I think I should’ve watched The Search For The Six Eliatrope Dofus first. I think the characters reference what happens in that a few times & whenever they did, I was like “what the fuck are they talking about?”

4. I don’t know why they changed the English voice cast, but it wasn’t a very good idea. It took me a few episodes to get used to them, & though I did get used to it & they did a fine enough job. Just not as good as the original cast.

5. I think this is why half of the words change pronunciation. Iop & Ruel are pronounced like how they’re spelled, which sounds like a good thing, but I always felt like pronouncing them like “Yop” & “Ruul” sounded more realistic. Adding that extra syllable is creating more work for whoever’s saying it & I think in a world that’s supposed to seem like it’s existed for millenniums, those kinds of words would’ve been shortened down to 1 syllable. I wouldn’t be complaining if that’s not how they were pronounced in the first 2 seasons.

6. Adamai is a surprisingly good villain. Of course, I think he’s much better as a protagonist, but as the antagonist; he’s a menacing figure that every member of the Brotherhood Of The Tofu have a history with, & the animation does a great job at showing the struggles he has when fighting them & vice versa.

7. I fucking hate the Dragon Ball Z-esc design for Adamai! It could just be my general disliking of DBZ, but that design really doesn’t do anything for me.

8. I think they made Adamai a bad guy because Oropo isn’t a very interesting main antagonist. Granted, it’s not like this show is known for its great villains (in fact, Oropo is by far my favorite of the them so far), but he ends up being pretty disappointing. Particularly because the framework is there for a great villain: a connection to the heroes, a memorable plot, a great motivation... it just never comes together for a very interesting villain.

9. I think it’s because most of that stuff isn’t really focused on until the last couple of episodes, making him uninteresting for most of the season & when it’s finally focused on, it’s too little too late.

10. Evangelyne & Percedal are great parents! This really is the natural continuation of their relationship after they had their “happily ever after” at the end of season 2. And whenever they’re on screen together, they have so much romantic chemistry it literally kills me.

11. I fucking love they’re kids too! It’d be so easy to make them one-dimensional slabs to motivate Percedal, but they have just as great & interesting personalities as any other member of the Brotherhood. Of course, I prefer Elely mostly because we spend more time with her, but I also just prefer her character type.

12. I don’t like that they have Eva, probably the most badass protagonist, as the “damsel in distress”. I get that they don’t want a pregnant character out in the front lines of battle, but still.

13. Every season has a fake-out death: S1 had Percedal & that lasted for a few episodes into the next season, S2 had a scene & a half of Ruel faking a heart attack, & S3 had Evangelyne almost die. It was kinda ingenious: for a minute, it genuinely had me worried, wondering if they had the balls to kill off a pregnant main character. Good thing they didn’t, probably for the best.

14. Holy shit, they actually had the balls to show a baby’s birth! I’d imagine they’d have an easier time getting that death past Netflix!

15. I haven’t looked up what the consensus is on this, but I’m willing to bet I have a controversial opinion on this: I actually really like the romance between Amalia & Yugo. It feels very genuine & natural; they have a ton of chemistry between them. Unlike with most romances, where it’s pretty obvious they’ll end up together by the end, I honestly didn’t know if that was the route they were going to take because Yugo still looks 10!

16. Keeping Yugo looking 10 was a great way to add more tension & drama to the already dramatic & tension-filled story.

17. Past seasons have had a good mixture of dramatic & comedic elements, but this season pumped up the drama & backed off of the comedy. I guess this is expected since this is the first season made by Netflix & their shows have been significantly more dramatic than most cable TV animated shows, largely because they’re meant to be binge-watched instead of once a week.

18. Netflix also tends to strip down its shows to the bare minimum for the story it’s telling. This is normally a good thing, but I think Wakfu was one of those shows that utilized filler episodes really well to show more of a connection & backstory of the characters. Basically, I wanted more filler episodes.

19. I don’t know why Ruel was in this. I get that he’s one of the main characters & they try to have him seem like he has a point by throwing in his wife for no real reason. He’s getting too old to fight & he doesn’t throughout most of the season. I’d bet he’d end up staying behind to babysit Eva & Dali’s new baby next season (if there is one).

20. Each of the demigods the Brotherhood fight are interesting & unique in their own right, they all feel like they’ve always existed & were merely waiting to be introduced in the show rather than feel like they were invented in a day for their exact episode.

21. The show in the past has always felt like it was aiming for a pretty young audience (like “Baby’s First Engaging World”), but between the focus on more dramatic elements, all of the couples getting together, & Adamai’s new design; I think the new target audience is closer to older children/young teenagers. Those just old enough to be nostalgic over anime like Dragon Ball Z & Naruto but just young enough to embrace the more childish nature moments of past seasons. A natural evolution of this long-running franchise.

22. The world & universe this show has spent the better part of 2 seasons to build is built up even more throughout the entirety of season 3. It really feels livable, like you could just walk right into your TV & right in this world! This is an element that’s really hard to nail (only done well in the most prestigious of franchises with huge fanbases like Star Wars & Harry Potter... & My Little Pony) & it does so perfectly!

23. This is easily my favorite season of the show so far, building upon the incredible blocks already created by the first 2 seasons.

24. I really hope there’s a 4th season! There’s been word from random websites & blogs by so-called writers saying there will be one either 2019 or 2020. I do think it’s inevitable considering the show is at peak popularity & critical praise & this season ended on a cliffhanger. I just want it before I die of old age!

25. I think Wakfu, though more popular than ever before, is still nowhere near as popular as it deserves to be. I always called it, “that show all your animator friends really like,” & that still rings true. If you have any doubts about whether or not to watch it, just do it! It’s a great show that deserves all the praise it’s gotten from fans & critics (& that’s a lot of praise!).

#wakfu #adamai #yugo #persedal #evangelyne #amalia #ruel #season 3 #oropo

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