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Terminator Zero (2024)
Somethin new in Terminator land
This anime take on the Terminator franchise takes the standard elements - time travel, killer robots, the end of humanity - and mixes and matches them in a fresh way.
The series is quite entertaining - certainly moreso than the recent theatrical versions - with some tense action, likeable characters, and an interesting AI that might or might not be able/willing to stop SKYNET.
At this time the timeline is so convoluted that all we know for certain about Terminator dramas is they can offer nothing but a false victory, since there will always be a new way to put everything in peril again, and at least Zero fully faces that.
But by doing so, it makes it hard to have a really solid ending, and while I was fully engaged throughout, at the end I felt there were unanswered questions, some unlikely events, and a disquieting feeling that this whole franchise is in a sinkhole that no entertaining sequel can pull it out of.
Still, it's really good and Terminator fans should take a look.
St. Denis Medical (2024)
as meh as it gets
I watched this in spite of lackluster reviews because it was created by guys behind American Auto, Superstore, and Rutherford Falls. But it was so bland, and so unfunny, that I couldn't get through the first episode.
The cast is good, and in some cases very good. Kahyun Kim was wonderfully snarky, David Allen Grier exudes weary gravitas, Kaliko Kauahi is good in a very different role from Superstore. And everyone else is at least decent.
The problem was the writing. I watched this series because of the creator/writers, and they let down their cast. They just didn't write funny jokes.
This seems like the kind of thing that could turn around - all you'd need is a funny script that gave the cast a chance to shine. But life is too short to watch shows that *might* figure it out someday. Something like Superstore started okay but was great by the end of the first year, but if you start barely watchable, high high can you go?
Bad Sisters (2022)
fun, twisted series
Bad Sisters is a dark comedy about sisterhood, violence, and consequences. The first season is the titular sisters attempt to right a wrong, which they keep failing to do while creating huge collateral damage. The second season continues the fall out from the first season.
Much of this reason this works is because of the chemistry between the sisters, who really seem like a funny, fractious but loyal family. The plots are pretty twisty and there are some interesting non-sister characters, such as a terrific young cop who gets added to season 2.
The end of season 2 (one of the best episodes of the series) felt pretty final, but I hope they find a way to create a third season someday, because I really am attached to this group and this dark humored drama.
Check it out.
Scrooge (1951)
The Christmas Carol by which all others are measured
This was the Christmas Carol that did almost everything right. It wasn't just Alastair Sims pitch-perfect portrayal of the mean-spirited Scrooge. The cinematography caught the mix of Christmasy and grim. The pace is quick, the characters engaging and well acted, each Dickens line performed with conviction.
What makes this extraordinary is that, outside of Sim, the credits are full of workmanlike people responsible for dozens of forgetable movies. But somehow, this time everything came together.
There have been other good adaptations of A Christmas Carol. There have been other, just as legitimate takes on Scrooge, most notably George C. Scott's version. But ultimately, whenever you talk about the story, you have to talk about this version. Because it hits the mark so beautifully.
The Little Mermaid (2023)
better as a cartoon
This is Disney's "live action" remake of the 1989 animated classic. I have "live action" in quotes because most of the early scenes look to be about 90% animation, with live actors sitting in front of a blue screen while Disney draws its magical undersea world around them.
While it's almost as much of a cartoon as the original, the determination to make it look more "real" means that fun cartoon characters like Sebastian and Flounder just look like normal sea creatures with some extra work around the eyes, and this makes them far less interesting and personable.
The movie improves when Ariel goes to shore. At this point, Little Mermaid because genuinely a live action movie, which works much better.
The cast is generally good, particularly a surprisingly scary Melissa McCarthy as the sea witch, And overall I enjoyed this, although less than the people I saw it with, who were far more entranced by the pretty undersea scenes than I was.
I'd say it's ultimately fun and worth watching, but it wasn't really worth making. But if Disney wasn't hammering its IP into the ground, would it even *be* Disney?
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)
disappointing but still generally fun
I just loved the original Christmas Chronicles, so in spite of the iffy reviews I had to watch this sequel, in which one of the kids finds herself once again mixed up with Kris Kringle.
The first movie was both a fun story and a great example of world building. Having built the world, no one involved seemed to feel they needed to take it further beyond coming up with nuttier, less convincing technology. This time around it's just about the nonsensical story, which has all sorts of action and time travel and what all.
A lot of this is just okay, although there is a fantastic sequence in an airport that includes an incredible musical number by Darlene Love and also contains one of the more genuine-seeming moments of feeling. Alas, those moments that match the spirit of the first movie are few and far between.
The cast is good, the movie is decently paced, and it's a cute and acceptable Christmas movie. But it's nowhere near as good as its ancestor.
A Boy Called Christmas (2021)
Fun movie that declines a little bit as it goes along
The first hour of A Boy Called Christmas is absolutely delightful - a charming tale of a boy with a pet mouse who decides to go out in search of his father, who has gone out in search of magic. Stephen Merchant is very funny as a talking animal and Zoe Colletti is terrific fun as an anarchic "truth pixie."
The second half is still pretty good, but it feels like it's not really sure where it's going. There's an antagonist, there's some stuff about tribalism, there's some pretty harsh truths and tragedies, and it all seems a little convoluted.
It's definitely worth watching, even its flaws keep it from being a true Christmas classic.
Le pupille (2022)
quirky and definitely not American
There is no moral to this Italian Christmas short about orphans asked to make a sacrifice for Jesus. It's got goofy moments galore, some fascinating power dynamics, and some thoughts about morality, but mainly it's just a shaggy dog tale that wanders in an aimless but amusing fashion.
There is no way in the world you would ever see something like this from an American - the director is the person who brought My Brilliant Friend to TV, and she is unbound by the expectations of American TV.
I did, by the way, look up this sort of cake and I don't think it's portrayed accurately - all the recipes are of little single-serving-cup cakes!
Recommended.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1983)
cute!
I never knew this old movie existed until it was recently remade. It sounded like a cute idea, but the new movie is by some guy who makes kinda Jesus-y movies so I went for this old TV movie instead, which contains the only non-MASH performance I've ever seen from Loretta Swit (who's quite good).
It's very cute. It's kind of weird to see what passed for "bad kids" back then, since nowadays ... well, we all know how insane things have gotten. So its nostalgic to see kids being bad in the old-school way.
It's a very sweet movie that's generally pretty funny and has some insight. I'd recommend it if you're looking for something to watch at Christmas.
Skeleton Crew (2024)
as an adult, I was flat out bored
Skeleton Crew is a TV series for kids. And that's fine, because Star Wars has often been kid-friendly and why shouldn't there be kids show with a Star Wars theme? But it's not a show about kids that's adult friendly, like Stranger Things or Paper Girls. It's more like a show designed specifically to appeal to ten-year-olds and no one else.
Skeleton crew starts out in the suburbs. It's a Star Wars universe suburbs, but take away the robots and aliens and it could be where I grew up. So that was an interesting twist for a moment or two.
Unfortunately, these suburbs are populated by boring characters with uninteresting problems. And yes, this is all setup for the big moment at the end of the first episode, but I was so bored by that first episode that halfway through I just started skipping forward and even the final action just seemed - meh.
Will it get better when Jude Law shows up? Maybe. But I feel if a show's first episode is so tedious I can't suffer through it then it's probably not getting a lot better anytime soon. So that's all I watched.
Violent Night (2022)
the sledgehammer path to the true meaning of christmas
In Violent Night, David Harbour is Santa as a sour drunk ready to pack in the whole Christmas gig. But when a violent gang invades a mansion as he's eating cookies, Ho Ho Ho turns to Die Die Die.
I love the idea of combining Die Hard, Home Alone, and standard Christmas movies with cute kids and Christmas wishes, and this movie does a remarkable job of hitting the beats of each genre.
The result is violent, cynical, and sometimes genuinely touching.
The movie is often quite funny, with extreme but cartoonish violence and a fantastic world-wear turn by Harbour. It's got some clever ideas and it more-or-less holds together.
If you're not too squeamish (and even my girlfriend, who generally avoids violent movies, said this was too cartoonish to bother her, for the most part), and you like a little action mixed up in your Christmas movie, then I'd highly recommend this one.
An Almost Christmas Story (2024)
cute, with a visual look I have mixed feelings about
This cute little animated short follows the adventures of an owl named Moon who gets stuck in a tree that is carted off to Rockefeller Center, where he meets hostile pigeons, jealous dogs, and a friendly one-legged girl.
The look is distinct. The owls look like they're carved out of wood, and some people and objects look like cardboard cutouts. I'm unclear if there was any point to the look beyond hey, this would look cool, but it is interesting.
Unfortunately it doesn't work well with their people designs. The singing-narrator in particular looks creepy and weird, which is certainly not what they were going for.
The best thing is Natasha Lyonne voicing a street-wise New York pigeon. But then, Lyonne is pretty much always the best thing in whatever she's in, so that figures.
I wouldn't say this was a great short, but I did enjoy it and if you're looking for something to watch at Christmastime this is a pretty good option.
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)
fun movie about the messiness of adolescence
Early on we learn the 13-year-old protagonist has a crush on a boy who we see acting like a moron. And my girlfriend said, "I don't get it." And that's what I like about this movie - it doesn't give us a crush that makes sense to adults, it gives us the sort of crush a 13-year-old would have - an idiot.
This is a movie full of the inexplicably bad, overwrought decisions of teenagers. It's very funny and weirdly relatable - I wouldn't do what she did, but it takes me back to the days when everything in my life was SO IMPORTANT.
It's funny, some people have expressed disappointment that even though he's in it, this is not an Adam Sandler movie. But I didn't know he was in it and when I saw him I thought, oh no, is this an Adam Sandler movie? (I've liked maybe two of his movies.) But he's actually quite good as a genial, shaggy dad who doesn't understand his daughters any more than I do.
Sandler hired most of his family for this movie, putting his daughter in the lead, but you know what? They're all very good. The non-Sandler members of the cast are also good. I particularly liked Sarah Sherman as a wacky rabbi.
This movie is funny, well-acted, and unafraid to say, yeah, kids are idiots, but they're working it out. Recommended.
11.22.63 (2016)
just ... boring
I watched the first, 80 minute episode of this mini-series even though there was not a moment where I really wanted to keep watching. It's just I saw the high rating and the rave reviews and I thought, well, this must kick in at some point.
So I slogged on for 80 minutes, watching a bland character pulled by an unconvincing premise into an overly-perfect version of the early 60s. The movie just wanders almost aimlessly here and there, and the first really intriguing thing happens in the last two minutes, which was way too late for me to believe this series was about to get interesting (especially since this first, tediou episode is highly rated on IMDB).
Sometimes you understand why people like something, even if you don't, but this is a case where I have no idea what the appeal is. Not recommended.
Clue (1985)
how did this dud become so many people's favorite mystery?
This movie totally bombed when it came out. I saw it on TV a couple of years later and don't remember having a strong opinion one way or the other.
I'm a huge fan of whodunnits and since I've watched most of them, I look on some sites to see any I'd missed. And in the process I found Ranker's list, which rated Clue as the most popular whodunnit! So I thought, was it better than I remembered?
But no, it was worse than I remembered. The cast is amazing, but the dialogue is dull and the direction is lackluster. There are brief moments of vague amusement, but most of the first half is just dull setup for what I suspect (I gave up halfway through) is no real payoff (many critics said the first part was the best, so that's not good!)
It's also, of course, wrong as a whodunnit, because the three endings mean's it's not a genuine "I almost solved this" mystery but a "random killer" mystery.
If you want to watch a fun take-off on whodunnits, watch Murder By Death. If you want to watch an actual good whodunnit, watch Sleuth or Last of Sheila or something based on Agatha Christie.
Then go downvote this movie on Ranker so other people aren't tempted to watch it.
Furikuri 3 (2018)
doesn't hook you like the original
FLCL was insane. But there was sense to the insanity. This was a crazy sci-fi fantasy take on male puberty, and that was where a lot of its power was from.
The moment you switch sexes, as this one does, you lose the subtext. This time around, you've got a group of seemingly uncomplicated girls one of whom has something going on (annoyingly, she is so similar to one of the other four that I kept losing track of which was which).
The girls bland adventures made up most of the first episode, and it was all less interesting than the setup for the original. The crazy fighting girl is fun in her brief moments of screentime, but overall, there's just no there there. I just watched the one episode, and see no reason to watch a second.
Uzumaki (2024)
weird, visually striking, and decidedly creepy
The first episode of this 4-episode anime miniseries is visually electrifying in its intricate black and white art, and the creeping horror of this strange world is instantly compelling. Some fans of the manga have complained that it was too quickly paced, but as someone who never read the manga (although I did see the earlier, mixed-bag live-action movie), I thought the pacing was just right.
I enjoyed the second episode as well. The third episode was weaker - it felt like a grab bag of unconnected incidents - but the final episode was fascinating and dark.
I have seen people say that only the first episode is well animated but the others are badly animated. So I went back and looked at episode two and yes, I can see what people mean. It's relatively weak animation. I think part of it was I was so fascinated and creeped out by everything that I wasn't being that critical, but also, it's still pretty decent. Some people just have way high standards. And the last episode is visually near the first.
Is it as good as the source material? I did look at the start of the manga, which looks just like this series, and it was good, but I prefer anime to manga as a general rule so I can't speak to that.
But as someone who isn't comparing it with the manga, I thought it was excellent overall and I highly recommend it if you want to be creeped out.
Twisters (2024)
mediocre movie with good special effects
I was mildly interested in the tornado expert with bad memories getting back on the horse again. The opening scene was pretty compelling, the people seemed likable enough.
But as the movie moved into the smart-girl-vs-charming-smug-influencer trope that makes up much of the movie, I started losing interest. I didn't care about the characters, or the story, or anything.
On the other hand, the tornados were pretty impressive. I would be watching, bored out of my mind, and then a twister would arise and it would pull me in (so to speak). But then the sun would come out and I'd be stuck with the uninteresting stories of these uninteresting people again.
At the mid-point I decided to give up on the movie but still fast-forward to the big storms. And that final storm was so wild, with such craziness, that for a moment I could almost care about the people running around in that storm. But only for a moment.
I don't remember what I think of the original Twister. I certainly enjoyed it more than this one, but I don't recall thinking the movie was impressive enough to warrant a sequel. But if it did deserve a sequel, it deserved better than this sequel.
Not recommended, although it's worth watching the finale if you can do that without watching the rest of it.
School Spirits (2023)
fun supernatural teen-angst murder mystery
This wonderfully entertaining murder myster stars Peyton List as Maddie, the ghost of a girl who has no memory of her own death. No one has even found her body - just signs of a struggle. In her new form, she encounters other people who died in the school and who have a support group built on trying to "pass on." Maddie is told to let go of her human life, but she needs to understand what happened first.
This is a very entertaining series with the sort of relatable, well-acted teens that don't annoy old people like me. The mystery is solid, full of twists and red herrings, and the season ender is both very surprising and yet beautifully set up - like a good M. Knight Shyamalan movie, when you get to the twist you believe it because it was staring at you the whole time, in plain sight.
The ending is also a cliffhanger, resolving one mystery, opening some new ones, and creating real anticipation for what is to come.
It's funny, it's touching, it's engaging, and it's well worth watching.
Mrs. Davis (2023)
imaginative. entertaining. surprising. insane.
After watching the first episode of Mrs. Davis I was somewhat on the fence. It was the sort of crazy, over-the-top, mind-bending style I enjoy, but was it trying too hard? Did that reveal an emotional void? Was it style over substance.
But by the second episode I was totally won over. Because like the best speculative fiction, this isn't a series about tech but a series about humans seeking their place in a world that is just so confusing.
The cast, lead by Betty Gilpin as an ass-kicking nun, is terrific. The show is often funny, sometimes intense, always, constantly, unrelentingly surprising. I have never seen so many hairpin twists, and yet I accept them all, because somehow it all makes some sort of sense.
You'll never see anything like this again, so watch it.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Great moments, but Dreyfus's character is a disaster that keeps this from greatness
At first, Close Encounters is electrifying. The first scene uses the desert wind to create an echo of the violent rain from Rashomon as it sets up the movie. The eerie lights of the control room really create a mood. The toys all turning on in the little boys room. The chaos of the protagonist's family (I loved the kid methodically destroying a doll), the mysterious events on the road, and oh my God the scene with the lights pushing into the house. Spielberg spoke film like a native, and it was mind blowing.
And then it started going wrong. Because the Richard Dreyfuss character made no sense at all. He did a lot of crazy things, but his level of crazy never seemed to match the level of crazy in his actions.
There would have been several ways to fix this. First, you could establish the character as prone to obsessiveness. Alternately, you could have shown more clearly the process leading him to go so nuts.
The family was entertaining but made the story less sensible. He should have lived alone in an apartment, or if you want those kids scenes, make him an uncle staying there temporarily, or have the relationship on the verge of divorce. Any of these would help his actions throughout and even more so his final decision.
That's what's so frustrating. The issues should have been obvious, and should have been solved. Spielberg needed a good script doctor.
The movie pulls itself back together in the end with that memorable final sequence, even if it raises a lot of questions about the alien's actions throughout the movie, which don't make any more sense than Dreyfuss's.
Great special effects, great moments. Some bad writing and arguably the wrong actor to take this role (Dreyfuss is better at playing irritating characters than unraveling ones). Definitely worth seeing for the best parts, but it could have been a true sci-fi classic and it missed that.
Agatha All Along: Maiden Mother Crone (2024)
A mixed ending for a great series.
Unlike some people here, I really liked the twist that ended the penultimate episode. And I loved the way later on that this final episode used flashbacks to highlight moments where Agatha was saying things that, in retrospect, did not mean what we thought they meant at the time (it might be interesting to rewatch the series with the new context).
So those parts of the episode I really liked.
As for Agatha's origin story, well, it was kind of interesting but didn't grab me the way everything else in the series did. And also, honestly, even though I knew at the beginning that Agatha was awful, she was fun and less awful for this series and it was hard coming face to face with what a monster she has always been.
The battle between Agatha, the Teen, and Death was fairly enjoyable. But Agatha's action don't really make that much sense in the context of who she's been.
But what really lost me was the very end, with ghost-Agatha. First off, this idea of Agatha gambling on being a ghost seems weird. Then there's this whole bit where Billy gets mad and tries to banish her. But then she stops him and somehow persuades him that really, they're both killers, even though ultimately Billy killed subconsciously and without intent while Agatha was a psychopathic serial killer. So I don't accept the two-sides-of-the-same-coin framing. This makes Billie's acceptance of that frame unpersuasive, especially when the upshot is, "hey, let's be friends and partner up and have adventures!" Which is so WTF that I can't even.
After all that, I just felt, "What? That's it?
I still love the series overall, but I'm pretty mad about that ending, honestly.
Agatha All Along (2024)
Lots of fun
This fun spinoff of WandaVision isn't quite as out there, but it's clever, imaginative, and often quite funny, with an excellent cast.
The basic story involves Agatha trying to regain her powers, which involves getting a coven together with the intent of walking the "witch's road" with the goal of getting one's heart's desire - if you can make it through various eccentric challenges.
Kathryn Hahn is excellent in her reprisal of Agatha, who winds up with a coven of witches who don't really like or trust her - unsurprising, considering what we know of her from WandaVision.
There are some notable twists, and I thought they were good, even ones that have got some criticism from others. Unfortunately the very end didn't work for me, which was a let down, but overall it was an excellent experience that I wholeheartedly recomment.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Good though overrated
I really like Christopher Nolan, but if I weren't a fan I wouldn't have watched this based on the trailer. And while I did enjoy it, and it had some style and good performances (notably an incredible Emily Blunt), I can't say that what I saw was much better than what I expected from the trailer.
This is Nolan at his least out-there persona. It's a pretty straightforward movie, even though the trailer focuses on some of the more striking (and rare) moments. For the most part, this is Oppenheimer's project and Oppenheimer's trial, and while both are well done, this seems like a movie that could have been directed by a lot of people.
Worth watching, but not Christopher-Nolan-level worth watching.
Going Postal (2010)
enjoyable comedy
In Going Postal, a breezy conman finds himself, through a rather unlikely series of events, running a post office. This brings him into contact with a friendly but stern gollum, an archnemesis who runs a competing service something like a telegram, and a pale, intimidating businesswoman named Adora. Will he save the post office, or fleece it?
This is a lot of fun, offering a sprightly sense of humor, and engaging story, and appealing performances by Richard Coyle as the conman and, especially, Claire Foy as the oh-so-intense Adora.
The one thing that could have been better is damp-looking Nosferatu knock-off which just looks utterly ridiculous, not in a funny way but just in a "have the intern design the costume" way. But it's a small role, so not a big issue.
Hope some more Discworld movies are coming down the pike - so far I've enjoyed them all. This one is certainly recommended.