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This is a cleverly crafted screenplay that could have simply dropped the “Part I” in its title and the “to be continued” at the end, if Universal had decided it wasn’t good enough to greenlight a sequel. Without its sequel (which I haven’t seen yet), Wicked: Part I starts with a question - “why do some people turn out wicked?” It does a more-than-adequate job of answering that in the form of a…
The story and the idea behind it are so good, but the screenplay falls apart so quickly. I couldn’t help but think how this movie should have been a game. An interactive experience with an 8+ hour timer and a bunch of explorable menus would have done this concept justice. Makes me wonder if someone could write a custom storyline as a Hacknet Extension using the “prove your innocence” idea. 5/10…
During the marketing and release cycle of this movie, I didn’t have high hopes. A Predator movie with a non-English-speaking alien as the protagonist? I had doubts. It’s a small story that takes place over a short period of time. And in this little tale, every detail is perfect. There are loads of set-ups and payoffs. Multiple characters’ arcs are surprisingly poignant. One of them is of a species…
This is a first in my new series, Micro Reviews. I won’t review every film I watch; that would get tedious and make movies un-fun quick. However, the occasional movie comes along that provokes enough thought to justify jotting down a few of them. See all my micro reviews here . I’ve been thinking of doing this for a while. Why not start with the 2,000th movie that I recently rated on IMDb? I have…
I started this blog over five years ago. In the introductory post , I decided to record five movies around my 1,000th movie rated on IMDb. I’ve been rating movies since around the age of 16, which was when I first started using IMDb ratings for reference. So, this only counts movies I’ve watched and rewatched since then. Years later, I just hit 2,000 and figured I should immortalize the five…
Since the beginning of time invention of video, humanity has thirsted for realism. For recorded video, this usually means higher resolution, richer colors, broader dynamic range, and perhaps higher framerates. For video games, this meant higher polygon count in models, higher fidelity shadows, detailed reflections, realistic skin and hair. With decades of work put into so many disciplines -…
Big budget, “eye candy” singleplayer games have hit a point in improved fidelity and quality of gameplay where, for many of them, it may be time to double down on expansions over sequels.
I recently watched the first season of an extremely popular HBO show, but I didn’t enjoy it very much. It’s not the first time this has happened. This made me notice a dimension of visual storytelling that I’ve never considered before. I think we can put stories into two buckets: Stories that take place mostly on-screen. Stories told mostly in dialogue, so they mainly take place in the audience’s…
Of the MCU’s first three Phases, the third one is not only the longest, but also the most ambitious by far. Arguably, it’s more ambitious than Phases Four and Five. I say it’s arguable for a very specific reason. David Gauthier of the They’re Just Movies podcast once pointed out that the MCU doesn’t just make more movies per Phase; they push the boundaries of genre and style in their movies in…
Some of Phase Two deals with the fallout of The Avengers . Obviously due to budget reasons, there’s a focus on solo adventures once again, but with plenty of references implying the Avengers’ existence off-screen. Popular opinion seems to be that Phases Four and Five (ongoing at the time of this writing) feel directionless. If you ask me, this isn’t new. Phase Two has solo adventures tugging at…
Phase One turned out a lot more enjoyable than I expected, viewing from a post-Endgame, 2020s lens. These are genuinely fun movies, with some solid writing, and a lot more interconnections than early-to-mid-teens-unaware-of-the-MCU-me could have possibly noticed. I guess Marvel Studios were pretty confident, pretty early on, and started sowing the seeds for an interconnected universe right from…
This is the first in a series of posts documenting my first rewatch of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Phases One to Three; starting at Iron Man (2008) and ending at Avengers: Endgame (2019) . I’ve been watching them since way back, but I only recognized Marvel Studios’ long-term aspirations around 2013. That’s when I started following the series in earnest. I’m usually not one to rewatch stuff,…
As we have established , I have rated over a thousand movies on IMDb thus far. At the time of this writing, it’s a treasure trove of data over a decade in the making. I’ve had many ideas to find interesting patterns in it. I decided to poke and prod at an exported copy. IMDb’s CSV export includes basic data about each title - the IMDb user rating, release date etc. To get the real juicy info, I…
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe chugs along building an increasingly complex story comprising of episodic movies and dozens of seasons’ worth of TV series, I often find myself nitpicking some of the littler details in the franchise. This is a big compliment, by the way. The fact that the fandom, including myself, frequently discusses these things goes to say how air tight (though not 100%) and…
Earlier this year, I played through Alien: Isolation , a very well regarded horror game set in the universe originally created for the Alien film franchise. Horror isn’t my favorite genre, so I had mixed feelings about the experience as I was playing through it. Looking back, I have some very good things to say about it, but in a different context. Important context: I played this game on the…
Movie ratings are complicated. Is The Shawshank Redemption better than Inception ? At the time of writing, that’s what their respective IMDb user ratings suggest. The former ranks #1 on IMDb’s top film charts (and has been for years), while the latter is a bit lower down, but squarely in the top 20. How exactly does Crazy, Stupid, Love compare? Is it wrong to enjoy or appreciate the three in a…
In the last 8 or so years, I have watched and rated at least 1001 films* on IMDb. This covers all my movie-viewing experience to date since about the age of 16, maybe 17. In this time, the thought of writing down movie reviews, perhaps loose thoughts… something , has crossed my mind more than once. Usually, my internal counter argument was that it was too late to start now, that it would always…