maztergamer

Man, the first movie is a CLASSIC. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins give the performances of their careers in this groundbreaking oscar nominated film. But then the second one was just a bunch of cartoons playing basketball.

• I'm not too thrilled about the direction this franchise is headed in.

Luca is a new Pixar film which for some reason is being labeled as a Disney + original even though it's a Pixar film. This movie is pretty par for the course among Pixar films recently. It's going to make you laugh it's going to make you cry and you will have a decently enjoyable experience.

I actually didn't have very high expectations because I had kind of heard that it was kind of a mediocre Pixar film but I surprisingly liked it quite a bit. The animation is great (though saying a Pixar movie has good animation is like saying water is wet at this point) though I couldn't help but notice that the fish look less realistic in this then in Finding Nemo. I mean Finding Nemo came out almost 20 years ago why do the fish look less realistic.

This movie was actually pretty funny. Legitimately one of the funnier Pixar movies I have seen. Or maybe I just like that the cat is literally named Machiavelli. The story is good. It is obviously heartwarming and I enjoyed the story. I mean I was basically never surprised throughout the entire film it followed all of the story beats that you would expect. But it was still decently enjoyable. One thing that helps this story is that it is fairly high concept. Pixar is really good at doing high concept stories and I feel like they haven't done as much of that in recent years. So in that way this movie's story was refreshing.

While this movie is pretty predictable and isn't really anything special it is still a fun movie that will have you entertained throughout.

7.5/10.

In The Heights is a new movie adaptation of a musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda. About a year ago I decided to watch Hamilton on Disney +. Though I had heard the play was good from word of mouth, I was still skeptical. I probably underestimated what a rap musical about Alexander Hamilton could do. I was pleasantly surprised and knowing that In The Heights was also from a musical from Lin Manuel Miranda and that the movie starred someone in who was in Hamilton (Anthony Ramos) I was very excited. I was not disappointed.

The acting in this movie was good, really good even. There are no award worthy performances but everyone fills their role and no one stands out as not being good. The performance I probably liked the most was from Jimmy Smits who plays the father of one of the characters. The conflict about returning to Stanford with him and his daughter is interesting and adds more to the story.

Technically this film is also well made. There is well done cinematography and editing. Plus the music is good. I have seen musicals with better music but this music is still very good. Just like Hamilton there is a good mix of some rapping and some singing.

The core story revolves around a community in Washington Heights. In this community the streets are made of music unlike most communities where the streets are made of asphalt There is a blackout that could tear apart the community (not really a spoiler they show text on the screen saying "(insert amount of time) before blackout" pretty consistently). You have other side plotlines but this is really what the story is about. I don't want to spoil anything but the movie goes for a Wizard Of Oz type message. My only problem was that it could get a bit corny at points but that wasn't too often and it didn't bother me too much.

This movie is a satisfying watch that most people will probably enjoy.

8/10.

This film is a satisfying conclusion to a really solid trilogy. Bane is a good villain though his voice is kind of ridiculous. Seriously why does he sound like a muppet. I didn't really like the first act. That is where some of the flaws come in. The rest of the story is good though. In the second act you see Bruce developing as a character and get out of the prison. And in the the third act while there are flaws. I legitimately enjoyed most of it. The ending where you see bruce in the cafe while I had questions about a lot of it. I was satisfied. You know a classic chekhovs gun moment.

8/10.

I have seen enough action movies (if you would call this that) that I know that this blows all of the other ones out of the water. Though it isn't a full on action film it has some elements of a war film but still. This is a testament to how good of a director Akira Kurosawa. He is one of the greatest directors ever if not #1. Oh also Toshiro Mifune is great. One of the my favorite film performances. He does an over the top performance better than anyone else.

10/10.

This is my favorite short film of all time. There isn't much depth to it (I mean it is one minute long what would you expect). But it is very impressive technically. It shows quite a lot in one minute. So let me explain what happens. This guy takes off his head and puts it on a table. Then a new head appears. He does that 3 times. Then he gets rid of three of his heads and puts one of the heads back on. The great thing is that it looks like it is actually happening. It even looks pretty good now. It is especially impressive for it's time. Definitely watch this short film. Unless you somehow don't have a single minute open in your approximately 16 hour day.

Is this film the greatest film of all time? Probably not. It probably isn't even particularly that close. But for it's time it probably was the greatest of it's time. The director Georges Melies basically created special effects. He was way ahead of his time because of those effects. And while if they were from today they would be very obvious. I can still appreciate them quite a lot knowing the time this was made. One impressive thing is they crash a spaceship into the eye of the moon and it actually looks decent. Only one of the greatest could make that image iconic. Even if it might not have a lot of watch value for someone who isn't into cinema that much. If you are a cinephile or want to be a cinephile this is a film you have to see. If you have a list of top 10 films at least 7 of those will probably be influenced by this film in some way.

In march 2020 pixar released a movie titled Onward. Let's see what I think about it.

So this movie is good. Not great but good. The animation is great (like every pixar movie except for the ones made in the 90's). They are continuing their approach of making everything pretty much photo realistic except for the characters. As usual the animation tells you what you need to know about the main characters and I don't know how Pixar does that even in their weaker films. There isn't much more to say about the animation. It's Pixar, you know it's going to be great, let's move on.

The voice acting is also good, probably because the characters in the film are close to the actors in real life. For example Ian is a quiet and shy character. Who does that remind you of? Exactly (Tom Holland). And Barley is an outgoing goofball. Who does that remind you of? You get the idea (if you didn't know it's Chris Pratt). The voice acting is good. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if pixar just told them to play themselves. Okay they didn't but they clearly based the characters around them. Or they made the characters and realized that Ian and Barley are pretty much Tom Holland and Chris Pratt respectively, I don't know.

The characters are pretty good. There are two brothers. I already talked about the characters when I talked about the voice acting. It is a pretty common set of two characters but I mean there is a reason it is done a lot. It does work. I mean they aren't Mike and Sully but it works well enough. There is not a lot to say about the characters, they are just good. So let's get to you could say my problem (?) with the film.

The plot is the biggest problem with the film. It isn't even bad, just very predictable. I don't think my expectations even got close to being subverted in the film. Since I have seen a movie before I can somewhat predict what will happen in a movie. I pretty much knew the plot by heart before I even watched the movie. It is very linear. The emotional moments happen where you expect them to, the conflict happens where you would expect it to. You already know this plot even if you haven't seen the movie.

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't feel like a pixar film. Not because it is one of their weaker films but more the topic. The idea seems too complicated for pixar. In most of their movies they take a simple idea and expand on it to make it more interesting.In Onward they take a not so simple idea and expand on it to make it more interesting. Maybe simple isn't the right word. I guess a better word would be basic. Not in a bad way but just one idea. Onward is a fantasy story except people don't use magic anymore. What I am saying is it is kind of a loaded idea compared to some of the other Pixar films. It isn't a problem and doesn't mark it down in my head, just an observation.

This movie is good. The animation is good, the acting is good. But the movie somewhat falters with a predictable plot.

So this weekend the Hamilton movie came out on Disney Plus. This started as a Broadway show and premiered on Jan 20 2015. The movie is just the broadway shown as a movie. Which is why it is kind of interesting.

As a broadway show you would think that it wouldn't work. I myself didn't buy the hype for it and even after people said that it is really good I was still not sure whether it was good. It is pretty hard to believe a broadway show about history with rapping in it works but it does. This is a good movie.

It is hard to call this a movie, not because it isn't good (it is good) because they just filmed the broadway show (literally) and showed it on disney plus. The movie is very entertaining. It isn't that faithful to history but it is a broadway show. It can't exactly be very historically accurate and be entertaining at the same time if you want to have a good show. The music is also very good. I mean the rapping isn't top notch or even great. But it is good rapping and that is all they really needed for a good show. The movie/musical is a movie you wouldn't want to stop watching. It is very entertaining.

All in all I suggest that you watch this movie if you have disney plus. It is a great movie.

This might be the greatest film ever made. Okay you already knew that if you looked at the title. But this is more greatest film ever made than possibly any other greatest film ever made. Make sense? I agree it makes complete sense anyway onto the review.

Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest directors of all time, possibly the greatest and 2001: A Space Odyssey is his magnum opus. It has 4 parts and I want to tackle them separately.

There will be spoilers so beware I guess.

Part One

This movie starts out great. You see the Monolith and here "Also Sprach Zarathustra". You might be thinking "You don't see the monolith at the beginning you see a black screen". Here is the thing: the black screen is the monolith. The Monolith is black. Okay it might not be the monolith but I think it is. Why else would there be a black screen at the beginning. After that screen you see Humanoid type creatures. You see them living their life. Chilling in a cave, fighting other humanoids, normal prehistoric human stuff. They mysteriously see the monolith and find it very interesting. It then mysteriously aligns with one of the planets.. Then one of the apes discovers that it can use a bone as a weapon and naturally they dominate the other tribe. In the scene where they discover bones as a weapon you see the humanoid hitting the bone and break it into smaller pieces. While he is doing it you see it imagining killing another animal. Then you get one of the best cuts in movie history where the now human throws a bone in the air and cuts to a ship. Somehow this part didn't get this an oscar for best makeup. Probably because people didn't realize that it was people dressing up as apes and not actual apes. Since when were you punished for being too good at your craft.

Part Two

After one of the greatest cuts in movie history you see the spaceships with "The Blue Danube" playing in the background. You see the main character of this part Haywood Floyd in a flight to space. He then gets on the ship and you see some of the most mundane dialogue in movie history. Some people use this as a knock on the film saying it makes it boring. To be fair this movie is in many ways boring. But to me that enhances the film. The dialogue is mundane intentionally. It shows how boring human life will become when there is too much technology. He then goes to the Moon because there are mysterious things happening. On the moon they discover that it is the monolith causing what is happening. They try to take a group picture near it but the monolith stops them. It also tells them to go to jupiter. You see it aligning with one of the planets. This part is also great. The best moment in it is when one of the people working on the ship walks in no gravity. The impressive thing about that moment is that since there was no CGI at the time they had to put the person in a rotating room. But it is done so seamlessly you don't notice.

Part Three

Part three is called the jupiter mission. In part three you get in my opinion one of the greatest characters in movie history. Dave! Just Kidding. It is actually Hal-9000 the A.I. So many iconic lines. At the beginning you see life on the ship with Dave and Frank. You see Dave jogging with artificial gravity. You find out three other scientists are on the ship hibernating. This turns out to be a horrible decision. Pretty early in you can see that Hal seems to be sentient. In a pretty funny moment in an interview with Dave, Frank and Hal you see the interviewer saying "I sense pride in his voice" it is funny because Hal is a robot and always talks in the same voice. Dave goes space walking to fix an antenna Hal can't find what is wrong. This causes Hal to go kind of crazy because he isn't supposed to make any mistakes. Dave and Frank agree to shut off Hal and make sure Hal doesn't hear them. Unfortunately Hal can read their lips and goes rogue. When Frank goes space walking Hal decides to kill him by using the robot to turn off his oxygen. Hal then kills all of the people in hibernation making Dave the only one alive. When Dave goes on his mission he says "Open the Pod Bay doors Hal" then Hal says one of the greatest and most iconic lines in movie history "I'm sorry Dave I am afraid I can't do that". Around then was when I realized that the way Hal talked made it sound like kind of a psychopath. Dave then shuts off Hal. This part is probably the best part of the movie and that is impressive. It is the original Robot Revolt storyline. Probably still the best.

Part 4

So this is the part that apparently bothers some people. You see Dave seeing the Monolith and starts investigating it. He happens to align with the Monolith while it is aligning with all of the planets. You then see him go through a color show of travel that is probably interdimensional.. Which eventually leads him to a very Kubrick room. He sees an older version of himself. You then see that older version of himself walk around the place and sees an even older version of himself. That even older version sees a dying version of Dave in a bed looking at the monolith. You then go into the Monolith's point of view and Dave becomes a Star Baby. You then see Dave looking at the earth and then probably breaks the fourth wall as if it is aware of the camera and probably also the audience.. People endlessly theorize what happened. Some people think that this part is extremely confusing and find it annoying because there are no answers. All I can say is that it is intentionally confusing. For me it seems like Dave is evolving into the next form of life. And just like the previous evolution The Monolith caused it to happen. That is just my theory. Unlike what some people think in my opinion no matter what the explanation is it is a great part.

Many people think this film is too confusing. I didn't find it too confusing. It is complicated but not confusing. With a film like this you can't just sit there and watch it as if it is star wars. You can't expect it to be the most entertaining thing ever. You are supposed to think. And if you don't like thinking you might not like this. You should still probably watch it because you might discover that you do actually like thinking. If you are anything like me and you do like thinking, watch this film. You will probably like it.

Pixar just released a new movie and if you know my thoughts on Pixar you know I had to watch it. This movie is great in fact it is somewhat of a comeback from Onward. Which was not bad, but just pretty good. This movie is great, the best Pixar movie since Coco. I hope I am not hyping it up too much because it isn't all time great but it is great. I don't know if it will be a classic the same way Wall-e or Ratatouille is. One of the biggest positives is the fact this is probably the best animated Pixar film. Some of the beings look like they were taken out of a Picasso painting. Also there was this one scene where they zoom out from the city. It looks photo-realistic. They have come a long way. The characters are pretty interesting. The main character (his name is Joe) is a band teacher who loves jazz music. It is his "spark". On the way he meets a soul who is called 22 throughout the film. Soul 22 doesn't want to go to earth. He/She can't find a spark. Soul 22 doesn't know why someone would want to live on earth until he/she walks in Joe's shoes (literally). The story is the most important part of a film and I am going to unpack the story without spoiling it. The story is good, great even, it just doesn't have a spark (pun is intended). You get to see Joe go into the great before, meet 22, go back into the world as a dog, 22 gets to see the beauty of life etc. When I left this movie I ultimately didn't feel anything. This might make some people mad but the ending in this movie reminds me of the ending of onward. Not a bad ending but just disappointing. Maybe I have come to expect Pixar to have a specific kind of ending that makes you cry and all that. I could see why you would like that kind of ending but I found it a little uninteresting. And it is not like I can't like an inconclusive ending. Spirited Away is my favorite movie of all time and it has an inconclusive ending. But the thing about Spirited Away's ending is that it isn't abrupt. In Spirited Away Chihiro says goodbye to Haku and then meets her parents and you see them drive away. I don't want to spoil anything so all I will say that it seems like one thing is going to happen and then another thing does.

This movie is great, it just doesn't have a "spark" or what I like to call the x factor that turns a great movie into an all time great movie.

In Late december 2020 Warner Bros released the sequel to 2017's Wonder Woman. The original Wonder Woman is pretty good. Don't let the Rotten Tomatoes score fool you into thinking that it is some great piece of cinema. This movie hasn't gotten that same kind of universal acclaim that the original has. This movie is meh. It isn't a disaster but it isn't good either. I hated all of the action scenes. They all seemed unnecessary. I mean I know superhero movies need action scenes but couldn't they give them more of a point. The only point of the first action scene is to show that Wonder Woman is awesome. Most of the action scenes are to show that Wonder Woman is awesome. The end action scene is bad. It looks like what would happen if you put two action figures in a room and the room somehow short circuited. And like every other action scene in the film it is unnecessary. The acting is mixed. After watching this movie I can fairly safely say that Gal Gadot isn't a very good actress. She doesn't seem to have much range as an actress. This movie really shows that. Kristin Wiig does a decent job in the first two stages of her character. But at the end she really just becomes a generic movie villain. Pedro Pascal does a good job in the movie as Maxwell Lord. For me he is the real highlight of the movie. In fact I don't know If I really dislike any of the scenes he is in. The underlying plot is not awful. It is decent. What is bad is some of the unnecessary stuff they add into it. The first is awful. Most of the scenes are unnecessary, especially the beginning one. I'm trying to imagine the discussion in the writer's room for that scene.

Writer 1 "hey I have an idea"

Writer 2 "what is it"

Writer 1 "so you know how Wonder Woman is basically perfect?"

Writer 2 "of course I do"

Writer 1 "Well she wasn't always that way"

Writer 2 "no way... Can we do that?"

Writer 1 "It is a little risky but I think it can payoff"

Writer 2 "That sounds like good writing"

Writer 1 "yeah when she was a child she wasn't perfect"

Writer 2 "But now she is"

Writer 1 "exactly"

Writer 2 "you are a good writer, this scene is some good character development for the movie"

The second act is actually pretty good. You get to see Pedro Pascal's character more and Barbara starts to develop. The third act isn't that good. The action scenes continue to be pointless. It isn't as bad as the first act but it isn't good either.



4/10