Angel_Meiru

Okay, I'm a fan of Tim Burton and I also think Johnny Depp is talented (seems like I'm one of the few girls who likes Depp not just for his looks), but I think they both blew it big time when remaking Willy Wonka.

Okay, neither version are that faithful to the book (which movie is faithful to books?), but I liked the 1971 version of Willy Wonka a lot better. In the book and 1971 version, Charlie has human flaws, Violet is a girly girl and the TV addict is smart. With this version, they throw everything out the window. Charlie is a perfect little saint, Violet is a feminist tomboy (catering to Politically Correct beliefs of Americans maybe), Veruca is nowhere near as obnoxoius as she was in the old movie and book and the TV kid is dumb and plays video games (another half-@$$ misguided message that video games rot your brain is being featured in this film. Video Games do NOT rot your brain!).

Oh, did I mention the special effects? The computer graphics in this movies were awful and fake looking. I mean blueberry girl Violet looked totally fake and the CG look outdated, even for a Tim Burton movie.

And finally... WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO THE OOMPA LOOMPAS? They're no longer green and orange, and they sing RAP SONGS! This screams 1995 instead of 2005.

Even talented Johnny Depp looked like he was bored and was overacting. That's sad, because Depp can do so much better.

If you like Burton, watch Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride. If you like Depp, watch Pirates of the Caribbean. If you like Dahl in general, read the book or watch the 1971 movie.

But if you want to watch train wrecks with outdated special effects and lame jokes, watch this movie. However, watch it at your own risk!

Okay, it may not be faithful to the book (then again, has there ever been a novel based movie faithful to the books?), but it's still a lovable film with charm and character.

The special effects in this film are rather realistic looking. That's kind of ironic, because this is one of these films where the special effects are more realistic than the ones in the remake. And the remake was made in 2005! What does that tell you? The plot is rather good too. Sure, like I said, it strays from the book in some ways, but the characters seem to be more faithful to the book. Charlie is a normal human boy with flaws like everyone else. Violet isn't a tomboy and has a feminazi mother, Veruca throws tantrums and screams and the TV addict boy is smart as well as smart allecky. And Willy Wonka seemed more likable in this version as well.

My favorite parts are the Oompa Loompa songs and the creepy boat ride scene. Come on, who wasn't freaked out by the boat scene when they were little? Sad that they don't make movies like this anymore. I recommend this movie all the way!

I remember Nezha being my first Chinese Anime I have ever seen (for the longest time, I thought this movie was Japanese or Korean, since I seen both Japanese and Korean dubbed versions of this movie).

The animation is beautifully crafted and very detailed. The plot is also good too. It's about a boy named Nezha (I thought he was a girl at first though. What is it with anime and feminine looking males?), his fight against the dragons, the sacrifices that he made and his resurrection into godhood.

However, avoid the English dubbed version of this movie like a virus. The dubbing is awful. Nezha sounds stuffy, the fake Chinese accents were grating and worse yet, the authentic Chinese soundtrack was replaced with cheesy synthesizer music. Worst Americanization of an Anime (besides Lensman, another victim of bad Americanization back in the 1980's). No wonder China has been angry at the western world.

Luckily, it looks like the subtitled version is more widely available. I recommend you seeing this. It is proof that not all anime is 100% Japanese.

I loved the TMNT graphic novels when I was little. They were dark, they were even scary at times, yet it was charming and enjoyable by even the most discriminatory comic book and manga goers.

When I heard there was going to be a TMNT animated series, I was excited. That day in 1987 (or was it 1988), I tuned in to it for the first time. I was outraged and started seeing red after watching this show. I ended up watching this on Saturday mornings because I was waiting for the Super Mario Bros Super Show to come on.

This is like turning a PG or PG-13 comic into a G rated Disney fare. I can see why I liked the first live action movie so much better. Shredder in the comics is scary, menacing and just plain blood thirsty. I hate what they did to him in the cartoon. They turned Shredder into a goofy Disney villain wannabe with bumbling sidekicks Rocksteady and Bebop (who were NOT in the original comics). Krang was not scary anymore and was toned down to be a goofball with an annoying voice. Heck, the voice acting and animation was just intolerable, even by 80's standards. Oh and another thing, WHAT HAPPENED TO ANGSTY EMO RAPHAEL? And wasn't Splinter always a rat and never a human? If you want to see an experience close to Eastman and Laird's works, watch the first live action movie. This animated series is suck a friggin' joke. Or even yet, look for the original graphic novels (not the awful Archie comics version though). You'll enjoy them a lot more, I promise ^_^

Final Fantasy VI maybe the most popular and most hyped FF games for the Super NES, but did it really deserve all that hype? To me, it didn't.

The plot started out good on the first half. Tina, the esper hybrid wanting to find out more about herself and after getting amnesia in the town of Narche, she wants to know more about the meaning of life and love. So Lock and friends try everything they could to help her out and make sure Cefca/Kefka doesn't lay a hand on her. The first have is really well done, but this was the first FF game in my books to have some really, truly annoying one-dimensional characters in it. Out of all the 14 characters in this game, only Tina, Lock, Celes, Shadow and Edgar are truly developed. And even some of the truly developed characters can grate on my nerves after a while.

But the part where Cefca destroyed everything, that's when the game totally fell apart. The plot went in circles and the annoying characters of the bunch got even more annoying to the point where I was rooting for Cefca just to kill those panty waist whiners. The ending is also a real cop-out as well. None of the main playable characters die, like they do in the other FF games. And I so wanted that to happen because there were a few that annoyed me to no end. Oh well, at least I wrote a gory fanfic where one of the FFVI characters is granted a slow, painful death.

The gameplay was fun at first. Each character has his/her own unique abillities (eg. Realm-Sketch, Mog-Dance, Tina-Transform, etc.) early on in the game. But as we reach the post-apocalypse part, it gets boring and repetitve. I didn't much like the Esper/Genjyu system as much as I did the other FF systems (though FFVIII's draw system is much worse IMO). After everyone learned all the same spells, their unique abillities were useless and everyone was alike. Rudra no Hihou/Treasure of the Rudras also has flawed gameplay, but at least the characters were likable and didn't get on my nerves.

The soundtrack on the other hand, is very well done and gorgeous. Everyone has his/her own theme and the music is very memorable. My favorite tracks are Realm's theme, Tina's theme, and Dancing mad (the final boss music). This is the only thing that I found remotely flawless about this game.

Overall, FFVI is okay, but it's not the best RPG ever made in my books. If you want good "Final Fantasy" games, play FFIV, FFV, FFXII or even the FFVII franchise. But if you're looking for non-FF RPGS, play the "Seiken Densetsu/Mana" series or the "Valkyrie Profile series. FFVI is worth playing once, but I didn't play it again after that.

No, I have nothing against violent or graphic video games (love God of War and Grand Theft Auto), but too bad gory video games got off on a bad start with rubbish like this.

Even though graphics may have improved with the sequel, but it's still nothing to write home about. In every single game, it looks like the characters move as stiff as Barbie dolls and the attacks are super choppy. Even though the fatality system is an interesting concept, but they relied too much on this gimmick that they forgot about everything else. Killer Instinct did a much better job at the fatality system and is much more funner to play.

The characters, oh the characters...they're all...FUGLY looking. Even the human character don't look human. Everybody has small squinty eyes, big noses pressed up to their face and have so much muscle to the point where it looks disgusting. Even the ugliest Soul Calibur monster is way cuter looking than any of them. Are the female characters suppose to be hot? Because to me, they look like light weight males with fake boobs, they don't even look remotely feminine. And they're all as interesting and likable as dog poop. Despite their separate fatalities and move sets, they characters seem to have no real personality outside of that.

The only reason why I played this series is because kids were egging me on to playing this crap and I wanted to prove to them that I'm no "Barney lover" or "Pokemon fangirl". I even gave the sequels a chance, but no can do. I just simply loathe it.

If you want good gory video games, play Grand Theft Auto or God of War.

If you want a good fighting game with an interesting plot, lovable characters and good top notch quality, play the Soul Calibur series.

If you want a fighting game with a decent fatality system, play Killer Instinct.

If you want a good game in general, play "Final Fantasy XII" or "Legend of Zelda: Twillight Princess".

If you want to play overrated tripe that gets too much hype, play "Mortal Kombat" (or what I call it "Major Krapage").

Soul Calibur has always been my favorite fighting game series of all time. And SCIII is my favorite one of the series.

The graphics are very well done. Much bigger improvement over the choppy polygons in Soul Edge/Soul Blade. The characters have facial expressions, hair blows in the breeze and they even blink.

Soul Calibur has always been known for it's interesting plots and characters and SCIII is no exception. Each character has his/her background story that is detailed and well done. My favorite character is Chai Xianghua. She's cute, she's funny and she's a strong female character. Yeah, I know she wears pink and has a boyfriend (who she ends up saving BTW), but there seems to be more to her than that. Xianghua, like all the other characters, have flaws and upsides to their personalities, so no character is perfect, not even the good guys.

The music is beautifully composed for a fighting game series. It doesn't sound kitchy (the Vampire series) nor does it sound like old school porn film soundtrack (Mortal Kombat). The characters have their own themes and a lot of the themes are done to match the culture of that certain part of the world. I don't think there is a song on this soundtrack I don't like.

Another cool thing about this game is to create your own anime-like character (Create a Soul). You could make him/her look as cute or as sexy or even ugly if you like. However, if you found a character customization that you like, remember to take notes, or else you won't remember how you created that character. I found myself being very addicted to CaS.

Overall, I think Soul Calibur is my number one fighting game series of all time. It has everything I asked for. What more could I want?

I was forced to watch this movie by one of my ex-friends, who is a major Britney Spears fan. And man, I just couldn't take it. I spent most of my time screaming, whimpering and banging my head against the wall.

It's a stupid teen movie that is clichéd to the max. It's basically about Britney Spears and her friends going on a roadtrip after being reunited with each other. Yes, that's the plot. and besides, Britney Spears is so talentless, that she makes Pia Zadora look like Mae West.

I swear, at least Spice World was the "so bad it's funny" type movie, but Crossroads is in the Manos class, as in "so bad it's traumatizing".

But at least I got even and showed my ex-friend "Manos the Hands of Fate". And I don't regret it either.

What is soooo great about "Roseanne"? Some say it's realistic, but if she got away with some of that stuff in real life, she would be frowned upon by many.

Why do all the women sleep with anything in site? What example is this to set. And the fact that they never heard of birth control or abortion clinics is just as much insulting. Where these people worried about angering Christians? Why mention homosexuality, but not different types of birth control? That's what I don't get.

Then there is the portrayal of lesbians that offended me. Not all lesbians cross dress like men and hate men. Heck, I've had some lesbian friends that look and dress like women and have male friends. I think that is more insulting than empowering.

Of course Roseanne is simply just a *****. She steals, she almost resorts to alcoholism, is a hypocrite and she is rather sexist. What do I mean by sexist? Her constant jokes about how women should not go nude, yet she calls all men that are straight perverts and pigs. Now if she were insulting Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Hispanics or Hmong people, she would be in so much trouble.

I'm sorry, but I had to get that out. I just can't stand that wench.

Yes, I admit, there are some of the Final Fantasy games I like before FFVIII and the other latter titles came out. But Final Fantasy V sticks to me like bees stick to honey.

The story is in three parts: Butz's world (trying to save the crystals), Galuf's world (Galuf trying to stop the main evil himself) and Ex-Death's world (Destroy the Void and the evil mage himself). Without spoiling any of the plot or characters, you'll be pleased with the story and the likable cast of characters. Who says you need a big cast when you can have a few wonderfully developed cast. Not to mention the job system is very fun and addicting. You can even mix and match abilities.

The only flaw is the graphics and sound. The graphics look EXACTLY like FFIV's graphics. And even though the soundtrack was good in some spots, but a lot of the music sounded way too happy and perky. Sounds more like a kiddy game music than it does earth in distress music.

Just too bad this FF got overshadowed by FFIV and FFVI and was never released in America in trhe SNES days. It's far superior to FFVI in story, gameplay and characters. Play it and give it a chance.

Before the era of Political Correctness, Disney made some good animation. The World War II shorts were no exception.

I noticed some of the PC crowd mislabeled this short as being pro-Nazi, because it shows Donald Duck working for the Nazi. NOT TRUE! Sure, he does work for them, but against his will. And all is revealed to be a dream and Donald is thankful of living in America.

I also like the very end part were Hitler gets a tomato thrown in his face.

Get Disney's "On the Front Lines" collection for good historical WWII shorts.

OMG, another bad film by Larry Buchanan. That guy did not learn to stop, did he? First, he gives us zero budget sci-fi movies and lies about famous dead people, and now he is exploiting the Loch Ness Monster as being vicious.

The "plot" is basically about some southerners of the USA pretending to be Scottish camping out at Loch Ness. Alas, out on the fishing hole, oops, I mean lake of Loch Ness, there is a killer inflatable monster that clams itself to be Nessie, going out of its way to kill people for no apparent reason.

I am surprised that the crew of MST3K never heard of this movie. Yes, it is that bad too.

Whenever you think of Disney, you think of sweetness, syrup on sugar and other senemental stuff. Not so with this short nor any of the other shorts that were featured on "Disney's on the Front Lines".

"Education for Death" deals with a child named Hans, whom is pure Aryan, growing up on Nazi idealogy. When he shows sympathy, he is immediately punished. Later, he grows up into a Nazi soldier and becomes as brutal and heartless as the rest of his fellow classmates. No happy ending follows either, which is a relief, since most of Disney movies end happily ever after.

Watch for the fairy tale scene with Hitler rescuing a fat girl depicting Germany. That scene is priceless.

Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka) is one of the most powerful and beautifully made movies based on WWII.

It is not about the leaders or military, but about the people themselves. Two orphans Seita and Setsuko lost their home to the air bombs, where thrown out of the house of their angry Aunt and forced to live on their own in the bomb shelters.

Some people have complained that this movie is pro-Tojo and anti-American, but it's not. It is just simply a point of view from the common folk of that country, and everyone of every country, whether in War or Peace, have a story to tell.

Did you know that this movie is based off of the semi-true story of Akiyuki Nosaka, who also lost his sister to starvation. Feeling guilty of all this, he writes this story, with Seita's death symbolizing the slow mental dying in the poor man's mind.

It is a powerful movie, I recommend this movie for everyone to see. It has a well meaning message of the hardships of WWII.

I have always liked this movie. It was also the first Godzilla movie to be made in color as well.

The only gripe I have is that the American version is butchered and slaughtered beyond recognition. Whose bright idea was that? First off, they changed the plot in the US version. King Kong vs Godzilla is SUPPOSE to be SILLY people. It is NOT meant to be taken seriously like the US edit makes it out to be. The original plot mocks commercialism and publicity seekers. However, they decided to add "UN" scenes which do not add up to anything at all.

Second, most of the soundtrack has been changed from Ikufube's score to stock music of various Universal movies, making things more out of place.

Third, the dubbing in the US version is AWFUL! I seen the official Toho version of this movie dubbed in English and even if it was not the voice actor's first language, it is way better than the atrocious Universal dubbing.

So with that off my shoulders, I recommend you get the official Toho print and skip the US version.

Ratings (US version) 3/10 Ratings (Official version) 9/10

I remember seeing a recent MST3K episode featuring this "Merlin" movie, and oy, I got to tell you, the editor of this film should be fired (or sued by Stephen King for using one of his short stories in this movie).

There are two plots dealing with Merlin, the sorceror, or as Ernest Borgnine told us. One story actually has Merlin interacting with people and the other one only has him just asking people for his toy monkey *snickers*. The rest and the intro of the film is basically stock footage from "The Devil's Gift" which is (from what I have heard) based off of Stephen King's "The Monkey", featured in his short story collection "The Skeleton Crew".

And speaking of "The Devil's Gift", I saw the version uncut in a Jr. High English class, and though the film was not very memorable, the ending was. Originally, in the end of "The Devil's Gift", the whole family dies, including the hyperactive little brat. However, in "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders", they poorly edit that, making it look like Merlin saved them, which never happens (if you listen in the background, you can hear the family screaming in agony).

This film should be shown in a motion picture class at school, as an example on how NOT to edit a film.

At first, when I heard there was a Zeiram 2, I was a bit doubtful about it and was fearing that it would not be as good as the first movie and anime series, but boy, was I surprised at the results.

Zeiram 2 follows Iria and her smart alecky sidekick Fujikuro, Teppei and Kamiya and a mad group of warriors. As these warriors try to rid of Iria, Zeiram strangely shows up and kills everyone, but spares her. It is revealed that the unit was covered up and sealed. But that would not last long, since the evil priest destroys and bleeds all over the unit, unmasking Zeiram's killer persona, and even eats a dog in one gulp.

Man, a lot happens in this movie. It is even a little more intense than the first one. Just too bad Amemiya did not make a Zeiram 3. That would be cool.

A prequel to begin a great movie franchise, Iria: Zeiram the Animation is definitely a well done anime.

It starts out with our heroine Iria, trying to stay in touch with her brother, only to have things go awry. When landing on a Spaceship called Karma, people are fleeing from a bio-mechanical robot monster called Zeiram. Her brother falls victim to the monster, sets slums on fire and devours people and gives birth to strange mutations, and he must be stopped at all costs.

Though it might not completely beat the live-action movies, it is great and entertaining, and is definitely not a typical repetitive anime that we all get sick and tired of.

BTW, Iria and Kei are cuuuuuuuute!

Keita Amemiya is the man. Both of the Zeiram movies and animated series proves that.

The film follows a woman from Planet Myce named Iria and her computer sidekick Bobu coming to Earth, tracking down the wherabouts of Zeiram, a bio-mechanical robot controlled by a living unit in its forehead.

But things do not run as smoothly as planned. Two locals named Kamiya and Teppei stumble into Iria's fort and mess things up. Zeiram finally comes into Iria's zone and starts to terrorize the civilians and it is up to Iria to save them and contain Zeiram.

Zeiram sure is a different breed of Sci-Fi movie, and there are great looking enemy designs to boot and a memorable female lead that make these movies worth while.

Labyrinth is not a bad movie, but it is nothing spectacular either. To me, it is a good movie, nothing more, nothing less.

The visuals were good, the Labyrinth looked believable and the puppets looked very detailed and life like. The soundtrack was good too, thought they did break out into songs quite a bit.

The only problem I had with this movie was the story and some of the characters. At least in the Dark Crystal, you could feel sympathy for what Jen and Kira had to go though. And the Skeksis were actually evil and meanacing, and not moronic. But I had a hard time feeling bad for Sarah. She is a snotty, crybaby little ***** and deserved what was coming to her. The goblins were not even scary or menacing at all. They came off as a bunch of circus clowns. And don't get me started with the Goblin King. Though I liked his character, IMO, he looked more bizarre than sexy.

Labyrinth is a good movie, but not as splendid as a lot of people make it out to be.

Well, at least IMO, Labyrinth is more entertaining than the Harry Potter series (Then again, I think washing dishes is a lot more entertaining than the Harry Potter series).

I found a movie that is a perfect family favorite. Based off of the 1986 children's book, the Polar Express follows a boy whom feels doubtful of Christmas hopping on a magical train, meets new friends and go on a railroad journey of a lifetime.

This movie is exciting, touching, cute and admirable. A lot of work went into this movie and it is well worth your time. It is not an emotionless G rated movie (like most in this PC era), it was full of twists and turns and you could feel both sympathy and relief for the characters (especially the Lonesome little boy in the back of the train).

I wish there would be more family movies like this instead of plot less toilet humor flicks.

"Valkyrie Profile" had to be one of the best RPGs out there. From fun gameplay to wonderful character designs, VP has it. The plot follows a Valkyrie named Lenneth that serves Odin, Frey and Freya. To prove her worthiness, the Valkyrie must collect souls of the dying and purge the world of the undead.

The only disappointment I find is Ending A, the "best" ending. I mean are you so suppose to feel happy that she shuns all the ones that helped her and fall for a man (Lucio) that simply thinks of the past life and does nothing for her at all in the previous life? Lord how I hated Lucio. Sure, he maybe a strong fighter in your party, but he was such a useless whiner of a character that always lived in the past and sits on his hands throughout the whole game. Heck, Ending B and C made a lot more sense, even though they were simplistic endings, but far more tolerable.

Oh well, she did it anyway and it made for a terrible ending. Lenneth should have just thanked the people that helped her (yes, even the mad scientist Lezard, whom sacrificed elves just to make a body for her), and just moved on with saving Midgard and Asgard. Instead she decided not to only just ignore the people whom saved her from nearly dying at the hands of her evil sister Arlie, but to avenge the death of Lucio and bring him, out of all things back to life. And comparing most humanity to Lucio was just blowing it out of proportion even more.

"Yay! Not only do I save the worlds of the mortals and gods, I save the worthless loser that never lets his past go. HOORAY!" (If you can't tell, I was being sarcastic)

"Hurricane Sword" is about a girl that was blinded in an accident triumphing in swordplay. On her way, she hears about the mother that left her behind is still alive from her uncle. Alas, a tragedy happens and the heroine of the film wants justice, and tries to save her friends from Prostitution and a gang of mad swordsmen, led by no one other than Sonny Chiba.

Pretty well done film and a likable heroine. You can actually feel for her and she is more human than a lot of Hollywood heroines. Though she is blind, the woman tries not to let that get into her way of her meaningful quest.

I recommend you sit down and watch this film. You may just like it.

Yes, you may laugh, but I actually LIKE, no wait, ADORE this Zelda game. A lot may have hated it, but to me, it was a breath of fresh air.

Like "Link's Awakening", Majora's mask is one of the few games that have very little or nothing to do with the Princess herself. Instead, it follows Child Link after his long quest in OoT. He searches for his friend (a bird faced scarecrow child), but as he does, he learns about a dark secret. His friend is possessed by a demonic mask and starts to wreak havoc. As Link pursues him (it?), he stumble upon the world that his possessed friend is causing trouble in. If that is not worse, a great conjunction will come, and the planet will collide with the moon in THREE days, so Link must go travel back and forth in time to save this world and his possessed friend before all is lost.

Between Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time both of them are awesome but Majora's Mask pull ahead, due to original plot and a lot of loose ends to tie up. The game is very non-linear, leaving you with a lot to see and do.

Thank goodness they released this on the "Zelda Collection" on the Ninendo Gamecube. I do not regret playing this at all.

BTW, the strange kid in the game is quite cute without Majora's MAsk ^_^

Man, what isn't there to like about this movie? Sure the SFX are kinda low-budget and some of the actors sort of ham it up, but imagine if this film was made today with CG and bland actors whom take everything seriously, it just would not be the same movie.

The movie follows, well, two scientists whom drill beneath the Earth's core, run into bizarre monsters (whom looked like they were kicked out of Daiei's Gamera films BTW), become slaves, and explore the strange world and so on. I don't remember the novel very well, but I sure know that this movie is one of those "so cheesy and wild, it's hard to forget" type of movies.

BTW, check out the part with Jubal the Ugly one! PRICELESS!