Mr. Hakujin

Whoa! I slacked off big time posting in 2018! Here is an article with not one, not two, but 99 facts about 2018 that will hopefully give you the feelgoods. I quoted a few favorites below.

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Rwanda became the first low-income country to provide universal eye care to all of its citizens, by training 3,000 nurses in over 500 health clinics. Global Citizen 

 

Canada became the second country in the world to legalize marijuana. A major crack in the grass ceiling, and a wonderful moment for fans of evidence-based decision making everywhere. BBC

 

Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace treaty, signaling the end of a 20-year war, and reuniting thousands of families. BBC

 

Adidas expects to sell five million pairs of shoes made from ocean plastic this year, and committed to using only recycled plastic in its products by 2024. CNN

13 hours ago, Bindusara said:

Love it. Got the "meta" ending I guess? I haven't looked up the other endings but it was a fun way to spend an evening. 

 

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by meta ending i mean the one where dudes daughter makes the reboot of the game FOR netflix. I realize this could be confused by the one where you pick the netflix option that i've heard about.

 

I got that one, too. I suppose I got four endings total. I'll describe them in spoilers as best I can recall.

The S1 trailer set to Metallica was one of the greatest trailers Netflix ever put out. This one...not so much.

Bandersnatch(ed away 2hrs of my life)! The way it was presented was a neat gimick, but the story was all kinds of meh. 2 1/2 stars.

Apparently I wasn't the only one less than thrilled with it.  Shame Poulter was getting shit as his Ritman was one of the best things about that episode.

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Poulter, who plays hotshot video game designer Colin Ritman in Charlie Brooker’s interactive episode that launched on Netflix on 28 December 2018, released a statement on Twitter, saying “I accept all criticisms” but that he felt it best for him to avoid the “inevitable negatives” that come from social media engagements.

 

The actor was subjected to offensive comments about his appearance on social media in the week since the episode appeared.

Loved Super Dave as a kid, loved Mart Funkhouser as an adult. Loved those clips NZA posted--"(It's) in the sink."  Sad to see Bob Einstein go. (I don't think I knew he was brothers with Albert Brooks. Wonder why they didn't work together more?)

Hopefully Bob was well enough to have shot some episodes for the latest season of Curb. Even if he didn't, that last season was Funkhouser gold.

On 12/29/2018 at 11:43 PM, The NZA said:

so donny pushed this one (since all the memes are trying to spoil it...) and this shit was good!  still haven't seen quiet place yet, but the cast was solid & performances as well

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i dug that we didn't quite get the rules down on the crazies/servants until after gary played his hand too.

it also did a good job of doing the usual throwing you into the deep end but giving you the rules quick enough (without showing the monsters), the back-and-forth between scenarios is something that's pretty standard but often one of them tends to be more interesting for me & the other half drags, that wasn't the case here

 

 

just great tension/horror about and i kept thinking they did it with pushing most of the $ towards the casting but scenes like the beginning downfall & the river couldn't have been cheap either 

Agreed on all accounts. I wasn't too keen on this from the trailer but after the onslaught of memes on social media I gave it a try today and was not disappointed. Yep, it's very similar to A Quiet Place in terms of premise, but not in such a way where you feel like you're seeing a copy. Also, for a suspense film that two hours long, the director did a fantastic job of pacing and editing. I was not bored once during this film. It's also the best thing Bullock's done since Gravity.

Eighteen questions about the last year in entertainment.

1. What was your favorite live event (concert, sporting event, play, festival, convention, etc.) you attended in 2018?
2. Favorite musical artist of 2018?
3. What song did you hit “repeat” on the most in 2018?
4. Favorite book and/or comic you read in 2018?
5. Favorite TV show you binge watched in 2018?
6. Favorite TV show you watched week to week in 2018?
7. Favorite animated series of 2018?
8. Favorite animated film of 2018?
9. Favorite documentary of 2018?
10. Favorite comedy film of 2018?
11. Favorite action and/or sci-fi film of 2018?
12. Favorite drama and/or romance film of 2018?
13. Favorite video game of 2018?
14. Favorite YouTube channel in 2018?
15. What’s your favorite/most used app on your smartphone in 2018?
16. Who is the one entertainer that died in 2018 you’d bring back? (There can be only one!)
17. What was your 2018 like as depicted in emojis or a single .gif?
18. What entertainment experience (concert, film, TV show, game, etc.) are you most looking forward to in 2019?

Aquaman
B+
The action in this film is engaging while the CGI underwater scenes are stunning. However, the bits where the two leads, Jason Mamoa and Amber Heard, are together are mediocre at best. And their on-screen chemistry is nonexistent. Overall, this is a flawed and bloated film, but comparatively speaking it’s a win for the DCEU and worthy of seeing on the big screen if you’re a fan of the genre.

Bumblebee
B
It's got G1 inspired Transformer designs, Autobot v Decepticon battle action on Cybertron, and muhfuh triple changers! All of those are reasons for any Transformers fan to see it on a big screen. However, be prepared to be actively bored and confused by some perplexing script & editing decisions for the remainder of the film. 

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [3D]
A
Wow. This is an amazing film from start to finish. It’s got heart, humor, action, and a hero’s journey that resonates on a core, collectively human level. I love 3D films, and this one utilizes the technology in a superior fashion to most others. However, some may not appreciate the varying animation styles on screen and how this film is shot at 12 frames per second instead of the usual 24 frames, which gives it a somewhat clunky feel to the movement. Personally, I found the animation to be spectacular, and I look forward to seeing this again on the big screen.

Ralph Breaks the Internet (Wreck-It Ralph 2)
B
This takes on a complicated topic regarding being insecure and overly clingy in friendships, which is ambitious for a kids’ film. It also does a great job of visualizing the “world” of the Web in the same way it did for video games in the original film. However, it’s much too concerned with what’s “trending” and as such leans too heavily on popular trends/phrases that’ve already gone the way of the dodo.

Mary Poppins Returns
D
Maybe you’ll find this latest Disney Studio dig into the pit of nostalgia more enjoyable than I did, but maybe you also like getting punched in the face. No judgment. I wanted to leave the theater 15 minutes in to this film, but I love the original so much that I forced myself to stay in hopes of the film redeeming itself. No redemption was to be found—only cringing and anger over how so many mistakes were made in this remake/soft-reboot poorly disguised as a sequel.  

Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald [3D]
B-
 The pacing and structure of the film is a mess, but it’s pretty to look at. The plot was much too convoluted and uneven. It felt like a truncated version of a Rowling novel where the B-story became the A-story, the main characters were given short shrift, and the ending is a non-ending pseudo cliffhanger. Meh.

Widows
B-
This film has an outstanding cast, decent script, and abysmally languid pacing. For a heist film it also unfortunately had very little suspense. The reviews for this one definitely over-hyped it, and that ending scene was anticlimactic, to put it mildly.

A Star Is Born (2018)
A-
A really barebones but emotional love story between two flawed people and their passion for making music. Bradley Cooper does a great job in directing and performing as does Lady Gaga and Sam Elliot in an Oscar(bait) worthy performance.

On 12/13/2018 at 8:50 AM, Bindusara said:

New stories that will be cancelled in February: The Punisher

Brutal but accurate.

This is what the Lego Batman Movie was for Batman only with truly stunning animation, a multi-verse sci-fi twist, and a (slightly) more serious tone. The animation was everything the trailers promised, and it popped beautifully on a 3D screen. I just wish I could've caught it in IMAX 3D. My friend didn't like the 12 frames per second (usually film is shot at 24 frames per second) and thought the animation was "too jerky." However, I didn't notice it at all. I high'y recommend seeing this one on the big screen.

On 12/17/2018 at 1:37 PM, Axels said:

So Bumblebee is getting really good reviews. Like really good.

It's got G1 inspired Transformer designs, Autobot v Decepticon battle action on Cybertron, and muhfuh triple changers! All of those are reasons for any Transformers fan to see it on a big screen. However, be prepared to be actively bored and confused by some ponderous script decisions for the remainder of the film. There was a family with four kids in front of us and I was paying attention to their conversations for a good 20 minutes in act 2 of the film. But it's still probably the best Transformers "live action" film yet to be released. I only say probably because it's been about a decade since I saw the first Bayformers film, so I'd have to re-watch it before I definitively give Bumblebee the official title.

^ Yeah, nice, but where my Mordo  mention at tho?

Yeup, those are the episode titles. I think they did the same thing w/ S2, yeah?

I read where a DD writer thought the show was "too big to fail" after S3, so when she was called in to the meeting where they told her DD was canceled she was totally...(wait...for...it)...blindsided. 

Charlie Cox gave a brief interview to EW about the cancellation. He was very diplomatic and mentioned he knew about S4 plot points but didn't want to reveal them lest he give 'false hope" to fans that those stories would ever happen. He says he'd love to play DD/MM again but doesn't know how it could ever happen. Which leads me to this other bit I read about Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sepinwell describing the relationship between MCU & Marvel TV producers like a parody of Mean Girls. Basically Disney+ could resurrect these characters on their platform but won't. Again, this is just one critic's opinion and not gospel. However, it doesn't look great for our Netflix-verse characters integrating into Disney+.

On 12/4/2018 at 9:39 PM, Jables said:

Two outliers tethered to big franchises: Venom & Solo.

 

Both were charming to me for weirdly the same reason: They both reeked of the 90's. 

 

Venom had to be set in San Fran for obvious reasons but the scenery and backdrop took me straight back to the Vs Spiderman & Separation Anxiety SNES games, and certainly the buddy-cop tone and additional characters support this feel. That cameo at the end was great, but so damned arbitrarily inserted.

 

Solo pulled in hallmarks of 90's expanded universe lore. There's reference to Teras Kasi, Sabacc and probably plenty more that I didn't notice because I'm not that knowledgeable. Donglover needs a Lando movie ASAP, which has probably been said a bunch. 

 

There's a lot to be said for going into movies with low expectations...

Three things:

1. Totally agree that going in to both films with lowered expectations greatly helped my enjoyment of them. Venom was definitely much more of a mess in my book than Solo yet it made twice as much at the box (international) than Solo, so what do I know. Meh. I will say that Solo becomes more enjoyable each time I see it (3x now). The groan-worthy, eye-roll moments are more easily glossed over on repeat viewings thanks to the performances and pacing. 

2. WTF are the "obvious reasons" it had to be set in San Francisco? Please explain it to me like I was Joel--using Broadway musical numbers while dressed in various Flash costumes.

3. If I were a rich man I'd pay to fly you out here just to call Donald "Childish Gambino" Glover "Donglover" to his face.

Here are a bunch of documentaries I’ve seen this year. Almost all can be found on Netflix, Hulu, or HBO.

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

A

A Netlix documentary about the last film Orson Welles tried to make, which spanned over 15 years until his death in 1985. However, in telling the story of Welles’ attempt to make this film you also get the story of the man and his overall body of work. The filmmaker uses a ot of Welles style and footage from other films to add drama and, mostly, whimsy to this tale.

RBG

A-

It’s a fascinating life, that of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bador Ginsberg, aka Notorious RBG. The section on her confirmation hearing to the supreme court is a stark and unintended contrast to the confirmation hearings of Justice Kavanaugh in 2018. My main complaint with this documentary is the filmmakers could’ve spent a bit more time on her historic career as a lawyer, but it’s a minor complaint. This really is a film about the complete woman, RBG, and not just her time as a member of the SCOTUSA.

Andre The Giant

B+

This HBO documentary turns into more of a WWF/WWE doc about half-way through, and it’s not as complete a look at the man himself—more the persona. However, as a kid I was a huge fan of Andre and it’s great to see a film about him so lovingly done.

Conor McGregor: Notorious

B+

This Netflix documentary mostly covers McGregor’s preparation for the UFC featherweight title bout with Jose Aldo and his two fights with Nate Diaz for the Lightweight belt. This dropped early in the year before all the post-Mayweather drama and McGregor’s recent UFC loss to Khabib happened. I’d be interested to see if a “vol.2” is in the works by the same documentarians.

Lego House: Home of the Brick

A-

Short Netflix documentary on the building of the LEGO House in Billund, Denmark. I already knew quite a bit about the history of the company from their own animated doc on YouTube and the Netflix series The Toys That Made Us, so I didn’t mind the minimal info about the history of the company. Besides, as the title states, this is more about the building of the actual house than an overview of the company in general.

Filmworker

B+

Great documentary on Leon Vitali, the former actor who became legendary director Stanley Kubrick’s right hand man for the last 30 years of Kubrick’s life. The film becomes a bit repetitive in focusing on Leon’s work for Kubrick and leaves out a good chunk of info on the man himself. But this is still a deeply engrossing look into the filmmaking process—especially post production and Kubrick’s infamous demand for detailed perfection.

Diana, Our Mother: Her Life & Legacy [HBO Doc]

B

Diana’s two sons along with her brother and friends give interviews about Lady Di on the 20^th anniversary of her death. Honestly, if it wasn’t for my love of the show The Crown I wouldn’t be interested in this at all. So I found her life much more intriguing now than I have for the past 20+ years. Amazing what a good writer and some great actors can get you interested in.

Walt: The Man Behind the Myth

A

At less than 90 minutes, this documentary offers an entertaining and fairly comprehensive look at Walter E. Disney, perhaps the most influential man in modern entertainment. My only gripe is I could’ve easily done with another half hour or so—especially covering the early days and his relationship with his animators.

Making Fun: The Story of Funko Toys

B+

Netflix doc on the history of Funko toys. A bit unevenly paced and meandering, but still an interesting look into the unique history of the company as well as “funatics” and celebrity collectors.

Here are a bunch of films I saw this year based around real people, places, and events--some have more fiction to them than others.

Bohemian Rhapsody

A-

The script is a solid “B” at best, however, the music is “A+” throughout. At first I had trouble buying Rami Malik as Queen’s legendary frontman, but in the last 15 minutes of the film I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel like I was watching Freddie Mercury at his apex. The film has great performances in supporting roles, a decent character arc for Mercury as the protagonist, and some solid social commentary without being preachy. All in all, this film is fun, emotional, and worthy of any Queen fan’s theater dollars.

First Man

A-

Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong as a quiet, reserved, yet deeply passionate man. Chazelle treats the space program as art, iconic—but the film feels more like poetry than propaganda; it revels in the beauty and jaw dropping wonder that is sending a human being to walk upon the face of the moon. And though the film is fiction, it is not a fantasy. Neil Armstrong put his bootprint upon the lunar surface. That reality is beautifully captured in this film for us all to experience

I, Tonya

B

The main cast gives great performances, especially Margot Robbie and Sebastian "Is That Bucky!?!" Stan. It was trying to be a Cohen Bros film by looking at the darker aspects of humanity through the lens of the absurdness of that type of behavior, but the majority of laughs never really landed with the audience.

The Post

A-

Leave it to Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, and Steven Spielberg to make the story of publishing a single issue of a newspaper suspenseful and riveting. Of course the film is more than that—it’s a poignant commentary on the press, it’s place in democracy, and it’s relationship with the government, especially the judicial branch.

Greatest Showman

B

About what you’d expect from a modern Hollywood musical. The songs were quite good, but the plot and characters were rather archetypal and without much depth.

Glass Castle

C+

An accounting of some of the worst parenting possible that tries to make you sympathize with the terrible parents in the last fifteen minutes. It’s got a great performance by Woody Harrelson, and the kid actors are pretty good, too. But that last act is just so much nope. Truly WTF?

All The Money In The World

B-

Michelle Williams and the kidnapper Chinquinta’s (sp?) performances save this rather drab, if not one sided, look into the life of the richest man who ever lived, J. Paul Getty, and how his obsession with money (winning) nearly cost his grandson his life.

Darkest Hour

A-

The direction and cinematography are rather mediocre, but Gary Oldman’s performance as Churchill and that of his supporting cast propel this film to emotionally gripping heights. It’s scary to recall just how close Hitler was to winning Europe from fear alone and how courageous Churchill was to not capitulate the British Empire before the first bomb had been dropped on their island.

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women

C+

 This is a disappointingly flat biopic about people who lived rather colorful lives—said people being a former college professor who created the lie detector test & Wonder Woman, his wife (a fellow professor), and their, um, “teaching assistant.”

A Futile & Stupid Gesture

B+

This Netflix comedy about the co-founder of National Lampoon, Doug Kenney, is an embarrassment of riches—the cast, script, direction. It’s just an utterly engaging and enjoyable comedy tinged with drama (more than a tinge in the third act).

Molly’s Game

B+

Great character piece written and directed by Aaron Sorkin based on the memoir of Molly Bloom. It takes over two hours to get to a denouement that could’ve been reached satisfactorily in about 20 minutes less. If you know anything about Sorkin then you know whey he is so infatuated with Bloom and her family of genius pro-athletes run by a flawed, stern patriarch.

The headline made me cringe, but seeing Yost, Netflix, and Watanabe are all involved has me thinking that this might not suck. 

7 hours ago, Jables said:

Apologies if this has come up but here's another alarming headline for you.

Nice haul, Newt! I ordered a bunch of Marvel Legends on sale for Black Friday and am waiting for them to come in--that Archangel and the rest Apocalypse BAF wave included.

I'm a bit torn on this PG-13 re-release. On one hand I think it's a hilarious idea, and the Fred Savage/Princess Bride parody worked really well in the trailer. On the other hand, it's a blatant money grab by Fox, and I'm irked because they already got my money for the super-duper cut BR. DP2 already grossed as much at the box office as the original film (something in the neighborhood of $780 million worldwide), so this really should've been a DVD/BR special feature.

Da fuh?

ABC is all ovah da place. Got me all hyped for S6 being the big finale and now this. So is S6 still gonna be 13 episodes? Is S7 gonna follow suit? Will Danny Rand and Luke Cage join SHIELD?

On 11/15/2018 at 10:39 PM, Da Cap'n 2099 said:

John is Fear's Daryl. If he dies, I riot.

Agreed. When charlie found his hat I legit fist pumped the air. I was pleasantly surprised by the Crazy Martha character and how that ended. I'm a bit disappointed S5 won't be a road trip season though. I was looking forward to that. We've got enough community storylines going on in TWD; I feel like FTWD would've benefited from something different. Eh, I'm on board for S5 though.

So this thread died off quick or maybe it got some posts lost along the way with server transfers/crashes? Anyway, I of course saw the first Fantastic Beasts film and loved it. Wonderful film, and a very promising start to JK Rowling's screenwriting career and expansion of the Potterverse or "Wizarding World" as they're now branding it.

The sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald, was a bit of a convoluted mess though. Saw it tonight with a few hardcore Potter fans and we all agreed it was a damn pretty movie, especially in 3D, but the plot was much too convoluted and uneven. It felt like a truncated version of a Rowling novel where the b-story became the A-story, the main characters were given short shrift, and the ending is a non-ending pseudo cliffhanger. Meh.

^^Oh, July 2018 me, how wrong you were.

So I just finished S4 yesterday and it was . . . disappointing.

S4 & Breaking Bad S1-5 spoilers...

I see what they were going for in Jimmy's transition to Saul, but I just don't feel like they pulled it off in a totally plausible way. So Jimmy is so bitter that his future as a lawyer hinges solely on Chuck that he completely loses any legit emotional connection to him and thus loses Kim? Okay.

I don't know. It was an okay payoff but the journey there was not a good one.  

Also, the whole Mike & Werner storyline was painfully obvious in its direction. I dug the logistics of constructing that infamous lab though. The Salamanca storyline also dragged out with way too little progress. I like the Lalo element, but I feel like he came in too late in the season. I guess they're gonna drag him out as a nemesis for S5 for Gus, which seems like it'll be the final one for the series.

I'm not a big fan of how the showrunners are keeping fans in the dark so long with where the show will go in terms of meeting up with and/or overlapping Breaking Bad. Personally, I hope S5 of BCS would jump ahead to Saul setting up that iconic office in episode one, have a few great BB era episodes, and then end with a two part episode of him post-BB. BCS S5 for Mike and Gus is all pretty laid out plot-wise: they deal with Lalo, finish the lab, set up shop with Gail. However, I hope we get more backstory and character development for them both in S5. I feel like Mike had some good episodes early on in S4, but not much character development once the lab began. Gus was sadly one-note throughout S4--all consumed with a particular vengeance.