The Review: Watchmen Episode 1

Episode 1: Its Summer And We're Running Out Of Ice

Full of spoilers. I did not even want to give this show a chance when I first saw the trailer. I had zero interest in watching a series based off of Watchmen. Like, none. But after watching the second season of Legion and remembering how stubborn I was about that show and then ended up loving it I decided to check this out today. Holy shit. This starts off with a historical incident that I did not know even happened. It starts off in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. This kid is watching a silent film with his mother playing piano in a theater. The kid is enjoying himself while the mother weeps and she plays. Next thing you know his dad bursts into the place with a rifle and they run off. The Black people in the streets are being dragged, shot, burned, and attacked. There was even a goddamn airplane shooting people! This was real shit that happened that I never heard of! It is known as Tulsa race riot, the Tulsa race massacre, Greenwood Massacre, and the Black Wall Street Massacre.

The Review: Legion Season 2

Legion Season Two 10/10

I finished watching season two of the FX series Legion the other day and have been trying to figure out how to even write a review. After watching the first season a couple years back and absolutely loving it for whatever reason I dragged my ass watching the second season. Yes, I know there is a third and last season and I will drag my ass to watch it because I am bummed a great show is ending. Hmm. Maybe I'm not. Shows go too long these days and three seasons seem to be the magic number. The last season focused on getting to know the characters and David Haller defeating the Shadow King. This season continues that but far more in depth as well as figuring out if David is actually the hero of this story. There is a race going on to find the real body of the Shadow King fka Amahl Farouk. Our group is now located at Division 3 and it is being run by Admiral Fukyama who sits in a strange ass room with a basket on his head surrounded by three android lady folk that have mustaches. Everything is freaky!

Who Is The Best Joker? Part 2

I recently saw the Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. I loved the movie and it got me to thinking about a previous blog post I did years ago where I ranked the best portrayals of the Joker in film. As I was reading it I realized that it had been six years since I wrote that and in that time there has been two more versions of the character to make it to film. Everyone immediately thinks of Heath Ledger as the best to ever play the character. I like that he is such a strange character that has no set in stone origin that as long as you can make it funny, weird, or entertaining I'll watch it. Just make sure his hair is green, his face is white, and he is scary. So in this post I am gonna add to the list. Click here if you want to read that and realize that this post is gonna have spoilers for the latest Joker movie.

Sitting In The Aisle: Joker

Joker 9/10

This was was amazing. Let me say that first. Joker immediately became one of my favorite movies this year for a lot of reasons I'll cover later. This is gonna be full of spoilers by the way. There has been so much controversy about this movie and how it may inspire violence. That seems more like a society problem than a movie making problem to me. If you have built it so that if someone with a mental issue has access to get a weapon and use it on others that does not mean you ban every movie where violence can occur. Did people ban Amy Schumer films after Trainwreck? Shit happens. It sucks but that's just the way things are sometimes. Shit happens because some people suck. The theater I went to was more than half full on a Tuesday afternoon at 2pm and they even clapped when it was done.

This movie is about fucking mental health care!

The Review: Hush

Hush 2/10

This was dull as hell. I am shocked by this. Considering that Hush had a ton of Batman villains in it and good animation I figured it would get better as it went along but it felt more like a weird music video from the early 90's where people show up just so I can say “Hey, I know them!” The voice acting was good for the most part but I never need to hear Batman moan cause he's turned on ever again. The store is that someone knows a lot about Bruce Wayne and Batman and is trying to pick off people he knows one by one. He kills one of Wayne's friends who they try to red herring. The reveal of who Hush actually was stank. I would have been pissed if I still bought comics and read that shit. Villains were just tossed in with no regard and super important shit was squeezed into this. For a movie that was not even ninety minutes long it felt more like two and a half hours. I can't suggest anyone really watch this unless you're an idiot like me that must watch anything Batman related.

Click here for previous The Review.

The Review: Overlord

Overlord 8/10

I decided to check out the movie Overlord. I know it came out last year and all I knew was that it took place during a war and that it got crazy at the end. Yeah. It does. This movie was tense as fuck. From the very start we meet a group of soldiers aboard a plane during WW2. The thing I like about war movies is that characters are what they are and it is easy to see who is who. Anyone creative (writer, photographer, or artist) is gonna die. The guy that talks shit is gonna have to prove he can back it up. The silent one is terrifying and may turn on the team. These guys have a mission to cut off Nazi communications the day before the beaches of Normandy are stormed. They are cruising along when planes are shot down and they are hit. Our main character Boyce seems terrified by everything all around him before jumping out of the plane, almost drowning, and then landing in time to see his sergeant slaughtered.

The Review: Dark Phoenix

Dark Phoenix 1/10

Full of spoilers and complaints. There have been twelve X Men films. Twelve. Let that sink in for a second. And out of those twelve they have not made a good one. Good scenes? Yeah. Cool shots? Sure. But an actual “Holy shit I can't wait to see that again!” movie? Hell no. This movie was butt. I have tried to figure out the timeline for these movies and it is fucking impossible. Even when it was rebooted they managed to fuck it all up by mixing in aspects of the previous films as if they were so good they couldn't pass it up. I blame this on Wolverine. No matter what they wanted to make sure he was still attached to these in some way and ended up boning themselves right in the b-hole. This movie is a fucking mess from actual start to literal finish and I am so glad that they are done with it. It just sucks that they somehow managed to make the worse X Men film as their last. Where do I even start? That's probably what the writer of this mess said. Oh god. This is the directors first legit time directing. He also wrote a lot of terrible shit. Simon Kinberg. Look him up. I did not want this movie to be as terrible as it was. I would have loved to have been surprised. But it was actually worse than I imagined.

The Review: Dolemite

Dolemite ???/10

I am not gonna sit here and try to give this movie an actual number rating. This movie was fucking insane. Let me rant about something for a moment. Amazon has a ton of movies. It is not easy to find new movies. They suggest booty ass movies most times but this time after watching Dolemite they suggested a ton of Black films and my goofy ass is gonna watch a whole bunch of cheesy ones that I have heard of but never seen like this one. Dolemite has been set up by a rival and is spending twenty years in prison. The warden makes a deal with him to stop the guy because even though Dolemite was bad this guy is way worse. Dolemite gets out and minutes later he and his women gun down three guys.

Sitting In The Aisle: Hobbs And Shaw

Hobbs And Shaw 7/10

Full of spoilers. This was for sure an action movie. I watched Hobbs And Shaw even though I said I wouldn't. Not that I hate the Furious movies because I have seen all of them (except Tokyo Drift because fuck that nonsense). There was so much cast drama about this being made which made me laugh because the loudest ones were the ones that could be easily replaced and I wouldn't even care. Tyrese was barking like a baby dog and I joked that Kevin Hart could replace him and be better. Guess what? Hart is in this fucking movie. I had no idea. And they use just the right amount of him which made it even better. In this movie Shaw has a sister named Hattie that is an M16 agent. She and her team are there to stop a super virus called Snowflake. Everything is going fine until this dude named Brixton Lore shows up and starts punching holes in steel. This bastard is too strong so she injects herself with the virus because...science? She gets away and M16 thinks she turned on her team and took the virus. Like immediately. They believe she turned in a second. Shaw then visits his hot ass mother I prison. This is all in the first twelve minutes of the movie!

The Review: Reign Of Supermen

Reign Of Supermen 2/10

I was so bummed out watching Reign Of Supermen. DC has made some really good animated movies but this one fell flat in so many ways. Maybe it was rushed. Maybe they got cocky. Either way they ended up making a lazy animated, sloppy story that did nothing to make new characters interesting or ones I'd ever want to see a full movie about. The Justice League end up having to be dumbed down just so these other characters got a chance to appear. Even if one of these movies have a silly story the art saves it but in this there are points where they could not be bothered to animate people running from danger or streets were straight up empty. The previous Death Of Superman movie set this up to be good but this follow up straight up stank. The art was levels below the look of the previous movie and it didn't even feel like the two were connected. Why rush to even make this movie? Make a few good ones showing everyone surviving without Superman and then bring him back. Nah. Most of the voice work was good. Hmm. Some. Not most.

Click here for previous The Review.

The Review: Mission Impossible Fallout

Mission Impossible Fallout 3/10

Well, it was definitely a movie. I have seen all of the Mission Impossible movies and while some were super action heavy with some story accidentally getting involved this one was nothing but explosions with some spy type shit squeezed in to shut people like me up. The face swap thing isn't even cool anymore. I don't know how you can have a team of spies that do so much public damage. You would not be able to explain away the shit they get away with to a government. In Paris alone they would've been asking hundreds of questions after the motorcycle chase. If you have never seen one of these movies, I think there are five previous ones, and watched this you would not feel lost. Even if you are like “He was married?!” they go out of their way to plot that out. Its fine.

The Review: Aquaman

Aquaman 3/10

I finally watched Aquaman. This movie came out during last year when I put my foot down and decided that I was not gonna rush out and see every superhero movie that came out. This is on HBO so I decided to watch it. I was shocked at how long it was. I was not shocked by how long it felt. This is an origin story even though we've already seen Arthur/Aquaman before. In this movie he earns his title and defends Earth against Atlantians and Atlantians against themselves and finds his mother who he thought was dead and has been gone for decades. I did not expect this to be a good movie. I wasn't even looking to be surprised by it being better than I'd hoped like Shazam because you can not make this character entertaining by himself using the cast they have. Is it better than Justice League? Yeah. That's not a difficult task. But it was long and they crammed in way too much shit. Black Manta was wack as shit. The main bad guy whose name I can't even think of right now was lame. And I knew he would hook up with Mera as soon as she showed up.

Sitting In The Aisle: Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood 9/10

Spoilers ahead. I love movies. I go to movies to be entertained. I do not want the real world intruding. If someone falls two stories and gets up and runs away I am fine. If someone can stop time I am fine. If Bruce Lee is portrayed as the most cocky, confident man ever I am all for it. Cam invited me to go see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood at the Arclight. We saw the 35mm version which I would suggest. Made it feel more move-ish. This movie had us gasping, laughing, cheering, and feeling very satisfied. Cam went into this not knowing anything about the movie. She didn't even know Sharon Tate was a part of the story. I had already read a fake plot of it online and knew all the gossip behind the scenes. So I was super happy to see that I was wrong, the internet was wrong, and that Quentin Tarantino made another good movie. I hated Django Unchained. I hated The Hateful Eight. So I wasn't dying to see this one. If this is for real his last film then he did an amazing job and didn't drop any n-bombs.

The Review: Barry Season 2 (1 - 3)

I finished watching season two of Barry last night and am feeling so damned happy that shows like this exist. I loved season one (click here to read that review) and this one managed to be even better. Don't know how they did it but they did. This is gonna be full of spoilers because I do not like that I blew through the first season in my previous review the way I did. I should have written them episode by episode but when I am binging a show that means stopping to write and that is not fun. So this will be a review/recap of the second season.

This season picks up closely following the previous and the death of Detective Moss is being investigated. Her death hangs over this show like a fart that can not be ignored. Any time I start to like Barry I am reminded that this guy is a killer that needs to be dealt with. Yeah, another season later and my goofy ass is still struggling with this problem. What the hell does that say about me?

The Review: Barry Season 1

Barry Season 1 (9/10)

This is a damn good show. I had people at work telling me that Barry on HBO was good but I did not think from the trailers that I'd be into it. The basic premise is that a hitman wants to be an actor. Okay. That does not sound all that interesting to me. Then I decided to watch the first episode and knew my ass was hooked. The humor on this show is genuine. No forced yucks being thrown out. The action is intense and the violence is sudden. The characters make this show and the conversations they have feel authentic. Even though this show is violent and you have no idea who is gonna make it through an episode or the season (one death shook my ass!) I stayed invested. The episodes are about half an hour each and there are only eight episodes in a season so it flies by.