Wicked Little Letters

broderic on April 12, 2024

While I went to see Wicked Little Letters in the theater, I was just wanting to watch a movie. It was a movie to watch. That’s what I can say for it. I was the youngest person in the audience. I guess that was what happens when you pick a film that isn’t a superhero film or horror film, which seems to be only things coming out nowadays.

Hollywood is missing these type of smaller films. Something that has low stakes and a good story. Something that will make people come back to the theater to watch. I was just wanting to watch a movie and eat popcorn, so I ended up with this film.

It’s supposedly a true story from England at the turn of the last century. About some letters that riled up the countryside. Small stakes even though it was a national sensation at the time. I guess it satisfied that urge to just be in a darkened theater.

3 of 5 stars.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

broderic on April 11, 2024

I watched Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire so long ago. This post is supposed to be a review or my thoughts on that film. I can’t. I forgot anything about the movie.

Wait. I vaguely remember something about freezing to death. Or was it being scared to death? Yeah something about that.

It turns out that even though I don’t remember anything. I’ll still give it a mediocre score.

3 of 5 stars.

Best Films 2023

broderic on January 23, 2024

I guess I should post a blog post sometime this year. Considering that this year’s Academy Awards were announced this morning, my first post this year will be that list of best films from the past year. Like always, it’s a list of the films I thought were the best and achieved a rating of 4 or more stars. Unlike previous years during the pandemic, I did see a few more films this year, and it seems that I’ve seen more good ones than bad.

These are all 4 of 5 stars.

I enjoyed all these films. I did enjoy going to the theater. I want to try going to more movies this year.

The Boy and the Heron

broderic on December 27, 2023

With his return from retirement and with retirement seemingly forever suspended, Hayao Miyazaki brings about his latest film, The Boy and the Heron, ten years from his last. It is with a lot of anticipation that I went to the theater to watch. Is he still as great as story teller? Is he still one of the best anime directors, even film directors? Yes and yes. But.

The film is okay. It rehashes a lot of Miyazaki tropes. It felt like a mash up of Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Castle in the Sky. It was just fine. Glad he’s doing films, but sometimes I wonder if maybe he should retire for good. Let’s hope his next film, if there is one, may not be in another ten years.

3 of 5 stars.

Godzilla Minus One

broderic on December 8, 2023

It is deserving of the praise its been getting. Godzilla Minus One is a rare movie pulling off earth shattering spectacle with a dramatic, intimate story involving characters that you really feel for. It’s something that American movies can’t seem to get right — making the human element believable as the CG FX.

This Godzilla movie opens at the end of WWII in the dying embers of the Japanese empire. The main character is a kamikaze pilot who chickened out and finds himself face to face with Godzilla. He chickens out again and Godzilla ends up slaughtering his fellow soldiers. The main character is a survivor with PTSD from the war as a well as survivor’s guilt.

With a return to Japan post war, this film reminds us on the malevolent force that is Godzilla. Cribbing a few notes from the previous Godzilla film, Shin Godzilla, it makes the big one an unstoppable, dangerous monster. He just washes up on the shore and demolishes Tokyo like the first film. In the end, they have to stop Godzilla. They do via some plan, but he’ll be back.

Surprisingly, this film really hit you in the feels. I think it’s because we’re rooting for the humans and not the kaiju. You feel for them and hope they survive. It’s a good film and probably will be the best I’ve seen this year. We’ll see.

4 of 5 stars.

Stop Making Sense

broderic on October 5, 2023

It makes no sense that it’s the 40th Anniversary of the Talking Head’s concert movie, Stop Making Sense. Where has the time gone?

I used to have the cassette tape of the album. It was much shorter than the 90 minutes of the film missing several cuts. I have never really seen the entire film so imagine my surprise they even had the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love!” Did not know that was in the film. Now I know. Genius.

If you haven’t listened, then listen or watch this film. I wanted to dance. The audience was older than I was when I watched it. I would have to say they were maybe college students when this movie came out and Talking Heads were their jam. I can say it was also my jam. I played the cassette all the time in my VW Golf while going to school. Psycho Killer. Naive Melody. This must me the place.

I guess I did enjoy it.

4 of 5 stars.

“Why does a radio station have a sheriff?”

broderic on September 30, 2023

A Haunting in Venice is an Agatha Christie mystery story as filmed by Kenneth Branagh as part of his Poirot Cinematic Universe. It is a Scooby Doo film. Yes, you heard that right. It had a supernatural twist behind it but the motivations was really human. I was expecting the culprit to have said that they would’ve gotten away with it except for those damn, meddling kids.

The story is about the death of girl in Venice. She threw herself into the canals. It was rumored that her death was caused mainly by the curse surrounding the family’s history and the ghosts in their villa. Now, that is a good setup for a mystery.

Except, it was all quite easy to see where it was going. If you’ve watched enough movies, you know really quickly who was the culprit. I don’t think I am spoiling it if I say that it wasn’t ghosts that did it. The ghosts weren’t spooky enough, and typically the scariest thing in this were the humans. So, if you read the books or know your films, there wasn’t quite a mystery there. And since it was really humans, the fright wasn’t there either.

3 of 5 stars.

“Lisa Miller-Johnson walking through the woods. Is there a snowflake? Wet.”

broderic on September 24, 2023

I find the Conjuring Universe to be a favorite. I hate scary movies, but I love getting scared. I love goosebumps, and I love being creeped out at night. The Conjuring Universe is a fine source for these scares. The first Conjuring was pretty good. Everything else not so, but it still is full of scares. And now it has some gore.

The Nun II continues the story from the the first one. It follows Sister Irene and her new sidekick, Sister Debra as they try to stop the demon, Valek’s rampage across the French countryside. At first, the film starts out as horror, but with Sister Irene and Sister Debra it became a mystery. They must pick up the demon’s trail from Romania into France as it leaves a bloody trail of bodies looking for a holy relic.

I really didn’t see any of the scares as I hid behind closed eyes. So I missed most of the deaths. Yet, I still loved it. It took me two nights to not be worried about what lurks in the dark in my room. Thanks, Nun!

3 of 5 stars.

Haunted Mansion

broderic on August 31, 2023

The Haunted Mansion is my favorite Disney ride. Will its movie adaptation, Haunted Mansion, be any good? Well, my friend, it isn’t bad. It is somewhat good in its own way. It definitely is a fun, summer flick worthy of an afternoon out of the hot summer sun. I liked it. I wish we had more movies like this — mid-level films out to entertain us. Popcorn Movies!

With Hollywood being broken and only wanting to produce blockbuster films, the mid-level movies suffer. They get bloated or get more pressure to make money. Haunted Mansion isn’t any indie flick, but it shouldn’t have to have been an blockbuster. I know we needed more CG and more spectacle but Haunted Mansion could’ve worked without it. I guess it’s higher cost meant that it had to make more money, but then it didn’t. It should have.

3 of 5 stars.

Oppenheimer

broderic on August 18, 2023

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was loud. The music was the primary culprit. Overall, the sound design was turned up to eleven. I know that if I had watched it on the IMAX theater near me it would’ve blown my eardrums out. That screen seems to believe IMAX is about the volume and not the view.

For me, they had hyped the movie as building the Bomb to drop on Japan. Except that was only for the first hour. The rest of this three hour movie was about the political posturing in the atomic age during confirmation of a cabinet member. I had know I idea that this is what this was going to be about. Certainly, it made for the more intriguing film. The early part focusing on building the Bomb didn’t seem to have much stakes to it, but the latter about the confirmation had the plot to engage me. Strange since going in I would’ve rather seen the science, but in my seat, the politics was intriguing.

Overall, cover your eyes if you watch this in an IMAX theater. While it was a good film, solid, it was not Nolan’s best.

3 of 5 stars.