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Short Circuit 2 (1988)
can and will cause a strong emotional response
One of the few movies on IMDB where I wholeheartedly disagree with the average rating.
Yes, the writing is chaotic, almost immature, with the joke quality constantly jumping up and down. Yes, it's something which is not a human trying to be a human, ungodly original. You have your expected scenes like Johnny 5 dressing like a person, but the movie doesn't ride on it. It just makes it something that happens naturally, fits the theme and the film doesn't exactly pretend it's the funniest thing ever. Unlike e.g. The female Arnold scene in Junior, which just drags on and doesn't even try to be any funnier than "oh look, Arnie is a woman".
Johnny is very likeable character, he undergoes a trivial but understandable experience/evolution and the movie even draws direct lines to how your average human might feel, in the same situation. His emotional highs and lows are well portrayed, create lots of sympaphy and I most certainly don't think any can watch the final act with a straight face, unless you have a heart of stone.
I believe this is one of the best family movies out there - no matter your age, there is laughter, tragedy and some superficial philosophy, and all of it hits pretty hard on an emotional level. When I was young and saw Short Circuit 2, I laughed and cried. When I watch it today, I still laugh, I still feel the urge to cry, but most importantly, I feel lots of respect. Nowadays, something like this would be made entirely in CGI, but they actually built the robot, and such high quality practical effects simply leave a huge impression you won't forget about that quickly.
I suggest watching the first movie first, but I don't think it's mandatory. The sequel is, as rare as this is, quite a bit better and easily stands on its own.
I love the series, I will show it to my children, my grandchildren, my nephews, my nieces - you get the idea - and I will feel great doing so every time.
Hereditary (2018)
Gotta love movies that remind us horror isn't all about shock.
This film here isn't all that much about how or even why people die, it's for most of its runtime about the terror deaths inflict on loved ones. It's rather easy to understand the situation the on-screen character is in and the pain he has to live through. It's disturbingly well crafted to touch you and make you feel fear in ways other than shock or surprise.
However, no amount of story, acting, cinematography and proper continuity will make you able to fully ignore the absolutely horrendous CGI in this film. Some scenes are a plain 0/10 and nearly all of them are pretty much completely unnecessary. It's so bad, it drags down the entire rating. Every single piece of CGI took me out of the experience and made me hate what I'm seeing for minutes.
It's a good piece of horror and probably one you may want to watch with your family, if you're all into it. Just... someone rather nitpicky might have a lot to complain about.
Cats (2019)
Out of all of Bill Murray's jokes, this one is the cruelest
22 years ago, in The Man Who Knew Too Little, lord Bill Murray said Cats... with people, and here we go.
It was... a challenge to watch it till the end. It's outstandingly boring. The music is forgettable, the lyrics usually repeat the same line 8 times, the dancing is uncreative and there is next to no emotion. I don't really have a problem with the way the cats look, but production design as a whole falls a bit flat, all locals are generic, and cinematography is generally about slow pans for minutes on end, which just boosts the boredom further.
The gimmick, of everyone being a cat, becomes pointless already a few minutes in, and while the actors themselves look quite impressive most of the time, there are (quite many, honestly) bad looking CGIs (a CGI water scene in particular completely got me off guard with its badness).
The movie fails in its visuals to get away with just being an artsy flick, the music completely fails to touch you (as opposed to other recent musicals like La La Land) and generally it just comes across as a seemingly endless barrage of bad, almost nonsensical music videos which play one after the other with just a few seconds of pause in between.
The good? Uhm, ... A for effort? I mean, they got the cat look right, from a technical standpoint... and Taylor Swift actually did not deliver a performance so hitty you will remember it for decades, like most female singers manage to do in their cinema debuts. Actors overall really look similar to the originals, surprisingly. But it really doesn't save much and effort can only get you so far if the idea itself is destined to be hated.
I would like to believe there is a certain set of people who'd enjoy this, maybe people who saw the original musical and are somehow attached to the songs because they were presented to the viewers in a more enticing manner. But that's, if at all, a very tiny percentage of your general audience.
It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, probably wouldn't even make the top 50, but it just might be the worst movie I've ever seen on the big screen.
Add: I saw this film in Germany and all songs were dubbed in German. That's not cool, you don't get someone like e.g. Taylor Swift and then redub the whole thing...
Joker (2019)
Feels like watching a documentary
When I watched Joker, I felt slightly underwhelmed. I couldn't really put my finger on whatever my problem with the film was, but after getting some distance, I can.
It has quite some terrific acting. On a technical level (production design, cinematography, etc.), it's very pleasing to watch. My problem however, is the story: there is, at least in my opinion, no shock, no turning point, no surprise. It feels like watching a documentary. You aren't supposed to develop sympathy for Arthur, nor cheer for him, you are just meant to understand him. But to understand the fact that unchecked poverty and chained misfortune can drive a person into madness, I don't have to watch a movie.
There are quite a few scenes which are rather open to interpretation, including the ending, but whatever interpretation you prefer, at best, Arthur is slightly "more in the right", but it changes nothing to the finale and that one is kind of unambiguous. You are bearing witness to a logical string of events which result in a foreseeable outcome. By the end of the movie, I don't really know what makes Arthus special in the world he's in. Maybe that's the point, that he's not, and it's fine, as he is not like the other Jokers. It still makes me wonder: what was the "point" of it all? It'd be a bit of an unfair understatement to call the whole thing trivial, but there seems to be no moral, no back and forth, no question at the end. It's just a plain road of a simple-minded man to hell.
I'd still suggest it to specific people, but I don't think 10/10 is justified.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
contender for "best Godzilla movie"
This movie gets everything right I wanted it to get right. The story, once again, focusses rather heavily on humans, but this time around Godzilla gets the attention, screen time and level of intimidation he deserves, just like his titan friends. From monster designs to fights, there are more than just a few memorable, extremely well presented moments. And when the Godzilla theme plays and you are allowed to see the king in all his glory, it's actually very touching.
The effects are hit or miss on occasion, but for 90% of the time your eyes will be fed with beauty. Sadly, there was rarely a shot which showed all monsters fighting at the same time from an acceptable distance, and pretty much every battle started with the movie instantly going back to humans.
There are a few cringeworthy moments when it comes to dialogue and story, and these make you believe you are watching a movie which in part heavily tries to appeal to children, though that's not necessarily a bad thing since Godzilla's target audience were children for decades. It's quite often a back and forth between a witty 90s movie and a try to move onward.
If you are a person who heavily enjoyed the 2014 film, you may have a few problems with this one. The fights are faster and way more chaotic and Godzilla himself can rarely be fully appreciated outside of the scenes solely dedicated to him, thankfully those scenes are outstanding.
What fans wanted was more, way more Godzilla, and this is what we got. If you just want to see Godzilla slapping big monsters while everyone around acknowledges his glory, this is exactly the movie for you. None of the negative points I raised truly matter if you can leave the cinema with a smile on your face, because the movie gave you exactly what you asked for. They listened, they genuinely tried and they succeeded and the outcome should be celebrated. It's a great, faithful film about everyone's favorite oversized monster.
Dumbo (2019)
The biggest surprise of my life.
Cinematography, production design, costumes, acting... all is fantastic, yet I cried for almost the whole movie because of what it did to my childhood memories... or so I thought, because halfway through it, I admitted it's just this touching. I hate the film for doing this to my heart but it's also one of the best I have ever seen. I hate Dr. Burton for creating this but I am also thankful for it. It's a horrid adaptation with many nonsensical plot points yet it is better than the original could ever hope to be.
It's a 12/10, I can't believe how dark yet how emotional this piece managed to be.
La La Land (2016)
I cried the entire way home after watching it, out of joy.
I was awaiting this one with rather great tension, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest.
I will not talk about the musical - story ratio, how well written the female main character is or why I slapped the first person who insulted this movie in my proximity. What I will say is that I was never touched like this by any other work of art. This masterpiece takes itself very, very seriously. It takes its time to deliver the best paced love story I have witnessed, every single act being its own short, supported by almost stupidly well written and performed music as well as jokes which weren't even remotely out of place. Additionally, and by no means I want to undercut the other actors, Emma Stone delivered a performance which simply blew me away. Just 10 minutes in I was absolutely convinced this will grant her an Oscar, thankfully that was eventually the case.
The movie is long, and the songs require your attention, especially when watching in a different language. That makes it very hard to endure if you have a short attention span or just didn't enter the cinema with maximum interest to begin with.
In any other case, in my opinion, this is the movie of the century.
Death Note: Desu nôto (2006)
The worst, absolutely, worst, movie ever made, to fans.
First of all, the question which is the easiest to answer: Why do I rate it with only 1 star? Because I can't select less. Not using profanity, obscenities, or spiteful remarks will be one of the hardest tasks I ever had to go through in my life.
Normally, as everyone, I would start with some positive aspects to falsely show some objective points of view and try to convince everyone that there could possibly be worse movies on this planet; but I shall promise, that is impossible. There are a lot movies, sequels, remakes, etc. of certain topics which simply spit into the faces of fans like never seen before (Highlander: Source, Dragonball: Evolution, Street Fighter, Resident Evil: Afterlife, ...), but this here, is the hardest try ever seen to insult everyone who likes the original, Death Note.
Absolutely nothing what made the manga/anime one of the most awesome visual experiences possible was put into this movie. The monologues are simply removed, the actors themselves act as unaffected by emotions as in a comedy film (what removes atmosphere fully), the (even if it could be worse..) 3D-animated gods of death are an insult to everyones' eyes and omnipotently do not fulfill the main intention of Takeshi Obata and their respective designs, ... Overall, there is not even one, slightly, well remade moment in all 3 movies; one which make your pupils extend up to infinity; rather you are asking yourself the entire time, why... Why???
Of course, since it is not a low-budget film, camera, light, etc. is far away from setting new standards in being bad, but this does not rescue anything in any way.
No, it is not the worst movie-; but yes, it is the ultimately worst fan-project of any topic ever made. Some things are never meant to be seen in live action, and some people have to learn that.