S-T

The Batman - This is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong movie, and it feels long. I thought about seeing this one in the cinema, but I took one look at the runtime and gave up that idea. I loved what they did with The Riddler. It looks like this was heavily influenced by the Hush arc in the comics. My one gripe: Overall, though, definitely worth a rental.

I remember laughing at the scene in Freaky Friday where Anna Coleman is horrified to be in Jamie Lee Curtis' body. JLC was 45 when that came out. I am three years older than that now. Get off my lawn.

Matrix Resurrections - The trilogy wrapped up the story nicely, so this is an obvious cash-in. That's fine. It gives me another movie to watch. But you really don't need to shatter the fourth wall by having the characters in the movie admit that this is a cash-in. The Meg - This was much better than I thought it would be, though I would have given Ruby Rose a bigger role. Honest Thief - What I saw of it I liked, but the DVD glitched out on me and I couldn't finish it. Fortunately each movie is only 83 cents with Redbox Plus. The King's Man - Very different tone from the previous movies.

Early lyrics, to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic: He captured Harper's Ferry with his nineteen men so true He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew But his soul goes marching on

@Donomark and the hosts are correct about the racial overtones of the film. I thought when I saw it in 1999 that it was strange that a Black man was not discriminated against much more, given the historical setting. The battle hymn of the republic is appropriate here with the villain being a Confederate general, because it was a Northern war song. An earlier version of the song referenced John Brown, who murdered a number of people in a campaign against slavery and was hanged for it. Brown's attack was one of the catalysts to the Civil War. (Though it would have happened without him.)

Spider-Man: No Way Home: I called this "Fanservice: The Movie." But it was very well done and maybe my favorite Marvel movie. I really wanted to see Tobey Maguire's version of Peter interact with JJJ from the MCU, and be stunned that the MCU's version of JJJ looks exactly like the Raimiverse version of JJJ, despite the fact that none of the Parkers are clones of each other. Dr. Strange is seriously OP.

Little House on the Prairie. It's on Peacock. I don't remember much of it, since it has been over 35 years since I watched regularly in syndication. Also, get off my lawn. Also, digging The Flash. I wish I had got into this show years ago.

The Eternals - It doesn't really make sense that they would not have stopped Thanos, especially after interfering in human affairs for thousands of years. I love the fact that Batman and Superman officially exist as fictional characters in the MCU, with one kid thinking that Ikaris is Superman.

Scream 5: Did Sheriff Hicks have a son in the 2011 movie? I don't remember any indication of her being a mom, so including Wes is a pretty big retcon. This franchise has always tried to make killers vulnerable rather than unstoppable beasts like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, but as I said before, if you're going to do that you need to show some physical consequences for the fights the killer gets into. Hey, how did you get that black eye and busted lip? Dewey mentions his injuries and the long-lasting effects of those injuries, but Sidney and Gail have also also taken an enormous amount of punishment over four previous movies and don't seem to be suffering any long-lasting physical damage. Anyway, I was digging it until the end, which I hated. Also: And: And: And: This made a ton of money, so I suspect there will be a Scream 6. As I sat down to watch it, I immediately thought "I am looking forward to @dc20willsave and Skyler reviewing this for Earth-2.net: The Show."

I am gonna echo what @Missy said here. There may be some things you can look back to from the territory days and compare them favorably to today's product, but I am glad this "wild west" mentality is gone. It does not hurt the business to have people actually behave like professionals.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City - OK, you successfully filmed cutscenes from the game in live action. Congratulations. This was not good. The Milla Jovovich movies (at least the first 4) were much better. Even the last MJ entry, which made no sense and abandoned continuity of the previous movies, was better than this.

I guess you kinda had to be there. Which I was. I am an old man. Get off my lawn.

Contagion - I had nightmares early on in the pandemic, so I am glad I didn't watch this then. (Though I did watch Outbreak.) Very closely predicts several things about COVID-19 - the talk of social distancing, runs on stores and especially the conspiracy theories.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - It was bad. And the criticism I have of robots feeling pain and the "gore" that accompanies ripping a machine apart applies here too. If I took a sledgehammer to my toaster, it would not bleed or drool or puke. It's a machine. But something occurred to me: I recently listened to the We Hate Movies podcast review of Law Abiding Citizen. One of them used an exaggerated accent to mock Gerard Butler. That was literally the voice of the soccer hooligan Autobots. This movie even ruins attempts to parody it.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Because I hate myself and want to suffer as much as possible. It's on Netflix. Why would a robot fart? One of the little frenzy bots in Sam Witwicky's kitchen farted as it ran down the hallway. Jetfire farted too. And even if it did expel fire or hot gas, why does it sound like a human fart? Also, robots feel pain. Why would robots feel pain? I realize Return of the Jedi did that a quarter century earlier, but why would a robot feel pain when wounded? And why does eviscerating robots look like eviscerating living organisms? They have blood? They bleed from their mouths? I don't need to go into much more detail, because The Real Protagonists already did that. He knows where it is. If he finds it.

Also... This idiocy had to be written by a Boomer, who has completely forgotten all of the bashing of Boomers by their own parents and grandparents. The more I actually think about this movie the worse it gets.

Texas Chainsaw 2022: This is the second direct sequel to the original movie that erased all sequels in between from continuity. The first one was 2013, when a woman in her early 20's was cast to play a character who was a baby in 1974. Because math is hard. Anyway, Leatherface is at least 70 years old, and probably older. He's even stronger than he was then. Sure. Because that's how the human body works. I mean, come on. And then this happened: Also, once again we have Hollywood not knowing how tools work. Chainsaws don't slice through thick wood beams like it's not even there. They certainly don't slice through metal sewer pipes like they aren't even there. If Leatherface found a lightsaber, OK, fine, but that's not how chainsaws work. Please find someone who is not totally sheltered to advise you on how tools work. I know virtually nothing about tools, so if the error is so bad that I am picking it up, you need to do better.

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Death Day 2U: This is a repeat viewing. and I still have the same problem with the mid-credits scene that I had in 2019. It would not be the first time our government has done some really horrible things in the name of “science” but it still makes no sense. Jessica Rothe is amazing and carries the film. Her scenes with her mom are incredibly touching. I noticed how red her eyes were in one of those scenes. Little things like that make a silly concept believable. I liked this movie a lot more than the first time I saw it. With that said: While I was trying to find my post to link here, I came across this prophetic statement I made about Cabin Fever: Little did we know that six months later…

I have the Castlevania collection for Steam. It's much harder than I remember. Even Simon's Quest. Of course, I don't have the reflexes I did 32 years ago. Now get off my lawn.

And this one.

This tweet by @Missy reminded me of this:

The Next Karate Kid - You can't get someone younger than 30 years old to play a high school bully? Or younger than 40, at least? Amityville Uprising - Wow this is terrible. The "acting" of the first guy stuck in the "acid rain" was laughable. F9: The Fast Saga - There is no reason this needs to be two and a half hours long. And taking a car into space. Riiiiiiight. That sounds like something from an Austin Powers movie. Venom: Let There Be Carnage - This should have been an R rated horror movie. I hate the characterization of Venom. Way, way too much comedy. The Marksman - Liam Neeson carries an otherwise weak film.

Finished Season 4 of Cobra Kai and I really dislike Daniel now. Especially related to his actions in the tournament. Spoiler: Daniel is a hypocrite who abandons his "principles" when it is convenient, while holding on to his self-righteous moral superiority. I really liked Kreese's arc though. Tori has always been sympathetic, and this season made Sam look like the villain in their relationship. Sam is bitter and vengeful, while Tori... Season 4 was a significant improvement over Season 3. Looking forward to Season 5.

Since we don't see what happens off-screen when Jenny screams, my head canon is a SWAT team arrives, rescues Jenny, and arrests the "parents" who were going to harm her. How do the police know? I don't care. We get a happy ending though.