"Firestarter" - Review

Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) has a dangerous powerful gift. Her father Andy (Zac Efron) has the power to "Push" people into doing things. On the run from sinister government agency "The Shop", headed by Captain Hollister (Gloria Reubens, bizarre but not unwelcome casting) and their sinister agent John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) - Andy must decide if he wants Charlie to control her increasingly dangerous powers...

The original "Firestarter" film has a fair few problems, so I'm not opposed to a remake in principle. The book is an underrated one in King's ouevre.
This film is perfectly acceptable.
That's it.
It has a phenomenal soundtrack, truly brilliant, done by John Carpenter. It's perfect for the tone of the book, and for this film it's the definite highlight. Ryan Kiera Armstrong nails Charlie, capturing the character very well in this slightly aged up version. Efron's alright too, he plays Andy McGee with the "dying inside" mentality we need from the protective father. Kurtwood Smith shows up as Dr Wanless, and there are some nice little nods to the book: he's found at the Pynchon Centre, we're introduced to Rainbird next to racks and racks of boots, and Irv Manders (John Beasely) gets the "$100 Bill" trick.
But the film just feels safe,, it never truly ignites. There is some gorgeous cinematography, and some spectacular neon drenched shots towards the end. It wants to feel like Mike Flanagan's "Doctor Sleep" (side note: PLEASE WATCH DOCTOR SLEEP) in parts, particularly at the scene involving a cat; the battle at the Manders Farm is underwhelming at best; and Captain Hollister (whilst an appearence of a "Timecop" alumnus is always welcome) is less a benign evil bureaucrat and more a generic evil mastermind ruler. The biggest change comes to Rainbird. Greyeyes does an admirable job in the part, but whilst parts of the changes should work on paper, it makes the movie muddled.
And the biggest disgrace is that there is STILL no O.J in this adaptation.

"The Northman" - Review

In the year 895, the warrior king Aruvandil War Raven (Ethan Hawke) returns from a successful raid, and raises his son Amleth to follow in his footsteps. But when Aruvandil's bastard brother Fjolnir (Claes Bang) slays Aruvandil and sezies Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman) for himself; Aruvandil's son Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) goes on the run and vows to avenge his death.

Gorgeous, brutal, violent, and created with a primal, feral ferocity: the film is at its best when embracing the psychedelic madness of classic Norse myths: a drug trip with Aruvandil, Amleth and his fool (Willem Dafoe), or the life tree beneath the Northern Lights. Director Robert Eggers has sought to simply recreate a Norse myth and absolutely nails it. His folk horror influences are on full display, recreating the "greatest hits" of Viking culture and not shying away from cruelty and brutality; and the themes of feral beasthood and animalistic fury weave themselves through this tale of revenge with clarity and frankness. There are frequently gorgeous shots belonging in a painting, and the production design is top tier stuff. This has been a labour of love for all involved: it rises above the slurry of product and profiteering shittiness of the movie industry, that even when personally not clicking with the film (I'm just not big on Viking stuff, personal preference) I adored that it was made, the technical craft on display, and how much of a visceral experience the film was. There's a purity to its film making.
Ethan Hawke, despite brief screentime, embraces the Shakespearean dialogue at the start, Sarsgard seems to have been chomping at the bit to play a Viking all his life and does so with a furious intensity; Anya Taylor Joy is always a delight; and Bjork steals the show in her single scene as an intoxicating witch threading Amleth into the tapestry of destiny.
Defintely not for everybody, this nevertheless needs to be watched by anybody who enjoys cinema, just for how original it is in the sea of artless swill.

"Live a Live" Hype Train

"Live a Live", the obscure and never-before-translated or released-in-the-West RPG, is finally getting a release!

And you kow what that means!
In this post and more, I'm going to go through "Live a Live", the best game me and a couple of people on TV Tropes with access to an awesome fan translation and emulator have played!

It's best described as a grid-based JRPG: you walk around in the world following the story, and then when you get into a combat encounter, you fight the enemies by moving about on a grid and using your moves, hoping not to die.

Think Chess but with gunslingers and kung fu masters.
The twist (and something I've not really seen done outside of "Romancing SaGa" and the openings of Wild Arms games; side note: PLEASE PLAY WILD ARMS 3) comes in the execution and delivery.
The player is asked to pick from 7 stories in various points in time, each with a different protagonist, genre, twist on the formula and (unfortunately) also different in quality. This allows the game to mix and match and effectively be a blender in ways very few other games or even films are able to do so, and there'll definitely be a genre here for everyone. The saga stretches across time and has one or two recurring fragments (a very clear one in each chapter, but also little threads here and there which come together sweetly), and in a clever little bit of creativity has a different art director for each chapter, though the music is all done by the bloody excellent Yoko Shimamura. Her music ties it all together: she does some fantastic Morricone-esque Wild West scoring one moment, some tribal drum based cavemen music the next, to wild fancy funky electronica for the future, and a creepy, Gothic baroque organ-based theme which... I'm not going to spoil for you here. Oh, and this is the boss theme for every chapter, it fucking rules and I am going to leave it here without further comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rf8Dj7PRAI

Now that that beauty is playing in your head, and making you feel like to are actually kicking insane amounts of ass, I'm going to go through each chapter in chronological order. Many guides I have read don't recommend playing them cronologically, but I do: you start strong, end stronger, and sandwich the worst chapter between two of the best. Plus the whole thing then feels like an epic time travel adventure it was meant to be.
I'll be reviewing each of them on their own merits, and with little nods to how they start to come together, likely over several parts and posts, because despite the differing length of each chapter this game manages to weave a truly sprawling and epic narrative, with one of the best twists in gaming history. Without further ado: Here we go!
Chapter 1: Contact The caveman chapter. You play as Pogo: a brash, loud, crude but ultimately endearing little cave boy with green hair and a monkey best friend.

(Art by Gengoro Akemori on DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/gengoro-akemori/art/LIVE-A-LIVE-Pogo-464813902)
This one is, at its core: a simple love story, and one of the easiest chapters to grasp. You follow Pogo as he falls for a mysterious girl named Bel, about to be sacrificed by an evil rival tribe (led by an evil chieftain, who is father to Zaki: a sexy redheaded man who only wears a lizard. Roll with it) to the great dinosaur god O-D-O! Pogo, smitten and a bit of an idiot, rescues her, is exiled, and must find a way back home. Zaki, the aforementioned son of the rial chieftain, is hot on his trail to come and retrieve the girl so that they may all be spared from the wrath of this great demonic lizard. As Pogo and Bel travel the hostile, unknown, primitive lands mankind is taking its first tentative steps to, they discover not only each other but perhaps a chance to prevent this crude, primitive world from being destroyed before it has a chance to blossom...
This one is sweet, cute, and all too charming: your most powerfully broken attack is your monkey friend Gori (because he's a gorilla...) throwing poo at the enemy. It's that sort of chapter. Your special "gimmick" here is to sniff and search for enemies to fight, and becomes the closest to a traditional JRPG with grinding and levelling mechanics, but doesn't really outstay its welcome: it's short and sweet, and you embark on a journy of romance and early communication, a love story pretty much told without words and done solely through actions, like a mime play, it's fun! In a cool bit of narrative integration: Bel gets a healing spell at level 7, representing her growing love form Pogo manifested as a song. I like that, it's integrating the narrative into the gameplay.
The biggest gripe is that there is absolutely no way to know how to get crafting materials (it has a crafting mini game, but do cut them some slack: it was 1994, before crafting became a fucking scourge we know and hate today) and the gear you need without a walkthrough. I found out how to do it by looking at a rather excellent walkthrough (RPG shrine has a rather EXCELLENT write up on the game in general, and a walkthrough here: provided for your pleasure http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/snes/lal/walkthrough.shtml). I shall let you read about how to get the gear, give it a moment.
Yeah, that's some GRADE A bullshit right there!

How the hell was a rational person with a human brain supposed to comprehend this nonsence?! That's the sort of riddle a talking monkey on meth would pose to the concept of colour.
Here's some of Shimamura's work on this chapter, a funky and quirky little number called "Kiss of Jealousy":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJgCo7e0EpQ

This chapter is good. A good, solid start. Pogo, Bel and Gori make for a cute throuple, you save a tribe of pink gorillas, you fight dinosaurs, and the whole thing ends with Pogo redeeming himself in the eyes of his tribe by teaming up with Zaki to do battle with the great evil dinosaur O-D-O itself, refusing to sacrifice people to it and instead carving humanity's own path. And then they live happily ever after!

"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" - Review

Nicolas Cage is on the ropes. He is courting David Gordon Green for another movie, but his constant workload is getting to him, he's in debt, his wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan, always welcome) is demanding he get his shit together for the sake of his 16 year old daughter Addy (Lilly Sheen) who has grown frustrated with his ego and emotional distance. When he gets an offer from Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal), to come to his birthday party for $1,000,000, the Hollywood superstar (haunted by his sub-conscious alter-ego "Nicky" who pushes for him to be a movie star rather than an actor) has no choice but to accept.
He ends up caught up in a plot to kill Javi and rescue the daughter of a President he and his cartel have kidnapped, overseen by two CIA operatives (Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz), though the blossoming friendship between himself and Javi causes some tension and friction, all coming to a head in unexpected ways...

The film is burdened, see what I did there, with the legends of Nicolas Cage and his meme-like status; so even out of the gate has expectations for what this project is:
"Of COURSE Nicolas Cage is making this."
"Well duh, that's the most Nicolas Cage movie around!"
"Jesus fucking Christ..."
But here's the thing:
Nicolas Cage has always not only been a great actor, but a self-aware one. He's got a lot of nuance and range to him, and here is not just playing up a party parody version of himself. Well, he does do that in some rather amusing and inspired scenes as "Nicky" (complete with leather jacket and 90s/00s haircut), but the film is actually more about our perceptions of art, public personas VS one's true self, and self-contemplation and reflection.
I know that that all sounds rather heavy, and the film doesn't exactly stray into "JCVD" territory, breaking itself up with some excellent jokes, wonderful banter/rapport and EXCELLENT chemistry between Cage and Pascal (who frequently gets the most pathos for his character). It is a breezy, meta-textual romp and not only a fun comedy in its own right but a celebration and examination of art and Hollywood (there are a few fun discussions about the screenplay within a screenplay, and the marketing it would entail, and a funny Michael Bay's "The Rock" piss take at the end, lovingly observed) but it remembers never to fall to sycophancy and hagiography. It keeps its head on tightly, remembering characters and its love of the medium. As a result it keeps itself from feeling like a vanity project and ironically gives Cage some of his best stuff to date (obviously "Pig" is God-Tier Cage, almost untouchable).
It's very funny too. And Ike Barinholtz gets a few good laughs as a foul-mouthed CIA operative.

"The Lost City" - Review

Loretta Sage (Sandra "Sandy B" Bullock) is a reclusive author, housbound after the death of her beloved husband, who now writes the supremely popular "Dr Lovemore" romance novels, full of adventure and bodice-ripping enticement between her and the sexy "Dash McMahon" (Channing "Channy T" Tatum). But when she fumbles a book tour she is not particularly interested in, Sage is kidnapped by men working for telemogul billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel "Raddy D" Radcliffe), who has found a clue in her latest novel which may lead him to a long lost city of "D", and he wants her to translate it for him, and will not be taking "no" for an answer. Now Dash's model "Alan Caprison" (also Channing Tatum) takes it upon himself to follow her to the jungle and rescue her. Shenanigans ensue.

This is a perfectly fun, 2000s-esque movie which does its job admirably. Sandra Bullock is always welcome in movies, and can carry this sort of movie in her sleep. She has some fun moments of physical comedy, and plays the part of "prickly, coming out of her shell introvert" very well. She's Sandy B! She can do anything! Tatum is having fun sending up his "lovable hunk doofus" persona, and Radcliffe steals the show as the cheery and upbeat villain of the piece, relishing the chance to (as he seems to always be doing now) continue his trend of weird projects to take on. Patti Harrison gets the best laugh as the social media manager for Sage and her team (calling her agent's elderly grandmother "slut" in an attempt to befriend her, and frequently doing cringe-worthy attempts to be "down with the kids") and I enjoyed her in this. It's somewhat refreshing that it's not attempting to follow modern day trends and plays it safe: it's fun, it's amiable and likeable as a movie. Personally I wanted it to have more energy, a frantic kind perhaps, or to be more vulgar, but you'll get exactly what you want out of this cheery and completely inoffensive little piece. It's no "Romancing the Stone" (referenced early on, to get that out of the way), but its characters are sweet enough to endear themselves to you and have a fun time with things.

"The Bubble" Review

COVID is running rampant across the world, but God-damn it the makers of the "Cliff Beasts" series are going to make their 6th movie, virus or no virus. Carol Cobb (Karen Gillan, an actor I'm always happy to see get more work) is reluctant to return to the franchise after the bad blood between her and the cast over skipping the 4th film, but does so to save her career. Reuniting with Lauren Van Chance (Leslie Mann), who hates her; Dustin Mulray (David Duchovny); who is devoted to the films which made his career; Sean Knox (Keegan Michael-Key), the action movie star who's starting to lose his mind; and Howie Frangopolous (Guz Khan), the comic relief in the series, who's huge in Pakistan: she is thrust into a truly hellish production cycle under put-upon producer Gavin (Peter Serafinowicz) and arthouse director Darren Eigan (Fred Armisen), alongside series newcomers Deiter Bravo (Pedro Pascal), a perpetually horny actor with a career as serious as his drug problem, and Krystal Kris (Iris Apatow), a Tik Tok Queen who is making her movie debut...

Alright, the movie is very very funny, enough to overcome its faults: it's too long, it meanders a bit, loses focus and seems to drift a little in regards to what it's trying to say or who it's about. But the ensemble are genuinely great, and it's having fun and getting enough zingers and one-liners to keep it afloat. It's broad in its comedy (stoner jokes, vomit gags, some witty back and forth, something for everyone really) but I was laughing enough throughout to put up with the more awkward moments. Stealing the show personally was Deiter, Pedro Pascal was absolutely relishing the part and having the time of his life (including a very funny sequence where he drug trips a dominatrix mirror, with a celebrity cameo). But all of the characters get their moment to shine. They're fun characters, and even when the movie veers into ludicrousness, it manages to stumble through okay. If you like Apatow's style of comedy, you will enjoy this.
The cameos and supporting parts of the film are great too: Nick from "Britannick" has landed on his feet, which I am more than happy about, Rob Delaney is always welcome, and Maria Bakalova is fucking wonderful and needs more work.

"Morbius" Review

From the writers of "Dracula Untold", "Gods of Egypt" and "The Last Witch Hunter" and "Power Rangers" comes a movie about a vampire which is nowhere near as interesting as any of them.
Dr Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) is afflicted with a blood condition which saps his strength, life force and acting ability. Alongside his best friend Milo (Matt Smith) he seeks a cure, finding an unconventional one in the form of vampire bats and their bodies. But it will have completely forseen consequences...

This was a movie nobody expected to be good, and has happily lived down to those expectations. Some were worried this was a forced attempt at a "shared universe" by Sony (which it is), others that it simply looked bad (which is does), and some were worried about this being a miscast trend-chasing project featuring a terrible actor (which is also is), but as with all of these things the truth lies somewhere in between.
What should be a campy, baroque and over the top drama about a vampire doing battle with his evil brother (because you all know Matt Smith is going to be the villain in this) falls flat on its face and crawls for the entirety of the race. Where it wants the hero to struggle with duality and identity, it instead faces that very same quandry: is it a superhero film? Is it an R-Rated "Venom" knock-off (right down to stating the movie's catchphrase but with no punchline, that was cut from the film like many things)? Is it a movie about villains? Is it a movie with a script?
It's a myriad of bad decisions piled on top of each other (tonal inconsistency, dodgy CGI, a refusal to commit to the core camp concept, 2 completely superfluous FBI characters, an over-abundance of bad slow motion effects) but cut in a way which has no heart or soul or life to it. Pardon the pun there, but this movie doesn't feel like a passion project for anybdy involved. Occasionally there will be lines which sound like they could be fun in a "Dashing Derring-Do, Gentleman Vampire" sort of way, but fall flat when delivered by Jared Leto (an actor with the charm of Ansel Elgort dry-humping a dead possum). There are moments when the camera shakes itself out of the soporific stupour of "Shot-Reverse Shot" mentality you would see in a budget TV crime procedural or "Fifty Shades Darker" - one which springs to mind is a corkscrew shot on a subway, but even that just stops halfway through. There's no passion here. I would happily have taken the movie if it had the same strength and energy as this:

But alas, even from its opening (a drudge through a jungle) it is a sleepy and dreary affair. Boxes are ticked, editing is perfunctory at best and outright atrocious at worst (Tyrese Gibson's FBI agent effectively teleports during a supposed chase sequence) and none of this is helped by underwritten supporting cast (Adria Arjona's Dr Bancroft is given lines to say, bless her, and does her best with the material, but leaves little impact, and Jared Harris turns up twice to remind us he's in this) and the dire acting talents of Jared Leto.
I'm not quite sure why he keeps getting cast in movies: he's akin to the kid who gets the leads in school plays because his dad donates money to the school. He's a curious anti-charisma about him, he's something of a weak link even when giving effort. Matt Smith is the only part which threatens to be fun: despite atrocious CGI and a motive undeveloped beyond "I enjoy being evil and somebody has to liven proceedings", he brings a spark and joy to the material. Had he been cast as Morbius, the film would not have been good by any means, but it would have suffered less and be at least charmingly inept. Al Madrigal got a few decent laughs out of me with his lines, and I was thankful he survived the movie. He seemed bored. Oh, and jobbing actor Corey Johnson, whom I rather like, shows up for a little bit.
Those two are the positives.
On the way down I joked about wanting this character in the leading role:

And I think that's got more mileage in my life than anything this movie has to offer.
"What up girl?! Your blood smells DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE! Hey you walking away? Cool, same time next week? Hey beautiful!"
Tyrese Gibson has a robot arm in this, and it never goes anywhere.
It's bad.
The movie's bad, we all knew it would be bad, and it's not even a "Venom" situation where an actor or a weird concept made it fun enough for me to see why people like it.
It's thoroughly charmless, and borderline artless. I'm an avid defender of bad art, but after watching the endlessly fun "X" and the fucking brilliant micro-budget "Red Rocket" this year: there is no excuse for this movie, or reason for Jared Leto anymore. How many people (apart from me) have legitimately great scripts and visions they wish to create? How many actors like Simon Rex are waiting for their chance to absolutely smash it out of the park and show the world what they've got?
It's not "Fantfourstic" bad, but... Fuck at least "Electra" and "Catwoman" are charmingly shitty.